http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LaughingMad

Some days are worse than others.

rose mary, Higurashi Laugh Collection "Laughter is a good medicine but if you laugh for no reason you need medicine"

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Trauma and tragedy tend to follow characters like plagues, and they often break them down, turning them into insane, jaded shadows of their former selves. This can often happen in various ways, but the best way to tell if a character just can't take it anymore is if they just break down and start laughing for no reason at all, or for all the wrong reasons. Usually, when this happens, they will continue to sit there, laughing uncontrollably, as if in a trance, until someone breaks them out of it, sometimes by a slap in the face.

Expect the laughing character to either gain control of themselves and apologize for losing it (while still emotionally fragile, of course), or, alternatively, simply stop caring about life. This may lead to them becoming distant, or become more harsh than before.

More often extreme cases occur, causing a character to turn to complete madness, going into an insane asylum.

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On the flip side, villains are also prone to this. It is often shown as being fundamentally different from an Evil Laugh, usually as them either laughing a lot longer than normal, having the laugh sound more deranged than cold and boastful, or a combination of the two. This is normally used if the writer wants to characterize the villain in a much more psychotic light and have a more frightening nature than normal. Expect it to also be used for a Villainous Breakdown in some cases.

Like Insane Equals Violent, this phenomenon is rare in real-life instances of severe mental illness. In fact, a common characteristic of schizophrenia is the absence of laughter, or indeed of other indicators of emotion ("flatness of affect"). Of course, the Truth in Television here might come from Bipolar Disorder, where mania causes inappropriate laughter on a euphoric scale  or Schizoaffective Disorder, which is the two in a blender. Then there's the simple fact that inappropriate laughter can accompany intense grief, anger or other forms of distress, without actual mental illness needing to be involved  a related phenomenon is "hysterical laughter", where an intense bout of Inelegant Blubbering starts to resemble a laughing fit.

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Not necessarily related to Evil Laugh, but definitely a type of Freak Out. Is also a sure-fire sign of Sanity Slippage. Also see Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter" for maniacs who engage in this regularly, and Giggling Villain for a constant if contained laugh. Sometimes overlaps into Die Laughing, especially if it is the result of a Villainous Breakdown. May be the cause of Ominous Adversarial Amusement. Compare Corpsing, involving laughter at inappropriate times (probably because repressing is maddening).

Not to be confused with Final Fantasy VI's Dancing Mad, although that game did act as the Trope Namer in regards to its main villain.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

Comic Books

Comic Strips

In an early Garfield arc when both Garfield and Odie run away, Jon calls out for them, thinking they're playing a joke. Then, he starts laughing. Cue his neighbor's reaction ◊ : Hubert: Call the wagon, Reba! That's not a natural laugh!

Fan Works

Films  Animation

Films  Live-Action

Literature

Live-Action TV

Music

Pro Wrestling

Roleplay

In the Danganronpa/Rabbit Doubt hybrid Doubt Academy, Akari Kagome, the Super High School Level Hockey Player, has one of these when she realizes she's going to be executed for a murder she didn't commit.

Tabletop Games

Numerous followers of Chaos in Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 alternate between this and Evil Laugh, sometimes combining the two for extra madness. Sort of inevitable when one allows The Legions of Hell to use one's skull as their metaphorical playground.

In Exalted, Adorjan the Silent Wind is considered the Yozi patron of Ax-Crazy. As a result, her chosen Infernals tend to get access to Charms that reflect this, such as Broken Silence Laughter Defense (which allows the Infernal to throw off attempts to influence them by laughing inappropriately) and Eloquence in Unspoken Words (which gives the Infernal telepathic communication, at the price that they can only vocalize laughter).

Invoked in-universe with the spell "Hideous Laughter" (also known as "Tasha's Hideous Laughter") from Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder; it's an Enchantment school spell that compels the victim to laugh like a maniac for the duration of the spell, effectively paralyzing them with the most intense, histrionic laughing fit they are physically capable of. In most versions of the game, this is its only effect, but in the 4th edition of the game, victims actually took damage from the spell, and could literally laugh themselves to death.

Theatre

Video Games

Visual Novels

Web Animation

Flippy of Happy Tree Friends whenever he goes into Ax-Crazy mode. Also, the hyperactive squirrel, Nutty.

Homestar Runner: Strong Bad goes into a rather creepy mad laughing fit in the Sbemail "isp" after discovering that Strong Mad has screwed up his Internet connection by literally sucking up bandwidth.

Dreamscape: As part of Ethan's insanity act, this is a given.

Webcomics

Web Videos

Western Animation

Real Life