it's the 21st century--we can submit any type of discourse to some sort of analysis...
i don't think the point of joke analysis can really be to determine if a joke is funny or not. certainly, all sorts of awful, unfunny jokes can be put through the same sort of analysis as gut-busters. there are all sorts of methods at analyzing jokes--from those of professional comedians to psychological, philosophical and literary methods. i don't think any analysis exists that can separate successful (ie funny) jokes from unsuccessful jokes--mainly because the same joke can be successful to one audience, incomprehensible to another, and offensive to a third.
(of course, if you want to submit that jokes can be objectively funny, i'll listen. this is what i really want to believe, but i've had a very difficult time in philosophically justifying this position.)
someone commented that jokes work at confounding expectations. this is certainly one method of joke analysis--and the one i tend to hear from stand-ups (NEVER sketch writers, sometimes improv comedians)--but is very abbreviated. generally, when talking about jokes confounding expectations, stress is put on the joke following a consistent logic. the talk about consistent logic is a load of nonsense in my mind--there are too many sketches where any consistency goes to hell by the end--and it's all the funnier for it.
i'm quite partial to joke analysis. the earliest book on jokes (rather than on "the comic") that i've been able to find is freud's "Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious." freud began the book after a comment that dreams worked along the same lines as jokes (condensation, displacement, etc.). at the beginning of this work, it is enough to say that the mechanisms by which jokes work are sufficient to cause some pleasure. by the end of the work, he concludes that jokes, the comic, and humor all work through an economy in [psychical] expenditure...('The pleasure in jokes arises from an economy in expenditure upon inhibition'--the pleasure from the comic and humor come from the conservation of different psychical expeditures). i don't want to go on too much about freud's manner of joke analysis--but his argument exhibits some of the depth of joke analysis.
i've seen some book by Henri Bergson on humor/the comic in bibliographies--and even freud mentions it i think--but i've yet to pick it up. anyone else read it?
there are all sorts of jokes that can cause or become problems for joke analysis, if the point of the thread is just to drive someone crazy. there is the whole debate about sense of humor and the subjective vs objective nature of comedy/humor/jokes (analagous to debates about "taste" in literature). then there are several particulars--i've inserted my own quick answers:
can a joke be funny that does not produce laughter or smiles?
[certainly. many jokes are meant to insult and, even though funny, are not likely to cause merriment.]
can an unfunny joke become funny?
[perhaps. a running gag can grow on many people. what was bizarre or annoying the first time could be funny the third.]
can a funny joke become unfunny?
[more like "when does a funny joke become unfunny." usually, a funny premise goes on too long without adequate payoff. while amusing at first, it quickly stagnates.]
what is the place/role of visual gags? can visual gags be submitted to analysis?
[flying circus has a whole slough of pretty innovative visual gags--early endings and credit rolls, the links, cuts to stock footage (the theater audience applauding is always great). it could probably be submitted to freudian analysis, but the show doesn't hold up to anything i've heard standups say about writing/performing]
i've only seen the the first question really dealt with in the literature (though the last couple questions have come up in my conversations with others about joke analysis).
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can anyone argue that joke analysis can somehow separate funny/successful jokes from unsuccessful ones? i would desperately love to believe this, but it does not seem possible. the first step would be to say that an individual's sense of humor does not determine the hilarity of a joke--which i can't really justify.