Danger? Why, that's my middle name!

They say explaining a joke makes it not funny.

And now I'm going to attempt to analyze humor.  That's a pretty broad subject, but I'm kind of interested in the limits of humor.  Should there be any?  Well, it's all subjective and different things are funny in different contexts, but overall I'd say no, there shouldn't.  There are a lot of horrible things in the world like diseases and natural disasters and domestic violence and incest and murder and rape and racism and physical and mental impairments and so on and so forth.  But somehow joking about these things robs them of their power in some small fashion.

But exercise a little bit of discretion, for crying out loud.  "Wrong" humor can be funny but don't harp on the same thing all the time.  If you're always going on about your lord and savior, people are going to think you're a Jesus freak.  If you never shut up about your political beliefs, people are going to think you're an extremist.  And if you're constantly telling racist jokes, people are going to think you're a racist.  And probably rightfully so.  Spread it out a little, man.  Oddly enough, the more different targets you offend, the more acceptable it is to be offensive.

On some level "safe" humor gets boring.  The best humor involves crossing boundaries and an element of danger.  In some cases, literally.  Hell, let's take a look at some old classics and you can see this is true.

Why did the chicken cross the road?  To get to the other side.  She's crossing a boundary, in this case the road.  There's certainly an element of danger because the chicken could be crushed by a speeding car at any moment.  Also, little known fact, the chicken was a white supremacist.

Then, of course, take a look at the old knock knock joke.  There are many varieties on this one but they all boil down to the same premise.  There is a physical boundary in the form of the door.  And there is most definitely an element of danger.  Who is this mysterious knocker?  And is he really more likely to be an interrupting cow or some maniac coming to rape and murder you?

Think about it.