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Corpsing / Live-Action TV

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Corpsing in live-action TV.

Game Shows

  • Roy Walker and a male contestant famously couldn't keep a straight face during the "Snake Charmer" puzzle on Catchphrase. It's made even funnier if you watch the full version of that scene and see that the female contestant genuinely has no idea what they're laughing at.
  • The question writers of the UK game show The Chase frequently make the presenter Bradley Walsh try desperately not to burst into laughter with the immature multiple-choice questions they get him to read out. For instance, one such question was "In what sport does Fanny Chmelar compete for Germany?".note  Witness the results here.
    • Then there was this moment of corpsing, where the contestant was the only one keeping it together for long enough to call an advert break.
    • And of course Bradley made himself corpse on occasion.note 
    • Watch a compilation here.
  • Family Feud, with its often off-the-cuff answers, tends to provoke this response from many hosts.
    • A famous incident during the Richard Dawson years was during the Fast Money round. When asked the question "During what months of pregnancy does a woman begin to look pregnant?", the contestant, visibly panicking, answered "September", which was so unexpected it caused Dawson to break down laughing long enough that they had to stop the clock. He managed to recover, only to break down again (this time so much he had to kneel down to try to contain his fits of laughter) when repeating the question to the second contestant, and having to explain away why he was freaking out about "September".
    • Richard probably never guessed an answer of "mutual friends" would have him on the floor in laughter.
    • The tradition continues as Steve Harvey has also been shown to break down in bouts of laughter every once in a while when a contestant says something outrageous for an answer. On Late Night, Steve even said that one answer made him laugh on the floor for 15 minutes straight, but most of it had to obviously be cut due to time constraints.
  • Given the clue writers' affinity for puns and shout-outs, it was not unusual to hear Alex Trebek crack a laugh when reading a clue on Jeopardy! There were also instances where he had done this when interviewing the contestants. One notable example was when a contestant said that she had a goat who died by eating a bag of Quikrete; Alex asked whether it was a 60-pound or 80-pound bag, the contestant snarked "Alex, you're being insensitive!" and Alex laughed so hard that he turned to the next contestant (the returning champion, who already had at least one chat with him) and said "I don't wanna talk to you!"
  • A game of Password Plus stars Dick Martin and Betty White. Dick gives the clue "France" for "French", and host Tom Kennedy points out the illegal clue before introducing the next puzzle. It goes downhill from there.
  • The Pyramid franchise has a couple:
    • Any attempt at maintaining composure was futile in the $10,000 Pyramid show where Tony Randall was a celebrity player. After a commercial break, host Dick Clark commented on how well Tony knows the game and asked what is the one thing you don't do. Tony: "You don't say shit!" (This was a broadcast master that's on YouTube; it was obviously altered for TV).
    • The December 5, 1986 telecast of The $25,000 Pyramid had Clark playfully pressuring celebrity player Vicki Lawrence to pick the category hiding the Mystery 7 card as the prize it offered was a new car. Vicki turns to him and deadpans "You're just really being a (deleted) today, aren't you?" Dick was looking for a place to hide but tried to regain his composure as Vicki selected the category "Loosen Up." When Dick read what the category was about—"Things that are stiff"—Vicki corpsed so hard she was crying. Dick fared no better.
  • On the game show Say When!!, host Art James was doing a Promotional Consideration plug for Peter Pan peanut butter, which involved him spreading some onto a sandwich. Unfortunately for him, the bottom of the jar shattered, causing him to lose his composure (and since the show was taped live, he couldn't retake).
  • Anne Robinson, the unflappable host of The Weakest Link, suffered a few facial twitches during a celebrity edition when Rob Schneider mentioned that he'd like to find out who "the sexy link" was, and stating his belief that: "Anne, I think it's you." Later, when voted off, Rob rushes the podium and wraps Anne in a giant bear hug, lifting her and spinning her around. Any semblance of a straight face is immediately lost.
    • Especially impressive given that Anne managed to keep a completely stoic expression before, during, and after being passionately kissed by William Shatner in an ad-libbed Captain Kirk shout out.
    • They also had one episode with all hairdressers; the contestants were basically eight blokes and one Dumb Blonde. The men all voted each other out for tactical reasons - or because they fancied the blonde - while Blondie was pretty much continually stupid. Until she pinched a victory from nowhere on the head-to-head showdown. Anne was visibly struggling to keep it together by the end.
    • After a contestant answered "two" to the question, "how many wheels does a unicycle have?", Anne attempted to keep the round moving and move on but before she could ask the next question, she broke down in laughter.
    • On the WWE Edition when Trish Stratus was asked a question about Richard Nixon, she replied "I'm from Canada, I don't know" and a few chuckles from Anne seep through when she's trying to continue.
  • In one of the most heartwarming moments of this trope, in an episode of Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego, host Greg Lee is visibly shocked when the informant for the episode "Tango Mysterioso" is his own mother, blurting out 'oh my God!', and holding back Manly Tears.
    "Can we please have a nice round of applause for the finest informant ever on this show?"
  • The introduction to the game show Win, Lose or Draw usually had the host (Vicki Lawrence on NBC daytime, Bert Convy on syndication nighttime) reveal caricatures of that day's celebrity guests during the intro. While listing off said celebrities, announcer Bob Hilton would frequently break into fits of laughter as each caricature was revealed. Bob was also prone to this on the roadshow episodes, particularly if Convy's intro went awry (such as an episode taped in Central Park where the horse pulling the hansom cab with Convy on it refused to go through the gate, or another where Convy fell in the water when trying to exit the boat that brought him on-set).
  • Scrabble host Chuck Woolery would often break out in laughter, usually after reading the writers' sillier and, oftentimes, more suggestive clues. However, Chuck would occasionally lose his composure while interacting with the contestants; such examples include the show's famous Hanukkah blooper, as well as one contestant's answer to the clue "Kids sometimes hear their parents doing it".

