Great Funny Speeches - Suggestions and Shortcomings

Great funny speeches should aim to engage and entertain your audience.

It doesn't matter if it is a funny retirement speech, funny wedding speeches or even funny speech topics - we love them.

Great funny speeches can be such a great stepping stone to captivate your audience and keep their attention.

If you have their attention, you get your message across and that culminates in a successful speech - mission accomplished!

However, humor also has the potential to alienate your audience.  Used incorrectly or inappropriately, humor can be an obstacle to a successful speech. Alienated audience ='s poor listening skills ='s message lost.

So keep the humor coming - but do so wisely and judiciously. Keep our stepping stones and obstacles advice in mind and you'll get the balance just right!

HUMOR AS A STEPPING STONE TO GREAT FUNNY SPEECHES

A - Analyze yourself and your audience. You need to be relatively comfortable with humor and making people laugh. Try to be as objective as possible - do you normally make your friends   laugh when you tell a story? Similarly, is your audience going to be able to relate to your "style" of humor?

B - Be brief. Keep your story interesting but relatively short. Your story should be long enough to include vivid visual descriptions, but not that long that the audience keeps hoping for the punch line.

C - Current and common can help you to introduce humor into your speech. Universally "funny" situations will appeal to more audience members and so too will issues that are more current and news worthy.

D - Delve into your own experience. Very often truth is funnier than fiction. So,  don't be afraid to draw on your own experience. We all love telling funny stories about ourselves and our own experiences. If you have an appropriate anecdote and you think it is funny - go for it. If you think it is funny, you will tell the story enthusiastically, the laughter will creep into your voice and most people will appreciate the spirit of your story - and that can be pretty infectious.

E - Everyday, local exaggeration can be an effective tool to include humor in your speech. The audience must "get" the humor and be able to relate to it. A useful hint is to "localize" your story by using local jargon and phrasing. Exaggeration and over-acting [within reason] can send the message home more effectively and your audience will "get" it.

"Laugh and the world laughs with you..."  

HUMOR AS AN OBSTACLE TO GREAT FUNNY SPEECHES

A - Avoid telling jokes unless you have told the joke to an appreciative audience before and you know that you will get the timing of the punch line spot-on.

B - Be selective. Your humorous story should relate to the overall theme of your presentation. A random, unrelated story will result in the audience concentrating on,  "What has this story got to do with the topic?" And if they are not listening, the punch line will not be as effective.

C - Carefully reconsider using humor based on politics, religion or social status. They can all be potential mine-fields to tiptoe around in and they won't facilitate a relaxed presentation or toast.

D - Don't be tempted to "overkill" a particular line that gets a laugh. By all means - use it once or twice with appropriate exaggeration - and then stick to the "less is more" approach.

"Cry and you cry alone..."  

Great funny speeches? Ok...so did you hear the one about... - just kidding! Go on - you've got work to do - make the world laugh. Such an amazing gift and talent!