Yes, yes, I know his name is Watson.
10/4/2

I� not sure what kind of content many of you read on the internet. But a longstanding favorite of mine has been the Yahoo�s Most Emailed Content as far as news goes. They list the top 20 or so news stories based on how many times people have emailed it to someone else.

Sometimes you get quirky stories, the big stories are always there, and they also have pictures that get emailed, so you can check up on which celebrities have fattened up. And they do, Jerry Lewis and Peter Gabriel are two of the most recent swollen up people.

But my gripe today is about the World�s Funniest Joke.

Allow me to recap:

Two hunters. Deer attacks one hunter. Non-attacked hunter calls 911 and gives details and thinks friend is dead. 911 operator says, �Ok, calm down. Now first, make sure your friend is dead.� Gunfire is heard over the phone and the hunter says, �Ok, what�s next.�

Har har, so funny.

That is one of the lamest jokes. I think the one about the dead duck on the farmer�s land and the crotch kicking contest is better than that. So is the bean lovers surprise birthday party.

It is however, better than the Britain�s Funniest Joke, which was that Sherlock Holmes tells Edmond (or whatever his cohort�s name is) that is tent has been stolen.

I have no explanations for why Britain�s joke was so horrid, but the world one also wanted it to work across cultural and language barriers. This is not a small feat.

No pun could ever cross a language barrier, but then again, no pun could ever win World�s Best Joke. When I was waiting for my hand surgery last year, not waiting to have it, but for the beforehand consultation, I was reading Scientific American and they had an article about humor. There are two kinds of humor, puns and the good kind. Puns stimulate a very small part of the brain. Good humor tends to stimulate a much larger area of the brain.

But this whole contest is flawed from the beginning. I�ve never been fond of World�s Best Movie or World�s Best Burrito or any of that stuff. You have to make so many compromises.

The movie example. I bet that my mom and those like her would really keep the movie Alien from being in the running at all. I, however, would work my hardest to keep Fried Green Tomatoes out of the running. When people have grudges against different genres of movie, then those are immediately disqualified. I recently re-saw Robocop and in 60 or so years, that will probably get the respect it deserves. It�s a classic that defined the way the 1980s saw the future. Half of the in-jokes won�t be gotten by teens in 2020, since by then the UV-fear and Rainforest stuff wont be issues. Heck, did you see the picture where the ozone hole is smaller and in fact has healed itself so that it�s only two little pips?

The burrito example. I like hot food. I like Cuban pork. I think that a burrito with Cuban pork, some cilantro rice, maybe some cucumber, tomato, onion, and then some habanero sauce, hey, that would rock. However, Aisai�s mom wouldn�t be able to stand the hot. I think most people would find Cuban pork to be too oddly spiced for their western tastes. And who, besides me, thinks that cucumbers and alfalfa sprouts are much better than tomatoes and lettuce for sandwiches and whatnot. No one, that�s who.

Cucumbers get so little respect. But they crunch and have a great flavor. They�re like watermelons that don�t have that grittiness and aren�t so stinkin� sweet.

So, to have the cross cultural, we won�t offend anyone joke, you have to get rid of lots of things. No scatological humor, that�s for sure. No sci-fi based jokes. No jokes that indicate that there are differences in cultures, religions, ethnicities, or social class. No jokes based on technology, since you never know what�s common in other places.

So what did we have left? Hunters. Oh, the joke about two gatherers wasn�t as funny to the Swedes. And the other universals in the joke, guns and death, are known to about everyone. The joke fell flat to the Discovery Channel brand freako tribes in the middle of the Amazon because they substituted a spear.

And death. A totally universal concept.

But that the humor really is, and all humor is based on pain, is that one man made a very bad mistake.

I�m not one of them, but I know people who like these Darwin Award things. Now, I know that 80% of them are just made up. But I just can�t find that the death of someone is humorous.

Did you hear the one about the sniper in Maryland who killed five people indiscriminately?

It�s not very funny.

Later: My wife proofreads this and emails me this:

Subject: Inadvertant funny cockney accent

From your stuffo:

that is tent has been stolen.

"Roight, mate, me tent 'as been stolen"

Har har har