Is it worth the work to try to find a funnier sounding word at the very end of a punchline? IE - 'mule' vs. 'donkey'; 'crazy' vs. 'nutty'; should we aim for words with a hard consonant to add some pop? I think I need a thesaurus, i mean a 'fuckin big wordy book'

@Ngo Fung Yip you might like SCHMIGADOON on … Apple TV I think? Also, La La Land, sure, why not?

Saw it last night. It’s pretty uneven. Some good jokes, but I don’t think any of them are going to stick around for very long.

@David Zucker Thanks so much for this reply! I agree with that note - the third act kind of fell open, that idea you have there would have really shored it up.

@Daniel Silman Turns out I misremembered Patton's take. I could have sworn it was part of a standup routine, but I must have read it here in this NYT article he wrote. It's about half way down the page. Bonus material: almost all of these articles on 'how to be funny' are pretty funny. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/magazine/12hodgman.html?pagewanted=all Paywall workaround is here: https://archive.is/D1ZMv NO WAIT HERE IT IS:

This is so good - thanks for making that clip. I'd never associated these two scenes before! How did I not see that?! I always thought Dirty Harry was hilarious, glad to see my taste confirmed by professionals.

@Devin Hannesson After that session yesterday, it does sound like he shoots that coverage, just in case. I like dropping reaction shots into my storyboards when the lines as written weren't particularly funny. I'll draw the characters looking just as confused as I was when I'd read the lines. The pitch would usually get a laugh, but also the whole pass would get cut bc the joke obviously needed to be re-written. Reaction shots can also be used to spark a rewrite!

@Drew Taylor RE: unsolicited advice on when to leave it wide - it's interesting to me that in animation, the notion that comedy always played better in a wide shot came out of a tradition of working from stagecraft (animation is older than film). So for years, in animation if you're doing a comedic bit, leave it wide. Interesting to hear Mr. Zucker echo that notion, and also point out that sometimes you need options. That's a very similar approach that most of us use while doing animated projects. We'll draw those options up in storyboards and pitch them in the room to see how they play, then decide which version to send into edit. So, if you're not sure whether to use an insert or closeup, or leave it in the wide, maybe just doodle some frames on the back of the shooting script and go with your gut - it's a cheap and fast way to help you decide.