Scott Dikkers: 11 Ways to Make Your Writing More Funny

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Scott Dikkers is the former editor-in-chief of The Onion, the site that brought news satire to the internet.

Before the episode, I went up to Scott and said, “I have one goal for this: I want to start writing funny. You know how to do it. Can you teach me everything you've learned?"

He’s been doing this for decades, so he was able to take me by the hand and show me what he’s learned, very concretely.

You're obviously not going to framework your way to becoming the next George Carlin, but there are universal principles of comedy that work in any kind of writing, whether it's for a group chat or when you are talking with friends on a Saturday night at the bar. And Scott is about to teach us how to do it.

00:00:45 The secret is POV
00:03:41 Biggest mistakes to avoid
00:09:49 Write down 10 opinions
00:15:33 Prompts to get you started
00:18:48 The Family Guy formula
00:21:18 The 11 funny filters
00:24:49 How to hook your readers
00:29:02 Straight person vs joke person
00:31:54 Character archetypes
00:34:44 How to actually use analogies
00:40:17 The right way to use wordplay
00:46:01 What makes satire flop
00:49:13 Clown brain vs editor brain
00:54:19 Give permission to laugh
00:56:52 Rapid fire takes
01:01:23 What makes a hilarious final joke

David (00:45-00:56)

How much of comedy do you think is knowing what things are funny to make jokes about versus just looking at the same world everybody else sees and finding the humor in those things?

Scott (00:56-01:18)

It is all the second thing. We used to have a rule at The Onion: if you find a funny photo, you do not use or run it because the photo takes all the heat. You want a totally straight photo, then you find something funny about it or create a funny angle on it. It is all about your perspective. Point of view is everything.

David (01:18-01:20)

And how do you cultivate that?

Scott (01:20-01:40)

Certain people go through life as “normies.” They see everything as normal, and life is good. Other people go through life and think, “There is something not quite right about this. How can I needle this? How can I point this out to people?” Typically, when you do, other people laugh because they never thought about that perspective.

David (01:40-01:54)

When you cultivate it, how much do you consider the rules of comedy as you are writing versus reflecting on what you have already done?

Scott (01:55-03:40)

It is definitely a reflection of what I have already written. When you are in the moment, you are not thinking about deconstruction or the science of the process. It is all gut instinct. Of course, you are flailing, making terrible mistakes, and doing stupid, unfunny things for most of your life and professional career.

Then you reach a tipping point where you become good enough to find some success. When you keep doing it on a weekly basis, there is this deadline, this treadmill you are on, and every week you are pouring out more and more funny articles. At some point, you realize, “Okay, I have this. I know how to do this.”

At The Onion, this involved writing short humor, producing it in any media. We had the print publication, a radio show, and we even worked on a pilot very early on. The fundamentals were all there for short comedy, meaning anything that was five to eight minutes in those days. Nowadays, I would say one to three minutes because attention spans have shrunk.

When I left The Onion, I realized I had all this knowledge about how to do this, and I saw many people struggling. I felt I had to share it. So I wrote my first nonfiction book, How to Write Funny, where I simply spelled out the science. Nobody else does that. Magicians share their tricks all the time; you can get hundreds of magic books and kits that tell you exactly how to perform a trick. Comedians do not share their tricks. They are always like, “I do not know, it is just funny.” That leaves you wondering, “Where do I start? How do I even do this?”

David (03:41-03:49)

When you are talking to people who are just starting, what are the things you tell them they absolutely need to know? What mistakes do they keep making?

Scott (03:49-03:55)

There are many, but the main one is quantity over quality.

David (03:55-03:56)

They are just not writing enough.

Scott (03:56-04:53)

They are not writing enough. Think about other similar fields, like screenwriting. Many writers work on a single screenplay for months or even years, but that screenplay never amounts to anything. The person who writes one screenplay, sells it, and makes a million-dollar movie is one in a zillion.

You have to write many screenplays to become good at it. Most people who take screenwriting seriously will write 12 or 13 screenplays before one gets noticed, because it is a skill. Comedy is the same. Short comedy is easier and faster to write than a screenplay, so you can write a short comedy piece, a page and a half or whatever, in an afternoon. Write as many as possible. At The Onion, we wrote around a dozen a week. Onion writers have been doing that for 40 years.

David (04:53-05:01)

If you publish a dozen Onion articles in a week, how many concepts or frames do you come up with to get to those dozen articles?

Scott (05:01-05:01)

Hundreds.

David (05:01-05:02)

Hundreds.

Scott (05:02-06:12)

The first meeting is the idea meeting where people pitch headlines. They’re not truly pitched; they’re simply read aloud. People write them down, and then someone — preferably the person with the most boring voice in the room — reads them all. Everyone invariably starts falling asleep because 99% of the ideas are simply bad.

Occasionally, someone might say, “That one’s okay.” That’s the most positive feedback you get; a big laugh is rare. It’s truly a terrible meeting.

After that meeting, you have a shortlist of ideas that passed muster. It’s a gauntlet; an idea has to be truly excellent to make it through. More than 50% of the people have to vote for it.

From a shortlist of perhaps a dozen pieces out of hundreds, you can then see why one is funny. You might finesse it, figure out the presentation: what’s the subhead, what’s the photo, what’s the take of the story? That “take” was always a big thing.

David (06:13-06:14)

Why is that so important?

Scott (06:14-06:58)

It’s crucial because sometimes you have a very funny idea, but it’s executed with the wrong take. You’ve got the wrong angle, the wrong joke; you’re barking up the wrong tree.

In short-form comedy, the take is everything. You have one track, and you must stay on it—it’s a very narrow path. When writing, you realize that if you make just one joke slightly off, you’ll fall to one side, or if you go another way, you’ll fall to the other. It’s a very narrow lane you must stay in.

The audience expects you to be completely strict about that track. They love seeing you obsessed with one specific thing. That’s how short comedy works: you escalate that one thing to absurdity, and then you’re done.

