We all know know it as the sinister laughter of an eeeeevil villain, but I’ll be damned if I’ve ever heard of anyone in real life carrying on like that. Obviously, it’s a fictitious quirk of the archtypical mad miscreant of stage and screen.
But given the comically distorted nature of the evil genius schtick, I have to wonder, who first coined, or at least made widely popular, this over-the-top maniacal mirth as a stock-and-trade tick of the moustache-twirling malevolent? I think the first time I might have heard it uttered was by Mel Blanc (arguably the best voice actor in recorded history) as Daffy Duck, probably plotting his revenge on Bugs Bunny or engaging in some other sort of mischief. But even in the '40s or '50s when this cartoon was produced, “MUAHAHAHAHAAAH!” had achieved the status of camp and satire, and that means it had a rich history, perhaps dating back prior to even the Golden Age of Hollywood.
So, in a nutshell, whence cometh, and who is likely responsible for this wonderfully identifiable and entertaining laughter, used by our favorite comic villains for what looks like the better part of a century?
For movies, I always associated it with Ming the Merciless (though I’ve never actually seen the serial- I just know he had one in the [really really good and much missed] cartoon series).
When I was in 6th grade we did a “radio” production of the Invisible Man. I got promoted from Third Victem to Invisible Guy Himself because I had the best evil laugh. (Of course after I had to do it officailly I could never do it as well…but that’s my own neurosis…I digress.)
Anyway, my thought is while I wouldn’t discount Bosda’s claim as to the actual origin, I’d say it was several decades of radio drama that cemented the idea. Where you had to communicate your evil audibly.
Of course I don’t really know but…the Shadow knows!
To tell the truth, I don’t recall anyone from the 1930s to about 1960 having the classiv “Bwa-ha-ha-ha!” or “Mwa-ha-ha!” laught. It’s true that THe Shadow laughed, and Claude Reins as the original Invisible Man. But they didn’t have that characteristic “Bwa” or “Mwa” at the start. And I don’t recall anyone else doing it. It’s been ages since I’ve seen him, but I though Ming the Merciless was too dignified for such laughing. Mad scientists like Albert Dekker as Doctor Cyclops and Charles Laughton as Dr. Moreau didn’t do it. Dr. X didn’t laugh, and I don’t recall any of that brrod in the Universal Frankenstein movies doing it, either.
Might this not be, like “Play it Again, Sam” or “Elementary, my Dear Watson”, another of those cases of cinematic shorthand created much later to encapsulate a scene by comedians, imitators, and the like? Can anyobne even cite an example from before 1960?
I am just wracking my brain here…could this have been Daffy in one of the Duck Dodgers episodes? I seem to remember Porky being involved, as well as Marvin the Martian. If I found Illumium Phosdex, I’d go “MUUAHAHAHAAAH!”, too, I guess.
