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04/29/2006: Don't Throw it Out, Throw it Away


One of the first shows I worked on was a sitcom called Monty. It didn't last for very long, although the cast included Henry Winkler, David Schwimmer and a very teenaged David Krumholtz. The show runner was the brilliant Marc Lawrence, who was extremely patient and kind with a certain green young writer. He also completely startled me by disagreeing with what I, at the time, thought was one of the unbreakable tenets of comedy writing. You've probably been taught to end joke lines "on the funniest word." Marc preferred lines that continued past the joke. Here's an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about, taken from a "Jake in Progress" script, because that's what I have at hand:

MARK
(to Jake, re: Adrian) Geez, when did this guy become such a prude?

JAKE
(absently) 1992. (then) See that girl over there?

And the conversation continues on, now about the girl at the next table. See the effect that you get? "1992" is where the laugh falls. But the line goes past it. This takes the pressure off the joke, allows it to be "thrown away," tossed out casually by the actor. As a result, the whole exchange feels more confident, less rim-shotty, less desperate. Even when it is just being read, not performed.

Here's another example adapted from the same script:

ADRIAN
But I thought things were going great with you two.

JAKE
They are! We go to the movies, and we talk, and she’s really cute and funny...

ADRIAN
You want her.

JAKE
Like Robin wants Batman. But she’s so happy that we’re taking things slow.

Here, the joke breaks on "Batman," but the line continues, driving us back into plot. Notice how even, frankly, a fairly cheap joke like this one feels better this way, when it isn't left hanging out there in the spotlight.

If you're writing an hour spec, instead of a half-hour, the same thing applies. Even more so, since very jokey humor is probably going to feel wrong in an hour, but thrown-away humor might feel just right. Here's an example from an episode of Angel in which Cordelia realizes she needs to cleanse her new apartment to get rid of a certain ghost.

CORDELIA
This is easy! Little old lady ghost. Probably hanging around 'cause she thinks she left the iron on. Let's get us a nice cleansing spell and do this thing!

It would've been easy to end the line with "left the iron on." But it would've felt jokier.

You can't, and shouldn't, do this with every joke in your script. But if you have a joke in your spec that's always bothered you because it feels too ba-dum-dumpy, try shooting past it a little bit. See how that feels.

Lunch: Scrambled eggs with salsa and canned diced chilies. Humble and homey.