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Some jokes work better when said out loud than in print. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve just remembered a really good example of this. I remember seeing an episode of The John Larroquette Show with the following joke (approximate, from memory):

JOHN
Your mother is Connie Rogers?

RACHEL
She was. She changed it to Connie Selleca.

JOHN
Oh. After the…

RACHEL
After the car.

A very strange little joke. Whatever you may think of it, you have to admit that it works far better when heard and not read. If you end up with a joke like this in your spec you may be debating how to properly get it down on paper so that it works — add some stage directions to clarify it, maybe?

Nope. Cut it, change it. There is always another joke. This is probably the biggest lesson of comedy writing. No matter how much you love a joke, even if a particular joke was why you decided to write a certain episode, there is always another one. I’ve seen scripts where a given spot in a given scene is (temporary) home to more than a half-dozen jokes over the course of a week. And those are just the pitches that made it onto the page at some stage. Many more will have been pitched in the room.

Give it a try. Pick a random joke in your script. It can even be one you like, and imagine you’ve just been told that the only change you need to make is to improve that joke. I bet you can do it. Now do it with every single joke in your script. It’s just like being on a show!

Lunch: Vietnamese rice noodles with pork and shrimp