Center · Intent & Relationship
Why you are joking in the first place and what relationship you hold with the audience: attack, comfort, healing, rebellion, or simple delight.
Comedy Mandala
The Comedy Mandala gathers a large set of humor techniques into a layered structure. It organizes center-level intention (why we make people laugh) through patterns (setups, reversals, status shifts) down to specific joke devices. The goal is not to mechanize humor, but to give comedians a map they can improvise within.
Layers
Ring 1 · Comic Premise
The underlying ‘what if’ or tension that makes something funny: an incongruity, a status inversion, a taboo, a contradiction.
Ring 2 · Patterns & Structures
Common structures like setup–punch, rule of three, call-back, misdirection, contrast pairs, and escalating absurdity.
Ring 3 · Techniques & Devices
The 111+ named techniques: wordplay, act-outs, meta-humor, character flips, deadpan framing, mimicry, and more.
Ring 4 · Delivery & Editing
Timing, rhythm, silence, tags, trimming and re-ordering material, and adapting to live audience feedback.
Suggested practices
- Pick one joke and trace it from Premise through Technique to Delivery.
- Design a set based on two or three favorite techniques instead of random ideas.
Related mandalas
- Universal Knowledge Mandala (UKM)