🎭 #270 - When writing gets sketchy

In Episode 649 of Scriptnotes, John talks with Simon Rich (Miracle Workers, American Pickle) about what makes a strong comedic premise, and how the format changes the focus. What’s funny in a three-minute SNL sketch often doesn't translate to a 100-minute feature.

This week, let’s go long on the short form sketch. We’ll start with Adisa Williams, Adonis Holmes, and Jordan Stafford breaking down the process of transforming Adisa’s knowledge of the finance industry into a children’s show (with puppets).

Next, let's dive in to MJ Hunter's take on sketch comedy using examples from The Lonely Island:

Let's pull a couple key concepts out:

• Setting up a game and heightening it
• Variation and escalation as tools used to heighten a premise
• Driving toward a twist that flips the premise

Meet Your Second Wife has a simple, direct premise: These men and their wives have been invited to be on a show so that two hosts with knowledge of the future will tell the husbands who they'll marry next.

It's absurd and confusing for the men on stage, and then it's time to heighten the premise. The first man's Second Wife comes out on stage, revealing that right now she's an eighth grader. It's taking a joke about relationships with large age gaps, and showing it to the audience in an unexpected way.

Building on the rule of threes, the next Second Wife introduced is only five years old. It creates the expectation that the final Second Wife will be somehow even younger. Then Cecily Strong walks out as a college student.

After a quick moment of relief from the final contestant, it's revealed that this isn't his Second Wife: She's three months pregnant with the woman who he'll marry in the future. It both fulfills the audience expectation, but uses a fake-out to keep it from feeling too obvious.

Key & Peele's Magician Cop sketch takes a tense traffic stop and turns it on its head by revealing that the cop is using this moment as an opportunity to show off his magic act. Tropes associated with cops planting evidence turn into close-up magic tricks.

The sketch heightens this premise by continuing to ramp up the driver's confusion and fear over not understanding if this is a real police officer, or if he's in danger.

Henrik Blix at a UCB showcase takes the premise of defending Luigi Mangione in court through a series of increasingly absurd defenses that highlight the biases that can influence a highly publicized trial.

What begins with the low-hanging fruit of "People think he's hot, so let's just let him go," turns into a savage takedown of the idea that people must mourn every death equally, highlighting instances where the audience might be a little morally flexible and think some murders are OK.

Some other examples of heightening the premise and resetting the audience's idea of what kind of game the sketch is playing:

• Kids in the Hall - Things to Do
• I Think You Should Leave - Driver's Ed
• Dropout - 7-Way Meet Cute
• Mr. Show - Blow Up the Moon

Sketch comedy is ultimately a highly distilled version of dramatic storytelling. Whether it’s your thing or not, it’s worth understanding how it works.

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Will we see you in Austin?

Next week Scriptnotes & Quote-Unquote Apps are headed to the Austin Film Festival!

Highland Pro is hosting the opening night party. The next morning, John will present an intro to Highland Pro (along with a preview of coming updates).

Returning to the Stephen F. Austin Sonesta Capital Ballroom (aka the SFASCB), Scriptnotes will record a live episode. Be aware, last year's recording had a full house. If you plan to attend, queue early!

Capping things off on Saturday, John and Craig will be holding a live three-page challenge, with the writers in attendance.

There will not be an Inneresting live show, unless you want to meet up and have me AirDrop you links. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Previously on Inneresting…

In case you missed it, in our last issue's most clicked link James Stanier encourages you to put your ideas out there and avoid feeling overwhelmed by how many others may have come before you with similar ideas..

What else is inneresting?

• Matt Locke describes the 1980s computer game Theatre Europe, which forced players to make a chilling call to a real phone number to unlock use of the game’s nuclear weapons.
• Lauren Boisvert shares compelling examples of people we should consider punk af, like Mister Rogers and Nina Simone.
• Gabriela sá Pessoa brings us the story of a man living his dream by running his own independent cinema in São Paulo.

And that’s what’s inneresting this week!

Inneresting is edited by Chris Csont, with contributions from readers like you and the entire Quote-Unquote team. 

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🗣 Have ideas for future topics (or just want to say hello)? Reach out to Chris via email at inneresting@johnaugust.com, Bluesky @ccsont.bsky.social, or Mastodon @ccsont@mastodon.art