The New York Times
4 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2017–2019
5:02 · 3.1M views · Dec 20, 2012
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.
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.
4 comments from Hacker News
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 it might have worked if the author had gone all in and backed up the claim with examples, anecdotes, rationals that pushed the joke telling art via absurdity. this video
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
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
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