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Dave: Whoa, the Big Guy made a dud call? Uh oh...
Sara: Please don't flip the table, Brian. Please don't flip the table.
Brian: I'm... trying really hard not to, Sara, but... RAAAAAARRRGH!

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

When, out of anger or frustration, one character flips over a table that another character is sitting at, doing something on, or eating from. When the character is frustrated with himself/herself, they might flip their own table as a sign of extreme fury.

In Western uses (where it's often substituted with Desk Sweep of Rage), it's almost always a sign of a hot-tempered or violent character, and is done in anger, but as an alternative to hitting a person; while in a Boke and Tsukkomi Routine, it's more likely to be caused by frustration. Sometimes, the character is drunk and filled with rage, which is more often used in Japanese media. This may also be used in action movies as a form of diversion when fighting breaks out. In either case, the table may be covered with countless small objects which go flying everywhere when it is flipped.

See also Tantrum Throwing. If the action taking place at the table is a game of some sort, Flipping the Table often accompanies a Rage Quit, or more general Screw This, I'm Outta Here.

Not to be confused with Flipping the Bird, although both tropes involve angry reactions.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Invoked in Assassination Classroom, when Koro-sensei volunteers to coach his students for an upcoming baseball exhibition match. He brings along a miniature table stocked with food for the express purpose of flipping it over, thus achieving his dream of acting like one of those "hot-blooded coaches you find in sports series".
  • One of the later chapters of Baki the Grappler (Baki: Son of Ogre) the protagonist Hanma Baki is engaging his father in a battle of minds where both try to catch the other in their illusions. This goes as far as the two of them having an imaginary dinner at an imaginary table. Baki eventually wins this battle when he flips the table and gets his father to try to catch it thus proving that the latter was deceived by the vividness of Baki’s illusion.
  • In the first episode of Bleach, Ichigo flips a table after hearing Rukia's explanation of Soul Reapers and not believing a word of it. The manga lampshades this: a note taped to the table reads "CAUTION: For use in sight gags only!"
  • A slightly drunk Itsuwa does this in A Certain Magical Index. To Tatemiya, who had just played a prank on her regarding her crush on Touma. She flipped it so hard it struck him in the face and sent him flying out of the room. Everyone else wisely decides to stay out of Itsuwa's way after this.
  • Shizuo Heiwajima of Durarara!! has an infamous habit of flipping and tossing the nearest 400-pound object whenever he gets angry. Tables are not excluded.
  • Early in Fruits Basket Kyo upends a table during a heated exchange with Yuki... and unintentionally hits Tohru in the head with it. Then we find out why you don't anger Yuki...
  • Gunslinger Girl. Mimi does this for a Ditch the Bodyguards ploy. She kicks over the chess set they were just playing while apparently Tantrum Throwing over not being allowed outside, then when Hilshire and Triela get down on the floor to pick up the pieces she handcuffs them together and flees.
  • Haruhi-chan had this in episode 3, which is Achakura's first episode. When Achakura is given a doggie dish, the doggie dish appears to contain dog food. Nagato thinks it's a joke and proceeds to give real food to Achakura in said doggie dish. Achakura's response? She flips the dish. Achakura acually does this with every other food Nagato gives her.
  • Hetalia: Axis Powers Egypt flips tables.
  • In Heaven's Lost Property, Tomoki sometimes does this when he's frustrated with the angeloids shenanigans (usually Ikaros'), such as when Ikaros failed to affect a smile or when the angeloids decided to make an entrance in the roof of his house.
  • In Kyojin No Hoshi (Star of the Giants), an old-fashioned father would flip over the family dinner table whenever he was morally outraged, while they were eating; the dinner would be subsequently ruined. Several subsequent occurrences of Flipping the Table were direct references to this scene, which appeared in the series' closing-credits montage; after undergoing Memetic Mutation, Flipping the Table became part of the visual meme-pool of Japanese comedy in general.
  • Flipping the (traditional) mahjong table seems to be a Running Gag in Legendary Gambler Tetsuya. Tetsuya does it the first time he is pwned by Boshu, then when Tetsuya get rid of the bamboo-backed mahjong tiles and change the set to plastic ones to deny Innami's heightened sense, and then when Danchi is pwned by Tetsuya. Everytime it happens, it's epic.
  • Downplayed in the Lupin III <Pilot Film>, but when Lupin "beats" Inspector Zenigata in Shogi, the detective knocks everything off his desk.
  • Done hilariously in magico by a samurai when he finds out that her wife had been lying about her BWH measurements.
  • In Mamotte Shugogetten, Tasuke does this in one episode in order to get Shao to think of him as a jerk in order to help her.
  • In the Mazinkaiser movie, Boss insists on Flipping the Table before revealing where he hid the Kaiser Pilder, much to Kouji's confusion.
  • In Naruto, Shikamaru Nara gets mentally and verbally probed by his father Shikaku during a game of shogi after Shikamaru's sensei, Asuma, is killed. Shikamaru finally snaps and flips the shogi board with a well-placed backhand.
  • Used seriously in Negima! Magister Negi Magi, against Big Bad Fate Averruncus.
  • This is a running gag with Keiichi Hiiragi in Onegai My Melody.
  • One Piece: Franky does this during Luffy's fight with the Galley-La company, due to him being denied battling Luffy, since they were the ones fighting in the first place. Also done in Unlimited Adventure, where Franky actually builds a table from scratch, only to flip it mere seconds after finishing it. He also flips another table during the ending cinematic.
  • Kyouya flips the table on Tamaki (amoung other things) on Ouran High School Host Club when Tamaki jokes that losing claim to his father's company would give him time for more interesting things. As third in line in his family, Kyouya is disgusted Tamaki is so close to having it all and is not willing to fight for it. Tamaki counters that Kyouya is just projecting his frustrations on Tamaki and is mad that he isn't fighting for his father's company.
  • The second episode of Panda Z is made entirely of Talon, the main character, and his aged grandfather sitting down to a healthy meal of batteries (let's all use them properly). Talon tries various utensils to eat the batteries (fork, knife, screwdriver, scissors, etc.), but fails each time, gets frustrated and angrily knocks the table over. After several of these, Panjii gets up, picks up another fully set table from offscreen, sets it down where the original table was, and flips the new one over himself.
  • Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: Stocking has this reaction to the Demon Sisters calling her fat. She surprises even her usually more hot-blooded sister, Panty.
    "THAT WAS OVER TWO EPISODES AGO!"
  • In Psychic Squad, BABEL has different interview rooms specially designed for different situations. The "Gift of Children" arc shows one for talking to an esper-hater if their child awakens as an esper. It includes a tea table specifically so the parent can flip it if they get angry.
  • Ranma ½:
    • Ranma, trying to convince Ukyo to dump him, flips a dinner table over with a meal she cooked on it. It didn't have the right effect as everyone at the table grabbed a plate and saved the meal and he got kicked into low earth orbit.
    • Subverted in the first episode, where instead of flipping the table over, Akane picks it up and smacks Ranma with it.
  • Samurai Champloo episode, 'War of the Worlds' has one rough-tough teacher insult and aggravate Mugen into learning how to read. In a semi-quiz, Mugen gets a character wrong, and gets slapped and yelled at - as a result of which, Mugen flips the table sitting between him and his teacher, shouting, "This sucks!!"
  • Referred to in two of the Slayers Non Serial Movies. In Slayers: Gorgeous, Lina and Naga are engaged in yet another duel of spells, and Lina has cast a spell that, by way of a side effect, froze the surface of a nearby pond; Naga retaliates by summoning up an earth golem and having it perform a chabudai-gaeshi with the sheet of ice — it flips through the air and almost crushes Lina. In "Slayers: Great", while engaged in a battle that parodies the Super Robot genre, Naga purposely freezes a river the two are duelling near and uses her giant golem to flip the ice sheet to knock Lina's giant golem off of her feet.
  • Referenced by Death in the final episodes of Soul Eater when he flips over Arachnia's fortress while piloting Death City transformed into a Giant Mecha!
  • Student Council's Discretion: Ken upon hearing Kurumi say she didn't do anything wrong on the exams. She got two 25s and a 27.
  • Levi in Trinity Seven has a skill specifically for flipping a table. She's however not someone who easily gives in to frustration, and the one time she uses it is to flip a bed, for the purpose of exposing what's on the underside of it.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX has a card called "Flipping the Table." In one episode, used by Hayato's (Chumley in the dub) father who (in the Japanese version, at least) was a substantial drunkard and owns a sake company (in the dub, he just owns a hot sauce company). When played, a giant table does invariably appear and Hayato's father does overturn it fairly violently.

