"Chuckles Bites the Dust" is an episode of the television situation comedy The Mary Tyler Moore Show which first aired on October 25, 1975.
The episode's plot centers on the WJM-TV staff's reaction to the absurd death of Chuckles the Clown, an often-mentioned but seldom-seen character who starred in an eponymously titled children's show at the station.
The episode gained widespread praise and won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series.
News anchor Ted Baxter is hired as the grand marshal for a circus parade, but is ordered by Lou Grant to turn down the "honor".
Mary agrees that Lou acted a bit hastily, but then tells Ted that Chuckles the Clown has been asked in his place and has accepted.
The next day, as Mary and Murray are watching Ted deliver the live newscast, Lou rushes into the newsroom in shock and tells the staff that Chuckles has been killed during the parade.
The next day at the studio, the unusual circumstances of Chuckles' death provoke a wave of workplace jokes, especially by Lou, Sue Ann Nivens and Murray Slaughter (e.g. "You know how hard it is to stop after just one peanut!"
At the funeral, the jokes continue until the services are about to start, at which time a final scolding by Mary encourages her friends to become properly somber.
After being questioned about what he means by "if", Ted then explains that if he gets real sick to where he's going to die, he wants someone to "take him away and freeze him" and then in "200–300 years when they find a cure", to just un-freeze him.