CHAPTER 5
Animation Comedy and Gag Writing
WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
What makes you laugh? Or, more importantly, what makes your audience laugh? “Why does Brutus the Brave refuse to cross the road?” “Because he’s no chicken!” Humor varies from culture to culture and from age to age. In comedy we set up a situation, increase the tension, and suddenly we’re stopped dead by something unexpected. Emotion gushes out, tension is relieved and exploded into laughter. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work. And it will work if you set up the gag right. Comedy is a contrast between two individually consistent but forever incongruous frames of reference linked in an unexpected and sudden way. A stereotype is twisted. You lead the audience down the garden path (the setup) and then—zap! Surprise is very important. Generally the bigger the surprise, the bigger the belly laughs. Two classic baby jokes, peek-a-boo and the jack-in-the-box, demonstrate at an early age what makes us laugh. There’s the buildup, the expectation, then the pop or shock.
Some forms of comedy, like satire, don’t rely on a single effect but a series of minor explosions or a continuous state of mild amusement. A running gag gets funnier with each repetition. Think of the Road Runner series, one long running gag.
Experts believe that all comedy contains an impulse of aggression or fear. The fear may be combined with affection, as it is when we tease. It’s this fear or aggression that’s released when we laugh. Shock works well. Repression can contribute to a bigger laugh. Repression is the reason that gross-out and bathroom humor get belly laughs. The energy of the comedy is important. Whether a situation is tragic or funny depends on the audience’s attitude, whether that attitude is dominated by pity or animosity. Who is slipping on the ice? Is it the sweet, little old lady or the school bully? If it’s the little old lady, the two frames of reference remain juxtaposed. We’re apt to feel sorry for her. But if it’s the bully, the two frames of reference collide, and we laugh. The experts claim that kids naturally laugh at cruelty and boasting. They laugh when a hoax is played or when others are in some way made uncomfortable. A witty remark may go over their heads. Of course, in children’s media we need to consider good taste and good role models as well and use common sense in what we want children to see. Humor for kids is politically correct, but that does not mean it’s boring!
© 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-240-81343-1.00001-7
ANIMATION COMEDY
How is animation comedy different? It’s above all visual with plenty of sight gags. The very basis of your idea must be visual. Animation uses motion and misuses the laws of physics. Timing is important. The comedy is exaggerated, often taking reality one step beyond. It may be illogical. There might be a use of fantasy, occasionally with musical numbers and dances. Dialogue may be “smart” with comebacks, put-downs, puns, rhymes, or alliteration. Titles are funny. Names of people, places, and things are funny. Most executives that buy or approve stories prefer material that will make both the kids and the adults that could be watching with them laugh. Of course, this means higher ratings and higher box office receipts. However, a few executives prefer the comedy material to be specific to a single age group. So you must find out what the executives who are going to approve your material want. Never write down to the kids!
COMEDY OUT OF A CHARACTER’S PERSONALITY
The funniest comedy develops out of a character’s personality. Take a classic character type and twist it. What makes your unique character naturally funny? Use a character’s attitude, mannerisms, and dialogue to increase the comedy. Reactions and comedy takes can often be funnier than the gag that has gone before. You might also play against character type or expectation for your humor: a rough and tough dog that cringes at the sight of a bug. Exaggerate appearance, diction, behavior, and attitude. Act out your scenes as you write. How would that action really happen? How would you feel if you were that character? How can you exaggerate and make it funnier? Spend some time developing comedy and gags from the personalities of your characters. Good characters and the comedy that their relationships can provide is the best recipe for a classic script. Characters with a comic defect and fish-out-of-water characters are types that work well for comedy. Use characters as different from each other as possible so that these conflicting personalities can bounce off of each other in a funny way.
WRITING A FUNNY TELEVISION SCRIPT
Start by putting yourself in the mood to think funny! Then begin to analyze. Where does the humor of this series originate? Is it belly laughs, giggles, or smiles? Is there visual humor or funny, smart dialogue? What’s funny about the star’s personality? Be consistent to the kind and amount of humor of that show.
Combine people, places, and props, juxtaposing one idea with a totally different one (an angry man and an office cooler in the middle of the desert). Place the unexpected in a surprising context. Place the obvious where the viewer would least expect it. Place incongruous words or things in juxtaposition to create surprising relationships. Make sure that your script is sprinkled with spot gags throughout. Come up with a script that’s funny and fresh, or at least put a new twist onto a classic idea.
