Dangerous Day Job

I don’t understand how comedians do it. Getting up on stage to be laughed at, over and over again? Must be brutal.

Seriously though, writing jokes has got to be one of the hardest things in the world. Comedy is a strange phenomenon, that’s for sure. Usually when you feel a certain way about something, the reason being is obvious. If someone gets hurt, you feel sad. If someone hurts themselves, you feel pity. If someone succeeds, you feel happy. If someone does something unjust, you feel angry. But any and all of those things can also make you laugh somehow. It’s confusing.

Whenever I see a comedian telling jokes, working a crowd, dropping one liners, or just generally being entertaining, I feel a sense of awe. Sometimes I stop laughing at the jokes altogether because I’m too absorbed trying to figure out how they do it. One who always gets me is the eponymous Rodney Dangerfield. He seemed to have infinite one liners, which in my completely uninformed opinion are the hardest to come up with. Most of them are some form or another of self deprecating, probably because the man never got any respect. His delivery is what really made his jokes shine, and I think only he could tell them in a room full of people and get a laugh, but the writing alone can still be appreciated here.

Some dog I got too. We call him Egypt because he leaves a pyramid in every room.

I met the surgeon general. He offered me a cigarette.

I’m a bad lover. Once I caught a peeping tom booing me.

And of course the ultimate classic:

A girl phoned me and said, “Come on over. There’s nobody home.” I went over. Nobody was home!

Ok maybe that one spilled over to the next line a little, but you get the point. They’re short, sweet, and utterly hilarious. They each tell a whole story too. I’d like to end this on some kind of revelation about how to tell epic jokes but I just can’t. All I can do is repost Rodney Dangerfield quotes in the hopes that their humor rubs off.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley