So a friend of mine wants me to write a script for him for a series of live-action internet shorts he is doing. It doesn't have elaborate sets, just a few characters onscreen talking schtick. It's mostly one-liners and quick jokes, combined with a laugh track. The series is about two guys, one is a cockroach and one is a mosquito. They are like drinking buddies and the roach is grimey and the mosquito is just kind of quirky. The drink and get into antics and make jokes. Thats it. So anyways he knows I'm a writer and I told him I would write a script and now I am trying to write comedy. Not deep comedy, but more sitcom type comedy. So I am trying to do sitcom-type jokes. Writing a joke is harder than you think. I'm using the listing method where I just started writing down things relating to insects, followed by things relating to sex, drinking, family, etc... So the episode I'm writing involves a new character, a spider named Rodney. Rodney is kind of a nerd and is socially awkward. He's not good with the ladies, either. Sometimes the problem is that I think of a joke, but it's rough and it needs to be refined. Sometimes it's really rough. Like I want to write a joke about Rodney talking about his past experiences with women, and one of them was a moth named Jessica. The relationship didn't work out because the sex wasn't good. Apparently, Rodney liked to keep the light on during sex, but then he couldn't get Jessica off the ceiling. *insert laughter here* Another joke was about Rodney having relationship issues with his current spider girlfriend and the guys asked him what was wrong, and he replies: RODNEY: Well, she wanted to take our relationship to the 'next level'... MOSQUITO: Oh, she wanted to get married? RODNEY: No, she wanted to eat me. *insert laughter here* So anyways, has anyone tried to write comedy before? It's proving to be fun, but tedious.
Why did the centipede only play the last 5 minutes of the match? He was putting his boots on! Where do Bees go to relieve themselves? A BP Station! A termite walks into a bar-room, "Is the bar tender here?" Apologies JJ
Flashback to Rodney the spider trying to be 'agressive' in his romantic pursuits: "God Rodney! You're all hands!" *slap* What did one fly say to the other fly? Pull up a stool! I think the hardest thing is to engineer a longer-term setup + payoff. For instance, introducing something near the beginning of a script which seems to be innocuous and resolved then, which you can then return to for greater comedic effect in the final closing scene. And making it look elegant. Hard, man. But all of my comedy writing experience comes from working on theatre productions for high school students. In case that wasn't obvious from the dreadful quality of the material above.
Jokes are not easy to come up with. Here's a Christmas cracker one; Q - What do you call a fly with no wings. A - A walk. Terrible, I know. Good luck!
