[[quoteright:350:http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/grilled-cheese-invitatational-oakland.gif]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Cheese: MadeOfWin! Also NightmareFuel.]]

Ah, ThePowerOfCheese. It's just one of those [[InherentlyFunnyWords Inherently Funny Foods]] that shows up quite often in the TV Universe and can be used for either good or evil.

ScoobySnacks for mice and rats (ironically, in real life, they don't have any affinity toward cheese, they prefer peanut butter).

The TropeNamer is a line in ''MontyPythonsLifeOfBrian''.

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[[foldercontrol]]

!!Examples

[[folder:Advertising]]
* The American Dairy Association's "Power of Cheese" Ads.
* Any snack marketed as "Cheese Flavored".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Card Games]]
* [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=9773 The Cheese stands alone]]! How heroic.
** The meat, on the other hand, has frequent visitors.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comics]]
* ''{{Asterix}} in Corsica'' features a Corsican cheese whose fumes ignite and blow up a ship.
* Another adventure, ''{{Asterix}} in Switzerland'', shows the Romans indulging in a fondue orgy. Before long everybody is covered with sticky molten cheese.
** "He lost his piece of bread in the fondue a third time!" "Into the lake with weights tied to his feet!" Cue the Helvetians making comments about how filthy the Romans are, and Romans pointing out how annoying it is when these barbarians insist on cleanliness... But the "cuckoo clocks" take the cake.
* "Milk and Cheese"
** For those who haven't heard of it, it's a comic about two anthropomorphic "Dairy Products Gone Bad". Most of the time, they're shown delivering violent "justice" to aspects of pop culture.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* The ''FullmetalAlchemist'' fanfic [[http://greed7.proboards57.com/index.cgi?board=centralarchive&action=display&thread=999&page=3#1592 ''On the Highway to Healing'']] has a character who had been put in prison for several months escape, return home, and find that a moldering piece of cheese left behind in his refrigerator had grown, mutated, and become sentient.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films]]
* Sarah Silverman's "{{I Want Someone to eat Cheese With}}".
* ''DeadMenDontWearPlaid''. The missing scientist has invented a cheesemold that can break down anything, [[spoiler:so ThoseWackyNazis plan to use it to destroy the United States.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* Tiffany Aching from the ''{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Wintersmith'' is a very good cheesemaker, but the living, semi-sentient, mobile cheese was a mistake.
** Similarly, Mustrum Ridcully was briefly convinced Rincewind was, if not actually a cheese, a very good name for one.
* In the ''ThursdayNext'' series (specifically ''First Among Sequels''), there's a Cheese Mafia that specializes in delivering cheese so strong, it's considered toxic, a health hazard, and in some cases potentially deadly. Their strongest type is something called X-14, which must be kept in a lead container chained to the floor. It's very presence will set dogs barking for a wide radius.
** A ludicrously high cheese tax to pay for the ongoing Crimean War led to cheese-smuggling from the Socialist Republic of Wales, but no-one really takes this "crime" seriously unless the Cheese Mafia are involved.
* AlanDeanFoster's ''CodgerSpace'', the sentience of the machines all starts when a drop of melted cheese interferes with the operation of the supercomputer that runs the plant where computer chips for virtually everything are made.
* ''{{The Stinky Cheese Man}}''
* In ''RingworldEngineers'', Louis Wu ponders philosophy:
--> What's good besides the wire? Cheese. Sleeping plates. Love (impractical). Wild skin dye jobs. Freedom, security, self-respect