Panel Shows

  • QI - Any number of guests have caused Stephen Fry to break down in helpless laughter. (For example, Stephen botches "They say of the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is" and none of the guests let him live it down.)
  • Several times on Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Most of the time, the four "players" and Drew are great at keeping straight faces, but sometimes you get moments like this.
    • Colin can sometimes set it off with a single word, such as "Tapioca!" or an already breaking down "Meow".
      • "Meow" gets special credit because not only did he get Wayne, Drew and Ryan to break, he even got Laura Hall playing the piano to crack, the music faltering and just stopping because she was laughing so hard.
    • So far, only three people have managed to get Colin to corpse: Robin Williams, Richard Simmons, and Colin himself.
      • The case where Colin got himself? A "Greatest Hits" where he said the following. The entire studio stopped cold for laughing.
        Ryan: We don't know what you're watching, so we're not gonna return you to it!
        Colin: We're watching animal porn! *Beat and laughter* Mary Had a Little Lamb" will be right back...
      • Then there's the all time classic Arctic Tern
      • Ryan Stiles almost gets Colin to crack during a Let's Make a Date, with Colin having to take a second to get back into character because he's chuckling at Ryan.
    • A pure case of corpsing (in that he is actually meant to be a corpse) occurs for Drew in one of the outtakes.
      • Similarly, one sketch of "Three-headed Opera Star", in which each "head" sings one word, had Drew belt out "And take me on a- Oh, sorry, one word at a time." He was never able to regain his composure.
    • The two most common corpsing events involve Colin going off on tangents during the "Greatest Hits" as a spokesman with Ryan (Leading to such gems as the "Tapioca" outburst and "We're watching animal porn!" bit) and during the Irish Drinking Song skit where Colin was always the one to finish the song with a rhyme and does it in such a way that everyone else loses it, leaving him as the sole person literally standing.
    • Colin gets another one during Greatest Hits when Ryan asks him what bird says the name of their next band (meaning an owl, which says "who"). Colin's guess? Just watch. Everyone else on stage loses it for about a minute.
    • Ryan: (breaking into hysterical laughter) Stop it with the cat!
    • Ryan actually manages to break both Wayne Brady and Drew in an Irish Drinking song, though Colin's "Meow" broke him too.
      • Really, most Irish Drinking Songs end with most of the cast laughing—a direct consequence of Colin having the last line.
    • A round of Party Quirks ended up with Ryan accidentally breaking the neon light around Drew's desk with his head while playing Carol Channing (whose head keeps getting stuck to things). He stayed in character while asking if his head was bleeding and even managed to make Colin corpse.
    • In one game of Weird Newscasters, Colin cracked Drew by saying "This just in: Beverly Hills, 90210, Cleveland Browns 3."
    • One round of Sound FX obliterates Drew, leaving him in a fit of wheezing hysterics.
      Drew: Oh my GOD, that was the funniest thing... That quacking elephant was the funniest thing. Oh, man.
    • Ryan also had to turn around and hide his face several times during the infamous "The Cat" round of Improbable Mission.
    • Tony Slattery manages to get himself in the British version during a round of Hoe Down when the final line of his verse was set to be excessively risque even for him.
    • An Irish Drinking Song ended so poorly, even Consummate Professional pianist Laura Hall was audibly corpsing in the background, smashing random keys instead of her well-practiced ballad.
    • In one game of "Greatest Hits", Wayne Brady and Chip Esten were singing a song in the style of The Police, when both managed to mimic Sting's signature "Eeee-yoooh!" at the exact same time, which cracked them up.
  • On one episode of Would I Lie to You?, David Mitchell had to claim he could no longer drink orange squash because it sent him "berserk". It took him four attempts to be able to even read the statement out straight-faced.

