> World's Funniest Joke Revealed after Internet Vote
>
> London - The world's funniest joke, voted by popular demand over the
> Internet, was unveiled on Wednesday by the British Association for the
> Advancement of Science (BA) after an experiment lasting three months.
>
> Famed fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and his gruff assistant
> Doctor Watson pitch their tent while on a camping expedition, but in
> the middle of the night Holmes nudges Watson awake and questions him.
>
> HOLMES: Watson, look up at the stars and tell me what you deduce.
>
> WATSON: I see millions of stars, and if there are millions of stars,
> and if even a few of those have planets, it is quite likely there are
> some planets like earth, and if there are a few planets like earth out
> there there might also be life.
>
> HOLMES: Watson, you idiot! Somebody stole our tent.
>
> The BA said the joke was the most popular among 10,000 submitted, being
> chosen as the best by 47%% of the 100,000 people from more than 70
> countries who took part.
>
> The jokes can be seen, made and rated on www.laughlab.co.uk.
>
> Source: Reuters Thursday 20 December 2001
>
> ------------------------
>
> Top joke in Scotland: I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my
> grandfather. Not screaming in terror like his passengers.
>
> Top joke in England: Two weasels are sitting on a bar stool. One
> starts to insult the other one. He screams, "I slept with your
> mother!" The bar gets quiet as everyone listens to see what the other
> weasel will do. The first again yells, "I SLEPT WITH YOUR MOTHER!"
> The other says, "Go home dad you're drunk."
>
> Top joke in USA: 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 Belgium: Why do ducks have webbed feet? To stamp out
> fires. Why do elephants have flat feet? To stamp out burning ducks.
>
> ---------------------
>
> Scientists Identify "Funniest Jokes"
>
> The world's funniest joke has been unveiled by scientists at the end of
> the largest study of humour ever undertaken.
>
> For the past year people around the world have been invited to judge
> jokes on an internet site and contribute quips of their own. The
> LaughLab experiment - conducted by psychologist Dr Richard Wiseman,
> from the University of Hertfordshire - attracted more than 40,000 jokes
> and almost two million ratings.
>
> The joke which received the highest global ratings was submitted by
> 31-year-old psychiatrist Gurpal Gosall, from Manchester. It is:
>
> -----------------------
>
> The Funniest Jokes in History
> by Martha Brockenbrough
> http://encarta.msn.com/column_humormain_tamimhome/The_Funniest_Jokes_in_History....
>
> You may have heard it said that you'll never eat sausage again after
> you see how it's made. I don't see how that could be true. There's
> nothing disgusting about stuffing ground-up meat parts into a tightly
> stretched tube of animal intestines--nothing disgusting at all.
>
> Likewise, talking about the evolution and history of humor is a
> guaranteed laugh riot. Or is it?
>
> For example, the Roman orator Cicero advised budding speakers that
> physical deformity is always a great source of comic material.
>
> Perhaps the Romans got this nasty habit from the Greeks, who liked to
> make fun of their leader Pericles for having a head shaped like an
> onion. Some thanks poor Pericles got for having the Parthenon built,
> and for transforming Athens into a center for art and literature. (You
> won't get to see Pericles's head, by the way. Sculptors hid the point
> on his head with a helmet.)
>
> Over time, our definition of what is funny has changed. Today, people
> do not find birth defects and other physical differences to be a
> laughing matter.
>
> Then what do we find funny? If you believe the scientists at Britain's
> Laugh Lab, the following joke is number one--according to the nearly 2
> million people from around the world who visited the site and rated
> jokes:
>
> 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 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?"
>
> This joke, on the other hand, was rated "fowl":
>
> Q. Why are chickens considered good employees?
>
> A. Because they work around the cluck.
>
> Maybe the chicken joke isn't the funniest in the world, but I laughed
> as hard at it as I did at the one about the New Jersey hunters. Which
> is to say, not very hard.
