Saturday, September 25, 2021

Weekend Post

THE TEN SECOND COMEDY WRITING COURSE


Since I can't find an appropriate photo...

Some of the best training I got in television I got from radio. I came of age in a long ago distant time when there was a thing called “radio.” Radio stations would play music and provide hosts to introduce it. These hosts were called disc jockeys. And here’s the real amazing thing: people listened. Not just those few who are in too big a hurry to access their Pandora station or itune playlists. Everybody listened. Generally they listened every waking hour of the day. In every city there were usually two or three stations who all vied for the attention of these eager young ears. Listeners selected their favorite station and bonded with it. Their allegiance was fierce. You could be on the fence as to whether you were a leg or breast man but you damn well preferred KHJ over KRLA.

Back in the ‘50s, rock & roll emerged and radio stations viewed it the way a dog views a pork chop. Top 40 radio was born.

Quick history lesson: Why Top 40? The legend goes that a Kansas City station owned Todd Storz was in a bar one night and people were playing the same songs on the juke box. Over and over. And then when they left and the staff was cleaning up they played the same songs, even though they had heard them repeatedly. A light bulb went off. Program only a limited number of records and play them in constant rotation. Since disc jockey shifts were four hours and they generally played ten records an hour, they decided to call the format Top 40 allowing every disc jockey to play every hit. By the mid ‘60s that became the Top 30, and WABC in New York reduced that further to where the top 5 played every 70 minutes. I know. Just reading that probably sends you screaming for your itunes.

When two or more Top 40 stations competed in a market they did so by trying to make the most noise, have the loudest presentation, craziest contests, and wildest disc jockeys. They screamed, talked from echo chambers, rang cow bells, did voices, played wild tracks – anything to get attention.

Don’t worry. I’m getting to the comedy.

Then in the mid ‘60s, two radio visionaries – Bill Drake and Ron Jacobs – realized that 80% of the time D.J.’s were just spewing nonsense. So they created a format the restricted disc jockey chatter. Music was the key element of the format and disc jockeys had to limit their rap from endless to however much time they had over the intro of a record. How long were song intros back then? Usually between 8 and 15 second.

So that’s how long the D.J. had to talk. Here’s what might surprise you: 15 seconds is an eternity. A skilled disc jockey can say the call letters, his name, the time, song title, artist, and still get in a one liner – without speaking all that fast.

Funny disc jockeys had to adapt and tailor their humor to this new format. And some became masters of it. Robert W. Morgan, The Real Don Steele, Dale Dorman (pictured: right) , Dan Ingram and Gary Burbank, to name just a few.

By the ‘70s when I joined the ranks of the hit spinners, this restricted format was now the norm. Since I don’t have the typical James Earl Jones voice I felt compelled to compensate by really being funny and entertaining. You talk about “brevity boot camp.” After a few years of this, and ignoring program director memos saying that I wasn’t funny and should not even try, I did develop a pretty amusing act. (Ironically, once I got out of radio and became a TV writer, limiting my disc jockeying to weekends at TenQ in Los Angeles these same program directors who said I sucked now said they knew all along I was a comic genius.)

When you only have ten seconds you must select the right words and the right number of words, and you must put them in the right order. The punch line has to come right before the vocal. And you learn delivery. You can’t rush your one-liner. Yes, you might squeeze it in, but if the audience doesn’t hear it clearly they won’t laugh. And here’s something else to consider: pauses are effective. Just because you have ten seconds doesn’t necessarily mean you have to talk for all ten seconds. A seven-second joke with a well placed pause might get a bigger laugh.

For me, this was an invaluable training ground. Four-to-six hours a night on the radio talking over record intros for several years greatly prepared for TV comedy writing. There too, time is of the essence. The tighter the joke construction the better. Jokes often have two functions in sitcoms. – to get a laugh and move the action forward. Characters rarely just stop to do a joke (at least on good shows). The jokes are woven into conversations and situations as the story barrels on (at a faster pace today than ever before).

