Clips where actors try to hold it together but lose it and laugh
September 1, 2022 5:47 AM   Subscribe

I love clips where actors are trying hard to stay in character, but the hilarity of the scene makes them break down and laugh. One of my favorites is Jimmy Fallon losing it in More Cowbell. Please delight me by sharing your favorites!
posted by sickinthehead to Grab Bag (41 answers total) 56 users marked this as a favorite
 
The classic one, of course, is the Dentist Sketch from The Carol Burnett Show
posted by briank at 5:53 AM on September 1, 2022 [10 favorites]


Stephen Colbert on the Daily Show breaks down completely for a good minute as he covers a 2003 Prince Charles scandal.
posted by veery at 5:56 AM on September 1, 2022 [5 favorites]


The Extremely Stupid SNL sketch with Gilda Radner and Candice Bergen!
posted by tomboko at 5:56 AM on September 1, 2022 [2 favorites]




Here's another great old one from Carol Burnett Show - the elephant story.

And a handful of famous ones from SNL:

Bill Hader and Fred Armisen's doormen at dress rehearsal, where they just leaned into it.

The first "close encounters" sketch with Kate McKinnon, Ryan Gosling, etc., where seemingly all of them broke at some point.

(The first?) Debbie Downer, where Rachel Dratch struggled.

This bizarre doctor sketch where Will Farrell and Tim Meadows get Molly Shannon to break.

Matt Foley's first appearance, with Christina Applegate and David Spade.
posted by AgentRocket at 6:02 AM on September 1, 2022 [9 favorites]




Monty Python's Life of Brian has a great scene (Biggus Dickus) where some extras are trying (and failing) to keep from laughing. Some commentary. I've read that the extras were told they wouldn't be paid if they laughed, but I can't find a source for that at the moment.
posted by spacewrench at 6:29 AM on September 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


TV Tropes: Corpsing. Most of what you’re looking for is in the Live Action TV and Film subpages.
posted by zamboni at 6:30 AM on September 1, 2022 [3 favorites]


This scene from Blazing Saddles. You can kind of tell Clevon Little is about to break through the whole thing and then Gene Wilder (allegedly) improvised the last line and Clevon laughed. Mel Brooks left the take in the final film.
posted by bondcliff at 6:57 AM on September 1, 2022 [3 favorites]


There's a whole thing called Breaking News where improv comedians have to read from a teleprompter without breaking some of them are great at it, some of them are hilariously bad
posted by Geameade at 7:18 AM on September 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


Jimmy Fallon/Bradley Cooper/Hats A solid ten minutes of this duo trying valiantly to promote Cooper's appearance in a play of The Elephant Man, but destroyed by laughter.
posted by effluvia at 7:24 AM on September 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


At about 1:02, you can see Judy Garland trying not to laugh at Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion.
posted by elphaba at 7:24 AM on September 1, 2022


The Sean Lock / Miles Jupp / Jimmy Carr exchange on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. Jimmy's entire career for the past, idk, 10 years? has basically been hosting on various panel shows and he's extremely used to this and all kinds of nonsense from his fellow comedians, but Sean managed to catch him off guard and he continues laughing even after he "recovers."
posted by automatic cabinet at 7:56 AM on September 1, 2022 [2 favorites]




The aforementioned Debbie Downer sketch is ne plus ultra of this for SNL.

In terms of Geameade's blind reading of teleprompter, most of the late appearances of Stefon on SNL Weekend Update involved this. The writers were purposefully changing wording and jokes on the cue cards between dress rehearsal and the live show with the intention of trying to get Bill Hader to break.
posted by mmascolino at 7:58 AM on September 1, 2022 [3 favorites]


I asked a similar question a million years ago, specifically about SNL.
posted by Melismata at 8:12 AM on September 1, 2022


Not a huge Friends fan but Ross plays the bagpipes had me howling.
posted by i_mean_come_on_now at 8:20 AM on September 1, 2022 [3 favorites]


Also do a search for the best of Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles on "Whose Line is it Anyway."

Phil Hartman's "Fire Bad!" on SNL is a rarity, since he pretty much never lost it.

On the SNL 40th anniversary show, there's a whole song with clips called "That's When You Break!"

The writers were purposefully changing wording and jokes on the cue cards between dress rehearsal and the live show with the intention of trying to get Bill Hader to break.

It worked every single time.

On M*A*S*H, check out the episode where Harry Morgan was playing a general, before he was cast as Potter. The outtakes show Gary Burghoff completely losing it, and during the episode he and a few other people are smiling.
posted by Melismata at 8:24 AM on September 1, 2022


Kate McKinnon's (and others) Close Encounter skit (SNL)
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 8:31 AM on September 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg did a whole musical tribute to this during the SNL 40th anniversary special, called That's When You Break, where they show bits from some of the better-known moments this happened on SNL. There's also a great in-joke in the lyrics that may help; they're showing clips from a series of greats and calling them out as they do - and they get stuck on a couple of notorious offenders:

"Here's one of Ferrell and Dratch
And here's one of Farley and Spade
And here's one of Fallon and Sanz
And here's another one of Fallon and Sanz
And here's another one of Fallon and Sanz..."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:40 AM on September 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


