Starvard · Course COM-101
Comedy 101
with Marty · the 18 tricks comedians use to get a laugh
Starvard · Course COM-101
with Marty · the 18 tricks comedians use to get a laugh
Watch first: Marty's standup set. Every trick below is in here somewhere. Try to spot them.
Real humans. Real legends. Watch how they use the tricks, then steal like an artist. (Videos live on YouTube, we just point at them.)
The king of observational comedy takes one dumb word and builds a whole universe out of it. Watch him notice something everyone missed.
Why this works: Carlin doesn't invent anything weird. He just describes your actual life so accurately it becomes absurd. "A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it." You've never thought that, but the second he says it, you can't unsee it. Then he escalates: you lock up your stuff... to go get more stuff. It's a perfect loop, and the recognition laugh hits every time.
Tricks: #7 Pointing at Life, #9 Taking It Too Far
The one-liner king. Every sentence is a rug pull wrapped in wordplay. Try to count the tricks, I dare you.
Why this works: Every single line is a rug pull. Your brain predicts the ending, and he hands you a different one. "I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too." It's surprise plus brevity, no wasted words. Your brain LOVES being wrong when the wrong answer is funnier than the right one.
Tricks: #1 The Rug Pull, #5 Wordplay
Deadpan legend. Says the weirdest things ever with the calmest face on earth. The straight face IS the trick.
Why this works: The gap between what he says and how he says it IS the joke. Completely surreal thoughts ("I have a large sea shell collection which I keep scattered on beaches all over the world") delivered with zero emotion. Your brain expects the face to match the words. When it doesn't, the mismatch reads as hilarious.
Tricks: #15 The Straight Face, #5 Wordplay
The rant perfected. He gets FURIOUS about a frozen snack and takes it all the way to the moon. Exaggeration masterclass.
Why this works: Shared suffering plus escalation. Everyone has burned their mouth on a Hot Pocket, so the recognition is instant. Then he pushes it further than you'd dare: the diarrhea pocket, "dead by dinner." And the squeaky audience voice? That's him doing crowd work on himself. Two characters, one guy.
Tricks: #14 The Rant, #2 Bigger and Bigger
More Mitch because one wasn't enough. Watch him take a tiny thought and follow it somewhere completely insane.
Why this works: He finds the weird truth hiding inside normal things and states it like a philosopher. "An escalator can never break, it can only become stairs." It's actually TRUE, which makes it funnier. He reframes reality in one sentence and now you'll think about escalators forever.
Tricks: #9 Taking It Too Far, #1 The Rug Pull
The classics. They've survived decades because the tricks behind them are perfect. Each one is tagged with the trick it uses. Spot the technique, steal the technique.
Marty performs 5 of the greatest jokes of all time, with the trick labeled on screen. Steal these.
Tricks: #1 Rug Pull, #5 Wordplay
Tricks: #5 Wordplay
Tricks: #1 Rug Pull
Tricks: #5 Wordplay
Tricks: #1 Rug Pull
Tricks: #8 The Comparison, #9 Taking It Too Far
Tricks: #1 Rug Pull
Tricks: #5 Wordplay
Tricks: #6 The Fizzle
Tricks: #1 Rug Pull
ok so i'm an idiot. let's just get that out of the way.
but i've been doing standup, bombing, not bombing, and paying attention, and it turns out getting a laugh isn't magic. it's tools. like a toolbox. comedians just reach in and grab one.
there are 18 of them. EIGHTEEN. i organized them into 4 buckets so your brain doesn't melt. each one has the fancy name, what it actually means, and an example so you get it instantly.
let's go. class is in session. no sleeping. (looking at you, napoleon.)
Lead their thinking one way, then yank it somewhere else. Surprise is the whole game.
Say one thing, mean another. The setup makes them expect X, the punchline is Y.
Example: "I finally got my own place. In the unemployment line."
Take something small and blow it up. Then blow it up again. Keep going until it's stupid.
Example: "The app wanted my email, my bank details, and custody of my firstborn."
Two normal things set a pattern. The third one breaks it. The break is the laugh.
Example: "For camping, bring water, a flashlight, and Mike."
Bring back an old joke later when they forgot about it. Feels like an inside joke with the whole room.
Example: Early you mention your sketchy printer. Twenty minutes later: "so anyway, my emergency contact is the printer."
Use the words against themselves. Double meanings, literal readings, dumb puns that somehow work.
Example: "They told me to watch my spending. So now I film it."
Build it up HUGE, then land on something tiny and boring. The letdown IS the joke.
Example: "After ten years of searching, I finally found what was missing from my life: the other sock."
Point at real life. The audience laughs because they've lived it and never said it out loud.
Say the thing everyone has noticed but nobody put into words. Instant recognition laugh.
Example: "Everyone becomes a sound engineer when the microwave has one second left."
This is like that. Smash two unrelated things together and the similarity does the work.
Example: "A family group chat is a work meeting where nobody can be fired."
Start with a normal idea, follow it somewhere insane, and act like it's all perfectly logical.
Example: "My watch tells me to stand up. I paid for the watch. Somehow it's my supervisor now."
Admit you're a mess before anyone else can. Nobody can hurt you if you go first.
Example: "I bought a planner so I could schedule when to feel overwhelmed."
Sometimes the words don't matter. It's the face, the voice, the flailing.
Faces, falling, flailing, posture. Your body is a cartoon and you're the animator.
Example: Buster. Just... Buster. Watch the man move. That's the whole example.
Stop telling the story and BECOME everyone in it. Different voices, different bodies.
Example: Me doing the self-checkout machine judging my groceries. "UNEXPECTED broccoli in the bagging area."
Do the impression. A person, a GPS, a microwave. If it has a sound, you can mock it.
Example: My GPS getting audibly disappointed in me. "Recalculating. Again. Wow."
Get FURIOUS about something tiny. The smaller the thing, the bigger the rage, the bigger the laugh.
Example: Treating a cereal bag that won't open as a personal betrayal by the entire breakfast industry.
Say absolutely wild stuff like it's completely normal. The calm is what makes it funny.
Example: After describing a total meltdown: "anyway, I had some concerns."
Comedy is a contact sport. These tricks use the audience as the equipment.
Lovingly destroy someone. Specific, exaggerated, and everyone knows it's affection. (Mostly.)
Example: Mike. Running BACKWARDS. On the treadmill. I rest my case.
Let it get weird on purpose. Hold the embarrassment until the tension turns into laughter.
Example: Wave at someone. Realize it wasn't for you. Turn it into a stretch. Commit to the stretch.
Talk to the audience and build jokes out of whatever they say. High risk, high reward, total chaos.
Example: "What do you do?" "I'm a taxidermist." "...we're gonna come back to that."
Pros don't use one trick. They chain them. Here's the combo that never misses:
notice something dumb → exaggerate it → rant about it → act it out → rug pull → callback later
That's it. That's the whole game. Go be funny.