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⇱ Cry Laughing - TV Tropes

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Cry Laughing

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"Why are you laughing? Why are you crying?"
"You laugh, and keep laughing. It's SO funny, you can't stop. Tears run down your face."

It is said that laughing and crying are very close actions, despite usually expressing opposite emotions. So close that, in fiction, a character faced with a dreadful situation may start laughing out loud, gradually growing more and more discordant and strained, before that laugh progressively melts into sobs. When this happens, the initial laughter is usually just there to mask the distress, and isn't so much genuine as it is a hysterical reaction. It's sort of a way to say, "My emotions are out of control; not even my body knows what to do right now."

It can also be done as a form of Mood Whiplash, where the character is in the middle of a laugh and learns bad news, immediately making them switch to tears. It has nothing to do with laughing so hard that you have tears in your eyes.

It's also sometimes used by actors to cover for Corpsing, in scenes where they can get away with disguising a fit of the giggles as violent sobbing.

This trope is surprisingly prevalent in Real Life with some often resorting to laughing when faced with any depressing or traumatic moments, before starting to express their true grief in tears.

A subtrope of Mirthless Laughter. Also compare HA HA HA—No, Laughing Mad, and Tearful Smile. Related to Made Myself Sad.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 
    Anime & Manga 
  • Osamu Tezuka's Adolf: Adolf Kaufman enters into this moment toward the end of the story. By this point, he's become a violently fanatic Nazi, even murdering his Jewish friend's father. He finally uncovers the documents that could expose Hitler's Jewish ancestry. Then he learns that the war is over, and Hitler is dead, meaning he sacrificed his life for worthless paper. He starts cackling over the irony, but then breaks down in tears.
  • In Attack on Titan, Eren bursts into this after witnessing Hannes' death by the jaws of the smiling titan, the very same one that ate his mother all those years ago, lamenting on how he's still the same weak brat who couldn't save anybody. He does the exact same thing after Sasha’s death 4 years later, knowing that it was partially his own fault.
  • Inverted in the Italian dub of Death Note. After Near exposes him as Kira, Light Yagami sounds like he's sobbing👁 Image
    , only to break into psychotic laughter.
  • Monster (1994): Dr. Tenma has a moment doing this after the director and two other doctors are murdered and he gets promoted as a result. Later on, it's implied that Johan of all people does this after he finds out he wasn't the one who was really sent to the Red Rose Mansion.
  • One Piece:
    • Nico Robin went through this as a little girl. After being sent away from her Doomed Hometown, she tries to laugh away the pain like her friend Saul had taught her before breaking down into sobs like any child would.
    • A happier and inverted example happens when Usopp is accepted back into the crew. Nami was crying Tears of Joy while laughing and pointing out how ridiculous Usopp and Luffy looked, bawling out like idiots.
    • The Wano Country arc shows a dark example of the trope. When a certain character is executed, the saddened citizens who saw the deed burst out laughing, including the character's own daughter. Zoro, who was present, was appalled and enraged, but another ally explains the truth; no matter how genuinely sad the citizens are, they are physically incapable of showing any emotion other than smiling and laughter, because of the SMILE fruits Kaido brought to Wano.
  • In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, one of the things that makes Walpurgisnacht so terrifying (Nigh-Invulnerability aside) is that she reacts to everything thrown at her with downright-insane laughter that's hard to distinguish from delirious crying. Given how Witches are born from despair, then the most powerful Witch of all would have to be unfathomably miserable in both the past and present.
  • In TerraforMARS, Alex finds out Yaeko is older than him and laughs because her immaturity made her seem younger. Alex had spent the night acting like he was not upset over his friend Sheila's death, which Yaeko was trying to comfort him. Alex continues to laugh as tears start falling from his eyes, showing that he had actually been Trying Not to Cry the entire time.
  • In Tokyo Ghoul Jack, Minami does this in their final moments as she complains that she studied so hard for her final exams.
  • Sakaki Yuya, the protagonist in Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, does this a lot. But then, being a Stepford Smiler, it's a central part of his character. Most of the early times his ace monster, Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon, is destroyed, and he starts crying, only to fake laughter and put on a cheerful facade.
