[[CyanideAndHappiness http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/comiccookinghobby1.png]]
[[caption-width:500:And we're just getting started.]]

-->''Do you know what's funnier than a dead baby? A dead baby in a clown suit.''

-->'''Dr. Young:''' ''"That's horrible. How can you joke about something like that?"''
-->'''Riddler:''' ''"Easily, doctor...'' it's not my baby."
-->'''BatmanArkhamAsylum'''

%% They should do for opening quotes. No others needed, please. Take it to QuotesWiki.

A series which largely depends on its controversy. Whether or not all the jokes are funny, they're designed to be as potentially offensive as possible. There is no such thing as TooSoon.

Although this can produce some edgy comedy and become popular enough to get around the censors, it creates a self-defeating situation. Once society has caught up with the edginess (sometimes due to the show's own popularity) the show must either keep upping the ante or retool itself lest it be considered wearing itself out. Doubly problematic is the fact that the people who would be most offended by it (i.e. MoralGuardians) don't watch it, and those who do watch aren't offended by it.

A common pitfall is that some creators confuse simply being offensive with being both offensive and funny. The creators may throw anything onto the screen they hope will offend the MoralGuardians whether it has any humor to it or not. They might do this to get publicity or they might do it because they honestly think offensiveness is by and of itself funny. Fans who become emotionally invested in the show might not be able to accept that others simply don't think it's very good, and might assume that anyone who complains has to be a stuffy, pinch-mouthed MoralGuardian.

This is typically seen as the realm of the Fox network for basic broadcast TV.

The DeadBabyComedy could be considered a version of the GrossOutShow, except it can't be marketed to children. (However, it often appears as a SubvertedKidsShow.)

Sensitive members of the audience may look at a show like this and say DudeNotFunny. However, the creators may take it as a good sign that their show is offending people, especially MoralGuardians.

The DeadBabyComedy probably has its roots in the infamous ''TheAristocrats'', but may be (quite literally) related to Jonathan Swift's satirical essay ''A Modest Proposal'', making it OlderThanSteam.

RefugeInVulgarity is often the reason some of these work, and others don't. ToiletHumour may also be present.

Surprisingly different from BlackComedy, which is funny in a wry, serious way, and juxtaposes humor with tragedy rather than disgust. See also SlidingScaleOfComedyAndHorror.
----
!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime ]]

* ''OruchubanEbichu'' was outright designed to push the envelope as to what could be aired in the Japanese late night slot. As said in its entry, Ebichu has a long tendency of interrupting the protagonists ''[[IfYouKnowWhatIMean in flagrante delicto]]''...
* ''TheRapeman''.
* ''SayonaraZetsubouSensei'' is about a teacher who attempts to commit suicide, and has offered to take one of his students with him when he does as a "travelling companion".
** Better yet: one student misconstrues his little speech on lover's double suicide as a ''declaration of love''. She's also a stalker taken UpToEleven.
* ''ShinChan'' the FUNimation dub hints at this almost literally in the episode "Brotherhood of the Grovelling Allowance":
--->(After listening to depressing music)'''Shin''': Will you buy me a shotgun, dad?
--->'''Hiro''': Sorry, I'm broke.
** In another episode, Mitzi warns a misbehaving Hina, "You're lucky we're not in China, or you'd be in a dumpster right now!"

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Comics ]]

