Annoying Laugh

"I do realise that when I laugh, it sounds like a seal is being molested."

- Jimmy Carr, The Big Fat Quiz of the Year

Laughter, of course, is one of the best known and most treasured ways that human beings express happiness. In addition to laughing when they find something funny, people laugh when they find something joyous, or heartwarming, or even stimulating. In general, a person enjoys hearing another person laugh. Unless, of course, that other person has a laugh that, rather than sounding joyous, sounds painful or cringe-inducingly awful.

The Annoying Laugh usually comes in several specific flavors (the Asthma Attack bellow, the high Hyena-like cackle, the Snort-Snort-Snort, the Machine Gun Chuckle, and the Donkey-like Bray being the most common). In some cases, the Annoying Laugh is used in place of actually fleshing out a character, since the type of annoying laugh can lead the audience to assuming the character basically is just as annoying as his or her laugh happens to be. In some cases, a character will have an Annoying Laugh because the script calls for it, but sometimes its because the actor playing the role laughs like that for real.

A subtrope of Most Annoying Sound, and the supertrope of the Noblewoman's Laugh. Almost always Played For Laughs. Compare Evil Laugh. Sometimes part of an Overly Long Gag. The annoying laugh is very common in animation and sitcoms.

Anime and Manga

 * Naga the Serpent from Slayers, whose epic Noblewoman's Laugh can be classified as a deadly weapon in 37 states. It also sends old women scrambling to the nearest shrine, begging whichever deity that happens to be nearby to "please make it stop".
 * Her voice actress also did a bit more laughing as Black Rose Kodachi in Ranma ½.
 * Emerald from Sailor Moon.
 * Also Zoicite from the English dub.
 * Voiced by the same actress.
 * Taken, as one would expect, to the Nth degree in Sailor Moon Abridged.
 * 4Kids manages to do it to 2 antagonists: Meowth from the Pokémon anime and Marik from Yu-Gi-Oh!.
 * Renge's voice in Ouran High School Host Club is considered to be either cute or annoying.
 * Umineko no Naku Koro ni: "Kihihihihihihihi..." One wonders why Rosa gets upset about the "uuuuu~"s when Maria insists on laughing like that.
 * Even Beatrice does this, as her butler Ronove points out.'
 * And Battler. Sorta; his is actually "Ihihihihihihi...", but it is also the first of the three to show up.
 * El-Hazard: The Magnificent World: Jinnai could be the anime mascot for this trope.
 * In Keroro Gunsou, the other characters find Kululu's "Ku-ku-ku!" laugh annoying. Every time he laughs, the others know he's causing mischief.
 * One Piece:
 * The Italian dub is basically one big Lampshade Hanging of how the unusual different kinds of laughter (case in point: Hogback), while somewhat acceptable in a manga, actually end up working awfully when get animated. On the other hand, there are exceptions such as Brook's Italian VA, who did a perfect job at that.
 * Actually, the laughs are played quite good (just listen to Perona) but they did, however, simply ignored the 90% of the remaining laughs.
 * Killer of the Kid Pirates has a laugh so annoying even he is sick of it, and often has to stop and excuse himself when finds something amusing. He has been known to kill people who make fun of it.
 * Kodachi in Ranma ½, who (as mentioned above) shares Naga's voice actress. Mocked often in Ranma ½: The Abridged Chronicles.

Comic Books

 * Blutch from Les Tuniques Bleues.
 * Life in Hell - in a segment on love, there are a couple of reference to one's spouse's hyena-like laugh.

Film

 * In Revenge of the Nerds, both Lewis Skolnick and Gilbert Lowell had annoying laughs, as did Lewis' father.
 * Wolfang Amadeus Mozart, as played by Tom Hulce in the film version of Amadeus, had a hyena-like cackle.
 * According to the writings of some of Mozart's friends, the man really did laugh like that, making this entry Truth in Television.
 * In Fight Club, Tyler tells the Narrator when they first meet: "you have a sick desperation in your laugh"
 * One of the murder victims in Hot Fuzz had one.
 * Dwight Frye's Renfield in the original English film version of Dracula, which was copied by Arte Johnson when he played the role in the spoof Love at First Bite.
 * Peter Mac Nicol likewise imitates the laugh when he plays Renfield in Dracula: Dead and Loving It.
 * Mary Poppins has a whole song about annoying laughs. With some bad jokes thrown in for good measure!
 * Joe Cox's laugh from RoboCop.
 * The Chief Blue Meanie's laugh from Yellow Submarine, it goes something like "Eeee heee eee heee heee heee!".
 * Salacious B. Crumb, the Kowakian monkey-lizard from Return of the Jedi, has one of the most obnoxious laughs of all time. Nobody complained about him dying in the explosion of the sail barge.
 * '30s and '40s movie comedian Hugh Herbert had a constant "Hoo-hoo!" laugh as part of his onscreen schtick. This was later borrowed by Daffy Duck.

