I saw a documentary about humor a while ago. They went all over the world asking people on the street/veldt/mountain to tell them a joke. The idea was to see if there were truly ethnic or cultural differences in humor. The most interesting part was that they heard very similar jokes in India, Mongolia, London, etc. Often along the lines of "did you hear about the (fill in name of group who lives near you but who you think is culturally inferior) who tried to blow up a jeep? He burnt his lips on the tailpipe."
They did find a fairly consistant difference between male and female humor which also crossed cultures.
They also used one joke involving two dogs who watch various things happen. (It is fairly long but I won't tell it properly here)) The first dog says woof and the second says "Hey I was going to say that."
They repeated it with about twenty animals and appropriate noises. Apparently the dog is the funniest animal, again across most cultures. I can't remember who came second.
edit or why they thought it mattered.