    Asian Animation 
  • BoBoiBoy: In Season 2 episode 7, Tok Aba flips the table he is cutting vegetables on in frustration when he discovers that Fang doesn't know why Ochobot short-circuits in front of him.
  • In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons episode 93, Wolffy flips the table with the cake on it when he gets angry after seeing his wolf friends having a party without him, not realizing until after the fact that it's for his birthday.

    Comic Books 
  • In the first story arc of the Adventure Time comics, Finn builds a table out of sand just so he can flip it over. He tries flipping over a real table in the second story arc, only to discover it's nailed to the floor.
  • Deadpool somehow managed to flip The Unbelievable Gwenpool's mental chessboard when he realized that the girl is also a Fourth-Wall Observer so he can make the encounter a meta-off instead of a fight (which he was losing).
  • Knights of the Dinner Table:
    • Brian flips the table he and his friends play Hackmaster at when the other players drive him into an Unstoppable Rage somehow.
    • Bob sometimes attempts it but usually can't lift the table.
    • We learn in issue #218 that Weird Pete had bolted his table to the floor to prevent this.
  • Happens once or twice in Mafalda, but with chess boards instead of tables.
  • Robin: Stephanie flipped the end table the phone was on when it kept ringing shortly after she and her mother learned of her father's supposed death. She was already upset because they were grieving him despite his criminal past and what a poor father and husband he'd been and was set off by the disruption.
  • Prowl in IDW's Transformers comics has a tendency to do this, according to Rewind and Chromedome, to the point of it being a meme both in the fandom and in-universe. At one point, Rewind tries to do it, but being on the smaller side as far as Transformers go, he fails to make it jitter let alone flip. At one point in The Transformers: Titans Return, Fortress Maximus attempts to flip a table-shaped switch and is unable to do so. Prowl easily does it, despite Fortres Maximus being among the physically strongest Autobots.

