History Main / AutopsySnackTime

* In ''Series/{{Castle}}'', the DeadpanSnarker ME Pearlmutter occasionally takes a meal in the mortuary, though not while he's working on a body. When Castle lampshades it, he points out the strength of the cleaning solvents used in mortuary work, stating that the room was probably the most sterile in the city.

-->-- '''Leon, the Coroner''', ''VideoGame/PoliceQuest III: The Kindred''

* ''Series/TheCloser'': In the episode "Junk in the Trunk", Tao, Gabriel, Flynn, Provenza and Buzz open the trunk of a car where the car's very obese owner has been decomposing for several days. While the others start coughing and are generally visibly bothered by the sight and smell of the corpse, Provenza just keeps eating his donut.

* In ''Series/{{Castle}}'', the DeadpanSnarker ME Pearlmutter occasionally takes a meal in the mortuary. Pearlmutter does at least attempt to justify this trope by pointing out the strength of the cleaning solvents used in mortuary work, stating that the room was probably the most sterile in the city.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11475853/1/Autopsy-my-heart Autopsy My Heart]]'' Hermione drinks tea while doing an autopsy.

* This is sometimes used as a litmus test for rookie cops with the veterans often bringing a snack for the rookie's first autopsy. David Simon's book ''Homicide'' also recounts how they'll often treat the rookie to a greasy breakfast before heading to the morgue for much the same reason.
* Occasionally, careless medical students will eat right in the middle of dissecting cadavers. It's actually considered something of a rite of passage during cadaver lab to become comfortable enough to eat your lunch in the same room with the specimens after an initial period of unease.
* In his [[http://web2.airmail.net/uthman/Autop.html Screenwriter's Guide to the Autopsy]], Ed Uthman notes: "For some odd reason, many prosectors report increased appetite after an autopsy, so the first thing they want to do afterwards is grab a bite to eat."
* Several forensic pathologists have admitted to having lunch in the autopsy room in their memoirs.
* This used to be a common thing in the medical profession until the introduction of the aseptic technique by Drs. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis Ignaz Semmelweiss]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Lister,_1st_Baron_Lister Joseph Lister]] in the mid-19th century. In fact, it was such an ingrained norm that Dr. Semmelweiss was essentially ''laughed out of the profession''[[note]]Mainly because he came to that purely empirically and couldn't provide a theoretical explanation to that effect, at a point in time when medicine was trying to shed itself of the old-timey "miracle cure" attitude which Semmelweiss' "Dunno why, but it seems to work" resembled so much, his [[TheyCalledMeMad confrontational demeanor]] not helping the case, nor the fact he insisted in washing hands in carbolic acid. Only after [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur Louis Pasteur]] proposed the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_of_disease germ theory of disease]] was Lister able to push with the aseptics, as it finally had a theoretical basis.[[/note]] (and later [[KickTheDog beaten to death]] in an insane asylum) for insisting on such crazy things as washing one's hands between dissecting a corpse and attending to a newborn, despite the demonstrable ''tenfold'' decrease in the dreaded [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerperal_infections puerperal fever]] in his hospital. Only after the much more influential Lister suggested basically the same did the notion take root.
* An autopsy procedure can take more than four hours when conducted in detail, and involves some significant shifting and turning of the cadaver to inspect it from all sides. An M.E. performing one single-handed is liable to ''need'' a snack after that much mental and physical work, albeit hopefully ''after'' a thorough clean-up.

* Science teachers sometimes keep their lunches in the laboratory refrigerator, alongside the frogs, rats or fetal pigs used for dissection studies. If there's no room in the teachers' lounge fridge, they figure it's better than doing without their yogurt or tuna salad. To avert NoOshaCompliance, many labs and science classrooms have separate fridges (and sometimes microwaves) for "science" and "food".

