If something is played for laughs, it means it is being used with the intention to be comedic. It is often a parody of the instances where said device or trope is used seriously. Sometimes involves Lampshade Hanging on a particular trope.
Contrast Played for Drama and Played for Horror; sometimes, the only difference between one trope and another is that one is played for laughs, while the other is played for drama. Often overlaps with Blatantly Self-Defeating.
Can sometimes result in it becoming Harsher in Hindsight down the line. And of course, can result more immediately in Dude, Not Funny!. Also, compare Black Comedy. Not to be confused with Parodied Trope (when that trope isn't played straight).
Examples:
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- Ignore the Fanservice is played for humor in an Arby's Roast Beef commercial. A group of construction workers are oblivious to the many pretty women who walk by but start hooting and hollering when a guy walks by carrying an Arby's bag.
- Ballroom Blitz is turned humorous in a Super Bowl Special ad celebrating 100 years
of the National Football League. It starts with a stodgy, dignified celebration with tuxedo-wearing players listening to the commissioner's speech while a huge cake, topped with a golden football, is wheeled in. The cake comes just out of reach of Marshawn Lynch, a (now retired) running back known for his Sweet Tooth. Lynch makes a grab for the cake, causing the football to tumble to the floor. This sets off a Pavlovian reaction among the current and former players who immediately make a dive for it. A crazed and very messy pick up game of football follows with Shout Outs to everything from Tom Brady's collection of Super Bowl rings to Peyton Manning's tendency for injuries to an improbable catch known as the "Immaculate reception." Meanwhile, the three old men from the 1972 Dolphins (the only undefeated team in Super Bowl history) are sipping champagne and laughing at the show.
Anime & Manga
- Most of the middle of Ep. 4 in Umineko: When They Cry is Beatrice having fun making the story play out as much as a cheesy kids' action anime as possible. 11th-Hour Superpower, Out-of-Character Moment, Interface Screw, you name it. After everyone stops acting it becomes obvious in hindsight.
- We have uncontrolled lechery, fathers beating their daughters, bipolar childhood friends with murderous grudges, a pyromaniac baby, a mother who wishes her son was never born, wanton property destruction, and alien invasions. This is Urusei Yatsura, and all of the above is hilarious.
- Maria no Danzai does this with Nightmare Face with the birth of Kiritaka. When he saw how exhausted Mari was he tried to tell his son he should sleep now (which of course is impossible to tell to a newborn), Kiritaka continues to cry even more when he saw the scary face of his father.
- Try Ranma ½'s Aquatransexual with a mother who thinks he should be manly or face the sword, way too many Fiancées, rivals who practice all kinds of ridiculous martial arts, a Dirty Old Man Fair-Weather Mentor who will stop at nothing to get him into a bra, and all sorts of other random stuff happening in his neighborhood.
- Despite occasional Mood Whiplash, Hetalia: Axis Powers is this for world history.
- In Mazinger Z, Kouji's sexism and the fights between him and Sayaka nearly always are played for laughs.
- In general, Harem shows such as Love Hina, Infinite Stratos, and Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts utilize this trope anytime a female character is shown beating on a male character.
- Angel Beats! plays Death Is Cheap entirely for laughs. All sorts of hideous types of death elected at best a response of "See ya later." and so do many Amusing Injuries. It's also surprisingly non-sexist about it, though it does keep most of the female "deaths" relatively non-violent or off-screen, compared to the males.
- I See Dead People is played for comedy in Re-Kan!. Hibiki can see ghosts, and talks to them regularly. But to most of the other characters, she seems to be speaking to thin air.
- Daily Lives of High School Boys: Yassan's Leitmotif is played for humor, as the piece often plays for a few seconds before getting interrupted by some funny event.
- Food Wars!: Comfort Food is used for a joke in the "Karaage" arc. The inhabitants of the shopping district show up en masse to the newly reopened Yukihira to drown their money troubles in Soma's cooking. When Soma asks Yuuya how he can justify dining out when he has money problems, Yuuya asks for seconds.
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi: His Name Is... is played for laughs when mind-controlled Negi is about to say who he likes most, but Yue and Nodoka stun everyone and drag him away.
- Battle Discretion Shot is used for humorous effect in Excel♡Saga when Excel is killing the creator of the original manga, Koshi Rikdo, random shots of flowers and butterflies are seen in place of the supposedly gory action.
Comic Books
- Offing the Offspring is played for Black Comedy during the Bizarro World arc of All-Star Superman. Bizarro asks about the absence of Bizarro Batman after he summons the Unjustice League and Bizarro Green Lantern explains that Bizarro Batman was shot by his own parents.
- Dr. Blink: Superhero Shrink
- Dr. Blink is honestly trying to do good with his work with superheroes and villains, but as this is a parody, the results are sometimes unfortunate and end up a case of Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!. In one instance, he successfully cures The Quizzler of his obsessive-compulsive habit of giving his opponents clues about his plans, making him into a much more effective master criminal.
- Samaritan Syndrome is used for comedy in issue #0. A therapy session with Superman Expy Captain Omnipotent ends with the realization that the Captain is a perfectionist overachiever because of his Survivor Guilt, striving for the approval of his dead parents. A jubilant Captain Omnipotent frees himself from his heroic obsession ... causing him to ignore a half-dozen crimes and disasters occurring around him while spouting psychobabble.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy is played for laughs when an eight-foot-tall blue-skinned HULK MASH!-Up has an emotional breakdown in Dr. Blink's office after tearfully admitting "MY DADDY DIDN'T LOVE ME!"
- Great Lakes Avengers: Digital Piracy Is Evil is part of a joke in the intro of GLA: Misassembled #2, where Squirrel Girl warns readers not to do anything Mr. Immortal does in this issue, "especially on page seven. That's where he downloads stuff off the Internet for free."
- Training from Hell is played for humor in Volume 2 of Scott Pilgrim. Before Scott goes to fight Lucas Lee, he studies up on his moves by watching his movies, and Wallace orders him to do push-ups on the floor, all while Wallace himself sits in an armchair playing video games.
- A Pregnancy Test Plot is used for Toilet Humor in The Fat Slags in Viz. Sandra takes a pregnancy test and pees on the stick while she's still in the aisle at the chemists'. She makes a huge puddle of urine on the floor and says "Aw, fuck it Tray, it's gone all ower me knickers!"
- X-Men:
- Once Killed a Man with a Noodle Implement is played for laughs in Professor Xavier and the X-Men #5, with a pair of random mercenaries' dialogue before the X-Men show up.
Mercenary A: I hate this! I'm a trained mercenary! I know 64 ways to kill a guy with a spoon and I'm stuck guarding an electric generator.
Mercenary B: D'you mean you can kill a guy who has a spoon — or that you can kill a guy with your own personal spoon?
[Three pages later, after Iceman has dropped a huge slab of ice on them...]
Mercenary A: Must... reach... spoon.- An Easily Thwarted Alien Invasion is played for humor in a storyline in which an alien invasion is thwarted by three X-Men. The ground assault is derailed since the soldiers are introduced to the wonders of beer and gambling, and the entire fleet is wiped out by a drunken Havok.
Comic Strips
- Calvin and Hobbes
- Alternate Personality Punishment is played for humor in one arc where Calvin time-travels two hours into the future in order to pick up his completed homework from his future self at 8:30. Naturally, 8:30 doesn't have it because he went to the future to get it two hours ago, so 6:30 and 8:30 decide it's 7:30 Calvin's fault. They both go to 7:30 to confront that time's Calvin, threatening to beat him up... but 7:30 points out that that they're all technically the same person, so beating him up will mean that 8:30 Calvin will get hurt.
- Armor Is Useless is done for comedy in a Sunday comic where Calvin is provided a bike helmet by his dad. It proves completely useless, since it relies on the assumption that Calvin is just really bad at riding his bike, instead of the fact it's an actively homicidal monster that's trying to run Calvin over.
- Humorous In-Universe examples of Artistic License – Economics happen because Calvin, as a six-year old, has no concept of how much things cost and tries to sell things for ridiculous prices.
- Once, Calvin attempted to sell ice-cold lemonade on the street for an absurdly high price (five dollars a glass, and remember, this is five dollars in 1990) and in the dead of winter. He doesn't understand why no one's bought anything and considers raising the price to ten dollars a glass so the profits will come in faster per glass.
- Another case was when he started taking selling lemonade too seriously. His price is, again, stupidly high (fifteen bucks), which he justifies by having to appease his "stockholders" (himself) and pay "employee benefits" (for himself). When Susie points out that he's not even selling lemonade, but rather a pitcher of "sludge water" with a lemon in it, his response is "I'd have to charge more if I followed health regulations" and "I have to cut expenses SOMEwhere if I want to stay competitive". Unsurprisingly, nobody buys from him.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality is played for laughs in a poetic strip. According to Calvin's perspective, since his parents don't like or value things like fried foods and TV or even running as much as he does, they must be aliens from another planet.
- Body Horror is used for humour when Calvin pours the school cafeteria's manicotti down his shirt. He then walks over to Susie, lifts his shirt (spilling the manicotti), and screaming "AAAGH MY INTESTINES ARE SPILLING OUT!" Susie screams and runs away.
- A variant of The Calls Are Coming from Inside the House is played for laughs as Calvin is taunted by an anonymous prankster who sends him insulting letters in code. Only when his mother remarks on his habit of "writing to himself" and leaving letters out for the mailman every day does Calvin put two and two together and realize the culprit is actually Hobbes.
- Cargo Cult is played for humor. Calvin is occasionally shown worshipping his television, but in a way it's clear Watterson meant it as a thinly-veiled potshot towards television.
Calvin: Oh greatest of the mass media. Thank you for elevating emotion, reducing thought, and stifling imagination. Thank you for the artificiality of quick solutions and for the insidious manipulation of human desires for commercial purposes. This bowl of lukewarm tapioca represents my brain. I offer it in humble sacrifice. Bestow thy flickering light forever.