    Fan Works 
  • In Harry and Sodor - The Magic of Normality Harry flips over Minister Shacklebolt's desk when Shacklebolt states that his term in office will be limited unless he chucks Harry into Azkaban.
  • In The List Harry is upset by Hermione's badgering and flips over their table in the library.
  • An embittered Lieutenant Kim does this in the Star Trek: Voyager fic "The Flux of Mortal Things". B'Elanna ends up headbutting him and they both get thrown into the brig.
  • In Tealove's Steamy Adventure, Libra ends a tea party by calmly asking everyone to step away from the table, then flipping it across the room, roaring as she does so. Then she retrieves her baseball bat from a hole where the table had been standing a second ago.

    Films — Animation 
  • In Beauty and the Beast, Gaston flips over a table in the middle of a chess game he's playing during his Villain Song. Probably because he was losing. That, and nobody flips tables like Gaston.
  • In Cars, after Lightning's tire blows out, one of his pit crew members flips a stack of tires over in frustration.
  • A more exaggerated version in Fantastic Mr. Fox: Bean does this as part of his Villainous Breakdown, though he doesn't just flip over the table; he destroys just about everything in his office.
  • Captain Hook in Peter Pan does this when he reminds Smee about the time Peter chopped off his hand.
  • In The Prince of Egypt, Ramses finds Hotep and Huy hiding behind a curtain applying ointments and medicines to their boils. Ramses flips the table and orders them to get out, implying that they're being fired.
  • In Turning Red, Mei in her giant red panda form does this when she is told that Sun Yee is responsible for her family's panda forms.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Films about Jesus often have him doing this in the Temple (see Religion below). The King of Kings is just one of these.
  • You will see this once in a while in American sports movies; usually the coach of a losing team flipping a table or bench loaded with Gatorade in order to shock his team into being serious.
  • Flintlock Hogan flips the table after he accuses Rayne of cheating at poker in BloodRayne II: Deliverance.
  • City Heat. Burt Reynolds's character enters a room dressed as the Big Bad Wolf to find his girlfriend playing cards with the gangsters who are holding her hostage.
    "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll...(knocks over table into gangsters) blow your house down!" (fistfight ensues)
  • In Die Hard, this is how Karl responds to learning about the death of his brother Tony (courtesy of John McClane).
  • King Of The Rocket Men. The Dragon is sitting at a table, playing solitaire. When the hero enters and tries to detain him at gunpoint, he flips the table into the gun and Good Old Fisticuffs ensues.
  • In Knives Out, Harlan does this to give Marta a tough time while the two of them are playing Go. She finds it Actually Pretty Funny and is laughing about him being a Sore Loser.
  • The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015). CIA agent Napoleon Solo and KGB agent Illya Kuryakin are ordered by their respective superiors to work together. They leave them in a cafe to 'get acquainted', and the two agents promptly try to find each other's Berserk Button. Solo wins, as shown when Kuryakin reaches this trope and storms off.
  • Mercenaries: During the poker game in the motor pool, Raven kicks the table over to prevent Grigori from getting a clear shot at her while she jumps him.
  • Ming and Ming: When Daming tells Xiaoming that his new foster parents will be picking him up soon, meaning they won't be able to live together anymore, Xiaoming flips the table he's using to do homework.
  • Posse (1975): When his hands are cuffed behind his back, Nightingale kicks over the table into Strawhorn in an attempt to overpower him. It fails.
  • Jules does this early in Pulp Fiction, at the beginning of the famous "what?" exchange.
  • In Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, the newly married Milly flips the table her uncivilized brothers-in-law are sitting at after witnessing their disgusting table manners.
  • Happens in Take Shelter during a fight between the hero and his fellow colleague.
  • In the first Thor film, Odin berates Thor for his belligerence and withholds his Kingship. Thor does not take this well. The scene then immediately cuts to him flipping over an entire banquet table in frustration.
  • Done by Cal in Titanic while he's having breakfast with Rose, in response to one of her snark remarks regarding how she can't do anything on her own without his man servant spying on her.

    Literature 
  • Rogue: At a birthday party in fourth grade, Kiara lost her temper from all the other kids picking on her and flipped the table with the cake on it. She wasn't invited to any more birthday parties after that.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire. Prince Aegon Targaryen kicks over the cyvasse table when Tyrion Lannister points out a few flaws in his Rightful King Returns plan, then demands that Tryion pick up the mess. Tryion can't help being reminded of Royal Brat Joffrey, who turned out to be The Caligula once he took the throne. It's a sign that the plan to raise Aegon as Modest Royalty, so he'll empathize with the common people, might have a few flaws.
  • In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Drinian and Bern do this to Gumpas' table, to get his attention.
  • The Yillian Way by Keith Laumer. A human diplomat negotiating a peace settlement with the Yill is about to tuck into the disgusting alien meal being served up to him. However his aide realises this is a Secret Test of Character and knocks over the table to prevent this from happening. He then marches up to the table where the Yill leaders are dining and demands to be served good human food. As Yill society is based on alpha male domination, he successfully asserts his authority in their eyes.

