Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #487: Jokes Aren’t Funny

Radio has changed quite a bit over the last 20 years. Social media, instant access to information through your cell phone, nine thousand channels and video streaming sources have changed subject matter and how it’s delivered.

But radio is still capable of being the most personal medium there is. However, if I had to choose one thing to tell you, it would be “Jokes aren’t funny anymore.”

It’s hard to try to be funny when comedy is so readily available. Turn on the TV and you can almost always find Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, Modern Family…and the list goes on forever. There are clips of every comic ever born on You Tube, too.

So, don’t do “jokes”. Do LIFE. What makes people laugh is always just what they can see themselves doing, or someone they know. People are just flat out funny – whether they mean to be or not. Once in Dallas when rain was pouring down, my morning show partner Rick “The Beamer” Robertson and I used “Singin’ in the Rain” instead of the Weather jingle bed to do the forecast over, and at the end, we broke into song.

A few minutes later, his mother called, and said, “Rick, you’re funny, honey; you really are…but let Tommy do the singing!”

Rick reacted like an eight-year old, “Aww, mom…”

Now THAT was funny.