Unfortunately, radio in any tangible form no longer exists. There aren’t weekend jobs in Bakersfield for young wannabe broadcasters to cut these teeth. There aren’t Top 30 stations that encourage disc jockeys to talk-up records. But it’s worth keeping the concept in your head. 10 seconds is a long time. 18 seconds is an eternity. When you write a joke, go back. Can you trim it? Is there one word that can replace three? Is there a funnier word or concept? The good news in writing vs. jocking – when you write a joke you don’t have 2:35 to come up with the next one. 10 seconds may be an eternity, but 2:35 goes by in a blink.

 

32 comments :

Mark Little said...

At our station in the mid 60’s it was sorta the top 54. We had the Top 40 plus 7 coming up and 7 going off. I truly hated some of those songs after about 600 plays.

Mike Barer said...

There was a time when DJs were so entertaining that you couldn't wait for the song to end to hear what the would say next.

Pat Reeder said...

Now you're speaking my language. First as the head writer of the Morning Punch, then for years as co-writer with my wife Laura of the Comedy Wire, we wrote daily topical syndicated humor services for DJs. After all the digging for stories and writing the facts into the shortest capsule stories possible, then writing and sharpening all the one-liners, the last thing I did before sending it out was to see if anything could be shortened. If I could replace a two-syllable word with one syllable without losing the laugh, I'd do it.

This did ruin a lot of modern comedy for me, though, because I get impatient with flabby, half-formed or unfocused writing that feels as if it needs another round of rewriting and some brutal editing.

Daniel said...

So Top 40, then, begat the phenomenon of record buyers NOT RECOGNIZING their favorite tunes on the discs they bought because they began with anywhere from 20 seconds to a full minute of intro they'd NEVER HEARD.

whynot said...

I would rather watch Becker reruns 24/7 for a month than listen to a disc jockey for 5 minutes.
And for the record, no disc jockey has every been funny - EVER.

ventucky said...

You seem to be glamorizing something no one I know who was around at the time misses. Verbal intros over music until the vocals start is nothing to brag about. It is, in the spectrum of the history of entertainment, horrific. Your references are usually regarding KHJ and KRLA. From the early 70's on, it was 85% KLOS and KMET which had far less DJ banter, though some still employed it. There is a local NPR station here in Louisville. 24 hours of music, no commercials or talk shows. Weekends have a more diverse playlist, jazz, bluegrass, etc, but it is primarily a rock station with some hip hop and divergent areas of pop music. Radio is not dead. In this case it is better than it has ever been. There is a free app to listen, or go online. WFPK

Roger Owen Green said...

I've probably said before how much I HATED when DJs talked over the introductions of songs. I wanted to hear the beginning of You Keep Me Hanging On by the Supremes. e.g. And I LOVED when there were songs that made talking over them impossible (Lay Down - Melanie; Since You've Been Gone - Aretha; and your hated Hey Jude.)

And I thought most DJs were unfunny, but maybe I just missed the good ones.

That said, I really liked your piece about timing and writing and what's funny. So there's that.

MHSweb79 said...

Glad to see Dale Dorman mentioned- I grew up listening to him on our local Boston station. Good times!

Michael said...

A couple of things. One is a line attributed to Mark Twain. He was asked if he could turn in a 300-word essay the next day and he said that the next day he could turn in a 3,000-word essay, but 300 words would take a month.

The other is that I spent two decades teaching history at a community college. I do not mean this unkindly when I say that the overwhelming majority of my students were there only to fulfill a requirement. That meant I had to learn how to keep them interested AND communicate clearly. It helped my writing and speaking a LOT.

Neil D said...

I have to join the chorus (no pun intended) of those who really disliked when the DJs would talk over the song intros. It feels like you think that part of the songs is just meaningless trash that no one wants to hear, and only the singing parts matter. Why not break back in and tell another joke during the instrumental break?

Mike Bloodworth said...

I have heard so many times that, "Brevity is the soul of wit." But it's easier to say than it is to do. Much like PAT REEDER I also struggle with the number of syllables in a word. Yet, many times after rewriting, a line will actually get longer rather than shorter. However, I feel that word efficiency is more critical for the set up rather than the punch line. That's why the straight man in a comedy team is so important and so underrated.
Good examples of quick jokes are "Laugh-In" an "Hee Haw." Yes. "Hee Haw." Those shows mastered the quick joke and one liner.

