joke writing – MagicShow.Tips

MC Notes When Hosting a Show

When I MC a show, I write out each act’s info on it’s own sheet of paper. That act’s paper and only that act’s is in my pocket when go out to introduce them. I do my best to memorize the introduction, however if I need the paper, it’s the only one in my pocket, so it’s easy to find.

Also on each act’s paper I write any notes, usually I’ll write their ending bit if I know it. That helps me prepare for when to walk out. The other thing I do is write joke ideas to say after their act. For example one of the acts I recently worked with ended his act by producing flags. The joke I wrote was, “That act has more flags than my neighbor’s pickup truck!” and that got a big laugh.

After each act, I crumple up their paper, but don’t throw it away. I leave it around in case I need to remember anything, like a joke was good and I can use it elsewhere.

This system may look messy, however I know a lot of other people that do MC work that use a similar system of crumbling up notes, but not throwing them away until after the show. If you’re not doing it this way, give it a try!

-Louie

More Thumb Tie Work

I’m liking the thumb tie routine that I’ve been working on the last two weeks. There’s a lot of big laughs in the routine!

One of the challenges in writing for this routine is that a lot of the “comedy” comes from me and the guy onstage being stuck together. I want to make jokes, but the reason for the joke funny can’t be because it’s “gay”. What I mean by that is if the only reason the joke gets a laugh is because it implies one or both of use is gay, I don’t want it. I personally don’t think anyone’s sexual orientation should be the punchline of a joke. That and I don’t have any sexual content or inuendo in the show.

The jokes have to be about the situation that the guy and myself are in. Writing with rules can be harder, but ultimately I think it will make a better routine.

-Louie

Flexing an Old Muscle

A couple of nights ago I performed at the Mostly Magicians Virtual Open Mic. It was a lot of fun and Ryan Kane is a great host for it. It’s an open mic, so a great place to work things out.

I was second to last in the show, and I brought two tricks, one that was pretty solid and one that I was working on. Unfortunately I only got to do one trick which wasn’t the one I was working on as I ran out of time.

It wasn’t a total loss as far as working on material goes. I did something I haven’t done in while…wrote some jokes about the other acts. When I MC in person shows I would write jokes about the acts and use them in the transition between acts. I didn’t plan on doing this, it’s something I just did.

One of the interesting things about doing jokes about things happening NOW instead of prepared material is that the audience is aware of that. Your joke doesn’t need to be the best joke, they will give you a lot of leeway. They can instantly relate to your joke, you don’t need to set up a backstory. I think any of the jokes I told, if you took out of context of the show would fall flat…even if you described the act before the joke.

The first half of my show was a stand up set about the show. It was fun, and good to flex that creative muscle.

Even More Ring On Rubber Band

Last week I started working on a routine for the Ring on Rubber Band trick. I learned that my initial opening line didn’t play how I wanted it to. I added in a line at the beginning that’s was in a routine I used to do in the show, but don’t do anymore. It kinda works as an opening line, however it really doesn’t answer the “why am I showing you this” question.

“I’ve performed this trick across America, including it’s minor outlying territories, Guam, Puerto Rico and Canada. The ring represents the 18 years I’ve been married and the a rubber band which memorializes the one time I bought broccoli …just to let it rot in the crisper”

Show ring and rubber band. The rubber band is around your left index and thumb. Point to the sides of the rubber band as you say:

“This rubber band has two sides, just like congress…the Senate and the deep state. And this ring also has two sides, a left and a my wife is always right side.”

“The ring will go through each side of the rubber band defying the restraining order I got from the laws of physics.”

Push the ring through the first side of the rubber band

“Through one side, that’s the easy side. It’s the bunny slope of the rubber band. The second side is the most difficult, it’s the Mount Everest of Magic. Three men have died trying this next part, but they all had preexisting conditions…and latex allergies.”

Push the ring through the second side of the rubber band.

“Like Coachella, we’ll take it off one band at a time.”

Pull the ring off the rubber band one side at a time.

