So you have made The Stoic and you have made him well. Not a crease or indent ever forms when the action starts around him and the blood starts flowing since he's such a tough, battle-ready anti-hero and possibly because action stars don't make the best emotive actors. The problem is what do you do when you need to show off that emotion? When the Big Bad comes to your hometown, burns it to the ground, enslaves his family, kicks his puppy and leaves his girlfriend's corpse inside some sort of chilled food storage device. Do you make him explode with rage and potentially lose his Bad Ass image to your lead's Narmtastic acting or just leave him standing there with the same implacable look on his face leaving the audience unconvinced that It's Personal?
Crck-crck-crk-ckchk
A series of short sharp crackling noises and a close up of the heroes fist shows you that his Kung Fu grip has gone into overload and that his anger has manifested itself not into pointless words but into preparing his fist for the hard beatdown. Wow before he wasn't even trying hard enough to stress his joints but now he is willing to clench!
Sometimes the knuckle cracking sound is removed, maybe for the sake of realism, maybe because some people find it too squicky and then it will be replaced by the hero actually crushing something in his hand. Bonus points if its made out of metal, points removed if its only a paper note.
OK, great job. Your hero is walking around and he sure is pissed. He's walking at a constant pace to fight The Dragon who killed his old master and then vent his fury on The Big Boss in the ultimate showdown. Oh hold on, there are some lowly mooks in the way, oh it's even worse than that, it's just some random gang who's getting in the way. Well geez, how are we meant to play this for drama? The guy has already gone through swaths of baddies and gotten all the best equipment, they can't be a threat, we've got to hold the Badass Boast and speech for the top fight but the audience will get bored if he kills a man with one punch and then keeps punching him anyway.
Well, it did work the first time...
Crck-crck-crk-ckchk
He's cracking his knuckles, he's cracking his neck, his shoulders, his knees, he's even making a few stretches. Aha, this time he's unimpressed. You may not tell it from his face, you may not have realised that thing on his face was a smirk but now he's so unworried by the oncoming fight, he's taking time to get comfortable first. You can even go one further and hold off the cracking until after the fight, that shows he never even had to worry about being uncomfortable even while unleashing a flurry of judo chops and kung fu kicks.
It might be useful to know that the sound released has nothing to do with the bones themselves, but rather with the joints between the bones*
The popping sound is thought to be trapped bubbles of gas being released, amongst other theories
, and that you're not actually damaging the joints or bones significantly by doing this, and does not increase the chance of having arthritis - contrary to an old piece of "advice". What it does is provide increased looseness and flexibility of a joint temporarily following a crack, at the cost of a slight cumulative reduction in the joint's strength - crack your knuckles and you get a weaker grip.
Subtrope of Kinetic Clicking.
Examples
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
The protagonists from Dragon Ball Z do this all the time before and during a fight.
Super Buu did a LOT of neck-cracking. Which is funny when you think about it, as he didn't have bones.
In his introduction story in the anime, Ryôga crushes several walnuts to dust with his fist, vowing to make Ranma pay for something or other. In the manga, he crushes a single walnut... between index and thumb. Effortlessly. Since Ryoga constantly does things like lifting immense boulders and smashing walls by banging his head against them in frustration, this isn't surprising
Ranma is pretty fond of the "cracking knuckles and popping joints to show he's getting serious" version, and much like Inu-Yasha he favors the "cracking fingerjoints with an open fist" method. Also, in at least the anime version of Hinako's arrival, he effortlessly bends a yen coin completely in half after taking it from her. Between thumb and forefinger.
The first sign that someone is going to die already dead in Fist of the North Star is a cracking noise coming from Kenshiro. Which is only to be expected as he's a Bruce Lee Clone.
Scar of Fullmetal Alchemist cracks the joints in his right hand dramatically when he's about to use the Power Tattoo located on his right arm.
Shiron from Legendz cracks his neck before some fights.
While there's not that much obvious noise, when Blue or Toboe from Wolf's Rain start clenching shaking fists, somebody's in for an asskicking.
Dr. Stein from Soul Eater cracks the joints in his neck at one point. This is tension leaving his body as he stops holding back his insanity.
Though no fists were involved, this trope probably still applies in Riding Bean, where Bean Bandit keeps casually throwing chestnuts in his mouth, until he finally bites, cracking them all at once. He's got some Bad Ass jaw muscles.
Keroro Gunso. This is practically Natsumi Hinata's go to move. When you hear cracking knuckles, a certain green house guest is fixing to get a beating.
