Dope Slap / Live-Action TV

• The dope slap became one of the best character signatures of Soledad from the Spanish sitcom 7 Vidas.
• Several episodes of The Amanda Show features skits involving Tony Pajamas (Drake Bell) and his lackey (Josh Peck). Josh would frequently say or do something stupid, get hit and ask, "What was that for?!" To which Tony would reply, "For bein' an idiot!" which Josh would accept with an "Okay."
• Happens in the bloopers for Angel, after it is revealed that Wes, while making an ad for Angel Investigations, put down the wrong phone number.
• Arrested Development: While in prison, George Bluth does this to his son GOB after he reveals that he enlisted his 14-year-old nephew to break into a permit office and plant evidence, despite the prison's "very strict 'no touching' policy." According to George, "it's worth a week in the hot box."
• Arrowverse: At the end of Part 4 of Crisis on Earth-X, after Sara and Supergirl's sister Alex share a parting hug and say goodbye to each other, Mick Rory asks Sara "You hit that?" To which she responds by dope-slaping him. "Shut up."^note She did.
• The Band of Brothers episode "Why We Fight" features this exchange while the soldiers are patrolling a forest in Bavaria:
  Frank Perconte: Hey, George.
  George Luz: Yeah?
  Frank Perconte: This kind of remind you of Bastogne?
  [comedic pause, including bemused look]
  George Luz: Yeah... now that you mention it. Except, of course, there's no snow, we got warm grub in our bellies, and the trees aren't fucking exploding from Kraut artillery, but yeah... Frank... other than that, it's a lot like Bastogne.
  Frank Perconte: Right?
  George Luz: Bull, smack him for me please?
  [thump]
  George Luz: Thank you.
• A frequent occurrence on Blackadder. Primarily in the third season, with Blackadder as the slapper and Baldrick the slappee, usually to stop the latter from talking or whenever the former was annoyed and needed something to hit.
• Bones:
  • Hodgins does this to Zach in "Intern in the Incinerator".
    Zack: You're married, and you sleep with men besides your husband.
    [cue dope slap]
    Zack: Ow.
  • Camille gives one to Hodgins for asking Arastoo some stupid questions. To be fair, they're both a bit inebriated at the time.
• This happens to Royal Brat Juan in The Borgias after he brutally curb stomps his stepfather Theo. Rodrigo is not amused and delivers one hell of a "Reason You Suck" Speech, orders him to apologize and threatens to disinherit him if he does anything of the sort again. Juan agrees to do as he's told, but just when it looks like all is forgiven, he gets an almighty slap just to drive the point home.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Spike pulls off a memorable one when, due to a spell, he has to explain a crucial plot point to Xander for roughly the 37th time. Note that Spike has a chip in his head which causes him extreme pain if he hurts a human.
    Spike: This... is gonna be worth it.
    [smacks Xander]
    Both: OWWWW!
  • When the Trio start arguing about who the best James Bond was in the middle of their scheme, Andrew gets smacked for sticking up for Timothy Dalton.
• El Chavo del ocho:
  • Taken to an extreme in this Mexican sitcom, where it's one of the show's many Running Gags.
    Don Ramón: [hits Chavo on head with usual Kung-Foley] ¡Toma!
    Chavo: Pipipipipipipipipipi...
  • El Chavo has also been known to give Quico a triple dope slap.
    Quico: No me simpatizas...^note "I don't like you..." [Non Sequitur, *Thud*]
• In Code Lyoko: Evolution Episode 16, "Confusion", Odd gets slapped twice while driving the Megapod, after Jérémie asks the team to be "his eyes and ears".
  Odd: Okay, next to me is William, and behind... I don't know what those two are doing, probably holding hands.
  [Yumi stands up and dope-slaps him]
  Odd: Ouch!
  Yumi: Jérémie doesn't need anything but the basic essentials!
  Ulrich: And nothing else! [he rises and slaps Odd too]
  Odd: Ah-ouch! You're worse than Krabes...
• Often used in the Britcom Coupling. Actor Richard Coyle (who plays Jeff Murdock) once was on the receiving end of a dope slap that was so forceful he got angry over it. Crybaby.
• Done towards the end of an otherwise depressing episode of Criminal Minds:
  Morgan: [on the phone with Garcia] Leave it alone until I get there. Hey, hey, hardhead... don't make me spank you when I get back.
