“Unlike drama or ballet or sculpture, you know when you’ve made comedy: it’s when people laugh.”


I guess this book should die because it really wasn’t very funny.

That sounds harsh and I’ll be up front that I don’t think I was the target audience for this book. It wasn’t quite the type of book I was expecting going into it.

I’m a pretty hilarious person so the idea that I could become even funnier if I knew all the principles of comedy is what drew me to this book. While there were some decent things to learn here, it turns out I really don’t know much about comedy or at least in the pop culture world because there were very few references that I recognized. I don’t know if it was because they were British things or if I’m just so illiterate of the comedic world— which is actually very possible.

The Office and Nate Bargatze and some random SNL skits are probably the big rocks of my comedic knowledge.

And if that tells you— I probably shouldn’t care what this woman says about this book— you may very well be correct.

I’m not out to write a really good comedy script or do stand-up. I just wanted to become a better storyteller or joke-deliverer. However, my husband is tinkering with writing some sort of funny animated show and so what I did highlight in this book was mostly things that I thought may be helpful to him as he’s thinking through that.



This book felt very, very long (it’s 57 chapters; 364 pages). I think it would have been more effective if it was shorter. Sooooo much of it felt repetitive. We get it. Evolution and comedy make total sense (nope…) and nobody laughs if they’re in danger and comedy is about defining groups and making people feel safe and you need to confound them. But we don’t need like ten chapters of each thing.

Maybe it’s because I read it so sporadically and if I had read bigger chunks at a time it would have felt like it flowed better. The science of comedy and the evolutionary exploration was towards the beginning of the book and I was pretty ready to be done with that so I skimmed a large portion of the book. And then I skipped over probably the 60-80% section so I have no idea what was in there. I liked the last section better where it talked about characters.

I think I probably could have skipped the first 175 pages in general and been fine.

If you’re wondering, the book is split into 6 parts: Comedy is Human; Comedy is Music; Comedy is Us; Comedy is Character; Comedy is Story; …And the Punchline.



I think it’s interesting how hard evolutionary biologists have to work to make sense of the world. He points out how humans are the only animals that make jokes: “There is, as far as we know, no comedy in the animal kingdom.” And somehow they’re convinced that millions of years of evolving led to people (or whatever they would call them) to be like, let’s start laughing more and being hilarious so our tribe can survive more, I think that would be a good idea.

I’m not here to debate evolution, that’s for an argument for A Biblical Case Against Theistic Evolution, but when I read about people trying to explain certain things by way of evolution, it just makes me stand in more awe of a Creator. It just makes me appreciate and love God more that he created humans with the ability to laugh and the minds to create jokes and comedy, and that he created a way to lighten our spirits and bond with others and that’s really cool.



To give you a better sense of what kinds of things are in this book, here are some quotes. Some of them are pretty good. But just keep in mind, these are within the context of a really long book and you might get a whole chapter talking about just one of these quotes over and over again but just with different words (and some same words):

“[Comedy] can help declare our values, when we want to say who we are, or feel that identity is under threat. It can neutralise threats with absurdity. It can provide relief when we need cheering up. it can help us bond with friends. What makes us laugh is as much part of our identity as what makes us dance, or cry.”

“The feeling of bottled hysteria— the recognition of common values, the hint of transgression, the moment of relief, the warmth of ownership and intimacy, the sharing— is the pure essence of comedy.”

“Every transgressive, dark or shocking comedy is still meant to reassure, by testing the boundaries of our group values. Shock comedy can be a way of ‘othering’ nonmembers of the group whom we wish to test, or drive away, but every offensive joke that horrifies an outsider solidifies the in-group by contrast.”

“We laugh more readily and more often when we are in company, because laughter is intended to be a social act.”

“There is notable statistical bias towards prioritizing humour as a desriable trait in a potential partner by women…”

“Incongruity is expecting one thing and getting another. And that’s how comedy works… Comedy is a game that humans play, which challenges other humans to guess what is coming next.”

“different sorts of jokes, such as puns, seem to light up different parts of your brain, which is a fascinating idea.”

