Two Plus Two Not Knowing What The F**k It Is B*tch: Big-small Comedy in Stories

Get BIG laughs in your stories playing the big-small game

Hello stand-up comedian (and anyone else who wants to write funny).

In my previous post I explored how you can use the sudden switch from small to BIG in quick jokes.

In this week’s post, we’re focusing on how you can create laughs throughout a story playing the big-small game and we’ll analyse a classic example from Kevin Hart.

By the end of this post you’ll have clear ideas for how to funny up a story with big-small thinking.

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💡 COMEDY TIP

Last week, I explored how you can jump from small to big. You can also jump from big to small (or maybe ‘drop’ from big to small). This is undercutting.

And generally having something big in tension with something small – and vice-versa – is a game you can use a lot in your comedy. You probably already do, but maybe you haven’t looked at it in this way before.

I capture all the variations of this under the heading Big-Small.

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Kevin Hart swears at his teacher

A wonderful story I love returning to in my stand-up coaching is Kevin Hart swearing at his teacher. He gets BIG laughs throughout and it builds up to a hilarious climax. If you don’t know the story you can watch it here.

Why it works

A big part of what makes the story work so well is how Hart brings it to life through act-outs. By showing us rather than just telling us what happened, he gets to portray characters, show all the emotions and create mental images for the audience. Then there is the fact that he uses misdirection and big-small, which I’ll take in turn.

Misdirection in storytelling

In my previous post we saw misdirection in action in a great one-liner from Emo Philips. And it’s in the realm of one-liners that misdirection is most often discussed. But the Kevin Hart tale is a great example of it being deployed across the longer form of a story.

In the story, Kevin’s mother is annoyed at his teacher and gives Kevin a message to say to her. He is to tell his teacher that she should, “mind her damn business, before I come down there and I beat her ass”.

Kevin can’t believe what he’s hearing and double checks: “Do you want me to say it like that? Or do you want me to take some stuff out?” His mother confirms, “Tell her to mind her damn business, before I come down there and I beat her ass!”

Checking that he has the wording exactly right and that he has his mother’s permission to say “damn” and “ass” to his teacher is the beginning of the misdirection. Given this concern, we don't expect his joyful, unbridled swearing we get at the end. The build up of the story repeatedly misdirects the audience in this way.

Next he explains how he rehearsed while looking in the mirror. As he acts out doing so, he critiques himself for being “too loud” and “not believable,” once again misdirecting as he aims for a contained delivery, using the words his mother gave him.

This serious focus is reinforced throughout the story (for example when he contains himself when his exuberant friends greet him). Ultimately, with the audience expectation of how he’ll speak to his teacher firmly established, the schoolboy Hart abandons his mother’s script and unleashes a massive string of colourful profanity.

I don’t know how much swearing you like in your posts, but just in case it’s ‘not too much’ I have coyly applied some asterisks. Please see the above video for the swearing in all its glory! His barrage of swearing begins:

“Mind your damn motherfu**ing business, b*tch. Little stupid, b*tch. Teacher, b*tch. Two plus two not knowing what the f**k it is b*tch...”.

If instead he said something like, “Oh my God, I was in bed wriggling with excitement. I can’t believe it. I’m going to swear at the teacher! I was like almost wetting myself with excitement”, he’d probably still get laughs with his volley of swearing at the end, but less so as he wouldn’t have misdirected. And he’d have missed out on all the big-small laughs along the way which is where we turn next.

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Big-small in storytelling

Let’s briefly detour. I did a free 15 minute one-to-one stand-up coaching session on Zoom this week with a new(ish) comic from Germany. Even though the example gig video she sent me was in German (and the only German I know is ‘nein’) you didn’t need to be a comedy expert to see her main issue. Anyone could see that she did a lot of talk before she eventually got a laugh.

Have you ever done this? Launched into your lengthy build up, feeling the audience’s eyes glazing over and their ears…. what?… waxing over?

Turns out she does a lot of storytelling and it’s a classic case of the audience having to digest a lot of set-up information before getting one big laugh at the end. (And when the laugh turns out not to be so big, the audience feel cheated given the investment they’ve put in).

The first question to ask is:

Is all this information needed for them to get the funny thing that’s coming at the end of this story?

Usually the answer is ‘no’ and it’s then a case of identifying what IS needed and cutting the rest.

My German client said that all of that build up was necessary (and I couldn’t argue back as I don’t speak German) so then it becomes a case of injecting some funny into those long build-ups.

(By the way, for future hour-long paid for sessions we’ll work on her stand-up in English then she’ll perform it in German. Yes, my comedy empire is stretching beyond the English speaking world! For example, I already do this process with a comic in Pakistan comic who performs in Urdu).

Getting laughs in her build ups, is where we turn to big-small and back to Kevin Hart. (Having brought in this German comic, I was tempted to illustrate this post with an image of Kevin Hart where, as well as his trademark leather jacket, he’s wearing a pair of leather Lederhosen. But I decided not to add to the tidal wave of AI slop).

