Robin Williams was a comedic genius. He was hilariously funny and it seemed impossible
to match his mental quickness. But there is something about his style of comedy that
is very easy to emulate, and when you get this, you can get people cracking up with
basically no wit at all.
It's simple and it's called playing a character, and just so long time, Charisma on Command
viewers know this is part of a throwback series where we update old videos we've done in the
past and make them punchier, so you might recognize this.
Anyway, here's the very basic example of this technique.
Damn it, man, what's going on with you?
Gee, mom, I'm a doctor, not a busboy.
That's Scotty from Star Trek, and if you watch any of Robin Williams' stand-up or his movies,
his random assortment of characters is basically the crux of most of his jokes. In fact, it's
the basis of Mrs. Doubtfire.
I do voices. Yes! We've come to this planet looking for intelligent life. Oops, we made
a mistake.
We're happy to come to America. Don't ask for Green card.
What you see very clearly in that clip is that the character isn't just a matter of
changing your voice. Robin commits with his tonality, with his word choice, with his body
language, and his facial expressions. And it's often not enough to get a laugh just
to put on a half-hearted fake voice, but if you commit fully, you can make jokes that
aren't even funny seem like very hilarious. Check it out.
I came to Bombay last year.
Right here, Robin just puts on a shawl over his head and says, "I came to Bombay last
year." That is it. But because he has the prop and he commits to the character in his
voice, in his mannerisms, in his facial expressions, everyone in the audience cracks up.
And I have directed 15 movies in Bombay and very excited about my musical. It's a lovely
musical called "Who's Sorry Now."
Here you go again. There isn't much in the way of jokes, but what you have here is Robin
elaborating on this character. He's making this Indian woman that he has created; someone
who writes musicals, and this isn't necessarily funny in itself, but the specificity of the
character plus the commitment makes people laugh.
Welcome to Iron Chef.
So, now, he's going to Iron Chef and this is another character that he's making up totally
on the spot, but, clearly, the guy already has some things we know about him. He's got
an Asian accent. He speaks English and he's a chef. So let's see where he goes with it.
First of all, tonight we're going to cook octopus balls.
As you know, they have eight legs, so you get four sets of balls.
And, again, this is definitely clever, but part of the humor here simply comes from the
fact that he's being specific while sticking with his character. He could have said cuttlefish
and if he'd done it with the same level of commitment, the audience would have burst
into laughter., which really brings me to the point of this short video.
Part of what creates laughter is the expectation that you will laugh.
Now, maybe you've been in a situation where somebody was just so earnest in telling a joke or a story
that you couldn't help but laugh even though what they were saying wasn't that funny, and
that's kind of what's going on when you play a character. When you commit all of the sub
communication says this is funny, so the person who is listening is likely to pick up on that
even though the content of what you're saying isn't that great, just like this
I came to Bombay last year
So take advantage of this. Play a character in your stories and in your jokes. Make sure
to commit to the voice, commit to the gesticulations, and to the facial expressions of that character.
Also, add specific things. It doesn't matter if they're funny, but the specificity in and
of itself is going to create moments of humor, and if you do those very, very simple things--creating
that character, making it specific--you'll be able to sit back and watch as people start
to find you more and more hilarious, even though you actually haven't gotten any wittier.
Anyway, I hope that you've enjoyed this short little throwback video. If you're someone
who's been around the channel for a while, or even if you're new, let me know if you
like this throwback style video. Basically, what I did is I went back and found an older
video that I'd done and I tried to make it punchier, call out the points a little bit
more effectively than I did when I first started this channel.
So, if you like these throwbacks and want to see one of these every Thursday, let me
know. If not, I'll just stop doing them. Either way, if you're interested in learning more
about how to make an amazing first impression, and want to know the four emotions that go
into this, I'll let you know right now. One of them is being funny. So this video has
already gotten you well on your way. You can go ahead and click the link that will pop
up now. What it's going to do is it will take you to another page where you can go ahead,
drop your email, and then, you'll get a video that explains what those four emotions
that you need to create in that other person are, and you'll be able to go through in the
exact order that you need to create them so that you're guaranteed to make an amazing
first impression.
So, if you want to know what those four emotions are, go ahead, click that link, and check
it out. Either way, let me know what you've thought of this video in the comments. Of course,
if you're new, go ahead and subscribe to the channel. We have new videos every single Monday,
and, potentially, if you like this, these throwback videos, on Thursdays as well.
So, I hope that you've liked this. I'm Charlie and I will see you in the next video.