    Live-Action TV 
  • 24: Jack Bauer uses this at times as an intimidation tactic during interrogations. The most notable instance was his interrogation of Nina Myers, in which he deliberately played up his hammy rage to appear as if he were genuinely losing control of himself and an actual threat to this terrorist’s life right then and there. It scares his CTU coworkers who are concerned he isn’t faking, but it works.
  • 30 Rock:
    • "Where's my mac and cheese?" in "Sandwich Day,"
    • Later parodied when Josh tries to storm out in disgust. He's unable to overturn the table, and Lemon urges the other writers to help him.
  • Battlestar Galactica: Colonel Tigh is playing a game of cards with some of Galactica's pilots. He and Starbuck obviously don't get along, due to her being a Military Maverick and Tigh being a bitter obnoxious drunk. Eventually, the two antagonize each other to the point where Tigh finally loses it and tosses the table, leading to Starbuck reflexively punching him in the face. She gets locked up for her troubles, but Tigh agrees with Commander Adama not to press charges because he was too drunk to remember who started the fight.
  • On Bottom, a seemingly "innocent" game of Chess led to Eddie Hitler flipping the table onto Richie's feet.
  • The Boys (2019) had Queen Maeve doing this when her girlfriend Elena decides to break up with her. As she has Super-Strength, the heavy wooden table goes flying across the room, terrifying Elena with this sudden display of violence.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In "Blood Ties", vampire Spike does this with the stone lid of a sarcophagus while arguing with Buffy.
  • The Colbert Report introduced Stephen Colbert's Super Coin Toss, a board game with an elaborate set-up (actually a Mouse Trap board with a few other things added on it) and rules. The first player — who would be the winner of the game — is determined by flipping the "Medallion of Fate". When Stephen loses the toss to young Brandon, he does this.
  • Cracker. Fitz loses all his money gambling, so he asks the manager of the casino to do him the favour of banning him. He refuses. So Fitz walks over to some Asian gamblers and flips over their table, to their fury. The manager gives a deadpan, "You're banned."
  • Daredevil (2015):
    • When Madame Gao tells Wilson Fisk he will be removed if he does not reassert control over his criminal alliance, he ends up flipping his massive metal dining table in rage seconds after she leaves.
    • When Fisk goes public before Matt Murdock's group has a chance to expose him, Matt angrily knocks everything off his kitchen table.
    • Matt flips over a table covered in playing cards when he finally gets to Detective Hoffman, who he needs to take down Fisk's whole operation. Takes on extra symbolic significance given the Playing Card Motifs of Fisk's criminal empire.
  • The Defenders (2017): Returning back to his apartment after going out to beat up some looters in the midst of an artificial earthquake triggered by the Hand, Matt Murdock tries to bandage his bloodied knuckles. However, his hands are very shaky, and he eventually snaps and sweeps his medical supplies off the kitchen table. The shot is staged almost identically to when he was listening to Fisk's speech.
  • In the third season of the Turkish soap opera ''Diriliş: Ertugrul", Vasilius, the Big Bad Guy of the season, he flipped over a tabletop chess, scattering all the pieces around, after the news of a big defeat and discovering a whistleblower in his castle, his former fiancee Helena.
  • Farscape has a sci-fi variation in "Bone to be Wild". Scorpius makes Crais's dining table retract into the floor, then kicks the food around.
  • Weaponised in Game of Thrones. The fight at the inn starts with Sandor Clegane flipping the table onto Polliver, which interferes with Polliver drawing his sword. By the time he crawls out from under the table, Sandor has used the opportunity to kill several of his men.
  • On Glee in 'The Sue Sylvester Shuffle' coach Beiste flips a table after losing a game.
  • Interview with the Vampire (2022): In the extended Season 2 trailer, a murderous Louis de Pointe du Lac flips over his table where he and Daniel are conducting the interview in 1973, which knocks over the latter's portable tape recorder and a few beer bottles.
  • Weaponized in Iron Fist (2017). In "This Deadly Secret", a parley between two Triad gangs is conducted from either end of a long table. When negotiations break down, Danny Rand uses his Iron Fist to knock the table into a gang of mooks who are about to attack him.
  • It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: One of the setup steps to their incoherent drunken boardgame "Chardee MacDennis" is nailing the game board down because by round 3 (hard liquor), Mac always gets frustrated and tries to Rage Quit. Mac admits that it's for the best and will forget that board is nailed down later in the game. True enough, he does try to flip the board, but is unable to do so.
  • Parodied in a The Kids in the Hall sketch where a disgruntled employee barges into his boss' office to berate him. He tries to flip the desk over but it proves too heavy. He makes several attempts but fails each time, eventually settling on throwing a pen across the room.
  • In The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, one opening sketch (24th of October, 2019) depicted Risk: Chaos Edition, where when one player protests the other's claims of having won at the game, he just flips the table over. ("I win again!")
  • In Little Britain, Marjorie (the leader of Fat Fighters diet class) enters to find the table laid out for an engagement party, complete with cakes, mini-chipolatas, and vol-au-vents. Not only is the place abound with really fattening food ("We did vol-au-vents last week, have I been wasting my time?"), but Marjorie is the only person not to be invited. She violently overturns the table as she leaves.
  • On Man v. Food Adam Richman flipped a table after winning a spicy food challenge.
  • An episode of Monk involved a play where the male lead was supposed to flip over a table in anger. After he becomes the Victim of the Week, Adrian — after having memorized the entire part just from watching the rehearsal and turning out to be a good actor in his own right — ends up taking over his role. When it comes around to the table flipping scene, he can't bring himself to do that; instead he removes everything that's on it before carefully turning it on its side.
  • Jonah's half of the Invention Exchange in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode Yongary, is a tiny desk you can flip over in a rage without making a huge mess you have to clean up afterwards.
  • Once Upon a Time: Emma is on a date with the person she needs to put in jail, and the guy flips the table on her.
  • The Orville. In the episode "A Happy Refrain", Claire uses the idiom "let's flip the tables here" to suggest a change of conversation to Isaac. Due to being Literal-Minded, he does this (though since they are in the simulator, he merely has the computer reset the table afterward).
  • The Professionals. In "Stopover", while interrogating a spy, Cowley lays out surveillance photographs on the table of his family back in Poland and threatens to frame them for treason if he doesn't provide the information Cowley wants. Outraged that Cowley would threaten innocents, the spy flips the interrogation table in a rage only to be restrained and pulled back into his chair by Bodie.
  • Teresa Giudice from The Real Housewives of New Jersey. right here.
  • Rizzoli & Isles: In "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother", Korsak and Frost attempt to arrest a suspect at an underground gambling club. He flips the table as part of his attempt to escape.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. When Quark is courting Grilka, her bodyguard is so outraged at the idea of a Ferengi romancing the leader of a Klingon House that he knocks over the table and Quark with it, challenging him to a Duel to the Death.
  • Succession: Tom flips the table in Greg's office and proceeds to absolutely trash the place, not out of anger but out of celebration (he's just discovered he will avoid jail time).
  • On Top Gear, when James May attempted to play a car-themed version of Top Trumps with The Stig, Stig overturned the table and stormed off in disgust.
  • Vikings: Viking Rollo is shown being taught Old French at court in Paris by a clergyman and he's having a terrible time. It involves him suddenly being fluent in Angrish resembling Old French, tearing a book page in tiny pieces and crumpling it, flipping his own table, grabbing his teacher by the collar, flinging said teacher across the room. He storms out of the room and knocks down a chair for good measure.
  • One clip on World's Dumbest... shows someone doing this after losing in a Rock–Paper–Scissors tournament. (Seriously.)

