What Makes Comedy Funny?

A woman's child dies. Tragic? Almost definitely.

A guy slips and falls down. Funny?

That depends on your entire life history.

Comedy Is Context

Drama tends to appeal to the human audience's broader sense of justice, of right and wrong, of tragedy vs. exultation. Deep down, we can say with certainty whether something is a positive or negative event. And, by and large, the bulk of humanity agrees with the typical evaluations: war, sickness and death are (usually) bad, and love, marriage and success are (usually) good.

Meanwhile, comedy appeals to a different part of the human condition: the intellect. In comedy, we don't require an emotional response for the laughs to be effective. Instead, we need a disconnect between the expected action and the actual action. That's the rift that causes surprise, which leads to amusement / hilarity.

But that rift is dependent upon what YOU expected to happen, and what YOU expected might not be what I expected to happen. That's because we all approach new information from different previous experiences, which determine whether something is confusing, surprising or offensive -- to US.

It also explains why one person might find the Three Stooges hilarious and someone else might find them unbearably idiotic.

What You Ate for Breakfast Determines Your Sense of Humor

Everything you've ever done, seen, heard or experienced influences your worldview today. The less you've done, the more easily you're surprised, and therefore the more likely you are to find something funny: your frame of reference is small enough that EVERYTHING is new / strange / different.

Thus, even if you don't laugh WITH someone, you're well-prepared to laugh AT someone (because they're different, and laughter is a safe form of self-defense.)

Meanwhile, if your life is more cosmopolitan -- if you have a wider basis of experience to draw from -- then you're less likely to be surprised by simple humor. You see the jokes coming. What 90% of the public finds surprising is second nature to you.

Congratulations: you're the kind of audience Hollywood hates.

YOU appreciate jokes that require lengthy set-ups and payoffs.

YOU enjoy witty turns of phrase and intellectual acrobatics.

YOU understand conflicts across multiple layers of characterization.

In short, you're an audience that requires more work from a storyteller in order to be surprised. This means you're in a rarefied niche. And you're incredibly hard to reach, because there are fewer artists with the tools necessary to surprise you.

This is why black comedies, satires and dialogue-driven comedies are in such short supply: their audiences are, by nature, much smaller. This means they're more work to make AND they're less-profitable.

And, meanwhile, the Scary Movie franchise keeps on chugging...

What Makes Comedy vs. Drama?

When you're writing or filming, you tend to know if you're creating comedy or drama. But do you know why? If you knew why, would you be better able to make GREAT comedy or GREAT drama?

Definitions

When what you expect to happen DOESN'T happen, that's comedy.

When the WORST thing that could happen occurs, that's drama.

These definitions are overly simplistic, but they apply in nearly every circumstance.

Examples

In Casablanca, the worst thing that could happen to Rick is that he'd meet Ilsa again. Then she walks into his bar. Then she needs his help. THEN she tells him she's married. And THEN she tells him she's still in love with him.

That's drama.

In It's a Wonderful Life, the worst thing that could happen to George Bailey is that he'd get stuck in Bedford Falls his whole life. Then he does. Then he goes broke. Then he gets into a fight, crashes his car and considers suicide.

THAT'S drama.

And just because a story has elements of one side, it doesn't mean it can't have elements of the other. (In fact, it needs some amount of balance, or else it becomes melodrama or farce.)

For example, in It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey is about to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge... but his guardian angel, Clarence, jumps into the water first, pretending to be a drowning man so George will have to save him. (That's drama.)

Then, after rescuing Clarence, George discovers he's hopelessly antiquated and out of touch, rendering him nearly inoperable in public. That's comedy.

THEN, when Clarence finds his opportunity to help George see the error of his ways -- showing him what his life would be like had he never been born -- he does so. At first, this is comedy. But as George sees just how dire everyone ELSE'S lives are as the result of the absence of his, the situation very quickly turns from comedic to desperately dramatic.

Without that ebb and flow between comedy and drama, most satisfying stories would fall apart from a top-heavy nature.

Practicality

Whether you're writing a blog, filming a video, recording a song or otherwise telling a story, what kind of story is it? What will make your drama more dramatic or your comedy more comedic? What's missing from your story that will help counterbalance it?