"Everybody Laughs" Ending

Laugh, and the world laughs with you.

Gadget: Sometimes I can't tell what you guys like more: eating nuts, or driving us nuts!
[everybody laughs]
Ellie: I've always wanted to do one of these laughs with you guys! How long does it last?
Gadget: The worse the joke, the longer the laugh!

— Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022)

An Everybody Laughs Ending is exactly what the name suggests: an episode (usually from a Saturday-morning cartoon from the 1960s all the way up to the 1980s, though live-action comedy episodes have also been known to do this) that ends with all the main protagonists laughing, either at one last joke the writers squeezed in, at the expense of the Plucky Comic Relief character, or as part of the defeated villain's Humiliation Conga. This may be intended to let the viewer know that whatever problem the episode focused on has been vanquished and everything is fine and just as it should be. Often follows the characters learning an Anvilicious Aesop or And Knowing Is Half the Battle. The return of a Brick Joke from the start of the episode is a common way of setting this up. Especially satisfying if the characters plant their fists on their hips and throw back their heads Boisterous Bruiser-style.

This trope is so common (especially in episodic or vignette-driven stories) that it doesn't always come at the literal end of a work. It might instead come at the end of a sequence, particularly as a way of letting an audience know that a particular segment is over. In any case, it's been rapidly becoming a Discredited Trope in works aimed at older audiences since at least the mid-nineties, and is rarely played straight any more outside of media aimed at younger viewers.

A dark subversion often occurs with villains, especially those of the Faux Affably Evil variety. Someone (either one of the more outspoken good guys or a tactless Mook) will say something that offends the Big Bad. After an agonizing pause, the villain will unexpectedly start to laugh, encouraging everyone else to laugh along. After some painfully forced laughter, the villain will suddenly stop chortling and mete out Disproportionate Retribution on the one who insulted him, up to and including outright murder. (These are covered more specifically under Laugh with Me! and HA HA HA—No.)

Often a form of Contagious Laughter. It exists in a variant where a character still makes a lighthearted joke after the main action, but instead of everybody laughing, everybody does a Collective Groan.

Compare Oh, Cisco! (the episode ends on one last short joke right after a commercial interruption), End-of-Episode Silliness (which may be the cause of one of these), "YEAH!" Shot (in works aimed at children or very far on the idealistic end of the spectrum), Actually Pretty Funny. Can happen after a Shock-and-Switch Ending.

Contrast Everybody Cries and Reactive Continuous Scream. Also contrast Ends with a Smile, which can include examples where one person laughs (rather than multiple people as here).

As this is an Ending Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.

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Example subpages:

• Western Animation

Other examples:

Advertising

• This is how the various ads of Miller Lite's "Man Up" campaign tend to end, with on one occasion even the Butt-Monkey laughing too.
  • Another Miller Lite commercial from their "Life is Good" campaign had two men teleport themselves into a samurai movie to rescue two damsels in distress. It ends with the men, the women, and the samurai all making friends and laughing as they head off to a sports bar together.
• This ad for Cartoon Network featured everyone—Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Legion of Doom, and The Powerpuff Girls—laughing at the end.
• Parodied in another Cartoon Network ad with for The Smurfs, where one of the Smurfs' inner monologue actually asks "What are we all laughing at?"

