Hammered into the Ground

Good thing it's not that rabbit, or he'd ask what's up.

A situation where a victim would literally be at least partially driven into the ground, whether through an attack, heavy fall, or by any other forceful means. Especially seen in cartoons and in video games, where being driven into the ground can be Played for Laughs. In situations like this, the victim would remain mostly intact, aside from the fact that he is at least partway into the earth. Very occasionally, it is presented seriously, with a target (such as an armored robot) who is "realistically" durable enough to survive this sort of thing.

A variant of this trope may occur when a character is hit extremely hard - they'll be hammered with enough force that they get shot through the earth and will reappear on the other side of the world.

See also Anvil on Head and Squashed Flat.

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Examples

Advertising

• One Domino's advertisement has The Noid annoyed by the giant tablet with the restaurant's guarantee, that he attempted to kick it, only for it to collapse on him. Seconds later he dug himself out of the ground and moped while waist-deep.
• From a Foster's beer ad: "How to speak Australian. Fertilizer." (A guy planted headfirst into the ground)

Anime & Manga

• In Dragon Ball Z: Cooler's Revenge, one of Cooler's pummeling attacks on Goku once he reaches his fifth form has him slam the Saiyan into the ground.
  Cooler: Imma plant me a dumbass tree!
• In Mazin Kaiser's Beach Episode, Kouji and Sayaka take Mazinkaiser and Venus A to the beach. After Sayaka and Kouji have quiiiiite the fight... the one left half-in the water and with the legs sticking up in the air is Mazinkaiser, courtesy of Venus A.
• Naruto:
  • Pain at one point gets slammed in the ground like a nail by a berserk Four-Tailed Naruto.
  • Prior to Shippuden, Kakashi has done this to Sasuke with the use of "Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu".
    Kakashi: They say the nail that sticks up is the one that gets hammered down.
• In Neon Genesis Evangelion during the episode "Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!", Shinji and Asuka are defeated when they first face the angel. Each of their Humongous Mechas ends up buried head-downwards with its legs sticking up in the air. Asuka later mocks Shinji by saying his EVA looks like "a drowned rat", even though hers is just about the same.
• One Piece:
  • Basically, everyone at the wrong end of Luffy's Gum-Gum Gavel attack.
  • Also people at the receiving end of Tontatta Combat: Tail Hammer.
  • Saint Charlos is hammered into the ground and gets his skull Squashed Flat when he's struck by Sai's Drill Dragon Nail and Leo's Tail Hammer. At the same time.
  • During SWORD's raid in Hachinosu, Garp grabs Aokiji's face and throws him against the ground with such force that he leaves a deep, massive crater on impact.
• Subverted: In the second episode of One-Punch Man, Saitama gets dragged into the ground by a mole monster as he is talking to the Beast King, the leader of the group of monsters that smashed he apartment.
• In Penguindrum, as Masako Natsume eats a poisoned fugu dish and a non-poisoned one to escape a Sadistic Choice, the audience sees her brother Mario's legs comically sticking up out of a nearby pond.

Asian Animation

• Motu Patlu: In "Super Murgiyan", when the chickens initially become stronger from Motu overfeeding them Dr. Jhatka's special powder and attack the gang, they punch Dr. Jhatka enough times to drive him into the ground.

Comic Books

• In a New Warriors annual, Nova had a daydream in which he kicked the crap out of Magneto, Doctor Doom, and Galactus at the same time. At one point, he hammers Magneto into the ground in this manner.
• Superman:
  • The cover of Action Comics #238 showed "King Krypton, the Super-Gorilla" pounding Superman into the ground by hitting him over the head with a log.
  • The Plague of the Antibiotic Man: When Superman confronts Nam-Ek about the latter's possible involvement in a plague outbreak, the Kryptonian rogue refuses to explain anything, and pounds Superman into the ground with a doble hammer-fist.
• Marvel Universe: In a fight with Skaar and a depowered Bruce Banner, this comically happens to Wolverine. Skaar wonders aloud how that is possible before Bruce explains his indestructible skeleton.
• In Asterix and the Goths, two potion-empowered gothic warlords do this to each other with clubs, driving each other mutually into the ground.
• In one fight in a Nodwick comic, the titular character gets driven into the ground by a powerful attack and is buried up to his chin. He says that it's worse than it looks, as he struck bedrock after about a foot and he'd like to spit out his kneecaps now.

