I probably won't ever get into long discussions about "what makes good comedy," but I will say one running theme I've noticed is the element of surprise. If your audience sees it coming, it's usually not going to be funny UNLESS the fact that it's an obvious joke is part of the gag. I could write a whole fucking paper on why Family Guy isn't funny, but that's definitely one of the more obvious reasons. If you've ever met some stupid unfunny asshole who says "nobody likes me because I'm a jerk and PROUD! I'll say anything I want!! XD" it's the same level of predictability; a bad thing happens, and the unfunny asshole says "haha isn't it funny that bad thing happened? I'm glad it happened! Uh-oh look out person, I bet that bad thing will happen again and it'll be FUNNY AGAIN XD"
There's no joke there, it's boring, and above all it's predictable. You could practically storyboard a whole episode of Family Guy and it'd probably be 90% accurate. I like to think one of the reasons why the podcast works is that none of us do that shit.