The Hyena

Shut up. It's an endearing character trait.

Michael: What's so fucking funny?
Harold: Life. Life's a goddamn laugh riot.

— The Boys in the Band

A character for whom every thing is funny, and everything is worth a laugh. They see the funny side of everything, and you can expect this character to laugh regardless of whether he just got hit with a pie or missiles are raining down from above. They'll laugh through sun, rain, sleet and snow, and they usually do it so much that it becomes a sort of Signature Laugh for them.

For villains, this often overlaps with an Evil Laugh, and, in fact, this trope is more associated with madness rather than heroes or neutral characters, and this often crosses with Comedic Sociopathy. A Giggling Villain has laughter as a defining characteristic.

A good Boisterous Bruiser does a lot of laughing, just because they LIVE LARGE!

Do not confuse with Lena Hyena. Compare The Pollyanna, who is always happy, and Perpetual Smiler, who is always smiling. The opposites are Prone to Tears, who is easily brought to tears, Perpetual Frowner and The Stoic, who never laugh and smile at anything.

Incidentally, the inspiration for this trope name, spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta), aren't really laughing when they make their infamous vocalizations. It appears to be a form of communication used mostly when fighting for food or in social conflict. For actual hyenas portrayed in a negative light, see Heinous Hyena. Also, the Hyena is often the sole exception to a Tough Room.

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Examples:

Advertising

• Orangina of course has a rather creepy hyena commercial.

Anime & Manga

• Elmer from Baccano! is always laughing or at least smiling, and spends his long life trying to make everyone else smile. He does this even when this would be completely inappropriate, such as just after the person has gone through a traumatic event, making it seem like there's something seriously wrong with him.
• Dragon Ball Z: Pure Boo (or Kid Buu in the US) very rarely says a word, and most of the sounds he utters are either insane screeches or maniacal laughter.
• Sakamoto from Gintama. He wasn't always like that though.
• Waji in Haré+Guu, has a rather creepy hyena like laugh. Apparently he believes laughing makes your worries go away. He was even compared to a hyena once. Interestingly there are a few hints he has a troubled home life, like being found in the middle of the night in the jungle, crying to himself.
• Haruhi Suzumiya: Tsuruya tends to burst into loud laughter at everything she finds even slightly humorous. Her first appearance in the show has her utterly fail to stay in character while making Haruhi's student film because she's laughing too hard. She spends the rest of the scene laughing hysterically while Kyon does snarky narration.
• Clair Leonelli from Heat Guy J, and his maniacal laughter... which even sounds like a hyena!
• Jan Valentine from Hellsing. Seriously, he sounds utterly deranged in the dub.
• Mikihisa Komaki of Library War is almost always at least smiling or chuckling. When something's actually funny he has to really hold back to not completely crack up.
• Kate Popple from Lucy-May of the Southern Rainbow is a Bratty Half-Pint, and whenever you see her make her default Playful Cat Smile (:}), you know she's up to no good. Being The Gadfly, she's this trope by default, but especially in the first episode - Mr. Pettywell, the Arch-Enemy of the Popple family (due to using his wealth to buy favours against them, knowing they're poor), orders his workers to construct a house, only for the foundation to fall all over him. Upon hearing Lucy-May and Kate laugh hysterically, Mr. Pettywell stares at them furiously, balls his fists and turns a deep shade of red as he steps towards them...only to bark at his construction workers to fix the damage or he'll take away their supper and payment. This just makes Lucy-May and Kate laugh even more.
• One Piece:
  • Hamburg, the Dumb Muscle of the Foxy Pirates, laughs at literally everything that happens around him. While, admittedly, some of these things are actually funny (like how a giant crewmate of his can never hear what anyone else says because he's so tall), he does it at every turn.
  • Miss Valentine, who appears for a whole story arc as a main villain, but only has three or four lines that aren't laughter.
  • While not prone to laughter as per the trope, Bellamy has "the Hyena" as his Red Baron.
  • Not to mention Bellamy's boss, Donquixote Doflamingo. Dude never stops laughing smugly.
  • Tom, Franky and Iceberg's adoptive father, was prone to laughing at everything. This occasionally got on their nerves when he did so in serious situations.
• The One-Scene Wonder that was Ash's (temporary) Haunter in Pokémon: The Original Series. It thinks everything is funny.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: If it's not her familiars, Walpurgisnacht's presence is almost always hailed by her delirious laughter. Even while Madoka is quite literally blasting her from existence.
• The narrator in Serial Experiments Lain: "Present day, present time. HAHAHAHAhahahaha!!!
• Kururu from Sgt. Frog utters his famous "ku ku ku" laugh, even when everything is going to hell around him. It seems like his standard reaction to everything.
• Shakugan no Shana: Margery Daw's Lord, Marchosias. Can overlap a lot with Evil Laugh as they are a pair of Blood Knights.
• Kusukusu from Shugo Chara!. Her name even means "Tee-hee"
• Patti from Soul Eater. The Sun is also usually depicted as laughing.
• Cyclonus from Transformers: Armada.
• Yuyushiki: Yukari laughs at almost anything Yuzuko does, regardless how random it is.

