The Humor Code (34 page)

 Know your audience. Making something broadly appealing often kills the funny.

 It's easier to fail than to succeed—especially as comedy goes global. Tread carefully.

 Making things funny means nearly going over the line. Learn to be a comedic tightrope artist so you don't go too far.

 Who's the butt of the joke? Comedy can victimize, so be sure it's not the person who's supposed to laugh.

 Humor is hardy stuff, so no topic is off limits. It's just a matter of finding the right way to make the violations benign.

 The best comedy turns the world upside down. Make fun of yourself before others get a chance to do so.

 Laughter is disarming. Make light of the stuff everyone's worried about and you'll negate its power—not to mention win over the crowd.

 Comedy signals an escape from the world. Create a safe, playful space where folks are free to laugh.

 Jokes can be a coping mechanism. Don't be afraid to kid around about the harsh realities of life—people need it.

 Humor is as important to the humorist as it is to the audience. If you don't enjoy your comedy, no one else will, either.

Some of these takeaways were easy to put into action. Considering our travels, Pete and I had a lot of comedy fodder from which to choose. And as a professor scrutinizing the world of comedy, Pete was very much an outsider looking in. Plus, thanks to all we'd been through together, it was clear we had no problem coming up with material as a team.

Other rules were harder for us to implement. With our hectic schedules, it was difficult to find the time to generate joke after joke, knowing the vast majority would be nixed. Nor was it easy coming up with material dealing with taboo topics and harsh realities—stuff that toed the line—while finding a way to make it honest and authentic coming from a university professor. We also knew that to set the tone and win over the crowd, Pete would have to be confident and congenial, plus score a laugh right away. And if we hoped to play to the audience and keep things simple, both of us would have to dial back our bad habits, such as Pete's tendency to want to explain everything, and my predilection to use abstruse words.

Finally, to make sure nobody got offended, it would be best to make Pete the butt of the joke. That, we knew from experience, would be easy.

Since our checklist suggested that the best material often comes from collaborating with other humorists, once we'd pulled together a rough routine we asked a few of our comedy contacts how we could punch up our material. Be spontaneous, suggested
Last Comic Standing
winner Alonzo Bodden. As Bodden put it, “One of the illusions we project is that we just thought of the joke.” Meanwhile, Jordy Ellner, director of talent and digital at Comedy Central, took all his years working with comics and distilled what he'd learned into a single word: “Smile.”

Los Angeles–based comic Shane Mauss offered his own advice. “The benign violation theory might explain the basic mechanics of how a joke is done, but delivery is the practiced sleight-of-hand that makes the joke surprise and wow,” he pointed out. Take our punch lines, said Mauss—the “punch,” the funniest part of the joke, should always be at the end of a zinger, so Pete won't step on potential laughs.

We decided to put the routine through a test run. A week before our trip to Montreal, Pete signed up for another Denver open mike, but this event wasn't on the cutthroat stage of the Squire Lounge. Instead it was a low-key affair on the back patio of a scruffy Polish restaurant, a place known for letting comics try out material.

Surrounded by potted plants and dangling strings of all-year Christmas lights, Pete ran through his routine as a small crowd looked on. And you know what? He got laughs. A lot of laughs—significantly more than a few folks that night who'd performed at this open mike before.

A buddy of Pete's named Terry came out for the performance, just as he'd attended Pete's first stand-up attempt at the Squire Lounge. After Pete's run-through on the patio, Terry came up to me. “At the Squire, I saw a professor trying to do stand-up,” he said. “But this time? I saw a comedian up there, not a professor.”

Pete and I were elated. We'd done it, we believed—we'd used science to build a better comedy act. From here on out, we figured, everything would be easy.