Humor and Comedy Writing

[bdagb]

Hello everyone Im new on this forum although ive read most of the posts.Lately ive been working a lot on humor and the thing is I just cant get my hands on the book that David Deangelo recommends,Comedy Writing Secrets by Helitzer.I would really appreciate it if any of you guys have a copy as an ebook to tell me so we could agree on an exchange or something.Also i would like the opinions of the crowd on it is it worth buying.

Enjoy

 

[englishcrap]

I have to admit I have bought the book but never actually read it.

I would use the information on this site if you want to develop your humourous side, saves you the money.

 

[Reach]

It's got good reviews on amazon. Shock. I'd probably get it if I could find it.

 

[Sanity_Cleaver]

Yeah i bought it (Amazon), but not simply because DeAngelo reccommended it: my dream career spans in that direction too.

I must admit, i am only halfway through, but i DO reccomend it. But it depends on what your intentions are for it. If you just want to get ideas for funny lines so you can impress women forget it- this book works more on the level of becoming funny on all levels and eventually making money out of it. Most of it deals with formulas for stand-up comedy jokes and other such stuff, but also includes some PRICELESS information on why jokes are funny. This is going into the real of primordial psychology here, but it breaks down jokes into different categories and stuff. You know when you laugh out loud at something but cant exactly work out why it was funny? After reading this book you will. This basic gist of what ive read is:

Part one-Comedy is simply an EXERCISE IN IMAGINATION. A whole chapter on it with fun exercises.

Part two-A whole bunch of psychology information that is really interesting. Did you know there are only 2 reasons why we laugh? They are SURPRISE, and SUPERIORITY (which is divided into 7 sub-categories henceforth making 8 reasons).
Surprise works on the unexpected: ever read a book with a surprise twist or someone make some smart-arse comment? Theyre all surprsie based laughs-
-and Superiority makes the person whos laughing feel better than what they're laughing at: why do you think we all laugh watching someone slip on a banana peel.
(When making girls laugh- stick to a 80% Surprise/ 20% Superiority formula; not only because girls love the unexpected but because too much slipping on bananas peels makes you look like a gimp)

The next part of the book deals with basic joke formulas, mostly dealing with cliches. Turns out 50% of all word based humour we use is simply inverting cliches upon themselves. Freudian slips are when you say one thing and mean your mother. Stuff like that.
Simple Truth, Triples and other joke formulae abound.

Next part is all performance techniques; the basics of. VERY IMPORTANT!!- but any basic drama classes will help you much more than what you read in a book.

Last bit is making money out of it all, which i havent read yet and applies only if you want to laugh all the way to the bank while youre at it.

Very last bit is the index and is included for reference purposes only.


MY ADVICE; buy it only if youre seriously interested in comedy- if you just want to be able to say lost of funny stuff to girls dont bother. Learn elsewhere.

Ive realised this forum doesnt have a guide on how to be funny yet, and for a while ive considered posting a basic one about that. Stick around (if i ever get around to it of course)

 

[Ricky]

It is a really neat book.

I think the best way to get good at comedic timing is to listen to a ton of comedy.

If you are a Napster to Go subscriber you can get tons of it very quickly.

Observational comedy is the type that you can use with girls.

Did anyone notice David D has a new series out about ****y and Funny comedy?