Been a crazy and somewhat exhausting week directing the Galas at Just For Laughs, and now that I'm--as they say--"back in the biz" full-time, it's somewhat heartening to discover that I'm not as jaded as I thought I'd be.
Unlike music, which touches the soul and fills the heart, comedy works immediately, playing with and tickling the head. (This is why people will cry with laughter over a joke just told, but never tear up with the nostalgic memory of one, as they would with a song). And in that moment, something magic happens--information goes in dry, gets processed and emerges as sweet, sweet laughter.
So after watching dozens of performers on parade on stages throughout the city, I think I've re-evaluated my appreciation of humor and discovered the secret sauce of what makes people laugh.
And here it is.
Great comedians do one of two things:
1) Make the normal appear abnormal
2) Make people believe the abnormal
Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Cosby built their careers on the former, and people like Tom Papa, Mike Birbiglia and John Pinette are following in their footsteps, excelling in spinning and twisting their mundane everyday existences into hilarity.
On the other hand, in the fine tradition of Monty Python's Flying Circus and other absurdists, guys like Tim Minchin and Noel Fielding are maestros of the latter, painting Dali-esque pictures in your brain so vividly, you'd almost believe that Tim does indeed enjoy a profound relationship with an inflatable doll, or that under his pants, Noel's legs are those of rams.
WHY people laugh, and why they NEED to laugh are two very different animals.
But WHAT makes 'em laugh is the relationship between normal and abnormal.
And now...time for me to embark on the challenge of exploiting that relationship across four lines of business, in multiple media, around the globe, in numerous languages.
To keep me going, I think I'll need a laugh. Or a few million of 'em.
Either way will do.