Try creating an episode around a funny situation: perhaps the fish-out-of-water or an unresolved predicament (like a lie or a secret). You can give your star a tough choice between two good things or two that are bad. Often there’s a catalyst that rocks the boat. The star may make a plan, but it turns into a textbook case of Murphy’s Law, and everything that can go wrong does. Complicate the predicament your star finds herself in by adding additional layers of problems. Escalate the trouble so that she digs herself in deeper and deeper. Maybe there’s a race against time with your star in really big trouble if her parents come home early or if she doesn’t get something fixed before they find out what she did. Or maybe your star is trapped somewhere embarrassing.
Be sure you have plenty of props available because these are necessary for the gags. Misuse your props. Make up your own wild gadgets.
Set up your gags with the basic information of the joke. You might intentionally mislead your audience in the setup with false clues. A beat or two of complications or incongruity adds tension, but keep the setup short. Exaggerate everything. Build your gags, milk them, and top them. Add a capper. Comedy is a process of setup and payoff, and this is often done in a rhythm of three”¦dum, dum, de-dum! Setup, setup, payoff! Sometimes you can set up now and pay off later with the punch line. You may have multiple punch lines, each one funnier than the one before. Friz Freleng often timed his animation to the beat of a metronome. He’d get a rhythm going and then break it for the surprise. Get a feel for the timing, and work on your gag until it feels right.
Getting the laugh often depends on using the right words in exactly the right order. If something isn’t funny enough, try adding C’s and K’s to the dialogue. These sounds are funnier!
Use timing, tension, and hints, letting your audience bring a little to the whole and bridging the gap. Use simplification and selection. Give the audience A, B, C and F, G. The audience should have to supply D and E. Use implicit, not explicit, punch lines. Instead of saying, “Miss Petunia eats like a pig!” you want to say, “Miss Petunia is invited to lunch. Should I get out our best trough?” Don’t tip off the surprise—the punch line—but save it for the end. Save the biggest, wildest, and best gag for the climax. Scenes usually go out on a laugh line, a stinger, or a button. End your script with a twist!
Get feedback on your gags from story editors or trusted friends. Listen with an open mind, and don’t get defensive. Try to put the script away for a couple of days; then look at it with a fresh point of view, consider the suggestions carefully, and do your rewrite. If something bothers you even a little, then it’s not right. Fix it! Turn in your very best work.
PUTTING TOGETHER COMEDY SCRIPTS
Established writers have several theories for putting together comedy scripts. Some believe that comedy plots need to be simple to have the room to make the story funny. They like to focus on doing comedy riffs around a basic subject. This works best on short cartoons, where a complicated plot isn’t necessary to hold the viewer’s interest. Some writers like to use the leapfrog method (a story-developing scene, then a comedy scene, then a story-developing scene”¦all the way through). Even action scripts in cartoons usually have some comedy scenes. These scenes are used to break up the tension from the intense action. After all, this method was good enough for Shakespeare. In a longer story with more depth, consider the effect of tension and when you want it released. Tension built up in a mystery can be released in a good comedy scene. But if you want the tension built up for the climax, perhaps you don’t want a comedy scene immediately prior to that climax. Most writers just use their judgment on what will work best for the length and depth of the story they’re writing.
COMEDY DEVICES
Cartoon gags have an old history with roots in vaudeville and magazine cartoons, as well as comic books and silent films. Here are a few comedy devices that you can use in writing gags:
Old Gags
Don’t be afraid to take an old gag and update it with a twist.
Impersonation/Disguise
A character in costume or drag. This is great for kids’ cartoons. Children like this best when the character is embarrassed by the disguise.
Multiple Personalities or role reversal
These devices allow characters to do things that they wouldn’t normally do.
- For multiple personalities: A witch places a spell over a rabbit, and the rabbit changes into a flamboyant frog, then an unlikely looking prince, then a meek but gigantic lion.
- In role reversal: A normally responsible girl pretends to be flighty in order to attract the attention of the football captain.
Anthropomorphism
Like impersonation and role reversal, you have two forms of reference, and you oscillate between them. Scooby-Doo
Multiple Reference
Two or more frames of reference in one gag or joke. “His mom repaired the microwave with extra parts from an old jet. Now when she opens the oven, the bagel circles the table twice before coming in for a blue-plate landing.”
