Some tropes reference things that really should not be played for laughs, but for some reason often are. One of the consequences of comedies using schadenfreude is that they can tread on subjects that are quite serious to some people.
Modern sitcoms' use of Double Standard Abuse Female On Male variety has been gradually starting to get this reaction, although so far it hasn't been nearly vocal enough to convince the networks to stop using it.
The academic terms "dark humor," "black humor," or "tragic farce" apply to some examples, although the exact execution is somewhat different. Black Comedy is not about making jokes at the expense of groups, but rather about using Irony and Fatalism to make them seem amusing while still showing their seriousness. A prime example is Paul Zindel's play The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, which ends with the protagonist's mother having a psychotic breakdown and killing her daughters' pet rabbit. The natural reaction to such a description is "Dude, not funny!" - but the way it's written, it is one of the funniest scenes in the entire play. (And after all, it was only a rabbit.)
How do you know if something deserves linking to this page? Well, it might be overused, funny, or nothing to most people. If just a few people cringe at something, well... if more people are amused than disgusted, then it's not justified to put a stop to it. But if a large number of people are offended or outright traumatized, well, to them, it is not funny.
Note that the fact something is Dude, Not Funny! to some people does not mean that other people may not find it funny.
Often happens when Black Comedy or Gallows Humor is mishandled. The creators may offer a "Just Joking" Justification, but this does not always soothe hurt feelings.
If something that was funny falls into this following some related event in the real world, see "Funny Aneurysm" Moment.
Villains may get a free pass on these because Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor and cracking a tasteless joke may be a good way to highlight this.
Compare Crosses the Line Twice, Black Comedy, Refuge in Audacity, and "Funny Aneurysm" Moment.
Contrast Actually Pretty Funny and Narm.
In One Piece, when Arlong's name is brought up, Brook makes an Incredibly Lame Pun based off his name in front of Nami with Usopp kicking him suddenly for it. Usopp explains briefly to the crewmembers who didn't know about Nami's past about how her hometown was under the control of Arlong and how her mother was killed by him.
There are a couple of moments in Excel Saga where Hyatt will include the phrase "sleeping like the dead". Given that Hyatt has a habit of dying very suddenly (though she comes back to life later), no surprise that Excel comments that it's not funny when she says it.
In Fairy Tail, Gildarts returns from a several-year-long journey and teases Natsu about his crush on Lisanna like he used to do. Natsu gets upset and informs him that Lisanna had died while he was away. Gildarts is shocked and apologizes.
Comic Books
Death Of The Family: The Joker is engaging in Black Comedy once again, and it produces this reaction. Then again, you could count the number of times his form of comedy did not produce this reaction with the fingers on one hand!
Film
The movie Heathers had an in-universe example when Veronica's boyfriend J.D. cracks a joke at the funeral of two of their victims that they made look like a double-suicide and the little sister of one of the boys killed turns to look at them while crying. It's at that point, Veronica begins to realize how messed up she's becoming under J.D.'s influence.
In American Psycho, Patrick pretends to be offended by a racist joke one of his associates tells, though he's actually a virulent racist himself.
In Wag The Dog, the movie producer shows his pet musician (played by Willie Nelson) a political cartoon poking fun at the President's sex scandal. The musician immediately composes an impromptu song mocking the whole thing, but stops when he realizes that everyone else in the room (most of whom work directly for the President) is staring at him in horror.
At the beginning of Star Trek Generations, the officers are having a promotion party for Worf on the holodeck, where they're on an 18th-century naval ship. They make Worf walk to the end of the plank and jump for his new rank insignia, then Riker orders the computer to "remove the plank." The plank disappears, dropping Worf into the sea, and Riker jokes that he meant to say, "retract". After Crusher attempts to explain the humor to Data, he pushes her overboard.
LaForge: Data!
Data:(smirking) That was...
LaForge: ...not funny!
This serves as the catalyst for Data to have Geordi install his emotion chip, as if he cannot grasp a concept like humor, he will never be human.
In Tropic Thunder Alpa makes a crack about a "dingo eating your baby" to Kirk Lazarus, which he is so offended by he almost breaks character.
During the astronaut tryouts in The Right Stuff, Alan Shepard frequently mimics 50s comedian Bill Dana's Mexican astronaut character "Jose Jimenez", but it eventually gets on the nerves of Gonzalez, the Mexican orderly, who tells him "me and my friends think your Jose Jimenez imitation is A-OK. But what you're doing with it is B-A-D.".
