The Hidden Formula Behind Almost Every Joke on Late Night 

The joke was dead from the start

It's not fake laughter. He's just easily amused, has terrible composure and cracks up at everything. He used to break during sketches on SNL all the time, which is probably why they ended up mostly confining him to Weekend Update after a while.

I once heard an actor saying that he would never become a late-night host because he couldn't pretend that he likes everybody. If you don't know how to fake a laugh, you just can't be a host.

While I'm sure that in some cases he's genuinely laughing, there are lots of times where he starts laughing before a joke even pays off, and he laughs at pretty much every element of every story from every guest. That's basically impossible. To be that easily amused all the time you'd have to be surprised by everything, but some one who was so stupid as to be surprised by everything wouldn't actually "get" many of the jokes. It's just a fact that not every joke can hit every funny bone every time. What Fallon is doing is keeping the audience primed to laugh and his guests feeling good about their story/joke/whatever. It's not a bad thing for a host to do (though he often over does it) but it's definitely fake a lot of the time. I'd say he has more of a Jay Leno style. Make every guest feel totally welcome, and act like they're the greatest of all time. You can compare him to some one like Colbert, who will, on occasion, just brutally leave a guest hanging, if he either doesn't really "get" their humor or he doesn't want people to think he approves of it. Colbert is seemingly more sincere, but some times he really fails his guests by signalling to the audience that they shouldn't laugh. A classic example of this is when Bill Burr came on his show and almost completely bombed. Burr's material wasn't wasn't his best, and Colbert didn't throw him a rope at all, so Burr got very few laughs, even though he's a comedian that routinely kills. In the middle you'll find hosts like Conan O'Brien, who, if a guest's story or joke isn't especially funny, will make himself the butt of a joke. Craig Ferguson has a similar style. He'll also go to great lengths to set up the premise of a guest's story or joke (which he obviously already heard in rehearsal). I think those guys also had an easier time with it because they have a co-host (if Jeff can be considered a co-host). It's a shame that Ferguson is off late night, but I guess not enough people tuned in. The master was Johnny Carson. Johnny of course had Ed McMahon there to help carry the load, but even solo, he had a great way of building up a guest, getting into and out of bits seemlessly, and also laughing along without making it seem phony. Part of it is that Carson learned to embrace those moments of bad television as though they were rare gems. Letterman is/was great in this way too, though if his guest wasn't good, he'd sometimes turn them into the joke.

i assume... Joke + Fallon = laughter

I don't laugh when he laugh.

Snaggle Toothed 'methadological'? To my knowledge and judgement that would be a very odd neologism derived from methadone...edit: puzzled why anyone would associate that (or why trump supporters would be more likely to do so)

user73o1u 81716 he's making fun of Trump's base by calling them addicts it's Superiority and incongruity

mathematical = methodological = systematic = formula = same exact thing

Michael Moulton In what world are mathematical and methodological the exact same thing?

earth, and throughout the cosmos

Except Conan

@@jonfee5081 Nope. He's a PC Nazi.

@@jonfee5081 bruh some of conans most popular videos are apart of the “Conan without borders” series and is premised on visiting countries which Donald trump has disrespected or made fun of lmaoo

@@Ivy-jo7tl yeah it’s true but most of his travel are not about making fun of trump he makes fun of the topic trump was telling and he makes more about people and the country not about the politics

Is it the writers' fault that Trump does so much stupid shit that's just begging to be made fun of?

You know nothing

@@arniemarnie Priceless (Unexptected)

This is actually a great idea for an algorithm 🤔

deport_aladdin();

Such a beautiful statement. Robots writing jokes, for robots to perform, for robots to laugh at

DELETE THIS!!!

You're funny

Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out all the wrong words.

That makes no sense at all. Is that why it got 9 likes because people were surprised at how dumb it sounds. The horse one though. That’s a classic. 😂 Love it.

Exactly

Michael Jordan It’s a Mark Twain quote lol.

Never heard of that before. I like it

Me too🙂

Even that makes equal sense.

Because he was a Mexican Aladdin.

Weber Master yeah I’ve never been into tonight show monologues, they all seem too forced

Clearly unaware you're the anomaly. This method works for most viewers... all you're saying is that you're one of the exceptions who doesn't feel any positive emotions from the jokes. That must suck...

Aaron Sharma "iamverysmart"

Fip Dibwibbler r/iamverysmart See you there

alex Debroux. It's true...

that almost makes sense, but ferguson did standard monologue jokes

Please don't call this comedy. This is an insult to not only Americans, but to comedy-writers globally.

ToxicTurtle907 Looooooool Beautiful 😂😂

you copycat ;)

CrateofStolenDirt "Oh, it can't possibly the case that nearly half the population - let alone a third! - is below average intelligence, can it?" yeah, but it's probably not the party that's 35% black and brown :)

Snaggle Toothed I like how liberals claim to be anti-racist but then attack the president for his skin color. So retarded. Actually Make America Great Again just means we want you to drop the SJW identity politics and hating "privileged" people and become pro-freedom libertarians instead...

Snaggle Toothed Ever heard of dogwhistles?

Snaggle Toothed Get a job so you don't have to steal my money. Also, if you haven't noticed, it's Democrats who love Bush now, according to polls. I've always thought he was a piece of shit.

:cue crickets chirping price is right losing horn:

Ok, that was a good one

Thank you so much

ooooh mamaaa!

And a Monty Python clip?

What show do you work for?

Calvin Saxon but they aren't funny lol

Just like roasting someone

Calvin, live a little, its a video, we both watched it, it was stupid, move on with your life. drink some water. have a bath. have a cry. let it go. what i wouldnt give to be a grad school drop out. ily!!!

The irony of this comment.

Calvin Saxon Slate is a rag.

Not really; the video actually does give one method of writting jokes that might just be useful, whereas your formula may describe jokes, but wont actually help you write any.

That's what Jewish writers are for - ba dum dum

you can't even use your own formula

@Anastasis Stathopoulos - yet still funnier than anything on Fallon

nah

no its not, they literally use the same “trump stupid and orange twitter” joke

Turtle Power It's funny to them because they're brainless and have been taught by their favorite celebrities to hate Trump. Hearing a negative thing about Trump followed with a laugh track makes them laugh. It's like back in middle school when a group of kids would bully another kid. If the kid was the butt of the joke, the whole group of bullies would laugh because it's specifically aimed at someone they don't like.

Truth

He really isn't. If the best they can do is grab that low hanging fruit, they need better comedy skills

I mean with the whole stormy Daniels thing it’s kind of hard not to

He would have said that except that it's inaccurate.

Wait, remember that one time when: Colbert - "Trump" Audience - "okay" Colbert - "How dare you all not boo?" Audience cheers mindlessly

Ah there's that sense of superiority

Colbert's thing is talking out Trump's tweets, and he always says "Dot dot dot...dot dot dot." He's been doing it for over 6 months now but they still laugh.

He pretty much did.