Spike credited with creating the world's funniest joke


It features on a BBC show called London Entertains from 1951.
It is in the 'I told you I was ill' documentary about Spike.

In the meantime here is a copy of the article from the Daily Mail:


Spike credited with creating the world's funniest joke
By JULIE WHELDON, Daily Mail

To his many fans Spike Milligan has always been considered the father of modern comedy. Now scientists have discovered that the Goons funnyman was the author of the world's funniest joke.

A famous gag - recently chosen as the best in the world - has been traced to a little-seen episode of the pioneering 1950s show.

And it has confirmed the view of his millions of admirers - whose number includes Prince Charles -that his surreal brand of British humour has equal appeal across the globe.

Professor Richard Wiseman, of the University of Hertfordshire, conducted the largest ever internet experiment to find the best gag. He asked people to submit their favourite joke and these were then voted on by people around the world.

In all 40,000 jokes were put forward and voted on by 300,000 from 60 different countries. The results, announced four years ago, revealed that the world's best joke was one about two hunters from New Jersey who go into the woods.

One collapses and the other rings for help telling the operator he thinks his friend is dead.

When she asks if he is sure, there is a gun shot before he comes back on the line to say 'Ok, now what?'

The origins of the joke, just as with almost any gag, were unclear, however.

Now Prof Wiseman has discovered that it appears to have been written by Milligan.

It only came to light when an Australian company making a documentary about the comedian used some very rare footage of the first TV appearance of the Goons from 1951.

On seeing it, Prof Wiseman instantly realised it was essentially the same joke.

The circumstances were different as it was set in a house in England, rather than woods in New Jersey, but the punchline was the same.

The psychology professor then contacted one of Milligan's children daughter Sile who said she was certain that he had written the gag.

Prof Wiseman said: 'Tracking down the origin of jokes is almost impossible. Of all the thousands of jokes that were submitted the chances of knowing who wrote them, with one of two exceptions, is vanishingly small.

'Yet we do now know something about who wrote the winning joke.'

He said he actually prefers the Milligan version as it is set in a normal house.

'It it exactly the same gag but in a slightly better setting. You can relate to it more and it is even more idiotic that a normal persion could do this through their own stupidity.'

He said in some ways it was a surprise to find he was the author of the world's favourite joke as most of his work is quite surreal.

But he added: 'Doing the experiment I heard so many jokes and many were quite similar, but what is nice about this one is it is totally unexpected.

'What is also interesting is the fact it does not rely too much on word play or puns, so the joke will not be lost in translation into other languages.'

Spike was born Terence Alan Milligan in India to an Irish-born officer in the British Army. His comedy career began after World War Two, where his experiences serving in the Army in Africa made a hilarious memoir.

He wrote and starred in almost all of the 157 half-hour episodes of The Goon Show, scripted eight series of his own show Q plus more than 50 books of biography, verse, fiction, letters, games and plays.

When he died in 2002 at the age of 83, Prince Charles led the tributes to him saying: 'Along with so many others I shall miss his irreverent and hysterical presence and can only say the world will be the poorer for his departure.'

Posted: Tue - June 13, 2006 at 04:02 PM          







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