Ham-to-Ham Combat

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When the unstoppable pork meets the immovable sausage.

Rico: Why did you judge me?! Dredd: You killed innocent people! Rico: The means to an end! Dredd: You started a massacre! Rico: I started a revolution! Dredd: You betrayed the Law! Rico: LAAAAAAWWW!!! —Judge Dredd, The Movie

When a work is populated by more than one Large Ham, and at least two get a scene together, it will usually turn into Ham-to-Ham Combat, where they try to out-over dramatic each other. The scene can become either really funny or really corny, and really fast. If it goes too far, it may reach a Hormel Event Horizon.

Note that they do not have to be enemies. It can be the Big Bad and The Dragon trying to out-evil-laugh each other, or a pair of heroes spouting Bond One Liners as they mow down the Mooks. The point is that their screen presences and overacting are competing.

Compare World of Ham.

Examples of Ham-to-Ham Combat include:

Anime and Manga

• In Ouran High School Host Club, anything involving Lobelia inevitably turns into this.
• In Baccano!, someone managed to get Ladd Russo and Graham Specter into the same enclosed space for a bit. The results were...explosive.
  • About five minutes after Graham's introduction at that!
• Mazinger Z: In the Dynamic Heroes e-manga (a Crossover featuring the main Go Nagai series), Kouji Kabuto fought Great Marshall Of Hell as riding Mazinger. The two of them have very hammish tendences. It is noteworthy as it was, maybe, the first time in the history of the franchise Kouji and Dr. Hell faced each other directly as both were riding giant robots. Too bad it was a Curb-Stomp Battle.
  • And in Great Mazinger the legendary duel between Tetsuya and Great General of Darkness. They were trying not only to kill each other but also out-ham each other.
  • And in UFO Robo Grendizer the final battle between Duke and Emperor Vega.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is essentially a continuous series of Ham-to-Ham Combat scenes, with all moments of Kamina and Viral together on screen automatically topping the list.
  • In the second movie the Anti Spiral and Dai-Gurren Brigade turns it Up to Eleven and decides to have an arms race in out-hamming each other. Case in point:

Simon: Take this! Finishing move! Super Tengen Toppa... Giga... Drill... BREAKER!! Anti Spiral: Interesting! Then; Anti Spiral... Giga... Drill... BREAKER!!

• In Code Geass this is what happens when you get Charles and his son Lelouch together.
  • They don't even need to be anywhere near each other to engage in this - they once hammed at the whole world by hijacking television in sequence.
• In Umineko no Naku Koro ni, Battler, Hot-Blooded though he is, isn't usually prone to hamminess. However, at the end of the second arc, probably to help pull the audience past the Downer Ending they just saw, he gets his ham on against Beatrice. Start from Beatrice's "IT'S PAAFECTO!!", and you'll see two hams fighting it out right.
• The fight between Alex Louis Armstrong and Olivier Armstrong to take over the family mansion in Fullmetal Alchemist, expanded hilariously in Brotherhood.
  • Can't forget whenever Alex is in the same room as Izumi's husband Sig Curtis. Pec Flex contests inevitably ensue.
  • Or when Alex and Sig teamed up to take care of Sloth.
  • In the first episode of Brotherhood, Isaac MacDougal gets a chance to do this with Alex.
• Pretty much every card game in the Yu-Gi-Oh! series.
  • Just one example would be Marik vs. Yami Bakura in Battle City in the 4Kids dub. The two feel the need to remind the other every ten seconds that Once they lose this duel they'll be BANISHED TO THE SHADOW REALM! MWA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
• In Sgt Frog, the snowball fight between Giroro and Paul was at least one of these in the dub.
• The final 15 minutes of Akira: "TetSUOOOOOOOOO!" "KaneDAAAAAA!"
• Mobile Fighter G Gundam. All the freaking time. Especially when it involves Domon and Master Asia together.
• Turn a Gundam has Harry Ord vs Gym Ghingham. UNIVEEEEEEEEEEERSE!!
• Sengoku Basara: "Yukimura!" "Your Lordship!" "Yukimura!" "Your Lordship!''" "'''YUUUKIMURA!'" "YOUR LORDSHIIIIP!"
• Guy Shishioh vs Palparepa in GaoGaiGar FINAL

Guy: I'll show you...the true power of courage! Palparepa: You will show me?!

• The Angel Beats! OVA takes this Up to Eleven. As part of a plan to trick Angel, Yuri pretty much orders an Apocalypse of Ham where everyone tries to out-ham each other with the Tension Meter. If the plan fails, everyone fasts (including no water) for a week. Shiina of all people wins, bringing the Tension Meter up to 9999 just by saying "CUTE!!!" The plan still fails, though. Good thing Death Is Cheap!
• Bleach gives us the amazing porkitude of Yumichika Ayasegawa vs. Charlotte Cuulhorne in the Arrancar arc. Once they call each other "ugly troll", thus pressing their same Berserk Buttons, much screaming and attacking and Volleying Insults ensue. Bonus points to Tite Kubo for knowing when to stop. The fight flips from Ham-to-Ham Combat to Let's Get Dangerous before the fandom can say "Curb Stomp Battle".
  • Yumichika's best friend Ikkaku seems to have taken a page outta Yumi's book, as his fight against Moe Shishigawara becomes in chapter 467. True to this porky tradition, Ikkaku wins the fight via giving Shishi an absolutely massive and hammy headbutt.
  • Mila Rose and Apacci from Harribel's Amazon Brigade simply can't be in the same scene/panel WITHOUT punching/kicking/screaming/etc. at each other. In the meantime, Sung-Sun will snark at them from the background.
  • Being two Large Ham Mad Scientists, Mayuri and Szayel's match was not just a matter of which one was the creepiest, but also of who was the hammiest.
• Nichijou: Makoto vs Manabu Takasaki, Go-soccer match.
  • Mio and Yukko often sometimes Mai even joins in.
• Mawaru Penguindrum. Masako Natsume vs. Yori Tokikago. Much awesome, dramatic flail and weapon flinging issue whenever these two meet.
• Puppetmon versus MetalEtemon in Digimon Adventure.

