Psychology Today interviews John Hodgman

Matthew Hutson interviewed John Hodgman about humor for Psychology Today.

Your delivery is famously dry. Do you ever crack yourself up?

I find it to be comedically unethical to laugh at your own jokes on stage. But I probably feel so strongly because it happens pretty frequently lately, and I am ashamed. My deadpan needs re-deadening (see my new book, on the various historical styles of deadpan).

But the reverse is true when writing. I generally only like a joke of my own if I make myself laugh when I write it. If my brain can fool myself into a surprised chuckle, even when I am the one who wrote the joke, my guess is that it can also fool you.

That said, it may be that those are just the weird, unconscious, half-literal "inside jokes" that only my brain and I get. For example: "Stun Gravy" gets me every time. But do you know what it means? NO ONE DOES.

Psychology Today interviews John Hodgman

• [PaulR]

  see my new book, on the various historical styles of deadpan

  See here:
  http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/07/0082548

• [evolucien]

  yin/yang

  …i’ve been scrolling past hodgman ever since he invaded boingboing; mostly, his humor, book pitch and writing style are TIRING.

  …but, he’s great on the dailyshow; and he is a talented musician -you got to give him that; not to mention, his publicist/agent is brilliant -hodgman’s friggin’ everywhere these days!

• [FoetusNail]

  He said, “Stun Gravy.”

• [JJR1971]

  There was a stand-up comedienne named Margret Smith in the 1990s whose style was 100% deadpan–loved her stuff. Sarah Vowell does a pretty good deadpan delivery, and David Sedaris.

  If you can keep a perfectly straight face while all about you are cracking up, you’ve done it right (keep your satisfied smile on the inside and press on).

• [david85282]

  Is John Hodgman associated with BoingBoing, or do they just have some sort of man-crush on him?

• [Gilbert Wham]

  Can a group of people, of mixed sex, have a man-crush as such? Are websites specifically male, in the way ships are always ‘She’?*

  Anyway, Hodgman can come back anytime. Dude’s ok.

  *Probably, on the matter of discerning the sex of inanimate objects/concepts, it’s best to consult the French. They have departments for that kind of thing

• [dculberson]

  david85282, I didn’t realize there was some sort of limit on the number of posts BoingBoing is authorized to make on a single individual. Do you have those standards published, or are they supposed to submit each post to you for review before publishing them? Thanks.

• [Chasqui]

  I don’t know why I blurted out a laugh when I read “stun gravy”.

• [Raj77]

  Because it’s a brilliant phrase and a brilliant concept, that’s why :)

• [Takuan]

  I’m very annoyed now. “Stun gravy” seems familiar and now I’ll waste a ridiculous amount of time trying to remember where I heard it before.

• [woid]

  Separated at birth: John Hodgman and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew.

• [buddy66]

  Booze

• [Takuan]

  yeah, but from where first?