I learned this first one from the District 2 1997 Evaluation Champ, so unlike most of the stuff on this blog, this one I have faith in. Make the title funny if possible for your humorous speech contest speech.

The guy who won the Humorous Speech Contest for D2 had the title along the lines of, “Ramblings of a Redhead Russian Redneck” or something like that. It was a very funny speech about a poor Russian immigrant trying to learn English.

I spoke with the Evaluation Champ after the contest was over and she explained her make the title funny rule. She suggested that the speaker could have token one of the lines from his speech and made it the title instead. The alternate title I think is much better. “Billy Ray Cyrus Taught Me English”

The one way this can backfire of course is if your speech title isn’t funny. Of course, that’s the same as the rest of your speech - you can bomb just about anywhere. Isn’t this process fun?

Related closely to the title is the fact that you want people laughing as soon as you possible can once you start talking. I know this sounds obvious but it’s not. I’m not preaching against people bombing on opening jokes. That’s OK, because they’re trying at least. I’ve bombed by share of openings, too. I’m talking about people that don’t even try to be funny for the first minute or two because they’re so interested in setting the scene, introducing characters, or whatever.

You also have to make sure you set the right tone. One of the funniest speeches I’ve ever heard was from a guy who told about how he volunteered in his town’s flood rescue team back in Germany. Most of the story was about how he thought there would be a raging flood, so he put on his full scuba gear, and as it turned out there was only an inch of water on the ground. He walked around with the whole town looking while he had his Oxygen tank and flippers on through tiny puddles. I’m not doing it justice since he acted it out really beautifully.

The problem was that the guy started with a quote about greatness (or something like that) from Bruce Lee. When I think of Bruce Lee, I think of someone who died well before his time. I didn’t know this German guy at the time, so I thought his speech was going to be some weird and very dark Eurotrash stuff. It was the opposite, but by putting the thought of Bruce Lee in my mind it took me literally minutes to get back into the zany humor he had.

So be funny of course and be funny early, even in the title if you can.