Helpless with Laughter

Come on Salwa! It's not *THAT* funny...

Some fits of laughter are so strong that doing literally anything else is literally impossible: movement, speech, thought — it all goes out the window. All you can do is sag to the floor and wait for the storm to pass. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for something minor to trigger another fit of giggles in the wake of the first.

In any event, expect even the most basic tasks to be out of the question, adding to the comedy as the giggling victim tries and fails to return to work, only to break down in another fit of laughter.

A possible hallmark of The Hyena, and a common form of Corpsing. If used within works of fiction, it may take the form of an Overly Long Gag as the victim goes on laughing for longer and longer periods of time. In extreme cases, it may result in the victim literally pissing themselves or dying of laughter. It may also become Contagious Laughter and set other people doing it too.

Compare Laugh Themselves Sick, which usually involves pain rather than paralysis.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Dandadan, Ayase rolls on the floor in laughter when she learns that a demon has stolen Okarun's balls.
• The pro hero Mrs. Joke's superpower in My Hero Academia is to invoke this in any criminals she comes within a certain radius of, allowing her to easily take them down without having to worry too much about them fighting back by virtue of them being too busy laughing.
• Stitch!: In "The Return of 627", Jumba notes that 627's main weakness is his immature sense of humor. The others exploit this by dancing until he laughs so much that he ends up unconscious.

Comic Books

• Batman: In more G-rated interpretations of Joker, his Smilex Laughing Gas has this as a side-effect, leaving victims like police officers too paralyzed with laughter to pursue.
• Mortadelo y Filemón are ordered to test a weapon that causes this. Being them, it always ends backfiring horribly on them, making a terrorist fall over his own Plunger Detonator just when Filemon is picking up the explosives, for example.
• In Kayko & Kokosh the character Salwa, Mirmił's cousin, is incapable of stopping her laughter, even when she sleeps or is in mortal peril. While most believe she was cursed as a child, there is an implication near the end of her debut story that the unstoppable burst of laughter is simply her nature. Whatever the case, she seems to enjoy it."

Comic Strips

• In one Calvin and Hobbes strip, Calvin steals his dad's glasses so he can mimic him - complete with slicked-down hair and a line about how Misery Builds Character; the final panel of this strip reveals that Calvin's mom has slid out of her chair and is practically lying on the floor, howling with laughter.
• During the Thimble Theater Plunder Island arc, Popeye sees Wimpy flirting with the Sea Hag, and laughs so hard he can't defend himself from being mobbed by the Hag's thugs.
  Popeye: (Laughing) Ol' Wimpy kissin' the Sea Hag! Arf! Arf! I could lick these swabs, but I yam so weak from laughin' I kin not lift me hands.

Fan Works

• In Melting Away, when the Mane Six realize that they just sent a dress infested with hair-eating nano-sprites to Princess Celestia, she's going to put it on as soon as she gets it, and they have no way of warning her because Spike has a sore throat from sending too many letters, they start stress-laughing so hard they fall on the floor and can't breathe.

Films — Animation

• The Super Mario Bros. Movie: Mario breaks a Question Block to give himself a power-up to help him defeat Donkey Kong and gets a Cat Suit (from Super Mario 3D World). Donkey Kong's first reaction is to laugh constantly at Mario, the Cat Suit giving him a dorky appearance.
• The Sword in the Stone: Archimedes watches as Merlin attempts to use a model airplane to prove that man will fly in the future, only for his beard to get tangled in the propeller, causing the plane to plummet into the moat. Archimedes snarks "Man will fly alright — just like a rock!" and then goes on a prolonged laughing fit that causes him to fall off his perch. Merlin can only fume in his chair as the owl laughs himself to exhaustion.

