laughing academy

plural laughing academies

1. slangA mental hospital.

   Tell me, do you think your old man has slipped his trolley—that he belongs in a laughing academy?

   1971 Oct. 11, Stefan Kanfer, "Cinema: Senescent Saint" (film review of Kotch), Time (retrieved 7 June 2014)

   2 more examples

   One day the men in white will walk in, throw a net over him, and take him off to the laughing academy.

   1981 Nov. 23, John Leonard, "Books Of The Times" (review of The Letters of Nunnally Johnson), New York Times (retrieved 7 June 2014)

   Meanwhile William struggled to shake the thought of his mother spending her final years locked away in a nuthouse—a laughing academy, a funny farm.

   2009, Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, →ISBN

   Synonyms: bedlam, bin, booby-hatch, booby house, bughouse, crazy house, cuckoo's nest, funny farm