- Calvin attempts to invoke Classified Information - as an answer to a school test question.
"Where is Plymouth Rock? I am not presently at liberty to divulge that information, as it might compromise our agents in the field." - Aliens Steal Cattle is used for a joke in The Far Side, where an angry farmer yells to his wife to fetch his shotgun, because "those dang aliens are after the chickens again!" As the quote indicates, it uses chickens instead of cattle, despite The Far Side being practically synonymous with cow-based humor.
- My Cage: Fantastic Racism is used to make a pun. Norm's neighbor thinks non-birds are inferior, making him a "flight supremacist".
- Twisted Toyfare Theatre: Major Injury Underreaction is played for humor in a one-panel comic depicting action figures of Cloud and Vincent from Final Fantasy VII pulling the arms off a Sephiroth figure. Sephiroth's response is simply "Y'know, once this sensory overload isn't overwhelming my capacity to feel pain, I'm gonna be screaming like a girl."
Fan Works
- In The Curse of the DualShock, most examples of Breaking the Fourth Wall are this trope.
- In Equestria: A History Revealed, the entire concept of the fic is played for laughs, as a parody of the professionalism expected from a historical essay.
- Most of the Lemony Narrator's logic and pride are played for laughs. However, as the story continues, it seems as though even certain elements of Equestrian history are naturally funny as well, and as such, invoke this trope too.
- Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfic Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità: Germany and Japan hysterically bowing and begging for forgiveness after repeatedly tugging and yanking on Italy's curl is this.
- The MLP Loops plays more than one Superpowered Evil Side for humor. In canon, Luna went Drunk on the Dark Side, rebelled against her sister Celestia, and was banished to the moon for a thousand years. Whenever a Looper ascends to alicorn for the first time, soon after there will be a "sisters loop" where the new alicorn takes the place of Luna, with Twilight taking the place of Celestia. No matter how hard they try, the first time they experience such a loop the new alicorn will go Drunk with Power and have to be banished to the moon. Of course, this being Equestria, a lot of these dark sides are more than a little silly. Examples include "Hard Truth" (Applejack becomes obsessed with the entire country growing apples), "Danger Dash" (Rainbow Dash performs more and more pranks), "Party Pink" (Pinkie Pie won't stop throwing parties), "Flying Hatred" (Fluttershy suffers dangerous mood swings due to a curse), and "The Fashionista" (Rarity invades griffin lands in an attempt to open up more markets for her dresses).
Twilight: Congratulations on joining the alicorn club, it helps if you've thought of your evil self beforehand.
- The remastered version of The Night Unfurls has a Faux Action Girl played for humor. When first introduced, the Princess Knight of Feoh, Alicia Arcturus, is described as a celebrated figure who looks like the ideal, noble knight in every way. Except that the protagonist Kyril is not impressed in the slightest, internally remarking how "it wouldn't take much to knock her off her horse". His observation proves to be spot on when Alicia and her two subordinates accompany Kyril to clear out an orc den. She proves her "might" as a knight by stabbing her sword into a greenskin's gut... and getting her blade stuck. To make things worse, it turns out that Alicia performs worse than her own two subordinates (i.e., minor characters), a fact the narration points out as if to subtly mock her underperformance.
"Lady Alicia are you hurt!?" Kendra approached Alicia already reaching for the healing supplies on her belt. Vera watched their rear, head on a swivel as she held her bloody sword. They had made a good accounting of themselves having slain two orcs each. Kyril had slain the rest, while Alicia only got one.
Films — Animation
- The Addams Family (2019) plays an Unnervingly Heartwarming moment for comedy. After Wednesday interrupts her little brother Pugsley from attempting to shoot a crossbow bolt at something, citing that he should be practicing for his upcoming Addams family Mazurka ritual and insists that she wants to help him with as much. Pugsley is surprised and asks her why she wants to help him. She then proceeds, as the camera very slowly zooms in on Wednesday, suspenseful music plays, and Wednesday herself allows a humorously unnerving wide-eyed and raised eyebrow sporting look to come on her face, to respond with, "Because you are my brother. And...I love...you."
- Copiously Credited Creator is invoked as part of the Credits Gag in Bambi Meets Godzilla, where Marv Newland is credited for writing, screenplay, choreography, Bambi's wardrobe, and producing. For good measure, Mr. & Mrs. Newland get credit for "producing" Marv Newland. The credits take up over half of the (extremely short) running time.
- Despicable Me 1: Kick the Dog is played for humor with Gru's first scene, partly because of how petty the acts are. At the beginning, he comforts a child who has dropped an ice-cream cone by giving him a balloon animal. Gru then produces a pin and pops said balloon, and walks off contentedly. Cut to a shocked child with bits of balloon stuck to his face. Yes, he's despicable. His jerkness is further established in the car he drives, an ugly polluting rocket shaped monstrosity; in the fact that he bumps other cars out of the way to park, and when he goes in to the cafe to get a coffee he freezes all the other customers (not just the ones waiting in line, but even some of them sitting at the tables) and with his freeze ray and goes to the front of the line to get his coffee (which probably was meant for someone else). At least he tips well.
- Fantastic Mr. Fox uses an Infodump for humor with the Whack-Bat scene. Upon learning that Kristofferson doesn't exactly know how to play, the otter coach rather rapidly explains the intricacies of Whack-Bat. The following round actually follows the rules he explained, and Kris gets it perfect on his first try.
- Hercules (1997): The film mostly makes fun of the mythology.
- Unreliable Voiceover is played for humor in Meet the Robinsons. When Bowler Hat Guy is ranting to a captured Lewis about why he has a grudge against him, he says several things that flatly contradicts what is seen on the screen. For instance, he claims that everybody at school hated him after we see a couple of kids being friendly to him and inviting him to hang out, and that he and the evil robotic hat Doris retreated to their "villainous lair" to make their Evil Plan - while the actual footage shows them going to an adorable kiddy restaurant.
- Pooh's Grand Adventure: No Sense of Direction is played for laughs. After Pooh's trusted with the map deciphered by Owl, he attempts to give directions but because he is illiterate he has the group running in a panicked circle. Rabbit gets fed up with Pooh's lack of direction and assumes the role of The Leader when he takes the map himself. Fortunately, Rabbit can read the map much better than the others.
- Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo: What Raven and Beast Boy are doing reflects a type of comedy that Japan has called Manzai, where there is a serious straight and an irreverent idiot (Boke and Tsukkomi Routine), only it's in an American parody and mockery of the original Japanese Manzai.
- Turning Red plays Informed Attractiveness for laughs. Devon seems incredibly ordinary, even burnt out and scruffy, but Mei's friends are obsessed with his supposed "hotness". Mei herself doesn't get what her friends see in him, until she finds herself fantasizing about him as well. Priya more or less admits that the reason they like him is because he's there, while legendary hotties like 4*Town are much harder to come by.
Films — Live-Action
- Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide is attempted and played for comedy. Swami Talpur tries hypnotizing Freddie into offing himself... but Freddie has no intention of following through, and simply interprets his directions in such a way that don't hurt him, as Talpur grows more and more frustrated at his Too Dumb to Fool victim.
- Perp Sweating is played for laughs, as Freddie falls to his knees and begs for mercy the second Wellman barks "okay, Phillips..." at him.
Freddie: Please, please, Inspector, I didn't do it! Don't hit me! Don't hit me, don't twist my arm! Don't twist my arm! I'm INNOCENT, I tell ya, I'm INNOCENT; don't hit me onna head with a rubber hose! DON'T HIT ME ONNA HEAD WITH A RUBBER HOSE! PLEASE DON'T! OH, NO..!
Casey: Wait a minute! Shaddap!
Freddie: What?
Casey: The man didn't touch you with his little finger!
Freddie: ...What kinda third-degree is this?
Wellman: I don't GIVE third-degrees.
Freddie: Stingy. - Back to the Future 1 features a teenage boy meeting his young mother through Time Travel and her rather forwardly coming on to him, which it plays mostly for laughs. Thankfully, she sees him more like a brother before things go too far.
- Bad Black has Character Shilling played for humor. During Ssali's introduction scene, VJ Emmie insists that his actor is "America's Van Damme".
- The Ballad of Buster Scruggs does this with Language of Love. In "The Mortal Remains," the Trapper explains that he married a native woman, and though they were together many years, neither learned the other's language. He claims they had a happy marriage, communicated well enough through Body Language, and had several children. The implicit joke is that this is the only way anyone could tolerate him for so long — the Trapper is an Old Windbag who has nothing interesting to say but never shuts up.
- Better Off Dead plays Competition Coupon Madness for laughs, where Lane's younger brother cuts the coupons out of every box in the house, before using up the contents, leading to a Running Gag of characters pulling boxes out of the kitchen cupboards only for everything to spill out. Among the prizes he wins are a fully functional Ray Gun, a book on how to pick up "trashy women", and a construction kit for an actual working space shuttle, which he uses to fly off into space at the end of the movie.
- Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey: Orifice Invasion is treated jokingly when Bill and Ted's ghosts try possessing two men. They squeeze in through the ears.
"I totally possessed my dad!"
- Cannibal! The Musical
- R-Rated Opening is played for laughs as the ultra-violent and gory opening sequence comes immediately after a Content Warning that claimed all the violence had been edited out.
- Happens with Karma Houdini. While he didn't directly murder his companions, Packer avoids punishment for causing the whole horrible situation (through his incompetence and creepy obsession with his horse) thanks to a legal technicality and rides off into the sunset. This is almost certainly a parody of Oklahoma!, where the protagonist literally gets away with murder because his victim was an asshole. Note that in Real Life, while the same technicality did save Packer from the death sentence. he still did 40 years in prison.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story is Invoked for humor. The film is true to the very broad strokes of the real events, but compresses and twists them around in a deliberately absurd manner.
