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 This is the least risky kind of humor. I come in the house. My daughter has a fishing line tied around her tooth. The other end is tied to a doorknob. She is four years old. She's violently trying to slam the door. Her little head is jerking, spit is flying out. Boing, boing. The fishing line is singing. I'm horrified. I said, " What are you doing? " She said, " I'm pulling my toof. " I said, " Let me feel it. " She said, " I can't. I'm tied to the door. " So I went over to where she was, and I felt her tooth. I said, " It's not loose. " She said, " It will be. " Boing. I said, " Quit it. " She said, " Leave me alone. I need money. " 2. It contains an element of surprise. Years ago there was a movie, Bambi Meets Godzilla. It was black and white. The credits roll, and a little deer is there eating — a cute, tiny, little deer. When the opening credits finish running, a huge dinosaur foot comes and goes " Poom! " and all you see is four little hooves. That's the end of the film. Why? Surprise. It goes in a different direction than you thought it would go. Almost all jokes depend on surprise for their humor. One of the best books on comedy and humor that I have ever seen is called Comedy Writing Secrets (by Melvin Helitzer, Writer's Digest Books, 1992). (It was not written by Christians, so don't expect to read through it without seeing a bad word or two.) I want to read something it said about comedy: Comedy is mentally pulling the rug out from each person in your audience. [Listen to this. Jean Perret wrote this.] But first, you have to get them to stand on it. You have to fool them because if they see you preparing to tug on the rug they'll move. A guy walked into a pet shop and said, " I'd like a Christian parakeet. " The other guy said, " What do you mean you'd like a Christian parakeet? " " Well, the last parakeet I had cussed and swore, and I had to kill it. " The guy said, " Well, we don't have a Christian parakeet, but we have one that's never said a word. Would you be interested in that one? " The guy said, " Yeah, but if it swears, I'll pull all his feathers off. " The guy said, " Well, he doesn't speak. " He brought the parakeet home. The parakeet was with him for two years and didn't say anything. Then one day he was feeding the parakeet and accidentally dumped water all over it. His parakeet let flow a line of blue, horrible language — questioning the heritage of this man's background, talking about his mother — terrible things this parakeet said. The guy reached in the cage and grabbed it by the neck. It was all wet, the little parakeet. He opened the refrigerator and said, " Now, you will not speak like that in this house, and you're staying in here until you can decide you won't. " He threw him into the freezer, and he shut the door. An hour later he came back and opened the door. There were little icicles hanging off the parakeet. He was still sitting on the shelf where he had landed, shivering almost imperceptibly. The guy said, " I am sick of cursing. It will not happen in my house. You will not say bad words of any kind. Do you promise? " The parakeet said, " I promise. " He said, " I'm not going to let you out. I'll let you freeze to death unless you promise never to say another bad word. " The parakeet said, " I promise. But could you please tell me one thing? " The guy said, " What? What do you want to know? " The parakeet looked down and said, " What did that turkey say? " It's the element of surprise that causes you to laugh. 3. It uses exaggeration. None of these elements stand alone. Humor usually involves a variety of these things. One of my favorite comedians is Steven Wright, who has the most dry delivery I've ever seen. I watched him live one night, and I couldn't even stand up afterwards. He said, " I used to make birds levitate. " He said, " Nobody cared. " He said, " I had to take my dog to the mental hospital. Something happened to him. We named him Stay. 'Come, Stay. Stay, come.' " He said, " I spilled spot remover on my dog. He's gone. " He said, " I bought a humidifier and a dehumidifier, put them in a room, let them fight it out. " He says, " I heard that if you drop a cat — no matter where you drop them — they'll always land on their feet. And I heard that if you drop a piece of buttered bread, it will always land buttered side down. So I tied a piece of buttered bread to my cat's back. "  share this page
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