Shamu Fu

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
(Redirected from Fish Slap)
I... There's... Wait, what??

A Sub-Trope of Grievous Harm with a Body, where the body being used is a fish or fish-shaped animal, like a whale or seal.

Why? Perhaps it's the vague club shape of the animal, since most uses of this involve swinging by the tail. However, the most likely reason is simply because it is so frikkin' awesome.

It should be noted that Art Major Biology really comes into play here. In fiction, not only do the creatures seem to not be affected by the force of the impact, they also don't seem to suffer much from being out of the water. And let's not even mention the fact that their spines can stand up to this abuse.

This action has received a word in English (unofficially): The verb "cornobble".

Note this is actually hitting something with a fish. If it's merely tossing the fish anywhere other than someone you intend to hurt, it doesn't count.

The only case where Everything's Even Worse with Sharks doesn't apply, it seems. Unless, of course, you're the one being cornobbled.

Compare Improbable Weapon User, Edible Bludgeon, Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot.

Not to be confused with Shaq Fu. Or Shampoo.

Examples of Shamu Fu include:

Anime and Manga

  • The Prinnies in the anime version of Disgaea.
  • In one episode of Zettai Karen Children, after one practical joke too many, Minamoto gains Glowing Eyes of Doom, grabs a nearby alligator and proceeds to break out the Shamu Fu.
  • During the Arlong Arc in One Piece, Luffy grabbed the seamonstercow Momoo and used it to clear out all the Fish People Mooks prior to engaging the Quirky Miniboss Squad.
  • 20th Century Boys contains a completely serious example: one member of the Friend cult responsible for spreading the second wave of The Plague around Japan pretends to be delivering salmon to get into someone house, kill the girl inside, and erase the video she was sent that would prove he was there. When Kyoko tries to warn the girl over the phone, the man smacks the girl in the head with the salmon.
  • Hayate the Combat Butler: During an ocean cruise the boat they are on starts to sink (it was basically a clone of the Titanic so it was hardly unexpected) Hayate ends up in the lower levels, injured and in danger of being eaten by a giant shark with poor Isumi trying to save him by waving a pathetically small stick. As soon as Nagi jumps in to help him he recalls there were two sharks. When Nagi's attacked by the other one, she has about a couple seconds to be afraid before Hayate brains it with the first shark effortlessly taking them both out in one hit.

Comic Books

  • Asterix frequently features "Assault with a Deadly Tuna", courtesy of the village fishmerchant.
  • Usagi from Usagi Yojimbo once beat up a couple of thugs with a very silly-looking octopus.
    • It should be noticed that this is a rather Troperiffic example, as it was included specifically because of Stan Sakai's exposure to the page picture via Scott Shaw!'s blog- one of the thugs getting fish-slapped was, in fact, a toon version of Shaw! (and yes, the exclamation point is part of his name).
  • In one of the Marvel vs DCU crossovers Aquaman provided what is possibly an entirely literal example during his fight with Namor- Namor punched him into the middle of a Seaworld-esque park, and when Namor followed, Aquaman had a killer whale jump out of its tank and squash Namor.
  • Pictured above, Heroic Publishing's Flare [dead link] (not to be confused with Black Canary) is hitting a gorilla with a shark...a gorilla in a spacesuit...while standing in a dinosaur's mouth...wearing high heels...being stared at by a robot...
    • You forgot the UFOs and the nuclear explosion in the background.

Film

  • In Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie, Ninevites are notorious for slapping people with fishes.
  • In Despicable Me, Gru's rival Vector seems to have an obsession with guns that shoot sea creatures, given his gushing over his "piranha gun" and his "squid launcher".
  • In Disney's Sleeping Beauty, Kings Stefan and Hubert get into an argument and the latter uses a swordfish as a sword while the former uses a plate as a shield. They eventually get over it.
    • One Disney short showed Mickey Mouse doing the same thing while fighting against Pete, who was using a scabbard.
  • There is a scene in My Super Ex-Girlfriend with the shark being tossed into the guy's window.
  • Chris Farley in Beverly Hills Ninja dual-wields fish towards the end of the movie.
  • Dogma: "Or you'll do what, exactly? Hit me with that fffffffish?"
  • Tank Girl does it too.
  • Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar, true to its source, begins with a large fish fight within the Gaul village.

