What is the World’s Funniest Joke?
About LaughLab, “the scientific search for the world’s funniest joke.”
In September 2001, psychologist Richard Wiseman, in collaboration with the British Science Association, conducted LaughLab, an online experiment that aimed to explore the psychology of humor and find the world’s funniest joke.
LaughLab is the biggest experiment ever into humor, earning the “Largest Internet joke vote” record at the Guinness World Records.
For this experiment, people from all over the world were asked to submit on a website their favorite jokes and then rate five randomly selected jokes from others using the Giggleometer, a five-point scale ranging from “not very funny” to “very funny.”
At the early stage of the experiment, LaughLab released some preliminary results, and a joke involving the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes got the top spot:
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were going camping. They pitched their tent under the stars and went to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night Holmes woke Watson up and said: “Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you see.”
Watson replied: “I see millions and millions of stars.”
Holmes said: “And what do you deduce from that?”
Watson replied: “Well, if there are millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it’s quite likely there are some planets like Earth out there. And if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life.”
And Holmes said: “Watson, you idiot, it means that somebody stole our tent.”
Throughout the experiment, LaughLab received over 40,000 jokes and almost 2 million ratings from 70 countries. The top joke during the preliminary results “got knocked out in the final round,” as its submitter put it. The final winning joke was submitted by psychiatrist Gurpal Gosall:
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 joke was later found to be based on a 1951 sketch by Spike Milligan, an Irish comedian, writer, and actor known for his role as a principal cast member in the British radio comedy program, The Goon Show.
Gurpal Gossal told LaughLab that he sometimes shares the joke to cheer up his patients and explained that “it makes people feel better because it reminds them that there is always someone out there who is doing something more stupid than themselves.”
Wiseman found the joke interesting because of its universal appeal — it works among men and women, old and young, and across different countries.
“[W]e 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,” Wiseman explained. “The hunters joke contains all three elements — we feel superior to the stupid hunter, realize the incongruity of him misunderstanding the operator and the joke helps us to laugh about our concerns about our own mortality.”
Here are some of LaughLab’s top jokes in different countries, some of them uncomfortably dark:
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.
United Kingdom
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.”
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…”
United States
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.”
Belgium
Why do ducks have webbed feet?
To stamp out fires.
Why do elephants have flat feet?
To stamp out burning ducks.
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.”
The results of the experiment, Wiseman noted, suggest that there are fundamental differences in the sense of humor from different parts of the world. He explained that understanding how different cultures and backgrounds influence people’s sense of humor is vital to effective communication.
A book containing all the results and top jokes of LaughLab was published by Random House in 2002. In Quirkology, Wiseman further described LaughLab and provided insights into the psychology of humor.
Over 1000 of the jokes submitted to LaughLab are publicly available online.