David (06:58-07:02)

You escalate that one thing to absurdity. Explain that.

Scott (07:02-07:52)

It’s about whatever subtextual idea or small observation you’ve made. For example, this building is quite old. Some people might enter and simply think, “This is a nice building.” But then they learn it’s from 1850, and that’s amazing.

You zero in on that, you focus on it. Subtext doesn’t have to be inherently funny; it just needs to be a small observation like that. Sometimes it is, sometimes it’s about human behavior or foibles everyone can relate to.

Find whatever that relatable thing is, drill in on it, and get as absurd as you can with it. Then you use other tools—what I call “funny filters”—to gin up something that makes you internally think, “Okay, that’s pretty funny.”

David (07:52-07:54)

Do you know what the uncanny valley is?

Scott (07:54-07:59)

Yes, it’s the gap between digital and real.

David (07:59-08:58)

Exactly. Humans can depict something completely real, like on a video camera, or we can do comedy. We can see Cartman and observe how they hobble like little penguins in South Park. But if it’s too much in the middle, it simply doesn’t work.

I have a friend, Jack Raines, who is absolutely hilarious. I asked him how he approaches writing satire or absurd material. He explained that you need to go beyond ridiculous—even more ridiculous than you initially imagine.

If you push it all the way to absurdity, it works. But if you don’t fully commit to the bit and don’t go far enough, it either won’t work, or you’ll just look foolish. You have to go much farther than you think.

Scott (08:58-09:28)

He’s right; that’s exactly what I mean. When you’re on that track and you’ve found the thing you’re going to be obsessed with, the further you go, the more absurd your idea becomes.

Ideally, you start with a funny, absurd idea that makes people laugh. I love that idea of the uncanny valley; it’s a representation, a parody. They conducted a study where they presented a characterization of Prince Charles alongside an actual depiction from a photo. People recognized the caricature more as him.

David (09:29-09:29)

Wow.

Scott (09:29-09:49)

Because it happens when we exaggerate and create a representation of something. That’s how I view comedy characters: they’re cardboard cutouts you’re laughing at. Anyone who tries to make that person real or relatable in a human sense is barking up the wrong tree. It’s purely a representation.

David (09:49-09:52)

And you’re talking about subtext. Talk to me about that.

Scott (09:52-11:42)

Subtext is the underlying message of your joke, idea, premise, or concept. It’s almost never funny on its own; subtext is just an opinion or a value judgment. It doesn’t even have to be clever.

When I help people try to write something funny, I start by asking them to list 10 opinions. It doesn’t matter what they’re about. This is the easiest thing in the world to do. Suddenly, the task of coming up with comedy ideas becomes much easier. They think, “Ten opinions? I have opinions all day! What do you want to know?”

Invariably, I believe human beings are inherently funny. Everyone has the potential to be incredibly, professionally funny. When you look at that list of 10, there’s usually one or two opinions that spark a genuinely funny idea. You take that opinion, filter it through one of my 11 “funny filters” to find the humorous angle, and then communicate it comedically. Then you’re off to the races.

A common mistake people make is thinking that comedy and humor must always be crazy, silly, and out-of-this-world madness. When you read it, you’re left wondering, “What’s the anchor here? What’s happening?”

But if you have even a simple opinion, like “the President is a liar,” or “the President likes gold,” those are barely value judgments, but they’re enough. You can drill in on that and make it funny. Because it’s a reference people understand, it becomes a powerful “funny filter.”

David (11:42-13:10)

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I’ve also seen a lot of funny comedy recently about Uber drivers. Who are they always talking to on the phone?

Scott (13:10-14:36)

That is exactly what subtext is. Any kind of subtext can work, but the best is what you just described. It’s a small observation from everyday life that others have likely thought but never consciously articulated. You nail it because you’re an observer, seeing the world not as normal, but noticing when something is “off” or funny.

A good comedian or comedy writer will constantly jot those observations down, perhaps making a voice note. That’s a strong starting point. You’ve already gotten a reference laugh, which is gold — a beautiful premise. Now, how do you make it really funny?

You could do a sketch or an article, perhaps an editorial in The Onion where you’re the person they’re talking to. You write an article from that perspective. This is an example of making the “big small,” which is a form of irony, another “funny filter.” Irony involves taking the opposite — making the small big, or the big small.

You go through various ideas until you nail the “take.” What is the funny, obsessive, single idea we’re going to focus on and escalate throughout the bit, article, sketch, or whatever short comedy piece we’re creating? That’s how you build it.

David (14:37-14:42)

Could you elaborate on that? How does making the small big or the big small work?

Scott (14:42-15:32)

Irony is an easy “funny filter” to use because it simply involves taking the opposite of what you have. If you have something small and make it big, you’re using irony.

For example, you told me about a movie you’re working on, asking, “Why don’t they make beautiful buildings anymore?” I might then mention a beautiful old building. The irony would be a brand-new building shaped like a box, made of cardboard, used to communicate that architects no longer design the beautiful, ornate structures of the past.

Sometimes, when writing your opinions — which is my favorite way to find a comedy premise — you can take any opinion and simply make it the opposite. Often, that alone is enough to make it funny.

David (15:33-16:02)

Are there any prompts, when thinking about your opinions, that help generate good comedy ideas? For example, I was thinking: “It is ridiculous that when you land and reach the gate, and the seatbelt sign dings off, everyone stands up, even though it will be ten minutes before anyone can actually exit the plane.” That phrase, “It is ridiculous that...,” seems like it would generate a lot of good comedy bits. Do any other prompts come to mind?

Scott (16:02-18:47)

There are many, and I list a bunch in my book. You can use phrases like, “I remember when...” or “Why is it that...?” Or you can do the Jerry Seinfeld thing: “Did you ever notice how...” Just doing that will trigger your brain to uncover these little things.