>
> This just goes to show that we all have different tastes when if comes
> to humor, and also that the people who liked this joke are idiots.
>
> Oops--now I've done it.
>
> Part II: Jokes and the superiority complex
>
> Yes, I just made a joke at the expense of all the well-meaning people
> who thought the New Jersey hunters joke was funny. Who knows? Perhaps
> you thought it was funny (you poor misguided thing).
>
> So, why did I do it? Humor experts would probably argue that's the
> first reason people make jokes: It makes us feel superior.
>
> A second theory of humor, says M. Thomas Inge, the Blackwell Professor
> of English and Humanities at Randolph Macon College, is that we find
> comedy in incongruity.
>
> "It's the difference between what we expect and what we get," he
> explains. So, if we see a dignified-looking man walk down the street
> and slip, we get a chuckle.
>
> The third theory of humor is that it provides a release from things
> that are painful. This goes a long way toward explaining nervous
> laughter, and I'm betting it's also why people like to start speeches
> with jokes. It breaks the ice. Even the New Jersey hunters joke might
> do in that sort of situation.
>
> Of course, we didn't always have these tidy explanations of humor.
>
> Part III: Ancient thoughts about humor
> People have been studying humor for thousands of years. The Greek
> philosopher Aristotle discussed comedy in the second book of Poetics,
> which has been lost. He also wrote about it in Nichomachean Ethics,
> where he analyzed jokes and laughter and came out in favor of tasteful
> jokes.
>
> Aristotle's teacher, Plato, criticized buffoonery and laughter more
> severely. In fact, laughter was forbidden at Plato's Academy. And
> Plato's teacher, Socrates, took it a step farther when he said, "One
> ought to use laughter as one uses salt--sparingly."
>
> Despite the popularity of the ancient comic plays by Aristophanes,
> humor wasn't universally smiled upon back then. In fact, it was viewed
> by some as being downright dangerous. For example, during festivals,
> the Greeks dressed a prostitute in a veil and had her mock the most
> prominent citizens in town, by name. (Today, Jon Stewart performs this
> function on Comedy Central's Daily Show.)
>
> Some people found this funny because it inverted the social order: The
> lowliest person was making fun of the most exalted. Others, however,
> found disrupting society's rules and mores for a mere laugh to be
> unsettling and unacceptable.
>
> Later, Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero (in addition to his
> unfortunate ideas about making fun of physical differences) argued that
> the proper role of humor was to correct bad behavior without being
> offensive. This theory would explain why we all love Miss Manners so
> much.
>
> This is not to say that jokes weren't popular. Around AD 450 (a few
> hundred years after Cicero), someone compiled a book of 265 jokes
> called Philogelos, which translates to "laughter lover." Remarkably,
> some are still funny. For example, "A witty young student ran out of
> money and sold his school books. He wrote to his father and said,
> 'Congratulate me, father, for I am already making money from my
> studies.'"
>
> And of course, long before people wrote joke books or tackled the topic
> in philosophical texts, people have been doing things to get laughs. If
> you consider humor in the broadest sense--an action done in a prankish
> spirit--then even monkeys can be funny, according to Salvatore Attardo,
> professor of linguistics at Youngstown State University.
>
> Part IV: Modern findings
> I must say I like the modern findings about humor much better than
> Plato's conclusion that laughter is bad news.
>
> Professor Attardo is full of fun facts about humor:
>
> * Laughter does not always follow a joke. Often, we laugh to signal
> our audience that what's coming next is funny.
> * Languages like French and English are better at puns because more
> of their words are monosyllabic. It's easier to find homophones for
> one-syllable words than for longer ones.
> * On average, one out of 10 dinner table conversational gambits is
> funny.
>
> This last nugget intrigued me, so I begged Attardo for more
> information. What it means, he explained, is that every tenth comment,
> on average, is humorous.
