Paychecks, Packets, & Punchlines

The World of Professional Comedy (Comedy Resources #13)

It’s been a while, but some time ago I picked up Joe Toplyn’s book Comedy Writing for Late Night TV. It’s definitely an interesting book as it gives a unique glance into the back rooms of late night TV. In it, for instance, Toplyn reveals that late night comedy, while it seems glamorous, really isn’t. It’s like the factory floor of the entertainment world. More than anything it’s industrial. How? Well, for starters, Toplyn points out that a late night show produces more usable material in a week than most writers generate in a fiscal quarter. And it gets rid of even more.

Casual viewers like the young me, who stayed up late to watch Letterman every night, tend to think the comedic monologue at the top of each show is basically just a few topical jokes the host cracks before everyone goes to bed. BUT…all the he people who have worked in the late night system know better. It’s high-volume, high-precision writing under a clock that does not care one bit about anyone’s feelings.

Toplyn understands that world because, well, he survived it. He actually spent fifteen years with Letterman and Leno, two hosts who defined my era of late night television. Toplyn’s book reads like a manual and he does a great job of taking the mystical fog around comedy and replacing it with architecture. Here are some insights from along the way.

One of the first myths Toplyn dismantles is the idea that late night hosts are all that unique. As he points out, networks don’t bet millions of dollars on eccentric chaos; they bet on a version of the playful everyman. A man who is slightly irreverent, slightly mischievous, and broadly relatable. Think about it: the rural, redneck specificity of Jeff Foxworthy or the always-on-fire, volcanic fury of Lewis Black, does not scale to a nightly national audience. They are not the playful everyman.

And for comedy writers, this is actually good news because, when the host is an everyman template, the jokes become structurally interchangeable. Strip away the delivery and most late night jokes basically read the same on paper. But that sort of standardization isn’t laziness. This efficiency is what allows writers to output massive volume while fine-tuning only the subtle frequencies of their specific host’s voice.

Then there is the desk. Casual viewers think it is furniture but Toplyn argues that it signals control. And that control is part of what allows the host to tease, mock, exaggerate, and provoke guests, the audience, or anyone else. The desk, in other words, is a symbol of power and authority and control.

Next to the desk is the sidekick. Toplyn says there are three functions of the sidekick: 1) to participate in prepared bits; 2) to assist in ad libs; and, 3) to make the host look better. Whether it is Paul Shaffer or Andy Richter, the sidekick becomes the audience’s surrogate. He laughs first and everyone follows. If something’s unclear, he picks up on it first and clarifies. It’s like a built-in safety net for the host.

Toplyn says that the math behind all of this late night managing is ruthless. Whereas a sitcom produces only around twenty two episodes a year, a late night show produces well over two hundred. Toplyn calls it short-form comedy (pieces under ten minutes that must land immediately and expire quickly). Writers are chained to the news cycle. As such, they cannot wait for genius but need consistently repeatable output. And this is precisely where Toplyn’s most controversial claim lies: he argues that comedy can be analyzed, codified, and taught.

It brings to mind the old E.B. White line about dissecting a frog (the idea being that humor dies under analysis). Toplyn disagrees (and, for that matter, so do I). He offers tools in this book like the “Six Punch Line Makers” and “Twelve Joke Maximizers.” These structural devices help generate punchlines from scratch. But, as I’ve already said, many of the jokes in late night writing rooms never survive the operating table. The principles behind and extracted from them, however, will consistently fuel hundreds more.

If any of that sounds interesting, I’d definitely encourage checking out the book. And, if you think you have the chops to write late night jokes, maybe you should send in what’s called a “submission packet,” which is technically an audition. In that packet, you must write jokes and mimic the host’s voice so precisely that the head writer barely needs to edit. That means obsessing over quirks, rhythms, pet words, boundaries, etc. The packet essentially proves that you understand the late night ecosystem.

Having said all that, Toplyn’s main point is pretty simple but probably also unsettling to some: raw talent is helpful but insufficient. That said, moving from the stand up stage to a late night writers room is not about diluting your voice. It’s about projecting the host’s voice through the established framework of host, desk, and sidekick. And it’s a very demanding and often cynical environment. But for the writers who master the system, it offers a rare reward, namely, their words entering the national bloodstream between sunset and sunrise 5 times a week.

JOKE WRITING COURSE: By the way, if you have any interest at all in learning about your persona, how to write some jokes, or doing stand-up comedy, check out my online joke writing course, “The Joke Writer’s Lab,” HERE.

JOKE MEMORY COURSE: My companion course to “The Joke Writer’s Lab” is now live: “The Comedian’s Memory Lab.” Learn how to conceptualize, organize, and memorize your entire comedy set. This method works for 10 jokes or 100, a set that’s 3 minutes of 1 hour. You can get it HERE.