Introduction:
People from around the world dedicate their lives to the world of comedy.
You're mistaken if you think they dedicate themselves easily and purely for fun (there is enjoyment, but it's not present throughout the entire process).
It's not easy to do comedy!
Sometimes you see a character on stage and think, "How amusing," but in reality, we don't know the difficulties that the comedy actor or actress faced in performing that scene during the day.
Perhaps they were mugged or she was assaulted (among other atrocities that may have occurred, and we don't even imagine).
And yet, they went through all of that to make you laugh on a stressful night who sees the character doesn't see life!
They read books, watch movies, practice in front of the mirror, and organize themselves to test their characters in theaters and their jokes in Open Mics at the best comedy clubs in their city.
In this field, no matter what level you are at, whether you started yesterday or have been in it for a while, what truly matters is how funny your jokes are and how good your writing is compared to others. If you've chosen a great character to portray, I'm happy about that, but what's the use of a good character if you haven't incorporated excellent jokes into the script or alongside the character? It won't amount to anything if that hasn't been done.
Regardless of your style or personal preferences, if you, like these people, are also interested in doing comedy, after reading this text, you will have a good idea of which type of comedy best suits your personality and lifestyle.
Are you a stand-up comedian?
Comedians from all over the world are
testing their jokes in different comedy
clubs, examples are: Helium Comedy Club,
The Comedy Cellar, UP Comedy Club, Laugh Factory,
Comedy Union, and many others.
Being a Stand-up comedian is not a
easy task, but it’s not an impossible mission.
You need to have everything prepared,
from your stage presence to your best punchlines
used throughout the show.
Feel confident in your first Open Mic,
and the audience will react accordingly,
sensing your confidence as well.
For those who don't know what the term
Open Mic means, it is literally
"Open Microphone," where beginner
comedians can test their jokes and
see the audience's laughter.
You need to be a very observant person
to notice every funny detail of your life
and transcribe your thoughts into your
show material; be prepared for boos
if it's your first performance.
Don’t you have any comedy experience?
If you're an aspiring comedian with no experience
in either theater or stand-up shows, a tip
I give is to practice telling jokes in front of
the mirror for 6 minutes or less of your time (
adjust the duration based on your work or study
schedule).
Open mics are also a great option for you
to perform and overcome stage shyness,
though you might have to travel from one city
to another over a long distance.
After that, you will see the fruit of your hard work
blossom like never before. Make sure to use the best
of everything you've learned from past comedians
in your recent rehearsals.
Keep a victorious and positive mindset to navigate
through possible boos during the first show.
Using Instagram and Whatsapp to create a better show:
Two other tools that can boost your show (I will explain how shortly) are WhatsApp and Instagram. With the new Instagram setup, you can gather with your friends and family, create specific groups, and follow your favorite comedian, viewing their posts daily and in real-time, even if they are not in your city. Now, with Instagram, it's a different story. With this social network, you can create funny stories about your jokes or post random funny videos to entertain your audience. Reels are also great for testing the punchlines of your script using your best jokes. A great example of someone who makes good use of these two tools is Rafinha Bastos, who, even being outside his home country, communicates with Brazilian and international fans through specific Instagram accounts for each group, one in English and another in Portuguese. He also utilizes WhatsApp groups to communicate with his Brazilian fans.
Do you have a Netflix show?
In this particular case, you don’t have to
worry about building a new audience.
In the following topics, you will read
about how to create a parody and
how to bring all the topics together
to build a performance. A good tip is to
do a stand-up show, publish it on your YouTube channel,
and edit the video by adding a short music piece to your performance or even a parody, making you stand out among existing videos on YouTube with the same theme.
But, stand up comedy requires constant
improvement without sleeping on the stage.
You will need to improve the way you speak
and tell your jokes to different people.
Netflix audience is laughing with comedians
who follow political correctness, what does
it means? It means that if you don’t follow
these requirements you will get in trouble.
Remember the difference between an
informal comedy show, one that doesn't
depend on a specific platform and takes
place in a theater or similar venue,
and a Netflix comedy special, where
you must adhere to the Netflix mindset
and refrain from making dark humor jokes
(we'll discuss this in upcoming topics).
Do you prefer humor with characters?
There are two types of comedians:
The first category are the comedians
who prefer humor with funny
characters.
This type of people needs to follow
the script in the theater without
mistakes.
The second category are the comedians
who prefer humor with "clean face,"
meaning without any other comedic
resource to assist him or her.
If you prefer to engage in this type of humor,
make sure that all your jokes fit perfectly
into the script when performing a specific piece.
