Funny Spoon

aka: Everythings Spoonier With Spoons

"SPOOOOOOOOOOON!"

You wake up in the morning and you look at your old spoon, and you say to yourself, "Mick, it's time to get yourself a new spoon." And you do.

— Mick Jagger

No idea why, but spoons are funny somehow. Maybe it's because "spoon" belongs to the Inherently Funny Words. Interestingly, the word "spoony" has nothing to do with actual spoons. Even better than ordinary spoons are sporks.

If you want to add examples, keep in mind that they should be at least somewhat funny. This trope isn't about "Spoons Exist." Or people named Spooner, or such.

No relation to Spoonerisms.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Bleach, Nnoitra's collar with a very unusually, very large back is popularly referred to by fans as his "big spoon."
• In the first episode of Kyo Kara Maoh!, Yuuri is perplexed by the spork he's expected to use to eat his dinner. It even gets a brief pan-up shot.
• In Occult Academy, Bunmei defeated the alien invaders with a spoon.
• It's both funny and adorable when the title character of Shakugan no Shana angrily demands a spoon in the first episode. Watch it (looped for 10 minutes) here.

Comic Strips

• Dilbert has Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light, who's armed with a big pitch-spoon and darns people to heck. (Scott Adams wanted to use Satan, but was prevented by a good case of Executive Meddling.)
• One The Far Side strip had a luckless diner yet again receive a spoon with the concave side reversed.

Fan Works

• In Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness, Luna Lovegood can do magic with a spoon replacing her wand. Which she uses to make a picture made from food permanent, instead of using it to escape and break her friends out.
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality has spoons+4! (Knives only get +3, and forks +2. Now what's best?)

Films — Animation

• In WALL•E, WALL•E finds a spork and spends a moment wondering if it belongs with his collection of spoons or forks, and then sets it down in between the two piles.

Films — Live-Action

• In some countries, the poster for the film Amélie showed the title character holding up a spoon, before using it to crack the surface of creme brulee.
• In Bruce Almighty, Bruce is sitting in a diner and realizing his new omnipotence. He parts his tomato soup like the red sea, does kinethesis with table items, then starts to asks for a spoon which suddenly comes out of his own mouth as he says the funny word. "Excuse me, I need a spooo-ulgh!"
• In The Mask of Zorro, Diego challenges Alejandro to a duel. Alejandro grabs his sword. Diego brandishes a spoon. After the initial gag/double-take, Diego explains that the only way Alejandro's going to get within striking distance of the man he wants vengeance on is by learning guile, subterfuge... and courtly table manners.
• In The Matrix, there is no spoon, not even a levitating one.
• In Monty Python's Life of Brian a tiny house is searched by thirteen legionnaires, looking for Brian. Although the entire Peoples' Front of Judaea (including Brian) is hiding there, they find nothing, so they leave. A few moments later they return, because "there's one place we didn't look!". This time they find a spoon.
• MouseHunt: My Goodness. What a treasure. What a legacy. Spoons! SPOONS! So many spoons, so little time.
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: "I'm going to cut your heart out WITH A SPOON!"
• In The Room (2003), Johnny inexplicably has a framed photograph of a spoon on his coffee table. This was so odd, that audience members have taken to bringing plastic spoons with them to shows and throwing them at the screen whenever it appears.

Literature

• In Twenty-Six Nonsense Rhymes and Pictures, Edward Lear ups this trope by using made up adjectives to describe a Dolomphious Duck that eats spotted frogs with a "runcible spoon"◊.
• Discworld:
  • Unseen Academicals has the question "What is your favorite spoon?" as a parody of vapid questions asked by celebrity journalists. It also has, at the banquet, Vetinari picking up a spoon and apparently examining it with great care and deliberation as if it's an exotic artifact.
  • In Hogfather, The Bursar is asked to converse with Hex, a Magitek super-computer, and one of the things he says is "I've got a spoon of my own, you know."
• At the end of The Hobbit, Bilbo suspects that his relative Lobelia Sackville-Baggins stole a number of his silver spoons. By the time of The Lord of the Rings, he hasn't forgotten, and his goodbye present to her is a bunch of silver spoons "as a present". Lobelia isn't particularly amused. She still takes the spoons, though.
• In Room, one of Jack's named objects is Meltedy Spoon.