Audio Adaptation

• The Big Finish Doctor Who audio adventure Doctor Who and the Pirates features Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor up against Bill Oddie's pirate king Red Jasper (heavily based on Long John Silver).

Comic Books

• Tintin: The "I am more evil than you!" argument that Rastapopulos and Lazlo Cariedas have in 714 after they both take truth serum.

Film

• Judge Dredd. Dredd, as an over-the-top police officer, and Rico, as an over-the-top villain, ham it up throughout the entire movie. When they finally meet near the end, though, the pork hits the fan. Justified, in that they are revealed to be long-separated twins. Clones, actually.
  • "YOU BETRAYED THE LAW!!" "LAAAAAAAW!"
• A Few Good Men:

Jessep: You want answers?! Kaffee: I want the truth! Jessep: You can't handle the truth!

• Pirates of the Caribbean, in the first movie where Barbossa and Jack Sparrow face off with each other, and really, whenever they share a scene at any time in the film trilogy.
  • By the third movie, pretty much everyone is trying to out-ham the other, including Hans Zimmer, the sound-track composer.
  • Which makes perfect sense that the next film will focus around Jack and Barbossa. Because like the first film proved, how can one not have fun watching Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush, two of the finest actors alive, having a ham contest in pirate garb and dialogue?

Barbarossa: What ARR ya doin'? Sparrow: What are YOU doing? Barbarossa: NO! What ARRRR ya doin'!?

