# Anderson Cooper getting the giggles **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 18, 2011, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184 "2011-08-18T15:57:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/1 "2011-08-18T15:57:13Z")
Last night on his “ridiculist” segment, AC got an [uncontrollable case of the giggles](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MumI6KovUk) while reading a pun filled story about Gerard Depardieu’s recent airplane urination incident. The jokes aren’t funny, but AC’s inability to stop laughing at them is. It’s kind of adorable, and what makes it all the more so is that the thing that makes him lose his famous cool is a bunch of 3rd grade level pee and poop jokes. Very humanizing, and his giggles are very infectious. If you can watch without at least cracking a smile, you’re made of stone. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/2 "2011-08-18T16:43:15Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > The jokes aren’t funny, but AC’s inability to stop laughing at them is. It’s kind of adorable, - Adorable?\* ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/3 "2011-08-18T16:44:01Z")
The giggles are hard to control in a performance once you get started and everyone else is laughing also (c.f. Harvey Korman and Tim Conway). Personal anecdote - in high school, I was part of the cast of Moliere’s _The Doctor in Spite of Himself_ (mentioned 'cause it’s French like Depardieu). We did one of the funny bits, the audience laughed (we paused appropriately), and then, just as I was getting ready to deliver the next line, someone in the audience got the joke late. Which would have been fine, except he laughed loudly and exactly like a donkey: HEE-HAW! I lost it, as did the rest of the cast, which of course got the audience going. I figured that if I could find someone who wasn’t laughing, I could look at them and regain control - unfortunately, that person didn’t exist. I don’t know how long the break was, but it was probably one of the best and longest laughs I’ve ever had (short of the sparrow hawk incident). ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/4 "2011-08-18T16:44:21Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > - > > Adorable?\* So help me, it’s adorable. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/5 "2011-08-18T16:54:48Z")
Actually the impressive thing to me is that he recovered from them enough to move on. I don’t think I’ve ever successfully done that without complete separation from whatever was causing them. In my 9th grade geometry class another student and I succumbed to them and couldn’t stop for more than an hour. To this day if I really focus on what triggered them I can still feel it lingering down in the pit of me just waiting to embarrass me further. (Because the cause of “the giggles” is never actually funny enough to have anybody else understand if you try to explain.) ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/6 "2011-08-18T17:06:24Z")
Yeah, I saw this live yesterday and didn’t laugh at the jokes but I did [del]at[/del] with him. It was pretty easy to identify with because at some point most of us have been in a similar, helpless state. He was really trying to get back in control but for awhile simply couldn’t. I almost felt kinda sorry for him at one point when he got lodged in falsetto. > [@obfusciatrist](#): > > Actually the impressive thing to me is that he recovered from them enough to move on. I’m not going to YouTube at work but yeah, I do remember at some point he finally appeared to almost reach down and grab some unpleasant memory to solidify himself. I was wondering if anyone else caught this because it was pretty amusing. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/7 "2011-08-18T17:09:46Z")
Towards the end he kind of shakes himself and puts on his game face, but it looks like he probably had to summon the memory of a dead pet to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/8 "2011-08-18T17:18:40Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > The giggles are hard to control in a performance once you get started and everyone else is laughing also (c.f. Harvey Korman and Tim Conway). I gather from what he said in the middle of the clip that someone offscreen was laughing, and it was making it hard for him to hold it together. Of course, him asking them to stop probably made them laugh harder, which made it even more difficult. The canonical example, of course, is [Dad at Comedy Barn](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Y4keqTV6w), wherein a gentlemen named Doug manages to cause a mass crack-up that stalls the would-be comedian’s routine for several minutes. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/9 "2011-08-18T17:21:26Z")
lol at “thess peein” ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/10 "2011-08-19T01:00:44Z")
> [@Balance](#): > > I gather from what he said in the middle of the clip that someone offscreen was laughing, and it was making it hard for him to hold it together. Of course, him asking them to stop probably made them laugh harder, which made it even more difficult.\ That was so frikkin’ adorable. I think it was the combination of the off-screen laughter and “Depar-doo” that did him in. 😃 Since Craig Ferguson has had Josh Robert Thompson voicing his robot sidekick, there have been a few moments when Craig just loses it (here’s the [best example](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAHSUTB5BJc)). They play off each other very well. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/11 "2011-08-19T03:38:54Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > So help me, it’s adorable. Not sure where you are OFFICIALLY in the food chain, but welcome to grandpa-hood. ETA: Because it was totally adorable. Though it also shows he’s unlikely to be providing grandchildren. Which are likely to be PITAs, anyway. I tell my daughter, “Drop off your dogs. I can kick them if they piss me off. Don’t get kids until I’m dead.” ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/12 "2011-08-19T08:23:36Z")
_The Colbert Report_ played the clip of Anderson giggling tonight, and then proceeded to make pee and poop jokes out of a bunch of celebrity names. 🙂 Colbert tagged it with a quick reference to another joke name that recently [sent him into a fit of giggles.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=estpjQE1pQ4)😛 He recovers more quickly than Cooper did. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/13 "2011-08-19T09:47:23Z")
Cooper put himself on tonight’s [Ridiculist](http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/18/the-ridiculist-case-of-the-giggles/?iref=obinsite). He also commented that what made it particularly embarrassing was that his giggling sounded “like a 13 year old girl meeting Justin Bieber”, which pretty much summed it up. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/14 "2011-08-19T10:21:45Z")
Watching Anderson Cooper get the giggles really was adorable. Doesn’t hurt that his giggles are a bit infectious because they’re so cute. I’m cursed with the same problem, and once I get the giggles everyone else laughs, too, because they’re laughing at my laughter. Then I get all teary-eyed and red-faced, and kinda have a hard time breathing for a while until I finally calm down. I wouldn’t change it, though. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/15 "2011-08-19T13:18:43Z")
it was one of the cutest funniest things on tv. i saw it live and also his rediculist. the viewer comments were amusing. “my cats are still looking for the wounded chipmunk”. how did sampiro miss this? i know he watches anderson. ---
**Author:** ![TheTerribleTako](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@TheTerribleTako](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheTerribleTako)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/16 "2011-08-19T17:47:20Z")
> [@rocking\_chair](#): > > how did sampiro miss this? i know he watches anderson. He’s probably still recovering from the sugar-induced coma. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/17 "2011-08-19T19:44:45Z")
Adorable is the right word for Anderson Cooper giggling. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/18 "2011-08-19T20:35:33Z")
He has the cutest giggle. Adorable? Absolutely. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/19 "2011-08-19T20:42:50Z")
There is no excuse for him to remain in the closet after this. Maybe if it was a video of him licking Zac Efron’s abs it would have seemed a little less gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that). ---
**Author:** ![limegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@limegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/limegreen)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184/20 "2011-08-19T20:45:51Z")
As a teacher, I’m supposed to be the adult, but in teaching teenagers there have been a few instances over the years where I’m lying on my desk, giggling and weeping uncontrollably, which means 98% of the class is also a mass of hysteria. The trigger is often something, as said upthread, that if explained to someone else, is unfunny. Stolen from the notorious Skippy’s List is one of my new classroom rules: If the thought of something makes you giggle for over 15 seconds, you are probably not allowed to do it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anderson-cooper-getting-the-giggles/593184.md?page=2)