If you work at comedy too laboriously you can kill what's funny in the joke.
Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task go to sleep in peace.
One of my favorite things about 'Star Trek' wasn't just the overt banter but the humor in that show about the relationships between the main characters and their reactions to the situations they would face there was a lot of comedy in that show without ever breaking its reality.