Robert Mac
Stand-up comedian and comedy teacher
Where to hear and read about Robert Mac1 episode or test
Robert Mac is a stand-up comedian who teaches comedy and speaks at conferences about humor in the workplace. The one thing most worth learning from him is to build every joke on a true observation, lead the audience one way, and choose each word so the punchline sends them another.
you get reality and look at it from a skewed point of view
Master Comedian Breaks Down 13 Jokes — Robert Mac
Robert Mac: the story and the lessons
1Who Robert Mac is and how he teaches comedy
Mac treats comedy as a craft of writing that can be taught. He teaches how laughter evolved, then filters such as hyperbole, misdirection and misplaced focus. His process is to observe, write it down, then rebuild it with truth plus interest.
Comedy is about writing for him, though he says that for others it is about performing. He also speaks at conferences about humor in the workplace.
Mac grew up on Steven Wright, Steve Martin and Monty Python. Wright was the first live comedian he saw. Wright wore a crumpled shirt and mumbled, the opposite of the tuxedoed Vegas comic.
Mac now uses self-contained one-liners from Wright and Mitch Hedberg to teach, because they are short enough to take apart quickly.
Mac says laughter comes from holding two ideas at once. He says laughter may have started as a signal that a threat was not real, as in play fighting, where one part of the brain sees a fight and another sees practice.
Laughing at something also gives you a little control over it, so it feels less daunting.
Mac says skill comes from practice and a second pair of eyes. New comics should watch and read comedy, and get someone else to look at their work for blind spots.
He says timing can't be taught, but good writing leads the audience where you want them to go.
2How Robert Mac builds a joke
Mac starts every joke from a kernel of truth. He calls it the number one rule of comedy: take reality and look at it from a skewed angle. The surprise of that angle is the laugh.
He shows it with Mitch Hedberg's "I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too," which holds two true thoughts in two sentences.
Mac sets up a pattern the audience expects, then breaks it. He calls pattern recognition the hidden secret of comedy. Plant clues that point one way so the audience finishes the sentence in their heads, then land somewhere else.
In Red Buttons' "Never raise your hands to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected," the setup sounds like child safety.
Mac makes the image vivid so the line sticks. "My mother-in-law is large" is forgettable. "She weighs a thousand pounds" gives a picture that people remember.
He says many jokes fail because the image is never made concrete.
Mac tests each word to find the one that carries both meanings. In his nurse joke, "outfit" fits both the bedroom reading and the going-to-work reading. "Costume" tips toward Halloween and "uniform" is too serious.
The joke is: "My favorite thing in the bedroom is when she puts on her nurse outfit and leaves for work without waking me up."
Mac never reveals the switch before the punchline. He tests a joke by rewriting it so it stops working. If the Bible vs Harry Potter joke named the Bible first, the surprise is gone.
The wording should let the audience assume only one thing until the last beat.
Mac uses the rule of three and makes the third item break the pattern. One example is no pattern, two might be, and three definitely is. The first two set the mold and the third goes off the rails.
His example is an infographic comparing a marathon, Everest, and crawling under a desk to plug in a cable.
Mac leaves a pause where the meaning could turn. Words that look innocent on the page change meaning with a pause, so timing is part of the writing.
A groom says "We're expecting..." and the audience hears baby before he finishes "everyone here to have a great time tonight."
Mac picks objects for a joke on purpose, not at random. Animal crackers work because "seal" means both the package and the animal, and graham crackers would not.
Milk would turn the joke disgusting rather than playful, which brings in a fear of getting sick.
3Mac on tension, losers and letting the audience finish the joke
Mac builds tension first, then releases it with the punchline. He told the nurse outfit joke at a formal 75th birthday party for a retiring military man, with grandparents and kids in the room, and it got a big laugh.
The sharper the tension, the bigger the release. He credits Freud as one of the first to discuss laughter as released tension.
Mac writes so the audience reaches the punchline themselves. In the animal crackers joke, the audience supplies "the seal was broken" without being told. Solving it makes them feel like insiders and more invested.
Those who have to ask for an explanation feel left out.
Mac puts the ugly part of a story in a character's mouth. In Louis C.K.'s 24-second cab driver story, the cruel line belongs to the driver. People can be angry at the puppet instead of the writer.
The setup is only a sentence or two: New York, a cab, a man from another culture.
Mac says winning isn't funny, so give your story a loser. He cites Charles Schulz: someone who always wins has no conflict. Audiences connect with the underdog and the visible flaw.
He says comics who name a flaw such as a weird voice or extra weight win the room in about 20 seconds. Chris Rock's later material about private school and a gated community was harder to connect with than his everyman work.