-->-- '''Leon, the Coroner''', ''[[VideoGame/PoliceQuest Police Quest 3]]''

[[folder:AnimeAndManga]]

* One issue of ''Franchise/{{Batman}}: Shadow of the Bat'' had Batman eavesdropping on a conversation between a police officer and a coroner who is in process of snacking on a chicken wing amidst an autopsy.
* There is a scene in ''Comicbook/{{Fell}}'' where the coroner of [[CrapsackWorld Snowtown]] eats his sandwich above a cadaver. One of the sandwich's tomatoes falls onto the cadaver; however, this doesn't stop the coroner from picking it back up and [[{{Squick}} eating it]]. Fell is horrified, but the coroner just says that because it was an organic tomato he'd have to go out of the city to get a new one.

* On ''Series/AlaskanWildlifeTroopers'', a state trooper investigating a mass caribou slaughter eats a sandwich while examining the rotting carcasses in the field.
* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' episode "The Alien Parasite Hypothesis" shows Amy Farrah Fowler cutting slices of a human brain for microscopic analysis, while she and Sheldon eat lunch. To make it worse, Sheldon is eating sashimi, and briefly mistakes the samples for his lunch.
* On ''Series/{{Castle}}'', the DeadpanSnarker ME Pearlmutter occasionally takes a meal in the mortuary. Pearlmutter does at least attempt to justify this trope by pointing out the strength of the cleaning solvents used in mortuary work, stating that the room was probably the most sterile in the city.
* In the AnimatedCreditsOpening of the ''Series/ChillingAdventuresOfSabrina'', Ambrose is drinking a coffee while working on a corpse.
* In ''Series/TheCloser'' episode "Junk in the Trunk", Tao, Gabriel, Flynn, Provenza and Buzz open the trunk of a car where the car's very obese owner has been decomposing for several days. While the others start coughing and are generally visibly bothered by the sight and smell of the corpse, Provenza just keeps eating his donut.
* ''Series/TheCommish''. The TitleSequence has Commissioner Scali eating a sandwich while reading a book entitled: ''Tissue Decomposition: A Homicide Primer''.
* In the ''Series/CriminalMinds'' episode "There's No Place Like Home" the ME ''du jour'' is eating a sandwich in the autopsy room while he talks the agents through the mutilated corpses.

* In one episode of ''Series/{{CSINY}}'', former ME-turned CSI Sheldon Hawkes admits to current ME Sid Hammerback that the rule against eating in the morgue "never stopped me from sneaking in the odd bag of microwave popcorn."

* ''Series/ForeverKnight'' did a variant of this once, with Natalie and her assistant shown in the morgue, looking down at the camera, deciding where to cut first. Then the shot switches and they're standing over a roast chicken.
* In ''Series/{{Fringe}}'', Walter Bishop often eats while examining corpses or other {{Squick}}-inducing things.
* On ''Series/TheGoldenGirls'', Blanche recalls how a policeman nonchalantly told her about her husband's car accident, while eating a bag of chips. "And then he said, crunching his chips 'Oh, he's dead. Wrong way driver, hit him head on. Totally dead, ma'am. *crunch crunch*'"

* ''Series/{{House}}'': Unsurprisingly, Dr. House. Typically he takes breaks in the rooms of coma patients so people won't look for him, but he's been known to eat lunch in the morgue as well. To make things worse, he combines it with his EnemyEatsYourLunch habit.

'''Cuddy:''' ''(Points to a label on one of the containers)'' That's because it's everybody else's food.\\

* It popped up in ''Series/InspectorMorse'' once or twice.

-->'''Det. Ed Green:''' Is that ''brain'' on the phone?
-->'''ME. Rodgers:''' It's egg salad. ''(beat)'' Probably.
-->'''Det. Ed Green:''' You have a different phone?

* Became a plot point on an episode of ''{{Series/Life|2007}}'', when the mortician's constant snacking helps the detectives to realize that she's [[spoiler:pregnant by the murder victim of the week]].