  • Zombie Land Saga: Saki Nikaido — a Badass Biker girl — realizes she'll always be stuck as an eighteen-year-old and can neither regain the time lost with her friends or become an item with her longtime idol. She tries to laugh it off, only to start sobbing uncontrollably.
    Audio Plays 
  • Big Finish Doctor Who: "Lucie Miller" ends with the resistance against the Dalek occupation of Earth shooting down a saucer on which the Doctor is a passenger. In the following story, his comatose body is retrieved from the ocean; Lucie cry laughs, calling him a cheeky bugger, when she notices that he's smiling.
    Comic Books 
  • In Strangers in Paradise, after one of their (many) fights, Katchoo goes to David's apartment only to realize he's already moved away. She finds a funny picture he drew of them and Francine and starts to laugh, which then turns into tears after she realizes she's pushed away the only man who stuck by her side.
  • In Thessaly: Witch for Hire, after Thessaly finds out that her Stalker with a Crush has managed to get her contracted to kill a Tharmic Null - a beast that nothing and nobody can kill - she starts laughing and crying simultaneously because he's finally given her a death sentence from which she can't escape.
  • In one X-Men Annual, Mystique goes on a cruise to scatter Destiny's ashes at sea, recalling the exact instructions that she was given for disposing of the ashes (including precise date and time), their long relationship, and the time that Destiny swore that she would make Mystique laugh if it was the last thing she ever did. After reminiscing, she throws the ashes out onto the water... only to have them blown back in her face. She starts crying over having failed to carry out Irene's last wishes, until she realizes that Destiny planned the whole thing, knowing the wind would send the ashes back in her face. She then starts laughing.
    Fan Works 
  • Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): In this Godzilla MonsterVerse fanfiction, this trope is how Vivienne (who has been through a hell of a Trauma Conga Line) responds when informed that Admiral Stenz, a man she really didn't like, is dead.
  • In Between My Brother and Me: Mors Omnibus: Deadpan Snarker Yvonne Maxa starts laughing after she screamed and howled in agony for killing Yusho Sakaki in front of a live audience by asking Yuya and Zarc if she was either laughing or crying. When Yuya replies that it's the latter, he questions why. Yvonne answers that she'd kill herself if she found herself crying in front of a lovely audience before she finally breaks down. It doesn't help that killing Yusho — whom Yvonne saw as her late brother, Xavier — means forfeiting his life to Wiraqocha Rasca.
  • Here Comes the New Boss: After cracking a very rude joke (which the Butchers love), Amy, whose mother has just suffered a brain injury, leaving Amy lost for what to do, breaks into laughter, only for Taylor to realize it's not healthy laughter. Soon afterward, her laughs are mixed with full-body sobs.
    I quickly hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her in, closing the curtain behind her, because I recognised this; this was the kind of laughter you died of.
  • In Inner Demons, the Queen of Darkness Twilight Sparkle's Villainous Breakdown after Trixie dies protecting her starts with her begging her friend not to die and sobbing over her body. Then she starts laughing...
  • In Opalescent, Opal, having just let Otto go to be with Olive as a co-Director, shuts herself in the Medical Bay and begins laughing. A minute later, she begins to cry, and when she realizes it, the laughter stops. It's implied that she's suffering from the beginning stages of the Sillies disease, as she realizes that laughing is an OOC Is Serious Business moment for her.
    Films — Animation 
    Films — Live-Action 
  • Adrift (2018): Tami, after returning to Richard's boat and finding the dried-up flower he gave her months ago, starts laughing while breaking down in tears.
  • Inverted in Batman (1989): When Jack Napier first gets a glimpse of his face after landing in a vat of toxic chemicals, he lets out a few quiet broken sobs... that turn into laughter that never, ever stops...
  • In Dogma, an angel, Bartleby, has his wings shot off. He touches the stump of one of his wings, licks the blood from his fingers, and breaks into hysterics, wavering between laughing and sobbing.
  • In Ever After, this is Danielle's reaction after Henry finally proposes to her.
