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The Anatomy of Comedy
By
Stephen Blath

(NOTE: The word funny and comedy will be used interchangeably in this piece. I do so knowing that anything funny is not always comic, by matter of opinion, but nonetheless, it’s true to logic)

Comedy: Any various types of Play, Story, Movie, etc…with a more or less humorous portrayals of characters, situation… and a happy ending. (Webster’s New World Dictionary, 3rd Edition)

You would think that a dictionary would have a better definition, maybe a joke as an example, but out of the three I have on hand, they were all basically the same bland, uninformative and downright sterile descriptions of the form. Hopefully, I can enlighten you with this piece.
A lot of people think that Pete is a funny guy and I really can’t comment because I don’t know him that well. However, what I read of his work does lead me to conclude that my former presumption is correct. Pete is funny. Bottom line…. but what is funny?
To start, funny is something that makes you laugh. Whether it is seeing a squirrel fall out of a tree, an old lady taking a spill from her walker and consequently eating pavement,, a very loud, rude noise, or just a good old-fashioned joke, anything that makes one laugh is something that defines comedy.
We’ll start with the basics. There are essentially five types of funny:
1) Not really funny at all (elicits no reaction, save the “you’re a fucking idiot” facial expression)
2) Mildly amusing (something that would elicit a slight smirk)
3) Laugh out loud funny
4) I almost peed my pants funny
5) So funny I did pee my pants
***Note: There is a dreaded sixth form of funny, but one so horrible I hesitate to mention it. Something so marvelously hilarious, it elicits the following response***
6) So funny I crapped myself before going into a coma

This leads us to the art form. How does one create comedy? Comedy and other types of creative writing such as, horror, fantasy and of course explicit sex stories…. The kind that involve a man going into a bar and consequently being taken home by 2-3 very hot women, with a variety of body types and hair color, then to have pleasure galore bestowed upon him…. Sorry I got side tracked there, but can you blame me? I start talking about hot women dong things fulfilling your wildest fantasies and … Hold on…I’ll be right back!
That’s better…. Where were we? Ah, yes… These types of the art form need a more creative imagination. One that can skew reality in such a way that normal becomes funny, horrific, magical and to the kind of sex that will never happen to you in a thousand lifetime, has the knack for this type of work.
This seems difficult but it really isn’t if you practice. For horror, you create a monster. One who is preferably dead, really putrid and has a purpose to kill. For Comedy, all you have to do to make the monster funny is give him a really high-pitched voice, so it nulls the menacing aspect. Take Mike Tyson for example…. Or you could give the monster a huge tongue and an even huger penis, make him look relatively like me, surround him by 40-65 beautiful women… Dammit! BRB again…


Next would come dialogue. It’s the same concept. You skew reality in such a way that a normal sentence becomes a comedic gem. For example: “I like grapes”. This sentence is not funny at all. Tack on the words “I like grapes… Stuck up my butt-hole one by one” and you are on your way to becoming a comic genius. Tweak the sentence even more by saying “I like grapes stuck up my butt-hole one by one, while I perform fallattio on a monkey as two toy poodles invade my ears leaving my brain full of creamy poodle goodness” and you have gone way too far. This is disgusting and if you even smirked at this, I beseech you to seek professional help. The message here is to know the fine line between comedy and just being totally “fucked-up”.
To test this, write something funny and read it to a friend. When his smile and laughter slowly turns into a look of disturbed awe, you must immediately cut out that bit and do some serious re-writing. In worst cases, you might be forced never to talk to that person again.

Sometimes comedy doesn’t really have to do with funny at all, in a certain sense, it might just be a common laughable item of interest in society. The title Anatomy of Comedy sounds like something you might be learning in some boring class, but replace the word comedy with Penis, and the title takes on a completely different tone. Even if the article were really about the anatomy of the penis, it would get passed around as a joke, no matter how serious the topic matter. Here are some more:
1) The anatomy of my Penis. This might not be funny to you, but if you ever saw my penis, it would definitely inspire big laughs.
2) The anatomy of huge titties. This one is self-explanatory and was brought up to take the attention away from my very funny penis.
3) The Anatomy of the Pope’s Penis. This title is funny on multiple levels. Firstly, because I am now most definitely going to go to hell for making fun of the Pope’s genitalia. He’s basically the voice of God, which makes me wonder if his penis has the same faculties. Is the pope given his title not based on holiness, but rather who has the more “Godly” Penis? …Come to think of it… did you ever wonder why all of the angels were all male? That’s something to put in your back pocket. Secondly, even if his penis is Godly, what does it matter if he can’t put it too good use. This segway to my last point being the overall irony to this whole bit. The pope is arguably the most powerful man in the free world and yet a lowly hack like myself still manages to have sex now and then, thereby abolishing the general belief that power = sex.

The art of comedy is just a shifted view of everyday life. The creative writer sees a much different world. They see it as a world of wonderment and very menacing objects hitting crotches. To quote Stephen King from his new book, “A writer must read.” If you want to be funny, read funny people. The best way to find and fine-tune your own comedic voice would be to watch movies. It’s the quickest and easiest way to bombard your brain with totally giggle-a-fide stuff-ages.
His second tip is “2nd draft = 1st draft – 10%” this can be applied to any form of writing and is just an all around useful piece of advice. So useful, in fact, he recounted the time the advice was passed to him. I didn’t actually use that advice in this article because if I did, this piece would be a bonafide #6 on the laugh scale.
In closing I would just like state that you are all probably thinking “why so many references to sex?” I could quote Freud on sexual repression and fantasy, but the truth is that, as I’ve stated, I’m nothing more than a hack ? I needed quick laughs for examples, so I took the easy way out. If you don’t like it you can suck the creamy poodle goodness out of my ears!