You know, the one that often follows the phrase “The fooooools. . . I’ll show them AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!”
The earliest maniacal laugh I can think of off-hand wasn’t a mad scientist, but a nutso guy from that had escaped from the crazy house in an old Three Stooges short (don’t recall the name). It was obvious from the beginning that he was nuts when he offered them a check for a large amount ($100K? $1M?) for something rather trivial. At the end, the guys in white coats take him away, and he “becomes” a choo-choo train, and goes choo-chooing off stage.
But anyway, back to the mad scientist, any ideas???
Well, I am a graduate student - and I do laugh like that frequently throughout the day so maybe it just comes with the job? After years of seeing my friends who made half my GPA make 5X as much as you you just tend to withdraw from society and start formulating evil plans…muhahahaha (oops there I go).
But where it came from first, I dunno. It seems fitting because scientists - generally of higher intellect (on paper) than the average person - would be more likely to think they’ve got the upper hand in a situation due to their intelligence, hence the evil laughter in situations involving world domination. But in the end we all know there’s a difference between street smarts and intelligence, and in that situation the evil scientist tends to underesitmate their foe and lose to the non-evil superheros who outsmart the scientist and defeat him.
