From Chortles To Guffaws

It occurs to me that two of my favorite Simpsons quotes are funny for the same reason.

The context of the first one I forget, but Marge pleads with Bart to try to do something, to which he responds "I can't promise I'll try - but I'll try to try."

The second one, I think, is from the episode Bart the Mother. Bart needs to learn how to care for an unborn bird whose mother he killed, so he watches a Troy McClure documentary. When introducing himself, Troy says, "You might remember me from such nature films as Earwigs Eew! and Man Versus Nature: The Road to Victory." It's the latter fictional documentary that applies here.

Both jokes poke fun at bits of indisputable-if-hackneyed wisdom: like Yoda said, do or do not; there is no try. Bart's line flies in the face of every high school football coach's motivational creed, under which trying itself is unacceptable.

Similarly, advocates for holistic medicine, organic groceries, animal cruelty prevention, etc., will insist, correctly, that humans are a part of nature; we cannot do without it and harmony with it is desirable. Troy's documentary is therefore ridiculous.

As someone who tries with very limited success to engender a laugh or two at most any social gathering, I have precious little understanding of what technically makes something funny. But I think I can break down these examples in this way: they imply a person or group of people who completely lack the basic pieces of wisdom that I discussed above. Not that these pearls are indisputable fact, but that anyone contradicting them needs to take care to carefully justify his statement, lest he look oafish, like Bart and Troy.

Has anyone already classified all jokes in such a way? Or, preferably, in a more concise way? Am I re-inventing the wheel and, therefore, to be made the subject of fun?