Comedy In Crisis

Why we need to bring back funny comedy

First, some exciting news!

Before the end of the month, I plan to launch not one but two paid subscription tiers on this Substack.

I know, I know, but…

Don’t worry! This newsletter will continue to be free!

So what do you get for the privilege of giving me money every month?

That leads me to Exciting Thing #2:

I’m launching a podcast!

Okay, someone’s in a mood.

It’s called “What’s Wrong with Hollywood?” and it’s a lot less of a downer than it sounds!

In it, I’ll have conversations with people from the creator economy and traditional media, they share how they’d improve the entertainment industry and lend me their advice while I try to build a new type of entertainment studio.

I’m going to announce our first guests in the next couple weeks, so make sure to subscribe to get those updates:

Which ties into Exciting Thing #3:

I’m also launching a consulting service for writers looking to break into the narrative space. My expertise is primarily in comedy, but I’m able to provide guidance to anyone who needs help navigating a writing career in both Film & TV and the creator economy.

I plan to offer script notes, professional advice and career grief counseling.

Here’s a breakdown of the upcoming tiers on HNTBATVW:

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Tier 1

Free!

• This Newsletter!

• Stick figure illustrations, industry insights and advice on career navigation

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Tier 2

$7 / month or $70 / year

• Everything in Tier 1

• First access to my new podcast: What’s Wrong with Hollywood? +podcast archives

• Never-before-seen unpublished stick figure illustrations

• Access to the subscriber chat

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Tier 3 (Founding Tier)

$250 / year

• Everything in Tiers 1 & 2

• Monthly 1-on-1 career coaching calls with me, your mentor, Jon Stahl

• Personalized (NON AI-GENERATED) script feedback¹

• Personal dog agility training with you and your pup (no, this is not a joke)²

Now, onto the thing:

When Julia Louis-Dreyfus Rejected My Joke

Early on in my time working in the Veep writers’ room, I remember writing a joke for Selina that got picked from a few other alts by the Showrunner.

As a junior Script Coordinator, I was pretty proud of this. I was far from the most experienced writer in the room and I definitely wasn’t the funniest, but my joke still won out among a dozen plus comedy writers, many of whom had been doing this for 30+ years.

When blocking the scene, hearing Julia Louis-Dreyfus read the line was pretty exciting. It was probably the first joke I wrote that actually got read by any of the actors, let alone Julia. As someone who had been watching the show for its entire run, this was a rush.

Then, after blocking, her face scrunched: “That line, it feels pretty… written.”

My heart sank.

I sort of got what she meant: The line felt too clever. Too jokey. What she was looking for wasn’t something better written. What she was looking for was something funnier. I agreed with her expert judgment, but, at the time, I didn’t fully grasp the difference.

One of the other writers pitched something that ended up replacing my joke³, and while at the time I was disappointed, I’m grateful for that moment, because it led me down a path towards better understanding comedy⁴.

I set out to understand what made TV shows and movies funny and how that type of comedy distinguished itself from other forms like prose, stand-up, improv and sketch.

And more recently, as I’ve grown increasingly frustrated by the state of modern comedy, I set out to understand why so many TV shows and movies seem to be outside my comedic tastes.

Why do so few comedy shows make me laugh anymore? Am I out-of-touch? Do I speak only for myself when I say there are very few shows and movies that I find funny? Are there just fewer comedies being made right now?

The answer to that last question is yes, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

What is (and isn’t) Comedy

Nothing is inherently funny in a vacuum. All comedy has to pass through a personal filter of culture and emotional tension called the human brain.

Our hangups about sex and gender, our assumptions about race and politics, our insecurities about family and social structures, these all shape what we find funny.

In Film & TV, I would define comedy as a form of entertainment that uses laughter as its primary form of cathartic release.

It’s the same way that dramas use interpersonal emotional catharsis or horrors use scares or mysteries use revelations. The best forms of entertainment combine multiple of these, but for now, we’ll focus on laughter as a cathartic release of tension.

It can take multiple forms - romantic desire, fear of the unknown, anger at modern politics - but that tension is at the heart of all narrative entertainment, including comedy.

The difference between those other forms and comedy is laughter.

That bears repeating: If you are not laughing, you are not watching comedy. This doesn’t invalidate the thing you’re watching. Social commentary is important. A sermon can have great personal meaning. Compelling drama can keep you on the edge of your seat. But none of these things are necessarily comedy.

