I think you’ll find this TED Talk by Chris Bliss not exactly revelatory, but interesting enough. Bliss focuses on effective comedy, especially political comedy. There’s no mention of physical comedy, though the same ideas can certainly apply. You can watch the 16-minute talk below or, better yet, temporarily leave this blogopedia and go to the TED Talk site, where you can see it full screen or read a transcript of it.

My book Clowns has long been out of print, but you can borrow it for two weeks at a time from the Internet Archive. More information is available here.
Visual and verbal humor for the cognitively and artistically curious! Available here.
“A book to treasure!”
—Bill Irwin