The Rule of Three: Breaking a Pattern · 8:10pm Apr 16th, 2016
A continuation of my hit blog series, Front’s Too Tired to Actually Write so He Writes Blogs About Comedy Instead >.>
I’ve been trying to write but it’s just not working :/ So instead I shall talk more about comedy, this time about a well-used joke format and why it works. In the meantime, I will do my best to try writing, but I can’t make any guarantees on any projects at this point. Anyway, on to the blog:
The rule of three. It’s common in the type of one-minute-or-less jokes that you tell other people. It’s a good standalone joke format with a quick setup and quick punchline, and one of the most efficient ways to tell a joke.
There’s another rule of three—can’t find the cite, unfortunately—that states a joke loses its charm when it’s told more than three times, in a self-contained work like a movie or a fimfic story. That might be the topic of another blog I do, but I’m talking about a different rule of three, cited here (also called a comic triple, apparently, or just The Triple).
Or, maybe it’s a law of three. Or maybe a theory, or a hypothesis. Threeory? Hypothreesis?
The rule of three: In a joke, you list three items, where the first two are normal and the third is unusual or different from the other three. If comedy is about upsetting expectations, then this is one of the easiest ways to go about doing it; create a pattern with the first two items, and then break it with the third. One example, as listed in the TVTropes article, is a barista asking a bald customer, “Can I get you anything? Cup of coffee? Doughnut? Toupee?” The charm is that the items are all listed in the same manner, as if they’re all part of the same group, but one of them is surprising or not something a person would normally list in that instance. “Toupee” was stated casually enough by the speaker that it stands out as something bald people might not usually like being asked about so casually.
I can’t find a good example from my own works because I don’t use the straight Triple very often, only variations of it.
Regardless, in the triple, the first two in the list create a norm through a pattern, leading you to expect the third item to also be normal, but it’s not. The first two make a pattern, the third breaks it. Upset expectations. Comedy. In theory, at least.
This is a joke format I’ve heard often, and a well-known example is the “a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead” joke. I don’t tell these because I try to avoid enforcing negative stereotypes, but basically the idea is that the brunette and the redhead do a reasonable thing in the joke, while the blonde does a stupid thing. Setting the pattern, and then breaking it. Here’s an example. I think I remember being told this joke when I was a kid:
A brunette, a red-head and a blonde were in jail when they decided to break out. The girls broke out and the brunette said, "Let's hide in that barn, they'll never find us." So they climbed up the ladder and then the blonde threw it down.
The next morning, the cops said, "Come out with your hands in the air!"
The red-head said, "Hide in those baskets, they'll never find us!"
So the brunette got in the first one, the red-head got in the second one and the blonde got in the third one. Meanwhile, the cops were getting a ladder set up and trying to get up there. Once they got up, the sergeant ordered them to kick the baskets.
So the cop kicked the first one: "RUFF."
"It's just a dog!" yelled the cop.
The cop kicked the next one: "MEOW."
"It's just a cat," yelled the cop.
The cop kicked the next basket and the blonde yelled, "POTATOES!"
To people who are familiar with this joke format, as soon as they hear “a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead”, they already know the format and won’t be surprised that the blonde does something stupid. The joke, then, comes from the stupid thing itself. i.e., how stupid will the blonde’s action be?
The joke remains a good example of the rule of three.
It can’t just be anything the breaks the pattern, though. Say, for example, you say this:
This week at the grocery store, I need to buy carrots, broccoli, and a bag of flour.
Yes, a bag of flour is not a veggie like the first two. The pattern was broken, but it’s not funny. Why? Well, one reason is that “This week at the grocery store” sets up the expectation that the list will all be grocery store items, so of course a bag of flour is not all that much of a surprise compared to carrots and broccoli. If it was set up a different way, perhaps:
For an afternoon snack, I had carrots, broccoli, and a bag of flour.
That’s better. “For an afternoon snack” sets up the expectation that it will be food items that you can eat. You can easily eat carrots and broccoli, but, uh… flour isn’t so easy to eat, much less a whole bag of it. It says something about the speaker of that line, too.
The other way to improve the joke is to change the list of items. For instance:
This week at the grocery store, I need to buy carrots, broccoli, and a new baby.
Similarly, a baby is not something you would expect to be sold at a grocery store, and the fact that this character listed it so casually says something about the speaker, too.
A great variation of the rule of three is four instead of three :O I first heard it from Game Grumps, but I’m too lazy to find the specific episode. In a few Portal 2 episodes in a row, they do many variations of a sort of Freudian slip-type joke, but here’s an example of one variation that I think is pretty close to what they said:
Just doing bro stuff. Hanging out, watching football, kissing a little, playing Frisbee. You know, bro stuff.
A bit overplayed but that’s the nature of let’s plays :P
But yes, the four-item structure here is great. The first two are normal, then a pattern-breaker, then back to normal. It’s sort of a blink-and-you-miss format (which I like), which is slightly different from the earlier examples I listed. In the earlier examples, you’re led to think the speaker believes the third item is normal. In the four item structure, you’re not sure if the speaker believes it, and maybe it just slipped out. Either way, it says something different about the speaker.
And that’s the rule of three, folks. Understanding this format is a good way to understand how comedy usually works, upsetting expectations and all that.
Ugh. I’m tired. xP Until next time. Have a great day, y’all ^^
I like your examples. They're funny.
3875741 Phew -o- That means I have some idea of what I'm talking about, then :o