Awesome examples! I think all jokes are surprising, but not all surprising things are jokes ("you have lung cancer" is surprising but not very hilarious). Surp

Awesome examples! I think all jokes are surprising, but not all surprising things are jokes ("you have lung cancer" is surprising but not very hilarious). Surprise seems more like a side effect of comedy, instead of an explanation. The trick is to figure out what, aside from surprise, creates comedy. What kind of properties apply to all the funny things, and only to funny things. There's a "benign violation" theory - they say that things are funny when they're surprising but harmless, but that's also not true. Plot twists, scientific inventions, new insightful ideas - there are plenty of surprising harmless things that aren't funny.