In order to best go about putting together a good show for your audiences, we think you must first know what it takes to make someone laugh. To get a grasp on making someone else laugh, the best place is to figure out what makes you laugh.
To understand laughter, you need to put the funnies in different categories. Category 1. Mildly funny. You think about it for a minute and it brings on a smile with a soft chuckle. Category 2. Funny. When you hear the joke you break into laughter and really begin to enjoy yourself.
Category 3. Gut wrenching laughter. This is the one that you want to aim for. When you hear this one, you immediately break into howling laughter that can even force you to laugh to the point of gasping for air and having tears run down your face.
Now lets think about the things that make us laugh. Is it the funny stories an old Grandpa tells when we are at the supper table?
Is it the class clown that we go to school with? Or is it some silly show we have seen on TV? There are lots of different things that can make us laugh, but some of them are funny and some bring on a smile. Others have you holding your stomach in pain from laughing to hard.
Watch over a couple of days. Take notice of what makes you laugh. Make notes of your own sense of funny. Make notes of the type of response you find to the different types of things that make you laugh.
After a couple of days, look over your notes and then begin to write a script. Combine the different types of humor that made you laugh. Smiles. Laughter. Explosive laughter.
If you can get all these different responses from your audience, you will have been the act that they go home and talk about. They will tell their co-workers about you the next day.
Don’t try to make all your jokes of any one category. Don’t make all your jokes gut-busters or medium laughter. Combine all the types of jokes.
We will talk again next week,
Steve and JET