Why were we told nobody likes a cheeky monkey when we were little?
Tim Ferguson has made being a cheeky monkey his brand, literally. I think everyone likes a cheeky monkey, and in fact, the truth in that is probably what makes it funny.
In addition to his book ‘The Cheeky Monkey: Writing Narrative Comedy’, Tim’s been running courses like these for a while now, giving away all the magician’s secrets.
Yes, Gandalf, we want to learn the spells. All of them. Tim cares, so he shares.
The two-day course teaches in about as long as it takes to eat a tube of condensed milk (the one you have in your top drawer and don’t tell anyone about) many mystical things such as gag types like juxtaposition of incongruities, malapropisms, self-referentials and fragmented miracle cheese, how and when to apply them, and other physical pursuits.
With the TV industry crushing itself in a way which magically bleeds an expanding pool of scarlet opportunity, truth has never been more important. Well not truth – you think? – except that’s the greatest trick of comedy.
It’s funny because it’s true.
Tim explains that comedy is in fact truth, compressed into a shorter recording, like watching a seed try to sprout on time delay video getting thwarted by the wicked gnat sent by Monsanto to kill joy and increase pesticide demand.
Pardon me, they’re my words, not his. His words include things like “she’s so famous” (after Gretel Killeen dropped by to say hi) and “how does a foot feel getting a sock put on it?”
See? Compression of a story. (Nice demonstration, Tim. A+)
It was a fun and funny time, and funnily enough, we learned stuff.
