Writing Comedy on Topics You Know

That's good advice for the journalist or novelist, so why not for the joke writer as well?

Will Rogers and Art Buchwald stand out as icons among political humorists, but they are gone and have left behind only a handful of writers who are experts at throwing the political right cross (or left cross, depending on your partisanship): Mort Sahl, P.J. O'Rourke, Christopher Buckley, and Will Durst come immediately to mind.

This doesn't mean that the political joke itself is rare. Far from it. Turn on any talk show with a monologue these days and at least half the jokes are political in nature.

That, of course, doesn't mean that all the jokes being told are great jokes. Some are good, few are clever. Most are banal.

Current event jokes are in demand on the late night television circuit. Nothing unusual about that if you study the history of the TV talk show monologue dating back through Carson, Dick Cavett, Jack Paar, and even Steve Allen before them. Through the years, politics has risen to the top of the current events list.

One need not wonder why Jay Leno employs 22 staff writers and will also occasionally buy jokes from freelancers as well as writing jokes himself. David Letterman has over a dozen writers. Even NBC newcomer Jimmy Fallon oversees a stable of 11 comedy contributors.

It boils down to expertise. All of these writers might be funny in their own right, but each of them is not funny in every area.

Writer X may be able to pound out 50 political jokes a day for Leno while Writer Y might feed Letterman the greatest jokes you've ever heard on the topic of baseball. But if Y turned in a monologue on President Obama's health care policy and X went to bat writing one-liners about A-Rod, Leno and Letterman might be looking elsewhere for their material.

Not every writer is good at every thing! Comedians know this and that's why they have such large staffs.

Even in the world of comedy, you must write with the hand of an expert. I might go so far as to say, especially in the comedy world.

If a comedian says, "I need 20 jokes on Brett Favre returning to the NFL" and you've never heard of Brett Favre and the game of football itself is as foreign to you as Peruvian Tiddlywinks, then you're probably not going to hear your jokes on the air. With the help of the Internet, it's possible to bone up on the subject and muddle through, but your punch lines won't have the right punch.

Former Tonight Show talent coordinator Craig Tennis relates in his book, "Johnny Tonight!", how Johnny Carson hired a comedy writer named Mickey Rose.

According to Tennis, Mr. Rose was a very talented jokesmith but seemed obsessed with writing jokes about chickens. It would appear that this narrow scope would have limited the young writer and it probably did as he only worked for Carson for a short time.

On the other hand, Mickey Rose eventually co-wrote a screenplay called "Take the Money and Run" which starred and was directed by Mickey's collaborator, Woody Allen.

Obviously, Mr. Rose had branched out into other areas, although I recall seeing the film and there were some chicken jokes that made their way onto the screen.

So take heart. If Mickey Rose can leave the hen house and come home to roost in Woody Allen's writing room, then you can explore your vistas and enlarge your comedy repertoire.

There was a time when I not only knew very little about politics, but wasn't even remotely interested when the subject came up. So how did I end up becoming one of Yakov Smirnoff's premier political jokesters?

I followed the same advice I give others: Read, read, read! And watch and listen!

You don't know need to have the credits of a David Broder or a Mary McGrory to write about the politics of the day. But a basic knowledge of government and how it works should be gleaned.

One of the best books I've read that lured me into the world of politics is Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72". Too dated after 38 years? Not at all.

Though much of the techonology has changed, the machinations of the presidential campaign are still the same. Politicians will always be politicians.

Of course, read the news. Assuming you have internet capability, take advantage of the online news services.

Visit your library and stay current with magazines like The Nation, The Progressive, U.S. News and World Report, etc. Rolling Stone magazine offers deftly researched and excellently written political articles.

Once you have a firm grasp of what's going on in the political world and can relate that to the daily news, the jokes will begin to bubble in your brain until you are boiling over with clever political absurdities.

Even if politics is not your game, current events should be. Keeping an eye and an ear to the news-and that includes the gossipy patter that comes out of Hollywood (think TMZ, ET Insider, et al)-will deal you a winning hand when you want to write comedic commentary on what's happening with the likes of
Jon & Kate, Lindsay Lohan, the Kardashians, or what top movies are making headlines.

The day of the "two guys walk into a bar" joke is over. Each day is a day unto itself when it comes to writing current comedy.

Socrates said, "Know thyself". Comedians looking for good writers say, "Know thy stuff."