* Belgian comic ''Violine'' definitely qualifies. Ten-year-old Violine has the ability to read people's minds by looking into their eyes. Her adventures include rescuing mice from being dissected (she even sees one cut open, and vomits), being thought of as a witch and chased by people who want her dead, hopping into a car with a pedophile (and seeing an image of herself bound and gagged and looking terrified when reading his mind), being thrown off a ship that she got caught stowing away on by a crew that assumes she's dead, witnessing the dead bodies of many birds caught in an oil spill, being chased by men with guns who then get eaten by alligators, and many more. All of this is played for very dark humor. Or you could possibly interpret it as a serious story that just has dark jokes scattered throughout, but either way, the sources of humor are pretty damn morbid.
* The main point of Jhonen Vasquez's ''JohnnyTheHomicidalManiac'', particularly the early comics, is to show horribly brutal deaths and tortures. As things progress and Johnny gets more and more talky the violence begins to tone down, but that over the top violence remains at the core of most of the comedy in the strip.
** ''Squee!'', by the same author, follows a Johnny's child neighbor through a series of considerably disturbing adventures, such as his grandpa trying to eat him and a rather strange trip to a public bathroom.
** ''Fillerbunny'' is all about seeing something cute in inordinate amounts of pain.
** And then there's the Bad Art Collection... and ''Jelly Fist''...
** Oddly, ''I Feel Sick'', despite being another spin off of Johnny, tones this down considerably, favoring a stranger brand of humor. "Cat had acid for blood..."
* Evan Dorkin's "Milk and Cheese" series were literally just about two hyperviolent dairy products who spend every strip they were ever in beat the ever loving shit out of everything they hate. And they hate everything except for liquor, TV, and each other. It's actually hard to describe the level of brutality involved. To put it in context, at one point, a guy from the Guiness Book of World Records shows as they're beating a hippy pot dealer to a bloody mess and crowns them as "World Class Abuse Kings".
**Merv Griffin!
*Icelandic playwright/cartoonist Hugleikur Dagsson's crudely-drawn cartoons include such savory topics as incest, coprophagia, bestiality, suicide, and adults intentionally putting children in harms way. [[http://www.dagsson.com Check it out if you dare ]].
* ''TwistedToyfareTheater''
* Every comic written by GarthEnnis, particularly if not written in the {{DC}} universe.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* The Tom Green-directed film ''FreddyGotFingered'', which actually features the star/writer/director [[GrossOutShow chomping on a baby's umbilical cord, among other weird and gross things]]. Roger Ebert famously said of this movie:
--> "The day may come when ''Freddy Got Fingered'' is [[GuiltyPleasures seen as a milestone]] [[AbsurdityAscendant of neo-surrealism]]. [[SoBadItsHorrible The day may never come when it is seen as funny.]]"
** Arguably everything else Tom Green has ever done fits this category as well.
* The intro segment to the movie ''{{Postal}}'' (based on the game of the same name, which [[VideoGameMoviesSuck is a bad sign]], and directed by UweBoll, which is a worse one) goes like this, to quote TheOtherWiki:
-->September 11, 2001. Terrorists are about to fly a plane into the World Trade Center when they realize that there can't possibly be enough virgins left in the afterlife, given the recent rash of suicide bombings. After a quick phone call to their leader confirms that they may only get twenty, they decide to call off the attack and fly to The Bahamas. Just then, the cockpit door is kicked open and the passengers struggle to take control of the plane. Veering out of control, it smashes into the Twin Towers - the fiery explosion revealing the film's title card.
** According to the few reviewers who managed to see the movie, this is the ''least offensive part''.
** Sadly, it's also probably the funniest. The rest of the movie is feeble action sequences and stale jokes. The only possible exception are a few choice one liners. In a job interview Q&A: "What is the difference between a duck . . ."
* ''MeetTheFeebles'' has the puppet form of DeadBabyComedy.
* ''FritzTheCat'', period.
* ''TeamAmerica World Police'' from the creators of ''SouthPark''.
* The ''Luis Buñuel'' 1930 classic "L' Âge d'or", ''The Golden Age'' has got lots of these jokes (and it's the most hilarious film ever), one of the main character's is a man working for a ''good will mission'' organisation, and is on a mission to spread happiness in the world. He randomly attack people, he ''kicks a blind man'' and {{Kick the Dog}} more than once. One scene also includes a man that shoot an annoying kid with a rifle.
* Norm Macdonald's film ''DirtyWork'', especially the last line when our hero explains that everything worked out and he got the girl "...and Dr. Farthing got the money to his bookies. But the bookies killed him anyway. So he's dead. Well, that's the end."

