Can You Write Comedy?

            Psychologists tell us that if you want to give a compliment that virtually anyone will accept, tell them they have a great sense of humor.  Every person on the planet believes they know what’s funny.  They may not be funny, but they know what funny is.

            And, of course, it simply isn’t true.  There are legions of people whose idea of humor is a cheap shot, a predictable corny line, a silly set-up.  Yet, to them, that stuff is brilliant.  And when introduced to genuinely clever wit, they don’t get it.

            My husband is hilarious.  As a game show warm-up guy he virtually had to do standup for a living.  And his audience was usually a dreadful mix of sleepy retirees bused in from an assisted living facility, and hormonal teenagers unable to contain their excitement about being in a TV studio.  He had to rev up the first group and calm down the other one simultaneously.  He also hosted and announced game shows and talk shows, which required him to think on his feet and be witty almost constantly.  And, truth be known, it came easily to him because he’s one of those naturally funny guys  (Google Bob Hilton and you’ll see him on Wikipedia—he’s the Bob of “Bob, tell ‘em what they’ve won” fame).

            My point in telling you this is that through our entire marriage, Bob has been entertaining.  Our kids have grown up with it and are, themselves, funny as well.  So it was greatly perplexing to them when their friends would come over and not understand the jokes.  Many of them came from homes where no one ever teased, said anything sarcastic, or tried to lighten up a moment with a laugh.  They had never encountered humor outside of scripted television shows. Yet I’ll bet every one of them thought they had a good idea of what was amusing. (Incidentally, I mourn the moment when TV executives decided to scrap all the funny cartoons and replace them with cartoons about taking over the universe.  We now have generations of kids whose formative years were completely comedy deprived.)

            Which brings us to editors.  The sad reality is that, while none of them would admit it, one or two of them don’t have the sharpest sense of humor.  For years I used to laugh with a professor of mine from USC’s Professional Writing program, when we’d send in Op-Ed pieces to the paper, or articles to magazines, and they’d cut out all the funny lines.  As if these were the most dispensable parts when you’re squeezed for space.  But what the editors didn’t realize is that the rest of the paragraphs were setting up the very pay-off lines they were cutting.  My professor used to wince, “So now it’s all lies!” because what would have been seen as obvious exaggeration now looked like serious claims.

            Not everyone can—or desires to—write humor.  But if you do, be prepared for more rejection than usual, due to this very disparity in opinion about what’s funny.  It’s far more subjective than regular writing.  There’s no style book or formula you can apply.  It all comes down to how something hits someone.  Some people are offended by any kind of joking.  Or maybe they had a fight with their spouse that morning and don’t feel like laughing about anything.

            Today, in the Joniopolis section of this blog, I posted a story about a disastrous trip I once made to Bangkok, Thailand.  I wrote up a similar version of it years ago and sent it to various newspapers, which in those days occasionally printed humor pieces.  On the very same day I got two letters in my mailbox:  One, from The Las Vegas Sun editor saying he failed to find any humor whatsoever in my article, and one from the editor at The Los Angeles Herald Examiner saying it was the funniest thing that had ever come across his desk and he wanted to buy it.  

            So ignore the nay-sayers, sell your funny stuff, and then you can laugh all the way to the bank.