Friday, January 13, 2006

There's No "I" in COMEDY

At Dave's request I'm posting another quote from my lonely comedy, which I'll go ahead and give the title for -- Tyrant High School:

It's a shame the baboon bubble burst.

Comedy is one place where I think writing in teams is particularly beneficial. When I wrote this one I just threw everything in if I thought it might be funny -- and a fair bit of it falls flat I suspect. Some parts I still laugh at, but other places induce a few cringes. However, if you have a few people working together you can verify each gag, in addition to squeezing out a few more good jokes.

I don't think this applies as much to other genres and more story-based comedies (like rom-coms and most theatrical comedies) since movie stories require more focus: finding a central through line and sticking to it. When you get multiple people on a project at the same time, everyone wants to include their own notions, and too often this results in an unfocused and meandering plot.

But who cares if the plot meanders in Airplane! or Monty Python and the Holy Grail? I'm too busy laughing.

1 comment:

Grubber said...

Bloody funny one that, even out of context, I just love it.
cheers
Dave.