One thing I despise about shock humor

[Der/die AtheistIn]

In the words of the great Mel Brooks, 'Tragedy is when I stub my toe.  Comedy is when YOU fall into an open manhole and die.'

Boru

He is right about that, this applies to Tom and Jerry. However,when a cartoon character gets hit the results are unrealistic and this does play a role to comedy. The jokes also work because the characters are stretchy or break like glass. Oh yeah, they usually deserve it to, in cartoon terms of course. Tom and Jerry isn't shock humour, it's slapstick, it focuses on physical pain, but there is no gore, the results are very unrealistic and the characters usually return quick to normal, so it's not shocking.
An example of good shock humour is the zombie episode of South Park.  Speaking of South Park, I was never a big fan of the Kenny dying jokes, I don't find them terrible either. Sometimes I found them really funny, even when I don't they're short. Also, it wasn't always used for jokes and in the last years it has been used less and less.
The shock humor that pisses me off is when an anthropomorphic green bear who is also a former soldier suffers from war ptsd and everytime it gets triggered he starts killing everyone around. This would work better as an actual horror, especially if you replace the bear with a human.