As dark or serious as the stories can be, Haymitch and Effie get several hilarious First-Person Smartass quips in almost every chapter one of them narrates.
Crane manages to look offended at the very thought that the Games could be rigged, which must qualify him for some kind of acting award.
The End of the World
When Haymitch tells the Book Dumb Capitol masses that he likes literature during the interviews, they are confused until he clarifies/exaggerates that he means fantasy stories like the kind that inspire their favorite action and romance movies.
It's both funny and a tearjerker, but after losing a tribute and engaging in Drowning My Sorrows, Haymitch mistakes the bartender for Danny and starts drunkenly lecturing him about how he should stop going out with the butcher's daughter since she may not have a heart besides the ones she's taken out of slaughtered animals beneath her large breasts. Then, he keeps on rambling for a minute or so before he notices Dry Crusader Saffron Abatty is standing behind him (although a Mood Whiplash heartwarming moment follows as she comforts him).
There is something hilarious about how when Katniss is born, unaware of how drastically she will change everyone's lives and preoccupied with other things, Haymitch takes no notice of the fact besides musing that his old friends have named their daughter after a plant.
These are the Names
Babra and Nell (the female tributes from Districts 12 and 7 in the 59th Hunger Games) laughing over Babra's Brandishment Bluff and Nell accidentally propelling her floating log away from Babra as they consider fighting each other.
As a Capitol Dreams crowd watches Claudius lecture about an arena, one person mockingly screams, "Geography session, no!"
Effie reads an article accusing the victors of decadence, citing (among other things) how Wiress has robots do all of her chores. Effie points out that Wiress built those robots herself.
The Capitol swooning over Finnick and speculating about every detail of his life before his Games even start is mostly creepy given what happens to him later on, but it's funny watching District 12's female tribute join in while her partner sulks in the background.
When Effie offers tribute Butterfly Skaggs a light-as-air blouse, Butterfly tries to get a rise out of her by defiantly saying that whenever she wants to wear something lighter than air, she goes topless, a lie which Haymitch quickly calls her out on.
Haymitch and Jack have a Brain Bleach reaction to discussing how one chapter of a cheesy romance novel written by a Capitol woman who toured the districts is probably about Blight. Then their conversation turns to criticizing the grumpy man working as District 7's escort, who Jack compares to Haymitch. When he offers to swap escorts, Haymitch quips that "the last thing I need is another me on my team."
Butterfly asks Effie if there's any dress that isn't too outrageous for her, and Effie describes a "mood dress" that changes colors along with the wearer's face and recently embarassed an actress when she got mad at an interviewer. They then joke about how trouser equivalents of that dress would look on a boy wearing them around someone he has a crush on and share a laugh about how even normal trousers can make those kinds of feelings obvious.
Between the 69th and 70th Hunger Games, Effie describes entertainment events like an actress wearing a combination sculpture and dress which collapsed under its own weight during an awards ceremony, teaching her the meaning of Comedic Underwear Exposure.
The Final Eight
After a boy named Clay disrupts the literature class, Mrs. Huddock, the teacher, responds by making Clay read a love poem his girlfriend Pippa wrote to him out loud. Delly described the poem as a bunch of haikus comparing Clay's body parts to various pre-catastrophe artworks, such as referring to a "Colossal David".
One of Peeta's friends draws a cartoon of Peeta beating Cato in a wrestling match, with the caption "loverboy wins again."
Delly is delighted when it is time for history class instead of something about coal mining techniques, only for history class to cover the coal industry that day.
When Ed and Delly start dating, their friend Leonard jokes about how now Katniss and Peeta have to get together to make this a perfect Pair the Spares situation after the long almost-romantic friendship between Peeta and Delly.
Delly and Ed joke about how if she becomes a poet, then no matter how bad she is, she will still be the best poet in District 12 history due to their lack of other published poets.
Delly gets a few quips about the Bad "Bad Acting" of her friend Izzrael, a last minute replacement for Peeta in the School Play, and how even his dramatic death scene is half-hearted.
Delly's description of arguments in the Capitol and District 2 about whether the Gamemakers are favoring Katniss and Peeta over Cato (who keeps experiencing minor mutt attacks but has also gotten more impressive supplies than Katniss) has some snarky, Both Sides Have a PointBlack Comedy.
Cato's family accuses the Games of showing favoritism to Katniss and Peeta, as though giving one contestant bread is somehow superior, in a violent competition, to giving another one body armor. In the Capitol Katniss and Peeta's fans express this, pointing out that any advantages they have now are results of their choices and actions earlier. Cato's fans point out that Katniss and Peeta are not being attacked by mutts.
The Last Tribute
After recalling the grim story of the victor of the first-ever Hunger Games (a girl from District 7), and how Jack Anderson claims to have seen her ghost in her old house, Haymitch expresses his opinion that the "ghost" is Johanna pulling a prank.
Haymitch learning that Capitol gossip sheets are shipping him with disparate figures like Cinna (who jokes about not getting flowers), Johanna, and some elderly sponsors.
Haymitch calling Snow's thing with the Victor crown an act of pettiness, since it would be cheaper to get two crowns instead of the whole splitting thing.
The Golden Mean
An Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking Capitol newscast that Haymitch watches includes updates on the Victory Tour, "Snow's birthday celebration, a somber recollection of deaths in the Dark Days, and a dancing hippo in the zoo."