Films — Live-Action

• Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues: During the news team's roadtrip to New York, Brick starts reminiscing about a Noodle Incident (that none of the others were there for), and starts laughing nonstop. The others quickly grow concerned, as Brick seems unable to cease laughing under his own power.
• Early in Apocalypto, the normally-sober Flint Sky plays a prank on Blunt Rock by giving him a herbal cure for his infertility, telling him to apply it directly to his genitals before sex. Unfortunately, the "cure" is made of chili peppers. Seeing Blunt frantically plunging himself balls-first into a trough of water leaves the entire village in hysterics; most of the hunters can't even stand upright, Flint Sky is laughing too hard to explain himself, and even Blunt can't help but giggle in between pained whimpers.
• During a mutual personal crisis in A Beautiful Mind, Charles Herman ends up launching John Nash's desk through a window and out into the courtyard below. The two are left staring at the wreckage of the desk for a few seconds; then, Charles remarks, "That Isaac Newton fella was right," prompting the two of them to break out in a fit of Tension-Cutting Laughter that leaves both men collapsed on the floor, giggling helplessly.
• Florence Foster Jenkins: When the titular Giftedly Bad singer gives a recital, Agnes goes from a Blank Stare to an incredulous rictus to laughing so hard she has to crawl out on her hands and knees. In real life, Tallulah Bankhead reportedly had to be carried out of Jenkins' recital in Carnegie Hall, laughing uncontrollably all the way.
• Joker: Arthur Fleck is afflicted with a disorder that causes random laughing fits and he is helpless to stop them until they pass on their own.
• Little Shop of Horrors: Orin Scrivello (D.D.S) straps on a custom-made gas mask to suck up some nitrous oxide while preparing for some brutal dentistry on Seymour. When Seymour pulls a gun on him, Orin tries to take the mask off and breaks a valve, slowly succumbing to an epic laughing fit as he asphyxiates from the gas.

Gamebooks

• In Deathtrap Dungeon, one section have you partnering with another contestant of the dungeon walk, Throm the barbarian, where both of you decide to rest in a cavern after defeating a pair of trolls together. Unfortunately, in the process Throm accidentally had a stray rat running on his fingers, tickling him into laughing uncontrollably... which is loud enough to cause a cave-in that the two of you must outrun.

Literature

• Carrie: During Norma's account of what happened on prom night, she describes most of the assembled students as laughing hysterically after seeing the pig's blood get dropped on Carrie; not because they actually find the prank funny, but because they were shocked and didn't know what else to do. One girl in particular is described as looking like she was about to either faint or throw up, but continued laughing anyway as if she physically couldn't stop. It ends very badly for all parties concerned.
  "It was one of those things where you either laugh or go crazy [...] It was either laugh or cry, and who could bring themselves to cry over Carrie after all these years?"
• The Dark Tower: In the seventh book, Roland, Susan, and Oy encounter a friendly fellow who calls himself Joe Collins. He invites them into his home and starts doing a stand-up comedy routine, leaving them in hysterics. Unfortunately "Joe" doesn't stop, and as the trio become paralyzed with laughter, it's clear that something is off. It turns out that Joe is actually Dandelo, an Emotion Eater vampire and servant of the Crimson King who is trying to destroy the group while feeding on their joy. It takes a literal Deus ex Machina—Stephen King himself reaching into the story and giving Susan, who left to use the restroom, a warning about Dandelo—to save the day.
• Dear Dumb Diary: In "Okay, So Maybe I Do Have Superpowers", Jamie throws bouncy balls at the window while Stinkette watches excitedly. Isabella is laughing so hard at Stinkette's reaction that she has to write "Please stop can't breathe" in the dirt with her finger.
• In Harry Potter, the spell Rictusempra is often used in dueling for this reason — it tickles the opponent to the point that their laughter becomes out of control, rendering them unable to effectively continue fighting.