Dudley Moore often corpsed at Peter Cook's deadpan absurdity in their Pete & Dud sketches; here's The Art Gallery, which has two. Note Moore's eating sandwiches during the entire sketch:
  • 1:28: "you didn't spit sandwich at him did you?" / "you'll do it again if you're not careful"
  • 7:53 on; Moore loses it at 8:32 "my aunt Dolly would have done it for nothing" / "she'd do anything for nothing"; the glint in Cook's eye at 8:48, he knows exactly what he's doing and leans into it: "you enjoying that sandwich?"

posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 9:07 AM on September 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


Funny, I actually despise breaking (TBH Hugh Jackman cracking up at his own lines during Music Man was really not what I'd paid to see!), but you might appreciate this New Yorker article about the phenomenon, which uses Fallon as a hook.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 9:17 AM on September 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


The Netflix show Murderville is loaded with this. Basically everyone has a script except the guest star, who is entirely improvising. Will Arnett does a fairly decent job playing it straight (except when he makes Kumail Nanjiani do a "cool walk"), but his co-guest-stars struggle to do so because they have no idea what is coming. Especially Ken Jeong in the final episode.
posted by pixiecrinkle at 9:38 AM on September 1, 2022 [3 favorites]


Okay, this one isn't quite as obvious - but when considered in context it counts.

The guys in Monty Python rarely broke character that I can recall; and John Cleese seemed especially good at keeping a straight face. And that's why I was especially struck by this sketch, where you can tell Cleese is trying really hard not to break and lets a couple of smiles sneak through.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:41 AM on September 1, 2022


Relatedly, this article catalogs all the breaking in Murderville: https://collider.com/murderville-guest-stars-ranked/
posted by pixiecrinkle at 9:42 AM on September 1, 2022


The famous museum scene in When Harry Met Sally with the 'Waiter, there is too much pepper on my paprikash' bit.. entirely improvised. When Meg laughs nervously and says 'ohhhnooo' and looks off-screen she's looking at director Rob Reiner who's signaling for her to roll with it.

The scene in Good Will Hunting where Robin Williams is telling Matt Damon a story about his late wife farting in her sleep, and Matt gives up and is laughing uncontrollably.

The lineup scene in The Usual Suspects, they kept cracking each other up so they left it in the final edit.
posted by ApathyGirl at 10:14 AM on September 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


This clip from a kids TV show was recently a massive hit on UK Twitter. Apparently the dog's voice actor was once on a night out with a group of lads and got stopped by the cops, one of the group said the immortal line in this clip and was never allowed to forget it. They'd told the presenter the story before so knew she would crack up. I love it!
posted by Lluvia at 10:24 AM on September 1, 2022 [3 favorites]


Peter Sellers
posted by rd45 at 10:41 AM on September 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


The scene in Good Will Hunting where Robin Williams is telling Matt Damon a story about his late wife farting in her sleep, and Matt gives up and is laughing uncontrollably.

If you look closely you can see the shot shaking very slightly a couple times - that's because the cameraman was also cracking up.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:44 AM on September 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


Another Stephen Colbert clip featuring some sophomoric names that made him completely lose it by the third one. It seems sort of like he hadn't seen the names before, like the writers surprised him in the moment on the teleprompter.
posted by Ryon at 10:46 AM on September 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


There's another Colbert clip (I tried to find it but haven't been able to) where he was doing a bit on the internet trend of coming up with a "shipping name" for a famous couple (i.e., Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck became "Bennifer"). He suggested a couple such mashups for other famous couples - but ended with Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy, and the mashup name "Filliam H. Muffman" sent him into complete uncontrollable giggles.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:49 AM on September 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


I found the Filliam H. Muffman link!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:23 AM on September 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


Also from SNL: Riding My Donkey Political Talk Show (skip to 31:00)
posted by O9scar at 11:25 AM on September 1, 2022


Jimmy Fallon and others (starting at 5.06 no one can keep it together) in the "Hot Tub Love-ahs" skit

I read somewhere that Will Ferrell spent the whole skit trying to make Jimmy Fallon crack up
posted by virve at 11:44 AM on September 1, 2022 [3 favorites]


Not exactly what you're asking for, but adjacent to it: Ed Ames throwing a tomahawk on The Tonight Show.
posted by QuakerMel at 12:50 PM on September 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


In the library cop scene from Seinfeld, it looks like Jerry is having a hard time suppressing a few chuckles.
posted by ambulatorybird at 1:05 PM on September 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


A very meta moment is in 30 Rock, when Tracey Morgan discovers breaking and tries to the ruin the show by yelling, "Uh oh; I'm BREAKING, tee hee giggle giggle." Sadly I cannot find this clip anywhere.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 1:19 PM on September 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


Would you also accept people offstage/in the background cracking up? If so - Jimmy Fallon has this thing he's done with a couple guests called "Water War," which is a goofy mashup of a water fight and the card game War. One of his first guests was Jason Momoa, and about halfway through Jason pelts Jimmy with a glass of water so hard that you can hear Questlove completely and totally lose his shit.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:39 PM on September 1, 2022


Not really actors, but I'd consider baseball announcers to be performers. With that in mind, I give you "Here comes the pizzer!"
posted by synecdoche at 1:46 PM on September 1, 2022


Pretty much everywhere, it's gonna be hot.
posted by flod at 3:21 PM on September 1, 2022


Super super briefly, Robert Downey, Jr. breaks in Tropic Thunder
posted by Ms. Toad at 6:26 AM on September 2, 2022


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