That Satisfying Crunch
The visceral joy one gets from ruthlessly smashing or otherwise destroying some inanimate object, especially if said object (or whatever it represents) has caused you a great deal of annoyance. Implements favored for this kind of catharsis include, but are not limited to: Baseball Bats, Sledgehammers, Chainsaws, Woodchippers, Heavy Construction Equipment, and in some cases High Explosives. As a general rule, the more over the top the means of destruction, the greater the satisfaction. Ring Ring CRUNCH is a subtrope of this. Die, Chair, Die! may also be related to this, depending on the game.
This is the most common way of achieving a Catharsis Factor in video games.
Examples of That Satisfying Crunch include:
Advertising
- This 2001 Snickers Crunchers commercial where people purchased and then smashed wind-up toys made to look and sound like various annoying people.
Comic Books
- Katchoo in Strangers in Paradise breaks/smashes/destroys (in various ways) her alarm clock every time when it rings in the morning.
Film
- Tim Burton's Batman: The joker shoots a TV set whenever Batman comes on.
- The scene in Office Space when Peter, Michael and Samir destroy the fax machine.
- In The Emperors New Groove, after she is fired by Kuzco, Izma lets off steam by smashing busts of him.
- Many times in Zombieland. Most particularly the nice minivan and the gift shop.
Literature
- In Spider Robinson's Callahans Crosstime Saloon series, all drinks at Callahan's bar are fifty cents, and Callahan only accepts one dollar bills. You get the fifty cents back unless you want to step up to the line and make a toast by tossing your empty glass into the bar's fireplace hard enough to shatter it. It is an exceptionally cathartic action, as it turns out.
- In Arthur C. Clarke's first short story, "Rescue Party", aliens exploring the abandoned Earth as the Sun is about to go nova find an office with its contents trashed. Most of them are baffled even after one of them suggests this trope as the explanation.
- In Warrior Cats, Jayfeather is so upset that Rock didn't tell him that Leafpool and Crowfeather are his real parents that he decides to break Rock's stick. (It Makes Sense in Context.)
Live Action TV
- One time on The Dick Van Dyke Show Rob & Laura took their frustrations out on a pile of dishes that they were going to replace anyway because they had chips in them.
- Referenced in whichever MythBusters episode had the killer snowplow myth. (where a snowplow could blow a car off the road.)
- Additionally, most Mythbusters episodes end in them causing some sort of explosion. "When in doubt, C4"
- Psych: Lassiter's ex refuses a gift. He then uses them for target practice.
Stand Up Comedy
- Referenced by Eddie Izzard in this sketch about chiropractors from Dressed to Kill
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"Make the noise, make the noise! I live for the noise!" |
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Video Games
- The first weapon you get in Ratchet and Clank Up Your Arsenal gives a nice satisfying crunch.
- The World Ends With You Sho Minamimoto "Your opinions are garbage! CRUNCH, I'll add 'em to the heap."
- Mario Party Advance contains a Gaddget called "Stress Press." The entire purpose of it is to smash various objects with an enormous hammer, for the express purpose of making you feel better.
Web Comics
- Sluggy Freelance has Torg get people together for a party where they step on a scale that mocks their weight just so they can have fun smashing it with crowbars.
- Shortpacked: Ethan really has it in for Alternators Tracks.
Web Original
- In the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, when a muckraking reporter and her film-crew kept following Stone around, looking for something to tarnish up his already shaky reputation with, he finally got so fed up with her that he flattened the newsvan they were using to follow him. And you should take the word "flattened" literally, as he used his Super Strength to drop a bulldozer on it eight or nine times in quick succession. Then he got himself a beer.
Real Life
- There was a bar that would allow one person to destroy a TV set whenever a particularly hated sportscaster came on.
- This trope is the exact reason why many people dream of walking into a fine china shop with a large blunt object in hand.
- For some, why the crack of a Neck Snap is a Most Wonderful Sound.