It’s funny you mentioned the airplane thing because that’s a good observation. Certain arenas of comedy are clichéd. If you’re a stand-up comic, for example, you generally want to avoid airline material. So many people have already done airport, airline, and airplane material that it’s considered a clichéd area. We’ve heard enough jokes about airplane food.

You have to be in tune with what other comedy is out there and avoid those areas. Still, a topic like that can seem original to me, and that’s a challenge. Comedians always love a challenge. A really good comedian will come up with a great airplane bit and perform it.

Audiences don’t care. Ninety percent of the audience thinks, “Oh, that’s funny!” But the other 10% are taste-makers and snobs who think, “We’ve seen airline material before; that’s a cliché.”

When you’re doing something like The Onion, it’s considered almost literary humor. It wins awards for its humor. Do we have “big guy falling down” jokes? Absolutely. The Onion has always enjoyed that kind of humor as a headline. But as you drill down, the humor becomes more intelligent.

When we did our first book, the rule I put out there was: the bigger the headline, the more accessible the joke has to be. You want 100% of your audience to get the headline and laugh. However, by paragraph eight, you can make an obscure Silas Marner reference that only two people will get. Those people, that 10%, will love you for it and think you’re super smart.

The best madcap, which is another filter involving the “big guy falling down,” has a subtext or an additional layer. A great example is The Simpsons. Homer Simpson is accessible; everybody gets that he’s a dumb, fat, lazy guy who works at a nuclear power plant.

Do they have obscure Silas Marner references in The Simpsons? All the time. It’s those layers. You have your main character, who’s a big, dumb guy everyone laughs at, but then you have all these really intelligent things running underneath. That gives you the 90% of the audience who doesn’t care about the smart stuff, plus the 10% who think, “This is a brilliant show.” It’s very important to have both of those things.

David (18:48-18:50)

Why do you think Family Guy is so funny?

Scott (18:50-19:46)

Family Guy hits that 90%, but I believe they also hit the 10%. Seth MacFarlane is a comedy genius; everything he creates is inherently funny.

They don’t get credit for that extra 10% of smart stuff, but it’s absolutely there. However, the 90% — the “dumb stuff,” as we’ll call it — is so crude and crass that it doesn’t assume any intelligence from the audience. It’s potty humor and gross-out humor.

That broad appeal is so prominent that people seem to have decided that even though the 10% of smart humor is present if you dig and watch the show, it “doesn’t count.” The show is considered too gross and too crass, so it doesn’t receive the same credibility as The Simpsons, for example.

David (19:46-20:10)

I’m trying to figure out what makes Peter Griffin so good. He seems like a perfectly crafted character designed for comedy. I was thinking about how many of my favorite Family Guy bits involve opposites. When you think of Peter Griffin, you envision him as dumb, stupid, and overweight. Yet, some of my favorite bits are when he becomes an intelligent person.

Scott (20:11-21:18)

I like that, and I love how they play with that on Family Guy. There’s another opposite Peter Griffin — I forget what they call him — a pale Peter Griffin who lives in the shed and never sees sunlight. He’s the opposite in a different way.

The great thing about Peter Griffin is how much he drives the story. He’s so unstoppably ambitious and a real doer; that’s the engine of most episodes. The guy in the shed does nothing; he never sees the sun.

That’s the beautiful thing about the funny filters and irony: there’s not just one way to use them. You can take one of his character traits, find its opposite, and create a funny joke where he’s super smart. Or you can create another funny irony joke by taking his ambition and drive and making the opposite of that. That creates a do-nothing, worm-like character who lives in the shed, and that’s its own layer of humor.

You can do that with all the funny filters. There’s no right or wrong way to find humor.

David (21:18-21:19)

Will you define the funny filters for me?

Scott (21:19-21:43)

The funny filters are what make things funny. We’ve all heard that humor is subjective and cannot be codified. That’s incorrect. There are 11 different ways to make something funny to a professional standard. While you might get lucky trying other things, using these filters gives you a real chance of crafting a professional-caliber joke.

David (21:44-21:54)

Is this irony, character, shock, hyperbole, wordplay, reference, madcap, parody, analogy, misplaced, focused, and meta-humor?

Scott (21:54-21:56)

Correct.

David (21:56-21:58)

Which ones of those are your favorites?

Scott (21:58-23:31)

Madcap is my favorite. I like when you mix funny filters and when you get a joke that has, for example, Peter Griffin being super smart, you’re seeing character and irony there. Character irony is a thing where you establish a character and then you show that character doing the opposite. It’s a mix of two funny filters.

The more funny filters you can stack on top of each other, generally the funnier it’s going to be if you can do it cleanly. It can be messy too, where people don’t understand you’re trying to do something too complicated. It has to be accessible, simple, and understandable—one concept, one thing at a time.

There’s a thing that happens when you get a lot of stimuli. Two things can happen: if you get too much intellectual stimuli that’s amusing, you’re going to laugh. If you get too much emotional stimuli, you’re going to cry. It’s funny how if you laugh really hard, you’ll cry, and if you cry really hard, you’ll start laughing. These two things kind of meet.

When it comes to the funny filters, you’re piling on the intellectual stimuli, the incongruent stimuli. “Oh, this doesn’t make sense. This also doesn’t make sense. And this doesn’t make sense, and he’s falling down.” Now you’ve got the critical mass that’s going to make most people laugh. That’s Peter Griffin’s character irony: he’s smart, yet he does so many madcap things, like being a gross physical specimen. He’ll get his arm cut off or whatever—he does that all the time.

David (23:31-23:32)

So madcap is what?

Scott (23:32-23:53)

Madcap is wild physical humor. It’s non-sequitur, goofy, silly, big pants, slipping on a banana peel type of humor. Again, watch out for the clichés. We all know slipping on a banana peel is a cliché; don’t do that. But if you’re Peter Griffin and you fall down in a funny way, like falling down the stairs and breaking your arm, that’s fine.

