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"One of his teeth splashed into my Kilmagoon, fifteen feet away. I fished out the tooth to keep as proof, as otherwise no-one would ever believe me."

It's like this: Two men are fighting, Good Old Fisticuffs. Now things get dirty. Then, one of them makes an attack to the mouth and hits. Cue the other one spitting out one tooth (or several).

When Played for Laughs, this can take a humorous form: The guy who is hit will lose ALL his teeth — because they're dentures. Even if they were not hinted to be fake. Or if the work is in a setting where dentures weren't invented yet.

Often an Obligatory Joke with hockey players in fiction.

See The Tooth Hurts for other types of teeth damage. May be preceded by a Hit Stop.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • AKIRA:
    • When Tetsuo is recaptured by the scientists Kaneda attempts to save him but a huge guard stands in his way, he attempts to fight the guard but he grabs Kaneda by the face and slams him into the ground, when he gets back up he spits out a tooth.
    • Also when Tetsuo brutally assaults the Clown gang member Kaneda and the others captured, he knocks out several of his teeth.
  • In Attack on Titan, Eren spits out a tooth when Levi beats him up during his trial. He gets it back thanks to his Healing Factor.
  • Ayakashi Triangle: Sosuke's Engulfing Shadow is a Fighting Spirit in the form of a giant, disembodied mouth. When it's damaged by Matsuri's attack, its enormous teeth are shown being knocked crooked or blown out entirely.
  • Berserk (2016): Guts punches a bald thug's mouth so hard with his iron hand that at least a dozen teeth come flying out. Especially impressive since the victim looked like he only had four teeth in his mouth to begin with!
  • Black Clover:
    • During the Royal Knights Selection Exam, Asta hits Kirsch Vermillion in the face with the flat edge of his sword hard enough to knock some of his teeth out.
    • Charmy finishes off the Dark Disciple Halbet Chevour with a rapid flurry of punches that knock several of her molars out. Quite karmic, since Halbet kept bragging about how much more beautiful than Charmy she was.
  • Cleverly and artistically used as part of the title of Bleach Chapter 426. Ichigo and Uryu both punch out the big boss of a gang who was after Ichigo, knocking out three of his incisors. Then the chapter number appears on the teeth as they fly out. The reason why they were there? Ichigo previously had punched out SEVEN of one of their guy's teeth.
  • In Castle in the Sky during Louis' fight with Mr. Duffy at one point when Louis knocks him back, Duffy responds by punching him right in the mouth knocking out several of his teeth; strangely enough, there are no visible missing teeth in his mouth afterwards.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • Dragon Ball: Goku kicked one of Yamcha's teeth out in their second encounter, forcing him to retreat.
    • When Piccolo fights Goku in the tournament at one point he knocks out a couple of Goku’s teeth.
    • Dragon Ball Z:
      • When Goku throws Vegeta a Senzu bean on Namek, Recoome tried to catch it in his mouth. The bean just knocked out a tooth and kept going. He also lost several teeth when Krillin forced his mouth shut as he fired a Breath Weapon.
      • Exclusive to the manga version, Spopovich knocks out some of Videl's teeth during the horrific No-Holds-Barred Beatdown he gives her. She gets her teeth back when Gohan feeds her a Senzu Bean.
      • Vegeta's "fight" with Pui-Pui consists of him knocking some of Pui-Pui's teeth out, among several other humiliations.
      • Gotenks loses a tooth to Super Buu during their fight in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.