  • When all the furniture in the cabin in Evil Dead 2 starts laughing, Ash soon starts laughing as well, but eventually starts howling in despair.
  • Done by Gary Oldman in The Fifth Element when he opens the chest that he thought contained the alien elemental stones and it's empty.
  • The Fugitive. Richard Kimble does this after Gerard tells him that Nichols used his keys to let his wife's killer into his house, realizing that but for the mundane act of loaning his friend his car, his wife might still be alive.
  • At the end of In the Mouth of Madness, when John Trent finally watches the movie adaptation of Cane's book In the Mouth of Madness and realizes that it was just a novelisation of everything he did in the last few days and that he may just be a fictional character, he breaks down laughing for a minute before crying.
  • Zig-Zagged at times with Arthur Fleck in Joker (2019). Arthur's Pseudobulbar affect👁 Image
    caused him to laugh compulsively through the film, even when he breaks down in distress. Joaquin Phoenix does a good job of making his laughs look like they're genuine if you're unfamiliar with Arthur's character, and at the same time conveying that he's under terrible duress if you are. It truly comes to the fore during the asylum scene when he breaks down completely upon discovering that his mother Penny adopted him and let him go through absolute hell, and that his entire life has been nothing but a lie.
  • Seen in Kinsey, as the newly married couple are in bed. Prok and Mac begin making fun of the silly things Prok's father says, then Prok begins to break down at how horrible of a person his father is.
  • In Midnight Mary, a woman faints after being turned away from the mere opportunity of applying for a job. Mary cry/laughs at her own despair; her options aren't much, either.
  • Revenge of the Pink Panther. After Clouseau is supposedly killed, his former boss Dreyfus (who has been literally driven mad by Clouseau's antics) has to give the eulogy. While doing so he starts laughing with glee, then has to cover it up by pretending he's shedding Manly Tears. Everyone is so moved by this they start crying as well.
  • Street Angel: Gino, when he is told that the woman he loved had disappeared because she was in a jail for prostitution.
  • Wake Up Dead Man (2025): Father Jud momentarily forgets his troubles when discussing religion with Det. Benoit Blanc. He laughs when Blanc, “a proud heretic”, acknowledges a point that he makes, but his laughter turns to sobbing when he remembers the trouble he is in.
  • In The Warlords, Qingyun sees a scene in a Peking Opera about three warriors who make a loyalty oath to each other. This causes him to break down into tears and laughter, because it reminds him of his own loyalty pact with two other men and the many times the trials and moral dilemmas of war nearly tore them apart.
    Literature 
  • Axtara: Magic and Mischief: After Axtara and Princess Mia unexpectedly swap species after touching a magical orb with no clear way to change back, they nervously discuss their next possible steps and the specific details of their changes. The newly-draconified Mia bashfully asks Axtara if she has also been turned male, due to both her concern over her vocal changes and her ignorance of dragon anatomy due to Axtara being the only dragon she has ever met. Axtara breaks into hysterical laughter, both because she personally finds the question absurd (from her lifelong dragon perspective, Mia's new body is very obviously female) and because she's letting out the tense worry she feels over the scary and confusing situation. After a few seconds of this, it turns into distraught sobbing, with the narrative saying that laughing "finally wore down the dam she'd built around her emotions." Mia has to give Axtara a Cooldown Hug (carefully, considering her new Cumbersome Claws) while she cries it out.
  • In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Ginny is "half laughing, half crying" as she chases after the departing Hogwarts Express.
  • My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!: After having spent several days in a Heroic BSoD following the Monkey Girl's death, Atsuko comes across the final text message they had sent her (complaining about the difficulty of Geordo's route in Fortune Lover) and begins to laugh at how ridiculous the whole situation is... before the fact that her best friend is never coming back finally sinks in and she breaks down in tears.
    Live-Action TV 
  • In the Babylon 5 episode "Acts of Sacrifice", G'Kar is reduced to begging for aid from other races. After a negotiation where he ends up getting only a small portion of what he asked for, he breaks down like this. A fan asked on Usenet if G'Kar was laughing or crying, and J. Michael Straczynski replied:
    "It's both; laughing at the absurdity, and crying... about as close as we've seen to a nervous breakdown."