In The Hobbit, Kíli joked about orcs to a nervous Bilbo. Thorin immediately sternly lectures him on taking the matter so lightly. It's understandable why Thorin doesn't think it's something to be joked about because orcs had overrun the dwarf kingdom Moria and killed many dwarves, including Thorin's grandfather, which Thorin had witnessed firsthand.
In The House Of Yes, Jackie once went to a costume party as Jackie Onasis in the pink dress she wore when JFK was assassinated, complete with fake blood. Also, little bits of pasta. Don't forget the bits of pasta she glued on the dress. Because a Jackie Kennedy The Day Of The Assassination costume would not be complete without little bits of brain. This trope was the reaction she got from the rest of the guests at the party.
In Dragon The Bruce Lee Story, Bruce Lee and his girlfriend/future wife Linda go to see Breakfast At Tiffanys. Linda is shown laughing at the antics of Mr. Yunioshi until she sees Bruce is visibly unamused. This scene emphasizes how typically Asian characters were stereotyped at the time, and how Bruce would help change their image for better.
The Hangover: Stu has this reaction to Alan wiggling a baby's arm to pretend "he's jacking his little weenus!"
In Epic MK doesn't like how Nod and Ronin are making fun of stompers, particularly her dad who is sitting beside them and saddened of his daughter's departure. Then, she blatantly points out that she is also a stomper.
Literature
In one scene from Stephen King's novel Christine, a bunch of high school hoods are cruising and drinking beers after a school basketball game, and complaining that their team lost. At one point, one of the hoods complements the athleticism of the school's basketball star (in one of those "The rest of the team sucks, but this one guy is a good player" sorts of ways), who just happens to be black. The leader of the gang sneers, retorting, "I hate that fucking spade." This prompts one of the newer gang members to make a racial joke, to which the rest of the gang reacts with this. Specifically, the gang leader says, "I said I hated that spade. I got no problem with the rest of them..." and threatens to toss the "fucking bigot" out of his car at high speed. The new guy shuts up quickly.
Nicko Heap in Septimus Heap often gets criticized for this, having an habit of not understanding the seriousness of a situation.
In the Beverly Cleary novel Otis Spofford, there's a scene where Otis cuts the hair of his Sitcom Arch Nemesis Ellen Tebbits and gets this reaction from the class.
Live Action TV
In the Friends episode "The One with the Girl who Hits Joey", Chandler has a fight with Monica, and proposes to her out of guilt. Monica says no, and the rest of the gang teases Chandler:
Joey: Hey Ross, will you pass me that knife?
Ross: No, I will not!
Joey: Oh, it's okay. You don't have to be so mean about it.
Ross: You're right, I'm sorry. Will you marry me?
Phoebe: Aw, and I was gonna ask you to marry me because I forgot to say hello to you last week.
Rachel: Oh no wait Pheebs, I think for something like that you just ask them to move in with you. But I'm not sure, Chandler?
Chandler: Okay, how long is this going to go on?
Monica: Well I think the length of teasing is directly related to how insane you were so, a long time.
Ross: This is fun. Hey Rach, remember that whole "We were on a break thing?" Well, I'm sorry, will you marry me? (nobody laughs)
Chandler: That's not funny.
Joey: That's not funny at all!
(they all get up and leave Ross)
In one episode of The Muppet Show, Fozzie makes the joke 'What do you get when you cross the Atlantic with the Titanic? Half way!" Waldorf thinks it's funny, but not Statler - he was on the Titanic when it sank! (And, according to Waldorf, still has the dress he wore to get on a lifeboat.)
Fozzie: (backstage to Kermit) Just my luck, a Titanic survivor in the audience!
The fourth season of Canada's Worst Driver featured a street-racing incident on the way to the Rehabilitation Center. Since, being illegal, it could have gotten the entire franchise shut down on the spot, host Andrew Younghusband was not impressed.
Nor was he impressed with Dale from Season 6 chasing him with a car. You read that right. He would later say it was the scariest moment of his time on the show.
In Monty Python's Flying Circus, one sketch, where an undertaker suggests cannibalism as an alternative to interment or cremation ends with the studio audience storming the stage in disgust (which, of course, is part of the show).
Apparently, it was written in due to Executive Meddling on the part of the BBC - they wouldn't allow the sketch if the audience was to approve of it, so the Pythons suggested that instead of laughing, the audience react violently to appease the censors. This works just as well.