I'm sure if I had the time to edit this post I could cut out a third of it. But...

M.B.

Jeff Boice said...

I do miss that era. Yes there were limitations (AM reception, lots of commercials, and the occasional Wayne Newton song) but I still miss the personalities.

In the Ben Fong Torres book Drake and Jacobs emphasized the jock could talk up to the vocal PROVIDED he had something clever to say. If not, he was to shut up and let the song play.

Stuart G. said...

whynot said...”I would rather watch Becker reruns 24/7 for a month than listen to a disc jockey for 5 minutes.
And for the record, no disc jockey has every been funny - EVER.”
I totally agree.

N. Zakharenko said...

Now I know why you haven't been on Stus Show for a number of years.

Throw in a pause while speaking - and he'll erupt like a volcano over dead time, while speaking six times faster (and higher) than usual.

BobZirunkel said...

Crazy...

Perfesser Slaughter said...

This is a bit off topic, but I miss album-oriented rock from the 70s. Sirius is a pretty good replacement for the music, but I don't hear enough of that mellifluous late night radio voice doing a bit of humor, bringing up some rock history, commenting on the songs, getting excited about upcoming concerts. There's a station on Martha's Vineyard that still has that vibe and a beautifully curated selection of music. WMVY is a treasure to me.

Mike Barer said...

I agree with Perfesser Slaughter, although the great AM DJs were great too. When I was aspiring to get into radio, I lived on a floor of a dorm with anti-radio folks.
They took music very serious and put every album into it's jacket a specific way. Every album side was brushed before they played it. That was fine, but they didn't see the fun side of mixing music with entertainment.

Michael said...

Great stuff here, and I wanted to mention a couple of things.

One is that country comics could get away with both more and less because they were and sounded country. Example: Minnie Pearl. In her earlier years, she and another comic, Rod Brasfield, were the Opry's comedy stars (If you've seen A Face in the Crowd, he played Lonesome Rhodes's flunky). He had false teeth he'd click and he had a rubbery face. In one routine on radio in the 1940s, he'd ask to walk her home. She said yes. He'd say, "I've never got to walk home an experienced girl before." She replied, "Why, Rodney, I'm not experienced." His reply? "You ain't home yet, either."

The other is that Dick Cavett wrote about how a misplaced syllable changes a joke, and that can make one number funnier than another.

DBenson said...

As a kid listening to the pop stations my older siblings played, I conceived a comic bit I never found a home for: A classical deejay who'd yell over beginnings and endings.

"And for Megan in Hollister, here's Beethoven Fifth!" (Dah dah dah DUM) "With Lennie Bernstein on baton -- that must hurt." (Dah dah dah DUM) "Stay tuned for traffic!" (Dahdahdah dum, dahdahdah dum, dahdahdah dum ...)

Anita Bonita said...

Believe it or not, this applies to news as well. Nothing makes me crazier than serving as earwitness to a bunch of adjectives and clauses in search of a noun and verb. My background as a disc jockey was the best possible training to be a news anchor -- I learned timing, phrasing, and word economy from the inimitable Dan Ingram.

Colin Stratton said...

Every bartender that works at a bar with a jukebox that I have been to, hates it. They say the customers come in and play the same fucking songs they hear on radio. Being a tightass, I avoid that money grabber. I would rather have an extra drink!

Thomas Mossman said...

At the risk of bringing you something you may already know, I found this YouTube channel not too long ago that has old KHJ air checks, complete with DJ banter, songs, and commercials.

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClLMdBY27U64-kwO-PlX57w

Ziggy said...

Middays on KGB in San Diego (1981) taught me how to be tight and slightly humerous. Strange as it seems, in latter years, the majority of my career had me telling stories and interviewing callers between songs. Both ways were fun!

Anthony Adams said...

