John Carney’s an Englishman, and he’s as broke as the Ten Commandments.
Then one day, he sees a newspaper contest: “Ten thousand dollars for the world’s filthiest limerick”.
He thinks to himself, “Who knows filthier limericks than me? I’m an old British sailor.”
So he writes down the filthiest limerick he can remember, and sends it in.
A couple of weeks later, he gets a note from the magazine. He opens it up, and there’s a check for two hundred and fifty bucks… he won second place.
He can’t believe it.
He calls up the magazine and a girl answers.
He says, “I should have won your contest. Who did win?”
The girl says, “The contest was won by a Miss Fanny O’Flannagan.”
Carney says, “Can you tell me a bit about her?”
The girl says, “She’s a little old Irish lady who lives in Willowmoss, which is a suburb of Dublin. She lives in a little thatched cottage at the end of a dirt road. She has no telephone, and you can only get there by bicycle.”
Carney is really curious, and he doesn’t trust the overseas mail, so he figures, what the hell, and stows away on an ocean liner to Ireland. When he gets to Ireland, he hitchhikes to Dublin. He looks up an old Irish sea mate, borrows a bicycle, and finds the path to Fanny’s house.
He’s happy and singing as he’s going up and down and around the winding path on the bicycle.
Finally, there it is…a little white thatched cottage. There are flowers all around it, and ivy on the west wall.
He knocks on the door…
A few seconds later it opens, and a tiny little woman peeks around it and says, “Yes?”
He says, “Excuse me, but are you Miss Fanny O’Flannagan?”
She says, “Who wants to know?”
He says, “My name’s John Carney, and I came in second place in the filthy limerick contest that you won. I’d like to hear the limerick that beat me.”
She says, “All right. I’ll recite it for you. But to tell you the truth, I’m a wee bit embarrassed, because it’s so naughty. So if you don’t mind, I’ll just hum a bit during the bad sections.”
Carney says, “Fine.”
Fanny says,
“La la la la la la,
la la la la la la,
La la la la, la la la la,
La la in a river of shit”
It was a dark and stormy night! Thunder crashed and lightning flared. Fred and Ginger are sleeping soundly, snug under the covers when there is a pounding on the front door. Fred groggily comes awake, slips on his robe and stumbles to the door to see who’s there at this ungodly hour.
Standing on the front porch, soaking wet is a very drunken stranger.
Fred stares at him for a moment and asks, “What do you want?”.
The drunk, swaying back and forth says, “I need a push.”
Fred glares at him for a moment and says, “You’re nuts, I’m not coming out in that mess to help you!” Than Fred slams the door and goes back to his bedroom.
Ginger asks,“What was going on out there?”
Fred says, “Just some drunk wanting a push.”
Ginger, “Do you remember a couple of months ago, when we broke down in the middle of the night in Mississippi, the fellow stopping to help us get the car fixed?”
Fred, “Yes”
Ginger, “Well don’t you think that you ought to pass on the favor?”
Fred, “Yes, I guess so.”
So Fred pulls on his pants and slips on a raincoat. He goes back to the door and sticks his head back out into the pouring rain and yells, “Hey buddy, you still out there?”
The drunks voice, back out of the dark, “Yeah!”
Fred, “Do you still need a push?”
The drunk, “Yes, wll you push me?”
Fred, “Yeah OK, Where are you?”
.
.
.
.
.
The drunk, “Over here…on the swings!”
Favourite number two:
There’s an old farmer sitting on on his front porch, and he sees a kid coming down the road carrying a bale of wire. He says, “Boy, where’re you goin’ with that there wire?”
The boy says, “This here ain’t just wire, this here’s chicken wire. I’m gonna catch me some chickens.”
The farmer says, “Boy, you don’t catch chickens with chicken wire.” The boy just smiles, and keeps on going down the road.
(Okay, so I’m doing serial jokes. Here’s the rest.)
That evening, the farmer is back out on the porch, and he sees the boy coming back up the road. Trailing behind him is the chicken wire, and sure enough, there’s a whole mess of chickens caught up in it.
The next morning, the farmer is back out on the porch, and the same boy comes down the road carrying a roll of tape.
“Boy, where’re you goin’ with that there tape?”
The boy says, “This here ain’t just tape, this here’s duct tape. I’m gonna catch me some ducks.”
The farmer says, “Boy, you don’t catch ducks with duct tape.” The boy just smiles, and keeps on going down the road.
Later that evening, the farmer is back out on the porch, and he sees the boy coming back up the road. Strung out behind him is that whole roll of duct tape, all twisted around a whole mess of ducks.
The next morning, the farmer is back out on his front porch, and the boy is coming back down the road. This time, he’s carrying a bale of sticks. The farmer says, “Boy, where’re you headin’ with them there sticks?”
The boy says, “This here ain’t just sticks. This here’s pussy willows.”
The farmer says, “Hang on. I’ll get my hat.”
SPOOFE - My monitor and keyboard are thankful that I was not drinking diet coke when I read that.
Don’t get it.
No, lobley, I don’t imagine that you would. Keep reading to the next post, bud. My fingers got overactive on the tab/enter combination. 
