"They're all out to get me. But I'll show them! I'm too clever. He who spies on Mr. Potato Head must perish, baby! Aah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha—*coughing* Man, that insane cackling's harder than it looks."
— Mr. Potato Head while spying on the kitchen crew, The Mr. Potato Head Show, "Secret Agent Mania"
The Big Bad is in a good mood. Their plan is going as expected, the hero is on the run, it even looks like their goal is inevitable. They feel on top of the world! So on top, in fact, that they feel like engaging in an Evil Laugh. So why not?
Mwa ha ha haha-HACK, cough, cough, cough!!
Well, the moment's spoiled.
This trope is typically Played for Laughs. If the creators feel like a scene is ending on too dark a note for their liking, they can decide to have the villain mess up their laugh by engaging in some coughing, then maybe comment on that. If nothing else, it'll keep the audience from going into the commercials with chills.
A Sub-Trope to Evil Laugh, obviously. Also a Subtrope of Failed Attempt at Drama. Compare Un Evil Laugh, where the Evil Laugh wasn't very intimidating to begin with. May overlap with Incurable Cough of Death, if the villain is dying, seriously incapacitated or suffering a disease of some sort.
Somewhat Truth in Television - since laughter can cause coughs.
Examples:
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Anime And Manga
- Sailor Moon: In "The Bond Of Destiny: Uranus's Distant Past", Professor Tomoe launches in an evil laugh as he exercises on his treadmill, and soon begins coughing and wheezing from how out of breath he is while running.
Fan Works
- Superwomen of Eva 2: Blue Defiance: Referenced in one Omake: Ritsuko Akagi breaks into a Mad Scientist laughter while figuring out a Crazy Enough to Work scheme and says that because of her smoking habit she used to break into a coughing fit whenever she tried before, but now that the Blue Beetle armor has fixed her body she is able to do it at will.
Film — Animation
- FernGully: The Last Rainforest: Hexxus has a laugh at the end of his extended song that ends with a dry cough. Can be seen as a satire, but actually justified, as Hexxus is the embodiment of pollution.
- Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch: In a flashback, when Jumba is activating Stitch for the first time, he does an evil laugh for a good several seconds before coughing. He even says that cackling evilly is hard on his throat.
- Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers: Early on, when Mickey, Donald, and Goofy reveal to Captain of the Musketeers Pegleg Pete their plans to eventually join, he launches into mocking, evil laughter that within a second or two devolves into a coughing fit that lasts longer than the laugh did.
Films — Live-Action
- In Blazing Saddles, right after Big Bad Hedley Lamar comes up with his idea to have Bart become the new sheriff of Rock Ridge under the hope that the natural racism of the townsfolk there will allow it to be made easier for him to take the land Rock Ridge is located on away from said townsfolk for his own purposes, he starts letting off an evil laugh...only to abruptly start coughing and wheezing as a result of having placed a candy inside his mouth not too long before starting his laugh.
- In Christmas Carol The Movie, in the vision of the Yet to Come, Scrooge's cleaning lady, while selling his shirt and the curtains she stole from his deathbed, breaks into cackling which turns into a coughing fit.
- In John Wick: Chapter 4, Fat Bastard German crimeboss Killa Harkan will punctuate his dialogue with a cackle, only to start coughing before reaching for his inhaler.
- A variation in The Princess Bride, where the Albino's first words upon Wesley waking up are in a high, hissing rasp, until he makes a hacking cough and starts speaking in Mel Smith's normal baritone. Either the guy was trying to sound scary, or really did have something stuck in his throat.
Wesley: Where am I?
The Albino: THE PIT OF DESSSSSSPAIR! DON'T EVEN THINK — [he suddenly retches, coughs and grunts before turning back to Wesley] — don't even think about trying to escape; the chains are far too thick. - The villainous Professor Gangrene does this at the start of Return of the Killer Tomatoes after announcing "This time we shall not fail!"
- Star Wars
- Revenge of the Sith: General Grievous endures one of these while attempting to cackle as he escapes his crippled Invisible Hand flagship.