• The Live Action Adaptation of Josie and the Pussy Cats has a scene where Parker Posey and Alan Cumming try to out-laugh each other. Out-Evil Laugh each other, to be exact.
• William Shatner says that scenes in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country between him and Christopher Plummer were like "two ham-asauruses".
  • When Iman turns into William Shatner in one scene, the Riff Trax commentary jokes that Shatner is trying to out-ham himself.
  • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. William Shatner on one starship, Ricardo Montalban on the other, spending the entire film blasting the crap out of each other while shaking the galaxy with their thunderous overacting. Via video link - they never share a room with each other. Scream it with me now: KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
  • The TOS episode "Whom Gods Destroy" featured a veritable clash of the titans between Shatner and Steve Ihnat. When Inhat's character disguises himself as Kirk (and is thus played by Shatner) it's a miracle that the universe didn't collapse in on itself.
• Obviously for a movie set in a World of Ham, Repo! The Genetic Opera encounters this quite a bit. The most notable example is in the song "Mark It Up", where all three Largo siblings are trying to out-ham each other.
• Star Wars: Darth Vader and the Emperor, Mace Windu and the Emperor (during the lightning-fest) and Luke and Vader during The Reveal.
• Flash Gordon, especially the 1980s movie. Pick any scene with more than one character on screen. No exceptions.
• Night at the Museum 2: Kamunra and Lawrence after the latter crashes the Wright Brothers plane.
• The Duke and Zilder in Moulin Rouge, most noticeable in the "Like a Virgin" scene.
• Charles Laughton and Peter Ustinov in Spartacus. Proof positive that Hamdom does not-- Brian Blessed!
  • Ustinov told a funny anecdote on the old Jack Paar show of how he tried to one up Laurence Olivier chewing scenery in a scene in Spartacus.
• Face Off: John Travolta vs. Nicolas Cage. Even better, they are out-hamming each other while taking the other actor's mannerisms Up to Eleven.
• Vincent Price vs. Robert Quarry in Dr. Phibes Rises Again
• Very interestingly averted in The Princess Bride. When Cary Elwes and Chris Sarandon finally meet, it looks like they're about to engage in ham-to-ham combat, but Elwes' character instead instantly defeats the prince with his classic To the Pain speech. The "Battle Of Wits" between Cary Elwes and Wallace Shawn, however, definitely qualifies.
  • YOU'D LIKE TO THINK THAT, WOULDN'T YOU?
• Mary of Scotland: In the 1936 Katherine Hepburn and Fredric March film, the entire cast seems to be engaged in ham-to-ham combat, with the possible exception of John Carradine, who during filming once said to "Katherine of Arrogance," who had expressed a desire to play both Mary, Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth I, "If you did that, how would you know which queen to upstage?" If John Carradine is the least hammy member of your cast, something has Gone Horribly Wrong. Or maybe right.
• William Shatner (again) and Ernest Borgnine commenced Hammification against each other in the So Bad It's Good Religious Horror flick, The Devil's Rain.
• Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes as Zeus and Hades, respectively, in the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans. Any time they are onscreen together (or hell, onscreen with any other actor). No exceptions.
• Batman Forever buries the needle on the Ham-o-meter when Tommy Lee Jones (Two-Face) and Jim Carrey (The Riddler), team up in the middle of the movie. Observe.
  • Danny DeVito (The Penguin) and Michelle Pfeiffer (Catwoman) in Batman Returns, or Arnold Schwarzenegger (Mr. Freeze) and Uma Thurman (Poison Ivy) in Batman and Robin. Then again, it is Got Ham City.
• Inglourious Basterds: Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz. Both are massive Hams stealing the attention of any scene they are in separately, and when they meet at the end there is clear competition.
• Malcolm McDowell is tough to out-ham, but Lori Petty manages to match him in Tank Girl.
• In an outtake from Liar Liar, the opposing attorney defeats Jim Carrey in a shouting match with the accusation: "Overactor!"
  • To which Carrey responded (complete with shifty eyes), "They're on to me!"
• The scene with Lynch and Pike in the car together in The a Team movie screams of this. It's clear they're both just having fun with the movie, and then they get in a conversation together...
• The Dark Knight Saga
  • The Dark Knight: Christian Bale vs. Heath Ledger as Batman and the Joker.
  • Batman Begins makes this a plot point; Ducard teaches Bruce Wayne that theatricality can be a powerful weapon, and Bruce Wayne, the character, starts Chewing the Scenery to intimidate criminals. He ends up facing Dr. Jonathan Crane, who dresses up as Scarecrow and uses similar tactics. The Dark Knight follows the same concept; Bale vs. Ledger is going on, but Batman vs. Joker is Ham-to-Ham Combat in the story.
    • And next we're going to have Batman vs. Bane, whose nature is also rather hammy, at least in the comics.
• Spy Kids 3: Sylvester Stallone and Ricardo Montalban were arch-nemeses. They knew exactly what kind of movie they were in. They enjoyed themselves.
• Heat: Averted in Michael Mann's film. With Al Pacino chewing large chunks of scenery elsewhere, and Robert De Niro himself not unknown to it, their first scene together, ever, should easily have been one large hamfest. Instead, on purpose, we got a low key chat in a diner over coffee.
• |Dungeons & Dragons features the rare treat of Jeremy Irons locked in a battle of the hams with his own eyebrows. A scene had a weird variant: Overacting vs Underacting, with Irons' bombast against Thora Birch's Dull Surprise.
• Glengarry Glen Ross: There several examples, but the best comes near the end between Ed Harris and Al Pacino, as Ed Harris is on his way out of the office.
• Mrs. Henderson Presents: Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins.
• Kung Pow! Enter the Fist: Absolutely any scene with more than one character. For example, Ling and Betty's face-off and the final battle between Betty and the Chosen One.
• Thor L.A.M. gives us a celestial level Ham-to-Ham Combat when the Norse gods took it to scenery eating levels.
  • During the banishment scene, arguably the scene featuring this trope, Hopkins takes this to new levels when he inexplicably barks at Loki. (This has become a Memetic Mutation among the fandom. "HAAAAWWWWWRRRRR!")
• Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in any of the Road To.. movies.
• Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern have a brief scene to this effect in Home Alone 2 when their characters try to trick Macauley Culkin into thinking they've been hit by paint cans.
• Par for the course for anything Dracula related. See Bram Stokers Dracula: In the blue corner: Anthony Hopkins as an antiheroic Mad Scientist! In the red corner: Gary Oldman as a heavily accented Classical Movie Vampire in a wig! On the outside left: Tom Waits as The Renfield! Not even the power of Keanu Reeves can prevent the ensuing hamfest.
  • Don't forget Richard E. Grant and Anthony Hopkins hamming against each other. A true hamfest.
• In Arsenic and Old Lace, director Frank Capra told Cary Grant and Raymond Massey to go wild on camera. The result is Grant playing the dashing yet hapless hero Mortimer to the scenery-chewing maximum, while Raymond Massey plays his psychotic older brother Jonathan in reverent homage to Boris Karloff whom his character is supposed to resemble.

Literature

• In the Ciaphas Cain novel Cain's Last Stand, the confrontation between Cain and Warmaster Varan starts out like this. Then they fight.
• The Duel of Insults from the Redwall novel Marlfox certainly counts as this.
• The argument between Severus Snape and Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix escalates quickly into childish name-calling. Considering both characters are scene-stealing and bombastic on their own, the fact that they have a scene together at all should make the wizarding world explode. Just imagine if the scene had been in the movie.

Live-Action TV

• A scene in Friends has Joey and Gary Oldman devolving into one of these as both attempt to spit more in their dialogue.
• Doctor Who is a bastion of Ham-to-Ham Combat.
  • In "The Christmas Invasion", the Tenth Doctor argues with the Sycorax leader.

Sycorax: I DEMAND TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE! The Doctor: I! DON'T! KNOW!!