    Manhua 

    Music 
  • The event in The Bible is referenced in a comedic rap depicting the Vatican as being consumed by love of money.
    Buy as much as you want! Buy as much as you're able!
    Just don't let Jesus in, or He'll start flippin' tables!
  • Mentioned in the Let It Go song parody Fuck It All.
    ...Flip the table, screw you all!
  • In the climax of The Lonely Island's "Threw It On The Ground", which consists of the protagonist going on a rampage of throwing various things on the ground, he topples the dinner table of Ryan Reynolds and Elijah Wood, or "two Hollywood phonies" as he calls them, claiming they were trying to offer him an autograph (when no such event was actually taking place).
  • Happens in the first verse of the Pet Shop Boys song "West End Girls"
    You think you're mad, too unstable
    Kicking in chairs and knocking down tables
    In a restaurant in a West End town
    Call the police, there's a madman around

    Music Videos 
  • The video for Duran Duran's "Hungry Like The Wolf" has the lead singer flip over a table in a restaurant. This is due mostly to sexual urges than anger, however.
  • In the DVD performance of "Not In Our House" from !HERO: The Rock Opera, the lead character Hero turns over tables at the synagogue that Chief Rabbi Kai is in charge of.
  • Also done in the video for "We Didn't Start The Fire" by Billy Joel, and quite appropriately, at the line "Rock and roll and Cola Wars, I can't take it anymore!"
    • In one live performance (one of the concerts he did in the USSR in 1987) he noticed that audience members who were enjoying themselves became uncomfortable when the lights fell on them, as the film crew documenting the show kept turning on the lights so they could get film of the audience. He lost his temper and ended up flipping over his electric piano.
  • In the video for "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers, during the scene when frontman Brandon Flowers is playing checkers with Eric Roberts.
  • At 2:00 in the Bruno Mars "It Will Rain" music video.
  • About 2:25 into the music video for Rihanna's song "Hard", she flips the table during a card game.
  • This is also done to the boardgame "Mouse Trap" in a parody of OK GO's "This too shall pass".
  • Andy Samberg does this to a couple of "Hollywood Phonies" during Threw It On The Ground of The Lonely Island fame. Unfortunately for him, the phonies (Ryan Reynolds and Elijah Wood) happen to have a taser, and they proceed to give him a hefty dose of Taser-Guided Karma.
  • Michael Jackson does this to a cafeteria table in the "Prison" version of the video for "They Don't Care About Us".

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Whenever there's a contract signing for a huge match in WWE, expect this to happen at some point as the tension between the two wrestlers boils over, and they either glare at each other with their faces inches apart, or just start brawling.
  • On one episode of Smackdown, Mark Henry was facing then World Heavyweight Champion Randy Orton when someone hit Big Show’s music, distraction Henry long enough for Orton to RKO him and win via count out. In response, Henry angrily approached audio technician Jeremy Diaz, whom he believed had played the music, and began to destroy his equipment piece by piece before flipping over the table the equipment was on and throwing Diaz over a series of crates.

