Capstone Research #3

Fred Allen's Radio Comedy by Alan R. Havig is a semi-autobiography of radio comedian Fred Allen, who dominated radio in the early 20th century. The chapter I focused on with this book was dealing with how Allen, and many comedy writers at the time, didn't make a lot of money while writing comedy for radio. Allen joked about his morning would be writing a joke, take a lunch break, then tell himself the joke to see if it was funny, dinner, then spend the night thinking the joke wasn't funny and then try to convince himself the joke was funny. He joked that being a writer for a radio comedy show was a full time commitment. Also in the book, it talks about Allen's relationship with the audience. The audience often served as test subjects for jokes and other bits. I often use this tactic by having people listen to stuff I've recorded or a joke I've written to see if it would work to get an effective laugh.