Line #36 Main/VaudevilleHook


1	[[quoteright:312:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stage_hook-thumb_8706.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:312:Even a LargeHam can be [[BondOneLiner cured]].[[note]]Image by Cam Cardow for ''The Ottawa Citizen''[[/note]]]]
3
4	->''"I am what I am\
5	I am my own special creation\
6	So come take a look\
7	Give me the hook or the ovation"''
8	-->-- '''Theatre/LaCageAuxFolles'''
9
10	Real {{Vaudeville}} shows would DropTheCow on bad or overly long acts with [[HooksAndCrooks "the hook", a curtain hook]] extended from offstage to pull away the performer. Oftentimes by the neck. But in cartoons, you don't even need to be on a stage to get the hook. Any bad performance can get the hook, even if you're performing on top of a fence -- it just reaches out from BehindTheBlack and drags you offscreen. Wearing a red-and-white vertically striped shirt and a straw boater makes you especially susceptible to this, as does dancing while holding a cane. Spending a while dodging the hook, continuing to perform all the while, before eventually getting snared, or even incorporating it into the performance while avoiding it the whole time is a common feature.
11
12	The ''real'' purpose of these hooks was to pull back the curtains at the start of the show in older theaters. Presumably, theatergoers at the time knew what they were for, making it that much funnier to see them being used to yank bad performers off the stage. As theater technology evolved, the hooks' original use has been forgotten over time and nowadays they're much better-known for their use in comedy.
13
14	Though he didn't originate it, the hook is forever associated with Howard "Sandman" Sims, a tap dancer who would use the hook on bad acts at the Apollo Theatre. After his passing, other dancers took up the "Sandman" name; sometimes instead of using the hook, they would dance onstage and escort the performer off.
15
16	----
17	!!Examples:
18
19	[[foldercontrol]]
20
21	[[folder:Advertising]]
22	* After a series of ads for price comparison website [=GoCompare=], featuring fictitious Italian opera singer [[TheScrappy Gio Compario]][[note]] portrayed by [[FakeNationality Welsh]] tenor Wynne Evans[[/note]] became the UK's most hated advertising campaign, the company [[SelfParody responded]] with [[TakeThatScrappy a series of "vandalised" posters of Gio]]. [[https://cached.imagescaler.hbpl.co.uk/resize/scaleWidth/743/cached.offlinehbpl.hbpl.co.uk/news/OMC/474FC296-D387-FE68-E620C1319BA4AD2C.jpg One of them,]] which changes "[=GoCompare=]" to "Go Away", shows Gio about to be dragged away by a large hook.
23	* A commercial for [[WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures Tiny Toon plush toys]] had this in the end:
24	-->- '''Kid holding the Hampton plush:''' And don't forget about Hampton!
25	-->- '''Kid holding the Dizzy Devil plush:''' Pig, YUMMY!
26	-->- '''Kid holding the Hampton plush:''' Get the hook!
27	--> ''(Kid holding the Dizzy Devil plush gets dragged away!)''
28	[[/folder]]
29
30	[[folder:Stand-Up Comedy]]
31	* DragQueen Derrick Barry performed at the ''Haters Roast'' Tour (a touring stand-up show featuring former contestants from ''Series/RuPaulsDragRace''), filling in for Creator/WillamBelli. Derrick's set went hilariously off the rails due to being '''extremely''' drunk at the time, causing fellow drag queen Trinity The Tuck to grab the ''actual stage hook'' from the back to try to pull her offstage. In true Vaudeville fashion, it doesn't work, leading to Derrick's (extremely embarrassed) boyfriend to try to get her offstage, then finally cutting her mic. You can see the CringeComedy in its full glory [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8acYdlbmigE&t=1s here]].