  • Breaking Bad:
    • Near the end of Season 4, after Walter White frantically searches his basement for money needed to hide himself and his family from Gus Fring (who threatened to kill them all), only to be told by his wife Skyler that she gave it to Ted Beneke, he screams and breaks down into tears, which turns into a fit of mad laughter.
    • At the end of the series finale, Jesse Pinkman drives away from the neo-Nazi compound, laughing hysterically with tears in his eyes, since while his life is in shambles, he's finally free of Walt and the meth business.
  • Frasier:
    • When Diane comes to visit Frasier and tells him all about her play, her mouth twitches. This turns into her laughing, and crying soon after. Finally she confesses that the person backing her play has backed out.
    • In "Secret Admirer", Niles learns from one of the baristas at Cafe Nervosa that the one who's been delivering various expensive gifts is Maris. He starts laughing, only to immediately go straight to despondent sobbing.
  • The Goodies. While poking around a US military base, Graeme Garden discovers cannisters of tear gas and laughing gas, and proceeds to demonstrate their use of Tim and Bill, leading to this trope.
  • In Marcus Welby, M.D. a teenage model reacts this way when her friend jokes with her about being pregnant. At first she laughs at her friend's joke, but suddenly the laughter turns into crying. Unsure where that came from, she consulted Dr. Welby. It turned out she actually was pregnant.
  • Moon Lovers: Wang So does this when he confronts his mother in episode four, and again after killing Wang Eun.
  • In New Girl, Jess and Nick move into one room. She realises she can't stand it and stays at a hotel instead. In a montage of Jess singing, eating, ordering room service and watching TV, she repeatedly cries, then laughs, then cries.
  • Our Miss Brooks: It happens to Miss Brooks at the end of "Hobby Show", where she's about to suffer a nervous breakdown. Afraid that she is overworking herself, Miss Brooks' friends visit encouraging her to start a hobby. Unfortunately, Miss Brooks is expected to knit (Mrs. Davis' hobby), play chess (Mr. Boynton's hobby), run model trains (Walter Denton's), finger-paint (Harriet Conklin) and fix broken toys to give to underprivileged children (Mr. and Mrs. Conklin) . . . all at the same time. The radio original featured the same gag, although there Walter and Harriet's hobbies were the less-visually interesting stamp-collecting and crossword puzzle solving, respectively.
  • The December 5, 1986 telecast of The $25,000 Pyramid had host Dick Clark playfully pressuring Vicki Lawrence into selecting the category with the Mystery 7 as a car was up for grabs. Vicki just glared at Clark and called him a bleeped-out name. We can only guess what was bleeped as Vicki selected the category "Loosen Up", and Clark read what the subject matter was: Things that are stiff. The studio broke down laughing; Dick and Vicki were both crying laughing.
  • In Robin of Sherwood episode "The Greatest Enemy", Little John and some others have been captured by Gisburne's men. When Gisburne tells them that Robin of Loxley has been killed, John starts laughing and says that he doesn't believe it's true. Then his laughter turns into sobbing because he knows it is true, it's just hard to accept.
  • At the end of the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Conscience of the King", Lenore Karidian breaks down into a fit of crying and laughing after accidentally killing her father.
  • In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Family", Picard visits his childhood home in France where his brother is still living with his own family. During an argument, the two Picards get into a mud brawl. Picard starts laughing over it before he breaks down crying, recounting the Mind Rape that the Borg put him through in "The Best of Both Worlds".
  • Supernatural: In "The End", Future!Castiel has this reaction when Dean asks him to use his angel powers to return him to 2009.
  • Three's Company had an episode where Chrissy had to go to the hospital for something. When the doctor came to examine her, Chrissy, being The Ditz, managed to get him laughing so hard that he started crying and excused himself. When he went out of the room, he bumped into Janet in the hallway, who saw the doctor's tears and began to think Chrissy was going to die.
