That's Shake's cat, by the way.
"ANGELINA! DO NOT MICROWAVE THE GOLDFISH!"
— Camillio Martinez babysitting his little sister, Detentionaire
Someone killing a pet by putting it into a microwave oven and turning it on. The pet might explode as well.
A form of Microwave Misuse. This can be a case of Kick the Dog, or (as a popular Urban Legend has it
) just some misguided old lady or child trying to dry the pet out after it got wet. This trope has nothing to do with I Need to Go Iron My Dog.
Please, Don't Try This at Home. You'll end up with a dead pet, a ton of grossness, and a broken microwave. And probably a lot of guilt on your conscience. And when people find out, a lot of hate directed at you. Usually a Black Comedy Pet Death.
If the victim is a human being, it's Cooked to Death instead.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Among the many atrocities Dio Brando commits in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, one of the first is killing Jonathan Joestar's dog, Danny, by burning him alive in an oven.
- In Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, Chuck is forced into a microwave by a swarm of retaliating flies. Due to his invulnerability, he reforms after the resultant explosion.
- This Urban Legend is mentioned in Yakitate!! Japan as "proof" that Americans make frivolous lawsuits, when an American baker shows up.
Films — Live-Action
- In American Vampire, one of the vampires explodes the protagonist's dog in the microwave.
- One of the gremlins in Gremlins (1984) is killed in a microwave. (Yes, it was a pet before it transformed)
- An "Asian" character in Hanger microwaves and eats puppies.
- In the incredibly odd short Possibly in Michigan, one character mentions her eccentric aunt, who accidentally killed herself and her dog when she tried to dry it off in a microwave. True to the surreal tone, her friend's only reaction to the story is to say, "She must have been pretty weird!"
- Snakes on a Plane had one of the flight attendants microwave a snake, causing it to explode. The microwave even had a snake preset.
- In Urban Legend, Hootie the dog gets microwaved by the killer in order to draw one of the victims out. As with all the other killings, this was a direct reference to an urban legend.
- In the prologue of The Willies, an old woman tries to dry her poodle off in the microwave, and it explodes.
Live-Action TV
- American Horror Story:
- In American Horror Story: Murder House, Episode 5, Hayden tricks Vivian into thinking she killed her dog in the microwave.
- In the seventh series, ''American Horror Story: Cult, Episode 3, a guinea pig, given as a gift to 10 year old Oz Mayfair-Richards, is murdered in the microwave by one of the Clown Killers. The gory splat is every bit as horrifying for the main characters as it is for the audience.
- Doctor Who: The Doctor's "timey-wimey detector" in "Blink" apparently does this at range. "It can boil an egg at thirty paces. Don't use it around hens...It's not pretty when they blow."
- Everybody Loves Raymond: Ray's daughter's pet hamster is accidentally frozen, so Ray's father suggests that they try to revive it with a microwave.
- The first season of British comedy sketch show Hale And Pace (1988) included a skit about bad taste on television, with Pace commenting that "nothing causes more anger than being cruel to animals". Hale, who's fussing a kitten, agrees - and then reveals a microwave.
Pace: I mean, we like to experiment with comedy, but even we wouldn't microwave a cat live on national television.Hale: We certainly wouldn't. So- [opens microwave] -here's one we did earlier.
- The MythBusters refused to test the myth that you can dry a poodle in the microwave, despite playing it up as a myth at the beginning of the segment. This was the first explicit instance of the show's No Animals Were Harmed policy.
- Alluded to in A Scare at Bedtime. Apparently, microwaving a hapless pet is just one way of summoning the Quare Fella...
- Early on in Shameless (US), eight-year-old Carl microwaves a goldfish, apparently for fun. He also melts his toys in the toaster as well.
- The 2point4 Children episode "Badger's Bend" ended with Ben making tea while watching a goldfish in a blender jug, and flicking the wrong switch. In a spoof No Animals Were Harmed segment afterwards, it showed how the goldfish was replaced with a fake one just before the take. In order to get the real goldfish out of shot, Ben's actor (Gary Olsen) shoves its bowl in the microwave ... and flicks a different wrong switch.
Music
- In "Microwave Cat" by Feo Y Loco, linked here, the singer relates how he bathed his cat and dried it in the microwave, with predictable results.
- The W's song "Stupid" is all about stories of people doing stupid things, and the first verse is all about the urban legend of the woman trying to microwave her poodle to dry it off. "The poor little poodle never heard the bell ding. / He went out with a bang, if you know what I mean. / Stupid, that was stupid..."
