My Grandma Can Do Better Than You

Lucy: My grandmother can hit better than that!

[she is immediately hit with a purse]

Lucy: Sorry, Gramma... it's just an expression.

— Peanuts

This trope is a Stock Phrase and a common insult.

Sometimes "grandma" is replaced with something else, usually "sister". Bonus points for following it up with "...and she's dead!" Although it can be amusing if she is not only alive, but Right Behind The Speaker.

See Never Mess with Granny, Cool Old Lady, and Apron Matron, for when there is some truth to this statement. See You Fight Like a Cow and My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad for similar insults.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• In the Toonami version of Dragon Ball Z, a virtual Saiyan warrior (conjured by Mr. Popo's training room) uses this line to ridicule the secondary characters' power levels.
• Bleach: Thanks to a quirk of translation, the Hungarian version of the story has Ishida using the same line when ridiculing Ichigo on the bad quality of the path he makes while crossing through the Garganta. This line doesn't occur in any other version.
• One of the Big Bads from Digimon Adventure was a rock-music ape named Etemon. He stood about half the size of the highest-level-to-date protagonist Digimon, but even when blasted by needles from a ten-foot-tall walking cactus with fists, he tossed it away with, "Is that the best you can do? I've seen sharper needles in Granny's knittin' bag!"
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 2: "You'd lose in a fight to this untrained woman!" "Oh yeah, well you'd lose in a fight to a pigeon!". The arguers then attempt to prove their statements using Ki Manipulation in a scene that has to be seen to be believed. The untrained woman does land a solid hit on the second guy, but when the first guy tries to undo her brainwashing with a kiss, a pigeon launches out of her mouth and floors him, courtesy of the second guy. They reluctantly call a draw.

Comic Books

• The Batman Adventures: In issue #7, Killer Croc's manager tells him "my mutha slams better than that". Croc's adversary says he considers it "particularly painful".
• In a late 1980s issue of X-Men, when Freedom Force (aka the former Brotherhood of Evil Mutants) receives two less-than-wanted new teammates, Pyro comments "You ask me, my old gran in Woomaloo could take those two."

Comic Strips

• Peanuts has one strip where Lucy shouts "You throw like my grandma!" during a ball game, only to then turn and apologize to said Grandma who is watching the game.
• Garfield has one strip where he was watching TV and there was a monster. The monster was so slow a character said "My Grandmother could outrun that mon-". Garfield then mentioned that "Maw-Maw went with her track shoes on".

Fanfiction

• In eXtra power twin Logan makes Ginny and Hermione do physical training exercises.
  Logan: Cut the chit chat! My grandmother could do it faster, and she's dead!
• In Son of the Sannin, when one of the bullies who's picking on Hinata punches Naruto in the face, his response is "You call that a punch? My mom punches way harder than that." Of course, since he's talking about Tsunade (his adoptive mom), there aren't many individuals who could punch as hard as her.
• In Unity (Finmonster), El Macho says to a superhero he's fighting, "My abuela hit harder than joo." And since he's a Macho Latino, he might actually be correct.

Films — Animation

• The Road to El Dorado:
  Miguel: You fight like my sister!
  Tulio: I've fought your sister, that's a compliment!
• Pinocchio:
  Lampwick: Ah, you smoke like me grandma!
• B.O.B.'s Big Break, supplemental short on the Monsters vs. Aliens DVD:
  General Monger: You throw like my nine-year-old niece... that I may or may not have.

Films — Live Action

• A variation occurs in Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams: When Donnagon and the kids' father Gregorio fight one another for the Transmooker device, during the fight, his wife Ingrid tells him to do the Suplex. He does, but it ends up rather hilarious. Then, the grandma of the kids groans that she could do better than that.
• Cool Runnings: Irritated with his teammate's slow preparation for a night out, Yul Brenner snaps, "Hurry up man, I've got a dead grandmother that moves faster than you!"
• Captain America: The First Avenger: Agent Carter tells soldiers doing pushups that her grandmother could do better, "God rest her soul."
• The assistant coach in Dazed and Confused says this, adding "Course she's 6'3", 250 lbs., and runs a 4.5 40."
• In Rocky III Rocky says "My mother hits harder than that" after taking multiple punches from Clubber Lang.