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

* Happens literally in WorldWarZ when two soldiers pick up human infant skulls and put on a small show for their troop. Would be going into DudeNotFunny territory if the real subject wasn't about the GallowsHumor used for coping with... you know... a ZombieApocalypse.
* Clive Barker's Mister B. Gone: Filled with the darkest of humor, as can be expected from Clive Barker. There's a scene where The demon villain protagonist bathes in a tub full of dead babies. The townspeople are hot on his trail, since there was a hole in his baby bag, and he left a trail of children, like bread crumbs, on his way back to his hovel. He complains how difficult it was to keep them alive so the bath would be warm when he emptied their blood into the tub.
* “Mrs. Hall, of Sherborne, was brought to bed yesterday of a dead baby, some weeks before she expected, owing to a fright. I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband.” Jane Austen, letter to Cassandra, October 27, 1798.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* ''ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' fills its episodes with taboo comedy, riffing on such topics as dumpster babies, statutory rape, crack addiction, and cannibalism.
* In Britain, ChrisMorris's show ''{{Jam}}'' depended almost entirely on this, even featuring a ''literal'' dead baby. Another of his shows, ''BrassEye'', infamously went too far with its "Paedophilia special" and received numerous complaints. Many of these, strangely enough, happened to be from the kind of people and newspapers who the show was satirising in the first place - the News of the World and the Daily Mail acted far more bent out of shape than the Times and the Guardian. Getting celebrities to discuss the implications of a "roboplegic wrongcock" (a paralysed paedophile with cybernetic implants that let him chase children) on television is inherently funny, though.
** ''The Adam and Joe Show'' featured a ''Jam'' parody with a send-up of the dead baby sketch. Adam played a TV repairman who finds a dead baby behind the set and says he will have to [[DudeNotFunny rape the corpse]] in order to repair the television. A horrified Joe refuses to film any more, and storms off the set while Adam complains that "you don't understand my genius"
** To its credit, the paedophilia special did result in one of the [[http://www.garbledonline.net/starbrass.jpg best examples of press hypocrisy I've seen]]. Just remember, the girl on the left was ''15 years old'' when the article was printed.
* Rik Mayall's numerous series for the BBC - ''TheYoungOnes'', ''TheNewStatesman'', ''{{Bottom}}'' - have all included several examples of Dead Baby humor.
* Anything involving Doug in ''{{Scrubs}}''. Most of his humor comes from his pure ineptitude at being a doctor so he ends up killing most of his patients. In season four he is finally "promoted" to being a mortician, the logic being that he can't kill a patient that's already dead.
** Not so! Doug became a ''pathologist''. Elliot discovered that he had a knack for identifying causes of death, the implication being that he'd caused them before ("Upstairs, we call that a 'Doug.'") What began as a running dead baby joke -- incompetent doctor kills patients -- was subverted when said doctor discovered his gift for determining what killed other doctors' patients.
**There's still a lot of (reasonably literal) DeadBabyComedy using Doug, however. He's constantly losing corpses (in body bags, though - to date - they have never been non-adult-sized body bags) throughout the hospital, and having to recover them, usually by hoisting them over his shoulder or dragging them through the halls. In one case, he actually says
---> Doug: They're like children. Big, dead children.
**Recently during one of the Brain Trust Meetings:
--->I propose we get "Hello Kitty" toe tags. You know, for the dead children.
* ''LittleBritain'' was criticized for its increasing attempts to shock, with characters such as an incontinent old lady and an adult man who breastfeeds from his mother.
** The new "shocking" segments were also utterly devoid of the subtle social satire that made the show a hit in the first place. Oh, and they ''weren't funny''.
*** Not to mention "Puking Pure-blood Lady" who projectile vomits whenever she is told that someone of a different ethnic origin prepared the food she is being served.
* ''The Sarah Silverman Program''.
* ''KidsInTheHall''
* ''TV Funhouse'' was a ''very'' loose SpinOff of the animated segments of the same name from ''SaturdayNightLive'', taking the form of a SubvertedKidsShow. Choice bits include the [[UncannyValley ghoulishly lifelike]] "Ani-Pals" puppets draining the host's spinal fluid in search of "Christmas cheer", a restaurant where various animals eat the meat of their species, and the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin self-explanatory]] "Fetal ScoobyDoo".