  • Fairy Tail: When Natsu storms Tartaros' headquarters, the very first thing he does is punch Crawford Theme in the mouth so hard, his dentures fly out.
  • In the Galaxy Angel manga, a botched rescue mission results in Tact getting punched in the face and losing a few teeth. Vanilla restores them using her Nanomachines.
  • In Gamaran, people on the receiving end of Iori's Kosen end up spitting a tooth or two when hit in the face.
  • In Gate, JSDF soldier Shino Kuribayashi gives corrupt prince Zorzal a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that takes some of his teeth.
  • The very first time we see Giorno actually fight someone in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind, we're given a shot of him knocking one of Bucciarati's teeth out with a punch from his stand, Gold Experience.
  • In Lupin III: Alcatraz Connection when Inspector Zenigata gets stampeded by the fleeing passengers on the ship, one of them kicks him in the face and knocks out one of his teeth.
  • In Lupin III: Crisis in Tokyo Jigen has been caught by one of Michael Suzuki's men who proceeds to beat him until he knocks out a tooth, ironically it was the same tooth that had a cavity that had been bothering him for the entire film, this is what finally gets him to fight back as it was causing him too much pain to concentrate on his shooting.
  • My Hero Academia: Moonfish is a villain whose Quirk allows him to enlongate and weaponize his teeth in combat. Needless to say, when Tokoyami's Dark Shadow beats him into the dirt, tooth fragments start flying everywhere.
  • Naruto gets several teeth knocked out by Sakura when a clone of his pisses her off in a filler. The punch sends not only his teeth but him flying as well.
  • One Piece has this during climax against Arlong where Luffy repeatedly aims for his mouth until he knocks out his teeth. Though being a shark fishman, they just grow right back. Arlong even removes the teeth himself to use as weapons against Luffy, though Luffy likewise uses a set of Arlong teeth to use against him.
    • Anyone who suffers a beatdown (particularly once Luffy is through with them) will have a couple of teeth missing.
  • In Real Bout High School, Ryoko knocks several teeth out of the head of gang leader Takasugi's Dragon. Hey, it's his fault he was talking when the fight had already started.
  • Record of Ragnarok: In a flashback of Zeus' battle with his father Kronos, Kronos punched Zeus in the chin hard enough to make him spit out several teeth.
  • In the anime of Rurouni Kenshin, during Kenshin and Saito's fight at one point Kenshin hits Saito in the mouth with the blunt end of his sword and he spits out a tooth.
  • Slam Dunk: Hisashi Mitsui got his frontal upper teeth knocked off by picking a fight with Ryota Miyagi, who headbutted him in the mouth. By the time he rejoined Team Shohoku, he seemingly replaced them, presumably by bridges.
  • SPY×FAMILY: In Episode 12, when Yor kicks the terrorist who's "kidnapping" Anya in the jaw, the close-up shows four teeth flying off his mouth.
  • In Tokyo Ghoul:Re, Furuta gets kicked into a wall hard enough that one of his front teeth gets knocked out. He quickly retrieves it and shoves it back into place.
  • Ataru from Urusei Yatsura often loses teeth when punched or slapped by a girl he perves on, one such example is in Episode 26 when he angers Sakura, she slaps him and sends him flying over a bridge with a trail of his teeth falling after him.
  • Happens off-screen in an early episode of the YuYu Hakusho dub. Kuwabara is set upon by a group of thugs while he's taken a vow not to fight at all, even in his own defense. As Yusuke and Botan watch helplessly from the sidelines, Botan makes the horrified observation, "Is that a tooth?"

