NO Soup For You!

As I read chapter 20 I noticed techniques that screen writers use for their scripts to make them funny and interesting. Idioms, speak arounds, surprising endings, are all what make a good show, but as an audience we don’t realize it. We just receive these fantastic tricks and laugh them away. I never thought about how much work it takes to create a good comedy. There is a point in which I forget that actors are actors and I just think of them as funny people who always know what to say to make me laugh. But the truth is, is that making people laugh can be one of the hardest things to do, so I applaud those who make me do it.

Congratulations to Jerry Seinfeld, and all the people who help him make me laugh because they definitely do a great job. Making people laugh is one of the hardest things to do because it is something that most people should find funny. In Seinfeld they have to make the audience laugh every 30 seconds. How can they do that?

After I read chapter 20 I saw how things that Heinrichs said appeared on the show. I saw the episode of Seinfeld, called Soup Nazi. It’s about how Jerry and his friends all want to get a taste of the best soup in town, but the man that makes it has a terrible temper. With just one thing that a person says that he finds irritating, he’ll say “NO soup for you!” The episode revolves on how Elaine, the only person that didn’t get soup does everything to get it. She robs his recipes and blackmails him so that he will give her soup! As I watched the show I realized how Seinfeld uses speak arounds by saying “soup Nazi.” It’s a made up combination of words, that at the end have a humorous meaning as well as his use of repetition, when the chef says “NO soup for you!”.

There is much more than just having good actors on a TV show to make it funny. It takes good writers, with the sufficient amount of skills to make the audience laugh. Some of the techniques, as I learned earlier, y are easy to identify, but difficult to create. Bravo Seinfeld!