The Humor Code (33 page)

Pete has spent much of the day by himself, going through his routine in our hotel room while I explored Montreal. Later, as we got ready for the night's big event, he said to me, “If someone had told me two years ago that one of my biggest talks ever would be at the Comedy Nest at the Just For Laughs festival, I wouldn't have believed them.” He's taught hundreds of classes and presented in front of conference audiences numbering in the thousands. But something about the 80 or so people who can fit into the Comedy Nest feels so much more intimidating, so much more difficult.

“I've been thinking about the clown noses we wore in Peru,” Pete had told me, looking at the outfit he'd laid out for himself on his hotel bed. “When you put on the clown nose, you are the clown. When I put on this sweater vest, I'll be a moderately funny professor.”

And now the professor's here in the Comedy Nest greenroom, sweater vest on, minutes away from determining just how humorous he is. A Just For Laughs staffer armed with a clipboard approaches. “When do you want the red light?”

“Red light?” Pete looks bewildered.

The red light is the signal that your time on stage is almost up, explains Debra DiGiovanni, a bubbly comic who's the night's MC. A veteran of
Last Comic Standing
and one of Canada's top female comedians, DiGiovanni takes one look at Pete and out come her maternal instincts. “Have you done any other shows?” she asks him.

“No.”

“Really, no other shows here in Montreal?”

Pete clarifies himself. “No other shows,
period
.”

The show soon gets under way. DiGiovanni takes the stage to warm up the audience before the first comic. A few minutes later, she's back in the greenroom. “This is what you call a bad crowd,” she
says, chuckling. Later, after she's introduced the next comedian, she revises her assessment: “They're terrible.”

It's Pete's turn. “Need me to do any set-up?” asks DiGiovanni as she heads out to introduce him.

“Just make them like me,” pleads Pete.

As Pete starts to follow her, I offer one last piece of advice. “This time,” I say, “try not to unplug the microphone.”

A couple of months
earlier, Pete and I had begun preparing his routine. If our time studying what makes things funny had taught us anything, it's that good stand-up requires practice. We knew that if we'd spent the whole year honing a few choice jokes, we would have ended up with some good material. But we hadn't done that, because that wasn't the point. People already know that in comedy, hard work pays off. We wanted to prove there's another way—a method that involves a little less sweat and a little more science.

We started by making a list of all our expeditions, and what we'd learned from each about how to make things funny:

 It's not whether or not you're funny, it's what kind of funny you are. Be honest and authentic.

 It helps to be an outsider. Be skeptical, analytical, rebellious.

 Stand-up is experimentation. Write, test, repeat.

 Since most things aren't funny, come up with a lot of ideas.

 If solo comedy creation gets you nowhere, try the team-based approach. Two minds are better than one.

 If you can't be “ha-ha” funny, at least be “aha!” funny. Cleverness is sometimes good enough.

 Don't be afraid to chuckle at yourself. It signals everything is okay and lets others laugh, too.

 Good comedy is a conspiracy. Create an in-group with those you want to get the joke.

 Laughter has momentum. Get the guffaws going as quickly as you can.

 Complicated comedy is subjective, but bare-bones humor is universal. In other words, keep it simple.

 Context matters. No one is going to laugh if they don't know what you're talking about.