Comic Books

• One story in an American-made comic set in feudal Japan featured a samurai, the principal courier for "the Great Lord", whose ability to see the humor in just about anything had caused him to be known as Harada the Jokester. Given a message to carry that would've forced the death of the two main characters, to whom he'd taken a liking, he picked a fight with a band of assassins, so they'd kill him before he could pass on the message. As the assassins closed in on him, he was laughing loudly.
• During the Amalgam Comics crossover event for Marvel and DC, the Darkclaw, a hybrid of Batman and Wolverine, fought the Hyena, a cross between Sabretooth and The Joker that was basically a shirtless Joker on 'roids and a healing factor.
• Neal in Blacksad is a hyena who laughs at Blacksad's jokes. However, when he's stuck in a car with a guy who tells racist jokes, his sense of humor takes a leave of absence.
  Neal: Ok, this guy was an asshole but still punching someone while he is driving is dangerous.
  Blacksad: At least with his black eye he is even more colored now, no offense to him.
  Neal: Hin hin hin hin!
• The Joker, a quintessential Monster Clown, laughs at everything, especially death, destruction, and despair. Life is a joke to him, and all ironies are equally funny in his mind. He even known to laugh maniacally when he's the one on the receiving end. His mirth is so much that, when he stops laughing, it's a surefire sign that things are as bad as they can get. One of the few things he doesn't find funny is someone explaining the joke. In fact this is one of his Berserk Buttons.
  • In The Dark Knight, Batman threw him off a building and he laughed hysterically on the way down.
    • He also does this in the comics, in the arc "Lovers and Madmen", only rather than being thrown, he delibrately steps off, just to see if Batman will save him, despite having just gone on his very first rampage through Gotham City. This being, at the time, the official first encounter between the Joker and Batman, he survives, obviously. Not sure whether this example, or the Dark Knight, came first.
    • He also does it in the video game, Batman: Arkham Origins. Apparently, he seems to think falling out of buildings is hysterical.
• Wonder Woman Vol 1: Princess Hyeenia of Skizofrenia seems to laugh at everything, to the point that even her own father, who is otherwise very supportive of her, will yell at her to stop laughing or get out.

Comic Strips

• This was the trademark of "Laffy" Smith, one of the villains in the Dick Tracy strip.

Fan Works

• Calvin & Hobbes: The Series: Outright lampshaded by the Lemony Narrator:
  Have we ever discussed Socrates' laughter? He starts out laughing at whatever it was that amused him. Then he keeps laughing. It goes on and on, until finally he's just laughing at the fact that he's still laughing. The laughter stops whenever he passes out, or finally decides to calm down and try to catch his breath.
• Quill in The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World chuckles quite a lot, a trait which really begins to annoy George after a while.
• In A.A. Pessimal's Discworld, zoologist Johanna Smith-Rhodes feels obliged to explain a few fine points to an Ankh-Morporkian audience concerning life on the Rimwards Howondalandian veldt.^note Giving a great big Take That! to The Lion King (1994) in the process She patiently points out that animals do not think like us and any romantic notion of a Lion King reigning over his loyal and obedient subjects is utter anthropomorphic nonsense. From the point of view of a wildebeest, for instance, it might be hard to express fealty to a liege-lord who has just slain and devoured your young. And it's not as if there's a huddle of rebellious hyenas getting together on the edge of the veldt and plotting to overthrow the monarchy so as to usher in a glorious revolutionary Hyena Republic. Animals do not think that way.