32	[[/folder]]
33
34	[[folder:Comic Books]]
35	* In ''[[ComicBook/JusticeLeagueInternational Justice League America]]'' #s 105-106, part of the ''ComicBook/UnderworldUnleashed'' CrisisCrossover, various costumed assassins, under Neron's influence, have decided to undertake their "ultimate hit", and the League has split up to deal with them. Wisecracking alien sidekick the Yazz stops Chiller killing a singer live on stage and, realising they have an audience, launches into an improv routine about how weird Earth is. When Obsidian sends shadow tendrils to teleport the team back together, the one collecting the Yazz takes the form of a vaudeville hook.
36	[[/folder]]
37
38	[[folder:Comic Strips]]
39	* ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'': Garfield sometimes gets the hook when he's doing his fence act. Once, when he gave a ChristmasSpecial, a candy cane was used.
40	* One ''Farley'' strip, when Bruin Hilda was running for mayor of San Francisco, had the beaver sing a campaign song (to the tune of "[[Music/TheBeatles I Saw Her Standing There]]"). Hilda is thinking "Get the hook".
41	* The page image comes from a political cartoon, where Uncle Sam is obliviously showing off America's status as a world power while {{China\|TakesOverTheWorld}} calmly watches in the shadows, with a "Your [[FifteenMinutesOfFame fifteen minutes]] are almost up, Sammy..."
42	* In one ''Brother Juniper'' comic Juniper uses a candle lighter to hook a small dog that wandered into the church.
43	* ''ComicStrip/DykesToWatchOutFor'' #378: Then First Lady Laura Bush on TV, after saying that women are miserably oppressed in Saudia Arabia. "I say we go in there and-- ''Gak!''"
44	[[/folder]]
45
46	[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
47	* In extras of ''WesternAnimation/Shrek2'', there's a ''Series/AmericanIdol''-esque singing contest, and [[WesternAnimation/PeterPan Captain Hook]], [[{{Pun}} while singing "Hooked on a Feeling"]], is [[VisualPun removed from the stage in this manner]].
48	* In ''WesternAnimation/QuestForCamelot'''s [[DisneyAcidSequence "If I Didn't Have You"]] song, there's a part where a line of eggs with dragon feet sticking out dance across the screen. They are promptly yanked off-screen.
49	* Doesn't actually happen in ''WesternAnimation/{{Moana}}'', but during Tamatoa's VillainSong, while he's fighting Maui, he quips "Ouch! What a terrible performance! Get the hook!" It's also a pun, since Maui's weapon is in fact a giant hook.
50	* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/GnomeoAndJuliet'', where a gnome reads out a "long boring prologue". Two hooks come in at different times on both sides of the stage, but he notices. He then falls through a trap-door.
51	[[/folder]]
52
53	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
54	* Used in one of Hal Roach's ''[[Film/TheLittleRascals Our Gang]]'' comedies, ''Beginner's Luck'', in which one of the stage mothers tried to drag her son, Spanky, offstage with the hook... but she kept missing him, first popping a couple of stage lights, then giving herself a really bad shock when the metal crook got caught in the live socket.
55	* In ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'', this happens to WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck and WesternAnimation/DaffyDuck in the Ink-n-Paint Club. After several minutes of trying to sabotage one another's piano playing, Donald [[RefugeInAudacity fires a cannon at Daffy's piano]], flooring his own and destroying Daffy's. Both of them, along with their pianos, are dragged off-stage with hooks.
56	* Early in ''Film/SinginInTheRain,'' Don has a flashback to his vaudeville days with Cosmo that includes the two of them getting pulled of the stage by a long hook.
57	* In ''Film/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas'' the Grinch grabs an unfortunate yodeler off his mountain with one and steals his outfit.
58	* Happens ''twice'' in ''Film/TheAdventuresOfRockyAndBullwinkle'', once when the narrator informs the audience that their show was cancelled in 1964, then again when he reminds them that nothing's changed.
59	-->'''Narrator''': After five scintillating years on the air, ''The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show'' is abruptly cancelled.