  • Near the end of the flashback section of The Untamed, Wei Wuxian does a mix of this and Laughing Mad at the Nightless City while watching everyone fight over the Stygian Amulet he just destroyed; this is part in mockery, part his Trauma Conga Line (particularly the deaths of Jin Zixuan, the Wen clan and Jiang Yanli, the latter of which happened just minutes ago) piling up on him, part realization that no matter what he does and says, everyone will always find a way to blame him and label him a monster.
  • In Word of Honor, when it's revealed that Zhou Zishu had inflicted the Nails of Seven Torments on himself and he started digging a knife into the wounds, he hallucinated his martial brother Qin Jiuxiao pleading with him to not hurt himself. Zhou Zishu started laughing while crying and replied that he deserved the pain for everything he had done.
    Music 
    Roleplay 
    Video Games 
  • In Borderlands 2, Handsome Jack gives the Vault Hunter a side-mission to check on his grandmother. Once the Vault Hunter fights off a group of bandits that secured themselves inside her house and discovering a bloody room with a cane, Jack immediately starts sobbing... before laughing maniacally since he was actually going to ask the Hunter to kill his grandmother for him anyway.
  • When afflicted, the Jester in Darkest Dungeon will occasionally undercut his Laughing Mad spurts with sobbing. This is best seen when he is Irrational, where he laughs and weeps seemingly nonstop and cause stress to the other party members listening.
  • This happens in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening at the start of mission 20, after Lady finishes off her father Arkham. After unloading a whole clip from her gun in him, she drops to her side, laughing into the air before being overcome with tears mid-laughter.
  • Inverted in Dissidia Final Fantasy by Kefka. After being defeated by Terra in Shade Impulse, Kefka shows a brief hint of sorrow as he rants about how life, dreams, and hope are not enough to fulfill a man's heart and that destruction is what makes life worth living. As he dies, he briefly begins to sob before it turns into a sorrow-filled laugh.
  • Subverted in Dragon Quest II. During the events in Mersea, the Princess of Cannock is enraged by Mariella's invasion, angered at her having the gall to invade the peaceful mermaids and wasting no time passionately insulting them for their transgressions. When Mariella eventually escapes after the party reaches her and heads off to a new base, the Princess begins laughing. While the Princess of Moonbrooke believes it to be cry laughing at first since she was so angry before, the Princess of Cannock reveals that she was actually laughing because she was mischievously plotting a way to exploit the disharmony in Hargon's forces that she'd observed.
  • If your Sanity Meter tanks in Eternal Darkness, the game's soundtrack is replaced by a nightmarish piece heavily featuring a sobbing man, who transitions into hysterical laughter at several points.
  • In Five Nights at Freddy's 1, Freddy makes a deep, demonic laughter as he moves. However, listening closely makes it clear it's a mixture of sobbing and laughter. As of 2, this is Foreshadowing; Freddy and the others are tragic monsters, in that they tried to stop the murders, but failed, and are now butchering every single night guard they come across. And they're probably not in control anymore, too. They have to watch as they subject innocent people to genuinely horrifying deaths for the rest of their lifetimes.
  • In certain versions of Persona 3, it's possible for Junpei's girlfriend, Chidori, to survive her Heroic Sacrifice if certain conditions are met. Said incident affected the usually-cheerful Junpei badly enough for him to go absolutely berserk, so naturally, hearing of her survival is a massive shock. And upon reuniting with a now-amnesiac Chidori, Junpei breaks down bawling and laughing all at once, too happy to care that Chidori doesn't (fully) remember him.
  • Luigi does this at the end of Luigi's Mansion, because while seeing Mario finally safe again has brought him to tears of joy, Mario also having the entry frame of the Ghost Portrificationizer stuck around his head brings on the laughter.
  • In Undertale, you get this line of dialog if you pick "Laugh" while fighting the Refrigerator Amalgamation in the True Lab:
    You laugh, and keep laughing. It's SO funny, you can't stop. Tears run down your face. ...what? You didn't do that?
    Visual Novels 
  • In Higurashi: When They Cry, Tsumihoroboshi-hen, Rena spends a long monologue insisting that she had no other choice than killing Teppei and Rina who were swindling her father, and that telling her friends would have been useless. Then she mocks them and starts laughing out loud... before bursting into tears, as she understands fully well that this may not have been the right choice.