• • When the Tenth Doctor and Donna get into a ham-off, it's epic.
  • Any time there's a multi-Doctor story:
    • The Three Doctors between William Hartnell (First Doctor), Patrick Troughton (Second Doctor), and Jon Pertwee (Third Doctor). However they are all restrained thespians compared to OOOOOOOOMEGAAAAAAA!!
    • "The Five Doctors", between Richard Hurndall replacing Hartnell, Troughton, and Pertwee, with Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor positively restrained in comparison. Extra ham from Anthony Ainley as The Master and Richard Mathews as Rassilon.
    • The Two Doctors, with Troughton and Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor.
    • "Time Crash", 7 minutes of non-stop hamming from David Tennant (Tenth Doctor) and Peter Davison.
    • Even "The Next Doctor", while not a true multi-Doctor story, has David Morrissey out-hamming Tennant.
  • The Mark of the Rani has a three-way ham-fest among Colin Baker's Doctor, Anthony Ainley's Master and Kate O'Mara's Rani, and it is glorious.
  • The King's Demons, for the master class in ham from Gerald Flood's King John and Anthony Ainley's Master. Gerald Flood's performance is utterly magnificent. It's been a while since they boilllled someone in oilll.
  • There's a truly spectacular ham-off between Colin Baker and Brian Blessed in The Trial Of A Time Lord (episodes 5-8). No wonder Peri (Nicola Bryant) left the show after this; it would be physically impossible to be exposed to such overwhelming hammy glory for more than five minutes without ending up either dead or pregnant.
  • Colin Baker again in Timelash where he squares off against Paul "Avon" Darrow. As has been said elsewhere, the resulting combat has to be seen to be disbelieved.
  • This happens any time one of the Doctors confronts Davros.
  • Don't forget showdowns between the Doctor and The Master. Any of them.
    • The entire Pertwee era is just one huge Ham-to-Ham Combat zone. If it isn't Pertwee and Delgado, it is Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney.
  • The mexi-ham standoff between the Doctor, the Master, and Timothy Dalton from "The End Of Time".
  • In "Doomsday," the Cybermen and the Daleks meet for the first time... and promptly proceed to bitch at each other for a good five minutes. It's hilarious.
  • Even the cast and crew weren't averse to a bit of Ham-to-Ham Combat among themselves. Roy Skelton, one of the Dalek voice actors during the classic series, says he and his colleagues would often compete with each other on set, to see who could be the most evil-sounding Dalek.
  • In The Horns of Nimon, Lalla Ward almost manages to out-ham Tom Baker himself. He resists the onslaught, but then, unbelievably, they are both beaten—completely and utterly beaten—by Graham Crowden as Soldeed. His famous DREEEeeeAAAAaaAaAAAAms of CONquest are only the icing on the cake.
  • The serial Ghost Light is famous for two things, its Neon Genesis Evangelion level of incomprehensibility, and the sheer level of glorious over-acting by every. single. cast. member. Even the extras. Somehow, though, it manages to be utterly awesome and a firm fan-favourite.
• Matthew Morrison and Neil Patrick Harris in Glee, competing for a role in Les Misérables, singing Aerosmith's Dream On and getting progressively more over-the-top. It is unbelievably awesome.
• In Robin of Sherwood, guest star Lewis Collins and Nickolas Grace had a competition to see who could out-camp the other. The results are magnificient and full of glorious Ho Yay.
• Basically, any time any group of Power Rangers face their Big Bad. Especially when a Hot Blood'd Red Ranger faces their Big Bad.

Devastation: That was your lesson for today! Your homework: Feel the emotion that rages within you. It is called--FEEEEEEEEAR! [Best if imagined in Macho Man Randy Savage's voice.]

• Any scene in Mork and Mindy with Exidor and Mork. Exidor is a role that requires the finest hamming, and Mork is... well, Robin Williams.
• An episode of Roseanne had Roseanne's cousin Ronnie visiting from New York. Cousin Ronnie was played by Joan Collins. A rare female case of Ham-to-Ham Combat ensued.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat was really the basis of Hawkeye and Trapper's (later B.J.) whole relationship in M*A*S*H. This was as much their characters desperately trying to deflect the horror around them with silly puns, as it was Alda, Rogers, and Farrel having altogether too much fun working together.
• Babylon 5:
  • Londo and G'Kar, pretty much every time they met in the first couple of seasons led to a spectacular argument with actors Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas trying to out-ham each other.
  • Ham is part of the job description for any Centauri ambassador.
  • The climax of "Moments of Transition" turns into three-way Ham-to-Ham Combat between Delenn, Neroon, and Shakiri. The part where Neroon makes his Heroic Sacrifice elevates the whole thing to Narm levels.
• The British impressions show Dead Ringers had a repeated sketch in which Ian McKellen and Alan Rickman battled it out in Ham-to-Ham Combat for token British bad guy roles. They were inevitably blown out of the water by a dramatic entrance from BRIAN BLESSED!!.
• Frasier:
  • The rivalry between Frasier and Cam Winston was truly a joy to behold.
  • Whenever Frasier and Niles got worked up with each other was the cue for an impromptu ham-off, due in equal parts to their natural pompous demeanors, their high education levels and established familiarity with theater, opera, and musicals, and their Sibling Rivalry urging them to show off by trying to outdo each other in the dramatically complex insults and long, hard-to-pronouce words departments. Also, Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce having too much fun for their own good.
• iCarly: Spencer and Jack Black in "iStart A Fan War".
• 3rd Rock from the Sun: John Cleese versus John Lithgow!
  • And when Lithgow's boss, the Big Giant Head, appeared, he was... William Shatner!
• On 30 Rock, whenever occasional guest star Will Arnett's character gets into it with Jack Donaghy.