Fan Works

• In At Odds, Beast Boy gets a few more shapes, including a giant, solid as steel tree (not quite a plant, due to it being alien). During a mission with Raven, he goes to take on Cinderblock while she handles some thugs. She hears a thunder-like sound and hurries to check - only to find the villain hammered into the asphalt up to his neck. Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress.
• A semi-serious example happens early in Luminosity, when the Cullen siblings are showing off their vampiric abilities to Bella. The "victim" is more annoyed than hurt.

Film - Animated

• Played with at the end of Shrek, in that the gingerbread man uses his cane to hammer the figurine of Farquaad deep into the wedding cake.

Film - Live-Action

• In The Ninth Gate, Johnny Depp gets pushed into the floor by Frank Langella, who delivers the one-liner, "It seems you found your proper niche at last... I like that."
• Butterfly and Sword, a rather over-the-top martial arts movie, have the bamboo forest fight where Sister Ko and Yip Cheung (respectively played by Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen) takes on enemy acolytes. Yip managed to take out one of his enemies via downward stop into the head, which makes the guy's entire body sink into the floor until only his head is sticking out. Yes, really.
• In The Sandlot, Scottie Smalls, the main character and narrator of the film, mentions about having a dream about a giant baseball signed by Babe Ruth that "fell out of the sky and hammered him into the ground like a railroad spike".
• At one point in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Nuclear Man pounded Superman into the moon during the fight scene, Complete with clinking sound as if Superman and Nuclear Man's fist were made of metal. Then again, Supes is "The Man of Steel" and Nuclear Man is a clone of sorts.
• In George of the Jungle 2, Lyle's evil henchwomen Sally and Kowalski are trying to destroy the jungle with a bulldozer. Rocky the Kangaroo saves the day by kicking them across the jungle, into a clearing. As they struggle to get up, Rocky has an idea and jumps on their shoulders five times each, each jump making the women grunt and squeal in pain seeing their bodies disappear. Rocky leaves them knocked out and trapped with a pile of mud around them. It’s unknown what becomes of them.
• At The Circus has a slapstick scene where a circus strongman falls into the pit up to his neck by catching the wrong dumbbell.
• Deadtime Stories: In "Goldi Lox and the Three Baers", when Baby Baer attempts to kiss her, Goldi drops a log on his head that drives him into the ground up to his neck.
• The Mighty One: The main villain of this wuxia is finally defeated after being hammered through the ground by a large pillar collapsing on him, as the last part of his ridiculously lengthy, over-the-top and excessive Rasputinian Death. After getting impaled through the ears by a sword, and another sword flung through his chest.

Literature

• In Xanth: Ogre Ogre, the ogres have a fighting technique called "the nail", which consists of repeatedly pounding your opponent on the head until he is driven into the ground.
• A Russian folk tale involves two bogatyrs hammering each other into the ground to determine who is the strongest of the two.
• Medieval Uzbek tales about epic heroes — batyrs — had this rather formalized. Batyr's first strike rammed his adversary knee-deep, second — waist-deep, third — chest-deep. Though the most epic ones could do even better.
• Shadow of the Conqueror:
  • After Lyrah smashes Daylen's face in and tries to arrest him, Ahrek sweeps her feet out from under her with his telekinetic powers and then slams her into the ground hard enough to create a crater. She crawls right out, but it provides enough time for Daylen to escape.
  • Daylen later ends up on the receiving end of this when Lyrah hits him hard enough to plow him into the ground, leaving him to frantically pull himself out of it before the beatdown can resume.
• In Elianto, at one point a bard from Neikos (a parallel medieval war plagued by Forever War between the coarse and manly Oroni and the fashionable but snobbish Argentoni) narrates a previous battle, with a list of gruesome killing: as he mentions, Pendolo the Dirty "hammered Quattrochio of Comacchio in the ground like a nail, and made a chamberpot out of his mouth, due to his impelling needs."

Live-Action TV

• In the Stargate SG-1 episode Seth, Carter strikes down the eponymous Goa'uld using a Hand Device. When this doesn't quite render Seth harmless, she hits him with it again. This time it drives him into the ground, fatally.◊
• Ultraman Taiga: The monster Gorothunder is killed in this manner when Ultraman Taiga gathers a ball of the monster's lightning and uses it as an impromptu mallet to smash the monster head-first through the floor.

Pinball

• In the Premium and Limited Editions of Metallica, a giant hammer smashes captured pinballs through the table and into a coffin beneath the playfield.

Tabletop Games

• In BattleTech, the 90 ton Highlander was the heaviest mech that mounted jump jets when it was introduced, thus making it the heaviest mech capable of performing a Death from Above attack. It was quickly noted in-universe that when performed on a light mech, the unfortunate victim was often driven into the ground by the force of the impact, thus leading to it being known as a Highlander Burial.

