Annoying Laugh

"Bad laughs: the great deal-breaker."

"I do realize that when I laugh, it sounds like a seal is being molested."

— Jimmy Carr, The Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2009

Laughter, of course, is one of the best known and most treasured ways that human beings express happiness. In addition to laughing when they find something funny, people laugh when they find something joyous, or heartwarming, or even stimulating. In general, a person enjoys hearing another person laugh. Unless, of course, that other person has a laugh that, rather than sounding joyous, sounds painful or cringe-inducingly awful.

The Annoying Laugh usually comes in several specific flavors (the Asthma Attack bellow, the high Hyena-like cackle, the Snort-Snort-Snort, the Machine Gun Chuckle, and the Donkey-like Bray being the most common). In some cases, the Annoying Laugh is used in place of actually fleshing out a character, since the type of annoying laugh can lead the audience to assuming the character basically is just as annoying as his or her laugh happens to be. In some cases, a character will have an Annoying Laugh because the script calls for it, but sometimes its because the actor playing the role laughs like that for real.

The supertrope of the Noblewoman's Laugh. Almost always Played for Laughs. Compare Un Evil Laugh. Sometimes part of an Overly-Long Gag. The Annoying Laugh is very common in animation and sitcoms. Subtrope of Signature Laugh.

Please don't use this trope to complain about laughs you don't like.

---

In-Universe or Word of God-backed Intended Audience Reaction examples only:

Anime & Manga

• In Code Geass: Tales of an Alternate Shogunate, Matthew Perry has a laugh that Lelouch compares to the buzzing of a mosquito.
• The villain Nazalloff from Lupin III: The Columbus Files has a laugh, several characters note this and Lupin even mocks his laugh at one point.
• In My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, Yukino and Yui find Hikigaya's laugh unpleasant.
• The Italian dub of One Piece is one big Lampshade Hanging of how the unusual different kinds of laughter (case in point: Hogback), while somewhat acceptable in a manga, actually end up working awfully when animated. On the other hand, there are exceptions such as Brook's Italian VA, who did a perfect job at that.
• Kodachi in Ranma ½. Her shrill, maniacal cackle that is one of her trademarks. It's not a coincidence that Kodachi shares Naga's voice actress. Mocked often in Ranma ½: The Abridged Chronicles.
• Esmeraude from Sailor Moon. It is so painful, the characters actually cover their ears on hearing it.
• In Sgt. Frog, the other characters find Kululu's "Ku-ku-ku!" laugh annoying. Every time he laughs, the others know he's causing mischief.
• Umineko: When They Cry:
  • "Kihihihihihihihi..." One wonders why Rosa gets upset about the "uuuuu~"s when Maria insists on laughing like that.
  • Even Beatrice does this, as her butler Ronove points out.
• Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!: Hana's high-pitched cackle is one of the (many) things that gets on Shinichi's nerves, and considering how much she loves making fun of him, it happens on a regular basis. More than once he has retaliated physically to shut her up (one time he grabs her by the nose, and another he throws her out of the cafe he works at).

Comic Strips

• Life in Hell: In a segment on love, there are a couple of reference to one's spouse's hyena-like laugh.
• A Pearls Before Swine comic had Rat go out on a date with a girl who laughed this way when he told her a joke. He responds with the line, "Bad laughs, the great deal-breaker."

Fan Works

• Anger Management: Luan and Lynn are often described as laughing in an "obnoxious" way, as is Flip once.
• The Marionette tries to listen to his musicbox: Balloon Boy laughs to the tune of "My Grandfather's Clock", resulting in him making several clipped-sounding "HA!" noises in rapid succession. The already-irritated Marionette finds it annoying enough to lob a nuclear warhead at the kid after only hearing it for a few seconds.
• In Origin Story, Alex Harris's laugh is described as a combination of a howl and a honk. One character described her laugh as sounding "for all the world like a seal being tortured."
• In The Fifth House before Amelia fell in love with Sirius, she believed that his laugh sounded like a cross between a hyena and a constipated bear.
• Sailor Moon Abridged: Raye. "Where did you fly off to Darien? The moon? HA. HA. GET IT? I MADE A FUNNY KIDS."

