Drama in the Classroom

Advice, Games and Products for School, Church and Home
Home
History's Chosen
Products that could help.
Contact Us
About Us
Laughter
A Kid's Movie Basics
  Laughter--Elementary Writing Project                
 
     Think about it for just a minute and you realize how hard it is to describe how and why something is funny. Well, I’m going to attempt it. How would I begin to teach kids how to write humorously? Kids have made me laugh often enough accidentally. I would like them to be able to do it on purpose.
    This page will be dedicated to teaching elementary kids how humor is written and performed.
Joke Construction   
 
     I love my daughter.

      When she laughs really hard she will give herself the hiccups. Now that’s not always a good thing. Because of my background as a comedian, I see an audience like that and it makes me want to paralyze them with laughter. I know at bedtime I can get her. Of course then it will be an hour before she calms down enough and the hiccups go away so she can sleep.

      Because she loves to laugh so much, she wants to make me laugh too. She makes up her own jokes and they don’t necessarily all make sense. The joke goes something like this:

     Knock, knock.     Who’s there?

     Fan.                      Fan who?

     Fan is spinning around and blowing into other people.

     The form of the joke is there but the substance is missing. She’s not familiar enough with language to see that the humor comes from multiple definitions of the same word. I guess the real joke there would be:

     Knock, knock.     Who’s there?

     Fan.                      Fan who?

     Fanny’s as big as a house and she can’t sit down.

     My daughter was telling a story with her joke. She’s lying in bed and watching the fan spin around on the ceiling. Then she imagines a fan powerful enough to blow over other people. That’s her story. If you think of people sliding around all over the floor like it was a banana peel because of the fan, it’s a funny story.

     My joke (no critique of the joke please, it’s just a quick example) is a story too. It changes the fan to somebody’s name and then gives them an impossibly large rear end. You’re thinking of the fan and it surprises you with Fanny. My daughter’s joke leaves you with the fan the whole time.
     So the elements of this joke are:
1.  Form (knock-knock joke)
2.  A pun
3.  A surprise
History of Humor
 
    Through the magic of YouTube,  I think I can find some examples of good clean humor that will demonstate humor construction.  Each bit has a particular element that I think is important in classifing this joke. 
 
Reaction
 
Who's On First?   
                                Abbott & Costello
 
    This is about the best written comedy skit ever.  It's what all comedy writers aspire to and performers look to as example of near perfect timing.
  
 
The Power of Three
 
The Three Questions 
                                       Monty Python
 
    One of the rules of writing something funny is to deliver the set up somehow in three parts.  Monty Python plays around with the form a bit.  But there is definitely three parts to this skit.  I had my cub scout den do this for a pack meeting.
 
 
Physical Comedy
 
Mongo          from        Blazing Saddles
 
   Short, but sweet.  Physical comedy.  It's harder than it looks and has been around making people laugh forever. 
 
 
 
Meaning
 
Baseball vs. Football
                                          George Carlin
 
     I promise this George Carlin is totally and completely clean and it's a perfect example of what George Carlin was very good at:  examining the different conotations and meanings of words.