A joke is a very simple thing. It has only two moving parts: the setup and the punchline. And if you write jokes for a living, as I have done for 35 years, you learn that the basic rule of comedy is that if a joke isn’t working, there are only two ways to fix it. You can fiddle with the setup, or you can tinker with the punchline, and that’s about it.

My first job in show business — and pretty much my first job in life — was a staff writer on the long-running hit sitcom Cheers, where I learned about setups and jokes. Cheers has a joke staple we call the “Norm entrance,” which is essentially the setup/punchline structure whittled to pure simplicity.