Devon: I'm honestly not trying to make this sound gay. Jack: No one is, it's just happening.

• Rome: Any scene in involving Pompey, Cicero and Cato. Pompey and Cicero will attempt to out-bumble each other, and Cato and Pompey will attempt to out-snarl each other.
• The Colbert Report:
  • Stephen Colbert vs. Steve Carell. Even Jon Stewart gets in on the action. Behold!
  • In a similar vein, Colbert squared up with Papa Bear O'Reilly on an episode of the O'Reilly Factor. It was Colbert with his energetic antics versus O'Reilly and his legendary Snark. The battle was truly legendary.
• Stargate SG-1: Put two System Lords in a room together, and this is the inevitable result. It helps that their voices are extremely deep and they often like to display their Glowing Eyes of Doom.
• James Nesbitt as both Tom Jackman and Billy Hyde in Jekyll.
• The main characters in How I Met Your Mother absolutely love, love, LOVE doing this, usually over very bizarre, trivial, or theoretical disputes, and usually while sitting in their booth in McLaren's. So commonplace is it to see them over-dramatically (and often over-eloquently) yelling and cussing at each other in the middle of the crowded bar over, say, what the most common food in America is, that Fridge Logic forces the conclusion that their Ham-to-Ham Combat must be a well-known, taken-for-granted fixture of the bar, or else it would draw dozens of gawking spectators or scare customers away.
• In just about every episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, William Shatner brings enough ham to the table to feed a small nation. But in the episode "The Doomsday Machine", he meets his match in Captain Matt Decker.

Kirk: "Beamed your crew down to the planet? But there is no planet!" Decker: "Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I know that?! THERE WAS! BUT NOT ANYMORE!!"

• In the finale of each episode of RuPaul's Drag Race, the two worst contestants are forced into a "Lip Synch for your LIFE!" dance-off.

Music

• The song "Under Pressure". Freddie Mercury and David Bowie duet.
• Anywhere that Gackt and Yoshiki appear together. Also contains major shades of Ho Yay or possibly Foe Yay.
• We could be here all week if we tried to list all the examples in the genre of Power Metal considering the prominence of Large Hams and guest vocalists. Special mention, however, goes to the following:
  • Ayreon is described on its page as an excuse for the "who's who of Progressive Metal to compete to out-ham each other."
  • Avantasia, much like Ayreon, gets this as a direct result of the numerous guest vocals. The songs "The Wicked Symphony" and "Stargazers" in particular have managed to bring together three (four in the case of "Stargazers") of the largest hams in power metal by having Tobias Sammet, Russell Allen, Jorn Lande and, in the case of "Stargazers," Michael Kiske all sing on the same songs.
  • Allen/Lande is a superband that came together entirely for the purposes of this trope in regards to the afformentioned Russell Allen and Jorn Lande.
• From the realm of classical music comes Rossini's "Duetto buffo di due gatti" ("Comic duet for two cats"). Any sopranos who do not use this song as an exercise in competitive hammery are just doing it wrong.
• Heavy metal is made of this trope, especially if a band has two lead guitarists (Glenn Tipton and K. K. Downing of Judas Priest, most famously). They'll hit all the highest notes, play the fastest riffs, and do everything short of tickling their guitars to death. The hammiest of them can not only short-circuit their guitars, but cause them to melt.
• In Journey's "Chain Reaction" music video singer Steve Perry and guitarist Neal Schon engage in this, culminating in Steve laying the smackdown on Neal.
• The Flanders and Swann song "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better" ends every verse with a singing duel between the two duetters. The ham level is high enough it can alter your blood cholesterol.

Professional Wrestling

• Really, any "good" match. Hamminess is essentially the entire foundation of Professional Wrestling.
• This is part of why the rivalry between The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin was so fun to watch (the other was that the men were good friends in real life and relished the opportunity to give the other a good-natured ribbing).
  • Just about any time The Rock and Mick Foley were together could be described as this. Whether they were feuding, or teaming up as 'The Rock N Sock Connection', they always seemed to be trying to outdo one another in hamminess.
  • Another example is D Generation X. Shawn Michaels thought Triple H was funny as hell behind the scenes, Triple H started trying to crack Shawn up on television, and it just evolved into Ham-to-Ham Combat meets No Fourth Wall.
• THE Ultimate Warrior!
  • "HOAK HOGAN!" *skronk*
• There was that one time Hulk Hogan was summoned to the Dungeon of Doom by a wizard to fight The Big Show.
• When Shawn Michaels and John Cena exist on the same show, it's kind of inevitable.

Shawn Michaels: Bullets hurt me...

• • And then we got John Cena and The Freakin Rock in the same building. You could just smell the glazed ham these two brought.

Radio

• During the legendary Jack Benny-Fred Allen feud, any time either of the two appeared on the other's show, the hamminess reigned unrestrained.

Jack Benny (as his pants are being removed): Allen, you haven't seen the end of me! Fred Allen: It won't be long now!