>
> Linguist Deborah Tannen conducted the study that produced these results
> (at a dinner table, which makes me wonder whether lunch and breakfast
> tables would yield the same hilarity). A German study by Helga Kotthoff
> confirmed the ten percent rule, although her study was conducted in
> more of a cocktail-party situation.
>
> Nobel Prize winners' speeches contain less humor, Attardo adds. But the
> text-messages Egyptians send on mobile devices contain up to 85 percent
> humor. The moral of this, it seems, is to find Egyptian friends and add
> them to your e-mail buddy list.
>
> Once you have permission from your mummy, of course.
>
> -------------------------
>
> Scientists Devise Perfect Joke Formula
>
> The mathematical equation for the perfect joke has been revealed by
> scientists. It is
>
> c=(m+nO)/p
>
> This formula was worked out by Helen Pilcher and Timandra Harkness. As
> well as being scientists, the pair are also stand-up comedians who make
> up the Comedy Research Project. They run this in collaboration with
> the Science Museum's Dana Centre in London. In the formula, c is the
> funniness of the joke; m is the "comic moment" which is arrived at by
> multiplying the punchline's funniness rating by the length of the
> joke's buildup. nO is the number of times the subject undergoes a
> pratfall, multiplied by the "ouch factor" - the social and physical
> pain of the indignity involved. The total is divided by the number of
> puns, p.
>
> According to the equation, if a joke consists of a long "shaggy dog
> story", it doesn't require such a funny punchline as a shorter
> wisecrack. Puns are seen as dissipating the power of a joke because
> they tend to encourage groans rather than laughter.
>
> Source:www.ananova.com Monday 14 June 2004
>
> ----------------------------
>
> Funniest Joke in the World
>
> Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch
> http://www.jumpstation.ca/recroom/comedy/python/joke.html
>
> Opening Scene:
> A suburban house in a boring looking street. Zoom into upstairs window.
> Serious documentary music. Interior of small room. A bent figure
> (Michael Palin) huddles over a table, writing. He is surrounded by bits
> of paper. The camera is situated facing the man as he writes with
> immense concentration lining his unshaven face.
>
> Voice Over:
> This man is Ernest Scribbler... writer of jokes.
> In a few moments, he will have written the funniest joke in the
> world... and, as a consequence, he will die... laughing.
>
> Ernest stops writing, pauses to look at what he has written... a smile
> slowly spreads across his face, turning very, very slowly to
> uncontrolled hysterical laughter... he staggers to his feet and reels
> across room helpless with mounting mirth and eventually collapses and
> dies on the floor.
>
> Voice Over:
> It was obvious that this joke was lethal...
> no one could read it and live...
>
> Ernest's mother enters. She sees him dead, she gives a little cry of
> horror and bends over his body, weeping. Brokenly she notices the piece
> of paper in his hand and picks it up and reads it between her sobs.
> Immediately she breaks out into hysterical laughter, leaps three feet
> into the air, and falls down dead without more ado. Cut to news type
> shot of commentator standing in front of the house.
>
> Commentator:
> This morning, shortly after eleven o'clock, comedy struck this little
> house in Dibley Road. Sudden... violent... comedy.
> Police have sealed off the area, and Scotland Yard's crack inspector is
> with me now.
>
> Inspector:
> I shall enter the house and attempt to remove the joke.
>
> About now an upstairs window in the house is fiung open and a doctor,
> rears his head out, hysterical with laughter, and dies hanging over the
> window sill. The commentator and the inspector look up and then
> continue as if they are used to such sights.
>
> Inspector:
> I shall be aided by the sound of sombre music, played on gramophone
> records, and also by the chanting of laments by the men of Q
> Division...
>
> (Points to a group of dour looking policemen standing nearby)
>
> The atmosphere thus created should protect me in the eventuality of me
> reading the joke.
>
> (He gives a signal.)
>
> The group of policemen start groaning and chanting biblical laments.
