The Funny Muscle welcomes to the podcast its first guitar. And accompanying that guitar is comedian and songwriter Tim Cavanagh, who has been in the comedy business for almost four decades. His first CD, “Sounds Like Fun!” was released in 1997. Tim tells us how he credits deadlines and his weekly segment called “The One Minute Song” on “The Bob & Tom Show” for his ability to create laughs. Tim gives us advice on finding connections for joke writing, turning a premise into a song, and replicating his creative process. We also get to hear the guitar during several of his songs.

To improve their character voices, Mike and Chris chat with actor, musician, filmmaker and voice coach Darren McStay whose Youtube channel “Improve Your Voice” has millions of downloads. Darren teaches warm up techniques, why it’s important to commit to a character and tips on sticking with that character. Maybe the best advice Darren teaches during the episode is how to use physicality and body-focus to perfect your voices. If all your characters sound the same, this episode is perfect for you.

"Cats" is a topic, but it's not until you say something like "Cats bother me as an economist." have you transformed your material into a premise. In this episode we make that distinction. We also learn how Mike's comedy teaching classes in Dallas are coming alone. And we talk about Mike's aha moment during improv training. Listen to this episode if you're unclear how to morph a topic into a premise, if you want improv advice, or you want to learn how Mike's brain works when punching up jokes for someone else's writing.