Films — Animated

• The Lion King (1994) has a Terrible Trio of hyenas who tend to laugh this way. Specially Ed, who downright only "speaks" by laughing. Ed in particular angers Banzai with his laughter at one point, prompting Banzai to attack him when he doesn't stop.
• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa has Melman saying that one of the things he loves about Gloria is that she has a beautiful laugh. When she does laugh later on... it's mainly high giggling and snorting, but Melman still loves the laugh. Alex and Marty don't comment on it much other than Marty declaring "Love has no boundaries!"
• Princess Ting-Ting in Mulan II has a snorting laugh which she hates, so she does her level best to avoid laughing for most of the film. However when she finally does crack up and laugh, Ling (her love interest) finds it cute.

Films — Live-Action

• Dwight Frye's Renfield's laugh in the original English film version of Dracula, which was copied by Arte Johnson when he played the role in the spoof Love at First Bite. Peter Mac Nicol likewise imitates the laugh when he plays Renfield in Dracula: Dead and Loving It.
• Amadeus has Mozart delivering a shrill, obnoxious, hyena-like cackle (which as the Real Life folder below shows, is historically accurate!).
• In Fight Club, Tyler tells the Narrator when they first meet: "You have a sick desperation in your laugh."
• One of the murder victims in Hot Fuzz had one. In a subversion of convoluted murder mystery plots, it turns out that this mundane annoyance was actually the reason that she was killed.
• '30s and '40s movie comedian Hugh Herbert had a constant "Hoo-hoo!" laugh as part of his onscreen schtick. This was later borrowed by Daffy Duck.
• Mary Poppins has a whole song about annoying laughs. With some bad jokes thrown in for good measure!
• A date gets interrupted in Muriel's Wedding by two men who seem to think Muriel is hurt and choking.
• In Revenge of the Nerds, both Lewis Skolnick and Gilbert Lowell had annoying laughs, as did Lewis' father.
• Star Wars: Salacious B. Crumb, the Kowakian monkey-lizard from Return of the Jedi, has one of the most obnoxious laughs of all time. Nobody complained about him dying in the explosion of the sail barge. It gets Lampshaded in the canon comics series, when Darth Vader meets with Jabba the Hutt.

  Vader: If you value that creature's life, you should tell it to never again do that in my presence.

• Gracie Hart from Miss Congeniality has a laugh that extends into snorting. She tries to tone it down after getting called out on it.
• In Draw!, all-round Jerkass Reggie Bell—the son of the most powerful man in Bell City—has an annoying high-pitched laugh that he lets out any time he thinks he is getting one over on someone. The disgusted looks on the faces on those around him every time he laughs show that everyone in town is sick of it, but too scared to call him on it.

Literature

• Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels have a few:
  • Carcer from Night Watch. Used as one of quite a few indicators that the man is a complete psychopath. It's described as being the sort of laugh of someone who thinks what they're doing is just so funny, and the people who are horrified by what he's done are awful for not getting it.
  • Mr. Clete from Soul Music. Hat. Hat. Hat.
  • A minor variant (and only mentioned perhaps twice) is Strappi's laugh from Monstrous Regiment, which is described as "a harsh gargling at the back of the throat."
• Harry Potter :
  • Dolores Umbridge has a high tittering laugh...which hides her sadistic nature.
• Honor Harrington is convinced she has one of these, and goes out of her way to avoid showing any sign of having a sense of humour in response. She apparently inherited it from her mother, who has a similar opinion of her own.
• Mariel of Redwall introduces the Honourable Rosemary, whose laugh is loud and long enough to deafen everyone in hearing range. It's also said to be able to curdle cream from thirty paces away.
• Naga the Serpent from Slayers, whose epic Noblewoman's Laugh can be classified as a deadly weapon in 37 states. It also sends old women scrambling to the nearest shrine, begging whichever deity that happens to be nearby to "please make it stop".