Literature

 * Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels have a few:
 * Carcer from Night Watch. Used as one of quite a few indicators that the man is a complete psychopath.
 * Mr. Cletes from Soul Music. Hat. Hat. Hat.
 * A minor variant (and only mentioned perhaps twice) is Strappi's laugh from Monstrous Regiment, which is described as "a harsh gargling at the back of the throat."
 * Count Olaf and Esme Squalor from A Series of Unfortunate Events.
 * Mariel of Redwall introduces the Honourable Rosemary, whose laugh is loud and long enough to deafen everyone in hearing range. It's also said to be able to curdle cream from thirty paces away.
 * Sammy in Sideways Stories from Wayside School.

Live-Action TV
"Sybil: A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-EUUUUH!!"
 * Sylvia from Dear John; her ex-husband even informed her of this.
 * Myrna- Oscar Madison's secretary on The Odd Couple.
 * Harold from The Red Green Show is a cinch for this one.
 * Arnold Horschack, from Welcome Back, Kotter, had the standard comedy relief "nerd asthma attack" style of annoying laugh.
 * Family Matters Steve Urkel.
 * Red Dwarf: The Low version of Lister.
 * On an episode of House when Cuddy is trying to get pregnant, House brings one of the sperm donors she's considering in for an interview. The man had a very annoying laugh which came out when he was nervous. This was one of House's arguments for why he shouldn't be considered as the father.
 * One episode of Seinfeld has Jerry dating a woman with an annoying laugh, and he can't bear to tell her. It's compared to "Elmer Fudd sitting on a juicer."
 * Kitty from That '70s Show. Unlike a lot of television characters who have annoying laughs, who basically have annoying laughs because the actor involved does, Kitty's laugh is not the actual laugh of actress Debra Jo Rupp.
 * Fawlty Towers: Sibyl Fawlty. A combination of the Machine-Gun Chuckle with a Donkey Bray finish. According to her husband, it sounds like "somebody machine-gunning a seal".

"Janet: Well, at least I know how to laugh. Ahahahahaha! What do you do? SNORT! SNORT! SNORT! SNORT! SNORT! SNORT!..."
 * Janice, Friends
 * Chrissy on Three's Company was a snorter.

"Hercules: "Deimos... I'd know that laugh anywhere!" Deimos: "Ah-hahahaha!" Hercules: "That was not a compliment!""
 * Another snorter is Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.
 * One of the guests on Malcom McDowell's Fantasy Island had a fantasy about hooking up with his childhood crush, who he remembers as having a wonderful laugh. Maybe it was selective memory, but when his fantasy comes true it turns out she has a kind of glass-breaking rattle.
 * A Wings episode has Helen dating a man with a laugh like a braying hyena. It becomes so annoying that Helen eventually decides to break up with him because of it, but before she can do so, he dumps her because he cannot stand her Southern accent.
 * Fran Fine from The Nanny. Her laugh is practically the tagline for the show.
 * Hercules: The Legendary Journeys has the character Strife and, later, his twin brother Deimos, who are both infamous among the other characters for their hyena-like laugh:


 * Tony Atlas uses this to great effect on WWECW.
 * Jerry Ledbetter on The Good Life usually deployed a rather grating snicker.
 * The kids possessed by hyenas in the season 1 Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "The Pack".
 * Vince Masuka from Dexter does a Beavis and Butthead style laugh whenever he or someone else makes a double entendre.
 * Sonny With a Chance has a blogger named Sharona, who has a very irritating, high-pitched laugh.
 * Mystery Science Theater 3000: Phantom of Krankor from the experiment Prince of Space. While his drawn-out "Heeeeeeeh heeeeeeeeeh heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh" never draws any comment from characters in the original movie, it earns him much derision from the SOL crew.
 * Arthur Atkinson of The Fast Show' has an annoying voice and "personality" at the best of times, but his laugh could kill small animals.
 * In Sesame Street, Bert had a machine gun chuckle, while Ernie had one which was sort of a cross between wheezing and gargling.
 * Elmo also has his annoying "Uh-HA-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
 * Guido Geller of Camera Cafe fame used to be the page picture, much to Patti's horror.
 * Skull from Power Rangers early seasons definitely had this. As does his (Power Rangers Samurai) son, Spike.
 * Melanie Pearson from Neighbours, not helped by her overreacting to Henry's jokes.
 * Dear gof, that kid villain Tram from Choujin Sentai Jetman is one of the biggest offenders from that category in the Super Sentai genre.
 * Mickey Doyle from Boardwalk Empire, not helped by him also being The Hyena.

