In a nutshell
- Sketch comedy teaches valuable skills like storytelling and timing, making it a great starting point for new creators.
- There are different types of sketches, including parody, satire, fish out of water and inappropriate response.
- Timing and focusing on the core joke are essential to creating successful sketch comedy.
Sketch comedy is one of the most popular formats for content creators looking to flex their funny bones. Sketches are short, comedic explorations of situations, characters and ideas. It’s a fantastic place to start for all kinds of video producers because it teaches skills like storytelling and timing, which can be applied to much larger projects.
These 3- to 10-minute comedy vignettes are ingrained in our culture from “Saturday Night Live,” “Key & Peele” and “Portlandia,” among other shows. Stars such as Amy Poehler and Donald Glover made early moves in their careers as members of sketch groups, the Upright Citizens Brigade and Derrick Comedy, respectively. So, where do you start?
While writing sketch comedy is no laughing matter, we have these important tips that can make it easier for you.
Getting started
The first step is finding something funny to explore. Inside jokes about your friends aren’t going to cut it if you want to appeal to a wide audience. You want to find something that other people will relate to — something funny or strange that some people do. For example, someone who gets on an elevator before letting other people off. According to Del Close, a coach of today’s comedy greats, including Bill Murray, Mike Myers, Tina Fey and many more, “The truth is funny. Honest discovery, observation, and reaction is better than contrived invention.” What this means is that the best humor articulates simple, universal truths that everyone has experienced but seldom comments on. People laugh most when the joke is “funny because it’s true.” Start by making observations and writing from what you find to be true.
Writing a sketch
To write a sketch from the idea of someone who gets on elevators before letting other people off, we explore the truth of that individual—they are selfish and don’t wait their turn. Next, apply those truths about the character to other situations that would accentuate the ridiculousness of the behavior. The sketch isn’t about getting in or out of elevators; it’s about an aspect of human nature — selfishness.
This character trait becomes the joke of our sketch. We can make it funny by applying the behavior to a series of worsening situations. So, we ask, what are a few occasions where you don’t want to find a person who is selfish and doesn’t wait their turn? Among others, playing a game of chess, being in bed with a partner and driving in front of an ambulance all come to mind.
Once you have a few good ideas for “hits” on your joke, you want them in an escalating order; the biggest laugh should be last. Start with a relatively normal situation as a hit on the joke, something small, like playing chess. Then, explore the idea a few more times, each with a progressively more ridiculous situation. After your craziest hit on the joke, go out. That’s it. Don’t linger.
Just like other forms of screenwriting, don’t add little details that don’t support the overall sketch. Have a funny hat a character can wear for an added laugh? Don’t use it. Unless the hat relates directly to the premise, it’s only going to distract from the joke.
Timing is everything in comedy. A sketch that starts too slow loses the audience’s interest, as does one that lingers too long between hits on the joke. Keep it fast-paced. Cut everything that does not feed the core joke. There’s a saying among picture editors: “The difference between comedy and tragedy is 10 frames.”
Types of sketches
While sketches can take on any number of forms, there are a few general types that sharp viewers will begin to notice. Writing a sketch that fits one of these styles is a great way to get started.
Parody
A parody makes fun of a specific work or style. Song parodies are always popular, like the many works of “Weird Al” Yankovic or THE MERKINS’ SLASHSTREET BOYS. But the genre doesn’t end there. Parody can also poke fun at films, genres or even specific people.
Satire
Satire ridicules an idea or social convention to draw attention to an issue in society. Satire has a long history as a weapon against tyranny. Take this “Key & Peele” sketch, for example:
Fish out of water
A character is completely out of their element. The fun here is in playing with how different the characters are from the environment you put them in and how they react. YouTuber Cilvanis puts the fish out of water approach to work in his video “Realizing You’re in a Depressed Rapper’s Music Video.”
Clash of context
The context makes it seem like things will go one way, but they end up going another. For example, in YouTuber Stevie Emerson’s “Filtering at Work: I Think the Barista Likes Me” video, Emerson starts the video with a man mistakenly taking a barista’s kindness for attraction. The gag plays out as you would expect for the most part, but it concludes in an unexpected way.
Inappropriate response
A character doesn’t react to a normal situation the way we’d expect them to. Here, it’s not just random responses but responses that are true to the idiosyncrasies of a funny character. In comedian Anna Akana’s “Unconventional Tips to Enhance Your Beauty,” Anna tries to offer good advice to her audience while navigating her friend’s inappropriate advice to simply dump your boyfriend.
Simple but impossible task
A character has to do a seemingly simple task, but things keep getting in the way. Start with simple obstacles and get more ridiculous. This is a staple for “SNL,” as you can see here.
Toilet jokes
Farts, poop, etc.—there’s nothing wrong with them. In fact, great fortunes have been made from fart jokes. (We’re looking at you, Kevin Smith.) You can also incorporate toilet humor in creative ways, like in this Whitest Kids U’ Know sketch:
Keep them laughing
Sketch comedy is a fun and fast genre of video to produce. It may take some practice to get it right, but it builds useful production skills and brings a smile to people’s faces. What more could you ask for?
Featured image courtesy: THE MERKINS
This is helpful thanks.