Live-Action TV

• In the days of comedy-variety shows, The Carol Burnett Show was famous for the cast "breaking up" (known as Corpsing among the profession) during the skits. This results in people finding it necessary to hide their faces so as to avoid breaking character; Harvey Korman, Carol Burnett, and Tim Conway were the most likely to cause or react with Helpless Laughter.
• In one episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen discusses the latest donors providing hurricane relief to New York City in 2012, including one from Arab-American viewer Suq Madiq. He just manages to keep a straight face as he explains that Suq's father Liqa Madiq must be proud of him; however, when he brings up Suq's mother (who still goes by her maiden name) "Munchma Quchi", Stephen cracks up and goes on giggling for a solid thirty seconds.
• In The Dick Van Dyke Show episode "The Curious Thing About Women", Rob writes a sketch based on Laura's habit of opening his mail, which includes a scene with the snooping wife getting trapped in a closet with an inflating raft. Their next-door neighbors, Millie and Jerry, find it hilarious. Later, it turns out Rob actually ordered a raft prior to writing the sketch and forgot about it. Millie and Jerry come over to apologize for ribbing Laura, but when they see the raft, they dissolve into a fit of silent laughter. They can't answer Laura when she talks to them. Eventually, they manage to leave, though.
• Farscape episode "Through The Looking Glass" features Moya being split into three colour-based dimensions, each with their own unique stimuli - the yellow one being mirth; here, Crichton and Rygel struggle to focus on anything other than telling silly jokes and giggling like idiots, to the point that Crichton tries to cover Rygel's mouth to stop him from joking again, only to break down in another fit of laughter. After a harrowing escapade, the crew finally manage to merge the dimensions back into Moya, landing in Pilot's den safe and sound... whereupon all of them crack up laughing. By the end of this scene, the crew is so overwhelmed with mirth that none of them can explain to Pilot what's so funny.
• Firefly: In "Trash", everyone has a different reaction to Mal strutting onto Serenity naked. Wash's is to laugh so hard he can't talk. It may be Corpsing because Nathan Fillon was wearing a small frontal coverlet with Joss Whedon's face on it, but not confirmed.
• Kaamelott: In one episode, Merlin's spell turns out to be such a failure that (combined with the incompetence of Kaamelott's armies) the enemy fall over themselves laughing, allowing Kaamelott to secure an inglorious victory offscreen.
• In the classic Monty Python's Flying Circus "Killer Joke" sketch, the people who only get a partial exposure to the titular joke (like the people in British Intelligence who translated it to German) don't Die Laughing, but they are still taken away in an ambulance as they are left lying on the ground and laughing uncontrollably for what is implied to be the rest of their lives.
• A common occurrence in Whose Line Is It Anyway?, usually involving in performers corpsing so hard that they can no longer speak, move, or continue the gag. In one memorable case, Colin Mochrie's "tapioca" joke prompted Ryan Stiles to slowly collapse into helpless giggling until he had to end his original gag on the grounds of no longer retaining the power of speech.

Myths & Religion

• In Celtic Mythology, one of the locations occasionally visited in the Otherworld is the Isle of Mirth; anyone setting foot there will be taken over by mad, helpless, meaningless laughter such that they can't do anything else, and will stay that way indefinitely until someone manages to retrieve them.

Puppet Shows

• Dinosaurs: Discussed in "Baby Talk", when Earl mentions that he laughed so hard from watching someone say the word "smoo" on live television that he thought he might have to call in sick from work.
• Fraggle Rock: This has happened to Fraggles on more than one occasion. In one episode, it's mentioned that yorumba root is used to treat giggle fatigue.
• This occasionally happens to Rowlf, Janice and Piggy on The Muppet Show during the "Veterinarian's Hospital" sketches. The three of them will tell so many corny puns, they'll often crack themselves up. In one sketch in particular where their patient is a telephone, Piggy is laughing so hard, she can barely deliver her next line ("Because it's busy!")

Tabletop Games

• In Dungeons & Dragons the recurring spell Tasha's hideous laughter works by inducing this. If a character it's cast on fails a wisdom saving throw they fall prone and become incapacitated; that is to say everything suddenly becomes so funny to them that they end up on the floor laughing. It was originally named after a young girl who sent Gary Gygax a letter asking him to add a laughter-related spell to the game (or so he says), but was eventually retconned as the original name of Iggwilv, a recurring villain from the "Greyhawk" setting.

