JaneEspenson.com

Even after I got work on sitcoms, and got too busy to pitch at Star Trek:TNG and its other incarnations, I used to go haunt the halls of the Hart building every time I happened to be on the Paramount lot, just to get that great I’m-almost-on-the-Enterprise feeling. Oh! I was so envious — still am, a bit. One of the offices had a name on it in those years: Lisa Klink. I never got to meet her, but there weren’t many girls on the spaceship in those days, and I remembered the name.

Well, guess what came in the mail? Yessir, that’s right, a note from Lisa Klink! She reads this humble blog. I’m absolutely tickled!

And she brought treats for the class. She submits for discussion another example of funny from the world of hour drama. This is her reconstruction, from memory, of an exchange on Bones:

BOOTH
We don’t believe in things like witch doctors and zombies.

BONES
Didn’t Jesus rise from the dead?

BOOTH
(appalled)
Jesus was not a zombie!

I love this! Although I have to say I disapprove of having two major characters whose names look so similar on the page. Doesn’t that look confusing to you?

Lisa points out that it’s the mixture of the silly and the sacred that gives it its comedic power. Absolutely. And it’s also a great example of using humor to expose character. You can tell a lot about these characters just from this exchange.

This is what we call a “soft joke,” as opposed to the “hard” jokes of sitcoms. A funny exchange without a bing-bang punchline. It’s also very restrained. Personally I would’ve been tempted to extend the exchange. Continuing from where we left off:

BONES
He rose from the dead and walked around. How isn’t that a zombie?

BOOTH
That’s sacrilegious! That’s horrible!

Booth gives Bones a swat.

BONES
Ow! Heal me, Zombie Jesus!

Yep. That’s what I would’ve written. And then I would’ve cut it back again. The shorter version has all the comedy value without getting too broad. It’s more disciplined, it’s more real and it takes up less space. Also, I was working very hard to justify the phrase “zombie jesus,” but a quick Google search reveals a lot of instances of that phrase, so it’s probably not worth doing. This is a classic case of a light touch yielding the better result. It was worth trying the longer version, but then it’s important to know when less is more.

Not every joke worth doing is worth driving into the ground. This is one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn.

Thanks again to our guest star, Lisa Klink, for providing today’s show-and-tell!

Lunch: chicken with barbeque sauce made according to the South Beach Cookbook recipe. It was only okay.

First, an update. The day after I posted the entry about the Squiggy jokes, an actor friend of mine happened to be waiting for a voice-over audition, when who walked into the room?… Squiggy! If only there had been some warning, he could’ve set up the entrance!!

All right. Back to our regularly scheduled blog:

Have you heard about nudibranches? No? They’re the coolest things. Beautiful, brightly-colored, looking like tiny exotic glass art sculptures when photographed, they’re simply the most lovely sea slugs you’ll ever see. Do an image search for “nudibranch” and you will gasp with joy. Stunning. I’m hoping to see some on my next snorkel adventure. Can you imagine being an expert on these things? Fantastic.

Being a comedy writer can be like being a naturalist. Sometimes you stumble across a species that hasn’t been catalogued before. Here is an example of the small and exotic “audience assumption joke.”

GRACE
Barney’s was crazy. Ok, what would you do if there was only one size four cashmere camisole, and this woman starts crying, and says she needs it to wear to a funeral? You’d have to give it to her, right?

WILL
Yeah.

GRACE
Good… I think I’ll use that one again.

It’s a nicely surprising joke, and one of the most character-revealing kinds of jokes I can think of. Here’s a good one of the same type, this time from Friends:

CHANDLER
If I turn into my parents, I’ll either end up an alcoholic blond chasing after 20-year-old boys…or I’ll end up like my mom.

Here’s another one, a little different, but clearly in the same family, from the Simpsons. Grandpa Simpson is trying to cheer up Lisa, who is disappointed by a failed attempt at something:

GRANDPA SIMPSON
Oh, Lisa, don’t talk like that. I never thought I’d shoot down a German plane — and then last year…

This particular one doesn’t rely on the audience’s assumption about “who,” but their assumption about “when.” There was a similar one – even similar in content – on The Office recently too, in which Dwight is talking about his grandfather’s accomplishments in the war, finally mentioning that he ended up finishing out the war in a Allied prison camp! Hee! Assumptions are great!

I guess what I really like about these is that, like other techniques we’ve talked about lately, they presuppose an audience that’s thinking, that’s anticipating, that’s involved in the stories they’re being told. And if you expect that, you’re more likely to get that.

Lunch: Another In ‘N’ Out burger! Bunless! With rootbeer! I like my new deal with Universal. There’s an In ‘N’ Out right by Universal.

When I was in college, I lived in a place called Wolf House. It was co-op housing at UC Berkeley. And it was, I’m certain, exactly like you’re imagining it. A microcosm of 27 people sharing unisex bathrooms, heating bologna directly on the gas flames of the stove and only occasionally falling out of second story windows. I loved it. There was something about coming home to find a vigorous hacky-sack game *in the living room* that I miss.

Wolf House was full of smart-asses. I learned there to be very careful with word choice. (And not just because my Midwestern references to “pop” were routinely misheard as “pot.”) This was the kind of crowd where you didn’t want to refer to anything as “hard” or “up” without hearing a boner joke, and lord help you if you had anything to say about an actual beaver. Twisting words into something sexual is a comedy standard. Those years would serve me well.

