0309 – Intonation for Comedians

2021.11.05 – 0309 – Intonation for Comedians

OK this is a bit off topic, but let’s spend a moment looking at intonation in respect of the delivery of a joke.

One of the reasons something is funny is because it is unexpected. And that may mean you have to change your intonation to signpost the humour. So (and this is not the joke!) what do you call the situation when lots of cars are filling a road and none of them are moving? A ‘traffic jam’ right? And you would naturally put the colour on the word “traffic” yes?

Ok so look how you have to say that phrase when it appears as the punchline to this kids’ joke: “Why did the girl smear peanut butter on the road? To go with the traffic jam!” To make it funny (?) you had to stress (and yes, I probably do mean to use that word here!) the “jam” part, so it balances with the “peanut butter” reference.

Here’s another example: “What musical instrument is found in the bathroom? A tuba toothpaste.” Here you say the punchline with the colour on “tuba”, whereas in the phrase “a tube of toothpaste” you’d highlight “toothpaste”.

In a joke or witticism, surprise is partly because of the use of synonyms, say here: “My wife just ran off with my best friend. Oh boy do I miss him.” The punchline is the very last word, itself a synonym for “best friend”

In this ‘intonation misdirection’, the comic plays down the first reference to something so as not to draw attention to it. The new information is, contradictorily, left un-coloured so the second mention can be more of a surprise and the punchline funnier.

This misdirection is because the comic is giving the impression that the gag is being adlibbed – that they themselves don’t know the punchline and so they don’t know to lift what later turns out to be significant details in it. Many good lines are ruined because the teller lacked the act of seeming to be spontaneous in their presentation and intonation.

And a slightly more risqué example from the BBC Radio 4 series “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue”: “Colin [the pianist on the panel show] tells us that it was Johnny Cash that helped him buy his first piano. He says back in the 1970s those condom machines were a licence to print money”.

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Peter has been around voice and audio all his working life and has trained hundreds of broadcasters in all styles of radio from pop music stations such as Capital FM and BBC Radio 1 to Heart FM, the classical music station BBC Radio 3 and regional BBC stations. He’s trained news presenters on regional TV, the BBC News Channel and on flagship programmes such as the BBC’s Panorama. Other trainees have been music presenters, breakfast show hosts, travel news presenters and voice-over artists.

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Peter has presented hundreds of radio shows (you may have heard him on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4, Virgin Radio or Kiss, as well as BBC regional radio) with formats as diverse as music-presentation, interview shows, ‘special’ programmes for elections and budgets, live outside broadcasts and commentaries and even the occasional sports, gardening and dedication programmes. He has read several thousand news bulletins, and hosted nearly 2,000 podcast episodes, and is a vocal image consultant advising in all aspects of voice and speech training for presenters on radio and TV, podcasts and YouTube, voiceovers and videocalls.

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