Literature

• In Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets, the gym teacher in the comic book tells his students that his grandma can run faster than them.
• One Kenan & Kel book has Kel being insulted at basketball with the phrase, "My dog is better than you." Kel, though, is too amazed at the thought of a basketball-playing dog to be insulted, however, and the bully has to explain the taunt.
• In How to be a Pirate, the sadistic teacher is screaming at his students, "C'MON, MY GRANNY COULD DO BETTER THAN THAT, AND SHE'S 103 AND ONLY GOT ONE LEG!" The great thing is, his kickass granny really can.
• At the beginning of the second Artemis Fowl book, The Arctic Incident, one of the Russians is grumbling about his comrade's poor aim when shooting down Artemis Fowl Sr.'s transport. He mutters about his grandmother shooting better.
• In Dragon Blood, Ward is called to a farm where some mysterious stranger killed a couple of bandits. When a little girl tells him, excited, that a girl was able to kill all those bandits, he shrugs and says something like "And? So could my aunt." Subverted in that his aunt is just that badass, and it is not meant as insult, just as factual statement.

Live-Action TV

• The exchange in Star Trek where Scotty tells Chekov that Scotch Whisky is a man's drink, and Chekov replies that it was invented by a little old lady from Leningrad.
• In the Quantum Leap episode "Running for Honor," Sam leaps into a track runner, and fails to live up to the guy's previous performance:
  Sam: (looking at his time) Is that good?
  Coach: Yeah, that's great. If you're my grandmother!
• In The Big Bang Theory:
  Stuart: Hey Sheldon, ready for bowling tonight?
  Sheldon: Oh yes. I've even prepared some trash-talk for the occasion. You bowl like your momma! Unless your mother bowls well. In that case you bowl nothing like her.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Faith, Hope and Trick
  Faith: My dead mother hits harder than that!
• In Stargate Atlantis the only reason John Sheppard knows Rodney McKay has a sister is because he uses this trope. After they reconcile, he switches out his sister for something even more demeaning: "My four year old niece can do better than you!"
  • Plus after meeting her, they all realize she is probably even smarter than he is, so he can't use it effectively anymore.
• Gordon Ramsay said this in one episode of Kitchen Nightmares (regarding a chef's terrible cooking). Including the "and she's dead" part.
• Raven: In episode 5 of series 1, Hadan states that he sucked so badly at the challenge Stones of Aaron that his sister could have done better than him.

Puppet Shows

• Sesame Street: Ernie tries to draw a picture of a llama, but Bert says it doesn't look anything like a llama and adds, "My sister can draw a llama better than that!"

Sport

• Following a tour of Pakistan in the 80s, English Cricketer Ian Botham remarked, "Pakistan is the kind of country every man should send his mother-in-law to for a month, all expenses paid." Payback came in the 1992 World Cup final between England and Pakistan, where, after dismissing Botham, Imran Khan asked, "Why don't you send your mother-in-law out to bat? Surely she can't do much worse."
• Also something of a meme involving Geoffrey Boycott, who often says things to the effect of "My mum could bat on this pitch".
• Seven-foot-seven basketball player Manute Bol was a good shot-blocker but a poor scorer (he actually had more career blocks than points). When he was traded to the 76ers he was averaging 1.9 points a game. Charles Barkley, then the best player on the team, said, "My grandma could score two points a game, as long as she wasn't double-teamed."
• Renowned and always controversial martial artist Jon Bluming typically labels fighters and practitioners of martial arts he looks down as unable to beat Bluming's grandma wielding an umbrella.

