Sometimes people just talk too much or too wantonly, and unfortunately just telling them to be quiet doesn't cut it. What's a great solution? Shove a piece of food into their faces to shut them down.
This is a highly effective way to stop someone from talking out of turn, often due to how surprised, annoyed, angry, or embarrassed the victim of the food shove is in response, although it begs the question why they don't just take the food out of their mouths and continue talking or just eat the food. This trope is not to be confused with a Baguette Beatdown (which is covered underneath an Edible Bludgeon) or Force Feeding; both of those are considered far more harmful and as such any examples should go there. Similarly can be the means of less than subtle character to force the results of laced edibles.
A Sub-Trope of Unconventional Food Usage. Compare and contrast with Hand Gagging, Pie in the Face, "Shut Up" Kiss, Finger Muzzle, "Be Quiet!" Nudge, Big "SHUT UP!", Preemptive "Shut Up" and Rapid-Fire "Shut Up!". Despite the implications, it's unlikely to lead to a Food Fight. See also its Spiritual Successor, Food Slap. Just like with its successor though, Don't Try This at Home; it's seen as assault and God forbid the food is shoved in too forcefully and the person chokes on it. Additionally, you could break someone's teeth if the foodstuff is a relatively hard and unyielding one. There's also the danger of the person inhaling the foodstuff if they're not expecting it, which can cause aspiration pneumonia, which can be lethal; similarly if the victim has an unknown food sensitivity.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Exaggerated in Chapter 88 when Karane shoves a stack of cookies she made into Rentarou's face when he loudly compliments how good they are, landing them in his mouth and in his eyes.
- Luminous Witches: While Eleonore Giovanna Gassion and Aira Paivikki Linnamaa explore Broadway in "Together With The Stars", Aira briefly complains about Ellie's love of New York City despite being a Gallian citizen. This prompts Ellie to flick a popcorn kernel into Aira's mouth.
- Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: In an episode of S, Tohru shoves a donut into Ilulu's mouth to out of frustration when the latter claims that sleeping around their apartment all day is a hobby.
- Pokémon Adventures: During the Full Force Tournament in Alola, a Team Skull grunt shoves a grilled Slowpoke tail down the announcer's mouth to stop him from talking bad about Team Skull.
- Sailor Moon: Ami does this to Luna in episode 91, when Luna starts to voice objections to adopting the kittens that the Senshi have found.
Fan Works
- The Killer Dame
is a parody of the Star Trek: Voyager episode "The Killing Game". At the start of Part Two, Lethal Chef Neelix has been brainwashed into thinking he's a Gestapo agent and starts Perp Sweating Harry Kim by beating him up with the contents of his kitchen.
"I ASK THE QUESTIONS!" Neelix roared, picking up a bowl of sauerkraut with diced pork and breaking it over the ensign's head. The Talaxian wrapped a spotted paw around Harry's neck and proceeded to stuff a long French loaf smothered in thick lashings of butter and strawberry jam down his throat. Harry's jaws worked frantically as he tried to eat his way out of suffocation. - On a Cross and Arrow: The Mane Six are stuck in a dimension where everyone is the opposite gender as their original counterpart, and are trying not to reveal where they're from until they can get home. When Pinkie Pie is about to say more than she should, Applejack shoves an apple in her mouth to shut her up. Her male counterpart (also named Applejack) does the same thing to Pinkie's counterpart, Berry Bubble.
- In the Slash Fic comedy The Relevance of Discretion, Seven of Nine starts giving Too Much Information on why she and B'Elanna want Neelix to give them a cucumber from Voyager's kitchen, so B'Elanna shoves an apple in her mouth and drags her out the door. And then returns to grab the cucumber.
- In the Encanto fanfic That Catch in Your Throat, when Bruno insists to the kids that his illness isn't that bad, Julieta shuts him up with a spoonful of soup.
Film — Animation
- The Princess and the Frog: Charlotte La Bouff and her father visit Duke's cafe to share the news with Tiana that Prince Naveen is coming to New Orleans and staying at their mansion. Charlotte, in her excitement, keeps interrupting Big Daddy until he shoves a beignet into her mouth so he can finish telling Tiana for her.
- Trolls: When Chef attempts to force-feed Creek to King Gristle Jr., Gristle constantly tries to give her a reason to wait until Trollstice instead, each time having Chef add a food ingredient on Creek in case Gristle wouldn't like to directly taste him. When Gristle talks about Trollstice for the third time, Chef ultimately shoves Creek into his mouth (as pictured above).
Film — Live-Action
- Tales from Muppetland: The Frog Prince: During dinner, Robin tries to warn King Rupert that "Aunt Taminella" is really a witch, but every time he does, Taminella "offers" him a popover and stuffs it into his mouth. When she offers to take the frog away, King Rupert agrees, as "he's eating all the popovers."
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit: When Angelo is stepping on Eddie's Berserk Button at the bar, Eddie kicks his stool out from under him, growls at him, then shoves a hard-boiled egg in his mouth.
Literature
- When his baby half-brother Brett embarrasses him by saying "hello brudder", Adrian Mole shoves a rusk in his mouth to silence him.
- Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi: During dinner time, when Lan Jingyi is disturbed to see Wei Wuxian tied up by Lan Wangji and is about to explain the importance behind the Lan Clan's forehead ribbon, Lan Sizhui stuffs a chicken wing in his mouth to shut him up and save the protagonists some face. The chicken scene is iconic enough to be kept in all adaptations (although under different circumstances in The Untamed), and the Animated Adaptation upgrades the size by turning the chicken wing into a chicken thigh.