Newspaper Comics

 * This 2011 Pearls Before Swine strip had Rat go out on a date with a girl who laughed this way when he told her a joke. He then lampshades it with the line, "Bad laughs, the great deal-breaker."

Radio

 * Disk jockey Elliot Segal, of Elliot In The Morning in the Baltimore/Washington DC area, has a very annoying laugh.
 * Australian cricket commentator Kerry O'Keefe.
 * Dawn from the Rob, Arnie and Dawn Show has a very cackly and annoying laugh.
 * During his tenure on The Howard Stern Show, the various laughs of Jackie "The Joke Man" Martling, were a fairly big part of the show - ranging from a low dirty giggle to a big expressive "Whoop!"
 * Sherlock Holmes, in the BBC Radio adaptations starring Clive Merrison. Watson complains about it a few times.

Theater

 * In Oklahoma!, the protagonist Curly dates a girl named Gertie to make heroine Laurey jealous. Gertie must be played by an actress who can affect an obnoxious laugh. An example of a particularly ear-splitting performance can be seen here. That's Gertie cuddling Curly and laughing uproariously at the beginning of the video, while Laurey looks on from the porch in disgust and irritation.
 * A Very Potter Musical: This page needs to start doing things... THE UMBRIDGE WAY! A DERDERDERDERDERDER. The extended version when s/he tries to keep Harry from going to Hogsmeade is even more annoying.

Video Games

 * From Kingdom Hearts: Vexen and Larxene in the Japanese versions of Re: Chain of Memories. People on YouTube loop their laughs and dare people to see how long they can listen to them without clawing their ears forcibly off their heads. Have a listen.Or two. Make it stop indeed.
 * Seeing how he shares his Japanese voice actor with Vexen, Professor Hojo from Dirge of Cerberus also possesses a high-pitched maddening cackle. Hear it for yourself.
 * Heidegger from Final Fantasy VII has a "gya-ha-ha" laugh that irritates the other heads of Shinra to no end.
 * And from the same franchise, we have the infamous laughing scene in Final Fantasy X between Tidus and Yuna. (Though, of course, they were forcing it.)
 * Moe the clown from case 3 of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice for All. "Aha! Aha! Aha! Aha!"
 * Also, Calisto Yew from Ace Attorney Investigations.
 * In Katawa Shoujo, Misha's trademark "Wa ha ha~!" laugh seems to be this; it certainly seems to grate on Hisao's nerves after a while. Probably a good thing the developers decided not to go with full voice-acting...
 * Soda Popinski of Punch-Out!! lets out a truly aggravating laugh when he knocks you down. It's bad enough in the Wii version, where it's a real person; in the NES version, it's an eight-bit digitized laugh, similar to the one used by Ganon in Zelda II the Adventure of Link.
 * Nearly everyone does this in the Wii version.
 * Team Fortress 2: Given the nature of the game and the character, it's almost certain that the Scout's self-satisfied laughter is designed to annoy the people he kills. Given how he's also the source of many a Most Annoying Sound, this isn't all that surprising.
 * Of course, there's the legendary Duck Hunt dog, whose laugh has earned him the hatred of an entire generation of gamers.
 * In Killer7, your enemies are the dreaded Heaven Smiles who blow up on contact and laugh constantly. Each different Smile has a different laugh, a good number of which are extremely annoying. (Especially the Bombhead Smiles)
 * If you don't defeat all of the pigs in Angry Birds, they will do a really annoying laugh. Thankfully you can skip it by pressing the "Restart Level" button.
 * Laharl's attempt at an Evil Laugh in the Disgaea series can be this, especially to Etna, who considers it the Most Annoying Sound.

Web Original

 * His laugh is probably the most annoying thing about the Annoying Orange.
 * Penelope from The Quest for Geekdom when she tries to do an Evil Laugh.
 * Gronkh tends to imitate one of these in Oh Crap moments.

