Who wants KFC?
A subtrope of Amusing Injuries in which a burst of flame, explosion, or just crashing into a wall or tree instantly burns the feathers or fur off of something and magically turns it into a perfectly-roasted chicken or turkey, complete with bone drumsticks, or any other choice cut of meat. Sometimes the roast also comes complete with plates and other silverware. May also be accompanied with the Stock Sound Effect of a microwave bell.
Most definitely this is not how things work in real life — proper cooking requires meticulous preparation, and carefully-controlled times and temperatures as well.
Cousin Trope to Meat-O-Vision and, for heat applied to vegetables, see Popcorn on the Cob. Contrast with the harsh aversion, Oven Logic, where a character forgets the "carefully-controlled time and temperature" bit. Similar to Instantly Defeathered Bird, where the bird survives whatever caused it to lose its feathers. See also Impromptu Campfire Cookout.
Nothing to do with an especially quick-witted Deadpan Snarker.
Examples:
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Advertising
- In an old Nintendo commercial a boy's pet parrot is instantly roasted when it utters "Tetris 2!"
Comic Books
- In the Mortadelo y Filemón story, El Sulfato Atómico, this happens to an unfortunate pig who instantly gets turned into sausages after getting blown up by a shell from a tank (by comparison, its farmer owner merely gets off with getting singed all over).
Films — Animation
- In An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, Native American mice shoot fire crackers at a hawk, blowing it out of the sky, and a few seconds later some mice are shown carrying a fully-cooked and beheaded roasted hawk.
- In Mulan, Mushu breathes fire on Shan-Yu's falcon, leaving it featherless. It even appears headless for a moment, as it had tucked it into its neck.
"Now that's what I call Mongolian barbecue."
- In Ice Age: The Meltdown, a dodo that was crossing over an area laden with geyser pits gets turned into a roast chicken after one such geyser goes off under it.
- Played with in The Croods, an ostrich-like predatory bird is slammed into the ground by a snare, making a huge spread of feathers that obscures the screen. When they fade, the bird has been roasted and the Croods are ravenously (and literally) tearing through it.
Music Videos
- In the video for Genesis' "Land of Confusion", the Spittin' Image version of Nancy Reagan looks out of the window of her White House bedroom at a small bird that flies by, that suddenly bursts into flames and becomes a small roast with a price tag attached to its feet.
Puppet Shows
- In the Danny Kaye episode of The Muppet Show seen here
, the Swedish Chef makes the mistake of bringing Kaye a live turkey - so Kaye has to improvise.
Tabletop Games
- In Munchkin, the monster "Giant Angry Chicken" is worth one extra level if it is defeated by flame. Yummy fried chicken!
Video Games
- Get hit with a flame from the ceiling spouts in Alfred Chicken to roast him where he stands.
- Also, the continue screen for the SNES game has Alfred sleeping on a bomb. Let the clock run down and the bomb explodes, leaving a roast chicken on the Game Over screen.
- In Ancient Domains of Mystery shooting a fire bolt over a cookable item has a chance of cooking it. (If you're unlucky, it might just burn it instead.)
- In Arx Fatalis, launching a fireball at a live chicken (or just interacting with it one too many times, which, somehow, will make it glow bright red and explode) will instantly produce a whole roast chicken, whereas slaying it with a weapon or a non-fire spell will only yield two measly raw drumsticks.
- In Asterix for the Sega Master System, the last punch thrown by Asterix in the first Boss Battle transforms a wild boar into a roast which is presented to Obelix in the following cutscene.
- In Ayo the Clown, defeated fish-type enemies turn into pieces of sushi when they're defeated.
- In Bounty of One, if Roger (a vulture bird-person) gets killed, he immediately turns into a roast vulture.
- In the Light Gun Game Cheyenne, shooting a Bison causes it to turn into a hamburger with the score for it below, before disappearing.
- In Chicken Invaders, just about any enemy that is a chicken will drop chicken wings or roast chicken on death.
- In Don't Starve, if a creature dies from fire damage, any meat items it would normally drop instead drop as cooked versions. Unfortunately, every other piece of loot turns into ashes. Including things that aren't flammable under any other circumstances.
- In Drol, shooting a flying turkey turns it into a nice roast.
- In Devil World, Tamagon can breathe fire on the Faceless Eye to turn it into a tasty fried egg. (The Japanese term for fried egg literally means "cooked eyeball.")
- In Duck Game, getting killed from being set on fire (such as from burning fuel, a flare gun, or a flamethrower) or from the Plutonian Blaster or Death Ray will cause your duck to turn into a roast upon dying.
- Duke Nukem:
- In Duke Nukem, shooting the chicken item turns it into a perfect roast worth much more health.
