One of my favorite scenes from “The West Wing” tackles the serious subject of inappropriate laughter. CJ and team are meeting with a disgruntled DAR dowager to smooth her ruffled feathers prior to an event, and CJ cracks up at the most inopportune moment:
That happens to me sometimes. Not very often, thank dog, but it just happened the other night when I called to place a takeout order at a Chinese restaurant. One of the dishes I was ordering was “chow mai fun,” and when I started to say the words, the name of the dish suddenly seemed like the funniest goddamn thing in the world, and I couldn’t stop laughing.
I’ve ordered that dish many times, and while the name sounds mildly amusing to me as an English speaker, it never struck me as screamingly funny, but this time it did. Every time I tried to choke out the words, I’d collapse in hysterical laughter and have to put the phone aside while the poor takeout dude was saying, “Ma’am? Ma’am? Ma’am?”
My husband and daughter were gaping at me as if I’d lost my mind, which I had. I tried to hand the phone off to them, but they wouldn’t take it. They openly speculated that I was drunk or on drugs, which I wasn’t.
Finally I pulled my shit together long enough to complete the order, but I continued to laugh so hard I had tears and snot all over my face for the better part of an hour. I made the kid go pick up the order because I was too embarrassed to show my face in the restaurant.
Has that ever happened to you? If so, what set you off?
PS: The “West Wing” bit reminded me of my mom’s all-time favorite television portrayal of inappropriate laughter: the funeral of Chuckles the Clown on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Go ahead, laugh! Laugh for Chuckles!
Buddy H
Can’t say the word “Eleemosynary” without laughing.
Cervantes
Yes, I interviewed a woman once (I’m a social scientist) who told me she had been kicked out of a residential rehab program because she had sex in a closet with a nun.
That was actually very funny.
Gin & Tonic
Maybe not uproarious, but funny nonetheless.
President Vladimir Putin has awarded the Order for Merit to the Fatherland, 2nd Class to Ivan Sechin, for longstanding service to the energy sector. Ivan Sechin is 25 years old, and has worked for Rosneft for less than a year. He is a “first deputy director” there.
Oh, almost forgot to mention, Ivan’s father Igor is the head of Rosneft and one of Putin’s closest confidants. But I’m sure this was for merit.
gogol's wife
I was at a recital held in a chapel at the Yale Divinity School. The pianist was a tall, gaunt English grad student, accompanying a short Czech grad student in a very silly Weber piece. Every time the main theme of the rondo came around it struck me as hilarious, and I started giggling, which meant that everyone in the pew could feel the vibrations as I shook with repressed laughter. The person I was with was not amused.
My brother and I specialize in getting ridiculously hysterical, annoying everyone around us.
Today I keep laughing as I recall bits of Hot Fuzz, which I saw for the first time last night. “S–t just got real.”
Gravenstone
Ya know, I’d been debating Chinese takeout for dinner. Chow mei fun it is!
Iowa Old Lady
A little song
A little dance
A little seltzer down your pants
srv
I consider all the laughter I get here from liberal angst to be appropirate.
Amir Khalid
Other characters would refer to Chuckles the Clown a lot. He was the subject of funny stories and things like that. But The Mary Tyler Moore Show never actually showed Chuckles himself on-screen, as I remember.
Rhoda‘s Carlton the Doorman was never heard but on the intercom, and the one time he appeared on-screen, the actor playing him walked silently across the stage set with his back to the camera.
dan
Years and years (and years) ago, our parents took us out to dinner at an old school New York Chinese Restaurant. Every time we ordered something, the waiter, in HEAVILY accented English, repeated it back to confirm the order, so us kids were already giggling.
This may have been the 70s, but no later than the 80s, so my parents were also old school cocktail drinkers. When my mother ordered a Rob Roy on the rocks and the waiter repeated it back, I thought I was going to laugh myself unconscious.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
I laugh inappropriately so often that I can’t even think of a specific story about it. Though it does happen a little less often now that I’m middle-aged and taking ADHD meds.
