Satiating Sandwich



Tastes great, better filling! Sandwiches of one kind or another have been the Trademark Favorite Foods of many characters.

Occasionally characters may comment on its simplicity, use wacky ingredients, or overstuff their sandwiches, but it's all the same basic food item.

With the aid of a handy logical fallacy, one can prove that a ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness: nothing is better than eternal happiness, and a ham sandwich is better than nothing.

Also see Dagwood Sandwich. See also Inherently Funny Words, Wasteful Wishing, as a common part of that trope is the character wishing for a sandwich.

Advertising

 * From the 90s: Who on Earth could resist a Ritz Bits sandwich when the commercial makes them this cute?

Anime and Manga

 * Ami from Sailor Moon likes sandwiches because she can eat them with one hand while reading or using a computer.
 * Kimagure Orange Road has the Legendary Cutlet Sandwich.
 * Diedrich in Black Butler is constantly eating sandwiches, a habit that has probably contributed to his weight gain.
 * In One Piece. sandwiches are Nico Robin's Trademark Favorite Food.
 * Yu-Gi-Oh GX:
 * One most-desired items among students in the Duel Academy cafeteria was the Golden Eggwich; only one could be prepared each day, seeing as a specially bred hen laid the egg necessary for it, only once per day. It was placed among various other identically wrapped sandwiches so that students could pick at random, and test their luck, something very essential to dueling. Judai managed to "draw" it ten days in a row until the survivalist former student Taira Taizan started breaking in and getting them, leading to a confrontation between the two.
 * In the dub version (only) Chumley's Trademark Favorite Food is grilled cheese sandwiches.

Comic Books

 * Bone: Smiley Bone thinks the most beautiful sound in the world is a sandwich being born.

Fan Works

 * Subverted in 30 "H"s. Harry doesn't like the "cabbagewich", which might explain why it was the last piece of food on Surf Ninja Moon X.

Film

 * In Star Trek, Scotty's first response to meeting Spock Prime is "You're from the future? That's brilliant. Do they have sandwiches there?" (Already established is the lack of sandwiches in Scotty's vicinity, since he works on an ice moon in the middle of nowhere and nobody's bothered to send food in some time.)
 * In Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs the first thing Flint has the FLDSMDFR make is a cheeseburger, which ends up being a shower of cheeseburgers that kicks off the plot. Later, when the mayor asks him to "do lunch," he makes it rain sandwiches, and.
 * In Troll 2, Joshua eats a double-decker bologna sandwich and so becomes powerful enough to defeat Creedence and the goblins.
 * Subverted in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, when Harry asks Ron on the train if he'd like anything from the trolley. His expression and tone of voice when he pulls out his squashed corned beef sandwich and says "I'm set" is priceless.
 * In Zathura when the stranded astronaut arrives in Danny and Walter's house, one of the first things he does is make himself a sandwich.
 * In The Princess Bride, Miracle Max thinks an MLT, a mutton, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, is better than true love.

Literature

 * In Mostly Harmless, Arthur has an existential crisis where, among other things, he faces the depressing fact that about the only thing he's any good at is making sandwiches. After Arthur's ship crash-lands on Lamuella, stranding him there among the bronze-age inhabitants, he ends up becoming a tribe's Sandwich Maker. The book spends three solid pages of a ten-page chapter describing how this is an exalted position, and Arthur's unparalleled skill at making sandwiches is regarded as literally divine, and he actually gets more respect than the village chief.
 * Subverted, though, in another Hitchhiker book, when Douglas Adams takes up a good chunk of narration explaining that the English eat sandwiches (specifically, the sort of sandwiches you get in pubs and British Rail buffet cars) to atone for their collective sins.
 * After Harry Potter, he just wants to go up to his bed and wonders if Kreacher will bring him a sandwich there.
 * In A Wrinkle in Time, one of the first things Mrs. W does when she visits Meg's home is to ask for a tuna salad sandwich. Though Meg isn't exactly thrilled that a complete stranger just arrived uninvited, she nonetheless makes the sandwich and even adds some diced sweet pickle.
 * Subverted in Through the Looking Glass. When the White King feels faint, he asks his messenger for a ham sandwich. It doesn't help much, and when he asks for a second one, the messenger only has hay left, so the King settles for that. The hay does seem to make him feel a lot better.

Live Action TV

 * Although Joey from Friends was always a Big Eater, the episode with the trivia contest confirmed that his favorite food is "sandwiches". Other episodes have people distracting him with specifically a meatball sandwich.
 * Wilder from The Latest Buzz was obsessed with creating the perfect sandwich.
 * Horne Brothers in Twin Peaks!
 * In one Monty Python's Flying Circus linking animation, a bacon, lettuce, Michelangelo's Adam and tomato sandwich is constructed.
 * Nothing would make El Chavo happier than a Tortas de Jamón. (Ham Sandwich)
 * In one of the original shorts from The Electric Company, a woman walks into a diner and asks what the special is. The rather flustered manager suggests the And Sandwich, which is ham and cheese, and tomato, and bacon, and lettuce, and bologna, and cream cheese, and celery, and chopped meat, and soy sauce, and coleslaw, and meatloaf, and pot roast, and olives, and tuna fish, and turkey, and shrimp, and corned beef, and peanut butter, and liverwurst. (Which he spells out all in one breath.) Unfortunately for the poor manager and chef (who are exhausted after explaining and making the gigantic sandwich) she realizes it has no salami, and doesn't want it.

