Speaker's ToolsHere's some ways for supporting the logic of the Word Play:
- 1. You can support them with a strong character.
Anybody here ever see Jonathan Szeles? The Amazing Jonathan? Does Comedy magic and he's got this great strong character. He comes out and does all his jokes as real rambunctious character. He says, 'WATCH!' He's doing a trick. 'WATCH! WATCH! WATCH!' Then he shows his wrist because he means his wristwatch.
You don't take Word Plays seriously - it's the spirit of fun. Rip Taylor does a lot of Word Plays. Remember Rip Taylor, he takes all those props. He'd come out with a piece of hose with some underpants tried around it and goes 'pantyhose.' A golf-ball with a screw through it - 'screwball.' It's the spirit of fun. How does he start out his act. Have you seen him on television? He comes down into the audience throwing confetti on people. You don't take them seriously. They're nice and loose.
- 2. You can use the ad lib factor.
You can get away with a lot of lines because it looks like you're doing them off the top of your head. There was a comedian Tom Burrow. If somebody started heckling him or causing him problems he just go, "What's your beef Wellington?" And it looked like he did it off the top of his head. He get a big laugh off it. It's was line he wrote.
"What's your beef Wellington?" Is the same as "Your overdue Bill." Just using a sentence in another situation.
- 3. Strong character.
Yakov Smirnoff. Very strong character, lots of Word Plays. "I got off the plane and saw a Vodka ad. Everybody EVERYBODY loves Smirnoff. America! What a country!" "I went into the store. I saw instant potatoes. What's this? 'Oh, you add milk to the flakes and instant potatoes!' Then I saw baby powder. I didn't know WHAT to think!" Yakov Smirnoff does a lot of Word Plays and he justifies it because he doesn't understand the language. Strong characterization. You can support Word Plays with some of the following overlays:
- 4. Being drunk, hard of hearing, foreign born-not familiar with the language, pre-occupied.
Real common in the 50's and 60's sketches where the guy is thinking about sex and every line that's used has some sexual reference. He's in a produce market, you know. And somebody says, 'These melons look great.' He's looking a woman's breast, 'Yes they really are.' All the sexual references - they used to do a lot of that with the Laugh-In Show. What was the comedy team... Rowan & Martin, always had an overlay on there.
More overlays: ignorant or uneducated.
Archie Bunker. Lot of Word Play stuff because Archie Bunker would use words he didn't understand. Meathead would use words that were too big for Archie. Characterization is the trick to that.
The oldest common joke. Jack Marion, "Ya know that storm the other day. This woman in front of me came up to the counter and she has some Tampax and the price tag had fallen off of it. So the cashier tells the clerk to go back and check on the price of Tampax. Well the clerk thought he said, thumbtacks." It's an OLD joke. Jack Marion does it in his act. He's a nightclub headliner. "When the clerk gets to the back of the store he calls out, does she want the kind you push in with your thumb or kind you pound in with a hammer?" Word Play, Word Play. It's an old, old joke.