* In ''TreasureIsland'', the marooned pirate Ben Gunn has become absolutely obsessed with cheese.
* A quote from GKChesterton:
--> The poets have very little to say on the subject of cheese.
** He obviously never read the ''[[http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1367.html Ode on the Mammoth Cheese Weighing over 7,000 Pounds]]''.
* There is a book [[http://www.amazon.com/Blessed-Are-Cheesemakers-Sarah-Kate-Lynch/dp/0446693014/ by the same title]], featuring two character, Abbey Corrigan and Kit Stephens, who "In a series of fantastic coincidences, the two end up at the Coolarney factory, a meeting that will forever change their lives and the future of cheese."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KBuQHHKx0 Cheese Shop sketch]] from ''MontyPythonsFlyingCircus''.
** A remarkable sketch in that it contains absolutely no cheese.
* Neelix's cheese almost destroys the ship in ''StarTrekVoyager'''s "Learning Curve"
* Porthos is fed cheese despite the potential consequences on ''StarTrekEnterprise''.
* The Not The Cheese Shop Sketch Sketch from ''TheYoungOnes''.
* ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', "Restless": during this episode the main cast all falls asleep, and then has bizarre dreams filled with various prophetic or symbolic meanings. However, each dream also bizarrely includes "The Cheese Man," who appears with a tray of cheese and speaks in cryptic words like: "I wear the cheese; the cheese does not wear me" or "The cheese will not protect you". He reappears in "Storyteller."
** Also, there's Riley's famous pickup line "I like Cheese." (Well, he had previously learned from Willow that Buffy, also, enjoyed that particular foodstuff...)
* ''TheRedGreenShow'' had their "Homemade Cheese" episode.
** Not to mention the time there was a scale model of the human reproduction system built from cheese.
* BritCom producer ArmandoIannucci likes his cheese:
** ''ImAlanPartridge'': "SMELL MY CHEESE YOU MUTHA."
** ''TheThickOfIt'': "EAT THE CHEESE NICHOLSON."
** ''InTheLoop'': "The only thing we talked about was flammable cheese."
* Darnell from ''MyNameIsEarl'' is a cheese aficionado, but was told to not reveal it when put on witness protection.
* Cheese is [[FamilyMatters Steve Urkel]]'s TrademarkFavoriteFood.
* The Dancing Cheeses in ''MuppetsTonight!'' Last seen somewhere near Rizzo the Rat - "It's all part of the circle of life."
* In ''{{Friends}}'', when Monica meets the man Pheobe believes is her soul mate (''after'' she's married Chandler), they have a shared passion for cheese.
-->'''Pheobe:''' They want to live in a house made of cheese. I don't know how you fight that.
* In the ''MST3K'' episode ''Earth vs. The Spider'', Frank and Clayton make a telephone out of cheese. Joel insists they stole the idea from him.
* [[TheWire Omar Little]]: "The cheese stands alone."
* ''{{Scrubs}}''. Turk loves cheese, and even though his girlfriend/wife is a native Spanish speaker, Turk only knows one word in Spanish. Once we see him munching on a huge block of cheese, which he offers to share with Carla's brother. "Queso?"
* In a rather disturbing example from {{Sonny With A Chance}}, Grady tells Nico that "there's three things I would never lie to you about. Money, food, and what's in my pants." Nico then asks (in a rather frightened manner) "What's in your pants?" Three guesses to what the answer is.
*[[TheMightyBoosh Cheese is a kind of meat, a tasty yellow beef!]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* The String Cheese Incident.
* WeirdAlYankovic makes numerous cheese references.
* @Planet Cool, the reason the Cheese Mafia exist is because of some absurdist duties on cheese. the reason for these cheese duties is never adequately explained.
** Possibly a reference to ThursdayNext? See Literature section.
* ''Sailing The Seas Of Cheese'' is an album by alternative rock band Primus.
[[/folder]]
* As "TheFarmerInTheDell" taught us all in preschool, "The cheese stands alone."

