Rolling Pin of Doom

"OW! What did I do?!"

"When my husband drinks excessively, I may threaten him with this rolling pin, although we are still very much in love."

— One of the G-Men, Psychonauts

The rolling pin as a weapon, often aimed at someone's head. Most often wielded by a cook, or else a woman (especially of the Apron Matron persuasion).

An Improbable Weapon, though one that does have reasonable efficacy. Closely related to the Frying Pan of Doom and often used in conjunction with it. Note that most of these rolling pins are made of wood, as plastic is usually too light to do any damage. A Henpecked Husband is a usual target of this in Domestic Abuse situations.

---

Examples:

Comic Books

• In Marvel Comics ALF Issue #8, it is subverted in his own What If? : ALF, after being chased by Raquel Ochmonek for his mischief, ALF lampshades that he's lucky that The Comics Code Authority had her throwing a feather-duster, not a rolling pin, which Trevor Ochmonek agreed wholeheartedly... since it hit him instead!
• In Asterix (which is set in 50 BC during the Roman conquest of Gaul), chieftain Vitalstatistix's wife Impedimenta has an anachronistic rolling pin as a weapon of choice to bash Romans with. She uses one in several Animated Adaptations as well, like The Twelve Tasks of Asterix (whe she chases a gladiator and bashes his butt with it after taking it out of a Bag of Holding) and Asterix and the Big Fight (other women of the Gaulish village do the same in the latter).
• Chachi Bini, the wife of famous Indian comic character, ''Chacha Chaudhary, always has a rolling pin (belan) in her hand. She often uses it as a weapon against thieves and robbers.
• In Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #56, Chat hits Dagger with a rolling pin.
• Monica's Gang had a Romeo and Juliet parody featuring Jimmy Five as Romeo and Monica as Juliet. Friar Smudge told Romeo Jimmy the marriage would be so Monicapulet would stop hitting them with that bunny. Jimmy was interested until Smudge showed a rolling pin and told Jimmy that's what wives hit their husbands with.
• Suske en Wiske: Tante Sidonia uses rolling pins often to defend herself.

Comic Strips

• A standby in the Andy Capp newspaper comic since 1957.
• Used very, very frequently in Family Warfare (雙響炮), a Taiwanese 4-panel comic popular in the 90s revolving around a skinny Henpecked Husband and his overweight wife. The latter would alternate between whacking the husband with rolling pins or use a Frying Pan of Doom every now and then.
• Nero: Madam Pheip and Madam Nero's favorite weapon of defense.
• In Sappo, by Popeye creator Segar, John Sappo is always in danger of being bopped by his wife, and several strips involve his attempts to circumvent this. In one arc, he constructs a series of special, protective cages to wear, made of transparent metal, so his wife can't see what's stopping the rolling pin. He then sells several of these cages to other henpecked husbands, much to Mrs. Sappo's confusion. ("He's selling nothing and getting money for it!")

Films — Animation

• In Oliver & Company when housekeeper Winston hears noises coming from Georgette's room he gets ready to attack the intruder with the rolling pin he was already holding.
• The Rescuers has a muskrat housewife who's always carrying a rolling pin and hits the villain, Madame Medusa, in the head with it.
• In Sherlock Gnomes, Moriarty's primary weapon is a rolling pin. (He was originally the mascot of a pie company.) During the climax, he fences Sherlock with him using his rolling pin and Sherlock using his magnifying glass.
• Wallace & Gromit:
  • In The Wrong Trousers, Gromit brandishes a rolling pin at Feathers McGraw. Feathers responds by pulling a gun on Gromit and forcing him into the wardrobe with Wallace.
  • A much darker example appears at the beginning of A Matter of Loaf and Death, where the Cereal Killer Piella Bakewell bludgeons Baker Bob to death with his own rolling pin.

Films — Live-Action

• Attack of the Killer Donuts: Howard grabs a rolling pin to defend himself against the killer donuts in Mrs. Scolari's house.
• Billy kills his mother with one in the Black Christmas (2006) remake.
• Shows up in Dolores Claiborne.
• In Fresh Meat, Margaret attacks Heri with a rolling pin after he attempts to stab Rina. Heri grabs her and uses her rolling pin and another one to fend off Rina and Gigi's knife attacks.
• In Hancock, the eponymous character breaks one over Charlize Theron's head, but she's just as invulnerable as he is.
• In Kung Fu Zohra, the eponymous character crushes the fingers of Omar (her abusive husband) with a rolling pin in the climactic fight, then Omar tries to hit her with it.
• Midnight Movie: In the Film Within a Film ''The Dark Beneath", the killer's mother uses a rolling pin to knock out one of the girls for her son.
• This is the Weapon Of Choice for the wife of Pekka Puupää (Puupää meaning Woodhead, as in someone dense) Justiina in the Finnish series of comedy films called Pekka ja Pätkä (Pekka and Shorty/Stumpy). She is an Apron Matron, with a will strong enough to bend steel (not literally), and she has quite the Death Glare to boot.