* ''WonderShowzen''.
* Often used on ''MockTheWeek'', ''especially'' by Frankie Boyle. On the subject of pets:
-->"I don't know how long I could be a vet before I got bored and started shagging stuff. I'd shag an owl, because whatever position you took it from you could always get eye contact. Or shag a kitten--could you imagine having sex with something you ''wanted'' to cuddle afterwards?"
** Frankie Boyle uses this so much, one could argue he subverted it once. The subject was children, and after one comment about how sinister the picture looked, he went on to tell a really sweet story about his own daughter.
** Similarly, when he skewered the host for a relatively tame joke, everyone remarked on how it must have been odd for him to find himself in the moral high ground. He double subverted it when, a moment later, he made a joke about the Russian that Vladimir Putin had allegedly assassinated through polonium poisoning.
** That pet quote actually merited him his own separate warning before the program started.
** He even lampshades it in a deleted scene (that later appeared in a compilation episode), in which he makes a joke about the recent memorial concert for Princess Diana; after joking that they could have staged a more fitting tribute "by staging a gang-bang in a minefield", he smiles charmingly at the audience's torn-between-shock-and-amusement reaction, goes back to the start position, and innocently notes that "it'll be interesting to see if that makes it in, actually."
* Australian comedy team The Chaser had their show ''TheChasersWarOnEverything'' suspended for two weeks because of a skit parodying the charity Make a Wish Foundation, showing terminally ill children in a hospital and suggesting that they be given pencil cases instead of trips to Disneyland because "they're only going to die anyway." There was an overwhelming reaction of DudeNotFunny to the sketch, including from Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd; and it was cut from both the internet download and any future reruns on TV.
** Some commentators pointed out that another comedy show, ''The Mansion'' had used exactly the same joke a year before and received no complaints, to which others responded that at least that one hadn't shown dying children (real or otherwise) in their version of the sketch, which showed a receptionist denying the kids' last requests by phone.
*** The Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph also made note of a story on {{The Onion}}'s News Network about a child exploiting the loophole of wishing for unlimited wishes and consequently bankrupting the Make A Wish Foundation with his ludicrously long list of demands. Interestingly, the story not only features the child in question but also not-so-subtly casts him as the villain due to his insatiable demands (to the extent of him wishing away the pro-bono legal team the Foundation was hoping to use in its defense) and even features the hosts hoping for his imminent demise so that the Foundation can stop granting his wishes. Presumably Prime Minister Rudd was not told about this sketch either so that he could also comment on it sight unseen.
*** The Chaser also did a similar story in ''The Chaser'', their early newspaper. In it, a child's wish was to receive a blow job from Cameron Diaz.
** The previous series of the show had featured ''The Eulogy Song'', which mentioned a number of dead celebrities (including the then recently deceased Steve Irwin) and stated that no matter how awful someone is while they're alive, (s)he will be lauded as a "top bloke" after death. It received a huge number of complaints and The Chaser responded that it was a tamer version of an even more offensive song featured in Chris Taylor's stage show ''Dead Caesar.'' The following week they made fun of the controversy in a parody of the "turning off the TV" national election campaign ads then running, with Chas stepping in to switch off the broadcast when ''The Eulogy Song'' came on.
* The infamous "Undertaker's Sketch" from episode 26 of ''MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' suggested cannibalism as an alternative to interment or cremation. The punchline was so disgusting that ExecutiveMeddling demanded that the studio audience end the episode by storming the set in protest.
* ''HaveIGotNewsForYou'', while generally hovering somewhere above this level of offensiveness, did feature this joke about the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Woodward_case Louise Woodward case]]:
--> "Louise, currently between school and university, will have to remain in America for the duration of the appeal, although she's desperate to come home, as she has to finish an essay entitled 'What I Did in My Year Off.'"

