Some Real Comedy (4)

This week I made some major advances for my project. I finally started it. My main focuses this week has been analysis, writing, and a little bit of practicing/performing. As for analysis, I was mainly looking at Louis C.K. and his ability to put emphasis on certain words. Let's analyze together!

I play monopoly with my kids...The six year old totally gets how the game works but she's not 

emotionally developed enough to handle her inevitable loss in every game of monopoly.

This statement serves as sort of the thesis statement for Lewis C.K.'s joke about monopoly. When he delivers these lines he puts special emphasis on the phrases "inevitable loss" and "every game". These two phrases are what make his thesis statement funny. They make the joke funny because of something called a comedic surprise in language. In your everyday life you are used to certain words falling into certain orders. You are probably used to hearing "losing in games", but when Louis C.K. adds in the words, "inevitable" and "every", he puts comedic emphasis on these words which throws off how you are normally used to hearing that line. Hence the joke is deemed funny. Another thing to key in on is how he pauses after he says those phrases (the quote is hyperlinked so that you can see how he says it). He pauses because he is placing the laughs of the audience between those phrases.

If you look at the end of the video, Louis C.K. does more laughter placing. This allows him to be in control of the stage and the audience which are both crucial parts of stand up. Watching Louis C.K. talk about his experiences with monopoly made me realize that I don't really have any normal board games at home. This encouraged me to write my very first routine. 

Looking back and assessing my comedy, I think that the first half was shaky and then it became much funnier towards the end of the bit. Something I feel like I could definitely work on is putting emphasis on specific words and telling jokes with more emotion. It seemed to me as if my language and my delivery were too monotone and didn't accurately convey the emotion that the joke should have delivered. While my jokes may not have been the funniest things in the world, they still showed some of the fundamentals to comedy that I need to improve on in the following weeks of this project.

p.s. interview with Joe Conklin has been completed and now I'm just waiting for the right blog to talk about it in.