… a summation of the essential elements required to make comedy might be listed simply as 1) Expectation 2) Surprise 3) Relief.”

“Comedy might be seen as the silly relation of the finer storytelling arts, but it gives your brain more extreme mental exercise, faster, than almost anything else. And that is really good for you.”

“What I think comedy has, at its best, is not truth, but clarity. And that’s because it is an art form that relies for its effects on balance, mirroring, symmetry, rhythm, contrast, pace, harmony, juxtaposition, and surprise.”

“Here are your three keys: 1. Construct (Interesting…) 2. Confirm (Of course… as I expected) 3. Confound (Hey!)”

“Character needs to be established quickly, and then we relax, and look for pattern matches.”

“Comedy is always the art of reading the room. Comedy has become a very different beast on social media in recent years, precisely because the difficulties of defining that room.”

“The common features of a joke are that: it plays games of expectation and surprise using our pattern-detecting system, it returns us to a safe state, which we may indicate to others with laughter, and it forms or reasserts a social bond within a group.”

“There’s an old comedy writer’s trick that your ensemble of characters is only ready for use when you know instantly how every one of them would react to the same stimulus.”

“If characters change, or obfuscate their motives from the audience, that’s getting dangerously close to drama.”

“Comedy isn’t meant to make everyone laugh at the same things. It’s meant to divide us, and delight us, to appeal to niche audiences. it’s not mean to bring the world together in harmony to laugh at the ultimate joke that tickles us all equally. It’s meant to gather us in small tribes, under the flag of whatever joke we, and only we, like best.”


Recommendation

If you are in the business of or would like to be in the business of stand-up comedy or writing comedy, you might find this book helpful.

If you want to know how many obscure comedy moments you know about, this might be the perfect test.

If you just want to be the life of the party, you probably don’t have the stamina for this book.

This book is for a very niche audience and I cannot tell you if that’s you. You must look deep inside yourself, all the way into your funny bone, and see if these words are written on its heart.

If that sounds dumb to you, you probably would actually like this book.

Anyway, why am I still rambling on… I don’t have much to contribute to this situation.


**Received an ARC via NetGalley— also I thought this was a new release because it was on NetGalley but turns out it was published in March 2024**

Joel Morris has done a grand job on exploring 'the funny' here, I had a good time with it. His style is natural and not preachy

This is a comedy writer's guide to how humor is crafted. It's a bit popular psychology and a bit of a how-to guide. If one is expecting, because it's on comedy and humor, a book that is a laugh riot on every page, this isn't the book for you. That's not so say Morris doesn't pepper the book with witty commentary and humorous examples, but it's ultimately a book about how the sausage gets made and is, thus, somewhat analytic -- if in a readable style.

At the core of Morris's theory of comedy is a three-component structure: construct, confirm, and confound. Other major ideas are the fundamental tribalism of comedy and the connections between comedy and music. It wouldn't be a present-day book on comedy if there wasn't some discussion of the idea of offense and the "limits" of what can be said.

I can't say all of Morris's ideas found immediate resonance with me, but even when I didn't fully buy the argument, I did find the presentation thought-provoking. For example, I don't know that I buy Morris's argument about the importance of tribality to comedy. I do agree that one needs a common language and some overlap of experience, but all of humanity has a domain of overlap of experience. Yes, one may have an easier time the more extensive that overlap is, but ease doesn't necessarily mean one can't get big laughs from an audience whose worldviews and experience are radically different from one's own. [Of course, I may just be being overly sensitive as a traveler in a tribal world.]

For writers, the end of the book has a few chapters that are more about story than comedy - per se, and - while these chapters compare and contrast comedy and drama writing - they provide information useful to any writer engaged in storytelling.

I'd highly recommend this book for any readers interested in comedy writing, be it of standup material, scripts, or other content.

As one of the humans that did not evolve to be funnier or read the room better, I really appreciated this. I thought the idea of breaking down the science and philosophy of comedy was quite a hot take. I am always in search of what book can make me better, faster, more beautiful, and/or more funny. So this really spoke to me. I scanned these pages through my robot brain. After tabulating the results I have determined: I shall die.

