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recently, two talk shows were launched almost at the same time. the popularity of talk shows instantly soared, and a group of familiar talk show hosts once again entered the audience's field of vision.

however, looking through the two shows, cheng lu, who was once called "the happiest man in shanghai" by li dan, did not participate in the competition. he chose to stay behind the scenes and continue to serve as the chief screenwriter, leaving the stage to the new actors.

at the end of august, cheng lu told china newsweek that he had no plans to leave. "let's keep it simple. i want to go to the lama temple later. i can find peace in the temple," cheng lu said.

the following is from cheng lu’s oral statement

“the industry is still there”

i majored in english, and my job after graduation was basically translation-related. i had to repeat what other people said every day to make a living.

talk shows are different. i can say my own words and don't have to repeat myself. i don't need to repeat what happened in the talk show industry before. i have seriously thought about whether i still want to do this.

as a practitioner, i am definitely more painful and feel greater difficulties than people outside the industry because both our online and offline performances have been affected. but after careful consideration, i still feel that i want to do this.

since we don’t want to give up on this, maybe we need to make some changes. these changes can come from technical improvements, and the text can be presented in more ways. as long as we calm down, we can definitely find a way to express it better.

this process may be inevitable in the development of this industry, and it is also the stage that my colleagues and i are facing now.

a big part of my job now is to hold meetings, discuss the work with everyone, and revise it together. because everyone has their own limitations, the degree to which they can accept being offended varies greatly. maybe zhang san thinks that a joke is nothing, but li si is furious. at this time, it may be necessary to seek more opinions from more people in the early stage of creation, add more perspectives, and solve problems in multiple dimensions.

cheng lu in the program photo/provided by the interviewee

will it become less funny? i don't think so. just like when we were doing "tucao conference", we studied foreign talk shows every day. at that time, some people thought that we would never be able to do it like foreign countries. facts have proved that the effect of our later shows was not worse than theirs, and we still succeeded.

from the perspective of the current industry, i am still relatively optimistic. at this stage, people do not think that leaving this industry to do something else would be better than continuing to do this.

this is a realistic reason. people will always choose the most realistic result according to their current situation. from the perspective of the industry, the income of talk show hosts is still much higher than before.

my idea is simpler. i just simply hope to work with more outstanding people so that i can improve myself.

“everyone can do a 5-minute talk show”

we once created a slogan, "everyone can do a 5-minute talk show," which still holds true today.

being able to do a five-minute talk show doesn't mean you can become a talk show host and make a living from it. from my current experience in the industry, if anyone talks to me for two days, i can help you come up with a five-minute and very good joke. as long as you are not stage-frightened and can drag out the five minutes, it is hard to say whether you can make a living from this.

it is not easy to become a talk show host. you need to keep writing, learning, and going to open mics to polish your work. wang jianguo has never been to an open mic because we started creating it when we were doing "tonight's 80s talk show". the initial state of that show was actually similar to an open mic.

generally speaking, talk show hosts need to try their hand at open mics, then come back to modify and adjust their work, and then gain popularity through the show, which ultimately feeds back into online and offline performances to generate revenue.

of course, some actors do not need to participate in the show and can survive well by only performing offline. actors like fu hang, who have never participated in the show, have worked hard offline for so many years and can still support themselves. this also shows that the industry's pie is getting bigger.

cheng lu on stage

from a talk show host to a chief screenwriter, i actually enjoy the process of revising the script. we do not change the content and expression, but the jokes. this is more like a technical job. i can't tell others what to write, but we can change the structure of the content to make it sound funnier.

the order and consistency of some language content can create laughs after a slight change. talk shows rely on language to achieve their effects, and rhythm is very important in this effect. what we actually modify is the rhythm.

at first, we also learned from western talk show hosts, and even imitated them very poorly. but after enough training, we began to be dissatisfied with this simple and crude method. because later we found that some foreign talk shows that looked very exciting were actually very mediocre in terms of skills, and the jokes brought by vicious personal attacks could not sustain our long-term use.

