Through dark halls, two unnamed girls scream in fright at semi-animated dummies. In a brightly coloured final chamber, they try one of several doors, from which looms the dummy of a maniacally leering clown.
Meanwhile, by the Midnight Society’s campfire, Kristen makes to leave - clowns are her limit. Kiki makes fun of her. Kristen decides to stay, and challenges a disarmingly smiling Betty Anne to do her worst. Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, she calls this story "The Tale of Laughing in the Dark."
On Friday night at Playland, Weegee, younger sister Cathy and Weegee's friend Josh approach a building emblazoned with the looming portraits of a zombie, a vampire, a dragon, and a...clown. Cathy nervously voices rumours of an actual haunting within the spook house. Weegee agrees. Josh mocks their unease, does a chicken impression, and backs into the path of a snazzily dressed carny. Genially challenged to enter Laughing in the Dark, Josh finds himself transfixed by the image of the clown. Maybe another time...
Next day, in Weegee's bedroom, while Josh toys with a hockey stick, Weegee shows Cathy a photocopy of a 1924 newspaper headline. In 1924, the circus set up near Playland. A clown, Zeebo, stole the circus payroll of four thousand dollars. Caught, he ran into Playland's spook house - and dropped a cigar, incinerating himself. The spook house was rebuilt to include a dummy of the ill-fated clown. Josh scorns the idea of a genuinely haunted spook house. Weegee challenges him to prove his fearlessness, and visit the spook house himself.
Josh drags them back to Playland. Not only will he go through Laughing in the Dark alone, he'll steal Zeebo's nose - which Weegee will wear to school for a week.
Alone in the darkened spook house, Josh treads slowly. Past a clown dummy, vampire, headless corpse and dragon, Josh finds a dead end, marked with oppositely pointing arrows. At the smell of cigars, he looks around in search of smoke, and backs into the wall. It swings around, and pushes him to the floor of the bright, multicoloured final chamber. Door number four is the way out. But he has to get that nose...
Nervously, he pulls open door number six. From the darkness, with a recorded cackle of high-pitched laughter, looms a second, cartoonishly leering clown dummy. Josh leaps forward, and pulls off the pliable red sphere of its nose. With a triumphant laugh, he takes his leave. In the empty, silent chamber, from beneath door number six, seeps a cloud of cigar smoke...
The next day, outside Weegee's house, Weegee reluctantly wears the stolen nose. Josh is more smug than ever. Weegee angrily throws the nose across the lawn. While Josh searches the lawn for the nose, Weegee and Cathy go inside. Stooped over some plants, Josh smells cigar smoke. He follows the smell to the edge of the house - but no one is there.
At home, a note explains Josh’s parents to have gone to the theatre. He puts a spaghetti dish into the microwave, then takes out a bowl of chocolate pudding. From the hallway, a sudden, heavy creaking causes him to drop the bowl. To his right, a closet door creaks partly open. Josh reaches into a cupboard, and takes out a baseball bat. With a frightened yell, he opens the closet. From inside, a broom clatters to the floor. The phone rings. Josh jumps and picks it up. Weegee apologises for being a sore loser. Josh smilingly admits to being a sore winner, and magnanimously limits Weegee's nose-wearing to one day. He puts down the phone. It rings again. A high, croaking voice demands return of the nose.
The microwave beeps. Josh opens its door, and releases a heavy cloud of purplish smoke. He takes out the dish, and realises its content to smell of something other than burnt spaghetti. He lifts the lid. The dish is full of smouldering cigars. Josh cries out in horror, and legs it to his bedroom while Zeebo leaves a clown footprint on the spilled pudding.
On his bedroom phone, to Weegee, Josh admits his fear. The line is disrupted by a click. Since Weegee's house only has one phone, the disruption must be at Josh's. The croaky voice threatens to come and get the nose. Josh leaps across the room, and bolts the door. The handle rattles. From the tiny crack beneath the door, Josh sees the shadows of two feet. From beneath the door, a purple balloon inflates into the room. Before Josh, the balloon lifts into the air. Across it is printed a message:
- GIVE IT BACK!