> The Dead March is heard. The inspector squares his shoulders and
> bravely starts walking into the house.
>
> Commentator:
> There goes a brave man. Whether he comes out alive or not,
> this will surely be remembered as one of the most courageous
> and gallant acts in police history.
>
> The inspector suddenly appears at the door,
> helpless with laughter, holding the joke aloft.
> He collapses and dies.
> Cut to film of army vans driving along dark roads.
>
> Voice Over:
> It was not long before the Army became interested in the military
> potential of the Killer Joke. Under top security, the joke was hurried
> to a meeting of Allied Commanders at the Ministry of War.
>
> Cut to door at Ham House.
> Soldier on guard comes to attention as dispatch rider
> hurries in carrying armoured box.
>
> Notice on door:
> "Conference. No Admittance"
>
> Dispatch rider rushes in.
> A door opens for him and closes behind him.
> We hear a mighty roar of laughter...
> A series of doomphs as the commanders hit the floor or table. Soldier
> outside does not move a muscle.
>
> Cut to a pillbox on the Salisbury Plain.
> Track in to slit to see moustachioed top brass
> peering anxiously out.
>
> Voice Over:
> Top brass were impressed. Tests on Salisbury Plain confirmed the joke's
> devastating effectiveness at a range of up to fifty yards.
>
> Cut to shot looking out of slit in pillbox.
> Camera zooms through slit to distance where a solitary figure is
> standing on the windswept plain.
> He is a bespectacled, weedy lance-corporal (Terry Jones) looking cold
> and miserable.
> Pan across to fifty yards away where two helmeted soldiers are at their
> positions beside a blackboard on an easel covered with a cloth.
> Cut in to corporal's face-registening complete lack of comprehension as
> well as stupidily.
> Man on top of pillbox waves flag.
> The soldiers reveal the joke to the corporal.
> He peers at it, thinks about its meaning,
> snickers, and dies.
> Two watching generals are very impressed.
>
> Generals:
> Fantastic.
>
> Cut to a Colonel talking to camera.
>
> Colonel:
> All through the winter of '43 we had translators working, in joke-proof
> conditions, to try and produce a German version of the joke. They
> worked on one word each for greater safety. One of them saw two words
> of the joke and spent several weeks in hospital. But apart from that
> things went pretty quickly, and we soon had the joke by January, in a
> form which our troops couldn't understand but which the Germans could.
>
> Cut to a trench in the Ardennes. Members of the joke brigade are
> crouched holding pieces of paper with the joke on them.
>
> Voice Over:
> So, on July 8th, I944, the joke was first told to the enemy
> in the Ardennes...
>
> Commanding NCO:
> Tell the... joke.
>
> Joke Brigade:
> (together)
> Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja!...
> Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
>
> Pan out of the British trench across war-torn landscape and come to
> rest where presumably the German trench is. There is a pause and then a
> group of Germans rear up in hysterics.
>
> Voice Over:
> It was a fantastic success. Over sixty thousand times as powerful as
> Britain's great pre-war joke...
>
> Cut to a film of Chamberlain brandishing
> the "Peace in our time" treaty.
>
> ...and one which Hitler just couldn't match.
>
> Film of Hitler rally. Hitler speaks; subtitles are superimposed.
>
> Hitler:
> SUBTITLE
> MY DOG'S GOT NO NOSE
>
> A young soldier responds:
> SUBTITLE
> HOW DOES HE SMELL?
>
> Hitler:
> SUBTITLE
> AWFUL'
>
> Voice Over:
> In action it was deadly.
>
> Cut to a small squad with rifles making their way through forest.
> Suddenly one of them sees something and gives signal at which they all
> dive for cover. From the cover of a tree he reads out joke.
>
> Corporal:
> Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja!...
> Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
>
> Sniper falls laughing out of tree.
>
> Joke Brigade:
> (charging)
> Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja!...
> Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
>
> They chant the joke.
