How Do Comedians Think So Fast


Sometimes when we watch comedy shows for fun, something suddenly happens that causes you to burst out laughing. We always try to wonder how comedians do it, and we admire those qualities in our life.

There are great personalities who make people laugh on stage, but some of them have an extraordinary sense of humour, which causes people to laugh for hours.  Those immediate replies make them iconic and unique so that they get famous.

In this article, I’m going to tell you what the reasons are and how comedians do it. Stay till the end of the article to know more.

#1. Profession 

We must know and accept the fact that the person who is doing some sort of performance in front of us is a professional and has a lot of experience doing it. It’s no wonder that a comedian starts to riff on somebody immediately after getting a question.

It is their profession. Ultimately by the end of the day, this is what they do. Always remember this one thing that they are professionals. That is the best reason for it.

#2. Experience

The second thing is experience.  Now, what is knowledge?

It is time you have spent on executing a proper work routine. It may be ten years or maybe ten months. The time which is associated with the job you have done is called your experience.

Comedians are comfortable with their job, which is the reason that their mind is also comfortable with performing. Comedians’ minds are trained throughout the years for the immediate reaction to stimuli.

It never bothers them to respond to someone. But it also takes time to get to that level.

#3. Research

Research is a quality step that gives you the proper answer to your questions. 

Research is a word that refers to the time associated with the efforts somebody has made on studying a particular topic. It can also be defined as a study on a topic where you have the curiosity to find solutions for given problems.

If a person spends most of their time on research, then it makes their mind active all the time in that same format. 

The human brain is constructed in such a way that it conditions really fast. Whenever there are similar formatted stimuli, it gives you a similar response. 

So every question contains some amount of hilariousness inside it. A good comedian always knows what, how, and when they have to pick up from that question.

#4. Pattern

There is always a pattern of doing real-time comedy. Every person who has a good sense of humor knows that pattern. There is a specific time in a conversation where you need to make a special approach to put a comic sense into it. 

The person who has the knowledge about that pattern will be able to do time to time comedy. This is also a reason why most of the comedians think so fast.

#5. Spontaneous

Some people have a tendency to enact a conversation in a structured way, even if they were not prepared previously.

There are people who have something spontaneous inside them, which helps them for the immediate reaction to stimuli.

They are gifted by genetics, or they, by default, have that skill of making fun of every situation. Mostly, if somebody says that I have a good sense of humour, I take it to be default by nature. I never prepare or research for some conversation unless and until it’s an interview.

#6. Copied 

It doesn’t happen all the time, but sometimes you get a similar situation to deal with. You might get the same reaction from two or three different people. Or you might get some known stimuli for which you always have an answer—this the reason why somebody can give you an instant reaction or comment, which is hilarious. 


So maybe they don’t have God’s gift or even did their research. They may have copied material that somebody has done. The easiest thing to do is to copy a joke.

Above are the possible reasons for which a comedian may have access to laughs fast. These are the reasons people wonder all the time how a comedian can think so fast.

James D. Creviston

James D. Creviston is a writer, blogger, comedian, and podcaster in Los Angeles. He is the producer of the wildly popular Clean Comedy Hour stand up show, as well as the co-host of The Clean Comedy Podcast. James has been doing stand up for the last three years and has performed in LA and NY at some of the hottest clubs. James is a former veteran of the United States Navy as well as a graduate of the University of Las Vegas, Nevada. He is an avid comic book, television, and movie nerd. James can be seen performing his clean comedy all over the United States and heard giving advice on his weekly podcast The Clean Comedy Podcast.

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