Steve Martin on being funny
Groundbreaking comedian Steve Martin, who recently published his memoir Born Standing Up, has a lengthy piece in Smithsonian on how he became funny. It's a delight to read someone so smart and hysterical talk about how he "got his act together" in the late 1960s and early 1970s by discovering what makes people laugh. From the article:
Link to Steve Martin in Smithsonian, Link to buy Born Standing UpIn a college psychology class, I had read a treatise on comedy explaining that a laugh was formed when the storyteller created tension, then, with the punch line, released it. I didn't quite get this concept, nor do I still, but it stayed with me and eventually sparked my second wave of insights. With conventional joke telling, there's a moment when the comedian delivers the punch line, and the audience knows it's the punch line, and their response ranges from polite to uproarious. What bothered me about this formula was the nature of the laugh it inspired, a vocal acknowledgment that a joke had been told, like automatic applause at the end of a song.
A skillful comedian could coax a laugh with tiny indicators such as a vocal tic (Bob Hope's "But I wanna tell ya") or even a slight body shift. Jack E. Leonard used to punctuate jokes by slapping his stomach with his hand. One night, watching him on "The Tonight Show," I noticed that several of his punch lines had been unintelligible, and the audience had actually laughed at nothing but the cue of his hand slap.
These notions stayed with me until they formed an idea that revolutionized my comic direction: What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation. This type of laugh seemed stronger to me, as they would be laughing at something they chose, rather than being told exactly when to laugh.
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Born Standing Up is a great little book, and it's really fascinating to see how carefully considered and planned, and even philosophical, all of Martin's "wacky" routines really were. It also paints a really plausible picture of why he walked away in the early '80s and never went back. Somehow I don't think his decisions to act in some of the worst schlocky family comedies of the last 15 years will be quite so amenable to thoughtful analysis.
For those who have read the book already, though, there's nothing new here. So much of this article was taken directly from the book that I was sort of surprised it wasn't identified as an excerpt.
"Taking apart a joke to see what makes it funny is like disecting a frog to see what makes it tick. You can do it, but the frog tends to die in the process."-Steve Allen
@Crunchbird, Thanks for that mini-review. I thought the Smithsonian article might be an excerpt, but I didn't see a reference to the book. Maybe it's in the print edition though.
Born Standing Up is fantastic. Steve Martin's novels, movies, and comedy records are good on their own, but I gained a new sort of appreciation for them after getting the back story on their birth first hand. Especially as a beginning comedian, his analysis of what comedy is articulates a lot of things I had only approached myself.
This is probably my second favorite autobiography, after the collection of Richard Feynman's memoirs into Classic Feynman. I've been loaning that book out like mad ever since.
Check into Steve Martin's comedy acts on YouTube before and after reading the book. Your perspective on his act changes drastically, especially on bits like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI--TGQGNFc
Steve is THE MAN. I devoured his new book in a day. It would be awesome if he were to do stand up again, but I think he is too far gone from the person he was back in the day.
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On a more gracious note. I hope steve stops doing the cheaper by the dozen movies and goes back to being genuinely hilarious, which is where his talent lies.
On different note but to your point, I was amazed at how little Dane Cook had to offer in his stand up premier on Sunday. I couldn’t believe he could suck yet was still succeeding at getting laughs. Your explanation helped me to understand. I guess he’s less funny than he is “coaxing.” Maybe that’s why he wears tight jeans. It’s all in the delivery; not what’s in the package.
I think that it's awesome that Elvis was one of the first people to dig Martin's act. Elvis was also one of the first people in the U.S. to get into Monty Python, and said once that the only Elvis impersonator that he liked was Andy Kaufman.
I prefer Steve's cliff notes on the subject:
"Comedy... is the ability to make people laugh... without making them puke."
This excerpt is the same thinking as the Monty Python troupe. When ever asked about their comedy, it's all the same: "Well we said, what if there was no punchline?"
It's a newish school of deconstructionist comedy.
I liked Steve Martin when he was funny, just like I liked Woody Allen when he was funny. They both got too introspective and 'deep'.
Now Martin writes pretentious intellectual claptrap, just like Woody. The only difference is that Allen apparently made enough money when he was still funny that he doesn't have to grub for dough, while Martin is reduced to starring in boring and unfunny 'family comedies' to pay the rent.