- Carry On Screaming! does this with Affably Evil. A lot of the humour comes from the fact that Dr. Watt and Valeria are two cheerful, friendly, and charismatic individuals who mastermind a plot to turn women into dressmaker's dummies and gleefully discuss their plans for murdering Sergeant Bung and Albert Potter.
- Casino Royale (1967) plays its "Everybody Dies" Ending for laughs, by immediately following it with a Fluffy Cloud Heaven Ending.
- Don't Look Up manages to do this to the Cosmic Horror Story by using it for Black Comedy satire. When Kate and Dr. Mindy Go Mad from the Revelation of the comet that's going to destroy Earth, the former's descent into madness is presented in the form of her having a meltdown on national TV that goes viral, while the latter's comes in the form of him abandoning his family and diving into a Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll lifestyle as a public intellectual because, knowing that he and everyone else is gonna die, he figures he may as well enjoy what's left of his life. What's more, the rest of humanity mostly doesn't go similarly mad up until the last few moments when it's too late to stop it (at which point Apocalypse Anarchy ensues), because they're already living in a World Gone Mad.
- The most famous example is probably Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and how it plays The End of the World as We Know It as a farcical Black Comedy.
- The Empire Strikes Back. Han and Chewie's attempts to repair the Falcon provide some comedy in an otherwise very serious movie. They may be great pilots, but they are mediocre mechanics at best. This includes an onscreen D.I.Y. Disaster where Han tells Chewie to power up a system that Han just repaired, and it proceeds to blow up in Han's face, causing him to frantically shout for Chewie to turn it off.
- Four Lions, a farcical black comedy about five Muslim suicide bombers and their ultimately successful quest to blow themselves and other people up in the most pointless ways possible.
- Giving Someone the Pointer Finger is used for humor in Ghostbusters (1984) — while Walter Peck is angrily giving Egon his pointer finger and yelling at him, the possessed Louis is mindlessly mimicking the gesture.
- Hisss plays a Balloon Belly for Black Humor. After Nagini Swallowed Whole one of her attempted rapists, we see her lounging contentedly in her would-be assailant's bed as she sleeps off her meal halfway between forms (scaly belly, a snake's tail for one leg), lying in bed with her hand sprawled after a huge, pregnant-looking gut.
- A very humorous example of Easily Thwarted Alien Invasion happens in Mars Attacks!. The enemies are going to exterminate all of humanity for shits and giggles, they have ray guns, Humongous Mecha, technology that allows them to shrug off nuclear weapon attacks... and they are fatally vulnerable to yodeling.
- A Big Red Button is played for humor in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie. The Humongous Mecha has a Big Red Button behind a pane of glass that must be broken, with a sign that says "For Emergency Use Only." Turns out it causes the mecha to knee an opponent in the groin.
- Character Shilling gets played for comedy in Mystery Men when it comes to The Sphinx. Other characters speak of him in hushed and reverent tones when describing him to a skeptical Mr. Furious, lauding him as wise and awe-inspiring and mysterious... and oh, by the way, he can cut guns in half with his mind. When he arrives on the scene, it turns out that he is all these things, but Mr. Furious remains staunchly unimpressed.
- Pain & Gain (2013) is a film about one of the grisliest crime sprees in the history of the city of Miami. You wouldn't expect such a film to be a comedy until you realize that the main characters' incompetence at crime is what drives the film's plot.
- Palm Springs:
- My God, What Have I Done? is played for humor when Sarah confronts Abe and bluntly tells him they are both terrible people for the affair. This causes him to have an emotional breakdown that he's a cheating piece of shit just like his father but Sarah, who at this point is completely tired of the loop, just shrugs it off and walks off midway through his wallowing.
- The Straight and Arrow Path is played for laughs when Nyles and Sarah play out the "There's a bomb in the wedding cake!" scenario — Nyles' expert means of defusing the bomb involves attaching it to a crossbow bolt and shooting it into the air so it explodes harmlessly overhead.
- To Be or Not to Be features Jack Benny and Carole Lombard in her last film. It's a comedy about Hitler's invasion of Poland.
- Weapons (2025)
- Apathetic Citizens becomes darkly humorous when the 17 children go essentially feral and chase Gladys all over town. The townsfolk only barely react to the strange, panicking elderly woman running through their homes, only reacting to the explosions of breaking windows from the aforementioned children. As a culmination of this effect, a man mowing his lawn sees the event in the distance, and at most finds it a bit confusing rather than alarming.
- Catapult Nightmare is played for Black Comedy, as after his surreal Dream Sequence, Archer bolts up in his son's bed and yells "What the FUCK?!"
- A few Noodle Incidents get played for comedy:
- The cop inspecting the graffiti on Justine's car talks about his own mischievous youth and recalls, "A buddy of mine smeared some of his own-" before the scene cuts away.
- As Justine copes with depression by watching a cheesy dating show, we hear the bachelorette earnestly telling a candidate, "We got off to a rocky start with everything that happened in the Jacuzzi..."
- Without a Paddle uses a Disturbing Deer for humor. As the main characters paddle their boat down a river, they briefly pass by a doe... which immediately growls at them.
Light Novels
- The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor: Alternative Character Interpretation happens In-Universe and is regularly a source of humor. Weed's close friends are regularly shown figuring out among each other just how the latest altruistic action everyone is praising Weed for is clearly actually a plot to trick the masses out of money, loot, or free work.
Literature
- Beware of Chicken is a light-hearted, comedic Deconstruction of Wuxia and Xianxia novels, Isekai Power Fantasies, and Slow Life Fantasies. What if someone transported into a fantastic world with incredible powers decided they'd rather not get involved, and instead tried to find the most remote, isolated place possible to start a farm? And what if the farm animals start treating things as seriously as the normal protagonists of this kind of story?
- Bunnicula: Silly Animal Sound is played for humor in the conclusion of Return to Howliday Inn, where Harold the dog and Chester the cat, who've both learned ventriloquism, use their newfound abilities to astound their family by making it look like Harold's meowing and Chester's barking.
- Cleanup Crew is used for Black Comedy in Dora Wilk short story "Clean Job After Dirty Job". The werewolf alpha kills a wannabe-leader when the latter tries to assassinate him and he has to clean up the mess before his wife shows up. The cleanup crew turns out to be Cool Old Lady called Grandma, and she leaves the place in better state than it was before the attack.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- The first book plays Automation Outlasts Civilization for laughs. Magrathea, its once fabulously wealthy civilization dead and gone for five million years, is nonetheless still protected by "an ancient automatic defense system" which proceeds to launch a salvo of guided missiles at the Heart of Gold (including the "courtesy detail" of "fully armed nuclear warheads"). Slaartibartfast figures it does so mainly because it gets bored.
- Jetlag Travel Guides: Interfaith Smoothie is played for humor in Phaic Tăn, where a blend of the major South and East Asian religion is referred to as "Confusionism".
- The Martian: You Are in Command Now is played for gallows humor by astronaut Mark Watney in the first chapter when he realizes he's stranded on Mars alone.
Actually, I was the very lowest-ranked member of the crew. I would only be "in command" of the mission if I were the only remaining person.
What do you know? I'm in command. - Serge Storms: His Name Is... gets played for humor in Cadillac Beach. Serge keeps visiting his grandfather’s old buddies for information on a missing diary and they keep getting shot (non-fatally) right as they start to point him in the right direction. Eventually, Serge tackles Mort the Undertaker to the ground as they reach the revelatory point in their conversation due to being Improperly Paranoid someone is lurking nearby to shoot Mort right at that point.
- An Unreliable Voiceover is used comically in Tricky Business. The news station is trying to make out the storm hitting Miami as the Big One, but fail miserably, like when the reporter is telling the camera that people should stay out of the water as two dude jog up behind her, wave at the camera, and then go for a swim. The storm did cause a few deaths, however... but they were all from the news station.
Live-Action TV
- The Nerf Arm trope is conversed and used for humor in an episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun. Tommy and Harry are watching what's apparently a typical overblown martial arts action movie, and Tommy complains that it's totally unrealistic that the protagonist could take out twenty guys without getting injured. Harry replies that the protagonist has the advantage: "They're only armed with machine guns. He's got the broken pool cue."
- The Addams Family plays a Nightmarish Nursery for humor with Wednesday and Pugsley's play room, which features torture racks, guillotines, an electric chair, and other gruesome decorations. This being the Addamses, this is all seen as quite normal and the children have great fun with their macabre toys. Other people visiting the house not so much...
- Naked Nutter is played for dark laughs in the American Horror Story: Hotel episode "Room 33": John Lowe is found drunk and visibly cracking up in the face of all the gaslighting that's been heaped on him so far, but demands to be left alone when Liz Taylor tries to help him, insisting that "this is my breakdown, and I'm gonna have it!" Minutes later, he's seduced into a threesome with the ghosts of Agnetha and Vendela, resulting him in being splashed with blood mid-coitus. He flees the scene in a panic without bothering to put his clothes back on, arriving back at the front desk completely naked and covered in blood. Without missing a beat, Liz remarks "Looks like that breakdown's going well..."
- Angie Tribeca, as a parody of police procedurals, lives on this trope.
- I Have Many Names is played for laughs in Becker with a patient who, with his red suit and goatee, looks alarmingly like the Devil:
Margaret: And your name is...?
Devilish-Looking Man: I'm known by many names... Jim, James, Jimbo. - A Bit of Fry and Laurie
- Privately Owned Society is used for comedy in the sketch "The Privatization of the Police Force". They won't do anything about your stolen car unless you purchase a plan.