[[folder:Radio]]
* ''Radio/AdventuresInOdyssey'' "Wonder World" Jimmy and Lawerence try to escape from "Gorgonzola" the mutant cheese monster. Who turns out to be Donna.
** "Nova Rising", during a BTV pitch meeting, one of the writers comments how "Cottage Cheese" is funny and proceeds to chuckle at it. (It's heavily implied that he isn't much of a writer.)
[[/folder]]

[[folder:TableTopGames]]
* The 2nd Edition DungeonsAndDragons supplement "Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog" listed a number of local cheeses that could be ordered by teleport post. Notably, this included Luiren Spring Cheese, an mostly unremarkable cheese which nonetheless caused [[MushroomSamba cravings, intoxication, and finally full-on addiction]] in halflings. HilarityEnsues.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tropes]]
* {{Battle Royale with Cheese}}
* CartoonCheese
* {{Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys}}
* {{Ham and Cheese}}
* {{Suck E Cheeses}}
* {{The Power of Cheese}}
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''MarioKart Super Circuit'' has Cheese Land as a track.
* [[{{Magicant}} Cloudcuckooland]] in ''Banjo-Tooie'' has a Cheese Wedge, which is filled with [[DeadlyGas noxious fumes]].
* ''{{Neopets}}'' has the "Cheeseroller" game as well as the Cheese Shop Background.
* One of Toon rpg adventures features a new piece of equipment - a magnet made of cheese, which attracts rodents.
* ''DwarfFortress'' LetsPlay, "Boatmurdered", for a while there was a distinct cheese motif in the art.
** "Apparently the two most significant historical events here in Boatmurdered are elephants and cheese. Take a close look at the cheese ones actually, they aren't even carvings of cheese, but ''renditions of some other image'' of a cheese. They're freaking homages!" (It turns out that this is because there was an artefact in the fortress that, for reasons unknown, had an image of a cheese on it.)
*** Dare I say they are [[IncrediblyLamePun Fromage Homages?]]
** It should be noted that dwarfs make their cheese not from cows, but from something called a purring maggot.
** May be it [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casu_marzu Caasu Marzu]]
** It should be noted that cheesemakers are considered one of the worst immigrant professions, therefore cheesemakers will usually end up as haulers, recruits or test subjects for the elf drowning trap.
* [[{{Mother 3}} Flint]] [[MemeticMutation loves cheese!]]
* ''WorldOfWarcraft'' has the NPC Elling Trias, Master of Cheese, in Stormwind, who turns out to be a retired secret agent who left his career in defending his homeland to pursue his true ambition: to open a cheese shop.
* ''[=~Conker's Bad Fur Day~=]'' has a segment where you must load a mouse/rat with cheese, in order to kill it, and get a massive, female voiced brick off a gangster-talking smaller block, so you can reach a window... into a barn...
* In the ''{{Touhou}}'' game ''Undefined Fantastic Object'', when [[PettingZooPeople mouse youkai]] Nazrin speaks, there's an accompanying speech bubble with cheese in it.
* [[TheSims Grilled cheese aspiration]]. Lifetime Want: Eat 200 grilled cheese sandwiches.
* One of the potential backgrounds for ''WormsArmageddon''/''WormsWorldParty'' has the landscape made of cheese.
* ''TheElderScrolls IV: Oblivion'' contains a side quest for the Daedric Lord Sheogorath which involves the player convincing a small village armageddon is on the way by bringing about several "plagues". The first plague is causing the town to be overrun by rats, which is accomplished by placing a particularly stinky cheese in a cooking pot.
** Theres also this line from Sheogorath himself in the Shivering Isles expansion, after the player character restarts [[DeathCourse Xedillian]], which, due to {{Memetic Mutation}}, has established cheese as Sheogorath's {{Trademark Favourite Food}} in {{Fanon}}. @@Sheogorath: Wonderful, Time for a celebration... Cheese for everyone!@@
* Smelly cheese is required to activate a magic-transference machine at the climax of ''KingsQuest V''
* In [[{{Fable}} Fable 2]], one of the random lines that an NPC will say is: "Do you like cheese? Me, I love a bit of cheese. Cheesy, cheesy cheese."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* [[http://girlgenius.wikia.com/wiki/Cheese Girl Genius and cheese]].
* [[http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=264 Questionable Content]]: "Truely, it is the deadliest of food groups"
