Something to Laugh about Mini-Challenge

Week of February 12, 2012: A Mini-Challenge Throw Down

Monday, February 13—Something to Laugh about Mini-Challenge

Today ask at least five people to tell you the corniest joke they know. (You get bonus points if the people you ask are kids.) Look for what makes the joke humorous—is it the character, the setting, an unexpected combination of elements, the punch line?

1.      Write down the jokes.

2.      Find the funny. Then see how far you can brainstorm that element. (For instance, if the humor is that a dog chases his own tail, then brainstorm “chasing” and “tail” and see how many new ideas you can come up with.)

Take another approach. For children, gross is often the opposite of funny. (And for some kids gross is funny.) So if you have a gross memory (such as when my family transported a calf in the backseat of our Buick), jot that down as a possible seed idea, too