Films — Animation

• The Headless Horseman in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad does nothing but spew evil booming laughter while chasing Ichabod Crane.
• The Ghost of Christmas Present in A Christmas Carol (2009). His constant laughter quickly moves from jolly to unsettling and becomes downright scary as he continues to guffaw as his body ages into a skeleton and then crumbles to dust.
• The crows in Dumbo laugh a lot at Timothy Mouse, especially when he brings up the concept of an elephant flying.
• The Incredibles has Jack-Jack, who is a cheerful child by default. He tends to giggle whenever he unleashes a new power or in response to the panic he tends to cause in others.
• A literal hyena starts laughing hysterically in Lady and the Tramp after seeing Lady nearly getting her head bitten off from trying to get an alligator to help her remove her muzzle. Tramp then says "Huh, if anybody ever needed a muzzle, it's him".
• The Lion King (1994) not only features literal hyenas, but they also fit the trope stereotype perfectly. But out of all, Ed (pictured above) really takes the cake, as his entire dialogue consists of obnoxious laughter, which only Shenzi and Banzai are able to understand. He’s quite possibly the most literal example of this trope ever. Goes straight into horror when the other hyenas ask him about his opinion of Scar calling them "friends" shortly after denouncing them to Simba, and his only reaction is a Evil Laugh and licking his lips just before they all maul and devour Scar.
• Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure has Sir Leonard Looney and the other citizens of Looney Land, who seem to find everything uproariously funny. It's implied King Koo Koo's constantly-laughing courtiers were former victims of the king's tendency to constantly prank others and laugh at their misfortune, which seems rather karmic given how much their constant laughter annoys him.

Films — Live-Action

• Amadeus plays Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as an immature frat boy with a near-constant Annoying Laugh. This makes his absolute undeniable genius all the more infuriating to those around him.
• The title character — a Fun Personified heavily-drinking Idle Rich millionaire — in 1981's Arthur (1981) is heard cackling before he's even seen in the opening sequence. He laughs to punctuate his jokes, he laughs when he falls out of his car at the Plaza Hotel, he laughs in his sleep...
• In Bank Shot, El has a disturbing habit of bursting into laughter, even when nothing funny has occurred. It takes Ballentine by surprise more than once.
• The Detective from the Coen Brothers film Blood Simple
  • As recounted in the behind-the-scenes features for Fargo, the Coen Brothers themselves have what Joel's wife Frances McDormand refers to as a "collective laugh" and that once you get one of them started the other is almost guaranteed to join in. She also expresses some dismay that their son seems to have picked it up.
  • Then there's Knox Harrington (the video artist).
• Fidget in Cecil B. Demented laughs (and fidgets) a lot, to the point of almost seeming like he's doing an impression of Dwight Frye.
• As in his comic book version, the Joker from The Dark Knight is this, possibly as a result of an unhealthy mix of Ax-Crazy and Too Kinky to Torture.
• In the kung fu movie The Fearless Hyena, Jackie Chan develops a fighting style all about confusing his enemies through hysterical, uncomfortable laughter.
• Hans's father, who howls with laughter all the way to the guillotine, in Frankenstein Created Woman.
• Jocko in Frankenstein Island guffaws loudly after everything he says, regardless of whether it was funny or not, and often bursts out laughing for no reason at all. Probably a result of Sanity Slippage.
• In Freaked, the Man Behind the Man's dialogue over the telephone is nothing but Evil Laughter, which villain Elijah C. Skuggs can somehow understand just fine:
  Skuggs: "I—I'm sorry, can you spell that for me?"
  Codename: Laughing Man: "Ha. Hoo. Hee. Heh. Hah."
  Skuggs: "Okay, got it."
• The Great Race: Prince Hoepnick (Jack Lemmon) is a cheerful fellow, loving the life he's living, constantly drunk, and punctuates nearly every sentence he says with a loud braying laugh. HaHAAAHhahaaa!
• The Daffy mogwai/gremlin from Gremlins 2: The New Batch.
• Uncle Albert in Disney's Mary Poppins. He even sings a song about it!
• Dicko, one of the psycho pet food hunters in Razorback, has an incredibly annoying laugh and will burst into laughter for seemingly no reason at all.
• Johnny laughs at all kinds of unfunny things in The Room (2003). One particular example is a scene where Mark tells a story about a girl who ended up in the hospital because one of her multiple boyfriends found out about her affairs. It's fucking weird. What he says is "What a story", implying the story might sound far-fetched to him.
• Star Wars: Return of the Jedi: Salacious Crumb, Jabba's imp-like minion/pet, always giggles when his master does something sadistic.
• 3 Ninjas: Ishikawa, The Dragon in Kick Back, is prone to mean-spirited, braying laughs.
• The weasels in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Results in their demise. Judge Doom mentions that the weasels had some "idiot hyena cousins".
  Judge Doom: One of these days, you idiots are going to laugh yourselves to death!

