Dead Baby Comedy/Sandbox



""Do you know what's funnier than a dead baby? A dead baby in a clown suit.""

- Traditional

Quick, name three characters who Eat Babies and are actually decent human beings! Okay, how about one? All right.

See, we are designed to be especially averse to harming babies. Sure, they annoy us many a time, but then we'd wish someone will take them away, not crush them to a bloody pulp. We'd wish they will fall asleep, not die. It's easy to see how we're hard-wired to feel this way, since a whole species who just dont care of their young would be unlikely to last very long. The harming of babies, then, is an ancient taboo. For most, unlike making jokes about war — which can be palatable to most with careful writing — making jokes about dead babies is just unsalvageable, the height of bad taste. Even more so than rape.

Or is it? A specific Sub-Trope of Black Comedy, making light about violence to infants is perhaps one of the edgiest tropes, and can be quite difficult to use to good effect. Some managed to use it to illustrate a point like a proper black comedy, some could use it for laughs effectively by watering it down by sheer over-the-top-ness, while some others... failed.

A common pitfall is that some creators confuse simply being offensive with being both offensive and funny. The creators may throw anything onto the screen they hope will offend the Moral Guardians whether it has any humor to it or not. Naturally, since Old Media tends to be more censored than New Media, Dead Baby Comedy typically reaches its hilariously horrible zenith on the Internet, making television seem rather tame by comparison. Sensitive members of the audience may look at a show like this and say Dude, Not Funny. However, the creators may take it as a good sign that their show is offending people, especially Moral Guardians.

May contain elements of Gross-Out Show, Subverted Kids Show, and Refuge in Vulgarity. Similar tropes include Eats Babies, Child Eater, and Made From Real Girl Scouts, when used for laughs. Some iterations of Powered by a Forsaken Child also apply. See also Sliding Scale of Comedy and Horror.