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Music ]]

* Brian Eno's song "Baby's On Fire" is a cheerful uptempo rocker about... well, take a guess.
** Arguably it's about the consequences of being a celebrity in general or a model in particular. But on the other hand, Eno did have this habit of choosing lyrics for their phonetic value rather than meaning. So who knows?
* Ween's 'Spinal Meningitis' complete with a squeakily sung impression of a terminally ill child would seem to be in the worst possible taste, although the chorus, sung in an adult voice; "Shine on mighty Jesus, spinal meningitis got me down" indicates a touch of religious satire. Maybe...
* Schaffer the Dark Lord's "Clone-(expletive deleted)," tells of a post-apocalyptic future where robots are at war with mankind, and humans send clones of themselves as soldiers to fight in their place. One cloner decides to take advantage of the situation... It would be an understatement to say that it doesn't end well.
* Stephen Lynch's "Baby", which is about realising how ugly his newborn daughter is. Contains the line "I always wanted kids / Is it wrong to hope for SIDS?"
**also, Stephen Lynch's entire career.
*** The best example might be "For The Ladies", where he contemplates [[spoiler: the best way to cause a miscarriage in his pregnant wife.]]
* Devo songs often contain underlying dark humour, but a select few sound ''almost'' like they're not joking.
** Particularly songs from their early demo period: "I Need A Chick", "Baby Talkin' Bitches", "Bamboo Bimbo", "I've Been Refused", and "The Rope Song" may offend some.
** "Mongoloid" and "Jocko Homo" might seem controversial for their titles alone, although they aren't particularly offensive songs themselves.
*** Contrary to some misinterpretations, "Jocko Homo" has nothing to do with homosexuality.
** "Triumph Of The Will": 'It is the thing females ask for/When they convey the opposite' (The whole song can be interpreted as being about a rapist or a player who knows girls want him but are afraid to show their sexual side).
** "I Desire" contains love lyrics written by would-be-assassin John Hinckley Jr. The joke may have been on Warner Bros. Records, who had to pay royalties to an inmate.
** Sometimes Devo were controversial for their music videos - i.e. a talk show host refused to feature them after seeing the video for "Whip It" which she thought was offensive to women. In one case, the Hendrix estate forbid them from including their video for "Are You Experienced" on a DVD because there's a shot of a Jimi Hendrix look-a-like coming out of a coffin to play guitar, which they assumed was ''making fun'' of him.
** Gerry Casale's alter ego, Jihad Jerry. Also, in a ''very early'' Devo performance, Jerry donned those "Chinese" toy glasses as a character called Chinaman (you can see a brief shot of him in their "Secret Agent Man" video).
* Australian band 'The Self-Righteous Brothers' have a whole string of songs which fit this trope, often sung in a pleasantly melodious fashion. A couple of examples -- from 'Now You're Gone':
---> Now your family want to take me to court
---> Just for having sex with your rotting corpse.
---> I love you so much more
---> Now that you're gone.
* They are also responsible for such gems as 'Daddy Drinks Because You Cry' and '(Too Much) Sperm In Your Eyes'.
* Seanan [=McGuire=]'s lullaby "You Would Fit In the Microwave" is another literal example.
* Eminem's entire celebrity/artistic persona?
** Mainly the songs where his "Slim Shady" alter-ego takes over.
*The Frogs' infamous ''It's Only Right And Natural'', where every song is written from the point of view of over-the-top sex-obsessed gay men - possibly the song that really CrossesTheLineTwice is "Baby Greaser George", in which the narrator puts his "thing" in the mouth of a 3-month old in a stroller dressed as a leather man, and gets a testicle bitten off. Dead baby comedy isn't ''all'' they do, but it's what they're most well-known for due to song titles like "Grandma Sitting In The Corner With A Penis In Her Hand Going 'No No No'".
* The original cover art of The Beatles' ''Yesterday and Today'' album, of course.
* And then there's TheBloodhoundGang 's song "Lift Your Head Up High (and Blow Your Brains Out)"
* The title of TomLehrer's "I Hold Your Hand in Mine" might sound innocent but hearing it makes you realise it's a representative of this trope.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: New Media ]]

* Although many stories from ''TheOnion'' don't involve DeadBabyComedy, quite a lot do. Their book ''Our Dumb World'' is a landmark in the history of Dead Baby Literature, as it succeeds in brutally mocking every nation on the planet. It even made a joke about the Rwandan Genocide... and it was actually funny.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ-T3i8Ap3U This O-SPAN clip]] is an ''almost'' literal example. [[{{BlackComedy}} Political satire, meet deeply disturbing morbid humor.]]
* This very page showed a Google ad for a pregnancy calendar for this troper.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Print Media ]]

* Gary Larson's ''FarSide'' comic strip at least skirted this trope at times. In one of his book-collections, he printed some of the ones that got rejected by his editors because.. they stopped skirting and plunged right in.
** In one literal case, a snake was crawling through a crib, with a huge bulge in its center. Gary Larson commented, "No, you didn't see this. Turn the page."
** Its worth noting that the real joke of the picture was that the snake became so enlarged by the bulk of the freshly consumed infant that it couldn't squeeze through the bars of the crib, and was trapped.
*There's a "Calvin&Hobbes" strip where Calvin proposes a class debate on "whether cannibalism is grounds for leniancy in murder, since it's less wasteful." No, really.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Theatre ]]

* [[ManWithoutABody This guy]] will maintain to his dying day that ''[[{{Shakespeare}} Romeo and Juliet]]'' is a shining paragon of this trope. They kill themselves over a problem with the postal service.
** Indeed. In earlier drafts Shakespeare had apparently intended the play to be a ''comedy'' rather than a tragedy.
** However, for Romeo and Juliet to be a "comedy," in the Elizabethan sense, it would have had to end with a marriage, and not a death. Similarly, Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure" contains many unsettling plot points including excecution, sexual extortion, and an implied (debatebly) forced marriage. However, because it ends in a marriage, it is a comedy.
* ''AvenueQ''. About three across-the-line jokes per song. Assuming the line is pretty far away from "tasteful". "TheInternetIsForPorn ..."
*Used regularly by Christopher Durang, and quite literally in his play ''The Marriage of Bette and Boo'', in which one of the title characters repeatedly bears stillborn children; the doctor, announcing their births, drops them on the floor.
*Sarah Kane's play 'Blasted' takes this trope one step further: Ian, one of the main characters, eats a dead baby. He is also a racist, alcoholic rapist who has had his eyes eaten by a soldier who raped him with a gun.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Videogames ]]