- Inverted in Return of the Jedi: Luke returns to Dagobah in order to finish his training with Yoda, who is currently sick and dying of old age. When Yoda tells him there is no more he can teach him, Luke assumes then he is a fully trained Jedi only for Yoda to laugh amusingly before coughing.
Live-Action TV
- Bill Nye the Science Guy: Parodied in the episode "Energy", basing an interstitial on the old radio series The Shadow:
Narrator: Who knows what potential energy lurks in the heart of things? The Transformer knows... [The titular logo appears] Ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA [he starts to violently cough and hack, with the logo and background both bouncing wildly]
- Castle: This cop/writer TV show had an awesome evil laugh moment in the Halloween episode. The main character, Castle, has an impressive go at it with a running pumpkin drill in his hand and a mild threat to go after any boys who hurt his daughter. Impressive, that is, until he has a coughing fit.
- Kenny vs. Spenny: In "First Guy To Touch the Ground Loses", Spenny gets stuck on a fetish chair, so Kenny takes the opportunity to impersonate a cartoonish villain and torment him. Kenny lets out an Evil Laugh while pelting Spenny with coins, but quickly runs out of breath and begins coughing.
- Monty Python's Flying Circus: John Cleese does a surprisingly evil cackle of the psycho variety at the end of the sketch "How Not to Be Seen" (immediately following the explosion of a man, his wife, his neighbour, his house, and the building in which he was born).
"Ahhahaha hahaha hahah— (cough, pause) And now for something completely different."
- The Mr. Potato Head Show: In the episode "Secret Agent Mania", Mr. Potato head has hidden cameras all over his home and is watching all his co-stars to see if any of them are The Mole for his rival, Donkey Waddlefoot. As he does so, he slowly goes mad with paranoia in his hiding spot, commenting on how everyone's out to get them, and how he'll get them first.
Mr. Potato Head: He who spies on Mr. Potato head must perish, baby! Aah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha-(lets loose a phlegmy-sounding cough). Man, that insane cackling's harder than it looks.
Video Games
- Wannabe mad scientist Vernon Von Grun frequently does this in City of Villains when you report back to him after a mission. It is made funnier by him asking you if you can tell that he's been working on the laugh, the laugh changing a few times, him asking you to join him in the laugh, and once breaking into a cough mid-laugh.
- The Cluefinders: Sir Alistair Loveless, the villain of Puzzle of the Pyramid starts an Evil Laugh that degenerates into coughing.
Loveless: I swallowed my mint.
- Although he's pretty completely morally upstanding, Alistair of Dragon Age: Origins can do an impressive Evil Laugh anyway. (Unless he spoils it by coughing in the middle, as he does once.)
- Mephistopheles from Fate/Grand Order is canonically considered Chaotic Evil and can say the following after winning a battle:
"Ahahaha! Hahahahagh, cough, cough! I choked, hahaha!"
- One scene in the outtakes
of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy has Gol doing this while laughing at the very concept of the evil laugh.
Gol: Okay, sickly evil laughs. Hahahaha. That's too stupid. HahahaHAha! That sucks. What's an evil laugh? HA— *cough cough* *giggles* - MediEvil: Resurrection: Happens to Zarok when he attempts to mock Sir Daniel's lot in (un)life, only to end up having a coughing fit mid-laugh.
- Mother 3: Porky's laughter in the Empire Porky Building will sometimes get cut off by him coughing and wheezing.
- Roadhog of Overwatch has a penchant for Evil Laughs but also a recurring habit of dissolving into coughing fits and heavy wheezing. This is decidedly not Played for Laughs given just how deep and frightening his voice is, and when tying in with his immense girth and the fact he's wearing a gas mask at all times, the overall effect is actually quite intimidating and unsettling.
- In Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Dr. Nefarious runs into this issue during the Metropolis level. After initially commenting that he's been laughing so hard that day that his sides are aching, he starts hacking up a storm, eventually having to conclude a sentence with "you get the idea". The kicker? He's a robot!