* ''Series/MockTheWeek'' - Referenced during "Unlikely Lines from a TV Detective Show".
-->'''Ed Byrne''': Ugh, God, I have to go to the morgue. He's always eating a sandwich! We get it, you're desensitized, well done! ''[SarcasticClapping]''

* In the ''Series/MurderSheWrote'' episode "Smooth Operators", a coroner offers Jessica and her FriendOnTheForce a plate of danishes lying on a table in the morgue, then eats a hardboiled egg, which he cracks open with one of the medical instruments.

** In "Murdoch Air," Constable George Crabtree is devouring a hot hamburger in a morgue, and Dr. Emily Grace is horrified that he is eating hot meat with bread. Later in the episode, she's enjoying a hamburger, too, while presenting a body and post-mortem results to Detective William Murdoch--who is mildly disgusted by the idea of a hamburger.
** In "Victoria Cross", Crabtree is eating a hard boiled egg while watching Dr. Grace working on a corpse when she removes [[spoiler: a prosthetic glass eye]] from the corpse's stomach. It makes for a striking visual.
** In "Loch Ness Murdoch", Crabtree absently eats ice from the morgue icehouse during a heatwave, then realises what he's doing, and Emily has to reassure him that the ice is fresh. Later, he uses the icehouse to make himself and Emily snowcones.
** While Dr Ogden doesn't often do this, it gets {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in the episode "Mr Murdoch's Neighbourhood":
--->'''Murdoch''': I see you aren't letting a decomposing corpse spoil your appetite.
--->'''Julia''': Certainly not! One can't perform an autopsy on an empty stomach.
* ''Series/{{The Mysteries of Laura}}'':
-->'''Coroner''': Diamond, what did I tell you about bringing food into my lab?
-->'''Laura Diamond''' (with mouth full of noodles): I ... skipped dinner.
* ''Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S02E06RingOfTerror'' has Joel (in segment 2) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV8qPVD6fs4/]] performing an autopsy on a Hoover vacuum. One minute into the sketch he grabs an apple and starts eating.
* In the BigBlackout episode of ''Series/{{NCIS}}'', Ducky lets the Navy Yard employees store their lunches in one of the autopsy freezers, since they are connected to the backup generators while the power is out. They are seemingly unbothered by the thought of keeping their food where corpses are normally stored.

* ''Series/{{NTSFSDSUV}}'': Parodied when all the characters start nonchalantly snacking while standing over a corpse. Until one of them accidentally takes a bite out of [[IAteWhat a severed hand]].
* On ''Series/{{Psych}}'':
** There's an episode where Woody is eating a bag of chips while performing an autopsy.
*** Woody does this almost 90% of the time you see him in the autopsy room. One time, a co-worker (who is actually also a murderer) brings homemade donuts to an autopsy and both of them proceed to eat them, as well as make sexual advances upon each other, not caring about the dead body in the room. Of course, one is a murderer, while Woody is wacky.
** There's also a promotional short where Shawn is seen eating a donut straight out of the crime scene.
---> "That's not a jelly donut."

* An episode of ''Series/ThePretender'' had a coroner using an autopsy table to prepare fugu, prompting Jarod (who was working as a fellow coroner in this episode) to ask, "Gunshot wound to the gill?"

--> '''Jane:''' Is this from the good fridge or the dead people fridge?
* Done occasionally on ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'', mostly with all the pathologists and coroners constantly eating lollipops.
** After Doug Murphy finds his true calling as a coroner, he develops a habit of leaving his soda cans in dead people's hands to keep them cold.

** In [[Recap/SupernaturalS05E08ChangingChannels one episode]], the Trickster, a RealityWarper with a notorious sweet tooth, has trapped Sam and Dean in a ''Series/CSIMiami'' parody. While explaining the found body to the two "Horatio Caine"s, he, or rather his double, slurps on a lollipop the whole time.
** In [[Recap/SupernaturalS03E15TimeIsOnMySide another episode]] Sam is telling Dean the squicky details of how a MadDoctor carries out OrganTheft while Dean is chowing down on a burger. Dean keeps telling him to shut up, but eventually finishes the burger just to show Sam he's not affected.
** But in "How to Win Friends and Influence Monsters", Sam and Bobby autopsy the MonsterOfTheWeek, finding him full of icky black goo, plus various other human and animal remains. Dean meanwhile is disinterested and demanding a sandwich the whole time. Eventually they realise Dean is NotHimself and is affected by whatever turned the monster in the first place.