Video Games

• Dragon Quest:
  • In the remakes of Dragon Quest IV, one of Torneko Taloon's random battle actions is to tell a joke, which has a chance of causing enemies to fall over laughing and miss their next turn. However, it has no effect if the enemy "doesn't get the joke."
  • Dragon Quest IX: The Minstrel class has a skill that can make enemies lose their turn by making them laugh too hard. Certain enemies can use it on the party as well.
• Mass Effect 3: in the Citadel DLC, it's possible to find EDI trying and failing to sweet-talk Joker into dancing with her; Shepard, notoriously bad dancer, attempts to resolve the situation by offering to dance with her instead... whereupon Joker cracks up and goes on laughing for a full twenty seconds, unable to do anything but giggle helplessly at the idea.
• Mii Topia: Some enemies have emotion-based status effects they can inflict on your party members, one of which is paralyzing laughter.
• Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers: One of the new items introduced in Explorers of Sky is the Reviser Seed, which upon reviving the Pokemon leads to them laughing so hard that they faint again.
• In Quest for Glory IV, the only way to defeat Ad Avis is to distract him with the Ultimate Joke ("the one about the wizard and the farmer's daughter"), which is so funny it can leave anyone paralyzed with laughter, long enough for you to slay him (for good this time).
• The Heavy in Team Fortress 2 can invoke this trope on enemies with the Holiday Punch by landing a critical hit on them, usually from the back, which doesn't do damage but forces them to do a laughter taunt, which causes them to be immobile and unable to do anything for a few seconds as other enemies begin to fire upon them, if the Heavy doesn't do it themselves.

Web Animation

• Camp Camp: In season 1, Max steals David's mobile and messes with his Tinder account, resulting in an Amazonian Beauty abducting David for a date. Next season, Max learns that David and Bonquisha started a relationship from there, and keels over laughing hysterically.
• Homestar Runner: In Strong Sad's story in "A Folky Tale", the townsfolk get tired of Saddy Dumpington bringing everyone down and banish him. However, their lives are so cheerful by comparison afterwards that they end up laughing so hard no one can get any work done, and they beg him to come back and say something miserable and depressing. Unfortunately, Saddy's attempts to deliberately be depressing (by dressing up as a "weird snake") just makes them laugh so hard "they passed out for the rest of their lives."

Web Comics

• In Basic Instructions, one strip features the enemy being left helpless with laughter at seeing the Moon Emperor being used as a human wrecking ball by Rocket Hat.