- Disappeared Dad is played for laughs in one sketch. The duo play two very dense, inept detectives who break into the wrong house looking for a man. After confronting the woman who lives there they demand to see her husband, but she's not married. It transpires the only male there is her infant son (played by Hugh Laurie's real son). They are comically unable to grasp the idea that you can have a child without a husband, while the woman explains the father was "a sailor", and apparently is not around.
- Blackadder, particularly Blackadder Goes Forth, likewise (except in the finale).
- Community:
- The Black Widow trope gets played for comedy. During the absurdly serious paintball game in "Modern Warfare," Jeff and Britta have sex. She immediately turns on him (though they get interrupted before she can "kill" him) so that she can win the game. She insists that she didn't sleep with him to kill him, she slept with him, and now, unrelated, she is going to kill him. He notes that it's suspicious how skilled she is at putting on her panties with one hand while holding a gun in the other.
- His Name Is... is played for humor where Magnitude (whose catch phrase is "Pop Pop!") dives on a paint bomb and tries to utter his catch phrase one more time. Ridiculous not only because he was not dying or even injured, just eliminated from the paintball game, but also because Troy couldn't figure out what he meant.
Magnitude: Pop... ["dies"]
Troy: Pop what, Magnitude? WHAT IS HE TRYING TO SAY?? - The Fairly OddParents!: Fairly Odder: Be Careful What You Wish For is used for a joke. In the trailer, after Cosmo & Wanda grant Viv's wish that her dad would "stop ballroom dancing all the time," he does indeed stop... right in the middle of a dance, leading his partner to fall face-first onto the floor.
- An "I Know What We Can Do" Cut is played for comedy in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. When asked, Bucky describes to Sam how Zemo would hypothetically escape the German prison. We see the "hypothetical" play out. Then Zemo walks into the garage with them.
- Full House: Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap! is played for laughs in one of the earlier episodes, where Michelle comes into Jesse's room early in the morning and wakes him up to tell him Danny's mother was coming that day. Still half asleep, Jesse tells Michelle to let him go back to sleep when he suddenly wonders how she got into his room.
Jesse: Yes, Grandma comes today. Thanks for the bulletin. Now go back in your crib and go to slee-[now wide awake] Who let you out of your crib?
Michelle: I let me out.
Jesse: You mean you climbed over the bars and got down on the floor all by yourself?
Michelle: You got it, Dude.
Jesse: JAIL BREAK! - Game of Thrones: A Freudian Threat is treated humorously when Shagga warns Tyrion that Shagga will cut off his manhood if he betrays the hill tribes. Tyrion is familiar enough with the threat to interrupt him and complete the phrase "...and feed it to the goats, yes".
- Get Smart: His Name Is... gets played for comedy in "Aboard the Orient Express." Agent Ernst is stabbed in the back while talking to Max. Max asks him the identity of his killer, and he responds painfully slowly "Don't think I'll live long enough to say... pity!", and dies.
- The Golden Girls
- Comedic versions of Elder Employee has Sophia taking a few jobs in the food-service industry, first as a server at a pirate-themed seafood restaurant and then an Old West-themed fast food joint where she and two elderly girlfriends confront their Mean Boss for being insensitive to their schedules, who happens to be the one friend's teenaged grandson.
- Exact Words are played for humor in "Big Daddy." As Rose prepares to go onto the lanai to relax, Sophia suggests that she pull some of the weeds that have grown up:
Dororthy: Ma, yesterday you said you were gonna pull the weeds!
Sophia: I said' "I'd get it done," and it's getting done! - Foreign Culture Fetish is played for laughs in "Sick and Tired," in which Sophia proceeds, in front of Dorothy's Chinese-American doctor, to list off all the reasons why she loves the Chinese, much to Dorothy's exasperation.
Sophia: You're a genius. All your people are. The Chinese invented pasta, you know. We Italians take credit for it, but we just added oregano.- Trauma Button has been played for humor with Sophia.
- When Rose and Blanche are rehearsing their roles as nuns in The Sound of Music, Rose says, "The Nazis are coming! The Nazis are coming!" and Sophia bursts through the door in a panic telling everyone to grab a gun and hide in the basement.
- When Rose buys a doorbell alarm that sounds like dogs barking. Sophia runs out saying, "The dogs are on my tail again, through the river, run through the river." When she's told it's just a sound effect to scare off burglars, Sophia says "It'll never work."
- The Goodies. Giving Someone the Pointer Finger is played for laughs in "Kitten Kong". The Goodies are tracking Twinkles the giant kitten, and realise they're close when a crowd of screaming people run past, with one of them pausing to fearfully point in the direction of the approaching monster. Then a pack of dogs go racing past in a similar matter, with the last one also stopping to point with its paw.
- A Season 1 episode of How I Met Your Mother which detailed Barney's Start of Darkness. All played for laughs, ending with an Ignored Epiphany for the cherry on top.
- Stop, or I Shoot Myself! is played for humor in the French series Kaamelott. One episode has an overprotective bodyguard assigned to King Arthur's side 24/7, so Arthur tries to get him off his back by holding a dagger to his own throat. The plan fails, as it only causes the bodyguard to freak out.
- Knight Squad: Loving a Shadow gets comedic treatment with Warwick's crush on the Princess of Astoria. Much of the humor of that particular Running Gag comes from the fact that his squadmate Ciara is said princess in disguise, and her reactions to his proclamations of being the princess's future boyfriend. When the truth comes out, Warwick is bewildered by his own feelings, as he knows and respects Ciara as a friend and fellow knight, but the princess remains an object of his distant and unrequited affections. Ciara switching from her knight armor to her princess dress right in from of him causes him to start trying to turn on the charm, prompting raised eyebrows from everyone else.
Warwick: I might not be over the princess...
- Ambiguous Syntax is used for a joke in an episode of The Mentalist. Rigsby, whose girlfriend is pregnant with his child at the time, ends up in an elevator with a crying baby.
Van Pelt: That'll be you soon.
Rigsby: No, no. I can cry much louder than that. - Wrong Line of Work is done for humor by Bob Fossil in Season 1 of The Mighty Boosh. He acts as Zoo Manager of the Zooniverse despite having extreme Cloud Cuckoolander tendencies and knowing nothing about any of the animals, to the point that he often forgets their names and has to resort to Buffy Speak phrases when describing them, such as calling the elephant "the grey leg-faced man, who has legs and another leg on his face."
- Gosh Dang It to Heck! is played for humor in Modern Family, where the principal of Lily’s kindergarten has apparently so internalised not using bad language in front of kids that he uses substitute words even around adults.
What the fudge were you thinking? Now the boy’s parents are coming and trust me, they’re as mad as Hello Kitty!
- Feel No Pain is played for laughs in NewsRadio. Jimmy tells Dave to be more thick-skinned, and demonstrates how thick his skin is by holding his hand over an open flame.
Jimmy: Wanna know how I can do this?
Dave: Wild guess, thick skin?
Jimmy: Metaphysically, yes; technically, you do it fifteen, sixteen times, it kills all the nerve endings in your hand. - Night Court:
- Dying Declaration of Hate is played for hilarious effect in Season 5's "Fire", when a man casts his vote for Dan in the State Assembly Race (making the race a tie and calling for a runoff election), then commits suicide.
Harry: (reading) "I can't stand living in this crummy city another day, so as a final gesture of my contempt for New York, I'm voting to put that scummy worm Dan Fielding..."
[Shot of Dan listening to this with a pursed-lipped, less-than-amused expression.]
Harry: "...into office. Fielding and New York deserve each other. Goodbye, and good riddance."
Phil: (sniffles) What a tribute!- Eerie Flickering Light is used for humor in one episode. After a man claiming to be from Saturn shorts out the power plugging in a device he built and is hauled off to a mental hospital, there is a radio announcement that the power failure was defying explanation by Con Edison officials, with the announcer jokingly suggesting a UFO. Harry scoffs, but then the lights in his office begin flickering off and on, and Harry leaves nervously, only for the door to close and reveal Bull hiding behind it messing with the light switch to prank Harry.
- Expecting Someone Taller is used as snark in "Baby Talk", when two sisters are arguing about the disposition of their late father's remains:
Lorna Huebner: Your Honor, my father's dying words were, "No matter what, don't make me go with Arlene."
Arlene Huebner: Why, you lying...!
Harry: Whoa, whoa, whoa! "Dying words"? Is Dad dead?
Dan: As a kipper on a cracker!
[shocked looks]
Dan: (hangs his head) I'm sorry to say.
Harry: Well, the way you were just talking about him, I got the impression that he was, you know, here.
Bull: He is, Your Honor. (places a small urn on the bench) This is Mr. Huebner.
Harry: Gee, he's a lot shorter than I expected.- Hangover Sensitivity leads to a joke in "From Snoop to Nuts". Christine passes out after downing one cocktail while eavesdropping on Harry in a bar. Later she is wearing dark sunglasses and winces at the slightest sound, including hanging up a telephone.
Tim: Halt! No one enters the courtroom without being frisked!
Christine: (whispering) For your information, I happen to have an incredible hangover. So I'd really appreciate your not... (grabs Tim's boutonniere microphone) SCREAMING IN MY EAR!
(Tim, and all the other government agents stagger, clutching their earwigs in pain)- Renegade Splinter Faction is played for laughs in "The Mugger":
Mac: They said they might be able to get a hostage negotiator out here in... two hours.
Harry: Two hours?!
Mac: They said all their people are tied up right now.
Harry: Tied up with what?
Mac: Rope. They're being held hostage by a militant splinter faction of Up With People.
Harry: [shakes head] It was only a matter of time...- Right Hand Versus Left Hand is played to hilarious effect in the "The New Judge". A substitute judge filling in for Harry propositions Dan Fielding for a bribe, and Dan goes to the FBI. Hilarity ensues, until eventually the bribe is consummated, and two groups of FBI men charge in. The first group grabs Dan and throws him to the ground, then the second group charges in:
Ernie: Bert?