> Germans are put to fight laughing, some dropping to ground.
>
> Voice Over:
> The German casualties were appalling.
>
> Cut to a German hospital and a ward full of casualties still laughing
> hysterically.
> Cut to Nazi interrogation room.
> An officer from the joke bngade has a light shining in his face.
> A Gestapo officer is interrogating him; another stands behind him.
>
> Nazi:
> Vott is the big joke?
>
> Officer:
> I can only give you name, rank,
> and why did the chicken cross the road?
>
> Nazi:
> That's not funny!
> (slaps him)
> I vant to know the joke.
>
> Officer:
> All right. How do you make a Nazi cross?
>
> Nazi:
> (momentarily fooled)
> I don't know... how do you make a Nazi cross?
>
> Officer:
> Tread on his corns.
> (does so; the Nazi hops in pain)
>
> Nazi:
> Gott in Hiramell That's not funny!
> (mimes cuffing him while the other Nazi claps his
> hands to provide the sound effct)
> Now if you don't tell me the joke, I shall hit you properly.
>
> Officer:
> I can stand physical pain, you know.
>
> Nazi:
> Ah... you're no fun. All right, Otto.
>
> Otto starts tickling the officer who starts laughing.
>
> Officer:
> Oh no - anything but that please no, all fight I'll tell you.
>
> They stop tickling him.
>
> Nazi:
> Quick Otto. The typewriter.
>
> Otto goes to the typewriter and they wait expeaantly. The officer
> produces piece of paper out of his breast pocket and reads.
>
> Officer:
> Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja!...
> Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
>
> Otto at the typewriter explodes with laughter and dies.
>
> Nazi:
> Ach! Zat iss not funny!
>
> Nazi burts into laughter and dies.
> A German guard bursts in with machine gun,
> The British officer leaps on the table.
>
> Officer:
> (lightning speed)
> Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja!...
> Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
>
> The guard reels back and collapses laughing.
> British officer makes his escape.
> Cut to a film of German scientists working in laboratories.
>
> Voice Over:
> But at Peenemunde in the Autumn of '44,
> the Germans were working on a joke of their own.
>
> A German general is seated at an imposing desk.
> Behind him stands Otto, labelled "A Different Gestapo Officer".
> Bespectacled German scientist/joke writer enters room. He clean his
> throat and reads from card.
>
> German Joker:
> Die ist ein Kinnerhunder und zwei Mackel uber und der bitte schon ist
> den Wunderhaus sprechensie. 'Nein' sprecht der Herren 'Ist aufern
> borger mit zveitingen'.
>
> He finishes and looks hopeful.
>
> Otto:
> We let you know.
>
> He shoots him. Film of German sdentists.
>
> Voice Over:
> But by December their joke was ready,
> and Hitler gave the order for the German V-Joke
> to be broadcast in English.
>
> Cut to 1940's wartime radio set with couple anxiously listening to it.
>
> Radio:
> (crackly German voice)
> Der ver zwei peanuts, valking down der strasse, and von vas...
> assaulted! peanut. Ho-ho-ho-ho.
>
> Radio bunts into "Deutschland Uber Alles".
> The couple look at each other and then in blank amazement at the radio.
> Cut to modern BBC 2 interview.
> The commentator in a woodland glade.
>
> Commentator (Eric Idle):
> In 1945 Peace broke out. It was the end of the Joke.
> Joke warfare was banned at a special session of the Geneva Convention,
> and in I950 the last remaining copy of the joke was laid to rest here
> in the Berkshire countryside, never to be told again.
>
> He walks away revealing a monument on which is written:
> "To The Unknown Joke".
> Camera pulls away slowly through idyllic setting.
> Patriotic music reaches crescendo.
>
> ----------------------
>
> namaste;
> bodhi
>
> Read the blog the National Security Agency is trying to SHUT DOWN!!!
> http://psychedelictourist.blogspot.com