- In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, when Harry gets out of the hospital bed to desperately tell Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge that Sirius Black is innocent, an irritated Madam Pomfrey shoves a bar of chocolate in his mouth as he's talking and puts him back in his bed.
Live-Action TV
- Farscape: Played for Drama in "Crackers Don't Matter". The first sign the crew are Not Themselves is when D'Argo catches Rygel swiping food and starts violently shoving crackers into his mouth.
- The Golden Girls: Given Sophia's nature, Dorothy has preemptively told her to shut up or covered her mouth. One moment had her shove a fork full of cheesecake she was eating into her mouth.
- House of Anubis: In one episode, Sibuna is discussing the possibility that KT is working for Victor. When Alfie jokingly calls her evil and starts leaning a little too close to Fabian while laughing, Fabian nonchalantly shoves a roll in his mouth to quiet him up.
- Malcolm in the Middle: In the episode "Evacuation" a National Guard soldier comes to the house and informs the family that they're being evacuated because of a toxic waste spill caused by someone leaving a couch on some train tracks and causing the train to derail. As Dewey starts to mention how he and Hal accidentally lost a couch on their way to the dump, Hal stuffs Dewey's ice cream cone into his mouth.
- Saved by the Bell:
- "The Substitute" has Screech attempting to woo Lisa with some Shakespeare-esque poetry, which ends with "So you may dip your French fries in my face". She does just that.
- "Fake I.D.s" has Screech making fake I.D.s for the guys. When he starts to tell Zack's Mom about them, Slater shoves a brownie in his mouth.
- "Snow White and the Seven Dorks" has an angry Wicked Queen Kelly, who caught Jessie kissing Zack though it wasn't what it looks like, shove an apple into the mouth of Snow White Jessie during the school play and growls at her, "I hope you choke on it, beanpole."
- In the That '70s Show episode "The Magic Bus", Hyde shoves cake into Jackie's mouth to stop her from revealing what his nickname is for her.
Video Games
- Tales of Berseria: In revenge for Magilou making fun of her Sense Loss Sadness from being unable to taste food, Velvet forces horribly Foul Medicine down her throat.
Western Animation
- Arthur: In the episode "Buster's Green Thumb", Muffy wants to sell the tomatoes Buster has been helping Mr. Langley - a gardener - grow. After he gets in trouble with Mr. Langley for taking too many tomatoes, he eventually makes amends with the older man and enlists his friends' help with the community garden. Muffy again makes suggestions for tomato products, to which Buster responds by "offering" her a piece of garlic bread and gently shoving it into her mouth.
- Batman: The Animated Series: In the episode "The Laughing Fish", the Joker is doing a commercial for his new brand of Joker Fish, and tries to get Harley to eat one to show how good they are. Harley sheepishly protests that she's got a problem with fish, but Mr. J just shoves it in her mouth. She manages to grunt out, "Yummy-yum-yum," before running offscreen to hurl.
- The Casagrandes: In "Matters of the Kart", Irving wins a pizza go-kart in a contest Carl tried to win and to get it from him, Carl tries to convince Irving that he is a caring, compassionate person who deserves it. After Carl saves Irving from Sergio's pigeon friendsnote , Irving decides to have dinner at the Casagrandes' apartment, which worries Carl, since his family knows that he's really a greedy and selfish scam artist. When Ronnie Anne tries to tell this to Irving, Carl shoves a churro in her mouth to shut her up.
- Jem: In "The Stingers Hit Town", Pizzazz, who had become smitten with lead singer Riot, abruptly shoves a donut into Roxy's mouth when she interrupts her when she tries to flirt with him.
- Kaeloo: In Episode 106, Kaeloo tries to trick Mr. Cat into buying a painting by telling him it's valuable and that it was made by a famous artist. Stumpy pipes in to say that it was actually drawn by him, but Kaeloo shoves a banana in his mouth to make him shut up.
- King of the Hill: Kahn throws a barbecue and grills hamburgers with mesquite. Naturally, Hank begins extolling the virtues of propane, and Kahn shoves a burger in his mouth in response ("Shut mouth and open mouth!"). Hank actually finds it delicious.
- In an episode of Master Raindrop, General Bu grows a second head with a Motor Mouth. Bu keeps giving the second head food and drink to shut it up.
- In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic pilot episode "Mare in the Moon", Pinkie Pie is in the midst of lightheartedly making a guessing game out of the name of the titular mare when Applejack shuts her up by stuffing a cupcake into her mouth.
- In the Rugrats (1991) episode "Angelica's Assistant", Angelica has a play date with Harold and is not looking forward to it at all. Harold, however, is, and tells this to Angelica as she's eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. When Susie arrives and asks them what's going on, Harold is about to tell her about his play date with Angelica when Angelica shoves her sandwich into his mouth, then says to Susie that he's never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before. When Harold tries again to tell Susie about his play date with Angelica, the stickiness of the sandwich leaves his words unintelligible.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Larry the Floor Manager", Bubble Bass takes so long to describe his typical Overcomplicated Menu Order at the Krusty Krab that he starts to drive customers away, prompting Mr. Krabs to shove a regular Krabby Patty into his mouth and kick him out.
- Total Drama: Staci is chatting away at Chef during the intro sequence of Revenge of the Island. After desperately finding earmuffs to protect himself, he shoves a spoon of food into her mouth to get her to shut up.
