'The Unsmiling Princess', of the East Slavic Folktale Classification (Russian: СУС, romanized: SUS).

[4][5] In this tale type, the poor boy wins the hand of the princess through a bizarre presentation of small creatures and bugs that makes her laugh.

[6] Scholar Stith Thompson explained that the name of the tale type is due to the presence of the dung beetle "in nearly all versions of the narrative".

However, the boy becomes delighted by the performance of a dwarf man, who produces a tiny mouse, a cockroach and a bee - all dressed in fine clothes - to play and dance for the crowd.

A 1978 episode of Yeralash retells the story by having a king order his prime minister to make his daughter laugh.

A number of real-life comedians are summoned, including Gennady Khazanov and Oleg Popov, but all fail.

Then the minister brings forth a young boy to sit at the royal table, and his complete lack of manners does make everyone laugh, including the princess.