Putting ‘Em on the Right Laugh Track

Judy Brown is one of a handful of stand-up comedy teachers in L.A. who believes anybody can be funny. A former comedy critic for L.A. Weekly, she recently wrote “Joke Soup” (Andrews McMeel, 1998), a collection of jokes from contemporary comedians that is now in its second printing. She also teaches an eight-session joke-writing workshop, which she began in 1991 through UCLA Extension but which is now independent. At a recent signing at Book Soup in West Hollywood, she shared some of her tips.

“Writing a joke is a craft, like learning how to macrame,” Brown says. To create a joke, she suggests aspiring comedians start with what they know and write a list of loves and hates.

The audience seems leery at first of sharing personal information with total strangers. You can almost hear the air being sucked out of the room when one young woman shares, “I hate driving because one time I was on the freeway and a hit-and-run driver crashed into me and I broke six bones and ended up in a body cast.”

Is this a group therapy session or a joke workshop? “It’s like therapy,” Brown says. But how to make a punch line out of a debilitating car accident? Brown insists it can be done. “More jokes come out of pain than love.”

If the setup is the beginning of a conversation, the punch line is what happened. “The punch line has an element of the unexpected that connects it to the first part.” Unlike the intro, the punch line does not have to be based in truth and is often a gross exaggeration, Brown says.

“An easy trick to get to the punch line is to find what you could love about what you hate, or what you could hate about what you love. If that doesn’t work, I tell my students [to] pretend they are New Yorkers, to be sarcastic.”

Back to the car accident victim: “I hate driving because one time I was on the freeway and a hit-and-run driver crashed into me and I broke six bones and ended up in a body cast . . .” (The all-important comedic pause.) “But at least with this body cast on I won’t have any back pain.” The room is silent.

“How about, but at least I met a lot of cute doctors?” a man chimes in from the back. “That’s it!” Brown says triumphantly as the room breaks into tentative laughter.

It’s the interaction between students that keeps Brown teaching. “It’s like being in the writers’ room at a sitcom.” Many of her students have gone on to become regular performers at the Comedy Store and writers on TV shows like “South Park.”

“Only two of my students have not gone on to perform,” she says. “They were insane--really!”

“How about this?” a man asks from the front. “I love bouillabaisse so much, the other day I ate two bowls of it. Next day I climbed on my talking scale and it said ‘One at a time, please!’ ”

“Great!,” Brown says. “If this was a club and we were drinking, that would have gotten a laugh.”

Maybe that explains the two-drink minimum at all of L.A.’s comedy clubs. Wait a minute, was that a punch line?

For information about Judy Brown’s Standup Comedy Workshop, call (310) 396-8425.