Corpsing / Radio

• The hosts of The Mark & Brian Program made it a point not to pre-record their sketches precisely because they understood the entertainment value of their frequently corpsing as they performed live on the air.
• Getting Jack Benny to corpse was easy. In one instance, it may have resulted in one of the contenders for "longest audience laugh" on the show (the other one being the legendary "Your money or your life?" "I'm thinking it over!" exchange). Don Wilson early on in the episode in question flubbed the name of famed newscaster Drew Pearson, calling him "Dreer Pooson". Later, during an unrelated murder-mystery sketch, Frank J. Nelson (otherwise known as the "yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees?" guy) ad-libbed during the following exchange:
  Benny: Are you the doorman?
  Nelson: Who do you think I am — Dreer Pooson? [Benny collapsed in a heap laughing, falling off the stage in hysterics]
  • Later in the same episode, Mary botches a line ("Carlton Quince was quilled...I mean, killed!"), cracking up and causing Benny to yell "One lousy rehearsal, that's all I ask!"
• Tom and Ray burst into laughter many, many times in every single episode of Car Talk.
• The News Quiz has a tradition of getting Radio 4 newsreaders to sit in and read out newspaper cuttings sent in by listeners, which regularly leads to this, the best and most frequent example being Charlotte Green. This will often be far funnier than the actual cutting in question, as there is something inherently funny about hearing one of the most precise, measured voices on radio breaking into fits of uncontrollable giggling. This would often cause Green to start laughing all over again leading to 5 minutes plus (on a 30-minute show) just of Charlotte laughing.
  • If we are to speak of Charlotte Green corpsing, this must be heard. Someone on her talkback compared the sound they were playing to "a bee in a jar", which set her off. The next story was an obituary notice.
• Famous radio announcer Gary Owens memorably lost it completely when reading this ad, upon realizing that the warm and sincere holiday wishes he was delivering were sponsored by Preparation H.
• A famous example came about between commentators Jonathan Agnew and Brian Johnston on Test Match Special. England's Ian Botham had been given out Hit Wicket after he lost his balance and his desperate attempt to leap over the stumps instead of stumbling into them failed. This led to the accidental Double Entendre that Botham (known for his sexual exploits) "couldn't quite get his leg over". Cue a minute of helpless giggling from both of them, with Johnston, occasionally managing to gasp "Aggers, for goodness' sake, stop it". Legend has it that this incident resulted in a two-mile traffic jam as thousands of commuters listening on their radios were forced to pull over from laughing so hard.
• On BBC News, the newsreader once made an unfortunate Spoonerism when introducing Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary. This, unfortunately, left him in an inconvenient position to discuss the rest of the news items that followed as he couldn't get a sentence out and tried to pass it off as a 'coughing fit' unconvincingly.
• On The Goon Show, the entire cast was apt to break into giggles, with Harry Secombe being particularly audible.
• Common in clips heard in Pardon My Blooper^note A collection containing some broadcast clips and some re-enactments — and the re-enactments might be exaggerated or straight-up Urban Legends, whether the announcer flubbed a line, realized That Came Out Wrong, or just got the giggles.
• This poor German newsreader. All you need to know is that he's laughing about the name of a man called "Helmut Poppen" ("poppen" is German slang for having sex).
• This Brazilian singer, while being asked to perform a rock song she's clearly unfamiliar with - clear by the fact one of the last lines makes her laugh.
• In Hancock's Half Hour, made in the 1950s, many episodes have moments when cast members laugh, primarily Kenneth Williams or Bill Kerr, but the most noticeable is in the episode "Wild Man of the Woods" where the whole cast break at a flubbed line.
• On The Ricky Gervais Show, Stephen Merchant was reading an excerpt from Karl Pilkington's Diary about when Karl got a piece of junk mail addressed to a "Mr. K Dilkington". It's not shown in the animated version, but in the original podcast, Stephen spends nearly two minutes beforehand trying to compose himself to actually say the word "Dilkington" because he was laughing so hard.
  • Steve again struggles to get through an excerpt of Karl's diary in which he describes the first thing he said to his girlfriend one morning.
• I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue has a Running Gag where the "Sound Charades" round is introduced by comparing it to Give Us a Clue, and making an Innocent Innuendo about that show's regular Lionel Blair. On one occasion, the joke in question^note paraphrased, "the rules prevented him from using his mouth to finish off Two Gentlemen of Verona" caused Sandi Toksvig to corpse. This also caused the audience to fall apart even further, resulting in an entire minute of uninterrupted laughter being broadcast.
• The Unbelievable Truth:
  • In series 24, episode 4, David Mitchell asks Holly Walsh what kind of shoes she's wearing at the moment (Sara Pascoe was talking about how high heels used to be exclusively for men). Holly starts having a giggling breakdown, saying it's like something from "a weird Radio 4 sex line".
  • At the end of series 25, episode 1, David accidentally refers to Frankie Boyle as "Spanky", causing everyone (Frankie included) to start laughing. That, and joking about it.

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