Hello all. I already posted most of these in 'tell us a joke', but I'm just starting out on this joke writing business and would appreciate some more detailed feedback. I the 5 minute set I'm working on is mostly anecdotal / observational, but it can't hurt to have a few wordplay / weird one liners to toss out.

Apologies if this is a forum taboo.

I started a combined dental surgery / psychoanalysis centre. It's called Oral Fixation.

My plan to combat global warming by freezing the worlds oceans was apparently too 'radical'. I mean sure, it's polarising.

Surely all printers are 3D printers.

A collection of words joined together for comic effect? You mean an assortmanteau?

Say what you want about Thatcher, but she never messed around choosing a monopoly piece.

Which idiot called it 'Fight Club' instead of 'You're not even my real Brad'?

Which idiot called it 'American beauty' instead of 'Guns 'n' Roses' (appetite for destruction (?))

Which idiot called it the 9/11 memorial park instead of Osama bin Garden. (I have a lot of these, each stupider than the last)

thanks

Only the last one was anything like a joke for me. The two film ones didn't make any sense.

I like the 3d printer one.

Quote: danphobic @ 29th January 2014, 10:21 AM GMT

I like the 3d printer one.

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The printer joke is just a rip off of the 3D TV joke when they first came on the scene.

Echo what the other chap said, not really any jokes as such.

ah yes, I wondered if I hadnt heard something along similar lines before and that makes sense. I wonder if the person who made the TV one ripped it off from someone who had made it in the 80's about glasses :chin: Who had in turn ripped it from that well known theoretical physicists joke :

3 Dimensionsal wave functions? Surely all wave functions exist within 3 or more dimensions in any theoretical model of the multiverse?

oops better return to the drawing board. The second one has done well amongst friends - although it might rely on my accent making polarising sound like polar icing.

I stand by the oral fixation one because if you can't make a joke about freud what's the point.

The 3d printer one - I hadn't heard the 3d TV joke, but you are right it's very similar and too close to use. The format - All X are Y X however wouldn't be a rip off ' All mayonnaise is egg mayonnaise' for example is valid albeit stupid.

I won't defend the others because two people have said there's no jokes there and two points is enough data to base a trend on, so I'll go back and try and write a few new ones.

thanks!

No offence to the people on here but I would take all advice on individual jokes with a pinch of salt, the only real way to find out which jokes work and which don't is to try them in front of an audience.

A joke which doesn't work on screen could work very well when delivered on stage.

Write 100 jokes, try them out at a new material/open spot night, take the 10 best ones and put them in your set, repeat as necessary.

Quote: Tony Cowards @ 29th January 2014, 1:43 PM GMT

No offence to the people on here but I would take all advice on individual jokes with a pinch of salt, the only real way to find out which jokes work and which don't is to try them in front of an audience.

A joke which doesn't work on screen could work very well when delivered on stage.

Write 100 jokes, try them out at a new material/open spot night, take the 10 best ones and put them in your set, repeat as necessary.

View original

I agree with your point Tony, in that some jokes do work better spoken rather than written (mainly puns) but I couldn't really see any of the above jokes working on stage.

Quote: Nick81 @ 29th January 2014, 1:58 PM GMT

I agree with your point Tony, in that some jokes do work better spoken rather than written (mainly puns) but I couldn't really see any of the above jokes working on stage.

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Neither can I, if I'm totally honest, although I think if re-written and delivered in the correct way "Osama Bin Garden" and a couple of the others could get a laugh.

The thing I would say though is that not even the best writers or comedians can ever know with 100% certainty what an audience will laugh at, I've done new material nights where the stuff I wrote which I thought would kill got nothing and the, in my opinion, weaker stuff has got big laughs.

Speaking to one-liner comics such as Tim Vine, Milton Jones and Gary Delaney, they've all said that the best hit rate they ever have is about 50/50, so the "trick" is to write lots and lots of jokes, try them out and harvest the wheat from the chaff.

This is not having a go at the original poster but it makes me smile when people post on here "Check out my jokes" and then I click on the post and there are 8 jokes. Any serious joke writer should be writing at least 8 jokes per day, so rather than try to get feedback on those jokes I'd advise going away and writing another 92 jokes and learn for yourself what's funny and what's not.

In fairness, he did say he'd got a lot more.

Quote: Tony Cowards @ 29th January 2014, 1:43 PM GMT

No offence to the people on here but I would take all advice on individual jokes with a pinch of salt, the only real way to find out which jokes work and which don't is to try them in front of an audience.

A joke which doesn't work on screen could work very well when delivered on stage.

Write 100 jokes, try them out at a new material/open spot night, take the 10 best ones and put them in your set, repeat as necessary.

View original

I'm not sure this advice is always fair, it takes along time to build up the gag writing skills to be able to confidently write a dozen gags a day. And even then as it's been said when someone posts 8 jokes, it's usually their best 8, post 800 average jokes uses up little more than bandwith.

And as for jokes only working on stage. I do maybe 3 gigs a year, standup is more of a hobby. But I can sell jokes over and over, as do several other writers on this site. I've never been a bestman but I've written dozens of bestman speeches.

Quote: Tony Cowards @ 30th January 2014, 10:14 AM GMT

Neither can I, if I'm totally honest, although I think if re-written and delivered in the correct way "Osama Bin Garden" and a couple of the others could get a laugh.

The thing I would say though is that not even the best writers or comedians can ever know with 100% certainty what an audience will laugh at, I've done new material nights where the stuff I wrote which I thought would kill got nothing and the, in my opinion, weaker stuff has got big laughs.

Speaking to one-liner comics such as Tim Vine, Milton Jones and Gary Delaney, they've all said that the best hit rate they ever have is about 50/50, so the "trick" is to write lots and lots of jokes, try them out and harvest the wheat from the chaff.

This is not having a go at the original poster but it makes me smile when people post on here "Check out my jokes" and then I click on the post and there are 8 jokes. Any serious joke writer should be writing at least 8 jokes per day, so rather than try to get feedback on those jokes I'd advise going away and writing another 92 jokes and learn for yourself what's funny and what's not.

View original

I write around 15-20 jokes a day and often wonder why I bother posting them on Sickipedia for free when surely I could do something more useful with them.

Also jokes can work well on stage that aren't good jokes at all
The Audience at Comedy nights are more often than not kind to the performers as they want them to be good.
Good performers can make crappy material work.

I have yet to have any reason to believe Sickipedia is anything other than a dead end

If you're writing that many good jokes, go on Twitter people will hire you if you're a succesful twitterer.

Though that usually means hundreds if not thousands of follower
s.

Quote: sootyj @ 30th January 2014, 11:20 AM GMT

I have yet to have any reason to believe Sickipedia is anything other than a dead end

If you're writing that many good jokes, go on Twitter people will hire you if you're a succesful twitterer.

Though that usually means hundreds if not thousands of follower
s.

View original

This.

Pretty much all the writing jobs I've had (commercial radio, BBC radio, speech writing, writing for other stand ups, gagging up Fringe shows, greetings cards, Christmas crackers, etc, etc) have come through twitter.

I've built up a reputation on there as a joke writer and now people approach me to write jokes for them for actual money. Most of my jokes still end up on Sickipedia too but you might as well put them out there yourself and see if you can do anything with them.