Comedy as art?

It is often difficult to treat comedy as a form of art. This is perhaps because comedy is very diverse in terms of its material within its genre. Ranging from slapstick to political satire, jokes can be cruel or sophisticated. So it might be easy to say that only sophisticated and dark humors and art-like. However, the comedy should be homogeneously considered as an art. This is because even the most dirty and cheap slapstick comedy involves format of the genre, effort, and purpose. So, an episode of jackass should be considered as a art. Of course, its quality and substance is still debatable.