Awesomeness Is Volatile - Television Tropes & Idioms

He'd have worn a Hazmat Suit, but he's too awesome for that.

"God knows what would happen if you spread Branston Pickle onto No More Heroes. Possibly the universe would end. And it would be awesome."

— Zero Punctuation

"Awesome" is a hazardous substance in fiction. Put too much of it together, and dangerous things can happen. Things will blow up, heads can explode/implode, or even the universe could end, all for no other reason than the awesomeness itself caused it.

Probably first created by the Rule of Funny.

Compare Divide by Zero, Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot (making awesome by a combination of cool things), Nerdgasm, Incendiary Exponent, Pure Awesomeness, Testosterone Poisoning, Big Bulky Bomb, Readings Blew Up The Scale, Yin Yang Clash, The Power of Rock, Explosive Overclocking.

Compare/Contrast Suckiness Is Painful.

In Universe Examples Only:

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Advertising

Segata Sanshiro did a judo throw on a guy so hard that he exploded. Twice.
In a recent commercial for PS3 motion tracking games, a montage of said games play as a (''real'') operatic duo sings in the background. It all ends when a random houseplant sets on fire, shocking the entire family.
The Terry Crews Old Spice commercials tend to include random explosions. Makes sense though, you have a buff black man who uses Old Spice. Can't get much more awesome than that. Of course, they're made by Tim and Eric.
- On one occasion Old Spice Guy claimed that if he and his rival Fabio were ever in the same room their combined pizazz would destroy the universe. They did, but thankfully all that happened was a bit of reality rearrangement, some time travel, things went wibbly wobbly, and after a heartfelt speech from Isaiah got past-Fabio to back down, everything went back to normal. *Old Spice jingle whistle*
Very heavily used in a commercial for Verizon, wherein Michael Bay spent the entire commercial saying how he doesn't just have things, he has awesome things. And every time he points out an awesome piece of furniture, appliance, or even his POOL, it erupts in a huge fireball.
- Awesome Barbecue.
Nintendo Power will blow up your head, your house, and even the planet itself!

Anime and Manga

In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Simon and Viral once actually killed an armada of enemies with nothing but the sheer awesome they radiate.
- It is also canonical that, if Spiral Power is overused, the violation of conservation of mass will create a supermassive black hole and end the universe.
  - In other words, the sheer amount of Awesomeness in TTGL is actually capable of DESTROYING THE UNIVERSE.
- Lordgenome also repeatedly sets himself on fire by doing awesome things and generally being Lord genome.
- In The Movie version, everybody gets a Tengen Toppa mecha and poses as a team. A galaxy sized volcano spontaneously forms behind them and erupts/explodes.
The combination sequence of the Getter Emperor is apparently so awesome that it generates energy levels equal to the Big Bang and shakes the universe.
In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, the most powerful mages have to have Power Limiters attached to them, even more so if they're in a group together. Otherwise, they'd run the risk of having their sheer combined power potentially warping the fabric of reality.
- Actualy it's to keep unit power levels moderate. Because, let's face it, Hayate is basically a living magical nuke, Nanoha has more firepower than a battleship and Fate can pretty much beat anything she can touch. Those three alone pretty much constitute an army. And then put all three into the same unit.
  - Apparently both are true.
Sengoku Basara. The characters are all so manly and hotblooded that something is bound to spontaneously explode from the sheer overwhelming awesome at least once an episode.
At one point, the release date for Tiger & Bunny's BTB image song was pushed back two weeks. The "official" reason for the delay was that the awesome combination of elements that comprised it produced an unexpected chemical reaction and blew up the sound studio.
Invoked in Excel Saga when Nabeshin concludes that anything capable of undoing the Freaky Friday Flip in the final episode will have to be highly volatile, so he simply lights a stick of dynamite and holds it out toward those affected. It works.

Live-Action TV

It's very often in Super Sentai / Power Rangers team ups for this to occur: Both teams morph, do an Ass Kicking Pose, and then things behind them explode due to how awesome having both teams morph in the same place at the same time is. Most notable is the In Space / Lost Galaxy team up, which happens right before the two groups whoop the asses of the PSYCHO RANGERS.
- Power Rangers RPM, being one of the more meta series, actually covered this. Ziggy asks Doctor K why things spontaneously blow up behind them when they morph, and she explains it as run-off energy from the morphing process being shunted. In the same episode, Flynn has to fix his malfunctioning morpher, but realizes that doing so will have a lot more feedback than usual. His solution? Weaponize the ensuing henshin explosion and take out a squadron of mooks.
- Also present in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers during the original Ultrazord sequence. There's a massive explosion as the Mega Dragonzord completes its descent into Titanus' carrying bay.
Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! has a title sequence so awesome that its creators' heads appear to explode into showers of kitten heads. And that's the least concerning thing about the show.
In iCarly, it's said the two most powerful warrior classes in a World of Warcraft parody can't fight because the resulting epic battle would be so volatile, it'd destroy the multiverse.

Movies

JB has a dream sequence in Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny where his singing is so awesome it makes a dude's head explode.
"I did not mean! To blow your mind! But that shit happens to me...all the time!"
- A few seconds prior, as he begins his song and turns on his Glass-Shattering Voice, the microphone catches on fire.
In Gnomeo and Juliet, users of the Terrafirminator are warned in the advert that 'In some rare cases, users may explode when viewing the Terrafirminator.'