    Comic Books 
  • Asterix has the humorous version.
  • Batman:
    • One story arc had him knocking out Killer Croc's teeth. And then doing it again later after Croc has seen a dentist.
    • In an annual exploring the origins of several of his villains. The Penguin used to be picked on by a particular bully. After working out and learning how to fight, Cobblepot challenges him to a fight, and his first punch knocks out several of his teeth. In the present, the same bully has become a petty thug who has gotten himself metal teeth. After tormenting him for a bit, Penguin uses a torch at the end of his umbrella to weld the teeth together.
    • The Joker mentions that Batman's knocked out so many of his teeth, his entire smile is fake.
  • This happened a LOT in Gail Simone's original run on Birds of Prey. Possibly as a way to show combat damage, and how much the fights hurt both heroines and villains alike. Huntress does this deliberately to a goon at one point, which is a bit icky, her being a heroine and all. In a subversion of Beauty Is Never Tarnished, the villain Rabbit knocks out one of Black Canary's teeth and even proceeds to taunt her about it. The most epic of these occurs in issue #124. Oracle goes toe-toe with the freaking JOKER. Once he gets close enough, Babs whacks him smack in the mouth with her eskrima stick, knocking most of his teeth out.
  • Daredevil
    • One issue briefly but specifically mentions this; Daredevil lands a blow on Max the Ax that'll cost him a lot of money in dental work.
    • In a truly bizarre example from Kevin Smith, during "Guardian Devil", the titular character knocks out two of the villain Bullseye's teeth, which Bullseye then proceeds to toss SO HARD they splinter Daredevil's staff. Damn!
  • Empowered and Anglerfish. Compare how long his teeth were before and after Emp beat him up.
  • Golden Age comics tended to use this frequently.
  • In The Golden Age, Alan Scott's Green Lantern-powered punches cause Dynaman to start losing teeth.
  • Loki: Agent of Asgard: Where Thor learns about what Loki did at the end of Journey into Mystery (Gillen), and consequently goes berserk, he hits Loki hard enough to knock out one of their teeth (one of the upper left molars, in fact). The gap in Loki's teeth remains all the way to the end of the series.
  • MonsterVerse: In the spin-off graphic novel Kingdom Kong, Camazotz visibly loses a tooth or two when Kong punches him in the face at the end of their battle.
  • A common occurrence in Frank Miller's comics, especially Sin City. Lampshaded in Worlds Funnest, an Elseworlds book where Bat-Mite and Mr. Mxyzptlk battle each other across various alternate universes, destroying the entire multiverse in the process. In one world, modeled after Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (and illustrated by Frank Miller himself), as Mxy punches Superman and Batman around, knocking out teeth with each blow, he wonders how many teeth these guys have!
  • Very common in Mortadelo y Filemón as a result of punches to the face or explosions. For example, there is one scene where Filemón gets hit by a boxer off-screen, and Mortadelo asks him if he lost a tooth. Filemón comes back into view, counting a handful of loose teeth: "No, I think I got all of them... 22, 23, 24..."
  • The Outside Circle: In one panel, Joey is shown punching a guy, and a tooth flying out of the victim's mouth.
  • Raven loses a tooth in a staff-fighting duel in Princeless -- Raven: The Pirate Princess.
  • Robin (1993): Tim Drake and Stephanie Brown end up fighting a gangster with an elongated and sharpened canine he's quite proud of, so of course Tim kicks the thing right out of the man's mouth.
  • Spider-Man:
    • Venom's teeth often go flying when Spider-Man gives him a beating. Not that it matters much, since they grow back in seconds.
    • During Spider-Man's first fight with Tombstone he knocks out several of his teeth.
    • In "The Mortal Past" from The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #28 after Carnage's friend Billy tricks him into taking off his costume so he can kill him as Cletus Kasady, Spider-Man takes advantage of the situation while he's more vulnerable in this state so he knocks him unconscious with a punch knocking out one of his teeth in the process.
    • In The Amazing Spider-Man #122, during Spider-Man's beatdown of The Green Goblin for killing his girlfriend Gwen Stacey, he knocks out some of his teeth.
  • A Running Gag in the Spy vs. Spy comics in MAD. Whenever one spy was caught in an explosion, an entire set of teeth would come flying out of the blast.
  • Invoked twice in Superman storyline The Hunt for Reactron. When Flamebird notes there is something wrong with Lana Lang, Supergirl — who does not want to hear anything bad about her adoptive aunt — suggests Flamebird stop talking if she wants to keep their teeth. Later, after hearing Cat Grant war-mongering on TV, Lois Lane states she would love knocking some teeth out of her mouth.
    Supergirl: Thara, the only reason you're not eating your teeth right now...is that Lana asked me keep the apartment in one piece. So now would be a good time for you to stop talking.
  • Superman/Batman: In "Mash-Up", Superman and Batman end up facing Doomstroke, a Fusion Dance of Doomsday and Deathstroke. Superman punches him hard enough to knock out a tooth, making him run away.
  • In Super Pro K.O., Prince Swagger loses two teeth after a face-first collision with a corner post.
  • In the "Body Count" arc of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Johnny Woo Woo beats Raphael and slams him into the ground; he just casually gets up and spits out a tooth.
  • A regular event in Viz strips, especially Biffa Bacon. Biffa often loses teeth to blows from his own parents.
    Biffa: [in pub with father] Fatha, I bet Ten pints ye cannat knock aal me teeth oot wi' one punch.
    [next panel]
    Father: [with nine pints of beer in front of him and a tenth in his hand] Cheers son!
    Biffa: [toothless] Baftard!
  • Wonder Woman (1942): Etta Candy and Her Holliday Girls: "The Toothache": Etta has a toothache, knocks on the wrong door looking for a dentist to pull her cavity-ridden tooth, and ends up in a fight with some criminals in the middle of carrying out an insurance fraud scheme. Their leader hits her in the face and knocks the problem tooth out before Etta gets them all restrained for authorities.

