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Impromptu Campfire Cookout

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Impromptu Campfire Cookout (trope)

When something suddenly catches fire, the typical responses are either fleeing or attempting to put it out. However, some people will opt to instead roast food over the fire.

Typically it is a stick with either marshmallows or sausages as if it were for a normal campfire.

Compare with Instant Roast, The Snack Is More Interesting, and Couldn't Find a Lighter. May overlap with Dissonant Serenity since it usually involves being unusually nonchalant, Ignorant About Fire, and Inappropriate Hunger. See also Autopsy Snack Time for another inappropriate time for food.


Examples:

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    Advertising 

    Comic Books 
  • In one X-Men comic, the mutant Match, whose powers made his head permanently on fire, was used as a campfire by his classmates, to his annoyance.

    Comic Strips 
  • Garfield: Parodied in the 1998-09-08 strip; there's no actual fire, but Garfield's reaction to Jon yelling "Fire" is to pull out a stick with a sausage.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animation 
  • Dumbo: During the scene where the clown firemen try to "rescue" Dumbo from the burning house, one of them climbs up a ladder, pulls out a sausage on a stick and starts roasting it over the flames.
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame: As Paris burns due to Frollo's search for Esmeralda, Hugo sticks a sausage on a stick out the window and it comes out roasted, with a bit of flame on the end.
  • Over the Hedge: As the Depelter Turbo deploys, unleashing a huge fireball visible from space, the porcupine children pull out marshmallows, while RJ takes out a bag of microwave popcorn that pops instantly, which he then eats out of as he takes in the show.
  • Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie: While Sandy and SpongeBob fly to Texas on the wing of an airplane, SpongeBob uses the plane's engine to roast a weenie.

    Literature 
  • Ciaphas Cain has mentioned a few enemies he would have burned alive while roasting caba nuts.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Suggested by Willow in the Zeppo episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, over the dead bodies of a bunch of demons:
    Buffy: Should I burn them?
    Willow: I brought marshmallows!... Occasionally, I'm callous and strange.
  • A Running Gag on Robot Wars was the carpet covering on Diotoir catching fire. Eventually they started putting kebabs on top of it to cook during matches.

    Podcast 
  • In Quest Laid Plans, Aveline is so used to people roasting marshmallows on their fiery tiny antelope familiar that she has a flap in her carpenter's belt full of mini marshmallows.

    Puppet Shows 
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000: When Starcrash gets to the scene where Akton dies and his body fades away, with a visual effect that looks like he's turning into a mass of lasers, Tom Servo and Crow pull out sticks and pretend they're roasting hot dogs over him.

    Theater 

    Video Games 
  • Possible in Cataclysm. Most crafting and cooking recipes that require a heat source will allow you to use a nearby fire, allowing for a wide variety of ill-advised cooking surfaces. Freshly-slain zombies, housefires, and open lava fissures are all fair game.
  • The system mechanics in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild allow this; any food item which nearby a fire will become cooked after a while, meaning the player can happily bake a few apples using the burning corpse of a slain enemy.
  • Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time: Fire Peashooter has a costume that is a fork with a sausage roasting on her head.
  • Can be invoked in Transformice by placing a bonfire itemnote . Anybody who clicks on it will then be treated to their mouse whipping out a marshmallow on a stick. This can be done anywhere, any time, including when a round has become Unwinnable or while dodging cannonballs in the midst of Survival Mode.

    Webcomics 
  • Cyanide and Happiness: In this comic, one guy lights part of the carpet on fire. The other guy decides this is a good time to roast marshmallows and does so unsuccessfully.
  • xkcd: Marshmallow features the reentry marshmallow toasting module. Attached to a reentry vehicle from a space shuttle or some other source, the reentry marshmallow toasting module extends a stick with a marshmallow attached to toast it from the heat of entering the atmosphere. Marshmallows toasted this way sound impossibly cool, but the method suffers from a couple problems, primarily that the extended arm would cause turbulence that makes steering harder and risks everyone for a fatal crash, and the Alt Text points out that it would be way too easy for the marshmallow to fall off.

    Western Animation 
  • Darkwing Duck: Darkwing Duck, upon approaching Quackerjack and Megavolt who were trapped by flames, opts to roast a sausage on the flames instead of rescuing them, due to becoming apathetic earlier in the episode by the two villains using the Relaxitron on him.
  • Extreme Ghostbusters: Kylie loses her small Proton Sidearm (she normally carries the much larger trap). It ends up, among other places, in the hands of some hobos who use it in an old garbage-can. Suffice it to say, it's probably not a good idea to roast hot dogs on a radioactive campfire.
  • Looney Tunes Cartoons: In "Chain Gangsters", Bugs finds himself connected against his will to Rocky and Mugsy, and is forced to help them get out of jail. At one point, he digs an escape tunnel and leads the two gangsters to the surface, upon which they find themselves under a rocket about to launch. Bugs takes the chance to roast a carrot over the same blast of exhaust that leaves them thoroughly charred.
    Bugs: The rocket fuel really brings out the flavor.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: In the end of the special episode "Ugh", primitive Squidward gets struck by lightning and becomes covered in soot and ash. Primitive SpongeBob and Patrick proceeds to roast marshmallows on a stick over Squidward's hot body.

    Real Life 
  • First responders, known for their Gallows Humor, are known to look at a structure on fire that is completely unable to be saved and asking if anyone brought marshmallows.

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