Web Videos

• BirgirPall:
  • "We Broke Surgeon Simulator," Biggi tries to answer the phone, only to fumble the controls and get the phone draped over the in-game monitor, leaving the receiver and cord obscuring the screen. Banzaii cracks up as he realizes that the on-screen "Insert disk" text now appears to read "Insert dick", and ends up laughing for so long and so hard that the subtitles suggest that he needs an inhaler.
  • In 'We Broke Star Trek," Biggi (playing Spock) dangles from a hole in the ceiling before dropping to the ground... only to find that Spock is stuck in his hanging animation. Banzaii promptly cracks up, leaving Kirk unpiloted as he goes on laughing himself to tears in the background; in the end, the only way the two of them can continue playing is if Banzaii avoids looking at the still-bugged Spock. Eventually, a cutscene appears to fix the bug, only for the hanging animation to return when gameplay resumes. Banzaai loses it all over again.
• Funhaus:
  • In the Inside Gaming video "HARRY POTTER in GTA 4!" the crew try out the eponymous GTA 4 mod, in which Nico is replaced by Harry Potter complete with magic and a broomstick, plus Voldemort homies and Sackboy pedestrians. Very early on, the players get on the bad side of one such pedestrian, resulting in the Sackboy wrestling Harry off his broomstick - only to be shot by Voldemort, triggering an all-out brawl. Throughout all of this, the Inside Gaming crew are laughing too hard to continue playing, leaving Harry standing meekly in the street as the carnage plays out around him. Eventually, John gasps, "I just farted from laughing!"
  • Another clip from the Inside Gaming era, "Hardest Motorcycle Race Ever" features Bruce repeatedly failing to get his ATV up the first few ramps of a rooftop race and breaking down in gales of wheezing laughter. As the mistakes stack up, Bruce can only laugh harder and harder, and his performance declines accordingly, much to the amusement of James and Adam.
    Bruce: [gasping for air] You know how hard it is to play laughing this hard?!
  • In the GTA 5 gameplay video "Just F*ckin Around", Lawrence trolls Adam by repeatedly ramming him off the road with a semitrailer so he won't be able to get back to his apartment and start the next heist. By the end of this, Adam is literally sobbing with laughter and almost unable to play because his eyes are watering so badly that he can't see the screen.
  • During their examination of Last FM, Adam, Bruce and James discover the word "scrobble," and are reduced to such a fit of helpless laughter that they struggle to make jokes on the subject. At one point, subtitles have to be deployed just to make sense of what Bruce is saying.
  • In their playthrough of GTA 5 adversary mode "Condemned", the eponymous villain (AKA Spookums) becomes such a Memetic Loser to the team that they end up turning the tables and hunting him down instead, to the point that the only reason why Spookums can score any kind of victory at all is because the players are laughing too hard to concentrate. This comes to a head in "Kill Or Be Killed", when - after ganging up on Spookums and stabbing him to death in his most humiliating demise yet - Adam, Bruce, James, and Lawrence have to stop playing and just laugh for the next ten seconds because they literally can't focus on anything else.
  • During the GTA 5 playthrough "Rage In The Cage," Joel's increasingly erratic playing style results in him somehow throwing a molotov cocktail backwards, reducing the entire crew to hysterical laughter. Joel's continued antics — which include such things as being nonlethally blown up, randomly attacking a patch of burning concrete, and sliding off the roof mid-run into a two-story fall - results in the crew laughing so hard that none of them can help him or even speak coherently for the next thirty seconds or so. The fact that Joel has no idea how he managed the backwards throw only makes them laugh even harder.
  • A bug in Sail and Sacrifice results in the player character randomly levitating into the sky while attempting to climb a ladder, leaving Adam and the others laughing too hard to continue playing, even as the player character vanishes into the clouds.
  • The Gun playthrough in "Ride 'Til You Die" features a moment when - in the middle of a massive shootout in the desert - an unarmed (and possibly bugged) NPC casually wanders into the line of fire as if nothing could be possibly wrong, only to be promptly shot dead. Play immediately grinds to a halt as the entire crew cracks up, and Adam is forced to pause the game while they recover.
  • In "Sunder Pressure," Jon is discussing the concept of swingers' parties over the course of a game of Sundered when he points out that the hosts have to have a four-bedroom house — meaning that they have to "have a bunch of kids." Cue everyone asking, "why do they have to have kids?" As Jon futilely tries to explain that the kids don't actually have to be at the party, Alanah, Jacob and Rahul all facepalm and dissolve into helpless giggles, resulting in a game over.