  • YOU and ME and HER: After the game takes a swerve into Existential Horror after the main love interest, Miyuki, finds out she's in a video game and is fated to be forever alone if she doesn't get with the player character, snapping as a result, she takes the player character hostage in an effort to try and get the player themselves to love her, as she knows the player is the only thing real in her fake reality. One sequence has the player character manage to escape long enough to barricade themselves in the bathroom to find a clue that can restore the game to normal. Unfortunately, Miyuki tears down the door, and when asked why she's doing this, laughs maniacally while crying👁 Image
    ◊ with cold, dead eyes.
    Web Animation 
    Webcomics 
  • Near the end of Alice Grove, Alice starts to do this as she learns that everything she's tried to accomplish for the last few hundred years is all going to be for naught thanks to the reintroduction of nanite-based technology into the world.
  • In book 9 of Archipelago, this is the first stage of Lucinda's breakdown. The tears soon turn into streams of raven magic, though.
  • In chapter six of Gunnerkrigg Court, Annie is laughing at her own joke when she starts to cry. The reason? She misses her mother after she died a long, slow death in the hospital.
  • In Homestuck, Dave visits his old room and spends some time looking at all of his stuff. He starts laughing as he remembers all of the silly things he used to do before he learned about Sburb. He starts crying at the same time as he mourns the life he lost.
    Web Video 
  • In Bennett the Sage's Anime Abandon review of Inuyasha the Movie: Affections Touching Across Time, the consequences of a very gross Sight Gag lead Sage's co-worker's smile at the end of the video to break down into sobs of humiliated rage.
  • David Near: It's strongly implied that Jason the Toymaker👁 Image
    doesn't enjoy his monstrous ways very much, but thinks violence is the means to stop people from leaving him. His last words to his latest victim is "You will be my friend, forever!" before he ends the video with a wicked yet sorrowful laugh.
  • In the episode of Joueur du Grenier about simulators, Seb ends up testing Toilet Tycoon (which is, yes, a management game about building toilets).
    Seb: See? When you click on the menus, it makes a fart noise! Funny, isn't it? Ha ha ha ha ha... uuuuh...
    Western Animation 
  • Aaahh!!! Real Monsters: Ickis does this in the episode, "Wake Me When it's Over", after trying to figure out why he can't remember his recent scares (turns out he was sleepwalking).
  • Baby Looney Tunes: In the episode "To Tell the Tooth", Daffy becomes jealous of the other babies when they lose their baby teeth. Since ducks like him can't even grow teeth, he tries to pawn off Taz's own tooth as his own. However, his scheme goes awry and Granny is soon alerted to the situation. When Daffy is forced to explain himself, he chuckles nervously before breaking down into heavy sobs.
  • Happens to the second Robin, Tim Drake, in a flashback in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. The Joker applied ample amounts of Cold-Blooded Torture to Tim, leaving him Brainwashed and Crazy. When ordered to kill Batman, after The Joker has him in a position he wouldn't be able to protect himself, Tim breaks through the brainwashing and murders The Joker instead, laughing like a maniac the whole time. Once The Joker succumbs to his injuries, Tim's laughing abruptly turns into uncontrollable sobbing, as the weight of everything that transpired suddenly sets in. The flashback ends with Barbara/Batgirl trying to console him.
  • Captain Flamingo: In "Nothing But the Tooth", after the lawyer cries over his broken teeth after biting the jawbreaker, he then starts laughing and thanking Milo for the jawbreaker since now he can finally meet the tooth fairy as that was his dream for his entire life, so he decided to put his broken teeth into his suitcase so he can put it under his pillow.
  • Inversion: At the end of the Danger Mouse arc "The Odd Ball Runaround," DM and Penfold have a Heroic BSoD from the mission completed only to receive a mission which made the first a waste of time. Penfold is crying pitifully on DM's chest until DM assures him that "it's only a cartoon." Penfold brightens up and starts laughing.
  • Family Guy:
    • Meg has done this at least once or twice.
    • Lois did this in a cutaway flashback to when she was pregnant.
