Eleanor Black - The secret to comedy is...

Eleanor Black, Fuse
Jul 18, 2019
2 min read

The secret to comedy is...

As the well-known phrase goes, the secret to comedy is TIMING

Timing is also part of the secret behind getting a toy licensed and manufactured. It can be the making or breaking of a concept. The moment of pure clarity, or total confusion. And I don't just mean needing to have your videos and prototypes ready and working with fresh batteries in time for your meetings!

To it's Inventor, a good idea is ALWAYS a good idea, pure and simple. We're vain like that. But it's not just professional favouritism; There is something intrinsic and compelling about a good idea, it stands out. Like a Ditloid when you realise 'Of course 52 C in a P is 52 cards in a pack!' Sometimes you just know.

But of course, you need the person you are presenting to, to have that 'Eureka!' moment too.

A good idea can sometimes be totally undermined by bad timing. Whether it be a sudden change of trend, sways in the influencer world or the frustration of 'Conceptual Overlap' the fact that someone has incredibly thought of exactly the same thing at the same time - Deep Impact and Armageddon are a great filmic example of this in the summer of 1998, when duelling films about death from above (one's a comet, the other's an asteroid) invaded cinemas worldwide.

Yes, timing can sometimes seem to trample a good idea. But don't let this dampen your spirits. If you are prolific in your invention, memory lane can often be where the gold is hidden.

The idea you had 10 years ago for Bob the Builder might suddenly come into its own when re-imagined for Paw Patrol. The games world might suddenly be the perfect place for a mechanism you had totally seen as a Boys Action toy 6 years ago.

So it's always well worth regularly looking back over your portfolio of work, revisiting your ideas, and re showing concepts to your clients.

What do you have to lose... good ideas don't die, they just sit and wait patiently on the shelves for a good opportunity to become available.

So, knock knock....