In other words: Comedy can make you think, but - by definition - it has to make you laugh.

Nothing about this micro-comic is funny, including the micro-comic itself #meta

Why Laughter Matters

At one point or another, you have probably used laughter as a salve; a way to cope with fear, manage anxiety, or process anger. It is a deeply therapeutic form of self-care, and has myriad health benefits in addition to merely improving your mood.

But beyond being beneficial to individuals, laughter was essential in building human society.

I promise this won’t be another eye-rolling anthropology lesson, but then again, you’re not the boss of me, so let’s dive in:

In a fascinating study, Anthropologist and Oxford Professor of Evolutionary Psychology Robin Dunbar - yes, THAT Robin Dunbar - makes several assertions (backed by research) about laughter:

1. Human-like laughter (as opposed to the kind observed in non-human great apes) evolved either 2.4M years ago or 600,000 years ago.

2. Laughter (as we know it today) emerged as a transitional bonding mechanism bridging the “older” bonding mechanism (grooming) and more recent ones (storytelling, singing, feasting, all of which require human language).

3. The evolutionary reason? It allowed human social structures to grow much more rapidly than our ape ancestors since grooming took time and laughter proved to be a shortcut to social bonding, allowing our ancestors to “groom” with several individuals simultaneously.

4. Endorphins are at the core of this bonding mechanism. Laughter feels good in a similar way to getting ticks removed from your back, apparently.

Professor Dunbar also made the bold claim that laughter is contagious, which we can count among things that do not require a research study to prove, including “moon is far away” and “traffic bad.”

Professor Dunbar has a crack team working on this.

But beyond humanity’s origins, to this day, laughter continues to strengthen the bonds between people, across political ideologies and genders and races.

In his wonderful Substack post on how comedy can bridge cultural divides,

Alexander Beiner

also discusses the power it has to “give us a clearer view on the world” and force us to question long held assumptions.

This piece is definitely worth a read:

Comedy and Culture Wars: Why Laughter is the Antidote to Polarisation

Bottom line:

Without laughter, human society becomes a wretched shell of itself and people are unable to properly process trauma or form meaningful connections.

Why Comedy Matters (to me)

I love comedy. I find solace in it. I seek connection with others through it. I use it as a coping mechanism when I’m stressed. It’s at times a cudgel, at times a shield.

When my sister got sick and was going through brutal cancer treatment, we shared a language of laughter that pierced the veil of fear and pain which might have otherwise swallowed us⁵.

Me pretending to drink Val’s super-toxic chemo drugs until the nurse told me to stop.

It’s not that I wasn’t scared. I was scared to death. But rather than retreating into the darkness, I chose instead to cast a blinding light on the thing that scared me the most.

This was an adaptation I developed early in life, from the time I first made my family laugh at the dinner table, and it carries on to this day as I seek new ways to tell stories with humor at their core.

In addition to this personal connection, I am a child of the 90’s and was shaped by irreverent TV shows like The Simpsons and Seinfeld that helped me form my comedic identity. I connect deeply with laugh-out-loud, madcap comedies that are more interested in eliciting laughter than exploring deeper themes about humanity or culture.

Obviously, the best shows are able to do both, but there’s always a balance to be struck, elevating the humanity of the characters while also avoiding self-seriousness.

Personally, I feel sorry for those who haven’t yet discovered their comedic DNA.

But some things are easier said than done, and it seems harder than ever to discover truly funny comedic entertainment.

Comedy in the Modern Age

When I use the word “comedy,” I’m referring explicitly to entertainment that elicits laughter for a large proportion of the show / movie.

I feel the need to specify this because of something I call “The Bear Trap.” These are shows that - due to their runtime or some other categorization - are called “comedies” but skew way closer to dramas with moments of levity or irony (often irony).

But in addition to this type of fare, there has also been a sharp decline in the amount of comedy programming as a whole, in name or otherwise. There’s less comedy to choose from, as specified by

Roy Price

in a recent post:

“Before 2017, comedy was always 12% to 15% of box office. In 2017, it abruptly dropped below 8% and stayed there (except for 2023 when Barbie was classified as a comedy and gave it an outlier bump). The mean number of comedies in the 2011-2016 period was 105 which declined to median of 62 thereafter, a 40% decline (I used median because 2020 is an outlier year).”