An old standard of Kung Fu movies is to have a group from a rival school (often Japanese) come in and start disrespecting the Hero's school and his recently deceased master, maybe making a pass at his girlfriend. Fist of Fury, which uses the Chin Woo school as a basis, has a scene where this occurs and we get Lee standing there, taking the insults but with a knuckle crack to show how angry he is getting and to step up the tension.
On the flip side, an example of the "cool" variety, before his fight with Chuck Norris at the Colosseum in Way of the Dragon, both fighters step up to each other take off their shirts and then turn around to warm up. Norris only does some Cracking Up before starting on some karate moves but Lee goes on to crack his entire upper body and show off his muscular definition.[1]
Kung Fu Hustle uses it as a parody of/homage to (it's hard to tell which with Stephen Chow) Bruce Lee, when the Landlady menaces Brother Sum with knuckle-cracking to warn him away from Pig Sty Alley.
Blade 2 starts with Blade storming in a den of mooks, shooting the place up and then jumping several stories down to chase after the fleeing. He then cracks his neck.
My Demon Lover, a film where Nick from Family Ties turns into The Devil whenever he gets an erection, has the, er... "hero" going nuts over a misplaced pack of Fritos followed by some gut-wrenching knuckle cracking.
In the X-Men film series, it appears a side effect of mutant healing factors is mutant joint-cracking, with Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike really going at this trope for all it's worth. Of course, they don't have to worry about arthritis.... Justified in Deathstrike's case, since her claws are inside her fingers. They need to be kept loose, and are probably sore quite often. Bonus points for adding a metal clanking noise when they crack their knuckles, hinting at their adamntium skeletons.
In Snatch, Brad Pitt's character stretches and cracks up after being sucker punched at the start of a fight early in the movie. Unsurprisingly, he wins. It's worth noting that as he stretches and cracks up his opponent continues to pound him seven ways 'til Sunday. And then Pitt checks his clock with one punch.
The mobster guy in Dumb and Dumber. The one with the heart condition.
Random Task in the first Austin Powers movie. Largely as a parody of Odd Job from Goldfinger, the ultimate Stoic.
Agent Smith cracks his neck a lot in The Matrix films.
He cracks his knuckles and his neck during the subway fight in the first movie.
As they start to wander off at the end of the Burly Brawl in the second movie, several of the Smiths do it as an ensemble.
Subverted with some random mook in the first movie, right before he promptly got owned by Sub-Zero.
And played straight in the sequel. Perhaps a little too straight. Shao Kahn must have a really bad neck, because he barely moves his head and it still cracks.
Tyler Durden of Fight Club cracked his neck after throwing the main character down a flight of stairs during the finale.
Used at the end of the catfight sequence in Bringing Down the House. The female lead (Queen Latifa) has just unleashed a serious ass-whoopin' on the Alpha Bitch. After all the Bond One Liners are said, all the punches have been thrown, Latifa straightens up, and shouts. "And I NEVER want to have this conversation again." Then cracks her neck. Slightly different, as she does this to show that the Libby did, in fact, put up a good fight.
Undercover Brother. Lance does a neck crack after killing the three guards in The Man's island fortress.
Men in Black. The Bug does a neck crack after it crawls out of the pit wearing its nice new Edgar suit.
In the first Resident Evil movie, Rain Ocampo does a neck crack right after turning into a zombie in the subway car.
Jimmy Jones (né Tudeski) spends most of The Whole Nine Yards as a friendly guy with a slight tendency to rant and a history of murder for profit. Always keeps his cool. Then he finds out that Oz slept with his estranged wife and completely loses it. That he cracks his neck is more punctuation than necessary for proof that he's angry.
Oz: He's upset. I've upset a mass murderer.
In The Sandlot, Benny cracks his knuckles (one handed) when he faces off with The Beast.
Hackman (Terry Crews) in Gamer does a lot of neck-cracking.
Literature
Variation in Titus Groan, in which Flay is constantly followed around by a leitmotif of joint-cracking, and his Let's Get Dangerous scene involves him wrapping his knees in bandages to allow him to sneak up on his enemy without his skeleton betraying him.
Live-Action TV
Spoofed on an NCIS episode. McGee tries to act tough by doing this, while Tony (falsely) points out that doing so is an warning sign for the early stages of arthritis.
Spoofed on Family Matters. When Urkel uses a machine to turn himself into Bruce Lee, he starts out an fight with an extended series of cracking, the noises of which barely even match up with the motions that are supposed to be making them. Then it goes Up to Eleven and Overly-Long Gag when Urkel, Richie and 3J all become literal Bruce Lee Clone and begin cracking and whining noises.
Whenever Kotaro Minami transforms in Kamen Rider BLACK, his fists make cracking noises.