David (23:54-24:11)

Break this down for me. On one side, I heard it’s like mixing paints, where you can create all these colors if you mix a lot of paints. But then the other mistake people make is going too complicated, and a lot of humor is simple. Those seem contradictory to me.

Scott (24:11-24:48)

Well, it’s a balance; you want to be somewhere in the middle. You want a beautiful painting, not a big splosh of brownish-gray. The way we’re discussing this, using Peter Griffin as an example, is great. You can parse out each little funny filter and see it at work. It’s almost like a careful, one-after-the-other process, leading you down the road to laughs by the hand.

Very carefully, “Here’s Peter Griffin; he’s a dumb guy. Now here he is being really smart. Now here he is falling down the stairs.” If you had him doing all three of those things at the same time, it wouldn’t be funny.

David (24:49-25:33)

One thing that distinguishes The Onion in particular is that it’s an online publication. When I think of how I interact with an article, two things happen. First, I always think of it appearing in an iMessage thread. My friend Alex always sends me funny articles, so it’ll pop up, and then I’ll laugh at the thumbnail. There’s something about the thumbnail-title combination that makes me laugh. If I laugh hard enough, I click on it.

Then, generally, it will have that first paragraph to lead me in. That’s the second laugh. If I can get those two, then I’ll read the full article. It feels like there’s a process of one, two, three, or something like that, in order for there to be a successful article.

Scott (25:34-27:15)

You cannot imagine how many times and how deeply I’ve thought about that whole process, because comedy is so much about the context. How are people seeing it? In what order are they seeing it? This is critical, especially with something like The Onion.

In the early days, it was a newspaper, and we would distribute it free on the street. That was the context. There was the gay and lesbian newspaper, as they called it at the time, the union newspaper, student newspapers, and then there was The Onion. We wanted it to be distinct, funny, and different in that context. So by having absurd headlines that didn’t make sense, like a big banner headline that says “Run For Your Lives” with a big picture of people panicking from a B-movie from the ‘60s, people are going to take a second look. They’re going to be like, “What is that?”

That’s your hook, and you’ve got them. As any writer knows, the first hook is just the first hook. Like you said, you have to give them the second hook, which is maybe the picture and then the paragraph. So we would think in terms of headline, photo, photo caption, pull quote, and first paragraph. Once you’ve got them five steps deep, that’s pretty good.

However, I know from reading The Onion heat maps that 85% of readers never read the full article. They’re getting a couple of paragraphs in. That’s a failure on the part of The Onion because we put in so much work over the years. Writing stories got funnier and funnier. The old way of doing humor was to build a story until it got funny at the end with a punchline, and I didn’t like that. I wanted it to be funny from the start and only get funnier.

David (27:15-27:20)

Because this is a fundamental difference. If you’re at a standup show, they’re captive; they’re in.

Scott (27:20-29:02)

That’s a totally different context. They have showed up, sat there, and are waiting for comedy. This is one type of audience expecting comedy and hoping to get it. They are completely different from someone walking down the street, not expecting comedy.

Imagine seeing The Onion on a newspaper stand and being surprised by comedy. That surprise actually enhances it. I once saw a guy on the subway who had the whole car cracking up. He kind of dressed like a homeless guy and said, “Good morning, everybody!”

I initially thought he would do his spiel and ask for money. Instead, he simply stated, “I just want to let you know that I’m doing pretty well. I just got married, we live in the suburbs, and I just got a job at a law firm, doing great, making a lot of money.”

He continued, “I just wanted to say good morning. God bless you all.”

It was so funny how he used irony, doing the opposite of what was expected. This guy was doing fine. Nobody expected humor; we weren’t in a comedy club. So, it was a special treat to receive this unexpected comedy.

Comedy is all about surprise; something surprising must be present. If your friend always sends you funny stuff, that’s a totally different context than just seeing it on the street.

This brings us to the headline and the thumbnail. How much of the picture can you see? If the picture is reduced that small, can you still discern what’s supposed to be funny about it? This creates a one-two punch with the headline and picture.

One could go crazy thinking about all these details, but it’s crucial. If these elements don’t work, you’re not connecting, and the humor isn’t working.

David (29:02-29:39)

You’re talking about that, and I can throw out two words that evoke completely different things. Consider “the war in Gaza,” which brings a sense of tightness.

Or imagine “kids running through sprinklers,” which immediately conjures images of sunny summer. You have a sense of the emotional hue of whatever you’re saying, and so much context is established with just a few words. As a creator, you must have a clear picture of what that is.

Scott (29:39-31:54)

Absolutely, that’s one of your most powerful tools. With comedy, I always like to ensure there is a straight person, because comedy needs both a straight person and a joke person.

If you introduce a straight person, such as saying “the war in Gaza,” that’s your straight person; nobody is laughing at that. If you can use that as a launching point to say something absurd, you’ve created a rich environment for humor.

Consider a funeral, where it’s very serious; everybody is solemn. That’s actually the best place to laugh. Or a classroom with a strict teacher where you’re not supposed to laugh. Isn’t that where you heard the best jokes? The class clown made the best jokes because that environment is ripe for humor, providing a beautiful straight person.

The Onion, by presenting itself as a newspaper, served as the straight person. It conveyed, “We are a very serious and important newspaper; here’s your important, serious news,” and we relied on that.

However, when you share a funny headline from The Onion on Facebook, you lose that entire framing. You don’t see the Onion banner or that it looks like a legitimate newspaper. This is a common mistake first-time humor writers make; they don’t consider any of this context.

I’ll see an article somebody writes, and there won’t be any headline—just a block of gray copy. I wonder, “Why would anyone read this? Who is going to brave this brick wall?” Nobody climbs a brick wall; it’s impossible, unless you’re Alex Honnold.

