That was my favorite among the jokes. I guess humor is relative.
Frylock if you’re serious about getting into stand-up, Chris Hardwick’s Nerdist podcasts involve interviews with a lot of stand-up comedians (he is himself one,) the life, culture and process. It’s a brutal life, culture, and process, but as a writer, I relate a lot to the grindy, thankless aspects of stand-up comedy.
Whatever the outcome, it takes balls to do it at all.
OK, **Frylock **- I’ve come up with a line I would do myself if I had your testicles:
“Guy comes up to me and says he ran a half-marathon the other day. Congrats, dude, for accomplishing <pause> half of something. <pause> I told him I bowled half a perfect game last week.”
I like that one too, and changing it to something milder, like “Love doesn’t take out the garbage,” turns it insipid and humorless IMO.
The time travel thing is interesting, but neither your nor k9bfriender’s take really works for me; k9bfriender’s completely doesn’t work IMO.
But what if originally it’s something like:
or something.
Then at the end, maybe you can reveal that you’d got it all wrong, it wasn’t your son from the future, you were HIS son from HIS future, it was your dad.
So you killed him.
I dunno. I’m not convinced it works a lot better, but at least it’d set up the killing-yer-own-dad bit early and tie it back in.
The last joke is great if you can get away with another synonym for Fucking. “Boning” for example. Delivery will be key. Don’t do lame puns, like the suggested "buy"sexual. I love the Ok vs happy one, and the open relationship one.
While I originally selected “making love” because I imagine the “character” behind this set having kind of a stilted affect, I think “boning” may work better even given that mannerism. Especially, actually.
I’d go with “banging” myself. Or even “screwing.” I don’t think I’ve heard “boning” used around here since high school. (Then again, seeing the above, maybe it’s appropriate for the character.)
Me, I make a circle with my left hand and then rapidly move my right index finger in-and-out of that circle, thus transcending the generational changes that occur in language.
Well excuuUUuuuUuuse me!
Ahem. Dr. Frylock, I suggest applying the scientific method to your routine. Try out your material. See what works. Do more than one open mic night, and adapt. I have done a lot of these things as a music performer, the thing I really got interested in was pronunciation- speaking to a crowd is different that speaking to a person. The rules don’t matter, in fact, the rules can get in the way of clear communication. You know what I mean…
So… yeah… the persona here is kind of a weirdo misogynist… I recognize that… It’s one of those things where the joke is supposed to be on the persona but I know some people will just take it more straightforwardly.
Having said that, this particular joke comes from an actual conversation I had with a super feminist friend of mine. And I in fact, to be clear, have no idea whatsoever what a fleshlight feels like btw.
See, this right here is very telling. It’s almost like you’re trying to write for someone else; for some character in a TV show. My advice, as someone who has done what you’re doing (except I did 8 minutes) is to stick with what you know. Write from your point of view, and don’t branch out yet into things you don’t have firsthand knowledge of. Some of your jokes elicited a smile from me, and with a solid delivery probably would have garnered a laugh. But when you do the weird sexual stuff that you didn’t really live through, it comes across as lame and just plain bizarre.
And the “weirdo misogynist” persona? This isn’t a recurring show, you’ve got three minutes to convince a bunch of strangers that’s just your act, otherwise you’re going to be written off as a creep who’s only there to vent about his down on women.
