Jokes

Here are a few excerpts from the result of a scientific study of jokes. You can find some more of the material at the site here.

After much careful scrutiny, we are proud to announce our winning joke. This joke received higher ratings than any other gag.
Drum roll…..

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?"


In second place came the joke that was leading the pack when we announced our preliminary results in December:

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"


Here are some of the 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.”


A scientist and a philosopher were being chased by a hungry lion. The scientist made some quick calculations, he said "its no good trying to outrun it, its catching up". The philosopher kept a little ahead and replied " I am not trying to outrun the lion, I am trying to out run you"!


We also asked participants from the UK to tell us whether they were from Wales, Scotland, England or Northern Ireland. Our data has revealed that the Welsh found the jokes funniest, followed by the English, then people from Northern Ireland and then the Scots.

Here are the top jokes from the regions.

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 Wales

A turtle was walking down an alley in New York when he was mugged by a gang of snails. A police detective came to investigate and asked the turtle if he could explain what happened. The turtle looked at the detective with a confused look on his face and replied "I don't know, it all happened so fast."

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 Northern Ireland

A doctor says to his patient, 'I have bad news and worse news'.
'Oh dear, what's the bad news?' asks the patient.
The doctor replies, 'You only have 24 hours to live'.
'That's terrible', said the patient. 'How can the news possibly be worse?'
The doctor replies, 'I've been trying to contact you since yesterday'.

If you know a really good joke, please tell it, as some of the above are really not that funny.

P.S. If somebody knows how to put a song in a post or some doodad similar to the afore-mentioned gadget of audio-ness the afore posting person would be much obliged to said providing party. (The author of this blog has recently realized how fun 'tis to speak in starnge terms and/or sentecne structure such as some previous sentence(s) has done)