“and that’s how I wrote my wedding off on my taxes!”

I also added in a joke about the ring having sides which is a tag on the first joke. The routine is starting to take shape. The current sequence of moves I’m doing makes the routine feel more like filler to me, than a solid, good routine. It’s still lacking a punctuation on the ending.

Cutting a Joke…

Last night I popped into a virtual magic club meeting and got to try out the Ring on Rubber Band routine that I’ve been working on. I was kinda surprised at the reaction the opening joke got. Here’s the opening joke:

“This is the most expensive trick I do. The rubber band cost me 37 cents, but the ring cost me half of everything I own.“

The reaction was an “oooh” and not a laugh. I think the problem is the background that I’m projecting onto the line is different from what the audience is projecting. The audience I think is assuming that I’m getting divorced or am divorced and it’s not a good split. What I’m saying is in the state I live in, because I’m married, my wife automatically owns half of everything that I own.

Is the joke worth trying to save?

Probably not. There’s a lot of background info that I would need to provide, or I’d have to figure out a tag or follow up joke to explain better that I’m still happily married.

I think I’m going to try to come up with a new opening line…

More Ring on Rubber Band…

Continuing the last few days work on to the hopefully have a working Ring on Rubber Band trick, I’ve tweaked some of the jokes a little bit. I changed some of the punchlines and streamlined the script to tighten it up.

“This is the most expensive trick I do. The rubber band cost me 37 cents, but the ring cost me half of everything I own. The ring represents the 18 years I’ve been married and the a rubber band which memorializes the one time I bought broccoli …just to let it rot in the crisper”

Show ring and rubber band. The rubber band is around your left index and thumb. Point to the sides of the rubber band as you say:

“This rubber band has two sides, just like congress…the Senate and the deep state.”

“The ring will go through each side of the rubber band defying the restraining order I got from the laws of physics.”

Push the ring through the first side of the rubber band

“Through one side, that’s the easy side. It’s the bunny slope of the rubber band. The second side is the most difficult, it’s the Mount Everest of Magic. Three men have died trying this next part, but they all had preexisting conditions…and latex allergies.”

Push the ring through the second side of the rubber band.

“Like Coachella, we’ll take it off one band at a time.”

Pull the ring off the rubber band one side at a time.

“and that’s how I wrote my wedding off on my taxes!”

The script is a bit better. I’m not happy with the the “Coachella” line between the on and off phases. Right now that’s a place holder for something better.

The hard thing about right now with COVID restrictions is that I can’t just go out to a bar and try it out and get feedback from real people. The trying and tweaking phase is much clunkier and time consuming.

Routining The Writing…

The last couple of days I’ve been writing about putting together a script for the Ring on Rubber Band trick that I’ve been working on. Yesterday I wrote a bunch of jokes, and today I’m going to try to put them together in some sort of a logical way.

“Through one side…that’s the easy side. It’s the bunny slope of the rubber band. The second side is the double black diamond. Three men have died trying this next part, but they all had preexisting conditions… and latex allergies.”

Push the ring through the second side of the rubber band.

Pull the ring off the rubber band one side at a time.

“and that’s how I wrote my wedding off on my taxes!”

Alright the routine looks like more of a routine now, and not a bunch of random jokes. The routine now runs about a minute. That’s way better than the 12-15 seconds before I started writing for it.

The jokes still need some tweaking. The congress joke needs a better punchline, and the double black diamond needs a better word/name in its place. I also need something in between the the two penetration phases, where the ring is over both sides of the rubber band, but before I pull it off.

Writing for Ring and Rubber Band…

In yesterday’s blog post I started writing about putting together a script for the Ring on Rubber Band routine that I’m working on. We’re really starting at nothing and trying to come up with something to say, otherwise the routine is 12 seconds long.

Let’s start by making some associations to the props.

