There are a lot of ways to get someone to listen to you or get your point across. You can yell, scream, cry, threaten, or even get physical with them. However, did you ever want to give them the illusion of a situation that could escalate? Try tapping an item in your hand, with a rolled-up newspaper, a rolling pin, or a belt being popular items.
Granted, the scenario doesn't have to go any further (but they don't know that), but tapping the item can make someone pay attention and think about what they'll say or do next. This might be done by Abusive Parents, a bad or otherwise Mean Boss, someone who Would Hit a Girl and/or Would Hurt a Child if they're meant to be in the wrong for it.
Remember that this trope can be flexible; whereas item-tapping is pretty common, it can also include someone tapping their foot or their fingers in annoyance or disgust.
This trope can be seen as a Lighter and Softer type of Percussive Therapy and might precede any kind of Corporal Punishment (such as getting spanked), whether or not this is shown onscreen. See also Agitated Item Stomping, A Glass in the Hand, Door Slam of Rage, Punch a Wall, Frying Pan of Doom, Rolling Pin of Doom, Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!, and Shoot the Television for more aggressive forms of "item tapping".
Examples:
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Fan Works
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: From "Underground Chaos", tapping is done because of impatience:
"Where the hell are those imp morons?" Lorn, the largest of the trolls, asked while tapping the tip of his club against the ground impatiently.
- In Lincoln is Dumb
(which is a Troll Fic of a Lincoln is Done, a The Loud House fic), Luna slaps a tire iron in her hand when she explains to Lori that she's painfully interrogating Lynn.
- The Season's My Reason: In "Lala-Love", Cure Gemstone taps her wand in her hand while anticipating Cure Precious delivering the final blow on Chef Forgifta.
Films — Animated
- The Wrong Trousers: Gromit taps a rolling pin against his palm while facing Feathers the penguin until Feathers pulls a gun on him.
- Chicken Run: Mrs. Tweedy is tapping a pencil on her clipboard as she notices that Edwina hasn't laid any eggs all week.
- Rise of the Guardians: At the end, North asks Jack if he officially wants to become one of the Guardians now. An elf impatiently taps a trumpet in his hand, clearly wanting Jack to just say yes already.
- The Lorax (2012): When the forest critters turn against the Once-ler for being reckless with some of his more dangerous belongings, a Swomee Swan thumps a stick against its wing.
Films — Live-Action
- Child's Play 2: Chucky taps a yardstick in his hand before beating a teacher to death with it for locking him in a closet.
- Played for Laughs in Muppets from Space when the COVNET lab rats put off their own escape and return to help Rizzo save Gonzo from being experimented on, lead rat Bubba gives the musophobic Mad Scientist a Pre-Asskicking One-Liner while tapping his palm with a cotton swab.
Literature
- Artemis Fowl: Commander Root habitually taps on his triple-barreled blaster when he wants to make a point.
- Matilda: When the Trunchbull confronts Bruce Bogtrotter about the cake he stole and ate, she is constantly smacking a riding crop against her own thigh, before announcing what his punishment is. Bruce finds some comfort in that the law forbids her to hit him with it, but not much because the Trunchbull is totally unpredictable.
- Princesses of the Pizza Parlor: Cookies and Campers: The impatient manager of time makes a beat on a schedule:
The teen tapped the schedule on her clipboard impatiently.
Live-Action TV
- Fawlty Towers: In "Waldorf Salad", Basil sees smoke pouring in from the kitchen, and punches his palm meaningfully before he heads into the kitchen to confront the chef (whom Basil is pretending is there).
- Goosebumps (1995): In "Welcome to Camp Nightmare", Billy begins to suspect that something is wrong with the camp. He arms himself with a baseball bat and taps it in his hand.
- Mama's Family:
- In "Sins of the Mother", after Bubba is grounded by Thelma for coming home drunk, Vinton tries to allay his concern about her folding and giving in to allow him to participate in a swim meet. She of course overhears this and starts tapping a rolled-up newspaper in her hand to shut him up.
- She does it again in "Mama Takes Three" to prevent Vinton from saying anything negative about his childhood to a caseworker at an adoption agency when he and Naomi are trying to qualify for a child, only this time she uses a rolled-up magazine.
- Married... with Children: In "The Things I Do For Love", Peg, who's been trying to seduce Al all episode, is at one point dressed in a leather jacket and miniskirt combo and taps both the kitchen table and the couch with a riding crop (and then complains about how someone needs to dust the house after a lot of it comes out from the latter).