All that context is something most people don’t think about, yet it’s truly the first thing you should consider. How are you bringing people in? What red carpet are you rolling out for the reader? People don’t want to read; it’s hard, like homework.

That’s why written comedy, I believe, is the hardest genre to write. Doing stand-up comedy is relatively easy because, as you said, the audience comes into the comedy club expecting comedy. In print, it’s just a bunch of little symbols; there’s no human connection, just a gray wall of text. That’s tough. So, you better have a funny picture and a funny headline.

David (31:54-32:23)

You’re talking about the straight person and how that enables humor. That’s why bureaucrat humor is so funny. A bureaucrat is a super self-serious person with very formal diction. This creates the conditions for something funny, allowing for stark contrast.

Scott (32:23-33:22)

Yes, the bureaucrat is one of the 40 character archetypes I lay out in my book, How to Write Funny Characters.

In Disney’s Zootopia, there was a great sloth character. They took a bureaucrat, someone who works at the DMV, and used hyperbole to exaggerate their traits. Bureaucrats are sticklers for rules and have no humor, so they made the sloth painfully slow. It’s just painful, but it’s a funny exaggeration, combining character and hyperbole.

Robert De Niro in the movie Brazil was kind of the anti-bureaucrat. That was irony; he swooped in, cut through all the red tape, and solved the guy’s problem by just futzing around with the pipe, breaking a thousand rules. Then he ziplined out of there.

David (33:22-33:24)

It’s like a Superman bureaucrat.

Scott (33:24-33:58)

He was a bureaucrat Superman, which is such a funny, great idea. There are so many other character archetypes that are hilarious simply by their inherent nature. A bureaucrat, for example, is funny. You almost don’t even have to add extra jokes or apply additional funny filters to make them humorous.

Just present them as they are, and it will be funny. Once you start piling on other things, like a little irony or hyperbole, it will truly make them iconic.

David (33:59-34:20)

If I were to sit down now, based on our conversation, and try to create something funny, I would take a concept with certain characteristics. I would then either do the opposite of those characteristics, like a “Superman bureaucrat,” or I would exaggerate them to the point of caricature, such as a “slow bureaucrat.”

Scott (34:21-34:43)

That is exactly right. It’s a good, simple way to approach it as a beginner. Most people make the mistake of thinking it’s funnier to pile on all the “funny filters.” Instead, they should focus on writing a thousand simple comedy articles. That practice will make them great at it.

David (34:44-34:45)

Can you tell me about analogy?

Scott (34:46-37:13)

Analogy is one of my favorites, and it works great in comedy. There’s a concept called “mapping.” Analogy involves comparing two things that have similarities but are otherwise completely different. If you notice something, you might say, “This is like that other thing.” That observation can become an entire comedy bit, an article, a stand-up routine, or even a scene in a movie or TV show.

You take one thing and subtly hide it from the audience, without explicitly mentioning it. Then, you take tropes, associations, and memes connected to that hidden thing and map them onto the other thing you are talking about. The audience understands without you ever stating the hidden element, and they laugh because they recognize the connection.

For example, there’s a great storyline in Seinfeld where Jerry decides to get a new barber. His current barber is old, from one of those old-school shops with the pole, and Jerry wants a younger guy. He goes through with it but feels guilty. Soon, you start to see the mapping unfold. He has exchanged someone he’s known for a long time, who has grown older, for someone younger.

His older barber even visits him at home, finds one of his hairs on his shoulder, and says, “You’ve got a new barber.” The hidden analogy there is an affair. All the situations you associate with having an affair are mapped onto getting a new barber. I believe the episode ends with the young and old barbers present at the same time, and someone has to sneak out a window.

You see this technique all the time in comedy. Stand-ups will often go on stage and say, “Have you ever noticed how such-and-such is like such-and-such?” Then, they’ll do the mapping. Every time they make a connection that reminds you of the unmentioned part of the analogy, it’s a laugh; it’s a joke beat.

David (37:13-37:34)

Good comedy often involves someone saying something ridiculous, something you wouldn’t expect. Then they ask for a moment, and proceed to walk you through their absolutely absurd line of reasoning, which suddenly makes perfect sense and comes to life.

Scott (37:35-37:38)

That falls under madcap, which includes non-sequitur.

David (37:38-37:39)

Madcap.

Scott (37:39-38:11)

Yes, where you’re saying nonsensical, crazy things. One of the best madcap or non-sequitur characters was Steve Carell’s character in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. He was a total kook, a complete nut. The “kook” is one of the comedy archetypes: someone who makes no sense whatsoever. Everything he says is insane, and he does insane things. Nothing he does makes sense, which is what makes him so funny.

David (38:12-38:13)

What makes Will Ferrell so funny?

Scott (38:13-38:31)

Will Ferrell almost always portrays the “grown-up child” archetype: an adult acting like a child. It’s very simple, and he does it in nearly every movie. In Step Brothers, he literally plays a character who asks, “Did we just become best friends?” He’s essentially an eleven-year-old kid.

David (38:31-38:35)

So, it’s like grown-ups having sleepovers.

Scott (38:35-38:36)

Hilarious.

Scott (38:37-39:15)

Will Ferrell’s success is about 80% due to the grown-up child archetype and 20% madcap, specifically “bumbling authority” and shock value. Shock is another one of the funny filters he uses. His breakout role in Old School involved streaking naked. A naked grown man is often funny, and that contains elements of both shock and madcap. He leverages that, using his body for humor often.

David (39:15-39:18)

How does this compare to a mall cop?

Scott (39:19-40:01)

A mall cop falls under the “bumbling authority” archetype. This character typically wears some insignia indicating their authority. In many movies, like Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, or The Naked Gun films, the character on the poster will be showing their badge.

The principal in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off used his wallet, with important identification, to prove who he was. These characters cling to that official insignia because, without it, they are nothing.

David (40:02-40:04)

And they place so much value on it.