A story in TVLine describes something similar:

“In the fall of 2012, the broadcast TV networks combined to air 31 (!) comedies in primetime. A decade later, in the fall of 2022, they aired less than half that number: 14, with NBC (once the home of Must-See TV) airing no comedies at all.”

And here’s another. And another.

How Did This Happen?

I’ve heard several explanations for this decline in scripted comedic entertainment:

1. Development is to Blame

This argument is not uncommon, nor is it unreasonable. After all, studios and streamers are the ones greenlighting what gets made, and while I would dismiss any theories of collusion - at least according to the data above - a lot of them seem to have written off comedy as a cultural mainstay.

2. Writers are to Blame

This is less common of an argument, but still worth addressing.

I would propose there is a class of writers who comes from the “two-people-in-a-room-talking” school of writing. Mumblecore emerged out of budgetary necessity but eventually evolved into a style that elevated authenticity and realism, and young writers latched on.

This style isn’t necessarily incompatible with laugh-out-loud comedy, but it does impose constraints that make writing comedy - which is hard to do well - even harder.

3. Social Media is to Blame

There are two arguments here:

First, social media has reduced attention spans, which in turn makes comedy harder to execute. If people aren’t paying attention, they’re not going to get the joke. I fundamentally disagree with this argument for reasons I won’t get into right now.

But there’s another argument that literally just came from my brain and I’m really struggling to validate it via accredited research. Google is not serving me well here…

The argument goes something like this: 30 years ago, where did mass market audiences go to laugh?

That’s right. Zoos. Where the monkeys masturbate.

Don’t lie and tell me you wouldn’t watch too.

No, obviously movies and TV (and to a lesser extent, stand-up).

Today, audiences have a lot more options in social media. Think of every viral video that’s been shared with you in the past 5 years. They probably went viral because they were funny.

Short-form proto-storytelling on social media is filling a need that used to almost exclusively be the domain of Film & TV. People are getting their laughter fix on social media.

Meanwhile, the other forms of catharsis I mentioned - scares and emotional catharsis and revelations - haven’t yet been optimized for the small(est) screen. Sure, there are the coming tsunami of micro-dramas, but the earliest viral videos on the internet were comedy-focused, so they had a two-decade head start.

4. Stand-up / Sketch Comedy is to Blame

Okay, “blame” might be putting it strongly. But there’s an argument to be made that - like social media - audiences are fulfilling their comedy appetites through other laughter delivery mechanisms.

Sketch

Sketch is one such form of comedy entertainment. I would place sketch in a different category from scripted comedy because of several factors:

1. Length - Sketch is typically shorter-form than traditional scripted comedy on TV & Film.

2. Depth - Due to this shorter length, sketch has a burden to get to the joke faster, which requires the use of character and story archetypes that are naturally shallower than characters / stories in a 30-minute show or 90-minute movie.

3. Distribution - If audiences want sketch comedy, they have precious few options on TV. Sketch shows like SNL are an endangered species. Arguably the last truly great sketch show on TV was Key & Peele, which ended a decade ago. That brings us back to our last point: Apart from SNL, the bulk of sketch comedy now lives on the internet.

Stand-up

Stand-up is another form of comedy entertainment that has gobbled into scripted comedy market share. It has seen an enormous surge in popularity now that streaming companies are pushing stand-up content on their platforms, answering audience demands.

Whether this increased audience demand stems from fewer comedy options in scripted entertainment or a genuine interest in stand-up I cannot say, but the numbers are undeniable (from the Bloomberg article):

• Netflix released 50 or more specials in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

• Stand-up comedy grosses have nearly tripled over the last decade, climbing to more than $900 million last year, according to Pollstar.

• When Mike Berkowitz (co-head of comedy at talent agency WME) started, "there were three or four active comedians who could fill even a small theater. Now there's hundreds."

I would argue stand-up falls into a different category from scripted entertainment, and while scripted may be less joke-dense than stand-up (in many cases), scripted comedy still maintains its own unique role in the cultural lexicon.

5. Wokeness / Political Correctness is to Blame

This deserves its own section, so let’s discuss.

On “Wokeness”

This is obviously a thorny subject and I have rather no intention of getting canceled…. I will say this: People operating from a place of fear don’t write good comedy (or drama, or horror, or any other genre).

This cuts two ways:

1. People should be free to be themselves without fear that being open about their identity will lead to derision or ridicule or aggression, cuz fuck people who are assholes about who you are.