Video Games

• The ending of Abobo's Big Adventure shows Abobo stomping Samus Aran's head into the ground. Bloodily.
• ANNO: Mutationem: After Castor and Melissa were beaten by Ann, they both get sucked through a portal that has them landing headfirst in a desert, with Melissa having to dig Castor out.
• Subverted in Battle Chess. When a rook captures a knight, the rook hits the knight on the head, driving him downward until only his helmet is visible; but it turns out that the knight didn't get planted in the ground: instead the rest of his body collapsed into his helmet, and he waddles about on two feet that can still be seen protruding from it.
• In Battle Monsters, Deathmask is the resident Frankenstein Monster / Golem and he's got the standard super-strength. One of his special moves is that he can do an overhand chop that'll nail the enemy into the ground and up to their neck. Deathmask will then grab the stuck opponent and throw them far away.
• The Battletoads can pound their enemies in this fashion, most notably in the Turbo Tunnel level before the bike race section.
• In Bug Fables, after General Ultimax is defeated for the first time, Kabbu simply launches him into the air, resulting in his head getting stuck in the ground. He remains stuck for the remainder of the scene, until the team visits the royal quarters. This also happens again briefly after General Ultimax pops out of his exploding ULTIMAX Tank and lands head-first into the ground before quickly getting unstuck.
• In the Commodore 64 video game Cliff Hanger, used as one non-fatal failure animation.
• Crash Bandicoot:
  • Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back: Some of the forest levels have an enemy that keeps swinging a mallet. Upon being hit by it, Crash will be pounded deep into the ground, and a gravestone grows out from where he was hit.
  • Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped: If the triceratops from the prehistoric levels runs over Crash, he will be flattened, and the triceratops will repeatedly stomp on him over and over so he can't get back up.
• In Final Fantasy XIV, this is one of the standard positions you'll find Hildibrand Manderville.
• Hedgewars has a special weapon for this, the Mallet. In fact, when the enemy is above water, he can sink through the ground into it.
• In Injustice: Gods Among Us, Sinestro makes a giant mace with his ring and smashes Superman into the ground. As soon as he stops to gloat, Superman takes him down.
• Kid Kool does this to the enemies he jumps on. It takes several bounces to bury them entirely.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • Sheeva's Nail Driver fatality involves her driving her defeated opponent to the ground with her four arms.
  • Shao Kahn had this as a fatality in Mortal Kombat: Deception and the Nintendo 64 version of MK Trilogy using his own hammer.
  • One of Superman's Heroic Brutality moves in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe involve him hammering his enemy into the ground.
  • Mortal Kombat 9 has Jax borrow Superman's Heroic Brutality, and then punt the victim's head off.
• Ninjala: The Tenchi Muyo Gum Ninjustu ensnares an opponent in a large gum net, then throws them into the ground for an instant IPPON.
• In Peasant's Quest, Rather Dashing can die this way when taking a pounding from Kerrek.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • This is a side effect of several attacks, such as the Pitfall and Donkey Kong's headbutt. Getting stuck in the ground prevents characters from moving or attacking until they get un-stuck.
  • In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, both King K. Rool and Banjo-Kazooie have down throw moves where they piledrive and bury their opponents in the ground.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • In Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, if Mario falls from a great height into sand or snow, he'll get buried halfway and has to pull himself out.
  • This is a recurring ability in the Mario & Luigi subseries, with one of the brothers pounding the other one into the ground so he can reach new areas and uncover buried items. In Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, this happens to Big Massif in the Dream World, when his apprentices boast how he could smash even the largest possible rock. Cue him trying to smash the rock with his first as it comes down, then being smashed on the head by it with a loud metal-like sound before getting driven into the ground. Of course, this being a major NPC and upcoming boss he manages to dig out of the situation and come up out the ground behind the heroes, but still.

Night Slashers,the player can use the down air attack to hammer most enemies into the ground, leaving them stuck, and allowing them to go and kick them while in that state. Do be warned, as certain foes can still fight back.