    Fan Works 
  • Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Both Keizer Ghidorah's middle head and MaNi/Elder Brother (albeit the Belly Mouth on the Skullcrawler half of his body rather than his Ghidorah-head's mouth) receive blows violent enough to cause this from Godzilla and Monster X respectively.
  • The Maretian (The Martian & My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic): On Sol 90, after the crew stop Cherry Berry from resigning, notably through Fireball restraining her, she tells him to report to the medic for injuries... before giving him an uppercut hard enough to break a tooth. The dragon is less distressed by the pain than by the fact a pony broke his tooth, which he would never hear the end of in the Dragonlands.
  • Evil Be Thou My God (Harry Potter & Hellraiser): Harry is punched by Peter Pettigrew's silver hand and loses a molar in the process. He discovers this when he spits out a mouthful of blood and the wayward dentition comes with.
  • Old West: In this Rango fanfiction, Benjamin loses some teeth to a violent headbutt from Rattlesnake Jake.
  • In the Worm/Dishonored crossover fanfic, A Change of Pace, Taylor ends up doing this to a thug with her bat.

    Films — Animation 
  • At one point during Batman and Joker's fight in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Joker smashes a model building over Batman's back and tries to stab him with the point. In response, Batman kicks him in the face knocking out one of his teeth.
  • In A Goofy Movie when Bigfoot sees Goofy reaching for the can of soup, he charges at him and Max in their car, Max is able to get Goofy to pull the can inside and close the window causing Bigfoot to crash into it and knocks out one of his teeth.
  • In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, near the end, Phoebus punches one of Frollo's guards, sending most of his teeth flying from his mouth.
  • Happens to Centipede in The Film of the Book for James and the Giant Peach. Also, to the robot shark. (No fistfight, but teeth are still flying.)
  • In Kung Fu Panda, after Po hits "a little harder" the child-training dummy, it bounces back against him with enough force to make him lose a tooth.
  • The Little Mermaid:
    • At the end of The Little Mermaid, Louis the chef loses a few teeth after getting hit on the face by a mast.
    • Happens to Morgana's pet tiger shark Undertow near the end of the sequel after accidentally hitting a wall and is presumably killed. Since sharks inevitably grow their teeth back immediately if they all were to fall out of their mouths, it's possible that Undertow may have actually survived.
  • In Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, when Alex and the old lady are fist-fighting each other, Alex spits out his tooth and the old lady spits out her dentures.
  • In the "Pecos Bill" segment of Melody Time, Bill knocks out all the gold fillings off a gang of rustlers, which is why "there's gold in them thar hills".
  • Rise of the Guardians: Just so you know, if the Tooth Fairy gives you a quarter, then you owe her a tooth. Pitch learned this the hard way.
  • A couple examples in Space Jam first when Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd shoot out Monstar Bupkis' teeth when he tries to kill Wile E. Coyote when Tweety goes berserk he punches Monstar Blanko and knocks out one of his teeth, and when Monstar Nawt kicks Taz if you look carefully he knocks out a tooth.
  • Wreck-It Ralph:
    • Vanellope spits out one of her teeth after bumping into a wall with her race car. A rare Played for Laughs example.
    • Fix-it-Felix Jr. also gets some of his teeth knocked out by Sergeant Calhoun during the Nesquik-sand scene. He restores the broken teeth with his hammer.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • August Underground's Mordum has a hidden deleted scene showing the Terrible Trio assaulting and mugging a man, who loses a tooth during the beating.
  • In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Hulk spits out a tooth after Tony Stark in the Hulkbuster armor hits him in the face with an elevator. And then gives Tony a Death Glare.
    Tony Stark: [rather wide eyed] ...I'm sorry.
  • Batman:
  • The death of the morgue attendant in Black Christmas is represented by blood and teeth shooting onto a nearby table.
  • Happens in Cloud Atlas during a Bar Brawl. With the teeth falling into a beer mug.
  • In The Comebacks, Coach Fields tries to intimidate George Johnson into stepping in line, and even invites him to attack him. After being knocked down by a savage headbutt, Coach's tooth is returned to him by another player.