* The Godlike being from ''ItsWalky''
* "Cheddar monks" in ''DarthsAndDroids''.
* It's Walky. The all powerful god type being is referred to as the Cheese because he wears armor that looks a lot like cheese
* Parodied in [[http://www.bobandgeorge.com/karnak/index.php?comic=140 this webcomic strip]], where even Cthulhu is no match for cheese.
* ''KidRadd'' during the break the forth wall week, where Radd destroys the world with the power of cheese.
** It even includes an admonition that a certain number of universes are destroyed every day by people misusing ThePowerOfCheese, so you should be careful.
* Parodied in ''SluggyFreelance'', when Torg is chasing a ghost. He notices that her name, Brie Meighsaton, is evocative of Brie cheese, and begins laughing that it's a really funny name and makes it hard to consider her scary. Then she scares him so much he runs and hides under a bed with the 4th wall caption "Behold the power of cheese".
** ''SluggyFreelance'' also contains the formidable pizza chain House of Cheese, [[spoiler: front for the evil organisation HeretiCorp]]. At one point they attempt to get rid of a fly problem by developing a cheese that is toxic to flies and not humans... resulting in pizzas covered in dead flies.
* Gordon Frohman of ''{{Concerned}}'' caused the entire ''Half-Life'' series plot to begin when he mixed up a block of cheese with the cheese-like alien sample for the teleportation experiment.
* A RunningGag in ''OrderOfTheStick'' is the fondness hobgoblins have for cheese, specifically gouda.
* In {{The KAMics}} [[http://www.drunkduck.com/The_KAMics/index.php?p=96476 it made a nice distraction]] & was important to a summoning [[http://www.drunkduck.com/The_KAMics/index.php?p=97126 when combined with crackers]].
* ''Subnormality'' confirms: [[http://www.viruscomix.com/page470.html everything's better with cheese!]]
* The incalculably powerful cuisine magic spell, the Fondue of Four Thousand Cheeses in ''TriangleAndRobert.''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''{{lonelygirl15}}'': "Bree smells of cheese" (also an IncrediblyLamePun).
* This article says it all in the title: [[http://unbecominglevity.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2004/4/24/42547.html "Cheese Is Funny"]]
* In the SuperSentai parody ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jushi_Sentai_France_Five France Five]]'', TheHero of the FiveManBand is "Red Fromage".
*[[http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1903837 "Mix Up at the Snack Factory".]] Now with Four Times The Cheez!
* [[http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/The+Cheese+Family/ The Cheese Family]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Rufus on ''KimPossible'' adores cheese, and our heroes visit a building that is literally made of cheese.
** He even insists that the meaning of life is cheese when asked by his descendants in an alternate future.
** [[{{Insistent Terminology}} And no, it is not a cheese-covered building]].
** Again with ''KimPossible'', a cheese fountain is seen in "Trading Faces".
** Also Ron looking to retrieve a book on the History of Cheese.
--->'''Wade:''' Must be a Gouda read.\\
'''Ron:''' Cut the cheese jokes, Wade.\\
'''Wade:''' Did you say "cut the..."
* CartoonNetwork once ran a block of Cheese-Related Cartoons, including:
** ''FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'' EnsembleDarkhorse "Cheese".
** ''CodenameKidsNextDoor'' "[[IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming Operation]]:[[FunWithAcronyms T.H.E. S.H.O.G.U.N."]] features a cheese-themed restaurant which gets attacked by cheese-hoarding ninjas, who kidnap the customers and force them to work in the Cheese Shogun's Cheese mines.
*** And don't forget nacho cheese being the most effective weapon against hair-eating lice.
** Raj's Cheese Wheel is the subject of much misunderstanding in the ''CampLazlo'' episode "The Big Cheese".
** CartoonNetwork also ran a block of CartoonCrossover Shows as "Cartoon Network Invaded", which featured a series of cheese-obsessed aliens.
*An episode of DextersLaboratory featured "omelette du fromage". This means "Cheese Omelet" in [[GratuitousFrench Broken French]].
* Wallace of ''WallaceAndGromit'' shares a bit of a cheese obsession, going so far as to build a rocket to the moon to collect cheese as well as not pursuing a relationship with a woman who was allergic to cheese. Yes, even Wensleydale.