  • In the second episode of Futurama, Bender taunts a park mascot who says that he still has his self respect, tries to laugh it off and falls into this trope.
    Mascot: Hi, I'm Crater Face! Welcome to Luna Park! I'll have to confiscate your alcohol, sir.
    Bender: Better mascots than you have tried. (drinks beer and shoves the bottle into Crater Face's eye, then walks away)
    Mascot: At least I have my self-respect. Hahahah...[breaks into sobbing]
  • The Huckleberry Hound Show:
    • Huckleberry Hound does this at the end of "Huck's Hack", when he realizes the consequences of leaving his taxi meter running.
    • Also happens at the end of "Cops and Saucers" when Huck (inside of a spaceship) hears a news broadcast of men from outerspace invading, which the announcer comments on how it's the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard.
  • Infinity Train: When Simon thinks he's killed Grace, he has a total mental breakdown, crying while laughing maniacally as his passenger number rapidly climbs up far enough to completely cover his face. The laughter stops really fast when he realizes Grace survived.
  • One episode of Kaeloo had the gang try to put on a ballet recital with Pretty as the star. When Stumpy accidentally causes Pretty to break her leg, it becomes clear that Eugly is the only person to fill in the role. Kaeloo starts laughing, which then turns into sobbing.
  • In King of the Hill episode "Return to La Grunta", Hank confesses to his friends that he got attacked by a horny dolphin, which he kept quiet about due to being bribed and out of pride. They predictably roar in laughter much to his expense... Until Bill broke down sobbing because the same thing also happened to him six years ago and four years ago, including having to keep quiet about it since he was bribed with merchandise.
  • Looney Tunes:
  • In Miraculous Ladybug, a tear of joy is required for the recipe of a Kwami's aquatic Power-Up Food, enabling their users to breathe underwater and swim just as well as they can run. Marinette was able to produce this ingredient by telling Master Fu enough jokes to invoke this trope.
  • The Simpsons
  • Steven Universe:
    • During the Whole Episode Flashback "We Need to Talk", a young Greg has this reaction (which provides the page image) when he realizes that he and Rose are still worlds apart from understanding each other.
      Rose: Why are you laughing? ...Why are you crying?
    • In "Catch and Release", Peridot does this after Steven is unable to fix the Homeworld Warp, meaning she's stranded on Earth, which is in danger from "The Cluster" she keeps going on about, which turns out to be a Gem superweapon buried deep beneath the Earth's surface that will destroy the Earth if it activates.
    • In "Stuck Together", Lars and Steven are in dire straits, as both have been captured and are being flown off to Homeworld. By talking to each other, their frustrated and despondent moods mildly improve to anxious tears, and then laughing on top of that.
    • In "Legs From Here to Homeworld", Blue Diamond laughs and sheds tears while cuddling her long-lost sister "Pink" (actually Steven). Said tears end up affecting the other Gems too.
    • In "Change Your Mind", Steven sheds tears and laughs while re-fusing with his Gem half, causing Gem Steven to laugh too.
    • In The Movie, Spinel does this during her Villainous Breakdown, giggling sadly with tears in her eyes before devolving into sobs at how broken and toxic she's allowed herself to become and how horribly she's treated the one person who actually tried to help her.
    • In Steven Universe: Future, when Steven reverts to his original form after accidentally corrupting himself into a colossal, Kaiju sized monster, he has difficulty even forming coherent sentences. Soon he begins laughing, only to break down quickly into some of the most gut-wrenching sobs in animation. It's so powerful that the remainder of the portion of that episode (itself the penultimate installment in a four-part finale) has no dialogue.
  • Done by Tom at the end of the Tom and Jerry short "Is There a Doctor in the Mouse?" when he faces a giant Jerry, who was trying to replicate a formula that lets him run at super speed. Instead, he grows some ten times bigger than Tom who starts laughing hysterically then degenerates into pitiful sobbing.
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Video Example(s):

Luigi

After an entire night of facing ghosts to rescue his brother, Luigi cries happily once seeing Mario freed.

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After an entire night of facing ghosts to rescue his brother, Luigi cries happily once seeing Mario freed.

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Mertz Has a Dar...

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