Official! The world's funniest joke!

aahz_capone · August 22, 2003, 07:39

This in from CNN:

Quote:

LONDON, England -- The world's funniest joke has been revealed after a year-long search by scientists.
In an experiment conducted in Britain, people around the world were invited to judge jokes on an Internet site as well as contribute their own.
The LaughLab research, carried out by psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire, attracted more than 40,000 jokes and almost two million ratings.
And here it is...

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services.
He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"

Wiseman said the joke worked across many different countries and appealed to men and women and young and old alike.
"Many of the jokes submitted received higher ratings from certain groups of people, but this one had real universal appeal," he said.
As well as identifying the joke which appealed most to people around the world, the experiment revealed wide humour differences between nations.
People logging onto the LaughLab Web site were invited to rate jokes using a "Giggleometer" which had a five-point scale ranging from "not very funny" to "very funny".
One intriguing result was that Germans -- not renowned for their sense of humour -- found just about everything funny and did not express a strong preference for any type of joke. (Full story)
People from the Republic of Ireland, the UK, Australia and New Zealand most enjoyed jokes involving word plays.
Many European countries, such as France, Denmark and Belgium, displayed a penchant for off-beat surreal humour, while Americans and Canadians preferred jokes where there was a strong sense of superiority -- either because a character looks stupid or is made to look stupid by someone else.
Europeans also enjoyed jokes that involved making light of topics that make people feel anxious, such as death, illness and marriage.
Wiseman said: "These results are really interesting. It suggests that people from different parts of the world have fundamentally different senses of humour.
"Humour is vital to communication and the more we understand about how people's culture and background affect their sense of humour, the more we will be able to communicate effectively.
"Also, we find jokes funny for lots of different reasons. They sometimes make us feel superior to others, reduce the emotional impact of anxiety-provoking situations or surprise us because of some kind of incongruity.
"The hunters joke contained all three elements."
Bizarrely, computer analysis of the data also showed that jokes containing 103 words were thought to be especially funny. The winning "hunters" joke was 102 words long. (An abbreviated version was told in this story.)
Many jokes submitted contained references to animals. Jokes mentioning ducks were considered particularly funny.

Now it made me giggle, and yeah it is funny. But the best jokes (or ones that make me laugh the most) are usually sexist, racist, deal with death and bigotry to every kind of person on the planet. (Not that I condone these things but hey, I make fun of staright nerdy white boys like me too!)

Seriously though, this investigation sounds kinds flawed. Scientific method anybody?

NB: This thread is NOT for all you comedians to tell your sordid jokes!!! This is to discuss the science of a joke.

Oerdin · August 22, 2003, 07:41

Ehh, it was ok.

Paul Hanson · August 22, 2003, 07:43

I think that all this research proves is that you can't really apply scientific method to this sort of subject.

Stefu · August 22, 2003, 08:00

How can it be funny without containing the phrase "Weasels are chomping on my privates" at least once?

In fact, there is no reference to genitalia at all. This is unforgiveable.

aahz_capone · August 22, 2003, 08:11

stefu, what if the guy was shot in the balls? didn't think of that did you?

Hurricane · August 22, 2003, 08:13

I read about this a long time ago. About a year ago or so. Old stuff.

DAVOUT · August 22, 2003, 08:19

This scientific study was sabotaged by the Germans as proven by the following quote :

Quote:

One intriguing result was that Germans found just about everything funny and did not express a strong preference for any type of joke.

Stefu · August 22, 2003, 08:21

Well it doesn't say he was shot in the balls, now does it?

Spiffor · August 22, 2003, 08:23

The Germans were just obsessed by pretending having a sense of humour

rah · August 22, 2003, 09:05

Yeah, this was from last October, and there was a thread here about it. But I still like that joke.

Sava · August 22, 2003, 09:29

Lefty Scaevola · August 22, 2003, 09:51

How do you make a Dutchman laugh in August?
.
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.
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.
,

You hold a joke contest the previous year!

Kuciwalker · August 22, 2003, 09:54

That can't be the world's funniest joke. If it was we'd all be dead from laughing, like in Monty Python.

geeslaka · August 22, 2003, 10:00

Somehow, I don't think being dead would prevent any of us from posting here.

Kuciwalker · August 22, 2003, 10:02

True.

New, improved 'Poly! More addictive than ever!

Nubclear · August 22, 2003, 22:50

Quote:

Originally posted by rah
But I still like that joke.

Anyway, my humour tends to be (as capone put it):

But the best jokes (or ones that make me laugh the most) are usually sexist, racist, deal with death and bigotry to every kind of person on the planet.

Al B. Sure! · August 22, 2003, 22:59

that joke was trash.... didn't even get a smile from me...

but its not the fault of the joke really... when you are being told a joke, you expect something funny, so when it comes it dont mean much...

take in this thread... the joke didn't get no response from me but when i continued reading the thread and I read Stefu saying,

Quote:

How can it be funny without containing the phrase "Weasels are chomping on my privates" at least once?

i started laughing because that was humourous (though not a joke that takes any wit or cleverness) mainly because it was so random and i didn't expect it...

i'm sure most people notice how they never seem to laugh that hard when watching a sit-com but when they watch a serious movie and a joke is thrown in, they are dying... one of the funniest movies i saw was the movie Gridlock'd which has the serious-sounding plot of being about two heroine addicts played by Tim Roth and Tupac Shakur (not exactly known for his comedic roles) who decide to go into rehab after their friend overdoses and all the problems they run into while trying to kick their habit... such a serious-sounding story-line yet the placement of some humourous moments in an otherwise very serious context makes that movie hilarious...

