The "world's funniest joke" is a term used by Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire in 2002 to summarize one of the results of his research.
For his experiment, named LaughLab, he created a website where people could rate and submit jokes.
[1] Purposes of the research included discovering the joke that had the widest appeal and understanding among different cultures, demographics and countries.
[citation needed] The History Channel eventually hosted a special on the subject.
[2] The winning joke, which was later found to be based on a 1951 Goon Show sketch by Spike Milligan,[3] was submitted by Gurpal Gosal of Manchester: Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses.