Suicide As Comedy / Live-Action TV

• An early episode of the classic kids' varieties show You Can't Do That on Television had Motor Mouth Ditz Lisa sent to the principal's office as punishment for him because according to the teacher it was the closest thing to hell the school board could think of. She later came back and said the principal had pulled out a gun while she was talking to him and shot himself so he would not have to hear her. While she was talking the teacher and other students pulled out guns and pointed them at their own heads until the teacher seemed to have an epiphany decide to put their guns to a different use which could probably be classified as "Homicide as Comedy".
• Scrubs: Ted the lawyer falls in the Interrupted Suicide category. He occasionally gets up on the hospital roof, trying to build the courage to jump. However, he is actually TOO pathetic for it to be taken seriously, putting him clearly in this trope. The one time he does actually jump, he lands on a pile of trash. There's also a short gag in the last season involving a revolver...
  Dr. Maddox: [looking in Ted's briefcase] Hey, how come all you have in here is a smiley face button and a revolver?
  Ted: Well... one's in case I get sad and... the other one's in case I get really sad.
  Dr. Maddox: Well! See you tomorrow.
  Ted: We'll see.
• The Young Ones:
  • Neil in the pilot episode has built a gallows in the toilet that plays "Rock Around the Clock". Unfortunately for him it just pulls the overhead cistern over and he gets soaked. Meanwhile when the other three Young Ones hear it playing "Rock Around the Clock" Rick mutters, "Well, that's put the rent up by a third."
  • And again when Rick melodramatically attempts to kill himself by grabbing a bottle of pills and shoving a fistful in his mouth.
    Neil: Is it possible to kill yourself with laxatives?
    Vyvyan: I don't know, Neil — but I'm going to stay and find out!
• Supernatural:
  • It has a giant, existential teddy bear that's been brought to life by the wish of a six-year-old-girl attempts to kill himself (complete with a suicide note written on a toy blackboard). Hilarity Ensues. This is serious Mood Whiplash however when compared to how depressingly straight the show portrays death and suicide otherwise.
  • There is an episode where anyone who asks for the truth is told it... by everyone... continuously... until they finally kill themselves. Depending on how you take Dean's Death Seeker behavior, the show's Mood Whiplash, and whether you are a fan of very Black Comedy, this can be pretty funny.
• Late Night with Conan O'Brien
  • The first episode had an opening of him walking down the street, in the office, at Starbucks, etc., everyone saying to him "You'd better be as good as Letterman", and "You're under a lot of pressure!" He took it in stride, then went to his office and cheerfully set up a rope to hang himself, and had in fact placed it around is neck when there was a knock at the door, telling him, "You're on Mr. O'Brien!". Conan: "Now, or do I have a minute?"
  • In a later sketch, after the New York Mets famously fizzled away a 7 game lead on the Philadelphia Phillies with 17 games to go in 2007 regular season, O'Brien had Mr. Met get extremely depressed at the result, seeing a whole bunch of other misfortunes after the collapse of his team. The tipping point was seeing Mrs. Met in bed with the Phillie Phanatic, causing Mr. Met to attempt suicide by hanging himself with a rope- only that the rope wasn't big enough to fit around his head.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus:
  • The Kamikaze Scotsmen sketch.
  • One of Terry Gilliam's animations had a man threatening to kill himself. He eventually shot himself in the head and knocked out one of his eyeballs.
  • From the "Conquistador Coffee" sketch:
  "Now, I've had the managing director of Conquistador to see me this morning and he's very unhappy with your campaign. Very unhappy. In fact, he's shot himself."
  "Badly, sir?"
  "No, extremely well." (holds up a sign that says "Joke")
  • The final event in the Upper-Class Twit of the year contest was to see who could shoot himself first. It proves to be a challenging task, seeing as all of the twits have terrible aim, and one of them eventually resorts to Pistol-Whipping himself to death instead.
  • The skit where two men in an office have jumpers pass by their window and, rather than alert authorities, simply bet on who would be next to jump.
  • Inversion: The ending of the "Cheese Shop" sketch on the Matching Tie and Handkerchief album ends this way after Mr Wensleydale says he has no limburger cheese (topping what has been a futile attempt for Mr Mousebender to buy any cheese whatsoever):
  Mr Mousebender: Well, I'm sorry...but I'm going to have to shoot you.
  Mr Wensleydale: Righto, sir. (sound of a gunshot; Mr Wensleydale collapses dead)
  Mr Mousebender: What a senseless waste of human life.
• The short-lived Sitcom The Powers That Be (1992) focused on a US Senator and his dysfunctional family, including a suicidal son-in-law (a member of the House of Representatives). One memorably darkly funny bit had the son-in-law reading Final Exit (a book detailing various methods of suicide) with commentary ("tried it, tried that twice, like that's going to work,....")