MythBusters: This was Adam Savage's reaction to taking the full force of an electric fence device across his body. He'd basically been tricked into it by the Build Team, at the urging of the producer. After this incident, the producer was dismissed from the show. This was also likely one of the motivations for Scottie Chapman leaving the show.
They even apologized for laughing about it in the next weeks episode. However due to the fact they still couldn't stop laughing about it and only apologized for Osbourne's actions (who took several minutes to stop laughing to say this with a straight face), this did not help their case.
In an episode of The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, Geoffrey unveiled his hidden shame of leaving England, because years ago, he was caught taking a taxi in order to win a marathon (he thought the information might ruin Philip's political campaign, and yes, that marathon thing has happened in real life, albeit accidentally). After showing them the video, everyone sat in silence for a good ten seconds before bursting into laughter. Geoffrey was not amused.
In an episode of Married With Children where Al gets a circumcision by mistake, he warns everyone when he comes home NOT to ask him "What's up?", saying that the nurses and doctor at the hospital asked him that several times, and he did not find it funny. (Bud and Jefferson do not hear this warning, unfortunately, and they learn not to say it the hard way.)
In an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit called Zebras, Munch calls upon a member of a conspiracy chat room he knows in real life to find a missing suspect. The woman, named Gwen, shares Munch's conspiracy theorist tendencies, as did the suspect, although Gwen appears to be slightly mentally ill and has mentioned that she is thinking of going back on her medication. After Munch is able to find out what he needs to know about the missing suspect, Fin makes a crack about Munch "hooking up with loony lady" before Munch tells him Gwen is his ex-wife.
In the season 3 premiere of Happy Endings, the gang is laughing at a video of Penny falling down the stairs, when Penny (who is in a half-body cast due to the accident), finally gets fed up with the mockery, and tells them it's not cool - she actually died for two minutes on the ambulance on the way to the hospital. They immediately stop after hearing this.
In Supernatural, conversations between Sam and Dean tend to use this trope a lot, with Sam protesting Dean's use of Gallows Humor.
In Faith [1.12], when Dean believes he is about to die, the dialogue directly echoes this trope:
Dean: Hey. You better take care of that car. Or I swear I'll haunt your ass.
Sam: I don't think that's funny.
Dean: Aw c'mon, it's a little funny.
In Fresh Blood [3.7]:
Sam: You know what, man? I'm sick and tired of your old stupid kamikaze trick.
Dean: Whoa. Whoa. Kamikaze? I'm more like a ninja.
Sam: That's not funny.
Dean: It's a little funny.
Sam: No, it's not.
Dean: What do you want me to do, Sam, huh? Sit around all day writing sad poems about how I’m going to die? You know what, I’ve got one. Let’s see. What rhymes with 'Shut up, Sam'?
In Scrubs JD hears from his mother that his favorite former schoolteacher Mr. Peters has died. When Turk asks if JD is okay, JD responds that he's doing a lot better than Mr. Peters. In the same episode, after JD arrives home and announces he's going to bed. Turk asks Elliot, JD's ex, if she's going with him. JD and Elliot both give him an annoyed look, which makes Turk realize that it's way Too Soon.
One episode of The Adam And Joe Show featured a parody of Jam, in particular the infamous dead baby sketch. In the skit, Joe plays a TV repairman who finds a "dead baby" (a cheap-looking doll) behind the set and says he will have to rape the corpse in order to fix the TV. Adam is horrified, refuses to film any more and storms off the set while Joe complains that it's supposed to be uncompromising and "you don't understand my genius."
In Power Rangers In Space, Zhane had a habit of making jokes at inappropriate times, but one time really took the cake. In the episode where Psycho Red, Psycho Black, and Psycho Yellow were finally defeated and it appeared they had finally seen the last of the Psycho Rangers which was sadly, wishful thinking, as it turned out someone who appeared to be Psycho Red ambushed Andros. It was actually Zhane, who was wearing a copy of the villain's costume to try to scare him. Andros did not think it was funny.
Some of the candidates and nominators on Canada's Worst Driver find their whoopsies hilarious. The experts and host Andrew Younghusband do not, and they've handed down more than one "The Reason You Suck" Speech, all the way up to locking two people who got into a street race in a jail cell.
During the mission on Sur'Kesh, the party crosses paths with a rampaging yahg. Shepard and Garrus can't resist the opportunity to crack jokes about the last yahg they encountered, which teammate Liara T'Soni replaced as Shadow Broker after she and Shepard killed him. Liara is not amused:
Shepard: Careful, there goes the next Shadow Broker.
