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You're hearing it in your head right now, aren't you?

Hades: What's with the laughing? What is that? Who does that help, huh?
Jafar: It punctuates my evil. It's a flourish. (continues laughing)
Hades: You are such a freak.
Hercules: The Animated Series, "Hercules and the Arabian Night" (Hades admits it's cleansing later)

Your Applied Phlebotinum doomsday device has been activated. The MacGuffin is within your grasp. The good guys are locked away in the Death Trap. Your circuitous Evil Plan is three-quarters complete! You know what, screw being the Evil Overlord of the worldyou're already a god! There is only one thing left for you to do — but first things first:

Muahahahahaha... Hahahahahahaha... AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The Evil Laugh. Don't knock it 'til you tried it, folks.

This became an Undead Horse Trope long ago and can be nothing but Narm if not handled well. The most common types of characters who are able to get away with this in modern media:

In any case, it has since become more of the occasional evil chuckle (which may or may not be a bit scarier) every once in a while, except in certain cases, and the trope of laughing while your victim is helpless is definitely dead, as modern villains usually laugh while they work (to much better effect). A common subversion is to have a villain have an Un Evil Laugh, with snorting, chuckling, and squeaking, especially if they are a villain in a comedy series. Similarly, a common parody is to have the laughing villain start coughing or sputtering if they laugh long enough or hard enough. On the other hand, a Giggling Villain can be menacing without doing a proper laugh.

Just remember, you Genre Savvy villains, the Evil Overlord List:

20. Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.

Truth in Television: Passionate laughter, like screaming, is a great relief for stress and adrenaline, with the added benefit of embarrassing and taunting self-conscious opponents. Just don't take it too far in public.

Compare Noblewoman's Laugh, Evil Is Hammy, Evil Gloating, Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor, Drunk on the Dark Side, Giggling Villain, Laughing Mad, and Laugh with Me! When it looks like the villain is defeated, but then they pull this out, it's Ominous Adversarial Amusement. It's even more jarring (and awesome) when the villain in question is an emotionless character.

Here is a compilation with a lot of examples of this trope.


Examples

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • The character "Mayhem" for Allstate Insurance actually has one, the best being in slow-motion during the "I'm Your Blind Spot" commercial.
  • The Mr Yuk PSA about household hazards(mainly poison) begins and ends with this
  • Volkswagen released an advertisement called "Button" which features a variety of Stock Character Classic Villains, such as a character resembling Emperor Palpatine from Return of the Jedi blowing up a planet, a character who appears to be an amalgamation of Rosa Klebb and Goldfinger using a laser to torture a James Bond Expy, a stock Buddy Cop Show villain who ties the heroes to a Time Bomb, a Mad Scientist resembling Dr. Frankenstein from, well, Frankenstein and Rotwang from Metropolis creating a monster, a Blaxploitation villain who drops a man through a trap door, and finally an Indiana Jones-type villain sealing someone in a cave. Each character delivers a maniacal laugh. The ad closes with a normal looking man driving a Volkswagen Golf GTE and pressing a button that switches the engine from electric to electric and petrol. He drives away with a quiet cackle with the slogan "A more responsible use of power".
  • Shire Post Mint (which makes coins from fantasy novels) did a short advertisement in which a Westerosi lord is given a chestful of newly minted coins. As the lord ponders on what use he might make of this wealth, he starts to chuckle in a sinister manner.
  • It's played for maximum adorability in this commercial for a lawn fertilizer/weed killer, featuring a child in a devil costume laughing as he kills weeds.
  • Superman vs. Nick O'Teen: Nick O'Teen does the "nyeh heh heh" variety, perfect for a Dastardly Whiplash, in the first TV ad, when some kids are about to take the cigarettes he's offering.
  • "Victory by Computer": After boasting that he can force Superman to break him out of prison, Lex Luthor lets out a loud "HA, HA, HA, HA!".

    Asian Animation 
  • Happy Heroes features multiple villains with distinct evil laughs, but one in particular, Huo Haha, is named after his signature laugh and is the butt of a Who's on First? joke in the first episode of Season 8, where Big M. thinks he's laughing about attacking the president of Planet Xing and Huo Haha has to explain that he's just saying his name.
  • Mechamato: In episode 10, Payapi cackles before dropping a lit match to try and set fire to Amato's house.

    Ballads 
  • In The Lord of Lorn and the False Steward, after the steward had stolen the young lord's identity, he does this.
    He laughed the bony child to scorne
    That was the bonny Lord of Learne.
    He laughed that bonny boy to scorne;
    Lord! pitty it was to heare;
    I haue herd them say, and soe haue you too,
    That a man may buy gold to deere.

    Comedy 
  • During Ross Noble's Randomist show, an audience member admits he's looking at his watch because "he has to get up in the morning" and a lone woman laughs in a way that startles both Ross and the rest of the audience.
    Ross: Don't know why she's laughing like a mad woman. [as the woman] [maniac laughter] “He won't be waking up to-morrow."

    Comic Books 
  • Batman's enemy, The Joker, is the archetypical example of the first type of exception (The Joker is also a bona-fide psycho and a Monster Clown, prone to impressive cackling). In fact, in the "Die Laughing" crossover with Judge Dredd, when The Joker manages to join the Dark Judges, his power is a laugh so mighty that it kills people.
  • Back in his Golden Age comics, Captain Marvel could tell which of his Rogues Gallery he was up against just by the sound of their specific evil laughter.
  • Darkseid tends to laugh very, very loudly. Some examples from The Great Darkness Saga include guffawing when Mon-El actually tries to attack him, and bursting out in laughter when he orders the enslaved Daxamites to carve his face into their planet.
    Darkseid: Darkness shall cover the universe and reduce all within to my slaves! And you, my son, shall ever be the first among them. Are you not humbled by the prospect?
    Servant of Darkness: I beg you, Master, I am not worthy...
    Darkseid: HAHAHAHA! Of course you are not, foul one. That is why it is all too sublime!
  • Appearances of superhero The Creeper in The DCU are accompanied by a high-pitched, manic 'Yamazaki is playing Stabby Needles' laugh with an unhealthy amount of girlish glee. Evil giggle works. In the later versions, his laughter actually caused damage.
  • Invoked in 52 By T.O. Morrow after his fellow Oolong Island residents have beaten and captured Black Adam and he won an ebay bid for an Australian junk sculpture containing the secrets of the multiverse.
    "I'll say it if no-one else will: Feel free to cackle hysterically, gentlemen!"
  • Played straight with gusto by Ming the Merciless in every incarnation of Flash Gordon, ever.
  • Gaston Lagaffe's seagull is sadistic at best, which is because it squaws loudly and happily after pecking someone.
    "Hi-hi-hi-HIAAARRRR!!!"
  • Gilles de Geus: The Duke of Alva and his right hand 90-60-90 have actually hired someone to do it for them, because it starts to wear on the throat if you do it too often. De Bekkentrekker frequently supplies his own though, whether he's screwing the heroes over or cutting up his own underlings for fun: "GHAH! GHAH! GHAH! Ghah! Ghah!"
  • Guardians of the Galaxy (2020): Rapskullion, being a parody of Skeletor, has his own which is more of a sort of... evil giggle?
    Rapskullion: Eee-hee-hee-hee!
  • Judge Dredd: Dredd's nemesis Judge Death, who usually just sticks to a Slasher Smile, has been shown to have a pretty unnerving evil laugh.
    Judge Death: You'll be the death of me, Dredd. As my dear old mother used to say... BEFORE I EXECUTED HER! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
  • In Lanfeust, it is a verbal tic for Hébus', who is constantly mumbling: "Hyuk hyuk hyuk".
  • The Legend of the Chaos God: Solego laughs when he gleefully uses the Gizmosuit to smash through the Money Bin's front door:
    Solego: Ha-ha-haah! I'd forgotten how much fun it was to break things!
  • Storm is one of the good guys, but in one issue of Marvel Adventures, she gets to play the part of a weather witch. Maniacal laughter is part of the package.
  • In one of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW) comics, Luna and Stygian have to convince a villain that they are still evil. Luna does so by briefly slipping into her Nightmare Moon persona complete with evil laugh. Afterwards she mentions to Stygian that she does not like doing it not because it hurts, but because Evil Feels Good.
  • In Nnewts Book 3, the Snake Lord does an evil laugh after proclaiming himself ruler of the sky.
  • Saga of the Swamp Thing #21: Doctor Woodrue amuses himself with notions of what will happen to Dr. Sunderland when he finds out Swamp Thing isn't dead in the classic "Anatomy Lesson" story.
    Woodrue: I am laughing. Laughing very loudly. Friends have told me it is not a sound conducive to tranquility.
  • The Simpsons: During an issue of Bart Simpson, he finds Mr. Burns and Smithers discussing an evil plan. Burns asks Smithers to do the evil laugh for him, since the radioactive waste they're surrounded by is sapping Burns's will. Smithers obliges.
  • Spider-Man:
  • Superman:
    • Subverted in The Unknown Supergirl. As pondering that her plan to replace and impersonate Supergirl, kill Superman, dispose of Lex Luthor and take over the world is coming together nicely, Lesla-Lar laughs surreptitiously to avoid suspicion.
      Lesla-Lar: I'll arrange to "accidentally" kill Luthor while capturing him after he destroys Superman with the Kryptonite Ray... A dead Luthor won't be able to reveal the truth about me! And with Superman out of the way, I'll be the mightiest person on Earth, free to conquer or destroy Earths, as I please! Ha, Ha, Ha!
    • In Superman vs. Shazam!, Black Adam laughs loudly after setting Karmang's planet-destroying device up.
    • In The Condemned Legionnaires, Satan Girl indulges in malevolent laughter as gloating about destroying Supergirl.
      Satan Girl: "Ha, Ha...So you thought I'm an android? Supergirl, you'd be amazed if you knew who I really am! I'll tell you as I destroy you!"
    • The Plague of the Antibiotic Man: Amalak laughs loudly several times during one single rant in which he gloats about his scheme's inevitable future success.
      Amalak: When my agent re-establishes contact with Kent... He will set into motion the final battle in my psychological war against Superman— One that he can win only if he kills someone! Ha Hah! HA-HA-HAH!
  • Transmetropolitan: Spider Jerusalem is known to indulge in the occasional bit of evil laughter, usually when preparing a career-ending article.
    "Moo hoo ha ha."

    Fairy Tales 
  • "The Nix in the Mill-Pond" laughs with wicked delight when the hero makes his fatal mistake that allows her to kidnap him, as she's wanted to do since the moment he was born.

    Fan Works 
The Black Cauldron

Crossover

  • Red Cyclone and, to a lesser extent, Gilda, are fond of doing these in Ace Combat: Equestria Chronicles.
    • Aurora Starlight from the sequel, Wings of Unity, often makes a creepy laugh that may sometimes become more bombastic if things go particulary well for her.
  • All For Luz:
    • All For One does this sometimes, most notably when Luz reaches her Rage Breaking Point upon discovering her murdered teammates and encourages her to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. He does another one that borderlines Laughing Mad when Luz awakens their Quirk.
    • Jonah gives a big, long one when he believes his final gambit to kill Luz worked. It didn't. All it did was piss her off.
  • Child of the Storm has Chthon indulge in this from time to time, but, surprisingly, despite being a hero Wanda actually indulges in a very witchy cackle in the sequel - in that case, at the admittedly amusing irony of Dudley Dursley, son of the very law and order and normality obsessed Petunia and Vernon turning out as both a mutant and monster. Carol, who revealed the ironic fact, is disturbed, and Wanda apologises immediately after, explaining why she found it so funny, before seguing to worry about what Dudley might have done to Carol - nothing, as it happens, but not for lack of interest.
  • Fantasy of Utter Ridiculousness (Megas XLR & Touhou Project): Marisa has one of these, at least in Patchouli's Imagine Spot that depicts her destroying the Scarlet Devil Mansion's library.
  • A Shadow of the Titans: The HIVE actually has a seminar on this, debating whether or not it's worth it.

Disney Animated Canon

  • Hago, Shocker, Death, and many other villains from The Lion King Adventures are quite proficient at the art of evil laughter.

Godzilla

  • It's hinted in Abraxas (Hrodvitnon) that some of the times when Ghidorah's heads produce their high-pitched roars (which Godzilla viewers have historically compared to deranged cackling), the heads really are cackling. In Ghidorah's backstory in Abraxas: Empty Fullness, both the San and Ichi heads cackle darkly in their Kaiju Talk translations when musing on getting their revenge on the Makers.

Harry Potter

  • The Hunt for Harry Potter: A non-villainous friend of Harry's called Henchgirl said that because she was a mad scientist, "the rules" stated that she had to cackle at least three times a day. When he later found himself cackling madly after completing some correspondence tests that he felt certain he'd pass, he muttered that "Maybe it's time for me to expand my circle of friends to include people that don't think the laws of physics are... how did she put it, 'silly little suggestions?'"

My Hero Academia

  • It is quite common to have Principal Nezu engage in this in My Hero Academia fanfics, mostly as part of his image as The Gadfly.
    • In One for All and Eight for the Ninth, after Izuku's Rousing Speech to Todoroki during the Sports Festival is leaked, Setsuna wonders aloud who was behind it. Izuku, Midnight, and Aizawa immediately finger Nezu as the culprit... and Nezu proceeds to connect the intercom just so the students can listen to his maniacal laughter.
  • In Mastermind: Strategist for Hire, Freezerburn (aka Shouto Todoroki) breaks out laughing hysterically after he kills Endeavor.

My Little Pony

  • Loved and Lost: Jewelius does this several times. The most notable examples are in the 6th chapter, when he laughs for having successfully seized the throne of Equestria, and the 10th chapter for having the dishonored heroes (who've just been bitterly renounced by Twilight) at his mercy.
  • Oversaturated World: Group Precipitation: "Look! Up in the Sky! by FoME, Masterweaver, and archonix": archonix's section has Discord's thoughts on villainy focus on the laughter:
    Discord: A villain is nothing without his laugh.
  • When Chrysalis is brought into the Ponies of Olympus series, literally the first thing we see her doing is coaching her daughter Aurelia in how to do one of these properly.
  • Queen Celesia in Twillight Sparkle's awesome adventure has one, which she generally uses after doing something For the Evulz.

Odd Squad

  • Viva La Vida has Odd Todd doing a couple of these as per canon. However, upon completing her Face–Heel Turn, Olive also gets her own signature evil laugh, a shrill cackle that sounds quite a lot like Odd Todd's.

One Piece

Pokémon

  • Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: Sabrina is pretty much The Stoic. However, in a sidestory that tells her Start of Darkness, at the end she lets out an epic one after she's proven right in her theories about how unremarkable people can be motivated to achieve greatness through fear.

Warrior Cats

Whoniverse

Unsorted

  • The protagonist of Accursed Ones has what even his friends describe as an evil, wild, maniacal cackle. He's extremely self-conscious and shy about it, but when he's caught up in the moment of raising the dead or summoning demons or making people's blood boil in their veins, well, it just sort of slips out.
  • In The Matrix fanfic Bringing Me To Life there are two successful examples from Smith. Along with more if you count the failed, silly sounding ones by the Merovingian.
    Smith: If you are going to do one, do it properly, you are such an embarrassment to a former villain.
  • Lina Eastwood/Cure Western from Pretty Cure Hollywood Stars is a rare heroic example of this trope, and BOY does she make the most of it! She tends to laugh evilly in her hammier moments, such as in Episode 12.
  • Every villain in the Calvinverse has done this at some point or another. It's lampshaded in Retro Chill:
  • Variant in Supergirl story Hellsister Trilogy when Satan Girl does this telepathically.
    Satan Girl looked at her for a second, then threw back her head, opened her mouth wide, and sent forth the blips through her telepathic plug that signified laughter.
  • The Ultimate Evil:
    • Subverted when Valerie realizes that Shendu has thrown Tohru across Uncle's store. She mutters that throwing someone in their home is considered to be bad-mannered, and Shendu cackles at that in a way that sounds like he's genuinely amused by the comment instead of mocking her or being sinister.
    • Bai Tza laughs once she has completed her spell to flood Embarcadero Station and while she attempts to drown Valerie.
    • Shendu makes an impressive one to the Chans when he returns in the body of his Other and their friend, Valerie Payne, all the while levitating and emitting sparks as a sample of the power his and hers combined chis are capable of.
    • Hsi Wu lets out a demonic one in Jade's head when she absorbs his chi that gives him a chance to escape from the Netherworld by merging with her in the sequel.
  • Littlest Pet Shop (Fan Novelization): Blythe does this in "Penny For Your Laughs" at the end of the first musical number.
  • Parodied in Shazam! fanfiction Here There Be Monsters. Doctor Sivana is prone to cackle madly. It is so annoying of a noise everyone wants to punch him just to shut him up.
    Dr. Sivana was so pleased with himself he hadn't stopped "heh-heh-heh"ing in the last thirty minutes. If he hadn't been so important to the Monster Society, his associates probably would have squashed him just to shut him up.

