Hey, funny girl gesticulating wildly and telling three-cosmopolitan stories at the party.
Everybody’s laughing.
Everybody tells you you’re funny.
You think they’re right.
Ha, ha.
But maybe you should think again.
Ask professional comic Jake Sharon about comedy.
You’ll say, “How do you do it?”
He’ll say, “Keep it short.”
He’ll say more, too. But that’s one of the foundations of funny.
Brevity.
“If you are going to tell somebody a joke, you have to pretend you are two strangers on a bus and he can get off at the next stop,” says Sharon.
There’s a big difference, says Sharon, between getting a few laughs at a party – where people are festive and eager to laugh anyway – and telling a joke in an any old setting.
Think about your joke before you start presenting it. Cut out the flab. Alter it as you go. If that long segment about your brother’s dental hygienist doesn’t get any laughs, whack it.
“People zone out,” says Sharon, a tall, antic, 29-year-old Denverite who grew up in Loveland. “The more you tell it, the better. You learn to embellish. But don’t practice too much. It becomes unnatural.”
Which brings us to another comedy key: Know your joke backward and forward. Understand your joke so well that you don’t need to think about it as you go. That lets you study the faces of your audience as you tell your joke, which helps you find the bits that fall flat. It also helps you refine another important piece of the comedy puzzle: facial gestures, gestures and timing.
Mine your joke for “little details that ring true,” says Sharon.
“Details often are the funniest parts.”
Sharon recently spent some unwelcome time in a dentist’s chair. As the doc drilled, Sharon noticed the “tooth dust” rising above his face.
He’s working on a joke about his experience, and “tooth dust” is the kind of detail he’ll try on his audience. It’s the sort of thing that people can identify with.
Another thing: When you’re trying to be funny, “it’s so important to be in the moment,” he says.
“If you are thinking about something else when you are telling a joke, it’s not going to be fun.”
Mistakes?
A common one is failing to pause while people laugh.
Let ’em laugh. Then continue the joke.
“Stepping on the punch line, being fake, robotic movements: I’ve had it all,” says Sharon, who has been cracking them up at comedy clubs for about six years.
He’s been heckled, he’s flopped miserably. It’s not fun.
“If a gymnast falls over and breaks her leg in a performance, everyone feels bad for her; they even respect her,” he says. “But when a comedian eats it, he’s a leper. People avoid you. They don’t even want to shake your hand.”
When Sharon flubs a joke, he makes fun of himself: “I make it big,” he says.
Sometimes, his skewering of himself is the funniest part of the bit. If you are lucky enough to have caught Johnny Carson when he hosted “The Tonight Show,” you’ll know what Sharon is talking about. Carson leveraged failed jokes into knee-slappers.
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If you get weary of faking laughs while the neighbor kids practice their knock-knock joke techniques, turn to the pros:
Denver
Comedy Works, 1226 15th St., 303-595-3637 or comedyworks.com; $27 to around $40 for national touring acts.
The Squire, open-mic comedy Tuesdays at 10 p.m., 1800 E. Colfax Ave., 303-333-9106
Bovine Metropolis Theatre, improv and sketch comedy, 1527 Champa St., 303-758-4722, $5-$16, bovinemetropolis.com
Westminster
Wit’s End Comedy Club, shows Wednesday-Sunday, $10-12, 8861 Harlan St., 303-430-4242, witsendcomedyclub.com,; “Survival of the Wittiest” contest on alternate Wednesdays, sign-up required at Wits@JayBenedictBrown.com.
Colorado Springs
Loonees Comedy Corner, 1305 N. Academy Blvd., 719-591-0707, loonees.com, $6-$8
Fort Collins/Loveland
The Yukon, 5400 N. Garfield Ave., Loveland 970-593-1661, “Maximum Comedy” shows on selected Sunday nights, $10. Next show April 22.
COMPILED BY SUSAN CLOTFELTER
