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Eric Haddock

Ms.

Rc1000

9/23/19

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This essay argues that comedy is based on your personal background rather then fully on a Formatted: Line spacing: Double

comedian's skill to make you laugh and why comedians have a target audience.

As a whole comedy is funny for many reasons, whether its because it’s inappropriate or Formatted: Indent: First line: 0.5", Line spacing:
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just unexpected, different types of comedy makes different people laugh. But why is this, and

how does it affect us, the audience.

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You can see this at any comedy show, during a show people will sometimes laugh at jokes

but others will not, Is this because different comedians are just funnier to different people, or is

there another reason? The comics Hannabi Burs and John Mulaney, are great examples of how

different forms of comedy can make people laugh. Mulaney talks about how children react to

seeing him for the first time, and Burs he’s talks about his niece reacting to him while they color

together. Even though both comics have similar topics, the way children act, but each audience

laughs for different reasons.

When it comes to executing the jokes, both comics have rhetorical devices and literary devices in

their routine. For example john mulaney user's Expectations violation Theory and Relief Theory
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in his act. Relief Theory is just when you tell a long story so when you get to the punch line all

the details from the story add up to make the story a lot funnier then it would be on it's own, and

Expectations violation Theory is when someone expects you to say or do one thing but you do

something else. You can see an example of Expectation violation Theory when Mulaney yells

stop snitching, motherfucker to a baby, no one thought he was going to say that to a baby, and it

was surprising enough to cause people to laugh. But just because Mulaney used this doesn’t

mean it will be funny to everyone, this is because you may not be able to relate to him.

(EVT = expectations violation theory, RT= relief theory)

A grown man yelling at a baby, may not be very relatable to everyone, that's why Mulaney

normally uses rhetorical devices and literary devices to relate to his audience and set up jokes.

From the way he dresses, his buttoned up clean suit and the way he talks, you can see that he

gives off an appearance of a typical middle class, white american male. This plays into his act,

for example, he talks about how his real estate agent wants him and his wife to have a baby.

Most people who Have a real estate agent are a middle class or upper class citizens. If you can’t

relate to this theres a chance this might not be nearly as funny to you then it could be.

It’s funnier if you can reach your target audience, this is what Mulaney wants, he tries to relate

to the middle class american aka his target audience, to get them to let down there guard and feel

comfortable enough to relate and laugh at his jokes.

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To juxtapose this, there's Burs, a black man that is dressed in casual clothes and talks a little less

formally than mulaney. He tries to relate with the audience by being more open, coming off as an

average guy you could have seen, walking on the side of the street. In his stand up he includes

relief theory, as well but focuses more on Superiority Theory by making fun of himself and

others. This is shown when he talks about his niece and how he tried to connect with her when

she was coloring. This lead to him embarrassing himself. As “he was trying to show her that blue

and red makes purple, she shuts him down by responding with “I have a purple crayon right

here”.

This is funny as well, like mulaney's joke earlier, but there's a different target audience do to the

way of Bur's structured his act. Causing people to laugh at him because of his failure. This time

the joke was set up to target himself and relate to the people that have been embarrassed in the

past. This combined with how he had presented himself invoked and emotional reaction out of

the audience and made them laugh.

With Burs being unlike Mulaney when it comes to being formal with his comedy he reaches a

different demographic , do to people's beliefs and experiences. It’s less structured than that of

mulaney, but with both acts having similar context the reason one is funny to you and the other

isn't, is do to the comedian and how they target a specific culture and people.

This is important to be aware of because in comedy this is one of the biggest reasons you laugh,

do to you being able to relate to what the person is talking about. If you can be successfully

targeted by a comedian then they did their job, adding to this, if you takeout targeting jokes just
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wouldn't be as funny or funny at all. This means that comedy and comedians relies on personal

background, experiences and basic human beliefs of your crowd to make them laugh.

https://youtu.be/qRCHce9oQ-4

https://youtu.be/xp2KsaI4uKY

This was really annoying and cause me to type way more than I wanted to an there’s no way i;m

finishing my other essay on time because of this one it’s annoying how that works but welcome

to college i guess thank you again for your time and boom that should be about 900 if i add who

what where when and why