Toothbrush Floor Scrubbing

"Make it shine now, kids! I had to cut costs on provisions, so you'll all be reusing those toothbrushes later!"

— Cameron Campbell, Camp Camp

A typical Punishment Detail in the military, or otherwise strict organization, in media is scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush (possibly the offender's own), however impractical it may be. Sometimes, a person will opt to use someone else's toothbrush, especially someone they're not particularly fond of.

Truth in Television, as a stiff-bristled toothbrush is great for grouting or small stains.

A Sub-Trope of With This Herring. May overlap with The Dreaded Toilet Duty.

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Examples:

Comic Books

• At one point in the G.I. Joe (Devil's Due) comic series, Drill Sergeant Nasty Beachhead tells a recruit that a cruel man would make him clean the barracks with a toothbrush, before making him clean the barracks with a POTATO.
• De Kiekeboes: in a comic where Marcel Kiekeboe is drafted in the army, when the Sergeant asks him to present his toothbrush, Marcel knows what's coming and, instead of his actual toothbrush, he presents the Sergeant a duster. Unfortunately for him, the Sergeant has a spare tooth brush for soldiers who try to get out it.

Fan Works

A Second Chance: Renee makes Lucy do it during the former's first stint as the Louds' babysitter. When Lucy points out how ineffective it is to clean a bathroom with a mere toothbrush, Renee states that this is the point of the punishment, to make it all the more strenuous and tedious for her charges.

Films — Animated

• In Barbie and the Three Musketeers, Viveca, Aramina and Renee make Corinne scrub the ballroom floor with a toothbrush as punishment for the damage she did to each of them earlier in the movie when they first meet.

Films — Live-Action

• In Forrest Gump, Forrest and Bubba have to scrub the floor of their barracks with toothbrushes. Both being rather simple-minded, they don't care much about it.
• The toothbrush floor cleaning punishment is shown in Latter Days as a part of gay conversion therapy.
• The Matrix Resurrections: An offhand comment from Morpheus suggests the crew of the Mnemosyne was assigned to sterilise their ship using nothing but toothbrushes after rescuing Neo while under direct orders not to.
• In An Officer and a Gentleman, Mayo has to clean the floor with a toothbrush at the end of his weekend of hell after he refuses to DOR.
• Private Benjamin: During basic training, Judy Benjamin complains about the latrine being unsanitary and is ordered to clean it with her toothbrush. Her electric toothbrush.
• In UHF, when Stanley Spedowski makes his big motivational speech about his mop, he makes a metaphor about how when nothing else works you get down and start scrubbing with a toothbrush.

Literature

• In the All Quiet on the Western Front, the protagonist scrubbed the barrack room with a toothbrush on the orders of Corporal Himmelstoss - among other things.
• There's a reference in Cain's Last Stand to some schola cadets having to scrub lichen off of a paved parade ground with toothbrushes.
• A flashback in the first Gaunt's Ghosts novel has a character being forced to clean the floor with a toothbrush as punishment. When asked, he greatly exaggerates the "crime" that got him in this situation.
• The eponymous Rosa Riedl in the book by Christine Nöstlinger met her demise when she was trying to cross the road to help a Jewish storekeeper who was forced by the Nazis to remove the graffiti from his store with a toothbrush. The event was so traumatic she continued to haunt the area after her death.
• Toradora!: Neat Freak Ryuji proudly scrubs windowsills with a toothbrush.