Al B. Sure! · August 22, 2003, 23:05

also even among sit-coms there's this difference... I doubt Frasier gets too many people laughing so hard they can't stop while the Simpsons and Family Guy is known for doing that... why? probably because the humour in just about every episode of Frasier involves some crazy mis-understanding that the viewer is usually aware of from the start but the characters are not... though the characters get into even more and more trouble because of this mis-understanding and its humourous, the viewers expected it all along... on the other hand, most of the humour in Family Guy and the Simpsons is completely random and crazy... me and some of my boys was talking about this and we decided that the best episode of the simpsons was the x-files episode... such random things as Moulder showing his ID with a picture of him in a speedo... Moe, when seeing Moulder and Scully, rushing to the back and saying the feds are onto us and theres a giant whale in the back of his bar moaning... Leonard Nimoy ending the story he's telling early and then finding there's ten minutes left in the episode and saying he got to go get something from his car and just driving off for absolutely no reason... completely random but hilarious because no one would have ever expected them...

and why am i the only one who took this thread seriously? we're supposed to be discussing the science/art of humour people!

mrmitchell · August 22, 2003, 23:06

Yet another failure of the expectations upon the world to READ.

The joke was not the funniest. The article said other jokes scored higher in certain groups. But the article said this one had the most appeal across the most groups.

johncmcleod · August 23, 2003, 00:04

I like this thread. But I agree with Comrade Tassadar, a lot of jokes that make me laugh are very racist or sexist or make fun of religion. I am definitely not a racist though. I couldn't be. I live in America, I'm a nerdy skinny kid with glasses, I'm a Mexican citizen, I have slitty eyes that make me look Asian (despite the blond-brown hair), and the African-Americans in Coeur d'Alene call me 'brother of another color'. Well, actually they don't. But they should.

Anyway, I agree with Albert Speer. When there is a funny part in a serious movie it makes it hilarious. People really crack up, especially in movie theaters. I call these 'tension laughs'. The people are always in a very serious mood, and then they kind of laugh it off. The few jokes Russel Crowe made in a Beautiful Mind seemed hilarious. This also happens a lot in scary movies. The people are prepared to be scared, and then something funny happens and they laugh really nervously.

I've always had a hard time describing humor. It is some sort of mental block I have. I still can't categorize what I like. For example, I can't explain why I thought this part from the Simpson's was funny.

Bart and Homer are trying to build a treehouse but they can't figure it out. So Marge rings this bell and the view shifts to outside the town to these Amish farmers. They all stop their work and listen, and go run off to help.

[Batman music]

"Isaac, quick! To the buggey-mobile!"

[/Batman music]

That isn't the funniest thing I've ever seen or anything, but it was the only example I could think of for now. Or there's the part from Airplane! when Captain Kramer is at the airport and he gets surrounded by people from religious groups trying to give him flowers. And then he makes all of these perfectly timed martial-art style kicks, punches, and chops and knocks them all down, and does it very casually with little effort. I have no idea why I laughed at that part.

And then there's the part where Ted Striker screw up on something in the plane and goes, "Boy when Kramer here's this the sh*t's gonna really hit the fan!" And then then it shows Kramer at the airport receiving the news of what Ted did and it shows a piece of crap hit a fan.

I laughed so hard at that part, but why? It is a play on words and seems a kind of funny, but when I see it it just seems hilarious.

johncmcleod · August 23, 2003, 00:09

Quote:

Many European countries, such as France, Denmark and Belgium, displayed a penchant for off-beat surreal humour

I don't really get what 'off-beat surreal humour' is. Can someone give me a good example of a funny joke like it?

Al B. Sure! · August 23, 2003, 00:14

John:

all those scenes can be explained by what i described in my second post... pure random humour is hilarious because we never expect it... i know it takes more effort to write the jokes within the plot-line of Frasier than it does to make some completely random joke on the simpsons yet the latter gets the big laughs... all those things you mentioned were completely random and no one would've expected them...

i remember (barely because i was 8 at the time) a scene in Hot Shots where everyone in the barracks somehow knew each other and people just started popping up saying how they knew each other in some crazy way (i may be remembering this completely wrong so please correct me if you know what happened)... i was laughing so hard after that. pure random craziness...

Sarxis · August 23, 2003, 00:17

The real joke is that English scientists were paid to do this kind of research.

Oerdin · August 23, 2003, 00:31

No, the joke is on the tax payers who had to foot the bill.

Al B. Sure! · August 23, 2003, 00:35

john:

Quote:

I don't really get what 'off-beat surreal humour' is. Can someone give me a good example of a funny joke like it?

i got a feeling it goes something like this...

What did the purple elephant say to the sexually impotent walrus? LAVENDER BANANAS!

i bet the europeans think not only is it a great joke but it also has immense value as social commentary

Spiffor · August 23, 2003, 00:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Albert Speer
What did the purple elephant say to the sexually impotent walrus? LAVENDER BANANAS!

And what a great social commentary that is !

Really Albert, you crack me up

Skanky Burns · August 23, 2003, 02:51

Quote:

i bet the europeans think not only is it a great joke but it also has immense value as social commentary

It was only after that line that I started to laugh.

Space05us · August 23, 2003, 05:10

it didnt even make me smile, wtf? its not funny.

Proteus_MST · August 23, 2003, 07:22

Quote:

Originally posted by skywalker
That can't be the world's funniest joke. If it was we'd all be dead from laughing, like in Monty Python.

Maybe e should have asked about Damnoen Saen-um dreamd, before he died in his sleep, laughing

See here:
http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/i...080011_20.html