Tabletop Games

In Adeptus Evangelion your ability to pull off awesome things in your mecha is a stat called Synch ratio, which can change when you get hurt. More=better, at least until you go above 100% at which point it starts to eat your soul alive. Then you pass 200% and essentally attain the power of god. In less than five minutes, you will collapse into Tang. It is sure to be a Awesome Moment, and a Dying Moment of Awesome.

Web Comics

Mindy suffers an awesomeness-induced coma in this Cinema Bums strip.
Here in Dork Tower:
"If tvtropes.org had a lovechild with damnyouautocorrect.com, the universe would disappear in a singularity of win, you know..."

Video Games

Mr. Torgue's life philosophy in Borderlands 2: absolutely nothing can't be made better by blowing it the f*ck up.
The Portal of Awesome in Billy Vs SNAKEMAN. If putting two Memetic Badasses together causes that much devastation, imagine what would happen if you did that with seven. If a village's leader is able to open it up, it means the village is about to go down in a blaze of Awesome. Once that happens, everyone in the village gets a bonus, and the leader is allowed to build up an even more awesome village from the ashes. The Wasteland is filled with the fallout of these Awesomizations.
World of Warcraft introduced the Lethal Joke Character "Bard" class as an April Fools joke. The class would wield an axe called "The Facemelter" whose Power Of Rock was sufficient to melt faces.

Web Original

The opening title of The Spoony Experiment is a black screen showing the letters: "The following sequence may be the most awesome thing to ever precede a rant on a game or a film. Your head may explode."
- When Dr. Insano reviewed The Dungeonmaster, he said that the rock music in one scene was too awesome for any man withstand.
- In his commentary for The Clones Of Bruce Lee review, he stated someone could clone Eddie Van Halen, and they would play rock at the same time and cause the universe to explode.
SFDebris assumes this about Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan:
"Ceti Alpha VI just blew up one day. I really have no idea how that just happened. Best guess, Khan took his shirt off, and his genetically enhanced Latin body was just too much for it to take."
- When Sisko, Spock and Kirk are on the screen at the same time, his computer shut down for *ahem* ...personal, reasons...
'My computer � Ruby � shut down, and I noticed a wet spot under her processor."
According to Chuck Norris Facts, if Chuck Norris and Mr T walk into a room together, that room will explode due to the combined awesomeness being too much to contain.
- One time, Mr T once pitied a fool at the exact moment Chuck Norris roundhouse-kicked him in the ribs. The result was The Eighties.
2:00 into this video from Im A Marvel And Im A DC. Now even though the mixed reviews of both meant that didn't happen, it otherwise counts as this trope.
From Badass of the Week, discussing Ellen Ripley, came this line describing how a mecha suit fighting a space monster seemed like something you'd just have to imagine, "the fact that it's an actual scene from a movie makes my head want to implode from the G-force that the "Awesomeness Field" around my computer is generating."
Zero Punctuation at the end of the No More Heroes review claims the universe would end (but it would be awesome) if No More Heroes was combined with Branston Pickle. (Whereas Branston Pickle + Chocolate Eggs = Squick).
This one is kind of a Memetic Mutation in Brazil. In a satirical video where resident Memetic Badass Captain Nascimento (from the movie The Elite Squad) was trying to interview Chuck Norris, the two of them started to differ in opinion and it seemed they would break into a fight. Right then both stopped and decided it would be better to call another guest, since the two of them fighting would trigger a chain reaction that would make the universe implode.
There is YouTube video of Norio Wakamoto performing a parody of the Giga Drill Break(er). It was bleeped out, and someone in the comments section suggested that it was because, if that combined awesomeness was left unfiltered, it would destroy everything within 15 miles of the speakers.
In Chester A. Bum's review of The Expendables, he says that Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzeneger being in the same room could have caused the world to explode. He then remarks that, given the movie's love of Stuff Blowing Up, this is exactly what happened.
As Alternate History Dot Com found out:
"Keira Knightley, along with Natalie Portman may hold the key to the salvation of the Universe itself. If Samuel L. Jackson and Mr T were to ever team up, they might well keep their beer in the same fridge. Any fridge used by both Jackson and T would be the coolest object known to mankind, so cool that it might slowly bring all atomic motion to a halt. The only way to avert this would be for Keira Knightley and Natalie Portman to make out, thus producing an equivalent level of hotness to counter the sheer coolness of the Jackson/Mr. T fridge."
When Obscurus Lupa was writing down awesome lines Burt says in Tremors II, her notebook eventually blows up.

Western Animation

The intro dream sequence in Kung Fu Panda has this:
Po (narrating): He was so deadly in fact, that his enemies would go blind from over exposure to pure awesomeness!
The Omniscient Council of Vagueness of Metalocalypse believes that the end of the world shall be caused by the Epic Rocking of the main characters' band Dethklok. They seem to be on the ball.
In this scene from the ATHF movie Meatwad busts out a guitar solo so face meltingly awesome, and on a two string toy guitar no less, that he explodes when he finishes.
The Sponge Bob Square Pants Movie
Plankton: The helmets can't handle this level of Rock and Roll!
In Regular Show, Mordecai and Rigby become so cool they almost cause an implosion of cool that could destroy the universe