Why is big-small a good way of finding the funny in a story?
When you’re telling a story, very often something big happens or there is something big at stake. Where this is the case, a natural place to look for laughs is the big-small game - in this case you’re in a big world and you’re bringing the small into it - it’s undercutting, which I’ll return to in a future post.

In Hart’s story, the world and the stakes are relatively small, so it’s a case of being in a small world and bringing the big to it, which Hart does this repeatedly.

A very helpful question with stand-up is to ask, “why am I telling this story now?” If you can set it up with something that is apparently on your mind right now, it’ll make the switch to the past to tell the story more natural.

Hart does this and also takes the first opportunity to get a big-small laugh. His starting point is “the other day” his daughter swore for the first time. He says:

“My daughter cursed for the first time the other day. I didn’t get mad. We were watching SpongeBob, right? Something happened to Patrick. Out of nowhere, she got mad. She was like, ‘SHIT!!!’”

Here, Hart establishes a natural, conversational reason for why this story is on his mind right now. And it’s big-small. His daughter, a small girl watching a children’s TV show has a big, sweary reaction.

Hart explains that he “didn’t get an attitude” with is daughter because he remembers his “first time cussing”. Initially, he tells us about how his mother smacked him in front of friends who were over at their house. Once alone, he screams: “you gonna smack me, b*tch? In front of my friends!”

It’s another big-small moment. He’s a little kid who’s been smacked by his mum, and he’s talking like an adult in a very gangsta way. Next he says that he thought:

“’I’m running away, that’s it! I pack the bag and everything’. You know how many times I pack the bag with a toy? I pack the bag with one toy. ‘I’m out. I’m sick of it. Me and He-Man are out’.”

Again, it’s the big-small thing. He’s a small boy not capable of running away and fending for himself, but he acts like he’s big enough to do so. And he adds to the comedy by being specific: the toy is a “He-Man”. Stand-up is so often about the specific detail.

So the whole topic is kids swearing. Firstly, it’s present day. Then he goes back into the past. He makes all of this set-up funny (in large part by big-smalling – yes it’s become a verb) so by the time he gets to the hook of the story - “My mom gave me permission to cuss one time” - we’ve already had loads of laughs.

And again, this main part of the story is a big-small thing. He’s a small kid who’s going to swear at his teacher, but his whole attitude is like an adult.

It’s the serious, big attitude, he takes to it:

“I’ve got to get an early night. I’ve got a big day ahead of me.”

He talks about needing to “go over my lines” and get “an early night”. He tells his friends on the bus, that he has “a lot of stuff on my mind” and “needs to concentrate.”

Not at all like a child who has been given permission to swear at their teacher! He’s acting more like an adult with a work presentation. Having that adult attitude to the childish thing, not only misdirects but creates comedy throughout.

It’s a real masterclass in storytelling. It could be 100% fictional, but it feels like it’s based on a true story. But the true story is just the starting point. You do a lot of things to it to make it really funny when you when you tell it on stage – and big-small can be a big part of it.

Here is a video with my commentary (taken from my stand-up comedy material generation classes on Zoom) on how Kevin Hart deploys these stand-up storytelling techniques.

Speaking about school and the German language, I actually do know more than just ‘nein’. My friend James Pigott at school taught me this German phrase and for some reason I’ve never forgotten it: “die tasse kaffee ist zwei kilometer von der stadtzentrum”. (The cup of coffee is two kilometres from the town centre).*

*Yes it’s a callback to end the post. A classic device.

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Try it!

Big-small

Did you try and do something grown up as a child that could become a stand-up story? Perhaps you come out the winner like Hart does, or it all backfires on you.

Either way, the fun is in the child version of you taking on adult behaviours and attitudes.

Misdirection

In this story - or any other you’re working on - once you know where it’s all building to:

• hide where it’s going!

• even better, make the audience assume it’s going somewhere and totally surprise them.

You do this by building in misdirection.

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Over to you

Do you have this issue of long build ups lacking in laughs?

Leave a comment below and share your favourite examples of stand-up storytelling, especially if there is a misdirection or big-small dimensions.

Finally, there are stand-up gigs in Germany where they perform in English. Indeed, I coach a German comic who performs in English, German and Spanish – not usually in the same gig! (He finds he’s funniest in Spanish.)

Do also share a clip of a comic not performing in their first language.

And if you do want to share an AI image of Kevin Hart in Lederhosen, I won’t stop you.

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Plugs

If you’d like a free 15 mins consultation on your stand-up, you can book here.

My next Stand-up Comedy Generation Course on Zoom starts in September.

Here’s my book on stand-up.

And my latest book The Complete Comedy Script Toolkit (includes how you can use misdirection and big-small in your comedy scripts):

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Small-to-big in quick jokes