Wednesday, May 25, 2005

... is, believe it or not, the name of Johnny Carson's thesis. I don't know what other jokes he was thinking of, but I'd sure like to get a copy of it. Lisa says a friend read it and it was stupefyingly dull, but that's not the point. Poker books are dull too, but winning at poker isn't.

In Great Comedians Talk about Comedy, by Larry Wilde, which I'm reading now, Carson mentions "two way jokes, blackouts, cross-overs" as if we all know what those are. Maybe John Rogers does?

11:20 PM

2 Comments:

Comedy is so freaking hard to write. Many, many write comedy, but so very few do it well.

I wish I knew how to do it.

By  Anonymous, at 9:10 AM  

Blackouts are very quick bits that often go in between longer sketches. I believe the term comes from vaudeville where a light would have been shining on the comedian and then, at the end of the bit, the light would go out.

By  Peter, at 1:47 PM  

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