One especially interesting way to dispatch a character (or otherwise really mess them up) is to have them smash head-first or face-first into a television. It makes a nice smashing noise, often emits some sparks and smoke, and may leave the unfortunate character jiggling uncontrollably as the electricity fries their insides. Often the unfortunate victim of such a move will end up with his or her head sunk entirely within the electronic box, as though it is hollow. The recent predominance of flatscreens over the old tube televisions doesn't seem to have made this trope vanish, possibly because it's a really cool way to kill off a character or end a fight.
The reason the term "screen" is used for this trope instead of "television" is that it could refer to a situation in which someone's head is thrust into any similar device, such as a computer monitor or a microwave oven. An older variation of this involves a jukebox display, sometimes as the result of a Bar Brawl. The general disappearance of the jukebox from the public consciousness has made this a fairly rare, if not extinct, variation of this trope.
This is about as close to Truth in Television as Soft Glass, of which this is a sub-trope. The screen on an old-fashioned tube television is the front of an enormous vacuum tube, which has to be made out of extra-thick glass to withstand the pressure. Flat-panel TVs don't have that problem, but their screens are still made at least as strong as a window of the same size. Skulls are tough too, so we're not sure what would end up worse off if you did this in Real Life, but we're betting the screen would be cracked at worst.
This could be the unfortunate result of someone believing too much in a Television Portal, or said portal disappearing shortly before impact.
As this trope often results in death, beware of unmarked spoilers.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo: In the Cyber City arc, Giga, the arc's Big Bad, reveals himself in front of Bobobo and Softon via a big screen. When one of Giga's cronies tried to attack Bobobo, the latter smashes his face on the big screen and declares that he's coming to kick his ass.
- In the FLCL episode "Brittle Bullet", Naota and his grandfather are watching TV when Naota's father flies through a wall and ends up headfirst in the TV set. It turns out Haruko had punched him with an extendable boxing glove.
Comic Books
- In the 1998 maxi-series JLA: Year One, Simon Carr, Snapper Carr's uncle, shoves Snapper Carr's head against his monitor screen, to keep him from perusing some secret files. This destroys the monitor, while Snapper Carr sustains visible injuries to his face.
Fanfiction
- The Game of the Gods: Anjara tries to travel to Middle-Earth using a Television Portal that only exists in her imagination. The inevitable happens as she smashes into the TV with enough force to give her a fatal head injury.
Films — Live Action
- Airplane!: Two Girl Scouts fight each other in a bar, and one throws the other girl to slide across the bar top and lands head-first into a jukebox, which starts playing "Stayin' Alive".
- During a Bar Brawl in the blaxploitation film Foxy Brown, one of the fight participants gets thrown head-first into a jukebox.
- Grosse Pointe Blank: Grocer gets dispatched by a TV set to the face that's thrown above a kitchen counter. Electricity is heard and the body twitches before it stops moving.
- One of the victims in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer meets his fate when Henry and Otis crash a TV screen on his head.
- Hooper: During a bar scene, a drunken Hooper is told by an angry rival to stop the song Hooper selected. Hooper puts on a helmet and smashes his head through the front of the jukebox, demolishing it. He even gives the quarter the jukebox coughes out to the rival. And then he begins a Bar Brawl.
- Mother's Day: One of the main antagonists gets a TV set crashed on his head through the base, his screaming head visible through its screen as he staggers around. Once he finally throws it off, he collapses, smoke leaving the lips of his fried face.
- A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors: Jennifer is killed when her head is smashed into a wall-mounted television set — by the television itself (as possessed by Freddy Krueger himself, of course).
Freddy: This is it, Jennifer, your big break in TV! Welcome to primetime, bitch!
- RoboCop 2: When Murphy and Lewis bust the arcade where part of Caine's gang is hiding, Murphy grabs officer Duffy and interrogates him as to where Caine's hideout is by, among other things, smashing Duffy's face onto the screen of an arcade machine and grinding him into the glass.
- In Scream (1996), Stu Macher has a big-screen television dropped on his face by Sidney, shooting sparks and electrocuting him to death.
- In Scream VI, Kirby finishes off the third killer, Ethan by dropping a television on his head in a Call-Back to the first movie. It gets lampshaded, too.
