JaneEspenson.com

Just now, I cracked open a fortune cookie. The fortune says: “You will be advanced professionally without any special effort on your part.” The hell? Does that mean: “You’re going to be promoted, but you won’t really deserve it”? I guess it’s good news, sort of. It could be kind of soothing if I’d been dreading some big exhausting burst of special effort I felt about to surge up in me.

Truth is, effort is usually required. Right up to the last minute. We are, right now, in the submission period for the ABC Writing Fellowship, if I’m reading their web site right. So, many of you are probably getting your specs all ready to send off. Maybe you’re waiting for a visit from the Script Elves. You’re heard of them, right? Tinker, Polish and Tweak? Put out a big plate of chocolate-coated brads and they’ll work all night.

There is actually some real work that you can do at this point, cleaning up all those parts of the script that still aren’t working. But first you have to figure out where those parts are. This is the part I used to routinely screw up. I figured out something was up when I kept having this weird experience in note sessions – I would *know* which scenes the show runner was going to have trouble with, seconds before he or she pointed them out. But, for some reason, I wasn’t able to identify them until that very moment. What was happening, of course, is that I knew them all along. I just wasn’t trying very hard to listen to the internal voice that was tickling at me the whole time.

Now, as I reread that script for those last few days or moments before I submit it, I try to notice where I’m rushing through the read, where I’m jumping ahead, where I get a tiny shrug of doubt. Pay attention to that little shrug. There is no notes process for a contest. Just in or out. So you have to be your own show runner. Give yourself notes *even if you have no idea how to go about fixing the problem.* Then figure out how to fix it. Or avoid it. But do something with it, because your subconscious isn’t going to be the only one to notice.

Lunch: tofu pups with sauerkraut. That’s a favorite.

Well, have we drifted far enough? I’ve been completely tickled by our exploration of types of jokes. No one is doing this. No one is cataloging these species, as far as I know. But, I also realize, the purpose of this blog is help anyone who wants to write a good spec television script. And, it has been pointed out, maybe there are a few more generally helpful things to talk about.

Like… brads.

Seriously. They’re hugely important. Certainly as important as any one line of dialogue in your script is going to be. You know how, in this country, the most visible, and most reliable, indicator of a person’s social class is the condition of their teeth? Well, brads are script-teeth.

When I’m handed a script by a professional writer, it has two one-inch brads – top hole, bottom hole. And they’re stiff – they hold their shape. When I’m handed a spec script, it often has brads with long spiky legs. And it almost always has soft brads that pull apart when the script’s pages are turned. No one gets to read your writing if your script falls apart. Find good brads. I know it’s not easy. When I was in grad school, sending in my Star Trek: TNG spec scripts, I had a very hard time finding good solid brads — I don’t know why this is true, but for some reason there are a lot of totally worthless brads out there. It’s worth the effort to find the good ones.

By the way, during my first year on Buffy, my Secret Santa gave me a quart of good brads, because I loved the show’s fancy silver ones so much. I’m still using them — fantastic.

There are other cosmetic things to pay attention to, of course. You don’t need to try to fake the show’s logo on the cover. And you don’t need to indicate how many times you have re-written it – no need for a draft number. Date optional. Remove it, I’d say, if the script is getting old. Keep it if it’s recent.

Put it in an envelope and send it to the ABC Writing Fellowship (making sure you’ve met any specific requirements they might have about what to include on the title page, etc.). They’re going to be happy to see a professional-looking well-bradded script, believe me. There wouldn’t be a saying about judging books by their covers if it wasn’t so easy to do so.

Lunch: Chicken and Waffles!

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!

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