Video Games

• In Vietcong, during the tutorial the player’s character gets the full (dead grandma) version from the drill sergeant. Upon unlocking basic movement controls, the sergeant orders Hawkins (the player) to run the obstacle course and immediately starts bombarding him with insults: “My grandma can move faster, you asshole! And she has been dead for twenty years!” being one of them.
• Appears in the "sports" game Chaos League as an insult by one of the two guys commenting the game.
• Variant: In Warriors Orochi, Old Soldier Shibata Katsuie occasionally taunts "You can't outfight my corpse!"
• Insult Arm-Wrestling in Escape from Monkey Island features this potential exchange:
  "My ninety-eight-year-old grandmother has bigger arms than you."
  "Ungh... Yeah, but we both got better bladder control than you do."
  • In the same game, after Guybrush passes the medical exam for the diving competition, he's told, "You'd have to be a palsy ridden grandmother to fail." Indeed, when you show your certificate to Marco, he tells you "I've seen palsy-ridden grandmothers with better scores than yours!"
  • Also, Guybrush has a rather ingenious one near the end of Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 2: The Siege of Spinner Cay, only "grandma" is replaced with "possibly dead mother":
    Guybrush: My possibly dead mother could shoot a cannon better than you can!
• In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, if the player chooses to fight in the arena, one of the NPCs informs your character, "My grandma can beat you and she's dead!"
• Ultimate Spider-Man: There's a level where the player controls Venom who has been unleashed on Manhattan to chase down Electro as part of a demonstration of Venom's abilities. Expect Electro to constantly pelt you with lame insults if you're even ten yards behind him, including "My grandma can move faster than you!" And no, there is no way to prevent hearing this a dozen times except to turn off the sound.
• Obscure Genesis game Ex-Mutants does this if you die too many times in the auto-scrolling levels. If you play as one character, he says "my grandmother could do better", and if you play as the other, she says "[the first character's] grandmother could do better".
• The response that you will get in Alundra 2's Indy Escape minigame if you didn't score enough points.
• When missing a shot in Backyard Basketball 2004, Barry Dejay sometimes says: "My grandma can shoot better than that. And she's got cataracts."
• An available audio taunt in Age of Empires II is "My granny can siege better than that."
• While Silent Thunder: A-10 Tank Killer II's Commander Garrett doesn't say it, botching a mission may result in the dialogue box reading, "my four year-old could have done better than that".
• "My granny shoots better than you!" is one of several "Taunt Player" voice options in Killing Floor.
• In Borderlands 2, during the quest to return to Sanctuary and planting a fast travel station in Overlook, Handsome Jack sends robots to try and stop you. Most players won't experience this (unless you're soloing on True Vault Hunter Mode with sub-par weapons, or have an extremely bad group), but if the robots repeatedly interrupt/destroy the beacon, Jack will chime in, commenting on how bad you are and wonder how you can defeat him if you can't even protect a little beacon.
  • He delivers a similar taunt if you fail to rescue Roland from the Bloodshot Ramparts before the drop barge arrives to take him to the Hyperion Friendship Gulag.
  • Near the beginning of Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage, Mr. Torgue comments that the Vault Hunter, having just signed up for his Inevitable Tournament, is currently ranked lower than his grandma, but higher than the poor sod she gummed to death. "IT TOOK SEVERAL HOURS!"
    • Later DLC proves that this isn't just a weird comment on Mr. Torgue's part. His grandma is still alive, and it turns out he wasn't exaggerating much about her. She mentions a creature she calls a 'whale squid,' which from its description sounds surprisingly similar to a Thresher, and notes that she nearly killed it by herself. The only reason she didn't kill it was because the young Mr. Torgue was crying and begging her to spare it. She even brings up Terramorphous as a comparison. Taken all together, this means she soloed a raid boss. Never Mess with Granny!
• When Chuck administers Zombrex to Tyrone "TK" King in Dead Rising 2, he mocks the recipient's reaction with "My daughter takes this better than you." (As Case Zero shows us, though, it took Katey three years before she got used to it.)
• LEGO Star Wars. Chewie is flying the Falcon through an asteroid field, his violent maneuvers sending C3PO hurling about the cabin, shouting "My motherboard... my ''grandmother'' board could fly better than you!"
• One of Dan's victory quotes in Street Fighter Alpha 2 is "My father could beat you, and he's dead!"
• One of Isabela's mid-fight quotes in Dragon Age II is "You hit like my grandmother!" Another version - "You hit like an Orlesian dandy!"
• One of the special Clash dialogues in Injustice: Gods Among Us:
  Harley Quinn: You fight like my grandma!
  Nightwing: (chuckles, genuinely amused) You fought your grandma?!
• In the Citadel DLC for Mass Effect 3, the Big Bad is an evil clone of Commander Shepard trying to steal Shepard's identity. Shepard has this to say during the final battle: "Conrad Verner is better at being me than you are!"
• The announcer in R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 if you fail to beat a section time in Time Attack:
  "MY GRANDMA DRIVES FASTER THAN THAT! GET WITH THE PROGRAM!"
• In the German version of Super Mario 64, if you lose a race Koopa the Quick boasts that even his great-grandmother is much faster than you.
• One of Bardin's taunt lines when using his ability as an Ironbreaker (draws aggro and renders his block unbreakable for a few seconds) in Vermintide II is "I've a grandmother hits harder than that!".
• Friday Night Funkin': One of Tankman's Game Over lines has him insult the player by saying his dead grandmother has more nimble fingers.
• In Punch-Out!! Wii, during Title Defense intermissions, Aran Ryan will yell that his sister is a better fighter than Little Mac.

Web Animation

• In DEATH BATTLE!, Boomstick encourages his friend Wiz to punch him, in an attempt to gain psychic powers like in Mob Psycho 100. Wiz, having a Geek Physique, slaps Boomstick lightly across his chin. Boomstick's indignant response is "Come on! My grandmother hits harder than you!" After another feeble slap, Boomstick says "Wow. You think it'll work if I just get embarrassed about having a friend like you?" At this point, his Berserk Button pressed, Wiz backhands Boomstick with his mechanical hand, hard enough to knock him out.
• In RWBY Chibi, Nora subjects Team RWBY to Training from Hell. During some punching exercises she tells them her grandmother can punch harder than them, before admitting that she really can and that she's "scary strong."

