Did you know that “Stan” by Eminem and Trey Parker’s song “America, F!#* Yeah!” both have the same important lesson to teach about comedy writing (even screen writing in general)? I would have certainly never grouped these two songs together in any circumstance. Even less so if the category is “important lessons to be learned on comedy writing.
Let’s think about this, what can a song about a guy trapping his pregnant girlfriend in the trunk of his car have to do with comedy writing? Plain and simple: everything.
It’s all about heightening or taking the joke to the next level. The song doesn’t start with his girlfriend in the trunk. It starts with Stan writing letters to Eminem about how big of a fan he is. Then as Eminem doesn’t respond, Stan’s letters get progressively angrier and more violent. This is the same thing you have to do with a comedic scene or premise. If you start the scene out with someone screaming and then falling down the stairs, where do you take that? It has hit the ceiling of how far you can push it.
You have to build up to points like that just like the Stan character builds up to killing his girlfriend. Now I know that this song is a rather violent way to learn this lesson but that’s how it was explained to me. And I just wanted to share that experience.
That’s why I think comedy writing is very hard and I think comedy writer’s are not given enough credit. Writing is hard already: story, plot, character development and even then people have to like it. Then you take comedy- you’ve got all of those elements and then you’ve gotta get people to not only like it but laugh. My hats off to comedy writer’s, you’ve got your work cut out for you.