Pinch Ouch/ Making Things Worse

Pinch Ouch is a comedy principle where something happens to make a situation worse — and the humour comes from reacting to it and then escalating it.

The “pinch” is the action or event that creates a new problem, inconvenience, or discomfort.

The “ouch” is the reaction — physical, verbal, or emotional — that lets the audience enjoy the fallout.

It’s about playing the game of “things keep getting worse” and raising the stakes each time.

Playing the Game

• Establish the Situation: A goal, a task, a routine moment, or even just a still scene.

• Pinch: Add a problem — this can come from another character or yourself. You might sabotage your own success, trip over your own plan, or turn a small mistake into a big one.

• Ouch: React in a way that shows us how bad it feels or how much it matters to you.

• Escalate: Make the next pinch bigger, stranger, or more impossible to recover from. Keep pushing until it tips into the absurd.

Why It Works

• Escalation: Comedy builds when problems snowball.

• Clarity: The simple cycle of pinch → ouch → bigger pinch → bigger ouch makes it easy for the audience to follow.

• Rhythm: It creates a predictable beat that can be broken for surprise.

• Complicity: The audience enjoys spotting the pattern and waiting for the next disaster.

Across Comedy Forms

• Sketch: A single person making their own situation worse (“I’ll just fix it—oh no”).

• Improv: A fast way to discover and heighten a game.

• Stand-Up / Storytelling: A chain of bad decisions, each choice digging the hole deeper.

• Clown: Works beautifully with Major / Minor — whether another clown is pinching you, or you’re doing it to yourself.

Examples

• A juggler drops a ball, bends to pick it up, and knocks over the rest of their props.

• A character trying to impress a date keeps “fixing” small mistakes, only to create bigger ones.

• In clown, a performer catches their breath after a big trick… then makes the mistake of trying one more thing that inevitably fails.