In general, any type of
humor that uses the standard "set-up" then
punchline structure. In particular, this is my description of very bad American
sitcoms. Some examples are
Saved by the Bell,
Family Matters or most anything featuring the
Olsen twins. Almost all the "jokes" in these show are very simple to follow. Everyone knows when someone is going to make a "funny" remark. The situations are set-up and then almost religiously followed through with. It's usually even simple to predict the
punchline. These shows follow the basic structure of a joke, but are completely
unfunny.
There is some good set-up knock-down humor though. The best is when Rodney Dangerfield does his stand-up routine.
In contrast to this type of humor think of the Simpsons. While they do use lots of easy to follow jokes, there are also a lot of spontaneous bizzarre jokes. Another good example is Mr. Bean.
In another node, pingoiun, used the phrase "sitcom-by-numbers", which may also be a good description of the above mentioned shows.