Joe Toplyn

Category: Late-Night Writing

  • Writing Political Comedy

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    Joe Toplyn
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    Writing political jokes is trickier than writing jokes about non-political topics. How do you write political comedy when a large segment of your audience might boo you instead of laughing? A miscalculated political joke can split your audience in two. Political topics are very tempting for a comedy writer because an audience is likely to…

  • Writing for Late-Night TV: A Panel Discussion

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    Joe Toplyn
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    Recently I had the privilege of participating in a panel discussion about writing for late-night TV. It was sponsored by the Center for Communication and Made in NY. I’ve been told the event was very informative. You can watch this video and judge for yourself. For many more tips and techniques, buy the book mentioned…

  • Killer Comedy on “Late Night”

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    Joe Toplyn
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    In my book I tell an anecdote about how a joke I wrote for “Late Night with David Letterman” almost fractured my skull. This video brings the anecdote to life. The lesson: Safety First. A heavy steel hinge on “The A-Team Stunt Alarm” comes within inches of splashing my brains all over a pillow. Watch…

  • How to Create a New Comedy/Talk Show

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    Joe Toplyn
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    You have a host. Your assignment is to build a new comedy/talk show around him or her. How do you even begin to do that? Recently The New York Times went behind the scenes to give a glimpse into how James Corden and his staff are creating their version of Late Late Show, premiering on…

  • The Reader’s Digest? Cool!

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    Joe Toplyn
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    [Possibly NSFW because of the photo of Kim K.] I had just posted this joke on Twitter: Yes, sometimes I tweet jokes about Kim Kardashian’s butt. Which is one reason I was surprised when my friend Phil told me that he’d seen one of my tweets in the Reader’s Digest. He mailed me his copy…

  • Why We Laugh at Late-Night TV

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    Joe Toplyn
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    What makes people laugh? Scholars and theologians have been trying to answer that question since the dawn of comedy. Now Peter McGraw has a theory, the benign violation theory, which he discusses in his entertaining new book The Humor Code, co-written with Joel Warner. The benign violation theory of humor says that, as Peter puts it, “Laughter only…

  • Why the Internet Hasn’t Changed Late Night

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    Joe Toplyn
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    A lot of people think the Internet has fundamentally altered the nature of late-night comedy/talk shows.  But I don’t. Take the article by Jason Lynch in The Daily Beast last April that sports this headline and subhead: For one thing, “that time slot after the local news” does matter. It matters a lot. Only people who watch…

  • How the Two Jimmies Can Prepare for Colbert

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    Joe Toplyn
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    As I write this, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon is dominating its competition. Since its premiere on February 17, 2014, Tonight has earned a 1.28 rating in Adults 18-49, compared to a .65 for Jimmy Kimmel Live and a .51 for Late Show with David Letterman. But the game is changing. Sometime in 2015…

  • The Hugh Grant Fallacy

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    Joe Toplyn
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    This week, on June 18, Access Hollywood perpetuated a longstanding misconception about The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. A voiceover referred to “the game changer, when in 1995 Hugh Grant came on shortly after his dalliance with a prostitute. Jay beat Letterman in the ratings that night and stayed number one for nineteen years.” Game-changer?…

  • When O. J. Simpson Killed, So Did Jay Leno

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    Joe Toplyn
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    As a host of the Tonight show, Jay Leno was typically regarded by the media as dull, not edgy. For example, a February 2014 article by Daniel D’Addario on the website Salon bears the headlines: “Jay Leno thrived by being America’s dullest man. With less edge than David Letterman or Conan O’Brien, Leno was the perfect…