History Main / PeelingPotatoes

* [[Webcomic/SchlockMercenary Schlock, Kevyn and Brad]] were [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2000-09-01 sentenced to this once]]. Schlock, being a BlobMonster, peeled them with digestive juices rather than the peeler.

* While the actual event didn't happen in game, in ''VideoGame/WingCommander II'', three of the survivors of the ''Tiger's Claw'' reminisce about a prank committed by a pilot from the first game who didn't live to the second that landed him doing this for a week.

* Used as a punishment in ''{{Tigerland}}'' for Army draftees during the Vietnam War.

* ''TheGreatBrain'' series has this happen several times.

* In TenSixtySixAndAllThat, Simmel/Lambert/Wormkin (the text varies) is made an escullion as a punishment for his attempted (and largely incomprehensible) rebellion. In an illustration, he is shown peeling something that looks like a potato.

* ''[[LilMell Li'l Mell]]'' had Mell and Sergio put on potato-peeling duty when the homeschooled kid Mell brought for show and tell started a revolution against the school. Sergio lampshaded this by wondering where all the potatoes came from. (The cafeteria ladies. They joined the rebellion on the students' side.) Then Mell started a competing revolution, armed with the two potato peelers.

[[folder:Film]]
* Used as a punishment in ''{{Tigerland}}'' for Army draftees during the Vietnam War.
* Babydoll and Rocket converse while peeling potatoes in one scene of ''Film/SuckerPunch''; Babydoll is so distracted we see she's "peeled" the same strip of potato over and over, leaving a large hollow in it.

* Poor Jim in ''Disney/TreasurePlanet'' constantly gets stuck with this job.

* An episode of TaleSpin features Kit being forced by Colonel Spigget to peel ''turnips'' for rebelling at a Thembrian flying camp. Spigget is forced to take the task up after his bumbling is exposed.

* The ending of the classic Disney cartoon ''SteamboatWillie''

** To elaborate on this, Snuffy Smith was [[{{understatement}} not the model soldier]]. He tended to have an attitude problem, and was MildlyMilitary at best. That said, when the plane he was serving as a gunner on was badly damaged and engulfed in flames, he stayed aboard to tend to a wounded crewmate and fight the fires (and shoot at the Germans, who were still attacking them). By the time they arranged the ceremony to present him with the Medal of Honor some time later, he had gotten in trouble for sleeping through a briefing. Ladies and gentlemen, the first person in the history of the Air Force to receive the Medal of Honor without earning it posthumously.

* In the Finnish Army, peeling potatoes is called ''perunateatteri'' ("potato theatre") or ''pottis'' and it is considered a convenient, if a tad restricting, break of the army chores and a good chance to socialize with the supply units and eat well. Sometimes a soldier assigned to the task may not only peel, but ''sculpt'', the potatoes - much to the amusement to anyone either preparing the meal or eating it.

* Happened to Alan Scott, the GoldenAge GreenLantern, when he was in the army. Unable to explain his absence without blowing his secret identity, he was assigned potato peeling as a punishment. Fortunatley for Alan, his sidekick Doiby Dickles was able to take over the peeling when Alan needed to become GreenLantern again.

* Shown as part of Jim's [[MiseryBuildsCharacter "character development through manual labor"]] maturation sequence in ''Disney/TreasurePlanet'', along with other related drudgery like [[PunishmentDetail a mountain of pots to wash]], barnacle scraping ([[RecycledINSPACE in space!]]), etc. In this case, the potatoes are actually all-purpose alien fruit-vegetable-things called "purps", but we still get the big pile to be peeled, the paring knife, the lonely corner, and Jim distracting himself from the mundanity with memories and fantasies, as well as the idea of mountains of work being piled on the lowest-ranked crew member in order to show him his place and keep him busy.

* Done by the DrillSergeantNasty to the trainees in the Creator/KimNewman novella ''Teddy Bear's Picnic''. In a particular sadistic twist, he changes his mind and then orders the recruits to glue the skins back on.

* A nonmilitary but definitely punishment version: one of the ''TenchiMuyo'' OVA episodes had Ryoko, Aeka, and Mihoshi doing this as their share of repairing the extensive damage to a hot spring resort, with varying results. Ryoko did a hack job on hers with questionable accuracy, Aeka primly carved each millimetre of skin with painstaking deliberation, and Mihoshi outstripped both easily (and boasted about it).
* In the second season of ''{{Strike Witches}}'', Gertrud gets sentenced to this for violating orders.
* In the second chapter of ''CrossboneGundam'', Kincaid tells Tobia that if he's going to be part of their group, he's going to have to earn his keep. Cut to them ''both'' in the mess, peeling potatoes (with a badly damaged blender in the background).

