How to easily come up with an unlimited number of Unusual Things and comedy Premises for your improv scenes, comedy sketches, and pattern game (+ 10 quick shortcuts for creating unusual things, with examples).
For a long time, I was struggling to understand what the comedy "premises" are, how the "Unusual Things" work in improv, how to come up with them deliberately, and how to turn them into "playable" games. I was searching for a clear explanation that would make sense to me, and a process that would reliably generate usable premises.
I have finally figured out a structured approach that really helps me come up with comedy premises, and I want to share it with you.
(Note: This post is about deliberately introducing unusual things into the scene, which, I know, goes against typical improv advice. If you're wondering why not just let the unusual thing come up during the scene organically, I address that here.)
What are comedy premises?
> Premise = Unusual Thing + Justification
In organic scenes, you start by establishing the base reality and playing a grounded scene, and then carefully listen, trying to notice anything unusual that stands out in contrast to the base reality you have established. When that happens you justify and heighten it.
When brainstorming premise-based scenes, you come up with the unusual thing directly, and start a scene with it right away.
The key components of the scene
You can pick apart a base reality into several key components (there's more, but these are the most useful ones):
Character. Who they are, their occupation or archetype.
> Construction worker, knight, vampire, old lady, hillbilly.Character trait. Their main characteristic or personality trait.
> Clumsy, incompetent, ambitious, sad, honorable.Character mindset Character's thoughts, feelings, opinions, beliefs.
> Believes in following rules, feels excited, believes he needs to prove himself, etc.Situation. Often just the location where the scene takes place, but more broadly, a general situation the characters are in.
> In a courtroom, on a spaceship, on a date.Action. Character's behavior, things they say or do in the scene.
In a non-funny scene idea ("Base Reality"), all these components make sense together, and add up to something normal, expected:
> - Competent lawyer making a case in a courtroom.
> - Primitive caveman hunting mammoths in the savannah.
> - Evil vampire drinks the blood of an innocent maiden in his castle.
How to come up with unusual things
To deliberately introduce an unusual thing into the scene, create combinations of these key components such that they're absurd - wrong, incompatible with each other, don't make sense together. Wrong thing to say or do in this situation, unexpected personality trait or dialogue line for this character.
> - Character trait + character: Posh caveman, clumsy vampire, superstitious lawyer.
> - Character + situation: Caveman in a courtroom, aspiring motivational speaker in tech support call center, fortune teller working at the IRS.
> - Character + action: A pirate files his taxes, birthday magician performs exorcism, Zeus takes anger management classes, angels are quietly trash talking Jesus.
> - Situation + action: Space captain gives a corporate-sounding TED talk before the battle, a torturer keeps apologizing for the whole process, a survivor bitten by a zombie tries to hide it, an airplane pilot wonders over the intercom whether life is worth living.
Another way to think about it is that each key component of the scene is "slot" that contains our assumptions and expectations about what is supposed to go in it. Take the expected contents of the slot, and replace them with the ones that are unexpected, out of place, wrong for this character or situation.
For example:
> Normal Base Reality: Competent lawyer defends a murder case in a court room.
> - Replace character trait slot: Superstitious lawyer defends a murder case in a court room.
> - Replace character slot: Competent caveman defends a murder case in a court room.
> - Replace action slot: Competent lawyer attempts to seduce the judge in a court room.
> - Replace situation slot: Competent lawyer defends a child's case at a parent-teacher conference.
An easy and convenient way to replace a slot is to follow this template: > Normally, I'd assume/expect [character] to do, say, think, or feel [expected behavior], but instead they [something very different].
There are two main ways to replace the slot with something absurd/surprising/unexpected/wrong:
Subvert expectations. Take one component and ask yourself "What do I expect? What would be wildly different from that?", and replace it with something unexpected.
> - Normally, I assume/expect the lawyer to be competent, but this lawyer is superstitious.
> - Normally, I expect monks to be deeply spiritual, but this one is "spiritual but not religious" in a shallow way.
> - Normally, I expect people at a funeral to be sad and solemn, but this guy is trying to pitch his startup idea.Combine two random components that don't belong together. Take two unrelated components (for example, one random character and one random location), and put them together. Ask yourself "What other component would belong with it the least?"
> - Caveman + Courtroom = a caveman in a courtroom.
> - Pro Wrestler + Couples Therapy = two pro wrestlers at the couple's therapy.
> - Therapist + Drunk Aunt = therapist who acts like a drunk aunt.
Using different justifications to come up with different premises
The next step is to come up with the justification for the absurdity.
> - Investment banker reading "Art of War" a bedtime story > because he's convinced that teaching cut-throat business principles early is the only way to prepare kids for the real world.
> - Birthday magician performing exorcism > because they hired the wrong magician by mistake.
> - Food critic reviewing kindergarten lunchboxes > because their career took a dive recently.
Think of the unusual thing as the "symptom" of the game, the first instance of the absurdity that you see in the scene. The justification helps turn a premise into a playable game because it reveals the underlying pattern of behavior or thinking that can be heightened, a "framework" for the absurdity, creates a "rule" you can follow to come up with more examples of the game (heightening by asking "if this is true, then what else is true?"). It establishes a consistent character logic that will drive similar but escalating choices.
