Joke Formats

These are some techniques you can try

Source: The Guardian:

Pull back and reveal

A term derived from the TV practice of panning out from a close-up to discover a humorous situation. Essentially you are holding back a piece of pertinent information until the end of the story.

In the wrong hands this is a hackneyed and predictable technique, with cliched punchlines including, "then I got off the bus," and "that was just the teachers!" But used with skill it can be sublime, as with this opener from the visually startling, dishevelled Michael Redmond, "People often say to me ... get out of my garden."

Puns

It is difficult to get away with too much word play in a stand-up set, as most puns are fairly corny or obvious , though if you are relentless and unashamed it can be quite infectious. Discovering a new pun can be very impressive. This from the brilliant Milton Jones:

"While I was in Australia I learnt some Aboriginal words like 'boo', which means to 'return' - 'cause when you throw an ordinary meringue ... "

Observational comedy

Observational comedy essentially involves saying "Did you ever notice?" and then recounting something that will hopefully be universally familiar, but that won't necessarily have been consciously noted by your audience. If it's too obvious an observation it won't be funny (Have you ever noticed how buses always come in threes? Yes.) and if it's too oblique then it won't hit home.

Jerry Seinfeld is the master: "Did you ever notice when you blow in a dog's face he gets mad at you? But when you take him in a car he sticks his head out the window."

Memes

The youngest and probably most popular form of comedy are memes. First, a definition from Merriam-Webster:

meme - an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media

Memes are meant to be quick, visual humor. The anatomy of the joke still applies, however. The image is usually the setup. It guides your thoughts in a certain direction. The text is the punchline. It steers the audience in a different, unexpected direction.

Sports memes often are used to poke fun at teams.

Some meme images are used to convey a certain feeling or attitude (laughing at you, making a strong point, or sharing a clever observation), then combined with text that is complemented or contrasted by the image.

Other memes take images that are funny and use the text to caption or create a joke.

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