That Joke's Not Funny Any More?

Mark Brown's article over at Resolution caught my eye, because it's on one of those perennial topics that I think's always worth thinking about. Because thinking about comedy never kills a joke. Er... joking apart, it's a biggie. Where Now For Comedy In Games, basically? He interviews Zombie Cow's Dan Marshall, Rhianna Pratchett, Twisted Pixel’s CCO Josh Bear, and the key point - at least to me - is that a couple of factors conspire to make comedy difficult. Firstly, genres which are popular at the moment don't lend themselves to comedy. Secondly, comedy is about timing, control and situation - and with today's generally increasingly large teams, especially one where the comedy-creator isn't central, that becomes increasingly tricky to pull off. Oh - and as a third one, the idea of "genre" in games is different from many other forms. "Comedy" isn't a game genre. It's something that's added to other genres. Anyway, I think this is a good place to start talking about this, so let's. Comedy. Right? Wrong? What? Who? Where? Why? How? If?