Jokes

• For some reason, this trope is extremely common in Russian jokes (often overlapping with the Frying Pan of Doom), the common scenario being a husband coming home late (and often drunk) to get hit over his head by one. For example:
  • Two women are talking:
    "Masha, can I borrow your rolling pin for a couple hours?"
    "Sorry, neighbor, I'm still waiting for my own drunkard."
  • A woman calls a shop:
    "Hello? My husband gave me for a present a kitchen kit he bought from you, but the rolling pin is missing!"
    "He refused to take it."
  • A totally drunk husband returns home late. His wife meets him at the door, holding a rolling pin. He tries to give her a hug:
    "My little worker bee... at this hour, and you are still baking."

Literature

• The Ogden Nash poem "The Comic Spirit or Never Say Die, Say Kick The Bucket" describes a cartoonist whose life was a stream of classic comic strip tropes. When his wife finally had enough of it all, she naturally used a rolling pin to do him in.
• In Howl's Moving Castle (the book) there was a brief mention of "angry aunts with rolling pins" coming after Howl.
• In the Gordon Korman series Island, one brother and sister hospitalized one another on Halloween night. She was a chef armed with a marble rolling pin. We're not told what he was carrying.
• Lampshaded in Monstrous Regiment, when the titular squad are locked in an abandoned kitchen as a makeshift prison and consider using these against the guards, noting that they're a "traditional female weapon". As it turns out, Lofty manages to MacGyver a bomb from leftover ingredients and the rolling pins are unnecessary.

Live-Action TV

• On Mama's Family, when Mama thought her family was planning to send her to a home (it was actually a dog they were talking about), her rolling pin was her weapon of choice for defending herself.
• Betty of Riverdale manages to disarm her fake brother Chic before knocking him unconscious with a rolling pin in Season 2.

Music

• Vince Gill's "One More Last Chance" describes a woman coming after her husband with a rolling pin and a Bible: "If you don't listen to my preachin', boy / I'm gonna have to beat you half to death."
• Boris Vian's song "On est pas là pour se faire engueuler" ("We aren't here to get yelled at") is narrated from the husband's point of view, who comes home late and drunk with his best friend (in the same state) and experiences an Oh, Crap! moment when he sees his wife holding the rolling pin and waiting for them in front of the door. It gets them both killed.
  Narrator: I had the brilliant idea of bringing [my buddy] home, but I understood when facing the rolling pin...
• The Dutch rock band Normaal, in their song "Net als gisteren" (just like yesterday) the singer recalls how he got knocked on the head with the roller pin after coming home late and his wife didn't believe his excuses.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeon magazine #48 adventure "Them Apples". If the Player Character party fights the female hill giants inside Brufnu's house, each of the giants will use (or at least try to use) rolling pins taken from the kitchen against the party.

Theater

• In the Met Opera's production of Donizetti's Don Pasquale, Norina playfully fences with Doctor Malatesta while they're making their plan, she with a rolling pin, he with a Classy Cane.
• The Drowsy Chaperone has two buffoonish gangster characters who disguise themselves as pastry chefs, making this trope perfect for them.
• From Oliver!: "Only it's wise to be handy with a rolling pin when the landlord comes to call!"

Theme Parks

• Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean ride has at one point a large woman chasing a food-thieving pirate with a rolling pin.

