Photo: “One of these days, you’re gonna die laughing.” Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)
The 1988 mixed animation-live action film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, set in 1940s Toon Town, had a whimsical villain called Judge Doom with a team of henchmen in tow known as the Toon Patrol. The Toon Patrol was formed by a group of anthropomorphized weasels who had a quick-to-trigger sense of humor that led to a conversation foreshadowing future events with the other weasels:
Weasel: Stop that laughing. Do ya know what happens when ya can’t stop laughing? One of these days, you’re gonna die laughing.
Near the end of the film, Judge Doom makes another observation about the laughing habits of the weasels by exclaiming:
Judge Doom: One of these days, you (Weasels) are going to laugh yourselves to death.
Without disappointing, the following scene was hysterical with each Weasel falling into some morbidly slap-stick dilemma, each one of them dropping like flies. The weasels’ angelic forms separating from their plank-board physical forms were evidence they had died laughing.
It seems funny when dying from laughter happens in cartoons, yet dying from laughter, albeit a happy way to go, is a lot less common with human characters—Vizzini from the Princess Bride and the Melting Wicked Witch of the West in some versions of The Wizard of Oz are the only fictional humans I can name off the top of my head who died laughing.
At the end of the day, laughter would be most preferable reaction over any other sound effect.
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When You Can’t Stop Laughing
kawaiidaigakusei at 12:00AM, March 7, 2022
6 likes!
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EssayBee at 7:04AM, March 8, 2022
I prefer laughter as a means to defy gravity, as demonstrated in Mary Poppins.
Corruption at 6:42PM, March 7, 2022
"Laughing Sickness" is also called Kuru. Just found the wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease) Not quite what I had heard, but still disturbing enough that a virus could evolve to spread that way and be successful
Banes at 12:04PM, March 7, 2022
I'm reminded of Data in Star Trek Generations, when his new emotion chip got him laughing uncontrollably until he gasped in pain/fear. Creepy moment.
Banes at 12:02PM, March 7, 2022
The Joker stuff referenced my mOrgan and andreas is quite scary...the "laughing sickness" is even scarier. Sounds pretty tough to contract though, from what you're saying! The weasel's fate was very creative. Always liked that. I remember loving the laughing man from the Mary Poppins movie, who couldn't stop laughing. It made him float up to the ceiling, as it did to anyone else who started laughing with him. Was never sure if there was a deeper meaning to that, but it was a scene that could always get me hee-hawing, myself...
Jason Moon at 10:52AM, March 7, 2022
Christopher Lloyd was quite scary when watching that as a kid.
Corruption at 6:34AM, March 7, 2022
There is an actual sickness called "Laughing sickness" It caused people to keep laughing until they die, possibly from exhaustion. It is very rare as the only way to catch it is to eat the brains of an infected person . . . . I only wish I was making this up.
Andreas_Helixfinger at 2:41AM, March 7, 2022
@MOrgan - I remember finding those death scenes pretty terrifying as a kid watching the series. The victims would start laughing hysterically, their eyes would bulge and their face would be contorted into this freakish grin and it would stay frozen in that horrific expression after death had ocurred, as they would basically choke to death unable to breath laughing that uncontrollably. Quite disturbing way to die really.
Andreas_Helixfinger at 2:33AM, March 7, 2022
@MOrgan - Actually, one of the Joker's signature methods of killing people is exposing them to a venom that makes them litteraly laugh themselves to death. He used it frequently in Batman: The animated series.
MOrgan at 2:01AM, March 7, 2022
Didn't the Joker kill someone by having them laugh themselves to death in Tim Burton's Batman?