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "I'll Sue Ya" features a line about this:
"I sued Panasonic. They never told me not to use their microwave to dry off my cat!"
Video Games
- The BioShock Infinite add-on, Burial at Sea, has an audio log detailing a Bistro owner's experience with his new-fangled Radar Range (literally a microwave-emitting radar dish mounted to a rifle grip that functions like a Ray Gun) and how his son got ahold of it and tried it out on everything he could: apples, marshmallows, spoons. The fun stopped when the family's pekingese jumped in the way of the blast. When the player gets a hold of it, they can pull the same trick... on the Splicers.
- Day of the Tentacle:
- The original incident in Maniac Mansion is canon and the owner of the animal needed years of therapy to overcome the trauma. If you're dumb enough to give the hamster's remains to their psychologically-unstable owner, he will outright murder them; if that character had anything important in their inventory, you're not getting them back.
- A puzzle is solved by really using a future microwave to dry a live hamster (yes, it does survive, and Laverne remarks out loud that kids trying to imitate the gesture would have bad things happen to them).
- A rather infamous Easter Egg from Half-Life is at the beginning of the game, when you can heat a casserole in the microwave and cause it to explode. The Fan Remake Black Mesa also includes this, and then does one better by putting a headcrab in the same microwave after the resonance cascade, which you can make explode as well.
- Kindergarten 2: Agnes may trade either of her 3 cats with you, depending on what food you bring her. There is a microwave oven in the office behind the cafeteria that you can cook the cat with. The game gives you three chances to decide whether to microwave the cat or not as the protagonist protests the very idea of the action. If you go through with it, a loud meow can be heard before all that's left of the cat is a splatter of blood on the glass window, and the protagonist promptly leaves in disgust, ending the day phase. You don't get an achievement for killing the cat, but you do get the "Common Decency" achievement if you turn back on the idea.
- In Maniac Mansion, if you're playing as Razor or Syd, you can kill Weird Ed's hamster by putting it in the microwave. Show him the exploded remains if you want to get killed.
- Handwaved in Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse as the microwave's description regarding how cooking demon meat on them is guaranteed to make it explode. Other bits and pieces scattered along dialogue explain that, due to this, low-tech ways to prepare the meat, like open-fire-roasting, are encouraged.
Web Original
- Daneboe modified his microwave to heat up to 100,000 watts and places an Easter peep inside, and ends up creating a horrific monstrosity.
- Weebl & Bob: The Bob toon titled "Housework" opens with a man microwaving a hedgehog, which then promptly explodes, causing him to exclaim that he'd microwaved his pet, only to find out his actual pet (a cat) is just fine, concluding that "hedgehogs are not pets".
Western Animation
- Discussed in Animaniacs. The anthropomorphic animals trick Elmyra into thinking she's in an alternate world where humans are the pets. One of the animals asks for Elmyra as its pet, but then the mother goes "no honey, you put the last one in the microwave." Elmyra, a notorious Chronic Pet Killer (not that she ever realizes it), shrieks, freaks out, and flees in abject terror.
- Shake from Aqua Teen Hunger Force spent the entire episode "Reedickyoulous" sticking Meatwad's cats in the microwave, resulting in the entire backyard being full of graves. When the pets are revived as zombies by radioactive poop, they try to put Shake in the microwave. Among them was a GORILLA of all things! You're better off not asking how Shake managed that....
- Inverted in The Amazing World of Gumball: Gumball accidentally creates life when he puts a jar full of disgusting goo in the microwave.
- The Gremlins example is parodied on Family Guy. Instead of turning into a Gremlin, the Mogwai becomes Fran Drescher. Peter microwaves her anyway.
- Joe Secondopinionson attempted an oven version of this on his goldfish in Moral Orel. His sister tries to stop him, but he ignores her and puts it in anyway.
- Seth Mac Farlanes Cavalcade Of Cartoon Comedy includes a skit about putting a dog in the microwave after giving them a tinfoil hat and chocolate. Earth explodes. (But seriously, in real life the tin foil would have caught fire, do not try this at home.)
- The Simpsons:
- The opening of "Treehouse of Horror XVIII" has Marge being interrupted by advertisements for other Fox shows and killing all of the characters on them. She kills House this way.
- The "Treehouse of Horror XXVII" segment "B.F.F.R.I.P." has Homer's imaginary friend Sergeant Sausage being killed by Lisa's imaginary friend Rachel this way, but as Homer is eating his remains, he points out that as an imaginary being, he can't truly die.
