Humour: the Holy Grail
A joke is indeed a very serious thing, as any comedian will tell you, who has to stand in front of an audience which has the single expectation that they will be made to laugh. The rest of us are not comedians, and it is as well to remember that when tasked with making a speech, even a speech that is entirely social in its intention.
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Personal Integrity
Would you risk your career for a cheap laugh at a dinner or a throw-away line at the beginning of a seminar? I imagine not, but you will be aware of men and women from the business, sporting and political arenas who have done just that: they are usually naive in the extreme. Even something you involuntarily laughed at in the pub should often be screened out when you consider what to put in a business seminar.
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Delivery, Delivery and Delivery: Timing
Skilled mirth makers get into a zone, a free-flow, when everything they say is funny to an audience. Afterwards, you might well wonder what was so funny since you have difficulty remembering any of the 'jokes', and the fact is that they may have been few and far between.
More than any other aspect of speaking, humour is about the timing of the delivery.
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Truth
A story with a small kernel of truth in it is a component of humour.
Simple lines such as "He has a personality it's almost impossible to ignore, but it's well worth the effort" will generate laughter when told in the right manner about the right person (i.e not about someone who has no personality whatever and has a problem with it, but someone who perhaps is gregarious and can take the barb).
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