Game Shows

• On Taskmaster, comedian Nish Kumar cackles like The Joker almost non-stop. His idea for something "that makes the most excellent noise" is a CD of him laughing on loop, which he finds "funny and interesting", and Greg was genuinely stunned at the idea of The Coconut Businessman being the task Nish laughed harder at than anything else.

Literature

• Marco from Animorphs.
• The Cat Who... Series: Book 15 (The Cat Who Went Into the Closet) Celia Robinson, who has a loud, musical laugh and will crack up even at Qwilleran's mildest quips. In book 17 (The Cat Who Blew the Whistle), Qwilleran introduces to her the idea of "fine-tuning" her laugh.
• Discworld
  • Carcer from the novel Night Watch is the Psycho for Hire version of this.
  • The kind of people who traditionally hired Igors.
    In fact they would probably laugh at you if you said "sausages". They laugh at lots of things.
• Though more just a part of her general weirdness, Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter breaks into a huge shrieking fit of laughter from a small joke Ron made on their first meeting. Understandably, he thinks she is making fun of him.
• Live and Let Die has Tee Hee Johnson, who is noted for his tendency to chuckle and giggle to himself for little or no good reason.
• The Old Man's War novel The Ghost Brigades gives us Sarah Pauling. While most of her fellow recruits have a huge problem with trying to grasp humor, she finds pretty much every joke hysterically funny. Eventually they figure out that she doesn't actually get the jokes, but she finds the fact that nobody else does either to be immensely funny.
• Sejanus, attendant to the eponymous The Queen's Thief novel King of Attolia, hates the man he works for and takes every opportunity to make him look like an idiot. He always laughs at the outcome, whether the joke lands on him or the king.
• Roys Bedoys: Mr. Sprinkles laughs a lot for no apparent reason.
• Slapshots: Cal Tonelli will go into hysterics over any joke, even if it’s lame and/or is making fun of Cal and his friends.

Live-Action TV

• There's one infamous video from the early days of America's Funniest Home Videos of a man just busting a gut the entire clip and no one knows what he was laughing at!
• The team of Anne-Marie and Tracy from The Amazing Race Australia are having such a good time on the race that they just do not stop laughing.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  • Warren Mears does this from time to time. He even laughs right before he shoots Buffy.
  • Also, the kids possessed by the demon Hyenas in The Pack.
• An episode of Father Ted has a character who laughs so constantly he can never finish a sentence. We meet him recounting an anecdote to a travelling companion about himself and Ted (which turns out to simply be an unremarkable case of someone losing his slippers). Ted asks the companion how long their car journey was together, and the poor man tells him it was four hours with a look of shellshock on his face.
• There is a recurring Michael McDonald character from MADtv (1995) who laughs at everything especially if he thinks he's going to die.
• Ashton in the North American North and South series. Humiliated her rival? Laughs. Held at swordpoint by her own sister? Laughs. Surrounded by the smoldering remains of her burning lair, with her demented lover (supposedly) burning to death underneath? Laughs.
• Power Rangers: Rita Repulsa. She lets loose an Evil Laugh in almost all her lines.
• Johnathan Pearce from Robot Wars has a tendency to break off into Hyena Cackles whenever he can, usually at the sight of destruction. Take from that what you will...
• From 1968, a segment of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In presented Ruth Buzzi (as "Miss Snooky Lanson") performing "Holiday For Strings" laughing in tempo with the music.
• The titular RuPaul of RuPaul's Drag Race, to the point that it's one of the show's eyecatches, and according to the contestants judge Michelle Visage's infamous cackle can be heard from anywhere backstage.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: Data remarks that the Holodeck audience for his comedy routine setting is literally programmed to laugh at anything.
• The '90s The Untouchables series had some petty criminal who was laughing nervously, even as Capone's men beat him up. But that was more hysteria than humor.
• British-Jamaican television chef Rustie Lee has a very loud, very distinctive laugh, and she can't seem stop herself doing it all the time.

Music

• The titular character from the 1920s song "The Laughing Policeman" by Charles Penrose, a 'fat old policeman' who is 'never known to frown' and is the 'happiest man in town'. He is described as constantly laughing at everyone and everything, even on the beat and while arresting someone.

Pro Wrestling

• Willow The Wisp even laughs at his own pain, even when it hurts to laugh.
• Jeckles The Jester is always laughing, by virtue of being a Court Jester. He can't even complete basic sentences sometimes because he can't stop himself from laughing.
• The booker of Magnificent Championship Wrestling, who has booked you to fail, Nicky Martin, Ra Hah Hah!

