Jerry Seinfeld Interview: How to Write a Joke | The New York Times
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN cites it as a look at how a master comedian develops material through slow, iterative writing, and compares it to programming and other craft.
What it is
In a New York Times interview, Jerry Seinfeld describes the anatomy of his Pop-Tart joke, still a work in progress, and shows his longhand writing process.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2017 to 2019.
What Hacker News said
Cites brudgers · 2017-05 · on “Tagger News takes a subset of HN articles, analyzes using ML, and applies tags”
My impression is that the bar for humor is higher on Hacker News than most other places. Perhaps at a minimum the joke should be intellectually interesting enough that there is no need to lawyer up behind a claim that the joke is on topic. Here the nexus is formulaic: ?X is, in fact, Satoshi Nakamoto! Chuck Norris, Paul Graham, my dog Spot for ?X are each about equally humorous. I think this is because each is about as clever an intellectual move. That's not to say that a joke connecting Stallman to Nakamoto couldn't work on Hacker News. Just that it would probably require a lot more work: e.g. better premise than a hackathoned machine learning classifier might be the singularity. Even here
Cites austinl · 2018-08 · on “The Structure of Stand-Up Comedy”
I started to appreciate stand-up comedy a lot more after realizing just how much effort goes into delivery. It's almost uncanny to watch a comedian perform the same routine twice, because their timing is so consistent. Here's a good breakdown of a Louis CK joke: [LINK] Jerry Seinfeld also gave an interview with the NYT about the process — I think Jerry is a good example because so much of his comedy depends on the delivery. [this video]
Cites js2 · 2018-08 · on “Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994)”
Tying together two recent HN submissions. This one, and the submission on Ali Wong wherein someone linked to Seinfeld explaining how he developed his Pop-Tart joke: [this video]
Cites hyperpallium · 2019-12 · on “Programming reminds me of my stand up comedy days (2018)”
I agree with getting started. If Michelangelo iterated studies (in marble!) and drafts to work out mistakes and what he was doing, surely I can too. BTW Seinfeld showed his (long) development of his "pop-tart" joke: [this video]