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A key to improvisation, and a major tool to comedy in general is braking, a trick down to it's basic formula and reapplying the principle in new ways to new situations. If you have played chess and think of it as applying a strategy or tactic you'll get the picture a little easier. If you understand how a pin or a fork works you can create one on many different board position, you can hardly expect any opponent to fall for fools mate, but the basic fools mate pattern can be used in more complex play.
Let me discribe a number of gestes and hoax,,,In Beaumont and Fletcher's Elizabethan play "Knight of the burning Pestle" the lovers Jasper and Luce are kept apart by the Luce's father who objects to thier marriage, To free Luce, Jasper contrives a scheme in which he puts about that he is dead and has his coffin brought into the house. the father allows it to be brought to Luce's room so that she knows he is dead and will marry the suitor of his choice. Jasper gets out, explaining to the shooked Luce what the real story is and has her take his place in the coffin. She is then smuggled out of the house under the guise of his body being taken away and Jasper proceeds to powder his face and take on a ghostly appearance. It is easy enough to then pass himself off as a ghost and more than make his get away.
A hoax that became popular in the end of the last century and remained so through most of this one was for two rogues to enter a restaurant , but with no appearance of being together. One would order a cup of coffee, the other a big expensive meal, they would then exchange bills in the restroom and after the rogue who had the big meal left (paying only for a cup of coffee, the otherwould begin making a fuss, complaining of the bill which charges $50.00 for a cup of Coffee. It would be assumed that he was given the wrong check and he would leave, paying only for his coffee if that.
You might already see a similarity between these two hoax's, and you might recognise part of the same pattern in the tragic ending of the tale of the two Cities, where the hero sacrifies himself by switching places with a prisoner in the Bastille, In all cases thier is a basic sell, the principle of which is to gain the release of one person on the pass or visa of another, Jasper's coffin, the check for a cup of coffeee hero's pass into about of the Bastille are all passes out of a place of confinement and part of the mirth of this hoax (and yes thier is humour in the restuarant hoax you prune) Is the outwitting of those who control the terrain. The sacrifice of the bastille losses it's humour only because of what it lacks the second sell that saves the substituted person. (Note to this sacrifice itself could be funny if the rules of Mirth are applied) In each of the other cases the second sell is a side effect of the first, Jasper is dead and so what we see is his ghost who we are afraid of, The man who had a cup of coffee is of cource outraged to be charged $50.00 and so is enpowered. Another veriation of this same sell is to substitute a woman, who is being forced to marry, with a man who then reveals himself after the ceremony. The victim of the hoax is then made rediculous and we know his claims will not be pressed on the substituted man. In each case we see that the sell is actually the same tactical principle.
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