Have you observed a comedian, or comedy troupe, repeat a bit more than, and more than, and more than, till the blatant unfunniness was painful to watch? In current years, that is develop into just about the norm, in particular on shows like "Saturday Evening Reside." If the comedy writers had identified about the Rule of 3, and superior but had followed it, they could have avoided the difficulty and truly had the funny skit that they had intended.
In brief, the Rule of 3 is: do not repeat a bit of comedy over 3 occasions. When carried out proper, the initial time can be funny, the second time funnier, and the third time can develop up to a crescendo of comedy. A fourth time, but, and it is the comedy equivalent of beating a dead horse -- the horse does not react, and neither does the audience -- at least not in a excellent way.
Believe of the excellent comedians of the previous -- regardless of whether you Assume of people like Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Red Skelton, W. C. Fields and Jimmy Durante, or comedy teams like the 3 Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy -- can you Feel of them "beating a horse" in that way? No; it was some thing that they discovered the hard way, performing in front of Reside audiences and adjusting their humor primarily based on the audience's reactions.
This does not imply that a comedian, humorist, speaker or clown cannot repeat a mannerism over 3 instances -- apparent examples are Jack Benny's slow, elongated, "Nicely!" or Baron Munchausen's "Was you there, Charlie?" which they repeated hundreds of occasions throughout their careers -- yet seldom over Three occasions in a offered overall performance, if that several.
Selection is the spice of life, yet the old saying that "brevity is the soul of wit" nonetheless rings accurate. It does not matter if it really is performing in front of kids or adults, in front of a Rotary Club or national tv, the Rule of 3 nevertheless holds correct.
It must also be talked about that the Rule of 3 is not restricted to verbal humor. If you are performing slapstick comedy -- something from throwing or getting a pie in the face, or a kick in the posterior like Charlie Chaplin, or even the 3 Stooges' patented eye-poke routine -- the Rule of 3 nonetheless applies. How long would a 3 Stooges quick film be funny if Moe started poking Curly in the eye, then Larry, then Curly once again, then Larry once more... on and on for fifteen minutes?
In summary, absolutely everyone desires to apply the Rule of 3 to hold their humor brief, funny, and memorable!
Tom Raymond is a qualified clown and young children's entertainer, who runs the Comedy Magic Shop -- http://www.ComedyMagicShop.com/ -- to present magic props for comedy maagicians, youngsters's entertainers and Sunday College teachers
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