Avoid overusing improvisation;
follow that line of thought without any hiccups,
and consequently, the audience will burst into
laughter with you and your style of humor.
People from all over the world loves
characters because they express what
they really feel about life situations.
A good example are the Shakespearean works
which we can see different characters interac
ting with each other and making some funny
comments.
Are you happy? Can you share this happiness?
It doesn’t matter what is your type
Remember that your audience makes your
judgment if you are a good comedian
or a bad one.
Always be happy, and your happiness it will
contagious with your audience,
the name of this phenomenon is called synergy.
With all due respect, dear reader, the audience
is not the least bit interested in knowing if you
had a terrible day with your girlfriend
or if your dog is sick. What they want to know
is if you, as a comedy professional, can bring funny
jokes to help them relieve the stress of a tiring day.
It is important to note that every comedian needs to be cheerful and demonstrate this joy with the audience.
Sharing jokes is an important act, but how
to do it without showing good humor?
It's an impossible feat!
A nostalgic process - Learning with the past:
If you are a beginner maybe you don’t have
many references to follow.
The best place to find old comedians is Youtube,
using Youtube you will find different comedians,
examples are: Jim Carrey, Eddie Murphy,
George Carlin, and many others.
You don’t have to copy/paste all the jokes
(because this is for gangsters), but you can
use their shows to be inspired.
Over time, you will see the evolution
of jokes and how everything has changed
over the years, making the correct observations
that align with what was happening in that context,
making it easy for the comedian and their jokes to be assimilated.
Always remember not to make the mistake of
copying each of the past jokes, thinking that
all of them will be successful in the current moment.
These jokes are not meant to be copied but
rather to serve as inspiration for your style
of comedy to be developed.
Be careful with the black humor:
If speaking jokes about fat people
is your way to make comedy you need
to be careful with your audience.
What if your audience gets angry?
This is a topic which you will need to
find a solution, tell or not tell the
black humor joke that is the question
Same case applies to black people
speaking about black people could be
political incorrectness and could hurt
their feelings.
At the same time you don’t have to
tell a joke expecting a person will get
angry or become sad because this is your
work and it’s essential for any comedian
tell a good joke with his/her topic desired.
You don’t need to hide from your audience but
you don’t have to run away to make ‘’dirty jokes’’
Remember that maybe the country you live don’t
respect freedom of speech like in the
case of Brazil and the comedian, named: Léo Lins,
makes a black humor joke and he gets fired instantly.
Is improvisation your comedy style?
Besides the obvious tip of mirroring
the greatest comedic improvisers
and stand-up comedians, I suggest
mentally attempting to establish
a connection between words and
your life story.
For instance, if someone in the audience
suggests improvising with the word "gray,"
you can connect it to a gloomy day when
you saw your neighbor's dog, which
was as ugly as Shrek.
By associating one thing with another,
it becomes easier to improvise.
Remember to always study new ways
to make improvisation.
With no person to help you could be
seriously bad but if you already trained
could be easier than the person who are
not interested in training.
A good comedian to watch is Marcio Ballas;
he is a natural improviser who does comedy
with other comedians and also performs solo.
I'm recommending this comedian to serve as inspiration,
but I'm not mentioning his name here in vain for you to copy all his jokes and add them to your stand-up routine or something similar.
A good comedian is meant to be an inspiration and studied but never imitated from head to toe.
Why don’t you try Youtube to reach a new audience?
Not always is physical comedy your style;
Even Shakespeare comedy books are now
available in digital platforms like Youtube
and Archive.org for everybody to read
and laugh a lot.
perhaps you are a comedian who prefers
to perform in podcasts, as is the case
with Joe Rogan and many others
not mentioned here.
In another case, maybe you just want to tell
your jokes in front of a camera, which is equally
respectable, like theater comedians. Regardless
of your style, in today's technologically driven
world, encompassing various aspects of human
life, YouTube is the best platform.
Youtube is a good place for every comedian because
it allows users to skip some parts to their favorite
jokes without having any complication.
If you're a comedian in a developing country,
YouTube provides the opportunity to earn in
a more stable currency compared to your own.
After spending a year uploading your jokes on
Youtube you can use alternatively other
social media pages to help you to building
a new audience.
Do you read comedy books?
It is of vital importance to stay informed
about the world of stand-up comedy and
humor as a whole.
To do this, reading books on the subject
is essential
not only to improve our jokes but also
to broaden
our cultural knowledge with new words
and paradigms
added to our minds.
Books featuring cartoon characters like
Garfield and The Simpsons can help you.
Or maybe another cartoon totally different than
these.
Memorize some jokes, tell them to your friends,
and see the laughter they elicit.
