Now that you understand the structure of one-liner jokes and how they use the Target Assumption and Reinterpretation, we’ll move onto a very important variation of the non one-liner Comic Structure. This will explain how humor uses storytelling, satire, parody, analogies, and comparison jokes.
SHARED KNOWLEDGE SETUPS
Non one-liner jokes appear to have no Setups. But of course they do. They aren’t part of what the funny person says or does, but rather already exist in the form of Shared Knowledge or Existing Assumptions. This means all of the assumptions, including the Target Assumption, already exist in the minds of the audience.
Here’s how the Shared Knowledge Setup and its Existing Assumptions fit into our basic diagram (next page):
Let me illustrate all this with something that actually happened to me. I was sitting in an authentic Chinese restaurant in which many of the other patrons were Asian immigrants who spoke little or no English. There was a big screen TV mounted on the wall and a Gallagher concert was starting.
Gallagher made his entrance riding a bicycle with a square wheel. Everybody watching cracked up laughing. Regardless of language or cultural differences, everyone has already made the Target Assumption that bicycle wheels must be round. Because this Existing Assumption is universally accepted as true, there’s no need for a Setup.
Look at how all this plays out on Diagram 7:
To make this joke, all Gallagher needed to do was ride a bicycle with a square wheel as the Punch. (Remember when I said Punches aren’t always lines? Here’s an example.)
We already had the target assumption: wheels must be round. This Punch surprises us with the Reinterpretation: wheels can be square. Even though it causes a ridiculously bouncy ride it’s clear that wheels can be square. This Reinterpretation makes the Target Assumption, wheels must be round, wrong. And there’s your joke.
Here’s how it looks in a simplified Diagram 8:
Many jokes have Existing Assumptions that everyone accepts based on physical laws, societal norms, cultural and national presuppositions, accepted definitions and procedures, stereotypes, and familiar environments, just to name a few.
On a daily basis, everyone makes tens of thousands of assumptions without realizing it. It’s these unconscious assumptions that are targeted by non one-liner jokes’ Punches. The Target Assumption exists, but it’s not performed.
All comedy, humor, and therefore jokes require a Target Assumption, as well as a Reinterpretation as its Comic Structure, but not necessarily a performed Setup.
This understanding about Comic Structure only took me twenty years to figure out.