Does Truth Matter in Comedy ?

The short answer is yes, and no.

Yes it does matter that the comedy seems to be true. But no, it does not matter if the comedy is actually true.

Comedians are regularly lying. The most common premises start, "So my girlfriend just broke up with me..." or, "I was on the subway on the way over here and..." These bits are almost always technically untrue. Their girlfriend broke up with them 8 months ago, the subway incident happened last year. But they could be true in the audience's mind. And that's all that's necessary. The audience will go with your story and likes to believe that everything is happening in the present; that your girlfriend just broke up with you, that the crazy subway ride just happened, these make the jokes funnier. It's why we want the comics to lie to us, but to lie to us in such a way that we believe it as the truth.

We also want a broader sense of truth in our comedy, the truth that it could or did happen to you. We want comedy that is real. We don't want motorcycle stories from someone who would never ride a motorcycle. Or stories about trouble with girls from models who must never have had trouble picking up girls in their life. But again, it's about perception. We only need to believe that you could have done something, even if it's not really true.

A while ago I saw a great comedian named Buddy Flip (that's actually his name) performing at a comedy club in New York. He said on stage that he's quit smoking, but that he used to smoke and he has a great bit about smoking. He then went into his material, "So I was smoking the other day and..." The joke was ruined. The laughter wasn't there. Because in acknowledging that his joke was a lie, he ruined the veil of truth that we've come to expect. And now he was just doing Stand-Up lying.

So, does truth matter in comedy? Absolutely. An audience has to believe 100% that what you're telling them happened to you and that it's the god's honest truth. But does it matter if it's actually true, not a bit.