IT'S EASIER TO WRITE FUNNY

You often hear animation writers complain that there was no time to make a story funny. Well, that happens sometimes, no doubt about it. I sympathize. The question needs to be asked though, "Why were the stories so unfunny when you did have time?" I imagine that this is an unanswerable question. Animation writers believe there's never enough time.


On the other hand, maybe they're right. The kind of shows they come up with defy funny writing. How do you come up with a laugh-out-loud funny story for a typical writers' series premise like: "Six grade school friends (the skateboarder dude, the minority computer whiz, the perky intelligent girl, the over-eater, the inventer and the beautiful Bratz-type girl) solve problems in the school by making their fellow students aware of the importance of being themselves"? Is it even possible to write a funny story for a premise like that?


I do have advice for writers (hopefully artist/writers) who are lucky enough to work on short cartoon projects where humor is at least possible. If you need to write quickly then:


BUILD YOUR STORY AROUND A FUNNY SITUATION.


One character accidentally sits on another's hat and crushes it. He tries to apologize but the situation strikes him as so funny that he laughs instead. Believing the first guy is unrepentant the owner of the hat grabs a pair of scissors and cuts the other's tie in half, The two retaliate against each other in ever escalating steps till they're demolishing each other's houses. That's a funny situation, stolen from Laurel and Hardy. "King Size Canary" was about a funny situation. Funny situations are easier to write than plots, and they can easily be extended into stories. All you have to do is figure out how to get your characters into the situation and that's easy.


What some writers don't realize is that comedy isn't there just to get a laugh...


COMEDY IS AN ORGANIZING TOOL.


If you commit to writing a funny cartoon it's amazing how many story structure problems just vanish. In the example above the set-up is obvious: two friends meet in a kitchen and declare their undying affection for each other, an affection that would surely stand up to any test, no matter what. They then proceed to wreck each other over an accidentally crushed hat. If you have a good situation (sketch) idea the set-up practically writes itself.


In other words...

YOU CAN WRITE FASTER BY COMMITTING TO COMEDY.

A funny series premise is easier and faster to write for than an unfunny one. Complicated, writerly series premises are inefficient. They cost more to make and they're harder to write for.


BTW, I don't mean to imply that all stories should be written exactly the way I described here. There are lots of ways to go.

THE MOST NAKED COUNTRY IN EUROPE

In my Theory Corner opinion the most naked women in all of Europe are to be found in Scotland. Are they the prettiest over all? Who knows?  What I do know is that in at least one, narrow area they shine, namely that they're the most astonishingly naked women in Europe, i.e., they're the sexiest without clothes.

Every other European nationality can only lay claim to "National Geographic" nudity, which is somehow chaste and wholesome. Only Scottswomen, who live in a damp, bleak and overcast country, and whose excrutiatingly delicate skin rarely sees the sun, can claim nudity which is gloriously filthy and dirty.

Why aren't Scotswomen more sought-after by men?

Because they come attached to this (above): the mean, ornery, Goth skinhead of a Scottish brother. How'd you like to have this guy trailing behind you on a date?

Scottish women often have freckles, which is shockingly sexy. Your eyes follow the path of the freckles down the cheek to the neck, and down the neck to...well, you know.

Surprisingly, Scottish women hate having freckles and do everything they can to cover them up. Here are before and after pictures showing the so-called "improvement." Which do you prefer?

YOUR GREAT, GREAT GRANDCHILD'S HOUSE: 2200 A.D.

Here's my best guess as to how your family will be housed two hundred years from now. Your successors will live in a tropical jungle populated by beautiful exotic plants and animals. Their weather-proof furniture will be arranged in clusters near tree trunks, ponds and waterfalls. No rain will fall on the house area if your family doesn't want it to. No bad weather unless your family desires it. Tame leopards, monkeys and beautiful birds will play in the livingroom.

The way I see it, walls won't be needed to keep out bad weather. Surely two hundred years from now there'll be devices that can keep an exposed area warm and dry, even in the middle of a storm. Walls won't even be needed for privacy since the air around the rooms can probably be made opaque or luminous depending on what the owner chooses. Most of the plants in the area will be real but maybe your family's walls will be holographic images of plants. I wouldn't be surprised if the paths and roadways leading to homes disappeared into faux holo-plants. Confronted with the dense wall of plants the owner would simply walk through them till he found himself inside the house.

