Amusing Injuries - TV Tropes

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tomandjerry_hammer.png

Vision: It's funny because of the grievous injuries that man just suffered?
Wanda: No—he's not really injured.
Vision: Ah. How can you be certain?
Wanda: It's not that kind of show.

— WandaVision (while watching Malcolm in the Middle)

Injuries in classic cartoons and slapstick comedies never have any lasting effects, are only painful for a short while, and are often a source of visual humor. Occasionally, you will see a character in traction or on crutches or sporting Instant Bandages; however, this is strictly for punctuating a gag or putting a cap on an episode, and will never last more than 10 seconds. Gunshots and explosives in particular can lead to Amusing Injuries; what would normally destroy a large chunk of someone's face in real life often does little more than blow soot all over a cartoon character. Guns in these shows often inexplicably emit directed explosions to the face rather than firing bullets.

This can lead to very jarring circumstances within a show. Like say when the plot of an episode rides on a character getting injured and taken out of an event, or when there's a character who's a physician of all things, or in the rare event that the amusing injury actually does cause a major gruesome injury, or a permanent death actually occurs. It'll be treated at least somewhat seriously in that particular instance, but next thing you know it, they're back to jumping off cliffs and juggling chainsaws. ...Or trying to see if they can do both at the same time.

Sometimes, it can also involve a huge Double Standard. A male character will often suffer them at the hands of a female, who can punch/kick/beat/attack him as much as she wants and it'll be often taken as mere comedy. Try imagining the same situation with a Gender Flip... yeah, people will be up in arms. See Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male.

Amusing Injuries are usually healed via Negative Continuity. A character who is constantly suffering them is often an Iron Butt Monkey. A common variety is The Pratfall. Can overlap with Groin Attack (possibly with Instant Soprano) and Ass Shove. Required for Hyperspace Mallet and Megaton Punch. Extremely common in a Plank Gag. Cranial Eruption is a subtrope. Compare with Inconvenient Itch. Contrast Bloody Hilarious, for when serious injuries are Played for Laughs, and This Index is a Real Pain.

Subtropes

Example subpages:

Other examples:

open/close all folders

Advertising

At the end of each Pepsiman commercial, Pepsiman would receive one of these, which was also applied to the Pepsi can at the end. For example, in one commercial, he hits his head on a window, with the Pepsi can having a dent in the top. One action figure bizarrely titled "The Fuct of Pepsiman" actually came with a crutch.
Subverted in this ad campaign by the NSPCC, which combines footage of a real actor physically abusing a terrified cartoon child. The child reacts with Amusing Injuries throughout, until the very end, where a real kid lies in a broken heap at the bottom of the stairs. It's downright uncomfortable to watch.

Asian Animation

Some of the humor in Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf comes from the many different ways that Wolffy gets hurt, such as being hit with frying pans, being trampled, being bitten by piranhas, etc. Other characters also have amusing injuries to a lesser extent. Of course, none of these injuries have any long effects on the characters and they're always better in the next scene.
Amato suffers these often in Mechamato, before turning the tables on his enemies and defeating them.
Bobby is a magnet for injuries in Adventurer Carly, having a specific tendency for attracting pain to his butt.

Blogs

In Das Sporking, sporkers have a tendency to beat their heads against the wall, the table, or whatever else is handy to try to alleviate their suffering. Not to mention when Mervin, Hyde, and Ket spork with Agent Sands, they tend to start brawling and beating on each other. Save for a few aside mentions, the injuries are more or less forgotten a few lines later (in some cases, healed by the Keyboard of Power.

Comic Strips

A standard Beetle Bailey gag has Sergeant Snorkel pound the daylights out of Beetle as a punishment for laziness or insubordination, whereupon Beetle ends up as a shapeless mass of limbs, hands and feet twisted in anatomically impossible ways. And with missing teeth. Sometimes such or other injuries in the comic are "unamusing" enough to end in a hospital trip, but only if a joke requires it.
This trope is par for the course in many classic comic strips, which (being static and somewhat trite) would arguably be less funny for lack of them. You could probably make a Drinking Game out of all the times Calvin opened the door and announced "I'M HO-OME!" only for Hobbes to tackle him and roll around with him in a Big Ball of Violence until Calvin was thoroughly bruised and his clothes were partially shredded. Didn't happen so much in Peanuts (as Charles Schulz preferred to dish out psychological pain to his characters), but occasionally someone (usually Linus) would get knocked on his ass by a punch or a wild baseball pitch and have cartoon "whirlies" orbiting around his head.
Similarly, in FoxTrot Jason would often be beaten up by his sister Paige, ending up with some bruises and broken glasses.
Fearless Fosdick from Li'l Abner is regularly depicted getting shot to the point where he has so many bullet holes, one might easily mistake him piece of swiss cheese come to life. Despite this, he never appears to seriously be hurt.

