Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes 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 gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: “OK, now what?”

The above is officially the World’s Funniest Joke. No, seriously. According to researchers at the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in what was described as the largest-ever scientific study in humor, that’s it! Out of 40,000 entries from 70 countries and two million critiques, plus thousands of years of humor evolution, and we got that. I think something’s missing, but far be it from me to question the seriousness of humor studies.

Second place went to the classic Holmes-Watson joke with the punch line “Someone has stolen our tent!” which led early but got supplanted by the above. All of the ‘funniest joke’ contenders can be found at their Web site, www.laughlab.co.uk.

The study itself apparently proved humorous — or should I say “humourous” — to the British scientists doing the survey, describing the data from the United States as “somewhat strange.” The strangeness in part was caused by famed columnist Dave Barry, and I am not making this up: “In January 2002 [Barry] kindly devoted an entire column to LaughLab. At the end, he urged readers to submit jokes that ended with the punch line: ‘There’s a weasel chomping on my privates.’

“Within just a few days we had received over 1,500 ‘weasel chomping’ jokes.”

Despite that influx, the United States contributed a joke that combined marriage, death and golf. “A man and a friend are playing golf one day at their local golf course. One of the guys is about to chip onto the green when he sees a funeral procession on the road near the course. He stops in mid-swing, takes off his golf cap, closes his eyes, and bows down in prayer. His friend says: ‘Wow, that is the most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen. You truly are a kind man.’ The man replies: ‘Yeah, well , we were married 35 years.'”

Perhaps we should have stuck with the weasels.

Our neighbors to the north enjoyed our space program. “When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ball-point pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 [degrees Celsius].

“The Russians used a pencil.”

The exhaustive research put into this study makes one wonder why scientists can’t solve all the Mysteries of the Universe, such as what compels people to scratch out the last two letters in the hand-dryer instruction “PUSH BUTTON.” Maybe that’s for next week.

But who needs to search for the world’s funniest joke to find true humor? There’s a reason CNN, Reuters and even this publication devote sections to “offbeat” news: Nothing is funnier than this planet and its inhabitants. There’s even a Web site, FARK.com, that is devoted to pointing out the absurd, the interesting, and just plain odd stories that pop up on Web sites around the world. (There’s also a helping of “not safe for work” sites.) A sample of links in the past week:

* The Libertarian candidate for Senate in Montana has blue-gray skin. He drank a silver solution “for fear that Y2K disruptions might lead to a shortage of antibiotics,” according to The Associated Press.

* Gov. Jesse Ventura didn’t vote in the Minnesota primary. “Did you know that in the United States, only 50 percent of adults vote? That’s pathetic,” he told a group of kids a week later.

* CNN Headline News executives circulated a memo to encourage more “hip hop” lingo in their overcrowded screen. “Please use this guide to help all you homeys and honeys add a new flava to your tickers and dekos,” an excerpt read.

And then there’s the story about the minister, the rabbi and the duck.

The three walk into a bar and the bartender says, “What is this, some sort of joke?”

I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist.

Jeff Morrison

Jeff Morrison is a junior in journalism and mass

communication and political science from Traer. He is a copy editor for the Daily.ÿ