  Reid: Don't listen to him Garcia, he's all talk. [Morgan dope-slaps him] Ow! JJ, he just hit me.
  JJ: [without looking up] Boys, behave or I will ground you both.
• Doctor Who: In "Amy's Choice", the Doctor bonks Rory on the head with a telephone handset while pointing out why they can't just call for help (space is really big).
• A major point of Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars is Aeryn giving birth during a firefight and demanding to be married to John before she finishes. Stark begins uttering some majestic sounding gobbledygook which Chiana recognizes as a Sheyang prayer for the dead. Cue SLAP! from Aeryn. Stark tries something else, which turns out to be a Delvian puberty rite. Cue BITCHSLAP!! from Aeryn. He finally just asks them if they want to be married, they say yes, and he declares them married. Then Aeryn gives birth and they shoot their way out. Whew!
• Actor Andrew Sachs once asked John Cleese to tone down the dope slaps while filming Fawlty Towers. Also, in "The Builders", Polly slaps Basil when he is panicking about Sybil finding out about the building work. He then asks her to do it again, harder.
• On Frasier, Fras gives his brother Niles a thunderous one when Niles kept screwing around with a novelity helmet while Frasier was trying to find a last minute Christmas gift for his son Freddie, the last straw coming when he squirted Frasier with water twice. Frasier nearly drops Niles to his knees from the force of the blow.
• It happens at least Once per Episode in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
• Friends:
  • In "TOW the Boobies", Joey earns one from his mom after making his dad fess up to an affair with another woman. She just wanted the situation to stay the same because the dad was nicer during the time.
  • Chandler manages to earn a five-person dope slap (or at least two or three plus some stuff thrown at him...) after a particularly flagrant bit of Hypocritical Humor when he criticizes a Girl of the Week for being "desperate" — after he's spent the whole episode literally watching the phone.
  • Monica gives one to Chandler and Joey in "TOW The Morning After" after she finds out the two knew that Ross had slept with the copy girl.
• Invoked by Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones after he personally unshackles the dragons Viserion and Rhaegal, either of whom could have killed him on a whim. Clearly shaken by the experience, he tells Varys, "Next time I have an idea like that, punch me in the face." Varys nods in curt agreement.
• Happens so often on Gilligan's Island that some refer to it as a "Gilligan Slap".
• On The Golden Girls, Dorothy has a tendency to hit Rose with whatever's on hand whenever she says something stupid—and, since Rose is The Ditz, it happens a lot. The humor was often amplified by Dorothy asking Rose to hand her something like a newspaper in the middle of a conversation; Rose would happily agree and get slapped for her trouble. In one instance, she tried to be Genre Savvy and made Dorothy promise not to hit her if she did pass her the newspaper. Dorothy agreed...and promptly handed the paper to Blanche, who followed through.
• The Goodies will often engage in a brief mutual slapfest when a Zany Scheme doesn't work out like they planned.
• Hannah Montana:
  • Miley and Lily enjoy doing this to Oliver on a regular basis.
  • Also one episode guest starring the Jonas Brothers with Kevin and Joe doing this to Nick twice.
• In "The Duchess and the Devil" from Horatio Hornblower, sailor Styles keeps dope-slapping Oldroyd because he joined Hunter's gang and tried to escape with them from prison without a good plan, which caused Mr Hornblower's torture in a Punishment Box. He deserved them, but he probably Styles probably compensated for the fact that he couldn't be smacking Mr Hunter.
• iCarly: Sam tends to do this to Freddie a lot.
• A very unusual one in Jessie. Mrs Kibling swats Emma Luke and Ravi with her tail when they fail to realize that she could be the pet starring in Ravi's video.
• Kamen Rider Fourze: Gentaro believes in witches, and gets freaked out multiple times when encountering a group of female classmates claiming to be a coven of witches. Kengo does not believe in witches or magic, and smacks Gentaro in the head every time he freaks out in Kengo's presence.
• Kamen Rider Revice: Aguilera, the face of the Deadman cult, hands these out to anyone who annoys her while within arm's reach. She even put in enough strength to knock people over at some points, making them the slap equivalent of Megaton Punch.
