Why Did The Laughing Cow Stop Laughing? The Reason, and How She’s Back

• The Laughing Cow “stopped laughing” on Sept. 22: select packs of the cheese wedges showed her straight-faced, with the words “We need to talk.”
• Jimmy Kimmel and Guillermo revealed why on Sept. 29: the small, silly arguments that divide people, which the brand calls “wedge issues.”
• She laughed again on Oct. 23 after a Second City show hosted by SNL’s Jeremy Culhane, and a video of her laughing plays in Times Square through Nov. 1.

The Laughing Cow has her laugh back. Bel Brands USA, which makes the spreadable cheese wedges, announced on Oct. 23 that the cartoon cow on the package is “officially laughing again.” She had spent almost a month with a straight face, something the brand says she hadn’t done in more than a century.

It was a marketing campaign from the start, and it ran in three steps: the cow stopped laughing, a late-night show explained why, and fans were asked to help bring the laugh back.

Why did The Laughing Cow stop laughing?

Because of the little things people argue about. That’s the answer the brand gave on Sept. 29, on Jimmy Kimmel Live in Brooklyn, where Jimmy Kimmel and his sidekick Guillermo introduced “The Not Laughing Cow” to the audience over a debate about whether you can wear socks with sandals.

A week earlier, on Sept. 22, the change had shown up in stores. Select packs of The Laughing Cow Creamy Original wedges carried a “NOT” above the logo, a cow with her mouth closed and the line “We need to talk,” plus a QR code to the campaign site.

She was also spotted unsmiling in diners and parks and across the brand’s social accounts.

“Turns out, all those little everyday disagreements really got to her,” said Peter McGuinness, CEO of Bel North America. “After all, a wedge is supposed to be something you share, not something that gets between us.”

The 30-second ad the brand posted the same day shows what it means: a newspaper headline about pineapple on pizza, a flyer asking whether the toilet paper rolls over or under, a family “torn apart” over subtitles and a newscast on the thermostat battle.

How did fans get her to laugh again?

With videos. The brand’s #SpreadTheLaugh challenge asked people to record the trivial argument they were having with a partner, sibling, roommate or coworker, admit it wasn’t worth the fight and ask the cow to laugh again. Fans posted fights over whether the bed must be made every morning and whether dishes need to soak overnight.

The final push came at The Second City, Chicago’s famous improv theater, in a show hosted by Jeremy Culhane, who joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2025 and is known for his Weekend Update character Mr. On Blast. The improvisers aired their own “wedge issues” on stage, and the show was streamed online.

“Making a cow laugh? That’s a career first,” Culhane said before the show. “She’s been laughing for over 100 years, so clearly she has high standards.”

The brand says the challenge reached nearly 20 countries, including Canada, India and Vietnam.

Where can you see the laughing cow in Times Square?

A giant video of the cow laughing again plays on a corner display at Seventh Avenue and 47th Street from Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Nov. 1. The brand says The Laughing Cow mascot will also appear in Times Square to celebrate, without giving a date.

Why is The Laughing Cow laughing in the first place?

The laugh started as a joke during World War I. Léon Bel, whose family’s cheese business was based in France’s Jura region, served in a transport unit that asked for an emblem for its trucks.

The illustrator Benjamin Rabier sent a smiling animal, and the soldiers nicknamed it “La Wachkyrie,” a jab at the Valkyries of German legend that sounds like “la vache qui rit,” the laughing cow.

Bel registered “La vache qui rit” as a trademark on April 16, 1921. According to the brand’s museum in Lons-le-Saunier, France, he put Rabier’s drawing on the box in 1923, had the printer color the cow red and, at his wife Anne-Marie’s suggestion, gave her earrings shaped like boxes of The Laughing Cow.

That’s why each earring shows the same cow wearing the same earrings, a picture inside a picture. In the U.S., the wedges have been made in Leitchfield, Ky., since 1970.

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— Bruno Monteiro

Sources: Bel Brands USA (announcements of Sept. 22, Sept. 30 and Oct. 23, 2026); The Laughing Cow on YouTube (“Why The Laughing Cow Stopped Laughing,” Sept. 29, 2026, and “The Second City Presents: Let’s Make The Not Laughing Cow Laugh Again!,” Oct. 23, 2026); Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC, Sept. 29, 2026); La Maison de La Vache qui rit (brand history). Photos: Bel Brands USA.