I wonder if hard living structures will even exist in the future. If security and shelter can be had without hard walls and a roof would anyone still choose to live that way? If they do I predict the architects of the future will ransack the past for ideas based on real, historic structures. I wouldn't be surprised if some people decided to live in homes that looked like Thai temples or Italian villas.

My guess is that most people would want to live in newly-grown tropical rainforests but some will no doubt prefer the look of dense, temperate zone evergreens or Arizona-type deserts. I assume that plants of any type will be made to thrive anywhere our successors choose to plant them. Of course it's possible that people will live and work in virtual-reality cities that we can't even imagine. Maybe our successors will choose to imagine themselves as intelligent fish living in a coral reef or ants in an ant hill. The limitless possibilities of virtual reality make this kind of speculation difficult.

FAMOUS FILM SCENES

The Oddessa Steps sequence (above)from "Battleship Potemkin." Maybe the most influential film clip in the history of cinema. It awakens everybody who sees it to the power of editing.




Leni Reifenstahl's 1936 footage of divers at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Once again, the power of editing.




Orson Welles'famous uninterrupted scene from the start of "Touch of Evil".





A trailer for Godard's "Breathless". Godard may have been a flake in his personal life but he sure could cut film.

SCREAMIN JAY HAWKINS, BO DIDDLEY, "DEM BONES". THE PLATTERS

Here's Screamin' Jay Hawkins doing "I Put a Spell on You". Hawkins' true love was ballads, the kind Jim Nabors used to sing.




One of Bo Diddley's best songs. Ralph used it in "Fritz the Cat".





Not the best version of "Dem Bones", but it's still interesting. I imagine this is the universal anthemn of doctors all over the world.





The Platters doing "Great Pretender". Silky smoothe and satisfying!

JITTERBUG, TAP & BOOGIE WOOGIE

I hope you weren't working on anything important when you stumbled on this site because there's no way you're going to finish what you were doing now!

The first video (above) is a jitterbug sequence from "Hellzapoppin'". Some say it's the best jitterbug ever captured on film.





Next is a tap number by the Nicholas Brothers from "Stormy Weather." The original uploader quotes Fred Astaire as saying that he's never seen a finer tap dance on film. A few years ago I recognized Fayard Nicholas in a theater and foolishly asked for his autograph. I say foolishly because Fayard was in what looked like his late 90s and it took him 15 or 20 minutes to painstakingly write his name. I felt terrible for putting him to the trouble.




Classic Boogie Woogie!





Classic Fats Waller, including the kind of mugging to the camera that inspired Clampett and Rudy Ising...or was it Harmon? I'm always confusing the two.

A word of thanks to John K who introduced me to these singers and dancers long ago and who has impeccable taste in these matters!

THE CAMPFIRE STANDARD

In addition to whatever way the dictionary defines story, a story worth its name is something worth telling and worth listening to. It's so compelling that you just have to tell your friends about it. It's so evocative that it feeds your imagination for weeks or even months after hearing it. Whenever I think about story I imagine indians sitting in rapt attention around a campfire listening to a charismatic storyteller. It seems to me that if a story isn't fit to tell at a campfire then it's just information and belongs in a file cabinet somewhere. It certainly has no place in the entertainment industry.


Imagine trying to tell modern TV animation stories around a campfire, stories like: a little boy tries to pass himself off as something he's not, gets in over his head and learns the value of being himself. A little girl snubs a poor classmate for wearing unfashionable clothes then the poor classmate does a favor for the richer girl and the two become friends. Really, who wants to hear that? Imagine trying to tell stuff like that to a bunch of story-hungry indians. They'd just stare at you. What the indians want to hear is something like: "There I was, backed up against the tree with six drooling wolves moving in for the kill..." You know that's what indians want to hear because that's what everybody wants to hear. Anything else is just wasting our time.



Now I know that cartoon comedy isn't likely to drum up the particular type of excitement generated by viscious wolves but it ought to be an equivalent excitement. Just like the wolf story it should rivet listeners to their seats and should make them want to retell the story to friends. That's the way I felt when I saw John K's shower room sequence in "Naked Beach Frenzy" and Ren's mad scene in "Space Madness." I don't think John would have any problem entertaining indians around a campfire. We need more storytellers like that.