Lesson 26 · Conversation moves · 5 min · Self-roast
The save: when a joke bombs
How to turn silence into the biggest laugh of the night
The big ideaEvery funny person bombs. What separates them is the save: acknowledging the miss quickly and lightly, which often gets a bigger laugh than the original joke would have.
Watch the pro do it
Watch forCarson's monologue starts rough, and he leans into it instead of hiding it. Watch his reactions when a joke dies: the look, the pause, the line that admits it. The audience ends up rooting for him.
Via Johnny Carson on YouTube
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