The authors' interest was piqued by a young woman in analysis in whom they noted a striking lack of a sense of humor. Additionally, the analytic material was rife with clinical examples of profound narcissistic distortions and abnormalities of superego functioning. The only instances of the comic found were a few very aggressively charged jokes. The authors use this material to elaborate upon Freud's 1927 paper on humor, in particular his association of humor, narcissism, and the superego, and use Sandler's work on superego development to illustrate, in this case, the relationship between humorlessness, narcissistic disturbance, and defective superego functioning.