Live-Action TV

• ALF. Alf is Playing Cyrano, but finds the boy isn't interested in the girl after finding she has an annoying laugh.
  Alf: So you're not going to take her out to the movies any more?
  Boy: I will... just not to anything funny.
• Blackadder's niece in Blackadder's Christmas Carol has a piercing, rapid, loud hyena-like giggle. Once Blackadder gets word that his niece's arrival is imminent, he immediately puts on a pair of earmuffs to protect himself from the cacophony.
• Sylvia from Dear John; her ex-husband even informed her of this.
• Doctor Who: In "Robot of Sherwood", Robin Hood's boisterous laughter really gets on the Doctor's nerves.
  Robin Hood: Robin Hood laughs in the face of all! Ha-ha-ha!
  The Doctor: And do people ever punch you in the face when you do that?
  Robin Hood: Not as yet, no.
  The Doctor: Lucky I'm here, then, isn't it?
• Drake & Josh: One episode had Drake break up with a girl because of her laugh. This caused problems for him when it turned out she was the daughter of his nemesis teacher.
• One of the guests on Malcolm McDowell's Fantasy Island had a fantasy about hooking up with his childhood crush, who he remembers as having a wonderful laugh. Maybe it was selective memory, but when his fantasy comes true it turns out she has a kind of glass-breaking rattle.
• Arthur Atkinson of The Fast Show' has an annoying voice and "personality" at the best of times, but his laugh could kill small animals.
• Fawlty Towers: Sibyl Fawlty. A combination of the Machine-Gun Chuckle with a Donkey Bray finish. According to her husband, it sounds like "somebody machine-gunning a seal".
  Sybil: A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-EUUUUH!!
• Friends:
  • One of Janice's annoying quirks is her laugh. Chandler cites it as one of things he finds irritating about her.
  • Chandler's work laugh is very annoying and he explains it was invented for survival reasons. He warns Monica she will need to invent one as well to survive his work colleagues. She does.
• In Full House episode "The Producer", Danny quits Wake Up San Francisco out of jealousy towards Becky's promotion to Producer, and the replacement she hires, Phil Blankman, has an extremely irritating laugh, for which the entire family agrees, even Becky herself.
• The Good Place: All of the demons have annoying laughs. They also find annoying things funny, find the act of annoying people funny, and of course will brutally torture anyone they get their hands on. They combine Evil Is Petty with dead-serious eternal damnation.
• In the French puppet show Les Guignols de l'Info, the puppet representing Canal+ producer and comedian Dominique Farrugia lets out laughs that sound like sea lion barkings... and they actually attract such animals on set on occasion.
• Hercules: The Legendary Journeys has the character Strife and, later, his twin brother Deimos, who are both infamous among the other characters for their hyena-like laugh:
  Hercules: Deimos... I'd know that laugh anywhere!
  Deimos: Ah-hahahaha!
  Hercules: That was not a compliment!
• On an episode of House when Cuddy is trying to get pregnant, House brings one of the sperm donors she's considering in for an interview. The man had a very annoying laugh which came out when he was nervous. This was one of House's arguments for why he shouldn't be considered as the father.
• Live Forever As You Are Now with Alan Resnick: Teddy, being a digital character, has a robotic, stilted, "HA. HA. HA." laugh that makes even Alan seem uncomfortable.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: Phantom of Krankor from the experiment "Prince of Space". While his drawn-out "Heeeeeeeh heeeeeeeeeh heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh" never draws any comment from characters in the original movie, it earns him much derision from the SOL crew. Bill Corbett (who portrayed Krankor in host segments on that episode and a couple others) resurrected the laugh to use for the Ice Cream Bunny (and anything even remotely resembling the Ice Cream Bunny) on various RiffTrax releases.
• Fran Fine from The Nanny has a nasal, snorty laugh that is very divisive with the the other characters.
• Melanie Pearson from Neighbours, whose laugh has been compared to "a seal having a hernia", not helped by her tendency to overreact to Henry's lame quips.
• Boycie from Only Fools and Horses has the machine gun rattle down to a fine art.
• Our Miss Brooks:
  • Mrs. Davis' sister Angela has a high pitched laugh, like a schoolgirl. The annoyance comes from the fact that she's a short, middle-aged woman. It's especially notable in the episode "Angela's Wedding".
  • Walter Denton has a high, discordant laugh to go along with his squeaky teenage voice. In "Mr. Leblanc Needs $50" his girlfriend Harriet Conklin walks up to him while he's laughing:
    Harriet: How long have you been standing there, cackling to yourself?
• Seinfeld: One episode has Jerry dating a woman with an annoying laugh, and he can't bear to tell her. It's compared to "Elmer Fudd sitting on a juicer."
• Kitty from That '70s Show has her own laugh, which is not the actual laugh of actress Debra Jo Rupp.
• Chrissy on Three's Company was a snorter.
  Janet: Well, at least I know how to laugh. Ahahahahaha! What do you do? SNORT! SNORT! SNORT! SNORT! SNORT! SNORT!...
• Travelers had a notorious example in Robin Kipp. It actually proved useful at a haunted house site, when she dressed up as a phantom.
• A Wings episode has Helen dating a man with a laugh like a braying hyena. It becomes so annoying that Helen eventually decides to break up with him because of it, but before she can do so, he dumps her because he cannot stand her Southern accent.