* ''[[ConkersBadFurDay Conker's Bad Fur Day]]'' includes, among other things to offend, a ''literal'' mountain of excrement.
** Not to mention the BossBattle of said mountain of excrement, [[http://sloprano.ytmnd.com/ the Great Mighty Poo.]] Warning, link swears.
* This is, of course, present in the videogame version of any of the above or below, especially Happy Tree Friends the game.
* Dead Space subverts this: When the dead babies become terrifying zombies, it's treated COMPLETELY seriously! (Three back-tentacles that shoot explosive ammo.)
** However, if one jumps on your face you do get to throw it on the floor... AND PUNT DA BABY! (Which is pretty funny if you're desensitized enough).
* BatmanArkhamAsylum has The Riddler provide a Dead Baby example of the riddle of the Sphinx:
--> Riddle: What walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon and three in the night?
--> Answer: A baby. Cut off it's legs and it'll still have it's arms. Give it a crutch and it will hobble on three.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

*EightBitTheatre is practically nothing but this.
** AnsemRetort, which is probably inspired by 8bit in more ways than one, is even worse. It sets the tone for the rest of the series when the first strip plays burning an orphanage and courthouse for laughs.
* ''[[http://headtripcomics.livejournal.com/ Head Trip]]'' [[LampshadeHanging hangs a lampshade]] on its status as a Dead Baby Comedy by starting off with [[http://headtripcomics.comicgenesis.com/d/20060303.html an abortion joke]].
** ''[[http://www.somethingpositive.net/ Something Positive]]'' did [[http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp12192001.shtml the same thing]] a few years earlier.
*''[[http://www.lfgcomic.com/ LFG]]'' uses dead baby comedy for many of the jokes in the strip. The creators also made a short animated feature released on Youtube that is one long dead baby joke.
* How people were able to miss ''[[http://www.explosm.net/comics/ Cyanide and Happiness]]'' for so long is truly confusing, as the series will often go to this level and beyond.
* ''[[http://sexylosers.com/ Sexy Losers]]'' is a classic of the genre, with comedic situations arising from disgusting and perverted sexual practices, including necrophilia and incest.
* ''[[http://www.biggercheese.com/ Bigger Than Cheeses]]'' performed an ample, almost literal display of this trope in response to one of [[http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20080602/ Ctrl+Alts+Del's ham-fisted dramatic storylines]], with a series of arguably distasteful/controversial [[http://www.biggercheese.com/index.php?comic=747 two-panel gags]].
* We'd be remiss to leave out ''[[http://www.asofterworld.com/ A Softer World]]'' which relies on this in frequent but creative ways. ''[[http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=260/ One that springs to mind.]]''
** ''[[http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=261/ Lampshaded]]'' (sort of, in an incredibly disturbing way) the very next day.
* ''[[http://www.electricretard.com/ ElectricRetard]]''
* [[http://www.lucid-tv.com Lucid TV]] does this with doctors. Think ''{{House}}'', but worse.
** Of course, with doctors they have opportunity for a number of literal dead baby jokes such as [[http://www.lucid-tv.com/087.html this]] and [[http://www.lucid-tv.com/118.html this together with the following strip]].
* ''VGCats'',which often veers into that territory, has two very literal examples [[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=271 here]] and [[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=272 here]].
**Note that the later was in response to complaints about the former.
** There is also [[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=137 this]].
* ''[[http://www.flemcomics.com/ Flem Comics]]'' is pretty much one very long frequently-lampshaded run of pretty much every offensive trope in the book. The one strip the author thought so horrible that he put it off for years? ''Hank the Dancing Abortion''. Complete with hangar through the head. Later converted to a running gag.
* ''Jerkcity'', in its more coherent moments.
-->'''Spigot''': ''YOU MIGHT SAY ALL THIS SARIN GAS IS MAKING ME VIETNUMB''
* ''[[http://www.agameoffools.com A Game of Fools]]'' does this at times, with [[http://www.agameoffools.com/comic%2005.html this]] probably being the most literal example.
* The name of the game in ''[[http://manga.clone-army.org/t42r.php Tomoyo42's Room]]''. Sometimes even involving actual dead babies: for example, Tomoyo throwing hers and Sakura's child (well, egg) into the sea, or sticking a dead baby through a fan.
* ''[[http://legorobotcomics.com LegoRobot Comics]]'' is definitely an example, and DEFINITELY NSFW.
* Attempted by ''ShreddedMoose'', including at least one literal instance [[http://www.shreddedmoose.com/comic/comic_arc.php?comicID=71]]
* [[http://www.sexdrugsandjunecleaver.com/ Sex, Drugs, and June Cleaver]] occasionally forays into this territory. Oh, and it's a JournalComic. SoYeah.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Web Original ]]

