Do you ever feel you've forgotten what's funny?

I've been planning a sitcom for the last year (if you count "planning" as occasionally pondering about broad ideas while bored) and have been writing it for the past month. In the beginning it all felt fresh, and modesty aside, rather funny. However the more I do the more predictable the jokes feel, the more obvious the set up. I'm not sure whether it's stopped being funny, or the jokes are too similar, or whether I'm just to close to it to see it anymore, but whatever the explanation, its driving me a little insane!

Do writers ever know whether what they are doing is funny?!

Yes frequently, and it's no bad thing. Often what you find funny isn't universally funny.

And certainly for sitcoms, you're not going to get a goldstar and £50,000 for writing the funniest sitcom. Certainly not the one you find funniest.

It's more likely to be able to prove that you can write, what the producer believes 9,000,000 people will laugh at after a hard day at work 9and 9,000,000 people who don't care about the difference between Dwarf and Towers).

Writing comedy I suspect has killed my sense of humour stone dead.

Depressing isn't it? In the last month I've laughed less at 99% of sitcoms out there. All I see now is the set ups and the structure.

There's no way of distancing yourself from your own work then? Besides, obviously, literally, distancing yourself from it for a while.

Well yes, but that's because I'm guessing most haven't been written that well.

I was watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and that's so surprisingly mean it caught me by surprise.

Always Sunny in Philadelphia? I'll have to make sure I see that sometimes.

That is true. I was ill on friday night so used it as a chance to do some "research". I stayed in and watched Benidorm and Teenage Kicks. I don't think I laughed once. I thought they were suppose to be the new "it" things on TV.

Well Benidorm is something of a stinker. Really good sitcoms, are all character, setup, conflict, situation, but are so smooth you don't notice.

The annoying thing about sitcoms is they're like kebabs. An amazing number of people like the crappy ones, and are intimidated by the good ones.

There are still things that make me giggle time & time again. Without exception.
Bill Hicks & all his routines.
Raw!
Delirious.
Ace Ventura Pet Detective.
Curb

Too name but a few.

Then there are the day to day things that I find hilarious.
Toddlers being Smacked, old ladies falling down & blind people dropping their blind sticks.
Women getting their high heels stuck in a grate, men with umbrellas & dogs who pee up charity collectors legs.

You're pretty spot on with what you say. I do enjoy sitcoms less lately, and when I do sit down to watch one I find it really hard to divorce it from what I'm currently writing in structure, laughs etc.
I've thought about sitcom for years and years, and always loved the format, but no concept I've dreamt up has ever really seemed 100% perfect for me to sit down and write. I've had dozens of ideas but none ever seemed right. Finally on Jan 1st I decided to write anything and a week later I had a first draft. TBH despite the fact it's actually been taken up by a prod co, its not the opus, or the pure piece of magic I always thought I could write. So the basic fact of the matter is unless it gets made which is unlikely, or I come up with that great idea that is my... I've probably ruined for months or even maybe years the joy of the one TV format that I actually love.

Quote: Charley @ April 20 2008, 10:54 PM BST

old ladies falling down & blind people dropping their blind sticks.

View original

Haha well apparently it's the little things that make life worth living.

I just feel so lost! In my mind, not literally. It feels as so my brain is too absorbed in everything sitcom related, and my own writing, that I cannot see the wood from the trees. Everything is slowly becoming a blur. Any ability to identify what I find funny, has disappeared.

Then again. Old ladies falling over is always a classic.

Put the script away for a few months,don't look at it and write something else.
Sometimes I dig out old stuff and one in particular still made me laugh. I'd forgotten exactly what I had written and there were only a couple of things in it that I wasn't satisfied with.

n.b. don't get hung up on settings, very few sitcoms are funny due to the setting. Most work due to characters, and relationships.

I think it's easy (and I do it myself alot), to think,

"What would be great, a sitcom on a submarine!),

when it's more guy moves back in with exwife, after losing his home, new husband resents him, children split over which dad they prefer.

Fawlty Towers would have been funny in any settings.

Quote: Charley @ April 20 2008, 10:54 PM BST

There are still things that make me giggle time & time again. Without exception.
Bill Hicks & all his routines.
Raw!
Delirious.
Ace Ventura Pet Detective.
Curb

Too name but a few.

Then there are the day to day things that I find hilarious.
Toddlers being Smacked, old ladies falling down & blind people dropping their blind sticks.
Women getting their high heels stuck in a grate, men with umbrellas & dogs who pee up charity collectors legs.

View original

You laugh at toddlers getting smacked? Erm...

You just need distance from your script. My advice, stick it in a draw and work on something else for a bit.

It's true that when you begin to study comedy you find yourself laughing less and less at new comedy. Partly because you're thinking more like the show's writers and partly because you're analysing structure and relationships so you're not 100% a consumer of the product, like the majority of the viewers.

Because you study something, plan a project, sweat over drafts, it no longer seems funny because you know every line and you worry if it ever was / is funny. The script is read by readers in isolation from you. You never see their reaction, it's like your words / effort vanish into a black hole. Without feedback, it's easy to lose the idea that you can perhaps write funny.

I'll share a personal experience with you by PM. One that deals with this problem and restored my self belief.

We have been working on this sitcom for 10 months now. Some of the really funny stuff that made us want to make wee wees in June 2007, we now read with straight faces - well, as straight as we ever look. However, even though it isn't funny to us anymore, we still know it is funny. If that makes sense.