- The sequel has live turkeys that run around by themselves. You can roast them with a single shot as before (even if you use a rocket launcher), but only if you can hit them before they reach you.
- In Elona, fire will normally destroy items, but with uncooked food there's a chance of the item instead turning into cooked food. However, unless you are extremely lucky, the food will turn into low-tier cooked food, which is worse than raw.
- Far Cry 5 has a parody. Animals normally drop meat when killed, which is extremely valuable Shop Fodder. If you kill an animal by burning it, it will instead drop Burned Meat, which is nearly worthless.
- The Legend of Zelda
- In Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, Omfak's intro cutscene shows his three forms doing this: the wolf head shoots down a crow with Eye Beams, the lion head breathes fire which turns the dead crow into a roast within seconds, and his Gag Lips head eats it (bones and all). Despite this, his death cutscene shows several living birds flying out of his corpse.
"Whatever I see, I shall devour"
- In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, killing a wild animal with a fire-based attack (e.g. Fire Arrows or the Fire Rod) will replace the raw meat normally dropped with a roasted version. While in the Death Mountain region, letting raw meat (both dropped directly by the player or a wild animal they just killed) sit on the ground for a few seconds will likewise roast it. In a (slight) concession to reality, the health-restoring effects of this roasted food, while better than eating it raw, are still not as good as what you get by actually cooking it in a pot.
- In Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, Omfak's intro cutscene shows his three forms doing this: the wolf head shoots down a crow with Eye Beams, the lion head breathes fire which turns the dead crow into a roast within seconds, and his Gag Lips head eats it (bones and all). Despite this, his death cutscene shows several living birds flying out of his corpse.
- In Minecraft if an animal is on fire when it dies, it will drop cooked meat. Any method of setting something on fire will do: a fire charge, leading it over a burning block, using a flint and steel on it, the Fire Aspect enchantment, or using a weapon made from certain modded materials. Unfortunately, if the animal dies on a burning block it drops absolutely nothing. Also it can set other things on fire, like you. And you have to listen to the pitiful noises it makes as it slowly burns to death (half a heart at a time), all while not attacking you.
- In Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time, Zombie Chickens defeated via electric attacks (such as the ones from Lightning Reeds or Electric Peashooters) will have a chance of instantly turning into buckets of roasted chicken. Otherwise, there's the usual death animation of X-Ray Sparks.
- In Puyo Puyo 2, this happens to Suketoudara when you defeat him, as he becomes a Japanese-styled seafood dinner in his defeat portrait.
- A similar thing happens in Castle Crashers, where defeating the fish men in the Flooded Temple & Medusa's Lair stages will also turn them into fish fillets, complete with lemon slices and napkins!
- In a character video for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Roy hits a taunting Falco with his Flare Blade. The blow KOs him, but the explosion masking this and a roast pheasant food item spawning where Falco was standing makes it look like he was cooked.
- A non-food example: In Toonstruck, Drew feeds a group of alligators a turkey that has been filled with dynamite. The resulting explosion instantly turns them into a purse, shoes, and belt.
- In Phoenotopia: Awakening, killing small critters (and only small critters) with bombs or exploding spears will make them drop Cooked Mystery Meat instead of the usual raw Mystery Meat.
- In Psychonauts, killing various critters (birds, squirrels, etc.) with Pyrokinesis turns them into miniature roasts which restore health.
- Scribblenauts: Whenever livestock such as pigs, cows, and chicken go near fire, they turn into cooked meat.
- In Spelunky 2, if a turkey dies from fire damage, it turns into a roast which you can eat for health.
- In Subnautica, slashing a fish with a thermal knife will instantly cook it to perfection. The game is usually far more realistic about things, so this can stand out as an oddity. Note that the regular cooking method explicitly makes note of removing bones and other inedible parts, something which probably can't happen when you're just swinging a knife around in the middle of the ocean.
- In Toki, shooting down the flying turkey Bungataras roasts it into a nice bonus food item.
- In Wing Nuts there's a cutscene in which the Red Baron drops a bomb that falls on a pig in a farm, and the explosion sends a bunch of instant weiners up to him, much to his delight.
- "Pilgrim's Bounty", World of Warcraft's Thanksgiving event, has turkeys that can be hunted. When killed, they turn into a fully-dressed roast.
- One reward for completing the event is a non-combat pet that features the same turkey model. Under ordinary circumstances it's fine, but if it comes within a certain radius of a cooking fire it will leap upon it and instantly turn itself into a roast. Now that's efficiency!
- Really, any mob that uses the turkey model is capable of this trope. Turkey pet killed in a pet battle? Instant roast! Kill the turkeys in Howling Fjord for the achievement? Instant roast for each one! Get transformed into a turkey and get killed (or feign death) while in that form? You become an instant roast! Oh, and fire isn't required; any method of killing will do.