Theater and Opera

• A Very Potter Musical has three extremely Large Hams (Voldemort, Malfoy, and Snape). They finally get a scene together, which was once pictured above, and it turns into this. And it's totally awesome.
• The two princes singing "Agony" in Into the Woods frequently takes this form.
  • It's in the script. "Agony! Far more painful than yours!"
• Older Than Radio: Mozart's opera-within-an-opera Der Schauspieldirektor has two sopranos both insisting "Ich bin die erste Sängerin" ("I am the prima donna") and seeking to prove their claim with abundant coloratura.
• Wicked has a scene set almost immediately after Dorothy leaves munchkinland in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz where Elphaba and Glinda begin bickering and eventually catfight. Now, Glinda is miscast if she's not a Large Ham but the special treat in this scene is the actress playing Elphaba beginning to ham it up as well. It's also the last comic scene in the show too, so the actresses clearly like to have fun with it.
• In a recorded production of Jekyll and Hyde starring David Hasselhoff as the eponymous character(s), he's at his highest level of ham in the climactic song "Confrontation". Why is that an example of this trope? Because Jekyll and Hyde both sing that song. That's right, The Hoff can have Ham-to-Ham Combat with HIMSELF.
• Cirque Du Soleil's Mystere turns the eternal struggle that is Order Versus Chaos into this, pitting the conceited emcee Moha-Samedi against story-intruder Brian Le Petit. This climaxes with the emcee declaring "Get Out!" and Brian taking on a look sooooooo pitiable that one can't help but "Awwwww..." for him... which is his intention -- effectively calling upon hammy reinforcements!
• Chicago: The climactic scene of the original play is a contest between Billy and Roxie to decide who can do more to guilt the jury into exonerating her. Billy makes his closing argument furiously Chewing the Scenery, but Roxie, not willing to let her lawyer steal the show from her, wins without uttering a single line of dialogue.

Video Games

• The Forgotten Realms is a World of Ham, but having Big Bad Irenicus (David Warner) facing off with Crazy Awesome Minsc (Jim Cummings) is incredibly, epically hamtastic.

Irenicus: Once my lust for power was everything, but now I hunger only for revenge, AND I. SHALL. HAVE IT! Minsc: I am tired of shouting battle-cries at this mage! Boo will finish his eyeballs once and for all so that he does not rise again! Evil! Meet my sword! Sword! Meeet eeeeviiiil!

• Metal Gear Solid lives on this trope. Rather try to find any characters that are completely unhammy.
  • Metal Gear Solid: Ocelot, Grey Fox, Vulcan Raven, Psycho Mantis, Sniper Wolf, LIQUID!
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: OCELOT!, Vamp, Fortune, Fat Man, Solidus.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: Ocelot, Boss, Volgin, THE PAIN!, the Fear, the Fury.
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: Snake, Ocelot, Raiden, Vamp, Laughing Octopus, Raging Raven, Screaming Mantis.
    • The End, the Sorrow, and Crying Wolf are probably the only villains in the entire series who are not Large Hams, but mostly only because they can't draw the breath to yell all the time.

"I'M COVERED IN BEES!"

• Dissidia Final Fantasy: Pretty much any voice-acted scene where the villains are talking to each other counts. Doubly so if Kefka or Exdeath is involved.
  • Since voice-acting was introduced, Final Fantasy games seem to do this rather regularly. Special mention has to be given to Tidus and Yuna's Stylistic Suck laughing scene in Final Fantasy X, although Wakka and Rikku came close to out-doing them with their regular sentence-ending occurrences of "yah?" and "y'know?"
• The final boss fight in Dead Space 2, where both Issac and Nicole/The Marker take their scenery-chewing levels Up to Eleven.

YOU WILL ALL BE MADE ONE! MAKE! US! WHOLE!!!!!

• Planescape: Torment has one where Ravel (Crazy Ham) meets The Transcendent One (Evil Sounds Deep). Or the ending sequences of PS:T in the Fortress of Regrets for that matter. You don't even need the sound. The writing at that point is sufficiently epic to convey the "hamminess" all by itself.
• Dante vs Agnus before their fight in Devil May Cry 4. A bizarre in-universe example, complete with stage lights and noticeably more poetic dialogue than usual. It really has to be seen.
  • The fight just happened to be on the stage of an opera house. Dante decided to behave accordingly, and Agnus followed. The people running the stage lights must have still been there and helped, possibly for fear of evisceration.
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. Any stronghold mission featuring two of the following: Space Marines, Orks, Chaos, Imperial Guard, and Eldar (exception: if Eldar are on defense). Two grimdark hams will duke it out along with their armies.
  • Especially apparent in the Disorder campaign of Winter Assault. Watching the Ork Warboss and Chaos Champion talk to each other is...impressive.
  • This is, of course, completely and lovingly appropriate for the setting.
  • In Dawn of War II every single unit (except the Tyranids, for obvious reasons) has the habit of making brilliantly (yet, in many cases, appropriately) hammy remarks both while fighting and not. In the first case, this leads to a ham-to-ham combat during an actual one - that is, if you can hear it over the ludicrous amounts of dakka. For some of the narmiest, try ordering your units to take cover in bushes.
• BlazBlue
  • Check out an average match sometime. Ye Gods.
  • Any time Ragna and Jin meet.
  • Special mention for when Bang and Makoto, two of the most hammy and hot blooded characters, fight. This video demonstrates.
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney "OBJECTION!" "I SAID OBJECTION FIRST!"
• At the end of the level "The Covenant" in Halo 3, the Arbiter, Gravemind, and the Prophet of Truth all have a scene together. Truth's participation ends with;

Truth: I! Am! Truuth! The vooiiice of the Covenant! Arbiter: And so, you must be silenced. (stab)

• • At that point, Gravemind chimes in with an evil laugh and a rhyming verse describing how he's now unstoppable.

