This is an amusing injury that usually occurs in a Zany Cartoon. A character's body part (commonly hands and fingers) gets injured in some way such as receiving a Crushing Handshake, dropping something on their foot, getting hit on the nose, hitting their finger with the hammer while hammering in a nail (the latter of which is common in old-style cartoons), and many other ways, then their body part will turn red (or in rare cases purple) and start throbbing and swelling.
Some body parts this can happen with include, but are not limited to, are hands, fingers, tongues, noses, feet, toes, limbs, and ears.
This is usually Played for Laughs. This is almost never done in live-action works, as the throbbing is often exaggerated in animated/cartoon works.
Interestingly, one occasional feature of this trope, having the affected part throb in rhythm to a heartbeat sound, is somewhat Truth in Television. Since inflammation works by dilating blood vessels (including arteries) to let white blood cells, clotting factors and other things associated with healing injuries and infections into the site, it may be possible to feel a stronger pulse through an area that’s become swollen.
A sister-trope to Cranial Eruption and sub-trope of Editorial Synesthesia. Compare Heart Beats out of Chest and Cross-Popping Veins. Not to be confused with Red Right Hand.
Examples:
- In One Piece, when Nami ends up getting sick via a bite from a prehistoric species of flea from the island of Little Garden, Luffy ends up figuring out the hard way that something's definitely wrong with her after she starts seeming to not feel very good when he places his hand on her forehead...only to shriek and withdraw his now painfully burned hand from her forehead. Said hand turns red and starts briefly throbbing from the heat of Nami's fever.
- In the fourth episode of Future Boy Conan, after sneaking onto the ship with Jimsy and causing trouble for the crew, Conan and Jimsy are sentenced to being spanked with a plank or be hung. They opt to be spanked, but Jimsy passes out with one hit because he was drunk from drinking an entire bottle of wine so Conan offered to take both sides of the spanking and ends up being spanked forty times. After he regains consciousness, Jimsy notices that Conan’s butt is bigger than usual, he pulls down his pants and finds that it’s bright pink and throbbing.
- In Happy Heroes 2: The Battle of Planet Qiyuan, the gang visits a secret museum of various relics such as weapons and clothing left behind by famous superheroes. Big M. sees and attacks an oddly familiar-looking red-and-blue colored, web-shooting glove, resulting in his hand being injured and his fingers throbbing.
- In The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, when Timon tries to shoo the birds away from eating all of the bugs, one of them pecks at his nose, which turns red and starts throbbing.
- A live-action example occurs in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, which has this scene
in which a character's big toe is swollen and throbbing after being shot. However, it is only seen swelling through the shoe, as the toe itself is never shown bare or red.
- In Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out!, Larry needs to take the dumbwaiter up to Shamra's suite every time he wants to talk to her. Often, his nose will get stuck when he closes the door, causing it to get comically red and swollen.
- Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures: When Pac-Man slides too far down a rope, his gloved hand (!) glows red and throbs as he suffers rope-burn.
- This Mike Du Jour comic shows Mr. Meenky complaining about throbbing pains after getting hit on the head with a mallet.
- In the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog episode, "Trail of the Missing Tails", Grounder sets a trap for Sonic. When he loads a safe onto one of his catapults, the safe falls off it and lands on his right tread, putting him in pain as it now turns into a throbbing foot. Keep in mind that Grounder is a robot.
- Another instance has Robotnik's eye do this after a building collapses on him. He then pulls out a brick from under his eyelid.
- When Snoopy tries to unfold a lawn chair in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, the chair snaps and closes on his paw, causing it to turn red and throb.
- Kevin slams the door on Eddy's hand in the Ed, Edd n Eddy episode "From here to Ed", causing it to turn red and throb.
- On an episode of The Jetsons, Judy calls George at work. When she asks how he is, George complains that his finger is hurting (shown throbbing), as pretty much all he does at his job is press buttons.
- In The Lone Chipmunks, during one effort to capture Peg-leg Pete, Dale misjudges the "ready" signal, and sends Chip tumbling off a cliff instead. When Chip returns, scuffed and ruffled, Dale inquires, "Didja get 'im?" Chip's response is a Dope Slap jab to Dale's nose, which throbs to double size twice.
- In the Quick Draw McGraw episode "The Bad Guys Disguise", Quick Draw camouflages himself as a woman with Baba Looey posing as "her" baby in a carriage. When villain Tombstone Jones affectionately tickles Baba Looey under the chin, the burro bites his index finger, leaving teeth marks and causing it to throb.
- In The Simpsons episode "The Parent Rap", Homer's hand turns purple and starts throbbing after the handcuffs put on him are too tight.
- SpongeBob SquarePants
- In "MuscleBob BuffPants", SpongeBob's arms are throbbing after his workout with Sandy.
- There is also the episode titled "The Splinter", in which SpongeBob's splinter causes his thumb turns red and swell up to multiple times the size.
- In "The Check-Up", Mr. Krabs is tricked into pinching his other claw, which cracks and reveals his skin throbbing underneath.
- Several humorous instances of throbbing appear in Teen Titans, usually by virtue of a character either getting hit somewhere or (in one notable instance) repeatedly punching something made out of a very sturdy metal.
- Eric has a throbbing vein in Stressed Eric, which strangles him Once per Episode.
- Tom and Jerry
- In "Quiet Please!", Tom sticks his fingers on the barrels of a shotgun to keep it from firing, and both fingers come out red and throbbing.
- In "Trap Happy", Butch gets his fingers not just pinned under a heavy wall, but whacked with a hammer by Jerry. His fingers swell up like balloons, then his claws flip open and steam comes out as they deflate back to normal, complete with teakettle whistle.
