How to be funny telling quick jokes

Yes, anyone can learn how to be funny. Learning how to tell jokes is a skill for the young or old, man or woman. You start by focusing on 5 things:

Timing
Enunciating
Emphasis
Pauses
Wording

These are the best things to practice if you want to be funny. BUT HOW you ask? Start small with the examples below… good luck…

Today, choose one of the funny jokes from the list below… picture saying it to a few people, and then go try… if it doesn’t get a smile on the first one, try again…

NOTE: Where it is BOLDED below… EMPHASISE and where you see THREE DOTS “…” pause…

How To Be Funny – Example 1

I just came out of the shop with a meat and potato pie, large chips, mushy peas & a jumbo sausage . . . A poor homeless man sat there and said . . . ‘I’ve not eaten for two days.’ I told him . . . ‘I wish I had your will power.’

Just make sure that you are not telling a story that will offend the listener (your audience).

How To Be Funny – Example 2

A large girl served me in McDonald’s at lunch time. She said . . . ‘Sorry about the wait.’ I said, ‘Don’t worry dear . . . you’re bound to lose it eventually.’

Using curse words is unnecessary, yet some audiences like a little risqué to a funny joke.

How To Be Funny – Example 3

Snow in the forecast! The TV weather gal said she was expecting 8 inches tonight.
I thought to myself . . . ‘Fat chance with a face like that!

or

How To Be Funny – Example 4

I lost a Trivia competition on the last question – which I got wrong. The question was, ‘Where do women have the curliest hair?’ . . . The answer should have been: ‘Fiji’.

There are ethnic jokes that can be easily told because, typically there are groups who enjoy the twists and nuances of their culture.

How To Be Funny – Example 5

A man in a hot air balloon is lost over Ireland. He looks down and sees a farmer in the fields and shouts to him, ‘Where am I?’ The Irish farmer looks back up and shouts back . . . “You’re in that basket up there.”

The kings of comedy, the Catskill comics of the 20’s to the 60’s could throw out ‘one liners’ with ease and they are just as funny jokes today as they were the first 20 times I heard them.

How To Be Funny – Example 6

Doctor: “You’ll live to be 60!”
Patient: “I am 60!”
Doctor: “See! What did I tell you?”

Patient: “I have a ringing in my ears.”
Doctor: “Don’t answer!”

There are so many times in the English language when we mean to say one thing . . . but listeners unintentionally interpret it a different way. You can do this intentionally with short – one, two or three line stories like the ones above. People love to think that they figured out the twist, the double entendre or why they are amused by a joke.

QUICK TIP:
You may have a jealous person in your audience, rolling their eyes at the start of your joke as to try and put you off. Don’t be distracted. You know how to tell jokes, so go get a laugh and disregard the the bullshitters. You already know the basics of how to be funny.