60	-->'''Rocky and Bullwinkle''': ''[[OhCrap CANCELLED!?]]''
61	-->(YANK!)
62	-->'''Narrator''': Uh, sorry about that, boys.
63	[[/folder]]
64
65	[[folder:Literature]]
66	* A vaudeville performer (complete with fez and revolving bowtie) gets pulled off of an illustration by a vaudeville hook in the ''Literature/MurderousMaths'' book ''Desperate Measures'' for the joke "Why isn't my nose twelve inches long? Because if it was it would be a foot.".
67	* The cover illustration of the ''Literature/ExtremeMonsters Joke Book'' depicts Val telling jokes on the stage as a cane is about to yank him away.
68	* In Creator/ChrisVanAllsburg's alphabet book ''The Z Was Zapped'', the letter Y gets "Yanked Offstage" with a hook.
69	* ''Literature/TheBerenstainBears'': Brought up in the Big Chapter Book ''The Berenstain Bears' Media Madness'', where Bear Country School gets its own in-school TV station. During the auditions for various roles on [=BTV=] (as the station becomes known), Too-Tall and his gang work security, but when he brings up the idea of using a hook (made from a window pole and a bent coat hanger) to pull any obvious screw-ups off the stage, Teacher Bob quickly vetoes it.
70	[[/folder]]
71
72	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
73	* ''Series/TheGongShow'': One of several methods for ejecting horrendously bad acts from the stage. These were, of course, non-scoring, comedy relief acts that performed in between scoring acts.
74	* Referred to on ''Series/TheDailyShow'' in 2004 when, after winning the Oklahoma primary, Wesley Clark said, [[{{Pun}} "Oklahoma is OK by me!"]]
75	-->'''Jon Stewart:''' Clark then added, "Idaho, Alaska!" before becoming the first candidate in history to be yanked off stage with a cane.
76	* ''Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway'' (the American version) has a slight RunningGag of Colin Mochrie carrying a joke for "Scenes from a Hat" [[OverlyLongGag a little too long]] (generally because Drew "forgets" to [[DropTheCow buzz him out]]), at which point Ryan Stiles, or occasionally Brad Sherwood, will come over and gently usher him off center stage.
77	* ''Series/HappyDays'': At a stage performance, Al gets one of these.
78	* ''Series/PressYourLuck'': A Whammy does a dance routine, then comes back onto the screen only to be hooked off.
79	* ''Series/Legion2017'': A rather strange example (which is par for the course for the show), Division 3's strike team deployed a "tactical hook" which was a candy-cane-looking hook that yanked away an unsuspecting lookout, leaving his tea cup spinning in air.
80
81	[[/folder]]
82
83	[[folder:Music]]
84	* Zig-zagged in a bit Music/EarthWindAndFire used to do in their live shows involving Verdine White's bass solo running long. He would ignore Maurice White and Philip Bailey's demands to wrap it up and keep playing. Maurice would bring out two roadies to physically remove him from the stage, who would pick him up on their shoulders to carry him off, but when they went to leave, Verdine was left suspended in mid-air, still playing.
85	[[/folder]]
86
87	[[folder:Music videos]]
88	* Played with in Music/BubbleButt. One of the dancers gets yanked off the dancefloor in this manner. But instead of a hook or a cane, it's a hose that comes out of a giant woman's mouth. And it wasn't because the dancer was bad either. In fact she might have been the best one in the video. But it was so that [[spoiler: the giant woman could eat her.]]
89	* In the music video for "[[Music/TheSimpsonsSingTheBlues Do the Bartman]]", Principal Skinner tries to pull Bart off the stage with one of these, but Bart dodges it.
90	* The music video for Sub Urban's "Freak" opens with the creepy ringmaster being pulled away from a microphone with a crook.
91	[[/folder]]
92
93	[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
94	* ''Series/TheMuppetShow'': Deployed in several episodes, including multiple times during the episode that showed the audition process for the show. [[http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Vaudeville Listed on the Muppet Wiki.]]