Music
"Sandwiches are beautiful, Sandwiches are fine. I like sandwiches, I eat them all the time; I eat them for my supper and I eat them for my lunch; If I had a hundred sandwiches, I'd eat them all at once."
 * Per Bob King:


 * Fred Penner and the crowd at the The Pit Pub would agree.


 * Sandwich, sandwich, I'm in love with you...

Newspaper Comics

 * The Trademark Favorite Food of Hobbes from Calvin and Hobbes is tuna sandwiches (Watterson established that fact in the very first daily strip of the comic).
 * In one strip, Calvin asks Hobbes what he'd wish for if he could have anything in the world. Hobbes says, "A sandwich." Calvin accuses him of being unimaginative: he'd wish for "a trillion billion dollars, my own space shuttle, and a private continent!" Hobbes may not be all that creative, but at least he gets his wish.
 * Blondie has the tall, multi-layered Dagwood Sandwiches.
 * Popeye the Sailor: Wimpy will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.
 * Peanuts:
 * Charlie Brown always has peanut butter sandwiches for lunch while at school, but the fact that he tends to think about his troubles during lunch break keeps him from enjoying it. In one strip, when he sits alone while watching the Little Red Haired Girl, he says "Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter like unrequited love!"
 * In one week-long series of strips, Charlie Brown ran out of dog food, so he made Snoopy a really big hoagie that took a whole week's worth of strips to eat, finishing it on the strip that ran on Christmas Day, where he left the crumbs for the birds, using them to spell out "Merry Christmas". In one of the six strips, he goaded the mean cat next door, saying that if he came near him again, "I'll hit you with my sandwich!" And in another one, he was dozing, and then heard footsteps, and then saw Woodstock when he opened his eyes. "I knew I heard someone walking on my sandwich!" he mused.

Video Games

 * The Sandvich in Team Fortress 2 is an unlockable edible device for the Heavy. He must forsake having a secondary weapon to carry it, and must stand still and vulnerable for four seconds as he eats it with a hearty OM NOM NOM, but its delicious lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, meat and triangular slices of bread will give him a healing boost of up to 300 HP.
 * He can also throw it to allies, and if he's killed anyone else can pick it up for 50 HP, except for the Scout, who gets 75 HP because he's shown knocking out a Heavy for his Sandvich in his Meet the Team video. One of the Scout's one-liners for killing the Heavy is: "I! Eat! Your! Sandwiches! I eat 'em up!" Killing enough Scouts using the Natascha also alludes to Sandvich with the achievement title "Don't Touch Sandvich".
 * "DON'T RUN! IS JUST HAM!"
 * Another item for the Heavy is the Buffalo Steak Sandwich, although technically, it's not a sandwich, it's just steak. ("Who needs bread??")
 * Meet The Sandvich!
 * In the arcade game BurgerTime, hamburgers are constructed by having the player run over their separate parts (buns, cheese, lettuce, patties), causing them to land onto trays at the bottom of the screen. The pickle, hot dog and egg enemies can be defeated by trapping them on or under falling burger parts for extra points.
 * The NES game Dragon Power, an old Macekre of the very first Dragon Ball home game, replaced Master Roshi's demand for underwear with one for sandwiches.
 * Earthworm Jim 2 has the sandwich item, which bumps Jim's HP up to 200%.
 * Not just any sandwich, it's a chip butty; a British sandwich made with chips (fries) and butter.
 * Ever 17. All food the characters can find is chicken sandwiches. Moar chicken sandwiches, nothing but chicken sandwiches! Subverted when the Kid finally gets sick of eating nothing but sandwiches.
 * Commander Keen : Aliens Ate My Babysitter! has a titanic floral obstacle with snapjaws and the biting of the people of the OH FLAYVEN, and Blaskowitz has to find him a similar sized, being titanic, sandwich in order to feed him and get the past of the plant creature you know of the being.
 * Castle Crashers has sandwiches as a power up item, which don't restore any health, but instead make you beefier for a short time.
 * Pokémon:
 * Village Bridge from Pokémon Black and White has a mini-game where the player character receives orders from customers and delivers berry sandwiches to them for a local baker.
 * In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, this Trope is a major part of both Gameplay and Story. In an early scene, the protagonist befriends an injured Legendary Pokemon (either Koraidon or Miraidon depending on the game) by giving it their sandwich, gaining it as an Androcles' Lion for an ally who accompanies the player, serving as a mount as they explore Paldea region together. Later in the game, each time the player defeats one of the Pokemon Titans, Arven will use the recovered Herba Mystica to make a new sandwich that the player can feed to Koraidon /Miraidon to improve its skills, enabling access to places that were previously unreachable. Also when the player makes camp, they can make their own sandwiches from ingredients bought in stores, each successful recipe granting bonuses for Catching, Training, Battling, finding rares, and so on.
 * In Kingdom of Loathing, there is a skill called Demand Sandwich available to players under the Avatar of Boris path, because apparently Boris could demand sandwiches, "and somebody would do it, if somebody knew what was good for somebody".
 * Maple Story
 * In the Chapter 4 Hidden Mission of FriendStory (available after playing through the whole questline once), the player has to get Oz some Comfort Food after she is injured, a Spicy Skewer, a Fish Cake, and a Sandwich.
 * The entire plot of the Chu-Chu Island scenario involves helping a chef build a giant sandwich for Muto, a giant living mountain with the personality of a young child and a very, very big appetite. Muto is the only one able to fight off a Kaiju-like monster named Gilla who threatens the inhabitants every ten days, so they keep him well-fed. However, of late, Muto has gotten tired of their cooking. Initially, the player suggests keeping it simple (bread, lettuce, and meat) but the chef's two bird friends keep making odd suggestions, adding more meat, fish, ground bird feathers, and talons. Eventually, the player gives it a taste-test and finds it "bland", but after defeating the Slurpy Tree and taking its fruit for the Secret Ingredient, the sandwich tastes "divine", and Muto happily devours it before going to fight Gilla.
 * However, as Gameplay goes, sandwiches aren't very satiating at all; the player can eat the Sandwiches from the vendor in FriendStory (where he goes for the above-mentioned quest) but they only restore 800 MP apiece. The Hamburger and Cheese Sandwich aren't much better, the first only recovering 400 HP, and the second (available only in New Leaf City) recovering 500 HP and MP and giving you a slight boost in Attack Power for ten minutes; in all three cases, the vendors who sells these has better stuff.

