Shortcut to Humor in Your Speech:  Surprise and Exaggeration

I think one of the first things a novice humorist can work on is to construct surprise peppered with exaggeration in their punch lines.  In my last humor training, I pointed out that these two elements are fundamental to creating a humorous situation.  In order to produce the surprising exaggeration, the humorist needs to be creative about the setup, in order to lead the reader or audience in one direction, and then POW!:  provide a surprising twist that at first seem unrelated, but then the connection is made.  This creates the laughter.  Larger the “disconnect”, larger the laughter, as long as the audience is able to make the connection.

In this article, I will use a couple of I of examples from the last Toastmasters meeting to illustrate the point.

In the Toastmasters opening, I started with this line:

“Most of you know that both my wife and I are pursuing our doctorate degree.  But I was too lazy last year.  I had fallen behind, and didn’t write much of my thesis.  My wife, on the other hand, has been much more studious.  In order to catch up, my NY resolution is to study 15 hours a week, read 2 books a month, and then copy from my wife.”

This joke used the trilogy:  expected, expected, and surprise.  I lead the audience to believe that I will be a good student:  “Study 15 hours a week, read 2 books a month”.  They are expecting another phrase to describe my studious determination.  However, I gave the punch line “copy from my wife”.  Unexpected twist, but then it made sense as it linked to the prior setup:  We’re working in the same doctorate program, she studied harder than me.   In hind sight, I think it would have worked better if I had constructed a dual meaning setup such as:

“My wife and I have gone back to school to pursue our doctorate degree…Reminded me of our days together in the MBA program. But I was too lazy last year.  I had fallen behind, and didn’t write much of my thesis.  My wife, on the other hand, has been much more studious.  In order to catch up, my NY resolution is to work like I did during my MBA: study 15 hours a week, read 2 books a month, and copy from my wife.”

The background was a bit longer, but it does setup nicely to give the audience a clearer description of how hard I will work (i.e. in my MBA program).  So, this ‘misleads’ the audience even more.  And it also enhances the dual connection of my punchline:  I copy from my wifeàjust like what I did during my MBA.

Second joke was in the highlight video of the Jan13 meeting minutes.  Take a look. I described how my wife was complaining that I spent too much time with CCTMC.  She even asked me, if anyone in my club ‘Sa Jiao’ (baby talk) to me the same way she does.  This made the audience laugh because of four things:  1. the surprise from mixing a colloquial Chinese phrase with my English dialogue”, 2. The exaggerated unspoken fear in all spouses that their husband or wife is finding other people.  This type of ‘observational humor’ usually gets a laugh.  3.  The surprising observation that I, as the president of the club, is motivated by the romantic affections of the members.  And 4. Last week, my wife as the jokemaster told the joke of how she’s worried about the MBA and EMBAs of the club (Married but available, Eventually married but available).  What a sarcastically humorous wife I have....

I reassured her, “No, no, no!  Of course not.  (pause) They don’t have the vocal variety.”

The twist is obvious:  The audience expects that I defend the romantic affections of the club members.  But instead,  I accept the romantic affections, and pointed out the seemingly unconnected fact--lack of vocal variety--to the reason why I don’t get any baby talk from the members.  Why this was particularly humorous:  Many of our members do openly admit they struggle with vocal variety.  During the delivery of the punch line, I also tried extra hard, with my body language, facial expression, vocal tone to show the audience that I don’t want my wife to misunderstand our relationship.  This would further lead the audience to believe that I am about to defend against any improper romantic affections.  And SURPRISE!!!!  and Humor!!!

Later on, I thought of a topper.  Here it is.  Pls comment and let me know if it's better.

Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!

Hubert Lin

Toastmaster of CHIC Toastmasters Meeting Jan13, 2010

Beijing China