The Hidden Tools of Comedy: The Serious Business of Being Funny

by Steve Kaplan Narrated by Sean Pratt, Steve Kaplan

Overview

While other books give you tips on how to “write funny,” this book offers a paradigm shift in understanding the mechanics and art of comedy and the proven, practical tools that help writers translate that understanding into successful, commercial scripts. The Hidden Tools of Comedy unlocks the unique secrets and techniques of writing comedy. Kaplan deconstructs sequences in popular films and TV that work and don't work and explains what tools were used (or should have been used).

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159346612
Publisher:	Dreamscape Media
Publication date:	10/24/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Many of the things people claim to know about comedy are, in fact, myths. We’ve all heard those myths:
“The letter K is funny.”
“Comedy comes in threes.”
“Comedy is exaggeration.”
“Comedy is mechanical.”
“Comedy is about feeling superior to other people.”
“You have to be born funny.”
“If you try to explain the joke, you’ll kill it.”
“Either you’re funny, or you’re not.”
And, of course, the one thing that everyone knows about comedy:
“You can’t teach comedy.”
YOU HAVE TO BE BORN FUNNY How are you born funny? I don’t think there’s many OBN/GYN’s who have had the experience of delivering a baby, slapping it on its behind, only to have the baby turn around and say, “Hey, how you doing? Anybody here from out of the O.R.? Hey, a funny thing happened to me on the way out of the fallopian tubes!”
Somewhere between being the doctor slapping you on the butt and the Grim Reaper slapping you into a coffin, funny people somehow learn to be funny. How do they learn it?

Videos