SEACHONKS Lost Art
Writers' room · Comedy pass

Stakes & Laughs

The comedy pass. We take each great comic's engine (how the laugh actually gets built) and rebuild it out of this ocean. Rule zero: stakes make jokes funnier. A fart at lunch is a fart. A fart in a vault with the tide coming back is cinema.

The engines

JERRY SEINFELD: the word, and tiny stakes treated as life or death

  • Engine: precise observation of something everybody does but nobody questions, and small social rules treated with enormous stakes. The bit lives in the exact word.
  • In our ocean:
  • The premise is a Seinfeld premise: an entire civilization repeating human bits it doesn't understand. Every human artifact is an "airline food" waiting to happen.
  • The Improvisation Clause (Ep 1). Changing a single word of a script is a breach of contract, punished by the Archive for life. "Including 'the.' Especially 'the.'"
  • Jerry Sealfeld (Ep 2, Ep 10), the city's top comic, does only stolen human material.
  • The Pop-Tart. The whole catastrophe of the season is a pastry. That is the most Seinfeld thing we have.

BERNIE MAC: "Ocean."

  • Engine: direct address to the audience, love expressed as a threat, and the exhausted guardian of kids who aren't his.
  • In our ocean: Gotter breaks the fourth wall. In Ep 2 (flashback) and all through Ep 5 he turns to the lens: "Ocean. Let me explain something." He's raising two grown sea lions he didn't make.
  • The love is in the threats: "I love these boys. I'm gonna kill one of 'em. Haven't decided which."
  • Stakes payoff, Ep 9: agents walk him out. He turns to the lens. "Ocean." He doesn't say anything else. He nods. The camera stays.

SHANE GILLIS: deadpan commitment, the dumb confident guy, the bigot who's sure he isn't one

  • Engine: total calm about dark things, a guy explaining the indefensible like it's a weather report, and impressions of the guys you grew up with.
  • In our ocean:
  • The Navy Seal's war stories are told like a contractor describing a roof.
  • The veterans at the veterans' bar: "I got nothing against octopuses. Sure, I killed a bunch, but that was work."
  • Chonksy at the octopus market keeps proving he's not prejudiced and keeps losing.
  • The Sea SI stakeout dolphins talk like bored cops about nothing.
  • The in-world speciesism lives here, always pointed back at the guy saying it.

CHRIS ROCK: rhythm, repetition, "there's a difference between"

  • Engine: a point of view with a drumbeat. Rule of three, call and response, and the hard truth everybody knows but nobody says out loud.
  • In our ocean:
  • The Orca's greenlight sermon (Ep 1): "There's a difference between a movie and a remake…"
  • Chumpy's couch rant (Ep 7): "Everybody's got a vision! Visions are FREE!" It's the funniest scene in Ep 7, and then the heart beat: he gets off the couch.

CHRIS FARLEY: the body is the stakes

  • Engine: total physical commitment, a big guy who explodes, vulnerability under the bluster, and self-punishment ("Stupid! Stupid!").
  • In our ocean: Chumpy is our Farley. Every heist hinges on his body:
  • The porthole on the sinking ship (Ep 2).
  • The octopus disguise at the border (Ep 4).
  • The vault hatch with the tide coming back (Ep 6).
  • The vest that doesn't close, until Ep 9, when it does.
  • "The Chumpy Show" (Ep 5): Chumpy interviews his hero. "Remember when you did The Long Reef?" "…" "That was awesome." (hits his own head) "Stupid!"
  • The motivational-producer toast (Ep 8): "You're gonna be making MOVIES… in a WAREHOUSE… DOWN BY THE VENT!" He goes through the table.

The bench (more engines)

  • Larry David. Etiquette as life or death. "It's open. When it's open, it's a sample." (Ep 6)
  • Tim Robinson. Commit to the lie and escalate past sanity.
  • Chonksy denying he improvised: "Then it's a typo in my MOUTH." (Ep 3)
  • Chumpy denying the Pop-Tart with frosting on his face (Ep 9).
  • Nathan Fielder. The rehearsal. Chonksy, an actor, rehearses being a director on a cardboard set with an inflatable orca. (Ep 7)
  • Norm Macdonald. The long story with the anti-punchline. Seabear's ninety-second Arctic Shelf proverb, which turns out to be a copied human joke off a tape. Even the proverbs are stolen. (Ep 7)
  • Richard Pryor. Pain told true until it's funny, then true again. Chonksy's war story at the veterans' bar. (Ep 8)
  • Dave Chappelle. The high-concept sketch that exposes the system. The Species Draft on Current News: the Treaty "drafts" disputed species, and nobody picks the platypus. (Ep 4)
  • George Carlin. The euphemism as the crime: "Routine fire safety inspection." (Ep 9, already in)

The stakes ladder

Every episode puts something concrete on the table, runs a clock, and charges a price.

EpWhat's on the tableThe clockWho pays
1His career. One changed word = the Archive for lifeThe dub locks at dawnNobody yet. Doris heard it
2His life (the sinking ship) and his secret (Seapholk knows he quit)The ship slides into the trenchChumpy's dignity (porthole)
3The studio's money (Coral Cola) and the improv on cameraThe trailer premieres FridayThe Orca gets the threat
4The war. Caught across the border = the Octopus War againPatrol shift change, 20 minutesGotter flags himself requesting the file
5Gotter's freedom and the vault's locationA flounder is logging every ThursdayGotter
6Prison in the TrenchThe hatch is open for one low tide: 22 minutesThe pastry is taken
7Exposure on live Current at the junket; Seabear's uninsured stuntsThe shoot has to wrap before the Sea SI movesSeabear's back
8Whether it's any good (the creative stake)The warrant comes through in 48 hoursThe toaster gives them away
9EverythingOne nightEveryone: Gotter, Ink, Doris, Seaver, the reels
10The Offer. Say "chonks can't direct" on live Current and everyone goes freeThe premiereChonksy's truth, or his friends

Ep 10 rewired: The Offer