Talk Shows

Reality Competitions

  • On Project Runway, the usually stoic Michael Kors memorably lost it during one runway show when a model did a super sexy pose at the end of her walk. Everyone else on set proceeds to crack up as well. This also happens frequently when a designer's look is being critiqued, with cuts to the other designers trying desperately to hold back church giggles.
  • On The X Factor, if the audition is mind-bendingly horrible, you can start to see the judges beginning to crack and lose their composure. Part of the reason that Cheryl became so popular on the show was that during her first series as a judge, she absolutely could not keep a straight face and broke into giggling fits. She's gotten better at maintaining her composure, but she remains the one judge who was most likely to crack first.
    • In Series 11's Halloween show, one contestant, Andrea Faustini, painted himself gold and wore devil horns for the performance. Simon Cowell himself couldn't even find words to critique the performance because he was absolutely destroyed by laughing.

News and Sports

  • Happened on Anderson Cooper 360 during a "Ridiculist" segment talking about Gerard Depardieu peeing on a plane (as in peeing on the floor in the aisle of the plane). Anderson Cooper starts laughing uncontrollably after reading the many many puns. (In the subsequent episode, he puts himself on the Ridiculist for cracking up, then notes that he made it to pun 16 (out of 21) before he lost it.)
    • He did it again during a report on Dyngus Day. He held it together pretty well through all the mentions of Dyngus Day, but it seems like mentioning the use of Pussy Willow branches that set him off.
    • Colbert attempted to out-do him by reading off a list of celebrity name poop puns with a completely straight face. He made it all the way through the list. Then broke into laughter.
    • Wolf Blitzer lampshaded this one time while sitting in for Anderson. The Ridiculist for that episode referenced a friendly rivalry between the two anchors. Wolf said that one skill he had and Anderson lacked was an ability to say anything with a straight face. He then showed a Montage of Anderson corpsing. Then to illustrate his point, he rattled off a sentence consisting almost entirely of Inherently Funny Words, including the afore-mentioned Pussy Willows, as well as Lake Titicaca, all with a completely straight face.
  • Former ESPN Sports Center anchor Charley Steiner was notorious for doing this on-air. His most infamous moment came when Carl Lewis' awful rendition of the Star Spangled Banner was shown on SportsCenter. After the clip was finished, the camera cut to Steiner, who looked as if he was ready to explode with laughter and struggled to even speak. (His co-anchor, to be fair, was losing it as well.)
  • At one point, during a Red Sox game airing on NESN, they went to a crowd shot as they were coming back from a mid-inning break. At one point, during the shot, one of the men reaches over and grabs the breast of the woman next to him. Jerry Remy and Don Orsillo immediately go quiet as the camera cuts back to play. Eventually, Orsillo, who's the play by play announcer, has to say what's going on, and cracks up halfway through the phrase "Called strike one". They then lean on the cough button more until Orsillo says, gasping for air, "This used to be a family show".
    • Steve Levy underwent a slow breakdown after mentioning a football player with a bulging disc in his neck (only, at first, he didn't say the word "disc", but something else), then struggling through the rest of the injury report. The co-anchor at the time, Keith Olbermann, later stated that Levy was actually the calmest person in the room; everyone else (Keith himself included) were completely losing it. Keith, by his own admission, wasn't any help; he set Steve off further by mentioning that first player's injury again.
    • The duo that hosts the Brazilian Sportscenter has many moments losing it, mostly whenever an Unfortunate Name or badly thought phrase appears. And it's always Contagious Laughter. (in an interview - where, with reason, their intro music was "Make Them Laugh" - they added the corpsing is not helped by the cameramen doing silly stuff and laughing).
  • Speaking about Brazilian newscasters, even the usually serious Lilian Witte Fibe had her moment: one of the news she annouced was about an 81-year-old lady who was arrested at Miami International Airport along her 56-year-old boyfriend, caught with 10,000 ecstasy pills. When Lilian said the lady's boyfriend alleged that he thought the pills were Viagra, she cracked up laughing. In a bit of Self-Deprecation, a few years later she saw the clip again during an interview.
  • This Russian news anchor loses it while covering a story about a marijuana bust in Canada.
    • "What the hell was a pig doing there??"

