Being Funny By Steve Martin

I leaned in and placed my nose on the mike for a few long seconds. Then I stopped and took several bows, saying, "Thank you very much." "That's it?" they thought. Yes, that was it. The laugh came not then, but only after they realized I had already moved on to the next bit.

Now that I had assigned myself to an act without jokes, I gave myself a rule. Never let them know I was bombing: this is funny, you just haven't gotten it yet. If I wasn't offering punch lines, I'd never be standing there with egg on my face. It was essential that I never show doubt about what I was doing. I would move through my act without pausing for the laugh, as though everything were an aside. Eventually, I thought, the laughs would be playing catch-up to what I was doing. Everything would be either delivered in passing, or the opposite, an elaborate presentation that climaxed in pointlessness. Another rule was to make the audience believe that I thought I was fantastic, that my confidence could not be shattered. They had to believe that I didn't care if they laughed at all and that this act was going on with or without them.

I was having trouble ending my show. I thought, "Why not make a virtue of it?" I started closing with extended bowing, as though I heard heavy applause. I kept insisting that I needed to "beg off." No, nothing, not even this ovation I am imagining, can make me stay. My goal was to make the audience laugh but leave them unable to describe what it was that had made them laugh. In other words, like the helpless state of giddiness experienced by close friends tuned in to each other's sense of humor, you had to be there.

At least that was the theory. And for the next eight years, I rolled it up a hill like Sisyphus.

My first reviews came in. One said, "This so-called 'comedian' should be told that jokes are supposed to have punch lines." Another said I represented "the most serious booking error in the history of Los Angeles music."

"Wait," I thought, "let me explain my theory!"

In Los Angeles, there were an exploding number of afternoon television talk shows: "The Della Reese Show," "The Merv Griffin Show," "The Virginia Graham Show," "The Dinah Shore Show," "The Mike Douglas Show" and my favorite, "The Steve Allen Show." Steve Allen had a vibrant comedy spirit, and you might catch him playing Ping-Pong while suspended from a crane a hundred feet in the air, or becoming a human tea bag by dropping himself in a tank of water filled with lemons. In his standard studio audience warm-up, when he was asked, "Do they get this show in Omaha?" Steve would answer, "They see it, but they don't get it."

On May 6, 1969, I wangled an audition for Steve Allen's two producers, Elias Davis and David Pollock. They accepted me with more ease than I expected, and for my first appearance on "The Steve Allen Show"-which was also my first appearance on television as a stand-up-I wore black pants and a bright blue marching-band coat I had picked up in a San Francisco thrift shop. Steve's introduction of me was ad-libbed perfectly. "This next young man is a comedian, and..." he stammered, "...at first you might not get it"-he stammered again-"but then you think about it for a while, and you still don't get it"-stammer, stammer-"then, you might want to come up onstage and talk to him about it."

The "Steve Allen" appearance went well-he loved the offbeat, and his cackle was enough to make any comedian feel confident. Seated on the sofa, though, I was hammered by another guest, Morey Amsterdam of "The Dick Van Dyke Show," for being unconventional. But I bore no grudge; I was so naive I didn't even know I had been insulted. The "Steve Allen" credit opened a few doors, and I bounced around all of the afternoon shows, juggling material, trying not to repeat myself.

I recently viewed a musty video of an appearance on "The Virginia Graham Show," circa 1970. I looked grotesque. I had a hairdo like a helmet, which I blow-dried to a puffy bouffant, for reasons I no longer understand. I wore a frock coat and a silk shirt, and my delivery was mannered, slow and self-aware. I had absolutely no authority. After reviewing the show, I was depressed for a week. But later, searching my mind for at least one redeeming quality in the performance, I became aware that not one joke was normal, that even though I was the one who said the lines, I did not know what was coming next. The audience might have thought what I am thinking now: "Was that terrible? Or was it good?"