Reponse # 2

In chapter three of “Comedy Writing secrets”, it talks about the importance of choosing your audience. It says that the audience you choose needs to be universal and that you should not narrow it down to please a certain group. If your jokes are not universal, then many people will not laugh or found them humorous at all. The best target for jokes is probably you. The audience will not get offended and it lets the audience know that it is ok to laugh. Some other good topics to talk about are sex, celebrities, places (countries, cities and local spots), products, and controversial ideas. As a humorist, you will never be able to get around the controversial issues, because everyone has a different opinion on different issues. Woody Allen said “bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.” That can come off as really offensive to those who are bisexual. That is why I think it is really important to stress the importance of the audience you are delivering to. There will always be one person who is offended, but you should always do your best when you are practicing your jokes. Try and make them as universal as possible.
This chapter gives an acronym to help you remember the six elements of humor. The acronym is THREES. This stands for Target, Hostility, Realism, Exaggeration, Emotion and Surprise. Throughout the chapter, tips are given to help you reach the six elements of humor. There are suggestions and exercises to help you bring out your humor.
I found this chapter very helpful because it gave topics and interesting topics to pull jokes from. It said that it was important to pick universal topics and to focus your attention on what the audience will like. The one part of this chapter that really interested me was when it talked about “ridicruel”. This is the second ingredient in the THREES recipe. It talked about how powerful this element is and that how we always have hostility towards someone or something. This is so true. I can definitely think of a time when I have said a joke on someone that I felt superior too. I think that people do this to make themselves feel better because they feel inadequate. This type of humor can be used to boost your self esteem and put someone else down. There are many topics that can fall under this category. For example there can be sex, race, background, religion, and class. The hard thing about this kind of humor is a lot of times these are the jokes people enjoy the most. These jokes can also be the ones that offend many people. The comedian tells these jokes at his/her own risk and does it at the expense of others. They tell these types of jokes because they think they will get a big laugh, but to some people they are very hurtful. An example of this would be people making fun of fat kids. These types of jokes are easy to laugh at, but for some it can be hurtful. This video is a good example of this.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/fat_kid_successfully_avoids