The SCP Experience - LAUGH IS FUN | SCP-2030

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

SCP Foundation KETER class object, SCP-2030 This story was derived from https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2030 and is released under Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Written by: Cyrus S. * * * DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content. Parental guidance is advised for children under the age of 18. Listen at your own discretion. #thescpexperience #scp #scpfoundation #scpencounters #securecontainprotect #scpstories Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The end of an era was when Hollywood video went out of business. You might not even remember that store. If you've never been inside of one, think of Blockbuster, but if the carpet had been bought secondhand from a bowling alley. It was a lot smaller and had a slimmer selection. Usually the cases were those clear plastic clamshells with a faded, water-stained copy of the movie cover slipped into the inside. A lot of times they didn't have a picture at all.

You found a lot of cool stuff that way. Usually a really bad, extremely gory horror movie, or an old cartoon series from when you were a kid that you forgot existed. It was peak Friday night activity for me when I was 10. Get pizza, go to the video store, and bring home something to watch. It kept me out of my parents' hair. I would sit there and watch whatever I ended up getting three or four times before returning it. Get your money's work.

right? When the store only a block away from me announced it was closing, I walked down there to see if there was anything I could salvage. So what? VHS had gone out of style, but I still had a player, and there were a lot of hidden gems that never really made it over to the mainstream DVD distributors. There was a big cardboard bin in front of the store with a pink cardstock sign cut into the shape of a sunburst that said, 25 cents, written in black Sharpie on the front. front. It was filled to the brim with those clear plastic cases. Some of them had covers, although most of them didn't. I made a B-line for that bin. Everyone else was picking through

shelves of the more mainstream movies, but I was on the hunt for something a little more flavorful. I started digging through the bin. Those hard-edged plastic cases did their best to try and slice open my hands, like they were angry at me, like I was the reason they had fallen from glory. I found a few prospects and stacked them up on the edge of the bin, balancing them on a corner, so nothing fell over and collapsed on top of my head as I doubled over the side. I meant business. I was going to find the most obscure, delightful trash that I could uncover. I was going to take it all home and sit on my couch and gloat like a dragon with its treasure. Crappy $5 pizza would surely be involved.

About a third of the way from the bottom, I struck gold. There was a series of VHS cases bound together with three different red rubber bands. I tugged them free and brought them up for inspection. For an obscure media enthusiast like me, that kind of find is like bringing up a brass candlestick from the Titanic. None of the cases had inserts or covers of any kind to indicate what they were. The label said, Laugh is fun. Season 13, episodes 1 through 4. But the details underneath were too faded to read.

I couldn't even see the filming date. Where studio logos were usually placed was just an innocuous geometric shape. I unwound the rubber bands and looked through all the cases, but they were all labeled the same thing. The name scratched my brain in a familiar way, but I couldn't remember if I had ever seen it before, or if I had just been told about it at some point. The funky yellow font that the show title was written in

triggered some sort of nostalgia on its own. I decided to give it a try and added it to my treasures. At that point, I had hit the limits of my budget, a cool $3 which would keep my whole movie night under 10. The clinically depressed, pimple-faced teenager at the checkout counter didn't even ring the series up separately. He looked me dead in the eyes and asked something like, Does anyone still have a VHS player?

I told him that I used the cases to stash weed. After I picked up my pizza, I took everything back to my apartment and dumped my VHS hall out onto my wooden coffee table. I reached for the series immediately. I found episodes 1 through 4 and popped the case open immediately. I knelt in front of the player attached to my TV

and slid it right. in. The player sucked it right up and I heard the satisfying were. The colors that popped up on the screen were a mixture of muted browns, bright oranges, and lemon yellows. They separated from one another into bubbles and then spun around, forming sharp-edged, geometric patterns that drifted off into other parts of the screen to form a title card. Laugh is fun! popped up in that funky yellow font. A cartoon with a wide mouth and crooked teeth popped up from the corner, doubled over in laughter, and then hopped into a cartoon red convertible and sped off.

I grabbed my remote to turn the TV up, and then settled back onto the couch. The title card faded into a live studio TV set. The whole thing had an air of being filmed in the 70s, maybe the early 80s. That yellow font popped up again, and this time the only thing it said was, pets! A man appeared, at least, I assume it was a man. He was wearing a royal blue three-piece suit while his shoes were black and white wing-tipped Oxford's. His face wasn't visible at all.

The frame cut his head off right at the neck. I wondered if it was my TV, or if that was on purpose. It wasn't too weird, but it was annoying. Good evening! I had to assume that the man was speaking. This is laugh as fun. And I am your host, Laffey McLaugherson. There was no music, no canned laughter in the background.

