Hey guys! JT Tran here and I’m with my good friend, Eliot Chang.
You might remember him from Comedy Central
voted #2 most favorite comedian.
Yes, very honored.
Thank you for being here.
He’s here to give you guys a special treat.
He’s going to teach you how to be funny.
Okay guys.
It’s going to be hard because not everyone can be funny
but you can give the image
or the illusion of humor.
The most important thing is to just don’t take it too seriously.
I think when people try to be funny, they think like
“I got to memorize the joke exactly” or whatever
Funny, being funny, is really not about the structure of a joke.
I’ve noticed with women and I think you can agree to this
what women find funny is very different
than what guys find funny.
What women find funny is being silly and playful
so it’s not really about wit, about the cleverness of a joke
but the one thing I always do which always break the tension
I’ll ask a girl a question
whatever it is like
“where are you from?
What do you for work?”
Whatever it is.
Whatever she says I always go “eh…that’s not good.”
Now the thing is you have to maintain that for a split second like
“eh…that’s not good”
and for a split second she’ll go “what?”
And you say like “I’m just kidding.”
I’m telling you they crack up. It works all the time.
That’ll work with anyone.
JT just laughed now when I did it. It’s like eh...
No matter what, it’s like “hey, do you have a good relationship with your family?”
It’s like “yeah, I get along with my family great.”
“Eh…that’s not good.”
Okay?
Very, very simple.
The next thing you do is just do a very simple knock knock joke
and just pick anyone. It doesn’t matter what it is.
Pick anyone.
Knock knock
Who’s there?
Interrupting cow.
Interrupting cow who? Moo. It doesn’t matter.
Whatever you do, when you do it, it’s completely going to come off corny
but when you do it just be like “yeah, that was corny, right?”
You have to say that word after like “that was corny, right?”
Because again it’s showing that you can make jokes about yourself.
It’s showing that you’re not taking yourself too seriously.
It’s showing like “look, I know that was a crappy joke. Not a big deal.”
Humor is just letting things roll off your back.
The third thing to remember
or maybe the most important thing to remember
when you’re going to be humorous with someone
you have to be animated
especially if you’re Asian
because we suffer from the…
Asian poker face
Okay?
If you’re not animated, if you tell a joke like
“knock knock”
no one’s going to say who’s there.
You have to be animated.
Even right now, I’m sure as I’ve been talking, I’ve been very animated because
that’s just kind of who I am
but when you’re telling a joke
even if it’s a crappy joke
if you’re animated and the intonation of your voice is excited
it’s like a form of hypnosis.
People get excited with you
and even if the joke ends up being so-so
they’ll still laugh and they’ll still enjoy you telling the joke.
It’s very important to be...
excited, animated...
and make sure the tone of your voice is indicating the humor of the joke.
Definitely don’t be too animated.
Exactly, you don’t want to be a clown.
You want to be clever and funny but not a clown.
Thank you so much Eliot
Great tips.
Now where can our guys find you?
If you guys want to find me, you can easily find me on Facebook or Twitter. Just Google...
Eliot Chang, E-L-I-O-T C-H-A-N-G, one L one T
and that’s pretty much where you can find me the most.
You can find me on iTunes or my website but
I’m on Facebook and Twitter the most.
Okay. Thank you for coming and thank you for your tips.
Thank you, JT. Good luck guys.