Who Cares About Sketch Comedy?
Or, What The Hell Are We Doing Here?
I want to sincerely thank all of you for being here on day one.1 As someone who normally maintains “Inbox Zero” I was equally amazed and horrified at the new subscriber alerts arriving after I announced the newsletter.
I’ll start a discussion thread later this week to find out more about what you’re all hoping to get out of this. For now, just settle in for some good, old-fashioned bloviating from your pal Trapp.
Here’s a big question for a newsletter about sketch comedy: why would anyone, ever, want to learn how to do this? I love sketch more than most people and even I have to admit an uncomfortable truth: most sketches are bad.
The absolute best sketch groups have, maybe — generously — a 70% success rate. Go back and watch what you thought was a flawless episode of your favorite sketch show. I guarantee there are a couple stinkers you totally forgot about. And when a sketch is bad… man, it redefines the very concept of “badness.” In fact, some scientists believe it’s possible to make a sketch so shitty it warps the fabric of time itself. I, myself, have experienced a few five-minute sketches that lasted an eternity.
But what about all the sketches that aren’t universe-destroyingly bad? Unfortunately, most people simply don’t care about them. At any given time, you can count on one hand the number of sketch shows currently on TV, even if you’re missing a finger or two. There are even fewer websites that still employ full-time sketch writers. Sketch movies are almost unheard of. Early in my career an agent reached out to me, saying he had heard good things about my work, apparently not realizing that “my work” consisted entirely of sketches. When he found out, he could not have disappeared faster or more completely. The dude left an agent-shaped puff of dust in his wake. It turns out nothing kills professional interest quite like saying, “I’ve got a big stack of sketches for you to read.”
So, if sketch is so abhorrent, what the hell am I doing? Why am I writing this newsletter? (Aside from the thrilling ego trip, of course). Because, in spite of sketch’s many drawbacks, I still love it. Sketches are like the comedy version of pop songs: a bit simple and mechanical, but the good ones worm into your brain forever. I bet there’s a sketch you saw years ago that even now makes you laugh as you remember it. Maybe there’s a sketch you saw at a formative age that still defines what comedy is to you. There could be a particular line delivery still echoing in your mind, or a premise so perfect you’re still awed by it. A good sketch can be transcendent.
And if you’re interested in any kind of comedy writing, sketches are the perfect training ground. They’re little creative laboratories where you can refine your comedic voice. They’re so short that you can experiment more and improve faster. You’ll learn the feel of comic timing on the page, how to make your heightening bigger, and your editing tighter.
Sketches are achievable. You can finish it! You don’t have to worry about sinking months into something you ultimately hate. A sketch can be done in a few hours, and if you hate it, it’s easy to move on to the next one. The stakes have never been lower! And if you don’t hate what you wrote, it’s probably easy to produce. A staged show can get away with a few choice props, a couple of chairs, and a hearty suspension of disbelief. A filmed sketch can be shot in a day.
But most of all, sketches are fun. This isn’t some feel-good platitude to get you excited about writing. Sketches are so monumentally unimportant, so incredibly useless, that there’s no reason to work on them if you’re not having a good time. Which is not to say you shouldn’t take your work seriously — just that you shouldn’t forget to enjoy yourself. Otherwise, what’s the point?
A Brief Disclaimer
One final note before the next post: I imagine some of you are still a little wary about this newsletter. That’s totally understandable. I myself often approach comedy and writing classes with the guarded skepticism of a man who is certain someone is about to swindle him. There’s a whiff of hucksterism around stuff like this, as if someone said, “Did you hear about the strange man who just rolled into town? He says there’s a trick to the ineffable act of touching a human soul with your words! Only he will reveal it! (For a small fee, of course).”
So, I want to be very clear: I have no unbreakable laws or simple tricks. I can’t think of a single “rule” of comedy that doesn’t have at least one great counterexample. Even if there were failsafe laws, they wouldn’t stay reliable for long — art2 and comedy both rebel against predictability.3 I’m only sharing my personal philosophy. I believe there are certain guidelines you can follow that make comedic ideas funnier and writing easier. These have been helpful to me over the course of my career, and I hope they will be helpful for you too. None of these guidelines require strict adherence, but if you understand the logic behind them you can decide when to follow them and when to ignore them.
And, in the end, you don’t have to listen to me at all! You will almost certainly disagree with me about something I have to say. That’s okay! Everyone’s got a different sense of humor. There are things I love that everyone else hates, and things I hate that everyone else loves. Of course, I hope you’ll give me the benefit of the doubt, but if you’re absolutely convinced I’m wrong, I’ll tell you what I used to tell my students: show me. Prove me wrong. Make the sketch. Film it. Put it on stage. Organize a reading. Do something to get it in front of other people. Because in the end you’re not trying to make me laugh; you’re trying to make an audience laugh. If you’ve got a room full of people enjoying your work, who cares what I think?
Later This Week:
What do you want from this newsletter and how can I give it to you?
Next Week:
The Absolute Basics. A crash course of big topics for those who have never written a sketch before, and a lot of old, boring information for those who have!
Presumably some of you are reading this in the archive after Day One. Thanks for being here too, and hello from the paaaaaaast.
That’s right, I called sketches “art.”
I can even think of a few exceptions to “comedy rebels against predictability,” though if I think that’s GENERALLY true.
Thank you for starting this Trapp. With the plague still running rampant, and ucb being down a physical building in la, this is an absolute win win for some of us
Great first post, really looking forward to reading more of these.