"Now the gate has been unlatched, headstones pushed aside! Corpses shift and offer room, a fate you must ABIDE!"

• • The levels in Halo 2 when you fight the Elite heretics as the Arbiter. The Elites being a race of BigHams, this trope crops up frequently.

Sesa Refumee: I wondered who the Prophets would send to silence me. An Arbiter... I'm flattered. Rtas Vadumee: He's using a holo-drone. Come out so we may kill you! Sesa: Heheh... get in line.

• • Also:

Arbiter: Turrrrn, heretic. Sesa: Arbiter. I would rather die by your hands than let the Prophets lead me to slaughter. Arbiter: Who has taught you these liiies?

• Super Robot Wars Original Generation 2 has Sanger Zonvolt, the sword that cleaves evil! fighting his own clone undead cyborg alternate universe counterpart Wodan Ymir, the sword of Magus! By the time the conflict reaches Critical Ham, however, they immediately turn around and unleash it on a common foe.
• Team Fortress 2. A better selection of fine military-grade ham you are not likely to find. While the Heavy ("YAAAAAAARGH!" CRY SOME MORE!"), the Soldier ("This is MY WORLD! YOU are not WELCOME in MY WORLD!") and the Demoman ("I'm gonna stick me thumbs in yer eyes and hang on 'til ye'r dead!") are the obvious choices, we also have the Scout ("BONK!" "LOOK AT ME!" "I am a frickin' blur, here!"), The Medic ("Would you like a second opinion? You are also ugly!" "Oops! That was not medicine!" "A-ha-ha! Oktoberfest!"), and the Sniper ("Thanks fer standin' still, wanker!" "Wave goodbye to yer head, wanker!" "Standin' around like a bloody idiot!"). Even the Pyro has hammy-sounding muffled grunts and a truly porcine interpretation of a Tusken Raider. The least hammy are the Engineer and the Spy, but even those two can have their moments.
  • Even the Spy hams it up sometimes, especially after dominating an opponent.
  • Those two don't need ham. A short "Oh dear, I made quite a mess" is more effective than anything else in the game. Especially if you just got stabbed...
  • The Engineer's Evil Laugh does wonders whenever he breaks it out, and additionally his subdued "I told you don't touch that darn thing" still manages to be hammy.
• Command & Conquer. It's been that way since the beginning, but Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 goes all out for the World of Ham.
  • Tiberium Twilight gives it a good showing between Joseph Kucan and Iona Morris.
  • Tiberian Dawn averts this for the vast majority of the game... but not through a lack of ham from the actors (most of the recurring ones ham up at one point or another). There just aren't all that many scenes with more than one actor.
• Almost all dialogue in the God of War games defaults to this. It was ancient Greece, they hadn't invented indoor voices yet.
• Shadow vs Mephiles in Sonic the Hedgehog. Mephiles spends his sweet time chewing the scenery while Shadow tries to shut him up. Although in Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow's fairly low-key, in his debut game it's basically him vs Black Doom vs Dr. Eggman.
• Airforce Delta Strike: The combat flight sim has the "Stand By" missions and the largest aerial Ham-to-Ham Combat ever produced in a videogame.

"WHERE'S YER DRIVE, GAWD-DAMMIT?!"

• The Witcher: Though Geralt of Rivia tends to play low-key, the banter between him and Azar reaches a crescendo with the climax of their battle.
• Dantes Inferno: Dante is rather hammy by himself, but it's only when he faces Old Nick that they both crank it up to sufficiently scenery-chewing intensity.
• Brutal Legend: The core gameplay has two military leaders trying to destroy each others' Rock Stages.
• Wallace and Vaida's supports in Fire Emblem Rekka no Ken. Wallace is already a loud Boisterus Bruiser by himself, but when he meets this Dark Action Girl with a scarred face and a no-nosense attitude, the scenery becomes all dense with their combined hamminess.
• Bowser against Fawful and Midbus (a literal Large Ham) in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge: Several of the boss battles can qualify (and the final battle definitely does).
  • First take Jack, whose natural hammy theatrics are Turned Up to Eleven when in Musical Assassin mode then pit him in dance fights with huge song and dance sequences - complete with backup dancers (No, really, you can actually sing and dance most the bosses into submission Broadway style) - against the following:
    • Oogie Boogie, who is voiced by Ken Page, who has voiced some of the hammiest musical characters in in the last 30 years.
    • Lock, Shock, and Barrel - each one seems to have been personally trained in the ways of ham by Oogie himself.
    • And Dr. Finkelstein, the local Mad Scientist whose been Brain Swapped and Crazier (nuff said).
• Several Gundam games allow crossovers where the hammiest characters from each series can battle each other. Here is what happens when the aforementioned Master Asia and Gym Ghingham are pitted against one another.
• Sengoku Basara is Ham 'n' Slash in Sengoku era Japan.

