Best of the past year (2023) at "Funny How"
Wise words on funny from Rock, Seinfeld, Mitch, Vonnegut, Conan, and more.
Here’s a look back at some of the best posts of the past year here at Funny How. Back in 2024 with more good stuff.
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Let’s go…
Chris Rock on bombing and how writing works
I once saw a Chris Rock set that the NY Post wrote about with the headline: “Chris Rock’s jokes about sexual harassment bomb.” “Nobody was laughing. There were many boos and many women who were telling him he was a sexist pig. Two people got kicked out.”
Does great comedy have to come from a personal place?
Judd Apatow's advice: “Always make sure that your comedy comes from a personal place.” You hear that a lot. Make your material personal. Talk about your family, your fears, your childhood, your secrets, etc. Think Louis CK talking about his kids or Mike Birbiglia discussing sleepwalking. In fact, I recently posted this:
Conan O’Brien, Tom Scharpling, and Mel Brooks on the secrets of the straight man
Conan O’Brien deserves more credit for being one of the best straight men ever. There's a reason Burr, Norm, CK, and others got some of their biggest laughs playing off him. Here’s Norm MacDonald’s old writing partner Jim Downey and Conan discussing Jeffrey Epstein:
16 lessons from legendary clown school instructor Philippe Gaulier
'Once you can handle the insults, you begin': inside Philippe Gaulier's clown school [The Guardian] profiles the clowning legend. Gaulier’s guru status long predates this purple patch: his alumni include Emma Thompson and Simon McBurney, Helena Bonham Carter
How much can comedians lie?
In Hasan Minhaj’s “Emotional Truths” [The New Yorker], Minhaj explains how he builds stories “around a seed of truth.” Minhaj acknowledged, for the first time, that many of the anecdotes he related in his Netflix specials were untrue. Still, he said that he stood by his work. “Every story in my style is built around a seed of truth,” he said. “My comedy …
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