To get all nerdy about it - The key ingredient for any comedy act is tension. Laughter results from the realization that something tense or threatening was resolved in a harmless manner. The way I see it comedic timing can be used in three different ways to achieve these two objectives. [clips probably NSFW]
The first is a pause to allow the audience to catch up to the comic. It gives them a chance to digest what the comic just said and subconsciously identify the tension he is creating or created. For example: Bill Cosby on cocaine. The pause right after the coke-head says, “[Cocaine] intensifies your personality” gives the audience just long enough to digest what the coke-head thinks is great about cocaine and start to conjure up the image of an intense coke-head right as Cosby nails the absurdity of that statement on the head with the elegant rejoinder, “Yes, but what if you’re an asshole.”
The second is using a pause to actually create most, if not all of the tension. The Spinal Tap scene referred to above is probably the best example of this. The tension is created by Nigel’s silence. We don’t know how he’s going to react. Is he angry, confused, just realized how absurd 11 is, etc. Then the payoff comes when he says these go to 11 and we realize he’s an idiot and didn’t understand a word of what was just said.
The third is omitting a pause so that the abruptness creates tension. This works great for inserting witty remarks in conversation but can fall flat on its face in a routine since you’re leaving it up to the audience to realize the resolution was in the words you abruptly stated. A good example is Mitch Hedberg: it’s a simple corny pun, and if he had inserted a long pregnant pause it more than likely would have gotten groans instead of belly laughs, but the speed with which he says it throws in that extra bit of confusion which makes it much funnier when resolved.
For me, to have ‘good comedic timing’ means that a comic knows which of these three approaches works best for a particular joke, just how long a pause should be, how they work best for his stage persona (Bill Cosby can get away with longer pauses than Lewis Black), and how to pepper the three throughout his routine to keep the audience guessing.
There’s also the sense of drawing out a gag, like if a comedian was telling a story involving guns and was making sound effects, how many times they yell “bang!” is another example of timing. Of course, pauses come into effect too. A couple times just makes it a story element, too few makes it awkward, the right amount makes it funny. Going over this time limit makes it awkward again, interestingly, if you go over a certain threshold it can become funny again. Family Guy uses this a LOT, which I believe TV Tropes calls “crossing the line twice,” though that’s a little more general, to varying effect.
Well of course, if it was a distributed consciousness it wouldn’t be funny!
No. And in fact, this was posted when? In 2010? I joined this board for the sole purpose of telling Carl that “big Bang Theory” and “comedy” are totally opposite things. In fact, it ruins all of your comedic credibility to reference Big Bang Theory as an example of good comedy.
I posted this in September 2012. THAT, my friend, is EXCELLENT timing!
I know this is a zombie thread, but I’m going to say this anyway. On Marc Maron’s podcast, one of the guests mentions that when he was just starting out, he went to see his idol Chris Rock at a small comedy club. He said he was very disappointed to see Rock fall completely flat, and but he later learned that Chris Rock knows that Chris Rock can make anything funny with his trademark inflection. When he wanted to try out new material, he’d deliberately go to small clubs and deliver the jokes in a relatively deadpan manner to see if the jokes could survive on their own. The ones that worked he’d apply the Chris Rock delivery to and they’d kill.
This may or may not have been the case, depending on when you saw him. It could be that he just wasn’t funny back then.
