Fatal hilarity

Fatal hilarity is death as a result of laughter.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest deals with a video tape containing a movie so entertaining that anyone watching it loses all desire to do anything else, eventually becoming comatose and dying. Paralleling the team of translators in the Monty Python sketch "The Funniest Joke in the World" (who survived their assignment only by translating a single word per person), the only person who could watch the movie was the director, who was too insane to be affected by its humor.

Related Topics:
David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest - Video tape - Comatose - Monty Python - The Funniest Joke in the World - Director

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In addition, much of comedy slang deals with the concept of death, e.g. "I killed them out there," "I died on stage."

Related Topics:
Comedy - Slang - Death

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The concept was also used in the mixed-live action/animation movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where excessive laughter was shown to be one of two ways for cartoon characters to die (the other possibility was coming in contact with a concoction known as "dip").

Related Topics:
Live action - Animation - Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Dip

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

According to the urban legend reference website Snopes.com, there have been at least two documented instances in which people have died apparently of laughter, one in 1975 and one in 2003 http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/laughing.asp.

Related Topics:
Urban legend - Snopes.com - Laughter

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Since asthma attacks are fatal more often than is usually thought; and since for a minority of sufferers, laughter strongly triggers asthmatic attacks, the numbers of people who have died of laughter is undoubtedly much larger.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~