Anime & Manga

• Case Closed: Just because they all witnessed a gruesome murder yet again, that never seems to stop the entire cast, including the convicted murderer from having a good group chortle now and then.
• Digimon: About 75% of the episodes (at least the first two seasons) end this way. Season 1 was particularly bad about it.
• Doraemon:
  • Many episodes end with everyone laughing, usually at the expense of one (or more) character. If it's not Nobita, it will be Gian or Suneo or both of them.
  • Doraemon: Nobita's Dorabian Nights ends with the whole gang, including their new friends Sinbad and Mikujin, laughing as the final scene closes up on Sinbad before dissolving to credits. This was in the anime however, in the manga the final scene is Nobita and Doraemon reminiscing their recent Arabian adventure.
  • Doraemon: Nobita and The Space Heroes ends with Nobita showing off his cat's cradle skills to a bunch of kids as the gang (Doraemon included) watches. The two little girls from the start of the picture then reveals they learnt Nobita's cat cradle trick too, prompting everyone present to laugh heartily as the scene fade to credits.
• Dragon Ball Z: Quite a few films used these endings, notably "The World's Strongest," "Super Android 13," and "Bojack Unbound." Subverted in the Frieza arc, when after Frieza is seemingly defeated by the Spirit Bomb, everyone has a good laugh over it, until Frieza turns out to be alive, shoots Piccolo, and kills Krillin.
• Ghost Stories: Played for Laughs in the English dub, with a tossed-in And Knowing Is Half the Battle about... child support.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Done twice after the gang defeats Wheel of Fortune. First when it's revealed the true nature of the Stand user (a man with beefy arms, but pathetic everywhere else in his body), and then when Joseph sees and comments on the true form of the car Wheel of Fortune had taken over (a beat-up old bucket notably smaller than it was when Wheel of Fortune was controlling it).
• The Japan Animator Expo short Kanon ends in all the artificial humans sharing a laugh... at Adam and Ego's expense, for believing they had the power to control the world they created.
• Tamagotchi!: Inverted in the episode 25, part 1; everybody except Memetchi's family and Kuromametchi cries at the end. Judged by Mametchi saying that he's crying because he's happy.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: In the dub ending, the characters all do this after the duel with Mako Tsunami ends, after making quips to one another. It feels kind of dissonant from earlier in the episode, when Mako lobbed a harpoon at the main cast to stop them leaving.

Comic Books

• Dell/Gold Key, the 1940s-1980s producer of licensed comic books featuring the Disney, Looney Tunes, Walter Lantz, and MGM cartoon characters, used this ending incessantly in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in hundreds of stories written by Carl Fallberg and/or Vic Lockman. Many Gold Key writers also worked on TV cartoons and sitcoms, suggesting a direct influence. Fallberg also pioneered a cliched story formula in which a straight-man hero and a craven, gluttonous, eccentric sidekick investigated low-level mysteries. This type of story — used with Andy Panda/Charlie Chicken, Porky Pig/Sylvester, and Mickey Mouse/Goofy most often — constantly ended with everyone laughing at the sidekick's latest caper.
• Batman: The Killing Joke ends with Batman and The Joker laughing together in the rain. It's unsettling, and definitely not the way this trope is normally played.
• Joker again in The Batman Adventures #16, guest-starring a real-life comic book artist. Outraged at how he is portrayed in the comic books, Joker has his gang kidnap the artist and forces him to illustrate his adventures the way he wishes them to be depicted. Joker plans for the final issue of the miniseries to feature a humiliating death for Batman on a miniature golf course - but Batman escapes, rescues the kidnapped artist, and then knocks Joker into a mock rocket ship with an actual flaming tail, causing Joker's pants to get burned off his buttocks, and so the last panel of the in-story comic ends with Joker dunking his Goofy Print Underwear in a bucket of water. Later, as Bruce Wayne, Batman donates all of the comic books to the inmates at Arkham Asylum, and all of the inmates except Joker close out the issue by laughing uproariously at Joker's ignominious defeat - while Joker himself tears his hair and screams: "That is not funny!"
• A lot of superhero stories during The Silver Age of Comic Books ended like this, usually with the villain(s) stewing behind bars while the hero(es) chortle over one last pun. This was rather bleakly parodied in the first volume of the Alan Moore Marvelman reboot, where the "classic" Marvelman story used to introduce the cast features one of these stretched out for an entire page, all while the "camera" zooms in on Marvelman's increasingly unsettling face and a Friedrich Nietzsche quote starts rolling.
• The Simpsons Comics parodies this in one issue; Chief Wiggum, who thinks he's in a 70's cops sitcom, does one of these with fellow cops Lou and Eddie. The credits begin to "roll," (as much as credits can roll in a comic, anyway...) and everyone is still laughing, although in a freeze-frame state. We then see things outside of Chief Wiggum's delusional state. He alone is "frozen," and standing still in a laughing position while the other cops are staring at him. Lou explains that the credits are rolling to Eddie.
• One arc of JLA ends with Dr. Morrow and Dr. Ivo laughing uproariously as the Justice League arrive to arrest them, after Ivo learns that Morrow intentionally sabotaged their attempt to defeat the League just to prove his superior intellect.
• A fairly typical ending to an issue of DC's Plop! was that the "hosts" (Cain, Abel, and Eve) would all be laughing together at how the stupidity/greed/general nastiness of the characters in the story caused their horribly gruesome fate, just before realizing that something very similar was about to happen to them.
• Norby: The last panel of the Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot adaptation has everyone in the scene laughing at Norby for programming the Auto-Kitchen to work "like poetry", causing it to produce printed verse instead of food.

