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Hi All

I was thinking that it would be great to have the ability to pick up on those innuendoes in conversations and to have a witty and light hearted disposition and a funny comeback at call.

So as i was listening to the office banter I started to wonder; why it is some people seem to be effortlessly funny while others struggle with it. I know for me sometimes, (generally after a few drinks) I have a mind like a steel trap and i am effortlessly funny, while at other times I need to get the oil can, lubricate those rusty hinges and start up the humour generator and only manage a mildly humorous comeback.

Stand up comedians, and a few of our posters here, seem to have this ability down to a fine art. Since there are some very funny, witty and humorous posters, I am hoping to gain some insight as to how different people sift through the incoming information and how they represent that information within themselves to make those rapid witty statement and comebacks.

I am very curious to discovering the humour strategies that others use and to also try some of them out.

Looking forward to laughing myself silly, in new and wonderful ways

Have a great day

Frederic

It helps, as Richard Bandler put it, to see things as ridiculous as they actually are, and not through the frame of whatever orthodoxies keep humour at bay. Human behaviour is inherently funny much of the time, and one way to realise that is to be the proverbial Martian anthropologist, though Michael Breen noted that it's those from Jupiter that are getting the better results these days.

I'm not one of the really funny people around here, but at least I'm awake, so I'll jump in.

Humor depends - or so I've been told - on setting up an expectation in the listener - "So this guy walks into a bar...", then knocking it sideways: "...and goes 'OUCH!'" Humorous banter is more than a series of jokes, but it can allow for responding to something in a way that turns the listener's expectation in another direction, suddenly enough to get that unconscious "I get it!" response known as laughter.

I think when someone says something, and I go through the usual transderivational search, part of what I believe I may find in there is a way to put that sudden kink in the listener's expectations based on what's already been said. It's like while possible meanings for words and phrases are playing out at 30 per second, so are possible comebacks. At that rate, even if all I get is a really lame one, I still have time to reject it in favor of not looking like an eejit, or saying it anyway, depending on my level of trust in the people I'm with, and the level of humor in the conversation thus far. I think I'm doing a really speedy future-pace for reactions somewhere in there.

I also have to filter for whether the joke I'm contemplating making - or any joke at all - is appropriate at this time.

I wouldn't say that Bridget, I think you have a very sharp and funny SOH.

That's pretty much the same for me, except I omit the Eejit step and say the lame punch line.

I also found that when I dont try to be funny, when I am in a relaxed and spontaneous state the quality of the material is far better.

I also discovered that I have a repetoire of stored humourous responses (one liners) that I insert and modify to suit the situation. Maybe I should utilise the discretion filter more often, nahhhhh


Adrian,

Love the idea of looking at human behaviour as inherently funny as it is. Since I like to be an individual, I see myself as more of a Venetian. Perhaps a blind venetian anthropologist at times,

Yes, I also came up with a venetian blind punch line.

Have a great day

Frederic

"Yes, I also came up with a venetian blind punch line"

I can't believe they actually line up to get punched, I suppose if they have sight issues then when they join the back of the line they cannot see what is going on at the front.

Is anyone spontanious? Are there any new jokes? When you hear a spontanious quipp, it is probably a parody of a film or comedy sitcom but with the jokes delivered as their own. It is not so much what to say as that has been decided for you, but more a case of appropriatness and timing.

I was at a wedding a few weeks ago and after months of being warned 'watch out for this guy as he is a real pi$$ taker and really funny'. I made it one of my priorities to chat with this bloke and sat there as he performed gag after gag taken from Billy Connelly's live show, Chandler Bing from Friends and Ali G.

Now, is he funny? We all laughed but I would question whether this person was actually funny.

Thanks,

Matt

Novel application of time distortion #46:

I have a friend who is effortlessly skilled at spontaneous, original and very funny one-liner quips.

Once upon a time somebody asked her how she was able to come up with such great responses in such a short time frame - turns out that she experiences time differently in those moments. What others experience as an instant in those situations, she experiences as heaps of time - time in which she firstly generates a whole range of possible responses, and then secondly rules out all the ones that seem dumb or obvious.

So even though she seems to respond straight away, her response is rarely the first thing that came to her mind.

I would never question the great James Tsakalos, but it I were, I would ask whether a person who thinks through possible answers and selects the most appropriate, how can that be called a spontanious act?

Fair call. Let me amend that to "seemingly spontaneous"

I don't tend to find the 'man walks into a bar' type of humour particularly funny, most times such jokes are just regurgitations that give the illusion that the joke teller is somehow the author. 'Trying to be funny' is the antithesis of funny from my point of view; those who try usually end up looking like David Brent.

I can't think of anything worse than a bunch of NLPers sitting around in big conference room running 'the funny process' "NOOOWWW...imagine a large crowd of people laughing at everything you say, the sound of laughter is echoing up through the ceiling and reverberating off the surrounding walls, people are literally rolling on the floor clutching their stomachs in agony, one man is being sick in the corner"....

And off they go unleashed onto the public like rabid jackals seeking the blood of approval through humour, always laughing the loudest in any given room and stinking out the place with Aramis aftershave.

Three men are walking down the street.
Two of them walk into a bar.
The third one ducks.

Venus

There are of course exceptions to the rule

"I can't think of anything worse than a bunch of NLPers sitting around in big conference room running 'the funny process'"

I can share the smell of Aramis when thinking about putting a structure to a wonderfully fluid art, but ultimatly, like all skills it can and has been studied, broken down and rebuilt. For me, the change of direction, or play on words type of jokes can be funny but also can be appallingly predictable, but so can any other type. IMHO Jimmy Carr or Frankie Boyle are fantastic at this and a little like a magic show, pulling a rabbit out of a hidden compartment in a hat is not entertaining, but whole delivery and razza-mataz makes a gag or gimmick into a worthwhile joke.

Thanks

Matt

William Shakespere walks into a bar, the landlord shouts "get out, you're Bard".

Frederic asked for strategies - I hope no-one thought I was saying anyone runs those strategies consciously. Not on this forum at least. That would be decidedly un-funny.

Hi All

Thanks for your replies, I agree that gags and story type humour have their place. I think a lot of comics use variations of SOM , like they extrapulate a situation to obsurdity or they trump the criteria, Billy Connelly is a great example of this and very funny.

I was thinking more about how people come up with those sharp and witty retorts. I like the idea of distorting time to allow the grey computer time to evaluate the best response. I was listening to RB on time distortion, so I have an idea of how to this, half the fun will be tapping out the rythm to get into time distortion mode, .
I shall try it out, thanks James.

I dont know a room full of witty NLPers might not be so bad, at least you would walk with a smile on your face, lord knows what else. .

During my prac course, the back of the room assistants often sat around playing trance wars and anchoring trances with each other, this sometimes carried on into the break area outside the room. This flowed onto the group as we also tried to induce trances on one another, now that was funny.

Have a great day

Frederic