Even though the TV black box style captions said, filmed before a live studio audience, and then laughter after he finished speaking. I turned up the volume on my remote. I was beginning to think that something was either wrong with my TV, or this whole set had been recorded off someone else's television. Today we are looking at one of the best things in the world. pets the host laughy kept right on rolling pets can do the funniest things let's see

how these people react the picture cut from the studio to another video altogether it looked like hidden camera footage set in someone's fenced-in backyard at first the only thing in the frame was a woman digging in a flower bed again there was no music but there was plenty of barking it sounded like a dog was going crazy on the other side of the fence. The woman didn't seem to notice or care. The barking turned into growling and snarling, and then eventually, what looked like a big black German shepherd cleared the top of the fence. Its belly scraped the pointed stakes, and it whimpered before tumbling down on the other side. The woman looked up and screamed. The only thing the captions

caught was the word laughter, although I couldn't hear any, and the next clip popped up. There was a man playing with the cat. Again, the camera looked more like it was hidden somewhere, or it had been placed on the ground. They were in what looked like a living room setting, and the man was holding a piece of yarn. He dangled it in front of the cat, and the cat continued to bat at the yarn.

Then, unexpectedly, the cat snapped. It hissed, lunging at the man's face. The man screamed, what sounded like a real cry of pain, and his eyeball fell out of his socket. It fell to the carpet and the scene cut to the next clip. The captions, again, just said, laughter. I hit pause on the remote. My stomach was churning.

I felt sick like I was going to vomit. I picked up one of the other tapes in the series and looked down at the label. There were no warnings, no disclaimers like ratings for violence. If there was anything like that, it was all in the bottom where the black text was full. faded. I looked at the screen. I rubbed my stomach and got a good, long look at the man's shredded eyeball with the nerves still clinging to the back. Okay, so maybe it was some kind of

dark absurdist comedy? It wasn't what I expected, but that didn't make it bad. Maybe I just had to approach it from the same angle as like German expressionism, something odd like that where reality was distorted. I wiped the corners of my mouth. I was already sweating like a motherfucker. I turned the TV back on, though, because somehow I was way too fascinated by everything. Lazzang sur-goled, puissance-molyne,

for 15 minutes. We're like it's the hour of dojo. Preeto! Live the pleasure with the Ojo. The casino in-line that proposes the most recent machine-assin-sou and the games of casino in direct. Profite to 50 tours gratu on Big Bas Bonanza, without exigance of misgents, and with the payments instantane.

Hey, I! I've gained! On the pleasure, play, oh, Joe. 18 years, 1,000 depots only Excluen on Ontario. 50 tours gratu, on the machine-assoubeck bas, Bonanza.

Depos minimum of $10. Veil to play to be in a fashion responsible. The conditions apply the next clip to play looked like it was being recorded from the back of a horse. I don't know how they managed that one.

The horse was galloping, and it looked like a really rough ride. Then the rider grabbed hold of the saddle horn in front of him with both hands, and the camera jostled. The view went spinning, and then the rider

was thrown to the ground. We were still in their perspective when the camera adjusted, and all we saw were hooves coming down again and again. Blood splattered onto the horse's chest and its front hooves. The horse was white, and the red showed up vividly. The captions read, laughter, bones breaking, laughter, bones breaking, laughter, bones breaking. Then the studio setting was back.

The woman from the dog video, the man from the dog video, the man from the cat video minus one eye, and a man with blood all over his shirt and a cowboy hat were all sitting in a set of chairs. Laffey McLaugherson stood in front of them, his head still cut off by the screen. All three of the newcomers look terrified. They all looked like they were trying to talk at once,

but no sounds came out of their mouths. I was starting to get annoyed with my speakers. Well, the good news is none of this is real. The host said, You've all been pranked. The captions read laughter and audience clapping. The woman started to sob. The man without an eye started clawing at his face

and rocking back and forth in his chair. Well, that's it for our segment, the host said. We sure had a good time. I am your host, Laughy McLaugherson. Be sure to tune in for our next episode of Laugh is fun. Everything faded to black and then rolled right into the next episode. The same title card as before came up. I looked down at my pizza.

I realized I hadn't even taken a bite. I wasn't sure that I wanted to continue watching the show, but it triggered an even bigger sense of nostalgia than before. It was the same kind of feeling you get watching cartoons on a Sunday morning and thinking about a big bowl of fruit loops. There was absolutely no way my parents would ever let me watch something this level of fucked up, even on their best days. I thought about turning it off, but I ended up picking up a slice of pizza instead.

The cheese had cooled to the point where it didn't slide off and stretch like I wanted it to. Oh well, I picked off a piece of pepperoni. I looked up just in time to see that funky yellow font again. This time it said, Arson. My stomach flipped like a rock had been dropped into my gut. The host appeared again. Same blue suit, same black and white shoes.