Scott (40:04-40:17)

It’s everything; it’s their entire identity. I love the “bumbling authority” archetype; it’s my favorite. That’s why The Onion often uses bumbling authority—I just can’t get enough of it.

David (40:17-40:18)

Tell me about wordplay.

Scott (40:19-41:51)

Wordplay can be a tricky filter. A bad pun will make people groan, but good wordplay, used as a garnish on deeper humor—like character humor or irony—almost always helps deliver a laugh.

Jimmy Kimmel is one of the best users of wordplay in his nightly monologues. He’s always slipping in little wordplays. I’m hard-pressed to remember any specific examples, but if you Google and watch any of his monologues, you’ll see it. He might refer to Trump in a certain way, using a word with a double meaning, or he’ll invent a new word, playing with titles or concepts. It’s never the main joke, but it’s a little garnish that makes the other jokes funnier. It creates a bed of laughs you can ride through the monologue.

The more surprised the audience, the better. Josh Johnson is a comedian who excels at this; he can maintain tension for a long time. He’s comfortable with silence and tells a calm story, so when the joke finally comes, it’s beautiful and truly lands.

This tension is present in writing as well. It’s what I discussed earlier regarding the straight person and the joke person.

David (41:51-41:52)

Yes.

Scott (41:52-43:19)

That interplay between the two is key; your straight person provides the tension. When people try to write an Onion article, they always make the mistake of including too many jokes.

I remember when we were retooling The Onion and honing in on what it is now: a strict AP-style parody. This was in the mid-90s. Before that, The Onion was kind of goofy, filled with college and sophomore humor. I decided it should be a strict newspaper, entirely AP style, never breaking character or voice.

The editor at the time, Rob Siegel, and I discussed the perfect Onion article. It had no jokes. We’d review it and ask, “Did you take out all the jokes?” “Yep. Not a single one.” You’d read the story and think, “I can’t tell where we’re breaking character here; it’s completely straight.” To us, that was the pinnacle; that’s when we knew we’d nailed it, and it was hilarious.

You take an absurd premise, whatever it may be, and write the story in strict AP style so there’s no perceptible humor. The writer has no idea it’s supposed to be funny. It reads like, “Here is a very important story at noon yesterday...” but the concept itself is absurd. People who try to mimic this often just pour in jokes, goofy jokes, or funny acronyms for government departments that spell out silly words.

David (43:19-43:21)

The Sex Institute today.

Scott (43:21-44:02)

Exactly. Everyone does that, and it’s a killer; it’s an immediate rejection. You’d be shocked how much copy, how many lines, you can write without a joke and still have it work as an Onion article.

An entire paragraph might contain serious details about an incident occurring or a leader doing an important thing. Then, the very last word of the paragraph is the joke, tapping into the premise, and that’s what makes it funny. I love that. It’s about the bumbling authority, pretending to be serious while actually being full of hot air and silliness.

David (44:02-44:11)

Every family group chat seems to have an older member who sends an Onion article, genuinely thinking it’s serious.

Scott (44:11-44:39)

That phenomenon started happening, and we at The Onion loved it. We thought it was great; it added another dimension of humor to the article. “Oh my God, people believed us and thought it was real!” That’s hilarious and amazing, because we thought we were being outrageously funny, doing the goofiest, silliest stuff. But, yes, there are people out there who believe everything they read. If it’s in black and white, they think, “Well, it was in black and white. I saw it.”

David (44:39-45:13)

That’s true. It makes me think about clichés. When you’re developing a character, there’s a real subtlety in how you play with common perceptions and use them to your advantage, without resorting to the obvious. For example, we’ve all heard jokes about cops eating a lot of donuts. That’s no longer funny on its own. However, there’s something in that trope that you can still work with. Everyone has those ingrained associations, those “receptors,” which you can then leverage for humor. The line, though, seems very subtle.

Scott (45:13-46:01)

It is subtle. Writing a thousand articles teaches you to sense the comedic landscape. You develop an understanding of what jokes have been told, what people are currently telling, and what jokes have been heard too many times. You can almost never go wrong erring on the side of thinking, “This is a cliché; I’ve heard this before.”

All you really need is an internal gut check: “Have I heard this joke before? Has this idea been joked about previously?” If you have, you can twist it. One way to use clichés in humor is to make fun of them, to break them down. Making a joke about the joke of cops liking donuts is effective; you can do that all day long.

David (46:01-46:04)

When does satire work well, and when does it flop?

Scott (46:06-49:12)

Satire flops when it tries to be too important, serious, and preachy. This can happen.

Jonathan Swift was amazing, and his essay, A Modest Proposal, is a textbook example of great satire. He used an absurd premise to make a profound point. However, in Gulliver’s Travels, he became very serious and preachy. The entire last part of the book is him lecturing the reader about how the world should be different. It’s terrible.

Satire is best when it’s funny. It blends art and entertainment. The ‘art’ aspect means you have something important to say and choose to convey it through humor using a satirical format.

Once you admit you’re trying to communicate something important, you run the dangerous risk of falling too deep into the ‘art’ category, becoming preachy. You can make an important or preachy film; there’s nothing inherently wrong with that.

There are many great serious works and editorial articles where someone expresses an opinion, stating, “I think the world should be like this, I have something to say, and you should listen to me.”

At The Onion, we created many editorial parodies that deconstructed this idea. I particularly enjoyed articles with headlines like, “You Should Listen to What I Have to Say,” followed by someone explaining their importance and opinions. That’s essentially breaking down that concept.

The mistake happens when you forget satire must be funny, falling instead into pure art, editorializing, or preaching.

However, when you remember it’s supposed to be funny, and you weave in just a sliver of a subtextual message—perhaps “human beings are terrible at governing themselves,” which is a reasonable opinion—that’s when it works. If you can write a successful comedy piece communicating that, it’s good satire.

