Instead of espresso, how about a shot of comedy? If you have to go to a panel discussion around 10 a.m., let it be one in which Brooklyn’s own Sasheer Zamata, of Saturday Night Live, and Ben Warheit, writer for Late Night with Seth Meyers, play clips from theirĀ Above Average shows. That’s what we were treated to yesterday at “Building Comedy and Growing America’s Best Comedy,” one in a series of Northside Festival talks continuing today at Kinfolk 94.
Zamata said her web series, āPursuit of Sexiness,ā arose from this video dramatizing a joke about getting flashed on the street.
TheĀ fun, collaborative project received a huge response online, which encouraged Zamata to continue using the format.
InĀ the laugh-inducing clip below, two women at a bar argue about the validity of drinking because āitās five oāclock somewhere.ā At one point, series co-creator Nicole Byer, of MTV’s āGirl Code,ā makes the case that vodka is suitable for breakfast because itās made of potatoes. Who can argue with that?
Meanwhile, Warheitās series, āWaco Valley,ā came about after his doodles of ādinosaurs in various situationsā were well received on Tumblr. He started drawing them on Post-It notes, when he was bored at his job inĀ a opiate research center in a psychiatric ward.
After the discussion, Zamata told us that the episodes she writes with Byer āderive from a place of reality ā something that happened to us or we thought was going to happen that was really funny. We take a simple idea and try to blow it out as much as we can.ā She writes down all of her ideas — what used to be piles of notebooks is now a ālaundry listā of joke ideas on her iPhone.
Warheit isnāt as organized. He said, āI wish I had a process that sounds like Sasheerās – that would be very helpful. Itās very random for me. I try to remember to write stuff down but I donāt have a good habit of doing it.”
Do they have a persona they put on when performing comedy? “I donāt drift too far from things I would actually do,ā said Zamata. āSo whatever the audience is feeling, itās hopefully believable because itās coming from a real place.ā
Warheit has a different approach: āMy comedy comes from imagined things, things that arenāt real.” (A dinosaur newscaster, for instance.) “Itās alternate versions of things that would happen in reality. When Iām working I try to come at it from an optimistic perspective and see it in a positive way.ā
So how can we, as boring civilians, be a bit funnier in everyday situations?
Warheit had one suggestion: āIf youāre watching somebody talk or famous people where everybody knows who they are (maybe watching a TV show or a movie), wait until after itās done. In that moment of silence turn to the person next to you and say, āWho are those people?!āā