World's funniest joke
__________________________________________________ ___________________


The world's funniest joke is a term used by Richard Wiseman of the University of
Hertfordshire in 2002 to summarize one of the results of his research. For his
experiment, he created a website where people could submit and rate over 10,000
jokes. Purposes of the research included discovering the joke that had the
widest appeal and understanding among different cultures, demographics and
countries.

The winner, submitted by Gurpal Gosall, of Manchester, England was:

A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to
the ground. He doesn't seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his
head. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls the emergency services.
He gasps to the operator: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator, in a
calm soothing voice says: "Just take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure
he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. The guy's voice comes back
on the line. He says: "OK, now what?"

The second place finisher and early leader was this joke, submitted by Geoff
Anandappa of Blackpool, England:

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson go on a camping trip. After a good dinner and a
bottle of wine, they retire for the night, and go to sleep.
Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend. "Watson, look
up at the sky and tell me what you see."
"I see millions and millions of stars, Holmes" replies Watson.
"And what do you deduce from that?"
Watson ponders for a minute.
"Well, astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and
potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in
Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past
three. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.
Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful, and that we are a small and
insignificant part of the universe. What does it tell you, Holmes?"
Holmes is silent for a moment. "Watson, you idiot!" he says. "Someone has stolen
our tent!"

The study documented regional differences in humour, as well as variations
between the sexes. Men preferred more aggressive jokes, as well as sexual
innuendo, while women preferred word play. Wiseman points out that this is the
joke that the most people found reasonably funny, and that it would be
unreasonable to expect any joke to be universally judged superior to all others.

The aim of the research was to shed some light on how the brain works.

The experiment was conducted in Britain, where researchers solicited people
around the world to contribute jokes as well as judge them. At the conclusion of
the experiment, the scientists had evaluated over 40,000 submitted jokes and
tallied nearly 2 million votes.



Top jokes in different countries
________________________________________________

Top joke in UK

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: "That's the ugliest
baby that I've ever seen. Ugh!" The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits
down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: "The driver just insulted me!" The
man says: "You go right up there and tell him off - go ahead, I'll hold your
monkey for you."

Top joke in USA

The American data proved to be somewhat strange. Dave Barry is a well known
humourist whose columns are syndicated in many American newspapers. In January
2002 he kindly devoted an entire column to LaughLab. At the end of the column he
urged readers to submit jokes that simply ended with the punch line:
'There's a weasel chomping on my privates.'

Within just a few days we had received over 1500 'weasel chomping' jokes.

One weasel joke scored very highly in the USA and almost became the funniest
joke in America. Here it is:

At the parade, the Colonel noticed something unusual going on and asked the
Major: "Major Barry, what the devil's wrong with Sergeant Jones' platoon? They
seem to be all twitching and jumping about."
"Well sir," says Major Barry after a moment of observation. "There seems to be a
weasel chomping on his privates."

However, ignoring the weasels, the top American joke was.

A man and a friend are playing golf one day at their local golf course. One of
the guys is about to chip onto the green when he sees a long funeral procession
on the road next to the course. He stops in mid-swing, takes off his golf cap,
closes his eyes, and bows down in prayer. His friend says: "Wow, that is the
most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen. You truly are a kind man."
The man then replies: "Yeah, well we were married 35 years."

Top joke in Canada

When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that
ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA
scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero
gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at
temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 C. The Russians used a pencil.

Top joke in Australia

This woman rushed to see her doctor, looking very much worried and all strung
out. She rattles off: "Doctor, take a look at me. When I woke up this morning, I
looked at myself in the mirror and saw my hair all wiry and frazzled up, my skin
was all wrinkled and pasty, my eyes were bloodshot and bugging out, and I had
this corpse-like look on my face! What's WRONG with me, Doctor!?"
The doctor looks her over for a couple of minutes, then calmly says: "Well, I
can tell you that there ain't nothing wrong with your eyesight...."

Top joke in Belgium

Why do ducks have webbed feet?
To stamp out fires.
Why do elephants have flat feet?
To stamp out burning ducks.

Top joke in Germany

A general noticed one of his soldiers behaving oddly. The soldier would pick up
any piece of paper he found, frown and say: "That's not it" and put it down
again. This went on for some time, until the general arranged to have the
soldier psychologically tested. The psychologist concluded that the soldier was
deranged, and wrote out his discharge from the army. The soldier picked it up,
smiled and said: "That's it."



Reprinted With Permission From Wikipedia.org