Category: Humor

Humor uses threes as the completion to a joke. "The Rule of Three" is part of the formula. Many stories have you heard start out, "There was a priest, a minister and a rabbi … ." Three characters seems to work well when you are populating your own stories to make them funnier.

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Monty Python and the Holy Grail – thou must count to three

A reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20:

Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying, “Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.” And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals …

Now did the Lord say, “First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out.

Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.”

Clip

Monty Python-Holy Hand Grenade

Monty Python

Monty Python were a British comedy troupe formed in 1969 consisting of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. The group came to prominence for the sketch comedy series Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which aired on the BBC from 1969 to 1974.

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Rule of Three multiplies effect of speech, humor

humorist Doc Blakely
From the October 29, 1999 print edition
Say Something Funny

The Rule of Three multiplies effect of speech and humor

By Ellis Posey
humorist Doc Blakely
humorist Doc Blakely

If you want to talk funny, timing is everything.

Comic timing is one of those things all comedians and humorists insist is necessary to the successful performance of humor. But nobody seems to be able to explain exactly what comic timing is.

After extensive research and study, I have concluded comic timing is not just one simple rule or formula the budding humor practitioner must master. It’s more likely a number of things.

What humorist Doc Blakely calls “The Rule of Three” is part of the formula.

“It is generally accepted in humor that one general theme is overworked after it has been attacked at least three times with punch lines that are quite similar,” Blakely writes.

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