Web Comics

 * Men in Hats: "Do sandwiches fit in somewhere?" (Yes, they do.)
 * Whenever the possibility of snacks is mentioned, Unity will insist on having "SAMMYCHES!!!"
 * Xkcd: "Analogies are like sandwiches in that I'm making one now."
 * Lackadaisy: For whatever reason, sandwiches seem to be associated with bonding and emotional catharsis.

Web Original

 * The Onion has reported on sandwich innovations such as Pfizer's Hoagizine, a turkey-bacon-guacamole-lettuce-tomato sandwich so delicious you need a doctor's prescription to consume it, and Arby's Beef 'N' Bacon sandwich, which disappointed the fast-food chain being "merely 'good.'"

Western Animation

 * Experiment 625 from Lilo & Stitch: The Series was obsessed with sandwiches, and was even named after one: Reuben.
 * Also in the movie, Lilo gives Pudge the fish a peanut butter sandwich, because she thinks he controls the weather.
 * The Fairly OddParents: When Timmy makes a sandwich in colonial times, he's hailed as a genius. He also once wished for a triple decker peanut butter and jelly sandwich in his lunch.
 * In the Mickey Mouse Works cartoon "Mickey Tries to Cook," Mickey is a One-Note Cook who only makes sandwiches with ham, tomato and cheese in any assortment.
 * At the end of the cartoon, Jose Carioca has brought the exact same thing, but described it to Minnie in Portuguese.
 * Shaggy and Scooby from Scooby-Doo often sneak away to the kitchen to create truly epic sandwiches.
 * SpongeBob SquarePants: The Krabby Patties.
 * A Jimmy Two-Shoes short involved Beezy making a sandwich and bonding with it, deciding that he can't eat it. He purees it instead.
 * Time Squad once met the Earl of Sandwich himself as he came up with his invention. Unfortunately, he gave it the unfortunate name "Stinky Pile of Poo".
 * The Veggie Tales story Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen has King Xerxes banish his queen at the beginning for refusing to make him a sandwich. Immediately afterward, he demands the same of his treacherous adviser Haman.
 * In Futurama, Doctor Zoidberg sells his shares in Planet Express for a sandwich.
 * Hermes gets very upset when someone takes his Manwich (a brand of sloppy joe).
 * Even though there were other factors, the straw that broke the camel's back for Marceline to break up with her Jerkass boyfriend on Adventure Time was over a turkey sandwich.
 * The ever joyous and optimistic Mr Simmons on Hey Arnold! is pushed over the edge when Harold eats his sandwich. Up until that point nothing else truly bothered him while all the kids caused him a hard time. However,.
 * In one U.S. Acres segment of Garfield and Friends, Orson starts a diner and offers free food for a month if he can't make an order. Roy naturally takes him up on it, ordering several strange items, including an extremely specific sandwich that turns out to be a special of the diner. They finally get tripped up by an elephant foot sandwich with mustard because they're out of mustard.
 * Broseph in Stoked!. The B-plot of "The Reefinator" is about Broseph attempting to give up sandwiches after he gets food poisoning from one (that he was keeping in his shorts!).
 * The Tick and Arthur like BLTs.
 * Recurring Character Jackie from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is an Information Broker who usually charges a sandwich for his services.