Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic

Short animation featured in the documentary Laughter, directed by Neil Davenport.

From Wikipedia, full article here:

"The Tanganyika laughter epidemic of 1962 was an outbreak of mass hysteria, or mass psychogenic illness (MPI), rumored to have occurred in the near the village of Kashasha on the western coast of Lake Victoria in the modern nation of Tanzania near the border of Kenya...

It is possible that, at the start of the incident, a joke was told in a boarding school, and that this joke triggered a small group of students to start laughing. The laughter perpetuated itself, far transcending its original cause."

Director: Tavet Rubel
Character Artist: Josh Goodrich
Animation: Vita Rabinovich

© 2009 Laughter Films