• Mooks in the Sengoku Basara series who are defeated by being launched into the air may end up lodging themselves halfway into the ground with their legs sticking out when they land. Any that become a victim of one of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's grappling moves are guaranteed to end up the same position once he's done with them.
• Sonic the Hedgehog has suffered this three times. Falling from space as a Werehog and diving his head into the ground of Windmill Isle in Sonic Unleashed, doing so again at the ending except as a normal hedgehog in the same game, and being summoned by Merlina into and falling into the ground of Camelot in Sonic and the Black Knight.
• Anyone from Street Fighter V who's unlucky enough to be defeated with the Critical Arts of Birdie, Zangief, or Alex will end up with their feet sticking out of the ground afterwards.
• In Worms this is the result of being hit with a Battle Axe. It is also possible for worms to be smashed into the ground if they either fall straight down enough to take damage, or if they get hit with an explosive weapon from directly above - both cases are very rare, as even a slightest angle deviation will prevent the smashing.

Web Animation

• In Alphabet, F does this to T in the latter's debut episode.

Web Comics

• In Everyday Heroes, a double dose of Hyperspace Mallet drives an obnoxious guy completely out of sight.

Web Original

• Whateley Universe: During "[[Boston Brawl II", Tennyo is stomped on by Matterhorn. She's durable enough that this embeds her into the asphalt rather than crushing her.

Western Animation

• This happens to Edd on Ed, Edd n Eddy when Rolf uses his "Hat of Discipline": a giant hammer-hat.
  Edd: ...What is that, Rolf?
  Rolf: The Hat of Discipline. DO YOU LIVE IN A CAVE?! (wham) All is forgiven.
  Edd: ...Thank you, Rolf.
  • This again happens to Edd in The Movie when Eddy's brother hammers him into the ground...with Eddy.
• In Futurama, Bender boasts of having once pounding a guy into the ground like a stake with a shovel.
• The Herculoids episode "The Crystalloids" has a non-comedic example. Igoo the rock ape pounds a Crystalloid into the ground with a club.
• Looney Tunes
  • In "Rabbit Fire", an elephant piledrives Elmer into the ground with one punch.
  • Wile E. Coyote got this treatment more than once, particularly when his own inventions backfire on him. The picture above is actually an inverted example, where a startled Wile E leaps upwards into the rock.
• This happens to Mr. Bogus in the second act of the episode "Good Sport Bogus", when he attempts to hold up a shotput that he had picked up, but because of its weight, he ends up sinking into the ground.
• In the climax of Rock-A-Doodle, Chanticleer gets nailed to the ground by the Grand Duke's magic.
• The Simpsons: In an homage to the Road Runner cartoons, when Homer tries to get rid of a trampoline by throwing it off a cliff outcropping, it bounces back up, then falls on him, pounding him into the rock. Then he falls out the bottom of the outcropping to the bottom of a ravine.
• In The Smurfs (1981) episode "The Smurfette", a Smurf with a hammer pays more attention to Smurfette than he does to the post that his partner is holding up and ends up hammering the other Smurf into the ground.
• There was a Tom and Jerry cartoon where Tom had a nightmare about a giant bulldog pounding him into the ground like a nail. And frankly, the times this has happened to him via a falling tree or telephone pole are too numerous to count.
• In the Wacky Races episode "Real Gone Ape", the circus ape does this to Peter Perfect.
• In the Tex Avery cartoon "The Peachy Cobbler", two of the shoemaker elves do this to each other.
  • Happens in another cartoon, "The Cat Who Hated People", in which said cat is attacked by a moon creature, a giant hammer that mistakes him for a nail.
  • Also in "Half-Pint Pygmy", in which George accidentally hits Junior into the ground with a large hammer. He uses the other end to get him out of the ground, then gently pounds him to straighten out the dent in the "nail".
• In Screwball Squirrel (1944), Screwy Squirrel does this to Meathead, after Meathead had just saved Screwy's life.
• A falling tree does this to Yogi Bear in at least two shorts: "Slumber Party Smarty" and "Show Biz Bear".
  Yogi: Looks more ... like a sycamore ... to me. (thud)
• In the Space Ghost episode "The Challenge", Zorak's Giant Robot Titanor smashes Space Ghost into the ground with his fist.
• The Classic Disney Shorts were not above using this one.
  • The Goofy short "The Art of Self-Defense" begins with a history of fighting, starting with two cavemen hitting each other with clubs. They eventually drive each other through a rock ledge, and when they can't club each other anymore, they take to kicking each other's shins instead.
  • In "Clown of the Jungle", Donald Duck has had enough of the Aracuan bird and hammers him through the ground. The Aracuan reappears from Behind the Black to help Donald hammer.
• In the Kaeloo episode "Let's Play Trap-Trap", Mr. Cat gets beaten up by Quack Quack and/or Kaeloo offscreen and winds up with his entire body except his head smashed into the ground.

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