Drop the Cow: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"Fetchez la vache!"''|'''Frenchman''', '''''[[Monty Python and the Holy Grail]]'''''}}

 

 

This usually works because of the [[Rule of Funny]]. If humour isn't your thing, see [[Chandler's Law]] for the [[Rule of Drama]] version.

 

{{examples}}

 

* The [[Omake]] of ''[[Ga-Rei]]'' manga employs this kind of humor. The author is prone to long rambling about inane things which may or may not be related to the story. Then he would realize it, pull a detonator out of nowhere [[Stuff Blowing Up|and then push it]].

 

 

* ''[[Monty Python and the Holy Grail]]'' is, of course, the trope namer, and does this literally.

* Dramatic example (really!): [[Sergio Leone]] felt a scene near the end of ''[[The Good, the Bad and the Ugly]]'' was too melodramatic, so he [[Enforced Method Acting|released a small dog onto the set without telling Eli Wallach]] and then left his reaction in the film; of course, it's followed by ten minutes of pure [[Melodrama]].

* A cow is literally dropped in [[Dog Soldiers]]; in a subversion of the comedic intention of the trope, it hits the ground just as one of the characters is warming up a joke, in order to take the edge off a (spooky and rather gruesome) story told by another character. It even serves the plot; just what was the cow running from so hard that it ran straight off a cliff and landed in a campfire? {{spoiler|Werewolves,}} as it turns out.

 

** That humorless colonel could be seen as a [[Lampshade Hanging]] on their rationale for ending sketches like that; he would enter the skit and stop its participants on the grounds of no longer being funny because their scene has gone on too long.

** Python [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] their own tendency to do this in the ending of the Argument Sketch, where a policeman enters to arrest all participants in the sketch for taking part in a "strange sketch" and causing distress. He is promptly arrested by another policeman for the crime of "ending every bleedin' sketch by just having a policeman come in"; ''that'' policeman then gets arrested for the same. In the final moment of the sketch, {{spoiler|a hairy hand claps this last policeman on the shoulder}}.

*** In the "Army Protection Racket" sketch, the Colonel stops the sketch because it's poorly written and he didn't get any funny lines. Someone else mutters that he was just too lazy to write a proper punchline, which he denies.

* Australian comedy show ''[[The Late Show]]'' poked fun at its own use of very thin premises for comedy with the phrase, "Champagne sketch comedy". Later, they would have show member Rob Sitch bring in a bottle of champagne to the actors in the middle of a sketch to let them know the joke was wearing thin.

* The unnamed Newsman on ''[[The Muppet Show]]'' once had a cow dropped on him as he read on a [[Dead Line News|stock market report]] that beef was [[Incredibly Lame Pun|falling]]. Most of his other reports had similar results. [[Jim Henson]] once said that if he didn't know how to end a sketch, he would blow something up, have a monster eat everything, or [[Everything's Better with Penguins|throw penguins in the air]].

* The entire point of ''[[The Gong Show]]'' (to the extent that it had one) was to see how long an act could go without one of the "celebrity" judges "dropping the cow" by gonging them off stage.

* On ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'', the Movie Sign is sometimes used in this capacity, cutting off a [[Overly Long Gag|long-winded host segment]] with its trademark [[Star Trek Shake]] and dimmed lights, plus panic on the parts of the SoLers. The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ePusmtf1IQ "Toobular Boobular"] segment from ''Outlaw'' is a classic example.

 

* [[Stone Cold Steve Austin]]: Since Austin's active career with the WWE ended, any appearance he makes is just buildup until he inevitably Stone Cold Stunner(s) everyone in the ring, whether it makes any sense (from a heel/face standpoint) or not. The crowd '''always''' goes crazy for this. [[Memetic Mutation|Walk in. Stunner. Walk out.]]

 

* Traditional vaudeville acts had [[Vaudeville Hook|"the hook"]], which would appear from offstage to pull off tired routines, or hams who didn't know when to give up the stage. Thus originated the phrase "get the hook", which was used for decades after films and television had supplanted vaudeville. The hook can nowadays be seen in cartoons, especially [[Looney Tunes]] (which often drew on vaudeville anyway).

 

* ''[[Earthworm Jim (video game)|Earthworm Jim]]'' begins with launching a cow into the air and ends with {{spoiler|[[Brick Joke|it landing on the Princess in the finale]]}}.

 

* ''[[Homestar Runner]]'': "Lappy, this is the Paper. He lets me know when I've stopped being funny."

* Many scenes in ''[[The Demented Cartoon Movie]]'' end with characters getting crushed by Mr. Big Shoe, characters getting crushed by a one-legged shoe-wearing giant (who himself gets crushed by Mr Big Shoe once), characters getting crushed by Mr. Weight, or Zeeky H. Bomb suddenly appearing to say "zeeky boogy doog," a phrase which reliably sets off [[Stuff Blowing Up|nuclear explosions]] and sometimes an [[Earthshattering Kaboom]].

* ''[[The Lazer Collection]]'': DOCTOR OCTOGONAPUS BLAAAAHH!!!

 

* ''[[Girl Genius]]'': "Well - we've found that none of the Heterodyne plays really suffer if Punch and Judy start throwing pies."

* An example from the subscriber section of ''[[Drowtales]]'' happened in a story where the users put in options, and the story [[Rule 34|naturally devolved into porn]]. The next page showed Ariel punching Liriel to get the story back on track, since the premise of the section is that it's the daydream of a character telling it to the audience.

* In ''[[Dubious Company]]'', the heroes needed to deal with their backstabbing crew once and for all. Sal [https://web.archive.org/web/20131107205821/http://dubiouscompany.com/comics/2007/05/19 warned them] not to piss off [[Random Number God|Phred]].

 

* The ''[[Earthworm Jim (animation)|Earthworm Jim]]'' series had ''every'' episode end with a cow dropping on someone out of the blue.

* The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FoDhrhGozE "Robin Hoof"] segment from ''[[Raw Toonage]]'' took this trope and added some [[Jay Ward]] [[George Lucas Throwback|throwbacks]] to the formula.

 

* Keyboard Cat.

* [[wikipedia:Ignobel#Ceremony|The Ig Nobel Prize award ceremony]] features a character by the name of Miss Sweety Poo, a cute girl of about eight who will cut off overly long speeches by repeating "Please stop. I'm bored" again and again until the speaker complies.