VC Awards Show Jokes

We will be getting ready for our awards show. We will have two main hosts and the rest of the class will serve as presenters. Hopefully your acceptance speeches are ready to go, otherwise you'll have to wing it. We will not wing the joke part.

Like an awards show you might see on TV, the presenters will give an introductory joke before the nominees are read and the award is presented. Here are some ideas to get you thinking about constructing a joke: (before you read these, please find out what a "straight man" is supposed to do.)

1. Build a joke around the award. Slapstick humor is an old standard and is often used for the Video Creations award for best stuntwork. We usually have one of the presenters fumble and stumble their way to the podium. The other presenter asks what the problem is and the response has something to do with stuntwork. It's a cheesy formula, but we do it every year and usually gets a laugh.

2. Mark Twain said, "Humor is found in the truth." Think about any of the funny incidents during the class and try to relate it to the award you're presenting. You could maybe relate Iron Will's frisbee toss to the Best Grip Award.

3. A lot of humor is based on creating a "twist." You start leading the audience in an expected direction only to spring something unexpected on them. I think of Steve Martin in regards to this one. Here are a couple of his jokes from the Oscars: "By the end of the show we are going to vote someone out of show business." "Please hold your applause until it's for me." I think you can work these two examples into the show.

4. I enjoy most of Conan O'Brian's humor. Once in a while he will start off by saying, "I know what you're thinking....," and then he'll go off on some crazy tangent.

5. Jay Leno or his writers have some familiar formulas in their jokes. One of them is what I call mis-direction or re-direction. Leno will lead the audience along a topic and then totally redirect it to some celebrity in the news. Here's a bad example: You could say-"We're now going to announce the winner for best special effects. Special effects can give a movie an entirely unique look, of course this honor we are bestowing is not to be confused with the same award Michael Jackson gave to his plastic surgery team." My apologies to Michael Jackson and his fans.

6. Self-deprecation. You can make fun of yourself. Here's another weak example: Presenter 1 asks presenter 2 "How did Video Creations go this year? "Oh, pretty well after I stopped filming in black." "Filming in black?" "Yeah, I forgot to take the lens cap off the first two days."

7. Pick on someone's delivery. Ex. One person tries to say the word cinematography. The other tries to figure out what they are saying. They might ask: "What did you say? Did you say, "see the spaghetti?" and this continues as long as you can get laughs.

8. Pick a comedian's trademark or style. John Belushi had a running gag on Saturday Night Live in which he appeared on the news segment and would start out calmly, but then give "a speech about the way things could have been, should have been, and then turns it on its ear by saying, "Buuuut nnnnnOOOOOO!"

Seinfeld is another. He likes to give an unusual amount of attention to ordinary things. I could see one of our presenters going on and on about some minor detail until the other presenter has had enough and continues on with the presentation.

How about Chris Farley? He would play extremely weird characters that had some kind of bizarre trait or characteristic.

9. Other ideas:
-Wild implications
-Parody
-Unusual perspective or point of view
-Relate to a current event