Sweeping Ashes

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Animated characters in Non-Fatal Explosions usually just get charred, but a really big boom (or really hot fire) will do more.

The entire victim's body turns to ash and crumbles into a dozen pieces, except the eyeballs, which bounce into the mess. Then another character will produce a broom and dustpan, and sweep up the ashes, eyeballs and all. Or a (relatively intact) arm reaches from the ash, produces a broom and dustpan, and the character sweeps himself up. Of course, all will be well a few seconds later.

Also see Ash Face, where the explosion leaves the victim with a blackened face.

Examples of Sweeping Ashes include:

• Happens to several of the Looney Tunes characters:
  • Wile E. Coyote swept up his own ashes in almost every Roadrunner cartoon.
  • Daffy Duck sometimes did this with his feathers. He also does the full-on ashes version during the disintegrator pistol duel in Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century.
  • Also, Foghorn Leghorn, when he gets his feathers blasted off for one reason or another.

"Fortunately I keep my feathers numbered, for just such an emergency."

• It's happened to Tom of Tom and Jerry a few times too. Though moreso in the Chuck Jones shorts. This must have been a favorite trope of his.
• The title character of Dave the Barbarian does this almost as frequently.
• Groundskeeper Willie's ghost did it as part of his Freddy Krueger impression on one of The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror specials.
• Happens very often to Basile, the clumsy assistant to Leonard Le Genie.
• Happens if you take a nasty enough fall in Marble Madness.
• Happens in the novel Left Behind, after Hattie Durham gets incinerated by the Anti-Christ with a lightning bolt. Her friends sweep what's left of her into a jar to take back.
• Bizarrely shown in many Paranoia illustrations. The "nothing left but a smoking pair of boots and a laser pistol" variation is so prominent a Running Gag that it's trademarked.
• Done in a dream sequence in Joe Dirt.