Bert: Ernie?
Ernie: What are you doing here?
Bert: What are you doing here?
Harry: What are all these people doing here?
Ernie: It's a bribery sting! We're arresting Fielding, we had the judge wired!
Bert: We're arresting the judge, we had Fielding wired!
Ernie: You mean...?
Bert: Oh, for crying out loud! Ain't that the craziest thing? - Only Fools and Horses
- Delusions of Eloquence is used for jokes a lot. Del Boy uses French words and phrases, and sometimes long English words, in an effort to sound sophisticated, knowledgeable and/or upper-class. He fails. Other characters also do this from time to time, principally Boycie.
- Who's Your Daddy? is played for humor with Marlene and Boycie's baby son Tyler, on account of Marlene's prior reputation ("all the lads remember Marlene") and Boycie's apparent low sperm count.
Tony Driscoll: So Marlene's up the spout?Boycie: Yeah.Danny Driscoll: Dear dear dear. Well you let us know the moment you find out who did it, and we'll sort him out! - Oz uses a Death Bed Confession for Black Comedy when Shirley Bellinger tells Warden Glynn that the guard leading her off to be executed has been "coming into my cell every night and fucking me."
- Be Careful What You Wish For is played for laughs in the Saved by the Bell: The New Class episode "A Matter of Trust". Lindsay eagerly enters herself and her boyfriend Tommy, who's far less enthused, in a competition where the winners get to be in a hot-air balloon ride. Lindsay and Tommy end up the winners of the competition despite Tommy's best attempts at sabotaging himself and Lindsay's chance. The episode ends with them in said balloon ride... which Tommy enjoys whereas Lindsay doesn't.
Tommy: Hey, this is fun!
Lindsay: [weakly] I don't feel so good, Tommy... - Forgetful Jones from Sesame Street is played purely for comedic value (and has a trope named for him). He hasn't been seen in new episodes that much since the 90s, likely because of research about Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease (and some of those kids being taken care of by grandparents with those afflictions) coming in. The death of his puppeteer, Richard Hunt, in 1992 probably also factored into his disappearance.
- Time Dissonance is played for humor in a Soap story arc in which Burt is abducted by aliens and meets a fellow captive: Saul (the Biblical King). When Burt says that he was told by the aliens that they wouldn't hold him for long, Saul (played by Jack Guilford) sets him straight:
Saul: Listen, these people, they have no concept of time. They'll say to you "wait a moment," and three, four hundred years go by, VOOM!
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Character Shilling is played for humor with Morn. The rest of the cast constantly talks up how funny, talented, talkative, charming, handsome, etc., he is, none of which the audience ever gets to see, because he is always shown as a silent drinker in Quark's bar.
- There's a money religion played for laughs An alien race named the Ferengi practically worship money. The Ferengi afterlife version of heaven is called the Divine Treasury; their version of hell is the "Vault of Eternal Destitution." A "Blessed Exchequer" overseas their afterlife, reviews each soul's profit and loss statements and accepts a bribe which allows deceased Ferengi to bid for a new life from the Celestial Auctioneers.
- Ignoring by Singing is played for humor in an episode of True Blood. One of the main characters is a psychic, and one of her friends wanted to keep a secret from her. When the psychic tunes into her friend's thoughts, all we hear is "LALALALALALALALALALALALALALA".
- Much of the humor in Victorious comes from jokes that imply mental instability, death, parental abandonment, etc.
- The Wire:
- Spy Speak is played for laughs early in season 3, when McNulty, Kima, and Lester find out about Drac, a nephew of Proposition Joe's and the talkingest motherfucker ever heard on a wiretap. As proof, Lester plays back a tape where Drac tries to speak in code but eventually loses patience and shouts, "Cocaine, nigga!"
- Spy Speak as a joke comes up again when the police pick up Cheese having a conversation about a "dawg" he killed and felt regretful about killing. They have him brought in and interrogated. Bunk and McNulty are under the impression that Cheese is confessing to killing a person named "Dawg". It's not until Cheese tells them where the body is, "unless the SPCA comes around", that they realize he was just talking about putting his dog out of its misery in a dogfight.
- Spy Speak is played for laughs early in season 3, when McNulty, Kima, and Lester find out about Drac, a nephew of Proposition Joe's and the talkingest motherfucker ever heard on a wiretap. As proof, Lester plays back a tape where Drac tries to speak in code but eventually loses patience and shouts, "Cocaine,
- Pizza Boy Special Delivery is used for banter in The X-Files episode "Empedocles". Mulder is offended when Scully answers her door expecting to see someone else. A slip-of-the-tongue remark about waiting for the pizza guy is made, and of course Mulder runs with it.
Scully: I was just about to jump in the shower, but I was waiting for the pizza man.
Mulder: You got something going on with the pizza guy I should know about?
Scully: The pizza man?
Mulder: Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but you did just say you were waiting for the pizza man to jump in the shower.
Music
- The Reba McEntire the music video for "Take it Back" plays a Kangaroo Court for humor which puts a cheating boyfriend literally on trial for suspected infidelity. Reba grills him on her suspicion, turning the jury into her back-up singers and the bailiffs into her back-up dancers, while the judge takes the bridge on a saxophone that was entered into evidence. The boyfriend is hauled off the stand to applause, and Reba power-walks out of the courtroom.
- The Ninja Sex Party's song "Welcome to my Parents' House" is a comedic take on the Basement Dweller trope. A still-at-home Danny tries to make his parents' house sound like the sickest crash pad ever to his date. (Free pizza rolls! Can you believe it?) Interestingly, in the music video, his date is only briefly surprised, then just rolls with it.
- PC Music
- Copiously Credited Creator is invoked as a joke in "Pop Cube Trailer 2" with GFOTY, with every role being credited as "GFOTY". The cast list credits her as "HERSELF: GFOTY" multiple times, as well as under "ALSO STARRING" and "WITH SPECIAL GUEST" credits.
- Danny L. Harle ramped I Have Many Names up for laughs during his 2014 Dead or Alive set, with names including Huge Danny, Danny Sunshine (which he would actually later use for the release of "Never Thought"), Dane Harle, Mal Danny, and Danny "Dick in the Pants" Harle/Charles.
- Copiously Credited Creator is invoked as a joke in "Pop Cube Trailer 2
- The Thing That Would Not Leave is played for humor in the song "Parece que me quieren echar" ("It looks like they wanna kick me out") by the Chilean group Sexual Democracia, which is from the POV of a trope enacter.
- Remix artists Zeds Dead used a sample of Juicy J saying "You say no to ratchet pussy" in the original version of their song "Ratchet". In an alternate version, subtitled "Meow Version", they use Sound-Effect Bleep for humor, replacing the offending word (in its many repetitions) with sounds of cats meowing. Interestingly, this actually leads to a bigger variation of sound throughout the song, as multiple different meowing samples are played along with the original Juicy J sample.
Podcasts
- The MurderMen of the Thrilling Adventure Hour are basically a combination of zombies and serial killers. Their attempts to MurderMan and ManMurder people are usually hysterical instead of horrifying.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys is played for humor in the season one finale of Wooden Overcoats. Rude, misanthropic Rudyard is normally the least popular man in town... until he's falsely convicted of murder. Then he gets fan mail.
Roleplay
- Delivery Guy is played for laughs at DC Nation when Sue Dibny went into labor. Ralph was busy with a rogue, Mid-Nite was stuck in surgery, so little Allanah Dibny was delivered by Eel "Plastic Man" O'Brien, Hal Jordan, Martian Manhunter, and Wally West!
Plastic Man: Whoa, Sue... not the way I wanted to look up your skirt!
Tabletop Games
- Nobilis has examples of Humans Through Alien Eyes, some of which are played for comedy. The godlike Imperators having trouble understanding humans; one piece of advice for human Powers dealing with their Imperators is to sneeze, then run away while they're trying to figure it out. This remains the case in Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine. At least one character who's coded as an Imperator has sneezed and still finds the whole thing confusing.
- Paranoia has Killer Game Master as its main appeal and treats it humorously. The sourcebooks makes it crystal clear that this isn't one of those nice RPGs where the players cooperate and the GM tells them a story. In Paranoia, the GM is out to kill the players, and the players are out to kill each other. Each player is given a six-pack of clones, with more available for purchase, so that character death is a momentary inconvenience. Which it needs to be, since in Paranoia if you don't die early, often, and as absurdly and arbitrarily as possible you're doing it wrong. It's also said that a good game of Paranoia results in deaths during the mission briefings. A really good game results in multiple deaths before the briefing. No character in any given session is expected to carry over into the next session.
- Games Workshop once released a list via White Dwarf (1977) depicting the Movie Marines, or essentially allowing you to play Space Marines at fluff power levels. The fact that you could buy every Marine in the list a Stunt Double makes it pretty clear the thing was written with tongue firmly in cheek (the Movie Marines were Purposefully Overpowered, and explicitly only to be used in friendly games).
Theatre
- Little Shop of Horrors does this with man-eating Plant Aliens and sadistic dentists.
- The Mikado does this with all manner of bloodthirstiness, despite being a light romantic comedy, including, for example, a song ("The Criminal Cried as He Dropped Him Down") in which the chorus goes:
As the sabre trueCut cleanly throughHis cervical vertebraeHis vertebrae!
- I Have No Son! is played for humor in Ruddigore, when the protagonist is afflicted with an ancient curse that obliges him to commit a serious crime every day. He tries to satisfy the letter of the curse without doing anything genuinely terrible, so one of his "crimes" is to disinherit his only son... when he doesn't have a son:
Roderic: But you haven't got a son.
Robin: No — not yet. I disinherited him in advance, to save time. You see — by this arrangement — he'll be born ready disinherited.