Puppet Shows

• Marc-Olivier Fogiel in the French satirical show Les Guignols de l'Info. Everything he says is pure jerkassery, and he frequently bursts on laughter after having humiliated someone. Bonus point for having an actual hyena as a pet.
• On The Muppet Show, Rowlf, Miss Piggy, and Janice would turn into this during the Veterinarian's Hospital sketches, laughing hysterically at a Hurricane of Puns.
• Tim Curry's portrayal of Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island is a creepy hyena. At first, his laughs seem to just be the jovial nature of a simple ship's cook. As his true colors start to shine through, it starts to feel more and more menacing each time he starts.
• Harvey Kneeslapper from Sesame Street. The character was eventually dropped because the laugh was destroying Frank Oz's voice. Averted on at least one occasion, when one of his practical jokes backfired on him; his would-be victim ended up laughing at him, and he naturally failed to see the humor.
• The Teletubbies. They just can't seem to stop laughing, from accidents or otherwise. Justified, since they're meant to be toddlers. The baby sun also laughs practically every time she's onscreen.
• With respect to the Teletubbies, Tilly, Tom, and Tiny from Tots TV and Rosie & Jim also made by the same company also seem to laugh a lot.
• The Spitting Image special Down and Out in the White House portrays Ed McMahon of The Tonight Show this way. When Johnny Carson mentions that Sylvester Stallone is the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, McMahon bursts into his familiar "Ohohoho!" laugh.
  Carson: No, I'm serious. That wasn't a joke.
  McMahon: Oh, there's a joke too? Ohohoho! Medic! (is carried off on a stretcher)

Radio

• Bob & Ray had a recurring character known as "Charles the Poet", who would start out by reading a piece of awful poetry with dead seriousness, but within a few lines would completely lose his composure and break out into helpless laughter. This would get him yanked from the air well before he could get through to the end of the poem.
• Car Talk hosts Tom and Ray Magliozzi are well known and frequently self-deprecating of their laughter, and listeners have written in to describe things like their laugh being used to draw flocks of sheep.
• The Ricky Gervais Show: Ricky Gervais, usually whenever Karl Pilkington says something ridiculous.
• As recounted on NPR's Marketplace, the laugh of Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos precedes him down the hall of the corporate headquarters and is well known to everyone who works there. It's also apparently considered a punishment to some employees.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: The Orcs of Thar describe "Canis Erectus Hilaris", a Gnoll subspecies known to almost always giggle before attacking.
• Exalted gives us Adorjan, the Silent Wind, a Yozi who, when she speaks, only does so through laughter. This is partially because of a Charm she has (and her chosen can learn) which allows telepathic communication while forbidding the bearer from vocalizing anything other than laughter, and partially for other reasons.

Theater

• In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, some interpretations Puck can certainly be described as such. Particularly in the 1930 version, where he was portrayed by a teenage Mickey Rooney.
• In Oklahoma, Gertie Cummings' defining characteristic is her annoying giggle.

Video Games

• This is the reason one undead minion in AdventureQuest Worlds was given the name of Chuckles.
• In Coffee Talk, Baileys is a minor example; his sprites frequently do a "laughing animation" during conversations, such as during his September 28th conversation with Freya. Lucas in Episode 2 also laughs often with the other patrons.
• The Jester in Darkest Dungeon laughs quite often, especially when he lands a critical hit. Goes right into Laughing Mad territory when he is under some afflictions.
  Narrator: He will be laughing still, at the end.
• Trusty Patches\Patches the Hyena from Dark Souls laughs after every line of dialogue. It's probably because he finds the idea of kicking you down a pit to kill you and take your stuff really funny.
• Xan from DragonFable. Half his lines are manic laughs.
• Henry from Fire Emblem: Awakening. His Sorcerer class victory animations are of him laughing while the enemy dies, and one of his Critical Hit quotes is nothing but gleeful laughter.
• Granblue Fantasy has an involuntary version with Ludmila; due to eating a strange mushroom, she suffers from uncontrollable laughter.
• Father Grigori from Half-Life 2, who's on your side but nevertheless clearly has a screw loose. Escalated further in Concerned, where he laughs about once per speech bubble.
• The Collector in Hollow Knight cackles through his entire boss fight, with particularly loud laughter when you defeat him.
• The Jockey from Left 4 Dead 2 does literally nothing else but laugh. Out of all the Special Infected, the Jockey will probably become the one you want to kill the most, just to shut it the hell up.
• In the town of Wimbich in Zelda's Adventure, there's a guy in a shop who seems to think that everything up to and including "lighting a shrine" is a laugh riot (6:15 through 7:30 of this Let's Play video).
• Laughing Octopus of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is an Ax-Crazy example. Both of these traits are reactions to mind-raping trauma.
• Persona 4's Yukiko Amagi regularly has laughing fits that can last for several minutes. The one exception: even she doesn't laugh at Teddie's jokes. (The funny-nose glasses, though, leave her helpless). Chie actually calls her a "Crazy Hyena" at one point. "Yukiko's Laughing Fits" is actually a card in Weiss Schwarz.
• Ringo Ando from Puyo Puyo isn't usually this trope, but her alternate voice in Puyo Puyo Chronicle has her in a constant giggling fit with each of her sound clips.
• Another Ax-Crazy example is Aran Ryan from Punch-Out!! Wii, who laughs even as you beat the crap out of him. The only thing he won't laugh at is a Star Punch — those actually hurt him.
• Reika Kirishima from Time Gal. No matter how dangerous the situation, she always finds something to laugh at. However, she does stop laughing when things get too dangerous. This only holds true for the Japanese version, however, as she's a lot less giggly in the US version.
• Warp from Toonstruck never stops laughing, even after one of his pranks backfires and blows his head off he still laughs.
• X-Men (1993): Mojo, the boss of the fifth stage, laughs constantly throughout his boss fight, especially when he gets hit anywhere but his Weak Point.