Web Animation
- Homestar Runner: One of the segments from "Summer Short Shorts", a Powered by the Cheat cartoon taking place in "The Millionzoic Era", has The Cheat as a dinosaur drinking lava from a volcano and breathing fire onto caveman versions of Homestar, Marzipan and Strong Bad. Homestar and Marzipan turn into a chicken leg and a steak respectively, while Strong Bad is briefly left with an Ash Face. Then Strong Bad says "Ooh, me too! I am not exempt," and turns into a lobster tail.
Web Comics
- In the strip "Instant Bacon" from The Perry Bible Fellowship, we see a guy strapping a pig with dynamite hoping to invoke this trope.
Web Original
Western Animation
- In the Cow and Chicken episode "Grizzly Beaver Safari", Supercow punches the titular grizzly beaver towards the sky along with a man-eating giraffe. The two return to the ground as containers for beaver gas and giraffe gas. Supercow even uses them to fill Mom and Dad's car.
- One Cool McCool villain is the Owl, a human in an owl costume with two real owls, one on each shoulder. In the episode titled "How Now Foul Owl," the villain accidentally gets blasted by his own henchman, and the two owls are both transformed into roasts resembling a couple of cooked chickens, still on their master's shoulders. (They get better.)
- Done in Timon & Pumbaa with vicious guinea fowl, first by a fiery discharge from Timon's rocket booster which fried several birds, then by setting the rocket-propelled car to explode, finishing off the lot of them. Timon even takes a bite out of a guinea fowl drumstick at one point.
- In Tiny Toon Adventures, an American bald eagle incinerated by some fireworks bears a striking resemblance to a Thanksgiving turkey.
- Popeye:
- In the cartoon "I Eats My Spinach", Popeye's Megaton Punch turns a bull into a meat market stocked with beef hocks, steaks, and deli cuts.
- In Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor, Sindbad's roc takes Popeye to a volcano. Popeye returns with a giant roast chicken, "with gravy".
- Done in the Woody Woodpecker short "The Hollywood Matador," by Woody simply running headfirst into a charging bull.
- In the Tex Avery short "One Cab's Family", a speeding car hits a pig and a chicken, which land back as a plate of ham and eggs.
- Mickey Mouse (2013):
- In "The Adorable Couple", Donald and Daisy become roast ducks when the sun shines too brightly.
- In "Duck the Halls", Mickey and the gang crash Santa's sleigh and believe that Donald has gotten roasted in the crash. Donald turns out to be alive, and the roast was actually another duck sunbathing in the raw.
- In "Our Homespun Melody", Mickey thinks his pig is sick and tries to get him warmed up, only for the poor thing to get too hot and become a giant bacon strip.
- In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "The Fry Cook Games," Patrick's pole-vaulting stunt ends with him landing on a handle of a giant deep fryer, flinging the hot oil into the spectators and turning them into fish sticks.
- On The Ren & Stimpy Show episode "Circus Midgets", the duo turn into roast chickens after jumping through a flaming hoop.
- Rocko's Modern Life: In "Dear John", there's a gag at the home show scene where a chicken who spent too long in a hot tub finds their body has turned into a roast.
- ReBoot: In "Between A Raccoon & A Hard Place," Enzo fires off his gun, which sets off a long series of events that at one point leads to a vulture being hit with a firework, before falling on Rocky the Raccoon, Enzo's intended target.
- Looney Tunes:
- Looney Tunes:
- In the short What Price Porky, a duck gets blasted by a bombshell and becomes a roasted duck on a spit.
- In another Porky Pig short, The Timid Toreador, a rooster pilfers and eats one of the hot tamales that Porky is selling, and the tamale ends up being so hot that the chicken EXPLODES and drops back down from the sky as a roasted chicken.
- Looney Tunes Cartoons: In "The Curse of the Monkeybird", one of the temple's booby traps incinerates Porky, turning him into a baked ham.
- Looney Tunes:
- The Fairly OddParents!:
- In "Super Bike", when Timmy rides Super Bike for the first time, they drive through the park and roast some pigeons that they drive by.
- In Abra-Catastrophe!, during Timmy's fight against Crocker, they both shrink down to subatomic level and are propelled back to normal size by the explosion caused from them splitting an atom. Said explosion roasts some birds flying overhead, one of which hits Timmy in the head and causes his disguise to fall off.
- Underdog: In Part 4 of the "Simon Says Be My Valentine" arc, Underdog saves Sweet Polly from an eagle by punching it towards the sky. As the two leave, the eagle falls down as a roasted chicken.
- Happens in Wander over Yonder to minor villain General MacGuffin, who is a giant eagle. Lord Hater manages to blast him and he is turned into a bucket of fried chicken- and humorously, in a later episode we see he's still like that.
