I teach two classes back to back on Tuesday and Thursday and it's vitally important to keep the two in sync... for their sake so they get the same info and for my sake to make the second class easier. I basically rewind the video tape of my mind and replay it. I even repeat the same jokes. Often they fall flat the second time but if you do it right you get the same laugh or even a better one the second time.
One joke that always works is when playing music by the artist "50 cent". I pronounce it very prim and proper "fifty cent"... that gets a chuckle from the peanut gallery cause it's "fiddy cent" really. Then I ask why they're laughing and let them explain it to me and act all confused, like I just fell off the turnip truck. Basically playing the fool for their entertainment. The sharper ones get that I'm dead panning but a lot of them get to feel like they're educating the teacher, which must be a good feeling. Educating me to pronunce fifty wrong. Just what I needed.
Actually a lot of my humor is based on dead pan. Like a student had a box of pizza on which he had written "don't eat or I will kill you". He was eating from it at lunch and I said "that's probably not a good idea.... you're taking your life in your hands... someone wrote they'll kill the eater of that pizza". He says "I wrote that" and I go "oh, really?" I don't know why people thinking I'm really dumb or weird equates to funny for me, but it surely does. Actually there again the savvy students knew I was fucking with him so it must be funny to someone who is not me.
Another surefire laugh is saying in a very erudite voice "and after completing the assignment one may choose to spit some dope ass rhymes over the resultant file".
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In my hands deadpan comes off as sarcasm and secret nastiness, so I stick with slapstick, big effects, and weird jokes people at least know are intended as jokes, more like the last one you cite.
ReplyDeleteI like the Fiddy Cent story--learn something new every day.