Praise Cthulhu and this video’s sponsor Audible
Writing comedy is like the battle of Stalingrad.
One joke gets a setup, the next gets a punchline.
If the setup falls, then the next joke better pick up the setup and follow through with
the punchline because any joke found retreating will be shot!
The battle can only be won through attrition no matter how many jokes fall flat in the
process.
That’s how serious I am about teaching aspiring writers the brutal, merciless, and often thankless
art of humor writing.
Why not?
One would think that a channel that focuses on educating with humor would be perfect for
a lesson on writing comedy?
This is, of course, a common misconception.
All of my writing advice is genuine.
I don’t know why everyone keeps call this channel satirical?
Comedy doesn’t work when delivered with sincerity, only when the comedian is laughing
at their own jokes.
Why I take this channel and myself 100% seriously.
TWA JP is in no way an exaggerated persona.
It’s not like real JP is a broken shell of a man, cynical and all too aware of the
dark nature of the world.
Whoa!
Where did that come from?
Sorry about that.
That darkness just leaks into the script sometimes.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with my own personal approach to humor writing.
Let’s just repress that like my freshman year of high school and get on with the lesson
on humor writing!
Now that the thing about humor is that it is completely objective.
If someone doesn’t find one of my jokes funny, then there is something wrong with
them!
This means that writing comedy has nothing to do with finding a style that works and
everything to do with blaming others for not having a sense of humor.
Did the audience still not get the joke?
Then we’ll have to explain it to them.
Humor writing is kind of like a puppy.
It loses all of its appeal when you open it up to show how its insides work.
But don’t worry.
I’m sure the audience members that didn’t get the joke will be able to stitch that puppy
back together.
It could never be that maybe, just maybe, they did actually get the joke, but didn’t
find it all that funny.
Could it be a problem with the tone?
Did I lighten the tone enough to create an atmosphere for the jokes to land properly?
How could it be the tone?
Life is already a pointless march towards the inevitability of decay and entropy.
Oh I’m sorry.
Some of that darkness trickled out again.
What was I saying before my bout of nihilism?
Oh yes.
Tone.
There is no need to consider tone or to worry about floating the tone through sheer quantity
of jokes.
If one joke doesn’t land, then stop the show until that’s sorted out rather than
just move on to the next.
It’s not like the one or two knockout jokes are built upon the graves of many many unfunny
to middling ones.
Come to think of it, maybe humor writing is more like trench warfare with human wave tactics?
Speaking of tactics, what else can I try?
Airplane food jokes?
Complaining about flying and how it makes my arms tired?
Beating the booing heckler to death with my mic?
Oh look!
It’s the rule of 3.
The rule of 3 is a common writing trick of creating a list of 3 things and having the
last one stand out as absurd.
The inherit contrast makes the absurd thing stand out all the more which is why I’m
going to put a stop to that.
Contrast could never be used to make things stand out more clearly.
I refuse to use contrast in this video the same way I refuse to accept any innate goodness
in the world.
Oh there’s that darkness again.
Excuse me while I cram my emotional baggage just out of public view.
Okay.
Where was I?
Oh yes.
With contrast ignored, the tone flailing, the joke explained, and with no distinctive
style of my own, what happens when a joke finally does land?
Well be sure to run that joke into the ground through overuse faster than you can say The
Love Triangle!
Callback humor and running gags work best when exploited to the point of exhaustion,
worked more until the joke is dead, turn the joke into a horse to kill it again and beat
it, then resurrect the dead joke through the foul art of necromancy to keep abusing it
until finally even the joke’s bones have withered into dust or fossilized, decayed
into oil, and fracked.
Keep using that joke until the overuse of the joke becomes the joke and then overuse
that joke!
I call this joke rotation and was developed by bronze age comedians to keep their humor
fresh.
Then suddenly!
A chicken!
That’s on fire!
LOL Random!
It’s funny because it comes out of nowhere!
Random humor was great when I was a teen and still had a waning sense of whimsy.
Now though all of the lol random’s comedic effects must punch through several layers
of solid jaded exterior to get through to my curmudgeonly core to elicit some kind of
emotional response other than mild irritation.
But that doesn't mean that it can’t be used that as crutch in an attempt to appeal to
older audiences who usually like jokes that have more effort put into them than making
fart noises.
I mean it’s that or you can do what I do and just recycle your own jokes every year
and hope no one notices.
Besides, I may be a bitter washed up cynical hermit, but I’m sure the rest of the world
has a more optimistic outlook right now.
It’s not like humor is all about outlook and perspective.
I mean which of the following descriptions are funnier?
Unique comedy prodigy sensation and internet superstar JP Beaubien?
Or internet pseudo celebrity and pitiful love triangle man.
I mean the first one is a little to too humble for my tastes, but it’s clearly the better
option.
Looking at something mundane and describing it in a highly unusual way will never result
in comedy because real comedy is all about punching people!
Yes.
In comedy they say never punch down, but that’s bad strategy because you never attack high
ground.
Besides, if I punch up to a heavier weight class I might hit someone who can actually
hit back.
Better to always punch down and make fun of people suffering because of circumstances
that are beyond their control.
