History Main / EveryoneHatesFruitCakes

* Interac, a [[CanadaEh Canadian]] debit card processing network, ran a series of ads in 2018 saying that credit card debt is like fruitcake-- hard to swallow.

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* Discussed in ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney''. In case 1-2, one of Phoenix's initial comments on CorruptCorporateExecutive Redd White is "What a fruitcake!"
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* The ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' has two referents for this trope:
** Dwarf Bread, a parody of Middle-Earth's ''cram'', is a substance that draws the last few shreds of endurance out of a wanderer in the wilderness for fear that if he gets stranded in a bleak inhospitable Mordor-like place, he'd better get a move on, as all he'll be left with to eat will be the dwarf bread. In ''Literature/GuardsGuards'', the six-foot-tall Dwarf Carrot Ironfoundersson (it makes sense in context) is sent a Dwarf fruitcake by his family in the mountains as celebration of his getting a job in the big city. Baked, or rather ''forged'', for longevity, Carrot has to use a halberd to cut it into slices -- and there is mention of several impressive rebounds before the halberd is actually able to slice it. The trope is averted; Carrot actually ''likes'' it. After all, he grew up in the culture.
** Elsewhere in the Discworld, there is the concept of Unexpected Nougat in a box of chocolates, the confection that can spoil anybody's day. On paper, it's everything a sweetmeat should be, but in practice, it's unbearably disgusting: the hard chocolate nobody likes, over-sweet, over-hard, full of indefinable ''bits'', and which doesn't count as chocolate. Getting it automatically entitles the unfortunate one to go back into the box for another pick. If consumed in error, long-standing custom and precedent also dictates that the calories do not count.
** Despite its name and description, the "Lancre Mint Cake" mentioned briefly in supplementary materials presented as an in-universe tourist guide is a spoof of a different kind of IndestructibleEdible entirely, namely [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendal_Mint_Cake Kendal Mint Cake]].

* In the ''Literature/JunieBJones'' book titled ''Junie B. Jones and the Yucky Blucky Fruitcake'', the title character wins a cake walk at her school carnival and picks the fruitcake. She's warned that it won't taste good but chooses it anyway. When she brings it home, she finds that she doesn't like the taste, but it makes itself useful anyway, as a replacement for the telephone book she has to sit on at the dinner table ("that thing hurts my hiney").

[[folder:Toys}}]]

* The AlienLunch equivalent "Berry Sludge" of ''VideoGame/OxygenNotIncluded'' is an IndestructibleEdible whose "relentless and overbearing sweetness leaves the tongue feeling numb."

* Jingle Cruise, the [[ChristmasEpisode holiday version]] of the ''Ride/DisneyThemeParks''' Ride/JungleCruise ride, uses fruitcake as a running gag:

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* Creator/JimGaffigan has a bit on how disgusting fruitcake is. He claims fruitcakes are made by bakers who just shove all the scraps from their previous creations into one bowl and mix it together. "Put all this crap in here. No one eats it anyway, they just mail it to relatives."

* Creator/BillEngvall had a song called "Fruitcake Makes Me Puke" where he talks about all the other uses he has for fruitcake instead of eating it cause...well, [[ShapedLikeItself fruitcake makes him puke]].

* ''ComicStrip/KnightsOfTheDinnerTable'' has a running gag about the awful fruitcakes B.A. and Sara receive from their Aunt Nudra every year.
* ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'' has had more than one strip denouncing fruitcakes. In one, [[https://www.gocomics.com/garfield/2013/11/28 Jon recalled his family holidays]]. As an act of magic, his Uncle Joe made the fruitcake disappear. Garfield didn't consider it a great loss.
* One strip of ''ComicStrip/{{Crankshaft}}'' has characters mentioning what they did with last Christmas' fruitcake. One used it to kill spiders while the other used it to make their truck heavier while driving on icy roads.

* In the ''ComicStrip/{{Lio}}'' strip for [[http://www.gocomics.com/lio/2014/12/16 December 16, 2014]], the title character happily pulls a fruitcake out of its box...and uses it as a footstool to help him hang his stocking over the fireplace.
* ''ComicStrip/BrewsterRockit'' has [[http://www.gocomics.com/brewsterrockit/2014/12/26 Frank, the Unloved Christmas Fruitcake]], who became sentient after laying around so long.

* In an ''Fanfic/EmpathTheLuckiestSmurf'' Christmas-related mini-story, as a nod to ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfsAChristmasCarol'', Hefty eats fruitcake by the plateful.

