Gotta choose the right audience...
Prank items used in imitating horrifying injuries. Would getting your chest penetrated by an axe be too inconvenient? You could always use items which resemble an axe submerged in you, without actually entering your chest. Alternatively, items which resemble wounds could make you look under-the-weather. Another common version is for someone to bandage a body part or pretend to limp.
The character's reasons for doing this can vary: often, like most pranks, it's to make them or someone else laugh or to shock someone. It might also be to trick people into thinking they're injured (in a similar fashion to Playing Sick) to get attention or get access to something or as an excuse to be lazy or to get away with something. (e.g. "What? How can I have done it? My leg's broken!")
May result in Crying Wolf if they actually get injured afterwards (which can lead to An Aesop about deception being wrong) or Deadly Prank (if they actually injure themselves in an attempt at playing injured). See also A Bloody Mess regarding "injuries" involving fake blood. For a similar thing where characters pretend to lose consciousness, see Fake Faint.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Yotsuba&!: When Yotsuba and her father went to a cultural festival at their neighbor Fuuka's high school, one class had a haunted house manned by a girl with the arrow-through-the-head thing. Being five, and not having been exposed to that gag, Yotsuba got really concerned about her well-being...
Comic Strips
- In one Calvin and Hobbes strip, Calvin hides some pasta up his shirt and claims to Susie that his intestines are coming out, then opens up his shirt to make the pasta spill out.
- The Far Side:
- A reversal of the fake-arrow-through-head hat, an Indian with a fake rifle stuck through their head.
- Another has a whale doing the old "fake harpoon through the head" gag.
- Sherman's Lagoon: Sherman attempts to pull this gag. The lagoon gang is trying to hide a whale from hunters when Sherman comes up claiming to have been harpooned through the head. Filmore doesn't fall for it and tell him to just "wait over there till this is over."
Films — Animation
- On Pocahontas, Radcliff's valet Wiggins pulls the old arrow-through-the-head bit.
Films — Live-Action
- In E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Michael's Halloween costume includes a gag item simulating something sharp stuck through his head. ET appears concerned that he's been genuinely injured.
- Hot Fuzz: Danny has a signature prank where he palms a ketchup packet and then fakes getting a sharp object stabbed into himself while squeezing the ketchup out to simulate spurting blood. He first shows Nicholas this gag by faking a fork in his eye when they are down the pub. Nicholas is quite perturbed by this.
- In the third Scary Movie, one of the main character's friends from the previous film fakes these (being expected to die in 7 days as part of the film's status as a parody of The Ring) before being killed off proper.
- There is a scene in Summer School in which a teacher walks in to find his entire class has apparently been massacred, as they are lying around covered with gaping, seeping wounds. This is shortly revealed to be a prank.
Literature
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: In the first book, Greg is jealous of the attention Rowley is getting for his broken hand, so he bandages his own hand and claims that he has a "raging infection caused by a splinter that was left untreated", but that just weirds everyone out. At the end of the book, Rowley also does the "arrow-through-the-head" gag.
- Downplayed in the Dirty Bertie story "Ouch!". While Bertie's thumb is injured, it's just badly bruised. He wants an excuse to stay in the hospital, so he puts mustard on it and pretends it's infected. The doctor pranks him back by saying that he's got "mustarditis" and his thumb might need to be cut off.
- In Peter Pan, the lost boys once bandage themselves up and limp around, pretending to be injured.
Live-Action TV
- In on episode of Big Wolf on Campus, Merton pretends to cut his hand and starts bleeding fake blood. He does this to show off his special effects prowess, a talent which comes in handy later when he has to help fake Tommy's death.
- On the Halloween Episode of Modern Family, Claire pretends to accidentally chop off her hand to scare the girls. They don't fall for it, but as they try to pick up the fake hand, it suddenly jumps up at them and they scream. Turns out it was Phil hiding under the table.
- Mike in The Monkees has one of the fake arrows through his head in a few romps.
- MythBusters: Adam Savage is fond of these, having both the arrow and knife variety of head injury prank items in his possession, as well as having used them before for humorous pieces to the camera.
- An episode of Scrubs has Dr Cox put an arrow on a hung over Jordon's head. She doesn't notice even while Cox draws attention to it.
- In Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Time's Arrow", Data (an android from the 24th century) is sent back in time to the 19th century and must pass as a human. He picks up an anvil, but then realises it'd arouse suspicion, so he awkwardly says, "Ow!" and puts it down.
- In an episode of Treasure Attic, a large talking dog has a cold and is bored of recovering in bed. He shouts, "Owie!" when he's not really hurt, and when they discover the lie, they tell him the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Video Games
- One of the hats you can get in Team Fortress 2 simulates a large butcher knife stuck in your head. (This being Team Fortress 2, it may well be an actual butcher knife stuck in your head.)
Western Animation
- In The Berenstain Bears, one episode has Brother Bear fake not being able to lift his arm because he doesn't want to play sports.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy:
- In the Big Picture Show movie, Ed and Eddy manage to scare Edd in the gag factory wearing items that portray with a fork and an axe through their heads respectively.
- In "This Won't Hurt an Ed", Ed scares Kevin, who has a phobia of needles, by wearing a syringe-through-the-head hat.
- The arrow gag features in the Family Guy episode "One If By Clam, Two If By Sea". After a hurricane hits Quahog, Peter stumbles around with a fence plank impaled through his body. After horrifying his family, he reveals that it's just set up like the fake arrow trick.
- Rugrats:
- In "A Dose of Dil", Phil cuts his finger and gets a band-aid. Lil wants a band-aid to, so she pretends she's cut her hand. Also, Angelica pretends that her knee is hurt so that she can get a lollipop and tries to teach Tommy to do the same, but he's a bad actor.
- In "Angelica Breaks a Leg", Angelica fakes breaking her leg to get attention.
- The Simpsons: In "Treehouse of Horror XVI", Disco Stu wears an arrow-through-the-head hat for Halloween. Unfortunately for him, a witch curses the townspeople to become their costumes, and Stu promptly and painfully dies from having an actual arrow through his head.
- In the What's New, Scooby-Doo? episode "There's No Creature Like Snow Creature", one of the suspects appears to have broken his leg, but it turns out he's the culprit and is pretending to be injured to throw people off the scent.
- In the What's with Andy? episode "Nurse Jen", Andy fakes breaking his leg and has Jen "nurse" him and buy supplies he needs to pull another prank, in order to frame her for pulling the prank.
Real Life
- Steve Martin wore a hat that portrayed an arrow through his head as his trademark.
- Basically any high end magician/illusionist act. Sawing a person in half, spearing the armoire with swords, etc.
- Sometimes, dogs limp on purpose to get attention.
