In the comics section of the newspaper last week was a Sunday comic that was not funny in any way. The joke appeared in one of those old favorite syndicated family comic strips whose appeal I believe is narrowing and falling away as its audience ages and dies away. I don’t want this post and its comment section to become a litany of dinosaur legacy comic-bashing, so I’ll decline to identify it except to say you know this strip and you probably don’t think it’s funny. Maybe it occasionally gets a grin of recognition from you, but never actually generates actual humor. Yes, that comic. Or any of its ilk.

The point is that last Sunday’s “joke” involved a toddler with an Oreo cookie. The baby unscrewed the cookie, licked off the creme filling, and then handed it to his father, where the father took it and said, “Oh, goodie! A cookie! Thank you, [child's name]!” It’s unclear whether the father knew what the baby had done. It’s unclear whether he cared. It’s unclear whether the father was being ironic “Oh, goodie!”, but I can assume, knowing the strip and it’s demographic, that he was not. Basically, it’s unclear where the humor or basic entertainment value was supposed to be hiding in this particular strip.

Well, no one at my house thought that joke was funny in any way that generates genuine laughter. Chances are, you didn’t think it was funny, either. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone getting a kick out of it, but I’m sure they’re out there. It just means that this strip wasn’t meant for me or my family. It wasn’t aimed at us. But this is a Family Strip! If my family and I aren’t the target, who is?

I think you know who the target for this strip is, and you know what I mean when I say that they probably shouldn’t go buying any green bananas. And so the logic of trying to pander to that market leaves me scratching my head, but then perhaps that’s why I’m going bald.

But I will tell you, we all had a great time at my house this weekend when my 11-year-old picked up a pen and changed the joke. Inked quickly over the existing strip, my son’s changes amounted to this – he made the dad frown and scowl, and changed the punchline from “Oh, goodie! A cookie! Thank you, [child's name]“ to simply “Get out of my house!”

I tell you, we had TEARS streaming down our faces. We laughed and laughed like hyenas. Just goes to show you what 3 minutes of extra thought could have bought this punchline and earned for the strip. But then I suppose the target market for this strip wouldn’t have found it funny at all. They’d have found it cruel and dark and ugly. Which it is, hence the humor! Partly this illustrates how dangerous it is to target any increasingly small market. Talk about your law of diminishing returns!

It reminded me what a great exercise it is to grab other people’s comics, erase their punchlines and/or dialog, and write your own. You can almost always do better because you’re coming at it from another angle with a fresh take and your own sense of humor. But it’s a fantastic writing exercise even if you fail, maybe especially when you fail.

And when you’ve mastered that one, it’s time to move on to your next exercise – do the same exercise, but this time with your own writing. How could this punchline have been funnier? How could that line have been punchier? How could that character have seemed more believable? Apply what you’ve learned in re-writing other people’s stuff, and you will find your own stuff reaps the rewards.

Good luck, and have fun!