Insult Comic

Ever since the dawn of humor, people have clung to one simple truth: Other peoples' pain or discomfort is hilarious. Of course, people in a polite society will generally be hesitant to crowd around someone with a horrible, disfiguring physical condition or a debilitating social disorder... at least, not without help.

Enter the Insult Comic. When someone needs to be humiliated on a large scale, and it would require too much suspension of disbelief to get them to wind up on television or the front page, the Insult Comic can take a large room of people and get them to laugh at the unfortunate target.

However, most writers are not stand-up comedians, and this trope is more about highlighting the insecurities of a character than providing legitimate jokes. As a result, the Insult Comic will often have the inexplicable ability to make a crowd of people laugh, even when the 'jokes' are delivered in pure insult form and devoid of legitimate humor.

Examples of Insult Comic include:

Film

• The remake of The Nutty Professor has Dave Chappelle make Eddie Murphy the target of his jokes. Later, when Eddie returns to the club as Buddy Love, he throws it back in Dave's face before stuffing his head into a piano.
• In Showgirls, Henrietta is an insult comic towards herself, going onstage and mocking her own weight and appearance as a way of mocking the men in the audience. "I'd have to piss on you to give you a clue!"

Live-Action TV

• Marlon takes up this act in an episode of The Wayans Bros, offending his family and co-workers.
• On Full House, Joey's girlfriend Roxy makes fun of the Tanners in her act. While they don't take kindly to it, they realize she was just insecure about them liking her after Joey told everyone how funny she was. The issue is resolved at the end of the episode.

Western Animation

• In one episode of Recess, Randall tries to gain popularity by becoming a stand-up comedian. He very quickly resorts to making Mikey the butt of his jokes.
• In one episode of Baby Looney Tunes, Melissa decides to become an insult comic after watching one on TV. True to the trope, her inspiration is incredibly unfunny.
• One episode of The Simpsons had Springfield trying to win the right to host the next Olympic Games. They pretty much had it in the bag until Bart played Insult Comic to the members of the IOC, costing them the games and getting Bart in a lot of hot water.
• In the Pinky and The Brain episode "TV or No TV", Brain's latest world takeover scheme involves wearing a set of hypnosis-inducing dentures and using his smile to get people to bend to his will. To this end, he decides to become a stand-up comedian. When his first set of jokes (cribbed from other comedians) gets him nothing but boos, he resorts to insulting the audience ("You're repugnant!" became his Catch Phrase for that episode), and they eat it up.
• One episode of Hey Arnold! has Helga playing this trope and pissing off her classmates. Phoebe suggests she make up for it by reciting a kind and sweet poem about everyone...only for them to hate that even more. Arnold tells her that they preferred it when she was herself, and Helga resumes her insult comedy. This time, everyone enjoys it.
• Doug becomes this as a way of defending himself against Roger's bullying in an episode of the Disney series and winds up alienating his friends. At the end, he gives it up and happily returns to his usual lame comebacks. Thus teaching the audience a valuable lesson that you should never stand up for yourself or throw other people's bad behavior back in their face.

Video Games

• Hadrian, a Ghoul in Fallout: New Vegas is explicitly named the insult comic.

Comedians

• Don Rickles, the king of this trope
• Ricky Gervais
• Daniel Tosh
• Sam Kinison
• Sarah Silverman
• Lisa Lampanelli, "The Queen of Mean"
• Chelsea Handler