Pretense and Exposure
Pretending to be someone the character is not, hypocrisy unmasked. Pretense usually involves character mannerisms and business, perhaps a change in voice. The Emperor’s New Clothes
Reactions and Takes
These are usually used in an ending to a gag, rather than as gags themselves. They rely on funny expressions, reactions, or a funny take, even a double take. The character is often left in a funny pose, perhaps with something on top of his head.
Pull Back and Reveal
The basic gag element is at first hidden from the audience. We see a tic-tac-toe game in progress. We pull back to see that the game is being played by two very dignified scientists in the middle of a dry erase board covered with complicated, mathematical formulas.
Hidden Element
The gag element is hidden from one of the characters.
Twist Around
Things are the opposite of what we expect. Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass. The twist might be in the dialogue: “That teacher’s so mean that when a pit bull sees her, he runs for his blankie.” Or the gag could be visual: At a spa snooty pigs, dressed to kill, are taking a tour. They turn up their noses as they watch people wallow in mud baths.
Misunderstanding
Old is mistaken for young, man for woman, and so on. Sitcoms use this technique often. The teacher says to the principal, “I won’t put up with those pests!” In the next scene we see a classroom of kids waiting for their teacher. Instead”¦in walks the pest control man!
Twisted Clichés
Take a cliché and twist it.
- Twisted—a visual twist is part of the cliché gag. “They’re playing our song!” We see performing birds ringing bells as they peck out a once-romantic ballad.
- Turnabout cliché—one important word is changed. Two kids at recess are fighting. One says, “She called me a dirty number.”
- Literal cliché—The gag centers on a word in the cliché that has more than one meaning. We use the wrong one. “One pitcher is worth a thousand words.”
- Cliché visual—A new gag is made out of a cliché picture. Uncle Sam is pointing his finger. We pull back to see Uncle Sam’s son, looking defiant. Uncle Sam says, “You pick up your toys before you watch the freworks!”
Customs
The juxtaposition of references from two different occupations, ethnic customs, or time periods. The Flintstones, The Jetsons
Pop-Culture References
Shared cultural experiences. Shrek
Topical Humor
Jokes based on the news of the day or time period. You can use any old joke and bring it up to date. Topical humor is harder to use in animation because of the extensive lead-in time until the television show or film is shown. Also, topical humor may be dated by the time a show is rerun or released on DVD. The Simpsons, South Park
The “in” Joke
“In” and upscale. “In Beverly Hills 911 is unlisted.”
The Dumb Joke (usually a belly laugh)
Blonde jokes, women driver jokes
Kid’s Mistakes
Not always funny to kids. This is hard to use in kids’ cartoons unless the joke involves a younger brother, sister, tagalong, or (in the same vein) a pet. Bill Cosby’s Kids Say the Darnedest Things
The True Story
Usually this is a real belly laugh. Often it’s something embarrassing that has actually happened to you.
The Ridiculous Situation
The opposite from The True Story. The gag is exaggerated so far that it couldn’t possibly be true, but the sheer ridiculousness of it is funny. The cowboy riding the nuclear bomb.
Understatement
Chaos may be all around, or something very unusual is happening. The main character ignores it or says something very understated. A huge crowd is watching the take off of the first fight to leave our solar system. The spaceship rockets toward the sky, then explodes like a firecracker. Cool Surfer Dude: “Looks like a dud, dude.”
The Excuse
We’ve all made them, and we recognize ourselves. Usually there’s a lie involved. The character tends to keep digging himself in deeper and deeper.
Insult and Name-Calling (often a belly laugh)
These are some of the easiest to write. You have to be careful in children’s television, but it can be done. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles used this frequently.
Comebacks and Put-downs
Modern cartoon staples.
Malapropism
The wrong word. Dr. Seuss’s holiday dinner of “roast beast.”
Literal Use of Words
Take a slang word and use it literally.
Whimsy
“I feel like burying myself in a box of jelly beans and committing spearmint!”
Defnition
“A lie is like a watering can. It usually has holes in it.”
Pun, Witticism, Poetry with Rhymes and Alliteration (all a snicker to a chuckle, not a belly laugh)
These should be used along with (and not in place of) sight gags. They don’t work internationally because they can’t be translated properly. Association based on pure sound. Kids love the sound of words: “The monster mumbled through a mouthful of still-morphing marshmallows.” Also, a play on words and ideas where two different reference scales meet. Think cliché, then twist: “Eager beagle.”
