Has anyone had to *develop* a sense of humor?

[Savoy]

As in, you decided that your sense of humor wasn't as good as you wanted it to be, and made conscious steps to improve your sense of humor.

I don't want ideas, I want real-life experiences of people who have done this. What did you do? What books or CDs or DVDs did you study, if any? Where did you go? What experiences can you share?

I'm writing about this now and I figure that the Forum would be a great place to do some research.

[silversixone]

Being funny requires using an analytical mind to master an observational/situational style. You find funny ideas, then use language to create images that carry your ideas.

To learn the analytical part, I studied writing and drama. David Mamet’s books “Three Uses of the Knife” and “True and False: Common Sense and Heresy for Actors” are vital. Humor is always tragic – a guy slipping on a banana peel is a tragic figure – and comedy and tragedy only come across in a story. Once you can tell a story, you can mold it like a potter molds clay and make it funny.

Esquire’s recent cover article on George Clooney talks about his face-to-face storytelling skills. His pacing and tone are dead-on, and you can see a story unfold as he tells it. In an informal setting, he’s also one of the funniest guys going. I think his chops are so good that he can bend a story as it unfolds around him in real time. In “The Limey” there’s a brief clip of him doing just that – managing multiple layers of reality during an actual interview. If you want to study someone, the unscripted George Clooney is your man.

In The New Yorker a couple of years ago, I read about a group of scientists who studied humor. After years of work they still couldn’t define it, but they did learn that people laugh less at formal jokes and more at informal, off-the-cuff, witty remarks. Ancient Greek comedy has tons of that. 400 years later, Shakespeare's storytelling skills can still make us laugh at a character who's yellow-stockinged and cross-gartered because he creates a world where that's funny to a 21st century audience who has no idea what it means outside that play. So again it comes back to storytelling.

Funny people see the world differently, so to be funnier you have to change your world view. If you educate yourself and know what’s happening, you’ll grow an eye for detail. You won’t be smarter, but you’ll seem smarter. Countless women have told me Jon Stewart is sexy, but he’s just a political wonk with good timing and an eye for detail. I check CNN and Le Monde online daily. I read The New Yorker and the Sunday New York Times – there are tons of smart, funny ideas, so I always have things to talk about. From there you have to know the audience and calibrate – an advanced storytelling skill that you only develop in-field.

One last thing to check out is the movie “Comedian.” It’s about Jerry Seinfeld as he writes new stand-up material after his TV show ended. Lots of comedians are in it. They talk about why and how comedy works, and you get some feel for how to structure a comic act.

But I’m gonna say it’s all storytelling.


Silver

[truth]

Originally Posted by silversixone

Being funny requires using an analytical mind to master an observational/situational style. ..

But I’m gonna say it’s all storytelling.


Silver

Savoy's question was specifically, have you successfully learned to be funny? Are you saying that those things worked for you in picking up a better sense of humor, can you back this up with actual success?

[Kentrel]

Savoy, great question. Yes, I've done this! I made a conscious effort a few years ago to develop my sense of humour because it was a source of insecurity for me (rightly or wrongly).

The issue is how do you define what a sense of humour is? I think everybody has a good sense of humour for the most part - I mean, do any of us know anyone who just doesn't find anything funny ever? Stony faced bores who won't laugh at anything?

I broke "humour" down into two distinct categories because that was just the kind of anally retentive killjoy geek I was.

The first was, my ability to be funny and appreciate jokes, the second was my ability to have a sense of humour about life and take a joke.

For the first issue I gathered together all of my comedy mp3s together, I posted a message to the alt.comedy.standup forum asking the comedians who hung out there who they thought were the best comedians in the world. I took all of their recommendations and listened to samples of each one. For each comedian I liked I went out and got their entire back catalogue. Some of those were Bill Hicks, Sam Kinison, Eddie Murphy, Billy Connolly and Robin Williams. I burnt a DVD and put them all on it. I burnt a "mix-tape" CD and listened to it everyday when I walked to work. I had comedy playing for several hours a day, no matter what I was doing. The only time I couldn't was when I was working out. Try lifting a 200lb barbell while at the same time laughing your ass off at Eddie Murphy doing his gay Mr. T routine and see if you think it's easy.