That being said, I bought and read Martin's autobiography. Turns out he's always thought too much, even when he was funny. Huh.
It makes him sound a bit like Andy Kaufman lite.
Which might not be fair, I only know his late-ish SNL bits, and that just barely.
Hmm. It's worth noting that 'being funny' has very different requirements in conversation than on stage. I get my biggest laughs when all I interject, the only thing I say, is a punchline that dramatically re-contextualizes the previous statements made by other people.
I have to say that imitating Steve's brand of comedy in the 70's made it very difficult for us 10 year old's trying to emulate him. The schtick just didn't fly. I think I honesty attempted to pull off the "53 breasts" line in front of my 5th grade class.
If you like things like this, laugh.com has a series of interviews with comedians about comedy that is excellent. I don't have a connection to them except as a fan, because the interviews are deliciously comedy-nerd friendly.
When my copy of Smithsonian arrives every month, I look forward to seeing which article Boing Boing will blog about.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-TXQ1K91yh0
The print version of this article says, in fine print, "Adapted from Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin."
Hm. Maybe Steve Allen should have offered attribution:
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it." -- E. B. White
Automatt (16), it would be sad if an intelligent person could read an entire issue of Smithsonian and not find something of compelling interest in it.
steve, you were funnier with cocaine. hahaha..
@#13 So you basically say "thats what she said" on the end of everything someone else says?
This is a great book and I don't think many readers are ready for the end of the book where Steve Martin explains the reason why he got out of comedy....
***SPOILER***
From what I gather it was a two part thing 1) he outgrew what he became and couldn't take it any further and mor importantly 2) he had issues with his dad his whole life and as he grew more famous he was back in contact with his family and slowly those issues were resolved.
I think that is the most profound thing I got from the book. That creators can stop creating not because they are burned out or just "hack" but because whatever minor—or major—issue they had that drove them down that road just passed and they moved on. That's an aspect of art and creativity that's rarely touched on and is almost "verbnoten" among artists/creators so it's great to see one of my childhood heroes explain how is career grew and why he simply felt it was right for him to start.
Whoops, I meant "felt right for him to stop." I guess it works both ways when you think of it.
I still have most of Martin's schtick from "Wild & Crazy Guy" in my head from listening to it (8-track) so much back in the day. "You Americans are so nah-eeve. You have a-so many nah-eeve and a-simple ways. Like when you break up with a girl..."
When I think of Steve Martin, I can't help but think of George Carlin too. Their careers kinda paralleled, and they were both masters at making people laugh, when they were doing standup. Last I heard of Carlin he was doing the narration for Thomas the Tank Engine; talk about how the mighty have fallen. That was really strange hearing his voice on that; my kids think of trains when they hear him, and I think of the seven words you can't say on TV.
No, it should be 'stop'. The Dennis Pennis clip is horrible (what an odious little prick that guy was), but to uncoin a phrase, it's not funny because it's true. Steve Martin turned his back on his own talent, and ever since we've had to put up with his dreary prose and cynical films because he 'grew out' of what made him special.
What a happier world it would be if there were six or seven more Steve Martin live albums to choose from, or even one more film like 'The Jerk'.
Jack, you're right about that being a seldom-discussed aspect of artists' lives. The art we make is always an expression of everything we are. When we change, sometimes we stop having anything to say in a particular medium.
It can go the other way as well. Around the time he turned 60, Hokusai stopped doing production-line work and turned into the artist we remember.
you mean he finally finished paying for the kids and started doing what he wanted to do?
@25: Carlin's standup is still alive and well. As he nears the end of his life, he is getting into some new, sometimes very weird and surreal material. And at least as dark and cranky as always. I suggest checking out any of the more recent clips on YouTube.
This is exactly analogous to modern womanizing theory for dorky men who must rely on their own outward energy to attract girls instead of be born so lucky as to have the right body/mind to have girls throw themselves at them (starting at the forevermore confidence–boosting age of 14).
Born Standing Up is a wonderful read. Steve Martin comes across as a very hard working and reflective person, for whom the stars aligned. In the book he is gentle and generous, giving lots of credit to people who influenced him.
In addition to the Smithsonian, the New Yorker ran a piece October 29 2007. The article is not online but there is a short audio clip.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/10/29/071029on_audio_martin