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05/02/2006: Like a Fat Kid in Corduroy, They Make Sounds with Their Legs


I got to interact with two lovely puppies while I was on vacation. Little tiny things that lived in a beach-side café, digging adorably in the sand and eating random bits of dropped starch. So cute! And I had that thought. That one that I think all of us have when we play with a small animal. "I'd agree to give birth, if I could have one of these instead of a baby."

Oh.

So… that's just me, then.

That was my attempt to execute a certain kind of tv joke in blog form. I was prompted to try this by a note from friend of the blog Lani. Lani is enjoying the continuing catalog of joke types. She writes:

"One of my favorites is the silent punchline, or what I call a cricket, when someone says something that doesn’t become a joke until the silent beat. They play off the other characters, and the audience, knowing a character so well that comment isn’t necessary."

Lani calls it a "cricket" to evoke the implied sound of crickets during the silent pause. Some shows use a real cricket sound here, but that's getting very tired. The joke form itself is evergreen, however.

Lani, bless her, even supplied examples, which Buffy fans may recall. The first is from the Buffy musical episode, in which Anya is wildly off-base in identifying the source of the evil:

"The first cricket that comes to me off the top of my head is when Anya sings, “Bunnies, it must be bunnies” and then there’s the shot of everyone just staring at her on a silent beat. Then back to Anya with “Or maybe midgets."

She also recalls this one, which is, interestingly, entirely silent, relying on an outlandish costume.

"A great cricket is when Giles opens the Magic Shop and he’s wearing the sorcerer getup and Buffy just stares at him for a beat, and he takes it off."

Like the analogy jokes that we talked about earlier, I think these jokes work because they come directly out of character. You're reminded of Anya's irrational fear of rabbits in the first example, and you're amused, conversely, by Giles' out-of-character decision to wear a costume, in the second example. It's a very common joke form, and I'm sure you can think of your own examples from Friends, from The Simpsons, etc. The Office is almost entirely constructed of crickets, come to think of it. Man, I love the Office.

I have two caveats about this joke form, however. As I was writing this entry, it occurred to me that my instinct is telling me it works better on film than on paper. So much of it is about the literal silence and the facial expression of the actor doing the reacting. On paper, in a spec, it may read not as much as a silent punchline, as it does an absent punchline. Have your friends read it, ask them about it, make sure you're getting the right effect.

My second caveat. If you do this, make sure you don't have the character who uttered the original line follow it up with "Did I say that out loud?" That was very funny the first time. (That was on Cheers, I think?) It is no longer funny.

But whatever the hazards, this is one of the joke types that comes out of character. And that makes it good. Look at The Office to see how the pros do it.

Lunch: A weird kind of shake with yogurt and tofu and soymilk and peanut butter and splenda. I want a burger.