Your Brain Won't Be Much of a Meal - Television Tropes & Idioms

No braaaaiiins?

Elan: So...are you going to eat my brain?
Mindflayer: <sniff sniff> No, I'm cool, thanks.

— The Order of the Stick, strip #30

Grim: I think its trying to suck his brains out, mon
Mandy: Poor things gonna starve.

This trope is about what happens when a Brain Eater runs into a character that manifests a few Stupidity Tropes, and what happens as a result.

This Trope comes in a few flavors.

Most realistic: The monster is only worried about the dumb character's brain, or other characters make comments along these lines.
The monster sniffs and says that the dumb character's brain is not a big meal or it's still hungry or starving.
Most ridiculous: The brain is small or there is no brain in their head at all.

Compare with Too Spicy for Yog Sothoth. Related to Too Dumb to Fool.

Examples

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Comic Books

During Joss Whedon's run on Runaways set in the early 20th century (Time Travel shenanigans), the Runaways meet up with a gang of metahumans called the Street Arabs. One of them, Dead George Pelham, is a friendly neighborhood zombie. Later in the arc, several of the Arabs are killed by Kid Twist, a vicious member of the Yorkes' gang with the power to fire bullets that never miss their target. In the middle of the final battle of the story arc, Dead George makes a point of tracking down Kid Twist to avenge the Arabs. As Kid Twist futilely fires bullets at the angry zombie, Dead George says this:
George: I'm partial to brains myself. But you just emptied your gun into a dead man so I doubt this'll be much of a meal. (Bites into Kid Twist's skull)

Comic Strips

A Garfield strip has Garfield pretend to be The Igor, wandering around saying, "A brain! I need a brain for my master!" He pauses to take a look at Odie, and then moves on, repeating, "A brain! I need a brain for my master!"

Jokes

An old joke: Grab someone by the head and start moving your hand up and down then say "This is a brain-sucker... and it's starving."
The counter to that is, when the person grabs your head, you say "Stop making the brain-sucker fat!" before they can call it starving.

Live-Action TV

Referenced in Red Dwarf. When the crew is confronted by brain-eating monsters, Rimmer deadpans that there's "barely a snack onboard."
Similarly referenced in the Blackadder II episode "Potato", with cannibals this time.

Video Games

In BlazBlue, Arakune (sort of) says this when given the chance to consume Bang Shishigami when the former wins.

Webcomics

The second variant shows up in The Order of the Stick, when the Mind Flayer doesn't want to eat Elan's brain. Later, we get to see it picture each of the Order as a meal and it ticks them off one by one. Durkon = rice (filling but bland), Haley = a sundae (too sweet), Belkar = a taco (it'd get heartburn), Elan = Diet Coke (next!), Vaarsuvius = a hamburger (getting somewhere) and Roy = a turkey (perfect!). Vaarsuvius is visibly upset by this.
Concerned: After Gordon walks away with a headcrab on a head for the better part of a chapter, it eventually falls off, having died of malnutrition. Gordon provides a Lampshading in the background.
xkcd, first type, when Zombie Feynman wants brains after explaining how MythBusters are true science:
Person: Try the physics lab next door.
Zombie Feynman: I said BRAINS. All they've got are string theorists.

: Pulling double duty there, that punchline is also a Stealth Pun and a Genius Bonus.

In this Dork Tower strip, Igor engages a mind flayer with purple nurples and "the dreaded doom wedgie". Since this effectively proved his character didn't have a brain to flay, he actually won.
In Unsounded, Sette complains that as a zombie, Duane should be eating brains and that hers is full of cunning and knowledge. His response is to knock on her head and declare it "hollow".

Western Animation

In Futurama, we see a Brain Slug starve to death after it gets on Fry's head. (The true reason is later explained; it's complicated.)
The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy
- The brain-eating meteor didn't find anything in Billy's head. Although that creature wasn't complaining about other variants.
- Human and Martian zombies also find nothing appetizing in Billy's head.
Trope namer is from My Life as a Teenage Robot where humanoid brain-eating rock monster comments about Brad's brain after his Idiot Ball what cause him and Jenny get captured. And this is first variant.
On The Simpsons, the third "Treehouse of Horror" special had a zombie horde clamoring for "Braaaains" inspect Homer's head, then abandon him in disgust. Most ridiculously, the zombie taps Homer on the head and a very hollow sound is heard before it moves along.
On The Powerpuff Girls, the girls defeat a brain sucker by tricking him into attacking the Mayor.
A variation in the Dilbert cartoon where a brain sucking alien devours a marketing guy's brains (not that he cares or notices) and dies from something akin to food poisoning.
Other Alien: He starved to death with a full stomach.
In Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, a brain-eating monster begins sucking the intelligence of Quark Industries' scientists. When he goes after Donovan, Quark's Pointy-Haired Boss / Corrupt Corporate Executive, both Donovan AND his monkey try to use this trope in order to escape. The monster just shrugs it off, wanting to attack out of dislike. In a later episode, Donovan's nephew gains the same brain-sucking powers, but decides against attacking Donovan. ("Not empty calories!")