Heard the One About the College Humor Lab? Colorado Has the Punchline

BOULDER, Colo. -- The University of Colorado's business school is serious about studying humor, but it has a website that's just for grins.

The Humor Research Lab, part of CU's Leeds School of Business, studies why some things are funny. The lab's director, assistant professor of marketing Peter McGraw, is a consumer psychologist who researches emotions.

McGraw and other CU humor researchers launched the website FunnyPoliceReports.com, which posts scores of police blotter entries about such crimes as somebody stealing electronic toilet flushers from Oklahoma City restaurants.

It has categories including "Funny Criminals," "Funny Victims" and "WTF."

McGraw tells the Boulder Daily Camera that the humor lab researchers decided if they think they know what's funny, they ought to be able to create something funny.

McGraw's lab goes by the acronym HuRL.

No, seriously.