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...

Cameo City

Natalie Nicolian reprises her role as Alison on this week's STBD.
On this week's episode of STBD, we had cameo appearances by Dean and Alison, neither of whom are regular cast members anymore but each of whom was available to pop in for a quick scene.

That's the beauty of having a cast that's forever growing larger: the world these characters live in keeps getting larger as well. Characters who haven't been part of the story for months or years can still bump up against the current focus of the series and, in some cases, still have an impact on the characters we still follow.

It's kind of like life.

Speaking of which, we have at least one more major cameo appearance on the horizon this season, as well as a whole new breed of cameo: the local Pittsburgh "celebrity" cameo -- or, more accurately, "weblebrity."

Ever since PodCamp Pittsburgh, we've been far more aware of the growing internet culture around here than we had been previously. With this many bloggers, podcasters and artists in town, it's only natural that some of them start making appearances on STBD. That trend kicks off in next Monday's episode, so keep your eyes open...

Oh, and if YOU happen to be a personality (Pittsburgh or otherwise) who'd like to make a cameo appearance on the show, drop us a line and let us know. We're always looking for people who have a sense of humor, especially about themselves...

Personality of a Group

Often, scenes in STBD need to be tinkered with.

Perhaps a location needs to be switched. Perhaps a useful prop changes the opportunities within a scene.

Most often, it's because an actor is added to or subtracted from the scene, changing its entire dynamic.

Coming and Going

Let's say you're out with a friend at a bar, having a conversation. While you're talking, you're greeted by someone else your friend knows very well, but whom you've never met. Suddenly, the entire conversation changes.

- You can no longer talk about anything personal because now you're in the company of a stranger.
- Your friend and the new acquaintance have numerous anecdotes to share, none of which involve you.
- Suddenly, YOU'RE the stranger in the room.

A similar thing happens when characters get added to or subtracted from scenes.

Sometimes a scheduled scene will be knocked off-kilter because one of the actors becomes unavailable. Alternately, an actor may become unexpectedly available and offer to join a scene. This often happens if we're filming back-to-back scenes in a location and an actor who was only needed for the 1st scene decides he or she has time to be involved in the 2nd scene as well -- if it would be useful.

Then, on the fly, we need to decide if there's room in the scene for another voice.

But it's more than just a reallocation of dialogue, or even the invention of new lines; the presence (or absence) of a character in that scene now affects the rhythm of the scene, as well as the actions and intentions of the other characters.

Bite Your Tongue

For example: let's say Caroline and Dierdre are discussing something personal at Affogato. If we decide to add Rich to the scene, that directly affects Caroline (who's forced to become more "professional" and guarded because her boss is there) and Dierdre (who doesn't know Rich personally and therefore would be reluctant to talk openly).

Conversely, if a scene calls for Leo, Dex and Chloe to be locked out of a car in a parking garage, and then we discover Dex can't be part of the scene after all, this changes the scene's dynamic -- and what it's actually about. Instead of three headstrong, impetuous personalities trying to one-up each other, each with their own motivations, we're now left with an awkward moment between Leo and Chloe. In this situation, Leo would almost certainly be trying to impress Chloe in the first place, until he realizes he's locked out, at which point his ability to impress her becomes nil and she visibly gains the upper hand.

Just like that, the comedy of the scene -- and its weight within the script -- changes.

A change like that might not just affect one scene, but its placement within the script -- or its relocation to a completely different episode.

Just like a recipe, the addition and subtraction of ingredients in a story can drastically affect the end result.

Plot vs. Non-Plot

[This blog post turned out to be exceedingly long. Get some coffee.]

Our first season of STBD is a misnomer. It's only five episodes, which amounts to an hour's worth of video.

In actuality, Season One is really one short film script, subdivided into sections by necessity.

Conversely, seasons two, three and four were written on the fly. Real-life variables, including cast availability, forced us to switch things up on the move. This resulted in a fluid yet dramatically awkward approach to storytelling. The actors didn't know how the story was going to end because NONE of us knew if we'd be able to film what we needed to film, or when.

That approach has proven to be unsatisfying all around, so we've tabled it for now, in favor of working within a more tightly-plotted script. We'll still allow for situational improvisation, but we're aiming to tell a more cohesive, coherent story.

In essence, we're returning to the Subdivided Film Script theory.

From One Three Act Structure, Many

Instead of thinking in terms of "seasons," I'm thinking in terms of story arcs. Every character has his or her own trajectory, and some reach new milestones in their personal adventures faster than others. As these stories intertwine, and similarities begin to develop, the bonds of a unified series of plot points eventually coalesces into One Story.

This One Story may take three episodes or ten episodes to tell; it may even take 40. But what it actually IS, when you break it down, is one large script, subdivided by necessity into smaller, bite-sized pieces, which we'll call "episodes."