Fan Works

• Subverted in Half-Life: Full Life Consequences. After John Freeman saves his brother Gordon from the Final Boss, the latter joke and laugh for a bit. "The laughed overed quickly" when the next boss shows up.
• Parodied at the end of Episode 7 of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, where after defeating the phony ghost of Kaiba, Yami Yugi makes a repeat of the "you didn't stand a ghost of a chance" pun in the episode, leading the entire gang to start laughing. Joey quickly stops when he realizes Mokuba has been captured again, only for Yami to respond "who cares?"
• The NUMB3RS story Pop Quiz ends with everyone laughing after Larry complains that the guests are there to pay attention to him instead of Charlie, which Charlie responds by calling him "oh high and exalted one" and that may he "heap a thousand pardons upon my poor unworthy head".
• The Awful Truth About The Powerpuff Girls ends with everyone laughing at an unintentional joke that Blossom made.
• The Junior Officers chapters "The Dogfish Sharks" and "The Lost Loon"^note excluding the bonus scene end like this.
• Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail has Chloe, Lexi and Atticus share a laugh as they celebrate the Penguin Potluck and enjoy some delicious ice cream bagels.

Films — Animation

• Ratatoing, the famously terrible Ratatouille ripoff. They're laughing at yet another example of that one guy's catchphrase, no funnier than it was the first time(Precisely!).
• Lady and the Tramp ends with all the dogs laughing at Trusty's inability to remember what Old Reliable used to say (including Trusty himself).
• The Brave Little Toaster: "Ah, you're all a bunch o' junk."
• Beauty and the Beast: "Do I still have to sleep in the cupboard?"
• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: The Super Adventure ends with the goats laughing at Wolffy, Wolnie, and Wilie as they're launched into the air through a cannon.
• Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022) - Parodied twice:
  • Early on the Rangers are "filming" an episode of the TV show where they catch Fat Cat under a net. Gadget makes a pun about the cat being "in the bag" and all the Rangers laugh for a little too long, with the laughter becoming more and more forced until the director yells, "Cut!"
  • At the end of the movie, Gadget makes a similar pun about the chipmunks "driving us nuts!" Everyone laughs, including token human character and fan Ellie, who's excited to participate in their trademark Everyone Laughs Ending.

