Even the Rats Won't Touch It: Difference between revisions
→Newspaper Comics
(→[[Real Life]]: clean up) |
|||
| (29 intermediate revisions by 9 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:Chicago deep dish pizza.gif|link=The Daily Show||frame|alt=Dog is offered a deep dish pizza. It gets up and walks away]]
{{quote|<poem>'''Wes''': [referring to their prison rations] "Imperial MRRs. Meals Ready to Regurgitate."
'''Ibitsam''': "At least the local rodents seem uninterested in them."
'''Wes''': "Right. So we have no bait for fresh meat." </poem>|''
This trope usually occurs in a prison or school/camp cafeteria. The food that a character is served is so terrible that even the rampant vermin (or some other animal widely considered undesirable and consuming refuse) refuse to eat it. Maybe because it's an [[Indestructible Edible]], maybe because it's just that bad-tasting. This is usually used to demonstrate how terrible the food is.
Line 9 ⟶ 10:
{{examples}}
* From the 90s, a commercial for Little Caesars shows a guy holding his annual picnic, which consists of some sort of gruel that is so bad it even drives flies away.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* ''[[V for Vendetta]]'': Evey is served some kind of food in prison which a rat looks at and then passes up.
* In ''[[Tintin
* An arc in the ''[[X Wing Series]]'' comics has Wes and Ibitsam captured and imprisoned together. The local rat equivalents won't touch their food, which means they can't use it as bait to catch and eat the rats.
* The 'Limited Edition Haulin' Ass And Ammo "Meals Ready To Eat" Snack Pouches' from ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]'':
{{quote|
* In the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' comic book story "Cooking Made Uneasy", Honey Bunny gets offended and storms off when she finds out that Bugs doesn't like her cooking:
{{quote|
'''Honey:''' I am ''so'' a good cook!
'''Bugs:''' Oh, ''come on!'' The mice in your house have to send out for cheese sandwiches! }}
Line 28 ⟶ 31:
* In the ''[[Blue Collar Comedy]] Tour'' stand-up comedy movie, comedian Ron White says his wife was such a bad cook that he tried to feed it to his dog and it started licking its butt. His wife asks "What's he doing?" and he responded, "It looks like he's trying to get the taste out of his mouth!"
* In ''[[Ratatouille]]'', Linguini's attempt at cooking soup is so bad, a rat catches a whiff of it and chokes. Granted, Rémy is a rat with a highly refined sense of smell, but rats don't have a gag reflex.
* In ''[[Good Burger]]'', when a hungry dog accept one of their products and rejected one from Mondo Burger, it gives both Ed and Dexter a reason to suspect something isn't right, leading to the main-plot of the film.
== [[Literature]] ==
* In the [[Discworld]] novel ''[[
** And in ''[[
** In ''[[
*** [[Fridge Logic]]: what's the staple diet of dwarfs in Ankh-Morpork. Of course there's no rat in it.
** And then, of course, there's [[Indestructible Edible|Dwarf Bread]], a parody of [[The Lord of the Rings|Lembas Bread]]: The main point of packing it down as rations is so you know that, as long as you have Dwarf Bread to look forward to, almost ''everything else'' becomes a better alternative for food. Including roots, berries, moss, small rocks, or your own legs. Dwarfs probably wish it could attract rats, rats being a staple of their diet, but the best way to catch rats with Dwarf Bread probably involves throwing it at them.
* The hero of Glen Cook's ''[[Garrett
* According to [[The Berenstain Bears|''The Berenstain Bears Spend Too Much Vacation'']], the berries the Bear family ate at the run-down campground were so sour "that even the birds puckered!"
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* On ''[[Friends]]'', Joey made a revolting sandwich. He tosses some outside the car to distract a dog. Rachel points out that the dog licks himself; yet refuses to eat the sandwich.
* Played with on ''[[Star Trek:
* Jerry Dean of ''[[American Hoggers]]'' had been trying to make some wild hog sausage. He tried some and then tried to feed it to one of his hunting dogs. The dog tasted it and ran off.