Live-Action TV

• The Chosen: When the demoniac interrupts them while they're cooking, Thomas grabs the knife to defend himself. Matthew grabs... the wooden soup spoon, to Thomas' confusion.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Seventh Doctor will play the spoons musically at the drop of a hat. Several regenerations later, the Twelfth uses one to beat Robin Hood in a sword fight.
  • The show's 50^th anniversary comedy special The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot features a scene that combines this trope with both Wacky Cravings and Actor Allusion: a very pregnant Georgia Tennant/Moffett (Doctor #5 Peter Davison's daughter and #10 David Tennant's wife) is shown scooping up her ice cream with an enormous celery stalk.
• In Fawlty Towers:
  • Twice, Basil raps Manuel on the head with a spoon.
  • In "The Hotel Inspectors", Mr Hutchison whom Basil mistakes for a hotel inspector is in fact a spoon salesman. The comedy of the word "spoon" is thus demonstrated:
    Basil: Spoons, eh?
    Mr Hutchison: I'm sorry?
    Basil: (blowing a raspberry) Sppppppppppppppppppppoons!
• In the Inside No. 9 episode "Cold Comfort", crisis helpline volunteer Andy overhears a call where a colleague keeps asking a client if they have tried using a spoon to fix their problem. What the problem is and what they need the spoon for can't be heard; but his expression suggests he doesn't think he wants to know.
• Kamen Rider Den-O: The spoon is critical to the DenLiner Owner's mealtime ritual, and later on we see a collection of... overly reimagined spoons. Scissor spoons. Nunchuck spoons. A twisted spoon intended as a pinky ring.
• In the Prison arc of My Name Is Earl, Jamal and Hector have broken up because Hector is worried about what their respective gangs will think of their hitherto Secret Relationship. The Black and Latino gangs go to war, and Jamal hands out weapons to his gang members. One of them is dismayed that he wound up with a spoon. Jamal slaps him on the shoulder and says, "Well, let's hope the other guy's got soup!", thus encouraging him.
• The Cardassians of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a sort of evil totalitarian space version of old Japan with an extra helping of cold-blooded, are called "spoonheads" as a demeaning insult, as their distinctive facial structures include a depression in the forehead that resembles the bowl of a spoon.
• In The Thin Blue Line: Inspector Fowler tells a teenage suspect that he is entitled to carry out an internal body search, "involving a rubber glove and a large spoon"; complete with Rowan Atkinson's knack of making ordinary words sound funny, in this case, the word "spoon".
• In episode 34 of Ultraman, Ultraman's host, Shin Hayata, mistakes a spoon for his Beta Capsule, and proudly raises it◊ as if it were the transformation item. Realising his error, he grabs the real capsule, and proceeds as usual. Hayata's actor, Susumu Kurobe, would do the same pose as Chief Tomioka in "Who Are You?", an episode of Ultraman Max.

Puppet Shows

• In The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, wannabe paladin podling Hup uses a spoon in place of a sword. When it breaks in a brawl, he replaces it with a bigger spoon. When the All-Maudra agrees to make him a paladin, she tells him (In complete seriousness) to bring his spoon into battle.
• The series Téléchat sometimes had the ostrich (puppet) moderator Lola have a talk round with a fork and a spoon (also sapient).

Print Media

• Private Eye's parody of lifestyle columns, "Me and My Spoon".

Music

• "Spoonman... come together with your hands..." Inspired by an actual street musician who uses spoons as instruments, too!

• Various things are used as instruments in many Songs to Wear Pants To songs, like spoons.
• Many "jug bands" of American folk music also use spoons as instruments.
• "It's like 10000 spoons when all you need is a knife..."
• When Dickie Smothers of the Smothers Brothers suggests to Tommy Smothers that they do a sing-along with the song Marching to Pretoria, he says, "We can all get up and march around the breakfast table!" Tommy replies, "Nobody has any spoons!"

