5 Tips for good comedy
Someone requested a video about what makes a comedy good and I thought of 5 things that can make it great.
No.1 is proper timing. You cannot throw a joke at any moment; the mood needs to be appropriate. One the things I dislike in modern anime is the way they throw comic relief smack in the middle of a tragic scene. This is killing the mood it’s not relieving it. Most people assume dramedy means drama and comedy at the same time, and they are fine with it somehow, but if you have good taste, these mood whiplashes are emersion breaking. Don’t do it.
No.2 is being unexpected. It is ten times funnier when you don’t see it coming than when it’s telegraphed. This still doesn’t excuse throwing jokes in most unexpected moments, such as during drama scenes. Not expecting it means you don’t know what the joke will be a minute before it happens, and not because it will appear in the most inappropriate moments.
No.3 is being relatable. Stuff like references, and in-jokes. The closer the joke is to something you understand and deal with almost every day, the funnier it will be. And that’s why there is no joke that everybody will find funny. Each one of them targets a certain audience. Anyone outside that audience will not get it, much less find it funny. Also, I consider referential comedy to be the laziest, when it’s not trying to make a point. Ridiculing a stereotype is meta-commentary that makes the joke derivative since it can’t work without preexisting knowledge. Making a point or even building something completely new out of it, can allow the joke to work in-series even if you don’t get the reference.
No.4 is being unoffending. Most jokes are about ridiculing a situation. Even if they are relatable to a certain demographic, they become offending when they cross the line between satire and insult. There is nothing you can do to prevent that, since every person has a different tolerance towards certain topics, and the bar can go up and down very easily depending on recent events. For example, people are a lot more edgy about racist jokes these days, whereas religion jokes are more commonplace.
And no.5 is delivery. It sounds like a summary of all the above but what I want to focus on is acting, directing, and performance. Also known as pretty colors. Something like Jojo wouldn’t be half as enjoyable if everything about it wasn’t over the top, and carefully executed. Because how can something be funny if the performer is not trying to be funny?