• Law & Order: UK. After DS Matt Devlin makes a rather raunchy comment to CP Alesha Philips, partner DS Ronnie Brooks gives him a look that's basically the visual equivalent of this. At the very least, it strongly implies that he's thinking of doing it.
• Merlin, episode "Goblin's Gold": The first thing Gaius does after getting possessed by a Goblin is give a dope slap to Merlin, to the latter's astonishment.
• The dope slap is a Running Gag on My Wife and Kids. Junior, not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, often said or did dumb stuff, leading to a dope slap from another character, usually Michael or Jay.
• Invoked in The Nanny episode "Shopaholic". As Fran is turning into a shopaholic, she tells Niles to give her one whenever she thinks about buying something again, which he obliges.
• This is Gibbs' favorite form of discipline in NCIS, especially to Tony, who reminds Gibbs of himself in his younger days. He does it regularly enough that the other characters have called it the Gibbs-slap.
  • Honorable mention to Gibbs' reaction to catching Tony looking at "Page 57" of a men's magazine — since Gibbs is too far away to deliver a dope slap, he catches Tony on the back of the head with a scrunched-up ball of paper. Certainly gets his attention.
  • Tony, for his part, has at least gotten smart enough to dope-slap himself on occasion, and once gets offended that Gibbs ordered Ziva to administer when Gibbs isn't within arm's reach.
  • However, it also conveys a sense of family — only Team Gibbs gets Gibbs-slapped. When Ziva is assigned to Team Gibbs in "Silver War", she says, "I know, when we get out there you start kicking my butt." Gibbs replies, "I don't kick butts." She looks at him in confusion — in response, he dope-slaps her, and she beams, knowing that he's essentially saying, "Welcome to the family."
  • Furthermore, after being injured in an explosion, Gibbs suffers from amnesia and can't remember anyone or anything that happened after the end of his Marine career. Ziva manages to restore his memory by grabbing his hand and dope-slapping herself with it.
  • In one episode, Gibbs dope-slaps himself after tampering with evidence (for a good cause).
  • On at least two occasions, Abby dope-slaps McGee, saying "I was just doing what Gibbs would have done if he were here." On one occasion after discovering a solution that they hadn't considered earlier, she slaps McGee on the arm, claiming, "We should have thought of that." She then bares her arm and insists that McGee slap her. Hilarity Ensues along those lines for the remainder of that episode ("Bait").
  • Kate does this to Tony once. He angrily tells her that she's not allowed to do that because she isn't Gibbs.
  • Kate and Tony dope-slap McGee simultaneously after he joins The Team and thinks that they'll stop hazing him.
  • At yet another time, Gibbs dope-slaps both Tony and Ziva simultaneously, but Tony complains that he's not hitting her as hard as him.
  • Gibbs once dope-slaps a cardboard cutout of Tony, and Tony reacts as if he'd been hit.
  • Another time, Tony tries to slap McGee; he dodges it while Tony gets one from Gibbs.
  • We see in flashbacks that when Gibbs first joined NIS^note the C was added in 1992, Mike Franks used to dope-slap him.
  • A flashback in the episode "Baltimore" shows Gibbs giving Tony his first dope slap, when Tony is uncertain about being any kind of cop. Tony indignantly asks, "Did you just physically assault me?" After Gibbs says he thinks Tony is too good to waste, Tony replies, "Don't make a habit of doing that."
  • In a Halloween-based episode, Abby has to return to the lab from a party still wearing her Marilyn Monroe costume. Every time Tony and McGee are around her, they can't keep their eyes off her, with McGee's leering being particularly amusing. Gibbs finally has to give the duo a simultaneous head slap before saying, "Yeah. On it, Boss," for them before they finally leave the lab.
  • Gibbs once even gives a slap to Mr. Mass Spectrometer to stop it from growling (while Abby has her back turned, thankfully).
  • In the episode "Doppelganger", as if Kate weren't already weirded out by how similar the civilian police team is to the NCIS team, seeing Not-Gibbs deliver one of these to Not-Tony cinches it.
  • Speaking of similarities, seeing CGIS Agent Abigail Borin give one of these to her probie is the first indication that she's a Distaff Counterpart to Gibbs.
  • Subverted in "The Bone Yard" when Tony expects a slap from Gibbs but doesn't get one, with Gibbs claiming that he does in fact have a sense of humor. Then it's Double Subverted when Gibbs slaps him anyway.