    Film — Animation 
  • One of the scariest from Disney is the Headless Horseman from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. Don't ask how he laughs, though.
  • Few villains rock the Evil Laugh harder than Evil Vizier Jafar on Aladdin, and nowhere does he rock it harder than at the end of his Dark Reprise of "Prince Ali". In the Crossover with Hercules, Hades calls him on it. When Jafar actually convinces Hades to give it a shot, the big blue guy admits that "It's cleansing."
  • In Barnyard, Dag laughs evilly repeatedly.
  • In the DC Animated Universe films Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, the Joker (voiced by Mark Hamill) possesses a terrifyingly insane laugh which puts Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson to shame.
  • In the final battle scene of Beauty and the Beast, Gaston does an evil laugh before he taunts Beast.
    • A prize example (not from a villain, but still quite scary) is given by the castle's stove.
  • Professor Z from Cars 2 can be heard laughing evilly during the scene where he attempted to blow up Lightning McQueen and Mater.
  • In DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, Merlock the Evil Sorceror loves indulging in these. The best is when he turns Scrooge's Bin into his fortress of evil and re-establishes his throne.
  • This part of the song "Pink Elephants of Parade" from Dumbo.
    I can stand the sight of worms
    And look at microscopic germs
    But technicolor pachyderms
    Is really too much for me!
    Muhahahahahahaha!!!
  • Hexxus from FernGully: The Last Rainforest has a laugh at the end of his extended song that ends with a dry cough. Can be seen as a satire, but actually justified, as Hexxus is the embodiment of pollution.
    • He indulges in some much more frightening laughter when he assumes his One-Winged Angel form.
  • In Flushed Away, the Toad and his henchrats (including Spike) do evil laughs repeatedly.
    • Also when Le Frog finally hands out the cable for the Toad's plan, the Toad starts laughing maniacally for about 30 seconds, annoying Le Frog
    Le Frog: Just TAKE it!
  • In the climax of The Frog Princess, Koschei bursts in laughter as he turns Vasilisa into a golden statue.
  • Tybalt and Fawn does this in Gnomeo & Juliet
  • Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective, after his attack on Basil. Voiced by Vincent Price. Can't get much greater than that.
  • In Hercules, monsters in particular laugh at Hercules. Nessus roared with laughter after Hercules frantically searches the water for his sword, only to aim a fish instead. Having lost his sword again, Hercules throws a boulder at the Hydra, only for the monster to crush it and stops to laugh at the inexperienced young hero's clumsy attempts at battle. Fighting Hercules without his strength, the Cyclops takes his time to defeat the hero, laughing while he does it.
  • In Hoodwinked!, Boingo keeps doing evil laughs.
  • In Hoodwinked Too! Hood VS. Evil, Moss does an evil laugh at the bridge scene after an 18-year-old Red tells him, "Bring it!".
  • In Horton Hears a Who! (2008), Vlad has one as he prepares to find Horton and destroy the clover under the kangaroo's instructions.
  • Syndrome of The Incredibles has a pretty terrifying evil laugh, letting it loose after unleashing his robot and revealing his plan to turn the entire world "super".
  • In Kung Fu Panda, Tai Lung does an evil laugh at one point.
    • Speaking of Kung Fu Panda, Shifu pulls an absolutely epic one while threatening Po with the Wuxi Finger Hold.
    Shifu: You know the hardest part? The hardest part is cleaning up afterwards, hrmhrhrhrhrhrhr...
    • Lord Shen of the sequel lets out many sinister laughs and chuckles.
  • The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part: Queen Watevra starts one just after boasting that her plans for the Apocalypseburgers is succeeding, then instantly subverted as she's actually laughing at Banarnar's repeated pratfalls.
  • In The Lion King (1994), a young Simba laughs evilly after he says, "I laugh in the face of danger!" in the Elephant Graveyard. Also, Scar lets out a particularly great evil laugh at the end of his Villain Song "Be Prepared".
    • Well, when your henchmen of choice are hyenas, you've got a lot to live up to.
    • Surprisingly, Ed, the Cloud Cuckoo Lander of the Terrible Trio who spent the movie cackling like an idiot, actually had one of these at the end of the movie, shortly after Scar denounced the hyenas to Simba. When Shenzi and Banzai ask Ed if they heard Scar correctly, Ed lets loose a disturbingly low chuckle punctuated by him licking his lips hungrily, looking intense for the only time in the whole movie. Then, the hyenas close in on Scar, all giggling murderously, and his desperate begging (and later screams) is eventually drowned out by the sound of their laughter.
    • In the sequel, Zira has several. One was heard towards the end of her Villain Song, and another is when her lioness army leaves Simba to be attacked by her during the final battle.
  • The Little Mermaid (1989): Ursula lets out an evil laugh while Ariel turns into a human.
    • She's also got this smug snarl/chuckle thing going on in other scenes, too. It's wonderfully malicious.
    • Bonus points for her in the spin-off TV series, in which at one point, she comes up with an evil scheme, before straight up saying "All that's missing is some good old evil laughter".
    • Chef Louis, a French Jerk who's a little too passionate about killing and eating fish, also laughs obnoxiously during his song "Les Poissons" and while trying to catch Sebastian. "Les poissons, les poissons, hee hee hee, hon hon hon!"
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame Being The Stoic and a No-Nonsense Nemesis, Frollo generally settles for the Psychotic Smirk or a smug smile but when he climbs onto the gargoyle and is about to kill Quasimodo (who has just saved his life), he gives a deep, sinister chuckle, which indicates how deep into his Sanity Slippage he is.
  • The Mansions of the Gods:
    • Caesar has one, amplified by his extremely echo-ey throne chamber.
    • Obelix has one, of sorts: it's the laugh of a Boisterous Bruiser about to do what he loves best.
  • Megamind, being a Card-Carrying Villain, makes a point of practicing his evil laugh to get it right.
  • Mad Scientist Dr. Cockroach of Monsters vs. Aliens has a resounding Large Ham one, apparently as an involuntary reflex whenever he's doing mad science.
    Susan: OK, go. But... don't do the laugh.
    Dr. Cockroach: Don't worry, my dear, you won't feel a thing! Mwu-ha-HA— Sorry. Sorry.
  • Shan Yu from Mulan, standing on top of the Imperial Palace's roof.
  • The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie Boogie laughs evilly at the end of his Villain Song and later when he tries to escape from Jack, and protagonist Jack Skellington, laughs evilly no less then 4 times in the film — just to remind you that he's a member of Halloweentown.
  • In Open Season, Shaw laughs evilly repeatedly.
    • In Open Season 2, Fifi does an evil laugh when he is about to press the button to explode Elliot.
  • Osmosis Jones: Thrax tends to pull this off in a way that appears either demented or schizophrenic — and still somehow really, really creepy.
  • The Coachman from Pinocchio has a rather creepy evil laugh after he tells Foulfellow and Gideon "They'll never come back...as BOYS!!!" And yes, both Foulfellow and Gideon were both extremely frightened by the Coachman as soon as they heard him say "BOYS!!!"
  • In grand Disney tradition, Dr. Facilier ends his Villain Song with a grand howling laugh in The Princess and the Frog. Later, his shadow gets one too.
  • Ratatouille: Ego in Linguini's nightmare. He does this as we zoom in on Linguini's terrified face, and then suddenly yells as it echoes out when Colette comes to in his office.
  • Mok in Rock and Rule has a particularly impressive evil laugh. When Omar ridicules his music, saying that his gerbil uses his latest album as a room-divider, Mok gives a sarcastic chuckle that eventually turns into a genuine, booming, maniacal laugh as he contemplates the horrible fate he has in store for Omar. He gives various taunting chuckles over the course of the film and absolutely lets rip with the evil laughter having summoned his demon at the film's climax.
  • Maleficent lets out many memorable evil laughs, notably when she turns into a dragon in Sleeping Beauty.
  • In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the wicked queen uses an Evil Laugh as an ingredient of her disguise potion.
  • Superman of all people pulls off a terrifying one in Superman vs. the Elite when he deliberately takes out The Elite Mook Horror Show style.
  • Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats: Snerdly regularly lets out an evil "Mwah-hah-hah" whenever he's plotting.
  • Toy Story:
    • In the first film, Sid does one repeatedly.
    • In the second film, Al does one when he leaves his apartment in his chicken costume.
    • In the third film, Bonnie does one when playing with her toys as the "witch" (which is really Dolly).
  • The Blue Meanies from The Beatles film Yellow Submarine, especially the leader. The Chief Blue Meanie has a pretty freakish high-pitched laugh, which he later follows with hissing and teeth clattering.

    Literature 
  • In Cannon Fodder, it's mentioned that evil laughter is an essential overlord skill. Alec Nightshade can't quite master one, though.
  • The titular villain of Clockpunk and the Vitalizer is said to have one. Little does he know, the protagonist thinks it's attractive!
  • Mackenzie Hollister from Dork Diaries is often described as cackling like a witch.
  • Darkness Visible has one rather creepy example, when the heroes have finally captured the villain at the end:
    Sir Michael threw back his head and laughed and laughed. The sound set my teeth on edge, for there was little sanity in it, and it was a twisted mockery of the laugh I knew so well.
  • There are many villains with Evil Laughs in Discworld. One of them (in Maskerade) writes his evil laugh down. With five exclamation marks. Sure sign of insanity.
    • A relatively minor character in Making Money has one of the best evil laughs seen in the series. His co-worker Igor laments that it is so unfortunate that he is neither technically insane nor evil.
    • Granny Weatherwax does not do this, but her genteel chuckle when she is about to do the Right Thing has been described as far, far scarier.
    • Witches of the Discworld in general try to watch themselves and each other for excessive cackling, which is a sign of going mad and turning into a fairytale-style wicked witch. Nanny Ogg brings this up the one time that Granny Weatherwax does cackle, which Granny insists that she didn't, only that she "might have chuckled a... a bit roughly."
    • Lampshaded with Lord Hong of Interesting Times, who would only have laughed maniacally if he were the traditional type of Evil Grand Vizier. (Indeed, a prior character who was exactly that, Abrim in Sourcery, has an evil laugh.)
  • The Dresden Files:
    • Lampshaded by Harry Dresden in Grave Peril. At Bianca's party, the lights go dark, and spooky laughter comes out of nowhere. Harry notes that it's tough to beat vampires at the creepy laugh. They get a lot of practice.
    • Harry points out an Evil Laugh again in Dead Beat when he encounters the vampire Mavra. He also gives a fairly apt description of what makes an evil laugh.
      Maybe it was the atmosphere, but something about it, the way that it simply lacked anything to do with the things that should motivate laughter... There was no warmth in it, no humanity, no kindness, no joy. It was like Mavra herself — it had the withered human shell, but underneath it all was something from a nightmare.
  • The Faerie Queene: The kidnapper giant can't help but laugh as the knight battling him hits the Damsel in Distress the giant is using as a human shield.
  • In Galaxy of Fear: Spore, Tash's little brother gives one because The Virus is using his body to tell Tash to give up and be assimilated. She's surprised at how sinister he sounds. Lampshaded later.
    "So I have an evil laugh, huh?" Zak asked. He gave a wicked-sounding chuckle.
  • Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid: In the "Little Harmonic Labyrinth" dialogue, deadly laughter is the weapon (and only line) the Majotaur uses against the fools who fall into his trap at the center of the labyrinth.
    (Suddenly, a giant booming laugh is heard, alarmingly close to them.)
    Tortoise: Watch out, Achilles! This is no laughing matter.
    Majotaur: Hee hee hee! Ho ho! Haw haw haw!
    Achilles: I'm starting to feel weak, Mr. T...
    Tortoise: Try to pay no attention to his laugh, Achilles. That's your only hope.
  • In Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Gods of Mars, when John Carter and Tars Tarkus enter a chamber, the door closed behind them and "And then, from unseen lips, a cruel and mocking peal of laughter rang through the desolate place."
  • In the Harry Potter series, Lord Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange. Subverted with Sirius Black, who had one, but turned out to be a good guy. Voldemort's "high, cold, cruel laugh" is one of Harry's earliest memories (immediately after the flash of green light that killed Lily). Quirrell does one after being revealed as a villain at the end of the first book.
  • Journey to Chaos: Invoked by Eric to scare a trainee soldier; the kid is sneaking into the royal mage's tower and Eric sneaks up behind him. When close enough, he belts out a maniacal laugh.
  • The Marvellous Land of Snergs: Mother Meldrum cackles raucously after tricking Gorbo into assaulting King Kiul.
  • Zack, the Anti-Hero of The Mental State, lets out a subtle laugh in private whenever one of his schemes works. This is typically a "Heh! Hih! Hih!" followed by a sudden scowl of seriousness. He gets a hammier one in Chapter 2 that sounds more shrill. Then, in the final chapter, while he using an Obfuscating Insanity tactic, he showcases an extremely elaborate and manic shriek of laughter that takes an entire page to describe.
  • Mogworld: Dreadgrave's Evil Laugh is described like so:
    “a hearty and insane laugh, about as far removed from polite after dinner laughter as you can get. That was the kind of insane laughter even the truly insane have to practice for years to get right.”
  • In Murderess, Lu Killer, the protagonist, descended from a family with a reputation of being vicious murderers; the book naturally features Villainous Lineage as a recurrent theme. At one point she accidentally has one in the middle of the snowball fight. She quickly stops in horror, wondering if she’s indeed a killer after all.
  • In My Sister Rosa whenever Rosa laughs, her older brother Che knows that something is wrong. Such as when she laughs about giving neighbor Seimone a peanut-laced smoothie knowing Seimone was allergic and not injecting her with the antidote.
  • The Outlaws: One chapter describes a Freikorps unit during the night march in Harburg, a city whose population is hostile to the soldiers partaking in the Kapp putch. When the soldiers start singing a marching song, they are immediately interrupted by hellish laughter coming from the single lit window in an entire house. The sound is so terrible that it doesn't seem to be a human voice anymore, but the demon of the city. Typically of him, the main hero has to fight down the urge to throw a bunch of explosives into the said window.
  • The Pendragon Adventure: Saint Dane has a trademark laugh that Bobby hates having to listen to — probably in part because half the time, it means he's about to hear how he's been outsmarted this week.
  • Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian:
    • "A Witch Shall Be Born": When Salome's gloating reveals Taramis' helplessness, both she and her flunky Constantius laugh mockingly.
    • In "The Scarlet Citadel", Pelias' laughter at a dead man is not pleasant. Even his comment that the dead man tortured young men to death doesn't keep Pelias from creepiness — especially since he then proceeds to raise the dead man as a zombie to open the door that he and Conan need to get out. Even when they're on your side, sorcerers in the Conan universe are creepy.
  • Roys Bedoys:
    • In "Roys Bedoys & the Three Little Pigs" and "Roys Bedoys and Little Red Riding Hood", Roys says, "Muahahaha!" when playing the Big Bad Wolf.
    • In "It's St. Patrick's Day, Roys Bedoys!", Roys's friends laugh evilly when telling him to wear green on St. Patrick's Day "or else".
  • Count Olaf in A Series of Unfortunate Events has a distinctively wheezy voice and a laugh to go with it. In The Grim Grotto, he's doing his darndest to make it the most elaborate, obnoxious evil laugh ever. (This is great fun in the audio books with Tim Curry doing the reading.)
    • In later books in the series, Olaf deliberately inverts this by shortening his laugh to a simple "Ha!"
    • In the movie, Olaf kind of experiments with it near the end. On the DVD feature Interact Olaf, he demonstrates an evil laugh at one point.
  • Sherlock Holmes of all people has one when he sees that his plan to catch a criminal is coming along perfectly.
    Watson: I have not heard him laugh often, and it has always boded ill to somebody.
  • Doctor Impossible in Soon I Will Be Invincible declares in the narration that he will have the last laugh, "and I have a very good laugh." Damsel says to the other heroes "He's out there somewhere, probably half a kilometer underground. Laughing his freaky laugh. Talking to his robots." When he captures them, he lets it rip.
  • Togetherly Long: A natural for the evil Emperor Von Mal, as it reinforces his status as a Card-Carrying Villain.
  • The Wandering Inn has this in Chapter 1.01C from both a character and as a delayed sound effect. If you read at a decent pace, the audio will play as the POV character loses his mind.

