This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
From YKTTW:
Yoshi348: The only name I can think of for this one is the overly bland Unusual Torture Session (already occupied by an "article", but the article is probably going down anyway for being stupid). Basically, it's where a character is absolutely horrified to being tortured with some sort of ridiculous form of torture. Usually it's something that's supposed to be considered bad, but not torture worthy, such as the Chop Sockey episode of Spongebob where Sandy has to save Spongebob from being forced to buy a time-share, or a strip of Sluggy Freelance where some characters are tied up and forced to watch The Golden Girls ("Blanche, let's talk about sex!"). Nails on a chalkboard seems to be the uncreative version. Also, sometimes it's some sort of torture that only the specific character would find torturous.
Generally it's either because 1) It's a kids show, so they can't show any sort of torture of a higher level, 2) It's a comedy, and being tortured in this way is a heck of a lot funnier than being tortured for real, or 3) both.
Harpie Siren: Ridiculous Tourture?
Ununnilium: Really Really Unusual Punishment?
YYZ: There's a whole subset of Ridiculous Torture where the victim's weakness is being tickled - the victim frequently being an Action Girl or some other Bad Ass female who is in fact ticklish but doesn't want anyone to know.
Gus: Tickle Torture trips tantalizingly to the tongue.
YYZ: Or maybe Vogon Poetry Torture Session.
Tabby: Seconding Vogon Poetry Torture Session.
Tzintzuntzan: I was thinking Fetch The Comfy Chair myself, although the Vogon suggestion works too. OTOH, I wonder if we're naming too many things after a famous example, rather than a phrase that is self-explanatory to people who don't know their TV trivia.
YYZ: TV Safe Torture, perhaps?
((Tzintzuntzan}}: TV Safe Torture implies a censored or watered-down thing to me, rather than something ridiculous. I'm leaning toward Vogon Poetry Torture or Fetch The Comfy Chair, unless we'd rather do a self-explanatory name, in which case Ridiculous Torture or Silly Torture works. BTW, apparently this trope is Truth in Television — supposedly, US troops in Iraq have been forcing Iraqis to talk by making them listen to Barney and Metallica. (No, I'm not making this up — google it.)
- YYZ: Which reminds me of the stories about the ATF forcing David Koresh to listen to Barry Manilow by playing it at high volume outside his HQ for 24 hours straight.
DysgraphicProgrammer: Cool and Unusual Punishment?
Tzintzuntzan: I love Cool and Unusual Punishment! I'm ready to pull the trigger, but Yoshi should get first crack.
Yoshi348: Go ahead; I don't really have any fleshed out examples for this at all, nor an idea for organizing the actual article.
Tzintzuntzan: Grrrrr....I can't seem to figure out the instructions on the screen for formatting script excerpts.
Gus: Not you. The instructions were incorrect in a minor way. We shall now take the programmer to a small tin shack and play Barry Manilow at him until he repents. // Later: Man, that is hard. Something has to be done about that.
Kilyle: First, I'm not familiar with the example, but I think that "I.E." in one example should be "E.G." Secondly, is the Count Duckula "comfy sofa" bit a reference to Monty Python, and if so, shouldn't it go right after the Monty Python bit? And third, anyone have that Far Side comic handy, where the line is "And this little baby we just like to call Mr. Thingy" (or something similar)? I remember it had a carrot tied to it, but can't recall it enough to describe it, so someone who knows that particular example please put it in with the correct quote. Classic.
Nitpicking: The Retief books are by Keith Laumer, not Harry Harrison.
Ronfar: Does my Gilbert and Sullivan example belong here or in Ironic Hell?
Nlpnt: Definitely not a main-page example but when I first got a cable modem I went on Youtube and watched a bunch of old VCR commercials; when I said this to a coworker, his response was "-Otherwise known as what Jack Valenti is doing in Hell."
Prfnoff: Removed:
- This troper can't believe no one's mentioned "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" yet. "Here at Castle Anthrax we have but one punishment for setting alight the grail-shaped beacon...."
- Well, it doesn't strictly fit. It was an actual conventional punishment: a good hard spanking. Of course, given the context, that good hard spanking was, well... er...
Hazel: Removed:
- Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay has, as one of the tortures in Gitmo, the Cock Meat Sandwich. It's not explicitly shown, but it most likely involves oral sex.
- Wait, what? Forcing homosexual oral sex on a straight male is not cool or unusual. Seriously.
- Or, you know, on anyone, straight or not.
- Wait, what? Forcing homosexual oral sex on a straight male is not cool or unusual. Seriously.
Anonymous: I think we should make a separate page for Tickle Tortures, because there are so many of them. Who agrees?
Mike Rosoft: This page isn't called Cruel And Unusual Punishment. Removing:
- Starship Troopers justifies unusual punishments (in the form of the civilisation's public floggings) by pointing out that people are more likely to remember such things.
- In that novel, Heinlein satirises the USA's aversion to "cruel and unusual punishment", claiming that if it isn't cruel it isn't punishment, and if it isn't unusual it isn't effective.
