A gorilla playing the drums and footballer Cristiano Ronaldo sunning himself in a pair of tiny shorts may not seem to have much in common.



But they both managed to give us something to smile about this year, topping the list of the most requested humorous internet searches.



In the UK alone, there were around 20million hits a month on funny clips according to a survey by search engine Ask.com.



Scroll down to watch the drum-playing gorilla...



The Cadbury's Dairy Milk TV advert featuring a gorilla (Drumzilla) playing the drums to Phil Collins' hit 'In The Air Tonight' was considered the funniest story on the net in 2008 for UK web-users

The most popular was a Cadbury's Dairy Milk advert in which a gorilla plays the drums to the tune of Phil Collins's In the Air Tonight. It started life as a viral email campaign then turned into one of the most innovative and talked about TV ads of all time, picking up several awards.

The second most searched for funny item was pictures and stories of Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo.

But this was nothing to do with football - instead everyone wanted to laugh at the winger in his tiny shorts and tanned physique while on holiday this summer.



Most-searched funny stories: At two on the list was Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo's overtanned physique and at number three was Heather Mills High Court rant



In third spot it was the rant by Heather Mills McCartney to reporters on the steps of the High Court after her divorce hearing which had viewers glued to their computer screens. In fourth was an impression of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin by U.S. comedienne Tina Fey.

Ask.com spokesman Nadia Kelly said: 'One of the most unsung but popular uses for internet search engines is looking up something that makes us laugh. And when there are so many serious issues going on around us, we need humour more than ever.

'People are always searching for something to cheer them up so we trawled our records to see exactly what it was they searched for to achieve this.'

'The Dancing Pig': John Sergeant's pasa doble on Strictly Come Dancing where he dragged partner Kristina Rihanoff across the floor didn't impress the judges but won him fans all over the country









Watch the gorilla playing 'In The Air' today on the drums...