KG
as a kid, and into my teens, I would laugh when I got in trouble. not because I thought it was funny, totally uncontrollable. It usually doesn’t happen anymore, but I did almost have it happen while in court as a client went crazy on me – nothing like telling the judge on Friday that we have a deal and on Monday telling him my client backed out.
Botsplainer
I remember once in law school, sitting in class with a firend of mine. It was dull as shit, Conflict of Laws, and the professor was a deadpan droner with coke bottle glasses BUT owned a villa on Mallorca that he liked to invite students – particularly women – to come visit in the summer, so he was popular. Anyway, it was spring, warm in the building, and me and my buddy were starting up a round robin story that wound up with some similes and metaphors regarding 600 pound wrestlers and ballet.
Both of us got the giggles and couldn’t stop. Everybody started laughing around us.
c u n d gulag
When my sister and I shared an apartment in Brooklyn with a childhood friend of mine, when any of us called the local Chinese restaurant for a delivery, the one doing the calling had to get serious before calling, but, when we started to order a Poo-poo Platter, we’d all crack up!
Then, the phone would be handed-off to someone else, who’d also crack-up when s/he ordered a Poo-Poo Platter.
The only solution was to stop ordering Poo-Poo Platters!
It’s too bad. That restaurant had a really GREAT Poo-poo Platter!!!!
beth
As a teen at a Polish relative’s wake, two of my young adult cousins snuck over and wrote “ski” at the end of every name in the guestbook. They also introduced the guests to the widow that way which cracked up me and my sister so much we had to hide in the coat closet to muffle our laughs. Don’t know why we thought it so funny but it sure was inappropriate.
Iowa Old Lady
@Buddy H: Do you have cause to say that a lot?
ranchandsyrup
Oh, lovely. West Virginny legislature just repealed the renewable energy portfolio standards. http://t.co/NI5U0QAuln
what could go wrong?
Richard
A performance of The Nutcracker in some posh theater. A line of dainty ballerinas just off in the wings leap out as one on cue and land on their dainty toes, with a WHOMP as though they were the hippos in Fantasia. My buddy and I instantly cracked up, shuddering with silent laughter; it was an extraordinary feat not to burst out loud. And as soon as one of us got it together, the other would start in again. I’m laughing now just thinking of it.
JimV
“But The Mary Tyler Moore Show never actually showed Chuckles himself on-screen, as I remember.”
Remember the big snowstorm when Mr. Grant had to leave to drive the snowplow with the stick shift and Mary was left in charge and Ted wasn’t there and there was nobody to announce something on-air until Chuckles showed up for his morning kids show and she used him? Or something like that. Anyway, I saw him that one time. In his clown costume and makeup.
I started laughing inappropriately at something a friend told me once. I’ve suppressed the memory of what it was, I just know it seemed funny at the time but wasn’t funny to the friend.
MDC
Someone I know posted yesterday’s Family Circus comic on Facebook, with the added caption, “Well, mommy?” You have to look at the comic to grasp the smutty implications:
http://familycircus.com/comics/january-21-2015/
I kept thinking of this all afternoon and evening yesterday, and randomly bursting into quickly stifled laughter.
trollhattan
So, it’s dry.
How dry?
January so far has netted one-hundredth inch of rain, with none predicted over the coming week.
Two ski resorts just closed due to lack of stuff on which to ski.
That’s great, considering the year just concluded was the hottest on record and the drought is in year four.
A special “howdy” to James Inhofe.
heckblazer
In showbiz it’s called “corpsing”, since the irresistible urge to laugh always seems to happen when one has to stay absolutely still playing a corpse.
JPL
This made me laugh. http://jimromenesko.com/2015/01/22/i-bet-the-charge-wasnt-resisting-arrest/arrest/
It’s been awhile since I had tears in my eyes type of laughter but while house hunting one time, we opened the door to an occupied bedroom. The now ex said do you mind if I look in the bathroom. The realtor and I walked outside and both broke down in hysterics. Needless to say, I never did see that master bath.