For example, let's take this unusual thing:
> Base Reality: Dad talks to a guy who's picking up his daughter for prom.
> Unusual Thing: Dad offers weed to the guy.
Here are a few possible justifications, and the "game moves" (progressively heightening examples of the game) that would follow from each justification:
> The dad offers weed because he wants his daughter's boyfriend to think he's cool:
> - The dad shows off his skateboard tricks in the driveway.
> - The dad shows off his old BBQ party photos.
> - The dad insists on taking a selfie together.
> - The dad awkwardly uses teenage slang.
> - The dad challenges the boyfriend to a rap battle.
> - The dad invites him to join his underground fight club.
> The dad offers weed because he wants to test his daughter's boyfriend for good character:
> - Offers him a flask of whiskey to "double-check" his integrity.
> - Pretends to have a heart attack to test if he knows CPR.
> - Offers him stolen watches to see if he'll report it.
> - Stages a mugging to see if he'll protect his daughter.
> The dad offers weed because he's nervous about his daughter going to prom and needs a smoke:
> - Tells the guy a much too personal story about his failed prom
> - Tries to teach the boyfriend defense techniques
> - Tries to chaperone the prom himself "I’ll just hang in the back, no big deal. You won’t even notice me."
> The dad offers weed because he doesn't want his daughter to have a subpar prom experience:
> - Gives them a printed list of local makeout spots ranked by privacy
> - Asks the guy to select a brand of condoms from the selection he prepared
> - Slips the boyfriend a hotel key with a wink and says "Don’t worry, I booked you a suite—you’re welcome."
> - Pulls out a detailed PowerPoint about optimal positions for backseat activities.
Bonus: 10 easy prompts for generating unusual things
If you're looking for an even simpler way to come up with unusual things, here are 10 easy prompts you can use, these are like "tricks/shortcuts" that get you to the unusual thing immediately:
Confession of doing something ridiculous. > "Honey, I've been meaning to tell you... I bought us a lizard."
Accusation of doing something ridiculous. > "Bro, why did you shave my dog?"
A wrong thing to say or do in this situation. > Space captain gives a corporate-sounding TED talk before the battle, a torturer keeps apologizing for the whole process, a survivor bitten by a zombie tries to hide it, an airplane pilot wonders over the intercom whether life is worth living, a hostage begins bossing around her captors.
Behavior or attitude that is out of place in this scene. > Pitching startup idea at a funeral, making awkward small talk during a bank robbery, asking for a divorce on a roller coaster, doing stretches before a duel to the death.
Wildly inappropriate response, weird or unusual reaction. > Haggling with your mugger, being annoyed about getting rescued from a tower, trying to flirt your way out of getting a detention, vampire asks the legendary vampire hunter for autographs, an eldritch snake god acts uncomfortable and disturbed when his worshippers offer him a human sacrifice.
Unexpected behavior or activity for this character. > A pirate files his taxes, birthday magician performs exorcism, Zeus takes anger management classes, a kid dreams of becoming an investment banker, angels are quietly trash-talking Jesus, Hamburglar tries to cover up his first murder.
Exaggerated, inappropriate, or disproportionate emotion. > Person 1: "I bought a pie."
> Person 2 (places hand over mouth): "OH MY GOD."Strong opinion, unusual belief or philosophy. > A pirate captain who thinks maps are cheating, "Weekends are for the weak!", "Locking doors is rude."
Unexpected characteristic or personality trait for this character. > Hillbilly vampire, superstitious lawyer, thief who acts like a suburban mom, "spiritual but not religious" monk, heart surgeon with an attitude of a hairdresser, millennial pirate, evil lunch lady.
A character who does not belong in this situation. > Caveman in a courtroom, real estate agent tours a haunted house, motivational speaker in a call center, a ghost haunts a Starbucks, fortune teller works at the IRS, a superhero and their nemesis go to couples therapy.
More resources
- If you liked this post, you will probably like the Improv Comedy Workshop I'm working on. In this short PDF you can see the exercises we're practicing. I started running it only recently, I'm planning to run it 1 or 2 times per month. If you want to improvise with us, you can join our Discord community.
- Also, here's my collection of fun improv games and exercises.
- My favorite learning resources are "UCB Improv Manual", "Improv Beat by Beat" podcast, Improv Nonsense by Will Hines and Chuffah by Mike Trapp.
- Thanks a lot to everyone who replied to this post to help me understand some of these ideas.
I'd love to brainstorm comedy sketches with someone via discord chat. It'd be like a game, where we exchange messages, whenever we have the time, and take turns pitching/justifying unusual things. If you're interested - add me on Discord, I'm lumenwrites.
I'm still learning these things, experimenting, and trying to get better at them. So I'm not an expert, but if you have any questions you think I might be able to help you with - don't hesitate to reach out, I'd love to have another comedy nerd to talk to about this stuff =)