  • Downplayed in Daredevil. At some point during the fight at the start of the film, Daredevil got hit in the mouth. When he's cleaning up back at his apartment in the shower, he reaches into his mouth and pulls out a broken tooth.
  • Deadpool 2: Colossus of all people spits out a metal tooth after a particularly strong punch from Juggernaut.
  • One werewolf in Dog Soldiers is kicked so hard on the mouth that one of its teeth flies into a wall and gets stuck.
  • In the climax of Feast, the second Heroine uses a rifle butt to knock out every last one of a monster's many, many teeth. Then tops this by shoving her arm through its now-harmless jaws, and all the way down its throat, so it chokes to death!
  • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: Bert gets some of his teeth knocked out by Dwalin and sent flying at the camera.
  • In Home Alone, as Harry and Marv chase after Kevin, the kid attacks them by swinging some paint cans tied to strings their way. One can hits Harry in the face so hard that it knocks out his gold tooth.
    Marv: [looking closely at Harry] Ooh...
    Harry: What is it?
    Marv: You're missing some teeth.
    Harry: [feeling around in his mouth] Where? [realizes] It's my gold tooth! My gold tooth! I'll kill him! I'LL KILL HIM!!
  • Done with the very first punch of the bar fight when Harry Hart redirects a gang member's punch with his umbrella in Kingsman: The Secret Service.
  • In Kung Fu Hustle, when one of the Musical Assassins punches the Landlord, his fist just bounces straight into his partner's mouth, sending a bloodied tooth straight upwards.
  • Lone Wolf McQuade. A horse-stealin', hostage-takin' bandito makes the mistake of thinking that Texas Ranger McQuade is defenseless because he made him Put Down Your Gun and Step Away. Unfortunately for him, this Texas Ranger is played by Chuck Norris.
    Bandito: I've never seen a Texas Ranger up close before. You know, once a Texas Ranger kicked my father's teeth out! Would you do that to me, Texas Ranger?
    (McQuade kicks him in the face, snatches an Ingram and guns down the rest of the gang.)
    Bandito: (spitting teeth into the dirt) Don't shoot! (sees a pistol and tries to grab it, only for McQuade to stomp on his hand) Don't shoot me, dammit! You already kicked my teeth out! What else do you want?!
    McQuade: Like father, like son.
  • In The Mask of Zorro, Zorro picks up two cannonballs in each hand and claps his hands together with the Giant Mook's face in between. Eight times. The man spits out several teeth and passes out.
  • Near the end of the final Neo/Smith fight in The Matrix Revolutions, Neo knocks out one of Smith's teeth.
  • A man spits up a handful of teeth when he's whacked with a shovel in The Remake.
  • Screamers. After one of his soldiers is revealed to be a disguised Killer Robot, the protagonist shoots half his face off. The robot just spits out a tooth and keeps on coming.
  • Terminator 2: Judgment Day: When Sarah ambushes Douglas, she aims straight at his face with her broom handle and the asshole loses a few teeth as a result.
  • Optimus Prime spits out what looks like a metal tooth during a fight in Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen. What a robot is doing with teeth is best left to the Wild Mass Guessing pages. Some theorize it's bits of his faceplate that Megatron had shattered.
  • Troy: Paris manages to knock a tooth loose from Menelaus; the only good jab he gets in the fight.
  • This is used as a Running Gag in Undercover Blues, in which small-time criminal "Muerte" loses a tooth when attempting to mug one of the titular spies. He stalks them, determined to exact revenge, and ends up losing more teeth in most of their encounters.
  • In Wanted when the main character snaps, quits his job, and smacks his backstabbing "best friend" on the way out with his keyboard, we're treated to a Bullet Time shot of a tooth flying out, forming the second letter U to accompany the F, U, C, K and Y, O keys that flew off the keyboard. It's that kind of movie.
  • Played for Drama in a scene from the director's cut of Watchmen. When Nite Owl learns from a Knot-Top that his mentor Hollis Mason was murdered by other members of that gang, he snaps and punches the man in the face repeatedly, visibly knocking a few teeth loose. The last you see of the guy is him gurgling his own blood which has most of his teeth floating around in it.
  • A character loses some teeth after being smacked with a pipe in When a Killer Calls.