Music

• Eminem has a Signature Laugh that he uses as an adlib on many of his songs. In the outro to "Jimmy Crack Corn", he and 50 Cent tease each other about it:
  Eminem: Ha-ha. Ha-ha. Yeah! It's The Re-Up!
  50: 'Ha-ha'.
  Eminem: God, I love it. You know you hate that laugh, don't you? Ha-ha. Ha-ha. Keep doin' it.
  50: Do it again.
  Eminem: What?
  50: The laugh.
  Eminem: Oh. Ha-ha. Ha-ha.
  50: I like that!
  Eminem: Ha-ha. Ha-ha. Ha-ha. Ha-ha.
  50: (chuckles)
  Eminem: ...You don't think they're gonna think we're really crazy, right?

Puppet Shows

• Les Guignols de l'Info: The puppet for Dominique Farrugia, humorist and former president of Canal+. His laugh sounds like a sea lion barking (and once attracted said animals).

Radio

• During his tenure on The Howard Stern Show, the various laughs of Jackie "The Joke Man" Martling, were a fairly big part of the show — ranging from a low dirty giggle to a big expressive "Whoop!"
• Sherlock Holmes, in the BBC Radio adaptations starring Clive Merrison. Watson complains about it a few times.

Theatre

• In Oklahoma!, the protagonist Curly dates a girl named Gertie to make heroine Laurey jealous. Gertie must be played by an actress who can affect an obnoxious laugh. An example of a particularly ear-splitting performance can be seen here. That's Gertie cuddling Curly and laughing uproariously at the beginning of the video, while Laurey looks on from the porch in disgust and irritation.
• A Very Potter Musical: This page needs to start doing things... THE UMBRIDGE WAY! A DERDERDERDERDERDER. The extended version when s/he tries to keep Harry from going to Hogsmeade is even more annoying.