- This is weaponized in Motherland: Fort Salem: In "Petra's Favorite Pen" Col. Jarrett mocks Gen. Petra Bellweather for being powerless to do much about her soldiers being sent to their deaths, since she is oath-bound to protect the U.S. She starts tapping her pen in apparent frustration while musing that her oath is to protect the U.S. "from all enemies, foreign and domestic". As his actions qualify him as the latter, her oath mandates she take action. She syncs his heartbeat to the rhythm of her pen tapping, and taps faster and faster, accelerating his heart rate until he drops dead, presumably from a heart attack.
- Saved by the Bell: In "Screech's Spaghetti Sauce", in a commercial for the eponymous sauce, Zack (playing Jessie's husband) begins to insult her bad spaghetti sauce to her brother Screech and starts to refer to him as "your sister", until she starts to tap a rolling pin in her hand in anger and he then calls her "my beautiful wife" as a save.
Video Games
- Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning: When you inevitably get a math problem wrong, Baldi gives you a Death Glare and he begins to slap his ruler against his hand as he chases you throughout the game.
- In the 8-bit game Heavy on the Magick, the werewolf taps its foot impatiently before attacking.
- Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic taps his foot on the ground as an Idle Animation, showing him getting impatient for the player to input a command.
Visual Novels
- Ace Attorney: Every lawyer does desk slams, and several of the types are this trope.
- Franziska von Karma whips the desk.
- Godot slams his coffee mug onto the desk.
- Simon Blackquill makes a point out of doing this with his handcuffed wrists, breaking the handcuffs.
- Nahyuta Sahdmadhi hits the desk with prayer beads.
- Queen Ga'ran as a prosecutor does this with a book.
- This trope applies to all judges with their gavels, special mention going to Mael Stronghart, who instead uses a seemingly metal cane that makes an impressive clang.
Western Animation
- In Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, one of the "Sonic Says" segments against graffiti had Sonic challenge Tails to paint on a canvas instead of a building and while he was, he tapped his foot impatiently and cried out "I'm waiting!"
- Arthur: In "Locked in the Library", after Arthur receives a threatening note from Francine for calling her a marshmallow, he and Buster see the girls with angry looks on their faces. Muffy can be seen tapping a ruler on her desk.
- In Courage the Cowardly Dog episode, "The Revenge of the Chicken from Outer Space", Courage goes to go get Eustace out of bed to help him save Muriel from the alien chicken seeking revenge; after he just ignores Courage and goes back to sleep, Courage wearing a blank expression taps Muriel's slipper in his hand which is followed by some comical off-screen whacking sounds which results in Eustace chasing Courage to the desired destination.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy: At the end of "In Like Ed", after the Eds destroy Jimmy's house with a baking powder vapor barrier that Double D hadn't tested yet, the kids emerge from the powder ready to beat the Eds, and Kevin is seen angrily tapping a stick into his hand as he approaches the Eds.
- Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids: In "The Barber of Civil", Peregrine and Tanya are sent to the headmaster's office. The headmaster starts intimating the kids by tapping a cane in his hand. This scene is reused in the later episodes "Fat Boy with a Trumpet" and "It's Only a Game, Sport".
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998): At the end of "Bought and Scold", Princess manages to get her father's stolen items back from the Powerpuff Girls. She is relieved and starts to think she's all clear, but then she turns around and finds her very displeased father tapping a newspaper against the palm of his hand.
- The Ren & Stimpy Show:
- In "Stimpy's Cartoon Show", after Stimpy has placed several cartoons on a storyboard, director Ren comes in while tapping a belt in his hand, criticizes the images, and rips most of them off of the wall, leaving the former in tears.
- In "Stimpy's Invention", Ren approaches Stimpy while tapping a rolled-up newspaper and asking him what's behind his back. According to Word of God, the Nickelodeon censors wanted this part cut out of fear that it would upset viewers whose parents potentially did beat them with the morning paper.
- The Simpsons:
- In "The Fat and the Furriest", Homer has a Nightmare Sequence where he is surrounded by various pop culture bears, including an Intensive Care Bear who taps a tire iron (that Homer incorrectly identifies as a crowbar) in his hand right before the attack.
- Chief Wiggum can be angrily tapping a choke hold whenever there's a crime.
- In the "Treehouse of Horror V" segment "Nightmare Cafeteria", Bart got detention and saw Principal Skinner sternly tapping a ruler against his hand in outside a crowded detention room.
- In "Lost Our Lisa", Lisa tries to take a bus to the Springsonian Museum, but when she tries to talk with the bus driver, Larry, he silently taps the sign overhead which reads "Do Not Talk To Driver". When she sees that she's lost, she tries to ask him for help, only for him to say "Don't make me tap the sign". The scene is often edited to instead say whatever point the poster wants to make online.
