"What you say determines 98% of being funny."

Many amateurs to comedy think they are all funny. They come out there hippin' and hollerin' like they think they are the wittiest in the whole damn world.

In this chapter, we talk a bit about what to say. This is really a precise art. This is really what separates the Steve Martins from the G.W Baily's. This is what separates good comedy, the Police Academy Movies (at least I through III and the first 45 minutes of IV) from movies like, well, movies featuring actors like Steve Martin and Bill Cosby.

The only way to demonstrate this is to lift dialogue out of some of my workshops with various students. Keep in mind as you read this that you are basically getting to transform yourself into a bald eagle and fly over the prowess of my teaching forest. Understand, also, that if you get too close, I may shoot you in the beak until your blood is spattered miles from my altar. To put it another way, heed the damn copyright symbol.

Kiki, one of my students, volunteers to show us one of her bits. She looks nervous, takes one last hurried glance at her notepad, and lifts her mildly overweight hind from the confines of her plastic chair. Right away, she starts talking about her personal life:

"You know, I..."

I stop her. "I don't care about you," I say.

She tries to continue.

"I mean, one of the things I‹". I cut her off with a swift forehand gesture.

"There you go again, with that 9th letter of the alphabet. I repeat: I don't care about you."

"I don't get it. I was going to talk about my family having to move out of Texas and all the problems we ran into."

"Well, I don't want to hear about that," I say.

"But... I took a class with so and so..." And here, she rambles on some hip new comedian pedagogue (loaf of bread).

"I don't give two hotdogs (the class erupts with laughter) if you took a class with G.W Baily or a flake of fish food (again laughter). I don't know you, so I don't care what the hell you have to say about anything."

She starts crying. I tell her to get off the stage, and the next student comes wobbling up with something equally as poor.

"The audience does not care what you have to say about anything that pertains to you."

If I had a CD-rom of this book, I would have the speakers constantly yelling in your ear: the audience does not care what you have to say about anything that pertains to you. What they want to hear is something funny. If you want to be funny, do not talk about anything you know or anything rooted in reality. Talk about the funny stuff. Funny stuff happens when it comes out of the walls, when it comes out of your soup and lands on your lap, licking your unicorn hands.

No one cares if you moved out of Texas with your family, but they probably will if you say that you happened to eat popcorn with green urine coming out of it (and I am assuming that hasn't happened to you, for all you smart asses out there.)

Here's a question for you: if being funny actually entailed incorporating events from your own life into your routine, wouldn't that necessitate that everything you do is funny? I mean, that's just logic. That's like the A=B-C stuff, you know. That's not a stupid theory. It's the same as that fact that we need water to survive. You don't need to search real far to understand that. But, time and time again, students try to challenge me on that assumption. People like to say, "Del Close says truth is Comedy." Del who? Oh, Del Close. He's dead, isn't he? So he ain't exactly active. is he? What movies has he been in? Never heard of em.' Oh, but, I guess he was really funny. He's so funny that no one has heard of him. He died, and still no one has heard of him. What a waste of a death. Well, you can believe what you want, but if you want to know what to say when being funny, you better keep away from me with that "truth" virus.

Green urine is funny. Green urine is not something you see everyday unless you got one of those diseases. Where does green urine come from? It comes from the depths of the funny mind. The funny mind knows how to generate ideas, so don't you dare get in the way with your "personal experiences." That's like lesson one. You can't progress as a funny person until you realize this because, let's face it: what you say in your routine determines 98% of being funny. It's kind of like learning to ski. If you are using ketchup bottles instead of skis, it's going to be pretty hard to learn how to take on moguls. Some people insist that using ketchup bottles is the right way of going about learning to ski.

"Humans vary in what they like to eat, but what they think is funny is universal."

Here's a bit more of a transcribed excerpt from one of my workshops.

Craig takes the stage. Right away he starts barking like a dog and spinning around. I sort of like it. Why? I don't know what the hell he is doing and I suspect that, if he's lucky, he might be poking at realm of funniness, hoping to get in. He can't quite get in yet, but we're interested. He continues:

"Man, I was trying to get my garden hose working, you know, to water my lawn, and my dogs just kept barking like mad."

Though he's using the word I, it kind of works because I know that what he's talking about can't be true because dogs don't bark like mad. But, there's something not quite right about it.

"Hold it right there," I say. "Replace the word hose with Green Urine."

"What?" he asks.

"It doesn't work to be a deaf funny person," I say. "You heard what I said."

He knows what I'm talking about and stands a bit straighter. He knows I'm not messing around.

"I was trying to get my garden hose working‹"

I cut him off with a sweeping forehand gesture. As a teacher, never verbally tell your students--or as I like to call them, poodents‹to shut up twice. Once is fine, but if they keep trying to talk, it is generally more effective to shut them up with a gesture. I like the forearm gesture because it implies that, if they don't shut up, I will do something athletic.