* The "weird Christmas song list" video of the [[ThatGuyWithTheGlasses Nostalgia Chick]] contains a song which tells a story of domestic violence. While the song is played, the viewers are treated to a reenactment of a southern hick beating his wife. The clip starts as serious and somewhat realistic, but then, out of nowhere, the husband starts giving his wife the "stop hitting yourself" treatment and giving her Indian burns. The scene turns from [[DudeNotFunny not funny]] into silly and then outright hilarious.
* The site [[http://www.dead-baby-joke.com/ dead baby joke.com]] which is pretty much ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* ''SouthPark'', most infamously.
** Literal dead babies during the Christopher Reeve stem cell episode.
* ''TheSimpsons'' sometimes does this; one well-known example is "Homer's Enemy".
* ''HarveyBirdmanAttorneyAtLaw'' features a fantastically hilarious joke of lawfirm boss juggling a baby with shotguns.
* ''FamilyGuy'' couples this brand of humor with {{Breathless Non Sequitur}}s. One recent episode applied the trope literally by featuring a sequence in which a group of "Prom Night Dumpster Babies" sing a showtune about their plight.
** The episode "The Thin White Line" presents a dilemma. Is it funnier that it looks like they're beating up kids, or that they're actually beating up ''midgets'' disguised as kids?
** This troper had trouble understanding why they would put some of the stuff they do into the show until he heard the producer state that they go out of their way to think up ways to offend people.
** In one episode, the distressed exclaimation "my baby's dead" was given as a pre-commercial break punchline. (Hilarious!)
** Occasionally they also subvert the trope: in one episode, a character whines about having the worst day ever, to which another character replies that plenty of people have had worse days. Cut to a gag that shows a Japanese man in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Several trivially bad misfortunes happen to him--his pants getting splashed, a parking ticket--and he says, "How can this day get any worse?" Then he hears something falling from above him with a whistling noise..."Oh. My. God."...which turns out to be a baboon that lands on him and starts clawing madly at his face.
***Another subversion was in the episode in which Peter is launched through the air, and the show cuts to a man finishing his elaborate dominoes display, with a Faberge egg centerpiece around his newborn hemophiliac baby. After a few seconds, Peter mercifully lands outside his window, gets up unharmed, and compliments the man for having "all those really nice things."
* Almost inevitably, ''RobotChicken'' had one such sketch in which a crowd of visitors inside a maternity ward coo at a baby, only for a nurse to walk up and cover its face to illustrate that it's dead. Good stuff.
** Lampshaded in one episode where a sketch shows a mother and father arguing and showing {{Multiple Endings}} where they die. The characters in the sketch then win an award for "Darkest Sketch Ever".
** Proving that even the creators have limits, supposedly they scrapped a potential skit in which a baby is delivered stillborn, causing the doctor to work it like a hand puppet. It was (obviously) never made.
* A few of the in-house CartoonNetwork AdultSwim shows lightly qualify. "Lightly" because more often, they're just flat-out '''insane'''.
* ''TheVentureBrothers'' frequently gets laughs from graphic violence and horrible things and sheer sadism toward the main characters. This is the episode that gave us a LotusEaterMachine literally PoweredByAForsakenChild, after all (even if Dr. Venture "didn't use the whole thing!")
* Comedy Central's "cartoon reality show" ''DrawnTogether'' falls into this category, as they definitely go out of their way to be controversial and gross, sometimes [[RefugeInVulgarity at the expense of laughs]].
** Perhaps the best example of something on the show being both dark AND hilarious is in Little Orphan Hero in which Captain Hero ends up reenacting the rape scene from "The Accused". It doesn't sound funny until you consider the fact that A: He's dressed like a woman for no good reason and no one at the frat kegger questions this B: He's powerful and crazy enough to kill all his attackers with ease C: A newspaper headline later in the show reads "Best Kegger Ever!" and D: It's a Superman Expy in a tube top being gang banged by frat boys. The sheer insanity of the situation counteracts the normal DudeNotFunny.
*** From the same episode: Captain Hero wipes out his species out of SPITE.
--> '''Captain Hero:''' Captain hero ONE! Billions of innocent Zebulonians...um...dead. Oh. I...uh...(Slinks off)