--> '''Paul''': How was school?\\
'''Zatanna''': I, um… Yoooou.. remember the cake.\\
'''Paul''': I remember the cake. The internet remembers the cake. Two hundred years from now, alien civilisations that have never met a Human before will address me as 'The Cake Man'.
* ''Fanfic/DanisFirstChristmas'': Jack's lesson to Dani about fruitcakes.
-->'''Jack:''' And everyone just pretend to like the Fruitcake...though why anyone would make something so inedible is beyond me...
-->'''Dani:''' Weird...

* In ''WesternAnimation/OlafsFrozenAdventure'', Olaf eats a fruitcake that literally goes right through him. Subverted in that Olaf eagerly eats it rather than hates it. Played straight later on when a hawk steals the fruitcake (which, by that point, has been carried for some time by Olaf through woods and mountains but is still intact), then returns it untouched some time later.

* In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'', when Uncle Vernon is boarding up the mail slot to prevent any more "mysterious" letters from entering, Petunia hands him a fruitcake and he uses it to pound in a nail. Since fruitcakes are normally made for the Christmas season and this part of the book took place in ''mid-July'', said fruitcake was probably at least half a year old.
* The titular family from ''Literature/VattasWar'' has Aunt Gracie, who insists on sending out every family member going on their first voyage with a stash of fruitcake. Her fruitcakes are generally considered inedible and dense enough to block out X-rays. [[spoiler: The last bit is NotHyperbole. Gracie often sends valuable items in fruitcakes, knowing that they can get through most security checkpoints without comment and that no one will cut a fruitcake unless the situation is well beyond frazzled. The main character cuts hers when her funds have dropped low enough that she can't afford to resupply, and finds out it's full of diamonds.]] However, it turns out that while Ky doesn't like them quite a few of her crew love fruitcake and would have gladly eaten them if she'd asked.

* An ''Imponderables'' book addresses a reader question about fruitcake in a tongue-in-cheek way, the author David Feldman making it abundantly clear how much he dislikes the stuff and [[TakeThat implies it's hated by every human on Earth]]. Naturally, Feldman got flooded with letters from people who like eating fruitcake, most of them angry but a few who got a good laugh out of it.
* Creator/ErmaBombeck got much mileage out of mocking fruitcake in her humor column and books. Not just its indestructible nature, but how deluded fruitcake lovers (like her mother) can be in their mission to convert the haters.
-->''It's too sticky for a doorstop, too big for a paperweight, too young to petrify, and too old to eat. Some of the fruits in it have become extinct.''
* In ''Literature/DaveBarrySleptHere'', the Soviets' blockade of West Berlin was finally called off after UsefulNotes/HarryTruman threatened to bombard their territory with "huge amounts of cafeteria-grade ravioli or even--remember, these were desperate times--''fruitcake''."

* ''Series/CousinSkeeter'': In the intro to "Miracle on 32nd Skeet", Bobby's dad Andre suggests Bobby get Skeeter a fruitcake for their first Christmas together, which Bobby counters nobody likes fruitcake. It {{Gilligan Cut}}s to Skeeter showing enjoyment over a fruitcake...which he uses for a hockey puck.
* ''Series/GoodEats'' naturally discusses this and, being a cooking show, attempts to defy the stereotype by producing a fruitcake recipe that is actually delicious. He uses fruit that is ''dried'', but found in nature and otherwise untampered with.

* In one ChristmasEpisode of ''Series/TheGoldenGirls'', the protagonists seem to have accumulated several fruitcakes as gifts over several Christmases. Sophia suggests bringing them to the soup kitchen where they're volunteering that year. They do, but by the end of the night, not only has no one touched them, she swears that there are ''more'' of them there than they brought.
* One ''Series/{{Grimm}}'' ChristmasEpisode featured the following, after a chunk of gnawed fruitcake turns up at a crime scene:
-->'''Hank:''' That looks like fruitcake.
-->'''Nick:''' Hmmm... didn't know anyone ate those...

-->Monroe: Wow, so there's actually a reason for fruitcake.

* Most people point to ''Series/TheTonightShowStarringJohnnyCarson'' as the originator of the fruitcake jokes. He regularly asserted that there was actually only one fruitcake in the world, and it just keeps getting passed around.

--> '''Crews:''' [''explaining matter-of-factly''] Bad elf.

