A short comedy sketch by Jared & Luke Lacoy (from The Clean Comedy Podcast)

Today, I want to share with you my first comedy sketch written for TikTok and YouTube #Shorts. 

The unique challenge I faced writing this sketch was that I only had 1 minute to setup and complete the sketch. Everything had to be short and get to the point quickly. It was also a learning experience for me because I’ve never produced my own comedy sketch before. 

I kept all my notes throughout the development of the sketch so that I could share them with you and give you a glimpse into my own writing process.

From start-to-finish, the sketch took us 17 days to complete. However, most of that time was downtime because my partner (Luke Lacoy) and I were working in different time zones, so most of that time was spent waiting for the other person to respond to our last message. All told, I spent around 3 hours writing and filming this sketch. Had we been in the same time zone and had enough free time, we could have knocked produced this sketch in a single day.

As you’ll see below, most of my writing was done on dog walks, which is very typical of my process. 

Enjoy 🙂

My Comedy Writing Process, From Start-To-Finish

Day 1: Initial idea

The initial idea for the sketch came from me trying to learn how to market my new podcast, the Kaizen Creativity Podcast. I reached out to several people asking for help and all of their advice seemed to be the same: “You have to market yourself.” 

I found these answers frustrating. Being a comedian, I let out that frustration the best way I know how… by lampooning the advice. 

So this is the very beginning of the sketch. I started with the vague, general idea of wanting to make fun of marketing coaches all having the same basic (unusable) advice.

In Playfully Inappropriate, I teach students how to go from a generic premise all the way to a finished joke or story. I used the exact same method to write this sketch. 

In fact, if you’ve already read the book or taken the video course, you’ll know that step one was “Highlighting the problem.” The problem I chose was that marketers all have the same basic advice… to market yourself.

Simple enough.

The second step was for me to come up with my “Generic Premise.” I used a lot of “What If…” questions to test out different ideas. The question “What if I were on a zoom call with a marketing coach, but the marketing coach kept frustrating me with his same answer?”

I settled on the idea that it’d work best as a comedy sketch and the scene would show me getting advice from some type of marketing coach.

All of this took place in my head. I wasn’t writing anything on paper yet. I was simply playing around with ideas. There was no brainstorming. I wasn’t sitting down and “working.” In fact, most of the thoughts came to me while I was walking my dogs. 

I settled on the idea of a comedy sketch in which the marketing coaching always responded with the same answer: You have to market yourself. I was torn between 2 ideas. 

1. The marketing coach literally says “You have to market yourself” as a response to every question I ask. If I went this route, I was going to use the exact same clip of Luke for each response. So not only would the advice be the same… it’d actually be the exact same video clip. 
2. The marketing coach gives slightly different advice, but the advice is basically the same (i.e., “You have to market yourself,” “You should market yourself,” “You need to market your podcast,” etc.)

I settled on option B. Option A was funny, but it would have quickly run its course. It wouldn’t have been funny by the end of the sketch. 

As far as punchlines go, I started thinking of different problems I could have and interesting responses the marketing coach could use. The phrase “You have to market your marketing” was the first punchline I wrote. I don’t think this was a coincidence because it was the original source of my frustration with talking to marketing coaches on Fiverr.

By the end of day 1, I hadn’t really sat down to work on the sketch yet. Everything was taking place in my head. I prefer to work this way because it keeps me in a playful, fun mood. The moment I “sit down to write” is when I start feeling overly serious. My best ideas tend to come from dog walks, while in the shower, or in bed. If I had to guess, I’d say that I spent around 20 or 30 minutes thinking about the sketch at this point. Though, again, it was all during dog walks. 

DAY 2: I contacted Luke Lacoy

My next step was to start filling in some of the details. I already had the Generic Premise of the sketch, but I didn’t have anything specific written down yet. 

This is when I thought of “The Topper” (The ending joke that finishes a bit. It’s usually the best joke of the entire bunch). I settled on the idea that I’d get frustrated throughout the bit, then ask why I spent so much money on him, then he’d respond with the same line. I loved this idea the moment I had it. Not only does it use the exact same advice from the rest of the bit, but the advice takes on a slight insult. It’s an amazing callback.

My next step was to contact Luke Lacoy (The Clean Comedy Podcast) about potentially working together.

ME: “You interested in some type of sketch collaboration? I was thinking of doing something short that pokes fun of how all the advice I get seems to be “you gotta market yourself.” Would probably be a 2 person sketch, perhaps TikTok length. The way I see it in my mind at the moment is you’d be the advice giver (or a Fiverr Gig, consultant, etc.). Here’s a super generic version of how I see it going. Haven’t timed it, but it’d be around 45 seconds or so. Still need to fill in details, but that’s the generic premise.”

I ordered lunch at a restaurant and spent about 10 minutes jotting down ideas while I was waiting. 

Here’s the first draft of what I wrote:

JARED: How do I sell more?

LUKE: Market yourself. Make a podcast.

JARED: Ok. I’ve got a podcast. How do I get more listeners?

LUKE: You’ve got to market yourself.