* [[The Daily Show]] staff offered a Chicago deep dish pizza to one of the dogs in the office. As you can see in the .gif at the top of the page, said dog wasn't interested.
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* In a ''[[Zits]]'' strip, Pierce tosses a piece of junk food he's eating to a pigeon. The pigeon eats it and then throws up. Cue Jeremey commenting "And that's an animal that lives on garbage" and Pierce peering into the packet and musing that maybe he needs to re-examine his dietary habits.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110305055558/http://www.shootingtimes.co.uk/dogcartoon/176545/Dog_gets_fussy.html This comic strip] by Keith Reynolds.
* In a ''[[Beetle Bailey]]'' strip, Beetle and Sarge have been treed by an angry bull:
{{quote|'''Sarge:''' Quick Beetle! Throw that bull your K-rations!
'''Beetle:''' Are you crazy! He''s mad enough as it is!}}
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* in the ''[[Dungeon (magazine)|Dungeon]]'' module "The Fiends of Tethyr" (issue #54) the PCs find a destroyed wizard's lab with a demonic, severed arm. The arm belonged to a nalfeshnee demon who was driven off after losing it to a pack of raptor dinosaurs; the raptors quickly discovered that fiends taste terrible and left the arm where it dropped.
== [[Urban Legends]] ==
* An urban legend states that flies won't touch margarine because it's "one molecule away from plastic." (Also a case of [[Artistic License Chemistry]]
** Cracked.com once pointed out that the logic behind this claim is like saying that a ''farm'' is a bad thing because it's one letter away from a ''fart''.
Line 58 ⟶ 65:
== [[Video Games]] ==
* At one point shortly after Koromaru (the dog) joins in ''[[Persona 3]]'', there's a small moment in the dorm lounge (it can be seen around 8/15 to 8/24) where Yukari, having screwed up making her dinner, tries to feed the leftovers to him. Koromaru wants nothing to do with them. Junpei, of course, thinks it's hilarious.
{{quote|
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[
{{quote|
* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'': Aylee [http://archives.sluggy.com/book.php?chapter=38#2003-11-26 would rather eat the table].
{{quote|'''Aylee''': I can eat anything, but eating tofu, that just makes me sad inside.
'''Torg''': That's what we call a universal truth.}}
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]''
** The relief food for Credomar was delivered by supply vessel "[//www.schlockmercenary.com/2008-05-06 Eatonrun]", call sign "MRE [[Leet Lingo|S0-7A57Y]]". The last part is claimed to be "completely unfunny".
** "Meatfuel" (food concentrate technically edible as is) [//www.schlockmercenary.com/2018-05-19 explained]:
{{quote|One implication of the word "soldier" is the following of orders, and soldier-grade meatfuel is something many soldiers will only eat when doing exactly that. }}
== [[Web Original]] ==
* In [http://caglecartoons.com/viewimage.asp?ID={5E15AEB7-2893-401C-BB5B-0A476845D2DF} this]{{Dead link}} cartoon by Larry Wright a parakeet disapproves his owner's choice of the newspapers.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In an episode of ''[[Arthur (
** In '''Half-Baked Sale''', the duo was finally forced to explain to their grandma, Thora, about her cooking when their school’s janitor got hurt. {{spoiler| Rather than getting upset, Thora was pleased their feelings being known since she understood had to take a lot of bravery to come to the conclusion, only for Arthur and DW to find one fan… Buster}}.
* In an episode of ''[[Ozzy and Drix]]'', Hector did a science project on what cafeteria food his dog wouldn't touch. Turned out to be 'all of it'.
* In a similar, albeit non-animal related example, ''[[The Simpsons (
{{quote|
** Which [[Biting the Hand Humor|lost them]] the rather lucrative Butterfinger advertising contract.
* In one episode of [[
* In one episode of ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'', Garfield combats a rodent infestation by serving them Jon's latest experimental dish. They eat a few bites before deciding that it's too awful for them and leave.
