The world's funniest joke was written by Spike Milligan

The Daily Telegraph (UK) ^ | June 9, 2006 | By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

[aculeus]

Detective work by a professor investigating the psychology of humour has revealed that Spike Milligan was the author of the world's funniest joke.

Five years ago, Prof Richard Wiseman, of the University of Hertfordshire, did an online experiment in which 300,000 people from around the world took part in LaughLab, where they voted for the best gag.

Yesterday, at the Cheltenham Science Festival, Prof Wiseman said he has now discovered that it was almost certainly written by Milligan.

The joke runs as follows: Two hunters are out in the woods in New Jersey when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed.

The other guy whips 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 shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says 'OK, now what?'

"It is very rare to be able to track down the origin of any joke but this is an exception," said Prof Wiseman. "There is some very rare footage from 1951 showing the Goons in their first TV appearance. Just by chance I saw it on a documentary and saw a version of the very same joke."

The material would have been written by Spike Milligan and the script reads:

Michael Bentine: I just came in and found him lying on the carpet there.

Peter Sellers: Oh, is he dead?

Bentine: I think so.

Sellers: Hadn't you better make sure?

Bentine: All right. Just a minute.

Sound of two gun shots.

Bentine: He's dead.

Prof Wiseman contacted Milligan's daughter, Sile, and she is as certain as she can be that he would have written the gag. She said she was "delighted that dad wrote the world's funniest joke".

Prof Wiseman said: "I think what is interesting here is that a joke from the 1950s still works, and how it has transformed over time from a cosy sitting room to hunters in New Jersey."

He added: "Spike Milligan was clearly into surreal humour. The sort of people who like his stuff will be people with a high tolerance for ambiguity because the sketches don't really have a sense of closure."

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[LibertarianInExile]

PING!

A thread with some great jokes, so get over here and post some puns and ruin it! 8)

Like this one:
The Catholic Church had invited the world's foremost religious leaders to an ecumenical interfaith conference in Rome, but the Pope realized as the Dalai Lama exited his limo that the Swiss Guards had forgotten to line up enough furniture to hold all the hats and coats and capes that ministerial types tend to wear.

However, the Pope couldn't just have a Cardinal run out back and grab an armoire out of the Basilica, he'd be recognized, and the historic furniture of St. Peter's couldn't be moved. Worse, if the lack of preparation got out, it would embarrass the Vatican in front of the attending leaders, not to mention the church in the eyes of the world.

So quietly, Benedict decided to ask some of the lesser-known conference representatives, who had arrived early, to make their way through the throngs of religious Roman laymen gathered for the occasion and see if they could quickly lay hands on the woodwork necessary to hold the myriad accoutrements.

His missive?

"Go forth, among the Papal--Sihk and Druze, shelf-find!"

[Sirloin]

This joke has a physical element, so when you tell the punch line you need to spread your arms out:

Q: Why did the blonde go to church?
A: Cuz she heard there was guy there hung like this!

[LibertarianInExile]

Okay, that one got me.

[doberville]

My dear old Pa used to tell that joke. . . . . 60 years ago!! :>)

[BlessedByLiberty]

Ok, here goes the follow up to 238:

The following day, despite the sadness that weighed heavily on his heart due to the unfortunate death of the armless campanologist, the bishop continued his interviews for a new bell ringer of Notre Dame.

The first man to approach him said, "Your Excellency, I am the brother of the poor armless wretch who fell to his death from this very belfry yesterday. I pray that you honor his life by allowing me to replace him in this duty."

The bishop agreed to give the man an audition, and, as the armless man's brother stooped to pick up a mallet to strike the first bell, he groaned, clutched at his chest, and died on the spot.

Two monks, hearing the bishop's cries of grief at this second tragedy, rushed up the stairs to his side. "What's happened? Who is this man?" asked the first breatheless monk.

"I don't know his name," sighed the distraught bishop but he's a dead ringer for his brother."

[my right]

I guess I'm just insensitive!!!!

