Comedy by the Numbers: The 169 Secrets of Humor and Popularity
by Eric Hoffman and Gary Rudoren
McSweeney's Publishing

When you hang out with someone who's in the business of being funny, you soon understand that this is an extraordinarily mixed blessing. On one hand, they often say very funny things. On the other hand, rather than laugh at funny things said by other people, the professional comedian is much more prone to say: "that was funny." Even worse and perhaps more typically, he or she might even say: "that was quite funny because of X, but if Y had been just a little bit more Z, it would've killed."

Now with the debut of Comedy By the Numbers, we can all enjoy both the prickly irritation and gut-busting guffaws of hanging out with funny people as they talk shop.

A comedy manual disguised as a parody disguised as a comedy manual, Comedy By the Numbers presents 169 rules of comedy, richly larded with examples and amusing clip art. It breaks things down with admirable mock clarity. The case studies look a little something like this:

9 Boogers and Boners

10 Bravado / Snobbery

12 British Humour

19 Contact with Something That Isn't Dry

20 Contact with Something That Is Very Hot

22 "Cringe" Comedy

36 Dwarfs, Midgets and the Like

71 Mickey Rooney

113 Retards / Mentally Challenged

And so on.

Written in the voice of a modestly successful idiot comedian informing aspiring idiot comedians, the book spends equal time getting in sly digs and firing off over-the-top Neil Hamburger-style anti-comedy.

For example, an entry on "Anger Faces":

YOU CAN EASILY WORK ON THIS IN FRONT OF YOUR HOME MIRROR

Begin by lowering your eyebrows. Now try one eyebrow down and one up. Now narrow your eyes — squint, even. Frown a little. Bare your teeth. Shake your head slightly. Now shake your head a lot. Throw in a "grrr!" noise. There are endless variations!

SITUATIONS WHERE YOU CAN PRACTICE YOUR "ANGER FACE"

* When someone pees too close to you at the trough in the ballpark men's room.
* After an old lady in front of you has 13 items in the 12 item express line.
* After a drug deal goes poorly for you.
* When your doctor tells you that you have ball cancer.
* After you get really raped.
* After your wife scratches your new car with the metal studs sewn onto her jeans.

To assess each list item in order: Tame, really tame, implausible therefore funny, kind of tragic and therefore inappropriately jocular, outrageously and seriously out of line, tame. A lot of careful thought went into that list in order to impersonate a kind of thinking about comedy that is not merely sloppy, but is actively deranged. Quite a lot of the rest of the book proceeds along these lines.

The nesting doll of perspectives that inform most of the entries means that the book's a hodgepodge, both in terms of approach and results, but its impressive breadth and dogged willingness to take comedic risks means that the total number of laughs-per-book is pretty damned solid. And there's certainly a case to be made that the book actually imparts some fairly insightful lessons on the relationship between craft and comedy. Sometimes, yes: It's funny to watch fat people exercise. Keeping your pinky up while drinking tea is entertaining. Stepping on a rake so that the handle hits your face is essential physical comedy. Old people are funny doing both old people things (bitching and complaining) and young people things (breakdancing, having an erection). The best comedians out there utilize tried-and-true comic situations and methods (which are admirably and explicitly sent up and documented in Comedy By the Numbers) in combination with brilliant shifts of context and satirical elements (demonstrated by the book's subtext and backhanded wit).

Produced and supported by some ill-defined McSweeney's/Bob Odenkirk/Dave Eggers consortium and written by folks connected to Mr. Show and Annoyance Theater, Comedy By the Numbers has many of the delightful surprises and killer lines that one would expect from such a convergence of talent and/or snark. And if you read it carefully enough, you might just learn something.

— James Norton (jim@flakmag.com)