- "Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium."
Tips and techniques for crafting jokes, scripts, and comedic sketches, including setup and punchline, wordplay, and format.
Timing: The art of knowing when to deliver the punchline, pause for dramatic effect, and control the rhythm of your jokes.
Observation: The ability to notice the quirks, absurdities, and ironies of everyday life and turn them into comedic material.
Sketch Writing: Writing comedic sketches for stage, screen, or digital media.
Characterization: Creating and developing comedic characters with unique voices, personalities, and comedic quirks.
Storytelling: The ability to tell funny stories, with a clear setup, a funny climax, and a satisfying punchline.
Improvisation: The ability to think on your feet, come up with quick-witted responses and turn unexpected situations into comedic gold.
Satire: Using comedy to criticize and expose societal problems or cultural norms.
Parody: Creating humorous imitations of well-known people or popular culture.
Wordplay: The art of playing with language, puns, and double entendres.
Target Audience: Understanding your audience and creating materials that will appeal to them.
Stage Craft: Live performance skills such as physicality, voice projection, and presence.
Collaborative Writing: Working with a writing partner or team to create comedic materials.
Marketing Yourself: How to promote and publicize yourself as a comedian.
Stand-up Comedy: Writing and performing humorous monologues on stage alone.
Sketch Comedy: Writing and performing comedic sketches with other performers.
Sitcom Writing: Writing comedy scripts for television and online platforms.
Web Content Writing: Writing comedic materials for online platforms such as YouTube and social media.
Comedy Writing Across Media: Understanding the different types of comedy writing required for stage, screen, and other media.
Joke Writing and Delivery: Crafting relatable jokes and delivering them effectively in both scripted and improvised settings.
Timing, Tension, and Release: Techniques to establish tension in a punchline and release it for maximum comedic impact.
Stand-up comedy: This is the most common type of comedy performance where a single performer delivers humorous anecdotes, jokes, and observations to a live audience while standing on stage.
Improv comedy: This type of comedy is performed without a script or plan. It involves performers creating humorous scenes or sketches on the spot, often based on audience suggestions.
Sketch comedy: This type of comedy involves a series of short comedy scenes, usually performed by a group of performers. The scenes are scripted and can be linked by a common theme.
Character comedy: A performer takes on the persona of a fictional character and performs a comedic routine from the perspective of that character.
Musical comedy: This type of comedy includes performing humorous songs, often with a live band. The songs often have comedic lyrics and are performed in a comedic style.
Satire comedy: This type of comedy uses humor to criticize or expose political, social, or cultural issues. Satire is often used to highlight absurdity or hypocrisy.
Roast comedy: In a roast, a group of comedians takes turns poking fun at a particular celebrity, politician, or public figure. Roasts can be raunchy, mean-spirited, or affectionate.
Parody comedy: A parody involves taking a popular cultural phenomenon, such as a movie or television show, and exaggerating or mocking certain aspects for comedic effect.
Prank comedy: In this type of comedy, the performer plays practical jokes on unsuspecting victims. The pranks are often filmed and shared on online platforms for comedic effect.
One-person show comedy: This type of comedy involves a performer delivering a comedic routine that lasts for over an hour, often weaving a personal narrative throughout the routine.
- "The term originated in ancient Greece."
- "In Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters."
- "The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict."
- "A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes."
- "In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses which engender dramatic irony, which provokes laughter."
- "Satire and political satire use comedy to portray people or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, thus alienating their audience from the object of their humor."
- "Parody subverts popular genres and forms, critiquing those forms without necessarily condemning them."
- "Other forms of comedy include screwball comedy, which derives its humor largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or characters."
- "Black comedy is characterized by a form of humor that includes darker aspects of human behavior or human nature."
- "Similarly scatological humor, sexual humor, and race humor create comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comic ways."
- "A comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of society (usually upper-class society) and uses humor to parody or satirize the behavior and mannerisms of its members."
- "Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love."
- "Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium."
- "In Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters."
- "A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes."
- "Satire and political satire use comedy to portray people or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt."
- "Parody subverts popular genres and forms, critiquing those forms without necessarily condemning them."
- "Black comedy is characterized by a form of humor that includes darker aspects of human behavior or human nature."
- "Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love."