Garrus: Could've sworn he was muttering "T'Soni!" the whole time.
Liara: Not funny!
Done seriously later when Joker cracks a joke about the asari after their homeworld, Thessia, falls. Shepard usually lets those kinds of jokes slide but, in this case, s/he's at his/her lowest point and blames him/herself for the fall of Thessia, so s/he proceeds to snap at Joker. Joker, on the other hand, points out that he knows exactly how serious the situation is: His family was probably killed already when Reapers hit the colony they live on. On a more general scale, most of Joker's jokes appear not to be funny to anyone but himself.
Also from BioWare, Dragon Age II has lots of snarky dialogue options (usually the one in the middle) which tend to involve cracking jokes at very serious situations. Sometimes your party members or NPCs will tell you that they're Dude, Not Funny!, but there's a few examples of Hawke realizing that himself/herself mid-joke:
An attempt to reassure Anders about having accidentally given himself a Superpowered Evil Side by saying "What's the worst that could happen? You turn into an abomination and start...oh. Bad joke."
"You were going to kill a lot of people anyway? That's...not funny at all, really."
In Tales Of The Abyss, Guy is surprisingly afraid of women for the first half or so of the game, since every time a woman comes into close contact with him, he recoils in fear or starts screaming. Everyone, even in-game laughed at this and thought it funny, but also wanted to help him get over his gynephobia. Then the truth comes out to why he's so afraid of women. His sister and the maids from his childhood home threw themselves onto Guy to protect him as they were all killed by invading soldiers, and when Guy came to, he was smothered in a pile of dead female bodies. Nobody was laughing after that.
Despite being a Jerkass, Luke gets one during the beginning of the game. When he is being mocked for his lack of any knowledge of the world and it's workings he delivers a great line that shuts people up fast.
Luke: "I didn't have time for any of that! I had other things to learn. Like my parents' faces."
In Borderlands 2Mad Moxxi reveals that her double entendres and suggestive comments are a defense mechanism, when she makes a joke about one of her ex-girlfriends being eaten alive, then promptly apologises and throws up a little in her mouth.
In Doom And Destiny, one of the bonus dungeons in the game has the heroes fighting against enemies named after astrological signs. In one of the floors, there will be nothing but a tombstone that reads "Here lies Cancer, died of...cancer." The guys were disgusted by it.
Webcomics
Questionable Content had an arc where a dude Angus started making jokes about suicide to Faye, whose father killed himself in front of her when she was a kid. When she tells him off, he initially doesn't believe her, and Faye realizes that her constant sarcasm has "set an unfortunate precedent". Angus also calls out Faye for making jokes at his friend Marigold's expense.
In Platypus Comix's Family Guy parody, Herman calls his mistaking the fire station's lunch bell for a fire alarm "funnier than beating a homeless man to death." After the Cutaway Gag that features Herman finding enjoyment in physically abusing a homeless man, Herman's companion tells him in-universe that he didn't find the scene funny.
In Act 6 Intermission 3 of Homestuck, John was already in a shitty mood when he realised (on his birthday, no less) that his most beloved movie Con Air is actually pretty terrible, and then that Davesprite and Jade have broken up, all of which only adds to a slowly growing case of Cabin Fever, but the breaking point comes when Davesprite leaves a note in the style of John's dad (who died on this day two years ago, no less) mockingly telling him how proud he is for finally realising that Con Air sucks. He is not pleased.
During the Alterniabound flash game, Karkat mocks the higher-class Equius with a snarky comment about butlers, when Equius mentions that his butler/father-figure is dead. Karkat, realising he's just stepped over this line, apologises immediately.
Goblins features a scene where Dellyn Goblinslayer mentions that he rapes his Yuan-Ti slavegirl Kin every night, clearly expecting Minmax to laugh along. Minmax however is not amused and promptly throws Dellyn through a window.
Web Original
The Inappropriate Timing Spongebob meme mocks this trope.
In The Nostalgia Critic's review of The Room, Mark tells Johnny about a girl he knew who was dating several guys at the same time. One of them finds out and beats her up so badly that she ends up in hospital. Johnny's response is to laugh and say "What a story, Mark"! The critic comments on this, saying "That's not funny, you sick fuck".
In the latest April Fool's Day Episode of The Annoying Orange, this is Orange's friends' reaction to Orange's April Fools Day pranks. Turns out Orange was actually Liam the Leprechaun in disguise.