Beetee confides a rebel plan in Haymitch where he will have Wiress stay at home during the Quell (although the Quell twist puts a stop to that), and has a ready-made excuse from how she's been acting odd lately, and he will have her coordinate crowds to evacuate District 3 in the event of an emergency. Haymitch wonders how he can tell that Cloudcuckoolander Wiress is acting odder than usual and worries that a plan depending on her ability to rally a crowd is prone to error.
Thresh's sister sneaks into District 12 with a rebellion message and reports that District 8 (which she stopped at on the way) just "blew its stack".
After being put out of business, moonshiner Ripper claims to have seen the error of her ways and that she is starting an AA group for her old customers that will be held in a secret location to protect their dignity. Everyone can tell that this really means that she's still selling alcohol in hidden locations and just wants plausible deniability.
When Haymitch offers to be a courier after Lizabee the apothecary offers to give Ruth rubbing alcohol for Thread's victims, Lizabee finds the idea of trusting him not to drink the alcohol worthy of Tension-Cutting Laughter.
During the 3rd Quarter Quell, immediately after Claudius makes a speech about how Berenice from District 4 is not a competitor to ignore, he proceeds to ignore her to talk about someone else.
A fair amount of the banter between Haymitch and fellow rebel mentors Harris, Jack, and Philo when Claudius interviews them in The Golden Mean. Some of it is playing for the cameras, but some of it is genuine tension-relieving bonding.
Jack: We all have a soft spot for Haymitch. Philo: I don't. I just met him. Harris: And I think he's a pain in the ass. Jack:(with a teasing eye roll) Careers.
Haymitch's You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me! reaction to learning that there is a musical (which has been subjected to government censorship but actually has more rebel imagery — which also undermines the quality of the music — than before since the censor is another rebel) being made about Katniss and Peeta in the Hunger Games.
Prim calls Haymitch for an Other Me Annoys Me rant about how ridiculous it is that the actress playing her is dancing with a butterfly and singing about how she never wants to roam far from home ("I'd love to roam. Everybody wants to roam") and joking that she hopes bees and mosquitos will come out of the flowers the Prim actress is dancing through to attack her.
The Career mentors sarcastically applaud the scene of the show where Haymitch passes out.
When Haymitch asks why Plutarch and Fulvia added a number about Effie lecturing him for drinking, Plutarch says it was native to the first draft "and there are some of your friends who consider it native to your life."
The coda in the Archive of Our Own version of the story contains a stage guide and summary of the reviews to the story, with a few chucklers there.
Cinna giving Katniss the Girl on Fire costume in the play is preceded by a musical number called "What Shall We Do About You?" where he and Portia go through "more and more absurd ideas [before] they finally say that their intent is to set Katniss and Peeta on fire."
It's noted that most of the reviews of the first staging of the show "from other districts, many already in rebellion, indicated that the musical was considered in poor taste." The fact that they take the time to make that clear during the rebellion, a literal war, is amusing.
Long after the rebellion, Katniss and Peeta's daughter plays Effie in a school play version of the show and rejects a suggestion that she play her mother since "It's weird enough to pretend to kiss Haymitch."
The Narrow Path
Haymitch has trouble hiding his glee over the look on Coin's face when Lyme tells her that Katniss (who Coin dismisses as an unstable teenager) is making some good points about their strategy and Coin should really listen to her more often.
Paylor talking about the people who will form their interim government after Coin's death (district representatives who are already en route to the Capitol for another purpose) has a nice bit of Mood Whiplash. Beetee points out that, technically, the nation's government is being placed in the hands of those representatives just because they happened to be the first twenty names that came to Paylor's mind while inviting people from the districts. This provokes Tension-Cutting Laughter.
Other Stories
The Stops on the Way to the End of the World story "November" has the Victors talking about the raiders who attacked the trains before the 70th Hunger Games. Amidst all the genuinely appalling stuff about them, Berenice mentions that they stole her fellow morphing Paulin's drugs and so she had to share hers with him. Haymitch silently calls this a small point in the raiders' favor.
One Stops On the Way to the End of the World one-shot has Enobaria snarking about District 13's efforts to give itself a new name and about how Capitol Rebel Fulvia likes the name.
Calling Thirteen "Lakeland" is the Panem equivalent of wearing a belt and suspenders at the same time, possibly with a hat three seasons out of date. In other words, it's like being Fulvia Cardew. Who, of course, uses the name "Lakeland" at every opportunity, even when Plutarch tries to tactfully suggest that it's not really catching.
In one of the currently unavailable LiveJournal stories, Faraday snarks about how the Capitol media never comments on Tesla, her district's eldest Victor's, obvious plastic surgery to look young just because some reporter enjoys repeating the catchphrase that Tesla looks "fifty [insert 0-9 depending on what year it is] years young."
One lost LiveJournal story has several Victors with dancing as their talent (including Seeder, Saffron, Earl from District 10, and Miracle from District 1) decide to spend an evening dancing at popular Capitol venues. They meet at a strip club where Saffron is watching a man gyrate, and Earl is quick to clarify that they can't expect him to do that kind of dancing.
One lost LiveJournal story shows Peeta and his brothers joking about both Peeta's penchant for tall tales and his infatuation with Katniss. When Peeta defensively points out that he went on a date with Jemina Kingery, his brothers tell him that it's common gossip among their friends that the main conversation topic during that date was "Everdeen the Great" (with Jona and Ed saying that name together like a chorus).