Roderic: I see. But I don't think you can do that.
Robin: My good sir, if I can't disinherit my own unborn son, whose unborn son can I disinherit?
- Depending on your interpretation (not to mention the director's), Titus Andronicus might be played this way, with murder, genocide, rape, infidelity and cannibalism played for comedy.
- Headphones Equal Isolation is played for humor in Voices from the High School. Kevin and Jean are both listening to music on headphones while trying to have a conversation.
Video Games
- Borderlands
- In the The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned DLC for the first game, Schizo Tech is used for a joke. The Vault Hunters use dial-up to send an ECHO recording to Jakobs.
Jakobs Representative: Transmission commencing on 56K connection. Please wait. (a little while later) Transmission received. Thank you for using our state of the art interstellar science magician to send your message!- Stop, or I Shoot Myself! is played for humor in New Tales from the Borderlands. Octavio holds himself up to prevent two Tediore soldiers from shooting him… only for one of the soldiers to do the same to himself, followed by his partner. If played out, it is entirely possible that the soldiers will end up pulling the triggers.
- Brain Dead 13: Fooled by the Sound is played for laughs. Fritz is about to shoot Lance with an Arm Cannon, and Fritz looks away once his arm is aimed. Lance shouts "BOOM!" This causes Fritz to think the cannon has gone off. When Fritz sees Lance standing there unscathed, he lets out a comical scream before sticking his face into the barrel of the cannon, clearly confused. The cannon goes off in his face.
- Pretty much everything in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is played for laughs, starting with the absurdly blatant National Stereotypes and working down from there: the Soviet Bloc as violent-minded but easily duped brutes, the NATO nations as selfish jerks with more money and technology than sense, and the Japanese as resurgent imperialists obsessed with honor and advancement over practicality or usefulness. On paper, this can come off as rather insensitive or even offensive, until the game starts and a Power Armor-wearing Mr. Freeze knockoff gets into a Mexican Standoff with a Laser Blade-wielding Imperial Stormtrooper knockoff and a literal bear, all while Tim Curry, George Takei, and J. K. Simmons simultaneously compete to consume the most set dressing during cutscenes. Yes, It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context; this game is like that.
- I Owe You My Life is played for humor in The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark. At one point, McQueen is rescued by a Mysterious Stranger, who explains that he owes an enormous, life-changing debt of gratitude to McQueen's sidekick Dooley. Then we get the flashback showing the momentous occasion, and it turns out to have been an extremely minor kindness that most people would quickly forget, and which Dooley himself seems to have forgotten when McQueen asks him about it later.
- Dragon Age II:
- Isabela's attachment issues and nymphomania are played for laughs unless Hawke pursues a romance with her.
- I Have Many Names is used as part of a self-depreciating joke. The Witch of the Wilds introduces herself as also Flemeth, Asha'Bellanar, and an old hag who talks too much.
- Final Fantasy VI plays Zero-Effort Boss for laughs. In the battle aboard the Phantom Train, Ziegfried only has 100 HP and will die in one attack. The joke is that Ziegfried had been talking about how good a swordsman he is just before the fight.
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates plays Get a Hold of Yourself, Man! for laughs whenever Meeth uses her ladle or summons her pot to knock Alhanalem out of a panic.
- The relationship tester in Fire Emblem: Awakening, done by Old Hubba and available in the extras menu, comes with a warning that it is completely random, played for laughs, and should not be taken seriously, most likely to avoid massive backlash from the fanboys and fangirls when Old Hubba gives a bad fortune and sinks their favorite ship or proposes... interesting alternatives.
- Guitar Hero references Digital Piracy Is Evil for a joke. The description for the pirate (the kind that sails the high seas) themed guitar says "We all love pirates. That is, until they start sending illegal copies of your music throughout the Internet."
- Jade Empire Black Whirlwind would be utterly Ax-Crazy if he weren't so funny about it.
- HK-47 in Knights of the Old Republic being Ax-Crazy is played for humor, especially as he's open about it.
- Later Alligator: Sewer Gator is used to light-hearted effect. The entire cast of the game are fully anthropomorphic alligators, but examining a sewer grate in the downtown area reveals that there appears to be someone living in there, who waves to the player and says hello.
- The Secret World: Everybody Knew Already is played for humor in one scene, where the player is trying to find a secret vault the Illuminati were rumored to store all their occult knowledge in. Upon asking the three survivors of Innsmouth Academy where it is, Miss Usher says that, unfortunately, nobody knows where this vault is hidden... right up until Headmaster Montag and Carter start volunteering information about it, with Carter even providing exact directions to the vault, and explaining that most of the seniors knew about it too. Miss Usher's exasperated reaction is what sells it.
- Usher: Well then, there you are- the "Secret" Illuminati Archives, lost to the ages.
- Space Quest V: The Next Mutation Space Quest V: A few Teleporter Accidents are used for sight gags. At one point, Roger's head is turned into a giant eyeball and at another, he was partially melted. These were fixed immediately afterwards.
Visual Novels
- Monster Prom
- Hand Waves are paired with Rule of Funny; almost everything that seems to be impossible happens with the bare minimum of explanation besides "it happens" and "works in mysterious ways."
- Karma Houdini is played for laughs. More often than not, none of the characters suffer any major consequences for their horrible and sometimes illegal actions (up to and including murder). While they do sometimes end up suffering jailtime if the player chooses wrong, they're usually out before the day ends.
- Sudden Downer Ending is played for comedy in Roadtrip's "Lame Loser" endings. If your overall resource pool is too low at the end of a successful run, then your character ends up getting left behind by Polly and Scott during a pit stop back home due to a random fit of absurdly bad luck based on your character (Vicky ending up taking too long on the toilet, Oz becoming way too enamoured with a random street light, Zoe literally being sent to horny jail for making erotic fanfic that's too spicy even for the government, etc)
- In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice, a Justified Tutorial can lead to a joke, when Athena offers to give Apollo a tutorial on how to investigate a crime scene. If the player declines, Apollo says "I think I remember how to do it" and Athena responds "Okay! I'm sure it'll all come back to me as we go along, too," prompting Apollo to respond "Wait, aren't you the one who offered to give me an explanation?"
- Character Shilling is played for dark humor during the fifth and sixth chapters of Umineko: When They Cry, where the narration and characters keep going on about Erika Furudo. The problem is that there's so much gushing because it's Lambdadelta's script and she's also callous and an incredible Jerkass. She does end up satisfying her reputation. But she's still a jerk. It's also acknowledged that she was pissing off the Ushiromiya family and thus they decided to play a prank on her, so apparently being a genius isn't good for being actually likable.
Web Animation
- Dayum: An Alien Abduction is played for humor in “Urban Legends Portrayed by Minecraft”. The aliens kidnap a man, then decide he’s ugly and they need a different “specimen”.
- Helluva Boss: Insult Inaccuracy Rebuttal is played for laughs in "OZZIE'S", when Asmodeus claims Moxxie is bad in bed because he prefers gentle love to hardcore sex, Blitzø tries to defend him by saying he's seen Moxxie and Millie do it many times and they make missionary look "relatively exciting", with Moxxie himself feels more embarrassed than vindicated.
- Lumpy Touch
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You is played for humor in "SWEATY LUIGI", After Luigi sweats out all of his body fluids, he becomes so thirsty that he senses the presence of the player. Mario realizes this and calmly attempts to tell the player to turn the game off before Luigi can get to them.
Mario: Here he comes! You better watch out! He's gonna suck ya! Turn the game off! Turn it off! Don't let him jumpscare ya! Jumpscare incoming! Look out! Oh no! - Melvin's Macabre: There Is No Kill Like Overkill is played for laughs. Robbie's fate in "GUTTERBALL" is him getting blown up by a nuke, keep in mind that Robbie is the only person who ended up in Bowling Hell without being released.
- Red vs. Blue: All Girls Want Bad Boys gets played for laughs in episode 7 of season 9, where Tucker gives love advice to Church for when Tex arrives.
Tucker: Church, say something rebellious.
Church: Uh, okay, I think the working class should uprise against the rich people.
Tucker: I said rebellious, not revolutionary.
Webcomics
- Commander Kitty plays a Teleporter Accident for comedy. CK's bargain bin transporter isn't guaranteed to get you to your destination in one piece.
- Cthulhu Slippers does this with the end of the world, horrible deaths, Black Magic and pretty much the entire Cthulhu Mythos.
- Show Some Leg is played for Cringe Comedy in Ennui GO!. Kavya has to distract the guy running a consession stand at the drive in theatre while Vanitas pulls a prank on the building by flirting despite the fact that she's a lesbian and her actual crush is a few yards away on a date with someone else.
- Foxes in Love
- EMP use is played for humor in this comic, where Blue is working on a "limited-range targeted EMP"... which he wants to use to stop a noisy group of teens from revving their engines and playing loud music.
- An Art Shift is used as a joke. The comic normally uses simple designs, but one post has Blue question Green's plan by asking if he's being "completely realistic." Cue a detailed close-up of Green in a realistic art style saying "Of course." The final panel has them discuss how much effort went into drawing that gag.
- A Mundane Utility is played for comedy when Green is haunted by the darkness within his soul. He retaliates by using it to chop vegetables, much to its frustration.
- EMP use is played for humor in this comic
- Happiness Is Mandatory gets humorous treatment in Girl Genius. Franz realized that an ongoing invasion instead of the customary celebration of a new member of the House Heterodyne lets him do his job "the fun way" — so a steampunk cyborg dragon roamed Mechanicsburg beating with the sack of gold the size of a small house the bigger stuff while bellowing "Hey, you! REJOICE!".
