Anyone can learn to be funnier.
But without a clear understanding of how laughs are created, it’s easy to have unfunny moments.
Unfunny people tend to make similar bad choices.
Here are the Top-10 mistakes that unfunny people make.
Thankfully, with a strong Funny Muscle, you can avoid this list.
Top-10 Mistakes Unfunny People Make
10) Steal Material
Biggest sin someone can commit in the comedy world besides performing hammered or pants-less is stealing someone else’s jokes and claiming them as their own.
Big mistake.
Unfunny people with stolen material might get a few chuckles from those in the crowd who are clueless to the crime, but those embezzled laughs will never top what you can get from crafting your own original punchlines.
Finding Your Funny Muscle teaches you how to do that. You’ll discover your own Comedy Lens and then learn how to use it to plug your ideas into the Humor Blueprint, a simple game plan for creating comedy. Then you’ll flex that for laughs all smothered in your unique comedy sauce.
Way more impressive than saying, “We need more cowbell,” and believing you’re hilarious.
9) Go Blue
Unfunny people tend to take shortcuts to get their laughs, and one of the most popular cheat codes for giggles is to go blue. Swear words and bodily functions will always make somebody laugh (even Peter Sellers did an elevator fart joke), but it takes a far cleverer mind to create clean laughter.
Besides, once you go blue, it’s tough to go back.
That’s why most pro comics will do their clean stuff first and then close their shows with their dirtiest material – if they have any. Because they know that as soon as that filthy can of worms is opened, it becomes almost impossible to get subtle laughs after that.
In the back of Finding Your Funny Muscle is a catalog of 36 Humor Heightening Devices, each a clean way to yes-and whatever is being set up in your Humor Blueprint. I also add examples of pro comics using each device and in book two of the series – Fine-Tuning Your Funny Muscle – I go over all 36 of those in greater detail.
If you do like blue humor, no worries – go nuts, have a ball, empty your sack of them, but imagine how much funnier you’d become if you knew how to get clean laughs, as well.
Testicle.
8) Fail to Read the Crowd
(Great, now we have to follow a testicle joke.)
You probably know or have met a person who thinks they are being funny but who fails to read the room. (Frederick!) Right joke. Wrong crowd. Unfunny people make jokes that are inappropriate for the situation or for those involved.
Divorce jokes at a wedding.
Sexual jokes in a locker room.
Dad jokes in a strip club.
It helps to know your audience and in Finding Your Funny Muscle you learn how to use your Comedy Lens to create laughs that are unique to your take. That gives people a better idea of where your humor comes from. It also gives those who don’t enjoy that style a chance to swipe left.
Even with a clear Comedy Lens, you still have to read the room.
No abortion jokes at a baby shower.
No diaper jokes at the Senior Center.
No donut jokes at the local precinct.
Which brings me to the next mistake unfunny people tend to make…
7) Make Obvious Choices
Cops and donuts. Old people and diapers. Abortions and babies.
Easy choices, easy laughs.
The setup for every new joke has at least 50 ways it could go.
Choices 1-12 are what unfunny people use.
Choices 13+ are where it gets interesting. And funnier. But in the moment, it’s not always easy to come up with the cleverest option.
In the Funny Muscle book series, you learn how to use your Comedy Lens and the Humor Blueprint to set up an array of unique choices. It’s easier to be clever with a bunch of punchlines to choose from.
Cops and diapers.
Old people and abortions.
Babies and donuts.
Way funnier.
6) Mumble
Unfunny people often try to be funny, but they lack the skill or confidence to clearly deliver their joke and they mumble or whisper or both. Even people who want to laugh at your humor can’t if they don’t understand or hear what you just said.
A mumbled joke is like a dried-up milking cow … fmjsll hdmmdf dneng lldg djkloj.
That’s frustrating.
Clear delivery comes from the confidence you get when you practice something you understand. In Finding Your Funny Muscle, you learn how to create laughs using the same game plan the pro comics use.
… neither gets the job done thanks to a useless utter.
Ba-dum-bum.
Testicle.
5) Skip Setup, Go Straight for Laughs
When a funny idea pops into the head of an unfunny person, they often skip the setup and go straight for the punchline. Laughs are the unfunny person’s orgasm, and they have no time for comedy foreplay.
“It smells like ass in here.”
It’s an easy mistake to make unless you understand how laughs are created. A laugh is a body’s physical reaction to being cleverly misled, and that takes a Funny Muscle Flex to make happen.
It’s like when a magician gets you to look left so she can make the switch to the right – the comedy setup serves as a similar distraction.
“Honey, are you raising a wild mule in your office?”
“No. Why?”
“Because it smells like ass in here.”
Setting up jokes the right way makes them funnier.
4) One Trick Pony
Testicle.
That’s no longer funny since I dipped into that comedy well once too often.
Unfunny people tend to be one trick ponies and do the same tired jokes over and over again expecting different results.
But they usually get groans. Or worse…silent disdain. (Frederick!)
Talking the meme guy, the Gif girl, the dad joke neighbor, the sexual innuendo coworker, the insult king, or the messy prank spouse.
Ho hum.
Surprise is the key to laughter. Variety can make you funnier, which is why there are 36 Humor Heightening Devices to work with in Finding Your Funny Muscle. Three dozen ways to get new laughs, and exponentially more when you begin to combine them.
You’ll make squirrels curse, you’ll give the road rage jerk’s wife’s point of view, and you’ll tell us how catching the flu is a good thing and more.
3) Lack ……………. timing.
Unfunny people have no sense of timing, so they often make the mistake of delivering jokes poorly and at the wrong time and place.
They take way too long to set up a punchline.
They interrupt someone to mimic their voice.
They let a theater burp rip during the best part of the movie.
Finding Your Funny muscle gives you a simple laugh-creating game plan that you can easily practice, and that gradually helps you develop a sense of timing.
Then you’ll know to only burp loud during the kissing scenes.
2) Punch Downwards
Unfunny people make the mistake of thinking that taking easy shots at pitiful victims is funny. They mock old people and the poor, the physically challenged and the homeless, the overweight and the ugly, and whoever else is down on their luck.
Too easy.
Sure, there’s an audience for that type of humor, but they tend to be small-minded and cruel and they’re usually lousy tippers.
It takes more guts and cleverness to punch upwards. Mock the greedy, the overconfident, the egotistical, the selfish, the idiots. Then the laugh-payoff becomes greater because it’s funnier to hear the high and mighty get their comical due.
Once you understand your own Comedy Lens, you’ll find ways to mock the things that cause your own struggles. Those will get bigger laughs because your clear lens helps us understand where you’re coming from and helps us relate.
In other words, don’t mock the kids who ride the short bus.
Mock whoever’s idea it was to give them a bus that looks like it has special needs.
1) Confuse Polite Laughter with Success
The biggest mistake unfunny people make is they confuse polite laughter or groans with success. When truthfully, that’s just the reaction of people who are too polite to boo your bad jokes.
Maybe it’s because they like you or pity you or fear you.
So to your face they say, “Heh, I get it,” or “Oh boy, good one,” or “Hokayyy.”
What they really want to say is:
“NOT FUNNY. STOP TRYING SO HARD. FIND YOUR DAMN FUNNY MUSCLE AND LEARN HOW TO CREATE LAUGHS LIKE A PRO. THAT WAY I WON’T HAVE TO BE PUT IN THIS AWKWARD SITUATION EVER AGAIN. AND STOP SAYING TESTICLE!”
Polite laughter is a hint that the joke could be better.
Luckily anyone can learn to be funnier.
All it takes is an easy game plan that works and some practice.
That’s what Finding Your Funny Muscle is all about.
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