Western Animation
In The Simpsons, after McBain in a TV movie snaps a Commie-Nazi pilot's neck despite the latter surrendering, Marge jokes that that's "breakneck speed." Bart responds by coldly telling her that a man just died.
In a flashback to where Krusty was performing for Gulf War soldiers at a USO show, he mocks Saddam Hussein by calling him "So Damn Insane". A soldier then calls him out saying he's fanning the flames of hatred.
In "My Mother The Carjacker", as Homer is chasing after the car taking his mother to jail, the driver stops the car to tempt Homer and speed off when he gets close. The other man in the car complains that a guy is losing his mother, but when the driver asks if he can do it one more time, the other guy admits it's Actually Pretty Funny and allows it.
In another episode, "Bleeding Gums" Murphy tells Lisa (via flashback) how his own mentor Blind Willy Witherspoon tried to give him his saxophone, only for Murphy to tell him it was an umbrella - meaning that Willie had been playing an umbrella for thirty years. When Willie asks why no-one told him, Murphy chuckles and says, "We all thought it was kinda funny!" Willie's reply is, "That's not funny."
"The Kiss Seen Around the World," an attempted invoking comes when teenager Neil Goldman (Jewish pharmacist Mort Goldman's socially awkward, annoying son) is humiliated and plans to jump off the roof of city hall. Quahog 5 News anchor/reporter Tom Tucker is assigned to cover the breaking news. As police are trying to talk Neil down, Tucker takes his cameraman aside and discusses what to do if a fatal jump is recorded on tape: add cartoon-type "object falling" sound effects, along with humorous commentary in an attempt to amuse the audience. Before it is invoked, Meg (who had a crush on Tom throughout the episode) overhears Tucker and his cameraman talking and tells him that what he plans on doing is wrong.
Peter invokes it in the episode "Back to the Woods". After James Woods steals his identity, Peter takes revenge by stealing Woods's identity and ruining his career by stating on David Letterman's show that he's working on a comedy based on 9/11 called September 11, 2000-FUN!. The film, he claims, focuses on a window washer who sees the plane coming toward him while he wipes the window of the Twin Towers and exclaims, "Aw, c'mon!"
Justice League episode "Kid's Stuff" has Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern magically transformed into kids. Batman remains the closest to his adult counterpart, composed and grim, while the others are hyper, childish and sometimes a danger to themselves or others. When changed back to normal, Wonder Woman light-heartedly comments it was nice being a kid again. Batman responds that "I haven't been a kid since I was eight years oldnote when his parents were murdered in front of him."
Some of Rainbow Dash's pranks are seen as this by the other ponies. For example, In the episode "Luna Eclipsed", she shocks Pinkie Pie with a lightning cloud. Not only did it scare her, Spike was startled and dropped his candy (in a pose that implied he was choking). Twilight Sparkle scolded at RD for her prank.
SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Fools in April", SpongeBob pulls several harmless pranks to various people at work during April Fools' Day. Squidward gets fed up with his pranks and decides to pull one on SpongeBob. The prank involved SpongeBob stepping in a snare trap, flung/smacked all around the Krusty Krab, sliding through Bubble Bass' rear end, and landing into a trash can after a fall from the ceiling. This results in SpongeBob running out of the Krusty Krab crying, the patrons feeling sympathy for him and exiting the restaurant in disgust at Squidward.
"April Fools... jerk!"
And then the whole thing turns out to have been an April Fools joke on SpongeBob's end, with the patrons being in on it the whole time.
In "Ripped Pants", SpongeBob tricking everyone into thinking he drowned so he can do a ripped pants joke was treated with contempt and made him an outcast.
Sandy: That wasn't funny, SpongeBob! You had us all worried sick!
A sketch in Robot Chicken had a young kid dressed up as Iron Man follow the real Iron Man to a big fight in the city. The Avengers mistake the kid for the real Iron Man and throw him into battle, causing him to get fatally injured and accidentally taking down a giant robot by jamming its motors. The kid is given an iron statue to honor his sacrifice, when Iron Man makes this joke:
In Drawn Together, Spanky Ham once laments the existence of a cell filled with stereotyped "Red Indian" animated characters, noting that poking fun at them isn't funny and they "got a raw deal" as people. To put this in perspective, he's fine with laughing at the racist stereotypes of black people, Asians and Mexicans in other cells.
