This unit is about, as you could have guessed by the title, Humor. I would have enjoyed this unit a little more if it wasn’t during the Zenith project which I am prioritizing. Because of the Zenith project this unit was mostly done in our English and digital media class time. In English, we read and studied existential humor like, Rhinoceros and we also read Slaughterhouse Five which was another interesting read. After we analyzed those and did several in-class improv exercises we moved on to picking two humorists to study and finally, creating our own humor project.
The Humorist Study
One of the two humorists that I am analyzing is Tiffany Haddish. She is an actress but started off her entertainment career in comedy. She is known particularly for her stand up acts that have a style that is unique to her. Many of her jokes are blue humor surrounding the theme of sex and they are before or even taken the form of an anecdote. She also includes the tool of exaggeration, often exaggerating the action or the situation she was in. However many if not all of her performances have the structure of Situational Blue humor. She styles her humor with a lot of swearing and tapping into sexual stories or stories that will eventually turn into blue humor. The other humorist that I am analyzing is Jim Carrey. He is a Canadian-American actor that also started his career doing comedy especially stand up. He too has a very specific humor style that he portrays in most of his works including his movies that he has starred in. His style is very unique and one thing that is very distinctive to him is his use of caricature and exaggerate by creating big dramatic and funny motions and facial expressions when he is retelling a story or describing someone/something. No matter what he could be talking about his face or his body is always moving in ridiculous ways in order to dramatically retell the story that is visually entertaining to watch as well as listen to. He does include blue humor as well but is more focused on situational humor. These two comedians are kind of similar in some ways. They both include blue humor although Tiffany definitely centers around it. They both include caricature and exaggerate in some of their works although that is what Carrey revolves his humor around. I think some of the techniques that I find appealing in terms of humor would be the caricature, exaggeration, and blue humor. I believe that personally, the things I find funny have to do with things that make children laugh which is blue humor and also big exaggerated movements or impressions with stories that lead up to them. I believe that I can use some of their techniques to be successful.
After my Humorist study, it was time to begin creating the actual project with my sister. We are both not big fans of public speaking so we decided a Prerecorded performance would be better. I took inspiration from online comedians and their visuals in order to appeal to my audience.
Script
Bold = said at the same time
Introduction:
I: Hi, so hopefully you all know by now… were twins
S: ya know 18 years of the same question just gotta get it out of the way… you just get tired of it man
I: so tired, meeting anyone new is like…..
The same thing
I: I’m Isabella
S: I’m the other one
I: I’m a minute older, therefore…. superior
S: YES BECAUSE BIRTH WAS A RACE
I: So many repetitive questions that at this point, we’re thinking of making a business card for FAQ:
S: Pain? How does that work, do you feel each other’s pain?
I: I mean if I punch her ill feel pain cuz she’ll punch right back
S: Telepathy?
I: Trust me, we TRIED
S: The closest we can get is knowing what the other will say next:
(wait for a beat) AT THE SAME TIME:
Not completely telepathy, but hey, it’s cool
RAPID FIRE!
PUMPKIN
TOAST
REGRET
DESK
WATERMELON
COW
TEETH
TRAIN
NOT DOING OUR RESEARCH PAPER TILL THE LAST WEEK !!!!
(beat)
TWINS
I: we always have to be careful not to do that in front of the wrong person though
S: people get real scared like suddenly we are just gonna be like
C̸̢͔̖̪͙͖͙̳̝̚O̶̧͈̗̜̼̱͕͇͊͊M̴͔̩̹͓͉͉̋͆̊̚ͅE̶̲͊̅͌ ̵̢̥̞͎̹͔̪͓͙̹̇͐̑͌̀͛P̶̟̌́̉̑̕L̷̲̜̺̙̣̞̱͓̃Ạ̶̗̾̅̒̑͂͊̕̚͘͝ͅY̸̛̞̩̤͍͉͙͔̺͐͐̍̂ Ẅ̸̬̰̟̱́̐͒Ȋ̸̺̲̰̻̝̮̣̑̐̀̈́̽̅̀͝Ţ̶̣̘͔̪͕͗̀̽͊H̷̹̰͆̚ ̸̧͙̰̭͂̄̿͆̑̋̂̕͝Ȕ̶̳͕̯̞̫͆́̊̏͘͘Š̷̨͕͈̗̥͆̎͊́́̅͘͘͝
S: That’s why we have no friends
I: I mean if there were three of us then we would actually look like we have some friends.
S: Yeah, there was actually supposed to be three of us
I: Poor guy, the second they met us and realized who they were stuck with for the rest of their life they jumped ship
S: Couldn’t handle it
I: And when we were born, you would expect the doctors at the hospital to mix us up immediately after birth
S: Not the case here
I: I came out of the womb lookin like i was mildly inconvenienced by being born like
“Yall.”
“Really just gonna”
“Remove me?”
(beat)
S: 90% of baby pictures you can tell who is who solely because of her expression
(beat to show pics)
S: When someone is pregnant with twins, hospitals don’t give them the full info of what they are getting themselves into
I: All they know is they can really capitalize on any “buy 1 get 1 free” deals,
S: No one talks about the people
I: In other cultures, twins are seen as good luck,
S: It’s great and all, I mean it’s cool to have people randomly start celebrating your existence,
I: Except when it’s at 11:00 at the grocery store and you are in sweatpants
S: But as babies, people would see us and suddenly act as if they were blessed
I: My presence is a gift, get blessed
S: One of the times that stands out is when our mom would take us out for the day when we were babies, people would legitimately ask her if they could hold us
I: Like “Hello, I am a complete stranger, give me your children”
S: “Hand em over”
I: My mom had to try not to say “yes please thank you, just keep them”
S: And if you rub their LITTLE BALD HEADS at the same time in opposite directions, you will get 3 wishes
I: Needless to say she started getting into the habit of walking faster when she knew people were approaching
S: As we got older, and stopped dressing the same, we started to look less like twins because we developed our own interests and likes, people really started to see us as two separate people
I: Finally!
S: Only issue is we look different but are still very close so strangers have started to think we are a couple
Beat
S: A week ago we came into a restaurant and ordered food together
I: and the waitress has the audacity
S: The Gaul
I: To say “are you together?”
S: like really?? Can’t you see we are just twins trying to EAT??
I: we stood there so long, insulted, then she said: “…. or are you…. paying separate?…..”
S: besides that, even if we weren’t related, you think I would date HER?
I: You calling me ugly?
S: We look the same, I’m calling WE ugly
Humor Project Video
After completing the script, we just had to add the visual aspect of a collection of stock photos and some videos (a handful of which would just be funny to our generation). And this is the final product
and finally, the video was shown to our class along with all of the other Humor Productions that day: