Everything's Better with Chocolate



"And five children sat at breakfast and the morning music was playing and they were eating chocolate cake and singing songs to me . "Dad is great. Give us the chocolate cake!""

- Bill Cosby

Chocolate.

Plain. Milk. Dark. White. Melted. Hot. Chilled. In small colored spheres. In portable kisses. In bars. In cups. In ice cream. In cake. In donuts. In syrup. In pudding. In spread. In chocolate. With peanut butter. With nuts. With caramel. With raspberries. With blueberries. With strawberries. With cherries. With oranges. With lemons. With bananas. With vanilla. With coffee. With toffee. With mint. With croissants. With churros. With nachos. With chilli. With chicken. With pretzels. With cookies. With chocolate. Deep-fried. Good days, bad days, the apocalypse, zombie apocalypse, PMS, pregnancy (pickles optional), Birthdays, Weddings, Easter, Halloween, Christmas, New Year.

They give you endorphins and antioxidants for the body.

It's many a person's Trademark Favorite Food. Carl von Linné gave the cocoa the name Theobroma Cacao, meaning "cacao, food of the gods", and some people couldn't agree more. Properly, theobromine is the name of the mild addictive stimulant found in chocolate, chemically and pharmacologically related to caffeine. Do not mix with dogs, cats, ferrets, or horses.

Truth in Television, clearly. Except for the child slaves. And the cavities caused by the sugar that is often added.

Anime and Manga

 * Axis Powers Hetalia: The Valentine's Day strip involves, well, Valentine's Day chocolate. England goes to give America a chocolate bar that he had heard America wanted, but sees that he already has an entire bucket full of chocolate.
 * And what else could the Fanon pairing of Switzerland and Belgium be based on?
 * Mello from Death Note manages to eat his chocolate in quite a menacing fashion, and is also the major clue that helps pin down where he's hiding, seeing as all the other possible hideouts aren't getting regular deliveries of industrial-sized crates of chocolate bars.
 * In the eighth Pokémon movie, Pokémon: Lucario and The Mystery of Mew, Max cheers up Lucario by sharing a chocolate bar with him. He likes it so much that at the end of the movie,
 * And in a reference to the movie, Jessie tries bribing Maylene's Lucario with a bar of chocolate.
 * Which is kinda funny, since Lucario is a canid.
 * But it's also part Steel-type, which is immune to Poison.
 * Theobromine toxicity to pets is often greatly exaggerated. Its LD50 for a dog is such that even a small dog must eat more than 1 pound of milk chocolate to have a 50% chance of lethal poisoning. And a whole pound of chocolate is a pretty large amount even for a human, so a single bar won't even give an indigestion to the pooch. Unfortunately, most dogs love chocolate and tend to gorge themselves when it's available, leading to the poisonings.
 * Majin Buu from Dragonball Z loves chocolate. So much, in fact, that one of his powers is turning people into it.
 * Earlier on, Ginyu Force members Recoome and Burter bet a chocolate bar on the outcome of Guldo's fight against Gohan and Krillin.
 * In Legal Drug, it's revealed that Rikou has a sweet tooth for chocolate. Of course, CLAMP being CLAMP, the way in which it's revealed is... interesting. The much fangirled-over scene can be found here.
 * In a OVA DVD of Kanokon which consists of fanservice shorts which are actually more over the top than the show, Chizuru is trying to figure out what kind of chocolate to get for Kouta for Valentines day, her various ideas being a chocolate bar wedged inbetween her breasts, chocolate molds of her breasts, and finally, a chocolate bikini, which Kouta is to eat off of her. Subverted in that she ends up just giving him a traditional box of chocolates.
 * Chocolate seems to be Ichigo's favourite food according to chapter 427. Ginjo's response? "You like chocolate? That's cute."
 * Katekyo Hitman Reborn: Vongola 77 Character Book reveals this to be Token Evil Teammate Mukuro's favourite food.
 * Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Dlanor A. Knox is quite fond of chocolate, if the Extra TIPS are to be believed.
 * Black Butler's Sebastian Michaelis, butler of the distinguished and noble House of Phantomhive, proves that even curry can be better with chocolate. (I still need to summon up the courage to test whether this is a case of Truth in Television.)
 * Ai Yori Aoshi Enishi has Taeko experimenting with chocolate curry and chocolate tempura. She says it's really good; nobody else is willing to try her fusion cooking.

Comic Books

 * In ClanDestine, a character with super-enhanced senses absentmindedly accepts a chocolate sweet. He promptly falls into a euphoric topor.

Fan Works

 * The novelisation of Star Trek IV the Voyage Home states that sucrose is an intoxicant for Vulcans. The Star Trek fandom somehow decided this meant chocolate, and so there are a lot of fics that involve Spock (or some other Vulcan) getting drunk off chocolate.

Film

 * Up: Kevin the Snipe loves chocolate so much that her infatuation becomes a Chekhov's Gun for Carl at the end of the film.
 * Mini-Me loves Belgian chocolate.
 * SCOTTY DON'T!
 * The movie Like Water for Chocolate compares two lovers' hidden passion with hot chocolate. In Laura Esquivel's original novel, however, the chocolate comparison is made when talking about the main character's (at that point boiling) anger, thus, Title Drop.
 * Chocolat (see Literature. Self-explanatory.)
 * Life is like a box of chocolates... you never do know what you're gonna get.
 * Chocolate... well, it's in the title. (The main character, an autistic girl, is obsessed with candy-coated chocolate.)
 * Subverted in the first scenes of X Men First Class. If anything Klaus Schmidt casually offering a bar of chocolate to Erik  made the scene even more sinister.

Literature

 * Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Self-explanatory.
 * Paricularly the opening shots of the 1971 film... it's basically three minutes of unadulterated chocolate porn.
 * In fact Roald Dahl himself couldn't make his love for chocolate more obvious, given how frequently it appears in his works.
 * The Company Novels: Theobromos is the one thing that can make an immortal operative drunk as a skunk.
 * Ixia and Sitia: Criollo, a tasty dessert substance that turns out to be chocolate, is used to lower a person's mental defenses.
 * The Thrawn Trilogy does this, in one of the handful of times when the Galaxy Far Far Away has some reference to Earth, Luke Skywalker is shown enjoying an exotic drink called "hot chocolate".Apparently he likes it so much that he keeps a whole secret hoard of the "pods" required to make the drink stashed aboard the Millennium Falcon.
 * In Survivor's Quest he's shown biting into a "choclime twist" after devouring tomo-spice ribenes.
 * Chocolat: The Manic Pixie Dream Girl woman shakes up an entire town by introducing a chocolate shop.
 * In Harry Potter, Professor Lupin repeatedly gives Harry chocolate as an antidote to Dementor attacks.
 * This is based on how chocolate is a 'cure' for depression in Real Life. Rowling was herself depressed at one point and ate chocolate to make herself feel better.
 * One book earlier, Dumbledore recommends 'Bed rest, and a nice steaming mug of hot chocolate' . 'I always find that cheers me up.'
 * In Thief of Time, the heroes use chocolates to defeat the newly embodied Auditors (who, in their natural form, don't need to eat at all) through sensory overstimulation.
 * The same book also established Susan has a taste for chocolate, although her iron self-control means she only eats one a day. (Well, only one official chocolate a day. Obviously, if she takes a nougat by mistake that doesn't count.) She seems to have inherited this from her mother, whose favourite dessert was Genocide By Chocolate.
 * Young Wizards, anybody? I mean, chocolate is so valuable it's involved in inter-galactic smuggling.
 * Honor Harrington prefers hot chocolate, and can't understand other people's enjoyment of coffee.
 * Averted by The Chocolate War.
 * In Two Weeks With the Queen, when Ted and Colin, bonding over their shared experience of terminally ill loved ones, are having lunch in the hospital cafeteria, Ted endeavors to cheer everyone else up by buying 30 chocolate frogs, and handing them out to everyone in their situation in the cafeteria.
 * In the short story "Strung Out in Alientown" by Desmond Warzel, a woman stranded on an alien world is desperately trying to earn enough money to buy passage back to Earth, but an alien drug dealer stops by every payday to sell her chocolate, which she inevitably spends all her money on.
 * Furthermore, Desmond Warzel's short story "You Never Know What You're Gonna Get" features a far-future Whitman's sampler with chocolates from Earth, Rigel, and Aldebaran. Not all flavors are recommended for all species...

Live-Action TV
"Q: I'll have ten chocolate sundaes. Waitress: Ten? Data: I have never seen anyone eat 10 chocolate sundaes. Q: I'm in a really bad mood."
 * Deanna Troi of Star Trek: The Next Generation puts it thus: "Chocolate is a serious thing."
 * Data has observed this, so when Q is temporarily made a human, it is suggested by our favorite android as a way to lift spirits. Q promptly turns to the waitress...

"Buffy: There's no problem in this world that cannot be solved by chocolate. Willow: I think I'm gonna barf. Buffy: Except that."
 * The Cooking with Randy and Mandy segments of All That take this to an extreme.
 * John Crichton of Farscape's reason to get back to earth - in spite of the fact that it's full of diseases: You guys have no chocolate.
 * On an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy gives a speech trying to cheer herself, Willow and Xander up, and it seems to work for a second. Then all of their faces get sad again, at which point, she gives up and says, "Well, that didn't work. Who wants chocolate?" The other two both raise their hands.
 * Played with on a later Halloween episode, after they've defeated the Monster of the Week:


 * Subverted in Season 5 of The Amazing Race, where a Roadblock forced teams to bite through 11,000 chocolates looking for one with a white center (of which there were only 20). The racers quickly got tired of the chocolate overload.
 * Geraldine Granger, the titular vicar of Dibley loves chocolate. It's her Trademark Favorite Food. she can eat dozens and dozens of bars in one sitting.

Music
"Chocolate! Chocolate! Chocolate! I just want chocolate (2x)\\Don't even try to come with guaraná to me, it's chocolate what I want to drink..."
 * If it weren't in Portuguese, this song, from the late Brazilian singer Tim Maia, could be the page quote. First stanza translates to:

"Sex and chocolate, what a lovely pair eating chocolate truffles in your underwear Sex and chocolate go handi n hand they're the things that make life so grand!"
 * "Chocolate rain, some stay dry and others feel the pain..."
 * If love were liquid it would drown me / in a placeless place refine me / in a heart shape come around me / and then melt me slowly down, like chocolate
 * Subverted with "Savoy Truffle" by The Beatles. While the treats mentioned sound good, it's implied eating too much of the stuff will rot your teeth and drive you insane.
 * Wrote by George Harrison as a jokey warning to buddy Eric Clapton (who performs the guitar solo in the song), as he had a habit of eating whole boxes of chocolate in one sitting.
 * The music video for Shanks and Bigfoot's 'Sweet Like Chocolate' is, appropriately enough, set in a chocolate-themed world.
 * The Filk group urban Tapestry said it with Blues.

Newspaper Comics

 * In Peanuts, Snoopy often craves chocolate, despite it being bad for dogs.

Theatre

 * In Pygmalion, Prof. Higgins persuades Eliza with a piece of chocolate.

Video Games

 * In the Wii version of Punch-Out!!!!, Doc Louis has this obsession with chocolate.
 * To the point where, in the Wii Ware game Doc Louis' Punch-Out!!, punching Doc's chocolate bar out of his hand is his Berserk Button, which causes him to Hulk Out.
 * In Sonic Unleashed, Chip seems to enjoy eating and sharing bars of chocolate.
 * Kimmy Eckman from Backyard Sports loves chocolate.
 * In the intro to Left 4 Dead 2, Nick implies to Coach that the helicopter might just be made of chocolate.
 * This is a reference to an earlier scene in the same video, when coach is eating some chocolate while reading the government's instructions. If you pay attention (and have the video on HD), you can see that the chocolate bar has images of helicopters on it.
 * The tune in the background of the opening is appropriately named "Chocolate Helicopters", most likely due to this.
 * Team Fortress 2 introduced the Dalokohs Bar, a new edible item for the Heavy ("Dalokohs" is "shokolad", the Russian word for "chocolate", spelled backwards).
 * In Plants vs. Zombies, you can feed Stinky the Snail or your plants with chocolate in your Zen Garden, speeding up the money production or Stinky who collects the money for you.

Webcomics

 * Cecilia from PHD has a mild obsession for chocolate, varying with her stress level.
 * She keeps an emergency bar taped to the bottom of her desk.
 * Arthur, King of Time and Space Guenevere is a chocoholic. In arcs without chocolate she's a depressed chocoholic.
 * In Drowtales chocolate is shown to be a recreational drug for the Drow, with similar effects as marijuana for humans.
 * Eerie Cuties features young vampire Nina Delacroix, who was born on Easter, and because of this, needs chocolate instead of blood.
 * According to Scarlette's sisters from Sequential Art, chocolate tastes like happiness.
 * Wally, of Wally and Osborne, loves it.
 * The Author Avatar protagonist from Life Ain't No Pony Farm is addicted to the chocolate nut spread Nutella. (Or Nütellä, as it is spelled in the comic.)

Web Original

 * SCP-743. Proving that even a homicidal Artifact of Doom can be made better with chocolate. And according to SCP-682's termination log, . Why anyone would want to do that is anyone's guess...
 * Who loves the chocolate? Everyone loves the chocolate. Nobody hates the chocolate. 'Cos everyone loves the chocolate!
 * Cake Wrecks does not approve of chocolate covered anything day.
 * Whateley Universe: the rich kids at Super-Hero School Whateley Academy have their own club, usually known as the Golden Kids. In "Ayla and the Birthday Brawl", Tabby is planning the next big party for the group, which is going to include chocolate everything. The chefs are talking about finger food based around mole, all kinds of chocolate desserts, mochas to drink...

Western Animation
"Spongebob: Good afternoon, sir. Can we interest you in some chocolate? Tom: Chocolate? Did you say...chocolate? Patrick: Yes sir! With or without nuts? Tom: Chocolate? Chocolate!? Chocolate!! CHOOOOOCOLAAAAATE!!!!!"
 * The SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Chocolate With Nuts". In their endeavors to become rich by selling fund raiser chocolate, Spongebob and Patrick run across a fish who may like chocolate a little...too much.

"Pinkie Pie: Hold on a second! Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain, you guys! Chocolate! Rain! [...] [after the mane six and Celestia discover the Elements of Harmony are missing] Pinkie Pie: Oh, well. If anyone needs me, I'll be outside in the chocolate puddles with a giant swizzle straw!"
 * Hey Arnold!! has a character known as Chocolate Boy, whose personality resembles that of a drug addict, only with chocolate.
 * In The Fairly OddParents, chocolate is Wanda's Trademark Favorite Food.
 * In one of Homer Simpson's flights of fancy, he pictures himself gleefully prancing around a world made entirely of chocolate, taking bites out of various pieces of the scenery. He then sees a chocolate shop, and exclaims "Wow - chocolate, half price!
 * In another episode, sweet-toothed exchange student Uter builds a diorama based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. By the time Principal Skinner arrives, it's an empty box. A chocolate-smeared Uter wails, "I begged you to look at mine first!"
 * In yet another one, Lisa mentions that the one time her dad tried reading to her he thought the book was real. "He's still searching for that chocolate factory. It haunts him."
 * Robotnik from The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog loves chocolate covered hard boiled eggs for breakfast
 * Choco-- Chocolate Cheese!
 * On Jimmy Two-Shoes, Lucius has an entire well of chocolate. When Jimmy, Beezy, and Heloise accidently tap into it, they end up eating so much they get balloon bellies.
 * In the episode of Gargoyles where Broadway and Angela met for the first time, he gave her a box of chocolates, which she seemed to enjoy.
 * That certainly explains his victory in the end.
 * Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic was against stopping an evil Reality Warper, since she liked the idea of chocolate falling from the sky.


 * Said chocolate also happened to be Made of Explodium.
 * In an episode of Ben 10, chocolate proves to be the Kryptonite Factor for alien with Flying Brick superpowers. Ben finds this out after he offers a chocolate bar to him in a gesture of friendship.

Other

 * Everything's better with Bacon Addiction. Even chocolate.
 * Once a former Big Brother known as Cacau ("Cocoa") posed for the Brazilian Playboy... You can probably guess what was smeared on her body by what page this is.

Real Life

 * In Japan, Valentine's Day was commercially imported from the West by chocolate/candy companies, where the idea is for girls to give gifts of chocolate to guys they like. Some artistic representations of the act have the girl give herself, with chocolate poured all over her body. White Day was later invented for March 14, where males "return" the sentiments with a gift of their own.
 * I'm sure that a few here can confirm that chocolate does stave off depressive episodes (although it is still only a temporary fix), because theobromine is a mild antidepressant.
 * An unfortunate inversion: Theobromine is poisonous to cats and dogs (and many other domestic animals). The lethal dose for milk chocolate is about 1 ounce of chocolate per pound of dog. Since only rarely does a dog eat more than a pound or so, almost all cases of chocolate poisoning are in small animals that have gorged themselves or those who have eaten unsweetened cocoa powder or raw cocoa beans (which have more theobromine in them).
 * Ironically, most dogs adore chocolate — which is why they often poison themselves, being unable to stop until they get a lethal dose.
 * Another, far worse unfortunate inversion: The industry has a huge problem with child slaves, to the point where a incredible 42% percent of cocoa is purchased from a area known to utilize them. Though, fortunately there is chocolate that doesn't come from there, such as anything labeled Fair Trade or organic.
 * Some animals have a big taste for chocolate (not that it's actually good for them). For example elephants LOVE chocolate and in an episode of Discovery Channel's "Inside Nature's Giants", where researchers investigate the body of a dead elephant, they used a small chocolate covered electronic thermometer for a live elephant to swallow so they can check the temperature of its digestive tract.
 * Cocoa is actually good for a person. Of course, most chocolate have too much of added sugar and whatnot to offset the health benefits of pure cocoa. Generally, the more pure cocoa, the better.
 * As a high energy, easy to carry/package/transport, long shelf life, delicious food, Chocolate is very useful not just as a treat but as a food source for soldiers. In the past South American Warrior Kings to Europeans Generals like Napoleon praised chocolate for its "fortifying" effect, since drinking a cup of chocolate is roughly equivalent to a meal in terms of calories, the sheer convenience of it must have been a blessing. Today chocolate is found even in modern armies as companies like Hershey's make it a point to supply American soldiers with specially adapted chocolates for whatever part of the globe the soldiers get sent. High temp/melt resistant chocolate in the desert does exist!
 * German WWII era Panzerschokolade tops it off by including methamphetamine in the formula. One bar was enough for the whole day of fighting, and the health benefits of cocoa somewhat compensated for the meth's side effects.
 * Gordon Ramsey has a venison steak recipe involving grated dark chocolate. And not just regular dark chocolate, no 77% type stuff.
 * It tastes good.
 * Some recipes for molé sauce call for chocolate.