Until just a few years ago, there weren’t any books on how to go about becoming a comedy professional. Fortunately, volumes are available now that are filled with information and cover a myriad of details. Especially informative are Steve Allen’s perceptive explorations into comedy and comedians, The Funny Men, Funny People and More Funny People as well as his How To Be Funny. Comedy writer Gene Parrot’s How To Hold Your Audience With Humor is a must. And Comedy Techniques for Writers and Performers by former advertising exec Mel Helter is very worthwhile.
3. Watch comedians at work.
Many of the finer points in performing comedy can be learned by observing the pros. Watching them objectively is a golden opportunity to absorb and adapt techniques. Study their methods. See how they set up the joke. Pay close attention to delivery. Observe their facial expressions, mannerisms and body language. Zeroing in on the harmonious movements of a skilled comedy technician is a sure way to improve your body’s vocabulary. Take in the audience reaction to the material used by the comedian. Measure how funny the material is. How the audience reacts to it.
Note the various crowd responses to different kinds of jokes. Tape the televised appearances of the best comedians and study the tapes. See how they respond to getting small laughs, big laughs or no laughs at all. Get in the habit of studying the work of each comedian. Learn to analyze and critique the performance. Developing a critical eye and ear will help you become more objective when analyzing your own techniques. Superstar Danny Kaye wasn’t just a funny man, he was a great entertainer. The first time I saw him perform on a New York stage it was hard to believe that anyone could be so versatile. He sang, danced, told jokes and even turned the audience into his own personal choral group. I went back to watch Kaye ten days later and discovered, to my amazement, that he did the exact same act, word for word, line for line, gesture for gesture. Every movement was carefully and artfully choreographed. There was not a single wasted motion or extraneous word. The performance was identical to the first one I saw, yet it seemed fresh and spontaneous. Pure genius. Over the years, I watched Danny Kaye perform in person 27 times. The words were always the same, the gestures repeated, the movements exact. I marveled at his incredible talent. During each performance I mentally catalogued his comic delivery, the timing, the change of tempos in the songs, the audience rapport, his vocabulary, the gestures, even the clothes he wore. I was studying a master in the hope of acquiring my Ph. D. in comedy. What an education!
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