Sound analytical? It is, in a way, although it's been proven to work for thousands of years. It's the same general three-act structure used since the days of Plato, and which has driven countless works of dramatic and comedic art throughout the centuries.

It also worked pretty well in Season One, so we speak from experience.

In Defense of Plotlessness

Personally, as a writer, I'm perpetually torn between wanting to tell a story that jumps off the page and wanting to tell NO STORY AT ALL, and allowing the minutae of interactions between the characters to draw us incrementally into their world. It's the difference between Casablanca and Seinfeld, although each can incorporate elements of the other.

In a plot, something happens. Characters are affected. A statement is made.

In a non-plot, nothing happens. Characters may or may not be affected. A statement may or may not be made.

Plots are artificial simplifications of life, yet are traditionally emotionally satisfying because they can be processed.

Non-plots are stylized commentaries upon life. They are traditionally unsatisfying emotionally because they are incomplete, yet that is exactly why they hold such appeal to the audiences who appreciate them: they feel more like real life.

The STBD Challenge

Something to Be Desired was always meant to be a commentary upon real life. By that declaration, it's designed to be a non-plot.

And yet, our most successful story arc thus far was our first season, which follows Jack through a series of miniature encounters until he comes to the series' titular conclusion: "Sometimes, real life leaves a little..."

Subsequent seasons have failed to generate the same dramatic buzz, with few exceptions: The Dean and Caroline romance (which has a beginning, middle and end), the mystery of the box Dex gives Dierdre for Christmas (which has a beginning, middle and end)...

See the trend? Our audience -- most audiences -- respond most strongly to plot-driven sections of the story because those include events and realizations that people can react to and form opinions about. This is why, unless a story is defiantly anti-plot (think Russian Ark or most Godard films), even the most plotless of ventures still hangs upon a "hook" or "conceit" of some kind. Even Seinfeld: in every episode, some small interconnection of minor observations or actions compounds to create a final realization, either in a character or in the audience.

The Downside of Plot

Interestingly, "plot" can also be seen as the playground of a) a primitive audience, which needs the security of a beginning / middle / end, as the first audiences of stories presumably did, or b) an American audience. Foreign film fans will notice far less adherence to the rigors of plot in some of the most successful non-American films of all time, which begs the question: are American audiences, and therefore American storytellers, primitive in comparison to audiences of the world?

By and large, the public wants a story it can digest, learn from, agree or disagree with, but primarily it wants a story that exists within processable boundaries. It wants a story where SOMETHING HAPPENS.

That doesn't mean STBD can't wander. It doesn't mean we can't go completely off the beaten path, under the brush, across a river and into the abandoned farmhouse of plotlessness from time to time. Look around: ALL SHOWS DO IT. There's not one successful film or TV show that doesn't include the occasional "character moment," or whatever shorthand you prefer for a scene or sequence that has nothing to do with the plot.

Why not?

Because the public ALSO demands that its stories be about something that happens TO CHARACTERS IT CARES ABOUT. And if all the characters in the story are doing is relating plot-driven information and racing from one location to the next, forever subservient to the dramatic demands of the story, they cease to feel like "people" we can empathize with. They lose their free will, their individuality, their ability for us to relate to them.

IF AN AUDIENCE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT CHARACTERS, IT WON'T CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM.

(This is the primary flaw you'll hear about Isaac Asimov and other "hard" science fiction writers: they're so wrapped up in WHAT'S HAPPENING, they forget to create characters the audience cares about, hoping instead that their abstract concepts -- "this could happen to mankind" -- will be enough to satisfy the dramatic needs of their stories. For the average audience member, trained to empathize with her heroes, it's not.)

Plot and STBD

So, you may be asking yourself, how does a series that has largely avoided traditional plot-driven stories intend to change its stripes without alienating its audience?

For one thing, we don't believe our audience is anti-plot. If anything, we feel they appreciate stories that result from -- and help define -- the actions of the characters themselves. As much as they may love Dierdre or Caroline or Leo, characterization doesn't happen in a vacuum; it's built by the characters' actions and reactions to one another.

As artists, we also enjoy knowing that audiences are generating opinions and reactions to our work. If we don't provide them with statements and actions to digest, they don't need to develop opinions about them. Feedback is a two-way street, and we can't expect large, vibrant discussions to be generated by plotless stories.

The cool thing, though, is HOW we intend to incorporate character and plot in the upcoming storylines... and what we feel is a pretty innovative way to include the audience in the process as well.

We'll talk more about that as we near our relaunch on March 26. For now, it's back to the plotting board...

The WANT Problem

Longtime viewers remember an age not so long ago -- atcually, just last season -- when Something to Be Desired was still primarily about the DJs who worked at WANT FM. Some of them have asked where the radio station went this season, and why we're spending so much time focused on Vanity Press, Affogato, etc.

The answer is simple: we lost the location.

WANT was always filmed in the WQED radio station in Oakland. Through a stroke of good fortune, they were open to our original need for a location back in 2003 and they allowed us to utilize their facilities, few questions asked, for the next 3 years -- as long as we didn't disrupt anything.