Video Games

• Chex Quest, a kid-friendly Doom Game Mod replaced the Doom Marines fists with a Spoon... that somehow teleports enemies away. It was supposed to sell cereal after all. Of course they had to replace the chainsaw too, so they added a spinning-bladed laser-infused spork.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim features a unique item called Ysgramor's Soup Spoon. It's a fork.
  Calixto: Now, I know what you're thinking - that's not a spoon, it's a fork! No one can eat soup with a fork. Well, my friend, you did not know Ysgramor.
• PAYDAY 2 has the Comically Large Spoon, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: a large spoon. There's the Comically Large Spoon of Gold, which was unlocked by the Payday community reaching 5 million kills with the regular one. New players must kill 100 enemies with the non-golden variant to unlock it.
• Psycutlery: A floating, semi-sentient, mind-controlled spork with a single eyeball (which the player can name) forms the game's central mechanic. It can be launched like a boomerang for attacking, eating, grabbing, and throwing things. In some cases, it can also be used as a steppingstone. It can even wear different accessories!

Web Animation

• DSBT InsaniT: Spoon is a living spoon who suffers all sorts of unfortunate events.

Web Comics

• Dan from Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures once defeat seven Death Knights with a spork, though we never get to see it.
• Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire has a minor character named Runcible Spoon. Why? It's funny to hear his assistant shout, "Curse you, Runcible Spoon!"
• Girl Genius has both the madman Ogglespoon (in the Storm King opera) and a hand-cranked Runcible (spoon) gun. (Which goes "spork" just in case you missed the hint from the name...)
• Jane from Homestuck uses a spoon as her weapon of choice.
• In this strip of Loserz, Eric becomes fascinated with a spoon under the influence (of coffee).

Web Original

• The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon. The murderer's weapon is an ordinary spoon.

• The Room: The Game: An optional sidequest is to find all the spoons hidden throughout the city. Doing so unlocks an alternate ending where it's revealed that Johnny is from a race of spoon-obsessed aliens, who turn the Earth into a spoon.
• TV Tropes:
  • SPOON is a page dedicated to having fun with utensil based acronyms.
  • A lot of tropes have "spoon" in the title:
    • Ate the Spoon
    • Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon
    • Greasy Spoon
    • Spoony Bard, now just disambiguation.
    • Spoon Speaker is just a redirect nowadays, sadly. As is Like Gag Me With A Spoon.

Western Animation

• The fingerprint crook from The Amazing World of Gumball uses a dirty spoon to threaten his victims.
• A reformed villain in El Tigre had the power to control spoons. He actually managed to subdue two unreformed former partners with it.
• Used for Black Comedy in Happy Tree Friends. Lumpy had his leg pinned under a tree and after checking his pockets for something to free himself, he finds only a paper clip, a button... and a spoon. Given the nature of the show, you'd guess what he does with it.
• In The Kids from Room 402, Polly is an immigrant obsessed with spoons. She's got a spoon collection, and makes a spoon exhibition for the science fair. She once started a spoon hospital.
• In Rejected one clip begins with the statement "my spoon is too big!"
• Rick and Morty has this exchange as Rick is fending off an enemy while disarmed and injured:
  Rick: Morty, I don't want to be the "a little help" guy, but a little help?
  (Morty tosses him an ordinary silver spoon and Rick gouges the enemy's eye with it.)
  Rick: A spoon, Morty? A spoon?!
  Morty: I'm sorry.
  Rick: There's a pile of silverware next to you, and you throw me the one thing that can never kill anything?
  Morty: All right, okay!
• In an episode of Rocko's Modern Life ("Dear John"), Rocko's kitchen was destroyed by an errant falling satellite just days before a house party. He goes on a game show hoping to win a new kitchen and he wins a spoon. He is told that he'd have to compete in the show for the rest of the summer to win the whole kitchen.
• The Tick has his battlecry "SPOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!" Why does he yell that? Because he's ridiculous. Nonetheless someone's about to be clobbered.
• Presumably the sole reason spoons are the Absurd Phobia of vampires in Welcome to the Wayne and vampire hunters can telekinetically control them is cuz it's funny.

Real Life

• Spoon Sports makes custom-tuned cars. Apparently, they took their name from The Spoon, a particularly nasty (and spoon-shaped) curve on the old Suzuka Circuit.

• It has not gone unnoticed by children that if you look at your reflection in the bowl of a metal spoon, it appears upside down; those long and boring meals must fly by.
• Ornate collectible spoons have been a common souvenir since the mid-19th century. No one is sure why.
• Inverted with the "Spoon Theory" (actually, it's an analogy) of what it's like to live with a disability or long-term illness.

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