• On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, supervillain Spike was captured and surgically prevented from acting out aggression of any kind against humans. He promptly attempts to throw himself on a stake.
• The Chilean Soap Opera Sucupira ^note (actually a remake of a Brazilian telenovela named "O bem amado" aka "The Beloved") had the pharmacist from the Sucupira coastal village, Don Segundo, considering/threatening/trying to commit suicide MANY times over his insecurity about his super sexy wife Olga Maria's fidelity. I.e: He tires to hang himself, blow his brains out, throw himself in front of a train, etc. This was such a trait of Don Segundo that the freaking OP of the series lampshaded it by showing the guy "hanging himself" with his own tie.
• At one point in Charmed, Cole repeatedly tries to kill himself because Pheobe doesn't love him any more. He tries fire and even a Guillotine (he gets stopped before he can use that one though).
• The Vicar of Dibley:
  • Used with the death of Frank's parents due to boredom. (That was never proved)!
  • In the episode where Frank lay preaches in Geraldine's stead for two Sundays in a row, Jim comments on how the length and sheer dullness of Frank's preaching drove at least one parishioner to commit suicide right there in their pew.
• Whose Line Is It Anyway?:
  • Ryan Stiles gets a lot of mileage out of his "hanged himself" act for this reason.
  • The game of "Superheroes" in which Brad Sherwood plays "Suicide Boy".
• In the Ripping Yarns episode Roger of the Raj, there is a scene at a regimental dinner where various officers express controversial opinions (such as passing the port to right or even allowing women to stay and drink port with the men). This leaves them with no choice but to do the honourable thing and they each leave the room in turn to administer the shot or in one case, two shots - the first having missed.
• One episode of Cheers had the gang making a film to send back to Woody's parents to convince them to let him stay in Boston. One segment was filmed in Frasier's office, and upon replay they see someone falling past the window. Frasier notes that he'll have to tell one of his colleagues, whose office was on a higher floor, that he needs to keep the windows in his office locked.
• In a season eight of How I Met Your Mother, a depressed Barney finds a stray dog to fill the gap left from his failed engagement. When he gets a phone call from the real owner asking for his return, he cheerfully says he will, hangs up, folds up his napkin, walks outside, and starts to climb over the edge of the patio. His casual calmness leading up to it is what's played for laughs.
• One episode of Community has Abed upset over finding out that Cougar Town has been pushed back to midseason. Britta introduces him to Cougarton Abbey, the British sitcom that inspired Cougar Town. The sixth episode of Cougarton Abbey ends with the entire cast killing themselves after the abbey is foreclosed upon. Abed is not amused.
• One of the last episodes of Friends has Rachel give tear-filled goodbyes to the others before she goes off to her new job in Paris. She says goodbye to Joey on the balcony and he seems to take it well. Then, she turns her back and he climbs over the side to jump.
• On Arrested Development, Tobias has himself put in prison to research an acting role. He runs afoul of the notorious White Power Bill and later tries to psychoanalyze him. He comes to the conclusion that White Power Bill is frustrated with his own failures and only really hates himself. White Power Bill angrily states that he hates his father, the government, and even Tobias himself. Tobias refutes each of these by calmly stating that White Power Bill hates White Power Bill. He then goes to prepare for the beating that White Power Bill promised him. While Tobias is preparing, White Power Bill climbs over the railing in the background and jumps to his death. His last words: "I hate White Power Bill."
• On an episode of Out of This World (1987), dimwit Chris Fuller was assigned the Teen Help telephone line.
  Jump! ^note  Chris explains to the nonplussed Evie that the caller wanted to know who was the current top of the charts...
• Red Dwarf makes reference to the time Rimmer volunteered for a suicide helpline and caused everyone who called him to commit suicide, including one who just had a wrong number. "Lemming Sunday, they called it."
• Al Bundy of Married... with Children regularly makes jokes about how he'd like to commit suicide, using it as the same kind of stock joke as the idea that his job selling shoes is a pathetic one, or how Peggy is even more useless when it comes to housekeeping and lovemaking, or jokes about how Bud can never get laid, etc.
  • Another episode had various husbands and boyfriends in line to (unwillingly) see The Bridges of Madison County. One man has a noose around his neck, another is reading Final Exit and one even runs into traffic after learning that Meryl Streep has a nude scene in it.
  • Another episode had him repeatedly fall off the roof whilst attempting to fix a leaky roof. When Peg bemoans how he broke the TV due to falling on the antenna in one attempt, Al snarks back that since there was no live wire or her neck available, he grabbed the first thing he hit to break his fall.
• On The Celebrity Apprentice, one task had the teams put on a show at Medieval Times. The men's team had two warriors (Lou Ferrigno and Paul Teutul Sr.) battle for the hand of a princess. Ferrigno wins and the princess removes her veil, revealing "her"self to actually be Dee Snider. Stuck with the ungainly princess, Ferrigno turns the sword on himself.