    Religion 

    Tabletop Games 

    Theatre 
  • The Gin Game is about Fonsia and Weller, two residents of a Bleak Abyss Retirement Home who bond over games of gin rummy—that is, they bond for a while, but Fonsia beats Weller every single time and he gets steadily angrier about it. Finally, ann enraged Weller flips the card table over. It's a distinct negative turning point in their relationship.

    Video Games 
  • The 2017 cinematic trailer for Beyond Good & Evil 2 features Zhou Yuzhu doing this in a Chinese restaurant after Knox sells him a supposed gold pig idol that's actually made of Swiss chocolate, accompanied by a foul-mouthed rant.
    Zhou Yuzhu: I want every fucking cop... in this fucking city... after that FUCKING BASTARD!!
  • Chaos Code's resident Chef of Iron Bravo Peperoncine has a super attack called "Getting Angry! Evil Course Fast Food", during which a table with McDonald's food and a microwave oven appears before him. Enraged, he flips it at the opponent.
  • Cho Chabudai Gaeshi (released as Anger Explosion outside Japan) is a arcade game from Taito that allow players to do this, with the goal being to slam the table to get people gathered in front of you, and to finally flip the table and let physics do the rest. No, we are not kidding. The game features a wide cast of characters to choose, changing the venue. For example: A ghost attending his own wake. Slamming the table makes the attendee think the place in haunted and investigate. The table you're flipping is actually your own open casket. It even received a sequel!
  • The "Flip Out" Emote Animation in Destiny 2 has your Guardian conjure a table out of Hard Light for the sole purpose of flipping it in a huff.
  • Enter the Gungeon actually has the table-flipping as a gameplay mechanic, except, unlike most examples, it's done not as a sign of anger, but as a way to provide cover from the enemy fire. However, the Table Tech Rage item invokes this by having the character get mad after flipping the table, which increases their damage.
  • In Final Fantasy VII in the snowboarding minigame where you're weaving through igloos, one of them has a Moogle at a table. Crash into it and the Moogle will throw the table at you, imitating this trope.
  • One of Kliff's opening poses in Guilty Gear involves angrily flipping a table.
  • In the beginning of Injustice: Gods Among Us, alternative reality Superman does this when "interrogating" The Joker, who was sitting behind the table — or at when least complaining to him about how he killed everyone and made Superman kill someone he loved. The table flies pretty far to the side, naturally, but still to a kind of restrained extent considering it's Superman we're talking about. Still, if you thought at this point he was flipping out, you'd be right.
  • Lil Gator Game: The legendary hero recruits Tony by showing him an innovative chess strategy.
  • In the Mass Effect 2 DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker, the Shadow Broker is revealed to be a 4 meter tall space gorilla. When Liara responds to his Breaking Speech by pushing his Berserk Button, he hurls his entire desk at the party before charging them. While Shepard and Liara dodge, whoever's filling the third party slot isn't so lucky and is knocked out for the fight.
  • Mass Effect: Andromeda: Depending on the player's actions, they might hear about Nakmor Morda flipping tables when she's supposed to be meeting with the Andromeda Initiative's Acting Director (who she has a very personal grudge against), because she's angry. Or irritated. Or just because.
  • In the game One Piece: Unlimited Adventure, Franky flips a table as part of his animation when creating a new invention in his workshop.
  • If you're willing to accept the Earth, or at least Sumaru City as the "table" in question, then Nyarlathotep's actions just after the final boss fight in Persona 2: Innocent Sin are basically one huge table-flip, but one he had carefully set up just in case he was beat. Yes, Nyarlathotep is such a Chessmaster that table-flipping is one of his stratagems — he doesn't care about playing, he cares about ruining the game for everyone else.
  • Resident Evil Village: After getting a Newhart Phone Call from Mother Miranda apparently warning her that they need Ethan alive for the "ceremony", Lady Dimitrescu calmly hangs up... then immediately and abruptly knocks over her vanity in a rage, storming off and vowing revenge on Ethan for killing her "daughters".
    Lady Dimitrescu: To hell with the ceremony! That man will pay for what he's done...
  • One of Zangief's attacks in Super Gem Fighter, complete with him reading a newspaper before getting angry at the opponent and ripping it in half before flipping the table at them.
  • Referenced in Super Robot Wars. One of Masaaki's possible spoof-Calling Your Attacks for his Psybuster's basic Discutter is "Magic Blade: Ether Table Flip Attack! ...just kidding."
  • Tabletop Simulator features this as a game play mechanic.
  • Team Fortress 2's The Heavy in Poker Night at the Inventory does this when he loses a large hand—he follows this up by spinning his minigun, which thankfully, has no ammo.
    • In Team Fortress 2 proper, The Heavy has a taunt much like this, although he doesn't do it out of rage, and there are no board games on the table (instead there being some soup and other cooking objects, including a steak in a pot, which he catches with his mouth).
  • One of the sillier Finishing Moves in Tech Romancer involves one of the Mecha flipping the table on the other mech.
  • High level cooks in World of Warcraft can acquire a "flippable table" as a reward item in Mists of Pandaria. The icon for this item looks like an extremely enraged face.