- Sonic Generations: In the console version, after Dr. Eggman is done explaining his plan to destroy Sonic, he begins to laugh maniacally, but has to stop halfway through to cough into his hand.
- In Spider-Man: Miles Morales, there's a series of sidequests where Miles has to complete some holographic challenges that Peter left behind for him. Once you complete those, however, Peter says he has one last challenge waiting and tries end his declaration ominously, only to gag on the laugh and lampshade that they aren't as easy as they seem. Miles tries it for himself immediately afterwards, only for the exact same result, leaving him curious on whether or not people take classes on those.
- Team Fortress 2: Engineer's laugh during the Schadenfreude taunt gets capped off with a coughing fit.
Web Original
- In the Real-Time Fandub of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Mephiles is introduced emerging from the shadows laughing evilly until he coughs on the smoke he's emitting, but he resumes after Shadow lets him.
Western Animation
- Animaniacs: Slappy Squirrel's rivals, Walter Wolf, Sid the Squid, and Beanie the Braindead Bison, would often laugh maniacally together only for them to cough at the end.
- Batman: The Animated Series: In "Joker's Millions", after King Barlowe finished explaining his Thanatos Gambit (which is also a Batman Gambit) to make Joker's life hell, he finishes his speech with gloating and laughing. But because he's on his deathbed, he suffers from Incurable Cough of Death mid-laughter and must use an oxygen breathing mask to stop it.
- Beast Wars: In "Before the Storm", as Megatron monologues about the approaching aliens and the opportunity to steal alien technology, he starts his power-hungry laugh only to start coughing. note
- Bravest Warriors: In the episode "You're Walkin' Tough Baby But You're Walkin' Blind - Part 1", an old acquaintance of the Bravest Warriors, Jenna, shows up back in their lives. After she manages to convince the Warriors she's not out to get them, we see her tell a group of people who look like gender-inverted versions of Beth and Danny, and a robot that looks like Wallow, that she got them to trust her. She then lets loose a loud Evil Laugh that ends with her coughing.
- John Callahan's Quads!: In the episode "Gonads Faust", Reilly O'Reilly sells his soul to Satan in order to be able to get an erection again. In the middle of the episode, Satan comes to Reilly and charges him with a task: play a joke on Sister Butch Johnson. When watching the prank on his TV in hell, Satan has this to say.
Satan: Hmm, he does good work, he'll make a fine minion. See you soon, Reilly. Hoo hoo hoo hoo! Ah ha ha ha ha-eugh(coughs up phlegm) Eh, I've got to get that looked at.
- LEGO Star Wars: Terrifying Tales: General Grievous attempts an evil laugh while dueling Maul for the Saber of Scardont, but it results in a cough instead.
- Odd Squad: In "Double O Trouble", after Aarti Craft explains to the Little O and the Mobile Unit that she has turned every agent in Chicago into paper dolls, she launches into evil laughter, then coughs, then goes right back to evil laughter again.
- PAW Patrol: Sometimes, Copycat starts to do an evil laugh, only to cough in the middle of it and say, "Hairball."
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: General Grievous is prone to this, especially with his irritated lungs. Some examples include "Lair of Grievous" and "Grievous Intrigue".
- The Tick: Every time the villain The Terror attempts one he ends up in a coughing fit due to his advanced age, his villainy dated back to the 1930's or even earlier.
- The Transformers: In the episode "Only Human", the villain of the week hires a man named "Old Snake" to put the mental consciousness' of Rodimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Springer, and Arcee into synthetic humanoid bodies so he can use their robot bodies to commit crimes. While the Autobots are able to restore things to normal and arrest the villain, "Old Snake" gets away. In the process, he reveals who he really used to be back in the day with a familiar cry...at least until his advanced age sends him into a coughing fit.
"Old Snake": They don't make terrorists like they used to. COBRA! (enters into a coughing fit).
- WordGirl: Recurring antagonist Granny May, a con artist and thief who poses as a harmless old lady, ends up coughing whenever she tries to do an Evil Laugh.