Films — Live-Action

• Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe (1953 Film Serial). At the end of Chapter 4 after worldwide floods have killed who knows how many, and New York City has been destroyed by Stock Footage from the 1933 disaster film Deluge, everyone laughs at the hero's sidekick when he accidentally inflates the life jacket he's shown to have been hiding under his clothes. After that it becomes a Running Gag to crack a joke at his expense at the end of each chapter.
• Played straight, yet effectively in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Everybody is battered and broken and has had the worst day ever (especially the police guy) but when the mother-in-law that everyone hates slips and injures herself, they can still muster up the humor to laugh at her.
• Subverted in Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, when Dr. Forrester accidentally teleports himself into a Metalunan's shower:
  Tom Servo: Hey, Dr. Forrester's gone!
  Crow T. Robot: Awright, now we'll never get back to Earth!
  (all laugh for a second, then stop)
  Mike Nelson: Hey, wait a minute...
• Played completely straight in, of all things, the 1999 film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband.
• Hilariously parodied in a scene of Wet Hot American Summer, ending several characters' subplot, but it's long before the movie ends.
• Batman Returns: Two examples (both subversions).
  • It happens roughly in the middle of the movie, but it still counts. A group of public-relations people are advising the Penguin on the sort of image he needs to cultivate to run for Mayor of Gotham City. The Penguin looks noticeably uncomfortable as the advisors stick an FDR-style cigarette holder in his mouth (he promptly spits it out) and try to tug some gloves onto his flipper-like hands. Then one of the advisors quips: "Not a lot of reflective surfaces down in that sewer, huh?" The Penguin, who actually has been living in a sewer for most of his life after having been abandoned by his parents when he was a baby, snickers self-deprecatingly, prompting everyone else to nervously laugh as well. Soon Penguin's laughter mounts to maniacal proportions, and he pauses only long enough to make a quip of his own: "Still, it could be worse. My nose could be gushing blood!" The others, thinking this is just a joke as well, continue to laugh even harder - until Penguin shocks everyone by sinking his fang-like teeth into the nose of the man who insulted him, spraying blood all over the room!
  • An earlier and even less funny example occurs when Max Shreck discovers that Selina Kyle has been snooping around his office and has uncovered his plot to siphon electricity from homes and businesses around Gotham City and sell the power back to them at below market price. Seemingly angry, Max orders Selina not to tell anyone about this and then backs her toward a window, accusing her of trying to thwart his attempts to establish a family legacy for himself and his son. Selina is apologetic all the way until Max actually pins her against the window and appears to be on the verge of hitting her - or worse. She turns defiant, calls him a bully, and snaps: "It's not like you can just kill me!" But Max is one of the most admired figures in Gotham City, while Selina is a nobody, and he points this out to her; of course he can do whatever he wants to her. Selina whimpers until Max (seemingly) reveals that it was all an act, and he chuckles at Selina's expense. Too relieved to be embarrassed, Selina starts to awkwardly laugh as well, mentioning: "For a second, you really frightened me" - just before Max turns on her in a rage and shoves her through the window, sending her falling several stories to what he is sure will be her death.
• Parodied in the first Austin Powers movie: Dr. Evil makes a maniacal boast, he and all of his minions laugh wickedly....and then they embarrassingly peter out as they realize that the director has not yet cut to the next scene.
• The penultimate sequence of the Adam Sandler comedy Big Daddy features Sonny Koufax and all of his friends laughing at Sonny's bitchy ex-girlfriend, who betrayed Sonny only to wind up with a boyfriend who is a hamburger-flipping schlub while Sonny has become a reasonably successful lawyer. (Technically, the laughter is directed at the burger-flipping boyfriend rather than the ex, but it's clear from her reaction that she feels humiliated.)
• Buddha's Palm, befitting its nature as a wuxia fantasy parody, ends with one of these; the surviving heroes laughing... as their pet Kirin rips off the main villain's pants and sending him packing butt-naked. Because Naked People Are Funny maybe?
• Lampshaded in the live-action adaptation of George of the Jungle: one of the villain's Mooks trips and falls face-first in a pile of elephant dung, prompting a minor character to point this out as a "classic staple of physical comedy"; he then instructs everyone to "throw back their heads and laugh," which they do.
• A bittersweet version can be seen in The Wild Bunch, with the film flashing back to the main characters laughing... in the aftermath of how all of them have died putting on one hell of a Last Stand.
• Used darkly in another Sam Peckinpah movie, Cross of Iron. It ends with Corporal Steiner laughing at his commander's incompetence in combat as the Red Army swarms the Wermacht's positions. His laugh is played over the credits, which are pictures of atrocities during the 20th Century.
• Road House (1989). The tense ending is broken up by a surviving (but very dazed) henchman who declares that a polar bear fell on him. Everyone laughs, albeit wearily.
• The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. At the very end Haroun is clinging to some ropes and hanging above the deck of Sinbad's ship. Sinbad tells him to make himself fast to the ropes and Haroun says that he trusts in Allah. He then falls from the ropes but is saved from death by a rope tied to him. Both Sinbad and the Vizier tell him "...but tie up your camel!", thus completing Sinbad's catchphrase. Every one present then laughs at Rashoun and the joke.
• In Devil Fish, which is an odd choice for a horror movie with an "Everybody Dies" Ending. Stella and Peter laugh, at least. Everyone else is dead.
• Laughter in Paradise: When the truth about Henry's will is revealed, all four heirs and the solicitor break out laughing.
• The Big Chill: At the end, Harold asks about arranging for everyone (except he and his wife Sarah) to get a ride to the airport. Then [[Deadpan Snarker Michael] speaks up:
  Michael: That won't be necessary. You see, Sarah, Harold, we took a secret vote. We're not leaving. We're never leaving. (Harold freezes and everyone laughs; then he joins in)

