Humor Writers: Take a Tip from Mel and The FBI: Profiling Works.
In Comedy Writing Secrets, Mel Helitzer says,”The first responsibility of every humorist is to evaluate the majority of the audience…” Unless your material is targeted for the right audience, you’ll suffer more than collateral damage: you will become the bomb.
Many years ago I attended a poultry producer’s convention in Pennsylvania where the highlight of the evening was crowning the annual Poultry Princess. This prestigious event was followed by a comedian. He was introduced with lots of credits as the hilarious somebody or other. He was not hilarious. He was raunchy. This was long before the “F” word became popular and he didn’t use it. But his material was still so non-family oriented he died a silent death before a wholesome family audience.
It was the first time I saw a professional bomb so badly before a live (though you’d never know it) audience. At the time, I felt a twinge of compassion for the poor guy. But in retrospect it was his own damn fault. It wasn’t his material that was so bad; it was his lack of knowing the audience.
It is often said that laughter is contagious. So is silence.
Humor writers should study the delivery van (venue) for their material whether it will be a newspaper, magazine, book, radio, TV or standup comic. In each case the writer must profile—at least in his noodle–the consumers of his material: the audience. What will they think is funny? You’re more apt to capture their sense of humor if you not only have a mental image of who they are, but also what they know and what kind of humor they like.
Filed under: Insights & Opinions, Writing Technique