95	* ''Series/MuppetsTonight'': In a last-ditch effort to raise the show's ratings (Lest a bomb go off), Frankie Yakovic (A yak playing accordion) is put on camera. He fails to impress, and is unceremoniously yanked away by a hook.
96	* In ''Film/TheMuppets2011'', one of these is used to grab most of the other Muppets during the montage.
97	* ''Series/SesameStreet'': The "Cast of ''charactors''" segment used this on the number 6.
98	[[/folder]]
99
100	[[folder:Video Games]]
101	* In ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}'', World 2 Boss [[SugarBowl Baroness Von Bon Bon]] exits this way in her introduction.
102	* In ''Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun'', dropping five objects during the juggling act will have a long hook pull the juggler from the spotlight, ending the stage.
103	* In ''VideoGame/YouDontKnowJack: Movies'', if a player answers a question wrong, their number is yanked offscreen by a cane.
104	* ''VideoGame/TheJackboxPartyPack 6'': In "Joke Boat", if a contestant gets all the votes and earns the "Crushed It" bonus, their opponent will have their avatar hauled off-stage by a hook.
105	* The fan game ''VideoGame/MegaManRockForce'' uses these in Charade Man's stage to try and pull the player into spikes.
106	* After [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker The Joker]] wins a round in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat11'', one of these can appear from offscreen to move him away from his opponent, before the next round begins.
107	* The ''VideoGame/NickelodeonClickamajigs'' game "Belt Billy" has the player click on objects to throw them at a comedian. Clicking on "Exit" to end the game has a cane appear to drag the comedian off the stage.
108	* In the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis version of ''WesternAnimation/ThePinkPanther: Pink Goes to Hollywood'', when Pink loses a life, he gets pulled away by a long hook.
109	* Peacock from ''VideoGame/{{Skullgirls}}'' exits the stage this way when switching out characters. She even does a bit of "softshoe" before getting yanked off-screen.
110	* In Atari's arcade version of ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'', there's an interlude every few levels where a Hopak dancer pops out of a door and starts doing his thing. Pressing any button while he's performing will cause a tiny hook to yank him back inside the door. (And sometimes the hook misses.)
111	* Appears in a menu animation for ''VideoGame/ThemeHospital'', for some reason.
112	[[/folder]]
113
114	[[folder:Web Animation]]
115
116	* The ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' [[AnimatedMusicVideo PMV]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmJ2Bkx2C5A "Beat It"]] features one in the post-music video part, when Animated James's OC asks Flash Sentry if he doesn't mind not being included in the video, because... nobody likes him. Cue Flash struck speechless, and a vaudeville hook slowly reaches for the pegasus before pulling him offstage. Then Ms. Harshwhinny walks in, carrying the hook, and James gives her money.
117	* In the ''WebAnimation/BarbieLifeInTheDreamHouse'' episode "Trapped in the Dreamhouse", Ryan does an embarrassing dance number at Teresa's fashion show, forcing Ken to yank him offstage with a pink hook.
118	* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'': Used to clear the Dancing Brothers away during their first scene in "A Folky Tale".
119	[[/folder]]
120
121	[[folder:Webcomics]]
122	* Referenced in ''Webcomic/BasicInstructions'', when Mullet Boss says that his great-aunt was a professional vaudeville "hook-dodger" -- "she started as [[HollywoodToneDeaf a bad singer]], and [[SureLetsGoWithThat the act evolved from there]]".
123	* Other uses of this trope are discussed in [[http://www.bugmartini.com/comic/hooked-on-a-reeling/ a strip]] of ''Webcomic/BugMartini''.
124	* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'': Maxwell Post uses one to pull off Sam from a podium [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2600/fc02516.htm here]].
125	* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'': Lampshaded in [[http://archives.sluggy.com/book.php?chapter=51#2007-01-18 this strip]].