    Literature 
  • Literature relating to comic books; in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, our heroes insist on drawing The Escapist punching teeth out of Hitler's mouth on the cover of their first comic.
  • The first blow of a bar fight in the Timothy Cavendish segment of Cloud Atlas knocks a tooth out of a villain's mouth and into the protagonist's drink.
  • Subverted in Consider Phlebas. Balveda spits out a tooth during the final battle, apparently from an injury. It isn't. That tooth is actually a "memoryform" containing a powerful laser gun that she uses to kill a much larger Idiran soldier.
  • Young James Bond in Double or Die hits Wolfgang Smith in the face with a piece of marble, resulting in pieces of the thing and Wolfgang's teeth flying everywhere.
  • Earth's Children: Played for Drama in regards to Madroman; in his youth, he had two of his front teeth knocked out by Jondalar punching him. Because of the time period (Ice Age), getting replacements isn't an option and it has some permanent impact on him; he lisps when pronouncing some words, sometimes has difficulty eating certain foods and Jondalar says he's experienced some romantic rejection because of it.
  • Fox Demon Cultivation Manual: Zhu Qin spits out two teeth after Rong Bai kicks him in the face.
  • Fridthjof's Saga: Fridthjof slams the heavy purse that contains the tribute from Orkney into King Helgi's face "so that two teeth were knocked out of Helgi's mouth".
  • Happens to Roran in Inheritance, he casually puts his tooth back in and somehow it stays there. When he later interrogates someone, he then threatens that his victim won't be able to do the same, because Roran will knock out all his teeth and keep them.
  • Used to humorous effect in The Municipalists. When OWEN and Henry are interrogating would-be assassin Biggs in the empty Census Bureau's parking garage, OWEN (who is a hologram and cannot throw his own punches) goads Henry into smacking Biggs around to get answers. One punch later, Biggs' teeth go skittering across the asphalt — all of them. Turns out he willingly replaced his teeth with dentures, as have most other members of the radicalized Metropolis branch of the Municipal Survey, to prevent Identification by Dental Records.
  • Early in Old Scores, while in the process of beating up an abusive husband, the vampire Simon hits him across the jaw with the handle end of a baseball bat and knocks out three teeth.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire: In A Dance with Dragons, Tyrion taunts Jorah, who responds by punching Tyrion out. Tyrion spits out a tooth and thinks, "Growing prettier every day."
  • Star Wars: Kenobi: Mullen Gault has lost several of his teeth thanks to a couple bar brawls, such as the one in the prologue. People think this is the reason why he's a Perpetual Frowner.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The Plot-Triggering Death of The Boys (2019) is when superhero A-Train accidentally runs into Hughie's girlfriend at Super-Speed, liquefying her instantly. Afterwards Butcher incites Hughie to get revenge by playing a tape of A-Train laughing over how he hit the girl so fast, he swallowed one of her molars.
  • Dexter ends up killing the wrong man in self-defense, resulting in a temporary crown getting knocked out during the struggle, which he has to look for the next day at the crime scene before the forensics team finds it.
  • Drop the Dead Donkey. Globelink News decides to do a Crimewatch program. Thanks to Gus Hedges' desire to outdo Quentin Tarantino, a so-called 'reconstruction' of a post office robbery in Dalston starts with an old lady getting her dentures knocked out by a shotgun-wielding thug. Things go downhill from there.
  • Briefly discussed in the Firefly episode "Trash".
    Zoe: Kaylee, if he'd gotten into a fight with that Sasquatch [Monty], we'd all be in the dirt right about now, picking up the captain's teeth.
  • In Game of Thrones, the duel between Oberyn Martell and Gregor Clegane has the former get punched in the face by the bigger man (who is wearing armoured gloves) hard enough to knock out several teeth. Shortly afterwards, we get a look at his ruined mouth as he screams, though considering he's also getting his eyes gouged at the time, you might be distracted from his missing teeth.
  • How I Met Your Mother: A drunk Robin picks a fight with Lily, warning her that she'll give her "Summer Teeth: som're here, some're there."
  • On My Name Is Earl, Joy does this to Earl's ex-girlfriend twice. The first time was shortly after Earl and Joy got married, and Jessie called her a whore. The second time was after Earl and Joy got divorced, and Jessie (now with artificial teeth) saw an opportunity for revenge.
  • The Newsroom: Invoked by Charlie Skinner in the following exchange,
    Reese: Will McAvoy is the biggest ratings whore in the business. I'm not the bad guy here.
    Charlie: Nobody is the bad guy here, though, if you call Will a 'whore' again, I'm going to take out your teeth — one punch at a time. [smile]''
  • During the "bar room tidy" in the Red Dwarf episode "Backwards", Lister unpunches a guy with an obvious gap in his teeth while saying "Here, mate, have your tooth back."
  • In Ultraman Taro, the penultimate battle between Taro and the monster Okariyan culminates in Taro smashing the monster's face into a large boulder, resulting in Okariyan's teeth flying all over the place. One single tooth — larger than an adult man — nearly hits one of the ZAT members.

