LONDON, ENGLAND, December 20, 2001: After months of serious study and much merriment, 100,000 people have voted on the world’s funniest joke. In an experiment named Laughlab, a joke about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson emerged a clear winner Thursday from 10,000 entries. The joke: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go camping, and pitch their tent under the stars. During the night, Holmes wakes his companion and says: “Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you deduce.” Watson says: “I see millions of stars, and even if 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 replies: “Watson, you idiot. Somebody stole our tent.” Laughlab, organized in conjunction with the British Association for the Advancement of Science, claimed it was the largest experiment of its kind ever conducted. Volunteers were asked to log on to an Internet site where they could rate jokes and add their own. The joke voted the world’s second-funniest was submitted from the United States, Wiseman said. It reads as follows: Two hunters from New Jersey are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn’t seem to be breathing. The other whips out his mobile phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps out to the operator: “My friend is dead. What can I do?” The operator in a calm soothing voice says “Just take it easy. 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?” HPI tried to search the site, http://www.laughlab.co.uk/home.html, for Hindu jokes, but their server isn’t functioning.
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