in all these years of creation, one thing i have always been wary of is plagiarism, because plagiarism will inevitably breed laziness, thus forming path dependence.

even if it is not well written, you can revise it, and you can revise it all the time, but don’t copy other people’s jokes. of course, if your jokes are copied by others, there is no need to worry too much.

because there are only so many topics that people can write about now, the possibility of bumping into other topics is greater. sometimes actors will be very angry when they feel that their jokes have been bumped into by others, and they may even go to social media to ask for an explanation. there is no need to do so. these things are actually trivial matters. maybe the next joke you create will be more exciting than this one.

in fact, talk show pieces are divided into two types: one is logical and the other is performance. compared with logical works, performance works are less likely to collide.

especially some actors have special talents, such as he guangzhi. in the initial show, he always used his ugliness to make fun of jay chou. but he could find jokes with him because he has this talent. such jokes cannot be copied by others, and there is no possibility of duplication.

but after xu zhisheng came, no one laughed when guangzhi said he was ugly, because zhisheng raised the standard of "ugly", making it difficult for other actors to make jokes about their appearance.

the simplest way to do comedy is to make the audience feel superior. when zhisheng appears on stage, it is like falling down in the middle of the stage, which is something other actors do not have.

"talk shows can't cure yourself"

as stand-up comedians, we often have to study how to amuse others and make them happier. i think i have found some ways to make myself happier or make the audience happier, and it all comes down to the four words "lower expectations".

nowadays, our talk shows and related programs try to lower everyone's expectations in the previews, for example, they will say that our show is not that great. this is to let everyone lower their expectations. this also applies to life. if we lower our expectations for many things in life, we will find that life is much simpler and happier.

you thought your company was going bankrupt, but when you got in, you found that your salary for this month was paid again, which was amazing. you thought your stock had fallen, but hey, it only fell by 50%, which made you feel much happier. so, when you lower your expectations, you will find that many things are not a big deal.

cheng lu attended the 2024 interesting lifestyle conference

many people always ask me a question, that is, can an unhappy content bring happiness to others? the answer is yes, because it is a skillful way of expressing language and can be understood as a kind of performance.

i have not found anyone whose personality has changed drastically because of doing this job. no one has become cheerful or depressed because of doing talk shows. for example, niao niao, her writing is excellent and the effect is also explosive, but has she become a cheerful person in the traditional sense because of talk shows? i don't think so.

a person's personality will not change because of the job he does, because the core of talk show is to talk about your true self. if you are not yourself on stage, it will not work.

since talk show is a job, it will definitely wear away people's emotions and will in life, but it does not mean it can bring about a drastic change in temperament.

but working in talk shows can sometimes help me come to terms with some of my past. for example, when i write about my past, i don’t understand what happened between my parents and me, but as i write, i suddenly feel that i and my parents at that time weren’t that bad.

in fact, if we are always immersed in the emotions that we can't get over, it is difficult to write a good talk show. because when we are in a state of misunderstanding or in disharmony with others, it is difficult to be free and easy to make others laugh.

so at times like this, i would tell my colleagues that if it doesn’t work, just put it aside for now. maybe in a few years our life experiences and knowledge will have changed, and the comedic treatment of these materials will become better. when we look back at these materials at that time, they may become more exciting jokes.

many colleagues often complain that there are too few materials. in fact, there is a lot of material at all. the real reason is that we are not strong enough to handle so much material about ourselves.

our industry seems to be very popular nowadays, but in fact, not many people can stick with it. because it is actually quite scary not to be funny on stage.

the feeling of not being funny can have a huge impact on people. it is very embarrassing to be on stage. being alone is embarrassing enough. being alone in public is a very scary thing. if a person's psychological quality is not strong enough, it is difficult for him to bear the embarrassment he has created on stage.

of course, if there is a person who can persist in being awkward on stage without any income, and after years develops a certain performance style, and can embarrass the entire audience as soon as he goes on stage, then perhaps it will become another form of comedy.

author: hu kefei