Fan Works

The Bolt Chronicles: Soapy's attempts to get himself arrested so he can spend the winter in a warm jail cell are continually thwarted in "The Clouds." Among other indignities, he gets whacked repeatedly on the head with an umbrella by a woman whose groceries he tries to pilfer.
Calvin & Hobbes: The Series: Calvin runs into a closed door head-first at one point.
A Day In The Life Of A Commissar: In one episode, an Imperial Guardsman is panicking because his unit is under artillery barrage. A shell goes off beside him, and he flies through the air, squealing "Wheeeeeee!" as if on a ride.
Dueling Trigger Finger: By the time he catches up to Nagito, the Rare Hunter that was chasing him has been bit by a dog, trampled, fallen into a river and caught a cold, got bird poop in his eye, hit by a car and knocked over a man's cabbage stand. Marik really ought to offer him hazard pay for all that he had to go through.
Kedabory's Muppet Mania: "Welcome Back" alone has Miss Piggy get into a physical fight with Annie Sue, Animal try to maul Rizzo, and the Swedish Chef hit Sam with a frying pan.
Kyon: Big Damn Hero: Achakura has been drowned, hit across the room, among other lethal attacks, mostly by Yuki. She survives them all unscathed, because she doesn't have a physical body.
The Palaververse: Apparently, Starswirl's apprentice Meadowbrook came upon these quite often as a result of following Starswirl around, enough so that his mentor adopted "onwards, Meadbrook, and stop bleeding so much!" as a sort of battlecry.
PMD: The Rogue Team: Happens often to Tabor the treecko. Between getting hit by a rock and suddenly punched, his face is a common target.
Pretty Cure: Magic of the Rainbow: In "Creamed Ice", the girls all leap to hide for a Surprise Party, and Ako lands on Hime's ankle, making her freak out about breaking a bone.
Tiberium Wars reveals the true reason the lighting is so low in Nod bases: Kane loves the sound of people whacking their shins on tables.
Total Drama: Unfinished Business: This being a fanfic of the Total Drama series, there are too many instances of this to count.
Trixie Vs: Trixie ends up with half her face bruised, after panicking and running head first into a rock (this is implied to have happened multiple times) after realizing she's stuck on The Moon.
Ultra Fast Pony is based on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, which had plenty of amusing injuries to begin with. UFP manages to escalate this in the episode "Ponynet Fight!": Twilight Sparkle gets a flowerpot, an anvil, a cart full of hay bales, and a piano dropped on her head. Upon regaining consciousness, she declares, "Look really I didn't the brain damage!" Seconds later, she returns to full lucidity.

Films — Animation

This is basically LeFou's life in Beauty and the Beast, almost entirely at the hands of Gaston.
Justified in Coco; the inhabitants of the Land of the Dead are "living" skeletons, and so they don't react to injuries the same way as the living.
In Epic (2013) Ozzy bumps into things constantly on account of his lacking depth perception and reduced mobility.
In Franklin and the Green Knight, Bear and Goose are excited about the idea of Franklin getting a sibling, but Beaver comments that babies aren't fun all the time. Goose replies that babies aren't that bad. Bear agrees and he and Goose start singing the song "Brothers and Sisters" about their own experience with younger siblings, but Beaver decides to make her point physically..
Bear: Hey, Franklin, I've got a sister, I hug her when she cries...
Beaver: Then when she's feeling better, she hits him in the eye!
Bear: Beaver!
Goose: Hey, Franklin, I've got a sister, we like to play hide-and-seek...
Beaver: And if you're not too careful, he bonks you on the beak!
Goose: Ow! Beaver!
Monsters University: Touching the venomous urchins causes the affected spot to swell up. Almost all the monsters in the first Scare Game emerge looking like balloons, and Squishy has the misfortune of swallowing one, which inflates him from the inside.
During the Training Montage of "I'll Make a Man Out of You" in Mulan, Yao gets his buttock pierced by a burning arrow, which is played for laughs. This is particularly notable since Mulan's stomach wound later is not only played for drama, but also a major plot point.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: Brutally averted. The sorts of injuries that normally would be painful yet harmless in a movie like this actually did kill Puss eight different times, leaving him on his last life after the intro.
Ratatouille: As Mustafa bursts back into the kitchen to let everyone know that Linguini's dish is a great success, he rams the door right into Skinner's face.
Toy Story: Woody suffers from them in the trunk of the Pizza Planet truck, when a bowling ball drops on his head and when Buzz accidentally drops the toolbox on him. Averted when Buzz breaks off his arm.
In Turning Red, when Mei is knocked down by a punch from Abby, she pops back up within a second none the worse for wear.
Judy's Failure Montage in Zootopia, has many painful injuries showing how she is struggling with her training but her toilet mishap is clearly played for laughs.