Tenar Darell
It was during 10th grade English class. Two of my friends and I started laughing, and we couldn’t stop. We were exiled to the hallway, we’d get control, go back into the class and start laughing once again. I have no idea what was so funny that it set us off, but once we started we kept on re-infecting each other again and again. All three of us were total honors track grinds, and this was one if our favorite teachers. It was my most complete “Chuckles” moment.
Another Holocene Human
I finally watched the whole Beyonce FEMINIST mtv vma performance, which is over 15 minutes long. I’m not the biggest fan but she goes through a lot of different styles, a lot of vocal range and it’s an emotionally powerful performance as well as being intellectually and politically provocative. The stripper pole thing was very short, pretty lame as far as pole dancing goes, and to me probably less sexually provocative than some of the sets that preceded it. If you watch it in context it’s right before an emphatic claiming of female sexuality and female agency period and comes after a lot of pop wailing about relationship insecurity. I know Beyonce doesn’t really do the choreography but some of the choices were weird. I didn’t give a shit about the dancers by the time she finished, though. She got me singing about her kid. Anyway, I guess that part blew a bunch of minds, the feminist thing blew a bunch of minds, and I guess Huckabee is pretty repressed and/or has some really unresolved issues with Black women because it occurred to me during the “bedroom” parts of the set that she’s talking about stuff that male pop stars sing about ALL THE FUCKING TIME but in reference to the woman as muse/object and she’s turned it around by being the woman singing about those things. Also, she was pretty relentlessly feminist while being sexual, she disentangles the two. (ETA: oops, I mean disentangled sexISM from sexUAL) It’s sort of sad that that was enough to send so many people into our society into a tizzy.
It’s funny the stuff people “saw” the next day, I mean she’s wearing this glittery pop leotard thing through the entire performance, no costume or hair changes for her, and she does do some sexually suggestive posing (completely congruent to the context of the set) but she doesn’t even run her hands over her body Madonna style or anything like that. And the dancing is athletic but nothing spectacular (I mean, it’s still impressive she can dance like that and sing like that, I’m glad I watched it, especially because I’m from the Milli Vanilli era, lol). Like the dichotomy is that she’s doing this kind of confessional thing, talking about and referencing personal stuff, telling a personal story grounded in her actual life instead of just letting it stay abstracted as pop songs. I think that’s what really killed some people, they conflated the intimacy of connecting her music to her life as a wife and mother and the actual performance and remember her being “half-naked” and “inappropriate”, like conflating all intimacies together. I guess that hit the hypocrisy of American society right between the eyes, I mean where do babies come from, right? So she sang about that and heads exploded.
Jamey
Sounds familiar. There was an episode of the old Bob Newhart show in which a drunken Bob and some friends could not stop laughing at the name of the dish, Moo Goo Gai Pan.
joel hanes
Not inappropriate laughter, but some of you will know how to respond to the trade name
CrummyButtons
Tom Levenson
@Cervantes: Which bit was the problem? The sex, the closet, or the nun?
Another Holocene Human
@gogol’s wife:
Ooo, I loved that movie. And I laughed so hard my sides hurt.
Betty Cracker
@Another Holocene Human: I’m from the Milli Vanilli era too, so I’m not all that familiar with Beyoncé’s oeuvre, except what I pick up second-hand from the kiddies. But Huckabee has a lot of goddamned nerve criticizing anyone else’s parenting, considering the dog-torturing-and-murdering goon he raised. Until the Obama girls display psychopathic behavior like that, Huckabee should kindly shut the fuck up forever about the Obamas’ — or anyone else’s — parenting.
LT
I don’t know what’s more cringe-worthy – you actually offensively laughing like an especially dumb 13-year-old at a Chinese word, presumably to a Chinese person, or bragging about it here.
EDIT: Please cue the “Oh get a sense of humor” replies.
Suzanne
Two of my cousins and I burst into hysterical laughter at another cousin’s wedding, because one dude was drunk at 10AM during the ceremony. Then we tried to hold it in, which made it worse.
