Judy Carter is a stand-up comedian, the author of The Comedy Bible and one of the best-known comedy teachers in the world. In her interview with Hop For Pop, she broke down how Joan Rivers wrote a joke.
Joan Rivers made it look easy. She would sit on Johnny Carson’s couch, chat, and the audience would fall apart laughing. Judy Carter watched her as a little girl and could not work out how anyone could be that quick.
“How is she that funny off the top of her head? Now, later you found out that was all planned.”
Judy Carter
That is the secret of Joan Rivers in one line. The spontaneity was built. Behind every “off the cuff” moment was a joke she had written, cut down and tested. When Judy, author of The Comedy Bible, sat down with Hop For Pop, she explained exactly how Joan built those jokes, and why the same rules still work for comedians today.
Jump to: A laugh every few seconds · Cut every word you don’t need · Setup, punchline, tag, tag, tag · Say the premise three ways · Chris Rock and Wanda Sykes · Watch
A laugh every few seconds
Comedians talk about “laughs per minute”, the number of laughs a set gets in sixty seconds. Judy has a strict target for her students, and it caused a stir when she shared it online.
“You need to laugh at least every 10 seconds.”
Judy Carter
Plenty of comics told her that was impossible. Judy’s answer was to point at the greats, and Joan Rivers was at the top of the list.
“Joan Rivers had one of the densest laughs.”
Judy Carter
A dense set does not come from talking faster. It comes from the writing. Joan’s jokes were packed tight because of the way she edited them.
Cut every word you don’t need
“She had this genius of taking out every word that was unnecessary.”
Judy Carter
Judy gave a simple example. A new comic might start a story with “So there I was at the train station”. Does the audience need the train station? If not, it goes. Every extra word is a few more seconds between the audience and the laugh.
“So she had that kind of attention to her material where every superfluous word was taken out so she could get to the joke quicker.”
Judy Carter
This is the hardest habit for new writers to learn. Comedians fall in love with their own set-ups, the scene-setting and the little details. Joan treated every word as something that had to earn its place.
For more on how working comics build their material, read how comedians write jokes.
Setup, punchline, tag, tag, tag
Once the joke was trimmed, Joan did not stop at the punchline. She kept hitting the same idea with extra jokes, one after another. Comedians call these tags.
“So she would do the setup, the payoff, the tag, tag, tag, tag.”
Judy Carter
A tag is a second (or third, or fourth) punchline on the same set-up. The audience is already laughing, so each tag lands on top of the last laugh instead of starting from zero. Judy described the effect: just when you think you cannot laugh any more, Joan would hit you with something else.
That is how you get a laugh every few seconds. You don’t write a new set-up for every joke. You write one strong set-up and squeeze every laugh out of it.
Say the premise three ways
Judy also spotted a trick most people miss. Before the punchline even arrives, Joan would get laughs from the premise itself, the attitude behind the joke.
“I noticed that she would repeat her premise in three different tones. I hate her. I absolutely hate her. I hate her. And all three versions will get a laugh.”
Judy Carter
The words barely change. The delivery does. By the time the real joke comes, the audience has already laughed three times and is completely on her side.
Repetition is also the engine of a good callback. Read the anatomy of a powerful callback.
Chris Rock and Wanda Sykes use it too
Judy pointed out that Joan was not the only one. Chris Rock repeats his premise too. He will say the same opening line two or three times, each time pushing the audience further into his point of view, before he turns it into the punchline. Wanda Sykes, who wrote for Chris Rock, does the same.
Judy also told the story of how Rock became a headliner. He was, in her words, a middling act. Instead of grinding out more of the same, he went back to school on comedy.
“He stopped doing his act. He went and studied comedy.”
Judy Carter
He sat in a television museum, watched the old comics, worked out what they were doing, and rebuilt his act. Studying the greats, Joan Rivers included, is how he got there.
The magic: it looked like a conversation
All this structure was invisible to the audience, and that was the point. For Judy, it was what made Joan special.
“The magic was she made it look like I could have a conversation with her and she’d just be hilarious. I want a friend like that.”
Judy Carter
Joan, along with Lucille Ball, was one of the women Judy grew up watching when very few women were on the road doing comedy.
“Those were the women who helped me have the courage to do it.”
Judy Carter
Joan Rivers’ writing process in four steps
- Aim for density. A laugh at least every 10 seconds, and faster if you can.
- Cut every word that doesn’t earn its place. Get to the joke quicker.
- Don’t stop at the punchline. Setup, payoff, then tag after tag.
- Milk the premise. Say it more than once, in different tones, and let the attitude get its own laughs.
Watch Judy Carter break it down
Judy talks about much more in the full conversation, from crowd work to finding your voice. Read the full interview: Don’t Get Mad, Get Funny: Judy Carter’s philosophy in one interview, or watch it here:
Enjoyed this interview?
Hop For Pop is researched, recorded, edited and written by one person, and it’s free to read. If this one made you laugh or taught you something, you can buy us a coffee.
Buy us a coffee ☕ $5Follow Judy Carter on Instagram at @judycartercomedy. Follow Hop For Pop at @hopforpop and @thecomicsunseen, and browse all our comedian interviews.