A sense of humor is good for you. Have you ever heard of a laughing hyena with heart burn?

The joke argues, in comic form, that humor has tangible health benefits. By invoking a “laughing hyena”—an animal stereotyped as constantly cackling—Hope implies that habitual laughter correlates with physical ease, here represented by the absence of heartburn. The humor depends on an absurd pseudo-scientific comparison: we don’t diagnose hyenas, but the image makes the claim memorable. Beneath the gag is a familiar twentieth-century therapeutic idea: laughter relieves stress, and stress aggravates bodily discomfort. The line also flatters the audience’s common sense—if laughter seems natural and untroubled in animals, perhaps humans should reclaim it as a simple remedy.