: Re: Creating simple jokes Sometimes in the process of writing dialogue, I wish to insert a joke in the exchange. I could copy an existing joke, or I could come up with one. The latter option

@LarsenBagley300

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Sometimes the best jokes come from pointing out the absurdness of a situation. It's commenting on the unusual nature of the situation. In my life, I watched a lot of scifi movies with physicists, which is going to be funny because they have a low threshold of tolerance from breaking from physics. In one situation, I was watching the Transformers movie (The Animated One from the 80s). At the climax, the robot protagonists transform into vehicles (almost all cars, but one helicopter) and drive/fly out of eye of a planet eating robot before he explodes. The physicist friend of mine drops this line as the scene plays out:

"Helicopters can't fly in space!"

Which prompted me to point out, with skepticism, that he just watched a movie where the villain is a planet eating robot and "Helicopters can't fly in space" is his only complaint about the movie. (And then there's the time where a big group thirty minute long debate over whether Doc Brown's Flux Capacitor fluxes capacitance or capacitates flux.).

Sometimes, the humor occurs by leaving out the specifics. Like the Great Flux Capacitor Debate of '08, I can't recall the specifics of the actual fight, but that's not important... it's the concept that such a debate could be sustained and passionately argued for a half-hour. This can be funny, because it's a stupid debate that really no one should put any energy in, but we all have passionate support for stuff that doesn't matter. One famous example is from the TV show Angel, where the story opens on one member of the cast hearing Angel and Spike (to guys who often speak in raised voices when they converse with each other often) arguing inside of Angels office... he's warned it's been like this this for 45 minutes but he needs to talk to Angel and goes in and interrupts the fight. Before he can bring up his legit concerns, curiosity gets the better of him and he asks what they were fighting about. The response: "Who would win in a fight between Cavemen and Astronauts?" The character responds by pointing out this argument has been going on for over 45 minutes and they both stare at him as this is the stupidest statement uttered in the entire debate, which prompts him to try and settle the matter so everyone can move on. He asks "Do they have weapons?" and both men respond with "NO!" in a fashion that suggests not only was the matter settled, but that the entire question itself was one of the most contentious points in the debate.

A few scenes later, not only do we see the entire rest of the cast knows, but they've all taken sides and are passionately arguing the points of merit.

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