Fiddler Crab - Wikipedia
Recently, Ettarose made a comment about the difficulty in making YHBT humor work later on, after the event. If you have ever ended a story with tears in your eyes from laughing, only to find a blank look from your audience.. and then claimed “you had to be there.” Then you understand her frustration.
Most YHBT humor doesn’t ever work after the fact. There are just too many variables. The shared experience, history, knowledge and circumstances are unique to the moment and usually cannot be reproduced. For one example:
Rene Descartes sits down for lunch at a Parisian restaurant.The waitress asks for his order. He orders a hamburger. The waitress inquires, “Would you like fries with that? ” Descartes says, “I think not,” …and instantly disappears.
This requires a knowledge of philosophy in general, Descartes in particular, and someone who cares about philosophy and Descartes.. Even then… it’s clever, but it isn’t all that funny. (Descartes’ famous quote was Cogito ergo sum, “I think, therefore I am.”)
The first thing to consider is, and sometimes this hurts: “Was the YHBT event really funny?” Stress, fatigue and alcohol, can cause gales of laughter at innocuous comments. If this is the case, there may not be anything funny there at all, which makes it difficult to make it funny later. Just enjoy the memory.
But if it is a genuinely funny observation or comment, then your task is to bring your audience into that moment with you. Truth. Again.
This is where, and probably why, most YHBT humor fails. We don’t spend enough time on the setup to make it work. Usually it’s because we just aren’t paying attention to the details, or it can be because the surroundings, or circumstances are so familiar to us that we don’t think about them anymore. Familiarity breeds neglect.
We were on a quick trip to Kima, south of Houston, one Saturday afternoon a few years ago. The fishing boats land at Kima and it’s the best place to get fresh seafood in the area. Arlene’s parents, her sister Ginger and Ginger’s husband Neil were with us, as well as my oldest son Justin. We stopped at one of the fish markets for shrimp. If you haven’t been to a real fresh fish market. a lot of the catch is still alive. Fish blink at you, lobsters swim around in the tanks and the crabs are all in bins along the wall, each crab trying to climb out over the other ones and being pulled back down again.
One way to approach crafting the story is to start from the laughter line, or the punchline, and work backwards. Does it refer to place, time, situation or person? And what is it, about that reference, that made the comment funny?
Then what details do you need to put your audience at that place and in that time? Can you remind them of a similar experience? You need something to anchor the laugh line. Then add any details needed to color the experience.
Neil was a nice guy, but young and cocky. He had spent a lot of the trip explaining all about fishing and fresh seafood. Much of it to Justin, who was about ten at the time, and the only one who would still listen to Neil. We had all grown weary of his boundless resevoir of knowledge. Neil was from Tyler, Texas and most of his fresh seafood experience involved catfish from Lake Palestine.
I was standing in line waiting to buy some jumbo shrimp (6-10 to the pound, Big Shrimp!) When Neil called Justin over to one of the crab bins. He leaned over the bin and said “Now Justin you have to be careful, if you put your finger too close Aaaaahhhhhhhh!” He jerked his hand up with a crab clamped on his fingertip. He shook it loose and the crab flew across the shop and slammed into the opposite wall. Neil danced around and held his finger while Justin looked on in stunned silence, and the crab made a break for the door.
Now I’m laughing, just remembering Neil’s comeuppance. But as I warned you above, no matter how much effort you put into crafting the story it is unlikely to ever be as funny as the originating moment. Most of us just aren’t that good at it, but it can be humorous and amusing.
However…
There are some things we can do, to up our odds of success. But since this post has reached epic length. I’ll cover some of those next time.
I know you wouldn’t want to miss the next installment… so subscribe for free above.
Make your comments below… and keep your fingers away from crab claws.
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on Dec 9th, 2008 at 3:01 am
I really thoght that it would be hard to explain a humorous story like that. You have a hard time explaining the facial movements, the squints etc. I had a friend once who got very upset with his girlfriend and was ranting and trying to show off. He was standing in the kitchen on a scatter rug. As he kicked out at her he slipped and both feet went up in the air and he landed on his back. Now THAT was funny!
on Dec 9th, 2008 at 6:08 am
Ettarose – You pointed out an illustration of my point. I did not even think about describing facial expressions, etc. In my mind, setting the scene and trying to establish why it was funny, Neil’s arrogance, trumped describing the grimaces, rolling of eyes. etc. I may not have even noticed or made note of it at the time. Thanks!
on Dec 9th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I think that describing a situation while resisting the urge to explain is the most difficult aspect of writing in general and humor writing in particular because of the required setup. Explaining is bad. Description can be bad if it isn’t weaved into the story.
Writing in such a way as to make the reader feel as if he/she is actually experiencing the situation is a difficult task and, as bloggers, it is compounded by the fact that we have to try and do it in 650 words.
Tough stuff.
p.s. Great article!
on Dec 9th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Rooster: In improv we always tried to show and not tell. It seems much more difficult without inflection, nuance and physical expression.
Speaking of improv we also seemed to develop this built-in timer and when a bit started getting “too long” a little voice inside my head would start screaming “Finish! Get offstage! Find an end!”
I need to develop that same sense here since this post hit about 770 words!.
Thanks for the comment.
on Dec 9th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
1. the descartes joke was brutally hillarious. probably because you lowered expectations and i really do enjoy smart humour.
2. the best part of yhbt humour is the fact that it’s never funny. i only ever pull out such stories if a night is going slow. if i’m with folks i don’t know so well, i get to enjoy the awkwardness afterward (i for some reason love the tension of people trying to be polite when they know something sucked) or if i’m with friends i do it knowing i will eventually be the butt of the joke.
3. what is this 650 word limit? now i’m all self conscious.
another excellent post sir. thanks for the insight. i love droppin by for the funny knowledge. its awesome to go from “funny or not” to the mechanics behind it all.
on Dec 9th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Chris
It took me a minute to get the Descartes joke. It isn’t one you can read on the run while dropping Entrecards and still “get.”
Andy Kaufman made a career out of making people uncomfortable, trading on “any reaction is good” Have at it.
I heard once that the crawlers like shorter posts. But DeadRooster reminded me of it. It’s probably part of the myth-ernet.
Thanks for stopping by. In fact I’m so very glad I’m so very glad I’m so very glad you commented (Everyone else, you’ll just have to check out Chris’ latest post.)
on Dec 9th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
I didn’t mean to start a “thing” on post length–’cause it’s kind of off-topic–but, my opinion is that, as long as the article is interesting, and provides information in which the reader is interested, it doesn’t matter how long it is.
Personally, for a blog post, I try to shoot for between 500 and 800 words with 650 being the “sweet spot.”
But, I have to look at my own most popular post list “Best of Dead Rooster” and the most popular tend to run over 1,000 words.
Go figure…
on Dec 9th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Go figure.
Yeah, that’s been my mantra for awhile now!
Thanks for the clarification and update.
on Dec 10th, 2008 at 3:31 am
@ dan i’m a bit young to have ever seen kaufman in action. i vaguely know him form his stint in jerry lawler’s wrestling territories. i will check him out.
great way to drive home the point that you had to be there humour isn’t often funny btw (=
@ rooster sorry if i made ya feel like you started a “thing.” completely my fault as my brain has little regard for topics or anything of the sort. there’s ads all over the nyc subway that say “if you see something say something” i’ve pretty much lived by that my entire life. if i were a senator, they’d call me king of the filibuster. i tend to ramble along without realizing it as i am now. i’ll stop.
thanks for further explaining. though my site is 3 years old i’m sort of new to blogging and don’t wanna bug anyone without realizing it. (it’s more fun to do it on purpose)