619 - Comedy Episode

Scriptnotes Podcast

John August

Screenwriter, Tv & Film, Writing, John, Screenwriting, August, Craig, Screenplay, Mazin

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2023

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

John welcomes Jesse David Fox (Comedy Book, Good One) and Greg Iwinski (Last Week Tonight, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert) to “explain the joke” and discuss how comedy works.

They explore everything from harnessing your comedic voice, building a career in comedy, the importance of diversity in late night, to fundamental questions about the art form: How do jokes work? Is laughter always the primary goal of a comedy? Do you need to put your work online? How has the algorithm changed our consumption of comedy? And where does comedy go from here?

In our bonus segment for premium members, Greg, Jesse and John talk about their shared love for The Simpsons. What makes it so funny, and how has it shaped a generation of comedy nerds?

Links:

Greg Iwinski on Twitter and Instagram
Jesse David Fox on Instagram and Twitter
Comedy Book: How Comedy Conquered Culture–and the Magic That Makes It Work by Jesse David Fox
Good One: Podcast About Jokes by Jesse David Fox
Julia on MAX
The Great Stewardess Rebellion by Nell McShane Wulfhart
Everything You Want (ft. MUNA) – Matt Rogers, from his album Have You Heard of Christmas?
Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
Craig Mazin on Threads and Instagram
John August on Threads, Instagram and Twitter
John on Mastodon
Outro by Jonathan Petkau (send us yours!)
Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at [email protected]

You can download the episode here.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and my name is John August and this is episode 619 of script notes a
0:06.7	podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters today
0:10.5	on the show what is comedy how do jokes work and how does the comedy business work?
0:14.8	I guarantee we will not definitively answer any of these questions, but we'll make a valiant stab
0:19.5	at it with two terrific guests. First, Greg I Winsky. Greg is an Emmy-winning writer whose
0:24.9	credits include The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, last week's night with John
0:27.9	Oliver, and Game Theory with Bobani Jones. He was a member of this year's
0:32.1	WJ Negotiating Committee and if you are a writer working a late night, trust me, you seriously owe him a beer.
0:38.0	Welcome to the podcast, Greg.
0:40.0	Thank you so much for having me. Happy to be here.
0:42.0	Next up, Jesse David Fox is a senior editor at Vulture,
0:45.1	where he covers comedy and hosts the podcast Good One,
0:48.2	a podcast about jokes,
0:50.1	his new book, comedy book,
0:51.5	how comedy conquered culture and the magic that makes it work. his new book, comedy book, How Comedy Concord Culture
0:53.2	and The Magic that Makes It Work is out now.
0:56.1	Welcome, Jesse.
0:57.1	Hello, thank you so much for having me.
0:58.8	It's an honor.
0:59.7	So I wanted to talk with you guys about this because we get so many questions from writers on
1:04.8	this podcast and yes I guess the name gives away script notes or we're mostly about scripted stuff.
1:09.7	But the general kind of question is like I'm a funny person or I know a very funny person, what is the thing that that funny person should do with their funniness to sort of get them a career?
	...

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