* As MildlyMilitary as [[XWingSeries Wraith Squadron]] could be, even they have punishment detail. The very first time all of the members of the new squadron were together at once, while Wedge was listing off their respective specialties, Face Loran decided to interrupt.

* Warrant Officer Oreldo in ''PumpkinScissors'' is ''very good'' at peeling potatoes, and references this trope as the reason why.

* BeetleBailey, of course, has this happen to him quite often.

* In the ''RenAndStimpy'' army episode this is done straight the first time, the second time has them scraping potato-peelers over watermelons, and the third time has them scraping potato-peelers over nuclear bombs.

* The 1942 ''DonaldDuck'' cartoon [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Trooper Sky Trooper]] where he joins the Army Air Corps, and has to peel potatoes after he nearly gets his [[DrillSergeantNasty training officer]] killed in a mishap.

* In an episode of ''TheJetsons'' where George joins the army, he's assigned this. It involves pressing two buttons, one to peel an entire sack of potatoes in a second, and one to mash them. He spends both seconds complaining about how hard punishment detail is.
* In a Mister Know-It-All segment in ''RockyAndBullwinkle'' when Bullwinkle demonstrates how to escape from Devil's Island. Boris the warden demands Bullwinkle to peel potatoes which he didn't at all when potatoes are boiled.
* An episode of ''{{Chowder}}'' saw Mung and his titular apprentice in servitude to [[TheRival Endive]] in exchange for an exotic fruit necklace. Their final task was to peel "growtatoes", which are just like normal potatoes, except they grow exponentially until fully peeled and threatened to crush the two chefs.

* Kendra Shaw in ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}: Razor''

** Even in ships at sea, where you don't have civilians to outsource the potato peeling to, its not used as a punishment detail anymore; everybody (below a certain rank) just gets to take a turn.
* Interestingly, in Soviet and Russian army kitchen patrol always was considered a ''privilege'' and not the punishment, as it allowed the soldier to sit in warm kitchen doing tedious but easy job, and not work his ass off doing whatever the seniors saddled him with. Also it basically let the soldier to eat whatever he wants whenever he wants, and not a set menu in the set hours only.
** Combat soldiers in the [[IsraelisWithInfraRedMissiles IDF]] tend to have the same opinion for similar reasons--kitchen duty is usually easier and less unpleasant then say, guard duty, cleaning or maintenance work, and provides access to food outside of meal time. Soldiers in supporting roles tend to have the opposite opinion; their regular duty isn't so unpleasant that the kitchen is an improvement.

* Rimmer and Lister were forced to do this in an episode of ''Series/RedDwarf'' after ticking their captain off. Lister has the "great" idea of getting out of having to peel the literal mountain of potatoes by having a special virus eat the potato skins. Unfortunately for the duo, [[TheNudifier the virus also eats clothes]].

* In ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'', Nobby thinks to himself that anyone who responds to "Who likes good food?" in the military is going to be volunteered for KP duty, as part of an internal monologue as to why you should ''never'' volunteer for anything.

->''"[[MundaneMadeAwesome Behold the potato]]! Bow to this fruit of the earth, and then peel it as if it were the last task of your miserable life!"''

* Poor Jim in ''TreasurePlanet'' constantly gets stuck with this job.

[[quoteright:320:[[SteamboatWillie http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/MickeyPotatoBin-SteamboatWillie_6218.jpg]]]]

-->--'''Rolf''', ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy''

* This was parodied/lampshaded in an issue of ''ComicStrip/GIJoe'', where several Joes peel potatoes and basically take turns complaining until the uber-serious Gung Ho tells them to stop bellyaching and do their jobs.
* Seen in the French-Belgian comic series ''ComicStrip/LesTuniquesBleues''.

* This was parodied/lampshaded in an issue of ''GIJoe'', where several Joes peel potatoes and basically take turns complaining until the uber-serious Gung Ho tells them to stop bellyaching and do their jobs.
* Seen in the French-Belgian comic series ''LesTuniquesBleues''.

->''[[MundaneMadeAwesome Behold the potato]]! Bow to this fruit of the earth, and then peel it as if it were the last task of your miserable life!''

* GomerPyle does this a lot.

* ''Series/{{Mash}}'': Klinger was frequently threatened with KP duty if he didn't knock off his SchemeOfTheWeek to get a Section 8. Occasionally we saw him pulling KP duty including, yes, peeling potatoes.

* In the ExpositoryThemeTune to ''Open All Night'' Gordon is shown in the army peeling potatoes; this is basically what he did during his entire tour.

* ''WesternAnimation/PrivateSnafu'': Snafu is stuck on KP in "Gripes"; peeling potatoes with with his feet while scrubbing pot with his hands and sweeping the floor with his butt.