Visual Novels

• Various characters in Higurashi: When They Cry. This is seldom a good thing.
• Misha of Katawa Shoujo. Her signature "WAHAHA~!" is instantly recognizable by just about every player of the game.
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
  • Laurence "Moe" Curls in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All. Bad for his career, as he's a clown, and nobody else finds his jokes funny.
  • In Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, Calisto Yew cracks up often, usually at the way Edgeworth talks. This lets you know Shih-na's true identity during her Villainous Breakdown in the final case, as she takes Laughing Mad and crosses it with Slasher Smile.
  • When he reveals himself as the Big Bad of the second Investigations game, Simon Keyes also enjoys a good laugh at Edgeworth's expense. Appropriately enough, he's dressed as a clown.
• Chiester410 in Umineko: When They Cry laughs in every scene. Even when things are going badly and her sisters are panicking, she isn't so surprised that she can't chuckle about it.

Web Animation

• Nutty from Happy Tree Friends due to his hyperactivity, he even laughs when he gets beat up or dying.
• Volume 4 of RWBY introduced Tyrian Callows, one of the Big Bad's Elite Four. A violent psychopath, Tyrian frequently flips between giggling and hysterical laughter whenever the thought or opportunity for violence presents itself to him.

Webcomics

• Bittersweet Candy Bowl has Rachel.
• The Hyenas in Foxy Flavored Cookie laugh a lot.
• Homestuck:
  • Terezi Pyrope, befitting the only troll who's actually any good at trolling. She loves annoying everyone just a little too much. Her sprite is also always drawn with an open mouth, showing off the fact that trolls have many more teeth than humans. Similarly, her lusus proves to be a much more lighthearted one when it's reincarnated as the Dragonsprite.
  • Calsprite is an exaggerated version; his dialogue is literally an unending stream of annoying laughter, leading Dave to beg him to "please, just once, shut the hell up".

Web Original

• Cheese, of the Whateley Universe. What would you expect from the child of supervillains, who has decided that a really good codename is Cheese? In the story "Bad Seeds", he really lets loose.

