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laughing, almost a hundred people in all. And they couldn’t stop themselves, no matter how hard they tried. An outbreak was under way.
    Though none of the teaching staff—two Europeans and three Africans—were “infected,” the incident quickly overwhelmed the village. Even when adults tried to subdue the laughing girls, the behavior continued. Some students actually became violent. Days passed, then weeks, and when the laughing still hadn’t stopped a month and a half later, the school was forced to close. With the students secluded in their homes, the laughter finally settled and the school was able to reopen on May 21, almost four months after the initial outbreak. Then, when 57 of the 159 students became infected with laughter just like before, the doors closed again.
    The school wasn’t the only location affected, either. Soon after classes were canceled, similar outbreaks broke out in neighboring cities and villages. Apparently, several of the girls, having returned to their nearby homes, brought the laughing sickness with them and infected dozens of others along the way. The epidemic even reached Nshamba, a village of ten thousand people, where it infected hundreds more. No longer confined just to children, the epidemic grew so widespread that the precise number of people affected couldn’t even be determined. How could you measure such an event? In total, before the year was over, fourteen schools were shut down and morethan a thousand people were overcome by an uncontrollable case of the giggles.
    Eventually, the laughter subsided and the epidemic died out on its own, eighteen months after it started. It was as if, for a brief time, the world saw just how contagious laughter can be. The question remains: Why?
    S TOPOVER AT THE E MPIRE S TATE B UILDING
    Our second laughter case study concerns an event that occurred almost fifty years later on the other side of the globe. The location was the New York Friars’ Club, just weeks after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and host Jimmy Kimmel was welcoming Gilbert Gottfried to the stage to roast the evening’s guest of honor, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. All those before him had avoided any jokes with political or social overtones. Though some referred to the recent tragedy, comments had been short and respectful. Rather than address the prominent topic of the day, they had limited themselves to penis jokes and comments about Hefner’s bachelor lifestyle.
    Gottfried started his act with a few safe jokes, including one about Hefner needing Viagra. Then he took things a step further, joking that his Muslim name was “Hasn’t Been Laid.” The crowd laughed, so Gottfried decided to go for broke.
    â€œI have to leave early tonight. I have to fly out to L.A. I couldn’t get a direct flight. I have to make a stop at the Empire State Building.”
    A silence followed. People started to feel uneasy, and several people gasped. Then, the room filled with boos.
    â€œToo soon!” audience members cried. What had been a laughing, supportive audience just moments before was now a room full of judgment.
    Gottfried paused. As a professional comedian with over twenty years of experience, he could tell that the crowd had turned on him. He had crossed a line. Some performers would have acknowledged the mistake and returned to their safe material. Others might have simply left the stage. Gottfried went in a different direction.
    â€œOkay, a talent agent is sitting in his office. A family walks in: a man, woman, two kids, their little dog. And so the talent agent asks, ‘What kind of act do you do?’”
    I wish I could tell you the rest of the joke. I really do. But there’s no way you’ll ever see it in print, just as you won’t see it in recordings of the roast. The joke’s depravity either broke all the cameras or scared Comedy Central so much it burned the tape shortly thereafter. The joke,