"Cats" is a topic, but it's not until you say something like "Cats bother me as an economist." have you transformed your material into a premise. In this episode we make that distinction. We also learn how Mike's comedy teaching classes in Dallas are coming alone. And we talk about Mike's aha moment during improv training. Listen to this episode if you're unclear how to morph a topic into a premise, if you want improv advice, or you want to learn how Mike's brain works when punching up jokes for someone else's writing.

We asked each of our last 12 comedy pro guests what they'd tell new comedians to do if they had an hour a day to write jokes. Here's a compilation of their best advice.

• Lenny Schmidt
• Nathan Timmel
• Steph Clark
• Kevin Rogers
• Dan Bakkedahl
• Dan Carlson
• Doby Maxwell
• Tom Clark
• Dr. Caleb Warren
• Jake Vevera
• Rich Talarico
• Adam Bloom

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New York comedian and co-host of the podcast “Idiots on Parade” Jake Vevera (@jakevevera) stops by the Funny Muscle Podcast to talk about his upcoming comedy special, which is about to be released on YouTube.

Jake is full of advice for new comedians like his three-sentence joke writing drill and his advice on stage time.

Find out why Jake also tells new comics to pretend that their audience doesn’t speak English.

(hint: It forces you to work on your cadence and timing.)

*** If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to give us a share, like, and follow! Thanks :)