Keep your hands off the piano keys, lest your fingers B Flat.
Characters playing the piano may get their fingers injured by the fallboard, the part of the piano that covers the keyboard, being slammed on them. This is often done by another character expressing displeasure with the piano player, whether it is due to their poor musical performance or otherwise.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In Penguindrum's twelfth episode, we get a close-up of Keiju Tabuki's hand which has a rather large scar near the fingers. In episode 18, we learn the reason why: Tabuki deliberately harmed his fingers as a kid using the lid of his old piano, in a desperate and misguided attempt to fight off his mother's psychological abuse. (The poor kid thought that, if he harmed his hand, she'd stop pressuring him to become a pianist and love him the way he was.) It didn't work.
Films — Animation
- The Super Mario Bros. Movie: As they're playing the piano together, Bowser and Kamek discuss if Mario could threaten Bowser's plan to marry Princess Peach. Bowser claims he doesn't feel threatened by Mario being a potential romantic rival, but vents his jealousy by slamming the fallboard on Kamek's hands.
Kamek: (weakly) May I lift the cover?
Bowser: (off-handedly, more focused on dealing with Mario) Not yet. Pain is the best teacher.
Films — Live-Action
- Duck Soup: A variation occurs when Chicolini and Pinky are searching the Rufus T. Firefly estate for Fredonia's secret war plans. As Chicolini tries to keep Pinky from playing a grand piano's strings like a harp, the lid falls on his fingers. Fortunately, since he's Harpo Marx, he doesn't yell to blow his cover.
- Harlem Nights: One of the mob has his fingers crushed in a piano as punishment.
- In Sugar Hill (1974), King interrogates the piano player Preacher about the murders of Morgan's people. When Preacher says he doesn't know anything, King smashes the piano lid on his fingers.
- In Dick Tracy, Big Boy slams his club's piano fallboard on 88 Keys' fingers to punish him for refusing to play a ragtime version of a slow song. In the novelization, the narration goes into how concerned Keys' girlfriend, Breathless Mahoney, is that Big Boy may have broken his fingers, and if that's the case, Keys might never be able to play piano again. While his fingers are fine, 88 Keys never questions Big Boy again.
- In The Nutty Professor (1996), Buddy Love's first form of revenge against insult comedian Reggie Warrington, who made fun of Sherman Klump's weight repeatedly on his first date, is to give him A Taste of Their Own Medicine by getting up on stage and repeatedly insulting the weight of Reggie's mother. Once Reggie finally loses his temper and tries attacking Buddy, Buddy wipes the floor with him, and rounds off his roast by playing a round on the piano, right before slamming the fallboard on Reggie's fingers, just to make him scream like a little girl.
- The Three Stooges: In "Loco Boy Makes Good", Moe does this to Larry when his piano playing stops Moe from singing.
Literature
- The Classic Singapore Horror Stories short, "Stepchild", have a near-miss moment when the titular stepchild hijacks Katherine's 13th birthday party by playing her piano after her recital, improvising whatever songs as he goes along. When he tries playing "Let it Be", Katherine's eldest brother, Argoose, could no longer tolerate the stepchild ruining his sister's birthday any further and promptly slams the fallboard, missing the stepchild's fingers by a split second while telling the latter to "cut it out".
- In the Diogenes Club story "The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train", jazz pianist and occultist Magic Fingers Miles gets a piano fallboard slammed on his fingers by a malevolent ghost.
Live-Action TV
- Bones: In "The Plain in the Prodigy," the Victim of the Week is an Amish boy on his Rumspringa. During the investigation, the team discover that he was a secret piano prodigy, using his Rumspringa to decide whether to pursue that or return to the community. His finger bones show signs of having been broken with what they work out is the lid of a piano. For a while they believe he was attacked by another Amish man trying to force him to return, then by his rival for a music scholarship. In fact, the victim did it to himself, to remove the temptation to leave his community.
- ER: Benton's son Reese has his fingers broken when he is playing with Cleo's piano and the lid to the keys slams on his fingers. Since Reese is Deaf, his injury will prevent him from signing for a month. Carla, Reese's mom, is furious at Cleo.
- An extremely Gorn-filled version takes place in Monty Python's Flying Circus in the sketch "Sam Peckinpah's Salad Days", when one of the dying revelers knocks the piano cover down, cutting off both the vicar's (played by John Cleese) hands and leaving him screaming in dismay over the bleeding stumps.
- The Nanny: In one episode, Maggie is practicing "Heart and Soul" on the piano, but plays a few notes off-key. While going to clean the piano, Niles, who doesn't appreciate her playing, ends up intentionally dropping the lid of the piano onto her fingers, claiming it was an accident.
Theatre
- Dog Sees God: Played for Drama during Matt's confrontation with Beethoven. Matt harasses Beethoven for being in love with CB and tells him to stay away from him, and Beethoven responds by calling Matt his childhood nickname, Pigpen. Matt is so furious that he breaks all of Beethoven's fingers at once by slamming the piano top on them.
Video Games
- Sid & Al's Incredible Toons: In the ending of the game, Sid plays the piano whilst all the other toons dance and sing. Al stops short in his revelry and mischievously slams the pianos fallboard on poor Sid's fingers. The other toons then glare at Al for this, who then chuckles and looks rather guilty.
Webcomics
- One Bug Martini strip had Bug getting his hands slammed down on in a piano by Nerd Bug due to how badly he was apparently playing.
Western Animation
- The Patrick Star Show:
- "The Patrick Show Sells Out" has Mr. Krabs singing a piano jingle for the Krusty Krab. Plankton painfully slams the covers shut on his claws.
- In "Neptune's Ball", while attending a fancy music recital, Cecil goes into the piano to take back some food he accidentally dropped in it. However, the cover slams shut. When the pianist tries playing, he hears strange noises from the piano's hammers hitting Cecil on the inside.
- Tom and Jerry: In The Cat Concerto, Jerry slams the fallboard on Tom's fingers as the latter is playing the piano, flattening them. Tom's flattened fingers continue to play Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody Number 2 correctly when the fallboard is lifted.
- In the second part of Town Musicians of Bremen, that's how the Princess ends her song-form debate with daddy. In this case, it's actually her who's playing, the King is merely standing next to the piano with his hand upon the end of the keyboard.
- Unstable Fables: In Three Pigs and a Baby, Musical Comedy Wolf plays music on his piano and starts to sing. Big Boss Wolf is annoyed and declares that they don't have the budget to make this into a musical before slamming the piano cover on Musical Comedy Wolf's fingers.
