Well, that's just not true. I have a joke which I've translated into a few languages, and absolutely everyone laughs, groans, laughs, and goes on to retell it. Have you heard the one about the apprentice undertaker and the shrimp? ...

Students of comedy will disagree. If the author means that no joke will be found to universally funny, he has a point. OTOH, structure, timing, irony, etc. have long been known to separate "good" jokes from "bad" jokes.

Having sat in on a friend's undergraduate "Comedy in Film" course, I concluded that dissecting comedy is like vivisecting a human being. You may learn something from the experience, but at the end of the process the subject is lifeless.

If anything is to be learned from the film "The Aristocrats" it's that a joke is truely in the hands of the comedian. A skilled comedian can take the same premise (set-up, punch line) and turn it into something hillarious. A poor comedian will create something that is only groan inducing.

There may be some jokes that are universally funny, but there's only one joke that is universally lethal....

And only Monty Python knows what it is!