Rejected by Jon Friedman

Author:Jon Friedman [Friedman, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-51324-3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2009-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Todd Levin is a writer and a comedian. His writing has appeared in Esquire, Salon, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Morning News, RADAR, and The Onion, and he is a contributing writer for the book The Gawker Guide to Conquering All Media. When online, he lives at toddlevin.com.

What Makes People Laugh?

Carl Arnheiter and Jon Stewart

“What makes people laugh?” It was one of the more naïve questions I've asked, but it came out of curiosity. Whatever the intention though, I didn't realize it wasn't something that could be tangibly answered.

I was freelancing for a people-focused publication, let's just call it Person Magazine, a title whose articles always include a formulaic line—“[Subject's name]'s mom, Frieda, 42, a schoolteacher, and father, Lance, a former stockbroker turned fishing pro, live in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico …”—for “context.” I had profiled a number of celebrities for them, all with one common denominator—I had no interest in them, their work, or what they had to say about anything. In addition, my editor would want the same story that every publication eventually ran with, resulting in pretty standard interviews with bored subjects. In the end, the stories weren't about what the subject does, but about what they did, making them passive and lifeless.

One of my favorite shows, then as now, was The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and Jon was closing out his first year as host of the show with an hour-long Millennium Special. I pitched a story involving Jon, and my editor replied with two “very important” questions for him to answer:

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