Literature

  • In Animorphs #39, the team has the last-ditch plan to have Cassie morph into a whale in mid-air and fall onto a helicopter. It doesn't quite work, but fortunately, a Deus Ex Machina gull shows up and gets sucked into the engine.
    • This is after a whale-tackle does work perfectly in the first Megamorphs to shove a space-beast from Saturn into the ocean, as water paralyses the millions of micro-organisms that it's built from.
  • In The Science of Discworld, the mages are forced to move in time and change history when it turns out Shakespeare was killed with a fish (halibut?) during some riots.
    • There is a throwaway reference to a spree-killing by someone bearing the title of "The Notorious Herring Thrower". Granted, it wasn't specifically stated that throwing fish was how this person killed...
    • According to the City Watch Diary, there was once a laughable misunderstanding over the law that the Citizen's Militia should be armed with pikes.
  • Carl Hiaasen's novel Skin Tight" begins with the main character killing a would-be assassin with a stuffed and mounted marlin.
  • In chapter three of the Gotrek and Felix book Manslayer, Gotrek dual wields sturgeon.

Magazine

  • The cover of Mad Magazine #98 had a dolphin slapping Alfred E. Neuman in the face with a fish.

Live-Action TV

  • Monty Python's Flying Circus had the fish slapping dance sketch.
  • Lew Zeeland, one of the minor puppet-characters on The Muppet Show, threw fish as boomerangs, and was occasionally seen smacking another character with one.
  • Xena had a long-standing habit of using seafood as weaponry in mortal combat. She fought off several attackers in season one, who'd attacked her while fishing, and in season three, an episode climax featured Xena fighting off an army, just using the fish she'd spent the episode catching.

New Media

  • The "slapping" feature in mIRC : "X slaps Y around a bit with a large trout"

Theatre

  • Spamalot features the "fisch schlapping" business in the "Finland" number.

Video Games

  • In City of Villains, a high-level character may gain powers from Captain Mako that allows you to project spiritual sharks that pin enemies, hold them in place, knock them down and the like. It's so stupid it's awesome.
    • There was also a Running Gag on the official forums about Carp Melee, which originated when a poster misspelled a disparaging comment about melee power sets. With the resurrection of the game in 2019, the running gag was also resurrected.
  • Goro from Dark Cloud and Max from Dark Cloud 2 can wield a Frozen Tuna as a Hammer-class weapon. One wonders what happens to it when it breaks (or, in the sequel's case, when it's repaired).
    • Well, when it "breaks", it thaws. When it's "repaired", it's refrozen.
  • Speaking of Frozen Tuna, you can wield one as a two-handed blunt weapon in Maple Story.
    • And then there's the Thunder Breaker class, which throws sharks made out of thunder at your foes in later levels.
  • Joachim in Shadow Hearts Covenant can also wield a frozen tuna as a weapon, just one in a series of increasingly improbable Improvised Weapons.
    • Frank from Shadow Hearts from the New World has a habit of creating Improvised Weapons by sticking sword hilts onto.. anything, really. Including a Marlin.
  • Death in Castlevania 64 casts a spell that throws a giant demonic fish at you.
  • One popular mod for The Sims 2 turns the pillows into large fish when your sims start pillow fights.
    • In the console version, the default for Slap is to slap with a fish. Depending on the other person's personality and the extent of enmity, they'll either walk away or pull out an even bigger fish to slap the first one.
  • Cat Kid units in Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice attack by pulling a large fish from Hammerspace and slapping things with it.
  • Because of the way the item system works in Dwarf Fortress, adventure mode makes it possible to use dead fish as weapon. A giant sperm whale is surprisingly effective, though it's so heavy that it slows you to a crawl.
    • You're able to edit the tags that determine what creatures and items are made of. You could make fish out of adamantine, or mark fish as valid items to make weapons out of.
  • World of Warcraft has the Rockhide Strongfish, a mid level mace, and the Dark Herring, a high level dagger. There are also some fish caught with the fishing skill that can be held in the off hand. They are entirely useless aside from looks and since you can't actually attack with them they don't really count.
  • Fish are wieldable weapons in Phantom Brave. Like all items in the game, Item Crafting means this can result in an Infinity Plus One Fish.
  • Power Stone 2 has the Frozen Tuna, which is unlocked through Item Crafting.
  • In Puzzle Pirates, you can use fish as a bludgeon in the Rumble game.
  • There are several fishy swords in Dragon Fable, thanks entirely to the Rule of Funny.
  • Nightmare from the Soul Calibur series wields a squid as a joke weapon in SC III, SC IV and SC V.
    • In Soul Calibur V, Patroklos' joke weapon is a pike (fish) for a sword and a ray for a shield.
  • Monster Hunter features a frozen tuna, classified as a great sword and wielded as such. It has crummy attack power, so it and the other food-themed weapons (fork and knife set, frying pan, what have you) are just there for laughs.
    • Tri gives us the Sharq Attaq, which is a lance-type that consists of a Sharq. Not a Sharq-themed spear. Not a spear shaped like a Sharq. An actual Sharq.
      • As if that weren't awesome enough, the Sharq Attaq comes with a shield... in the form of a "No Swimming" sign.
  • Kingdom of Loathing has a halibut as a (very good) weapon. Why? Well...
    • Also, every Turtle Tamer knows how to toss a familiar at an enemy. There are piscine familiars.
  • Skies of Arcadia included a weapon for Vyse which replaced his cutlass and main gauche with two large fish. It did surprisingly good damage but had horrible accuracy. However, sword techs always landed...
  • 3D Dot Game Heroes has a giant fish among its large collection of bizarre swords.
  • The Scout from Team Fortress 2 has the Holy Mackerel, a chub mackerel wrapped in newspaper. It deals the same damage as the bat, and grants no positive or negative attributes on its own. Instead, it displays as a kill notification the number of time a player gets slapped. If a player gets killed, FISH KILL! is displayed instead of the hit counter. The in-game description of the weapon?: Getting hit by a fish has got to be humiliating.
  • Dead Rising 2 has a swordfish available as a weapon. It's not especially good (although it's alternate attack is a one hit kill... against a single zombie).
  • On Gaia Online, zOMG! has an attack ring that summons sharks to attack monsters.
  • The LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean game has multiple examples:
    • In some levels, there are crates with fish you can throw.
    • The LEGO version of Norrington's Heroic Sacrifice scene has him whack Jones with a fish.
    • The Ancient Fisherman unlockable character has a fish as his weapon.
  • In Mega Man Powered Up, Roll's Catgirl outfit uses a fish as a weapon.
  • Shank 2 allows the titular hero (or his friend Corina) to use frozen fish as weapons, or, in a variation, flick a switch and send either a net full of fish or a great white shark careening into their foes.
  • Kidd from the World Heroes games uses sharks as projectiles. Who needs shuriken or fireballs when you're throwing a shark at someone?