Web Videos

• One of the defining traits of ComedyShortsGamer. According to some of his fans, his laugh can cure depression.
• Dream laughs at everything whenever he's playing with his friends (who aren't hunting him). See their X-ray challenge video for a good example.
• Thanks to Fails of the Weak, Geoff Ramsey of Rooster Teeth and Achievement Hunter became known for this. And in the gang's Let's Plays videos, you can always count on everyone to break out into hysterical laughter at least once.
• Bruce Greene of Funhaus laughs so hard, that most of it is just hysterical wheezing. Like Geoff, he occasionally has laughed so hard he'll fart.
• The Funniest Minecraft Videos Ever: Tommy has a tendency to laugh loudly at pretty much every joke made in each of the videos. This becomes detrimental to him in "Morph Mod (but if you laugh you lose)", where he can be seen visibly struggling not to laugh at the various jokes Wilbur, Slimecicle, and Ranboo are throwing at him.
• There isn't much that the Hobo Bros don't find funny. They keep laughing throughout most of their videos, when they're not struggling with a hard game (and even sometimes when they are.) In one particular Hobo Theater video, Kevin kept laughing harder and harder until he started crying, and unashamedly admitted it.
• hololive:
  • Many of the talents are pretty free with their laughter, but of note is Ookami Mio who is pretty famous for her wheezing fits and the extreme ease of getting her there.
  • Usada Pekora is very easy to get into laughing fits, some of which have lasted for minutes in the most severe cases.
• In most videos on the Hydraulic Press Channel, cackling is often the only thing Anni, the wife of the channel's host, says during the whole video. She's often laughing at her husband's ridiculously deadpan commentary, his English pronunciation, or the results of the presses.
• Jayuzumi is a variation. He rarely laughs personally, since he uses a soundboard, but many people that get the joke will laugh their heads off.
• When he's not furious, Michael Jones has a distinctive cackle that can be described as the personification of "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA", and Jack Pattillo has laughed so hard that he'll be reduced to hysterical wheezing or tears.
• Outside Xbox: Ellen is an infamous laughter, and her co-host Luke is a master of deadpan comedy. Any appearance will usually end with Ellen in stitches.
• Ethan "Behzinga" Payne of the Sidemen laughs so hard and so much that this trope is his defining trait; his logo for several years was even a stylized "Face with Tears of Joy" emoji (😂). Fellow Sideman KSI is not far behind him.
• UNHhhh: Trixie Mattel frequently makes her co-host Katya break into wheezy, death-rattle, smoker laughter. There is a compilation.
• Both Vinny and Joel of Vinesauce are known for their extremely contagious laughter; Vinny's laughs range from extremely loud snorting to explosive belly laughs, while Joel's laughter has been regularly described by viewers as "being able to cure cancer".
• The Yogscast has many examples:
  • While Rythian is normally deadpan, there are two moments that really stand out. The first is during the Terminator minigame video — after Turpster has been mocking Duncan Jones' decision to use "Hohoho!" as a laugh, you can hear Rythian having a laughter fit in the background. The second is in a playthrough of Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine, when the group discover Sjin is playing as a Frenchwoman; Sjin decides to get into character.
  • Strippin spends most of his Deadpool playthrough laughing his backside off, and later almost breaks down crying from laughter while playing DayZ.
  • While Sips normally has a deadpan demeanour, whenever he finds something funny enough he will stop laughing and find it difficult to stop, such as in his Skyrim playthrough, when a dragon randomly swoops down, picks his horse up on its back, flies away and drops the steed to its death.
  • Simon Lane finds it difficult to stop laughing at many points, such as in the Jaffa Factory series, when he goes mad with power and starts hitting Lewis Brindley repeatedly while completely Laughing Mad! Later, during Series 2 of their Trouble in Terrorist Town playthrough, he discovers the delight of jihad bombs and degenerates into helpless laughter upon successfully killing a large group of people with one.
  • In part due to Drunk on the Dark Side, Turpster does a very long and maniacal Evil Laugh whenever he is the murderer in the Yogscast Garry's Mod series.
  • When Sips and Strippin are doing a Saints Row IV playthrough, they absolutely lose it upon seeing some ridiculously designed characters appear.

