Analyze the Humor that Makes You Laugh
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In his book, Professors are from Mars® Students are from Snickers®, author Ronald A. Berk says, “Analyze why your role model(s) make you hysterical. Is it the jokes themselves, the way they are told, or a combination of both.”
Role models are good sources to help guide your humor writing–guide, not copy. You still want to develop your own voice, but aping the experts can help you know what works on you and give you a feel for what will work for others.
The combination of the jokes and the way they’re told or written is probably what makes you laugh. Still, good humor doesn’t always have to be laughing-out-loud funny.
I like gentle humor and satire that earns a smile, even if I don’t role on the floor laughing.
Sometimes when you’re content to write for smiles, and you’re doing it well, the big jokes will come and surprise both you and your readers. Hilarious and hysterical are good targets, yet they’re hard to hit when you write uptight. Relax and let it flow. Hear the voice of your role model(s). Would he/she/they think your material is funny?
Following is an example that earns a smile from some and a guffaw from others.
The Zambia Hippo Census of 2009
By Jack Rawlins
It was New Year’s Eve 2009, the day of the annual hippopotamus census in Zambia. I was with my sometimes unfaithful guide, Gumbo, on the west shore of the Zambezi River just below Victoria Falls. As lousy luck would have it, we startled a group of hippopotamus poachers. When we turned to flee, one of them got off a lucky shot and nailed me in the keister with a poison arrow. I thought, “Oh, crap. This is a hell of a way to usher in the new year.”
Now, I’ve had more than my entitlement of dizzy spells in the pubs of Victoria, but the shot in my bum caused immediate vertigo. I spun, buckled to my knees and pled with Gumbo to suck out the poison before it was too late.
His calloused response? “No way, bro.” he said, “I ain’t about to put my lips on that big white ass of yours!” He was gracious enough, though, to yank out the arrow, cauterize the wound with a cigarette lighter and then apply a pain-easing, cooling, poison-sucking poultice mud pack.
In retrospect, Gumbo’s alternative non-traditional treatment probably saved both our lives.
Our pursuers were not in the mood for pursuit, and as we crouched in the dark jungle growth, they returned to the gleeful butchering of the hippo. We watched from our hiding place until, after a lunch break, they packed all they could carry and headed downriver to pedal their illegal haul.
Fortunately, none of them had ever been boy scouts. They were careless campers. They left behind a smoldering fire and a simmering pot of hippo stew.
I was still rocky on my feet and my butt smarted, but I was hungry and the stew smelled delicious. I know that hippo meat is tough and requires long, slow cooking. A recipe favorite among natives advises, “Add one rock the size of a coconut with the hippo meat and cook slowly until you can stick a knife in the rock.”
Apocryphal perhaps, but nevertheless, we found the stew delicious. As we finished our meal, I mused on the role of bull hippos. They can have as many as fifty cows in their harem. That may be why they don’t rush around wasting a lot of energy, but will fight to death to protect what they have.
When the poaching party was long out of earshot, my sometimes unfaithful guide celled our base camp and ordered a chopper. As we waited and finished our meal he said, “Well, Great White Counter, how did you like the stew?”
I burped a polite little burpette and said, “It tastes just like chicken, Gumbo.”
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