I Love to Laugh Mr. Wigg, is said to float because of an excess of "laughing gas", although it is clear that the term is not used in the chemical sense. So-called "laughing gas" (nitrous oxide) was one of the earliest effective anaesthetics developed in the Nineteenth century. it was popularised by dentists, for pain-free tooth extractions, as well as by showground novelty booths. Customers at the booth would be gassed and, as they were recovering from the drugged sleep they often felt euphoric and giggly. Hence the name. A famous 1931 British comedy sketch starring Cicely Courtneidge, called "Laughing Gas", was based on
Laughing kookaburra precedence. In the 19th century this species was commonly called the "laughing jackass", a name first recorded (as Laughing Jack-Ass) in "An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales" by David Collins which was published in 1798. In 1858 the ornithologist John Gould used "great brown kingfisher", a name that had been coined by John Latham in 1782. Another popular name was "laughing kingfisher". The name in several Australian indigenous languages were listed by European authors including "Go-gan-ne-gine" by Collins in 1798, "Cuck'anda" by René Lesson in 1828 and "Gogera" or "Gogobera" by George Bennett in 1834. In