Mobile
Page 3 of 5
"Come up with something more goobery," suggests Millwater. "I think that the spot works. It's just a matter of the choice of ice cream."
"I've never been able to get a punch line in there," says Zimmerman.
"Go to the store. Take a notebook. Dig out the Ben and Jerry's. Here's your Cherry Garcia. Here's your giggadee-gigadee-gigadee-goo. Chunky Monkey is funny," Millwater offers.
Zimmerman is still incredulous. "I've said that before, it didn't work."
"Or make up your own, which I think is even better," Millwater adds. "If you can make up your own ice cream flavor that doesn't actually exist but should, then you have four jokes happening in that one phrase."
"How about sorbet?" I suggest.
"Sugar-free or low-fat?" another comic in the room asks.
Zimmerman tries it out in his goofus accent. "Sugar-free sorbet." He giggles, but it sounds a little forced. To Millwater that reaction is OK, but probably not good enough to get a consistent laugh.
"As a comic, your brain defaults on a joke," Millwater explains to me later. "It just always happens, 75,000 times a day. You don't take note of it most of the time. The only time you take note of it is when you laugh out loud. That's the best advice I've ever gotten. If you laugh when you think of it, write it down. If you don't laugh out loud, it's not funny."
Tom Haines, a former Comedy Zone owner, booker and current stand-up instructor, takes a more systematic approach to the creative process. Haines has written jokes for 20 to 30 comedians and has freelanced jokes for Jay Leno's monologue on The Tonight Show. He also wrote some material for prop comic Carrot Top back when he was carving a name for himself in Charlotte. For one of Carrot Top's bits in which he fashioned hangers after celebrities, Haines suggested poking two eye holes in the paper interior and calling it David Duke's hanger. The joke got a standing ovation on an MTV Spring Break show.
In Haines' class, he instructs students to brain map when creating a joke. Using the location of our interview as an example, Haines writes Starbucks in the middle of a piece of paper and circles it. Then he draws branches extending from the word, and writes some things found in a Starbucks cafe: coffee, cups, green, whipped cream. The next step is picking two or three of those things and combining them. "I'm going to tie in the color green with a straw and whipped cream and put together the joke," he says. "You can train yourself to think funny. You just have to look for it."
Without the use of a brain map, Millwater has thought of the funniest ice cream flavor for Zimmerman. "What's that ice cream with three flavors in one?" he asks.
"Neapolitan," a comic in the room answers.
"Neapolitan, except for the strawberry," he says fast.
Zimmerman erupts in a high-pitched hyena laugh.
"See, 'cause that's just a weird thing to say," Millwater continues, then makes another suggestion: "Chocolate fudge chunk but I take the chunks out. Just find a funny way to answer that question, which is funny and irrelevant and perfect. The best jokes come when they think it's over. So make an inspired choice in ice cream flavors."
Brian Heffron, a Paul Giamatti look-alike who owns Charlotte-based Heffron Talent International, the largest comedy booking agency in the country, says that many young comics get too dirty too quickly in their careers, lured by the cheap and easy laugh.
"You don't look back on Richard Prior and say he's filthy. But if you actually listen to Richard Prior, he's pretty dirty. Same with [George] Carlin," Heffron says. "The reason that you don't is because they're professionals. The bottom line is the new guys are not qualified to do edgy humor yet. It's very difficult to be dirty and effective, dirty and not vulgar, dirty and not offending. It's very hard. They try, and it can be a train wreck."
To get a comedy gig in the US, impressing Heffron is almost essential. Heffron Talent books comics to all of its 54 Comedy Zone clubs in 20 states as well as for the Bahamas and for cruises. Heffron has a stable of 750 to 1,000 comedians he squeezes into 100 weekly slots, and he receives 30 new tapes a week for spots that don't exist. Some of the aspiring comics get desperate. One tape he received was attached to a bowling ball the comic paid to ship. "If I book you, you're pretty much guaranteed work for a year, but you have to be better than the worst comic on the roster. I have to take someone out to put you in," says Heffron.
Speaking of 5.00000
-
A Family Affair
Dec 12, 2007 -
Darrell Roach
Dec 12, 2007 -
Body Talk
Dec 12, 2007 - More »
Latest in Cover
More by Jared Neumark
-
Best of The Blotter 2007
Nov 28, 2007 -
Preaching and drinking
Mar 7, 2007 -
Preaching and Drinking
Dec 27, 2006 - More »
Calendar
-
Coach Conroy's All Sports Camp @ Waxhaw Recreation Barn
- Wed., July 16, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Thu., July 17, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Mon., July 28, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Tue., July 29, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Wed., July 30, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. and Thu., July 31, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
-
-
Coveted Luxury Watches
- Mondays-Fridays, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Continues through Dec. 30
-
-
AllMachines
- Through Dec. 30, 12-9 p.m.
-
-
AllMachines - Raymond Forklift
- Through Dec. 30, 12-5 p.m.
-
-
AllMachines - Forklifts
- Through Dec. 30, 12-6 p.m.
-