* ''HappyTreeFriends'' combines this with as much {{Gorn}} and [[GrotesqueCute Grotesque Cuteness]] than one can possibly imagine.
* In ''AquaTeenHungerForce'', awful things are always happening to the neighbour, Carl. He has 'died' many times on the show, including; his arms being ripped off, his skin being torn off (and then shot with robot lasers), being blasted with laser guided socks by robotic turkeys, and and being sucked into a turbine powered toilet (with only his head left intact) after which he was revived in various ways. His penis has also been surgically removed, he's been raped by dogs, was hypnotised and then forced to shove and entire broomstick into his body by way of his anus, and other various assaults. One of the main characters, Shake, has also attemped suicide many times (succeeding a few times, and once by accident), including; putting a hose on the exhaust pipe of Carl's car and feeding it into the interior with the windows rolled up, hanging himself (which was thwarted by Frylock, but then doing it right in Carl's pool with piranhas, sleeping pills, and another hose attached to Carl's car exhaust), cutting himself in half with a katana (the accidental one), and finally, attempting to shoot himself in the head, only to be patched up by the Marines so he could report for duty.
* In the recent ''Hulk vs. Wolverine'' direct-to-DVD animated movie, after a shot showing a bunch of fetuses-in-tubes at Weapon X HQ, the following exchange takes place:
-->'''Deadpool''': What do you say after the mission we kill all those [[PeopleJars floating babies]]?\\
'''Omega Red''': ...do you ever shut up, Wilson?\\
'''Deadpool'''': What? Babies creep me out! Rock-a-bye--BANG!
* ''MonkeyDust'' focused on the darker side of life in Britain today, with sketches involving serial killers, terrorists, and paedo-hunting mobs; playing [[UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist all kinds of bizarre, horrible or disgusting behaviour]] for dark and disturbing laughs. Fans of the show suspect that the real reason it was cancelled after the second series was because some of the sketches were deemed to have come TooSoon.
** It was revived for a third series, but the [[AuthorExistenceFailure producer died soon afterwards.]]
*** Perhaps the best of the lot was Ivan Dobsky, a man constantly commiting murders so he can stay IN prison, which he finds a lot nicer than the modern world.
*** Others consider the Paedofinder General skits in wich a man resembling a 16th-century WitchHunter roams Britian accusing people of being "paedophiles" and executing them for trivial reasons, to be the best.
---> "By the powers invested in me by a text vote on Sky News, I find you guilty of paedophilia!"

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Other ]]

* In [[http://ursulav.deviantart.com/art/Where-Zombie-Babies-Come-From-6979550 this]] picture by Ursula Vernon DeliveryStork [[XMeetsY meets]] literal DeadBabyComedy. Enjoy.
*I'm pretty sure that this should be in another section, but The "Best Page in the Universe" (note rather obvious quotes)'s basic opinion is : Enslave women, abuse children, and kill as many animals as possible. Also litter, commit violence, and flip off policemen. Actually, this should be a [[Dude Not Funny]], but whatever.
* Nigger jokes (sorry for the offensive language): http://www.tightrope.cc/jokes.htm and Racist Jokes.com http://www.racist-jokes.com/ .
* Q: What is the best way to get 100 dead babies out of a blender? A: With chips! http://www.dead-baby-joke.com/introduction.htm
* Most Adult Swim online games http://games.adultswim.com/, which frequenty cross the line. Examples include:
** [=HRmaggedon=]
** Floater
** Meowcenaries
** Amateur Surgeon
** Candy Mountain Massacre
** Five Minutes to Kill Yourself
** Gigolo Assassin
** Schizo-phrenzy
** Viva Caligula
** Orphan Feast
** Kill Thy Neighbor

[[/folder]]
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