{{quote|
** Additionally, in several episodes, people who have HORRIBLE cooking are demonstrated how horrible their cooking is by having even [[Big Eater|Garfield]] refuse to eat them. An example being Papa Plastique's pizza, which was so inedible as to seem to be made of [[Exactly What It Says
* In ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'': "Ren's Toothache", Ren's halitosis becomes so foul that even the Tooth Beaver and the flies can't stand it.
* In an episode of ''[[
** What a rat was doing [[Under the Sea]] is anyone's guess.
* In an episode of [[Rugrats]], Susie's home-made Reptar-bar snacks are so bad even Spike ran away after smelling one.
* In one cartoon, [[Pepe Le Pew]] finally realized he smells bad when a sewer rat climbs out of a manhole, takes a sniff, and keels over in his wake.
* In [[Doug| Doug Door to Door]], the Bluffscouts' candy was said to taste like cement to the point Doug goes to the owner of the company who makes them, {{spoiler| Mr. Swirly, who’s also behind a popular ice cream brand. When they go to the headquarters, they discover that cement was accidentally being added in, resulting in the disgust.}}
* The Pieman's baking in the old ''[[Strawberry Shortcake]]'' cartoons. In one of the specials, his cookies make ''the oven'' sick. In another, he suggests using his pies to bait a trap for a monster, only for Sour Grapes to quickly convince him otherwise.
* In an ''[[Animaniacs]]'' skit that parodies ''[[Les Misérables]]'' , the innkeeper and Keeper of the Cats (the skit's answer to Monsieur Thernardier) makes pies that are so bad, even the Inspector's dog is disgusted by them. The inspector tells him, off the record, that with the proper seasoning, cats can be rather tasty; not coincidentally, Fantine and Valjean are represented by Rita and Runt, respectively, in the skit.
== [[Real Life]] ==
Line 99 ⟶ 119:
** Of note are the large metal containers of prepared meals that are heated up simply by dunking them in boiling water and opening them with a can-opener. The lasagna in particular is very tasty.
** Supposedly, graffiti reading, "this food must be good; ten million flies can't be wrong!" has been found near military mess halls.
** Soviet army's "bigos". Unlike the quite yummy Polish cabbage stew that gave it the name, it was the most vile, revolting and ''barely'' not-rotting sauerkraut imaginable. Made in a huge quantities with a total disregard for any recipe or technology by the soldiers themselves, it was widely used as a cheap-ass "vitamin supplement" and universally despised by anyone involved, except the
* The Japanese actually have a nice, succinct little word for this trope as it applies to fish: "nekomatagi", which loosely translated means "even the ''cat'' won't touch it".
* In the German military, it used to be said that the potato bags delivered to the army kitchens were marked with "Nur für Schweinemast oder Bundeswehr", translated: "Only suitable for pig feeding or Federal Army".
Line 111 ⟶ 131:
* Unlike most products made with flour, Passover matzah never spoils (as long as it stays dry) because even mold spores won't eat it.
* Plastics. Just about anything organic can be consumed by bacteria, fungi, or a combination thereof. Non-degradable plastics are a problem because no microorganisms have gotten around to figuring out how to digest the stuff. One assumes, however, that they might learn after a while.
** They have. Bacteria have been discovered that can [
* During the cold war at least one of the super powers used dead rats to mark dead drops. Animals ate the rats. So they used hot sauce to prevent animals, like cats from eating the dead rats, and it worked.
* The term “playing opossum” comes from a defense method employed by an opossum. An opossum go into a deep sleep and even emits a foul odor since many predators rather after a live prey because the dead decomposes and could contaminated with diseases. This is way many people have played opossum” in an effort to survive an animal attack.
** However, this doesn’t work on many scavengers like vultures, who find sees the dead as a meal, making it averted for them.
* Hard to believe, but many in the federal government tried to make industrial alcohol this during the [http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2010/02/the_chemists_war.html Prohibition Era], you know the law that once existed to control what people can drink. They tried to '''invoke''' this by poisoning the drink, so people would actually avoid drinking it. However, this ended up being '''subverted''' when [[Too Dumb to Live|some people still wanted a drink of alcohol]].
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]
[[Category:Food Tropes]]
[[Category:Animal Tropes]]
| |||