Literature

• At the climax of Witold Gombrowicz's novel Trans-Atlantyk everything indicates that multiple murders are about to follow: a son will kill his father, the father will kill his son and the Knights of the Spur have just arrived, ready to bring on any amount of gore. However, the view of the aforementioned son, Ignac, dancing has mesmerized everyone to such a great extent, that when he breaks into laughter instead of hitting the parent, that laugh gets infectious, and ultimately disarms everybody present, making them fall about in convulsions and defecate uncontrollably, thus neutralizing any of the would-be murders.
• Book 7 of the Sword of Truth series, of all things, ends this way, after Jenssen remarks that Richard must know a lot about magic. Everyone except Jenssen and Richard, who mutters that it's not that funny...
• A Beautiful Friendship ends like this. Steph's mother warns her daughter to behave properly and both Stephanie and Lionheart agree. Seeing how obedient they seem and remembering how they behaved before, everybody bursts into laughing.
• A Christmas Carol has this at the beginning of the final chapter, after Scrooge's encounter with the spirits. This is more a laugh of relief after everything he'd gone through with Christmas Yet-To-Come, as well as joy at being alive.
• The Fairly OddParents! chapter book "Timmy Turner, Action Hero!" (a novelization of the episode "Boy Toy") ended with Tootie throwing a water balloon at Timmy. Unlike the source episode, he decides it's Actually Pretty Funny and laughs along with Tootie, Chester, and AJ.
• Cards on the Table ends with a joke about killing Poirot to see if his ghost can solve the mystery.
• Roys Bedoys:
  • “You Have No Friends, Roys Bedoys!” ends on Roys, his friends, and Loys all laughing.
  • “Read a Book, Roys Bedoys!” ends on Roys and his classmates laughing because of a funny book they read.
  • “It’s April Fool’s Day, Roys Bedoys!” ends on everyone laughing at Wen’s prank.
• Spy School: The last scene (besides the usual epilogue in the form of a letter) in Spy School Goes North is everyone, even the book's main villain, laughing as they recall how Cyrus Hale (who has been even more unlikable than usual lately) got his hair singed off by a flamethrower boobytrap earlier in the book.

