Comedy Lens: Seinfeld & Dangerfield vs Corner Quipper

Having a clear Comedy Lens helps you become funnier.

A Comedy Lens is the twisted porthole through which you look at life to find humor. It also gives others an insight into where your comedy is coming from so they are more likely to relate to it and laugh.

Without a clear Comedy Lens, you risk becoming a ‘Corner Quipper’ – that generic, water cooler jester whose random attempts at jokes tend to fall flat and get old after a while.

With a clear lens, however, your take has a better chance at being more relatable to your audience and therefore funnier to them.

That’s why pro comedians like Rodney Dangerfield and Jerry Seinfeld are so hilarious to so many.

For example…

Say I want to get laughs about a subject that’s personal to me:

“My teen daughter oversleeps on weekends.” 

That’s a common premise and there are plenty of potential jokes that can be made about it.

Corner Quipper

A Corner Quipper might rely on Googled factoids to come up with a joke like this:

“Did you know a snail can sleep for three years?

A teenage snail even longer.”

Cute. Maybe worthy of a chuckle. But probably not if you like your humor edgier or more personal.

Or funny. (Ooh, snap.)

Now watch what happens when I take that same topic and apply some pro Comedy Lenses to it.

Rodney Dangerfield

Rodney Dangerfield’s Comedy Lens was ‘The Guy Who Gets No Respect.’

His take on that premise would reflect that and probably come out as a one-liner.

“I tell ya, now that my daughter’s a teenager, she’s starting to resemble her mother.
On weekends she ignores me all night and then sleeps in past noon.”

It’s arguably a funnier joke than the snail take because Rodney Dangerfield’s Comedy Lens is so clear to us. That makes him more like a funny friend than some random Corner Quipper.

Jerry Seinfeld

What about that same premise seen through Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedy Lens?

Jerry is ‘The Guy Who Makes a Big Deal Out of Nothing.’

So he’d find a ‘nothing’ and make a big deal out of it.

“What’s the deal with teenagers needing so much sleep? On weekends, my unemployed teenage daughter sleeps past noon like she just worked the third shift.

The same baby girl who would scream us awake at four a.m. has become a late-sleeper. I tell her there’s no late-sleeping in our house. We’re not late-sleepers, we’re early-risers. We eat late-sleepers for breakfast. Well, we beat them to breakfast. We eat eggs … hard-boiled, we’re early-risers, there’s time.

Late-sleeping is a slippery slope. First you’re a late-sleeper, then suddenly in traffic you’re a road-rager. Late-sleepers and road-ragers always drive in the same car. That’s where they become finger-saluters.”

Of course, Rodney and Jerry would do their thing a thousand times funnier, but the point is their clear Comedy Lenses allow us to better relate to and laugh at their humorous takes.

Mike Lukas

Now here’s that same premise as seen through my Comedy Lens: The Clumsy Aspy-Hole.

Aspy-holes notice EVERYTHING that’s ‘OFF’ about others and we’re happy to point it out to the world. But I’m also clumsy so it usually backfires:

“On weekends, my teenage daughter sleeps in well past noon.
That’s not going to happen in my house.

I told her, “You know, kid, in the olden days, on weekends you’d still have to wake up early to milk the cows and gather the eggs.”

She told me, “You know, dad, in the olden days, life expectancy was 55 years old so by now you’d have been dead for two years.”

Ouch. “Enjoy that extra sleep, kid. If you need me, I’ll be at my computer Googling ‘how to recover from a major burn.’” 

That would be my funny take – and if YOU used YOUR Comedy Lens on that same premise, the joke would go an entirely different way.

Discovering your Comedy Lens is key to learning how to be funnier.

In fact, it’s the first thing I talk about in my upcoming humor writing book:

FINDING YOUR FUNNY MUSCLE: How to create laughs like a pro.

I walk you through the process of discovering your own Comedy Lens. That way you can apply it to your favorite premises and run it through the Humor Blueprint for laughs. That’s also in the book – it’s all part of the same game plan the pros use to turn their ideas into jokes that kill.

If this sounds interesting, click here or down below to join the free waitlist. 

You’ll be the first one I email when the book becomes available in mid-May.

Plus, right away I’ll send you:

>> Five Ways to Make Your Next Speech Funnier

>> Top-10 Mistakes Unfunny People Make

>> Three Humor Heightening Devices

Here’s to making more laughs – it will (literally) do you good.