by Nick Pappas Comedywire.com Let's take a joke that was on Comedywire.com this week, starting with the setup: Setup: Time Warner Cable Purchased by Charter Communications for $55 Billion It's a boring headline. Your job is to find what's funny by exploring the "handles," which are the specific key words in the headline. The Seth Meyers joke, for example, wouldn't have worked if it said "Bernie Sanders is holding an event announcing his candidacy." They needed the handle "kickoff" to make it work. To find associations all you have to do is ask yourself one question. "What do most people know about THIS?" For the set up above, the question is "What do most people know about cable companies?" Start writing down everything you can think of: *They are known for terrible customer service. *There are always hidden service fees or long contracts. *Cable has to be installed at an appointed time, and it's always weird, like "sometime between noon and 4 pm." Now, do the same for a second "handle" in the joke. It could be something specific like Time Warner Cable, or something general, like the verb "purchases." In this case, I asked the question, "What do most people know about purchases?" *Money is exchanged. *If you purchase something, you either buy it in a store or have to schedule a delivery. *You might have buyer's remorse. And so on. Once you have your list, you find a way to link your handles together. I came up with this Punchline: They're scheduled to complete the merger next Monday, at some time between noon and 4 pm. This used the associations for appointed times to install cable and a purchase that requires a scheduled delivery. The connection was natural. But, as we see on Comedywire, there's always different takes and associations for the same handle.