Caricature, Satire (verbal caricature), Irony
We see ourselves and yet something else. Fun-house mirrors. Irony appears to take seriously what it really does not. This might be over the heads of kids.
Parody
A funny put-on of someone or something. Often these are twists on books, movies, or television shows.
Funny Sounds
Anything with a C or K. Some sounds and letters are funnier than others. Sound effects. Accents. For children’s media accents should not be demeaning.
Misplaced Emphasis
This can be a child’s lack of understanding or a ditsy adult. But something is not right in the sentence context.
Transition, Digression, or Non Sequitur
A mood or mental picture is broken by a complete transition of thought or infection in the punch line. The punch line isn’t logical and doesn’t ft the setup.
False Logic
“How do you get milk from a kernel of corn?” “You use a low stool!”
Say One Thing and Show Another
What is said is the setup. What is shown is the punch line.
Metamorphosis
In animation someone or something can totally change physically into someone or something entirely different.
Shell Game
People, props, or animals shuffle, hide, and pop up where they’re least expected.
Funny Chase
Chases right out of the Keystone Cops.
Food Is Fun
Characters can have food fights. Food can be gross or crazy like fried bugs or purple ice cream with green spots.
Rube Goldberg Inventions
Kids love fantastic machines, devices, and contraptions—the more complex and sillier, the better.
Try-Fails
Kids love a character who keeps trying and goofing up. They can relate. Build this series of failures so that each failure is bigger than the one before.
Action Gag
Based on action rather than a funny situation. Action gags are very visual and depend on timing and the funny way in which the action is performed.
The Running Gag
Keeps repeating during the course of the story or series. It’s funnier as it goes along. Often has a twist each time it repeats. Bugs Bunny’s “What’s up, Doc?”
Gag Series
All based on a single situation or prop. This series builds and gets funnier and wilder with each new gag topping the one before. Here you’re milking one basic idea for all it’s worth: A cat watches a goldfish in a bowl. The fish peeks out, and you see two huge, cat eyes magnified by the bowl. The goldfish dives and flips a piece of seaweed onto the cat’s nose. The cat reacts and leaps for the bowl. In the next shot we see the bowl on top of the cat’s head. The fish blows a huge bubble. It lands on the cat’s tail. The cat turns around and bats at the bowl, flipping the goldfish up into the air. By the end of the gag series, the whole room is in a shambles, with the fish playing a victory song on its own scales.
Artist Gags
The artists devise these. They involve funny drawings, the use of funny staging, design, animation, effects, and color. The writer may try to describe them, but it’s really up to the artists to make them funny.
Playing with the Medium
These gags surprise the audience by going against expectations in timing, cinematography, design, animation, and filmmaking.
Speeded-Up/Slow Motion Action
Use a change in normal speed for your gag.
Laws of Physics
Animation often rewrites the laws of physics. Wile E. Coyote runs in the air before falling to the bottom of the canyon and fattening, but he always reappears in the next scene unhurt.
Proportion
Play tricks with big and little, fat and skinny—perspective.
Motion Gags
Any gag that uses motion is especially suited to animation. A treadmill becomes an escalator.
Death
This is a hard one, but it can be done! The point is that anything can be made funny.
The Surprise Ending
A scene or an entire show may be fairly standard and cliché. But the ending has a comedy twist and saves it. Often this twist is heightened if what goes just before is especially everyday and normal. This doubles the surprise.
MORE COMEDY TECHNIQUES TO TRY
To build a gag, try taking a situation, building it, exaggerating it, and then making a sudden reverse. Or use Gene Perret’s “Uh-oh Technique”: Everything is going all right, then something happens and the audience says, “Uh-oh!” Or the character doesn’t realize just how grave the crisis is, but the audience does.
Use switching techniques, taking one basic situation and then making a funny variation on the situation. Make lists of words, phrases, events, places, people, facts, things, and symbols that relate or are opposite to the main topic. Conjure up surprising and ridiculous images from your list. Write about what makes you passionate or angry. Attack authority. Look at a problem from all angles and home in on what’s illogical. Verbal humor works well when the budget is small and animation is limited. Visual humor works better internationally, as any word play can get lost in translation. And it’s okay to be silly! Have fun!