Video Games

• Heidegger from Final Fantasy VII has a "gya-ha-ha" laugh that irritates the other heads of Shinra to no end. Rufus Shira calls it a "stupid horse laugh" and snaps at Heidegger to stop it whenever he starts.
• Final Fantasy X has a scene where Tidus and Yuna start messing around by doing deliberately horrible fake laughing off a balcony.
• Moe the clown from case 3 of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All. "Aha! Aha! Aha! Aha!" You actually get penalized if you set off his laughter during the cross-examination, because the Judge is that annoyed by it.
• In Katawa Shoujo, Misha's trademark "Wa ha ha~!" laugh grates on Hisao's nerves after a while.
• Team Fortress 2:
  • Given the nature of the game and the character, it's almost certain that the Scout's self-satisfied laughter is designed to annoy the people he kills.
• In killer7, your enemies are the dreaded Heaven Smiles who blow up on contact and laugh constantly. Each different Smile has a different laugh, a good number of which are extremely annoying. (Especially the Bombhead Smiles)
• Laharl's attempt at an Evil Laugh in the Disgaea series can be this, especially to Etna.
• A knight's laugh in The Last Story is used to show how pompous and corrupt he is, especially during the attack on Gurak civilians.
• Benedict the rocket wielding hawk man from Battleborn has a really annoying laugh. When laughing too hard, it'll sometimes go over into clucking. Amusingly enough, it seems to annoy himself the most.
• Polar Knight of Shovel Knight is described as having a laugh like "water torture" in the Shovel Knight art book. However, he is never seen laughing in-game.

Web Videos

• The Annoying Orange's laugh is considered by others to be really shrill.
• Gronkh tends to imitate one of these in Oh, Crap! moments.

Western Animation

• Professor Calamitous' daughter Beautiful Gorgeous in The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius. To go along with it, she also makes faces that go very against her namesake whenever she does.
  Sheen: That laugh could get annoying.
• Lemongrab of Adventure Time. An utterly unnatural, unhappy shout of "HA HA HA!" The mentally disturbed failed science experiment's voice is high-pitched, loud, and nasally ANYWAY, but when he laughs, he sounds absolutely deranged. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH- OH! HAHAHAHHAHAHAOHHAOAHAOAHAOH..."
• Scratch from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog: Being a robotic rooster, his laugh was intentionally made to sound like a rooster crow.
  "We've got you now, hedgehog! Ba-HA ha-HAAA!!"
• Naturally, Beavis And Butthead's famous "Huh huh huh huh", uttered whenever something could be taken as a dirty joke, whenever they're aroused, or most commonly to end statements with. Would they really be Beavis and Butthead without it?
• Looney Tunes:
  • The earliest version of Bugs Bunny was merely irritating with a laugh very similar to Woody's. At a theater screening, when a dog finally hauled off and socked him, it was loudly cheered.
  • The gremlin from Falling Hare laughs the first notes of "Yankee Doodle".
  • Pete Puma from Rabbit's Kin has an extraordinary one (along with a really distinctive Simpleton Voice).
• Di Lung from Courage the Cowardly Dog, whose laugh has a much more exaggerated Chinese accent than his speaking accent.
• In the Brazilian dub of Cow and Chicken, Cow gains one that the voice actress said is meant to resemble a skidding car.
• Family Guy.
  • Peter has a high-pitched, immature giggle for his laugh. It matches his personality as a dimwitted Manchild who acts nothing like his age. He's voiced by Seth McFarlane, who can use many different voices, so given Peter's personality and the fact that Seth specifically chose this high pitched, immature giggle for him.
  • Peter notes that a ride is going to get rougher than dating a hot girl with a bad laugh, as shown in this Cutaway Gag.
  • One episode had Stewie Griffin having an annoying laugh that he used each time a joke came up in a sitcom.
• An episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes revealed that Heloise had cursed a man to never laugh because she thought his laugh was annoying.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: The otherwise smooth and charismatic Flim Flam Brothers of the episode "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" celebrate their villainous victory with a gratingly nasal and monotonous cackle. It doesn't help that this is right after they've kicked the dog. Not a good way to start your business.
  • Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon have this too, especially when they are laughing at the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
• The Pink Panther has the Jerkass horse as an antagonist to the Panther in several shorts. Every time the Panther gets hurt or otherwise is frustrated, the horse lets out a literal horse laugh.
• Popeye has the machine gun chuckle. You're hearing it in your head right now as you listen to this, aren't you?
  "Aak akakakakaka"
• This is a plot point in the Sanjay and Craig episode "Laugh Quake". Each of the title characters thinks the other has an annoying laugh, so they try to remedy it by going to a comedy club, where they are eventually kicked out. Later, both get crapped on by a bird, trying (and ultimately failing) to hold in their laughter, which eventually starts a chain reaction.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • SpongeBob has a combination High Nasal Twitter and Hyena-like Cackle. This gets lampshaded a lot: episodes like "Funny Pants" have Squidward getting annoyed by it, and in "Larry's Gym", Larry tells SpongeBob, "the way you laugh really gets on my nerves!" In "Wallhalla", there's even a man who was driven insane by having to hear SpongeBob's laugh constantly (since he lives inside his walls).
• The Simpsons:
  • Nelson's "HAAA-HA!" is deliberately annoying on his part, as it's always used mockingly.
  • Krusty the Clown's goofy "A-Hoo-He-He-He-He!"
• Mandy from Totally Spies!. Mandy has a really annoying laugh. It sounds like a goat's bleating. In the episode "Futureshock", where she's becoming the world's number one celebrity twenty years in the future, all of her admirers adopt the same laugh. In "Super Nerd Much", Clover gets the "snorting pig" laugh after being nerdified as part of her nerdy-ness.
• Jack Spicer from Xiaolin Showdown. He's a Card-Carrying Villain constantly trying to perfect his Evil Laugh, but in this instance tries too hard.
• Woody Woodpecker:
  • Woody's distinct laugh, which is meant to sound like a woodpecker tapping on wood.
  • Parodied in Tex Avery's Screwy Squirrel cartoons, which contain a woodpecker with a laugh reminiscent of a woodpecker screaming through a duck lure.
  • Screwy himself sometimes had a high pitched "ah-yuk-yuk-yuk" laugh.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers: As part of his pig motif, Hoggish Greedly has the stereotypical "pig snort" laugh. His son Junior also has it.

