Line #18 Main/TheUnwittingComedian


1	->''"What is everyone laughing about?"''
2	-->-- '''Bouncy Normo's [[GoodbyeCruelWorld Suicide Note]]''', ''The Literature/{{Discworld}} Companion''
3
4	[[LifeIsntFair The world is a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible place]]. I mean, it is just awful. Wall Street is bleeding us all for all we have, my wife left me for her Brazilian boss, my kids are [[BasementDweller shut-in]], [[ThisIsYourIndexOnDrugs coked-up]] and [[PrisonTropes in prison]], and don't get me started on my knees and the ''[[CrackOhMyBack crunching]]'' noises they make. They're really...
5
6	...what? What are you laughing at? This isn't funny! STOP IT! [[LeaveMeAlone STOP LAUGHING AT ME!!!]]
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8	The Unwitting Comedian is the funniest person around. It's a shame that they don't think so. Maybe it is something they say or something they do. Whatever the case, the people around them seem to think it's funny. In more extreme cases, the things they say or do [[HumorDissonance would not appear funny to the audience]], but the people in-universe would not be able to help themselves as they DieLaughing.
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10	As for the comedian, this usually makes them the SadClown of their stories, their inability to be taken seriously making their lives harder than it needs to be. Sometimes they [[CursedWithAwesome would take advantage of this]] and go into stand-up, becoming incredibly popular. Depending on how it is handled, the story featuring such a character tends to shift around the SlidingScaleOfSillinessVersusSeriousness.
11	----
12	!!Examples:
13	[[foldercontrol]]
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15	[[folder:Comic Books]]
16	* The French comic ''Comicbook/LesProfs'' has one teacher become so miserable that when he recounts his woes to the barman, everyone starts laughing at him. The last panel is the barman putting up a sign advertising the teacher as the bar's entertainment.
17	* ''ComicBook/SpirouAndFantasio'': In ''Le Tombeau des Champignac'', while trying to get oil in a Tibetan village, Fantasio ends up getting stuck in a stack of tires and falling down several flights of stairs, bouncing and rolling inside the tires until finally crashing into a pillar. He tries to get the tires off, hopping about, and slips and falls on some ice. A crowd of villagers who witness this applaud, cheer, and toss coins his way.
18	[[/folder]]
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20	[[folder:Literature]]
21	* In the Creator/ShelSilverstein poem ''Cloony the Clown'', a clown tries really hard to make people laugh, but to no avail. However, when he finally gets fed up and tells his audience how depressed he is, they finally start laughing.
22	-->''While Cloony stood in the circus tent''\
23	''With his head drooped low and his shoulders bent.''\
24	''And he said, "THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT --''\
25	''I'M FUNNY JUST BY '''ACCIDENT.'''"''\
26	''And while the world laughed outside,''\
27	''Cloony the Clown sat down and cried.''
28	* In ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', there was a man named Bouncy Normo, the funniest clown who ever lived. In reality, the man was TheBore and yet everything he did made people laugh. His story heads straight into CrossesTheLineTwice territory when the narrator says that the despair of people laughing at him even as he begged them to stop eventually drew him to commit suicide. His hanging corpse was somehow considered an avant-garde comedy act by those who found him. It so funny in fact, that it stayed on the noose for weeks afterward.
29	[[/folder]]
30
31	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
32	* The Season 3, Episode 4 episode of ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' "Blood, Devastation, Death, War and Horror" features the "Man Who Makes People Laugh" sketch. Mr. Horton is an average, middle-aged man whose words cause those that hear them to burst out in hysterical laughter, despite the utter mundanity of his speech. This eventually gets him fired by his boss, who is desperately holding in hysterical laughter as he speaks with him, because his laughter inducement is considered obstructive by his fellow employees. As Mr. Horton laments the poor timing and goes into further detail on the misery of his life, his boss's composure breaks and [[CrossesTheLineTwice he laughs incessantly as Mr. Horton confesses he sees no reason not to go out and end it all right now]].
33	* Creator/AndyKaufman's "Foreign Man" persona on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' tells a few SoUnfunnyItsFunny jokes, and then just forgets the rest of his routine and freezes on stage. As Foreign Man desperately tries to cut the skit short, he gets more and more upset that the audience is still laughing at him.
