History Main / WheelOfPain

* ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMansChest'' has the Kraken Hammer raised by a device of this sort.
** The Black Pearl has a similar device... to raise and lower the anchor. Most ships of that age had one. (This is what a capstan is; several sea-shanties are paced to the rhythm ideal for pushing it, to keep everyone walking at the same pace.)
* Zombie slaves provide the motive power for a similar sugar-mill capstan in ''Film/WhiteZombie'' (1932, and not connected with Music/RobZombie beyond a AGoodNameForARockBand).
** There's a surprisingly grisly moment for the movie's era when one of the zombies ''falls into'' the mill and is mindlessly ground up by the rest.

* Shows up a couple of times in ''Literature/{{Gor}}'': the gate that one enters the Sardar Mountains at is powered by slaves, and in ''Guardsman of Gor'' the hero is captured and set to work one which opens and closes a water gate. [[spoiler: Don't worry, he planned for that to happen.]]

* A Mammoth-pushed variant is shown in ''Literature/TheWayThingsWork'' to power a Merry Go round. The Mammoths have carrots dangling in front of them and are basically tricked into turning one wheel, which is propped up against another with seats dangling off it.

* Named for the device from ''Film/ConanTheBarbarian1982'', which turned the titular character from a scrawny kid into the musclebound BarbarianHero that rampaged across two films. (Indeed, Arnold Schwarzenegger buffed up ''so much'' for the movie, when he was being filmed pushing it along, the director had to have half the crew on the other side of the wheel pushing the opposite direction so it'd look like Arnie was actually exerting himself.) While the wheel's purpose was never revealed in the film itself, WordOfGod states that it was a grain wheel.
* The Creator/LouisDeFunes film ''Film/DelusionsOfGrandeur'' ends with the protagonists chained to one of those. It pumps water [[spoiler: for a tiny "pet" palm tree of a Bedouin chief]].
* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheReturnOfTheKing'' had trolls turning huge wheels to open the gates of Mordor.

* ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMansChest'' had the Kraken Hammer raised by a device of this sort.

%%* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': One of these shows up in an episode.
* ''WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero'': Cobra in many of its earlier episodes inexplicably keeps haggard-looking slaves wearing rags, turning wheels and pushing mining carts, despite that fact that Cobra prides itself on using the sorts of advanced technology that would have made it easier to mine via automation.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'':
** The beauty pageant episode has one of these in ''every'' character's fantasy of them becoming mayor for a day. In Vicky's fantasy, Timmy is the one turning the wheel. In Timmy's Mom's fantasy, it's a bunch of men turning the wheel. When Timmy's Dad actually wins the contest and becomes mayor for a day, he basically makes the fantasy come to life...only it's his hated neighbor, Mr. Dinkleberg. turning the wheel.
** At one point in ''WesternAnimation/{{Wishology}}'', the fairies are forced to do this by the Eliminators. Cupid asks "What happens if we stop pushing this thing?" [[TemptingFate They decide to find out]]... and discover that it plays the melancholy background music.
* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot'', when first informed about the Cluster, we see humans chained to this, apparently to power some kind of Ice Cream Parlor for robots.
* Seen in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheCritic'', when Alice is looking for a preschool for her daughter. One school she visits turns out to be a Dickensian workhouse, complete with a Wheel of Pain being operated by the children. It turns out its actually a sweatshop that produces merchandise for ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', in Dean's day-dream/hallucination in the Season 2 finale, he fights the Insect King (a cyborg version of his dad's arch-nemesis, the Monarch), who is forcing enslaved orphans to turn one of these.

* A Mammoth-pushed variant is shown in ''Literature/TheWayThingsWork'' to power a Merry Go round. The Mammoths have carrots dangling in front of them and are basically tricked into turning one wheel, which is propped up against another with seats dangling off it.

* Shows up a couple of times in ''Literature/{{Gor}}'': the gate that one enters the Sardar Mountains at is powered by slaves, and in ''Guardsman of Gor'' the hero is captured and set to work one which opens and closes a water gate. [[spoiler: Don't worry, he planned for that to happen.]]
* A variant in ''Literature/RangersApprentice'' - Skandian slaves turn the rack, which is a pair of paddles that aggravate the surface of the water in the well to prevent it freezing over in winter. It's such gruelling work that even the slave owners, who drive their slaves hard, recognise they can only work on it for two hours at a time.

* In ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland'', the player sees a horde of monkeys being enslaved this way.

* An unoccupied one is seen in Cimmeria in ''VideoGame/AgeOfConan''. It might even be the same in the Trope Picture.
* In ''VideoGame/ConanExiles'', it's used to grind seeds into gruel and make the captured [=NPCs=] into slaves.
* One can appear in ''{{VideoGame/Dungeons}} 2'' in parts of the overworld once they are corrupted by evil.

* Gene of ''VideoGame/GodHand'' fame rescues a few humans from one.

* Used on the sugar plantation the eponymous protagonist is chained to in ''Film/CaptainBlood''.

* ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMansChest'' had the Kraken Hammer raised by a device of this sort.
** The Black Pearl has a similar device... to raise and lower the anchor. Most ships of that age had one. (This is what a capstan is; several sea-shanties are paced to the rhythm ideal for pushing it, to keep everyone walking at the same pace.)
* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheReturnOfTheKing'' had trolls turning huge wheels to open the gates of Mordor.
* The film adaptation of the musical ''Theatre/{{Oliver}}'' briefly shows a variation on the theme, as detailed in RealLife below, during the opening scene.
* The Creator/LouisDeFunes film ''Film/DelusionsOfGrandeur'' ends with the protagonists chained to one of those. It pumps water [[spoiler: for a tiny "pet" palm tree of a Bedouin chief]].

* ''Series/{{Norsemen}}'' has one which, true to the trope, has absolutely no function other than to make the village slaves push something around and around.

%%* ''Anime/MagicalWitchPuniechan'' {{Omake}} had this in the [[CrapsaccharineWorld Fantasy Kingdom]]. (ZCE)

* Some enslaved Numemon are forced to operate one of these to power Machinedramon's city in ''Anime/DigimonAdventure''.
* ''{{Anime/Superbook}}'': in the scene where Samson has been captured by the Philistines and is set to work grinding grain in his prison, he pushes one of these.
* An episode of ''Anime/{{Ulysses 31}}'' shows the loom of fate powered this way by those who have defied the gods.

%%(ZCE) * In ''ComicBook/{{Lucifer}}'', Hell is seen to have one of these.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Lucifer}}'', Hell is seen to have one of these.

* King Bumi's pet, Flopsy, was chained to one of these in ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' in Season 2 after the Fire Nation takes over Omashu and overthrows Bumi (or rather Bumi let them win to spare his citizens).
* In the debut episode of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'', the protagonist finds his now-elderly father chained to one of these devices, which seemingly does nothing but rotate a large statue of [[BigBad Aku]]. Notably, he's the only person consigned to push it, [[MakeAnExampleOfThem as an apparent punishment for having been the one to defeat Aku originally.]]

** Parodied in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E4Rosebud Rosebud]]" when Homer, due to not returning Mr. Burns' teddy-bear, is forced to work one, which turns a display wheel at the canteen.

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS29E01TheSerfsons The Serfsons]]", the fantasy equivalent of the power plant consists entirely of a huge version of this, which doesn't actually power anything; the resource it's harvesting is literally human misery.
* One of these showed up in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''.
* Cobra from ''WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero'' in many of its earlier episodes inexplicably kept haggard-looking slaves wearing rags, turning wheels and pushing mining carts, despite that fact that Cobra prided itself on using the sorts of advanced technology that would have made it easier to mine via automation.