So setups on premises, how are we going to talk about them? This is what makes comedy happen. setups in premises. This is what it is, this is what it's about. So here's the thing. premises and setups are slightly different.

A premise is a theme that you can continue returning to an a setup is the individual words that you're using to actually set a punch line up. That's why they're called setups. You can use many setups within a premise. But a premise is an overarching theme, that you could have a handful of different jokes that are setups and punchlines that fall under. So one that I have in my act as I'm getting older. I just turned 30 recently, 39 months ago just turned it.

I use it from the previous example. I'll do a bit of the Act here. You don't have to laugh But if you don't, I'd be hurt. Anyway, the jokes are I'm getting older. So I'm getting older. I can tell because I wrote a letter to myself 15 years ago that I just got when I say does anybody has anybody ever done this in the audience?

I did this I wrote a letter to myself 15 years ago and my mother actually just got it in the mail. They live at the same My dress, and she called me up and she was like, hey, Brian, and I got a letter from you. And I was like, I didn't write you anything. And she said, No, it's a letter from you in the past. And I was like, in the past, am I living through an episode of black mirror? And she was like, no, it's from the past.

I'll send it over to you. She sent me the letter. I was actually excited. I was very excited. I was like, Oh my god, Brendon of 2004. What were your thoughts?

What were your dreams? I was about to graduate high school. I was super excited. I tore into the letter I started reading I was immediately disappointed and went like this dear Brendon in 2019. First of all, I bet you 1000 bucks. You're reading this on your private jet.

And I was like, I'm not reading this on my private jet. I'm reading this on the number 77 bus in Chicago, Illinois, Brandon. 3004. So also with money habits like that. No wonder I didn't get a private jet. I bet you 1000 bucks.

Geez, that guy's an idiot. Here's the thing. That's a whole bit. But it all fell all those setups fell with under the premise of I'm getting older. How do I Because I got a letter that I wrote to myself and then underneath that are a whole bunch of other jokes that are going along with. I'm getting this letter that I wrote to myself.

So it's me in the past right into reading now or writing to me in the future. Me Now reading a letter from the guy in the past all day, I think all of them in this video anyway. But I keep going. Once I finished that whole bit, which goes on for four or five more jokes, I returned to it again, you know, I'm trying to, I'm getting older. So I'm trying to keep in shape. I started doing CrossFit because I'm a stand up comedian, I'm halfway to being an asshole, I might as well just finish the race.

So these, this is the thing, a premise is a theme that you can continue to return to. So if you're writing bits, it's important to distinguish this because if you're writing, let's say, the 711 concept, all of that, that's, that's, that's a big topic. But underneath that we can have premises that we can continue to build out jokes for. And those individual setups can be about those jokes that we've failed punch lines in for so one of the premises could be 711 was a totally weird place. That's a huge overarching theme that I can write about. 711 was really weird.

It was super weird because it always had the weirdest people outside of it. Now I go into a whole bunch of different setups individually for the people outside of the 711. There was the guy who was always smoking, there was the guy who never spoke English, there was the guy who was the Serbian guy who was playing super loud music out of his trans-am, whatever, I just made those up. Maybe we'll end up in a bit, but the idea is that you want to logically go into your topic using your premise to set up your setups. Does that make sense? setup is a larger theme, subject themes, immediately, our setups, they're very specific and they're setting up your punch lines.

Hopefully that explains it. So the premise is the large thing you can drop smaller ones under. Now with that, let's dive into more into setups and then we'll talk about punch lines.