34	[[/folder]]
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36	[[folder:Video Games]]
37	* Inverted for laughs in ''VideoGame/ZeusMasterOfOlympus'': if a city neglects the Arts, its defeated actors return from the regular Pan-Hellenic games with the report that they "moved the audience to tears. Unfortunately, it was a comedy."
38	* The protagonist of ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'' is a pathetic alcoholic cop in a ridiculous disco outfit, which causes problems when he's trying to get people to take him seriously - people usually just jeer at him or call him a pig. When screwing up these attempts, he tends to have ineffectual meltdowns where he screams at people for no reason or threatens to kill himself to prove a point, which only tend to lead to others finding him even funnier.
39	[[/folder]]
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41	[[folder:Web Comics]]
42	* ''Webcomic/CirqueRoyale'': Fred wants his skits for the circus to be taken seriously and make people think, saying at one point a skit of his is intended to be [[https://www.tumblr.com/cirqueduroyale/692947724957614080/episode-9-lantern-day-pt-3-freds-the-kind-of a meditation on how life is chaotic and meaningless]]. He's wounded every time his skits -- or him -- are called funny, sometimes to the point of anger.
43	[[/folder]]
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45	[[folder:Web Original]]
46	* [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1799 SCP-1799 - Mr. Laugh]] from ''Website/SCPFoundation'' is a human man with pigments in his skin similar to clown make-up [[spoiler:implied to be an ArtificalHuman created as a Dr. Wondertainment product]] who, through [[NothingIsScarier unexplained anomalous what-have-you]] ([[CosmicHorrorStory par for the course for the series]]), causes people to laugh uncontrollably whenever he speaks to them. Not only that, but he involuntarily performs magic tricks without any props, such as removing and reattaching his limb, pulling a string of cloth out of his mouth, and extruding smoke from his orfices, a process which is described as being very painful. This has all led to him developing [[SadClown depression]] and [[DrivenToSuicide suicidal thoughts]].
47	[[/folder]]
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49	[[folder:Web Video]]
50	* In the WebVideo/Makemebad3535 video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL2MAI2dkMM Haunted by Laughs!]], Damien is bothered by an offscreen laugh track, who is perpetually laughing at everything he does, no matter how mundane it is, like showering, petting his cat, drinking a glass of water, etc. He spends the whole time shouting angrily at them to shut up until he is in tears, pleading to them to stop laughing as they keep him from sleeping.
51	[[/folder]]
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53	[[folder:Western Animation]]
54	* Richard Pryor from ''WesternAnimation/BlackDynamite'' is SO hilarious, that anyone that hears him speak will laugh hysterically (except [[spoiler:Black Dynamite]], who has NoSenseOfHumor). It gets SO bad however, he tries to seriously threaten someone in jail, only for them to laugh in his face, not taking him seriously.
55	* In the ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' episode "Class Clown", Timmy wishes that he was the funniest boy on Earth, hoping it would get Trixie to notice him. Because of this, everything he says will cause those that hear him to laugh hysterically. [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor At first it works]], but Timmy gets annoyed when literally ''everything'' he says is treated like he's telling a joke, even when he tries to reverse the wish. Luckily, he manages to get Cosmo and Wanda to take him to Fairy World. [[spoiler:Because he wished to be the funniest man on ''Earth'', he is no longer funny ''off planet'', and is able to wish everything back to normal]].
56	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' features Creator/BobDenver on a stage complaining about people coming up to him and hitting him with their hats, which the crowd thinks is a hilarious joke even as he protests that it's not funny and it hurts.
57	* The theme to ''The [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Road Runner]] Show'' lays this on the Coyote:
58	-->''That coyote is really a crazy clown,''\
59	''When will he learn that he never can mow him [[note]]The Road Runner[[/note]] down?''
60	[[/folder]]
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62	[[folder:Real Life]]
63	* Creator/DavidFosterWallace found himself in this position when writing Literature/InfiniteJest, as he [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpH-kUIEYLc&t=3m55s admitted in an interview for the German television station ZDF]].
64	* There is a story that Creator/MarkTwain once had to cancel a speaking engagement at the last minute, and it was announced before the program that he would be replaced by a prominent [[DryCrusader temperance preacher]]. To the preacher's bewilderment, however, the audience laughed uproariously throughout his sermon -- because they assumed the preacher was Mark Twain doing a very realistic impersonation as a gag. Imploring them not to laugh because it was a serious subject only got bigger laughs.
65	[[/folder]]

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