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 
  • The Table Flip is now a bona-fide meme.
  • In Best of the Worst, the gang will sometimes start flipping tables and couch cushions around (or miming doing so) when they're particularly sick of a film. Examples include American Flatulators, Pocket Ninjas, Tammy and the T-Rex and Dangerous Men (where Rich tosses practically the entire room).
  • Flipping the Table is a running gag for Orchestral Design in the Bronies React videos. He does it at the end of all his appearances, protesting the lack of Octavia in the episodes. And then, with the reaction to the 100th episode, which does features Octavia heavily, he flips the table again, this time in joy. And once in slow motion, when he sees Octavia and Vinyl Scratch sharing a house. And then, in The Stinger, he flips a table from the roof of his house.
  • On an episode of LoadingReadyRun's commodoreHUSTLE, Matt attempts to flip a table after a particularly nasty Magic: The Gathering loss, then finds it to be too heavy. Then Alex brings in a smaller table specially designed for flipping.
    Matt: [flips table]
    Alex: Feel better?
    Matt: [visibly relaxed] Sooo much better.
  • Boomstick, a co-host for DEATH BATTLE!, REALLY wanted to do this after the reveal of the Superman VS. Goku fight.
    Boomstick: Somebody gimme a motherfuckin' table to flip!!!
  • Epic Teatime with Alan Rickman. In super slow-motion, yet.
  • In the Five Nights at Freddy's 4 fan video "Five House Parties at Freddy's Bonnie flips the table when Plushtrap beats him in Scrabble.
  • In the first Net Movie for Kamen Rider × Super Sentai × Space Sheriff: Super Hero Taisen Z, we see Kamen Rider Stronger table flip in anger when he finds out Tackle's been seeing an Ultraman monster behind his back. It's Played for Laughs, though.
  • Nigahiga: "I spilled table all over my liquids!"
  • The end result of Old Man Henderson was one of these. Having gotten really fed up with a Killer Game Master, a roleplayer by the name of Waffle House Millionaire created the character of Old Man Henderson, a Munchkin Loonie whose sole purpose in life was to completely derail the campaign. Aided with the Backstory Of Doom, the sole purpose of which was to be so long and confusing that the DM wouldn't read it, Waffle House Millionaire ended up "winning at Call of Cthulhu." Cue the table flip from the killer GM after finally having gotten what was coming to him.
  • An instance of this occurs in RWBY during the episode "So That's How It Is", when Salem grills her subordinates in the meeting hall over their failure to retrieve the Relic of Knowledge and destroy Haven Academy. When Hazel at first tries to justify their failure by pointing out that the citizens of Menagerie had divided their forces, then tries to take full responsibility, Salem loses her patience. She flips the massive conference table and advances on Hazel, berating Hazel for taking responsibility when they all know full well that Cinder doomed the mission to failure by prioritizing her lust for power over Salem's wishes.
  • Table Flip, a Spin-Off from Game Grumps that focuses on tabletop games, uses this for its title. Dramatic slow-motion table-flipping also appears in its intro and outro.
  • Touhou Project: Table-flipping has been taken to new heights with the Kaguya Table Flipping RPG. It was originally a simple flash animation on Walfas, but was turned into a game. Kaguya's Five Impossible Tasks just became six, with the goal of Rebirth requiring, by most estimates, several thousand times the age of the universe to accomplish. Strangely, through several patches and even Dividing By Zero, obsessive players have already achieved this.
    • The latest version includes special moves called "Enlightenment" and "Master Slice", both of which make achieving Rebirth not only possible to do legitimately, but much quicker and easier.