Over time I would learn off a few jokes and gain a little confidence and drop them into a conversation, and if they didn't work I'd work on my delivery, or pick another joke, and if those got a good reaction I'd get a nice little boost to my confidence. What I discovered was that deep down I had a great sense of humour, but I never had the confidence to express it, nor was I relaxed enough to deliver it properly. Even amongst my friends I'd ruin a joke, but stealing other people's material helped me change that. I just imitated their delivery and it worked.

I've since learned more about how comedy and humour is structured. It's not popular to break down comedy into structures like that for the obvious humour killing reasons, which sadly might ensure this post is laugh free, but it's exactly how comedy works and it can help you become better at it if you at least know that, either consciously or instinctively.

One thing I missed out on were comedy books. There are a few "classic" humour books that are supposed to be able to teach just that kind of thing, but I never really got around to them. However, and it's bizarre that you bring this up now Savoy, I am literally just finishing a book called The Naked Jape by Jimmy Carr & Lucy Greeves. Jimmy is a famous UK comedian who may or may not be known abroad.

This is him in action. http://youtube.com/watch?v=ly2KiEh0j...elated&search=

He has a very clever and unique style of comedy, and his book breaks down comedy with the same sharp analytical style with which he writes his material. He looks on humour as a crossword puzzle, and he experiments with words until he finds the one that fits. The best part of the book for me was where he describes great jokes as being like a paradigm shift, where the punchline needs to change the audiences perspective of what the setup fooled them into believing. As obvious as it sounds it's a lot more difficult to put into practise, unless you practice it a lot, but when you do you find yourself making these unusual observations in social situations that just kill your audience.

A quick example from Demetri Martin: I ordered a wakeup call the other day. The phone rang and a woman's voice said: "What the hell are you doing with your life!?"

So, if it's an insight into humour you want, then I recommend that book. I can't compare it to the other humour books, but I found it to be pretty complete.

As for the second aspect of "having a sense of humour", the ability to take a joke needed a different approach. Namely, thick skin. Most of the time, not even my friends could get a laugh out of me if they teased me on something I was particularly sensitive about. The ability to take a joke is a sign of confidence and security - the inability to take a joke is the opposite. This insecurity is obvious to everybody except the butt of the joke who believes that being defensive or stony faced will hide how insecure you're feeling.

Not a chance in hell.

I knew that in order to fix this I had to face all of my insecurities and know what my limits were and be comfortable with them being broken. I wasn't really sure how I could go about "inviting" people to make fun of me. That just doesn't happen - they usually make fun of you when you least expect it, or when you least want it (cos it's funnier that way!). So I came up with the idea of a Comedy Roast with all my friends.

For those that don't know what this is, it's when a group of comedians (professional or amateur) get together to "celebrate" a friend. Each comedian gets a few minutes to run throw some jokes that rip into the other guests mercilessly, especially the friend - the guest of honour. It can be pretty harsh, but it's all in good fun, and what's said during the Roast is meant to be funny, and never meant to be taken personally, no matter how harsh it is.

The best part is at the end of the roast the guest of honour has his chance to take the stage and get his revenge on everybody.

To get an idea of how harsh these things can be here are a few clips from William Shatner's roast.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=EVz4KC11N44
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qYjWBHG9o6I

And no-one is immune to a roasting, no matter what their position. This is Stephen Colbert roasting President Bush - he's so harsh it's almost treasonous!

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?...83917758574879

If you arrange to have one of those with a few trusted friends, I guarantee you you'll have crocodile skin afterwards. Most people lack a sense of humour because they're uncomfortable having a few truths about themselves revealed in public.

Your insecurities are visible to everyone anyway - you may as well laugh about it.


- Kentrel

Originally Posted by Savoy

As in, you decided that your sense of humor wasn't as good as you wanted it to be, and made conscious steps to improve your sense of humor.

