the UCB Theatre to catch the hottest stand-up show in town: âComedy Bang Bang.â The small black-box theater is crammed with twentysomethings in hipster T-shirts and baseball hats, swigging booze from brown paper bags beneath the venueâs prominent âNo drinkingâ signs. As usual for the show, nobody knows whoâs going to perform. But that doesnât matter to folks in the know. Tickets for the event sold out days ago, as they do most weeks.
When the show starts, Pete and I sit in back, taking it all in. Weâve seen so much stand-up lately we act like snooty connoisseurs, nodding and whispering to each other, âOh, thatâs funny,â rather than laughing like normal people.
Then, at the end of the night, the big special guest: Aziz Ansari,co-star of the sitcom Parks and Recreation and, alongside Louis C.K., one of the biggest comedy names around. Heâs here to work on material.
Ansari works the audience, asking what dating sites people frequent, and segues into an extended bit on internet matchmaking. He complains that as a child he was ignored by pedophiles, something he doesnât understand: âFor child molesters, I mustâve been like the hot chick at the bar.â The crowd eats it up, but with one graphic molestation joke, he takes it too far. The laughter dies.
âOh, come on!â he cracks in mock annoyance, gesturing at a digital recorder he has running nearby. âOther people have laughed at that. Iâve taped it. Want me to play it for you?â
Later, Pete realizes something: âComedians are using science.â While comics like Louis C.K. might deny thereâs a formula behind whatâs funny, theyâve all developed their own formulasâby experimenting bit by bit, recording their shows night after night and gauging the results. As weâve learned here in LA, itâs not about whether or not youâre funny, itâs how youâre funny: how you learn the ins and outs of the business, how you develop your comic perspective, how you mix honesty and humor, how you deal with bad venues, and how you handle your shot at fame. And the only way to learn is through hard, repetitive, empirical work. âComedians are experimenting every time they go up on stage and try a new bit and they gauge how the audience responds,â says Pete. âThey tweak it, see how it changes, tweak it, see how it changes.â
Yes, non-scientific stuff plays a role, too. Several months after our trip to Los Angeles, comic hopeful Josh Friedman sends us an e-mail. Heâs turned his attention to improv, he tells us: âAs an art form and personal activity, I find I enjoy it a whole lot more,â he writes.
The talent scoutsâ gut feeling was right. He didnât have stand-up in his soul.
Call it whatever you want, but experimentation is integral to being funny. âTo say that science canât help comedy is to ignore what comedians have learned throughout the years,â Pete says.
Yes, comedyâs a bit messy, a bit dangerous. But then again, so is science.
3
NEW YORK
How do you make funny?
Pete and I are staring at a cartoon from the New Yorker magazine, willing our brains to come up with the perfect caption for a drawing of a wolfman sitting in a barbershop.
The caption has to fitâbut it also has to be funny. And how do you do that? In Los Angeles, we poked around in the strange and off-kilter minds of the gatekeepers of comedy and came away with a rough idea of what makes them tick. But how do they create those jokes and routines in the first place? Not to mention, how do people come up with all the other forms of comedyânarrative poems and plays and animated cartoons and novels and sketches and sitcoms and short stories and movies and satire and caricatures and puns?
Thatâs what Pete and I aim to find outâstarting by creating a funny caption for a wolfman getting a haircut. How about,