Not only is postmodern comedy radically different in tone, but it makes no sense for most of the characters in a serious comedy like "Lost in Yonkers" to be frothing at the mouth with one-liners.

WSJ: Putting the Punch in Punch-Line | Neil Simon | Laughter on the 23rd Floor | Mad Cow Theatre | Review by Terry Teachout

That's what Douglas Carter Beane does with "The Nance, " a dead-serious comedy set in New York circa 1937 in which Nathan Lane plays a self-hating gay man who makes a living playing outrageously effeminate gay men on the burlesque stage.

WSJ: The Tears of a Clown | The Nance | Motown: The Musical | Theater Reviews by Terry Teachout

Nkonzo, who often appears on stage with a guitar, said that all of his comedy comes after serious thinking.

CNN: February 7, 2012 -- Updated 1520 GMT (2320 HKT)

Yet this seriously crazed comedy is also a crazily serious disquisition on enslavement, and how it has been portrayed over the years and decades by slaves to Hollywood.

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Once-upon-a-laugh-track, many brands kept the humor strictly off camera, but Brand Keys has put one of those categories under the research microscope to see how humor is working in a field once thought far too serious to put in the hands of comedy: Car Insurance.

FORBES: 'Four Car Insurance Brands Drive Into a Bar'

Fail Safe is a nuclear war story, considered to be the serious version of Dr Strangelove and the original novel was made into a film released just months after the Kubrick comedy.

BBC: Why TV drama is going live

Sure, serious, tiny, angsty films are great, but in a best-case scenario, an appreciation for comedy bleeds into the rest of voting, and the academy nominates Bill Murray for a performance where he doesn't just stand around looking sullen.

NPR: Make 'Em Laugh: Why No Oscar for Best Comedy?