One aspect I am always struggling with in improv is that of being funny. Unfortunately for people like me, “To be a great one [improviser], you must be funny”. The quote is from the book “How to Be the Greatest Improviser on Earth”, from which I have drawn all the wisdom in this blog post.

I usually dislike jokes that break the scene for the sake of a laugh. “The students who try to make jokes and who seem to want badly to be funny - well, at first they can only do those things by breaking reality, by selling out their scene partner, by making jokes that insult the integrity of the scene itself”. So how do you get those laughs without affecting the integrity of the scene? The book “How to Be the Greatest Improviser on Earth” has some excellent tips on that. Following are three of those tips.

How to get those laughs

In the next sections I will explore specific means described in the book on how to achieve the funny in improv scenes. As “studying material”, I have chosen one improv show from youtube, and I tried to look for the “fun” elements described in the book. The show is played by the author of the book itself (Will Heines) and his brother (Kevin Heines). Does the preacher do what he preaches? It seems so, as you will see in the rest of the post.

The show is made of scenes centered around the incumbent mayor of some city (Will) and the newly elected mayor, not yet in office (Kevin). Other characters in the show are Marjorie (Kevin) - the wife of the incumbent mayor, a bump (Will) - the lover of Marjorie, a detective (Kevin), and an intern detective (Will).

Surprise

This trick boils down to saying yes to your scene partner in a way that takes people by surprise. Thus, you still respect the basic rule of improv on saying yes, and the surprise adds a fun effect.

Scene setting: Will plays the current mayor in office, soon to make way for the new elected mayor, Kevin.

Surprise: At some point, Kevin tells Will that he lost the elections because of the crazy things he talked about in the campaign debate. In a flashback, Will makes a speech in front of the electorate, talking about monogamy being bullshit, and about being glad he cheated on his wife. Then, at the end of the speech, he says “That’s my rebuttal of the tax plan”. Super funny, as the speech had nothing to do with the tax plan. Nevertheless, it is a topic that people expect a mayor to debate.

Challenge for the improviser: “Can you satisfy your constant desire to surprise while also fulfilling your obligation as a good improviser to make things true? Can you say yes in a way we did not expect?”

Patterns

“The other thing a funny mind craves is patterns. Make the interesting and funny parts happen again.” This boils down to finding phrases, movements, or even just words that are interesting, and that can produce a comedic effect when repeated. The problem is that you could easily break the reality of the scene just for the sake of reintroducing the same element. So, use this trick with care.

Scene setting: same as above, for surprise

Patterns: The incumbent mayor, in his talk to the future mayor, says the following things. “It was liberation. The pursuit of liberty, happiness. God damn it. Liberty in the pursuit of happiness. I was liberty.” “No makeup. You wear loads of makeup … metaphorically. I actually wear makeup. But I mean, like in terms of my personality.” Liberty and makeup are used repeatedly and makes the message much funnier.

Challenge for the improviser: Can you find a unique phrasing/movement/object and reintroduce it in the scene without breaking reality too much?

Be ironic

“Someone or something behaving in the opposite way from how we expect.”

Scene setting: Kevin is the main detective, and Will is an intern detective. They are investigating the death of an elephant.

Ironic situation: Kevin names all sorts of small clues to the intern detective. He also fabricates all sorts of crazy scenarios on how the elephant might have died. At some point, he says: “That brings me to another clue that maybe I moved past too quickly … footprints, the videotape surveillance footage with the homeless man …” In the end, they did not solve this obvious case. This is surprising even for a bad detective.

Another ironic situation: Marjorie - the wife of the mayor - and the mayor go on a vacation with the mistress of the mayor. The wife is completely okay with the situation. Ironic, right? You would not expect that.

Challenge for the improviser: Can you pick a strong character / situation, and reverse / twist a feature that is part of the identity of this character or situation?

Conclusion

You want to be funny in an improv show, but still keep the reality of the scene? Then remember to come up with something surprising, to create patterns, or to be ironic. In the next blog post, we will look at the rest of the means that help create the fun in improv scenes: to be a good voice of reason, to be unnecessarily specific, to care more than expected, and/or to initiate with premise.

Until next time!