Web Comics

• Drowtales
  • Just about anytime a fight gets serious you can expect this. Quain'tana, Zala'ess (even more so when they're in the same scene) and pretty much all of the Knight Templar Kyorl'solenurn clan seem to have a steady diet of the comic's scenery.
  • The hammiest moment, bar none, is during Sil'lice's flashback where she battles the equally hamtacular Kalki, and Sil'lice's ham-a-thon when she returns to the Sharen fortress afterwards. They literally start knocking down the scenery.

Web Original

• The feud between The Angry Video Game Nerd and The Nostalgia Critic goes this way almost any time they're on screen together.
• In Kickassia, very much a World of Ham, The Nostalgia Critic and The Spoony One have a particularly Egregious example of this at the beginning of part 2. It stands out against all of the other extremely hammy cast members, and that says something.
  • The battle between Nostalgia Critic and Dr. Insano was the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Haminess.
  • Played With in The Nostalgia Critic's review of |Dungeons and Dragons, when he ordained a contest between Profion's hammy overacting and the Empress' quiet underacting. Ultimately he decided they both sucked equally.
• Apparently it's some kind of employment requirement (along with being freaking gorgeous) for Channel Awesome to be able to ham it up when necessary. And sometimes when it's not, too.
• Lindsay, Elisa and Nella go all out with each other in the Dark Nella Saga. Nella just about wins through Evil Is Hammy, but the other women put up a surprisingly good fight.
• From Cerberus Daily News: VOLUS FIGHT!
• The Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney fandub of "Rise From The Ashes" evokes the game's Ham-to-Ham Combat nicely, which is impressive given that Phoenix and Edgeworth are the same actor.
• Despite being a collaboration, The Runaway Guys often find themselves in combat. Mostly Chuggaaconroy and Proton Jon yelling and insulting each other.

Western Animation

• Transformers:
  • Optimus and Megatron are the masters of this trope, pretty much in every continuity (and they usually play it up during actual combat). Megatron and Starscream have their moments, too.
  • Unicron, Primus, and the Original 13 (7?), too, ham it up every time they activate their vocal processors, and go into overdrive when running combat subroutines.
  • In Beast Wars Megatron and Tarantulas have formulated an Evil Plan. They begin to laugh in celebration. This becomes an Overly Long Gag as they try to have the last laugh.
• The Great Mouse Detective: Vincent Price and Barrie Ingham.
• Xavier: Renegade Angel: Shakashuri Blowdown- the ridiculous fight that Xavier has with himself. (There are 2 Xaviers.) This produces exchanges (said in the hammiest voices imaginable) like "You sound like THE ugliest son of a bitch I have EVER HEARD!" "YOU sound like the PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION of some LOSER'S inner DEMONS!"
• Invader Zim: Anybody going against Zim will inevitably be involved in one of these, although Tak is probably one of the best examples.
• Danny Phantom: Technus (who was a grade A ham from the start) versus Super Danny (who, apparently, is one of the hammiest characters of all without his human side to subdue it).
• Colonel Gathers and General Treister in The Venture Brothers.

Gathers: Don't kill yourself, you crazy bastard!

• Anytime Brain and Snowball face off in Pinky and The Brain.
• From Xavier: Renegade Angel," Xavier's epically stupid battle with himself, from "Shakashuri Blowdown."

Xavier: You sound like the ugliest son of a bitch I ever heard! Other Xavier: YOU sound like the physical manifestation of some LOSER'S inner DEMONS! Xavier: YOU sound like some total chode's inability to confront his past actions! Other Xavier: If I ever hear one more word from your stinky mug, I swear to Jack-off I'll knock your clock off!

• There are a lot of these in Adventure Time, but special mention has to go to any scene involving Finn and Lemongrab together.

Lemongrab: TOO YOUNG! TOO YOUNG TO RULE THE KINGDOM! Finn: *puffs out his chest and slaps Lemongrab on the hand* WATCH your MANNERS with the PRINCESS! Lemongrab: HHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO?! Finn: What the HUH?! Lemongrab: *frowning* MMMMMM...! *gasps* -MUH!

• • Any scene with Finn and the Ice King.

Real Life

• Frequently seen in high school drama classes, both on stage, and even more often it will happen when participating in improvisation games.
• Model United Nations can on occasion descend into this when representatives of two unpopular countries, like North Korea and Myanmar, end up in a debate with each other.
• Hitler vs Stalin
• Speaking of World War Two: Patton and any other general. Special note goes to him and Montgomery: The invasion of Sicily would have probably been a lot less bloody for the Allies if the two weren't trying to show each other who's the better conqueror.
  • The movie Patton had Patton say this line:

Hell, I know I'm a prima-donna, I admit it. The thing that bothers me about Monty [UK General Bernard Law Montgomery] is he won't admit it.

• The British House of Commons, because of the incredibly adversarial setup of the Chamber, often features attempts by the Members to out-ham one another. A typical exchange generally goes like this:

Minister: (*outlines government policy) Goverment MPs: HEAR HEAR, HUZZAH, GREAT, HEAR HEAR! Opposition MPs: SHAME! CORRUPTION! HOW DARE YOU!