JARED: That’s what I’m doing. The podcast IS the marketing

LUKE: You’ve got to market it.

JARED: Market my marketing? How?

LUKE: Why not get a big name on your podcast?

JARED: How do I get a big names interested?

LUKE: You gotta market yourself

JARED: Look. 6 months and $500, all you’ve ever told me is to market myself

LUKE: You know why you’ve spent so much money on me?

JARED: W… if you say –

LUKE: It’s cause I market myself. 

I originally saw this sketch as taking place over multiple sessions. In the first session I’d be advised to make a podcast. Then I’d come back later, tell the coach I made a podcast, and ask for more help. I later abandoned this idea because it didn’t flow very well. I didn’t like the idea of putting in a subtitle that said “3 weeks later.”

Reading the first draft of the script, you can see a lot of the future ideas inside, but they clearly weren’t developed yet. They’d evolve over time as Luke and I traded ideas.

This is where a lot of new comedians make mistakes. The first draft isn’t suppose to be something worthy of the stage. It’s just suppose to lay out the path forward. It’d might have a funny joke inside of it, but it might also just be a generic idea that promises good punchlines if you pursue it further. If you’re unwilling to write the first draft, then you’re going to give up on all the great ideas you could have found as the idea evolves. Those are the best ideas, so it’d be a shame not to give them a chance.

DAY 4: Luke Sends His Ideas

Luke sent his feedback on the sketch and added his own ideas. We started to get the coach character filled out. We decided he’d either be a really douchy coach or we’d use a dry, monotone delivery. We eventually settled on the monotone delivery because it felt like a more realistic character. 

I’m a BIG fan of POV (Point-Of-View) Humor, which is humor that the audience gets to enjoy, but is not felt by any of the characters in the scene. Having a character “act funny” doesn’t fit POV Humor well. I wanted both characters to be deadly serious in the sketch. The audience would be the only one to see humor in the situation. 

In POV Humor, all the characters are fully committed to their position. Its the tension between our 2 positions that creates the humor. From my position, nothing is funny because I’m getting more and more frustrated. From the coaches position, nothing is funny because he’s giving his best advice. The audience is the only one with the whole picture. This is how POV Humor works. 

DAY 5: Rising Tension

Luke had a great idea about rising tension in the scene. We started organizing the punchlines so that each punchline would add more frustration to the scene before climaxing at the Topper/final punchline. 

We also had the idea that the final freak out would be funnier if it was filmed from a different angle. The reason we chose a different angle was because it felt more playful. I didn’t want to simply scream at the screen. 

I also sent him 2 versions of the ending to get Luke’s opinion:

VERSION 1:

JARED: Look, 6 months and $500, all you ever tell me to do is market myself.

LUKE: You know why you’ve spent so much money on me?

JARED: W… if you say…

LUKE: It’s cause I market myself (slightly evil voice in delivery)

VERSION 2:

JARED: Look, 6 months and $500, all you ever tell me to do is market myself. So, you tell me… why am I spending so much money on you?!

LUKE: It’s cause I market myself (slightly evil voice in delivery)

I sent Luke a message:

ME: The first one has the fun line “If you say…” but the second one feels like a better surprise. Like you were almost forced to admit that I’m spending money because you market yourself. Which do you think plays better?

We settled on Version 2 of the punchline. The first one looked funnier on paper, but the 2nd version felt like less of an insult. It didn’t feel right to have the coach deliver an insult. So we kept Version 2.

DAY 7: Combining Our Ideas

We combined both of our ideas into a new version of the sketch. At this point, the script was nearing completion. We also had new ideas pop up, such as tossing the pen in frustration. Slowly, the script took its final form.

Here’s what we had at the end of Day 7. Notice that I have the word “BRIDGE” in several places in the script. This is a placeholder. It let me keep the punchlines that I wanted, but without knowing the setups. Whenever you see “BRIDGE” then it means “We need to find a way to transition from one idea to the next.”

I love using placeholders like this in my material because it gives me time to find the most natural segues. 

Script

[BRIDGE]

You gotta market yourself. What about a podcast?

I’ve got a podcast, 

How do I get more listeners?

You’ve got to market yourself.

The podcast IS my marketing!

You got to market it!

Market my marketing?

Market… yourself. 

How do I market myself?!

Now you’re asking the right question.

I don’t even know- … I just want more podcast listeners

[BRIDGE]

How do I get more listeners?

Get a big name interview?

OK. Ok… How do I do that?

By marketing yourself.

Look, 6 months and 500$, all you ever tell me to do is market myself. So you tell me… why am I spending so much money on you?!

It’s cause I market myself.

[Jared freaks out]

DAY 7: I Sent Luke My Audio

I recorded audio for both characters so that Luke could get a feel for how I thought the lines would be delivered. While he likely had the same ideas, it’s always good to make sure you’re on the same page with your team.

We also played around with different beginnings. At this point, our biggest problem was figuring out how to launch into the bit, the first 10 seconds of the bit needed to setup the situation in a realistic way.