My ex-husband and I both laughed until we cried at Spawn the Elder’s first band concert, because the first note they played sounded like geese honking. The current Mr. Suzanne held his shit together. I married up this time.
dexwood
@Jamey:
More goo to go! A funny episode. Had a neighbor once who was one of that show’s writers, that episode included, and many MTM episodes. Morning coffee with him came with many funny stories.
burnspbesq
OT: the Government has filed its brief in King, and it is a glorious smackdown.
http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/14-114-Respondents-Brief.pdf
Betty Cracker
@LT:
Sorry — that comment cues the “Oh fuck off you brainless twat-waffle” reply. Also, way to assume that anyone taking an order at a Chinese restaurant must be Chinese, you racist fuck-bucket.
Tenar Darell
@Betty Cracker: I was not aware of this. I know about playing with that creepy Ted Nugent, I didn’t know he was responsible for raising someone who would torture and kill a dog. Makes him seem even worse somehow.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
And, has been pointed out, he has a lot of nerve complaining about Beyonce at all, given that he invited Ted Nugent on his show and played along while he did “Cat Scratch Fever”. Some example.
Helen
@beth:
This. This right here is making me laugh inappropriately at work. And I’m polish with a “ski” at the end of my name. How in the world did we not think of this when we were kids?
different-church-lady
I remember much to vividly the time I was getting a fast food burger and the guy behind the counter was making jokes with his coworkers in a high, squeaky voice. He asked me for my order in that voice and I laughed along, and gave him my order.
And then, slowly and much to my everlasting embarrassment, I realized that was his normal voice.
kc
“Yes, I’d like to place an order for one chow mai fun, please. My name? Cuchi. Munchma Cuchi.”
VincentN
@LT:
Uncontrollable laughter is, by definition, uncontrollable. And it happens to everybody so it’s a light-hearted topic to bring up.
Kevin
I was at the graveside service for my Uncle’s funeral. He was a marine, so the Corps sends a marine to present a flag to my cousin. Then he takes a cheapo cassette player and starts playing a recording of Taps. So everyone is standing around, right hands on their hearts, listening to a recording of Taps like there’s a color guard there. I thought it was the cheesiest thing I ever saw. I looked over to my brother for a conspiratorial glance and, of course, he’s Mr. somber. Fortunately I mostly held it together.
different-church-lady
@LT: I’m not sure how a post where the basic premise is “look how dumb I am” amounts to bragging.
kc
At a minor league hockey game, they had a 7 year old girl sing the national anthem. She was just spectacularly awful – off key, out of tune, missed every note, and got the words wrong. And it just went on and on and on. I was trying so hard not to laugh. I bowed my head, tucked my chin into my chest, and closed my eyes. At one point I dared to open my eyes and peek at the people around me and everyone was heaving with suppressed laughter. When the kid finally finished, everyone exploded with laughter and wild applause. Bless her heart.
Also have gotten the giggles at two funerals, one of them that of my own grandmother . . .
kc
@beth:
I’m embarrassed that I laughed at that just now. So, so wrong . . .
LT
@Betty Cracker: Gee, no sore spot there.
“Also, way to assume that anyone taking an order at a Chinese restaurant must be Chinese, you racist fuck-bucket.”
Mind-boggling.
LT
@different-church-lady: I know blog culutre and I guess just human community in general culture means we give *friends a pass, but can you imagine what would happen here or on other Lefty sites if George W. Bush was caught laughing at a Chinese name? Can we – can Betty – be honest about that? It ain’t KKK racism, but it has the dumbass soft racism to it, the Shaquille O’Neal “kung fuk pow” kind – without even a glimpse toward examining that. It’s all just so *funny*.
All that makes it seem like I think Betty’s a horrible person, I guess. I don’t. Truly. This is just – well, cringe-worthy.
I there is an element of “Look how stupid I am” to this, and I probably should have
LT
Arg. Last sentence on previoius comment left after not finishing editing. Should have read:
And yes, there is an element of “Look how stupid I am” to this, and I probably should have acknowledged that.
LT
Brings “Captain Sum Ting Wong” to mind- although that was much dumber and worse.
http://www.thewire.com/national/2013/07/no-these-racist-asian-names-arent-really-pilots-asiana-flight-214/67140/
satby
@LT: I bet you think all the people taking pizza orders are Italian, right?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@LT:
It must be nice to be so perfect that you’ve never started laughing at an inappropriate moment, or at something that never struck you as funny before. What’s it like to have no human flaws?
