Ladies gentlemen, and all points in between, Tim Conrad: Great comedian, lousy murderer.
Susan Huckaby, wife of legendary TV Comedian Harvey Huckaby of the "Conrad and Huckaby Show", is found drowned in his pool, trapped by the pool cover being sabotaged. The clues seem to point to Tim Conrad, Harvey's ex-partner and first husband of Susan. Mark is determined to prove his friend innocent of the terrible crime he didn't do.
The complicated thing is, if Tim isn't the killer, it hasn't been for a lack of trying. He has been trying to kill his former partner for scamming him out of the lucrative rights to a film based on their show, and his latest attempt involved messing with the pool's timer...
"Comedy is Murder" displays symptoms of the following tropes:
- Alliterative Name: Harvey Huckaby.
- Butt-Monkey: All of Tim's attempts at murdering Harvey hurt him more than anyone else.
- Chekhov's Gun: Candy's car alarm going off, and her pulling on a fuse to turn it off instead of using a remote.
- A Deadly Affair: Susan was murdered by her husband's lover.
- Drowning Pit: The crux of the murder is turning on the cover to Harvey's swimming pool to drown the occupant.
- Epic Fail: All of Tim's attempts to kill Harvey are woeful failures.
- He tries to snipe him, but ends up not using a piece of the rifle when he can't figure out where it's supposed to go. He takes aim, pulls the trigger... and the gun falls to the ground. Tim ends up injuring his finger futilely pulling the trigger.
- He steals a bunch of pills from Community General and mixes them into a flute of champagne for Harvey to drink... only for Susan to mix up the position of the glasses, leaving him to take it and almost die of an overdose.
- Gold Digger: Candy was into Harvey for his money, and killed Susan so she could have it all to herself.
- Harmless Electrocution: Tim attempts to sabotage Harvey's pool cover to kill him after falling into the thing himself. He gets a good zap while soaking wet, but manages to walk away without issue.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Tim is just so hilariously bad at killing Harvey that you can't help but smile at him.
- Iron Butt Monkey: Tim Conrad can get pretty hurt during his murder attempts, but he manages to get back up to try again.
- Murder by Mistake: It appears Susan fell victim to the trap meant for Harvey, but it is ultimately subverted as the killer meant to drown her (and probably didn't even know Tim had tried to rig the thing).
- Oh, Crap!: Tim gets a small one when he sees Harvey isn't dead, and a fuller one when he realizes Susan is the one who is.
- Shout-Out: All the footage used to represent the "Conrad and Huckaby Show" is footage from The Carol Burnett Show, which both Tim Conway and Harvey Korman performed on.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: After treating Tim for the overdose mentioned below, Mark seemingly confronts Tim on attempted murder, but ends up saying he thinks Tim tried to kill himself in front of Harvey to teach him a lesson. Tim, of course, rolls with it.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Tim tries to kill Harvey at one point by slipping a bunch of pills stolen from Community General into a glass of champagne alongside ones for him and Susan. Susan ends up repositioning the tray so that Tim can no longer tell which glass is the poisoned one. Please note that nobody wins a prize for guessing which glass Tim ends up drinking.