Josh fearfully approaches, apologises, and leaves the nose on the floor - as well as a box of cigars. The door swings closed. With another round of recorded applause, door number four swings open, and Josh is free to go. He bolts. In the empty room, door number six swings back open, to reveal the dummy of Zeebo the Clown, with his nose back in place.
Outside, the Carny watches Josh flee into the night. With a hearty chuckle, he takes a drag on his cigar.
The tricks must have been played by the Carny, surmises Frank - or, suggests David, could the Carny have been Zeebo's ghost? At more taunting from Kiki, Kristen pronounces herself undisturbed - until Eric dons a clown mask. Kristen screams and flees. As the others follow, Gary quickly douses the fire.
This episode provides examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: When Weegee wears Zeebo's nose, Cathy stifles a chuckle.
- Afraid of Clowns: The reason Kristen is at first reluctant to sit through a clown story.
- Alternative Character Interpretation: In-Universe — after the story's over, the Midnight Society discuss whether Zeebo's ghost was actually haunting Josh, the carnie was just screwing with him for stealing the nose, or if the carnie WAS Zeebo's ghost.
- Amusement Park of Doom: Averted. While its spook house is said to house something rather more sinister than scary exhibitions, most of Playland lives innocently up to its name. Even the Monster Clown has little interest in causing actual harm, mostly just performing pranks to scare Josh, and only because he stole his nose.
- Big Brother Bully: Subverted. Weegee is protective of Cathy, whereas Josh relentlessly ribs both of them.
- Break the Haughty: Despite his insistence to the contrary, Josh finds the spook house scary. His bravado starts to wane on hearing a strange voice on the phone.
- The Calls Are Coming from Inside the House: Josh’s telephone correspondence with Weegee is disrupted by a return of the unknown voice.
- Cigar Chomper: Zeebo, and the Carny, who are implicitly the same person, love cigars.
- Creepy Circus Music: Predictably played at the amusement park. A more deranged creepy circus tune is heard when Zeebo terrorizes Josh at his home.
- Dead All Along: As theorised by David, the Carny may have been Zeebo all along.
- Department of Redundancy Department: The story is about a haunted haunted house (as in, a fake haunted house attraction that's — allegedly — haunted by a real ghost).
- Dissonant Serenity: The Carny is calmly genial, with a hint of playful menace.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: As with "The Tale of the Twisted Claw", this episode opens with a scene from this week's story, before cutting to the introductory campfire scene.
- Light Is Not Good: The multicoloured, brightly lit final chamber of Laughing in the Dark has several doors, most of which lead to spooky displays, including that of old Zeebo.
- Monster Clown: In 1924, a clown named Zeebo stole the circus payroll, fled into the Playland spook house, and was incinerated by a discarded cigar. In ghoulish commemoration, the rebuilt spook house features two clown dummies. One evokes Zeebo’s robbery, the other looms from one of several doors. The sign above the spook house door also features a clown smoking a cigar. The ghostly clown’s vengeful pursuit of Josh includes a balloon, on which is written a demand for return of the nose.
- Must Make Amends: Josh, when his fear starts to mount, amicably admits his cockiness to Weegee. He then returns the nose, and leaves some cigars for good measure.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The haunting entails a disembodied cackle and accompanying cigar smoke; distant bumps and creaks throughout Josh's silent house, an ominous phone call, instantaneously manifest smouldering cigars, and the rattling of Josh's bedroom door, from behind which two shadowed feet precede a balloon with a demand for the nose's return. Finally, back in the spook house, the second clown dummy is obscured by ethereal mist and a brilliant flashing light.
- The Prankster:
- Zeebo’s haunting of Josh includes teasingly ambiguous noises, mocking laughter, and swapping his dinner for a dish of smouldering cigars. Whether it was really all just staged by the Carny, or the Carny really was Zeebo’s ghost, his mocking laughter befits a practical joke.
- After the story, Eric dons a clown mask.
- Robbing the Dead: Josh steals the clown dummy’s nose as a trophy. He soon wishes he hadn’t.
- Scare Dare: Sick of Josh’s mockery of his fear of the spook house, Weegee dares him to go in.
- Troll: Kiki relentlessly mocks Kristen’s coulrophobia.
- Vengeful Ghost: Zeebo, when his nose is stolen.