Western Animation
""Aak akakakakaka""
 * Woody Woodpecker
 * The Screwy Squirrel cartoons contained an woodpecker with a laugh reminiscent of a woodpecker screaming through a duck lure.
 * Screwy himself sometimes had a high pitched "ah-yuk-yuk-yuk" laugh.
 * The earliest version of Bugs Bunny was merely irritating with a laugh very similar to Woody's...at a theater screening, when a dog finally hauled off and socked him, it was loudly cheered.
 * Not to mention Daffy Duck's "Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo!" in his earlier cartoons, which is all but phased out in later shorts.
 * SpongeBob SquarePants has a combination High Nasal Twitter and Hyena-like Cackle.
 * One of which is a dolphin 'twitter' exactly like Flipper's.
 * Squidward has a honky laugh.
 * Mandark from Dexter's Laboratory.
 * It would later be revealed that the vague rhythm of his laugh applies to everything he does. "Brush! Brush brush! Brush brush brush buh brush!"
 * The Simpsons:
 * Nelson's "HAAA-HA!".
 * Dr. Hibbert; he tends to laugh at the most inappropriate times.
 * Peter Griffin in Family Guy. His wife Lois too, in later episodes.
 * Peter notes that a ride is going to get rougher than dating a hot girl with a bad laugh, as shown in this Cutaway Gag.
 * One episode had Stewie Griffin having an annoying laugh that he used each time a joke came up in a sitcom.
 * Professor Calamitous' daughter Beautiful Gorgeous in Jimmy Neutron.
 * Popeye had the machine gun chuckle. You're hearing it in your head right now as you listen to this, aren't you?

""We've got you now, hedgehog! Ba-HA ha-HAAA!!""
 * Elmer Fudd also had the machine gun chuckle, but his was the M60 machine gun to Popeye's .50 caliber.
 * Jack Spicer from Xiaolin Showdown.
 * The hyenas on The Lion King.
 * Scratch from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog:


 * Naturally, Beavis and Butthead's famous "Huh huh huh huh", uttered whenever something could be taken as a dirty joke, whenever they're aroused, or most commonly to end statements with. Would they really be Beavis and Butthead without it?
 * An episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes revealed that Heloise had cursed a man to never laugh because she thought his laugh was annoying.
 * The one shot character Cissy Cobb from the King of the Hill episode "Peggy The Boggle Champ", it when something like "Ah haw haw haw ha!"
 * ChalkZone: Reggie Bullnerd.
 * Lok, Zariah and The Pupununu Tribe from Tak and the Power of Juju.
 * One episode of Baby Looney Tunes should most of them laughing at Baby Sylvester failing.
 * Sheegwa from Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat.
 * Lemony, Rondo Jr., and the school students in Yakkity Yak.
 * Max Hare in the Silly Symphony short "The Tortoise and the Hare". "Ha-HAA-ha-HAA-ha-HAAAAAA!"
 * The otherwise smooth and charismatic Flim Flam Brothers of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" celebrate their villainous victory with a gratingly nasal and monotonous cackle. It doesn't help that this is right after they've kicked the dog. Not a good way to start your business...
 * The Mighty B! episode "Grumpy Old Bee" has the Honey Bee Trope falling into this catagory.
 * Nester from Scaredy Squirrel
 * Banana Joe from The Amazing World of Gumball.
 * Baby Shellby in House of Mouse.

Real Life

 * A number of sitcoms that James L. Brooks worked on, including The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Taxi, frequently featured Brooks' own loud, honking laugh as part of the studio audience.
 * Every character Fran Drescher has ever played has a donkey-like nasal bray of a laugh... because the actress herself really laughs like that.
 * Tom Selleck's actual laugh is of the "high-toned hyena cackle" variety.
 * The late Michael Landon laughed that way, too.
 * Jimmy Carr.
 * American Idol contestant Tatiana del Toro has a laugh that is equivalent to dragging one's fingernails down a blackboard. It's not supposed to be intentional, but that's debatable.
 * Pretty much everywhere, it's gonna be hot.
 * Nadya Suleman, a.k.a. "Octomom". Particularly frightening during her interview on The View.
 * Ricky Ricardo's distinctive "AHH! AHH! AHH! AHH!" laugh was Desi Arnaz's real life laugh. Occasionally you hear it in the live studio audience.
 * This one from actress Natalie Portman isn't annoying as such, but it is rather unique.
 * At the final screening of Clerks at Sundance, where Kevin Smith was hoping to find a distributor, after about 20 minutes or so, Kevin noticed someone with a loud, incredibly obnoxious laugh drowning out the laughter of the rest of the audience. "Turns out it's Harvey Weinstein."
 * Mexican actress Consuelo Duval gives us this horror.
 * Alan Alda's laugh, frequently heard on M*A*S*H.
 * The French channel Canal+ caricatured its then-president Dominique Farrugia's laugh as sounding like a sea-lion.
 * This guy's laugh will give you nightmares.
 * Due to internet stereotypes, the Brazilian "HUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUE" has become the bane of MMO players everywhere.