His head was still cut off at the neck. He had his hands on some cue cards, but they looked blank on the other side. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Laffey? What is funny about arson? Well, we're going to see some prime examples of that right now. The caption read, Laughter. and audience clapping.

At this rate, though, I had given up on hearing anything that wasn't the host. The episode cut to hidden camera footage, and this time, there was a pair of pre-teens hunched over a patch of dry grass with a box of matches. One was holding the match underneath the grass and making it smoke while the other blew on the flames

and fanned them. The grass caught fire, and then they both took off running. The grass they had been standing on and the dry sticks around them caught fire. The next scene to pop up looked like the inside of a church. The pastor behind the pulpit had a bottle of lighter fluid in one hand and a wine glass in the other. He poured both of them onto the wooden pulpit in front of him

and then dropped a lighter onto the mess. The whole thing caught fire and people stood up, running from the pews as smoke filled the room. The captions said, laughter, people screaming, and audience cheering, The flames licked up the walls, devouring the entire church from the inside out. The next scene that came on looked like the camera was hidden behind some dry corn stalks. There was a boy, maybe ten, who had a little pile of black powder in front of him

and he was playing with a box of matches. Every time he struck a match against the side of the box, it burned out within seconds. On the third or fourth try, he dropped the match onto the powder, and it successfully caught fire. The powder went up, and the boy looked startled. He had soot on his face and his eyebrows were gone. He ran a hand through his hair, and it all fell away through his fingers. The boy took off running, but the field continued smoking.

Soon, the entire cornfield was burning, and someone picked up the camera. The view went above the stalks to show the black smoke pouring from between the rows, with acres more already blazing. We came back to the studio. The host was standing there with three people behind him, the two preteens, the pastor whose skin was burnt to the consistency of fried chicken, and the hairless boy.

The host shuffled his blank note cards. The preteens looked like they were trying to talk at the same time. The pastor wasn't moving in his chair. He looked like a movie prop. The hairless boy was like a little. looking around, bewildered, with wide eyes that looked bloodshot. Well, you've got to laugh about it, the host said. None of this is real. You have all been pranked.

With those words, the pastor moved. He rocked forward in his chair and threw himself onto the ground. His lipless mouth came open, and all I could see was teeth. But I still couldn't hear the sound he was making. He rolled around on the floor, thrashing and throwing his fists against the ground. The hairless boy curled up in his chair and started crying. The credits started rolling, but the pastor was still shaking and thrashing. He clawed at his burnt skin, and it started to peel away like crockpot barbecue. There were flashes of white bone underneath, and the preteens looked like they were screaming. The captions were a jumbled mess. The black boxes with digital yellow words were piling on top of each other as the credits kept rolling.

screaming, laughter, audience cheering, screaming, and then a name. It just said, Benny. Oh, God, help me! What have I done? Well, that's all for tonight, Laffey McLaugherson said. When I tell you that you can sometimes hear a smile in someone's voice, I could hear it in his. Tune in next week for more of Laugh is fun! A band of color rolled up the screen, interrupting the picture and for half a second, I thought I caught a glimpse of what could be a chin, and maybe a mouth.

It was distorted, and the mouth itself was full of crooked, sharp teeth. That was all I saw, though. It was gone after a second. I tried to hit the button on my remote to rewind, view it again, and pause. But the ripple didn't come back. Frustrated, I tried to stop the tape altogether. But it didn't stop. It just kept playing.

The title screen popped up again. I felt sick. I set down my slice of pizza. I had only gotten a few bites down. I tried to turn off my TV, but it didn't work. Those funky yellow letters popped up on the title card again, and this time there was theme music. I didn't realize how loud I had turned up the volume until I felt like it was going to blast out my ear drums.

This time the letters just said, Home Invasion! The voice sounded like it was coming from right next to my ear. I'm your host, Laughy McLaugherson, and you are watching Laugh is Fun! SCP 2030 is an anomalous phenomenon that appears as a hidden camera television series called Laugh is Fun, though the title varies slightly. This show inserts itself into popular media formats, such as DVD rental kiosks, streaming services, and file-sharing websites, adapting over time to new media trends. The series features bizarre and often disturbing pranks on unsuspecting individuals, who typically react with panic but are calmed when SCP 2030-1, the show's host,

reveals they are on a prank show. SCP 2030-1 is a man in a blue suit, known as the Laughy McLaugherson, who is always filmed from the neck down, making identification impossible. Each episode of Laugh is Fun follows a specific theme, ranging from harmless topics to more violent or criminal ones, like arson or terrorism. The audience at the end of each episode often includes those who were pranked, and unsettlingly, research has shown that these participants are officially recorded as having died or gone missing in the year they appeared on the show. Autopsies have revealed inconsistencies in these cases. and bodies of the deceased are often missing. Researchers suspect SCP 2030 abducts its participants,

though definitive links to the disappearances remain elusive.