Literature

Viciously averted in Stephen King's Carrie to Tommy, who is smashed in the head by one of the buckets of blood and is dead before the real trouble starts.
In the Doctor Who Expanded Universe novel The Crooked World, the TARDIS lands in a world where Cartoon Physics is the norm... for its inhabitants (at least at first), who can get machinegunned at point blank range and only come out with some soot on the face. The TARDIS crew, on the other hand, is not that lucky.
In Harry Potter, because of medical magic almost any injury not instantly fatal is fixable. Generally averted with any injury serious enough to require a trip to St. Mungo's, however.
In the third book of the Knight and Rogue Series Michael subjects himself to this when he starts destroying magica plants. The various punishments he receives involve many painful instincts and, on one occasion, a skunk.
The entire purpose of Mr Bump of the Mr. Men.
Nightmare Hour: How the clown and audience respond to Christopher in "Afraid of Clowns", as well as any other previous victims, thinking it is an act (the audience only) but all the while very droll, but of course, not to the victim, and of course, it is not just an act.
Not Now, Bernard: When Bernard tries to say hello to his father, he accidentally smashes his finger with a hammer. He cries out in pain and his face turns lucid green. Later on, the monster bites Bernard’s father and his reaction is pretty much the same, only his face turns purple.
In the Spy School novels Spyder agent Joshua Hallal is assumed dead at the end of the second book. He returns near the beginning of the third with an artificial leg, a hook hand and an eyepatch (which he got swatting at a fly on his face before he'd gotten used to the hook and continues to suffer injuries every time he clashes with the heroes, on one occasion breaking his remaining arm and leg.
In Christopher Buckley's political satire The White House Mess, President Tucker bloodlessly averts a terrorist insurrection in Bermuda by spraying a Knockout Gas. The only injury is a woman whose face was burned, because she fell asleep on her waffle iron.
The Unwomanly Face of War: Deconstructed. Young nurse Zinaida Korzh was wounded...in her buttocks. She was too embarrassed to ask for help and stayed silent. Unfortunately, any untreated wound can become a serious problem and in a few days she passed out from blood loss.
Justified in The Zombie Knight, because servants can recover from almost any injury, and can just be resurrected if they are killed.

Music

The Smiths' "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" describes the narrator suffering terrible injuries and getting sent to the hospital. Somehow it manages to be very funny anyway.
"Weird Al" Yankovic often (but not always) mentions these in his songs (including both parodies and original songs), especially in his song "You Don't Love Me Anymore".^note They also appear in his videos (sometimes).

Pinball

In The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, missing the Skill Shot results in Bullwinkle getting pelted in the face with various objects.
Big Bang Bar frequently depicts various amusing injuries from its alien patrons, either as they imbibe their various drinks or simply mingle with each other.
In Diner, shooting the Grill when it is not lit makes a noise of someone burning himself on a hot griddle and then screaming.
Scratchy suffers these on the playfield of Data East's The Simpsons.
Daffy Duck is repeatedly pelted with basketballs in Space Jam
3-D Ultra Pinball: Creep Night has various mischievous goblins running around the playfield. Hitting them with the pinball causes them to suffer various Amusing Injuries.
In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy's spinning house includes the feet of the Wicked Witch of the East sticking out from underneath.

Print Media

During the final months of his time as president of the United States, The Onion ran several news blurbs about George W. Bush suffering increasingly improbable injuries, such as having his eyelid nailed to a wall, being attacked by a crocodile, and being hit by a crashing plane. All ending with him recovering comfortably at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

Radio

There was an old radio show featuring the Story Lady, whose job it was to tell short stories, generally with some very weird twists. The fillers used this trope a great deal: Story Lady is very prone to losing her temper and when she does, the only target is generally her hapless partner, who announces the segments. She has no qualms about hitting him with books, beating him out of her path with her bare fists, breaking his limbs, or actually shooting him if he doesn't do what she wants fast enough. No mention of these injuries is brought up later, and they're always, always played for laughs.

Visual Novels

In YU-NO Takuya occasionally gets pissed at what other people tell him and punches them in the face. After doing so, he assures them that they had some kind of bug on their face and gets a thank you in response while the injured party offhandedly mentions that they have a chipped tooth or compound fracture now.

