Black Comedy: Difference between revisions

''You'll see it's all a show --

''Keep 'em laughing as you go,

 

 

 

A joke might revolve around, for example, a homeless man committing a string of murders so that he will get sentenced to death, a state that, properly tied up in appeals, is ''better than'' his former life expectancy and quality. Delivered correctly, it can be very funny, and more than a little disturbing. If done wrong, however, the audience may cry "[[Dude, Not Funny]]".

 

{{examples}}

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140219230538/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUnu8mm551I This] [[Candid Camera Prank|hidden camera mailbox prank]] seems innocent enough, [[Deadly Prank|right]]?

* [http://www.adrants.com/images/la_senorita_mexican_restaurant_billboard.jpg This billboard], [[Drinking the Kool Aid|which is a reference to]] [[wikipedia:Jonestown|the Jonestown Massacre]].

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjVW6roRs-w "No Pressure"] featured, among other things, kids being [[Disproportionate Retribution|blown up]] for not signing on to 10:10's [[Hollywood Global Warming|carbon emissions reduction program]] as a [[Crosses the Line Twice]] joke. If you don't feel like watching, it's not some kind of cute, funny explosion effect; it's [[Gorn|very bloody]] and identifiable bits of human tissue can be seen coating the bystanders in this ad.

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* ''[[Detroit Metal City]]'' at its best/worst.

* ''[[Hokuto no Ken]]'' has [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po77bJk1DdI this]. Made even funnier when you apply [[Fridge Logic]] and realize it's not [[Epic Fail]] on the mook's part but ''Kenshiro's own brand of [[Dark Comedy]] at work''.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* A core element of ''[[Judge Dredd]]''.

* Anything by [[Jhonen Vasquez]], from ''[[Johnny the Homicidal Maniac]]'' to ''[[Invader Zim]]''. The main point of the former, particularly the early comics, is to show horribly brutal deaths and tortures. As things progress and Johnny gets more and more talky the violence begins to tone down, but that over the top violence remains at the core of most of the comedy in the strip.

** ''Fillerbunny'' is all about seeing something cute in inordinate amounts of pain.

** And then there's the Bad Art Collection... and ''Jelly Fist''...

** From their appearance in ''[[Birds of Prey]]'':

{{quote|*Deadshot kills the Russian General*

* This is [[The Joker]]'s whole shtick.

* ''[[Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl]]''.

* In a comic that parodies [[Jack Chick]]'s ''Lisa'', a man who sexually abuses his daughter is suddenly overcome with guilt over what he has done to his child, and decides that only God can forgive him for his crimes. After having confessed to a priest, who bestows forgiveness on him, the man heads home, feeling like a new, happier person, ready to start completely over... with abusing his daughter again.

* The ''[[Witch Girls]]'' comics are big on this. One of the reasons the [[Tabletop Game]] ''[[Witch Girls Adventures]]'' is really, really creepy to people who don't get those elements are supposed to be [[Played for Laughs]], or don't find it funny.

* Many stories by [[Wilhelm Busch]], like ''[[Max Und Moritz]]''.

* Belgian comic ''Violine'' definitely qualifies. Ten-year-old Violine has the ability to read people's minds by looking into their eyes. Her adventures include rescuing mice from being dissected (she even sees one cut open, and vomits), being thought of as a witch and chased by people who want her dead, hopping into a car with a pedophile (and seeing an image of herself bound and gagged and looking terrified when reading his mind), being thrown off a ship that she got caught stowing away on by a crew that assumes she's dead, witnessing the dead bodies of many birds caught in an oil spill, being chased by men with guns who then get eaten by alligators, and many more. All of this is played for very dark humor. Or you could possibly interpret it as a serious story that just has dark jokes scattered throughout, but either way, the sources of humor are pretty morbid.

* Evan Dorkin's "Milk and Cheese" series were about two hyperviolent dairy products who spend every strip they were ever in beat the ever loving shit out of everything they hate. And they hate everything except for liquor, TV, and each other. It's actually hard to describe the level of brutality involved. To put it in context, at one point, a guy from the Guinness Book of World Records shows as they're beating a hippy pot dealer to a bloody mess and crowns them as "World Class Abuse Kings".