Live-Action TV

• On Happy Days, when Richie, Potsie and Ralph pledge to a fraternity, one of the things they have to do during Rush Week is clean the floor at Arnold's using toothbrushes.
• Lost Girl. In "Caged Fae", Bo ends up in prison with obligatory Girl on Girl Is Hot fanservice. In one scene the corrupt female Warden has Bo dress in a skimpy outfit and scrub her floor with a toothbrush.
  Warden: Very nice. But I want you to scrub a little... slower.
• Power Rangers RPM: Ziggy, after inadvertently pushing Dr. K's Berserk Button, is made to clean the floor of the garage with a toothbrush.
  Ziggy: Talk about sensitive...
  Dr. K: Would it be a cliché for me to point out that you missed a spot?
• Power Rangers S.P.D.: When Sky is punished with scrubbing the entrance with a toothbrush, Jack joins him trying to establish a friendship with him. Sky later reveals he's scrubbing with Jack's toothbrush.
• TV's Private Benjamin (1981) had a tag at the end of an episode where the girls had to polish Capt. Lewis' jeep using Q-Tips.
• After Melvin sneaks back into The Slammer, one of his punishments is to clean the toilets with a toothbrush.
• In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Learning Curve," Tuvok orders Crewman Chell to degauss a transporter pad with a micro-resonator. Tuvok intends that Chell will learn patience from the twenty-six-hour task; Torres says it would be done in five minutes with a magneton scanner. Exactly why Tuvok is doing this is something of an Idiot Ball, as he's supposed to be giving the ex-Maquis crewmembers a crash course in Starfleet operations and protocol, not instructing at Starfleet Academy where they can spend years breaking down and reconstructing recruits. All he does is anger the trainees with what seem to be meaningless exercises.
• In the Dutch sitcom Vrienden Voor Het Leven, when Eddie gets drafted in the army, the sergeant makes him clean the toilet with his toothbrush.

Web Animation

• Camp Camp: Given the run-down and cheapskate funded nature of Camp Campbell, it's no surprise that the campers and counselors have to scrub the floor with the same toothbrushes they use on their teeth.

Western Animation

• In one episode of Beetlejuice, Beej has joined the army (just go with it) and at one point is scrubbing a floor with a toothbrush—only to pause and briefly brush his own teeth with the skeevy toothbrush.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty magister Hulca forces Ben to scrub floors with a toothbrush in the Ben 10: Ultimate Alien episode "Basic Training".
• In the Camp Lazlo episode "Scoop of the Century", Lumpus tries to pose as a Bean Scout and, as part of his "initiation", the other scouts make him clean the latrines with a toothbrush. At the end, it's revealed that it was his own toothbrush.
• The episode "Battle of the Baseball Know-It-Alls" from Captain N: The Game Master had a scene with King Hippo and the Eggplant Wizard trying to force Princess Lana to scrub the floor with a toothbrush. Lana manages to distract them by making them demonstrate how to scrub the floor while she and Game Boy sneak off. King Hippo then recognises one of the toothbrushes as his own and brushes his teeth with it.
• In an episode of Daria, Quinn Morgendorffer is mistaken for a pledge to the most prestigious sorority on campus. Rather than explain she is only fourteen and only visiting, she is swept away with the glamor of it all and does not argue when told her initiation rite is to clean the front steps of the sorority house with a toothbrush.
• The Day My Butt Went Psycho!: Zack's grandmother's butt makes Zack and Deuce scrub the floor with toothbrushes when she is left to babysit. Deuce uses Zack's toothbrush.
• In a bit that suffered Trailer Joke Decay, one of the punishments issued in Detention was to erase a comically-oversized blackboard with a toothbrush.
• At the end of one episode of I Am Weasel, Weasel punishes Baboon by making him scrub the bathroom floor with a toothbrush. Baboon smugly tells the audience that he's using Weasel's toothbrush, before realizing that it's actually his own toothbrush.
• In an episode of Oggy and the Cockroaches, Oggy ends up in boot camp and the Drill Sergeant Nasty points him to the W.C. before handing him a toothbrush. A few seconds later, the outhouse is bright, shiny and temple-like.
• In Phineas and Ferb episode "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted", the titular characters are ordered to scrub the floor of the bathroom at the Smileaway Reformatory with toothbrushes. They begin doing it to a rhythm, much to the chagrin of the warden.
• In the Recess episode "The Biggest Trouble Ever", Miss Finster forces the Recess Gang to scrub the school's floors with toothbrushes as part of their punishment for (Accidentally) breaking a statue.
• SheZow: In "Guy and Doll", Guy's principal makes him sweep up all of the sawdust in the wood shop with a very scraggly toothbrush.
• Spliced: In "Of Masters and Minions", Mr Smarty-Smarts's new robotic minion makes him clean the lair with a toothbrush. He is so scared of her that when the toothbrush breaks, he starts using his tongue.

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