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Hey Mnemo, I found this product in the grocery store you might like too. It’s a bread called “All But Gluten”, no tummy ache, doesn’t crumble, you can keep it in the fridge not the freezer. Waaaaaay better than Udi’s, Rudy’s, etc, also that potatoey mushy German stuff.
Another Holocene Human
@satby: Is that like the “Japanese” sushi restaurants owned by Koreans and Taiwanese, or maybe the really scary ones with Mexican
soussushi chefs?Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Another Holocene Human:
I’ll have to look for it, thanks! I actually don’t have a problem with gluten (it’s actually the fructans in wheat that bother my tummy) but “gluten-free” is usually the easier way to avoid the grains with fructans in them.
Unless, of course, they put honey or inulin/chicory or agave or another FODMAP in it. :-( I discover that after the fact way too often.
LT
@satby: Pizza’s not Italian.
Also – it was wrong of me to say “presumably to a Chinese person.” It could of course have been a non-Chinese person. If you want to sell or buy the idea that me saying that makes me a racist – go for it.
Another Holocene Human
@LT: I think there’s a difference between inappropriate laughter at mispronunciation and just plain ignorance/kicking down implied in “funny” names for Chinese or other Asians.
True story, I was taking Japanese and we had some sort of department-side gathering commemorating so many years of US-Japanese alliance and one of the professors started chatting about the US presidential campaign and, well, Japanese does not have a distinct letter “l” in its phoneme set … and she was cute … and I had the bite the inside of my mouth.
OTOH, I think, well, I think a lot of things about AVENUE Q are gross, but I especially think the “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist” bit is gross because even if true in some sense the way it’s done is as apology for doing basically ching-chong ding-dong bits which to me aren’t fucking funny in the least, just ignorant and ugly, and no I’m not laughing along, and no, I’m not going to excuse you.
Another Holocene Human
@kc: To me this is odd because fun is pronounced “foon” (but it’s a nasalized “n” not a voiced “n”), which is a big flat noodle … which, you know, I guess that could be sexually suggestive :D it is in Chinese culture if you’re gross about how you eat it :DDD
Death Panel Truck
@Betty Cracker:
Seriously? There is a restaurant my wife and I often frequent. It has been owned by the same Chinese-American family since 1965. When we order takeout (which we probably will do tonight), a Chinese-American always answers the phone.
feebog
The late great Don Drysdale broadcast Angel games for a number of years before his untimely death. He always referred to the Angel’s shortstop at the time as “Young Dick Thon”. It was several years before I realized that Dick Thon was not Asian, and that his first name was not “Young”.
Another Holocene Human
Upps, maifun are angel hair noodles, fun are the big ribbons. Noodles, noodles, you’re ALL tasty!
LT
@Another Holocene Human: I guess it’s just the way it hit me as written about, as if it’s simply inapprpriate laughter – period – rather than at an Asian name, which has actual baggage. If I’d been in the room and I probably would have been infected by the laughter and more beholden of the innocence of the moment.
LT
@Death Panel Truck: Nah, she’s right, I shouldn’t have presumed. Does it make me a racist? For fuck’s sake, no. It makes me someone who can presume something stupid. I don’t think I have ever been in an American Chinese restaurant that didn’t have mostly Chinese staff – I mean that literally, I don’t think I have EVER been in one that didn’t – but it’s still wrong to presume it. Anyone can work in a Chinese restaurant.
kc
@Another Holocene Human:
How hard is it to learn Japanese? To read it, if not to speak it . . .?
NotMax
Now I want a big serving of chow fun.