* Icelandic playwright/cartoonist Hugleikur Dagsson's crudely-drawn cartoons include such savory topics as incest, coprophagia, bestiality, suicide, and adults intentionally putting children in harms way. [http://www.dagsson.com Check it out if you dare ].

* In ''Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth'' Joker starts a joke "How many brittle bone babies does it take-" only for Batman to cut across him. Admittedly not dead babies but clearly the same pitch black comedy.

* The original ''[[The Mask (comics)|The Mask]]'' comics often bordered on this.

* "Hubba Hubba," a two-page comic by Arthur Suydam that appeared in ''Heavy Metal''. One of Suydam's trademark weirdos-with-snouts sees a beautiful naked woman and, hoping to impress her with a gift, kills and cooks what he thinks is a small animal. This turns out to have been the woman's baby, and we're meant to see her horror and his ignorance as to its cause as humorous.

* The Italian comic ''[[Sturmtruppen]]'' uses it rather often, the cake being taken by a series of strips on a soldier who got the head opened by a shrapnel and an earlier one on a SS Execution Squad and their failed attempts at executing a very stoic Jewish prisoner.

 

* The narration in ''[[Aeon Entelechy Evangelion]]'' sometimes leads to this, mostly as a result of combination of [[Lemony Narrator]], [[Sophisticated As Hell]] and [[Understatement]].

* The ''[[Day of the Barney Trilogy]]'' is a very notable [[Hate Fic]] of ''[[Barney and Friends]]'' that has Barney commit [[Corruption of a Minor]] on a large scale, personally maim and kill people, {{spoiler|rape teenage girls after taking them under his wing as his Special Friends and impregnating them with mutant offspring that they die giving birth to,}} cause every catastrophe in world history, and it's ''still'' darkly humorous.

 

* [[Don Hertzfeldt]], when his films aren't out-and-out [[Surreal Humor|surreal.]]

* ''Anything'' made by Todd Solondz.

* ''[[Man Bites Dog]]''. How black? Like goth panthers in a coal mine.

* ''[[Mary and Max]]''

** At least in the movie and early seasons. The TV show eventually became a [[Dramedy]] and in some episodes just a straight drama.

** "We have the finalists in the shrapnel catching contest."

* The aptly titled ''[[Very Bad Things]]'', in which the emotional toll of the protagonist's preparations for his impending wedding to a [[Bridezilla]] is compounded by the accidental death of a hooker at his bachelor party and the resulting ever-worsening train wreck of bad decisions and bad luck which, by the end of the movie, has ruined the lives of everyone it hasn't killed.

* ''[[The War of the Roses (film)|The War of the Roses]]''

* ''[[Welcome to The Dollhouse]]''

* ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]'' is a family fantasy comedy about...murder, adultery, and racism. And corrupt businesses such as the destruction of the LA [[wikipedia:Great American Streetcar Scandal|Red Car]].

* Chris manages this in ''[[Tomorrow When the War Began]]''. He describes in horrific detail how he found his neighbours shot dead in their car along with their baby daughter by the invading soldiers, but his stoned dialogue is hilarious enough that it [[Crosses the Line Twice]].

* The ''[[Feast]]'' trilogy is this whenever it's not occupied with [[Gorn]] (and sometimes when it is).

* ''[[Airplane!]]'' features a number of scenes that [[Crosses the Line Twice|Cross The Line Twice]] in this fashion, including implied extreme violence against a [[Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!|hysterical woman]], blatant racial stereotyping [[Played for Laughs]], and passengers and crew cheerfully oblivious to the dying struggles of a [[Littlest Cancer Patient]].

* The Thailand action/comedy film ''SARS Wars: Bangkok Zombie Crisis'' features a few rather tasteless jokes, like a zombie fetus clawing its way out of its mother's stomach to attack the heroes, only to be foiled by the umbilical cord still being attached (and too short).

* [[Kevin Smith]] has been known to dabble in this, particularly in [[Clerks]] when it turns out {{spoiler|Caitlin accidentally had sex with a corpse.}}

* The TV movie ''Sunset Limousine'' is generally family-friendly, but there are a few instances of black humour, the blackest of them all coming when [[John Ritter]] fights a casket as it is being drawn into an oven (specifically, he tries and fails—humorously—to pull it out as it goes in). Easily the most scarily funny moment of Ritter's three-decade career.