This could be the first step for you to embark
on your journey into the world of comedy.
Later, as you become a more advanced comedian,
you can analyze the construction of jokes in
these cartoons and try to understand why
they sounded funny.
Another exemplary question is:
What kind of audience would laugh at this joke,
and what kind of audience would find it
completely unfunny?
Keeping in mind these, and many other questions
makes it easy to be prepared for a comedy show,
regardless of the size of the audience.
Audiobooks about comedy, such as
those of Chaves (here is a great
example of humor
with characters
that are never forgotten),
also serve to expand
our comedic knowledge.
You can download a massive
list of resources
and new PDFs on sites like Archive.org,
Pdfdrive, and Library Genesis where you will
find inspiration
and new phrases in each of the books
selected by these sites.
Lessons about making a parody:
If you are training to do a parody, make sure
you know by heart all its parts within the text.
If you are the vocalist, you'll have to memorize
your "playing time," meaning the part in which
you will participate, whether for a longer
or shorter duration.
Make sure to have cleaned up your entire
theater and/or your room before going
to perform your parody to create a
good impression.
Your most significant tool during
this type of comedy will be how you
reinterpret the chosen music in a humorous way.
You have an important role in embodying the
song or album and conveying it in a funny
manner to your audience.
Now with AI you can make lots of different parodies
without much cost and with the efficiency desired.
But be careful, it’s AI but it’s not perfect be careful
with her mistakes.
Don’t give it up for your audience, they
are waiting for
Having fun with +18 jokes:
It is not wrong to laugh at sexual jokes or jokes
about sex, but we should be cautious with such jokes.
Why caution? Simply because they often
elicit loud laughter from the audience,
comedians should place this type of joke
towards the end of their script or routine (
in the case of humor with characters,
physical gestures can make the audience
In all the subjects there is a form to make the audience laugh
But nothing is better than a joke about sex to laugh with your girlfriend/spouse or all alone(because of this topic being very common everybody will laugh).
tThese jokes are different because they
are powerful and because they can be understood
by every kind of individual making the
These jokes are different because they
are powerful and can be understood by
all kinds of individuals, making the humorous
synergy much more easily grasped.
If you train your best +18 jokes certainly
you will make people laugh a lot.
Comedy is helping Sociological studies:
Cartoons like Mafalda's are often imbued with pertinent social critiques for the audience. They are effective in prompting readers to contemplate whether they are acting in a manner consistent with what the character expresses.
These jokes with social critiques extend beyond the audience of comedy comics and can and are adapted into different forms of humor, such as Eddie Murphy's past stand-up shows addressing racism and many other examples not listed in this text.
And it is with this kind of assistance that cartoons bring to us that we create a critical society regarding hunger, poverty, racism, and other socio-cultural issues for children and youth to be more aware of the world around them.
Mimicking Charlie Chaplin:
If your comedy style involves mime, in addition to drawing inspiration from real-life circuses where you will perform for the audience, you can also take great inspiration from the style of Charlie Chaplin.
Nobody can do it like Charlie Chaplin can, in one of his movies he was capable of imitating Hitler and making him funny.
Did you know about any other comedian who is capable of imitating Hitler and at the same time looking funny? Because I don’t.
The style employed in The Gold Rush also recalls another great international comedy classic, Laurel and Hardy. You can also gather with a friend and create double characters so that both can engage in some mime and humorous antics, combining the best of Charlie Chaplin with the best of Laurel and Hardy.
Combine everything you've practiced and become a living legend in national comedy:
Now is the ideal time for you to combine everything you've learned about comedy with Netflix movies (especially those featuring Eddie Murphy), the characters you've created (remember films like The Wizard of Oz, Little Red Riding Hood, Alice in Wonderland, and many others to stay inspired with this type of comedy), the mimics you've performed, and your entire humorous arsenal to put on a great comedy show, not only with class but also with the ideal style of a good comedian. When you do this with a winning mindset, you'll be steps ahead of beginner, intermediate, and even some experienced comedians.Only do this when you have perfected each of these qualities within yourself.
And remember to jot down everything you've practiced in a sort of diary; only then will you be able to know whether you've improved or not.
Conclusion:
Comedians and humorists can use texts like this as their compass when navigating the vast comedic ocean, encountering few difficulties as they already know the types of comedy and how to conduct themselves in a comedy club (it also applies to the theater).
Create, create, and create; that will be your true role on your journey to becoming a good comedian. Nothing will make you better except your studying method. Get inspired, and don't forget to live so that you won't carry regrets at the end of your life. Smile at the dogs and have fun with the children to always maintain a high spirit and stay ready to craft new jokes.
