The IT Crowd is officially the funniest British sitcom ever, according to science

"Did you see that ludicrous display last night?"

The IT Crowd has been found to be the funniest British sitcom ever, thanks to an incredibly important and scientific study. You can't argue with this. It is science. This very important research was carried out, by, er, OnBuy.com. They started by surveying over 2,000 British comedy fans to select the ten funniest British sitcoms of all time. A control group of 125 people then watched every episode of the selected shows, while their laughter was monitored. They recorded the total laughter duration for each show (measured by decibels), to calculate how much laughter per hour each show generated. The IT Crowd came top of the list, with an average of one minute and 44 seconds of laughter per hour. The report said: "The IT Crowd comes in at number one! Amazingly, the short number of episodes (25) and their duration (24 minutes) are enough to make us laugh for an average of 1 minute and 44 seconds per hour! The results also revealed that Season 2 is the one that had the most cackles, and Season 1, the least. Participants described the show as having 'the finest British dry humour' and 'clever writing'." Peep Show came second in the list, with one minute and 36 seconds of laughter, followed by The Inbetweeners with one minute and 22 seconds. Here is the complete list:

1. The IT Crowd - 1 min 44 sec
2. Peep Show - 1 min 36 sec
3. The Inbetweeners - 1 min 22 sec
4. The Office - 59 sec
5. Mr Bean - 54 sec
6. The Thick of It - 51 sec
7. Outnumbered - 31 sec
8. Friday Night Dinner - 23 sec
9. My Family - 9 sec
10. This Country - 7 sec

OnBuy previously held a similar study of American sitcoms, which found the US version of The Office coming out on top with an average of one minute and 45 seconds of laughter per hour. Brooklyn Nine-Nine was second, which caused one minute and 38 seconds of laughter per hour, and Community came in third with one minute and 13 seconds per hour.