Considering some of the scenes we were able to pull off on their premises -- including Caroline and Dean's love scene in the studio that kicks off Season Three, which was accidentally witnessed in progress by one of the WQED engineers -- we think we made great use of the opportunity without making life difficult for our hosts.

But then, without warning, we were informed one July afternoon that we would need to wrap up our filming and never return to the premises again. We attempted to discern what the problem was, or if there was anything we could do to smooth things over, but the powers-that-be were not interested in negotiation. We needed to leave and that was that.

And so WANT ceased to exist.

Ironically, we'd already begun filming in that direction, with the fictional station in danger of being shut down due to the bank taking it over. Our plan involved Todd rallying the troops and making a valiant stand against inevitability, and wrangling another year of life out of the station until an even bigger problem would have beset them, but that storyline got yanked out from underneath us before the season even aired.

(Incidentally, we never did find out why we were asked to leave. But considering new management was involved, it could have been any number of things which, under previous management, might never have been noticed but which drew attention to us now.

Informally, I suspect it had something to do with one of our actresses accidentally walking into a WQED board meeting while wearing a bustiere, but I suppose we'll never know for sure.)

Life After WQED

So, we did the next best thing we could do: we shifted focus to Vanity Press and Affogato while trying to find a new radio station location for WANT.

When those other leads failed to pan out either, we realized that WANT might never ride again. It seemed a disservice to our longtime fans -- and characters -- to have their unifying location written out so incidentally, so we left ourselves open to an act of serendipity that would enable us to resuscitate the concept in the immediate future.

Enter: Rich's wild idea of taking the station online.

On one hand, we lose the physicality of the location that made the radio element so convincing. On the other hand, we're now freed to tackle the bigger issue: how we, as people, communicate -- especially when it's semi-anonymous. And, considering traditional media are still reeling from the impact of the internet, it seemed only logical that WANT's next respite might come from a bunch of tubes.

How will this plotline return to the fore? Check back when new episodes resume on March 26 and we'll all find out.

The Lloyd Problem

Having read through the STBD Fan Survey results, a few interesting points jump out to us. One, which we're pretty proud of, is the continued affection viewers feel for the characters of Jack and Dean, who have left the series but haven't left the minds of the viewers.

One thing the viewers don't always realize -- and may not necessarily care about -- is that Dan Stripp (who plays Jack Boyd) and Shaun Cameron Hall (who plays Dean Dockerty) left STBD due to opportunities and obligations that superseded their connection to the series.

In real life, Dan and his wife had a baby and moved closer to her family, while Shaun decided to explore grad school opportunities in Virginia. Neither of them wanted to leave STBD, necessarily, but they realized their next steps would take them away from Pittsburgh.

This doesn't mean Jack and Dean have ceased to exist. On the contrary, Dean made a cameo appearance in a recent New Year's Eve episode of STBD, and Jack's next visit is always just off the horizon. In fact, their continued commitment to the show, even from afar, speaks volumes about how much they continue to enjoy their STBD experience -- and justifies how much the audience continues to miss them.

Which brings us to The Lloyd Problem.

At the beginning of Season Four, we contacted Hans Rosemond about possibly utilizing his photographic skills to help promote the show. After a brief conversation, he mentioned he'd also acted in the past, and would be interested in auditioning for us.

Long story short, his natural energy was something we realized we needed on the show -- especially since Dean had departed -- and so Hans joined the cast as Lloyd, a role we'd been trying unsuccessfuly to cast for over a year.

Lloyd had an uphill battle to fight in the eyes of the audience. Not only was he "not Dean," he also wasn't a character the audience could easily get a handle on. Depending on whose point of view you sympathized with, he was either a cocky bastard, an object of desire, a manipulator or an innocent man caught between multiple women. As opposed to a Jack or a Dean, Lloyd was a much more complicated "sell" as a leading man.

Still, the audience slowly bought into Lloyd over the first half of this season. His self-deprecating humor and manic energy helped win him fans, even as people continued to wonder what he was really all about.

And then Hans decided to leave Pittsburgh.

It's impossible to blame him, since his choice was the best one he could make for his career. He realized he'd have many more opportunities to succeed as a photographer in Chicago, where he'd attended college, than here in Pittsburgh, where the market and the rates (and the expectations) are significantly lower.

Unfortunately, his decision came in mid-December, and his departure date was just past New Year's. After taking most of the season to establish a tenuous love triangle with Caroline, Liz and Lloyd, we now had only three weeks to write Lloyd out of the series. That's one of the many loose ends we'll be wrapping up after our 6-week hiatus.

So now Lloyd follows Jack and Dean in the tradition of STBD leading men who leave the series prematurely. This leaves a bit of a hole in both the plot and the cast. How will we rebound? Tune back in starting March 26th and see how we adapt...