1) A few years ago, when Spalding Gray died and I found my friends didn’t know who Spalding Gray was, I rented Swimming to Cambodia. They refused to watch it after half an hour.
“He smirks right before he’s about to say something funny.”
That was their complaint. So, telegraph it, that’s one way to ruin a joke.
2) I know people who laugh at the end of their own jokes. And they laugh louder and longer than anyone else. Usually these jokes are at the expense of someone else, and the jokers are the only ones laughing.
So, don’t laugh after your own jokes. That’s another way to ruin a joke.
3) I always ruin a joke when I start to giggle before the punch line. It’s awful. You all think I have a really deadpan sense of humor, don’t you? That’s because you haven’t heard me try to tell a joke. I am usually purple and clapping and shrieking NO NO LISTEN THIS IS FUNNY. And the snot comes out my nose, which is distracting.
So, no laughing before the end of a joke. That’s how I always ruin a joke.
This is why I just don’t understand why I find Chelsea Handler funny. Sometimes she isn’t funny, such as when she does skits on her show. And I was a little hesitant to see her stage show, because I didn’t find any of her YouTube clips funny.
But when she’s just sitting and laughing at the other comedians on her show, or telling her sidekick to shut UP, or during this live show when she’s doubled over trying not to pee on herself because she’s telling a humiliating story about her ex-boyfriend the president of E!, she’s really funny.
And it’s because she breaks all three rules: she laughs before, during, and after the joke. It’s hysterical.
Also, she’s dirty. We encountered a fellow TeddyJ employee at the who had just come from the concert, and she asked, “Was that not the filthiest show you have ever seen?” I rubbed my crotch in response. I could have pantomimed having my head pumped during fellatio, but I felt that would be inappropriate.
(Evidently Wilma read a Chelsea Handler review, and just from the two [expletives] she felt she needed to tell Gary she did not approve. She doesn’t like women with foul mouths. Sigh.)
4 responses to “How to Ruin a Joke”
I don’t get Chelsea. That fact does not bother me.
In college, my German professor made me read out loud Mark Twain’s “The Awful German Language”, which had me laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk, and couldn’t see because tears were rolling down my cheeks. It wasn’t pretty, but it did decide me against taking any more German classes.
Becs – I’m sure I would find it hilarious if I knew German.
I remember walking around telling people, “He was the psychiatrist on The Nanny,” and then hating myself.
Tami – I have never seen the Nanny. I bet you really hate yourself now!