About Us

If you’re looking to increase your fun-factor in life, whether it’s listening to your favorite comedian or playing a prank on your friend, wearing a T-shirt that gets giggles or reading a book to expand your joke repertoire, we can help you get there.

Craig Shoemaker, an award-winning comedian, actor, producer, writer and entrepreneur, noticed the healing effects of laughter when he was a caregiver for his friend who had brain cancer. He noticed the stale and depressed nature of the hospitals and the hardship of the treatments his friend had to endure. He intuitively knew the best gift he could give to his friend was laughter.

There are many benefits to laughter. If you don’t believe us, check out the studies on our benefits of laughter page. Better yet, choose a funny CD or DVD from our stand-up selection and see if you can continue to have a bad day after just 5 minutes of laughing!

After Craig saw how well his friend recovered by laughing his way through his treatments, he knew it was time to share this experience with the community. In April 2004, Craig opened The Laughter Store in Sherman Oaks, CA. This was the first physical store of its kind dedicated to all laughter merchandise, including comedy movies, CDs, DVDs, apparel, books, pranks, gags, jokes, toys, games, gifts, and much more. At The Laughter Store, you will find a wide selection of eclectic, hard-to-find and popular stand-up comedy from Lenny Bruce to Dane Cook.

Craig also established a non-profit organization, Laughter Heals Foundation (www.LaughterHeals.org). The Foundation has been promoting the healing power of laughter and providing more “medicine” for victims of cancer or other life-threatening illnesses.

“It’s my mission to bring fun to as many people as possible” says Craig. “Laughter truly is the best medicine, so open up and say “Haaaaaaah!”

Now with the newly revamped website launching, we are committed to serving lots of humor to our customers, and making a difference in the world around us by means of laughter. We donate 10% of all profits from The Laughter Store to Laughter Heals Foundation.