Theories of Humor
This was written in response to a question about superiority theory and other theories of humor.
If you’re interested in the psychology of humor then I’d definitely recommend reading that book I was talking about: http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Humor-Integrative-Approach/dp/012372564X
I don’t have as much faith in superiority theory as you seem to, I think that status and power is involved in a lot of comedy, but I don’t think it’s central to all comedy. I think that incongruity theory and play theory are the most central, and then power, status, embarrassment and sexual issues are sort of emotional magnifiers. They are things that every human has some intricate personal knowledge of, because we have evolved to be sensitive to those kinds of things - one view I’ll probably try to address with my comedy is that humans are tremendously tribal, and even though we work so hard to dress it up and rise above our roots we keep getting sucked back into being just very intelligent sophisticated monkeys, and I think a lot of the emotional connection of humor is rooted in that very basic incongruity.
I think the heart of any joke is creating an expectation in the audience’s mind and then either fulfilling the expectation in a funny way or failing to fulfill the expectation in a funny way. Total absurdity (by which I mean responding with a non-sequitor) is funny when the audience is expecting to have their expectations met and then you do something totally disconnected, but I think that this only works once or twice because after you’ve shown your hand, that you’re going to do something totally absurd, then *that* becomes what is expected, and in order to surprise you have to change it up again.
I think that if you look at great comedians they know how to craft the audience’s expectations, either they take something the audience already has intimate knowledge of and find the unexpected in it, taking a situation that is externally consistent and find the internal inconsistency (Like Seinfeld or most mainstream comedians), or they take something unexpected and absurd and find a logical pattern in it — taking something that is externally inconsistent and finding internal consistency. (Like Steven Wright or other offbeat comedians). I like working in both areas; I’m usually more intellectually excited by the 2nd type but can express more of my views about the world with the 1st type. I’m still looking into how to blend them more seamlessly.
Ok, that’s a lot to throw out there at once. Again a lot of great comedians I know are not this analytical about the process, so don’t feel like that’s the path you have to take if it doesn’t speak to you, it’s just how I like to do it.
