Humor - Write your own. Start Now by Al Stevens
I've been down the canned script route different times, different ways. A
scripted ventriloquist dialogue can be funny only when the dialogue matches
the figure's character and fits the relationship between the figure and the
ventriloquist and when the ventriloquist knows how to deliver the material.
The same dialogue can bomb in the hands of an unskilled ventriloquist or in
a situation where the material fails to match the act.
Take the typical Bergen/Snerd dialogue. No one other than
Mortimer can make those lines work. Only Mortimer can say those simple
things and make people laugh. Mortimer says, "Tsk. Ya don't say," and the
audience laughs. It's not the line. It's Mortimer.
My favorite resource is (drum roll) life. People say and do funny things. Be
always ready to write down the funny things you observe. They won't always
match your current act, but you never know when something you see today will
match a character you develop in the future.
Keep your funny bone awake and alert at all times. A pretty young woman in a
convertible gave me the finger the other day when I inadvertantly cut her
off. That's the beginning of a premise because it's an anomaly (or was in my
day). I've been working on it ever since, and a dialogue is shaping up.
My act today typically comprises three characters and runs up to an hour.
The material consists mostly of original jokes I wrote based on things I've
seen and my own (odd) sense of humor. The balance of the material uses jokes
I have been told or have read that I adapt to the character that uses them
and that I've recast into the dialogue format.
I am often surprised when the setup to a joke gets a bigger laugh than the
punch line. Later I'll realize that the premise, in the hands of the figure
itself, is more ridiculous, consequently funnier, than the joke itself. When
that happens, I'll sometimes keep the setup and drop the punch line from the
bit.
For example, I read a joke where an old guy didn't tell his family about his
new hearing aid. He said he changed his will three times since getting it.
One of those senior citizen Internet jokes that keeps going around. My old
man figure has an old timey hearing aid. I tried using that joke, but needed
a way to explain how he could fool his family. So I asked him, "What do they
think that thing is stuck in your ear and hanging on your belt?" He said,
"They think it's my iPod." That was just part of the setup, but it got a
big, unexpected laugh. Why would a man in his nineties have an iPod? The
punch line about changing his will was so subordinate to the iPod setup that
it got maybe a small chuckle. So a mildly amusing joke I heard somewhere but
couldn't make work led to a totally different one that always goes over
well.
My "doodley-squat" bit (which you could see on youtube until I deleted it)
came about the same way, except that I didn't need an audience to tell me
that the joke I was trying to make work wasn't funny in the dialogue genre.
It was too complicated. But while trying unsucessfully to cast it into a
funny bit for my old man, I heard him say, "we didn't have doodley-squat,"
and the whole bit just came spilling out.
Keep in mind that only you know your figure well enough to write funny lines
for him. For a professional comedy writer to write an effective veny script,
the writer would have to spend time viewing the vent and his figure at work.
Canned scripts just don't work in my experience. I have a sizeable
collection of script books. The scripts are okay for getting an occasional
joke to fit a situation, but I can't make any of them work in their
entirety. Maybe it's just me.
There are a lot of how-to books about standup comedy writing, and all of
them have something to teach. However, the subject of comedy dialogue
writing has been mostly overlooked because comedy dialogues (SNL skits
notwithstanding) are a relic of the past. Nowadays, only (or mostly)
ventriloquists use comedy dialogues, and the market isn't big enough to
support the publication of a book about how to write them.
One notable exception is "Bill DeMar & Tom Ladshaw's Ventriloquial Script
Sourcebook," a definite must-have for anyone who wants to write comedy
dialogues. I got it when I started to do my own writing and learned a lot
from it. It has some canned dialogues, but the main thing you learn (by
example) is the format and pacing. Don't even think about starting without
it.
By permisson from Al Stevens
posted by Lawrence E. Harris at 5:52 AM
0 comments
