Spring 2026 Comedy Writings

 

Unfunny Cantaloupes

By Paige Murray

 

My mind is blank. I don't know how to be funny. My momma says it's in my jeans. Wait. That’s not right. Genes–there we go.

Anyway, my father and his father before him, and his father before him, and his father before him, and his father before him, and his–well you get the gist. They were all comedic in some type of way. Some did stand up comedy, some wrote stories, some wrote joke books, some wrote scripts, etcetera etcetera. So basically, it’s in my blood, or so I’ve been told. I don’t believe it though. Here, I’ll show you. I will tell you the funniest joke I can think of. Ready? Okay. 

Why do all cantaloupes have weddings? Because they cant-elope! Ha! Get it? No? Oh well, I told you, I’m just not funny. Everyone expects me to be some kind of hilarious person just because my father is and his father was before him, and his father before him, and his father before him, and his father before him, and so on and so forth, but I’m not. I mean just because I have “funny genes” (the DNA kind, not my pants) doesn’t mean that I’m funny. My jeans are the funny ones, not me! 

You see, even right now I’m not being funny. Sure, this whole thing is riddled with dumb jokes, but it’s the same two every time. It’s either how easily jeans and genes can get mixed up, or how much of my family was comedic. I need new jokes. Ok, you’re gonna be my test subject, ok? No? Well, that’s too bad, you have to read my terrible attempt at being funny anyway. Here we go.

Why did the cookie go to the doctor? Because he was feeling kinda crummy!

What did the mug say when it fell?  I’m not ready to spill the tea yet!

What did the floor say when it got hit by a teacup? I’ve been mugged!

Well, there you go! I hope you enjoyed my miserable attempt at comedy! If you didn’t I don’t wanna know, so keep that to yourself. Well, now I’ve gotta go write something funny for my ELA class, so wish me luck! Actually though, I need it, because like I said, I don’t know how to be funny.

My First Day of Golf

By Mari Cate Stewart

 

When I first began playing golf, I thought the hardest part would be hitting the ball far. 

Well, it turns out the hardest part is actually hitting the ball.

 So the first time I went to golf practice, I walked up to that tee box and was honestly feeling pretty confident. 

I had watched YouTube videos, and had practiced swinging in my backyard. 

In my head I was a professional.

 I stuck my tee in the ground, took a deep breath, and swung as hard as I could.

 And completely missed.

 It wasn't even a little miss, it was a full swing.

 Whoosh sound and everything. It didn’t even fall off the tee.

 I’m pretty sure it was even staring back at me judging.

 So what did I do, I tried again.

 And missed… again.

 Now all the old country club guys are staring at me since I'm taking so long, and I felt all the pressure.

 Nothing makes you miss the ball more than people staring you down.

 I took a deep breath, focused super hard, and swung again. 

This time I actually hit the ball, along with a fat chunk of grass and dirt that flew up. 

The ball rolled forward… maybe six feet. At this point I just stopped and stared at it.

 Six whole feet. 

Wow. 

I had just taken three of the biggest swings of my life and I actually only made contact once.

And it barely even rolled anywhere.

My friend goes, “Nice shot.”

I just looked back and stared at her while nodding my head.

By the end of that round I had learned something very important about golf. 

Golf is the only sport where you can walk four miles, lose five balls, hit a few trees, and somehow still say, “That one shot on hole five was pretty good.”

A Comedy Draft

By Jayson Harmon

 

No! That's just not funny enough, I said to myself for the tenth time. You may be wondering how I got myself into this position in the first place. Well it all started when my fourth period teacher Mr Young came up with the brilliant idea to make me write a comedy script. When he said that, the first thing I thought to myself was how in the heck am I supposed to write something funny. I never really thought about trying to be funny. If something funny came to my head I would say it, but I never actively thought about it. Mr Young would go on to give us several examples of authors who wrote comedy, one of which being The Inspector-General. It was an interesting story about, I don’t even remember. The only thing I remember is Mr Young's distinct neighs that could be heard across the room. Don’t ask me why. I think he was trying to get Will to do it or something, he may have just felt like it, I don’t know. After that we would then move on to Bill Cosby’s Go Deep to the Sewer. It’s a somewhat funny story about Cosby’s childhood. Cosby and friends would play sports all day in the streets of Philadelphia. We would go on to finish the story, and by that time it was time to leave.  

The next day things were interesting. Mr Young would instruct us to get into groups and start highlighting dialogue, dialect, figurative language, action scenes, and action overviews. Why we needed to do that to write comedy I haven’t the slightest idea. We would start with dialogue and dialect. This would go smoothly until we went to lunch, and in light of the dialect discussion Will decided to do a terrible New York accent while trying to say the word water.This would lead Brodie to come up with the brilliant idea to imitate a Japanese accent. He would go on to talk like this for 2 hours straight. It was certainly interesting when Brodie gets to talking about something he really loves to just talk. (to keep this essay gradable I will not go into any more detail about that) Anyway, enough of that. After lunch we would continue studying various “Comedies”. We would read about how stupid some of Thomas Edison's decisions were. Like come on now, concrete houses and not using the spinny thingy for music. His ideas were about as good as mine for this writing.

Finally we would read an excerpt from Lewis Grizzard. It was pretty funny, but my main takeaway was he was a boomer who liked to complain a lot. Welp that was about it. Now how am I going to write this script? I could try some dad jokes that normally gets Mr Young laughing, here it goes.

When does a joke become a dad joke? When it becomes apparent.

I wouldn’t buy anything with velcro. It’s a total rip-off.

No, that's not good enough idea’s, idea’s…I got it! I’m just going to retell the days leading up to this thing. Yeah it will be perfect, they'll never see it coming. What? I already did that, well you caught me. Was it at least a little funny? No, well that's okay you're going to have to read it anyway. So enjoy or don’t I don’t really care.

 

The Art of Relevance in Writing

By Levi Arnold

 

            Some people can’t write. They’ll start on one topic, and next thing you know, they’re going down a rabbit hole.

Rabbits… have you ever taken the time to really think about how fast they reproduce? Do you think when goats reproduce that they know it’s just a joke? Like with goats, the mama goat could scream in pain and when the daddy comes to check on her she just says, “ beh-eh-eh I’m just kidding.”

That’s besides the point though. The point is that some people can’t focus on one point long enough to establish a point at all. Are you pointing at me? The reader cannot track what the author is trying to say.

It reminds me of a story my uncle told me… there were three people who came across a mysterious set of tracks in the woods. The first guy thought they were chicken tracks. The second guy thought it was mongoose tracks. The third guy said… well I don’t remember what he said the tracks were, but I do remember what he said was wrong (like predestination or something). Anyways, the three guys argue over it for half an hour until the sudden realization hits all of them at once like a train… that’s because they were indeed hit by a train.

It’s kind of like how you see a ball in the air getting bigger, but you don’t understand until it hits you. If only geometry would click like that. 

Some people don’t know how to write. They get derailed and lose their train of thought and the main point of their essay just don’t click the way forced perspective does. It’s a blessing that I can write though.