Dying is easy; comedy is hard

I have a very dear friend who frequently sends me links to YouTube videos he thinks are hilarious. And I almost never laugh. (The most recent offering was for some product Jerry Stiller was hawking and I thought the commercial was like bad vaudeville.)  I was thinking about that in relationship to Shakespeare and his comedies. Or more precisely, Shakespeare and his comic characters. Comedy relies so much on context--on the joke teller and the audience "being on the same page" that it's a wonder a single sitcom can manage it, much less a playwright who lived centuries ago in a world that was different from ours today that any account of it might as well begin with "Once Upon a Time."
A lot of Shakespeare's comic relief characters do not work for me, not even in performance when an actor (and the comic relief characters are mostly male, aren't they?) can bring the comedy to a level I can relate to.
I have never enjoyed Falstaff, for instance. He appears in his "jolly" incarnation in three plays, Henry IV, pt. 1, Henry IV, pt. 2, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. For more about Falstaff, check out the post here. Mabillard, Amanda. Shakespeare: General Q & A Shakespeare Online. 20 Aug. 2000. (August 12, 2012) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/faq/falstaff.html>.
I also hate Dogberry from Much Ado About Nothing. Every time he steps upon the stage, the energy of the play drops for me. The malapropisms just lie flat for me.
But I know both these opinions are minority ones, and that by general regard, Falstaff is Shakespeare's greatest comic creation. 
If I had to pick, though, my favorite Shakespeare clown would be Bottom from A Midsummer Night's Dream, with the Tempest's Stefano a close second.