If a joke doesn't "connect," then maybe it isn't much of a joke.

It is personal. Audiences have a lot of personalities. It depends on the news, like Las Vegas just announced. It depends on the last singers. It depends on the misanthropy of the listener. Maybe the listener isn't much of a listener. It happens. You work with the material and the misanthropes you find.

My GF won't watch Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. I love them. Go figure. I have, she is very sensitive to physical knockabout on film. She laughs when Irish Set "sets" go wrong, I understand her amusement, I am concentrating on why, and generating mnemonics to help. Only then can I laugh, (if I succeed).
It is personal.

Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies.
E B White

I laughed when I saw on sale - Smart Clothes Pegs. To bring us back on topic ish.