• Game Grumps:
  • The Grumps' letsplay of Sonic Unleashed grinds to a halt when Arin, high on cold medication, misses a jump, mutters "fuck," tries and fails to save himself with a double jump, then falls to his death. Dan then suggests that this would be an interesting move if you could perform it in reality - literally by saying "fuck!" to perform a double jump and fall to your death. A very high Arin breaks into a helpless fit of laughter, to the point that he's quickly reduced to squeaking incomprehensible sentences in between giggles.
  • During one of the Grumps' many chess matches, Arin finds himself losing yet again and decides to try a risky move, remarking, "we'll see how it plays out in the end..." only to be promptly checkmated by Danny's queen, immediately letting out a roar of "SHIT!" Danny completely cracks up and is left effectively speechless with laughter for the next twenty seconds, and only laughs harder when Arin rounds on him for laughing.
• Geek Remix:
  • The playthrough of Soma is completely derailed very early on when Mari admits that she knows what blood tastes like, prompting a downward spiral of smartass remarks that ends with Stacy mimicking her and saying, "Stacy, I lived a very dark life before you found me." Mari laughs hysterically for the next twenty seconds, to the point that Stacy has to instruct her to get on with the game.
  • Heavy Rain leaves the two continuously bewildered by the unintentionally nonsensical plot, finally coming to a head when a fleeing murder suspect tries to slow down Norman Jayden by throwing live chickens at him. Stacy and Mari crack up so violently that they can't continue playing, leaving Norman hovering in the entrance to the next area while they go on laughing.
• In one of Jacksepticeye's Golf With Your Friends tournaments - with Mark, Wade, and Bob in attendance - all four players are having great difficulty with one of the desert levels. Wade unexpectedly manages to land his ball right next to the hole despite the walls surrounding it, and is halfway through advising the others on the exact number of bars on the power meter he used, when Mark unexpectedly screams "oh, there's BARS?!" Turns out Mark's power bar was hidden behind his microphone, and without it to guide him, Mark has been improvising and failing ever since the start of the game. This revelation reduces both Wade and Bob to hysterical giggling for the next twenty seconds or so, and in his video of the event, Wade is seen pitching forward onto his desk and out of shot, laughing too hard to continue playing.
• During Jesse Cox's playthrough of Saints Row IV with Crendor, Jesse cracks up so hard at the sight of Crendor's custom-made player character that he actually has to leave the room and spend at least thirty seconds shrieking with laughter. To the put things in perspective, Crendor designed said player character to possess bright blue skin, purple dreadlocks, and his face painted in the colors of the American flag. For good measure, a hysterical Jesse can be heard exclaiming (between giggles), "Blue Man! What happened to you, Blue Man!?"
• A now-memetic clip by Meterstick Jim features him examining the patch notes for The Sims 3 and laughing progressively harder and harder at the increasingly bizarre descriptions contained within, including such gems as "it is no longer possible to 'try for baby' with the Grim Reaper" and "pregnant sims can no longer brawl." At several points, Jim has to stop to laugh, and by the end, he's been reduced to incoherent wheezing.
• For the streamers from "Offline TV and Friends", this was the reaction of both Corpse Husband and Jacksepticeye during the infamous "Babushka Incident" during a game of Among Us. Jack didn't even mind being killed in the middle of being paralyzed with laughter and if anything, laughed harder once Valkyrae killed him. Also depicted in various fan works, such as Babushka: the Movie, as seen here.
• Pink Kitty Rose, during the Thief/Dead route of Completing the Mission, after she has Henry engage in Politeness Judo with a Toppat guard, the guard's response leaves her in stitches. While she's able to collect an Among Us figurine at the next prompt, she continues cracking up the entire time until after the FAIL that follows after that, and it's not until after she attains the path's ending that she discovers that she completely missed the second prompt.
  Reginald: Heading straight for the rocket?! Close the main door! Immediately!
  Pink: (still laughing) Wait, what's even going on right now?!
• Stuart Ashen once had to abandon a take and redo the video because he wasn't used to the text on the box during the first take and couldn't read it without bursting into laughter at the sheer amount of mangled, borderline incomprehensible English on the box. He tried to continue after gems like "funny laughter key" and "6 act or talk like a fool key", but was forced to give up after discovering that, as a result of translating the Chinese phonetic guides, the box gave nicolas, Marty, Antonio Stella bottom tile, and ji plug pu · melon nai as alternate names for Nicola Amati, Antonio Stradivari, and Giuseppe Guarneri, respectively.
