This happens frequently in standup comedy, I think. A particular example that comes to mind is Mike Birbiglia.
He tells a story about an awkward moment that ends with a throwaway line, “See you around the building!” after the punchline. Later in the show, he tells a joke that doesn’t go over so well, and then slightly under his breath says “See you around the building…”.
A more direct callback is when he does a bit about performing standup being like performing jazz, says he’s worried about being “the Kenny G of comedy”, and then imitates Kenny G’s music, “na na na na na”-style. Again, later in the show he’ll tell a joke that gets a delayed reaction or not as big a reaction as expected, and he’ll reference the previous bit by singing “na na na na na” again.
He’ll tell jokes about his name being difficult to pronounce or spell, and then in later jokes he’ll mispronounce his name for seemingly no reason, or otherwise reference the previous bit about his name (“When you get home, visit my Web site. Just type www.mikebirbiglia.com. Good luck with that.”)
Having just watched the series again, I’m pretty sure there were two boats. The first was called the Seaward, and Gob sank it as part of a magic trick… er, illusion. Then late in the series, he bought (or was attempting to buy) another boat called the C-Word. It appeared in the last episode when George Michael catches him with Ann.
I think the root of all humor is that it’s double-faceted. A phrase or punchline fits the scenario but it also has a different connotation. The easiest, most direct manifestation is the pun or double entendre. It’s funny because we marvel at the coincidence that a word could work in two ways.
It works in a more subtle way in absurd situations. Ellen DeGeneres does a skit where she starts with “Aren’t advertising jingles annoying when they get stuck in your head?” and later, when she’s getting pulled over by a cop while wearing a cowboy hat and blowing up a blow-up sex doll, she says “Well, you see officer (by Mennon), I was just…” We say to ourselves “Hah! That’s absurd but it’s logical how you arrived at this situation. It shouldn’t work that way but it does!”
A callback (I thought it was called a throwback) works the same way. The phrase makes sense in the here-and-now but it carries a connotation of something that happened earlier. We enjoy the ‘coincidence’. We say “Hah! That worked before, and it works now, but it’s the same phrase!”
You know just the word “her?” is a running joke even with no connection to Ann, right? The writers tried to have someone say “her?” as often as they could.
Not quite. That’s a small part of it, but not the biggest part.
The reason it gets a reaction from people is simple, tho. It’s the same thing that happens with music and sex: it’s all about tension and release.
As the comedian works his way thru a story, you wonder where he going with it, and when it becomes obvious that he’s working his way to a callback, the audience finds a release of tension. As the callback is used more and more, the audience begins to “get” it, anticipate the callback, even if they don’t know when it’s coming. So when it happens, viola, tension is released.
Tension and release is really the secret of most great temporally-based art.
I have heard it said before that we, as humans, like to feel that we are in on the joke, and that we know something that others dont.
I feel that is why people like “callbacks”. They dont have to be funny as such, what is important is that the audience knows what the reference is, they ‘get’ the joke. This makes the audience feel good about themselves, they feel smarter, and feel that they are part of something.
Watch the audience when a ‘callback’ joke is made. How many will be bellylaughing, and how many will instead have a sly grin on their face, looking left and right to see who else ‘got’ it.
I think Letterman does this at the beginning of his monologue every night. He always references something that was obviously joked about with the studio audience pre-show; I’m sure it is viewed and appreciated as an inside joke by the audience, not to be enjoyed by those of us watching at home.
mmm
A friend told me that he never found Fran Drescher’s the Nanny funny because he only caught the last ten minutes. Now that he is watching entire episodes, he finds the show a laugh riot, because all the gags in the last ten minutes make sense.
I agree with this somewhat, but some of the most effective callbacks are the ones that are completely unexpected. In that case, I think the humor comes from the realization that the entire bit is a joke which has other jokes wrapped inside it. It’s the surprise and realization, coupled with a funny punch line, that makes it even funnier. Plus, there’s an appreciation of the cleverness involved on the part of the comedian - that in the process of telling all these other jokes he was leading you to a big whopper of a punch line you didn’t see coming.
But in general I agree that comedy is a lot like music in that jokes build tension, and the punch line releases it. There’s a rhythm involved, and you have to get it just right to be a great comedian.
Rhythm is a much under-appreciated aspect of comedic talent. A comedy routine ebbs and flows - sometimes punch lines come at you staccato, each one building on the last until your sides are splitting. Other times, they may be spread widely apart, and the comedian may slow down and cause anticipation to build. Callbacks are just part of the rhythm, and they add complexity to the entire routine just as complex call-and-response phrasing in a song can add complexity and make it more interesting.
Robin Williams (back in his coked-up days) was funny because kept hitting you with jokes, not giving you time to recover from the last one before the next one got you. He kept the audience on edge the entire time. After he sobered up and slowed down, the same material simply stopped being funny. On the other hand, comedians like Jack Benny and Bob Newhart would work slowly, with more complex jokes building tension with the audience, to be released by a clever punch line or a callback to something said half an hour earlier. It was the anticipation of something funny coming that kept the audience going.
Jon Stewart used to do this sometimes, too. I haven’t seen it very much in recent Daily Show episodes. Letterman is also well known for a particular type of callback, the type where he repeats a joke over and over until (if it was funny the first time) it becomes annoying, then becomes funny again. Or if it bombs, it’ll become funny, then unfunny, and then funny again. In either version it’s his persistence rather than the joke itself that gets laughs, I think.
Craig Kilborn uses these techniques to good effect, I think. I don’t catch all of his audience in-jokes, but I feel that being in his audience would be the most fun over Kimmel or Fallon, who are also good hosts. Kilborn just projects that “hey the cameras finally showed up, let’s have a show” persona the most.
Can anyone tell me why Secretariat the dancing horse shows up from time to time on his show?
I think there’s a bit of confusion here between a callback and a running joke. They’re not the same thing at all.
A running joke or gag is just a repeated bit that is funny because of repetition. Secretariat the dancing horse and a lot of Letterman’s gags are like that.
A callback is a delayed punchline. Typically, a comedian will tell a joke at the beginning of a routine, then go on to other, unrelated jokes. Later in the act or at the very end, he’ll tell another joke, then cap it off with a punchline that ties it back in to the original joke, bringing the whole routine full circle. Sometimes a really clever comedian will nest them, where a callback to an earlier joke leads to a callback to an even earlier joke, making the whole routine a nested series of jokes. The more clever it is, the funnier it is.
Secratariat was a single one-off joke that was used as a fake trailer clip when the movie came out, and then the next day he appeared in the studio. After a couple of appearances he crashed into the set on his way out, and since then he’s been a fixture.
I wonder if it’s always been the same interns in the costume.
Here’s how I remember it: Gob tells Michael he’s buying a boat and that it was going to be called The Seaward, and Michael telling him they couldn’t afford a boat, and their mom walks in, and Michael turns to Gob and says “Get rid of the Seaward,” and his mom says “I’m not leaving, I just got here!”, misunderstanding what he said as him calling her “the C-Word,” and then later when we see the boat, Gob has actually CALLED it The C-Word.