3 Witty Jokes To Make Anyone Laugh

Conan o' Brien has an extremely fast sense of humor and a sharp wit. When you watch him interact, he can seem impossibly, conversationally clever. And it's why he's had no problem entertaining millions of people for over 20 years on his late night shows.

You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna be the villager because he looks like one of those puppets in a horror movie that comes to life and murders everyone. Look at his eyes.

Look at the eyes of a killer.

He's enraged because a mad scientist puts spoons on his hands. So it's the homicidal spoon hand boy against Jared Leto.

But the truth is that there are principles behind the kind of sharp wit that Conan uses so often. And while his years of comedy training have made him a master, simply understanding the principles and using them in your own life can make people find you much, much funnier. So let's take a look at what those principles are today. First out of context analysis. Let's rewatch that first.

You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna be the villager because he looks like one of those puppets in a horror movie that comes to life and murders everyone. Look at his eye.

Those are the eyes of a killer.

He's enraged because a mad scientist put spoons on his hands.

We all recognize that cartoon hands represent real hands, even if they aren't anatomically perfect. But Conan describes that image as it would appear to someone who had no context to be able to understand what a cartoon hand was. And when you strip that context away, they do kind of look like SP in this case. That is where the laugh comes in. Conan is pointing out how weird the world that we live in every day actually is. And it's this constant lack of context that makes Conan's clueless gamer series so funny. Here's another example.

Mario. He's Italian. He speaks very broken English. Yes, that's right. So if he's been living in this country for a long time, he's not really paying attention.

But Conan doesn't just do this in areas where he actually doesn't get the context, like video games. Conan uses this comedic tool all the time. Time. Watch how he talks about this teddy bear holding a heart. Now, we all see a symbol of affection in this. Maybe something that you'd give to your sweetheart on Valentine's Day. And friendly reminder for those of you who do have someone, you might need to plan something for. Valentine's Day is coming up soon. But when Conan talks about this bear, he describes something Very different from that romantic image.

Something you would ever give a girl you were interested in?

Possibly.

Really? It's not as romantic as you think. This is a bear that was born with its heart outside its chest cabinet. Look at the bear. It's like, kill me, kill me. I wanna die. My heart's outside my chest.

Again, the humor comes from applying a different context to a normal object. The same thing occurs in this next clip. Most of us are gonna look and see a podium for a college speaker. And it's interesting because, yes, it's a tree trunk, but it's otherwise not really worth commenting on. We get it. But strip away what you think it should be, that it is a podium, imagine a different context, and you get all kinds of different jokes.

Insecurity, Dartmouth that you don't even think you deserve a real podium. I'm sorry, what the hell is this thing? It looks like you stole it from the set of Surviva Nova Scotia. Seriously, it looks like something a bear would use at an AA meeting.

This is a huge component of what it means to be witty. It's to change the context constantly of normal things that people otherwise take for granted. Worth mentioning that this is exactly what Robin Williams did in his famous pink scarf skit. I'm going to link to our breakdown of that in the description. But for now, let's just talk about another piece that is critical to wit, specificity. For a great example, watch Conan teasing Kevin Hart about his workout outfit in this next clip.

Let's talk about this outfit for a second.

This is set.

Good God. This looks like a tuxedo from the year 3015.

Now, Conan could have just said, you look like you're wearing clothes from the future, which is kind of funny. And it is what those clothes look like to most of us when we strip away the context. But the power of this joke comes from the specificity. Conan doesn't say clothes, but tuxedo, and he doesn't say future, but 3015. Pay attention to every example that I've given you, and you're going to see the power of specificity at work. So this rule is very simple. Specificity generally makes you funnier. Last week we talked about how specificity can make compliments more effective. So you may just want to be more specific across the board. No need to belabor this point. It's pretty straightforward. So let's move on to the last idea in this video, which is doubling down. That's when you follow up on a joke until people laugh. Basically, here's A great example.

Where do you get your hair cut, Conan? I don't. This isn't real. This is. Scientists work on this. This is a high density polymer that NASA invented. Hair. Hair is for wimps. This has robotics in it. It can do things.

You see here Conan making several follow up jokes all on the same theme of his hair being fake. The first joke provides the premise that his hair is not real. Everything else that he adds just makes that more absurd and therefore funnier. The critical word here is is absurd. Ideally, each add on joke takes the original to a more extreme place. That is the power of doubling down. And here's another example. The premise of this next joke is that Nintendo's designers are on acid. Now he takes it to more absurd places, even adding in weird noises until he gets his big laugh.

He's like a kind of like a frog. He uses water swords. So everyone at Nintendo is on acid. You know what I want to know? What ideas do they edit out at Nintendo? His name's Jibjub. What is he? He's a blip blerp. What does he do? He goes to Gimbar.

The nice thing about doubling down is that you can do it with jokes that your friends make as well. And it typically feels good for everyone involved. Your friend's premise is being built upon, so it feels like you're paying attention to what they're saying. People around gets a laugh at two jokes, so that's an advantage for them and you get an easy opportunity to make everyone laugh. In fact, if you do pay ATT to close groups of friends, they'll often ping pong back and forth, adding more and more absurdity to one another's premises till they have everyone cracking up themselves, including. So doubling down is an absolutely critical piece of being funny. Maybe not so much of wit, but absolutely worth adding to your repertoire if you haven't already. So those are the three main pieces from Conan o' Brien that can help you to develop his wit. They are, first, recontextualizing everyday things. Second, being specific in all of your jokes. Third, doubling down by making original joke premises more and more absurd. Also, I put together a humor playlist of breakdowns in the description if you want to check it out. Obviously there is so much to comedy and I've only scratched the surface here in this video, but that playlist should give you a really solid framework of how to be the funniest person in your friend group. And if you did like these ideas and you're curious about more powerful frameworks, to be more charismatic. Charismatic and captivating. I put together a video explaining the four emotions that lead to an amazing first impression. Now, the real power of these emotions is in this sequence. So if you're interested in discovering that, click here to check out that video. You're going to be taken to a screen where you can drop your email and then access that video immediately. If you do want more videos like this, be sure to subscribe to this channel. I release a new video every single week and the goal is always to help you take your charisma to the next level. So if you want to make sure that you never miss one, hit that subscribe button and also the little bell icon so that we show up on your YouTube homepage. Or don't. Honestly, it's just if you feel like seeing more of our videos. So totally your call. Last thing, we raised nearly $15,000 for charity water in just a few weeks based on one of the videos that we recently did. So thank you guys so, so much. Right now, 400 plus people are gonna be getting clean water and I really just wanted to thank you all from the bottom of my heart to helping us smash through that goal that we set. So thank you again. If you have any questions or video topics, of course, feel free to write me in the comments. I always read those. I hope that you have an amazing day, hope that you've enjoyed this video and I'll see you in the next one.