• Two Best Friends Play: In part 12 of their Ride to Hell: Retribution playthrough, Pat makes a Star Wars reference that inspires him and Matt to ramble about plot details they disliked from the prequel trilogy. Then Pat mixes up Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn with Quan Chi from Mortal Kombat. Matt and Pat pause the game and go silent, as they try and fail to hold back their own laughter.
• Nash of What the Fuck Is Wrong with You? is well-known for extended bouts of laughter, especially when it comes to Tara's antics.
  • A rare non-Nash example occurs in "The Whizzinator" episode, in which a man attempted to use a fake penis to pass a urine test. Linkara, Nash's co-host for the day, is rather nonplussed by the whole story... up until Nash wonders aloud if the fake penis was supposed to be a hands-free device operated via the clapper. Linkara breaks down in a fit of wheezing giggles that leaves him almost sobbing into his hands.
    Linkara: I think you broke me.
  • In "The Mystery Pooper," the duo are covering a story in which an unknown man spent the last ten years crapping in the holes of a golf course, whereupon Tara happens to mention that her backyard borders a golf course and that the idea to take a dump on it never occurred to her. A few moments later, Tara's husband Dan sneaks into view with a roll of toilet paper in hand; Nash cracks up and goes on laughing for forty seconds.
  • "Little Electronic Vajayjays" discusses a news story in which certain owners of the new iPhone 7 decided to get around the lack of a headphone jack by - on the advice of a prank video on youtube - drilling a hole in the phone. Over the course of the discussion that follows, Tara points out that the original headphone jack has "a little electronic vagina for a little electronic penis", and without this equipment, "the little electronic sperm" cannot reach the egg and produce "a sound baby," even comparing the incident to someone drilling a hole in a watermelon so they could fuck it. Throughout this thirty-second rant, Nash is in hysterics, and only laughs harder when Tara defends her use of terminology by pointing out that the headphone and the jack are referred to as "the male and female part."
  • In "Adieu, Black Friday," a news story from Bavaria mentions a giant phallic monument being unexpectedly stolen from an alpine hiking trail. Tara remarks "maybe it just got cold out," and Nash loses it, leaving the show held up for the next thirty seconds.
  • Late in "Your Dad Is My Dad Too", Nash discusses a story in which a man fresh from a car crash abruptly stripped naked and climbed onto a fire truck for no apparent reason. Tara's response is "Look at me. I'm the fire hose now." Nash immediately cracks up laughing and goes on for a good twenty to thirty seconds, rendering his attempts at complimenting the joke incoherent.
  Nash: (giggling helplessly) Best use of a meme... you get the Oscar 2023 - fuck me! (cackles) Jesus Christ, you're trying to kill me, here!
• Yogscast:
  • During Kim Richards' playthrough of Saints Row IV she and and Sjin briefly separate to select new costumes from various shops across the simulation. When they meet up again, Sjin very suddenly appears from behind a corner, revealing to Kim that his character model is now dressed in a bra, a g-string, and a luchador mask with a neon pink mohawk. Kim goes into hysterics and doesn't stop laughing for quite some time, during which she can barely control the game; Sjin's remark of "I wanted to look sexy" doesn't help.
  • In a group video, Kim, Hannah Rutherford, and Hey Chrissa react to HAT Films' Pleasureville Album. All seems to be going well, up until they reach "It's Always About My Dick": early in the song, Kim can be seen grinning harder and harder until she facepalms and collapses into a fit of silent giggling that rapidly escalates into shrieks of laughter, and every time she gets remotely close to calming down, the next lyric ends up starting her up all over again. In the end, Kim is not only reduced to crying with laughter, but ends up falling out of her chair and (according to Chrissa) spending the next few seconds curled up on the floor.
  • In the livestreamed playthrough of Resident Evil 7, Zoey Proasheck and Fiona are left absolutely horror-stricken for a good chunk of the introductory section of the game. For a moment, it looks as if the finale of the first videotape is going to leave them even more terrified; however, at the very moment Jack Baker appears and the video dissolves into static, one of their donation messages happens to play - in this case, a voice booming "THAT TURNS ME ON." Both players crack up laughing, especially Zoey who goes on laughing for a good twenty seconds longer while Fiona warns the chat not to provide spoilers.

