Tag Archives: Twitter

Joke About Trump’s Twitter Account

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The joke:

Yesterday Twitter suspended the account of President Trump. He responded by launching his own version of Snapchat–Crapchat.

How I wrote it:

The biggest news story at the time was the storming of the Capitol building, but that didn’t lend itself easily to joke writing. So instead I chose for a topic a related news story that was almost as big.

The topic about Twitter suspending Trump suggested the question “What will he do about that?” That is, I gravitated toward my Punch Line Maker #3: Ask a question about the topic.

To answer that question, and create a punch line, I thought of associations of the two handles of the topic. As I did so, I had in mind the possibility of linking two associations using wordplay.

One handle, “Twitter,” is associated with other popular social media sites. As an aid to brainstorming, I looked up a list of them online.

The other handle, “President Trump,” has as an association “his tweets.” I mentally gauged how a mass audience now feels about those tweets and decided most people would be okay associating them with something like “garbage.”

Then, to get my punch line, I linked my list of social media sites to my list of synonyms for “garbage” by blending “Snapchat” and “crap.”

I debated about whether to include “Snapchat” in the angle. Without it, I thought the wordplay in the punch line might not be clear. With it, I thought the punch line might be too on-the-nose. I opted for clarity.

As a bonus, my Joke Maximizer #7 advises using stop consonants, and “Crapchat” has three of them.

Joke About a Bear Attack

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The joke:

A woman in California was attacked by a bear but fought it off with her laptop computer. She said the bear ran away terrified when she showed it President Trump’s Twitter feed.

How I wrote it:

This news item caught my eye because it’s easy to understand and has a couple of promising handles.

To write the joke, I used my Punch Line Maker #3, asking this question about the topic: “How did she use her laptop computer to fight off the bear?”

To answer that question, I brainstormed associations of the handle “laptop computer,” one of which is “things on a computer.” That has the sub-association “scary things on a computer,” one of which I thought my audience would agree is President Trump’s Twitter feed. That sub-association was surprising and funny enough that I made it my punch line.

To minimize the chance that I’d divide my audience, I left it vague why most people would think that President Trump’s tweets are scary.  I just assumed that most people would accept that there’s something terrifying about them.

I left out of the topic the fact that the woman actually hit the bear with her laptop. “Fought it off” allows my topic to be true while also being logically consistent with my punch line.

I included the word “terrified” in the angle, instead of just writing something like, “She said the bear ran away when she showed it President Trump’s Twitter feed.” My Joke Maximizer #4 is “Make everything clear,” and that joke wouldn’t clearly state why the tweets made the bear run away.

Joke About O. J. on Twitter

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The joke:

Released from prison after only nine years, O. J. Simpson has now joined Twitter. That makes sense. O. J. loves short sentences.

How I wrote it:

This topic caught my eye because both handles–“O. J. Simpson” and “Twitter”–seemed to have enough associations that could be linked to form a punch line.

I know well how many associations O. J. Simpson has because I used many of them to write jokes for “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” during O. J.’s “Trial of the Century” 25 years ago. So another reason I latched onto this topic was because I thought it would be fun to take a shot at O. J. again, like old times.

One challenge I had was deciding on an association of O. J. that most people would agree with. Today’s mass audience might not even remember Judge Ito, the white Ford Bronco, and the bloody glove.

So I brainstormed on Twitter instead, and its short sentences came to mind. The words “short sentence” also have a meaning associated with O. J.: I thought most people would accept the idea that he should have done more prison time for the double homicide. So I used Punch Line Maker #4–Find a play on words in the topic–to link “O. J. Simpson” to “Twitter.”

The final steps in writing the joke were to add an efficient angle–“That makes sense. O. J. loves…”–and to mention “only nine years” in the topic, to highlight the second meaning of “short sentence” and make the joke clear.

How to Write a Joke

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There are formulas for writing jokes. Experienced joke writers go through a systematic process to turn something like a news item into a sentence or two that will make people laugh.

You may have heard that “Writing is rewriting.” That describes only part of the process. Writing a joke is first thinking of what to write, then slapping together a rough draft, and only then rewriting to maximize the laugh.

Here’s the process I went through to write a joke for Twitter using the techniques in my book Comedy Writing for Late-Night TV.

The idea for the joke starts with this news headline:

“Giant African Snails Seized at Los Angeles Airport”

I have an emotional reaction to the headline—“That’s weird”—which alerts me that the news item might be of general interest and worth exploring as a joke Topic.

Giant African snails at LAXThe news item also feels promising because it has two handles–“snail” and “Los Angeles”—each of which has several well-known associations. That means there’s a great chance I can create a solid Punch Line from the associations. “Snail” has associations like “slimy,” “slow,” and “French people eat them.” “Los Angeles” has associations like “smog,” “traffic,” and all the individual celebrities there.

To generate a Punch Line, I focus first on the well-known “snail” association “slow” and ask myself which slow people are commonly associated with Los Angeles. I can’t think of any only-in-LA slowpokes, so I expand my list of associations to include workers in general.

DMV in Los Angeles

To spark ideas I Google “slow workers,” which reminds me of the DMV. Ah-ha! Now I have the basis of my Punch Line: I’ll link snails with DMV employees using their shared association “slow.” The result is this:

Partial Rough Draft: “Giant African snails were seized at Los Angeles Airport…workers at the DMV.”

To complete my rough draft I need an Angle that connects my Topic and Punch Line smoothly and efficiently. So I add an Angle that explains how the snails became workers at the DMV and get this:

Rough Draft: “Giant African snails were seized at Los Angeles Airport. Instead of destroying them, officials gave them jobs at the DMV.”

I use the word “officials” a lot in topical jokes. It suggests authority figures but isn’t specific enough to be distracting.

So that’s my rough draft. That was writing, wasn’t it? So much for writing being rewriting. Now comes the rewriting.

I add “live shipment” to clarify that these creatures are animate and could conceivably perform some kind of work. I add “67” because that detail from the news story subtly reinforces that this incident actually occurred. I remove “African” because it’s distractingly specific and unnecessary for the joke. I repeat “snails” in the Angle because it’s so crucial to making the Punch Line work. And this version results:

Version #2: “A live shipment of 67 giant snails was seized at Los Angeles Airport. Instead of destroying the snails, officials gave them jobs at the DMV.”

That version could still use a little tweaking. I backload the Topic, moving the most important elements closer to the Punch Line. I add “customs inspectors” to get rid of the passive voice and to clarify why the snails were seized and might be destroyed. And I get this final version:

Joe Toplyn's tweet about snails and the DMV

Abbreviating the name of the airport took the joke down to exactly 140 characters, Twitter’s limit at the time. That meant I didn’t have to waste more time, and possibly weaken the joke, trimming it to fit.

Before posting the joke I subject it to some Comedy Quality Tests. One of the tests gives me pause: Is the joke too familiar? Is making fun of slow DMV employees similar to making fun of airline food–too hacky? I decide that the joke is so effective that the laugh will blow away any possible whiff of hackiness. Copy and paste to Twitter.

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