2 thoughts: I don't know what you're talking about that is the most appropriate photo I have seen lately. second, you see and hear everywhere about this needing a place to fail and that it's nowhere available anymore. or that if it is available, it becomes a gulag you cannot escape from rather than a garden to get roots down in. YouTube artists are YouTube artists; crossing over into the mainstream as difficult and then it becomes necessary to stay where you are in order to make money. likewise was self-published authors on Amazon and self released music packages on the music platforms.

JR Smith said...

I grew up in the 70s in rural Upstate New York, so I got to listen to WLS Chicago, WABC and WNBC New York and CKLW Windsor/Ontario off of the skywave. We even had a pretty decent Top 40 station in our little town; WENE. We listened to Top 40 radio not just to hear the music but to listen to "the show." It was the Dan Ingram Show...the John Landecker Show. Never really minded the DJs talking over the intros because they had elevated it to an art form.

Mike Barer said...

I shared this on the Facebook group "I Was A DJ When..." and this has so far generated 67 comments from DJs who enjoyed the post, but where not pleased with some of the reader comments.

RICHARD said...

Personality radio sells product. People listen to a program not a song. The business of radio was supported by selling products and services. Why would a listener prefer one station over another that played the same music. Yes presentation and production entertainment beyond the music all tied together by a unique talented Disc Jockey. Local info and fun tied to the market the station served. Radio was a free to the local listener service that needed suport from mostly local advertisers. When done well the skill set of professional team of a great station that people loved to listen to, it worked and helped advertisers sell product as well as service a community!

Jack West said...

As an adolescent in the 60's listening to WABC AM radio, I could swear Dan Ingram's jingle ("Daaaaan In-gram!") was actually "Diiiiining room!" Not that it had to make sense to a 12 year old.

But yeah, I think writing comedy is hard. It takes me several passes to get it where I think it comes off really funny. Most of what I hear being done sounds like it's supposed to be funny but it isn't. Yet, there are people who think they're hilarious.

So, when you're a DJ, and you don't have an audience you can hear laughing, how do you know the jokes are funny? The crew? The station manager? It doesn't matter? What?

Don C. said...

RICHARD, you are correct.

I've been on the air for 35 years. The songs you play matter. What goes on between the songs matters more. It's all about making it entertaining, and it's something I shoot for every day I'm on the air. Short jokes, telling people what's going on in OUR local area, and hopefully making someone's day a little better is all part of the plan.

Looking at the comments on this post reminds me again there's just no pleasing some people.

Pat Reeder said...

FYI to the complainers: most of those song intros you wanted to hear so badly were specifically recorded and timed for DJs to talk over.

The people who claim no DJ has ever been funny just haven't heard the good ones. I'd rather listen to old Gary Owens airchecks than any current late night "comedy" TV show. I know a lot of DJs who were funny and worked hard at it, spending more hours creating drop-in comedy bits for their shows than they did for their on-air shifts. We had national award-winning DJs as clients of our comedy service, and when their stations were too cheap to pay for it, they'd pay out of their own pockets. One guy who went off the air for a while continued subscribing, just to make sure nobody else in his market got it, just in case he ever decided to come back. I found it amusing that in that entire major market, the only person receiving our material was one guy reading it over his breakfast cereal.

Finally, I was once on the air and our news director came in, glared at me and complained that a line I'd said on the air made him laugh so hard, he drove off the road and nearly hit a telephone poll. I think that proves I was a funny DJ. I wish I could remember that joke. It nearly killed, literally.

Rick Kaplan said...

DJ's were my heroes in the 60's and 70's. Growing up in New York I loved the jocks on WABC and WMCA and later CBS-FM(a lot of the same jocks) I appreciate an air talent that knows the music. Nothing is as painful as a jock who thinks he's funny. These days I rarely listen to music radio. It's out of my demo and the jocks even on the great stations just do liners and rarely talk more than 15 seconds.

Gary Owens,Wink Martindale,Robert W Morgan and Charlie Tuna always had something to say and were true personalities.

Douglas Trapasso said...

Possible Friday question . . . As a radio performer, how do you keep your show authentic and energetic . . . when you're not very into the music you're playing? Every DJ has one or two songs that made them cringe to play, but what if you're not in love with the format (or your station has just switched to music you simply don't connect with)? Does that always mean it's time to move on?