Other

  • Quite often during the presenter interludes on CBBC (BBC children's television) this is often because of mistakes made by other presenters or puppeteers, or unrehearsed lines, especially the puppeteer of 'Hacker. T. Dog' as seen in one of the funniest links made in CBBC history.
  • Terry Wogan and his successor Graham Norton allowed themselves opportunities to have a good laugh at the many zany contestants in the Eurovision Song Contest. One notable example was Wogan needing a few minutes to pull himself together after Guildo Horn's infamous performance for Germany in 1998.
    • For an in-act example, Jorgen Olsen of the Olsen Brothers let a giggle slip while performing Danish winner "Fly on the Wings of Love" and was still snickering a bit into the second verse.
    • If a presenter is caught off-guard by a particularly wacky spokesperson during the voting, laughter is all but inevitable. Both Maria Menounos and Sakis Rouvas laughed quite a good deal during the voting presentation in 2006 (Rouvas notably keeping it together but playing along when Dutch spokesperson Paul de Leeuw starts flirting with him), and the Azerbaijani hosts clearly were stifling laughter when Mr. Lordi showed up to announce Finland's votes in 2012. It happened outright again when Óli Ágústsson (in character in his role from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga) demanded the Dutch hosts in 2021 play "Ja Ja Ding Dong," and 1993's Irish presenter Fionnuala Sweeney allowed a laugh at her own expense when she misheard the Dutch votes and announced that they had given Ireland 12 points (they had only given them ten, which the spokesperson was quick to correct her on and earned a laugh from the audience - she wasn't so partisan after all!).
  • This clip from a Belgian sketch show is all about corpsing. A talk show host is interviewing people who have had operations go wrong, including a woman in a wheelchair and a man who had his tonsillectomy botched. Unfortunately, the procedure affected his vocal cords, giving him an extremely high-pitched voice. The host desperately attempts to keep it together as the man tells his sad story, only to repeatedly break down in laughter whenever he talks. The high-voiced man is offended, but whenever he tries to complain, the host only laughs more. Finally, a man from the audience decides to speak up in protest...it turns out that a botched operation gave him a deep, gravelly voice. Cue the host completely losing all composure and shaking with laughter.
  • Dagmar Berghoff had joked beforehand "should I say 'WC' instead of 'WTC tournament'?" Oops.
  • In the late '70s, Atlanta TV station WATL had a kid's show called Officer Don and Orvil (the latter being a puppet dragon) and often Orvil (Terry Kelley) would crack something that would cause Officer Don (Don Kennedy) to corpse or just burst out laughing. This goes back to their days on The Popeye Club, which aired on WSB there in the '60s.
  • When Brent Spiner made his recurring guest appearances on Night Court, the camera operators would often cut John Larroquette out of the shot because he couldn't stop cracking up. In this video, you can see him physically turn his head away to avoid scuttling the take when Spiner delivers a really ridiculous punchline.
  • Challenge Anneka once featured an episode when they were renovating a church. Whilst phoning up a hardware store to see if they were willing to donate materials needed, Anneka was asking for, as she referred to it, PLY wood, unaware that it was simply plywood they needed. She then apologised, saying that she wasn't au fait with technical terms. The next item on the list? Nails. She was so convulsed in laughter - she was literally crying with laughter - about this incongruity that she was unable to continue the conversation and one of her assistants had to terminate the call. She even noted the hilarity of it by saying "I'm not exactly familiar with these technical terms. What's next? Oh, nails." This set her off again. When phoning up the store later, she got another giggle fit after remembering the last call ended with nails.

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