Web Comics

Web Original

Western Animation

  • The Critic: Jay gets a whale on his head while singing "Nothin's gonna stop me now!"
  • There's an episode of Robot Chicken where Alias becomes Whalias... and it leads to a rather logical conclusion.
  • There's a Tom and Jerry episode where Jerry uses a shark against Tom.
    • Another episode has Jerry beating Tom with a fish he was going to eat.
  • An episode of Batman: The Animated Series had Robin using two fish as nunchuks.
  • And there's the almost literal example in an episode of Justice League, where Aquaman demonstrates why talking to fish isn't so lame a power by dropping a killer whale on his enemies.
  • In Jackie Chan Adventures, When the Dark Hand were looking for the Tiger Talisman, and Dark Jackie totally owned them, he is confronted by Tohru, and finally downed by a tuna fish. Ironic, because Tohru hates fish.
  • The climax of the Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy episode "Dueling Eds" involved Rolf and Eddy fighting with Mackerel for weapons.
  • In the Looney Tunes "Frigid Hare", Bugs in drag gets a big fish as a gift from a lust-stricken Eskimo, who puckers up for a kiss. Bugs smacks him with the fish, the Eskimo gets really excited, grabs Bugs, his disguise slips off, and after a seconds' pause, Bugs fish-smacks him again twice as hard!
  • Basil from Courage the Cowardly Dog uses a fish as his weapon of choice.
  • In one episode of Brandy and Mr. Whiskers, Whiskers and Ed are about to engage in a duel but don't have any actual weapons and can't decide what they should fight with. They eventually settle on fish.
  • Happens in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy episode "Guess What's Coming To Dinner?", when Hoss Delgado and Eris are posing as Billy's parents:

Eris: (indicates Hoss) This is Billy's dad, (indicates herself) I'm Billy's mom, (pulls out a trout) and this is a trout. (she proceeds to smack Goodvibes around the head with it)
Principal Goodvibes: ...Why did you just hit me with a trout?
Eris: Because the mackerel wasn't fresh.

  • In the Ren and Stimpy episode "I Was a Teenaged Stimpy" upon finding that Stimpy made himself a cocoon with his corn magazines he starts beating it with a mounted swordfish.

Real Life

  • Two cases from this site:
    • A man hit his girlfriend with a dead Tuna after an argument.
    • A trawlerman broke someone's spine by beating them with a 20 lb Tuna.
  • That Other Wiki uses the virtual variant as a Clue Bat.
  • The old IRC chat meme of "trout slapping", phrased "X slaps Y around with a large trout".
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