Gay Bob goes into the doctor's office and has some
tests run. The doctor comes back and says, "Bob, I'm
not going to beat around the bush. You have AIDS."

Bob is devastated. "Doc, what can I do?". "Eat 1
sausage, 1 head of cabbage, 20 unpeeled carrots drenched
in hot sauce, 10 Jalapeno peppers, 40 walnuts and 40 peanuts,
1/2 box of Grape nuts cereal, and top it off with a gallon of prune juice."

Bob asks, "Will that cure me, Doc?"

Doc says, "No, but it should leave you with a better understanding
of what your ass is for.

[finnigan2]

"Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, and Harry Seacombe. (One of Seacombe's identities was Sir Cedric Sea-Goon). I think Milligan played the deranged, apparently retarded character named Eccles, among a dozen or so others"

- I believe the regular characters for the Goon Show were:
Peter Sellers - Blue Bottle, Major Bloodnock, Grip Pipe Thin and Buddy
Spike Milligan - Eccles, Min and Moriarty
Harry Secombe - Neddy Secombe
I think the band was Ray Ellington and his Orchestra and there was some other guy who played a harmonica solo each week.
Milligan wrote most of the scripts and his influence on British comedy is clear, starting with Monty Python right through to Black Adder.
Unfortunately, Milligan had a nervous breakdown while under fire as a soldier during the war and he never was completely cured. He suffered throughout his life from fits of depression and fear.

[my right]

A man walks out of a bar, stumbling back and forth with a key in his
hand. A cop on the beat sees him and approaches, "Can I help you, sir?"

"Yesssh! Sssshomebody ssshtole my car!" the man replies.

The cop asks, "Where was your car the last time you saw it?"

"It wasssh at the end of thisssh key!" the man replies, logically, if a
bit too literally.

About this time the cop looks down to see that the man's "willie" is
hanging out of his fly for the entire world to see. He asks the man,
"Sir, are you aware that you are exposing yourself?"

The man looks down woefully and without missing a beat, moans "OHHH
GOD....they got my girlfriend, too!!!"

[LibertarianInExile]

You are sooooo going to Hell for that. Of course, my friends and I will all be there, too, so I'll see you. And raise you, with this one:

Jesus tells Peter, "You will deny me three times before the cock crows!" and Peter, sung by the truth of the Lord's words as the cock crows, sadly begins to slink away from Golgotha...when he hears across the wind, "Peter...Peter!"

It's the voice of Jesus. Peter turns and runs back up the hill, where a Roman centurion stops him. Disappointed, Peter turns away...when he hears a moaned "Peter...Peter!"

Peter knocks down the centurion and works his way back up the hill, where he runs into a crowd of soldiers now keeping Jesus' disciples from taking him off the cross. There are too many for Peter to simply knock down, so he turns to leave...when again he hears a barely whispered, "Peter...Peter!"

Imbued with new strength, Peter barrels into the soldiers and leaps upon the cross, straining to shake off the Romans and put his head to the lips of Christ, crying "Yes, Lord, I am here!" Jesus looks deeply into Peter's eyes, and just before the Romans manage to drag Peter away, says softly...

You want to spend eternity with Sirloin & me, freepmail for the punch line. 8)

[BluesDuke]

Give me an old Abbott and Costello routine any day, or maybe something from the old Edgar Bergen Charlie McCarthy skits.

Now they were funny and the humor stood the test of time.

I'll see your Abbott and Costello (whom I love, by the way) and raise you Fred Allen and the Burns and Allen Show "Gracie for President" stunt that lasted for thirteen episodes and an eternity of laughs. (The thing of it is, if she was running now I'd vote for Gracie, who admitted what she was up to---"Everybody knows a woman is better than a man when it comes to introducing bills into the house"---and actually got a few thousand votes in the 1940 election and, anyway, why should her being dead at the present time stop me? If dead people can vote for Democrats, why can't I vote for a dead Surprise Party candidate?)