Live-Action TV

• Every episode of Police Squad! ends with Drebin and Hocker cracking a joke about the criminal they just sent to prison, followed by a mock-freeze frame: the main actors freeze, but the camera keeps running. The strain of holding the pose over the course of a minute takes a visual toll on the actors as events around them continue to play out, such as poured coffee overflowing and a prisoner trying to escape the set.
• Star Trek: The Original Series:
  • The Everybody Laughs Except Spock Ending, which was homaged in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Bound" where Everybody Laughs Except T'Pol.
  • At the end of the comedic episode "The Trouble with Tribbles'', Scotty makes a joke that everyone except Spock laughs at.
    Scotty: I gave them to the Klingons...where they'll be no tribble at all!
  • This stretched the suspension of disbelief at some points, as you'd have laughter endings when several people had died.
    • In "The Ultimate Computer", that would be several hundred Federation crewmen. To be fair, the laughter at the end of "The Ultimate Computer" is more of the nervous and subdued variety, it's only Kirk and McCoy, and McCoy as a doctor is likely used to using Black Humor as a coping mechanism.
    • Particularly jarring at the end of "Wolf in The Fold", following the violent deaths of several women at the hands of a serial killer and Scotty's framing for their murders. To be fair, everyone is high on what appears to be futuristic laughing gas except (of course) for Spock... and Kirk, who laments that the only other person who's unaffected is such a downer.
  • Subverted in "The Menagerie, Part II", when Kirk tries to crack a joke about Spock's 'flagrant emotionalism.' Spock does make his customary protest about being insulted, but the mood and the soundtrack remain wistful as Spock wheels Captain Pike away—and the real ending is Kirk watching Pike given an illusion of health and wholeness on the planet below.
  • In "The Galileo Seven", they carry it on Narmfully long, even seeming to wind down and then start up again as if the characters suddenly realized the fade-out was taking too long and they needed to keep it up for a while longer.
  • This actually became a plot point in the TOS episode "Day of the Dove" as it's the Enterprise crew and the Klingons laughing together that finally drives away the energy cloud that lives off The Power of Hate.
  • ''Shore Leave". At the end, Spock comments that the crew's enjoying their shore leave is illogical, and the other characters (Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, Ensign Barrows, and Lieutenant Sulu) all laugh.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
  • Episode "The Next Phase", when Geordi and Ro get cloaked. It ends with Geordi cracking a rubbish joke and fake laughing with the fade out.
  • At the end of "The Outrageous Okona", Data manages to make the crew laugh with one unexpected joke, he then thinks he's on a run and ruins it by telling countless other lame jokes.
• The Australian Affectionate Parody of '70s cop shows Funky Squad always ended in this, with conspicuously fake "spontaneous laughter".
• Danger 5 (another Australian Affectionate Parody, this time of 60's spy action shows) had the same thing, including having the laughter at inappropriate moments when someone has just died.
• Mocked remorselessly in Garth Marenghis Darkplace, a spoof of 80's TV. The episodes tend to end with all the cast laughing... and laughing... and laughing.
• Parodied in Strangers with Candy where they would frequently all end the episode laughing hysterically after giving a shocking comment, "I didn't have to join the debate team to get attention from my family, I just had to starve myself to the brink of death! Ahahaha!" or by having one character stare at them bemused.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000:
  • Parodied — and taken to the extreme — during the end credits of Devil Fish which also features its own laugh ending as listed above, with the trio attempting to laugh nonstop through the credits in response to the hero's cheesy end-movie joke.
  • Parodied at the end of the Last of the Wild Horses episode, in which the cast gets mixed up in an ion storm, which send everyone into an alternate universe.
    Tom Servo: You know, gang, I think about one trip a year to an alternate universe is enough for me!
    (all laugh for a second, then stop)
    Tom Servo: Wasn't that funny, was it?
    (everyone agrees)
• Doctor Who:
  • Played straight at the ending of "The Space Pirates". Jamie complains about getting a lift back to the TARDIS in the guest character's Alleged Spaceship and quips that he'd rather walk. The Doctor adds, "you might have to", and everyone laughs.
  • Played straight in the ending of the serial "The Time Monster". The Master has just killed everyone in Atlantis and Jo and the Doctor are forlorn about it. Then Benton, who had been deaged to babyhood, shows up as a naked adult with no idea what's going on and everyone laughs at him.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer - at the end of the early episode "I Robot, You Jane", Buffy and Xander console Willow over her falling for the wrong guy (a malevolent demon) - they remind her of their own romantic disasters and how none of them are ever going to have a normal, happy relationship. Xander chirps "We're all doomed!", everyone laughs...then stops laughing as that sinks in.
• Blake's 7 sometimes has these endings even when it's terribly inappropriate. Perhaps the most noticeable one is in "Children of Auron" when Avon cracks a lame joke and everyone laughs after almost every member of Cally's race gets killed with biological warfare, including her sister.
• Parodied to the point of becoming horrific, in a clip from the famous eighties Terry Wogan animated series, Wo-Gann!, shown on How TV Ruined Your Life. Awful joke, cue a boisterous laugh from Wo-Gann... which just goes on, and on and on, until it becomes disturbing.
• One of the more notorious features of Israel’s first sitcom, Krovim Krovim. This feature, among others, were parodied thoroughly on the now over talk show Erev Adir in a series of skits, each ending with one character, usually a guest, asking, ‘Oh, so now we’re all supposed to laugh, right?’ and another saying, ‘That’s true!’ followed by everyone laughing.
• Many Glen A. Larson productions use this, almost as Once per Episode endings: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Knight Rider, Automan, Manimal have used (suffered?) this trope. Even Quincy, M.E. did this sometimes.
• Young Blades: The ending of "Four Musketeers and a Baby," after the Musketeers find out that a woman D'Artagnan had been trying to track down because he thought she was the mother of his baby had become a nun after he passed out "like a useless turnip" before they could do the deed.
• Often done at the end of sketches on The Muppet Show, particularly if the guest had been the butt of jokes during the sketch, to show that it was all in fun. And almost every episode ends with Statler and Waldorf interrupting the end credits to make a final quip at the expense of the show and then bursting into their trademark "old-man laughter" just before the closing theme's final saxophone riff.
• Most episodes of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers ended with Bulk and Skull getting humiliated, and all the teens laughing at their embarrassment. At the end of the season two intro (which gave us Lord Zedd and the Rangers' near-defeat), the Rangers use the Viewing Globe to look in on the recently-deposed Rita. Not only do they have a laugh at her expense, but Zordon joins in.
• One episode of Space: 1999 has the main characters doing this, but it looks like they're trying a little too hard....
• Downplayed in many of the early episodes of Poirot; although Poirot himself has far too much dignity to fall about the place laughing as in some of these examples, many episodes will end on him smiling in amusement at his friends after one final little joke or revelation.
• Most of the episodes for the Studio100 Kabouter Plop mostly ends with the characters laughing. Mainly when ever Klus's pranks for the other characters backfires on him.
• Nearly every episode of Merlin ends with Merlin making some quip to Gaius about the events of the episode and both of them chuckling at the foibles of a prattish prince and a clod-pole manservant.
• Probe's "Quit-It": At the end of the episode, Austin has set up Subliminal Seduction to trick Mickey into complimenting him. She realizes this as she inches her hand closer to his and they both laugh about it.
• The Mr. Potato Head Show: Immediately after Mr. Potato Head and Baloney restore their bagel-eating writer's talent, he begins writing an episode on his typewriter, and while watching him writing his script, Baloney comments on how stupid these kinds of endings are. Cue them laughing, the screen freezing, and a cut to commercials.
• My World… and Welcome to It: Much of "Seal in the Bedroom" sees Hamilton Greeley and John's wife Ellen failing to see the humor in John's cartoon in which a seal is shown looming over a married couple's bed. Both come around to the cartoon during the course of the episode, though — and when Hamilton brings a live seal to John's house as a comical peace offering at the end of the show, Hamilton, Ellen, and John share a hearty laugh.