Kirby: Saw that in a scary movie once.
- Shaun of the Dead: The zombified landlord of the Winchester pub is sent head-first into a jukebox, consequently "killing the Queen."
- Skyscraper: Will Sawyer faces his Evil Former Friend, Ben, and in the ensuing struggle Ben kicks Will head-first into Will's widescreen television. Will shrugs off the attack and kills Ben in a Gun Struggle a couple seconds later.
- In Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022), Knuckles introduces himself to Sonic by punching him through the wall and the flatscreen TV hanging on it.
- The Spy Next Door: Farren calls out to Larry as she drops a TV set from upstairs, making him look up as the glass crashes into his face, knocking him down with his head in the set.
- Under Siege: The movie's final battle between Casey Ryback and Big Bad Strannix ends with Ryback stabbing Strannix in the scalp, before shoving Strannix head-first into the USS Missouri's radar monitor screen (which shatters and fizzles, of course) for good measure.
Live-Action TV
- A self-inflicted version in 1000 Ways to Die. One of the victims is an anger management attendee who drunkenly dives headfirst into a large screen TV, killing him from a combination of a broken neck, electrocution, and bleeding.
- Community: In the pilot, Shirley makes a light threat that involves grabbing someone's head and pushing it through a jukebox. In "Heroic Origins", it's revealed that she smashed a stripper's face, namely Misty, into a jukebox as retribution for sleeping with Andre.
- One unlucky inmate on Oz was thrown into a TV screen during a fight, killing him instantly.
- Lorena, one of the nastier vampires of True Blood, was bashed over the head with a flatscreen television in one episode, allowing Bill, her vampire captive, to escape. As she's a vampire, this doesn't kill her, but it does really piss her off.
- Tales from the Crypt: In "None But The Lonely Heart," the Villain Protagonist uses a video dating service to scam rich old ladies, murdering them for their money. When he suspects the dating service manager is blackmailing him, he responds by violently ramming the poor bastard's skull through the service's big-screen video player. In a wonderful bit of Black Comedy, the TV keeps sparking (and the corpse keeps spasming) until the killer clicks it off with the remote control.
Professional Wrestling
- On the July 1, 2019 edition of Raw, the Falls Count Anywhere match between Bobby Lashley and Braun Strowman ended with the two of them crashing head-first through the LED Wall, leading to a no-contest.
Video Games
- Little Nightmares II: A Viewer falls through the ceiling from an upper floor and runs off to the other room, a loud crash following shortly after. Walk into the next room to find him planted head-first into a TV, presumably dead. It serves to foreshadow how obsessed the Viewers are with the Transmission and the screens that carry it.
- In the 2005 game The Punisher, the boss fight against the Russian has Frank smash his opponent's head through three different computer monitors and a television screen inside his apartment.
- In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Incineroar defeats Ken by sending him flying into a jumbotron screen in the former's trailer. Before that, Ken did the same thing to Little Mac.
Webcomics
- Brawl in the Family: Self-Inflicted in "Sonic Watches TV
". Seeing an ad for Ringley's Rings, Sonic sees it looks exactly like a ring container. After trying not to give in to the desire to break it open, Sonic snaps and throws himself at the TV, screaming.
- The first strip of Manly Guys Doing Manly Things has Kratos working in a computer store and giving a customer an up-close look of a computer screen's resolution... by repeatedly slamming the customer's head into it. The Quick Time Event reads "Press Circle to show off the better features of this product".
Western Animation
- The Amazing World of Gumball: Nicole is brought to her breaking point in "The Limit" and chases her family around the store. Richard stands in front of a video camera that broadcasts his face on the surrounding TV sets and he screams in terror as Nicole charges towards him... but it turns out that she's running into another TV displaying Richard, causing her face to flatten against the screen, cracking it and pulling several other TV screens to fall off the shelves and onto her. Her Raised Hand of Survival amongst the broken metal and glass shows that it barely hinders her Unstoppable Rage.
- Hazbin Hotel: During "Masquerade", Husker throws a Loan Shark head-first into a jukebox.
Real Life
- Gamer in China smashes head through screen for losing a "League of Legends" campaign. Yes, "through".
