OK as some of you may know I make a little pocket money writing gags
And well I've found over time its harder to workout what's good or bad?
I mean last week I had about half a dozen customers and yet I also had 3 that were so pissed off with poor quality I had to refund them
Here's the kicker often for the same joke
So is there a universally good joke or is it all personal?
I'll pot my stinkers in critique for you lot to kick around nd
Quote: sootyj @ October 22 2012, 2:08 PM BSTOK as some of you may know I make a little pocket money writing gags
And well I've found over time its harder to workout what's good or bad?
I mean last week I had about half a dozen customers and yet I also had 3 that were so pissed off with poor quality I had to refund them
Here's the kicker often for the same joke
So is there a universally good joke or is it all personal?
I'll pot my stinkers in critique for you lot to kick around nd
In my experience, the truly golden jokes are incredibly rare. From my regular 10 minute set there's really only one gag that has never, even one time, let me down. The rest succeed with a fair amount of certainty (at least so long as I'm on my game) but it's really just that one joke I can 100% count on.
I know what you mean with me its the lucky dog joke
So I make that ticket longer each time its now about a week long
Another pisser is getting material turned down by someone who stunk up the stage the night before
Hey Sooty,
Ultimately the only way to tell if a joke is good or bad - and I mean the only way any comedian ever knows, is by getting up on stage and performing it.
The best way to ensure a certain level of quality is by writing hundreds of them, ensuring that you've explored every angle, making sure you've written the safer formulaic ones and the more adventurous they just seem funny to me ones, making sure the set up setsup the premise (that you've not made any jumps in logic to the punchline that you haven't set up) and that the twist is big enough not to see from the start. Other than that it's taste.
Hey the pisser for me last week was that a sure thing that I submitted things I thought were great didn't seem to get a look in. It stings to say the least.
I had half my jokes rejected by someone who bought 80 off me the week before no rejects. How's that for piss in ya porridge
If your talking about what I think your talking bout bad luck your submitted list was pretty good
I had half my jokes rejected by someone who bought 80 off me the week before no rejects. How's that for piss in ya porridge
If your talking about what I think your talking bout bad luck your submitted list was pretty good
Have you posted them up yet SootyJ?
Yeah, it's the same one. Thanks, at least you thought so!
Perhaps the best bit of advice (other than above) I can suggest is go to some live (pro) comedy nights in London and watch what's getting people laughing. The problem with only writing jokes is you lack that interaction with your audience. By seeing live shows you turn the theoretical into the practical and it reminds you what's funny and why, not simply what is a solid joke by the book.
The problem with that though, is that many average or sub average jokes can get a terrific reception, depending on the performer, and the audience.
Likewise a very good joke can easily fall on stony ground in the wrong hands or on the wrong day.
With pro nights they have the proficiency to make even the lesser jokes work well. I imagine that Sootyj is at the stage where he can see the strings behind the puppet so can see which formulas are more popular than others. But the most vital thing is the audience interaction, I know from myself that by doing standup again it reawakens your instincts to know what the audience will like and won't (to a certain level of success). Not to say I'm a proficient standup comedian or good writer, it just has really helped me.
Yup standup will improve your timing and editing
But it won't help whensome roofers force you. Spend 3 days finding the worlds funniest jokes for an email campaign
And some guys can work the crowd with the weakest material
I'm still of the belief though that the best comedy shows written by comedians are made when the comedian is still on the circuit, as it tunes them in to a way of thinking that they lose when they stop performing.
There's a truly lovely sequence from the sandman a dols house
Where Nimrod a prolific serial killer has to make a joke to an audience of serial killers
The fear loathing and psychotic hatred roughly describes my approach to stand up
Brilliant comic series 
Certainly my favourite.
Last year I would have agreed with you, today I feel it's about many factors that make a night either wonderful for the performers or emotional hell
Were the people that you had to refund definitely annoyed at the quality of the jokes? Or did what you sent them have lots of typos and stuff?
(I expect you make sure there aren't any mistakes when it's for a job, but I just thought I'd ask.)
No typos actually one was a script for a script where it automatically instituted the customers name
And insisted on me calling him YOU
Then criticised my grammar for saying YOU has a new car