How to Tell One-Liners

What's the shortest distance between you and a career in comedy? A one-liner, of course!

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Hand Buzzers
• Dictionaries
• Joke Books

1. Engage yourself in conversation with a person or group of people.

2. Wait until someone says something that provides a setup for a good one-liner.

3. Chime in with your witty comment. For example, if someone says, "I just don't have any patience," you could say, "I once knew a guy who didn't have any patience at all, and it cost him his job. He was a doctor."

4. Try to refrain from explaining that, here, the word "patience," meaning tolerance, has been corrupted into its homonym, "patients," meaning medical clients. The doctor friend actually had no patients and couldn't stay in business.

Tips & Warnings

• The key to many successful one-liners is surprise. Many one-liners begin as humorless, matter-of-fact statements and suddenly become funny by the addition of a gag.
• To accentuate this element of surprise, you may wish to pause between the matter-of-fact statement and the gag to allow your friends to "play into" the punch line. In the example given above, you might say, "I once knew a guy who didn't have any patience at all, and it cost him his job." Then, when someone asks (as someone most certainly will), "What did he do?," tell them that he was a doctor.

on 2/2/2006 The shorter the better with one liners. Here are a couple of my favorites:
A skeleton says to the bartender, "Get me a beer and a mop."
Note, you don't need to explain that the skeleton walked into a bar.
One snowman says to the other, "You smell carrots?"
Never explain.

on 2/2/2006 When telling a joke or a one-liner it's a good idea to be specific with the details. For example, if your joke includes a soft drink, say "Diet Coke" instead of "pop" or "soda". When you're using numbers in a joke pick a number like 17 or 46, not 20 or 50.

on 2/2/2006 A visual gag is often done in threes. Two set-up instances and the third is the switch, where expectation is turned on it's ear. Suppose you are at a dinner party and you really want to get off a few good zingers; be sparing: one early, one in the middle and one later in the evening. Make your last one completely out of character from the previous two. Stop at that - otherwise you are showing off, not entertaining.

on 1/4/2006 Timing is everything - nobody likes someone who's constantly trying to fit in a gag. Wait patiently and the opportunity will present itself. You have two ears and one mouth, and you should use them in that proportion.

on 11/22/2005 If you ever tell (or attempt to tell) a one-liner, make sure that it isn't overly complicated. It should be straightforward and to the point. If you ever have to explain a joke, it isn't funny.