* The [[Alfred Hitchcock]] comedy ''[[The Trouble with Harry]]''.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

Marsh (after yet another waistcoat gets soaked in a dying man's blood) - 'It seems a man cannot keep a suit more than two days in your company, Lewis,’ Marsh complained, washing the blood from his hands. ‘I’m certain you do it deliberately!’ }}

* If anything in one of [[Chuck Palahniuk]]'s books makes you laugh, it's Black Comedy.

* Any of [[Derek Robinson]]'s novels. The war novels are more black than comedy, but the spy novels are more comedy than black (but still pretty black).

* There is saying mentioned in one of stories from Žamboch: Hope dies penultimate. What remains till the end is dark humour.

* ''[[World War Z]]'', when two soldiers pick up human infant skulls and put on a small show for their troop. Would be going into [[Dude, Not Funny]] territory if the real subject wasn't about the [[Gallows Humor]] used for coping with... you know... a [[Zombie Apocalypse]].

* [[Clive Barker]]'s Mister B. Gone: Filled with the darkest of humor, as can be expected from Clive Barker. There's a scene where the demon villain protagonist [[Blood Bath|bathes in a tub full of blood from dead babies]]. The townspeople are hot on his trail, since there was a hole in his baby bag, and he left a trail of children, like bread crumbs, on his way back to his hovel. He complains how difficult it was to keep them alive so the bath would be warm when he emptied their blood into the tub.

* "It was born, though, that very evening, took one look, according to the Radletts, at its father, and quickly died again" Nancy Mitford, ''Love in a Cold Climate''

* A favorite of [[William S. Burroughs]] in ''[[Naked Lunch]]''. Deranged surgeons, ridiculous murder porn, general mayhem.

* ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]''

 

* ''[[iCarly]]'' uses this on occasion:

** ''iQuit iCarly'': T-Bo talks about his best friend Eddie Robinson who was hit by a bus and now became [[Incredibly Lame Pun|"Dead-die Robinson"]].

* In Britain, [[Chris Morris]]'s show ''[[Jam]]'' depended almost entirely on this, even featuring a dead baby. Another of his shows, ''[[Brass Eye]]'', infamously went too far with its "Paedophilia special" and received numerous complaints. Many of these, strangely enough, happened to be from the kind of people and newspapers who the show was satirising in the first place - the News of the World and the Daily Mail acted far more bent out of shape than the Times and the Guardian. Getting celebrities to discuss the implications of a "roboplegic wrongcock" (a paralysed paedophile with cybernetic implants that let him chase children) on television is inherently funny, though.

** ''The Adam and Joe Show'' featured a ''Jam'' parody with a send-up of the dead baby sketch. Adam played a TV repairman who finds a dead baby behind the set and says he will have to [[Dude, Not Funny|rape the corpse]] in order to repair the television. A horrified Joe refuses to film any more, and storms off the set while Adam complains that "you don't understand my genius"

* Rik Mayall's numerous series for the BBC - ''[[The Young Ones]]'', ''[[The New Statesman]]'', and ''[[Bottom]]''.

* Anything involving Doug in ''[[Scrubs]]''. Most of his humor comes from his pure ineptitude at being a doctor so he ends up killing most of his patients.

** There's still a lot of dark humour using Doug, however. He's constantly losing corpses (in body bags, though - to date - they have never been non-adult-sized body bags) throughout the hospital, and having to recover them, usually by hoisting them over his shoulder or dragging them through the halls. In one case, he actually says

{{quote|'''Doug:''' They're like children. Big, dead children.}}

{{quote|I propose we get "Hello Kitty" toe tags. You know, for the dead children.}}

* ''[[Little Britain]]'' was criticized for its increasing attempts to shock, with characters such as an incontinent old lady and an adult man who breastfeeds from his mother. "Puking Pure-blood Lady" projectile vomits whenever she is told that someone of a different ethnic origin prepared the food she is being served.

* ''[[The Sarah Silverman Program]]''. [[Sarah Silverman]]'s stand-up, as well.

