It’s honestly very simple…
In my eyes, deadpan comedy is joke-telling with a lack of emotion. Because there is a lack of emotion, most of my punchlines come from something absurd.
When I’m on the stage, I purposely don’t ever smile and I never try and make eye contact with a person. I want to look like I’m lost in thought and that I’m just rambling.
The biggest issue I have with deadpan is hitting my punchline too early, and the punchline that I thought of before suddenly gains 0 response.
But that happens due to a lack of experience and practice, which a young comedian like me always tackles.
Give me an example
The first deadpan joke I ever went on stage with, and still use today, is about my mom.
In the winter of my senior year, my mom was on her deathbed. She had a seizure that she wasn’t able to recover from because of her organs failing. My brothers and I knew this would be the last time that we would ever see her.
Despite that, I was talking to her like it was another day at our house, and one big event that was coming up was prom. I told my mom that I had a girl I was going to ask out for prom.
My mom was excited to hear the news and asked for a picture of the girl, which I didn’t have.
“Oh Cade that’s sweet! Can I see a picture of her?”
“No, sorry, I don’t have a photo of her on my phone.”
Then in the most concerned and condescending sounding voice, my mom asks: “Cade, is she black?”
Even through all of her body failures and internal bleeding, her brain was still able to operate the racist side of her.
At the moment, I don’t know how I even kept my cool. I never expected my mom’s major concern about asking someone out would be their skin color. Her comment was so out-of-pocket that I panicked and went.
“No Mom, she is white.”
Deadpan’s punchline is unexpected
No one in the crowd would guess my mom’s concern for me is dating people of color (unless they met her). It’s crazy that someone admits something like this on stage. The worst part of about it, the comedian seems to not care.
The lack of care about a serious situation makes the joke 10x better. Something like this should be a PSA, but instead, he’s talking about his racist mom like it’s small talk at a work meeting.
The lack of care and emotion improves the joke because the comedian seems to think a story like this is everyday business, but in reality, this is a 1-in-a-million situation that rarely anyone finds themselves in.