William Telling: Difference between revisions

'''''Calvin:''' Ahhh! He flinched!''|[[Calvin and Hobbes]]}}

* In [[The Film of the Book]] ''[[Naked Lunch]]'', [[Author Avatar|William Lee]] is shown shooting a glass of whiskey off of Joan Lee's head in what they called their "William Tell act." {{spoiler|[[Book Ends|At the end of the movie]], he attempts this again and accidentally kills her. This is based on the [[Real Life|actual death]] of William Burroughs' common-law wife, Joan Vollmer.}}

* This happens in ''[[Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past]]'' involving an arrow, a rising pop star, and the 6th place Japanese archery champion.

* Happens in ''[[A Fish Called Wanda]]'', in the bank heist in the beginning, as the four thieves are about to get away with their bank heist, [[Know-Nothing Know-It-All|Ot]][[Axe Crazy|to]] [[Crazy Prepared|pulls an apple out of his sack]] and places it on a bystander's head. He readies his crossbow, scaring the bystander, but he's stopped by Wanda [[It Makes Sense in Context|(not the fish)]] before he can pull the trigger, though.

* In the [[Video Nasty|strangely notorious]] [[Exploitation Film]] ''[[Axe (film)|Axe]]'', two gangsters do this to some poor grocery store clerk [[For the Evulz|for amusement]].

== Jokes ==

* Two boys are playing this trope. The boy with the crossbow shoots - but hits the other boy's [[Eye Scream|left eye instead]]. He shoots again - hitting [[Black Comedy|the right eye]].

Now-blind boy: "I have to, my mom said I have to be at home when it's getting dark!" }}

* One time on ''[[Bones]]'' when she and Booth were undercover at the circus doing a [[Knife-Throwing Act]], she made him throw a knife at an oversized prop apple on top of her head. She sprang it on him all of a sudden during the show. She then puts on ''[[Beyond the Impossible|a prop nose]]'', visibly worrying him (and the team watching back in the institute). Made funnier by the fact that she was wearing an eye-patch at the time.

* In ''[[Married... with Children]]'', Kelly becomes a skilled archer and accepts her opponent's challenge to shoot an apple on Bud's head. She balks at going through with it, not wanting to hurt Bud, but when her opponent accuses her of cowardice, she shoots the apple without warning, causing Bud to pass out and, upon reviving, regress to toddlerhood.

* On ''[[The Muppet Show]]'' (the one guest starring [[Alice Cooper]]), a William Tell routine was playing onstage, but all that is seen are the stray arrows falling backstage. At the end, the boy has an arrow through his head. "You know me. In one ear and out the other."

* One of the German episodes of ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' begins with a William Tell sketch. It has Tell successfully shooting the apple, then the camera zooms out to show his son's body is riddled with arrows from previous attempts.

* Played with in an episode of ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]''. Alfred attempts to show off his archery skills and places an apple on Dick Grayson's head. Bruce stops him saying it's not worth taking the risk so Dick places the apple on a stationary target. Alfred shoots and misses. Had they gone through with it the arrow would have hit Dick right between the eyes.

* 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 Northumbrian ballad of ''Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and Wyllyam of Cloudeslee'', which was a source of Walter Scott's ''[[Ivanhoe]]'', William of Cloudeslee tells the king he will put an apple on his seven-year-old son's head and shoot it off at 120 paces:

Shall cleave the apple in towe. }}

* Chalie Brown does it to Snoopy in [http://gocomics.com/peanuts/1952/03/07/ this] early ''[[Peanuts]]'' strip.

* Used in a ''[[Mutt And Jeff]]'' strip:

'''Jeff:''' O.K. then instead of two bucks I'll only bet a dime! }}

* Done in ''[[FoxTrot]]''. Roger asks Jason what sport he has taken up and Jason tells him to put an apple on his head and he'll demonstrate. Roger, wisely, flees.

* An episode of ''[[Total Drama Island]]'' had 'The Reverse Willam Tell' challenge, wherein half the contestants had to balance an arrow on their heads, while the other half had to throw crabapples at their heads blindfolded to try to knock the arrow off.

* On ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' the trope is [[Playing with a Trope|played with]], in "Picture This".

'''Buford:''' ...nice! High and tight! }}

* Sonic does this to one of Robotnik's robots in ''[[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]''. Getting up in [[Robin Hood]] garb and balancing an apple on his head, Sonic tauntingly asks the robot (Called Dragon Breath in [[Dr. Robotniks Mean Bean Machine]]) if he's ever heard of [[William Tell]]. Infuriated, Dragon Breath throws his spiked club at Sonic, but the hedgehog's super speeds allows him to dodge just in time, so that the only damage done is that apple is split in half...and the tree behind Sonic falls over onto Dragon Breath.