I was going to include Philadelphia… but that’d just be weird. Plus I haven’t seen the movie, but I know the story.

I’ll have a bash at this:

Title: The Last Drop Shop
One Word: Regret
Sentence: As the fifth security guard slammed the door behind him, Robert wondered if he would ever be capable if raising a laugh.

Pitch: Robert Casey is a stressed accountant. His job sucks, his wife has dumped him for a dancer and a former client he ripped off has bulldozed his house to the ground.

Things couldn’t get much worse. Or at least he thought they couldn’t – until he came across the Last Stop shop. The shop owner granted him one wish – he could choose just a single word to describe what he’d like more of in his life.

So Robert chose fun. Trouble was, waking up as a jester in a modern world wasn’t the sort of fun he’d been hoping for.

Yes, lots of humor is just down right cruel, funny to everyone but the target.

But we’re talking about movies. I’m going to say Ocean’s Eleven (Twelve) and Thirteen, because of their dialogue. It’s quick and witty. I love the characters. It may not be laugh out loud funny, but it always puts me in a good mood. As for comedies I’ve seen so many times that it still makes me laugh inside without cracking a smile outside– Airplane!, Naked Gun, Clue, Superbad… I’m just pulling out random titles in my collection. Any Marx Brothers movie.

Accidents are great sources for material. Just in relaying the story later to a friend of something happening to me, like how my back bumper flew off my car while I was driving in the fast lane.

Jaden– This is the very reason I carry around a little black notebook to write down these things people say or I hear that sounds funny. I used to do it all the time and I’d look back on it, trying to figure out why that was funny or what was said before. I have a new notebook now, I still haven’t written anything yet, but I really need to. But thank you for your advice, I actually allowed my characters to start speaking for themselves, so to speak. I have two brothers who are constantly insulting each other… which is actually a release for me because I’m not a mean person but I come up with very mean things to say to people which would come off as funny to everyone else, except that person. I only have one friend who doesn’t mind it, so I can be as sarcastic as I want. It’s when I’m acting nice does she get worried.

is the link…sorry forgot to put it here.

t.sterling could think of the most serious movie ever made about lawyers and substitute clowns — instant parody?

When people are being funny in person, I analyze it and ask myself: what makes that funny? And then reproduce in writing the way the jokes unfolded in conversation. Sometimes it is a play on words, like one word sounds like another word, or rhymes, or something like that. Sometimes it is being called out on something annoying a person does. Sometimes it is building absurdity upon absurdity, a fictitious ‘what if?’ scenario. Sometimes it is a misunderstanding, or like yours, a minor disaster, or physical body language comedy.

There are many types of situations that make something funny. So when you are with your friend, figure out what type of situation it is, why is it funny, then you can reproduce it with different jokes alone when you are writing.

Unfortunately, we don’t always have a friend around to help us. And what if one day you are hired for a writing job… alone!

Yes, real life is funny. Mother nature is very good at playing jokes on us. Just when you think it can’t get worse! To survive and bee happy, I think one must see the humor in the bad stuff. That is what comedy is all about, giving relief to the hard stuff.

Do you have a link to the “unfunny” jokes? I did a search, there are tons of them.

t.sterling – what movies do you find funny? that always cheer you up, no matter how many times you watch them…that’s my favorite resource…no matter how many times I watch “Crimes and Misdemeanors” (If it bends it’s funny, if it breaks…) I still laugh.

Is real life funny? Maybe this clown is hard to place…although lawyer -clown could be funny, I liked that a lot.

Hey, our shower wall collapsed this week as I was scrubbing it — it really wasn’t funny at the time, but even two days later, in retrospect, it’s hilarious to me. But it probably wouldn’t amuse a building inspector.

Has anyone seen the article about the results of a study about un-funny jokes…out on Earthlink’s web news this a.m.