Radio

• If you live in Malaysia, you'll still hear this a lot on radio commericals even to this day. Some of the laughs even sound forced and creepy, and ventures into scary territory!

Theatre

• Giuseppe Verdi's opera Falstaff ends with the entire cast laughing at the end of a finale ensemble whose theme is that "all the world's a joke."
• Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit ends with a particularly unsettling example following the central revelation of the play.
• The George Gershwin Jukebox Musical Nice Work If You Can Get It ends with the song "They All Laughed", which is admittedly more of a song about Take That!! and It Will Never Catch On than a straight up laugh ending, but it's close....ish.
  But ho ho ho!
  Who's got the last laugh now?
  

Video Games

• Subverted in Final Fantasy VI. After the party finds the escaped Espers and brings them back to Thamasa, the story appears to be headed towards a happy ending, with everyone on scene laughing about Locke and Celes' reconciliation. But then we hear a familiar laugh ring out and in walks Kefka, who captures all the Espers, kills Leo, and eventually invades the Esper continent, causing it to float into the sky.
• Many scenes in the Kingdom Hearts series end with the camera moving upwards and a painfully extended laugh by all present.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising subverts this at the end of Chapter 9, after Pit defeats Medusa.
  Pit: We did it! We really did it!
  Palutena: Congratulations! I know it wasn't always easy.
  Pit: Aw, but it was so worth it! With the world at peace again, even the sun feels warmer!
  Palutena: Aw, you're so cute, Pit!
  Both: Ahahahahahahahah!
  Hades: Now wait just a second.
• The Firemen ends with Pete cracking a pretty lame joke causing Pete and Danny to burst into laughter, possible because of the relief of surviving such a stressful situation.
• Khimera: Puzzle Island: The epilogue ends with everyone laughing after Chelshia flubs agreeing with everyone else, since there was a "second", "third", "fourth" ordinal sequence going and she said one that was already claimed.
• The Cast of Star Trek: Voyager laugh, in Star Trek: Elite Force, when Tuvoc claims that Captain Janeway has insulted him, by claiming he has a sense of Pride?
• A darker version of this occurs at the end of the Jetstream DLC of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, in which Sam, after having his arm chopped off and offered a job by Senator Armstrong, quietly laughs at his predicament, with Armstrong chuckling along with him.
• The ending of Zelda: the Wand of Gamelon.
  (Zelda smashes an enchanted mirror, freeing Link)
  Link: What happened?
  Zelda: Nothing, Link, we were just about to have a feast.
  Link: Great!
  (Zelda and the King laugh)
• One of the side missions in Watch_Dogs 2 — the one where the Ded-Sec team trick Shkreli-expy Gene Carcani out of twenty million dollars — ends with this. Perhaps the only reason Sitara isn't heard laughing is that she had her audio output rigged to "mic-spam" the Bobo Dakes soundboard they used to accomplish the mission.
  Wrench: [howling with uncontrollable laughter throughout the whole voice chat call]
  Marcus: [on the verge of laughter] Guys..! Guys, he ju-... He just... donated twenty million to leukemia research!
  Sitara: [using a soundboard of Bobo Dakes] Bitch better have my money!
  Marcus: [laughs] Yo! Who did that?!
• Played for laughs in Octodad: Dadliest Catch when Tommy asks if his dad is an octopus, where exactly did he and Stacy come from? After an awkward silence, the family avoid the topic by just bursting out laughing instead.
  Tommy: [after a few seconds of laughter] Seriously. [smash cut to credits]
• Mario Power Tennis: The animated opening depicts a fairly-involved short in which Wario and Waluigi team up with Bowser to sabotage a tennis tournament they were eliminated from. Beating the last two cups in the game unlocks a two part reel of Animated Outtakes parodying scenes from the short; the second half ends with a take for the scene being ruined a Paratroopa flying into the shot by accident, causing Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, and Bowser to burst out laughing.

