World's funniest joke 'not funny' shocker

There's no accounting for taste...

After three months of compiling data on what makes us laugh Dr Richard Wiseman, founder of laughLAB.co.uk, has conceded that the funniest joke in the world is not in fact funny. The website, established in conjunction with the British Association for the Advancement of Science, invited users from around the world to submit and rate jokes in an attempt to find a definitive 'funniest joke'. According to initial findings, the funniest joke is: Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are going camping. They pitch their tent under the stars and go to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night Holmes wakes Watson up. "Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you deduce." Watson says, "I see millions of stars, and 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, and if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life." Holmes replied: "Watson, you idiot, somebody stole our tent!" (Pause for deathly silence). However, speaking to the BBC Wiseman admitted that the result had proved disappointing and attributed the unlikely success of the winning entry to the fact that it may translate well into other languages and thus gained a high proportion of votes in other countries. Even the person who submitted the joke admitted it isn't very funny, but rather the only one he could think of at the time. In a statement on the Laugh Lab website Dr Wiseman pointed out the results are only preliminary. He said: "While we already have some interesting findings, the data collection period will continue till March 2002. In the meantime we challenge [surely that should be implore. Ed.] people to submit a funnier joke than the top-rated one so far." Other findings from the survey revealed men like jokes involving sexual innuendo while women prefer world play and nobody has much time for jokes beginning 'Why did the chicken cross the road...?'. The survey also redressed a few stereotypes, most notably in proving that in general Germans have the best sense of humour. To read silicon.com readers' own attempts at the funniest joke ever, read:
Are these the funniest IT jokes... ever?
http://www.silicon.com/a48796