The Last Laugh

Oct. 7, 2001, at 6:03 p.m. was the funniest moment of the past year. Or so say the scientists from the Laugh Lab at Britain's Hertfordshire University. It was at that precise moment, as part of the university's quest to find the world's biggest punchline, that the people visiting the Laugh Lab's website gave the jokes they found there the highest "funny" rating ever. But I must have missed it. Last week, the Laugh Lab team had a giant chicken unveil the result of their research: the joke below was found to be the world's funniest. But I must have missed that, too.

Some 65% of those polled allegedly rated this joke "very funny" or "funny." I couldn't rouse a chuckle. A little worried that I might be a humorless freak, I decided to call psychologist Richard Wiseman. He had to be able to help: he led the research team that, after a grueling year of joke collecting, online surveying and number crunching — 2 million ratings from people in 70 countries — uncovered this alleged gem along with all kinds of impressive scientific data about what makes us laugh.

The World's Funniest Joke* 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: "O.K., now what?" *According to a study by the Laugh Lab at Hertfordshire University

Wiseman's conclusions may strike you as counterintuitive. Germans, for instance, top the list of the world's funniest, not because they are comedic geniuses but because they laugh at anything. (Do not laugh at that unless you are German. It was not a joke.) The least amused: Canada, by a country mile. "The result was clear and consistent throughout the whole thing," Wiseman says. They just didn't find much to laugh about.

I don't care so much about what made Germany laugh, or what made Canada not laugh, or that France — surprise — likes surreal humor, or even that America — surprise, surprise — likes jokes that make people feel inferior. Nor am I worried about the self-esteem of ducks, surprisingly rated as the funniest — and thus the most laughed-at — creatures. ("My money would have been on the chicken," says Wiseman.) I am, however, worried about me. Why didn't I laugh? Eventually, I screw up the courage to ask Wiseman if he thinks the winning joke is funny. "The answer is ... at the moment ... well, no," he admits. "But I don't think it's a bad joke. It's fine."

Then comes the real bombshell — the scoop that's going to make my journalistic career. Turns out the world's funniest joke is not actually the world's funniest joke. "It was," Wiseman confesses, only "the world's funniest clean joke." More than 10,000 of the gags submitted by respondents around the world were too smutty for the censors. "I usually wouldn't give a monkey's [about vulgarity]," Wiseman says, acknowledging that censorship may have compromised his science. "But this was going on the university's website, so I had to."

Learning all of this has made me feel better. So has hearing the most popular joke among the French — one that did make me laugh: An Alsatian went to a telegram office, took out a blank form, and wrote: "Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof." The clerk politely told the dog: "There are only nine words here. You could send another 'Woof' for the same price." "But," the dog replied, "that would make no sense at all."

Before you say, "Did you hear the one about ... " please stop. Jokes are no laughing matter. Research often has unexpected side effects, as Dr. Wiseman and his colleagues at the Laugh Lab can attest. They seem to have lost their senses of humor. After hearing thousands of jokes, nothing seems funny to them anymore. "There's a massive number of variants of jokes," Wiseman says. "But I've heard the basic structure of pretty much every single one." Oh, he still is capable of laughter, but it's a dry husk of a laugh, a hollow been-there, heard-that chuckle designed to make you think you're funny even when you know you're not.

Is it possible to burn out your joke receptors from overuse? This calls for more research. If you didn't laugh at the world's funniest joke, you should worry. I didn't laugh, and I'm worried. Is it possible that I have laughed one time too many? If that's true, is there hope? I guess I could spend more time with Germans. Maybe their innate jocularity would rub off. Or maybe it's just time to move to Canada.