Kamen Rider Ryuki has Asakura/Ouja and US counterpart Kamen Rider Dragon Knight has JTC/Strike (but not Price, the second, non-sociopathic Strike) do a neck-crack before going in to inflict some suffering.
Pro Wrestling
Chris Benoit... it's still hard to mention him. :(
Video Games
One of the finest examples of the "crushing" variant comes in Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations. As cool, collected, magnificently sardonic Diego Armando comforts Mia over the disastrous end of her first trial, his hand tightens on his omnipresent coffee mug. He doesn't even flinch as it shatters, holding up his bleeding fist as he delivers one of the most profound lines in the series.
Before him, on being driven to the wall, Dee Vasquez tightens her grip on her pipette so much that it snaps.
In Breath of Fire 3, the gargoyle-like prizefighter, Garr, would usually, pull up his belt, and crick his neck in both directions.
Also earlier in the game, when Bunyan cracks his knuckles after catching your team robbing his house red-handed.
Paul Phoenix in the Tekken games did the neck crack in his little fight intro.
Marshall and Forest Law, also, had some knuckle and wrist cracking and are complete Bruce Lee Clones.
In one skit of Tales Of Destiny 2, Loni Dunamis starts mentioning on how no guy will be attracted with Nanaly Fletch, because... she's a tomboy. Then cue to Nanaly cracking her knuckles (with sound effects), which scared Loni shitless and the rest, she starts cracking his bones.
Cracking his neck side-to-side (especially when he's feeling flustered) is one of Jecht's quirks in Final Fantasy X.
Jill and Wesker do this in Resident Evil 5 at the beginning of your fight with them assuming you don't shoot them first.
Not Jill. She stands like some soldier at the ready while Wesker cracks up, then hisses in some wildbeast pose in the second fight.
Guilty Gear's Sol Badguy does this in one of his fight intros.
As seen in the trope image, Shepard invokes this trope in Mass Effect a lot, usually as warm up in order to extract information from a hesitant informant. Unsurprisingly, if you understand anything about Shepard, it works. One volus was savvy enough that all s\he had to do was crack knuckles to comply.
A deleted scene from Spider-Man: The Movie: The Game has Shocker doing this. With no sound, oddly.
The character select screen in Warhammer Online has the Chaos Chosen flex his fingers and clench his fist in a soundless example of the trope, but the Orc Choppa simply grabs his own head and noisily cracks his neck.
Mr. Sandman in Punch-Out!! Wii will start a new round by cracking his shoulders.
Tokugawa Ieyasu from Sengoku Basara dramatically cracks his knuckles before his Basara attack, appropriate since he's a fist fighter. Kuroda Kanbe also cracks his neck during his taunt, complaining that he "needs a break".
Van Von Hunter sort of plays with this trope; the signature move of the Flaming Prince is saying "I will CRUSH you like this [noun]!" while acting this out. Often said object is something he really does not want to crush, due to it being valuable or very painful.
Of all people, Richie Rich's mother had this as a habit.
Occasionally played for comedy, with a piano player about to attempt a difficult piece. For example, Bugs Bunny in Rhapsody Rabbit.
In one Batman: The Animated Series episode there's a crook who is loudly declaring "I'm no squealer" that Batman needs to get information out of. Batman just cracks his knuckles and narrows his eyes threateningly. The guy talks.
And as for neck cracking, Starfire on Teen Titans does one badass neck cracking in "Go", where you really see what an upbringing by a warrior race will do for you when you're scared and in a strange place having just escaped being a war prize, and implied sex slave. Scary.
Played for laughs in Jackie Chan Adventures. Jackie is split into two by a talisman, and his yang side cracks his neck, pauses, then cracks it again while beating on some mooks.
Parodied in The Simpsons. When Hollywood execs come to make his comic book creation into a movie, Comic Book Guy does a long series of cracking different body parts, ending with cracking his pony tail.
Would you believe that Optimus mimes the knuckle-cracking move in episode 41 of Transformers Cybertron (or 42, if you follow Galaxy Force)?
Another example of "character who has no bones and is therefore invincible but shows being invincible by cracking his neck despite having no bones after being beaten up" is in Ultimate Avengers 2, when the alien Nazi shapeshifter (who is kind of a colony of slugs) does this after falling from a great height.
When SpongeBob SquarePants tries cracking his knuckles, he ends up breaking them instead.
Same thing happened to Bart Simpson of The Simpsons.
Bart: Ow, my bones are so brittle! But I always drink plenty of—... (looks at carton) Malk?
Rock Callahan, Kick Buttowski's favorite action hero, has a habit of cracking his neck while delivering his One Liners.
In the SouthPark episode "Tweak vs Craig" right before their fight Craig cracks his neck.