Real Life

• Mozart's laughter, according to historical accounts from his friends, did indeed sound like "the braying of a jackass" mixed with breaking windows and "grating a cobblestone down a piano's string."
• Every character Fran Drescher has ever played has a donkey-like nasal bray of a laugh... because the actress herself really laughs like that. When she made an appearance on Celebrity Deathmatch, it was compared to the Loch Ness Monster's mating call.
  Roger Ebert: Fran Drescher is a taste I have not acquired, but I concede that one could acquire it. It would help if she made a silent film.
• Jimmy Carr compares his laugh to "a seal being molested".
  Rob Brydon: Ditch it, and ditch it now.
• The French channel Canal+ caricatured its then-president Dominique Farrugia's laugh as sounding like a sea-lion.
• Craig Ferguson, when he first started hosting The Late Late Show, was told by his producer that his laugh made him "sound like a psychopath", a fault he openly acknowledged.
• Comedienne Sarah Silverman has a variety of these. Andy Samberg calls her out on it, then everyone tries to follow her with their own annoying laughs.
• According to her husband (Freddie Prinze Jr.), Sarah Michelle Gellar laughs "like a hyena suffering through an epileptic fit." According to him, he finds it endearing that she has the one "unforgiveable flaw".
• Jim Carrey once joked during an appearance on Letterman that success had introduced him to the way that wealthy people laugh.
• Jemma Redgrave has a laugh that can be most accurately compared to a honking goose. It's actually quite endearing.
  Catherine Russell: Jemma's laugh is renowned throughout the industry.... I mean, you can hear it all around the building. It's.... just the greatest laugh. Ever.

---