President's Tip of the Week

Humorous Speaking Technique: The Callback
(8/5/08)

Jason Peck, an award-winning humorist, professional speaker and public speaking consultant, shares this tip on his Pro Humorist blog:

"...a callback is repeating a joke verbatim, or paraphrasing a joke, that got a laugh earlier in your speech or comedy routine. This is a standard technique that a lot of comedians and humorists use.

"If you want to callback to a line make sure that you refer back to a line that has previously gotten laughs. Work your funny speech through a number of times and then you'll know where the laughs are. Later on in your speech you can see if there's a natural place to refer back to a line that you got a laugh on.

"Whatever you do, don't force the callback otherwise it won't make any sense and you run the risk of alienating your listeners."

You can read Jason's entire entry here.

If you were at our 30th anniversary banquet for Carolan's "dead speech", you heard a great use of the call back. Early in the speech, Carolan made a joke about looking good, just like people say the deceased look at a funeral. She got a great laugh for that. Any wonder that in the final sentence of her speech, she used a callback to that very line? And is it any wonder, with this savvy writing, that she won the regional humorous speaking contest? Nope! Use callbacks in your humorous speech and sound like a pro!