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Working: How Late Night Writer Karen Chee Generates Punchlines

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Slate Podcasts

News, Business, Society & Culture

41.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2022

⏱️ 47 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, host Karen Han talks to comedy writer Karen Chee, who works as a writer and performer for Late Night With Seth Meyers. In the interview, Chee discusses her early work writing humor pieces for the New Yorker before landing a job writing for the Golden Globes. Then she breaks down her joke-writing process for Late Night, which involves generating dozens of setups and punchlines every day. After the interview, Karen Han and co-host June Thomas discuss the challenges of producing a large volume of work under a tight deadline. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Chee talks about her taste in movies. Then she shares more secrets from the Late Night writers' room. Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to [email protected] or give us a call at (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Big Mood, Little Mood—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now at slate.com/workingplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi, I'm Danny Dyer, and welcome to What's That Smell?

0:07.6

Smoked with a hint of burgers, it's my barbecue apron.

0:10.8

Luckily, I can make this smell like freshly picked lilies.

0:13.9

Just pop it in the washing machine, add some surf tropical lily laundry detergent, and

0:18.4

oh, my fave, it smells like my dream holiday.

0:23.2

Get long-lasting fragrance with natural essential oils, with surf laundry detergent.

0:28.0

You can make anything perth of surf.

0:36.0

There's kind of two ways I feel like you can sort of attack a setup.

0:39.8

One is you can make fun of something that is already within the setup, and that's kind

0:44.1

of more of an internal version of a punchline, and then there's something where you can take

0:48.2

that idea and bring it to a separate place that is a surprise location.

0:54.6

Welcome back to Working, I'm your host, June Thomas.

1:03.9

And I'm your other host, Karen Han.

1:06.2

And whose voice did we hear at the top of the show?

1:09.0

That was the delightful Karen Chi.

1:11.2

She is another Karen, to be clear.

1:14.1

She is a comedian who's done everything from stand-up to running for the New Yorker

1:18.2

and the Golden Globes, and she's currently a staff writer for Late Night with Seth Meyers.

1:23.8

So in the interview, Karen mentions being in a different age bracket from most of her co-workers

1:30.1

at Late Night, how old is she?

1:33.0

If I'm not mistaken, she's currently 26, so she is very young, especially since she started

1:37.8

a couple years ago or something, I believe.

...

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