Deep thoughts jack handy2/19/2023 ![]() Syntax and grammar are very important, not only for joke timing, but also to get a sense of the character, that he's not too bright. I realize I'm dipping into English-major-nerd territory, but how do you think grammar and syntax play into written comedy? Is it comparable to timing and intonation? Then the last time, I just went out in the woods and lived, with no clothes." This is a hilarious premise to begin with, but the inclusion of the exclamation point in the first sentence and the dangling "with no clothes" clause in the second really seal it for me. Here's an example from one of your Fuzzy Memories: "The first time I ever tried to milk a cow at Grandpa's farm, I didn't even know which end of the cow to milk! Then I guess I got even dumber, because the next time I couldn't even find the barn. George came up with the response, "Tell me about it! Boy! I think the key is you can't be afraid to look stupid."Ī lot of your humor, in my reading at least, is bound up in the syntax and grammar. For instance, I wrote a sketch called "Salmon," where spawning salmon are talking to each other, and one mentions how hard it was to get over a certain waterfall. He can come up with a joke that no one else could ever come up with. George produced Army Man between the time he left SNL and when he joined The Simpsons. George and I were officemates on a show called The New Show, a sketch show from 1984. Can you tell us how you got involved with Army Man and George Meyer? He's a punching bag.įor a lot of humor writers of my generation, Army Man, which published some of your first Deep Thoughts, is a huge inspiration. It's funnier if a jerk like the Deep Thoughts character is mean to a nice guy rather than another jerk. Now he is a central character in your novel. No way Don, you're the loser.") and he appears in several of your New Yorker pieces. But if he was here, he'd say I was the loser. But if he was here right now, he'd say I was the loser. There are Deep Thoughts about Don ("My friend Don is such a loser. Like the cowboy dance, the so-called friend, Don, is an element that has recurred in your writing for many years. Don't be too rigid, is what I'm trying to say. ![]() Or if you feel like pretending you're chewing tobacco and spitting, as you dance, do that. When you're doing the dance, if you suddenly feel like flinging your hand out, do it. What are the core elements a successful "funny cowboy dance"? I could make major changes in a sketch between Dress and Air, and go to Phil sitting there in the makeup room, and quickly tell him the changes, and he would calmly absorb them. I wrote a lot for him because he could play so many things so very well. Him playing scared would have been funny.Ī lot of your greatest SNL sketches, such as "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer" and "Happy Fun Ball," featured the late, great Phil Hartman. Mitchum, by the way, was the coolest host I ever met on the show-that sort of languid, 1940s cool. But maybe you not so lucky."īut there was another sketch that week that was similar, so I didn't submit it.Īnother sketch I actually wrote up but never submitted was Robert Mitchum as a very frightened submarine commander-sort of a parody of the Mitchum film The Enemy Below. Then we cut to modern day, where they say, "Tonto, Tarzan, Frankenstein take many drug in 60s. We flash back in time to Tonto, Tarzan, and Frankenstein singing "California Dreamin'" in their stilted, monosyllabic style, as hippies. One I wished I'd written was an episode of "Tonto, Tarzan and Frankenstein," a sketch I created with writer Jim Downey. That I did write, probably a toss-up between "Anne Boleyn" and "Toonces, the Cat Who Could Drive a Car." What is your favorite SNL sketch that you wrote? What is your favorite SNL sketch that you didn't write? It adds to the possibility of jokes you can use. I like a jungle setting, because just about anything can happen there, real or supernatural. I think the novel did have a lot of its origins in My Big Thick Novel. Yes, I stole that joke from My Big Thick Novel. For example, the one with a woman named Lanani (in the novel it's Leilani) who gets annoyed about being a "personal blowdart counter." Did the idea for writing an actual novel originate in the My Big Thick Novel spots? If I'm not mistaken, one or two of those bits ended up in The Stench of Honolulu. In the early 2000s, SNL ran excerpts from a fake novel of yours called My Big Thick Novel. Jack Handey: Some jokes were preexisting, but most were written as the story developed. Did you write most of the jokes separately, like for Deep Thoughts, and then add them to a narrative? Or did you write the jokes as you wrote the story? VICE: I'm curious about the writing process for your novel, The Stench of Honolulu. Lincoln Michel talked to him for VICE about writing, funny grammar, and proper cowboy dance moves.
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