And I'll see your Edgar Bergen and tuxedoed future box of matches for Easy Aces, Vic and Sade, and Jack Benny's parody of The Whistler, which he called (what a surprise) "The Fiddler." (Though I have to admit I still love the famous Bergen-McCarthy duels with W.C. Fields.)

[BluesDuke]

Back in the days of Usenet News Groups, I was reading a gardening group and a guy with a Asian surname asked how to get rid of a "golfer in his garden".

Oho! He must have stumbled upon the late, great Jane Ace:

Home wasn't built in a day.
Congress is back in season.
You could have knocked me over with a fender.
He had me up at the crank of dawn.
Time wounds all heels.
Now, there's no use crying over spoiled milk.
I'm completely uninhabited.
After all, I am his awfully-wedded wife.
I've always wanted to see my name up in tights.
I look like the wrath of grapes.
I wasn't under the impersonation you meant me.
He shot out of here like a bat out of a belfry.
He has me sitting on pins and cushions waiting.
The coffee will be ready in a jitney.
I'm a member of the weeper sex.
I don't drink, I'm a totalitarian.
Well, you've got to take the bitter with the better.

Come to think of it, her husband, Goodman---who wrote several of her vintage malaprops (for their classic radio show, Easy Aces, though he swore she really did talk that way)---was good for a few million laughs.

Distant relative, in a telegram: Send $10,000 or I'll jump from the fourteenth story of my building!

Goodman Ace, wiring back: Jump from seven. I can only afford $5,000.

[Rennes Templar]

I don't want to spend eternity with you, but I do want the punchline!

Here's one in this genre:
An old man collapses on the sidewalk in downtown NYC near a Catholic church. A crowd gathers, a policeman looks at him and says hes dying, does anyone know any prayers while the ambulance comes? Another old codger steps forward and says he's lived behind the church for years. Although he never went to church, he said he heard their litany every Sunday and Wednesday night, and he would repeat it for the dying man. Ok said the cop. Let us pray, said the man:
G-5. B-14. N-18. I-47. O-15......

[LibertarianInExile]

AIIIGH!

Okay, let me in on this...

Distraught over the deaths, the next day the bishop insisted that the huge bell tower be removed, the belfry stairs boarded up, and the bells melted down into much smaller handbells and even a miniature carillon. After the work was complete, and the first mass called by a score of ringers standing not at the top of a tower, but on solid earth below, a young priest sullenly asked the Bishop, "Father, I much preferred the huge peals of our grand tower. Do you really like the sounds of these pipsqueaks?"

The Bishop replied "Of course! I love my tiny Beltones!"

[LibertarianInExile]

I had never even HEARD of Bergen-McCarthy duels with Fields...any idea where I might hear them? Just the IDEA makes me smile!

[Tribune7]

ping

[BlessedByLiberty]

I bow to your Beltones! LOL!

[BluesDuke]

You can bag at least one of the McCarthy-Fields duels and a small tonnage of other vintage radio at VicandSade.net. Their other offerings include generous helpings of such shows as The Jack Benny Program, The Bickersons, Duffy's Tavern, The Great Gildersleeve, The Green Valley Line, Lights Out, Lum and Abner, Quiet, Please, The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show, The Shadow, Si and Elmer, Suspense, X Minus One, and---of course---Vic and Sade (which could have been called the original show about nothing, if you thought about it...), among others.

[AmishDude]

You got it!

[NavyCanDo]

"Abbott and Costello , Edgar Bergen Charlie McCarthy skits, Burns and Allen Show , Jack Benny", ..

Oh Yea! Now were talking. I would bet you are member of the Radio Spirits club or one of the other old time radio show clubs. Let add to the kitty- Fibber McGee and Molly, and one of my favories - Duffy's Tavern.

[LonePalm]

What do you call a blonde in a motorcycle jacket?
A rebel without a clue.

To guys were discussing their wives when one says to the other, "I really like your wife's blonde hair."
The other replies, "She's not a real blonde. She's a suicide blonde."
"Suicide blonde?"
"Yea, dyed by her own hand."

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)