Web Animation

• The web cartoon The Mr. Gear and Clippy Show lampshaded this at the conclusion of the "Return of Dr. Disc" arc, where after all the loose ends are tied up, everyone starts laughing for no apparent reason. One of the characters asks "Why are we laughing?" before the scene moves to the closing credit screen.
• Done a few times on Homestar Runner:
  • At the end of "The King of Town", everyone has a laugh at the expense of the King of Town when Homestar reveals the King ate his own missing sheep.
  • The Strong Bad Email "ISP" parodied this by having Strong Bad's laughter reach maniacal, mildly-disturbing levels before the cartoon cut back to the GIF Strong Bad was trying to download earlier in the cartoon.
  • "The Homestar Runner Enters the Spooky Woods" ends with Strong Bad fainting to death at the sight of Homestar waggling his ghost tail at him, and becoming a ghost himself. The reaction:
    "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" Laughed all the other characters in a satisfying, end-of-story fashion.
• Bad Days ends episode #8, "Captain America", with Nick Fury and Cap laughing after realizing they almost forgot Thanksgiving, then Fury continuing to laugh up through everyone's dinner time. Cap's ice cream makes him become a Human Popsicle once again, but Fury doesn't seem to notice.
• Parodied by Tobuscus in the first episode of Tobuscus Animated Adventures. Toby and Gabe go to Dead Island thanks to a hilarious misunderstanding and get attacked by zombies. Gabe helps Toby fight off the zombies, then makes an absolutely atrocious pun. Both laugh uproariously... and then Toby, who was bitten earlier, attacks Gabe. The end.
• The finale of the Mappy web series ends this way. Goro and Mappy declare each other enemies forever, and the two begin to laugh (with Mappy's laughter sounding slightly unhinged) as Dig Dug soundlessly and wordlessly falls onto the floor.
• Helluva Boss
  • Played straight but for Black Comedy in episode 1 ("Murder Family"). It ends with everyone except Moxxie, who's upset because he's sort of slightly less evil or less good at being evil than the others, laughing at the horrible things that happened in the episode.
    Millie: And killing people isn't that big a deal if they try to kill you back.
    Mrs. Mayberry: That's messed up... but I paid for it!
    (everybody laughs)
    Blitzo: Yeah, fuck that family.
  • The fourth episode has Wally Wackford (who just bust his way into the office through the wall) attempting to set one up as he cracks a pun and starts laughing, but then no one joins in; everyone just stares awkwardly as Blitzo yells at him to get out.

Web Comics

• The final chapter of Mob Psycho 100 ends with all the children, plus Dimple and Serizawa Katsuya, coming to Spirits and Such to celebrate Reigen's birthday. It turns into a laughing fit after the birthday boy gets hit in the face with his cake. The last shot shows the protagonist Mob joining in on the fun and laughing too.
• The Shufflers: Subverted in the chapter “The Tea Girl”. Everybody starts laughing after Hiddenite asks to sleep in Märchen’s bed that night, including Märchen. Then he yells “No!”. Silence ensues while the characters all look awkwardly at each other, laughter gone.

Web Videos

• Episode 7^note the second half of the Yellow Temperance chapter) of Vaguely Recalling JoJo ends with the heroes laughing at a quip from Polnareff.
• In The Nostalgia Critic's review of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom alongside 80's Dan, Dan and his friends do this before the ad break, complete with Freeze Frame Ending. Critic tries to do it too, but doesn't know how they freeze frame like that. 80's Dan and crew remain frozen for much of the second half of the review.
• Lampshaded in A Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever. The trailer ends with all characters laughing and the protagonist noting "It's not going to be entirely a dramatic film. Because we laughed there."

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