What IS Funny?

It took me a while to figure out what I was going to write about in this article… What do people want to know about comedy? Jokes and stuff right? Ok…

Jokes. Jokes are to comedians what a .44 Magnum was to Dirty Harry: “Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk!”

I badmouth my jokes all the time; self-deprecation is sa crucial ingredient in a comedians spice rack. It’s important to be able to pull the piss out of your self; I’ve practically wrenched out every ounce of my dignity by this point.

But what is funny?

This question rattles around in my head like a 1cent coin in a charity bucket, hopefully it eventually adds up.

Write about the topics that I find humorous and amusing you say? Ok. The hard part is figuring out a direction, a vehicle, a chariot if you will that clearly translates the madness in my head to you the audience. This can be a daunting task. Sadly, going up and lambasting the audience with all my problems and cynicism is frowned upon, and rarely enjoyable.

I know it sounds strange but jokes are personal, it’s not just writing funny, it’s taking a topic or idea from the cellblocks of my cerebral and putting my own crafty spin on it.

I have a plethora of jokes that I find hilarious, but some jokes don’t translate well on stage, or they’re simply not funny. This is a harsh realization that smacks me in the face as I tragically broadcast a disaster of a joke to an audience’s silent confusion.

My worst joke was about the cinema popcorn trick… The age-old date trick where the male cuts a whole in the bottom of the tub of popcorn and inserts a surprise for his date to discover at a, hopefully, opportune moment during the film. This joke went through the whole ordeal, and after rambling for about ten minutes, I realized the audience had not only stopped laughing but had begun to pity me. I think I put them all off popcorn for life.

I am a constant work in progress, because jokes have a shelf life. One of the hardest tasks to do is to lay a joke to bed, because a good joke, a well-constructed joke always gets a laugh, which makes it easy to hide behind, and can make a comedian lazier than a college student after a mental weekend!

I have a joke about Lassie and his utter contempt for Timmy, the numskull in the show who continually injured himself. I then distressfully suggest to the audience “will somebody please put a helmet on this kid!” Lassie has been getting laughs for almost two years, but now I am slowly coming to the unfortunate realization that it might be time to put Lassie to sleep… for a while… This is tough, because Lassie is one of my favorite bits, but like Dirty Harry, I have to continually build my arsenal and push my luck.

But the question still remains… “What is funny?”

I turn the question to you the reader, what do you find funny? I would be interested to hear what your take is. Is Lassie funny? Farts? Walking into a door? Let’s see who can come up with the funniest topics. E-mail your ideas to: unhingedcomedyclub@hotmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

If your looking to see some of the material I am working on live, check out the “Unhinged Comedy Club”, downstairs in The Cellar Bar, on every Thursday at 9pm. Come and see Lassie put to sleep.

I’m Connor McDonough-Flynn, love life and laugh ladies and gentleman, and support live comedy, until next time, g’luck!