Anyhoo, the unstoppable inappropriate laughter happened once that I can recall, while doing my student teaching. No idea what, if anything, set it off but it lasted for several minutes (which seemed like several hours in that venue). Laughed so hard that couldn’t even get up from the desk to stand facing the blackboard. The kids were quite befuddled at the spectacle.
kc
Damn, leave it to a bunch of liberals to put a damper on a lighthearted discussion about inappropriate laughter by hectoring everyone about how inappropriate inappropriate laughter is. :)
Tree With Water
Grade school assembly, 5th grade, Roxanne Sanders. Roxanne was selected to speak before the student body, and started to giggle uncontrollably. A teacher finally came out and put a hand on her shoulder, and the both exited stage left. I never will forget it, and I’m sure Roxanne never has either..
Pappenheimer
For laughter which leads one to a role in the gladiatorial games, I refer you to Monty Python’s Life of Brian:
“I have a fwend, you know, Would like to know his name?”
(Roman guard, tears running down his suffused face, shakes his head.)
“His name is…Biggus”
(dreadful anticipation)
Betty Cracker
@Death Panel Truck: No, NOT seriously. I was trying to give a tiresome scold a taste of his/her own medicine. And it worked as planned as he/she seems poised to convene a tribunal on him/herself. Mission accomplished, as they say.
LT
@Betty Cracker: Holy shit. Tupperware Co aches for a seal as tight as yours.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Pappenheimer:
IIRC, Terry Jones (who directed it) says that he sternly lectured the two extras playing the guards that they were not to laugh under any circumstances, and he would fire them if they did. That’s one of the reasons the reactions from them are so great.
Betty Cracker
@LT: Project much? I’ll leave it to our esteemed readers to decide, but my guess is you have the “tight” and “seal” vote pretty much sewn up, sugar! It may be time to quit digging.
sempronia
@Another Holocene Human:
mai fun are wiry white rice noodles (mai is one word for rice). “fun” means noodle and in Cantonese is pronounced just like that – fun (ignoring the tones). “fun” is also shorthand for sa ho fun, the wide white rice noodles. not to be confused with mein (pronounced “mean” in canto and “mien” in mandarin), the skinny yellow egg noodles.
want…delicious…noodles….
/ hungry noodle pedant
LT
@Betty Cracker: Oh, it’s obvious you want to leave it to the readers to decide. Nothing biased about that.
And if you can manage to step back – isn’t it possible that going into hysterics over an Asian name is actually just really inappropriate, and not in an *okay way, but in a really inappropriate, bordering on the dumbass kind of racism way? And that maybe reacting a bit less poisonously to someone who points it out might be a better tack overall? In a couple different ways?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@LT:
I honestly have no idea how you read Asian words are funny, you guys! into a post about laughter that is out of proportion to what triggered it, but I guess you’re going to insist on riding that purity pony into the ground.
Drowned Rat
@Betty Cracker,
Yes, this sort of thing happens to me from time to time. The worst aspect is that often the whole thing will come back to me late at night while trying to fall asleep. I’m lying there trying to muffle myself so as not to wake up Mrs. Rat (who hates to be waked up once she’s asleep). Try telling your very pissed-off spouse that the whole damn bed is shaking because you just remembered this stupid thing that happened last Thursday, and it was so funny, sweetie! See??
LT
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): @Mnemosyne (iPhone):
No idea?
JR in WV
@ranchandsyrup:
I don’t think we can anticipate all the dreadful dreck the Republican lege is going to do this term in West Virginia. This is the first time since 1932 the Republicans have controlled either of the houses of the state Legislature (lege).
They suffer from uncontrolled surges of power-mad egoism~!
They don’t understand anything about sharing power – of course neither do the Democrats. We’re in for a long disaster. I just hope they don’t repeal the water protection rules imposed after 300,000 people lost their drinking water last winter!
That could happen so easily. They don’t understand leadership at all.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@LT:
Perhaps you should have read the very next paragraph before you started clutching your pearls:
So, yes, to say you missed the point of her post by a mile is understating it, particularly given her lead-in of a fictional character laughing uncontrollably at something that isn’t that funny in and of itself.
Steve from Antioch
Followed by the inevitable, “Some of my best friends are Chinese rice noodle dishes.”
mclaren
Whenever Ronald Reagan gave a speech on TV I used to laugh uncontrollably. It was like watching a dog trying to do calculus. Just so funny, I couldn’t help it.