Please do! I’m a-might proud of that one myself. I took your statement as a challenge, didn’t know of any, and made one up. Turned out right nicely 
Maybe I oughta copyright it…
Got this one in an e-mail yesterday…I’ve never heard it before, so I assume it’s new.
A pregnant woman is in a car accident and falls into a deep coma. Asleep for
nearly six months, she wakes up and sees that she is no longer pregnant.
Frantically, she asks the doctor about her baby. The doctor replies, “Ma’am,
you had twins! A boy and a girl. The babies are fine. Your brother came in
and named them.”
The woman thinks to herself, “Oh no, not my brother, he’s an idiot!”
Expecting the worst, she asks the doctor, “Well, what’s the girl’s name?”
“Denise,” says the doctor.
The new mother thinks, “Wow, that’s not a bad name! I guess I was wrong
about my brother. I like Denise!” Then she asks the doctor, “What’s the
boy’s name?” The doctor replies, “Denephew.”
To actually answer the OP, you can find an article about the research here, and the website of the researchers here. The few jokes on that site that are funny are very poorly told, though. You’ll find funnier jokes here on these boards. In fact, the funniest joke I ever heard was in this Great Debate, elucidator’s third response down. Still makes me laugh.
Can we vote on this? If so SPOOFE gets my vote. That was just plain hilarious…
Wearia
This one should be told in public…
A woman goes into labor, and her husband takes her to the hospital. After a few hours, a beatiful bouncing baby boy became born.
To everybody’s surprise, after the doctor slapped the child’s bum the baby reached out, grapped the doctor’s shirt in its tiny fist, and asked “Are you my daddy?”
Surprised, the doctor stammered, “N-No, I’m not your daddy.”
The baby wriggled out of the doctor’s grasp, walked over to the anesthesiologist, looked him straight in the eye, and asked “Are you my daddy?”
The anesthesiologist, having had a little more time to prepare, replied coolly, “No. I’m not your father.”
The baby hopped onto a side table, stalked over to the father, and again demanded thusly: “Are you my daddy?”
The father, glowing with prde over such an obviously gifted youngster, puffed out his chest and said “Yes, I am your father.”
The baby jumped on the father’s shoulder and shouted: [and at this point begin rapping somebody in the audience on the head with your knuckles while shouting] “How do you like it?”
Wow, typos. Make that “grabbed,” and “pride” accordingly.
Far away in the tropical waters of the Caribbean, two prawns were swimming around in the sea - one called
Justin and the other called Christian.
The prawns were constantly being harassed and threatened by sharks that patrolled the area. Finally, one day
during a tropical storm, Justin said to Christian “I’m bored and frustrated at being a prawn, I wish I was a
shark - then I wouldn’t have any worries about being eaten…”
As Justin had his mind firmly on becoming a predator, aflash of lightning hit the water and, lo and behold,
Justin turned into a shark. Horrified, Christian immediately swam away, afraid of being eaten by his old mate.
Time went on (as it invariably does…) and Justin found himself becoming bored and lonely as a shark. All his old
mates simply swam away whenever he came close to them.
Justin didn’t realize that his new menacing appearance was the cause of his sad plight. During the next tropical
storm, Justin figured that the same lightning force could change him back into a prawn. Lightning never strikes
twice except in stories like these, but while he was thinking of being a prawn again, a flash of lightning
struck the water next to Justin and, lo and behold, he turned back into a prawn.
With tears of joy in his tiny little eyes, Justin swam back to his friends and bought them all a cocktail.
(The punch line does not involve a prawn cocktail - it’s much worse). Looking around the gathering at the reef, he
searched for his old pal. “Where’s Christian?” he asked.
“He’s at home, distraught that his best friend changed sides to the enemy and became a shark” came the reply.
Eager to put things right again and end the mutual pain and torture, he set off to Christian’s house. As he opened the coral gate, the memories came flooding back. He banged on door and shouted, “It’s me, Justin, your old friend.
Come out and see me again”.
Christian replied, “No way, man. You’ll eat me. You’re a shark, the enemy. I will not be tricked”.
Justin cried back “No I’m not. That was the old me. I’ve changed… I’m a prawn again Christian!!!”
My vote’s definitely for SPOOFE right now. But as is usual for these things, it’s not really the joke itself, it’s more the way it’s told and the sense of timing.
I love the little superfluous extras - “you’re pregnant! No wait…”
Lovely.
pan
Kabbes, brevity is the soul of wit:
A man walks into a psychiatrists, dressed only in cling film.
The doctor takes one look:
“I can clearly see your nuts”.
Yes yes. I took my rottweiler to the vet’s. The vet picked him up, looked under him, looked at his teeth, looked at his stomach, looked down his mouth.
“I’m going to have to put this dog down”
“Oh no! Is it that serious?”
“No, he’s just very heavy”.
Ho ho.
One of Tommy Cooper’s finest - and it’s still in the way he told them.
pan
Or, Per the Simpsons:
“Brevity is…wit.”
In that case…
(This one is better told aloud than read)
What do you call a fish with no eyes?
.
.
.
A fsh.
Q. If a man rows his canoe down the middle of main street, how many pancakes does it take to shingle a dog house?
A. 16, because ice cream has no bones.
– tracer, listening to his no-soap radio.