    Music 
  • Accept "Heaven is Hell" — Satan gets the last laugh.
  • The Album Intro Track of the Gene Simmons 1978 solo album begins with this.
  • Andrew Eldritch lets some echoing ones go in "Lucretia My Reflection".
  • Korean rapper Agust D does this in his song "give it to me."
  • Near the end of Arthur Brown's "Fire". "You're gonna burn! Burn! Burn! Buuuurrrn!!! Ah-hahaha!!!"
  • The beginning of the song "Bump In The Night" by Allstars has a talking section similar to the Thriller example below which is followed by an evil laugh.
  • Suga from BTS closes out his verse- and the song proper- with a breathless, wheezing cackle at the end of "BTS Cypher Part 2: Triptych." He also does this during his verse in "DDaeng."
  • Leonard Cohen gets one off in "First We Take Manhattan". It's not totally clear what he's planning on doing with a monkey and a plywood violin, but it can't possibly be good.
  • Cradle of Filth's song A Gothic Romance features a more rarely-heard female Evil Laugh.
    • The last track on their album Damnation and a Day features an evil laugh at the end.
    "And the Earth...was without form...and void. And Darkness...was upon the face of the deep. Mmm hmm hmm heh heh ha ha. AH HA HA HA HA HAA!"
  • Creature Feature's song "A Gorey Demise" features one after this part of the song:
    And Z is for Zach
    Who simply went...
    Insane.
    Ahaha...bwahaha!
  • "These Hands" by The Damned tells the story of a demented circus clown, ending with the clown throttling someone and a rather fitting evil laugh. And then a slightly irritated "STOP LAUGHING!"
  • David Draiman's laugh at the beginning and end of "Inside the Fire". He does this perfectly live. He also does one in the beginning of "Asylum". From the same album comes "The Infection", which has a more amused, mocking laughter laying parts of the track ("And a thousand voices share their laughter at my demise").
  • Tobias Sidegård of Swedish black/death metal band Necrophobic does a terrifying one right before the solo of "Blinded By Light, Enlightened By Darkness".
  • Ian Gillan lets off a sinister chuckle near the end of Deep Purple's "Speed King".
  • Doctor Steel can be heard engaging in one near the end of his self-titled song, "Dr. Steel."
  • The main chorus of Faith No More's Land Of Sunshine is Mike Patton's sinister, maniacal spine chilling evil laughter while evil circus clown music plays with the words "Does life seems worthwhile to you?" being sung over it.
  • "Giants" by Five Iron Frenzy opens with one.
  • Genesis' "Mama"?
  • Geordie "Black Cat Woman": "...But when the moon comes over the hill - huhuhuhahaha -"
  • Gorillaz:
    • De La Soul's manic laughter in Feel Good Inc.
    • The music video for Clint Eastwood opens with some chilling laughter from Murdoc.
  • Iron Maiden's "Fear of the Dark" usually gets this in live shows.
    • And it has absolutely nothing on the laugh at the end of "Moonchild". Now that's textbook evil laughter.
  • "Easy Money" by King Crimson ends with a rather grotesque evil laugh.
  • Seanan McGuire's Filk Song "My Laugh is an Evil Laugh" pays tribute to the "sudden but inevitable betrayal" scene in Firefly. Though in both that and the original it's mostly parodying the trope.
  • At the end of Metallica's Master of Puppets, sinister laughter can be heard, and seemingly from multiple voices.
  • Peter Murphy's cackle two-thirds of the way through Bauhaus's cover of John Cale's "Rosegarden Funeral of Sores" definitely counts. A Moment of Awesome ensues.
  • In Nightwish's "Kinslayer", Tuomas lets out a classic evil laugh.
  • Ozzy Osbourne does a great evil laughter in "Bark at the Moon" and a smaller one in "Crazy Train". His normal laugh sounds somewhat foreboding and maniacal. Especially when you slap an echo effect on it. Yikes.
  • Averted with, of all people, The Protomen's version of Dr. Wily. While he does his fair share of Evil Gloating, he never once laughs.
    • Protoman, however, has a particularly good Evil Laugh in the live shows.
  • The beginning of Queensrÿche's "Nightrider" has one, after a Metal Scream.
  • "Rockin' in the Graveyard" by '50s rocker Jackie Morningstar.
  • A trademark of Jon Oliva, lead singer of Savatage and Jon Olivas Pain.
  • The Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the UK" begins with one of these.
  • Till Lindemann doesn't do this often, but when he does, it's enough to make your skin crawl.
  • 600,000 Volts (Out Of My Way) from Turnabout Musical features no less than three bouts of this, courtesy of Manfred von Karma. The most impressive one is right at the end. In addition to being hammy as all get out despite its tone of menace, the song contains some spoilers for the end of the first game.
  • Akiko Shikata does this in Kin'iro no Chousou (related to Umineko: When They Cry). Especially chilling when it comes from her of all people.
  • Vincent Price ends his section of Michael Jackson 's "Thriller" with a wry evil laugh, arguably doing more to amplify the tension than to relieve it. Man was creepy.
  • The teacher from Pink Floyd's The Wall does one in "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives".
  • Wilfrido Vargas (or someone in his band) does three evil laughs in his band's song "El Vampiro".
  • WASP: several in "Scream Until You Like It", and a smaller one in the far darker "My Tortured Eyes".
  • Geoff Castellucci of the a capella group Voice Play has an excellent one, made all the more creepy by his Basso Profundo voice.

    Pinball 
  • In every Black Knight game, the title character does this whenever the player uses the Magna-Lock too late to save the ball from draining. He does it more frequently in the sequels, 2000 and Sword of Rage, to the point where it occurs twice during the former game's main theme.
  • Dialed In! has a mode where Dialed In Electronics attempts to weaken the flippers with laser beams; an evil laugh plays if they succeed.
  • The Master does this in Doctor Who when his bonus (obtained by draining the ball in a specific spot) is awarded.
  • General Yagov does this in F-14 Tomcat, just in case the Russian General Ripper didn't seem evil enough to you.
  • FunHouse: Rudy's Nightmare:
    • Evil Rudy, the main antagonist, frequently laughs at the player when he appears on the display.
    • A number of songs in the game's soundtrack that are associated with various evil characters contain sinister laughs. These include "The evil clones," "Want a balloon?," and "Melt the clown".note 
  • Godzilla (Stern): The Xiliens cap off some of their messages with a smug yet staccato laugh.
    "That is all. Ha, ha ha."
  • Heist!: If a member of Maggie's team gets arrested, the Big Bad Frank Bigalow laughs afterward before taunting them.
  • A rare protagonist example: The Shadow himself does this in The Shadow during Vengeance mode, and at the start of Shadow Multiball.
  • As does Dr. E. Shock of Strange Science.
  • The Shredder does this in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Data East).
  • Twilight Zone: The Power mocks you with an evil laugh if you cannot defeat it before time runs out.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • Appropriately enough, this was Toshie Uematsu's response when she saw Nanae Takahashi crying over the fact Uematsu had chosen REM(Real Evil Makers) over the Dream Catches.
  • Awesome Kong, or Kharma, when she was in WWE. It was her Leitmotif.
  • Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart had an Annoying Laugh that sometimes terrified opponents. His daughter's laugh is almost identical (and was used in her entrance theme for a short while.)
  • Even when shown as the good guy, Kane is likely to do this at the end of his promos. He didn't become a true bona fide psycho until he was unmasked, though, his first masked run being largely silent altogether.
  • The late Larry Sweeney of Ring of Honor and CHIKARA fame had a naturally boisterous laugh that he used to great effect when playing the Heel.
  • "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase's Evil Laugh was so important to his character that it was even part of his entrance music.
  • OMEGA trainee Caprice Coleman is a subversion. His laugh, when he full laughs rather than chuckles, is on par with any other example in this section, with his eyes seemingly bulging with malice as he does so, but he tends to slide pretty close to The Paragon without dropping this characteristic. He did drop this characteristic when he turned on Dalton Castle and joined the very evil ROH Cabinet.
  • You beat TAKA Michinoku? He thinks not! For you are not the first WWF light heavyweight champion! For you are not fast nor focused nor strong! For you are not Japanese! And you are most certainly are not EEEVVVVIIILLLLLLL!!!!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!note 
  • Elix Skipper's singles theme song in TNA started with hearty yet malevolent chuckle that will trail off.
  • Último Dragón's most frequent form of communication in WCW, especially after dropping people on their heads.
  • The Undertaker has been known to do these before, mostly when he was in his Ministry of Darkness phase. He laughed evilly when abducting Stephanie McMahon, for example.
  • Vickie Guerrero began a habit of doing this during her feud for the Miss WrestleMania title, and this was practically her second catchphrase as SmackDown!'s official consultant.
  • Yoshihiro Tajiri in Impact Championship Wrestling while celebrating the injuries he inflicted on Low Ki.