Anytime you point out a human foible or something wrong with society, you’re doing satire. In my opinion, it only works if it’s funny. The joke should be the main thing, and you should be laughing, almost unaware that you’ve just consumed a spoonful of honey with a tiny crumpled pill inside. You don’t want to taste the medicine.

The moment you taste the medicine, you’ve lost. You’ve failed to care for the reader. Finding that balance is the tricky part. It takes a seasoned hand to know when you’ve gone too far in either direction.

It’s similar with comedic techniques, like knowing how much irony, opposition, or exaggeration to use, such as hyperbole.

David (49:13-49:17)

Tell me about “clown brain” and “editor brain” in comedy.

Scott (49:17-49:27)

I think of it as needing “clown brain,” which is the unrestrained, childlike desire to say anything and find it funny.

David (49:27-49:29)

Totally uninhibited.

Scott (49:29-50:47)

It’s totally uninhibited, without care for what others might think. You’re just having fun, spewing craziness.

Editor brain, on the other hand, is critical and very important. It’s the opposite; you judge everything you say, deciding, “That’s not actually funny.” You might think, “If I tweak it a little bit...” It’s pure judgment, like any editor.

Clown brain involves no judgment, just spewing everything. Again, it’s about finding that balance between the two. For writing humor, finding that balance is simple because you do one, then the other.

When you start, you want to be in clown brain. Write ten ideas without overthinking whether they’re good. Write a first draft of your piece. Once you have an idea, don’t worry if it’s funny; just write it. Keep your fingers moving until you’ve filled a page and a half.

Then, switch to editor brain. Leave your ideas or article for a few days, then look at it again with fresh eyes. You can then say, “That part could be better,” or “This part needs to be cut and replaced.”

Being able to move back and forth fluidly between the two—

David (50:47-50:51)

It’s like a fast oscillation.

Scott (50:51-52:34)

Yes, I’m constantly moving between the two, especially when I need to work quickly. However, if I were just starting out, I would use clown brain to write my ideas and my piece, then let them sit for about two weeks.

Then I’d switch to editor brain—sorry, not clown brain—and judge them. At that point, I’m judging them almost as if someone else wrote them. I barely remember writing any of it, which gives me a much more objective viewpoint.

Let’s talk about dramatic structure. We all know Joseph Campbell’s 12 steps, or the Hero’s Journey. That’s the typical “unity of action” story, based on cause and effect. You meet a character in their ordinary world, they’re introduced to a potential adventure, and usually take it after some resistance. Then they meet enemies and allies—that whole story.

That’s dramatic structure, and you must use it whenever you tell a longer story, whether comedic or serious. There are really no more tragedies. Every drama now... Serious dramaturgs will argue that every movie and novel now is a comedy. They used to categorize them as comedy or tragedy, but nobody makes tragedies anymore.

If you made a tragedy, you’d lose money at the box office. Everyone dies at the end, and nobody wants to watch that. So, a dramatic work is simply dramatic structure with a few jokes and comedically structured scenes, or perhaps a comedic character archetype and a lot of silly elements throughout.

But even in a Rob Schneider or Adam Sandler movie, you’ve noticed there still needs to be heart, a serious relationship, a climax, and character change. Those elements are essential.

David (52:34-52:45)

If you think of a house, the foundation is the dramatic structure that supports the comedy on top.

Scott (52:45-54:18)

The same goes for a house. Consider a very serious lawyer’s house in a new development. It is brick, with a white door and a U-shaped driveway in the front. This house has the same exact guts as a silly house that is painted purple, with goofy stuff hanging off it, or art murals on the side.

You must have the house, the beams, the two-by-fours, and the drywall. That is what you need for longer comedy. If you are doing a short piece of comedy, you do not need that, though you can have it. You can do a short, structured story that is funny; David Sedaris does that all the time.

It involves finding a funny character you focus on, finding a funny scenario that is relatable, ironic, or whatever the case may be. Suddenly, you have the difference between comedy and drama. If you just string together a bunch of sketches, you have a review, and you are doing pure comedic structure, but then you are off the reservation.

I think anyone starting out should not be trying to do anything that advanced. They should think simply: “I am going to write a dramatically structured piece. I will use the unity of action structure—the hero’s myth.” That is the simplest, easiest approach. It is far from simple to do well, so start with that because it is the easiest thing, and worry about doing something super complicated after you have done a few.

David (54:19-55:38)

When is it important to tell someone something is going to be funny versus not telling them? I recently watched a Quentin Tarantino commentary on Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. He noted a very weird scene early in the movie where a prostitute shows up to Bill Murray’s hotel room in Tokyo. The scene is completely incongruous from the rest of the movie.

Tarantino, as a movie critic, said, “I love this movie, but I watched that scene and did not like it at all.” He watched it three or four times, and then he finally understood. That scene has a very distinct purpose: it is so ridiculous that you have to laugh. It is basically Sofia Coppola, the director, telling the audience, “You can laugh in this movie. It is kind of somber, it is kind of melancholy, but I am now giving you permission to laugh.” She does that through subtext.

I wonder if there are times when you actually want to tell the audience, “Hey, this is supposed to be funny. I am giving you permission to unleash those potential emotions in you.”

Scott (55:38-56:02)

I think it is important to communicate to the audience that it is okay for them to laugh. A book cover or a movie poster, your first interaction with any entertainment product, must convey this. The best book designers and movie poster designers know this because a comedy movie poster has a certain look.

David (56:02-56:03)

Brighter colors.

Scott (56:03-56:26)

Yes, a white background, a goofy color, a funny face. A sci-fi poster has a certain look—it is dark, with a green glow. A horror poster has a certain look, and so on.

I think it is critical. If you are Sofia Coppola making Lost in Translation, casting Bill Murray at that point in his career tells the audience it is okay to laugh at the movie.

David (56:26-56:26)

Of course.