4How Robert Mac reads an audience, and what he learned from bombing
Mac calls knowing your audience rule number one. Find out who they are, what they grew up with and what patterns they think in. Once you connect, you can take them anywhere without explaining the background.
His Road Runner joke gets a laugh every time, but it got zero from Indian-American businessmen at a fundraiser for a Maryland lieutenant governor candidate. He had asked about them beforehand and assumed they would get everything. The zero shook his confidence and he had to win them back.
Mac plants the background a joke needs before the punchline. The Notorious B.I.G. "medium" joke only works if people know both meanings. Seeding the fact earlier in the set puts it in their heads when the line arrives.
Otherwise, he says, the only way to fix such a joke is to ruin it by explaining it.
Mac adjusts references to the age and place of the crowd. He is older than many crowds, so a Princess Diana or Eartha Kitt reference may get blank looks while Beyoncé works.
One line of setup can replace missing background, such as noting a president who might have been assassinated during a play.
Mac says bombing feels like not existing, and the next show is the cure. When even your best jokes fail, you feel you don't exist. At an MGM resort suite 18 floors up, he couldn't make eye contact and wondered if the windows opened.
He splits the blame with the crowd, since TVs, music, a surprise show or birthday cake can sink jokes that worked thousands of times. He still says half is on him, because he should connect first.
5Robert Mac's daily writing process
Mac notices a small annoyance, exaggerates it, then gives it a name. His steps are notice it, exaggerate it, then present it so it entertains. Naming it gives people a handle for something they have felt but never put into words.
He points to Larry David, who he says made this move about 150 times, with the close talker and the low talker. He says Seinfeld ties good comedy to being constantly irritable and sensitive.
Mac writes odd observations down the moment he notices them. He jots them down or dictates them into his phone and keeps a notebook. Capturing the premise is enough, and the joke can come later.
Scrolling with his thumb gave him "what if there was an internet just for dogs?", which is still a note in his notebook.
Mac free writes on a note every day until the joke shows up. He has a daily writing time. He picks a note, such as a dog in a prettier sweater than its owner, and writes everything that comes to mind.
He compares it to making a collage of words. Some connections work and some don't, but writing generates new ideas.
Mac tells only the important things that happen in a story. He repeats a UCLA professor's rule that a story is only what keeps the plot going. Share the minimum needed to get the listener's buy-in.
A friend who drove Bob Dylan in a limo buried it under why the regular driver called in sick, and lost the story.
Mac pushes back on "cut details" and keeps the ones the payoff needs. Details paint the picture, and some punchlines only work because of a specific one. A war story can skip them because the setting does the work.
He says a joke starts with a nebulous setup and the punchline is very specific.
Master Comedian Breaks Down 13 Jokes — Robert Mac
Robert Mac takes apart a dozen jokes by Mitch Hedberg, Steven Wright, Seinfeld and others to show how comic writing works: start from a true observation, set a pattern, then turn it. The technique worth hearing is choosing every word and detail so the audience walks one way and the punchline sends them another.
Mac treats comedy as a craft of writing that can be taught. He teaches how laughter evolved, then filters such as hyperbole, misdirection and misplaced focus. His process is to observe, write it down, then rebuild it with truth plus interest.
Comedy is about writing for him, though he says that for others it is about performing. He also speaks at conferences about humor in the workplace.
Mac grew up on Steven Wright, Steve Martin and Monty Python. Wright was the first live comedian he saw. Wright wore a crumpled shirt and mumbled, the opposite of the tuxedoed Vegas comic.
Mac now uses self-contained one-liners from Wright and Mitch Hedberg to teach, because they are short enough to take apart quickly.
Mac says laughter comes from holding two ideas at once. He says laughter may have started as a signal that a threat was not real, as in play fighting, where one part of the brain sees a fight and another sees practice.
Laughing at something also gives you a little control over it, so it feels less daunting.
Mac says skill comes from practice and a second pair of eyes. New comics should watch and read comedy, and get someone else to look at their work for blind spots.
He says timing can't be taught, but good writing leads the audience where you want them to go.
Mac starts every joke from a kernel of truth. He calls it the number one rule of comedy: take reality and look at it from a skewed angle. The surprise of that angle is the laugh.
He shows it with Mitch Hedberg's "I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too," which holds two true thoughts in two sentences.
Mac sets up a pattern the audience expects, then breaks it. He calls pattern recognition the hidden secret of comedy. Plant clues that point one way so the audience finishes the sentence in their heads, then land somewhere else.
In Red Buttons' "Never raise your hands to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected," the setup sounds like child safety.
Mac makes the image vivid so the line sticks. "My mother-in-law is large" is forgettable. "She weighs a thousand pounds" gives a picture that people remember.
He says many jokes fail because the image is never made concrete.
