How to Be Really Funny


Book Description

A good comedian can tell a bad joke and make it funny. A bad comedian can tell a hilarious joke and have it fall flat because of the way it is told. One of the keys to being really funny is not what you say, but how you say it. Accomplishing this involves both verbal as well as visual skills. In this book you will learn the secrets used by professional comedians to make their audiences roar with laughter. You will discover how to effectively use pantomime and physical comedy to create visual humour. How to use body language, facial expressions, and comic gestures to your advantage. You will explore the use of your voice as a tool to make the ordinary become extraordinary and entertainingly funny incorporating pitch, tone, volume, and language. You will also see how props and costumes can enhance your presentation. You will learn the techniques and develop the skills to create high-energy comedy. If you are an experienced comedian this book will enhance your abilities and sharpen your skills. If you are not a professional, this book will help you look and act like one. Whether you want to become a professional comedian, perform as a silly clown, create a hilarious school play, be the life of the party, or simply want to make your friends laugh out loud, this delightfully entertaining book will show you how.




ThatÂ’s Really Funny


Book Description

Feeling down in the dumps? Sometimes laughter is the best medicine. That's Really Funny offers a full dose for people from all walks of life with more than 1,000 belly-laughing jokes from today's hottest comedians. That's Funny was first published in 1996 and has sold more than 23,000 copies. It has also spawned four day-to-day calendars and a mini-book. That's Really Funny gathers together more favorite funny people and their wittiest lines in one great comedy club disguised as a book. It's a virtual who's who of comedy, featuring a complete cross section of the fresh and familiar faces that make you laugh. Whether you have a few minutes for one joke or 30 minutes for 10 or more, you'll discover some of the best jokes from the country's top performance headliners, movie and television favorites, and hot club comics. That's Really Funny pokes fun at just about every imaginable person, place, or thing with zero-precision accuracy. Fresh and funny, the book offers the hilarity of a comedy club right in the comfort of your home-without the hecklers or secondhand smoke.




A Confederacy of Dunces


Book Description

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize “A masterwork . . . the novel astonishes with its inventiveness . . . it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue.”—The New York Times Book Review A Confederacy of Dunces is an American comic masterpiece. John Kennedy Toole's hero, one Ignatius J. Reilly, is "huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gargantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter. His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures" (Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times).




How to Be Funny


Book Description

Learn How to Make People Laugh and Improve Your Sense of Humor with These 7 Easy Steps! Do you only have an arsenal of three old jokes to work with in conversations, and you can't figure out what to say or when to say it in order to be funny? Did you stop counting how many awkward situations you had to endure at a certain point because you tried to make a joke but absolutely nobody laughed? Don't worry, there are plenty of people that have just the same issue as you do! Being funny really isn't an easy thing, but the guide "How to Be Funny: The Right Way - The Only 7 Steps You Need to Master Comedy, Conversational Humor, and Making People Laugh Today" will make it so much easier you will start wondering why everyone can't stop laughing around you! The guide covers a total of 9 topics on how to master comedy and become funny to other people. It will teach you everything you need to know, from the most basic stuff to some advanced techniques, as well as tips on how to adapt in the future. It's a scientifically proven fact that women are much more attracted to men with a good sense of humor - and this goes the other way around, too! That being said, it's crucial to have a good sense of humor in order to be attractive to the opposite sex, as well as be able to create a good atmosphere in any company. Unfortunately, some people don't have an inherently good sense of humor, but, good news is - you can learn how to be funny, and it's really easy! This guide does a great job at this, and in no time you'll find yourself slinging well-placed and funny jokes left and right! What Makes This Book Different from Others in the Same Category? Most guides that you can currently find address this problem by either giving you practically pre-made templates on how to make jokes, or just giving you a few examples of jokes that you can do. There is also the other end of this spectrum - there are guides that are completely theoretical, and in which you can get lost for hours without getting any idea on how to implement all that information. This guide finds the optimal ratio of these two aspects, and gives you just enough background knowledge and information, as well as providing you with tips and tricks to make your practical implementations effortless. Here's What You'll Learn: Some information about why humor is important in general, as well as when it's appropriate to use it The importance of taking risks in order to learn what type of humor fits different people and situations How to study, learn and practice being funny How to find the optimal moment to be funny, and the optimal moment not to How to make your signature joke that you will have as a plan B wherever you go How to balance the edginess of your jokes depending on the people you're with and the current atmosphere How to combine everything you've previously learned for maximum effectiveness Being funny has never been easier - make sure to make the most out of the opportunities that this guide will provide, because there will be a lot of them! Order This Book Now!