GLOBAL COMEDY
Comedy can be culture-specific. Certainly, a people’s history influences their comedy. If you’re writing comedy for a specific country, you should be aware of their preferences in humor. Study what films and television shows are successful in that country and which ones fail. Visual humor is almost universal.
COMEDY IN YOUR ORIGINAL PROJECT
If you’re developing an original project, rather than writing comedy for someone else, you want your comedy to be particularly fresh. One thing you might want to consider is character point of view. If you give one of your main characters a point of view that’s totally unique and off-center, that view of reality will change the entire world around him, and you’ll have a funny script. Another way to develop fresh material is to create a new storytelling style that’s uniquely suited to this one project. Or you might want to develop a style that’s especially suited to you! You can brand yourself with an original style as some stand-up comics do. This will make you stand out from the pack, but it will also limit you. Developing a unique style can take time. It may develop naturally over the course of several projects if you let it. Then try to write what you know well and what you feel strongly about. If you’re honest, the details will ring true. We’ll laugh at what we recognize in ourselves and the others we know.
REFERENCE
Watch the old silent films. Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy are especially good for learning animation comedy. Watch the Our Gang comedies and The Three Stooges early sound films. You can learn from clowns as well. All of these are visual.
CHECKLIST
- Is the very premise of your script a funny one?
- Are the majority of your gags visual? Did you use the types of gags that work best in animation, motion gags, gags that defy the laws of physics?
- Does all of the comedy relate directly to the story and characters with nothing extraneous?
- Is much of your humor based on your characters’ personalities? Have you used these attitudes and reactions to the best effect?
- Are all your gags in character, true to the established personalities in that script?
- Can your star dig herself in deeper and deeper for funnier and funnier results?
- If you’re writing for a current series, is your humor similar to the humor already established for that series, and do you have about the same ratio of gags per page?
- If this is an original script, are all of your characters as different from each other as possible in order to heighten the comedy?
- Have you exaggerated as much as you can for the level of humor of that series?
- Do all of the gags have a setup, increased tension, and a sudden surprise at the end (the payoff)?
- Does the timing feel right, or is there a way to make your gag funnier?
- Have you twisted at least some of the running gags so that they remain funny and don’t get monotonous?
- Do your gags build throughout so that the funniest gags are near the climax of your cartoon? This is especially important for short cartoons with little plot.
- Will your gags be appropriate for your audience? If this is a kid’s series, are the gags those that you’d want your kids to see and appreciate? If you’re writing for a series, who is your audience? Are you writing for kids of a certain age only or for both kids and adults? What do the executives who approve your script expect? Will an international audience understand the gags?
- Are you using a variety of types of humor?
- Have you refrained from spelling out the joke so that the audience can bring something to the party? Is the joke still clear?
- Focus on the dialogue, making it wittier with funnier comebacks. Remember to keep up the conflict to heighten the repartee.
- Have you used the funniest words (some with C’s and K’s), placing them in the funniest juxtaposition and the funniest order?
- Is your script sprinkled with gags throughout? l Now forget the rules. Are your gags funny?
EXERCISES
- Watch a classic cartoon. List as many of the gags as you can. Rewrite five of the gags by updating them, giving them a new twist, or switching the personality of some of the characters.
- How many different gag techniques can you list that haven’t already been listed here?
- Take a book of jokes that you like and analyze the sentence structure of five of them. Are the sentences long or short? Did the writer use lots of adjectives and adverbs, or is the structure lean? What kinds of verbs are used? What’s the imagery like? How is the joke set up? How is the punch line delivered? What about timing?
- Develop five funny premises, each using funny situations. Be sure that your star digs himself in deeper and deeper.
- Write five funny premises based on character.
- Make a list of props around a specific subject (such as mysteries, dogs, magic). Write ten gags using many of these props.
- Write ten sight gags. Then rewrite these gags, pushing them up a notch by exaggerating even more.
- Dash off ten gags using at least ten different comedy devices.
- Take five of your gags and rewrite them several ways. Set them up differently. Change the character reactions. Experiment with the wording and the timing.
- If you can draw, board a gag sequence. Concentrate on funny staging, funny drawings, and funny movement. Explore several ways of doing the same sequence.
- Can you think of other ways besides those listed to make your humor fresh and unique? Discuss these in class.
- If you’re developing a project of your own, try increasing the humor and uniqueness of one or more of your characters by making their point of view a little more off-center.
- Develop a unique and humorous storytelling style for an original project you’re working on. Be sure that this style is right for this particular project.