I don't want ideas, I want real-life experiences of people who have done this. What did you do? What books or CDs or DVDs did you study, if any? Where did you go? What experiences can you share?

I'm writing about this now and I figure that the Forum would be a great place to do some research.

[KevinW]

Before we can have a sense of humor, we need to know what funny IS.

I definately recommend checking out this website:

http://www.rinkworks.com/funny/

[Evangelo]

It took me a long time to develop a sense of humor, and all things considered, I still have a way to go. I've always been a bit analytical, so my approach to humor (even before I found the community) was in the process of analyzing and testing.

At a young age, I had a sense of humor that did not enable me to make people laugh but on rare occasions. Often, I'd get ostracized by my peers for an off color comment or a confusing and niche joke. To curb this, <b>I befriended and modeled a "incredibly funny guy" and took his sense of humor as my own.</b>

As we grew up, our personalities became virtually indistinguishable, and so did our humor. Wanting not only to be more extroverted, but to be funnier, I set out to understand humor by <b>modelling comedians.</b> Like what SilverSixOne said, listening to comedians often helped me understand the power of presentation and tone, over the actual saying of the joke.

After this, I got in a rut. People would call me out on using other people's routines, and embarassed, I needed to sharpen it more. I decided to take <b>acting and improv classes</b> to develop character and master mimickry and <b>read about humor theory.</b> Like philosophy or evolutionary biology, these gave me direction, with books like Humor Theory: Formula of Laughter. This has helped me work better and advance more.

Evangelo

[miaddict]

Originally Posted by KevinW

Before you can have a sense of humor, you wanna know what funny IS.

Sorry to delve in the ideas.. just my 2 cents thrown in.

There is no universal concept of "funny". Funny is what you think is funny, even if it's not (to others) . Have you ever been with a big group of friends and you witness a 'funny' event that only you and another person "got it"?

I have listened to some "comedians" whom I found humorless/boring and yet laughed hysterically at other comedians' jokes to the point of my stomach hurting. Do I need to develop my sense of humor to be able to laugh at all kinds of jokes? There are certain people who get my jokes, others dont.

Nobody reacts similarly to the same jokes, witty humor etc...

Having a great sense of humor that is "also" an inner game attribute, is to be able to laugh at oneself. If you can do that, you are certain to be great a pick-up.

I used to be a funny clown back in primary school, but my sense of humor has evolved throughout my teenage and adult years. The kind of witty remarks I tell my niece are different from the types of humor I use with women, males and older people. This leads me to think that a sense of humor is partly dependent on the social experience of the individual.

To be funny, be with people who have the kind of sense of humor you want to acquire. With hindsight, in my social circle, I have tend to appropriate the sense of humor of the funny alpha leader of the group.

[Sy]

At the age of 15 I had hardly ever made anyone laugh in my life. I was to all intents a social outcast in my younger years. I always found comedy funny to watch and cathartic, because it expressed some of the wrongs I see in the world. I find the best comedians have an inner rage or disgust with the world (Lee Evans or George Carlin being examples). They spot things they don't agree with and extrapolate the madness by presenting it in a new light.

I found myself ranting about random situations as I grew older, and some would gain a laugh. I then added techniques I learned from comedians, or even one liners to throw on the end to double up the laughter. I found I could MAKE something funny, by adding character to a given situation and becoming more animated about it. Humour is in the delivery. I don't always get a laugh and Im not an expert comedian, but when I want to be, I can be funny. I have a gift for original thinking, my comedy is more family guy than anything; random.

GOOSES.

Like so.

[Savoy]

This is really helpful stuff, thanks!

I'm going to look through some of these resources. i want to have stuff to recommend to people who don't have a good sense of humor, but I don't want to just throw stuff out there, I want it to be stuff that has genuinely worked for guys in the past.

[Levo]

I developed my sence of humor in high school by watching tv shows and funny people and stealing things that got laughs, over time i internalized the structure and was able to make my own stuff on the fly.

Same process as game internalizaion really.