2. People should be free to express themselves, tell jokes and pitch ideas without fear that the wrong words will get them “canceled” and have their jobs taken away.

TV Writers’ rooms are often described as “safe spaces” not just because they encourage writers of all identities to be themselves, but also because they allow writers to pitch stupid shit without fear of reprisal and loss of livelihood.

For the record: I could not feel more strongly about this.

Everyone has made mistakes and said the wrong things to the wrong people, but I believe there’s a difference between a joke told in poor taste and a pattern of abuse or harassment. I believe that people conflate those two things to the detriment of both those in power and marginalized communities.

In the words of Dave Chapelle:

“It shouldn’t be this scary to talk about anything.”

–Dave Chappelle

BTW, I will fight anyone who believes that monologue came even close to anti-semitism. Kanye West on the other hand…

In TV, the burden of drawing that line between “harassment” and “poor choice of words” belongs to the Showrunner.

I do not envy any Showrunner who is forced to choose between the mental health and wellbeing of their staff and the freedom of expression that is critical to every writers’ room.

Fortunately, it seems these two things are rarely at odds with each other, and when they are, there’s usually some other factor at play that complicates the matter and makes me want to talk about it even less.

I will also say: I consider “political correctness” / “wokeness” an intellectually lazy excuse for the recent decline in comedy.

There were plenty of shows and movies from bygone eras that didn’t rely on offensive tropes to make the ha-has. Some of my favorite comedy from the early 2000’s definitely have moments that some might describe as “cringe,” but they largely centered their comedic premises around interpersonal dynamics, not punching down or dabbling in politics.

Veep is a good example of a show that - while virulently filthy - refrained from punching down or targeting marginalized communities, unless you consider “upright train derailment” or “Fleshy coat rack” or “haunted skyscraper” a protected group⁶.

Why Less Comedy is a Problem

Whatever the reason, there is less scripted comedy than there was before and the comedy that does exist feels less explicitly funny (to me).

And I think this is a bigger problem than anyone realizes.

A short-form comedy video on social media may go viral, but its lifespan is ephemeral and its reach is limited.

You can’t build a fan club or host a watch party for a meme.

Comedy benefits community, but it also benefits from community. According to a citation in Dunbar’s study, we are up to 30 times more likely to laugh when we watch a comedy video in a group than if we watch the same video alone.

I’ve spoken in the past about the ongoing loneliness epidemic, and I feel strongly about comedy as the antidote: A foundational mechanism on which to build community.

But beyond the social benefits more/better comedy would bestow, there is literal money being left on the table by not developing comedy shows and movies.

People always have and always will seek out laughter. It’s the reason we’ve seen a dramatic spike in watch hours of decades-old sitcoms that have returned to popularity:

Like The Office.

Or Friends.

Can that be explained away by nostalgia? Maybe?? Suits also encountered a rip-roaring resurgence a decade after its initial release.

But maybe, people just want to laugh, and they find their options limited in the current traditional media landscape, so they turn to old programming and social content to get their fix.

This is not the sign of “People don’t care about comedy anymore.”

That’s a stupid statement made by stupid people and you’re more stupid for even reading it.

Why do you make me do this?

Add to that this: Gen Z loves Comedy and wants more of it. But it’s not demographic-delimited. Everyone loves scripted comedy, and we have to breathe new life into it.

How to Bring it Back

But how?

It won’t be easy. And I know that I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: Nothing worth building ever is easy. It takes work, but the good thing about that work is that it can be exciting, creative and fun.

Develop Comedy Across Platforms

Evan Shapiro

advocates for using social platforms as a testing ground for characters, stories and style, and so do I. In fact, that’s exactly what I aim to do with my social channel LoFi Comedy Collective. Sure, we’re starting with scrollable short-form, but as we establish a base of content (and followers), I fully intend to expand into deeper, longer-form, more character-driven storytelling.

There aren’t a ton of folks operating in scripted comedy on UGC platforms, and the successful ones can be counted on one hand. As these markets mature, I anticipate a greater appetite for scripted comedy, and my goal is to position LoFi to ride that wave once it arrives.

If you’d like to be part of our journey, please don’t hesitate to reach out:

Bring in Creatives from Horror

Horror and Comedy share 99% of their DNA.