One easy way to determine if a writer is punching up or down with their comedy is to ask if
the target being punched suffers from a poor choice made because of either stupidity or
a moral failing, or if their distress comes from something beyond their control?
For example.
An aging, increasingly irrelevant internet pseudo celebrity is off limits because he
is simply too handsome, amazing, and humble to make fun of.
However a wheelchair bound veteran suffering from clinical depression and terminal cancer
is a-okay for me to pick on.
I’m sure everyone will easily side with me on that one.
If you want a real easy target be sure to go after those in the LGBTQ community and
have fun poking that hornet’s nest.
Now what about racist jokes?
Telling racist jokes is like trying to walk on a tightrope, except that tightrope got
cut around a decade ago and now just leads to a deep pit full of cancel hashtags.
Since not even I’m willing to sarcastically recommend telling racist jokes, all I can
say to any comedian who still insists on doing so is good luck.
I’m sure you’ll find yourself in good company eventually.
It’s not like changing science and social understanding applies to acceptable targets
of comedic scorn.
Society marches on, but a good humor writer refuses to change with the times.
Then how should a humor writer handle taboos?
Treading upon societal taboos is more art than science.
The artistic part of it is either reveling in breaking the taboo well past the realm
of common sense and with no thought or to simply never break any taboos and make the
jokes so unbearably bland and sterile that they could be safely told at the stuffiest
church.
Using comedy in a way that comments upon the taboo, either highlighting some aspect of
it or showing it from a different perspective, is highly discouraged and it might make a
few people in the audience react negatively who were offended that the taboo was mentioned
at all.
We must stop the show because a few humorless people complained rather than focus on the
catharsis gained by the rest of the audience.
Finding that sweet spot where the humor is racy, but not raunchy is a difficult task
that a humor writer can safely ignore.
Walking that line can even be ignored when engaging in gallows humor.
Now sometimes the humor from dark humor comes from the audacity of making such a joke at
all or that the joke is so bleak and brutal that it simply seems too outrageous to take
seriously.
Burning down one orphanage is a tragedy, burning down 100 is outrageous.
Burn down a million and I start wondering where all of these orphanages are coming from?
But we can ignore all of that because a better way of using dark humor is as a smoke screen
to weasel out of trouble after telling an offensive joke.
Why use humor as a tool to entertain and a way to highlight just how stupid society is,
when it can instead be used as a predatory weapon to keep weak people down and to inflate
my already monstrous ego?
Humor can never be used as a way to keep my own internal darkness at bay by making light
of my self serious attitude when I get too broody.
Because true dark humor doesn’t come from racist or edgy jokes.
It comes from confronting the cold, empty, and uncaring universe and the vile darkness
that lurks in the heart of all humanity and laughing defiantly in its stupid self-serious
face.
And if that doesn't work then just make fart noises.
CULT LEADER: Excuse me, sir.
Have you heard the bad news?
The stars are right and soon Cthulhu will rise from the depths and…
CONSPIRACY GUY: Still all going according to ARG!
CULT LEADER: Is this a bad time?
We can come back later?
KNIGHT: Mysterious hooded person!
Quick!
Take this video’s sponsor and flee before ads end the TWA expanded universe!
CULT LEADER: Certainly.
We can’t have ads end the world.
KNIGHT: Exactly!
CULT LEADER: That’s Cthulhu’s job.
KNIGHT: Wait!
What?
GENERAL: Ah ha!
I tracked the hippy knights back to their loathsome commune.
And look.
It’s this video’s sponsor, Audible.
But what’s that racket back there?
CULT LEADER: Oh that?
There seems to be some kind of battle going on.
GENERAL: A battle!
Where!
Why wasn’t I invited?
SOLDIER: Focus, general.
The sponsor.
GENERAL: Right!
Sorry.
Budget first.
Hand over Audible unless you want to find yourself on the wrong end of one of our nation-building
endeavors.
SOLDIER: Sorry, general.
They’re noncoms.
CULT LEADER: We actually have tax exempt status in the Federation.
GENERAL: Blast!
Last thing I need is another warcrime inquiry.
Besides, Audible is great because I can just relax of listen to an audio-book after a long
day of bombing space-communists.
Or I can listen to an audiobook while bombing space-communists and multitask.
I can’t imagine what you cultists would use it for.
CULT LEADER: Listen to The Call of Cthulhu of course.
GENERAL: What?
That garbage!
Battle of Book Reqs
GENERAL: Try listening to a real audio-book like Starship Troopers.
CULT LEADER: I prefer the Shadow Over Innsmouth.
GENERAL: Old Man’s War!
CULT LEADER: At the Mountains of Madness.
GENERAL: Honor Harrington!
CULT LEADER: The Dunwich Horror.
GENERAL: Ender’s Game.
CULT LEADER: That’s more YA, really.
GENERAL: ARG!
This is pointless.
TWA fans are lucky because they can go to Audible dot com slash Terrible or text Terrible
to 500-500 to start their audio-book adventure today, but you lot can just hand over the
sponsor now or say hello to lieutenant chainsaw!
He got promoted just last week.
CULT LEADER: Oh.
You want to fight?
Why didn’t you just say so?
*Tentacle noises ensue*
CULT LEADER: Did I do it right?