The Funniest Joke in the World

          For God's sake.

         Did you hear about this? Scientists in England have devoted actual time and money to discovering the world's funniest joke. Recently they reported success. Their long search was over. They had found the World's Funniest Joke.

         When my boyfriend, a world-renowned doctor, gave me the grave news, I took it with the same 70-ton grain of salt with which I accepted his assertion that KFC had to change its name from Kentucky Fried Chicken because they used genetically engineered animals with no head and three breasts that scientifically were no longer classifiable as chickens. However, having recieved the news from several other sources, including this article, this article, and this article, among others, I was forced to accept the horror.

The Joke

         The joke, if you haven't heard it yet, is as follows:

"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'."

         I have several problems with this joke, including, but not limited to, the fact that it isn't funny. Had the joke not been prefaced with "Here is the funniest joke in the world," its lack of humor would likely not have crossed my mind. Rather, I would have pointed out the inherent problems with a tent heist going unnoticed by its occupants. The only way the theif could have pulled this off is by gingerly removing Holmes and Watson from the tent before making away with their prize. Wouldn't it have been easier to steal a brand-new tent from Wal-Mart?

TMI! The British Association for the Advancement of Science has waaaaay too much time on its hands.

         These scientist conducted a massive Internet questionairre of a hundred thousand people in seventy different nations in order to misdirect funds from much more important matters. I've come up with, and this is just off the top of my head, several much more pressing questions for these scientists to be researching.

• How can the spread of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa be slowed?
• Is there a scientific method by which villains can be classified at birth?
• A hundred thousand people in seventy nations and that was the best they could come up with?
• Isn't there a more accurate and scientific method than just "asking people on the Internet"?
• How is this advancing science, exactly?
• Why? Why? Why? Why?
• Shouldn't you scientists be working on slowing the spread of the AIDS epidemic is South Africa?
• How can we employ bees toward the end of discovering a universal cure-all?

         Until science provides the answer to these questions, I think continued study of the world's funniest joke should be halted, and all followers of Science involved in this project should be given a swift slap on the wrist.

The Real Funniest Joke in the World

         Obviously, we here at L&E, with our refined senses of humour, can come up with a much better world's funniest joke. What you want in a funniest joke is something that makes you burst into laughter whenever you so much as think of it. Only a few things have had, for me, a lasting effect in that department. First of all, a joke written by Nate, at the age of about thirteen, goes as follows: There were two smokestacks, a little one and a big one. One day, the little one said to the big one, "I'm tired of being the lesser of two smokestacks!"

         The second joke is a little comic I drew in the margin of my social studies notebook in eighth grade, reproduced here for you thanks to the magic of MSPaint:

         The third joke is the entirety of Eric's dialogue from the sixth season of Boy Meets World.