Born Standing Up


Book Description

Steve Martin has been an international star for over thirty years. Here, for the first time, he looks back to the beginning of his career and charmingly evokes the young man he once was. Born in Texas but raised in California, Steve was seduced early by the comedy shows that played on the radio when the family travelled back and forth to visit relatives. When Disneyland opened just a couple of miles away from home, an enchanted Steve was given his first chance to learn magic and entertain an audience. He describes how he noted the reaction to each joke in a ledger - 'big laugh' or 'quiet' - and assiduously studied the acts of colleagues, stealing jokes when needed. With superb detail, Steve recreates the world of small, dark clubs and the fear and exhilaration of standing in the spotlight. While a philosophy student at UCLA, he worked hard at local clubs honing his comedy and slowly attracting a following until he was picked up to write for TV. From here on, Steve Martin became an acclaimed comedian, packing out venues nationwide. One night, however, he noticed empty seats and realised he had 'reached the top of the rollercoaster'. BORN STANDING UP is a funny and riveting chronicle of how Steve Martin became the comedy genius we now know and is also a fascinating portrait of an era.




It's Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye


Book Description

"This collection of stories by Kurt Luchs pursues its comedic quarry with the ruthlessness of a pussycat trying to get out of a cardboard box. Luchs, who has written for august literary organs such as The Onion, The New Yorker, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and even been published by some of them, is an inspired comic writer in the tradition of P.J. Wodehouse, S.J. Perelman, and Woody Allen, for whom not only the world but language itself is a source of constant delight. Even the hilarity he generates is not an end in itself; the convulsing diaphragms of his laughing readers are in his hands a remotely operated musical instrument bridging the woodwind and percussion sections."--Cover




Fowl Language: The Struggle Is Real


Book Description

“This Guy’s Comics Hilariously Sum Up the Truth About Being a Parent.”—Buzzfeed He's back, and he's totally got parenting figured out this time. KIDDING. It's another collection of Fowl Language comics, ripped from the headlines of this author's actual friggin' life. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll swear. It's almost exactly like a day of parenting, except without the annoying little people.




Cry Until You Laugh


Book Description

There are so many things that we do not have control over, things that we would not ever choose: cancer, loosing a spouse, tragic accidents. But we can choose how we will handle these things. Joy is a choice that anyone can make but not everyone knows how. Facing cancer, becoming a widow, loosing the future as the author saw it made her recognize that she had to choose a way to deal with the present.




Furiously Happy


Book Description

In Furiously Happy, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jenny Lawson explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. But terrible ideas are what Jenny does best. As Jenny says: "Some people might think that being 'furiously happy' is just an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible and invite a herd of kangaroos over to your house without telling your husband first because you suspect he would say no since he's never particularly liked kangaroos. And that would be ridiculous because no one would invite a herd of kangaroos into their house. Two is the limit. I speak from personal experience. My husband says that none is the new limit. I say he should have been clearer about that before I rented all those kangaroos. "Most of my favorite people are dangerously fucked-up but you'd never guess because we've learned to bare it so honestly that it becomes the new normal. Like John Hughes wrote in The Breakfast Club, 'We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it.' Except go back and cross out the word 'hiding.'" Furiously Happy is about "taking those moments when things are fine and making them amazing, because those moments are what make us who we are, and they're the same moments we take into battle with us when our brains declare war on our very existence. It's the difference between "surviving life" and "living life". It's the difference between "taking a shower" and "teaching your monkey butler how to shampoo your hair." It's the difference between being "sane" and being "furiously happy." Lawson is beloved around the world for her inimitable humor and honesty, and in Furiously Happy, she is at her snort-inducing funniest. This is a book about embracing everything that makes us who we are - the beautiful and the flawed - and then using it to find joy in fantastic and outrageous ways. Because as Jenny's mom says, "Maybe 'crazy' isn't so bad after all." Sometimes crazy is just right.




Do You Talk Funny?


Book Description

Public speaking can be terrifying. For David Nihill, the idea of standing in front of an audience was scarier than cliff jumping into a thorny pit of spiders and mothers-in-law. Without a parachute or advanced weaponry. Something had to change. In what doesn't sound like the best plan ever, David decided to overcome his fears by pretending to be an accomplished comedian called "Irish Dave" for one full year, crashing as many comedy clubs, festivals, and shows as possible. One part of the plan was at least logical: he was already Irish and already called Dave. In one year, David went from being deathly afraid of public speaking to hosting a business conference, regularly performing stand-up comedy and winning storytelling competitions in front of packed houses. And he did it by learning from some of the best public speakers in the world: stand-up comedians. Do You Talk Funny?: 7 Comedy Habits to Become a Better (and Funnier) Public Speaker shows how the key principles of stand-up comedy can be applied to your speaking engagements and presentations to make you funnier, more interesting, and better looking. (Or at least two of the three.) Whether you are preparing for a business presentation, giving a wedding toast, defending your thesis, raising money from investors, or simply want to take on something you're afraid of, this book will take you from sweaty to stage-ready. You'll learn how to: - Craft a story and content that your audience will want to listen to - Find the funniest parts of your material and how to get to them faster - Deal with stage fright - Master the two most important parts of your performance: timing and delivery Ten percent of the author's proceeds from this book will go to Arash Bayatmakou via Help Hope Live until he is fully back on his feet and thereafter to one of the many facing the same challenges after suffering a severe spinal cord injury.