I don't think there's a punch-line scheduled, is there?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The comedian can put the punchline out there, but it's the audience that receives it - and has to get it.
There's no idea or concept in comedy you could do that hasn't been attacked from some angle. But if you start leaving punchlines out so you'll look cool, I don't get that. But I don't watch standup anyway, so I don't know what they're doing.
I don't write punch lines.
I was notified on July 17 to be ready to start August 7 for an October air date. When we reached the screen we did not have a single segment ready. It was done so fast the writers never got a chance to know what it was all about.
I had written in another draft a completely different kind of fight, but they said they couldn't afford to shoot it. They needed a fight scene, though, so I was told to put a fight scene in, but not the one I had written.
I'm happy to report that everybody whose face I've wanted to punch on Earth has already been punched.
It's a very long and difficult schedule on a single-camera show.
I realized that comedians of the day were operating on jokes and punch lines. The moment you say the punch line, the audience either laughs sincerely or they laugh automatically or they don't laugh. The thing that bothered me was that automatic laugh. I said, that's not real laughter.
Shows have asked a lot of actors to take cuts. Shows are going off the air. So okay, life goes on.
Never go for the punch line. There might be something funnier on the way.