Is it a Punchline or a Button?
let's split some hairs
Ryan recently wrote about how “trying to be funny” in our improv scenes (and we’re talking specifically about long form improv, here) creates the kind of pressure that distracts us from taking our characters - and their authentic feelings - seriously.
Think about your favorite comedic characters from movies and TV […] None of them think they’re funny. They’re not telling jokes (“That’s what she said” excluded). They’re trying to succeed, to be loved, to protect their pride, to get what they want. The comedy comes from how sincerely they pursue those things.
It mirrors advice I give to the students I teach and players I coach - advice I was most certainly given at some point and still had to learn the hard way:
Avoid punchlines.
Why? Simply put, punchlines end things. And there’s nothing worse than making an unsustainable choice and being stuck inside a scene that you and your punchline have declared has come to an end.
But then again, all scenes do come to an end, and a team that is instructed to avoid punchlines will be just as earnestly instructed to “edit on a button!”
And it got me wondering: what’s really the difference?
VOCABULARY MOMENT: EDITING
A mechanic that allows players to move out of one scene and into another. A common example would be the Swipe Edit, in which a player runs across the stage to clear a scene and indicate to players and audience alike that a new scene is about to begin.
ANOTHER VOCABULARY MOMENT: BUTTON
A satisfying moment at the end of a scene that typically reinvests in the scene’s logic and/or heightens the scene’s pattern or “game.” Buttons are cues for a player to edit a scene or for a tech to pull lights on a show.
I don’t have a textbook answer, but I do have some thoughts, starting with….
It depends on who you ask.
For an audience, I’m not sure the distinction is meaningful, so why split hairs? If it makes you laugh and ends the scene/set - it’s as much a punchline as it is a button.
For a player, however, the experience is different.
A punchline takes all the tough work of an improvised scene - specific base reality, vulnerable emotional choices, listening, heightening, patterning - and reduces it to the setup for a joke.
Scenes with punchlines feel like they have to end; after it gets a laugh, there’s nothing left to say.
But I think the best scene work (to Ryan’s point) has characters that take themselves seriously - characters we can assume had lives before the scene began and continue to live on well after the show is over. These scenes do have more to say…so we can return to them (in second and third beats), sustain them (in longer, long form pieces), and bring them into conversation with other scenes (in collisions and cavalcades).
Buttons mark inflection points in these types of scenes. At their very best, buttons nod to what is most interesting (and yes, even funny) about a scene, without closing the door.
They do this, in part, by really honoring and underscoring the emotional reality built throughout the scene. Where a punchline might subvert expectations, buttons lean in.
What do I mean? I’ll illustrate with a really try-hard example…
Let’s pretend you’re improvising a scene about a chicken that lives on the east side of a road.
Maybe I’m playing the spouse of that chicken (you know…as one does), and we’re struggling against traffic to find our missing chick that’s lost on the west side of the road.
We dash and dodge and move as fast as our little chicken legs will take us. The only thing as big as the trucks speeding down the highway is our fear. At every median we stop and cry and consider turning back, but we ultimately soldier on because we love our chick - barely hatched - and it’s what good parents would do.
Several minutes into the scene we make it to the other side, find our baby, and breathe a sigh of relief. And then the little chick delivers the final line…
Here’s a punchline: “Now I’ll be able to tell all my friends at school exactly why the chickens crossed the road!”
Here’s a button: “I’m sorry I was so reckless and made you cross that incredibly dangerous road - and since home is back on the other side [turns eastward, back towards the traffic], I’m sorry I’m the reason you’re about to have to do it again…”
I won’t try to make the case that this hypothetical scene is a good one BUT I’m hoping the two endings make my point. The first fails to take the danger those chickens faced seriously and neglects to care about their fear. Not to mention the chick suddenly has school friends? What’s that about? And even if the chick’s character can’t grasp the gravity of the situation, their final line isn’t delivered to the other chickens - it’s a wink and a nod to the audience. It implies that the player doesn’t believe there’s anything fun or interesting left to explore.
The button, on the other hand, succeeds in underscoring the chickens’ fear and reminding everyone - fowl and audience alike - that the story isn’t over (whether we see them attempt to make it back to the coop not).
I could go on, but you get my point…
Ultimately, opting for a button over a punchline is as much about a player’s posture towards the scene as it is the content of the scene.
In fact, perhaps the most important - and practical - distinction between a button and a punchline is this: when I deliver a button, I don’t know for sure that the scene is coming to an end. And that’s because it’s not up to me. A teammate or a technician draws the moment to a close because they choose to, not because I forced their hand.
Where a punchline says, “ta-da!” a button says, “yes! and…”
And in that way, the entire project remains collaborative; the scene - born out of our collective effort - inspires a button which in turn inspires an edit.
And so, as the laughter and applause fades, I know it’s not for me - it’s for all of the work we put in and all of the discoveries we made together.