Freud and the comic view on jokes

Simple jokes such as 'Buster' Keaton being dragged into a lake by a boat that should be afloat is funny on the surface for one reason. It's Wacky! It gets the laughs of everybody who is watching it. But why are we laughing? Sure it is funny, and sure we acknowledge it as so, but there is somewhere in our psyche where our laugh is coming from. This gag of buster being drowned brings a situation to our conscious being. If we were actually there when a man was being dragged into the lake we would probably be horrified. However, from the safe confides of our home viewing experience we laugh at this situation. Frued compares situations like this to words. In the wrong context serious words can be made comical. At first the "joke appears to be wrongly constructed."(28, playful judgements) However the "comic affect is produced by the solution of this bewilderment."(28)