How To Write Humor--Using Humor Devices Part III

-John Philipp

In a previous article, we discussed Stealing From The Barry Best (July 3rd) But you don't have to steal the joke itself, you can steal the device, the method used by the writer to achieve a desired effect.

When you read humor you should not only enjoy the joke but observe the devices an author uses to achieve his effect.

Here are some examples of humor devices you may be able to use in some article somewhere. (All examples are by Dave Barry unless otherwise noted)

• Make up Absurd Holidays: Dave Barry uses this device all the time to exaggerate a point e.g. "Of course, congress will be unavailable as they will be celebrating National Peat Bog Awareness Month."

• Describe a bad trait of a character, then use a word such as "yet" to indicate you are going to balance this with a good aspect and, instead, describe another bad trait e.g. "(He is) an abrasive mayor who really gets on some people's nerves, yet at the same time strikes other people as a jerk."

• Describe an experience with an absurd analogy e.g. "As an emotional experience, it ranks right behind having a gallstone operation, without anesthetic, performed in a blizzard on the top of a 100-foot tower erected at the North Pole." Jon Carroll

• Use a real name to thinly disguise another real name e.g. "…a large organization that, out of respect for its privacy, I will refer to as "The Episcopal Church" (not its real name). Even though The Episcopal Church pretty much runs Utah, it's trying to keep a low profile during the Olympics."

• Use a descriptor to describe an item and then misuse the same descriptor in a humorous way e.g."…to watch the men's 90-meter ski jump, which gets its name from the fact that a sane person would have to drink a 90-meter-high glass of gin before he would even consider attempting this sport."

• Play "blame the editor e.g."…who have since become the most famous Canadians in world history, surpassing even (EDITOR: Please insert names of some famous Canadians here)."

Another favorite device of Dave Barry's, for those of you who like word puzzles, is to jumble letters in a proper name of person or place e.g. "The letters in 'Marie-Reine Le Gougne' can be rearranged to spell "An eerie groin legume."

• Make a purposeful error, then correct it e.g. "How a Bill Becomes a Law-First the bill secretes a substance that it uses to form a cocoon, and then it … No, sorry. That's how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. The way a bill becomes a law is: . . ."

• Split words into syllables to make up a funny definition e.g. the word aerobics comes from two Greek words: aero, meaning "ability to," and bics, meaning "withstand tremendous boredom."

• Use the phrase "which, for want of a better term I will call (the obvious)" e.g. "From time to time I receive letters from a certain group of individuals that I will describe, for want of a better term, as 'women'."

Footnotes can also be used as a humor device:
For example, the device I call 'none of your business with a titillating footnote' e.g. "which is truly one of the most fascinating episodes in American history, although it is quite frankly none of your business (1). (Below Barry footnotes: "1) Especially the part about the dwarf goat.")

Then there is always the condescending footnote: "If there's one thing Americans love, it's satire." The footnote reads: "For an example of satire, reread this sentence."

I'll end with one of my Dave Barry favorites. You figure out the device. "There are two major schools of thought on how to pack for traveling. These are known technically as "my school" and "my wife's school."

Now you need some humorous articles on which to try out your new humor observation skills.
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John Philipp is a weekly humor columnist for four Marin County, California newspapers and has won numerous humor and memoir writing awards. His humor columns are posted at http://johnphilipphumor.gather.com/.His wisdom (with Phil Frank's cartoons) is posted at Thought~Bytes http://thoughtbytes.gather.com/

Writing Humor, Part II - The Art of Exaggeration: Steal from the Barry Best

John Philipp

If you want to write comedy, you have to learn to steal. I don't mean plagiarize; I mean steal, a long-standing, revered (or at least tolerated) technique among comedians.

Of course, you don't lift whole sections of a humorist's work and call it your own. Don't even use their punch lines without giving them credit. But you can analyze their writing and steal devices. If you are going to steal, do as Milton Berle did: steal from the very best.

One of the very best is Dave Barry, one of only two humorists to ever win the coveted Pulitzer Prize (the other was Art Buchwald).

What are Dave's secrets? One is that he's a master of using exaggeration to heighten humor. Consider this passage about the plight of the American male when faced with the 4307 dials and settings on the modern washing machine. (See, I'm using exaggeration as well.)

• "We worry that if we get just one variable wrong, we will find ourselves facing a wrathful spouse, who is holding up a garment that was once a valued brassiere of normal dimensions, but is now suitable only as a sun hat for a small, two-headed squirrel."
  

What makes exaggeration most effective is when you apply it to a real situation - in this case, the known fact that an improper temperature setting can cause some garments to shrink. Then you pick the funniest garment as an example and shrink it to an exaggerated, absurd level.

Dave once told me that after he writes his column he spends days going over every sentence and every word looking for the funniest option. Squirrel was the winner in this case. He asked, "Which is funnier: hamster or gerbil?" I answered, "Gerbil." Dave said, "No, weasel is even funnier. You have to keep stretching.

"The key is to not hold back, the bigger the exaggeration, the funnier the line. Mr. Barry, some examples if you please:

• "Eugene is located in western Oregon, approximately 278 billion miles from anything."



• "I have been a gigantic Rolling Stones fan since approximately the Spanish-American War."



• "If you were to open up a baby's head - and I am not for a moment suggesting that you should - you would find nothing but an enormous drool gland."



• "It is a well-documented fact that guys will not ask for directions. This is a biological thing. This is why it takes several million sperm cells ... to locate a female egg, despite the fact that the egg is, relative to them, the size of Wisconsin."



• "She has enough leftovers to make turkey sandwiches for everybody in Belgium."



• Re: an explicit lingerie outfit: it was "so sheer you could read an appliance warranty through it in an unlit closet."
  

And, you can exaggerate in the other direction, as in, "Gravity is a contributing factor in nearly 73 percent of all accidents involving falling objects."

Another way to use exaggeration is though metaphors and analogies. Again, we can look to Mr. Barry for a graduate course in using these devices. Here are some examples that also incorporate exaggeration for a double-whammy:

• "Our primary living-room sofa looks like a buffalo that has been dead for some time."



• (The singer) "sounded like a water buffalo giving birth over a public address system."



• "Aging faster than a day-old bagel in a hot dumpster."

• A teenaged boy is "basically a walking hormone storm."
  

And, when you find a good exaggerated metaphor, extend it even further:

• "Even as I write these words, there is a spider right outside my house that could serve, all by itself, as our NATO forces. This spider has erected a web that covers most of our property and contains wrapped-up food bundles the size of missing neighborhood dogs."
  

The last point is that when you write comedy you take out all qualifiers. Delete, probably, some people, sometimes and maybe — all those words that weaken the exaggerated position you are taking. These words would be appropriate if you were trying to be realistic. You're not. You're trying to be funny.

(If you want samples to learn from, while Dave stopped writing columns last year, his newspaper, the Miami Herald, reprints his classics every week at Dave Barry Classic Columns )

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John Philipp is a weekly humor columnist for four Marin County, California newspapers and has won numerous humor and memoir writing awards. His humor columns are posted at http://johnphilipphumor.gather.com/.His wisdom (with Phil Frank's cartoons) is posted at Thought~Bytes http://thoughtbytes.gather.com/