The kind of comedy where a character plans something to hurt his rival and damage him but watches those plans backfire. Kind of like many Looney Tunes cartoons (Sylvester vs. Tweety, Roadrunner vs. Wile E Coyote, Elmer Fudd vs. Bugs).
There must be... it's such a universal, recognizable theme that somebody somewhere along the line must have given it a proper title...
Probably a combination of schadenfreude and slapstick, although not sure the former is a comedy term.
slapstick is the silly sort of things comedians do in film or on the stage... involving pratfalls, pies in the face and so on... has nothing to do with 'dark'...
Which is why I included the schadenfreude which is taking pleasure in the misfortune of others. Slapstick is exaggerated violence or deliberatly embarrasing events. Someone who is placing a banana skin in the way of another is planning harm to another for the amusement of others. Tom and Jerry, Laurel and Hardy etc use elements of slapstick but it has a schadenfraude element to it. I am not sure Looney Tunes are exactly dark humour either.
It depends on whether or not we empathize with the protagonist. Black humor is dark comedy based on serious subjects like war or death. It has nothing to do with what you described.
Schadenfreude is pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others, from the German meaning "harm joy."
Well then, the American term would be "unintended consequences that rebound to the detriment of the perpetrator of a tricky little evil plot." I keep telling the folks at thesaurus.com that some kind of amalgamated "search" where you could groups words together and find an appropriate synonym that would synthesize a few strains of thought would be great... and here is another argument for it!
After quite a bit of looking around, as I got curious myself, it seems to be referred to as "Road Runner Vs Coyote" humor. Also found the funniest trope name ever. Author Existence Failure - meaning the author died.