    Myths & Religion 

    Pro Wrestling 
  • In one of the most famous examples, Mick Foley lost a tooth as a result of being hit in the mouth with a chair in his brutal Hell in a Cell match against The Undertaker at King of the Ring 1998. Interestingly enough, the tooth in question somehow wound up in his NOSE.
  • At ROH Super Card Of Honor II in 2007, Jimmy Jacobs lost a tooth during his cage match with BJ Whitmer.
  • At No Mercy 2008, Chris Jericho lost one of his teeth when he got smacked in the face with a ladder.
  • In a 2013 match, Nikki Bella lost one of her teeth after getting kicked in the face.
  • At No Mercy 2017, Cesaro lost his front teeth when he got thrown into the ring post. The catch here is that his teeth went up into his gums.
  • At TLC: Tables, Ladders, & Chairs 2020, Kofi Kingston apparently lost two of his teeth.

    Radio 

    Sports 
  • Very likely to happen in many sports. There's a reason why many media depict hockey as a main staple for losing teeth since it's very likely to get slammed into the wall or floor or even smacked by a hockey stick or even the puck itself. It doesn't help that most men's hockey helmets leave the lower face exposed. And then there's the perchance for fighting...
  • Boxing, since fighters can and will aim for the face. Granted they have mouth guards for this, but it's not guaranteed that it won't shake a tooth loose.
  • Ancient Greek boxing featured this much more regularly than today, since competitors wore what were essentially leather knuckledusters on their hands, and didn't wear mouthguards.
  • Likewise with soccer. The most infamous case took place in the West Germany vs. France 1982 World Cup semi-final, when the French Patrick Battiston was advancing on goal... but German keeper Harald Schumacher ran out and smashed him in the face with his forearm, knocking two of Battiston's teeth down plus damaging two of his vertebrae and knocking him out cold.

    Tabletop Games 
  • A series of ads for 25th-anniversary reprints and sequels of classic Dungeons & Dragons modules showed a warrior, initially in great condition with shining armor, getting increasingly battered by the various adventures. In one of the later ones, he's spitting out a tooth.
  • In Warhammer 40,000, this is a way for an Ork to make money. Since Orks use their Teef as a Weird Currency, getting into a fight with another greenskin gives them a material incentive to prove how badass they are — and since Ork tusks grow back, getting socked in the mouth isn't a crippling loss, either. This is also why the wealthy Bad Moon clan's fast-growing Teef aren't seen as an unfair advantage by the rest of greenskin society, since any other Ork 'ard enough can just bash them out of the Bad Moon's ugly face.

    Video Games 
  • The Binding of Isaac has the Tough Love item, which gives the player a chance to shoot a high-damaging tooth at enemies instead of the normal tear.
  • Condemned 2: Bloodshot has crazy hobos and homeless people. When you smack them upside the head with one of the various improvised weapons, teeth occasionally fly out and onto the ground.
  • Dwarf Fortress counts teeth by bunches (upper left teeth, lower front teeth, and so on), and, if struck hard enough, they all go flying. As a result of this and the AI targeting system, old forts tend to have dozens of teeth scattered all over the surface.
  • Fallen London: "The Very Teeth of St. George" are actually a collection of teeth that have flown out of the mouths of both the Bishop of Southwark and anyone that's accompanied him in the inevitable brawls that happen when you go preaching to the bad parts of town. He gives you a bag if you've got decent renown with the Church, which you can put on the mantelpiece for Dangerous points.
    The Bishop: Anyone who labours in holy service to England is St George, as far as I'm concerned.
  • In the boss battle with The Black Baron in MadWorld, one of your last punches knocks several teeth out that spell out the word "MAD".
  • Mortal Kombat 9 has this in the very detailed X-ray moves, which frequently involve blows to the head, with handy x-ray shots of the injury in question. Characters with non-standard skulls, like Mileena and Baraka have distinct teeth and jaws. Most of the time, teeth go flying.
  • By his character description, this has happened to the Bar Brawl-loving dwarf Khelgar Ironfist of Neverwinter Nights 2 multiple times. Most notably, he recalls one particular (not well-thought-out) brawl with a group of Sun Soul monks with him having to pick up most of his teeth afterwards.

    Web Animation 
  • In the AstroLOLogy short "Dental-phobia", Scorpio wins a boxing match against Leo, knocking one of the latter's teeth out. He later finds that he has a cavity and, after being too afraid to see a dentist (Virgo) to have it properly treated, he challenges Leo to a rematch in the hopes that he'll knock the offending tooth out. It works... but then the rest of Scorpio's teeth fall out and the short ends with him getting dentures.
  • Homestar Runner was once punched in the face by Strong Bad, causing a giant tooth to fly out. However, Homestar for some reason claims that he doesn't have teeth.
  • Implied in If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, after Calgar decides to "cast fist" on Cato Sicarius as a disciplinary action (and to blow some steam; Sicarius is the single biggest annoyance Calgar has). Notable in that Cato is wearing a helmet at the time.
    Cato Sicarius: I, Cato Sicarius, can't feel my teeth...
  • RWBY: A creepy bandit called Shay D. Mann tries to hit on Yang Xiao Long. She punches him and knocks one of his teeth out.

