Smart Tips To Telling Funny Jokes Correctly

Smart Tips To Telling Funny Jokes Correctly

By Guest Author on January 6th, 2011.
Filed Under:Humor
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Many people enjoy hearing a good joke, many others love telling one. However, telling a joke is far harder than it sounds. In fact, ruining a good joke is far easier than telling it. However, there is a right way to tell funny jokes, and it all lies in the set-up, punchline, and timing.

Your audience is very important. It determines whether your joke will come off as funny or obnoxious. So you have to study your audience carefully before deciding on which joke to tell. There are four basic types to fit most audiences: the politically incorrect joke, the clean joke, the best joke ever heard, and the blond joke.

Build up anticipation with your set-up. The set-up is where you hook the crowd, grab their attention, and then lead them down a totally expected path. To do the perfect set-up, you have to memorize the joke and know it forwards and backwards so that it flows naturally. Keep in mind not to laugh during the set-up, which kills anticipation and ruins everything.

Now you want to kill them with the punchline. A good punchline is one that is totally unexpected and hits them from out of the blue. During the set-up, you took them in an expected direction. Then you hit them with a complete change of direction with the punchline, taking them off guard and that is where the laughs come in.

The perfect set-up and punchline is nothing if your timing is off. The timing must build up the anticipation of the punchline. To do this, pause after the set-up, look around at your crowd. If you can, zone in on one person in particular, zap them with the punchline, and then look around at the rest of your crowd. If you deliver it perfectly, your good joke will be a great joke.

Be relaxed and confident when telling your joke. When you stumble over your words or fidget around, you make the audience a bit nervous and they are likely to lose interest. So you have to be relaxed when you tell the joke, it should be as if you are talking about everyday things and not telling a joke, that is how relaxed you should be. Then the joke will just come out naturally.

Think about the length of your joke, the shorter the better. The faster you can get through set-up and to the punchline, the easier it is to hold your audience’s attention. Cut out all the unnecessary details, they are irrelevant, and stick the basics. The longer and more detailed a joke is, the harder it is to memorize, which can make it harder to set up.

The ability to tell funny jokes is a gift for some and a learned skill for others. It is the perfect skill to have in breaking the ice, cutting the tension, and meeting people. Always keep in mind though that you do not laugh at your own joke, at least not at first. You have to let the audience laugh first and then join in on the fun, before throwing another joke at them.

Want to know what the key is to telling funny jokes ? Get the ultimate low down now in our overview of the ultimate funny forum .

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