-->''The cake could look good and still be crummy. Or it may be a fruitcake and you know how we all feel about fruitcake...''
* Zig-zagged throughout the ''Series/PeeWeesPlayhouse'' Christmas special. One of the [[Main/RunningGag running gags]] in the special is Pee-wee receiving fruitcakes as gifts from his friends. At first, he pretends to like them, but at several points, he says lines like, "It's not a fruitcake, is it?", and "No, no, no more fruitcake!" Towards the end of the special, when Cowboy Curtis gives him a fruitcake but then sees Randy gave him one as well, he is about to take it back, thinking Pee-Wee doesn't need another. Pee-Wee tells him he does, and reveals to his friends what he did with all the fruitcakes: [[spoiler:he used them to build a new room to the playhouse.]]

* "Miss Fogarty's Christmas Cake" shows that this is OlderThanRadio. It's a 19th-century song about a repulsive Christmas Cake that required the use of a hatchet and a saw to slice.

* Creator/BillEngvall has a Christmas song called "Fruitcake Makes Me Puke".

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' has the [[http://magiccards.info/hho/en/1.html Fruitcake Elemental]], a promotional holiday card given out to Wizards of the Coast employees in 2006. It's an indestructible 7/7 behemoth... that deals 7 damage to its controller every turn. Naturally, it has another ability that lets you gift it to an opponent.
* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}''-verse, the immortal dragons Dunkelzahn and Alamais [[EscalatingWar spent 30-odd years feuding over a fruitcake]], giving it away to the other on alternate Christmases. Alamais got stuck with the short end of the straw (and the fruitcake) in 2057 when Dunkelzahn died and revealed the game publicly in his will, along with the fact that, as Dunkelzahn is [[KilledOffForReal dead]] and [[FakingTheDead Alamais isn't,]] he is the ''de facto'' winner. Of course, half of the deal was that Dunkelzahn outed Alamais as NotQuiteDead by mentioning him in his will, and forced him to return to public life. Alamais had faked his own death in 2053 after being [[KillSat bombarded from orbit]] by a Russian black ops team.

* Zigzagged in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. The annual "Mincemeat fruitcakes" from the Christmas event given an achievement when eaten while in Santa garb. They're also the best food items in terms of healing as they restore 5% every second for 20 seconds (That's 100% HP) meaning they're effective for even a level 90 tank with thousands of HP and only require one serving. Still, the description says it will "be a long time before it goes bad" and that "you should probably also like the taste of fruitcake". (Of course, many useful food items in this game are stuff the typical man would be revolted by.)
* At one point in ''VideoGame/DarkenedSkye'', you have to perform a ChainOfDeals, with the starting item being a fruitcake. The reactions of the various merchants in the marketplace who can be offered the fruitcake but don't want it are rather amusing.

* Fruit Cakes are drops during December in ''VideoGame/DontStarve Together''. It counts as a 'food' item but it will never spoil and none of your characters will eat it, instead making grimaces if you try to make them.

* The AlienLunch equivalent "Berry Sludge" of ''VideoGame/OxygenNotIncluded'' is an IndestructibleEdible whose "relentless and overbearing sweetness leaves the tongue feeling numb."

-->''Fruitcake's so calorie dense and it has such a crazy shelf life it's perfect fer wilderness survival kits. I'm just stockin' up, it could save yer life, y'know.''

[[folder:Web Original]]

-->''That was an unconventional use of a beloved holiday treat!''

* A plot point in ''WesternAnimation/GrandmaGotRunOverByAReindeer'', in which Grandma Spankenheimer's fruitcakes are actually one of the cornerstones of her business since she bakes it well enough that people willingly want to eat it (despite the song "Grandma's Killer Fruitcake"). Cousin Mel trying to sabotage the recipe is what kicks the plot of the special into gear [[spoiler: since she unknowingly turns it into reindeer nip which causes the titular hit-and-run.]] Likewise, during the court scene, when Jake presents the first evidence to the jury, one of them warily asks the judge, "Do we have to?" And the judge's response?
-->'''Judge''': Excellent question. ''(to Jake)'' ''Do'' we have to?

* Fruitcakes being given to Mr. Plotz is a running gag in the ''{{WesternAnimation/Animaniacs}}'' episode "A Christmas Plotz", which he rejects because he hates fruitcake (and has a whole office full of fruitcakes that were given to him). It gets to the point where he thinks that Dot, who is disguised as a gift box when she enters as the Ghost of Christmas Present, is probably another fruitcake, which she considers an insult ("fruitcake" being a term for an insane person). At the end of the story, after he has reformed, instead of sending a turkey to Ralph's house, Plotz tells the Warners to buy the biggest fruitcake they can find and send it to Ralph's house. They bring a gigantic fruitcake the size of Ralph's trailer house using a helicopter and drop it, where it lands on top of Plotz. Listening to Plotz's screams underneath the fruitcake, Wakko replies, "We'll have you out of there by Easter." The trope is possibly subverted given that the Warners don't seem to mind the task of eating the giant fruitcake.