    Western Animation 
  • The Adventure Time episode "What Have You Done?" has Princess Bubblegum flipping a table in both the title card and in the episode itself.
  • In the The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Joy", Miss Simian rages out and flips over a desk from the side, completely flipping it over and landing back on its legs, not disturbing anything sitting on the table either. Realizing this, she then moves behind the desk and flips it over that way.
  • An episode of Dan Vs. sees Dan and his best friend's wife Elise trapped together in a cabin, where Elise tries to pass the time in a game of "Conglomerate". Dan makes himself banker, gives himself fifteen times the usual starting amount, insists that it's how he always plays with his sidekick Chris...
    Dan: I think you'll find the game is more realistic with a little corruption.
    Elise: ...Just roll the dice.
    [Dan abruptly puts his bare feet onto the table]
    Dan: Not until you rub my feet! ... Just another perk of being the banker.
    [Elise, equally abruptly, flips the table (and Dan) over]
  • On one episode of Family Guy, Cleveland was living with the Griffins, and in the midst of a messy divorce. While watching tv with Stewie, he finally snaps and says "I hate Bewitched!" when it comes on, and flips the couch over. While Stewie was sitting on it. Stewie responds "Yeah, that was totally reasonable reaction..."
    • Another possible instance is in the episode, where Stewie and Brian are playing Chess in the back of Quagmire's RV, while he is having sex while driving. When their chess pieces get knocked off due to the reckless driving, they argue when they try to put the pieces back, causing Stewie to snap and knock the pieces off the table again.
  • Referenced in Gravity Falls; in "Soos and the Real Girl", someone left a note on the box for the in-universe dating simulator Romance Academy 7 instructing someone to destroy it, and they included a flipping-the-table emoticon.
  • On Jimmy Two-Shoes, Jimmy attempts to do this when subjecting Beezy to some Perp Sweating. He ends up being too weak to do so, and asks Beezy to help him. He does.
  • When Korra is upset with Mako in Book 2 of The Legend of Korra, she kicks over his desk with airbending... in the middle of the police station where he worked.
    Lin Beifong: What the flameo happened here?
    Mako: I broke up with the Avatar.
    Lin: You got off easy. You should have seen Air Temple Island when Tenzin broke up with me.
  • The Looney Tunes Show has Daffy Duck flip over a table during a game of chess with Bugs Bunny and claim that there was an earthquake.
  • Averted in Metalocalypse. The band's manager has their tables bolted down since Nathan does this so often.
  • In the Motorcity episode "Ride the Lightning". Texas doesn't just flip the table: he straight-up SMASHES IT to pieces... and then promptly starts crying afterwards.
  • Muscle Man on Regular Show flips the table out of anger of being splashed with a soda twice.
  • In The Simpsons episode "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish", Burns is furiously trashing the Simpson home and tries to flip over a table, but he is too frail to do so and makes Smithers do it for him.
  • In Star Trek: Lower Decks episode "Reflections", Boimler, having to endure numerous insults and mocking laughter while trying to keep Mariner from flipping out, snaps when his rank pip is tossed off and stepped on and starts flipping tables at the various recruitment booths while giving people there "The Reason You Suck" Speech after speech.
  • In the Steven Universe episode "Keystone Motel," Garnet split up into Ruby and Sapphire out of anger. After rocking the diner table roughly, Ruby reacts rather badly and does this when Sapphire said the behavior would pass and that Ruby would burn out. It proves to be the last straw for Steven.
    Ruby: I AM AN ETERNAL FLAME, BABY!!
  • Wander over Yonder: In "The Good Deed", when a fortune teller tells Hater that the stars show he is "immature, awkward, and emotionally unstable", Lord Hater yells "I am NOT emotionally unstable!" and flips over a table.

    Real Life 
  • Jackson Pollock did this to the dinner table in November of 1950. He was angry at Hans Namuth for ordering him around so much for the colour film they had been shooting and just finished, and also had his first drink of alcohol after two years of being sober (followed by several more). Drunk and angry, he eventually flipped the table much to the shock of the dinner guests. Bonus points for Thanksgiving dinner being on said table at the time he flipped it.
  • Reportedly happened in real life when Ed O'Brien of Radiohead lost his patience at a restaurant. "He thought he was Jesus in the temple of the moneychangers," fellow bandmember Colin Greenwood commented.
  • Stories about players flipping tables are very common in competitive Magic: The Gathering.
  • Football player Jim Everett did this to sports reporter Jim Rome when Rome called Everett "Chris" right after Everett asked him to stop doing so.note 
  • While King Canute and the Danish Earl Ulf were playing chess, the latter overturned the chessboard out of anger over the former taking back a move. The king's courtman executed the Earl in church shortly after.
  • Magfest 11 featured a Table Flipping For Charity event.
  • On the messaging/chat service Discord, one of the server settings is "verification level", or degree of user verification (such as having an email address or phone linked to your account) required to post in a server. The levels are called None, Low, Medium, (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻, and finally, ┻━┻彡 ヽ(ಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻.
  • Nintendo producer Shigeru Miyamoto is known within the company for (metaphorically) "upending the table" on projects which he was unsatisfied with, like the father in Kyojin no Hoshi. For instance, during the development of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, Eiji Aonuma described Miyamoto as "upending the tea table" in the story development, leaving the plot rather... messy. He felt it was too complicated. The phrase has since become a minor meme among Nintendo fans.

    Other 
  • Now in emoticon form, for those who can see Asian characters.
    (屮ಠДಠ)屮 彡 ┻━┻ , (ノಥ益ಥ)ノ ┻━┻ , (ノ・_・)ノ 彡 ┻━┻ , (ノ。◕‿‿◕。)ノ 彡 ┻━┻
    (ノ*'д`*)ノ ~ ┻━┻ , ( ノ♉︵♉ )ノ 彡 ┻━┻ , (ノ゚д゚)ノ 彡┻━┻ , (屮ಥДಥ)屮 彡 ┻━┻
    (屮ಥ益ಥ)屮彡 ┻━┻ , (屮≖益≖)屮 彡 ┻━┻ , (屮≖Д≖)屮彡 ┻━┻ , (┛◉///////◉)┛彡┻━┻
    ( ノ⊙Д⊙)ノ 彡 ┻━┻ , (屮=益=)屮 彡 ┻━┻ , ‎(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ , ┬──┬ ¯\_(ツ)
  • In Soviet Russia, ┳━┳ ︵╯(.□.╯)
  • (ノ ಠ益ಠ​)​ノ~ (;。▽。​)​ヽ

You done? Good. Now put it back.

┬─┬ノ( º _ ºノ)

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