Swears

There are no short cuts in comedy, no real rules or guarantees, but over the past couple years I've noticed a couple things that always seem to make people laugh. A couple buttons that seem to always burp out chuckles when pressed. One of those is curse words. Not using them but not using them.

When your a kid and you first discover curse words there's typically a brief(or extended depending) period of fixation when you use them all the time to the point where they become almost meaningless. There's a similar phase in improv not prompted by discovery I don't think but by panic and a misguided idea that cursing a lot on stage is funny and/or edgy. The reality is its tiresome unless used judiciously. Even then expletives aren't terribly effective comedy wise past a certain adolescent age or in rare perfectly timed circumstances.

The trick, that works an astonishing amount of the time, is not to say the curse word but use the letter(s) instead. "What the F do you think you're doing!?!?" "This is a bunch of S!" You get the idea. Typically most effective when playing an adolescent or a parent. Tonight during the Schwa show Jeannie and I were in a father-son scene and I kept using "GD" instead of "God Damn" and people responded. It's a weird little thing, almost feels like a cheat sometimes. But there's something about not saying it, something that's almost quaint about it, antiquated almost, kind of absurd, which tickles a lot of folks funny bone.

I kind of recognized the move watching Old School in college. At one point Vince Vaughn, the dad character, has his baby and Luke Wilson is cursing a bunch and Vaughn explodes "I don't know why you have to do it! With the F-in'!" And I thought it was so funny, and the frat guys on my floor thought it was so funny and quoted it all the time. The idea percolated until a couple years ago when it bubbled up during a scene where I used "F" a bunch instead of fuck and the audience really got a kick out of it.

I hope its not a crutch I rely on, I don't think I do it that often, but I definitely do it if the opportunity/circumstance presents itself. It's fun to do, the move provides kind of a short-hand to character, and people like it so, why not?