Video Games

• In the "French Baker" minigame from Action52, the eponymous baker throws rolling pins (If you can get the game to work).
• In the browser game Bash Girl, each enemy has two variants; one enemy has a variant that wields a Rolling Pin of Doom, and a variant that wields a Frying Pan of Doom.
• All the multiplayer characters of BioShock 2 can use a rolling pin as their melee weapon.
• In The Bourne Conspiracy (the video game based on The Bourne Identity), one of the enemies on Wombosi's ship kitchen will use a rolling pin to fight you in hand-to-hand combat.
• This happens off-screen in Dragon Age: Inquisition if the Player Character is human and follows Commander Cullen's advice to denounce some trouble-making relatives who are trying to take advantage of their distant cousin's position. One cousin was so outraged that he picked a fight with an Inquisition soldier in a tavern, which descended into a Bar Brawl, which ended when an angry cook decided enough was enough and brained the cousin with a rolling pin.
• In the first level of the arcade game Dragon's Lair II: The Time Warp, Dirk is pursued, after the kidnapping of Daphne, by his irate mother-in-law, who is wielding a rolling pin.
• In Drakensang 2: The River of Time you can find a magic rolling pin (classified as a one-handed club) which acts as a Healing Shiv. The explanation is that the former owner used to relieve stress with it by beating up her workers with it.
• Fallout 3:
  • Several rolling pins can be found in the Wastelands, likely as a gag weapon.
  • They are also in Fallout: New Vegas... even going as far as including a street gang consisting of old ladies equipped with rolling pins that ambush you in an alley.
• Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon: This is one weapon that Greenies use in the game, mostly in the kitchen of the Gloomy Manor, a place you'd likely expect to find a rolling pin; they tend to use weapons that fit the place they're in.
• In MediEvil, there are brainwashed women in the sleeping village that chase Daniel around with these. Unfortunately, he can't fight back, as they are essentially innocent people and killing them will cost him pieces of the Chalice.
• A few enchanted rolling pins can be found in Neverwinter Nights 2.
• In Paper Boy, a woman chases you with one of these.
• The rolling pin is one of many household items that can be drafted for combat duty in Project Zomboid. It's only mediocre — much better used for making actual baked goods — but if you're desperately scrabbling through kitchen cabinets and your only other choice is a butter knife, take the pin.
• Referenced in Psychonauts with the G-Men inside Boyd's mind disguised as housewives, which just involves them holding rolling pins and using them in often incorrect ways.
  Housewife G-Man: When my husband drinks excessively, I may threaten him with this rolling pin, but we still love each other very much.
• You can have one in Runescape as a weapon.
• In the murder mystery game The Ship, this is a possible murder weapon for you to use (or to have used on you).
• You can wield one in Ultima VI. It's half as effective as a common knife.
• Filomena of Urban Rivals wields a rolling pin.
• This item in World of Warcraft.

Webcomics

• Implied in Girl Genius, when Wulfenbach troops in Mechanicsberg have captured a group of bakers. Their commander has said they must treat the prisoners with respect, and shoot them, when the ringing of the Doom Bell renders them unconscious. The bakers decide to tie up the soldiers since they're just a bunch of kids, but then someone asks what they're going to do with the commander. One baker is shown brandishing a rolling pin as she says "Oh, him we treat with respect."
• In Questionable Content, Faye embeds one in Pintsize's head more than once. Since he's a robot, no lasting damage once it's removed and the dent popped out. Since he's Pintsize, he deserves it.

Web Videos

• Life of Boris: While never seen, Boris frequently mentions that his cooking skills come from spending time in the kitchen with his babushka, who used "AK-rollingpinovich" as a disciplinary measure when her young assistant goofed off or wasn't paying attention, or said a naughty word (leading him to consistently replace "bylat"-fuck- with "blin"-pancake). Sometimes a potato masher was substituted, but the end effect was the same; "dent in head".

Western Animation

• Courage the Cowardly Dog. Muriel almost always whacks Eustace in the head with her rolling pin after he has finished scaring Courage.
  Eustace: OW! What did I do?!
• Perhaps most famous in The Flintstones — Wilma does occasionally throw one.
• In the Futurama episode "Less Than Hero," a rolling pin is Leela's insignia in her superhero identity as Clobberella.
• Looney Tunes:
  • The short "Wild Wife" is about a housewife recounting her hectic day to her husband, who thinks she has it easy. It ends with her giving him a gift: a rolling pin monogrammed "His"... which she brings to his head shortly after.
    Marsha: Little man, I've had a busy day.
  • In another Looney Tunes cartoon, Miss Prissy goes after Foghorn Leghorn with a rolling pin, wanting to make him her husband. Foggy replies, "You're going about it all wrong. You don't bat 'em on the bean with a rolling pin. (aside) That comes later."
  • And others have Granny use this to dissuade Sylvester from hunting Tweety. It's not enough...
  • In the "Apes of Wrath", Mama hits Elvis over the head with a rolling pin for scaring the "baby" (actually Bugs Bunny in a case of Mistaken Identity caused by a drunken Delivery Stork).
• Teen Titans (2003) have this happening in the infamous "Mother Mae-Eye" episode when the Titans accidentally unleashed a witch called Mother Mae-Eye, who then puts them all under her control. But Starfire managed to break out after getting hit on her head, at which point she wakes up everyone else (currently trapped in an oven) via rolling pin to the cranium.
  Starfire: Forgive me.
  [whacks everyone with a HUGE rolling pin waking them up from their trance]
• In Tom and Jerry, Tom's owner would often come running out of the kitchen attempting to swipe Tom with a rolling pin after Tom had destroyed the house attempting to catch a single mouse. Failing that it was a broom.
• Subverted in US of Archie (American History taught by Archie Comics characters), where at a meeting of early 20th-century suffragettes, one lady says she convinced her husband to support women's right to vote — as she brandishes her rolling pin. The others glare at her, as they said earlier that they did not intend to resort to violence. She then explains that tasting her homemade apple pie convinced him to change his mind.

---