I’d sure say the mindset for that has to be different from, say, Jeff Foxworthy’s writers. You can be a bit broader with redneck funnies. It amazes me how the Jewish literary community has such subtle humor, and yet it has a wide appeal among gentiles too (as long as it doesn’t depend so heavily upon a Jewish context it can’t be understood). Maybe if God held a mountain over me upon some smoke (one probably overly literal interpretation of the biblical passage) I’d crack up too... JUST KIDDING!
I guess there is room in this world, for both Noel Coward and Larry Fine. :)
Lenny Bruce once said that every Goy in NYC was a Jew and every Jew in Sheboygan was a Goy. A lot of truth in that. Me, I’m a NYC Goy who happens to like urban-Jewish jokes.
Most people think that Jewish humor comes from their dire history and from that original “tough Jew” himself: Moses.
I’m still trying to figure out how the humor was ‘urban’ but not Hee Haw, or was it ‘urbane’?