** The Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph also made note of a story on [[The Onion]]'s News Network about a child exploiting the loophole of wishing for unlimited wishes and consequently bankrupting the Make A Wish Foundation with his ludicrously long list of demands. Interestingly, the story not only features the child in question but also not-so-subtly casts him as the villain due to his insatiable demands (to the extent of him wishing away the pro-bono legal team the Foundation was hoping to use in its defense) and features the hosts hoping for his imminent demise so that the Foundation can stop granting his wishes. Presumably Prime Minister Rudd was not told about this sketch either so that he could also comment on it sight unseen.

** The Chaser also did a similar story in ''The Chaser'', their early newspaper. In it, a child's wish was to receive a blow job from Cameron Diaz.

* The infamous "Undertaker's Sketch" from episode 26 of ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' suggested cannibalism as an alternative to interment or cremation. The punchline was so disgusting that [[Executive Meddling]] demanded that the studio audience end the episode by storming the set in protest.

* ''[[Have I Got News for You]]'', while generally hovering somewhere above this level of offensiveness, did feature this joke about the [[wikipedia:Louise Woodward case|Louise Woodward case]]:

* ''1000 Ways To Die'', especially in its later episodes. As one tagline put it: "We glorify stupidity and put a smiley face on Death".

* As the title might suggest, ''[[One Foot in the Grave]]'' was a [[Britcom]] about [[Reluctant Retiree]] Victor Meldrew looking for ways to occupy his time and featured an uncommonly large amount of material, [[Mood Whiplash|humour and otherwise]], touching on old age, death, loneliness and having to [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|put up with everyone else]].

 

== [[Music]] ==

* Noah And The Whale's "Jocasta". Unsurprising to anyone who knows [[Oedipus the King|the story of Jocasta]], it involves actual baby death.

{{quote|''When the baby's born

* Big Black addresses issues such as murder, rape, necrophilia, suicide, racism, and the works. "Jordan, Minnesota" is a song about a parent-child molestation ring in the town that the song is named for. Their first LP, Atomizer, includes songs about the aforementioned molestation ring, a black man who's light-skinned enough to pass off as a white guy, a corrupt police officer, a guy bored with arson and easy sex (the only two things teens in rural America do for fun) and decides to combine them, a man who goes to "houses of ill repute," a wife-beater and/or fist-fucker, a recovering alcoholic who relapses, a veteran with shellshock who becomes a hitman, and two teens who go to a slaughterhouse for entertainment.

** Their 2nd LP, Songs About Fucking, features asshole truck drivers, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|a Kraftwerk cover]], a guy who has sex with other people's girlfriends, a young girl who slept away 15 years of her life and wanted to kill herself but couldn't, sexual humiliation as a habit, a killing method in which the throat is cut open and the tongue is pulled out through the hole, an eccentric man who parties all night, a fungus that can grow on bread and cause serious hallucinations if ingested, a mafia killing in which a parked car was rigged to explode when the target's car passed by, a guy who had sex with a woman, who refused his brother's earlier advances, and killed her with his shoe then hid her body in a pond while hosing down his truck with loud music on, people who slowly turn into what they hate most without trying, and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|a Cheap Trick Cover]]

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak0_fa1DDpc "Dead Puppies Aren't Much Fun"] by Ogden Edsel. The title is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|self explanatory]] so why is it so amusing?

* A good chunk of [[The Velvet Underground]]'s ''White Light/White Heat''. "The Gift", "Lady Godiva's Operation" and "Sister Ray" all have characters indulging in activities that end in somebody getting killed, all while the stories are narrated in a deadpan, if not outright playful, tone.

 

== Religion and Mythology==

* The [[Classical Mythology|Classical]] Goddess Justicia was goddess of Justice in the universe during the Golden Age. [[Fridge Brilliance|She hasn't been seen round this neighborhood since.]]

 

* Although many stories from ''[[The Onion]]'' don't involve this, quite a lot do. Their book ''Our Dumb World'' is a landmark in the history of black comedy literature, as it succeeds in brutally mocking every nation on the planet.

* This very page has shown various Google ads that qualify as this due to the juxtaposition, ranging from a pregnancy calendar to "5 Ways to Help Baby Sleep". "Intelligent keywords" are comedy gold.

