Laughing

During my childhood, my family lived for most of a year in the US, and, one night, sneaking out to watch TV past my bedtime, I saw, live, for the only time in my life, Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, who, by an odd coincidence, was telling a story about my favourite British comedy show. Now, thanks to this tviit, I finally have credible evidence (at Wikipedia) that the story was true (although I falsely remember it as being about an American who was watching the show on PBS).

On 24 March 1975, Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer from King's Lynn, literally died laughing while watching an episode of The Goodies. According to his wife, who was a witness, Mitchell was unable to stop laughing whilst watching a sketch in the episode "Kung Fu Kapers" in which Tim Brooke-Taylor, dressed as a kilted Scotsman, used a set of bagpipes to defend himself from a black pudding-wielding Bill Oddie (master of the ancient Lancastrian martial art "Ecky-Thump") in a demonstration of the Scottish martial art of "Hoots-Toot-ochaye." After twenty-five minutes of continuous laughter Mitchell finally slumped on the settee and died from heart failure. His widow later sent the Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mitchell's final moments so pleasant.