Web Animation

Banana-nana-Ninja!: Seppuku is impaled or otherwise exposed to hilarious harm in almost every episode he appears in. In the accompanying game Dueling Ninjas, every loss scenario for Seppuku involves him being impaled (except for one, where he chokes on Master Fuji's chopstick).
DSBT InsaniT sometimes uses this trope, such as Whitney crashing into a tree on her Jet Pack or Frog hitting a rock while surfboarding.
Happy Tree Friends: the entire premise — graphic, bloody injuries on cute cartoon animals — Crosses The Line Endlessly.
In Harry Partridge's Twitter cartoon, he threatens to do terrible things to a Cockney orphan. The orphan's response?
Orphan: Don't worry about me, folks! I'm animated!

: Somewhat subverted, however...
Harry: (complete with eyes sewn shut) But the pain will be more than real...

Websites

About a third of Vines by Quenlin Blackwell involve her getting hurt in some way. Some of the ways she's gotten injured on camera includes cutting herself on a broken clothing hanger, bashing her leg against a dresser ("break a leg"), kicking herself in the head, getting her braces stuck in a guitar, and getting attacked by her pet chicken.

Web Videos

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog plays for laughs the many humiliating injuries inflicted upon Villain Protagonist Dr. Horrible by the Smug Super Captain Hammer. Among a Long List, these include: being hurled hundreds of feet into the air (in a prequel comic), having his shoulder dislocated (again), being choked and slammed repeatedly into a van, having a car thrown at him, and in a flashback montage, being pummeled repeatedly (including a Groin Attack), given an atomic wedgie, and spun like a helicopter, WWE-style. Dr. Horrible takes it all in stride until Captain Hammer steals his would-be girlfriend, making it personal.
- The Emmy skit continues the matter by having Captain Hammer hijack Dr. Horrible's attempted incursion, punch Horrible out repeatedly as he keeps trying to regain the focus, and finally stick him in a headlock to continue his superhero monologuing uninterrupted.
- There are also two subversions. The first is during Billy's conversation with Penny in the laundromat at the start of Act II, when she notices that he's driving a spork into his leg (in an attempt to suppress his anger). He tries to play it off as "hilarious" but it's clearly anything but. The second is when Captain Hammer is injured by the exploding Death Ray.
  - The latter instance is played mostly straight though, as he'd never been injured before (and wasn't visibly hurt here), and ran off crying for his mommy because "I think this is what pain feels like!"
RT Shorts' "Paper Cut" short. Joel and Matt are both horrified by the spike and screwdriver stuck in each other's head, but only when looking in a handheld mirror to see it.
"OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! You wanna get some lunch?"
The various reviewers of Channel Awesome tend to find themselves punched in the face, knocked over, beaten with heavy objects, or even shot. This all is Played for Laughs, and they suffer no more than a Looney Tunes character.
The Chronicles of Jaller has so many that they did a video discussing the various types of funny injuries Jaller experienced in-depth.
Strippin is generally acknowledged as the real-life tough guy of the Yogscast. As a result, he can take some slightly more painful injuries than the others. During his minigolf challenge with Martyn, his forfeit at the end was to be slapped with a large fish. It looked painful... which makes it even funnier. He's also been slapped with a half-eaten burger by Smiffy of Hat Films, and inflicted this to Martyn by means of a Groin Attack during the same golf challenge.
HELLWINKLE regularly beats its characters around for laughs. This includes taking footballs to the face, whacking each other with wooden sticks, throwing each other down the stairs, and more.
Brandon Farris inflicts pain on himself in attempt to imitate "life hacks" that he finds on Tik Tok. He has slammed himself into bookshelves, tried on modified clothes, eaten home recipes (a couple of which were not actually supposed to be eaten) and played with tasers for the amusement of his followers. When it is not him inflicting pain on himself, he and his friend Cameron will do it to each other.
In Turnt Red, a Wou Tube Poop based on Turning Red, Mei falls twice with a bone-cracking sound effect added in.

Amusing Injuries
aka: Amusing Injury

Subtropes

Example subpages:

Other examples:

Video Example(s):

Xenomorph Acid At Work

Alternative Title(s): Amusing Injury

Previous

Index

Next

Xenomorph Acid At Work

Amusing Injuries aka: Amusing Injury

Edit Locked

Subtropes

Example subpages:

Other examples:

Video Example(s):

Xenomorph Acid At Work

Alternative Title(s): Amusing Injury

Previous

Index

Next

Xenomorph Acid At Work

Amusing Injuries
aka: Amusing Injury