 

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

** In one case, a snake was crawling through a crib, with a huge bulge in its center. Gary Larson commented, "No, you didn't see this. Turn the page." The real joke of the picture was that the snake became so enlarged by the bulk of the freshly consumed infant that it couldn't squeeze through the bars of the crib, and was trapped.

** Another strip that newspapers refused to publish concerned some cowboys who were so hungry they could eat a horse, and did so. (A good example of [[Values Dissonance]]: in several European countries horse meat is openly sold in every butcher's shop.)

* EVERY SINGLE STRIP of the New York Daily News-exclusive comic ''[[Between the Lines (comic strip)|Between the Lines]]'' is this.

 

* Not long after [[Chris Benoit]] had strangled his wife and son to death, then hanged himself, a picture of him crying made its way around the Internet, with the caption [[Dude, Not Funny|"They were supposed to tap out!"]] You can see it [http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WCrIotSdkFA/Sbq3y3obmVI/AAAAAAAABXw/McbmIWOxUVs/s400/benoit+supposed+to+tap+out.jpg here].

 

== [[Puppet Shows]] ==

* On the 11/14/10 episode of ''[[The Funday Pawpet Show]]'' everyone was watching a reporter show footage of an angry man in a Rascal scooter ram an elevator door three times, the third time disappearing down the shaft to his real-life death. As the reporter showed the footage again, out of nowhere cast member Blitz said "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" completely catching everyone off guard.

 

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* The orcs and goblins in ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] Fantasy''. These are creatures that live for killing things - goblins even commit suicide just to kill enemies. These are the most humorous in the setting. And [[Xtreme Kool Letterz|da Orkz]] in its sci-fi counterpart ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''. These are creatures who can get anything to work by simply [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|believing it will work]], and with the Grots, the local flavour of the goblins, being the ultimate kind of [[Butt Monkey]] to the Orks in the setting - and not caring. Where any other army is based on a major civilization or a well-known historical army, the orks are based on British soccer hooligans, clearly cementing them as comic relief. The 40K setting is so dark, grim, and cynical that it is almost taken to levels of self-parody, something many fanfiction writers embrace to a strong degree, and some official book series lampshade this fact, such as Deff Skwadron and the ''[[Ciaphas Cain]]'' ('''[[Fake Ultimate Hero|HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!]]''') series.

* ''[[In Nomine]]'' has Kobal, Demon Prince of Dark Humor, and his servitors, who work to turn existence into black comedy.

 

== [[Theater]] ==

* Every single production by Pittsburgh-based theatre company Rage of the Stage falls into this category. Their [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] was a ''[[Wizard of Oz]]'' adaptation featuring a mentally insane and heavily medicated Dorothy, a heroin-addicted Scarecrow, and a sex-obsessed Lion.

 

* ''[[The Haunted Mansion]]'' has quite a bit of this mixed in with all the [[Nightmare Fuel]].

 

* The page image of [[Irony]] can become funny because of this. On the page it used to illustrate (the [[Real Life/Tear Jerker|real life subpage of]] [[Tear Jerker]], [[You Bastard|not so much).]]

** When you have no tears left there's nothing else but to laugh.

* The image caption on the [[Driven to Suicide]] page:

{{quote|"He got better. His life, alas, did not."}}

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

** While most of the world is in Black Comedy territory, some of it is [[Nightmare Fuel|different]].

*** {{spoiler|"Mr.Johnson, I don't want this! I don't want this! No, Listen to me! Sir, I do not want this!"}}

** [[Valve]] in general seems to love this trope, albeit in a relatively subdued sense. [[Portal 2|Brain-damaged woman used in dangerous experiments?]] Check. [[Half-Life 2|Cats turned inside out by a malfunctioning teleporter?]] Yep. [[Team Fortress 2|Exploding heads, live animals being sewn into patients and brutal beatings as part of a ridiculously pointless war?]] Naturally.