* Fruitcake appears in both ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs1981'' cartoon show episode "The Master Smurf", as a substance that the Smurfs use to build Greedy's monument to himself while under the thrall of his magical crown, and in ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfsAChristmasCarol'' as one of the things of Christmas that Grouchy says that he hates at the beginning of the story. Interestingly, fruitcake turns out to be Hefty's favorite holiday food, as he is seen eating it as the Smurf of Christmas Future.

* In ''[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS3E20ItsAWonderfulTinyToonsChristmasSpecial It's A Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special,]]'' one of Plucky's proposed sketches is "Plucky the Lonely Fruitcake Nobody Wanted For Christmas". Buster ends up cutting the sketch and having it rewritten as "''[[Series/FamilyMatters Urkel]]'' the Lonely Fruitcake".
* ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces2017'': Averted in "It's a Wacky Life". Pandora tells Dick she joined the other Wacky Racers' Christmas celebration for the fruitcakes and gladly eats one. It's further averted in the end when Muttley eats another fruitcake.

* In the "Black Friday" episode of ''Series/{{Life}}'', Det. Charlie Crews pegs a running mall thief (dressed as a Christmas elf) with a fruitcake, dropping him. Right in front of some confused carolers. Who become horrified when he approaches with his gun drawn. Then the suspect is finally tackled and handcuffed... by Santa Claus (another cop undercover).

** In the ''WesternAnimation/ItsASpongebobChristmas'' special, Plankton puts Jerktonium on fruitcakes to [[HatePlague make everyone into jerks]]. He gives the first one to [=SpongeBob=], who turns out to be [[NoSell immune]], making Plankton think his plan failed. [=SpongeBob=] then gives the Jerktonium fruitcakes to everyone else, unwittingly helping in Plankton's evil scheme. (Note that the characters are ''not'' complaining about getting fruitcake. The episode plays on the cake's reputation by making them instruments of evil.)

* "Grandma's Killer Fruitcake" by Dr. Elmo has the singer dreading his grandmother's recipe for fruitcake.
-->It was harder than the head of Uncle Bucky
-->Heavy as a sermon of Preacher Lucky
-->One's enough to give the whole state of Kentucky a great big bellyache.
-->It was denser than a trove of barnyard turkeys
-->Tougher than a truckload of all-beef jerky
-->Drier than a drought in Albuquerque
-->Grandma's killer fruitcake!

-->We never eat fruitcake because it has rum,
-->And one little bite makes a man like a bum.
-->Now can you imagine a sorrier sight
-->Than a man eating fruitcake until he [[UnsuspectinglySoused gets tight?]]

In America and (to a lesser extent) Britain, fruitcake is the common ridicule of many Christmas-time jokes for its bland taste and very long life, sometimes depicted as [[IndestructibleEdible hard enough as to be indestructible]], or to [[EdibleBludgeon serve as a blunt weapon]]. It is often depicted as a gift given to someone the giver doesn't like, later used by the recipient as a doorstop, paperweight, or anything else a brick could be used for. Another joke surrounding it is the exact same fruitcake being passed around between [[WithFriendsLikeThese "friends"]] or family members for ''decades,'' even ''centuries'', because it's never gone bad (or perhaps can't get any worse than it already is), and no one wants to even taste it. Yet another joke is that fruitcake will be the only thing left AfterTheEnd, apart from rats and cockroaches, and EvenTheRatsWontTouchIt.

This trope seldomly appears in Japanese works.

* ''Miss Fogarty's Christmas Cake'' shows that this is OlderThanRadio. It's a 19th-century song about a repulsive Christmas Cake that required the use of a hatchet and a saw to slice.
* ''Grandma's Killer Fruitcake'' by Dr. Elmo has the singer dreading his grandmother's recipe for fruitcake.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants''.

** In the "WesternAnimation/ItsASpongeBobChristmas" episode, Plankton puts Jerktonium on fruitcakes to make everyone into jerks. He gives the first one to [=SpongeBob=], who turns out to be immune, making Plankton think his plan failed. [=SpongeBob=] then gives the Jerktonium fruitcakes to everyone else, unwittingly helping in Plankton's evil scheme. (Note that the characters are ''not'' complaining about getting fruitcake. The episode plays on the cake's reputation by making them instruments of evil.)