* ''Series/TalesFromTheCrypt'': In "[[Recap/TalesFromTheCryptS2E2TheSwitch The Switch]]", The MadDoctor is shown casually slicing up salami for a sandwich in the same room where he is about to perform surgery.
* In ''Series/{{The Umbrella Academy|2019}}'' episode "The Frankel Footage", two low-level morgue workers are casually chatting about how one wants to ask out a girl and how the other is "starving" for "Fried wontons at Mama Lee's" while delivering a body to be burned in a crematory.

* In the ''Series/TheXFiles'':
** ("Bad Blood"), while performing an autopsy Scully finds that the victim's stomach contents include pizza, and comments that it sounds very appealing right now, to the point of ordering one later that day.
** The head mortician in "Irresistible" is eating a Popsicle when in the mortuary.
** In "War of the Coprophages", Scully is eagerly eating yogurt while consulting with Mulder on the phone about a case of killer cockroaches.

[[folder: Video Games]]

* ''VideoGame/DeusEx'': If you get gunned down by a MJ12 trooper, sometimes, they'll ask one of their comrades "Who's hungry?".
* The hospital crew in ''[[VideoGame/LifeAndDeath Life & Death II: The Brain]]'' are always eating pizza while observing the body of whichever poor patient you "[[VideoGameCrueltyPotential accidentally]]" ended up killing this time around.
* Vic Farley in ''VideoGame/{{Ripper}}'' works as the coroner for the Ripper's victims, often while either eating or smoking on the job, though [[PlayerCharacter Jake Quinlan]] doesn't seem to mind. Subverted in that the hospital he works at [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome fires him for this trope]] later on, and that Farley provides [[BunnyEarsLawyer very solid leads]] in how the victims died.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* In ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' a detective mentions that his partner is so desensitized he eats lasagna while watching The Autopsy Channel. (Don't ask why they have a channel for that.)

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3IaGelZcFo This animated clip]] detailing [[Wiki/SCPFoundation SCP-022 ("The Morgue")]] kicks off with a scrub-clad morgue attendant chowing down on a hoagie at work, mere inches from an open drawer with a corpse on it.

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''Film/TheLittleThings'' (2021), medical examiner Flo Dunigan asks out Denzel Washington's deputy sheriff Joe Deacon at the end of a long autopsy scene by asking "Are you hungry?"

* ''Series/{{Vera}}'': In "Telling Tales", TheCoroner Billy swallows antibiotics while he is in the autopsy room with a corpse on the slab: crunching them noisily rather than washing them down with any kind of liquid.

* In ''Series/{{The Umbrella Academy|2019}}'' episode "The Frankel Footage", two low-level morgue workers are casually chatting about how one wants to ask out a girl and how the other is "starving" for "Fried wontons at Mama Lee's" while delivering a body to be burned in a crematory.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* ''Podcast/TheFlopHouse'': In one episode, Dan references the classic character of the "sandwich-eating coroner." Elliot confirms that the last time he wrote a coroner into a scene, he had to decide whether the character would be eating a sandwich because "all of them do."

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* ''Podcast/TheFlopHouse'': In one episode, Dan references the classic character of the "sandwich-eating coroner." Elliot confirms that the last time he wrote a coroner into a scene, he had to decide whether the character would be eating a sandwich because "all of them do."
[[/folder]]

* ''Series/IZombie'' takes this a bit literally as Liv, a zombie, eats the brains of the "clients" while on break, usually combining them with other food such as pizza or ramen.

* Science teachers sometimes keep their lunches in the laboratory refrigerator, alongside the frogs, rats or fetal pigs used for dissection studies. If there's no room in the teachers' lounge fridge, they figure it's better than doing without their yogurt or tuna salad.