- League of Super Redundant Heroes
- The Bad Guy Wins turns into a source of gags. In his first appearance, Kurgh the Conqueror — warlord and scourge of the galaxy — comes to town demanding the city submit to him. Since Shitropolis is a really crappy place to live in, let alone manage, the previous administration is ecstatic and declares the whole mess his problem now. The rest of this appearances have him suffering the total monotony of dealing with mayoral politics.
- Big "NO!" and Skyward Scream are part of the punchline once. Bolfman_123 lets out a "NOOOOOOOOOO!" when he learns that Buckaress switched her costume for a much less Stripperiffic one.
- The Order of the Stick: A comedic example of Never My Fault is Mr. Jones and Mr. Rodriguez. Whenever they lose a case, Mr. Jones declares that the trial transcript clearly shows that Mr. Rodriguez was representing their client. Mr. Jones proudly noted his 5-0 record, while lambasting Mr. Rodriguez's 0-147... even though the two always work together and it's the same record.
- Oglaf:
- Obliviously Evil is made into a joke in the strip "Gorek the Magnanimous". Gorek goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, rules the land from a skull fortress surrounded with severed heads on spikes, and declares a reign of blood. At no point does it dawn upon him that this is, y'know, evil. After all, why would a reign of blood be bad? Blood's good; you need it to live.
- Bullying a Dragon is played for humor in "Naja" A carriage in the woods is stopped by a woman who introduces herself as a bandit, and asks its passenger's opinion on a bandit gang she is forming. The passenger claims their Punny Name is stupid, insults the bandit for the idea behind it, and compares the concept of cleverness to bagpipes. This successfully pisses off the bandit, her fellow member(s), and a bagpipe player.
Bandit: (aiming a knife at the carriage passenger) Fuck you. This is a robbery, then. - Obliviously Evil is made into a joke in the strip "Gorek the Magnanimous
- Paradox Space: Humans Through Alien Eyes is played humorously in Lalondian Tourism, where Kanaya tries to explain human culture to Terezi. Here, the trolls' shaky grasp of human culture is compounded by the fact that Rose herself misinterpreted everything her mother ever did, and relayed those misunderstandings to Kanaya. Among other things, a picture of Rose attacking a clown is seen as "defending herself against a vicious Subjuggulator".
- Penny Arcade plays both Tycho and Gabe's psychotic moments for laughs, even if death and destruction follows.
- The Perry Bible Fellowship plays Absurd Career Goals for Black Comedy. The strip Bear Boy shows a boy wanting to be a bear when he grows up; when the teacher tells him this is impossible, he gets mauled while the other students are largely apathetic.
- Pixie Trix Comix: Bi-Wildered is heavily played for laughs with Aaron, who really cannot handle the idea that he’s anything other than straight, despite having lots of sex with Julian. For that matter, he can't handle the idea that Julian is anything but straight either, despite Julian being openly gay. Aaron classifies all the sex they have as "just two straight guys bro-in' out".
- Sexy Losers: Ashes to Crashes is used as part of a (very NSFW) joke. The nymphomaniac mother kills her son's girlfriend via sexual exhaustion. She attends the funeral. The urn the girlfriend's ashes are in is vaguely phallic. The mother tries using it as a dildo, and it breaks... She complains about that being the second time that's happened...
- Team Fortress 2: Winter of Starvation is played for humor in A Cold Day In Hell. While stranded in the snowy mountains of Siberia looking for Heavy, Soldier starts imagining weasels as food like pie and roast chicken, his own hands as sandwiches, and Scout as a giant hot dog. Then it turns out Scout really is wearing a giant hot dog costume, salvaged from the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's crashed plane.
- The premise of Warbot in Accounting is that a Killer Robot was repurposed and reintegrated into civilian life. Its unsuccessful attempts at doing so are played for Black Comedy.
- Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic has played Bullying a Dragon for humor.
- One had an elven princess wanting to turn to villainy. She heard that pestering large beasts was bad and assumed it meant bad as in "evil", not as in "stupid and dangerous".
- It turns morbidly humorous in another strip. A group of adventurers took on a Chimera blocking their path, only for all but one to be burned to death. The survivor decides politely asking to pass is a better plan.
- One had an elven princess
Web Original
- Creepypasta Cookoff: Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? is played for humor in "A Piece Of My Mind" by Nausicaa Harris. A cult summons an otherworldly beast which bursts into the upstairs neighbor's apartment. Instead of reacting in fear, she lays into the monster for ruining her floors and having bad taste in aesthetics. The monster just retreats back into the earth it came from rather than deal with any more scolding.
- The blog Cut! is Slender Man played for laughs. At one point, Slendy himself actually bumps into a clear glass door before slinking off in embarrassment.
- Dropout (formerly College Humor)
- Milkman Conspiracy is used for comedy in the "Deceptive Deceptions" video, which reveals that the ridiculously massive Conspiracy Kitchen Sink designed to control humanity is being led by the dorky members of the CollegeHumor staff.
- Time Zone Troubles is played for humor in "Bicoastal Time Zone Lesson", in which Raph stars in a children's show teachings kids about time zones, only for him to get more and more aggressive towards his adorable puppet co-host for constantly calling him at what is the middle of the night for Raph.
Raph: That means, if it's 8 AM where you live in New York, then it's 5 AM where I live in LA and don't fucking text me.- X for Exception is played for laughs in "Alphabetical Sketch". When they get to the final three letters of the alphabet, they have to awkwardly use the only word that starts with X despite it not fitting at all and photoshop an image to make it look like they're actually wearing xylophones as clothing.
- Milkman Conspiracy is used for comedy in the "Deceptive Deceptions"
- SCP Foundation
- The subject of SCP-1171 plays Fantastic Racism for humor. It's a Starfish Alien from another dimension, who has the personality of a white trash bigot.
SCP-1171: "DON'T GET ME WRONG, I'M NOT RACIST OR ANYTHING. SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE HUMAN. BUT IF THEY'RE AS GOOD AS US, WHY DO THEY NEED SKIN? AM I RIGHT?"- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You is played humorously with SCP-TTKU-J (which is a thing that kills you), which will call out by name anyone who's logged into the wiki reading its page. The page itself states that SCP-TTKU-J needs to be kept away from you because "you are, presumably, a thing that should not be killed".
- Humans Through Alien Eyes is played for laughs in this document about humans mostly written by intelligent carp. There's some disagreement as to whether or not it's important to recognize the faces of different "feeder" humans, and some suspicious fish propose hilariously ineffective methods of attacking people.
- The subject of SCP-1171
Web Video
- Dragon Ball Z Abridged
- Animal Motifs is played for laughs with Krillin's duck association, starting with him (successfully) impersonating a space duck and Android 16's scanners identifying him as such.
- Sinister Whistling is made comedic in Kai Abridged. Piccolo is walking around a Ghost City with no trace of inhabitants safe their clothing, courtesy of Cell. Cell whistles the tune of "All Star" by Smash Mouth upon his introduction.
- Danny Gonzalez
- Suspiciously Specific Denial is played for humor in "The Weird Side of Amazon 2". Danny comes across a hoodie that repeatedly reminds the customer that the hoodie is made of cotton. He responds to it with an exaggerated portrayal of the manufacturer getting more and more nervous and insistent about what the hoodie is made of and that they know what cotton is, accompanied with a slow zoom-in on his face. Then he says:
It's made of cotton, alright? And not my own hair. I did not use my own hair to make these hoodies, it's made of breathable cotton.- Usurping Santa is used for Black Comedy in "I'm Gonna Kill Santa Claus". Danny cheerfully plots to Kill and Replace Santa just for the cool perks of being Santa, like riding his sleigh, and forcing the elves to make toys.
- I Have Many Names is played for comedy on the Dream SMP. During the Exile Conflict, when forced to write an essay on what he did that day as part of his probation, Tommy decided to sign it with all of his aliases. His signature takes up about three pages.
- The Guild
- Zaboo's Stalker with a Crush behavior would be horrifically creepy in Real Life, but on the show it's over-the-top funny (to everyone except Codex, the target of his affections, but even she stops being creeped out and is instead mostly just annoyed by it).
- Likewise, Clara's extreme Parental Neglect is portrayed as an amusing part of her wacky personality.
- I'm a Marvel... And I'm a DC: His Name Is... turns humorous in Rorschach and Deadpool. The pair finds four different informantsnote , and Deadpool shoots every one of them as they finish saying the name of the trope. He does it purely because he finds their voices irritating.
- Eldritch Location is played for laughs in The Meat Planet, a YouTube Poop-like edit of Cosmos. According to Carl Sagan, the eponymous Meat Planet was formed 15 billion years ago "when an ancient god exploded or something", has rivers of blood and a dark red sky at all times, and apparently exerts a primordial compulsion on people to eat meat cut off from it. While describing it in no less than Lovecraftian terms, Sagan still waxes poetic about it with the same awe and wonder he did with real cosmic locales.
Looking at this spectacle of nature, of course we're tempted to shut our eyes and pretend the Meat Planet is only is only a bad dream... The Meat Planet still softly calls, like a nearly-forgotten song of childhood. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this Meat Planet, grossly rotating between the stars. We have good reason for humility.
- Black Gal on White Guy Drama is played for laughs in episode 7 of The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. When J and White Jay walk into a restaurant all of the customers stare at them with a look of disapproval, including a black man and white girl couple.
- Bad "Bad Acting" is played for laughs all the time in Third Rate Gamer. His idea of "looking irate" equals puffing his cheeks full of air.
Well fine! I don't need you, I'll just do this review by my... *looks at script* self!
- Viva La Dirt League: Major Injury Underreaction is played for laughs in "Men" where Alan gets his finger chopped off and Adam gets his arm burned, yet they only react by shouting an expletive (that sounds more like they are annoyed than being in actual pain) and wincing a bit before continuing to casually talk about each other's injury. Only Ben has an appropriately pained reaction to his own heart attack, and even then he also casually talks about how he is going to die and refuses help because doesn't want to be a bother.
