Joe Toplyn

  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Galleries
    • “Late Night with David Letterman”
    • “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”
    • “Monk”
  • Events
  • Media Page
  • Contact

Monthly Archives: March 2014

Comedy Writing Is Not Rocket Science

Posted on March 4, 2014 by Joe Toplyn

If you know the techniques, tricks, and rules, comedy writing isn’t as hard as it looks. When I was co-head writer of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno I directed a sketch featuring Jay and astronaut Story Musgrave. The sketch was a comedy tour of Space Center Houston, the official visitor center of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. (In the photo, that’s Story in the NASA jumpsuit and me with the microphone boom on my face.)Joe Toplyn with Jay Leno and astronaut Story Musgrave at Space Center Houston, February 19, 1995. We finished taping around lunchtime and I found myself in the cafeteria with Story. As a kid I wanted to be an astronaut so I was thrilled when he invited me to bring my plastic tray over and join him. What a gracious, smart, impressive guy. We chatted about the taping and then he observed, “It must be really hard to come up with comedy every night, week after week.”

This STS-61 crew portrait includes astronauts (top row, l to r) Richard O. Covey, Jeffrey A. Hoffman, and Thomas D. Akers and (bottom row, l to r) Kenneth D. Bowersox, Kathryn C. Thornton, F. Story Musgrave, and Claude Nicollier.

Story Musgrave and part of the team that repaired the Hubble Space Telescope

I was almost struck speechless. Here was an astronaut, a crew member on one of the most complex missions in the history of the Space Shuttle, a veteran spacewalker who had helped repair the incredibly intricate Hubble Space Telescope so scientists could use it to unravel the secrets of the universe. Here was this guy telling me that my job seemed hard. I replied to Story that my job had to be much easier than his. I pointed out that, as with any job, you get better at comedy writing the more you do it, and I had been doing it for years. And I explained that a show like Tonight has a large staff of writers so even if a few of them are off their game on any given day there are plenty of others around who can pick up the slack. But years later I realized that part of the reason comedy writing seems so difficult to Story, and to so many other people, is that the process is so mysterious. To me, repairing the Hubble Space Telescope seems mind-bendingly difficult because I have absolutely no idea how I would go about doing it. To Story, the same task is relatively easy because he knows all the steps involved and has practiced them over and over.

Joe Toplyn and other writers of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" in Las Vegas, November 1995.

Joe Toplyn and part of the team that wrote “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”

The process of writing comedy was a little mysterious to me, too, until recently. I had created thousands of jokes and bits for the four late-night comedy/talk shows I’ve worked on but at the time I didn’t completely understand how I was doing it. The idea of understanding how, and of setting down the techniques, tricks, and rules for creating short-form comedy, began to appeal to me. I thought writers could use a book that would help them unravel the secrets of the comedy universe. So I wrote Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV. Story, if you ever read the book you’ll understand better than ever why I said comedy writing is way easier than your job.

Posted in Late-Night Writing | Tags: astronaut, Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV, jay leno, NASA, Story Musgrave, Tonight Show | 4 Comments |

Sign up to get more tips and offers from Joe.

Joe’s Tweets

Joe Toplyn 2 days ago

Recently a company in Japan introduced vending machines that sell whale meat. And most Japanese people are saying no thanks. The only thing they want to buy from a vending machine is a piping hot cup of squid ink.

Joe Toplyn 3 days ago

A U.S. tourist was fined for driving his rental car over a centuries-old, medieval Italian bridge. The Italians were waving their hands, swearing a mile a minute, gesturing wildly…and then they saw the car on the bridge.

Joe Toplyn 4 days ago

In an Oscar snub, Tom Cruise did not get an acting nomination for "Top Gun: Maverick." Insiders say he got a lot of votes but came up short.

Joe Toplyn 5 days ago

Today a 4.2 magnitude earthquake struck near Malibu, California. The shaking was so hard that one lane of the Pacific Coast Highway was temporarily closed due to large chunks falling off Cher's plastic surgery.

Joe Toplyn 6 days ago

It's the Chinese New Year—the Year of the Rabbit. To celebrate, President Biden visited a third-grade classroom and showed the kids how to make little origami rabbits out of classified documents.

Joe Toplyn 7 days ago

Chase Bank announced that it's closing some ATM vestibules in New York City at 5 pm because of rising crime. The good news is, bank officials say that customers who need cash after hours can always do what other New Yorkers do and pick somebody's pocket.

Joe Toplyn 1 week ago

Retired astronaut Buzz Aldrin just got married to his "longtime love." His astronaut friends say he's over the moon…in a nearly-circular, equatorial orbit with a period of 88 minutes.

Categories

Pages

  • About Joe
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Events
  • Media Page
  • Photo Galleries
    • “Late Night with David Letterman”
    • “Monk”
    • “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”

Recent Posts

  • Joke About Disney Employees Going Back to the Office January 16, 2023
  • Joke About the Wright Brothers December 19, 2022
  • Joke About the Pine Sol Recall November 21, 2022
  • Joke About a Saxophone Player October 24, 2022
  • Joke About Photos of a Planet September 26, 2022

Pages

  • About Joe
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Events
  • Media Page
  • Photo Galleries
    • “Late Night with David Letterman”
    • “Monk”
    • “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”

Archives

  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • February 2015
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014

Categories

  • Joke Writing Workshop (356)
  • Late-Night Writing (13)
  • Writing Tips (12)

WordPress

  • Log in
  • WordPress

CyberChimps WordPress Themes

© 2014 Joe Toplyn. All Rights Reserved.