The genre of Humor

This time, instead of trying to say something humorous, i shall attempt a serious essay on how one might write humor. This is of course based on my own points of view and is by no means 'Humor writing for dummies'. and i am not the first to try any such thing too; Scott Adams writes a wonderfully humorous essay on how he creates humor in his extremely enjoyable, 'The Joy of work'. I am probably not going to say anything new here; rather its my take on the genre itself and what i think makes something funny.
as such i am not talking of humor in the visual media because you could have a very funny visual and that makes a line go funnier. for instance, when Kramer (in Seinfeld) looks at his face, gone awol after being subject to several hours of heavy smoking and goes, "but Jerry, my face is my livelihood!", the line is all the more funny because Michael Richards does such a great Kramer that his face itself makes you laugh. However there are still many instances of humor that work in well written sitcoms (Yes minister/Prime minister, Seinfeld, Fawlty towers, Arrested development). i refer to some of these too because the lines there are v funny.
Humor as such is not considered a mainstream genre for fiction writing. somehow it is always seen as something more frivolous, or in the fringe, so to speak. I cannot recall how many people who predominantly write/wrote humorous fiction were actually awarded in some way (Nobel, Pulitzer, Booker etc). So i guess humorous writing has always been regarded by most serious writers as something in the manner of a temporary stage in their career. and to some extent it is sort of true. but that doesn't mean it is not artistic or cannot be made artistic. i hope the distinction is clear.
I somehow have always found humorous writing extremely engaging. i just love P G Wodehouse; the Wooster series is thematically almost a one-liner; bertie gets engaged while trying to help one of his loony friends, jeeves saves the day while mostly making an ass of this guy. but the writing is simply fantastic. RK Narayan is another writer who writes serious stuff which are more than suffused with humor. 'The world of Nagaraj' is one book with no theme at all; its almost just a collection of the protagonist's random thoughts on the few things that
affect his life. in terms of content the book might be nought but in humor terms i would rate it v highly. i've read almost all the books in the Jeeves series and all RKN's books.
I have always felt that if i would/could do some writing, it would largely be in the genre of humor. because sometimes to write humor you don't need a theme; all you need to do is doodle in some fashion and all that can be good humorous writing too. but the doodling is done with some method. and i have a take on that.
some wise person (probably several wise persons) once opined that comedy and tragedy are both two sides of the same coin; it only depends on whether you choose to engage yourself with the character or view things in a disengaged manner. for instance one could talk about someone so ugly at a zoo that the hippos refused to come out. now this line stated in just that fashion could work if the one facing the brunt of this joke is a nameless, faceless guy or someone on whom you do not really wish to shower any sympathy. and also no one(including the animal rights people) is generally offended when u call a hippo ugly because it really is.
but if that same character is someone who is conscious of his/her bad looks or someone in whom you have invested a few redeeming qualities, the same remark becomes very rude and hurtful. so, in general, to tell jokes it is necessary to see who's facing the music. if the person is someone whom all dislike then the extent of comparison can go further and further. i mean if u said that u dreamt that osama bin laden's beard catches fire when one of his own honchos turns the telescope towards his beard and the lenses worked the sunlight on them, most would find it funny since OBL doesn't have much sympathy in the sane world.
or atleast not from the people who read my blogs.
else i'm in some serious trouble!
scott adams gives a very interesting idea while talking about his methods to create humor. humor always has an element of exaggeration. if something gets exaggerated to the extent of it becoming ridiculous, to the point that it looks like you can't exaggerate further, go one step more! the trick always works!
one technique of creating something funny would be to make absurd comparisons. i usually prefer to make/say things that would be relevant lines in a more serious situation but are inappropriate in the situation under discussion, than vice-versa, i.e., say something totally silly in a tense situation, like with the James Bond one-liners. usually thriller movies resort to the later trick and i sort of find them annoying; i prefer the former since it seems a more difficult thing to pull off successfully. this is also something that i've observed in many good sitcom episodes. for instance in Friends season 2(i think) in the episode where Monica is stung by a jellyfish the dialogues resemble lines from the last act of a murder thriller where all the beans are being spilt, when chandler, joey and monica narrate the episode to the others.
one great idea for humor (though it works not in writing but very well in parties and such) especially when you have someone who is easily amused in the following. When a lousy pj is told and no one else laughs except for the easily amused one, all the others are at first confused about what this person is laughing at. sooner or later, it triggers a laugh in most people. i've seen this in many situations. basically the absurdity in the joke is transferred to the absurdity of either the one who told the joke or is directed at the person who found it funny in the first place. sometimes it is possible to have the absurdity transferred to the notion of trying hard to discover something funny that the attempt at trying itself becomes funny. this is analogous to what scott adams calls the technique of broken logic.
clever humor is something i have always loved, especially when what is funny, is so on a few levels. generally, it helps if there are good puns around; then usually things take a turn towards getting 'punnier'.
self referential humor is another technique of very smart humor. when you can remember everything that is said, the impact of humor increases multifold. one such great instance is in fawlty towers or more recently in arrested development. in fawlty towers the line, "He's from Barcelona" about Manuel, gets extremely funny as the series goes into the later episodes. the same trick was used with multiple such lines in AD, with lines such as "Come on!", "I've made a huge mistake", and so on.
another technique which was employed to great effect in the Yes minister/prime minister series was the use of verbiage, especially when the matter at hand is extremely mundane. since it increases the absurdity of the description, it works great. the more mundane the situation, the loftier the language.
RKN's books have a totally different brand of humor to them. they generally consider some common observation and view them from such strange points of view that sooner or later, the absurdity of the analysis gets to you. its more or less the same way seinfeld's standup comedy works; he does stuff which is 'all about nothing'.
i've noticed that it always works better when you use several different words to describe something and not repeat yourself. while this is also pleasing as an intellectual exercise, it makes for more humorous reading/listening. i guess this is an inspiration from the language of george carlin.
i have many a time tried to understand why i laugh at something. and reverse-engineer it to see if there is a technique to it. sometimes a situation itself provides all the absurdity you need. but good humor usually means you see the funny stuff by stretching your imagination in some way.

personally, i don't have enough nerve to take a crack at some of the people close to me because you never know when you are crossing the line of their tolerance. So to me, teh safe way out is that i prefer writing about some absurd things that happened to me, or absurd things i have done, or imagine absurd things happening to me or finally, simply take a dig at myself. either the humor works or i get some sympathy! i win both ways!
in general, whenever we hit upon a new philosophy about what feels absurd, we have a new humor technique. and if it can be used in conjunction with any of the others, then the complexity goes up as well.