    Gibbs: It's not fun if you know it's coming.
  • Gibbs once gave Palmer a slap. As a reward. Because Palmer likes that sort of thing. Palmer gets another one in "We Build, We Fight" after learning that his wife is going into labor, pulling him out of his Heroic BSoD.
  • It's been revealed during many different interviews that the origin of "The Slap" came about during the filming for one of the first episodes of the series. Mark Harmon (a.k.a. Gibbs) thought that Michael Weatherly (a.k.a. DiNozzo) was goofing around too much while filming a scene and proceeded to pop him one on the back of the head. Instead of breaking character, Weatherly continued on as if nothing had happened even while most everyone else was in a bit of shock. After reviewing the dailies, the production staff thought it was hilarious, thus the Gibbs Slap was born.
• NCIS: Los Angeles:
  • Kensi will regularly gives one to Deeks (as part of their Unresolved Sexual Tension).
  • In the crossover episode that sees DiNozzo visit the Los Angeles team, at the end Hetty Lange gets to "transmit a message" from Gibbs to Tony. Certainly the longest-ranged Gibbs Slap on record...
• In Brazil, comedic show Pânico na TV gave the dope slap a Memetic Mutation, with a skit where a parody of a sports show host slapped two dwarves nicknamed after soccer players, along with the phrase "Pedala, Robinho!" and "Samba, Tevez!"
• Radio Enfer: Often done to Jean-Lou when he says or does something stupid, usually by Carl.
• Giovanni is a frequent target of this in Rizzoli & Isles. In "Built for Speed", he is dope slapped multiple times in rapid succession by Jane and her mother.
• The Big Guy in Sanctuary does this to Will and Henry a lot. However, in Big Guy's case, it's only occasionally a dope slap. Usually it's just his way of demonstrating affection. Once in a while, Will or Henry will return the favor, either in dope slap or Bromance context.
• In Stargate Atlantis, Sheppard has dope-slapped McKay on two occasions: once in the second season for doubting Ronon's tracking skills, and again in the third season for telling too much to the still-imprisoned and therefore Mind Probe victims O'Neill and Woolsey. Note that in the second case, it is all part of a ploy to feed them false information before they'll be interrogated by the Asuran Replicators.
• In the Supergirl episode "The Darkest Place", Alex gives Winn a Dope Slap when he reveals to her that James is National City's newest superhero, Guardian.
• Supernatural: In the pilot episode, Dean reprimands Sam by slapping him in the back of the head. Strangely, this is the dope slap's only occurrence, although Pam gives Dean one as revenge for getting her killed.
• Tales of the Tinkerdee:
  • Taminella's version of this is to club her ogre minion Charlie on his feet when he says or does something especially stupid, promping a loud Oooch! from him each time.
  • King Goshposh also takes a swing at his prime minister when he confuses his orders rather stupidly, though the prime minister ducks in time.
• Stiles gives one to Scott in Teen Wolf when Scott says he might go to Derek for help about being a werewolf.
• Hyde doing this to Kelso is a Running Gag in That '70s Show. Red did this to Eric on occasion too.
• Titus would do this to Dave frequently on Titus, to the point that in one episode when Titus was unconscious in the hospital, Dave was slapping himself with Titus's hand, and weeping "It's just not the same!" Bonus material even claimed that Dave had a soft spot on his head from all the times Titus smacked him.
• Leo does this to Josh in The West Wing after Josh mocks a sentimental tradition of Leo's: "First of all, that (OW!) is for 'total crackpot day'."
• Wizards of Waverly Place: In "Future Harper", the adult Harper reveals to the Russos that the existence of wizards has been revealed in the future, so Justin gives Max a preemptive slap, knowing that he'll be the one who will inevitably blab it to the world.
• Repeatedly applied to Henry in You Rang, M'Lord?, generally after he's made an accurate but unflattering observation about one of the other characters. It happens often enough that on one occasion, he hits himself preemptively to save someone else the bother. It doesn't seem to stop him being snarky, though.
• Zoey 101: Zoey, Lola and Quinn simultaneously each give one to Chase, Micheal and Logan for letting Dustin watch a scary movie they knew he wouldn't be able to handle.

---