Line #54 Literature/WhoCutTheCheese


1	''Who Cut the Cheese?'' is the title of two novellas published in 2000 that parody the best-selling self-help business fable ''Literature/WhoMovedMyCheese'': one by "Stilton Jarlsberg" (pen name of Creator/StephenWhite) and one by ''National Lampoon'' editor Creator/MasonBrown.
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3	!!Tropes in Jarlsberg's take:
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5	* AcquiredSituationalNarcissism: Unhealthy reliance on [=CheesyWorld=] as a single point of failure.
6	* TheBeastmaster: The cat [[spoiler:belongs to Hi]].
7	* BestialityIsDepraved: The teeny people occasionally attempt to "get lucky" with rats.
8	* Administrivia/BrevityIsWit: Ho considers making a poster after one incident but drops it after realizing the message would be too long to fit his template.
9	* CapitalLettersAreMagic: The first pages of the story lampshade the practice of writing "Cheese" with initial caps for extra symbolism.
10	* CatsAreMean: A cat tears up all the rats in [=CheesyUniverse=].
11	* CrisisOfFaith: Hi urges patience until the cheese returns on grounds that the teeny people's predicament might be the Cheesegiver's test of loyalty.
12	* DeusExMachina: A cat slaughters the rats in [=CheesyUniverse=] and saves Ho from starvation.
13	* DoubleEntendre:
14	** Ho's graffiti refers to "cutting the cheese", meaning a supply interruption. Ho shows no awareness of the bowel-related subtext.
15	--->When Someone Cuts the Cheese, Take a Deep Breath
16	--->If You Cut the Cheese, Everyone Will Notice
17	** Ho writes the graffiti using "soft charcoal" found near where the rats used to sit. He later realizes it's dried rat poop.
18	* EveryManHasHisPrice: Rats tell Ho that they found [=CheesyUniverse=] by giving degrading favors to the Cheesegiver.
19	* FollowYourNose: One of the rats in [=CheesyUniverse=] told Ho that the rat found [=CheesyUniverse=] by following not the smell of cheese but another rat's scent: literal brown-nosing.
20	* FramingDevice: Biff tells the story of "Who Cut the Cheese?" at a funeral.
21	* HeroicBSOD: Hi's outbursts when he realizes the cheese is gone. It ends once he imagines that interruption in supply (that is, "cutting the cheese") might be temporary.
22	* ItsPersonal: Envy inspires Ho to continue the search for the next depot in hopes of murdering the rat in the sports car.
23	* {{Lilliputians}}: The teeny people Hi and Ho, as well as Jarlsberg himself according to "About the Author".
24	* NightmareFuel: Invoked. Once [=CheesyUniverse=] is overrun by a SwarmOfRats, it is compared to "the sort of nightmarish scene Creator/HieronymusBosch might have painted".
25	* RagsToRiches: The discovery of [=CheesyWorld=].
26	* RecursiveCanon: Biff in the [[FramingDevice frame story]] is selling copies of ''Who Cut the Cheese?'' out of his car.
27	* StealthPun: After Ho almost gets run over by a rat in a sports car, Ho writes a warning on the wall of the maze: "Honk If You Love Cheeses". This alludes to Christian bumper stickers.
28	* StockAnimalDiet: Cheese and rats. Unlike mice, RealLife rats eat cheese.
29	* TakeThat:
30	** In a moment of hindsight, Ho realizes he should have seen the supply dwindling, but he may have confused spoiled cheese for French cheese.
31	** One motivational poster set in a different font mentions hope and change. Jarlsberg's later publications show his dislike for a [[UsefulNotes/BarackObama U.S. President who was elected in 2008]] on a platform of "hope and change". Given the font difference (other motivational posters use Bookman), this joke appears to have been edited into the second edition published in 2010.
32	* TalkingAnimal: A rat driving a [[SurprisinglyFunctionalToys tiny sports car]] shouts words at Ho. Later, once Ho arrives at the [=CheesyUniverse=] depot, other rats brag about the various [[TakeAThirdOption third options]] they used to get there. All rats, including the rats Snitch and Scamper from the opening, are later discovered to be talking.
33	* ThinkHappyThoughts: Ho comforts himself during his starvation by thinking about his weight loss and the clearing up of his skin and breath conditions.
34	* ToiletHumor: Predictable from the title, delivered in the early pages, tapers off.
35	* TrampledUnderfoot: When Ho finally arrives at [=CheesyUniverse=], a stampede of rats is there to "greet" him.
36	* TroubledFetalPosition: Hi starts hyperventilating after discovering that [=CheesyWorld=] has run out of cheese, and Ho suggests that Hi calm down and assume the position.
37	* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Inverted. One of the frame story characters guesses that the Lilliputians and talking rats must have come from a "genetic experiment gone wrong".
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39	!!Tropes in Brown's take:
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41	* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: In the end, Cover is removed from the maze. The frame story characters speculate on what happens next to Cover.
42	* BarrierBustingBlow: Duck punches through a cubicle wall when the cheese runs out.
43	* BigNo: Duck when the cheese runs out.
44	* BoobyTrap: Levers and treadles rigged to deliver an electric shock.
45	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Duck starts acting schizotypal, dressing in a grass skirt, and worshipping models of delivery cars.
46	* DopeSlap: How the punypeople get the rats to behave.
47	* FightScene: By the end, Cover's low-carb diet of government surplus cheese cubes has given him a bodybuilder's physique, which comes in handy when he slices Whiff nearly to death.
48	* FinalSpeech: Just before Duck starves to death, he delivers a speech on the wrongness of the experiment that he's trapped in.
49	* {{Gasshole}}: Duck and Cover after a steady diet of Stilton cheese in Cheese Depot D.
50	* ImprovisedWeapon: Duck and Cover carry sharpened metal bolts in case of rat attack.
51	* TheInternetIsForPorn: Cover searches for how to slay rats and ends up on pornography.
52	* LanguageEqualsThought: It is commented that Germans have as many words for unhappiness as Eskimos have for snow, like ''[[ComedicSociopathy Schadenfreude]]''.
53	* {{Lilliputians}}: The punypeople Duck and Cover.
54	* TheLoinsSleepTonight: After no cheese for days, neither of the puny people can get it up.
55	* NeverMyFault: Cover successfully blames Duck for ruining a cheese depot.
56	* PressGanged: Cover's characterization of the maze as a "hellish netherworld with no fixed address" implies a contrast to a less hellish outside.
57	* RageAgainstTheHeavens: Duck when the cheese runs out.
58	* ShoutOut:
59	** Duck compares the situation he's in to that of ''Theatre/WaitingForGodot''.
60	** When Cover leaves the cheeseless depot to find more cheese, Duck jokingly [[Series/{{Survivor}} votes him off the island]].
61	* StopCopyingMe: Duck and Cover play the echo game.
62	* TakeThat: At ''Literature/WhoMovedMyCheese''. Cover realizes that his graffiti could fill a book and writes another one:
63	-->A NEW CHAPTER HEADING EVERY OTHER PAGE MAKES WRITING A SHORT BOOK MUCH EASIER
64	* ToiletHumor: More conspicuous than in Jarlsberg's take.
65	* TrapDoor: Part of how Duck and Cover barricade themselves in Cheeseless Depot D.

Context Literature / WhoCutTheCheese