1 Volume Introduction: Comedy as Theory, Industry, and Academic Discipline Nick Marx aNd Matt SiENkiEwicz What makes a TV show, ilm, or snippet of internet video funny? It is a simple question, but one that often requires a complex answer to which no two people ever seem to fully agree. There is an old cliché that any at- tempt to explain a joke is an act of comedic murder. No humor, the idea goes, can survive its own deconstruction. As editors of The Comedy Studies Reader , we disagree vehemently. Studying comedy no more ruins a joke than knowledge of optics discounts the beauty of a rainbow. Nonetheless, studying comedy can create a certain amount of frustration for students and scholars alike. The varieties of comedic media and potential interpre- tations thereof are such that no singular theory or critical approach will ever suice to give more than a partial, contingent grasp of what makes your favorite long-running sitcom or blockbuster rom-com funny, popu- lar, and proitable. The efort to explain a joke does not kill it. It does, however, reveal the impossibility of inding one comprehensive explana- tion for its success. Accordingly, it is tempting to throw one’s hands up and accept the im- penetrable nature of humor. Perhaps we simply know comedy when we see it, and there is nothing more to say? We argue, however, that this is the wrong approach. Yes, there is something confusing in acknowledg- ing how little we understand about what makes us, let alone other people, laugh. There is also something terribly exciting, engaging, and important about taking the fractured pieces of human experience and struggling to arrange them into a more orderly and useful portrait. Unfortunately, there is no grand Theory of Comedy to be found. Fortunately, there are many insightful theories of comedy that can help explain the diferent ways in which viewers understand humor and producers reap inancial rewards from it. All rights reserved; not for reproduction