Humor Coach

While at the World Magic Seminar I came to a humbling realization. I'm not half as funny as I think I am. Or to be more to the point, I am the only one who finds most of my humor funny. It's genetic actually, my father and I once defined true Frank humor as humor that only the person who's telling it gets. . . make sense?

I asked Steve Ameden to be my humor coach while at the convention. I would spew some stupid shit I thought was funny, then look at him and say "Funny or Not Funny?" at which point he would tell me, matter a fact which it was. The purpose of this was to identify what was and was not funny. There were a few bugs in this system, as comedy is highly subjective and what is funny to some may not be funny to others.

This experiment continued last weekend as I street performed at the market. Jake was standing around watching me and I asked him to do the same thing. I let in a few of my audience members and before long they were actively participating in this strange "on the fly" evaluation of my act.

This experiment (which started out as a joke. . . that I thought was funny) blossomed into it's own sort of thing. In Gazzo's booklet "The Art of Krowd Keeping" he explains the problems of starting a show too soon. This has always been a bit of a problem for me. Last weekend, I did my card tricks to gather the crowd, I would start to go into the cups, when I would break character, look at the crowd and confess to them that I am not as funny as I think. I asked them to help me in an theatrial experiment in the understanding of comedy. I explained to them the whole funny, not funny thing. I further explained that at any point I may point to someone in the crowd and ask them, "Funny or Not Funny". I added that they did not need to wait for me to ask and they could offer up their opinion at any point.

I was amazed at how well this worked! Not only as a bit, but as an actual way to help me understand what is and isn't funny to most people. The biggest unexpected benefit was, that I was connecting with my audience in a new and profound way. It opened my show up in a new way and slowed me down.

At the end of the weekend I tried a few shows using all of the data from these experiments to remove all the jokes that were not funny.