So at this point, you should be writing into punchlines getting some setups done. And this is the first bit that we're going to talk about joke structure. So stand up comics. We write and tell jokes, basically. Now, I mentioned it before. Sometimes those jokes are different.

They're not really a structured joke necessarily. There may be some kind of bit like Zach Galifianakis does, where it's Goofy, it's off the wall. But every joke has the same structure. Because even if it's an old joke, even if it's not exactly what I'm about to share with you, somewhere embedded underneath whatever's happening, whatever is causing the funny, this structure is also still there. So the structure is this. There's a setup and a punch line.

That's it. So that's the whole joke structure. You probably heard this before. You might have seen it somewhere else online if you're interested in doing comedy writing jokes, understanding stand up comedy, other people have probably mentioned this, so this probably isn't total news to you, but it could be so that's it. Setup punch line. Why did the chicken cross the road?

To get to the other side, that's a setup. That's a punchline. So these kinds of jokes and I have another example that I'll use in a second for my own act, these kinds of jokes, this, that's the basic of what it is. It is a premise, which is a setup. I'll talk about setups and premises in a moment, you've already written a bunch of setups that are also premises. And then punch lines, you've hopefully written some punch lines.

And we'll go through exactly what and how punch lines are. And you can go back and edit and revise them. But at a high level, just understand that even in situations where a comedian is doing something very alt, they're doing something very strange. They're not exactly standing up with a microphone and just telling jokes, like one after another. They're still embedded underneath there is a setup and a punch line. So a few other examples of this would be suffer my own act.

I have a joke that goes like this. I just turned 30 recently, like 39 months ago just turned it. The setup and the punch line is obvious. I just turned 30 recently is the setup recently is the word And then the punch line is just 39 months ago just turned it. Obviously, that's not recently that's the joke. It's an inconsistency.

The punch line is that it wasn't at all recently. It was a while ago. So I'm 33 years old. That's the joke. So the joke again, set up and punch line, the punch that comes is that it wasn't at all recently. Like I could say at that joke in many different ways.

I could say I just turned 30 recently, like three and a half years ago, just turned it. I could say I turn 30 recently, 1026 days ago just turned it. I just turned 30 recently, actually, I didn't I'm not 30. I just turned 30 A long time ago. I mean, essentially, that's the same structure in each way. Now, whether or not any of those is funny, or how funny is to one another or how it is, while they're sad how I delivered them.

That's a style choice and we can talk about that. But the basic structure is the same. There's a setup, there's a punch line. Why did the chicken cross the road to get to the other side? Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it was there.

Why did the chicken cross the road? because who knows why? I once told the joke when I was five that was Why did the chicken cross the road because there's he to climb a tree. He wanted to climb a tree. It's not really a joke. I mean, it is a joke.

It has a structure of a joke, but it doesn't really have any. There's nothing funny about it. So some jokes aren't funny, but they all have the same structure. That's the structure setup punch line. With that we're going to dive in and take a look at the difference between premises and setups and take a look at the difference between punch lines and how to write punch lines and different things you can do with them.