126	[[/folder]]
127
128	[[folder:Western Animation]]
129	* Happens to WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck in [[WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts shorts]] like "Orphans' Benefit" and ''WesternAnimation/MickeysAmateurs''.
130	* ''WesternAnimation/CelebrityDeathmatch'': For a comedy-themed episode, the show lets some fans come down and do some stand-up. The first is so terrible that a vaudeville hook comes out and... snaps off his head.
131	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': Zoidberg is doing stand up at the Apollo and gets the hook. He breaks it with his claw, only to have another one whack him in the head.
132	* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'': In "Make 'Em Laugh", a disguised [[ComicBook/TheJoker Joker]] shows up on stage and starts performing at a stand-up comedy competition -- right as the judges are about to announce the winner. He gets pulled off stage with one of these on the grounds that since he hadn't registered as a participant, he had no business being there. A year later, [[DisproportionateRetribution Joker steals some mind control chips from the Mad Hatter, uses them to turn the judges into third-rate supervillains, and arranges for himself to be the only contestant in that year's competition -- with his henchmen as the new judges]].
133	* Happens to Batman(!) in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' just when he's about to be caught and brought to "justice" for the crimes committed by [[spoiler:his evil alternate-Earth doppelganger]], courtesy of [[spoiler:the Joker]].
134	* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'', Wilt is making a spectacular mess of his introductory speech to a talent show, and gets pulled off in this manner when he's so flustered he can no longer even apologise for his mistakes coherently. Madame Foster then comments how he was much better than [[NoodleIncident last year]].
135	* In the ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' episode "Much Ado About Lanolin", a RunningGag involves Wade reciting different Shakespeare monologues from plays other than ''Theatre/TamingOfTheShrew'' such as ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'''s soliloquy and ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar''. At the end of the episode, he attempts another monologue, only to be closed off by the iris, but he escapes from it and is pulled offscreen by the hook.
136	* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'':
137	** In the ''Merrie Melodies'' short "Hamateur Night", Egghead gets pulled away by a hook. When he comes back again, two hooks are used. Later, when he comes back a third time, [[RuleOfThree three hooks]] are used, with an extra hook coming in to get his hat.
138	** In "What's Up, Doc?", Bugs Bunny describes how early in his career, he was hastily chosen to be the understudy for a performer who had fallen ill. When his performance falls flat, Bugs gets yanked offstage with a hook.
139	* ''WesternAnimation/StormHawks'': In "Terra Neon", Radarr puts on a dancing performance and is yanked off stage at the end by a tentacle that reaches in from the side to wrap around his waist like a hook.
140	* In the ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'' episode "You're Fired!", ComicBook/{{Vixen}} gets this treatment during the TerribleIntervieweesMontage.
141	* A Creator/TexAvery short, ''The Flea Circus'' (1954), has a SadClown flea performer upset the audience and get yanked offstage by a ''full-sized'' hook.
142	* In an episode of ''[[WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures Tiny Toon Adventures]]'', Babs gets a couple of these trying to audition for a part in a stage performance for [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare William Shakespeare]].
143	* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfSuperMarioBros3'': In "7 Continents for 7 Koopas", Luigi ends Hip's Koopathon by yanking him with a hook.
144	* In ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' special "Fairy Idol", the losers of the singing competition get this treatment. When Juandisimo was one of those disqualified, he cried out "No! I am too sexy for the stick!".
145	* One twist of this trope: In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'', Luck o' the Ducks, at the end of a short chase scene, Scrooge says "Here! Let me give your act the hook!" before pulling Farderek from his horse.
146	* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Wakfu}}'' Season 2 episode ''The Voice Thief'', the exhausted-looking Sadida singer drops down in a heap mid-song during his performance and is then dragged offscreen by a hook.
147	[[/folder]]

Context Main / VaudevilleHook