In 1929, the Marx Brothers hurtled onto the silver screen in “The Cocoanuts” and permanently changed American culture. For the first time, startled audiences were presented with the spectacle of people conducting themselves in a social situation as if they were not in a social situation at all, but alone, in the privacy of their own homes.

Today, it’s fair to ask a question about how this shift has turned out. When comedy depends so much on the shattering of public taboos by the exposure of private behavior, where does comedy...