• Mad Men:
  • The suicide of Lane Pryce. After a season of discussing the faulty electrical system of SCDP's prospective client Jaguar, Lane's wife gets him one shortly after they win the account. The electrical system fails as soon as Lane tries to use it to asphyxiate himself. He also broke his glasses and uses one half as a monocle when he tries to fix the car. The whole scene is horrific and funny at the same time.
  • When Don tries to sell his ad idea for a hotel in Hawaii. The proposal has a line "The jumping off point" and the scene depicted has a triple whammy — left clothes and shoes on the beach that imply Suicide by Sea, a tie that looks like a noose, and footprints in the sand that evoke Barefoot Suicide. The clients notice and voice their concern. Don insists it might be just a personal association, and then others start discussing a movie with a similar scene (later identified as A Star Is Born). When Don asks later his creative director if that seriously makes him think of suicide, he answers eagerly while munching on a Danish pastry: "O'cworse! That's what's so gweat about it!"
• In a vox pop segment in A Bit of Fry and Laurie, a depressed guy says he once tried to kill himself. Locked himself in the garage, started the car. Turns out it had a catalytic converter and he came out after seven hours with a slight headache.
• A Christmas Episode of Life in Pieces had a segment where Joan tries to council a neighbor whose wife had recently died. She tries to help him recognize the warning signs of suicidal thoughts. As she's listing the warning signs, we see their robot vacuum (think Roomba) displaying these warning signs. Just after Joan comments to John that she feels she's missing a sign, the vacuum throws itself down the stairs and is smashed to pieces.
• On Legends of Tomorrow, John Constantine takes advantage of a time travel trip to attempt to erase his own existence by tracking down his verbally abusive father before he was born to give him a "back-alley vasectomy." However, he is physically unable to do so due to the Grandfather Paradox involved.
• In one episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Frank Reynolds tries multiple times to commit suicide by hanging himself in the middle of the bar, while the rest of the Gang barely reacts to it and Dee just comments on how his neck is too thick for the rope to break it. Another episode involves Mac trying to perform a bridge-jumping stunt and everyone else naturally misinterpreting it.
  Frank: Suicide is badass!
• At the end of the number "Don't Be a Lawyer" in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, a lawyer comes onscreen to deliver a disclaimer that the song does not represent the network's views, only to decide that the song was right after all and his job is making him miserable; he proceeds to jump out a nearby window as Jim and the backup dancers look on. It's an interesting decision, given that it's all in Rebecca's head, and her own suicide attempt the previous season was not played for comedy at all.
• On Schitt's Creek, Johnny is invited to give the eulogy for Carl, a man he did not know. He asks how Carl passed and is told it was a freak accident that happened when Carl's belt caught on a ceiling fan and then looped around his neck. Johnny realizes the truth, but most in the town continue to believe it was an accident.
• The Mandalorian: The IG-11 bounty droid is programmed to self-destruct upon capture, so as to keep manufacturer secrets out of the hands of competitors. Therefore, as soon as he calculates basically any chance of capture, he immediately tries self-destruct using a thermal detonator embedded in his chest. It becomes a Running Gag during the shootout where the Mandalorian repeatedly tells him not to detonate himself.
• Just Shoot Me!: In "Donnie Reedemed" after Donnie's girlfriend leaves him he tries to kill himself a couple times, which is completely bungled. This is Played for Laughs.
• Gilligan's Island:
  • One episode revolved around first the Skipper, then Gilligan, thinking they were responsible for getting the cast shipwrecked. Both of them attempt to hang themselves and Gilligan even suggests a Suicide Pact before they go into voluntary exile. The dawning realization of their attempts and Gilligan's ridiculous idea for a pact are what sell it.
  • Another episode involves the Howells believing they'd gone broke. Mr. Howell attempts to throw himself off a cliff followed by the both of them when they feel they can't survive as regular people. In this case, it's their dialogue and how exactly they're reacting to it that turns the situation from sad to silly.
• The Brittas Empire: "Stop Thief!" had a joke where Helen recounts the one day that Brittas worked with the Samaritans:
  Dr. Grey: Tell me um, did he really train for the Samaritans?
  Helen: Oh yes.
  Dr. Grey: And they let him in?
  Helen: Oh, just the one evening - "Black Friday" they call it. They lost four in an hour and a half.
  Dr. Grey: Four?
  Helen: One of them was just a wrong number.
• The IT Crowd: Denholm's Surprisingly Sudden Death is treated this way. At the very height of his hubris and in the middle of a celebratory business meeting, a secretary comes to tell him the police want to see him over "irregularities in the pension fund". He calmly tells her to let them in, gets up, opens the window and flings himself out without another word and with the most casual hop possible, leaving his board utterly flummoxed in the process.