Ha ha ha! Please by all means toot your own horn, I love it! I've never thought of you as being dry on Hubski, for what it's worth. I think you make some great points especially regarding humor in public speaking. It's a very effective way to get the audience engaged and on your side. However, humor much like beauty is in the eye of the beholder and can fall flat on it's face at times. I'm glad you had success with it, but I've certainly seen people fail when it comes to humor. And yes, mk does make a good suggestion regarding watching yourself speak. It's important to get rid of the "ums" it does give you more credibility. Have you ever given a speech where you fell flat on your face? Have you ever uncontrollably laughed like Joanna in the podcast? I have never done that, however I did once start laughing as an audience member and couldn't stop it and had to be asked to leave the classroom when I was in sixth grade. Luckily the person giving the speech was a friend of mine and thought it was hilarious. I was certainly more embarrassed than anyone else.
Ah yes, you do have to calibrate your sense of humour according to the audience. I don't have any memories of screwing up particularly badly myself (though perhaps my brain has erased all evidence of the trauma) but I've been at plenty of talks where the speaker's jokes fell completely flat, and it's really awful. I think spontaneity in humour is very important; jokes can be rather unfunny if you can tell that they were prepared beforehand. Spontaneity in general is a good thing, though; there's nothing worse than a speech that sounds too rehearsed - preparation, like all things, requires a great deal of judgement as to where "too much" lies. I've never freaked out too badly, but I did hear about a friend of a friend who started crying during a debate. She actually finished, crying the entire time.