We tried:

• “I built a website and I’m not getting any sales” 
• “I took a sales funnel course (or another course), but my website isn’t getting hits” 
• “My Shopify isn’t generating any income”  

Here is the script we settled on (The time stamps were used to make sure we kept the video under 1 minute. At this point, I was still willing to change things around, but I wanted to know how much time I could play with. Knowing how long each joke took allowed me to say “If I edit this joke out, how much time would I free up? Can I add something funnier or shorter?”).

*** 0:00 ***

LUKE: This is your marketing coach with the most, how we up to today?

JARED: How do I get more traffic to my website?

LUKE: You gotta market your website.

JARED: Yeah, you (chuckle) said that last time.

*** 0:15 ***

LUKE: Make a podcast.

JARED: Ok. And how do I get listeners?

LUKE: You’ve got to market your podcast.

JARED: The podcast IS my marketing!

LUKE: You gotta market your marketing.

JARED:Market my marketing? Do you hear yourself?

*** 0:25 ***

LUKE: Alright, look… What about a big name interview?

JARED: That could work… How do I find a big name?

LUKE: You gotta market yourself. 

[Jared tosses pen in air in frustration]

JARED: I’ve spent $1200 on your marketing courses… And all you ever say is to market myself! Why am I spending so much money on you?!

LUKE: It’s cause I market myself.

[Jared freaks out]

*** 0:55 ***

Oddly enough, one of my favorite lines of this draft was adding the “(chuckles)” to my second line. This was a great way of giving a history to our relationship. With a short, half-second of chuckling, the audience realizes that this has been a problem in the past. It implies that this isn’t the first time I’m getting upset about his advice, which makes the rest of the sketch funnier. That’s a great ROI for such a small amount of time in the setup.

DAY 8: I Sent Luke Video

I filmed myself doing both parts of the sketch and sent it to him. I blacked out Luke’s part of the video so that he could insert his own video into my blank spots. This made sure that Luke could film his side and we wouldn’t run over the 1 minute limit we had for TikTok videos. From there, Luke worked some video-editing magic and managed to bring the videos time down from 55 seconds to 48 seconds. Without this, we never would have had the chance to create a second topper (“You have to put yourself out there Todd” … but that line hadn’t come to us yet. The video editing gave us room for that idea to appear later).

To edit the video, Luke used Final Cut Pro. However, if you want a free video editing option, Luke recommends using Davinci Resolve (though it has a steep learning curve). If you want to edit on your phone, you could also use apps like Splice and CapCut.

Like me, Luke recorded several versions of his lines to get a good feel for which delivery would be the funniest. We settled on the deadpan approach (which Luke absolutely NAILED in the final version!)

DAY 9: Sent Alternative Endings

The first version of the sketch was ready. I let a few friends watch a private video link to get their opinions on it. 

Unfortunately, the “pen flip” that I do when I get frustrated didn’t make it into the final version. I filmed my side on my laptop, which had a wider camera angle. When it was edited to fit TikTok’s portrait videos, the pen flip was slightly out of the camera shot. You can still see it in the final video, but it was unfortunate to lose it. The original version was much funnier and did a better job at escalating my frustration before the final punchline. I decided that it wasn’t worth re-recording, so we left it as-is.

DAY 13: Alternative Freak Outs

I wasn’t quite happy with my final freak out yet. The first version of the video had me yelling directly into the computer. I still didn’t have the camera angle change that I wanted. I sent Luke 3 separate versions of the freak out from different angles and let him choose his favorite.

DAY 14: 1st completed video

The first version of our final video was now complete!

At the last moment, I had the idea of adding Luke’s final line “Well you gotta put yourself out there Todd.” Like most of my ideas, this came to me on a dog walk. I sent Luke a message asking him for his opinion:

ME: I’m not sure if it’s possible to add, but if we cut to black for a moment and then did a post-roll where you said “this is your love coach with the most. How we doing today? … well you gotta put yourself out there Todd.” Might break the current ending. It’d be hilarious though.

LUKE: LOL! That would be a hilarious ending! I’ll work on that this week. Yeah, there is definitely extra room at the end to play with.

ME: Just make sure you don’t kill the first ending. We’d need a bit of black screen before the post-roll. Else it’d be awkward transitioning from one shot to the other.

DAY 17: Final Video

The final, final version of the sketch was ready to go. From here, we waited a few days so that we could post it on a weekend and get more views. 

Last Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed this behind-the-scenes looks at the development of my first comedy sketch. I was really excited to try my hand at a new type of comedy writing. Fortunately, I’ve studied a lot of sketch comedy in the past (if you’ve gone through Playfully Inappropriate, you already know how much I love quoting/dissecting sketches from Key & Peele and Alternatino).

If you’re interesting in learning more about how Playfully Inappropriate teaches comedic writing, check out the book on Amazon or my video course. You can also check out the blogs I have about Comedic Tension and Comedic Conflict, as those both played important roles throughout the process. And, of course, check out my new podcast: The Kaizen Creativity Podcast, where each week I give useful advice on how you can crush writer’s block, being more unique and memorable on stage, and be more creative.