Mac tests each word to find the one that carries both meanings. In his nurse joke, "outfit" fits both the bedroom reading and the going-to-work reading. "Costume" tips toward Halloween and "uniform" is too serious.
The joke is: "My favorite thing in the bedroom is when she puts on her nurse outfit and leaves for work without waking me up."
Mac never reveals the switch before the punchline. He tests a joke by rewriting it so it stops working. If the Bible vs Harry Potter joke named the Bible first, the surprise is gone.
The wording should let the audience assume only one thing until the last beat.
Mac uses the rule of three and makes the third item break the pattern. One example is no pattern, two might be, and three definitely is. The first two set the mold and the third goes off the rails.
His example is an infographic comparing a marathon, Everest, and crawling under a desk to plug in a cable.
Mac leaves a pause where the meaning could turn. Words that look innocent on the page change meaning with a pause, so timing is part of the writing.
A groom says "We're expecting..." and the audience hears baby before he finishes "everyone here to have a great time tonight."
Mac picks objects for a joke on purpose, not at random. Animal crackers work because "seal" means both the package and the animal, and graham crackers would not.
Milk would turn the joke disgusting rather than playful, which brings in a fear of getting sick.
Mac builds tension first, then releases it with the punchline. He told the nurse outfit joke at a formal 75th birthday party for a retiring military man, with grandparents and kids in the room, and it got a big laugh.
The sharper the tension, the bigger the release. He credits Freud as one of the first to discuss laughter as released tension.
Mac writes so the audience reaches the punchline themselves. In the animal crackers joke, the audience supplies "the seal was broken" without being told. Solving it makes them feel like insiders and more invested.
Those who have to ask for an explanation feel left out.
Mac puts the ugly part of a story in a character's mouth. In Louis C.K.'s 24-second cab driver story, the cruel line belongs to the driver. People can be angry at the puppet instead of the writer.
The setup is only a sentence or two: New York, a cab, a man from another culture.
Mac says winning isn't funny, so give your story a loser. He cites Charles Schulz: someone who always wins has no conflict. Audiences connect with the underdog and the visible flaw.
He says comics who name a flaw such as a weird voice or extra weight win the room in about 20 seconds. Chris Rock's later material about private school and a gated community was harder to connect with than his everyman work.
Mac calls knowing your audience rule number one. Find out who they are, what they grew up with and what patterns they think in. Once you connect, you can take them anywhere without explaining the background.
His Road Runner joke gets a laugh every time, but it got zero from Indian-American businessmen at a fundraiser for a Maryland lieutenant governor candidate. He had asked about them beforehand and assumed they would get everything. The zero shook his confidence and he had to win them back.
Mac plants the background a joke needs before the punchline. The Notorious B.I.G. "medium" joke only works if people know both meanings. Seeding the fact earlier in the set puts it in their heads when the line arrives.
Otherwise, he says, the only way to fix such a joke is to ruin it by explaining it.
Mac adjusts references to the age and place of the crowd. He is older than many crowds, so a Princess Diana or Eartha Kitt reference may get blank looks while Beyoncé works.
One line of setup can replace missing background, such as noting a president who might have been assassinated during a play.
Mac says bombing feels like not existing, and the next show is the cure. When even your best jokes fail, you feel you don't exist. At an MGM resort suite 18 floors up, he couldn't make eye contact and wondered if the windows opened.
He splits the blame with the crowd, since TVs, music, a surprise show or birthday cake can sink jokes that worked thousands of times. He still says half is on him, because he should connect first.
Mac notices a small annoyance, exaggerates it, then gives it a name. His steps are notice it, exaggerate it, then present it so it entertains. Naming it gives people a handle for something they have felt but never put into words.
He points to Larry David, who he says made this move about 150 times, with the close talker and the low talker. He says Seinfeld ties good comedy to being constantly irritable and sensitive.
Mac writes odd observations down the moment he notices them. He jots them down or dictates them into his phone and keeps a notebook. Capturing the premise is enough, and the joke can come later.
Scrolling with his thumb gave him "what if there was an internet just for dogs?", which is still a note in his notebook.
Mac free writes on a note every day until the joke shows up. He has a daily writing time. He picks a note, such as a dog in a prettier sweater than its owner, and writes everything that comes to mind.
He compares it to making a collage of words. Some connections work and some don't, but writing generates new ideas.
Mac tells only the important things that happen in a story. He repeats a UCLA professor's rule that a story is only what keeps the plot going. Share the minimum needed to get the listener's buy-in.
A friend who drove Bob Dylan in a limo buried it under why the regular driver called in sick, and lost the story.
Mac pushes back on "cut details" and keeps the ones the payoff needs. Details paint the picture, and some punchlines only work because of a specific one. A war story can skip them because the setting does the work.
He says a joke starts with a nebulous setup and the punchline is very specific.