Web Video

• The Angry Video Game Nerd uses this in his review of Lester the Unlikely when he notes just how lame the titular character is, especially in comparison to other nerds.
  AVGN: I get it, he's supposed to be a nerd. Well, this "nerd" makes me look like Charles Bronson. Steve Urkel could beat the shit out of this guy!
• JonTron says a variation on this in his video about workplace safety videos, in a skit featuring him as a boss yelling at the corpse of a worker who was impaled while on the job.
  Jon: What do I pay you for? What do I pay you for?!? You're LITERALLY less than useless!!! My paraplegic GRANDMA could do more than you, godDAMMIT!!!

Webcomics

• In Hark! A Vagrant, Nelson is pretty sure his grandmother kisses better than Hardy.
• In The Mansion of E, Mansion-visitor Zay is unimpressed with a tentacle's squeezing prowess.

Western Animation

• The Angry Beavers: In "Pond Scum", Norbert turns into a bike-riding, prank-pulling delinquent thanks to the bad influence of a mind-controlling patch of pond scum. Dagget decides to fight fire with fire by dressing like a biker and challenging Norb to a drag race, to which the pond scum dismissively quips "My toothless grandma drag races!"
• The Simpsons
  • Bart and Lisa used a variant of this in "Dancin' Homer" on the players when they were at a minor league baseball game:
    Bart: You throw like my sister!
    Lisa: Yeah! You throw like me!
  • In the episode "Bart Gets A Z", Nelson said his "stroked-out grandfather" had more memory than an antiquated computer they had in the classroom (after Ms. K confiscated the cellphones). Then Milhouse asked how he was and Nelson said he was feeling better.
• In Futurama, "The Beast with a Billion Backs":
  Leela: Come on, Bender! Your Grandmother could push harder than that.
  Bender: No crap! My Grandmother was a bulldozer!
• In the Rocko's Modern Life episode "Carnival Knowledge" Rocko is having a difficult time knocking down the rigged bottles at the carnival booth, Slippy the sleazy owner says "Oh come on, my grandmother can throw better than that and she knocks 'em down no problem".
• In the Musical Episode of Daria, Kevin (The QB) is trying to break down a door:
  Daria: My great aunt could do better, and she's dead.
• Justice League, "Starcrossed": After one heck of a beating, John refuses to stay down and throws out this trope despite having trouble getting the words out:
  John Stewart: That all you got? My grandma hits harder than that!
• American Dragon: Jake Long: While watching an Ogre Bowl game, Fu Dog said his grandmother could play better than that and she was 1400 years old. Said grandmother, who was also at the stadium watching the game, told him she's ''only'' 1392 years old.
• Extreme Ghostbusters: An old friend of Garrett was playing basketball and teasing his adversary with the 'grandma can play better' insult. Soon after the adversary replied that she was not there, Garrett was passing by and his friend told the adversary Garrett could play better. Since Garrett was wheel-chair bound, the adversary accepted the challenge. Garrett won.
• CatDog: In "Let The Games Begin", Catdog and the Greaser Hounds end up in prison, and are challenged to win their freedom by running an obstacle course as a team. Cat badgers the Greasers into overcoming the last obstacle with taunts that include "My grandmother could run faster than you, and she's a cat!"
• In Codename: Kids Next Door, Numbuh One dodges Father's fire blasts and taunts him with, "My grandma has better aim than you!"
  • This becomes Hilarious in Hindsight when it's revealed that Father is Numbuh One's uncle (his father's younger brother), thus making this an unintentional Your Mom joke.
• In the episode "A Taste of Marzipan" of Chowder, Endive insults Mung by saying that he throws like an old woman. Truffles interjects and says it isn't true and says she throws much better than he does.
• Grandma Arbuckle cooks up a storm for her grandson Jon in the Garfield Specials, transforming his frozen and outright inedible Thanksgiving dinner into a glorious feast.
• LEGO Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles : C-3PO says a computer variation to Chewbacca, who's trying to fly the Falcon. "My motherboard AND my grandmotherboard could do better than you!"
• My Knight and Me: In "Lucky Tooth", Bad Jack says his grandmother aims better than Henri.
• Kaeloo: Stumpy tells Bad Kaeloo, who uses Hulk Speak, that "even my little sister can talk better than you."

Other

• In one Ulpan Or Hebrew lesson, the books instructs the student in how to say "My grandmother drives better than you!" in a traffic jam/road rage situation. Made even funnier if you are familiar with Israeli drivers.
• Anyone who's been in the military will have heard this at least once from their Drill Sergeant/Instructor.
• Cirqus Voltaire:
  Ringmaster: "Granny ringmaster shoots better than you!"

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