Western Animation

• Code Lyoko: In "Laughing Fit", X.A.N.A. forces the heroes to breathe a cloud of concentrated nitrous oxide. The victims fall to the ground, unable to control their laughter, as they nearly suffocate to death.
• Cool McCool corners the villain Jack In The Box in his warehouse of toys. Cool aims his pistol at Jack, but it's a toy that deploys the "bang!" flag. Cool tries another gun, but it likewise is a toy that does no damage. Cool keeps trying gun after gun, doing no harm to Jack, except to make him laugh until he's helpless. The regular police show up to cart Jack away, still guffawing at the bumbling McCool.
• Dexter's Laboratory: In "The Laughing", Dexter's transformation into a were-clown is preceded by him breaking into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
• The Fairly OddParents!: In "Class Clown", Timmy wishes to become the funniest person on Earth. As a result, anyone he talks to immediately starts laughing uncontrollably, until their guts burst.
• Fraggle Rock: The Animated Series: In one episode, all the Fraggles are overcome with laughter on hearing "The Funniest Joke In the Universe" except for Boober, the only one who doesn't get the joke. He ends up going on a quest to fetch water from the Well of Forgetfulness to get his friends back to normal. At the end of the episode the other Fraggles are cured but Boober finally gets the joke and becomes helpless with laughter himself, forcing his friends to take him back to the well.
• In The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy episode "Billy & Mandy's Jacked-Up Halloween'', Grim reveals to Billy and Mandy the story behind Jack O' Lantern, and specifically how he managed to steal Grim's scythe by incapacitating Grim by tickling him with a feather so much he dropped his scythe from laughing so hard.
• Kim Possible: In "Clothes Minded", Kim's mission outfit gets ruined and the style is no longer available, so she has to try various replacements. One of them is a ridiculous-looking suit of anime-style armor that reduces Drakken and Shego to fits of laughter.
• Johnny Bravo: When Johnny asks Pops if he's a gentleman, Pops goes into hysterical laughter for about thirty seconds before flatly saying "No".
• Lilo & Stitch: The Series: In "627", Stitch intentionally embarrasses himself to take advantage of the eponymous 627's constant laughter. Sure enough, 627 laughs so hard that he faints, allowing Lilo to put him back into captivity.
• Looney Tunes:
  • In "Count Me Out" a boxing referee introduces a boxing champion and upon seeing his opponent Egghead, who is noticeably much smaller and feeble looking, the ref bursts into laughter (courtesy of Tex Avery) and falls out of the boxing ring.
• In The Midnight Gospel episode "Annihilation Of Joy," Clancy is completely derailed when Jason explains the Buddhist perspective on reality via World of Warcraft, leaving him giggling helplessly and unable to speak for the next ten seconds. Later, Clancy's remark about using a sausage for a snorkel causes both of them to crack up, and the two of them can only laugh uproariously as Bob is killed yet again. For added fun, the audio of this conversation was taken from a real podcast, laughs and all.
• Pac-Man: In "The Day the Forest Disappeared", having finally found the Power Pellet Forest, Mezmaron uses a "laugh laser" on Pac-Man and his troops so that he [Mezmaron] can uproot the entire forest.
• The Powerpuff Girls: In "The Mane Event", Blossom (who's suffered from a really embarrassing Gag Haircut) unleashes a Hurricane of Puns against a monster that's a giant ball covered in eyes. The eye monster stops destroying the city and can't do anything but laugh at her appearance and puns, so Blossom takes this chance to whack it into outer space using a girder.
• Rabbids Invasion: In the episode Rabbid Fit, a rabbid gets a serious case of the giggles during a funeral for their flying machine. The other rabbids try to get him to stop, but almost nothing phases him.
• In Rocko's Modern Life, when Rocko's kitchen gets destroyed, a hyena contractor comes over and Rocko tells him he needs it done in two days and he doesn't have much money to spend; upon seeing the damage the contractor loses all self control and goes in a crazy laughing fit while rolling on the ground.
  Heffer: Wow, that's not a good sign.
• Underdog: One Evil Plan of Simon Bar Sinister involves spreading small feathers over the entire United States, leaving the American population unable to cast a vote due to laughing too much. Only Simon and his henchman, Cad Lackey, were able to cast votes, electing Simon the first Dictator of The United States.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy III", Mermaid Man's "Tickle Belt" is designed to tickle the wearer so incessantly that it paralyzes them with laughter. Man Ray has it stuck on him before the events of the episode, and SpongeBob repeatedly uses it to discipline him in an attempt to get him to reform. The belt eventually goes haywire and breaks, but ends up permanently conditioning Man Ray into overwhelming laughter whenever he attempts acts of villainy, motivating a Heel–Face Turn.
• Wander over Yonder: In "The Boy Wander", Dr. Screwball Jones's evil plan is to force everyone in the galaxy to be happy by shooting them with a tickle ray that induces laughter to the point where the victim can't do anything else. Despite being blasted, Sylvia was able to direct her laughing fit to destroy the power supply freeing everyone from their fits.

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