    Podcasts 
  • In Anime Slushie, the Vividred Operation review begins with a comedic version.
    Cube: Hehehehe, hello everyone and welcome to Anime Slushie, hehehe.
    Cube: Hehehe. It's time to tell you about... The Butts.
  • Used for parodic purposes in the French MP3 series Le Donjon de Naheulbeuk by the dark wizard Zangdar. It does not help that he is incompetent and brutal towards his minions and servants.
  • In the August 1983 episode of '80s All Over, co-host Drew McWeeny breaks into one of these when Scott Weinberg points out how he (Drew) really upset fans of the movie Coco by pointing out that "Remember Me" has a VERY similar melody to the love theme from Krull in the previous episode.
  • Red Panda Adventures:
    • The Red Panda has all of the laugh, none of the evil. He often uses an evil sounding laugh, almost as often while tricking foes into shooting at a hypnotic projection of him so it looks like bullets are going right through him, as an intimidation tactic. It frequently works exactlya s desired and unnerves the crooks he fights.
    • The Mad Monkey has a unique evil laugh, which he punctuates with monkey and ape noises.
  • In SAYER, the sociopathic A.I. FUTURE has a deep, echoing chuckle, which it pulls out whenever its adorable adversaries have done something particularly amusing.

    Puppet Shows 
  • On Sesame Street, The Count would famously laugh in a somewhat sinister fashion after counting things out, accompanied by thunder and lightning. "I will now count these letters to myself! One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Five letters! Ah ha ha!" It was originally a lot more maniacal, but was toned down to avoid frightening children away from learning to count.

    Radio 
  • Adventures in Odyssey: Dr. Regis Blackgaard has a memorable evil laugh that was quite effective in small doses. When he appears in the "Darkness Before Dawn" arc, you can hear bits of it trying to escape at certain points, but he holds it in until he finally takes over Whit's End.
    • A minute before the scene in question, he and his underling, Mr. Glossman, actually share a laugh together. The contrast makes him sound positively demented.
    • In a later episode, we learn that while his twin brother Edwin may be merely a hammy actor with an inflated ego, he has the laugh in his repertoire as well.
  • Bleak Expectations: A recurring theme is how evil a person is can be demonstrated by their laugh. Mr. Benevolent has a mildly sinister chuckle, which he gained from his mother. The first time Pippa Bin tries being evil, she can barely do more than a nervous chuckle, but eventually manages to work all the way up to a proper, booming evil laugh. Harry Biscuit's early attempts are also pretty bad, by his own admission, but after year possessed by an evil pen, he's managed to get it work.
  • The French summer radio show Les Persifleurs du Mal (Deadpan Snarkers from Hell) uses the Evil Laugh in its opening credits. It fits the show's general tone and what they do to some of the people they invite...
  • The Shadow is another example of a hero using the evil laugh — in his case, as psychological warfare. After all, maniac laughter from nowhere is unnerving, and criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot...

    Roleplay 

    Tabletop Games 
  • Dungeons & Dragons has "Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter", a spell that can give any character the opportunity to let one of these fly. Also, a monster called the Gibbering Mouther has the evil laugh threaded through the cacophony of its constant utterances.
  • Mwahahaha!, naturally. It's a card game of mad scientists competing to conquer the world. You start small with your superweapon, only threatening cities and states (and can set the weapon off on places that fail to bow before you, making it easier to issue threats later when you show it's not a bluff). Naturally, it's a lot more fun if everyone hams it up.
  • The Witch class in Pathfinder can acquire the Cackle ability, which does nothing in and of itself, but extends the duration of a wide variety of nasty hexes. With some practice (i.e. Feats), you will be cackling non-stop, all the while laying down more hexes.
  • Ravenloft:
    • Easan the Mad, the Darklord of Vechor, not only has an Evil Laugh, but when he desires to seal the borders of his domain (a power that most darklords have) anyone who tries to leave Vechor against his wishes is struck by hideous, demonic laughter that only the victim that hear, which eventually drives the victim insane (in game terms, it causes Wisdom damage) unless he stops trying to leave Vechor.
    • One of the special powers of the Bone Golem is to unleash a terrifying laugh that can slay any living being who hears it and fails both a fear and a horror check.
    • The Laughing Man is a ghost mentioned in Van Richten's Guide to Ghosts who can also slay the living with his laugh. He also appears in Dungeon Magazine #52, but not as the antagonist of the story.
  • Chaos in Warhammer 40,000 specializes in this; most Traitor Marines having been turned batshit insane over ten thousand years of war and slaughter and the mind-warping effects of the Immaterium. Dawn of War has Chaos Marines randomly break down and cackle occasionally.
  • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition: Though it's tongue-in-cheek and left to the Game Master's discretion, an evil laugh is listed as a prerequisite to enter the Vampire Count career, alongside other Card-Carrying Villain traits.

    Theatre 
  • Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distruttoRodrigo Borgia gives one at the end of the prologue, which establishes his reputation for ruthlessness. Then, his son Cesare, the protagonist, says "My father is a monster". Except then, we don't see him doing anything that evil for the rest of the play, other than the same political scheming as all the other nobles in Italy, and it's his rival who's the one ordering assassination attempts on teenagers. It subverts the Historical Villain Upgrade the family is usually subject to, while creating a fun and hammy character.
  • Damn Yankees has Applegate sing the Villain Song, "The Good Old Days", which, while sounding a lot like an inspirational song in the way it is sung, has Applegate laughing evilly in between stanzas.
  • The title character in Mozart and Da Ponte's Don Giovanni has a very unsettling laugh in the beginning of act two.
  • Death from Elisabeth indulges in these a lot, mostly of the triumphant gloating variety — like at Elisabeth's wedding, right after she says "I Do". Tamaki Ryou utilizes a contemptuous, mocking, utterly fake one in that scene.
  • Older Than Radio: The aria "Vous qui faites l'endormie", from Faust by Charles Gounod, has a number of evil laughs written into the score. This is perhaps unsurprising, as it's sung by Mephistopheles.
  • Iago traditionally lets out an evil laugh at the end of his Villain Song "Credo in un dio crudel" in Giuseppe Verdi's Otello, even though the laugh isn't written in the score or script.
  • The title role in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado has some improvised Evil Laughs in between verses in his song about the Cool and Unusual Punishments he's concocted.
  • 'Dog Eat Dog' from Les Misérables is sometimes punctuated by evil laughter
  • In some productions of Oliver!, Bill Sikes and his girlfriend/wife, Nancy, get one.
  • In Act One of The Phantom of the Opera, the Phantom breaks out in evil laughter when he ruins Carlotta's performance and later crashes the chandelier. Michael Crawford really makes the most of both occasions on the original cast album.
  • In Pokémon Live!, Giovanni does this even in the middle of his songs! Jessie and James also get a few, such as partway through "It Will All Be Mine."
  • Alberich in Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle lets loose with an Evil Laugh occasionally, particularly in Siegfried, when Mime gets killed. Gustav Neidlinger pulled off a memorable one at the end of scene one of Das Rheingold on the classic Decca recording with Sir Georg Solti.
  • In Noah Smith's stage version of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hyde has an evil laugh. When Jekyll finds himself laughing the same way during Enfield's party, it's one of the first hints that Hyde can take over without the serum.
  • In Sweeney Todd, Todd would give an evil laugh during "Epiphany".
  • There are certain opportunities for Graf von Krolock to let out evil laughter in Tanz Der Vampire, such as the end of Act 1.
  • Though the Wicked Witch of the West is portrayed sympathetically in Wicked (and given the name Elphaba), she still gets her trademark cackle when Glinda slaps her.