* ''[[Psychonauts]]'' is a black comedy in cartoony clothing—it looks bright and G-rated, but every now and then something incredibly dark happens, like a suicide-bombing [[Girl Scouts Are Evil|Girl Scout]]

* ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]'' towards Guy's fear of women. During a good portion of the game, whenever a girl comes very close to him (especially if they touch him) he recoils in fear and starts screaming. ''Hilarious'', and becomes a [[Running Gag]] But then we learn why he's so afraid of contact with women... {{spoiler|When he was young, his home, Hod, was being attacked by Duke fon Fabre's men. Guy was hidden inside a (Thankfully extinguished) fireplace by his older sister and the house maids, and then the soldiers came in. In order to protect him, Guy's sister and the maids threw themselves onto Guy as the soldiers killed them all. He passed out, but when he came to, he was smothered in a pile of dead women}}. Suffice to say, [[Dude, Not Funny|nobody was laughing after that]].

 

** The sister comic, ''Warbot In Accounting'' includes an example. The eponymous warbot, in an attempt to become a father, buys a kit to build a robot, only to produce a distorted, agonized thing. Warbot proceeds to dump the malformed baby robot in the trash.

*** "It's so dark, daddy. So daaaaaaark...."

* ''[[Something*Positive]]''.

* ''[[Nobody Scores]]!''

* ''[[Bittersweet Candy Bowl]]'', [http://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/candybooru/post/view/350?search=molly Happy Mother's Day]. See the first comment.

* The Troll arc of ''[[Homestuck]]'' frequently veers into this, since [[Our Trolls Are Different|trolls]] are an [[Barbarian Tribe|inherently violent race]], and their interactions in the comic descend into the worst kind of internet [[Troll]]-fuelled [[Flame War]] only held in person and in a culture where there is no murder taboo. Expect to find hilarious facial expressions on heads severed by a serial killer, witty and idiosyncratic IM conversations about the end of the world, and characters horribly maiming each other each other for hilariously trivial reasons such as [[LARP]] drama, [[Insane Clown Posse|having just watched the music video for Insane Clown Posse's "Miracles"]], or boredom.

* ''[[Zombie Ranch]]'' has [http://www.zombieranchcomic.com/2010/05/05/28-you-dont-need-a-body/ images] like a woman casually using glue to put her undead horse back together. That's not even getting into the media segments cheerfully depicting things like zombie massacre.

* ''[http://headtripcomics.livejournal.com/ Head Trip]'' [[Lampshade Hanging|hangs a lampshade]] on its reputation by starting off with [http://headtripcomics.comicgenesis.com/d/20060303.html an abortion joke].

* ''[[Looking for Group]]'' uses black comedy for many of the jokes in the strip, particularily the strips focusing on [[Sociopathic Hero|Richard]]. The creators also made a short animated feature released on Youtube that is one long black comedy joke.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcbazH6aE2g Excitement abounds, I almost can't wait. Relax, I don't want your baby, I already ate.]

* ''[[Cyanide & Happiness]]'' will often go to this level and beyond.

* ''[http://sexylosers.com/ Sexy Losers]'' is a classic of the genre, with comedic situations arising from disgusting and perverted sexual practices, including necrophilia and incest.

* ''[http://www.asofterworld.com/ A Softer World]'' which relies on this in frequent but creative ways. ''[http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=260/ Like this.]'' ''[http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=261/ Lampshaded]'' (sort of, in an incredibly disturbing way) the very next day.

* [http://www.lucid-tv.com Lucid TV] does this with doctors. Think ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'', but worse.

* ''[[VG Cats]]'',which often veers into that territory, has two examples [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=269 here] and [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=270 here]. The later was in response to complaints about the former.

* ''Jerkcity'', in its more coherent moments.

{{quote|'''Spigot''': ''YOU MIGHT SAY ALL THIS SARIN GAS IS MAKING ME VIETNUMB''}}

* The name of the game in ''[http://manga.clone-army.org/t42r.php Tomoyo42's Room]''. Sometimes even involving actual dead babies: for example, Tomoyo throwing hers and Sakura's child (well, egg) into the sea, or sticking a dead baby through a fan.

* [[Shredded Moose]] attempts this. The creator forgot to include the "comedy" part.

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131019082313/http://www.sexdrugsandjunecleaver.com/ Sex, Drugs, and June Cleaver] occasionally forays into this territory. Oh, and it's a [[Journal Comic]].