* Dr. Doofenshmirtz briefly makes homemade Limburger cheese in ''PhineasAndFerb''.
* Monterey Jack in ''ChipAndDaleRescueRangers''.
* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unruly_Hare The Unruly Hare]]''. Elmer Fudd has BugsBunny at gunpoint.
-->'''Bugs:''' Only a rat would shoot a guy... ''(turns around)''... in the back.\\
''(Elmer starts to pull on the trigger)''\\
'''Bugs:''' I reiterate: only a big, fat rat would shoot a guy in the back.\\
''(Elmer shoots -- a smoke cloud appears where Bugs was)''\\
'''Elmer:''' ''(gloating)'' So I'm a big, fat wat!\\
'''Bugs''' ''(appears out of smoke, imitating Jerry Colonna)'' Ah! Have some cheese, rat!\\
''(shoves cheese wedge on Elmer's mouth)''
* [[RockosModernLife "I am The Cheese!]] [[MarySue I am the best character]] [[ShowWithinAShow on this show!]] [[AuthorFilibuster I am better than both the salami and the baloney combined!"]]
** Another episode had the guys rescued from a fishing trip gone horribly wrong by a giant squid obsessed with their cheese bait.
* Though ''InvaderZim'' mostly avoided cheese jokes, the snuck one in to the final episode, where Gir is talking to Santa.
-->'''Gir:''' And a chair made of cheese, and a table made of cheese....
* In ''DannyPhantom'', Vlad comes from Wisconsin, the state infamous for cheese. He's also been called "cheesehead" several times from various characters (as both an insult and reference to his love for the Green Bay Packers) and in an alternate universe, is a dairy farmer specializing in cheese.
** There is also the Dairy King. "Try the Gouda, it's dairy fresh!"
* Inverted in Chuck Jones' ''Cheese Chasers'', where mice Hubie and Bertie, hung over from a cheese binge, realize they'll never be able to touch the stuff again, and decide to end it all by having Claude Cat eat them, even if they have to force him to.
* AnAmericanTail: "''There are no cats in America/ and the streets are paved with cheese.''"
* Played with quite often in the old TomAndJerry cartoons.
* In the ''Boondocks'' Huey notes that 'you can't fight white supremacy with cheese'
* One of TheMask's enemies in the animated series was Gorgonzola, the Cheese Witch.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* The Uruguayan navy once broke through an Argentinian blockade by using old, hard edam cheeses as cannonballs.
* In 1935, an argument between two postmasters over whether limberger cheese was too smelly for a postman to deliver made national news. [[http://archive.dailytidings.com/2001/news1110/columnists/columnists-02.php More info here.]]
* Diana Duyser's famous Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich
* An interesting example often used in anthropology to illustrate cultural differences concerns cheese. Namely that a French company trying to market their cheese in the US never quite got that americans generally don't view cheese as "alive" and tends to be grossed out when it is portrayed like that.
* "Say Cheese!"
** I thought it was just because of the vague smiling position of the mouth made by saying the word.
* This troper once saw a skit at a community theater, were a Cheese-flavored soda had TheAxeEffect.
* The fact that so many snack foods advertise being "Cheese" flavored.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheeseheads Cheeseheads.]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casu_marzu Caasu Marzu]] is the most infamous of the illegal cheeses. It's a fermented cheese which is infested with maggots which are actually able to survive passing through the intestine and can infest the eater. Naturally it's a delicacy.
** I've heard it's delish, too.
* Cheese is just plain tasty. A rich knifeful of brie on a crisp baguette? Heavenly. Swiss cheese on rye makes a terrific sandwich. And what's one of the iconic American comfort foods? Macaroni and cheese.
** It's even more iconic in Canada, OrSoIHeard.
***You heard wrong.
* Stereotypically associated with the French (see also CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys).
** Charles de Gaulle once observed "How can one govern a country that has 263 kinds of cheese?".
** Rumour has it that the Brits make more varieties of cheese...
* Russian proverb about a well-off or generally successful person is "rolling like a cheese in butter".
[[/folder]]

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