I thought this book was really fantastic. It did have many things that I enjoyed. In my opinion, the writing came from a more scientific than comedic angle. I also frequently didn't understand the headings of the sections, and it made it difficult to go back and reference things. I also thought this could have called a few pages .

Don't throw your tomatoes yet! I
My critiques are pretty nitpicky. I'd give it 3.5 rounded up. Just be prepared to buckle in for a long intellectual journey.

This was everything that I was hoping for and enjoyed from this type of book. The concept was everything that I was hoping for and enjoyed the use of comedy. Joel Morris wrote this perfectly and was engaged with what was happening and how the story was told.

This one starts out very academic, then turns too British, before striking brilliance and ending with a shaky, rushed landing. There's a ton of useful information in here; you just have to do some parsing. As a stand-up, I enjoyed most of the book, especially the sections about story and characters. I would recommend it more to comedy screenwriters. But it's worth checking out if you've exhausted the other popular options.

Firstly, I was so looking forward to reading this book, and feel absolutely chuffed to have read it.
As a considerable chunk of my education, I studied humour theories/theories on and of humour.
I would like to say that the scholarly literature around these topics are still rather limited and developing in comparison to our understanding of writing, making, conveying pure drama.
I wanted to see if there were any new materials on comedy, but mostly, because of my familiarity with the author’s comedy writing, I wanted to learn some practical tricks and information about making comedy.
The author promises to give the secrets to comedy in the end, and throughout the book.
I agree with his summarisation, and enjoyed many examples and tips, and his insights.
Perhaps due to my specific needs, I believe this book will be more liked by those who are starting to read about comedy, making, writing, analysing comedy. I am glad it exists.

I was pleasantly both surprised and amazed by how much detail Morris covered in this book. Humour and comedy is a topic that is clearly so close to his heart and he did great justice in tackling the topic in a scientific way whilst also infusing his own relationship with comedy into the mix.

Usually not a topic I'd be super enthusiastic about but it's hard not to become passionate when reading this. I learnt so many things about comedy and humour's role not only in personal life but in society's since the beginning of time, really. 'We like what we like. We don't like what we don't like and that tells us what we're like' has to be one of my favourite observations from this book that just caught me completely off guard.

I really think not a single stone was left unturned with this book and there was so much care taken in addressing how Morris handled topics. Even the analogy of reserving 'the right to enjoy some of the beautiful buildings, even if I might not want to have dinner with the. architects' was just put so eloquently that I couldn't fault Morris one bit. He completely and unapologetically understands the role of comedy in life and the mechanism of how it works.

Joel Morris is a very funny man. With his writing partner, Jason Hazeley he has written for Diane Morgan's great comedy creation, Philomena Cunk, helped write both Paddington films, has contributed to adult comic Viz and wrote the hilarious series of Ladybird book parodies which were bestsellers a few years ago.
Here, however, he does not really talk about himself but draws upon his vast wealth of experience and knowledge to provide a thorough and in depth analysis of how comedy works. All of which makes this book sound a lot more pompous and inaccessible and a lot less fun and interesting than it actually is.
How exactly do jokes work? What is an anti-joke joke? Why do so many situation comedies rely on similar formula for their set-ups and storylines? For example, both Only Fools and Horses and Father Ted use three main characters; one old man (Grandad/Uncle Albert and Father Jack), one more ambitious middle-aged man (Del Boy and Father Ted himself) and one young idiot or "plonker" (Rodney or the hapless Father Dougal) as their foundation. Other shows such as Friends are almost mathematically calculated to maximise the comedic possibilities of utilising the six main characters to best service the various storylines.
Morris also dissects existing comedy scripts (such as the screenplay of animated comedy hit, The Incredibles and the episode of Peep Show featuring Mark's disastrous wedding to Sophie) to examine the mechanics of the comedy in detail.
Some may find it exhausting at times but overall this is a very thorough and enlightening text which also finds the time to be genuinely funny in its own right.