    Web Comics 

    Western Animation 
  • In the American Dad! episode "Haylias" when Hayley has gone insane after activating her chip she attempts to kill Stan at one point she punches him in the jaw knocking out a tooth, and we get a close-up of the bloody tooth flying from his mouth.
  • Beavis and Butt-Head lost teeth a lot when they got punched or hit in the face with a heavy object. In one instance they put dynamite in a bowling ball and it blew up in their faces; Butthead spits out three teeth.
  • Blue Eye Samurai. Weaponised in the first episode when Mizu is carving her way through a dojo armed using only a wooden sword. We get several flying teeth shots culminating in her using the sword to knock some teeth across the room so one of them impales a mook in the eye.
  • In The Boondocks episode "Granddad's Fight", during Robert's final street fight against Stinkmeaner, he knocks out all of Stinkmeaner's teeth.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door: Done in a Mirror Universe in which Lizzie hits Nigel's Evil Counterpart in the face with a torture device causing one of his teeth to fall out.
  • In the Daffy Duck / Porky Pig cartoon "The Ducksters", game show host Daffy threatens contestant Porky at one point; "Listen, mac, you got thirty-two teeth. Would you like to try for sixteen?"
  • In Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show when Ed pulls a loose hinge on Eddy's Brother's door after he won't stop throwing Eddy into it, it flies back at his brother and knocks him unconscious knocking out one of his teeth in the process.
  • El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera: How El Tigre finally beats El Mal Verde for the first time, smashing into his mouth hard enough to send his boulder-sized teeth scattering.
  • On The Fairly OddParents!, this is shown to be a Berserk Button for the Tooth Fairy. She makes her debut in the Oh Yeah! Cartoons shorts when she brings Jorgen to his knees for knocking out Timmy's tooth in a struggle. In the show proper, she becomes infuriated when Francis knocks out Chester's tooth and tries to pass it off as his own.
  • Happens nearly anytime someone receives a punch to the face in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. In one instance Mandy pays Sperg specifically to do this to Billy because he wouldn't stop showing her his loose tooth.
  • A recurring gag in golden age cartoons like Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry when a character receives a blow to the face their teeth will often shatter like glass.
  • In the Looney Tunes short "Carrotblanca", when Bugs puts Yosemite Sam on trial and pretends to be several witnesses to the crime when he dresses as a woman and whacks Sam with a purse (with an anvil in), he knocks out one of his teeth.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, "The Ending of the End –- Part 2": When Twilight is fighting Tirek in the final battle, she shoots him straight in the jaw with a magic blast and dislodges a tooth, to the centaur's fury.
  • Bad guys' teeth go flying in the opening sequence to The Powerpuff Girls, and in the show itself, teeth getting knocked out of mouths are not uncommon. The episode "Moral Decay" was pretty much based on this trope — Buttercup learns the Tooth Fairy gives you money for teeth and starts deliberately knocking villains' teeth out and collecting them to make a huge windfall.
  • Basically anytime there is a fight scene or when someone receives a blow to the face in The Ren & Stimpy Show teeth usually fly from their mouths.
  • In The Simpsons episode "The Homer They Fall", Homer gets one of his teeth knocked out during his disastrous fight with Drederick Tatum. Bart gives him one he found, but after trying to put it in Homer says that it isn't his.
  • In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode where SpongeBob has to impersonate Mr. Krabs at his Navy reunion, one of Krab's buddies asks to punch him in the "armor abs", resulting in one of his teeth coming loose. The others are disappointed that he only lost one tooth until he spits out a few more and then his skeleton, and the others declare, "Now that's manly!"
  • In Total Drama World Tour, Leshawna punches out one of Heather's teeth, forcing her to wear a gold tooth.

    Real Life 
  • A common saying in whitewater rafting explaining the reason that you keep a hand on the end of your paddle at all times (to avoid the hard plastic end from smacking someone in the mouth) is that you'll end up with "summer teeth" as in, "Sum'r in the boat, Sum'r in the water, and if you're lucky, Sum'r still in your mouth."
  • World War II Soviet general Rokossovsky was sometimes known as "the man with the steel smile" because he had steel dentures replacing teeth knocked out during his time as a prisoner in the Gulag. These were common in the Soviet Union but unfamiliar to the Western press. Soviet sniper Koulikov also has this, in Enemy at the Gates. Whether the real-life Koulikov did, however, is not known.


 
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Trail of Teeth

After hearing Mariner say they'll be able to stop the station from plummeting by the skin of their teeth, Ransom orders her to punch his teeth out so they can use them to lure the moopsy out from the station's main control room.

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