Ring:
-wedding
-fashion
-circle
-gold
-marriage
-expensive
-cheap

Rubber Band
-office supply
-latex (or not latex)
-holds things together
-yellow (or whatever color it is)
-rubber band gun
-circle
-snap

Using that list, how about I introduce the props by saying, “a ring which represents the 18 years I’ve been married and the a rubber band which memorializes the one time I bought broccoli (asparagus?)” I think I prefer saying “bought broccoli” as the alliteration sound funnier in my head.

Let’s keep writing and see what comes up:

“Just like congress, this rubber band has two sides, a left side and tea party”

“I will push the ring through each side of the rubber band defying the restraining order from the laws of physics.”

“This trick is even more dangerous once you know that I have a latex allergy.”

“The best part is that I can write off my wedding on my taxes”

“The rubber band will jump through the ring like a tiger through a flaming hoop in the circus”

“Through one side…that’s the easy side. It’s the bunny slope of the rubber band. The second side is the double black diamond. Three men have died trying this, but they all had latex allergies.”

“Beyonce’s favorite trick”
Do the hand dance move from the Put a Ring on it Song

“This is probably the most expensive trick I do. The rubber band cost me 37 cents, but the ring cost me half of everything I own.”

“I tried to do this with the governor’s ring, but they escorted me out saying I had to have an appointment”

“I showed this trick to Pete Rose and when I told him what was going to happen he said, “I BET you can’t do that”…”

For the quick little writing session, I wrote down everything I thought of. I didn’t censor any ideas because I thought they were bad. Bad ideas may lead to a good idea, so they stay. Obviously I won’t use all of the jokes and I’ll have to arrange them into an order that makes sense. That’s a job for tomorrow.

Writing Jokes…

A little bit ago I was helping out a friend set up a Drive Thru Zoo and stuck around to hang out during the actual event. It was a lot of fun, and people are really excited to have things to do (even if they had to stay in their cars). This is a good sign for when in person shows come back.

While I was there, the performer in me started to think about how to engage people, instead of them just reading the signs. What I did was look up some basic facts about the animals and write out a rough routine to engage and educate the audience.

For example here’s what I was doing when people got to the emu:

Me: This is Louie the emu. He’s the oldest living emu in the USA, can you guess how old he is?
Car: 17 years
Me: 273 years old
Car: what…
Me: no, he’s 27
Car: *laughs*
Me: Emu’s live to be 15-20 years old in the wild

Me: He’s an omnivore, that means he eats plants, animals and tacos.
Car: *laughs*

Me: Can you guess where he comes from?
Car: Africa…
Me: An egg. He comes from an egg.
Car: *laughs*
Me: The emu’s egg is green and sorta looks like a giant avocado.

Me: Louie can run up to 30 miles per hour, do you know what that is in kilometres? Without looking at your speedometer
Car: *laughs* I didn’t think to look there. 40 kilometres?
Me: Close, it’s 50.

What I did was come up with a conversational series of jokes, that makes the car full of people think and laugh while delivering jokes. It was fun writing this kind of stuff for the animals. It’s a bit different than writing jokes for a magic show, but it’s good to get outside your “box” every now and then.

Ripping Routine Part III

It’s time to write the foundation routine for the deck ripping trick. Yesterday’s post I talked about the main 4 different ways that I work on putting together a routine. Today I’m going to focus on method one from yesterday. 1. Write random jokes: “No one asks me to cut the cards anymore!” “This skill … Continue reading “Ripping Routine Part III”

1. Write random jokes:

“No one asks me to cut the cards anymore!”

“This skill come in handy almost…never.”

“The wrist strength to do this is common in every strongman and teenage boy.”

“I had to rip over a thousand decks of cards to learn to do this…that means I’m banned from just about every casino in the country.”

“If your cards match, that means you’re married in Uruguay.”

“Like two turtles, your cards match on the back.”

“If you card matches my prediction, I’ve just won the magic lottery”

“Like a half Hawaiian, half pepperoni pizza, this end perfectly!

When writing the above jokes, I didn’t really filter anything, I wrote down everything I thought of. Hopefully out of a dozen jokes you’ll get one or two that are any good. These are going to give us some things I can insert into the the script tomorrow when I write some more.