    Theme Parks 

    Visual Novels 

    Web Animation 

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 
  • From Gaia Online:
    • Johnny. K. Gambino. Lampshaded in a later story update where Johnny, stuck in a rut, says he just doesn't have the passion for the Bwahaha stuff anymore. Another lampshade happens when the Sentinel uses the same laugh, and Johnny complains that she's stealing his routine.
    • Among the site's staff, Qixter, the main dev for zOMG!, makes himself out as an Evil Overlord, complete with Evil Laughter. His trademark quote is "Can I get a Bwuhahaha?" This quote makes it into the description of the item at the end of the game.
  • Played straight and lampshaded in the Whateley Universe story "Test Tube Babies" when the woman playing the bad guy in the holographic simulation turns out to be a real retired supervillainess who terrorized three continents during the Cold War.
    "But of course, Herr Bardue. In the last sim, I didn't even haff time to give zem my evil laugh." She clenched her fists and looked at the ceiling. "BWA-HA-HA-HAH!"
  • Wikipedia:

    Web Videos 
  • Atop the Fourth Wall's Linkara, actually Mechakara in disguise, pulls one at the end of his Ultimates 3 review. Magnificent, Mr. Lovhaug.
  • Jermaine of The Awkward Compilation has one that's equal parts evil and douchey, in part because he copped it from Ganondorf, but mostly because, well, he's a douchebag.
  • The Call of Warr: Killsin's fond of bursting out into dark laughter at relatively random moments, such as when looking at a town map; this is accompanied with equally sinister music.
  • Simon starts doing an over-the-top evil laugh when he becomes a Dastardly Whiplash cartoon villain toward the end of The Cartoon Man.
  • Channel Awesome:
    • After the Critic is defeated in Kickassia, The Nostalgia Chick and The Cinema Snob.
    • Parodied in the Nostalgia Critic's Top 11 Coolest Cliches Video, when he wonders why villains always laugh evilly when something good happens, and that the good guys don’t let out insanely loud laughter whenever something good happens to them.
      Nostalgia Critic: Hey, look, I found my lost state ID. [beat] MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
    • Mara Wilson pulls off an epic one in the review of A Simple Wish while antagonising the critic with embarssing home videos of himself after he criticised her acting. Heck, she even gets a red, demonic eye glow.
  • Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog:
    • Dr. Horrible opens Act I with his unbelievably artificial maniacal laughter. Hey, he's working on it (with a voice coach). For his views on the evil laugh, see the quote page. He gets it extremely right in Act III.
    • And then there's Bad Horse, the leader of The Evil League of Evil, with his "terrible death whinny".
  • Epic Rap Battles of History:
    • After Hitler finishes his verse in "Hitler vs. Vader 2", not realizing he's standing over a Rancor pit:
    'Hitler: *to Darth Vader* Yeah! Take THAT! *beat* Where is the DJ? Why are you laughing?
    • In "Julius Caesar vs. Shaka Zulu", Caesar opens his second verse with "Ooh, can I be a hyena? Because I'm going to laugh".
  • Gordon does an amusing one in the second episode of Freeman's Mind, but stops because "I don't want a repeat of Monday."
  • Turpster is very fond of this in sessions of Garry's Mod. He actually uses this for psych-out warfare, which sometimes works in his favour. One good example comes from here, though it gives him away.
    Alsmiffy: What's so funny?
    Ross: Something's really tickling him. Something's really tickled you, hasn't it buddy?
  • Hadriex has been known to indulge in these. His friend in the black lab coat even more so.
  • In a Khonjin House episode "Thigh Gap", Gino does this when Khonjin falls asleep, but before he can tear Khonjin's nose off,(in a effort to make his recurring dream mentioned in the first Season 3 episode come true) Khonjin snores loudly and weirdly, forcing Gino to wakes him up.
  • Members of the league of evil villains opposed to The League of S.T.E.A.M. engage in one at the end of "Dead End".
  • In Longbox of the Damned, Moarte breaks out a loud, maniacal laugh to close out almost every episode of the show, with the only exceptions being the final review for each year.
  • Parodied by Adam in Maddison Atkins episode 9, and also demonstrated by Maddison in episode 38.
  • Noob:
    • Judge Dead, who's mostly seen onscreen during the Judge, Jury, and Executioner part of his job, is the bad guy from the point of view of any player he needs to punish for breaking the rules and knows it. Since he actually enjoys giving out punishments on top of this, it's not rare to hear him utter such a laugh right after telling someone he's temporarily or permanently banning them from the game.
    • The comic version of Master Zen has been shown to be prone to this.
    • Lorth Kordigän has one according to the novels.
  • Pink Kitty Rose sports an excellent evil laugh, and breaks it out anytime she goes to town on her opponents.
  • Played for laughs by Chester Cheetah here.
  • ProZD has two skits that play with this trope:
  • Dr. Insano of The Spoony Experiment has a classic Mad Scientist laugh, and he also lampshades the trope in Spoony's review of The Clones of Bruce Lee, in which villain Dr. Nye (no, not THAT Nye) is a little too laugh-happy.
    Dr. Insano: You can't just start laughing maniacally at the end of every sentence! You have to earn it! You have to say something dramatic, like "soon we will conquer Thailand, and tomorrow THE WORLD!"
    Dr. Nye: [in movie] Today we conquer Thailand, and tomorrow THE ENTIRE WORLD! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
    [Insano, Spoony, and the Spoony Bum start laughing maniacally]
    Dr. Insano: SHUT UP!!!
  • While she isn't evil herself, Titli of Titli's Busy Kitchen has broken out into hilariously frightening evil laughs before, perhaps her finest when unleashing the fire of her caramelizing torch upon several bowls of Creme Catalina.
  • Venturian Tale's Jimmy Casket. When that cackle is heard, everyone gets far, FAR away from Jordan...
  • WatchMojo's Top 10 Evil Movie Laughs (repeating several examples on this page).
  • The best use of YouTube yet is broadcasting an Evil Laugh competition.


"Muahaha..."
"Oh, come on, put some oomph into it! 'MUAAAAAAHHHH—HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!'"

Alternative Title(s): Evil Laughter

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The Mane 5 Get Corrupted

Opaline’s necklace does this to the Mane 5.

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