- Copiously Credited Creator is played for comedy in the Series Fauxnale of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, where the credits list every character who ever appeared, and their voice actor. It's just LittleKuriboh listed over and over, with a handful of other voice actors.
Western Animation
- The Evil Twin trope gets played for laughs in the Arthur episode "Binky Rules". When Binky Rules graffiti is going up around the school Binky gets blamed for it. Buster tries to solve it, and comes up with the theory it is being done by Binky's evil twin who is trying to ruin Binky's life so he can take over.
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold:
- The show plays Character Shilling for laughs by presenting Batman as a Parody Sue; characters think he's the greatest human who ever lived, and not even the day's guest star can match up to him, even if they're a superhero themselves. It's at its worst in episodes like "Mayhem of the Music Meister!", where every superhero sings about how jealous of Batman they are, or "The Masks of Matches Malone!" where Catwoman, Black Canary, and Huntress all sing Batman's praises while putting down several other heroes (in a rather suggestive manner). The episode with Captain Atom presented the Captain as a Smug Super who looks down on people without superpowers. He's basically a strawman there to make fun of Batman, while the rest of the Justice League are shocked and insist that no, Batman is totally the best hero ever and certainly better than all of them.
- Faux Action Girls are done purposefully and humorously in "The Mask of Matches Malone". The Birds of Prey (in this universe, Black Canary, Huntress and Catwoman) have a song where they brag about being better than all the recurring male superheroes. As soon as it's over, they're captured.
- One episode of Big Mouth has Nick watching a Pizza Boy Special Delivery porno, complete with a Ron Jeremy look-alike. The pizza boy admits that he already ate the pizza and his co-star tells him to not burp into her vagina.
- Character Shilling gets played for laughs in Clone High, with their celebrity guests, where they make sure their appearances are comically stilted and full of as much ass-kissing as possible. When such figures as Marilyn Manson, Tom Green, or Mandy Moore show up, characters will introduce them with expository descriptions, for instance, "The hunky hazel-eyed star of Full House, John Stamos!" and the clones all gather around, smiling brightly, as they latch on to every word they say as if it were gospel.
- Daria: Gosh Dang It to Heck! is treated humorously in "Fizz". The first classroom that showcases the budget cut is in Mr. O'Neill's class, where the photocopies are so blurry, he can't even give the classroom a decent assignment. Considering this is Mr. O'Neill, a Hippie Teacher who's In Touch with His Feminine Side, it's his own version of a Precision F-Strike.
Mr. O'Neill: I apologize for the quality of this class. The school's photocopier is so very old... Darn budget!
Jane: Mr. O'Neill!
Mr. O'Neill: Sorry! - DuckTales (2017)
- Evil Twin (or rather Evil Triplet) is played for humor. When asked which of the Duck brothers is the "evil triplet," Huey and Dewey immediately point to Louie... who shrugs and accepts it. It should be noted that he does seem to be the most amoral of the triplets, being materialistic, selfish, sarcastic, and perfectly willing to lie to others. He's still a good guy, though. In Season 2 he actively claims this status when trying to get Goldie O'Gilt to teach him her con artist ways, but she is unimpressed.
Goldie: Better luck next time, rookie.
Louie: Rookie?! I'll have you know I am the evil triplet, okay?!
Goldie: Sure, you're the scariest bunny in the pet shop.- I Have No Son! becomes a light-hearted quip in "The Lost Harp of Mervana!" when Dewey Duck shows off his "mermaid tail" to his mother Della, who can't stomach anything related to fish.
Della: (dry heaves) I have no family.
- Right Hand Versus Left Hand is done humorously in the three-episode Pilot Movie for Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Wilt, Eduardo, and Coco all fight over Bloo while being chased by a girl that wants to adopt him. When the three end up colliding, they find out that they were all trying to prevent the girl from adopting him.
- Invader Zim does this to the old chestnut of an alien coming to infiltrate society. Even the Nightmare Fueled "Dark Harvest" gets some Black Comedy out of Organ Theft by having Zim replace the other students' organs with increasingly bizarre random objects.
- Justice League plays Stranger Behind the Mask for laughs in "The Great Brain Robbery". Lex Luthor ends up switching bodies with the Flash and spends most of the episode trying to avoid the rest of the League chasing after him. While hiding in the bathroom, he notices the mirror and figures that, if he accomplishes nothing else before he gets caught, he can at least learn the Flash's true identity. So he removes Flash's mask in front of the mirror, smirks triumphantly as he gazes upon the Flash's true face... and then realizes he has absolutely no idea who this guy is.
- KaBlam!: Billy from "The Off-Beats", The Running Gag in the series usually involved Billy saying something that would get Tina mad, and then the Populars would throw him out of the group, causing Billy to crash into something.
- Looney Tunes: The cartoon Chow Hound includes Body Horror of the comedic variety. The dog becomes so morbidly obese from overeating that he can't even move a muscle and ends up at the pet hospital.
- In the season 1 finale of The Owl House, Luz and King get themselves purposefully arrested for stepping on "Don't step on the grass" grass.
- The infamous Lucy-pulling-the-football-away-from-Charlie-Brown gag in the Peanuts series.
- A Robot Chicken Alien sketch entails an individual Xenomorph's acid melting through multiple floors, resulting in it falling through several stories before hitting the pavement, exaggerating Hollywood Acid.
- On The Simpsons, Measuring the Marigolds gets played for humor when Professor Frink is the substitute teacher for a kindergarten class. He lectures the kindergarteners on how a toy makes use of the laws of physics in order to work, but when one of them asks if they can play with it, Frink responds, "No, you can't play with it. You won't enjoy it on as many levels as I do."
- Solar Opposites plays Narrator All Along for laughs in the intro. As if it wasn't obvious by the time the intro happens Korvo is the one narrating. He even lampshades it just before the Couch Gag.
Korvo: We crashed on Earth, stranding us, on an already overpopulated planet. That's right, I've been talking this whole time! I'm the one holding the Pupa. My name's Korvo. This is-this is my show. I just dropped the Pupa. Do you see me?
- Sonic Boom:
- Wish Upon a Shooting Star is played for humor when a meteor shower falls in the town and destroys everything, and Amy remembers a particular fun fact about meteors.
Amy: Meteors are shooting stars! We shouldn't be running, we should be making wishes! I wish for a pony.
Sonic: And I wish you'd take cover. (grabs her by the wrist and runs for cover)
Amy: How come your wish came true? - South Park: Metaphorical Suicide is played for comedy in "Skank Hunt".
- After being trolled on Twitter, Heidi Turner stands atop a bridge, and then the camera cuts away, and a splash is heard. The next day, everyone at school is acting as if Heidi committed suicide... but in reality, she just threw her phone in the river. The school even holds a vigil to remember her, and has everyone tweet positive things about her, while she is right there in the room.
Stan: Yesterday, after school, she wrote one last tweet that said goodbye forever, and then just got off for good.Kyle: She'll get back on.Stan: No, dude, she threw her phone in a river! She's—she's gone!- Also, a Running Gag throughout the episode is Scott Malkinson threatening to quit Twitter in a way similar to someone considering going through suicide, including him telling the school counselor Mr. Mackey that he's tired of all the hatred and that no one would miss him if he quit. Mr. Mackey repeatedly tries to talk him down, but quickly starts getting tired of it when Scott starts going as far as calling him in the middle of the night to say that he's thinking of quitting Twitter again.
Scott: I-I talked to my dad. He said I don't have the guts to do it! Well, if I'd quit Twitter, he'd be sorry!Mr. Mackey: [with some umming] Okay, how 'bout this? Just promise me you won't quit Twitter tonight, and we can—we can talk all day tomorrow, okay? M'kay?
- Star Trek: Lower Decks: Klingon Promotion is played for laughs in the opener for "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee", where two Romulans are arguing over which one of them will be the first to assassinate and replace their captain. It's so normal in their culture that one of them even casually admits his desire to usurp the captain to the captain just to emphasize how affronted he is at being accused of sabotaging the ship.
- The Superman: The Animated Series crossover "World's Finest" has a male example of Hitchhiker's Leg played for humor. Harley Quinn, chauffeuring a limo, picks up Lex Luthor. She then goes into "hubba hubba" mode when she sees the Joker at a curb, hitching a ride and rolling up his pants leg, showing off his gam.
- Teen Titans in the episode "Fear Itself". Beast Boy, being an aficionado of horror movies, spends most of the episode (until he's caught) telling everyone not to split up as the monster always gets his targets easier that way, and that he, the funny guy, will inevitably be taken first. He ends up being right. Of course he does; the monster chasing them is being conjured by Raven's unconscious overflowing powers, and her subconscious is working off the ideas Beast Boy is feeding it.
- Transformers: Prime: You Are in Command Now is played for laughs in episode 3. When Optimus and Ratchet have to investigate something, he leaves Arcee in charge. When Arcee and Bumblebee go on patrol, she leaves Bulkhead in charge. When Bulkhead needs to rescue Agent Fowler, he leaves Jack in charge. When Jack realizes Miko followed Bulkhead, he tries to leave Raf in charge, only for Raf to point out that he's the last one left.
- In one episode of The Venture Bros., a Teleporter Accident gets Dr. Venture (harmlessly) stuck in the walls of various parts of the house, in three pieces, for the duration of the story. The Stinger reveals that the third part of his body ended up near a sewer drainage pipe, when a befuddled Monarch finds a disembodied arm.
Dr. Venture: Well, wherever my lower half is, it must be outdoors. I think it's raining.
Other
- Artificial Stupidity is Invoked for fun by the annual Baca Robo Contest that in 2010 took place in Budapest. The goal for the participants is to create the most ridiculous robotic creation possible, and the one that gets the most laughs from the audience wins a €2,000 prize.