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I am pretty funny guy. You know how I know I am funny guy? Because my 2 year old thinks I am hilarious! All I have to do is fall over or drop something and he is in histerics and laughing his head off. He thinks I am funniest guy in the world.
So when I get up in front of people, I’m just going to fall over and have the audience in tears of laughter? Not going to happen!
But today I do want to talk about how to make your own funny public speaking jokes. I do believe that lot of the public speaking jokes that people are using jokes of the internet just aren’t very funny. They are very corny and they are very awkward for the audience.
A joke is very important when placed in public speech because it needs to work and if it fails you need to have a backup plan. How can we create our own funny public speaking jokes, even if we aren’t usually that funny?
Funny Public Speaking Jokes Often Come From Revealing The Unexpected
Why is a that might two year old laughs at me when I fall over or want to drop something? And why is that six month baby laugh will at me when I play pekaboo?
It’s because something happens that they weren’t expecting. A lot of comedy comes from people doing things that are unexpected.
I was doing some research for the blog and was searching for “worst public speeches ever” for this article and there was one video that a kid has posted on Youtube of his graduation speech which was actually pretty good (see video below).
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He used lot of humour in his speech and he was very clever in humour that he used. In the speech he was talking about his heroes – people like Einstein and Martin Luther King Jr. and then he goes on to say Tupac and Barney – the purple dinosaur.
So we are thinking he is giving his inspirational speech but then he throws in funny characters at the end – the rapper and purple dinosaur that you watched as kids.
It’s unexpected and so therefore it’s quite humorous.
Can You Add The Unexpected Into Your Speech?
So what you can do if you want to create your own funny public speaking jokes is to tell a story but with an unexpected and humorous outcome.
It’s not necessarily a joke. “Knock! Knock! Who’s there?” but it’s a story that produces laughter.
So whenever you are telling a story try and think of ways that you can add in things that are unexpected to the audience so that you may be get some laughter.
Make A Joke At Your Own Expense
Another thing to do is to make a joke on your own expense.
I always advise against making jokes at other people’s expense when you giving a public speech or presentation especially people who are in the room. Don’t make jokes on your company’s expense because more often or not people will take offence.
One of my mentors made this mistake massively! He was a youth Paster at the church I used to go to and we have a big youth event where over 300 kids came.
He was up in front of the people and he was speaking to the audience and he starts ripping into Anthony Mundine (who is a Australian Rugby league player who has turned into a boxer). Some people love him, other people hate him.
So he is ripping into Mundine and making fun of this guy not knowing that Anthony Mundine’s cousin was sitting in the audience. As you can imagine it was very awkward for him after he discovered this.
So always avoid offending other people, but making fun on your own expense is always a great thing to do. If you laugh then other people will laugh at (and with) you.
Make Jokes As Passing Comments
You may want to make jokes as passing comments. So rather than making a joke and waiting for laughter make a joke but have a way to roll on for that joke.
So if people laugh then you can stop and you can let them laugh but if people don’t laugh you don’t have that awkward silence that kills your speech.
So try and do it as a rolling comment, try and have something that flows off to your joke that even if your joke fails it going to work as your back up system and it means that still adds value to your talk.
Make Your Jokes Relatable
Make your jokes relatable to the people in the audience. Make it so they can relate with the situation.
For example, if you are a high school student graduating then tell jokes that things that you did during your high school years. Don’t tell jokes about things that are in your personnel life that the audiences doesn’t have any connection with.
If there is already that relatability, if a person already understands the situation, then if you put a comical spin (remember…use the unexpected) on that situation then it can be much more humorous.
So I hope that this has helped to give you some ideas that how you can create your own funny jokes when you are giving a public speech.
