William Telling: Difference between revisions
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{{trope|wppage=Shooting an apple off one's child's head}}
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{{quote|'''''Calvin:''' Look, I put a snowball on top of this snowman's head. Now I'll be the next William Tell, and I'll hit the snowball clean off!''
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This is based entirely on the legend of [[William Tell]], though the same story has existed before his time in similar variations. In the legend, William Tell, who originally came from Bürglen, was known as an expert shot with the crossbow. In his time, the Habsburg emperors of Austria were seeking to dominate Uri. Albrecht (or Hermann) Gessler, the newly appointed Austrian Vogt of Altdorf, raised a pole in the village's central square, hung his hat on top of it, demanding that all the townsfolk bow before the hat. When Tell passed by the hat without bowing to it, he was arrested. As punishment, he was forced to shoot an apple off the head of his son, Walter. Otherwise, both would be executed. Tell was promised freedom if he successfully made the shot. On 18 November 1307, Tell split an apple on his son's head with a bolt from his crossbow. Gessler noticed that before the shot Tell had removed two crossbow bolts from his quiver, not one, and after the shot asked him why. Tell replied that if he had killed his son, he would have turned the crossbow on Gessler himself.
Needless to say (and since when has that ever stopped us from saying?), [[Don't Try This at Home]]. There's a reason the trope-naming incident was such a big deal: It is ''shooting a deadly weapon at a small object near a person's head''. Miss, and someone is likely going to become seriously injured or even killed.
{{examples}}
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* One of the most famous moments of ''[[The Tonight Show]] with Johnny Carson'' was when he had famed actor Ed Ames (who played the Indian "Mingo" on ''[[Daniel Boone]]'') demonstrate his tomahawk-throwing skills. Ames was to throw an axe and try to hit the head of a cowboy silhouette set up on stage - unfortunately he hit the drawn cowboy's crotch, with the handle pointing up, eliciting the longest laugh in television history.
* Done in a "Secret" game on ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?]]'', with Ryan Styles as William Tell and Colin Mochrie as his son. After Colin bites into the apple and finds hidden nude pictures of Friar Tuck, Ryan unsubtly attempts to [[Make It Look Like an Accident]] by attempting to shoot a ''grape'' off his head. And then doing it ''[[Crosses the Line Twice|blindfolded]]''.
* In ''[[The Goodies]]'', there's an episode in which the boys are challenged to a medieval battle by a team of black knights. One of them successfully shoots a melon off of Graeme's head, nailing it to the tree behind him. Bill then has to one-up them by shooting an ''olive'' off Tim's
* Actually subverted in the live-action series ''Crossbow'', which is a fictionalised version of Tell's legend. How so? {{spoiler|Tell (Will Lyman) faints after passing the test, thus in a [[Kick the Dog]] moment Gessler (Jeremy Clyde) makes him and everyone else believe that his son Walter (David Barry Gray, who is here renamed Matthew) is dead, via having the the kid taken away and slandering Tell to Hell and back. It'll takew a while to see that it's not true.}}
* In the 2000 ''[[Arabian Nights (TV series)|Arabian Nights]]'' mini-series, one of Scheherazade's stories concerns a prince who sets out to obtain a great treasure. As he is justly proud of his archery skills, the guardians of the treasure tell him he must prove himself worthy of it by shooting a target balanced on a child's head. It turns out to be a [[Secret Test of Character]]: when he declines to take the shot, admitting he's not certain he won't hit the child, he passes the test.
* ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'': The monster of "Foul Play in the Sky" was the Snizzard, a Snake-Lizard monster whose weak spot/power artifact was a golden apple atop his head. This was a Kimberly-centered episode, and Kimberly's weapon is a bow. Cue [[Twang! "Hello."]] + [[Blasting It Out of Their Hands]], and then an arrow to the apple.
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''. In "Superstar" Jonathan alters reality to change himself from a geek into a demon-fighting [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]]-expy. One scene has him putting on a blindfold in preparation to shooting apples from the heads of several Initiative soldiers.
* ''[[Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries]]'': In "Death at the Grand", Phryne's father shoots the hat off the man he was fighting a [[Ten Paces and Turn]] duel against as a way of proving his point.
== Music ==
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* ''[[King Arthur's Disasters]]'': King Arthur becomes the target for one of these in "The Ice Palace". He has to stand with an apple on his head and be shot at in turn by [[Robin Hood]], [[William Tell]] and Sir Maragaret.
* ''[[Taz-Mania]]'': According to "Unhappy Together", 'William Tell' is favourite game of the Platypus Brothers and Daniel gets quite upset when he thinks Timothy is playing it with Taz.
* The story of William Tell is retold in Sherman and Peabody's segment on ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]''. In this version, Tell is nearsighted and [[Blind Without'Em| has broken his glasses]], leaving his son fearing for his life as the date approaches. After failed attempts to replace the glasses, Mr. Peabody solves the problem by replacing the apple with another one [[Hollywood Magnetism| with a powerful magnet inside]], which Tell is able to hit easily.
== Real Life ==
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* [[William S. Burroughs]] accidentally killed his wife while [[I Just Shot Marvin in the Face|trying to shoot a drinking glass off her head with a gun]]. This incident is revisited in the [[Film of the Book]] of his work ''[[Naked Lunch]]''.
* This kind of trope was also done with guns, by Annie Oakley. There was a bit in her act where she would shoot the ash off her husband's cigar.
** At one point, Kaiser Wilhelm was in the audience. Annie's husband asked for volunteers, as he always did, and to his surprise the Kaiser stood up. Annie pulled off the trick, and after [[World War
* Obviously appeared among [[Darwin Award]] stories
* Straddling the line between [[Real Life]] and folklore are the tales of American [[Mountain Man]] Mike Fink. Several stories tell of him and his friends shooting cups of whisky off each other's heads. One account of his death says that in 1829 in a drunken stupor, when aiming at a mug of beer from the head of his longtime friend, John Carpenter, he shot low; shortly thereafter, his other longtime friend, Talbot, retaliated by killing Fink, using Carpenter's pistol.
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[[Category:Older Than Print]]
[[Category:Weapons and Wielding Tropes]]
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