Stand-Up Comedy by Judy Carter

• Either you have a sense of humor, or you don’t.
• You shouldn’t give an audience what they want. Give them what you want. Most comics will go down to the audience level to make it work, when in fact what you should be doing is bringing the audience to your level.
• You can’t and won’t be able to make everyone love you.
• It is far more interesting to watch someone struggling with his or her problems than some spiritual, flawless know-it all.
• Keep away from telling stories. What’s funny is simply the way you look at even the most mundane events.
• Being funny has nothing to do with acting weird or outrageous. The weirder you are, the less people will understand you, and no one laughs when confused.
• The perfect act is funny to the audience and serious to you.
• The way to make people laugh is to:
• Relax and be yourself
• Find importance in your material
• Have fun
• You should never, I repeat, never perform another comic’s material publicly.
• The trick to dealing with fear is to go on in spite of feeling afraid.
• People who avoid risk-taking lead dull lives. They want to protect themselves from feeling afraid or out of control. Yet it is precisely this out-of-control feeling that creates excitement and makes a perform exciting to watch.
• Be serious about what you say onstage. Make a commitment to your material.
• Don’t try to be funny. Expect nothing from the audience.
• Don’t tell jokes or stories. Be yourself.
• Control your critic. When fearful, dialog with your critic.
• Relax. Have fun.
• The way to start developing material is to find: your attitude, your issues, and the connections between the two.
• Attitude is the heartbeat of an act. Material cannot be emotionally neutral. Your subject matter has to disgust you, pain you, thrill you, because audiences don’t respond to words, they respond to feelings.
• A persona is when a comic has one specific emotional attitude for their entire act and all of the material hangs on that hook.
• If you feel strongly about something and talk about it with commitment, you can blab about anything. Don’t check out to see if another comic is talking about it. Go ahead.
• Expressing your inner fears rather than complaining about others makes better material and makes you more likeable.
• Dirty words can become crutches for lazy and desperate comic.
• Ranting and raving is a technique to get your raw material out of you and down on paper. Once that material is out, if can be sorted through and developed into stand-up using the formulas in the next chapter.
• Remember that when audiences see a comic do five minutes on Johnny Carson, what they don’t see is all the material the comic had to throw out.
• Sometimes there might be one tiny shred of the idea in some of your ranting and ravings that you can use elsewhere.
• It takes about one hour of babbling for every three minutes of material--if you’re lucky.
• All stand-up material must be organized into the setup/punch format. If your material isn’t organized like this, you’re not doing a stand-up.
• The “punch” is where the audience laughs. The “setup” is the one or so lines leading to the punch.
• The first step in organizing your act is to identify what your laugh lines are--your punches.
• The best setup is a short setup.
• The faster you can get to the punch, the stronger your act.
• You can have more than one punch. A lot of times a comic will have one setup and then three punches.
• Establish your credibility by having truthful, honest, uncomplicated setups. Then get wild one the punches.
• Remember, every setup leads to a punch. If something is not a punch, then it has to be part of the setup. If it isn’t, then cut it.
• A good setup manipulates the audience to anticipate one thing and then presents the unexpected. Humor is created by going against what is expected.
• Being sarcastic about your physical attributes can serve as a great opener.
• The more voices, facial expressions, and body movement you can bring to an act, the more visually exciting your act becomes.
• A callback is when you make a reference, later in your act, to something you said earlier.
• Callbacks are popular with an audience, because they help the comic develop a special intimacy with the audience.
• When doing perishable material, it is necessary to find a place where you can perform weekly, if not daily.
• When doing political humor, remember that no matter how funny a joke is, in order to laugh, the audience needs to agree with your political point of view.
• Most impressionists will flawlessly duplicate a celebrity’s voice and physicality and put them into unusual situations.
• Once you get an impression down, the most important element becomes commitment. Totally commit to the impression by jumping into it with all your being.
• Doing characters is the same as doing impressions, expect that the person you’re imitating is not a celebrity, but rather a stereotypical character we recognize from everyday life.
• Song parodies, where a comic puts new lyrics to a recognizable tune, are a great way to make people laugh.
• Don’t be too quick to label and limit yourself. Most comics keep is simple, using the standard setup/punch format. However, don’t fight your natural tendencies.
• Your opening is the most important part of your act. Within ten seconds an audience will decide whether or not they like you. If you create a bad first impression, you’ll spend the rest of your act on damage control.
• Save controversial issues for later, when the audience is with you.
• A set list is a list of code words of your act.
• The set list is a comic’s personal, cryptic way of providing the one word or phrase that, when looked at, gives an immediate memory code.
• Most comics organize their materials by subject matter.
• I suggest starting with your least personal topics and ending with the most personal.
• Memorize your material, but always be willing to let go of it so you can deal with what is going on in the moment.
• Don’t open with new material. Throw it in between chunks that you are sure of.
• Always tape-record your performances. Listening to the tape the next day will help you to further evaluate your material and performance.
• Bombing is a part of the creative process.
• To be good you need to take risks, and that will increase your chances of bombing. But bombing will help you to realize what doesn’t work and your act can only get better.
• One thing that has always amazed me about comedy is that everyone thinks they’re an expert.
• Success comes to those who persist. If you are dedicated, if you believe in yourself and you really want to do stand-up, you will survive.
• All of the overnight successes have usually been slaving away at their act for years and then they happen overnight.
• The Catch-22 of getting jobs is that in order to work you need to be good, but in order to be good, you need work.
• The best place to start a comedy career is at your local comedy club.
• Stay far away from performing at the top comedy clubs until you have really developed your talent.
• Know that when you have forty-five minutes of good, solid material, you will get work. Until then, keep working on new material, hold in the reins on your desire to be seen, and when you are ready--let ‘er rip.
• Humor is a powerful tool.