I say, "you didn't say the word man."

"What?" he says.

"Oh, so you are a deaf funny person," I say.

"What are you talking about?" He asks.

"If you say the word what one more time I am going to do something athletic to you."

(This shuts him up pretty fast and he is standing even straighter then he was before, if that's possible. I have created my own little army in the world of being funny. My poo-dents are my soldiers. Maybe I'll call my next book My Poodents Are My Soldiers. I like that. Keep your fingers crossed). He continues:

"I guess I don't understand what you're trying to say."

"That's the first problem. You should never guess. Get your pencils ready," I say to the class.

"Why is it bad that Craig left out the word man this time?" I ask the class. They are too dumb to answer, so I tell them. If you are good teacher you don't let your students guess at what you are teaching.

"Craig forgot to say the word man in his second attempt. The first time he began: "Man, I was trying to get my garden..."

I explain to them, as I am explaining to you now, never make up anything. When you create your routine, memorize it word for word. Also, leave spaces for laughs. If you don't know where to leave the spaces, then you don't have funny piece. Once again, there is no mystery here. Something is funny or it isn't and if you are funny you will know right away if it works. Everyone laughs at the same stuff. Humans vary in what they like to eat, but what they think is funny is universal to everyone. I'm going to say that again. Humans vary in what they like to eat, but what they think is funny is universal. This is why you should never use your own experiences; everyone has those same experiences and I know there aren't six billion funny people out there.

So, you must remember every single word you write. This isn't comedy improv. Let me say a quick note about comedy improv: it is NEVER made up. I'm going to say that again: This isn't comedy improv: it's NEVER made up. Let me say a quick note about comedy improv: it is NEVER made up. Most of those groups write everything out even if they say they are making it up. They say they are making it up so you think they are creative or clever, but they aren't. The thing that puts stand-up seventy three levels above improv comedy is that stand up doesn't have to tell its audience that it is creative or clever, you either are or your not. I can tell you how I made the pasta sauce, but if it tastes like dead unicorns then it doesn't really matter, does it? (By the way, that's just a metaphor. I don't eat pasta; I eat lots of beef. But we'll get to that later.)

Anyway, the line now sounds like this: "Man, I was trying to get my green urine working, you know, to water my lawn and my dogs just kept barking like mad."

The class erupts in laughter. I silence them with my forearm.

"Now," I say to Craig. "Replace the word lawn with penis pancakes, I say. It just comes out. I don't know. The class looks at me like I'm onto something. They can't scribble fast enough. Craig continues:

"Man, I was trying to get my green urine working, you know, to water my penis pancakes, and my dogs just kept barking like mad."

The class doubles over. They have to set down their notebooks. They look like they can't get enough air. Craig now looks a bit different. I hate to say it about one of my poodents, but he actually is starting to look funny. I tell him that and he looks like I just wrote him a check for about five million dollars. But we still have work to do.

"Replace the word dogs with the words twisted jellybeans."

"Man, I was trying to get my green urine working, you know, to water my penis pancakes, and my twisted jellybeans just kept barking like mad."

The class literally has a breakdown. I wait for about five minutes. This is why you have to make spaces for laughs when you're writing. It is not uncommon for me to allow 5-10 minutes of space when I write my routines. When you get funny, that's what you have to do. When you get really good, you barely have to do anything‹you just feed the kitty and the kitty starts eating. And let me tell you, the kitties' cat food is on a very low, easy-to-reach shelf.

"Replace the word barking with hiccupping. And...." The class looks at me like I am their messiah. "Replace the word man with goosemonger."

"Goosemonger, I was trying to get my green urine working, you know, to water my penis pancakes, and my twisted jellybeans just kept hiccupping like mad."

"Replace mad with realistic hotdogs," I say.

"Goosemonger, I was trying to get my green urine working, you know, to water my penis pancakes and my twisted jellybeans just kept hiccupping like realistic hotdogs."

The poodents are roaring. They all want to have a shot at it, and at this point I end the class. Craig looks at me like I just brought his dead grandmother back to life.

The rest of the line is fine," I say.

Do not read the rest of this book until you have gone through this chapter with a nice fine set of tweezers. You can get a copy of my audio workshops online if you email me, but they can take 5-6 months to process the orders and it is often a couple years before anyone gets them. I live in a real remote location, like most of the celebrities do, so I don't have a lot of time for the mail order stuff. Also, I'm busy writing and planning my gig schedule so it's a big problem if I have to bother with that sort of stuff. My advise is just to go over what I wrote and just think about being in one of those workshops.

If you can get a good grasp of the types of things to say when being funny, you need the right concomitant‹you need to know what to do when being funny. That's the focus of this next chapter. You can't have one without the other, just like Moses. Hope you still have your learning hat on because we're about ready to fly into the world of learning to do things while doing your routine. Let's go. Strap in.

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Copyright 2006 Marc Carvajal