Posted on 06/12/2006 9:27:43 AM PDT by 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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A horse walks into a bar...
Bartender says "Hey, why the long face?"
Sounds like a roundabout origin for the joke about the three assassin recruits who, one by one, were handed a pistol loaded with blanks and told to go into a room where one of their loved ones was waiting and to kill their loved one to prove that they had "what it takes" to be an assassin.
A man and his wife are awakened, at 3 o'clock in the morning by a loud pounding on the door.
The man gets up and goes to the door where a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, is asking for a push.
"Not a chance," says the husband, "it is 3 o'clock in the morning!
He slams the door and returns to bed.
"Who was that?" asked his wife.
"Just some drunk guy asking for a push," he answers.
"Did you help him?" she asks.
"No, I did not, ! it is 3 o'clock in the morning and it is pouring out there!"
"Well, you have a short memory," says his wife. "Can't you remember, about three months ago when we broke down, and those two guys helped us?
I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of yourself!"
The man does as he is told, gets dressed, and goes out into the pounding
rain.
He calls out into the dark,"! Hello, are you still there?"
"Yes" comes back the answer.
"Do you still need a push?", calls out the husband.
"Yes, please!" comes the reply from the dark.
"Where are you?" asks the husband
"Over here on the swing!", replies the drunk.
Die ist ein Kinnerhunder und zwei Mackel über und der bitte schön ist den Wunderhaus sprechensie. 'Nein' sprecht der Herren 'Ist aufern borger mit zveitingen'
(From a Monty Python sketch)
===========
An Irishman, driving home from the pub after consuming many pints, is pulled over by a police officer.
The officer walks up to the window and says, "Have you been drinking this evening?"
The Irishman says, "Aye, sir, just a wee bit. Why do you ask?"
The officer says, "Well, you were weaving all over the road, and your wife fell out of the car about two miles back."
The Irishman, with a great look of relief on his face, says, "Oh, thank goodness! For a while there, I thought I'd gone deaf!"
A man inherited a parrot. At first he thought this was a good thing. But the parrot would do nothing but swear. It's language offended hardened sailors.
On the first day the man played the parrot soothing music and put its condition down to the stress of moving. On the second day he tried witty put downs. On the third day he ignored it. Nothing worked, the parrot still let forth a torrent of blue words.
On the fourth day he snapped and after a particularly creative insult involving his mother, a goat and the local vicar the man grabbed the parrot and thrust him into the freezer.
For a few minutes the parrot continued unabated. Then everything went quiet. The man, worried that he had killed the parrot, took a peek into the freezer. The parrot hopped out and was strangely silent and then said:
"I am most terribly sorry, old chap, if I in any way offended you earlier with my choice language....could I just ask......what did the chicken do?"
Do you know why most men die before their wives?
They want to.
ROTFLOL. Man, that's just mean.
Everyone knows the funniest joke in the world was written by Ernest Scribbler, RIP.
Indeed!
Ron White did a bit on that on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour... "The rest of the country is debating on whether to get rid of the death penalty... In Texas, we're putting in an express lane!" "If you come to Texas and kill someone, we will kill you right back!"
Mark
This is the best joke. They were repairing the street that ran past a convent. The workers cussed an awful lot and it upset the nuns. The Mother Superior went to the project super and complained. He told her that he hired rough crude men who called a spade a spade. Mother replied, No they call it f--king snovel.
If that ain't the best let me know cause I got another.
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/hitler'sdoggie.htm
According to Furzarsch's account it was a chance remark - a silly thoughtless joke - that Heidegger made which put a stop to his meteoritic rise in the Nazi hierarchy.
Furzarsch reports that the pint-size philosopher Heidegger once told a group of colleagues that Hitler had once commented thus to a group of Romanian fascists:
'Mein Hund hat keine Nase.'
'Wie riecht er? asked one of the Romanian visitors politely.
'Schrecklich,' laughed Hitler.
Translation:
Hitler: "My dog has no nose."
A Romanian: "How does it smell?"
Hitler: "Terrible."
According to Furzarsch this got back to the dog-lover Hitler who immediately ordered that Heidegger should tender his resignation as rector.
And so apparently ends all the speculation, about whether Heidegger actually did resign his high position because he became disenchanted with the party, or that his activities as a secret liberalising mole burrowing into and undermining the racial obsessions of his party colleagues was proving to be fruitless, or that he suddenly decided that the writings of the mad poet Hoelderlin were of more import that the mad dictator Hitler, or that Elfride rang the Gestapo and reported her husband's affair with a Jewish teenager etc., etc. - all these guesses were wrong.
It was therefore all down to an insensitive joke that Heidegger made about Blondie, [whose nose had been half-bitten off by one of the guard dogs at Berchtesgaden - which was later hung with piano-wire over the heavily fortified entrance-gate as a warning to other dogs.] In fact, Hitler's Blondie didn't attend his funeral, though I'm sure she would have -- if her master hadn't tested his cyanide pills on her first
I've always been partial to "The Knob" joke...
Funny, have to remember that one!
Cat Scan, Lab Report. That one always makes me giggle.
"You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think."
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)
A Cuban walks into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder.
The bartender says, "That's cool. Where'd you get it?"
The parrot says, "Cuba, they're everywhere"
In my opinion, the funniest jokes ever was by Leslie Nielson in those various Police Squad and Airplane movies. I can watch those movies with my kids over and over and we roll on the floor everytime. Wish they made more movies like that.
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