Scott (56:26-56:51)

He is the poster child for the genre. But then you see the movie, and it is a serious, slow-moving film. I think she wisely thought, “Maybe we need an extra step beyond just his casting to communicate to people that it is okay to laugh at this.” She acknowledged she was doing something different and against type with Bill Murray, so she gave the audience a clue.

David (56:52-57:07)

You have identified 40 character archetypes. I would like to share a few that I find particularly interesting and get your rapid-fire take on how they function. First, the Traveling Angel.

Scott (57:08-57:39)

The Traveling Angel is great for the lead in a TV series because, unlike most protagonists, they do not change. They cause other people to change. Ferris Bueller is a Traveling Angel. Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy often played Traveling Angels. Eddie Murphy is a Traveling Angel in Beverly Hills Cop because he comes to Beverly Hills and causes the other cops to loosen up, but he does not change. He goes through the story, affects other people, but comes out exactly the same at the end.

David (57:39-57:41)

Tell me about the Know-It-All.

Scott (57:41-58:05)

I love the Know-It-All character. Anyone who is a know-it-all or believes they know everything, like the geniuses on The Big Bang Theory, is a character ripe for comedy. Someone super knowledgeable usually has a huge defect in some other area. In comedy, it is typically social; they are super smart but very awkward socially.

David (58:06-58:07)

Have you seen The Polar Express?

Scott (58:07-58:09)

I have not seen The Polar Express.

David (58:09-58:28)

There is a Know-It-All in The Polar Express. This know-it-all character is a running joke in my family. I am going to show you this clip. There is something about the voice I find so funny, and this is what I think about with the character archetype.

Scott (58:28-58:29)

Hey, you.

David (58:29-58:29)

You.

Scott (58:29-58:36)

Do you know what kind of train this is? It is a magic train. We are going to the North Pole.

David (58:36-58:44)

I know it is a magic train. Actually, it is a Baldwin 284S3 class Berkshire type steam locomotive, built in 1931 at the Baldwin Locomotive Works.

It weighs 456,100 pounds. That example is perfect because he is completely killing the vibe. Everything about that scene is set up to be annoying. The audience rolls their eyes, and it is funny because of that.

Scott (59:02-59:35)

He uses specificity. It’s always funny to use specificity in a joke. Robert Zemeckis, who directed that movie, also created one of our culture’s favorite know-it-alls: Doc Brown in Back to the Future.

He’s awkward and lacks acuity with the love relationships Marty tries to navigate. He’s just an out-of-touch nerd, but he knows everything about science and time travel.

David (59:35-59:37)

Tell me about the sad sack.

Scott (59:37-60:17)

The sad sack is great because we all love to laugh at someone who’s always depressed. Think of Eeyore or the robot in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That’s funny irony: robots, with no emotions, yet depressed. It’s inherently funny.

Character archetypes like the sad sack are two-dimensional cardboard cutouts. We see a bit of ourselves in them, which allows us to laugh at that part of ourselves.

Have we ever been sad? Of course. This character is performatively sad, and we can laugh, “At least I’m not that sad,” making us feel good that we’re not as goofy as them.

David (60:17-60:19)

Tell me about the Lothario.

Scott (60:20-61:22)

The Lothario is a wonderful character that has been making a comeback. We saw him as Pepe Le Pew in the Warner Brothers cartoons, the skunk constantly falling in love with a black cat that had white paint spilled on her back.

Austin Powers brought the character back, and Melissa McCarthy played a Lothario in Bridesmaids. Anyone obsessed with being on the make, trying to seduce people, is funny in a different way than the “grown-up child” archetype.

While much comedy taps into childlike feelings, the Lothario is funny because of how kids perceive someone interested in sex. To a child, it’s weird and different. “Why are they like that?” This taps into that same odd feeling in adults. It’s a very odd thing to observe when you step back from it, especially from a non-adult perspective.

David (61:23-61:40)

Let’s conclude by discussing endings. We’ve discussed the thumbnail, headline, and caption—all the elements that draw someone into a piece. But when you consider the ending, that final right hook or jab, what are your structural thoughts?

Scott (61:40-63:28)

That’s a great way to put it: the button, the finish, the punch. Every comedically structured short piece must have a punch, a button.

When you’ve been escalating on one track throughout a piece, how do you make that last joke feel different? It’s already incredibly hard to come up with a funny premise and a headline that draws people in. The Onion might start with hundreds of ideas to narrow down to a dozen. Then you need a second joke beat, then a third, each funnier than the last. All of this is incredibly challenging.

So, what do you do at the very end to make that final joke special, funny, and distinct? Even the “Yodas” of comedy writing struggle with this.

The best approach is to conceive of the closer as a joke with a slightly different character. You can go off track with the last joke. Take a sidestep; you won’t be penalized for it because it’s the very last joke.

Expand the world by showing that what you’ve just explored in a narrow context actually exists everywhere. You can underplay it, introduce a new funny filter, expand the world, or go in a slightly different direction. All these approaches will make it feel fresh. A topical reference is also effective. You’ve just read a funny, seemingly universal article; now I’ll make it truly relevant to you. These are just a few ideas, but the critical point is to make that ending distinct.

David (63:29-63:44)

What’s different about endings versus beginnings is that in the beginning, you only have one world to play in: our shared reality. At the end, you have two worlds: our shared reality and the world you’ve created in the article.

Scott (63:44-64:04)

Good way to put it. Any time you write a comedy article, you create a world that doesn’t exist—a comedy world where whatever goofy, off-kilter premise you introduce is real. You’ve taken it seriously throughout the article.

However, you can step outside of it again and remind the audience, “Remember, we’re in the real world.” That’s what the reference joke does. I love that type of closer.

David (64:04-64:08)

You’ve thought so much about this. It’s unbelievable.

Scott (64:08-64:09)

Way too much about it.

David (64:09-64:12)

Unbelievable. I learned so much. Thank you.

Scott (64:12-64:15)

My pleasure. It was a lot of fun.