* ''[[Penny Arcade]]'' wants its readers to know that, despite all appearances, [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/8/16/ they do in fact have limits], of which this type of comedy is one. [[Even Evil Has Standards]].

* ''Edible Dirt''.

* [http://doobl.comicgenesis.com/d/20060623.html Doobl!] falls within this trope heavily, although unfortunately listing it here rather ruins the joke. It's still worth reading for a giggle, and you can always pretend to be surprised.

* [[Coach Random]] uses the joke in the page quote, except it's a "dead puppy in clown makeup".

* Done in [http://www.amazingsuperpowers.com/2011/04/sex-ed-2/ this] [[Amazing Super Powers]] strip.<ref>With bonus dead babies in the hidden comic.</ref>

* [http://choppingblock.keenspot.com/ Chopping Block] is a web comic about a stereorypical serial killer, mommy and sex issues included.

* ''[[The Snail Factory]]''

* K.C. Green's works, such as ''[[Gunshow]]'' and ''Horribleville'', function on Black Comedy as if it were fuel. The fact that Green is diagnosed with severe depression, which many of his comics deal with, doesn't help any of it.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* ''[[Teen Girl Squad]]'' fuses this with ''[[Homestar Runner]]'''s usual [[Surreal Humor|surreal comedy]]: most of the humor is derived from the [[They Killed Kenny|bizarre and unusual ways the major (and sometimes minor) characters are killed]].

* Almost the entirety of [[Assignment 2]].

* [[The Nostalgia Chick]] has loved this trope ever since her "Top Ten Disturbing And Inescapable Christmas Songs" list. It contains a song which tells a story of domestic violence. While the song is played, the viewers are treated to a reenactment of a southern hick beating his wife. The clip starts as serious and somewhat realistic, but then, out of nowhere, the husband starts giving his wife the "stop hitting yourself" treatment and giving her Indian burns. The scene turns from [[Dude, Not Funny|not funny]] into silly and then outright hilarious.

* The [[Darwin Awards]], an anthology of [[Too Dumb to Live|stupid deaths]]/[[Groin Attack|sterilizations]]. [[Word of God|According to the creator]], [[What an Idiot!|the stupidity of it]] is what keeps it funny [[Dude, Not Funny|rather than morbid]].

** Played straight in the ''[[80's Dan]]'' Christmas special.

* An early episode of ''[[I'm a Marvel And I'm a DC]]'' has [[Superman]] dropping his baby son after [[Spider-Man]] suggests that being an illegitimate father will tarnish his image. After dropping the kid, Superman reacts with an "ooooooooops".

* Played straight in ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]: [[The Abridged Series]]'' with Gauron's segment of the show. He tells 9/11 jokes in one episode, but the creator admitted that was too harsh.

* ''[[Happy Tree Friends]]'' is a webseries that combines [[Refuge in Audacity]] and this trope and takes it as far as it can.

* ''[[Skippy's List|Skippys List]]'' has examples:

{{quote|54. "Napalm sticks to kids" is *not* a motivational phrase.}}

 

* In the ''[[American Dad]]'' episode "Tearjerker" the evil plot involves a film about a mentally retarded, alcoholic Jew in the holocaust with a cancer riddled puppy.

** It's really more of a parody of [[Oscar Bait]]. The film's name is even 'Oscar Gold'.

{{quote|'''Captain Hero:''' Captain hero ONE! Billions of innocent Zebulonians...um...dead. Oh. I...uh...(Slinks off)}}

* ''[[Courage the Cowardly Dog]]'': Courage & his owners Eustace, and Muriel Bagge constantly run into monsters, aliens, demons, mad scientists, zombies, and island natives that Courage must fend off to save his owners. Eustace always ends up being attacked by all the horrors in the series.

{{quote|'''Grim''': (Baby voice) Who's gonna get reaped? Who's gonna get reaped? You are! You are!

'''Grim''': Come on, Mandy. This should be fun... like watching a train wreck.

'''Grim''': Ahahaha! This is more fun than the French Revolution!

'''Grim''': Actually, I'm scheduled to see you next week, Mr. Teetermeyer! }}

* ''[[Moral Orel]]'', which occasionally decides to drop the "comedy" part; it left it to die in a ditch for most of the last season.

* ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]''. More subtle than the above examples, but still there.

* Almost inevitably, ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' had one such sketch in which a crowd of visitors inside a maternity ward coo at a baby, only for a nurse to walk up and cover its face to illustrate that it's dead. Good stuff.

** Lampshaded in one episode where a sketch shows a visit from the Tooth Fairy being interrupted by the girl's mother and father arguing, and showing [[Multiple Endings]] where some combination of the parents and the Tooth Fairy die. The characters in the sketch then win an award for "Darkest Sketch Ever".

** Proving that even the creators have limits, supposedly they scrapped a potential skit in which a baby is delivered stillborn, causing the doctor to work it like a hand puppet. It was (obviously) never made.

* A few of the in-house [[Cartoon Network]] [[Adult Swim]] shows lightly qualify. "Lightly" because more often, they're just [[Surreal Humor|flat-out insane]].

* ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' uses this in relation to Dr. Doofenshmirtz's [[Hilariously Abusive Childhood]].

** When they went to the museum, there was a dog skeleton on display with a collar that says "Bucky." Phineas says that they had a dog named Bucky who got sick and went to live on kindly Old Man Simmons's farm. Their dad hurries them along to the next display, which is {{spoiler|kindly Old Man Simmons.}}

 

* In [http://ursulav.deviantart.com/art/Where-Zombie-Babies-Come-From-6979550 this] picture by Ursula Vernon [[Delivery Stork]] [[X Meets Y|meets]] dead babies. Enjoy.

** Q: What's worse than a pile of dead babies? A: The live one at the bottom of the pile.

** Sadly some dead baby jokes require visual pantomime. On the other hand...

* How do you empty a garbage truck full of dead babies? With a pitchfork!

* Q: What's worse than five babies in a trashcan? A: One baby in five trashcans.

* Q: What's the difference between one hundred dead babies and a Ferrari? A: I don't own a Ferrari.

* Q: What's pink and orange and floats on the bottom of a pool? A: A baby with its floaties slashed. Q: What's pink, red, and orange and floats on the top of a pool? A: Floaties with their baby slashed.

* Q: What's the difference between a baby and a trampoline? A: You take off your boots before jumping on the trampoline.

* Q: What's the best way for Capcom to greenlight the [[Mega Man Legends|Megaman Legends 3 project?]] A: Simple. Dress two aborted fetu as Roll and Megaman Volnutt.

** [[H Rmaggedon]]

** [[Floater]]

** [[Orphan Feast]]

** [[Kill Thy Neighbor]]

* [http://www.gifbin.com/982377 This] animated gif, staring [[Steven Seagal]].

* [http://www.messybeast.com/dragonqueen/medical-acronyms.htm This] site has a list of medical slangs. Most them are jokes about terminal diseases, wounds, deformities, etc.

** Q: And why did nobody help him to get up? A: Because he has no friends!

* Relatively similar and equally repellent are Helen Keller jokes: Q: How did Helen Keller burn her fingers? A: By reading the waffle iron. And countless others.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

** There's a streak of black comedy running through the patronage of saints. St Sebastian - martyred by being shot full of arrows - is patron of archers. Thomas More - executed for not supporting Henry VIII's divorce and subsequent split from Rome - is patron of difficult marriages. Teresa of Avila - known for her overwhelming ecstatic visions - is patron of headaches.

* CTF, or Cletus the Fetus is an obscure black comedy medical term for a baby born at 23 weeks, where the survival rate is less than 1%. There have been no cases of a baby surviving birth before 22 weeks, confirming [[Makes Sense in Context|doctors may have the blackest of all humor]].

* [[Christopher Hitchens]] combined this with a [[Take That]] at Princess Diana:

{{quote|'''Hitchens:''' The thing about mine fields is that they're very easy to lay, but they're very difficult and dangerous, and even expensive to get rid of' - the perfect description of Prince Charles's first wife.}}

“Christopher Hitchens is Dead.” —-God, 2011 }}

*** ...which is a [[Older Than They Think|repurposed Nietzsche joke]].

 

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[[Category:Fiction]]

[[Category:Tropes of Legend]]

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