They are genre mirror twins:

They both rely on building up and releasing tension to elicit a physical response.

They’re both dramatically strengthened by increasing the stakes of your story.

And they’re both tremendously fun if done well.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. The guy who does both comedy and horror with exacting precision had this to say:

“The difference between comedy and horror is the music”

–Jordan Peele

Maybe by consulting the best horror creators, we can come up with new ways to strengthen scripted comedy.

Create Comedy Incubators

Horror has Blumhouse. Comedy needs its own version of that feeder system. By supporting multiple low-budget comedy projects and empowering writers / directors with creative freedom, you increase the odds that one of those projects hits it big.

Imagine a place an emerging comedy writer or director could go to sharpen their skills and train with the best comedy minds in the business. They would improve their own craft while also adding new voices to the comedy conversation.

The model spreads risk by testing new ideas with small budgets first and then expanding once you have a hit.

Create More Comedy-First Distribution Platforms

Again, horror has a backer here. Shudder has carved out a name for itself by producing, licensing and distributing affordably-made horror content. Does genre-specific distribution have to mean horror?

No.

The closest thing I can think of that’s doing anything like this is a streaming service called Dropout.TV, formerly known as CollegeHumor. While they have scripted content, their most popular shows are in the sketch / improv / variety space.

One of my favorites of theirs is called Very Important People, a show where comedians get special effects makeup applied and have to make up a character on the spot after seeing themselves in the mirror. They’re then interviewed in-character by improv artist Vic Michaelis. It’s very very funny and they’ve had some fantastic guests on the show.

Dropout.TV is living proof that a low-cost training ground model can work. It’s a smaller operation and thus presumably has a lower barrier to entry than the major streamers, but I think you could even take this model further.

Give comedy artists a place to call home and the best and brightest will show up and deliver.

What ideas do you have to revive true comedy in entertainment? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts:

Comedy Will Never Die

I’ve made my feelings on ‘the death of XYZ’ quite clear. In most cases, these statements are overblown, and I feel that’s doubly the case for scripted comedy. People want it, but perhaps more than that, society needs it.

Comedy has the power to turn enemies into allies and can help us broach those hard conversations that we’d otherwise be ill-equipped to handle. It can bridge cultural divides and repair our social fabric.

It’s a shared language that helps us overcome hardship and a source of illumination when things seem darkest.

In an increasingly isolated world, comedy brings us together. And considering the state of things, we need it now more than ever.

But also, it needs us.

It needs us to acknowledge the responsibility we have to our audiences. We’re not here to stroke our own egos. We’re not here to be clever. It stung when the line I wrote for Julia was batted down. But I’m glad it happened, because it taught me to adapt, and it taught me comedy writing tools that I carry with me to this day.

I think I finally understand the difference between something that’s well-written and something that’s truly funny: Make people forget the thing they’re watching was ever written at all and you’ve done your job.

This isn’t just a lesson for my own writing. It’s a compass we can use to navigate this vital genre. So whether you’re a creator, an executive or just someone who likes to laugh, it’s never been more important to understand our role in building the future of scripted comedy. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.

Now let’s get to work.

Stay tuned,

Jon

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What I’m Reading Right Now

Sam Widdoes

recently got nominated for an Emmy for a documentary he produced called As We Speak (available on Paramount+). Congrats Sam 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

He’s writing a multi-part soup-to-nuts deep-dive into that process, from obtaining the IP to getting into Sundance to getting the Emmy nod. Really interesting story. A true must-read.

It Takes Eight Years to Make a Movie: Part I

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Stephen Follows

spoke with Uwe Boll in a conversation that covered tariffs, AI and some strong words about writers following the writers’ strike.

Uwe Boll on tariffs, AI, and the end of traditional film funding

Ed Sayer

wrote about the mismatch between available roles and qualified talent, the impact that mismatch has on DEI initiatives in the UK. Doesn’t exactly paint the rosiest picture, but here we are.

The Skills Mirage: Why Our 200,000-Strong Workforce Can’t Fill the Jobs

1. Up to 120 script pages per year, split up however you want.

2. For LA-locals only, 1 hourlong session every 4 months.

3. If you want to know what the joke was, please leave a comment below.

4. Don’t worry. A bunch of my pitches ended up airing in the following season.

5. For those concerned, Val is now 5+ years in remission.

6. All un-aired Jonah insults, and there’s a bunch more where those came from…