Here are three television jokes I can think of instantly that use this technique. The first is a classic exchange from Friends. It went approximately like this:

RACHEL
I’m over you.

ROSS
When were you… under me?

This one was really quite sweet, since Ross doesn’t really intend the sexual re-interpretation, but finds the syntax leading him into it. Here’s another. This one is from the sitcom Cybil, reconstructed from memory:

CYBIL
Do you think either of us will ever fall head-over-heels in love again?

MARYANN
I think at our age, the best we can hope for is heels-over-head.

I like this one because the image is SO outrageous. Finally, here’s one I wrote for the Buffy ep “Harsh Light of Day,” in which Anya is trying to seduce Xander. She thinks having sex with him will help her forget him. It’s a little unusual since she’s re-interpreting her own language:

ANYA
It’s the secret to getting you out of my mind. Putting you behind me. Behind me, figuratively. I’m thinking face-to-face for the event itself.

Of course, these are all really just examples of taking a common idiom and then interpreting it literally. Sex wouldn’t have to come into it. Doug Petrie, for example, got comic mileage out the phrase “making money hand over fist” in a Buffy episode without bringing sex into it at all.

But sex does seem to make these more memorable. (American Dad reinterpreted the song title “Come On, Eileen” into the dirtiest punch line ever. I will remember that for a very long time.)

The best way to find these jokes in your own writing is just to pay close literal attention to what you write. If you do this, you’ll notice idiomatic speech all over the place that doesn’t make literal sense. Then take it literally. This is, of course, how those guys at Wolf House did it… they listened with their ears attuned to filth. And you can too!

LUNCH: a convenience store spicy tuna hand roll!

Have you seen “Ten Things I Hate About Commandments”? It’s from the same place that did the re-edit of The Shining into a trailer for a romantic comedy. This one re-edits the classic movie into a high school romp. So funny! Google around, you’ll find it. And speaking of things that are forbidden, let’s talk about another joke type that is generally banned by the rules of good writing and good taste.

I’m talking now about the “Hello Joke,” also known as the “Squiggy,” because of its use every week as the set-up to the entrance of Lenny and Squiggy on “Laverne and Shirley.” Here is a classic example:

LAVERNE
All a man wants out of life is something that cries, burps, and wets its pants.

LENNY/SQUIGGY
(entering)
Hello.

Now, like the “Since Jokes,” these aren’t really quality, character-exposing jokes. They feel constructed and don’t tell us anything, really, about the character saying them. Not even their attitude about the person who’s about to enter, since the joke only works if the audience already *knows* their attitude. Also, it’s a very jokey-joke. It would be hard to adapt this for use even in the lightest drama. Yes, this is certainly a joke type to avoid.

And yet…

There was a very nice Squiggy on the big series-ending “Will and Grace” episode the other night, a bright spot in an otherwise disappointing farewell, I thought. For those who need background, Beverly Leslie is Karen’s diminutive effeminate nemesis. Here is the joke, as I recall the wording:

JACK
(to Karen)
Let’s have dessert. Nothing heavy. Something small, and fruity, with lady-fingers.

BEVERLY LESLIE
(entering)
Hello.

Ha! That one got me. The set up is so beautifully stealthy because “lady-fingers” gets entirely re-interpreted once the joke manifests itself. For me, it works.

See, that’s the thing. There is an exception to every joke-writer’s “Thou Shalt Not.” If you find a really clever way to do it, feel free to break the rule! Just like a real commandment!

Lunch: Back to the food court for California Rolls and another Godiva fruit-and-chocolate kabob

Correction! I am told by someone in the know that Beverley Leslie’s entrance line was, and always has been, “Well, well, well.” It is, of course, still a Hello joke. Also, check out the fancy spelling of Beverley. Is that the male spelling? The things you learn!

When I got into the television writing business, the hour drama was dead. The Disney Fellowship didn’t even accept hour long spec scripts as submissions. And, what’s more, we were all told that the hour drama *couldn’t revive.* It simply would never be possible, because syndication sales were driving the business and hour dramas didn’t syndicate – didn’t fit into those slots between the news and the prime-time line-up.

I was even told once that the only reason “Law and Order” was picked up, was because it was pitched as an hour that could be split up and syndicated as two separate half-hours: “Law” and “Order.” (Presumably the regular viewers of “Law” would have to check in with the regular viewers of “Order” to find out if the guy arrested at the end of their episode actually did it.)

Things changed. A few successful hours took hold, other business models started shaping what was profitable and what was not… and now hourlong is king and the half-hour comedy is dead. Especially the multicamera shows. Friends and Frasier are gone and, some say, the format went with them, as doomed as radio plays.

At least two of my friends who have spent long and thriving careers in half hour are now dipping their toes into hour-writing for the first time. And many more of my comedy friends asked me to recommend them to hour shows. Where else is there to go?

Does this mean that you should all forget writing half-hour specs and only write dramas? Nope. Because when that pendulum comes back, it tends to do it fast. And right now it’s pulled pretty tautly over to that one side. All it takes is one hot new multicamera sitcom hit and everything will change. And there won’t be that many young writers with half hour specs, so life will be sweet for those who are ready.

Lunch: sashimi. Delicate and savory… mmm.

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