The "world's funniest joke" is a term used by

Richard Wiseman Richard J. Wiseman (born 17 September 1966) is a Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. He has written several psychology books. He has given keynote addresses to The Royal ...

of the

University of Hertfordshire The University of Hertfordshire (UH) is a public university in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. The university is based largely in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Its antecedent institution, Hatfield Technical College, was founded in 1948 and was ident ...

in 2002 to summarize one of the results of his

research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

. For his experiment, named LaughLab, he created a website where people could rate and submit jokes. Purposes of the research included discovering the joke that had the widest appeal and understanding among different

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

demographics Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as edu ...

and countries. The History Channel eventually hosted a special on the subject.

The jokes

The winning joke, which was later found to be based on a 1951 ''

Goon Show ''The Goon Show'' is a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from 28 May to 20 September 1 ...

'' sketch by

Spike Milligan Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was an Irish actor, comedian, writer, musician, poet, and playwright. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Raj, British Colonial India, where h ...

, was submitted by Gurpal Gosal of

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

Other findings

Researchers also included five computer-generated jokes, four of which fared rather poorly, but one was rated higher than one third of the human jokes: The joke that was submitted to LaughLab the most times was:

References

External links

LaughLab official site
Jokes

Joke A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laughter, laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with ...

Humor research

The jokes

Other findings

References

Further reading

External links