Western Animation

• Genie's Laughter from the Aladdin: The Series episode "The Seven Faces Of Genie" according to him everything's a riot and will go into fits of laughter for often no reason, and he spoke in a British accent for some reason.
• Baloney the Dinosaur, in his one-off appearance on Animaniacs, chortled at everything that happened, even the barrage of anvils he was treated to.
• As mentioned above, the Joker, but special mention has to go to his protege in Batman Beyond, Little JJ a.k.a. Robin, who kills the Joker while laughing, only to break down into tears after he realizes what he's done.
  Joker: That's not funny... that's not...
• Uhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh, Beavis and Butt-Head like, never stop laughing, ever, uhuhuhuhuhuhuh. It's, like, a Verbal Tic or something, uhuhuhuhuh. So much that on those rare occasions when they do stop laughing, it's either because something has just ticked them off or they're confused (well, more confused than they usually are). Then Butt-Head is given laughing gas by the orthodontist because he won't stop squirming.
• The Busy World of Richard Scarry: Harry Hyena, a literal example, but downplays the trope nicely.
• The CB Bears segment Heyyy, It's The King! has Yuka Yuka, who is both literally and figuratively a hyena. He's always making puns and jokes regardless of how serious the situation is, laughing right after he tells them.
• One of the crooks in C.O.P.S. (Animated Series) is a deadly prankster called Hyena. According to his toy's Action Figure File Card, he used to be a stand-up comedian, but couldn't stop laughing at his own jokes (which, by all accounts, weren't even funny in the first place).
• Cow and Chicken: Mom and Dad are prone to insane fits of laughter. It leads to Cow, of all people, questioning their sanity at the end of "Comet!"
• Eddy from Ed, Edd n Eddy has a rather sadistic tendency to laugh at other characters' pain and misfortune. Considering the high amount of slapstick on this show, that happens a lot.
• Cosmo from The Fairly OddParents! laughs at anything, including pudding!
  "SHE SAID 'PUD', AND THEN 'DING'!"
• Hyena from Gargoyles is this on occasion, possibly as a form of psychological warfare. Or she's just that mental.
• The Jem episode "Journey Through Time" portrayed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as laughing hysterically at random intervals.
• Melody from Josie And The Pussy Cats will giggle at just about anything even when she and the other members of the gang are danger.
• Meadow from Lite Sprites constantly makes jokes, and fancies herself quite hilarious. Her friends, not so much:
  Brooke: That's where Meadow's sense of humor finally made itself useful.
  Meadow: What? Never!
• The Loud House has Luan Loud, who is a comedienne and laughs when she says a pun or joke, then says "Get it?". Though she makes an effort to tone it down a bit as the show goes on.
• The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack takes this trope to ridiculous heights.
• Dr. Wily from the Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) TV Series. His laughter is wacky and insane, but can be just creepy in some scenes.
• Little Miss Giggles from The Mr. Men Show.
• Rufus from My Gym Partner's a Monkey, who is an actual hyena with an Annoying Laugh, but also has a tendency to cry at times.
• In The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh episode "The Piglet Who Would Be King", Tigger, Rabbit, and Piglet encounter an actual hyena on their way to the Land of Milk and Honey, who simply laughs when they ask for directions.
• The Perils of Penelope Pitstop: Yak Yak, one of the Ant Hill Mob, always laughs at everything, even and especially when they're all doomed.
• In The Proud Family, Papi Boulevardez punctuates practically every sentence he says in smooth-sounding Spanish with howling maniacal laughter, mostly because no one understands that he's insulting them to their face.
• Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls. Her very first line^note Her first line in the movie, not the series, but the movie takes place before the series was a laugh. In fact, this is the reason why she has that name, because of how "bubbly" she is.
• Octopus Man from Rick and Morty. He's onscreen for a grand total of about 90 seconds, and about two thirds of those seconds involve him giggling.
• In an episode of Rocko's Modern Life, a satellite crashes into the kitchen, a state-licensed contractor (an actual hyena) comes in to look at the damage. When Rocko tells him how much he can afford for repairs, the contractor immediately cracks up and proves to be of no help to Rocko.
  • And gets a Call-Back at the end of the episode, when another satellite lands on top of Bob "Bucky" Taylor.
• The 1985 special The Romance of Betty Boop has Chuckles, one of Johnny Throat's thugs, as this; he laughs evilly when threatening characters. Then again, Chuckles is an Expy of Tommy Udo from Kiss of Death.
• The Simpsons:
  • Dr. Hibbert laughs at everything, and anything he doesn't find funny is usually the subject of a Take That!. This got lampshaded by "Bleeding Gums" Murphy in his last episode, when he refers to his brother (given up for adoption) that always laughed at inappropriate times. Cue Dr. Hibbert.
    Dr. Hibbert: That appears to be a Ford urinating on a Chevrolet.
    Mrs. Hibbert: Don't you usually laugh at everything?
    Dr. Hibbert: Yes. I usually do.
  • The sole purpose of Nelson is to laugh at others misfortunes.
• Jokey Smurf from The Smurfs generally finds everything funny.
• Bill and Fosse from South Park, the two boys who call everything "gay". They are always laughing Beavis and Butthead style, even when bad things happen to them.
• SpongeBob of SpongeBob SquarePants. The episode "Funny Pants" hinges on his frequent laughter and his signature Annoying Laugh is even used as a method of torture in the second movie.
• Stripy laughs even when he gets beaten up.
• In the SWAT Kats episode "Swat Kats Unplugged" we're introduced to Chopshop, a literal laughing hyena.
• The Grapple family from TaleSpin.
• Tee Hee Hee from Toonimals.
• Izzy from Total Drama is almost always seen laughing at someone or something, usually at her own crazy antics.
• Dan from Undergrads literally only ever laughs. That's all he ever does. To the point that other characters are beginning to wonder whether he's mentally deficient.
• Muttley from Wacky Races and Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines has a rather distinctive wheezing snicker. He often laughs whenever Dastardly's schemes go wrong.
• Zig the hyena from Zig & Sharko is this literally and figuratively, constantly giggling as he plots to eat Marina the mermaid.

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