History Main / AnvilOnHead

May have its origins in the real life practice of "anvil firing", which was used in America to celebrate the fourth of July: one anvil was laid upside down on the ground, a charge of gunpowder was placed in the hollow in the base, a fuse was laid leading out of it, and a second anvil was placed right-side-up atop the first. After everybody got far away and someone lit the fuse, they would watch the second anvil be launched high into the air, from which it necessarily had to fall back to earth. Obviously the real-life consequences of this trope place this FIRMLY in the category of DontTryThisAtHome, as a falling anvil could easily kill a person in real life. Safes and pianos, on the other hand, are probably a relic of the days before legally mandated hallway widths and freight elevators, when the only way to get a bulky object into an upper story room was with a winch, a pulley, and a hole in the side of the building.

* On Day 6 of the Minecraftian ''[[WebVideo/ThirdLifeSMP 3rd Life SMP]]'', Smallishbeans attempts to {{invoke|dTrope}} this on Scott Smajor by setting up a trap at his base while he was away, so that two anvils would fall on his head when he tried to enter. {{Subverted|Trope}} in that the trap was not set up correctly and only succeeds in giving Scott two free anvils.

* On Day 6 of the Minecraftian ''[[WebVideo/LifeSMP 3rd Life SMP]]'', Smallishbeans attempted to {{invoke|dTrope}} this on Scott Smajor by setting up a trap at his base while he was away, so that two anvils would fall on his head when he tried to enter. {{Subverted|Trope}} in that the trap was not set up correctly and only succeeded in giving Scott two free anvils.

* ''Series/TheGoodies''. In "Cunning Stunts", Bill is trying to commit suicide by shooting a [[RuleOfFunny balloon that's holding up an anvil]]. He fires and misses, then Tim grabs the bow off him. But the arrow then falls to the ground again and in doing so bursts the balloon, bringing down the anvil on Tim's head.

* ''Series/TheGoodies''. In "Cunning Stunts", Bill is trying to commit suicide by shooting a [RuleOfFunny balloon that's holding up an anvil]]. Tim shoves him aside only for the arrow Bill fired to fall and this time hit the balloon, bringing down the anvil on Tim's head.

The anvil: A simple, yet essential tool of any metalsmith, which serves as the workbench where metal is pounded into the desired shape for whatever project the smith happens to be working on--and which, in many fictional mediums, inexplicably ends up airborne and aimed at some poor chump's cranium.

** On Day 125, Martyn drops one from the ceiling of [[spoiler:the wedding hall in Ros' castle, accidentally killing Water's husband-to-be Jeffery while aiming for her]]. {{Deconstructed|Trope}} in this case, as [[spoiler:given Miss Snapdragon's comment about losing her appetite from being "splattered by… I think… a bit of vertebrae", it can be assumed that the in-universe results are [[LudicrousGibs quite messy]]]].

** On Day 106, Martyn is the first to suggest ColdBloodedTorture on Cruppy to interrogate it by dropping an anvil on it. However, this prompts Apo to pull out a lava bucket for the job, which is what they end up using until Graecie and Kuervo show up to save Cruppy.
** On Day 125, Martyn drops one from the ceiling of [[spoiler:the wedding hall in Ros' castle, accidentally killing Water's husband-to-be Jeffery instead]]. {{Deconstructed|Trope}} in this case, as [[spoiler:given Miss Snapdragon's comment about losing her appetite from being "splattered by… I think… a bit of vertebrae", it can be assumed that the in-universe results are [[LudicrousGibs quite messy]]]].

* [=YouTube=] star Guava Juice gets an animated anvil dropped on his head as part of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7cbbmG4oqM a video taking viewers' dares.]] He ends up with a case of CirclingBirdies.

* ''WebVideo/DreamSMP'': In Season 2, the Butcher Army hunts down Technoblade after his betrayal of L'Manburg at the end of Season 1, having helped blow up the country in the Manburg-Pogtopia War and [[BombThrowingAnarchists threatened to blow it up again if they start another government]], and try to hold a PublicExecution for him by dropping an anvil on his head. [[spoiler:Thanks to a Totem of Undying, Techno survives and is able to escape, prompting him to plot a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the L'Manburgians that results in the city-state's utter and complete destruction.]]

** In season 9, [=Docm77=] takes advantage of a moment that LetsPlay/{{Etho|sLab}} is AFK to drop an anvil on him, something he's wanted to do for over ten years. This sparks a war between the two, waiting for the other to go AFK for even a few minutes to drop an anvil on them. This also prompted Doc to go [[AxCrazy Anvil-Crazy]] and attack any AFK player, and even several non-AFK targets. Eventually, several Hermits started to join in the anvil war as well.

* ''16t'' is a UsefulNotes/MegaDrive game entirely about dropping 16-ton weights on enemies.

* In ''VideoGame/FantasyZone'', Opa-Opa's "Heavy Bomb" is a falling 16-ton weight. One of the humorous illustrations in the Japanese manual for the UsefulNotes/PCEngine version showed Opa-Opa being squashed under one, though this doesn't actually happen in the game. The tonnage was increased to 100 in ''Fantasy Zone II''.

* [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Warner Brothers animation]], in its [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation 40-year odyssey]] of cartoon violence, not only perfected the anvil drop, but most of the associated reactions and results, including but not limited to:

** The movie opens with a cartoon short that ends with a refrigerator being dropped on Roger. Later, Toon prop magnate Marvin Acme is killed by a safe falling on his head. Halfway through the film, Eddie Valiant reveals that his grudge against Toons stems from his brother Teddy's death, which was caused by a rogue Toon dropping a piano on him; while a Toon would usually survive with only some [[SquashedFlat flattening]] [[AmusingInjuries for comedic effect]], heavy objects tend to inflict much more [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome realistic]], and ''deadly'' injuries to humans such as Teddy and Marvin Acme.

* WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry pretty much used all of these for random humour. And pretty often used grand pianos and trees/poles in place of falling anvils whenever something different was needed.

* Creator/TerryPratchett uses that frequently to deal with minor characters in his ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' books.
** One petty thug dies when he's hit with an armadillo, another one - falling bed, and the alternate universe Carrot dies when he's hit with an aardvark. A [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]] in bat form was stunned by a thrown (garlic) sausage and then eaten by a cat.
** In ''Literature/SmallGods'' a villain is killed when a tortoise is dropped on his head. The tortoise [[spoiler:is actually the god Om]] and in addition to saving the life of the hero it is his way of sending an Anvilicious message to the citizens of Omnia.
* ''[[Literature/TheDresdenFiles Dresden Files]]'':

** ''Literature/BattleGround'': And [[BrickJoke many, many years later,]] he ''does'' summon an anvil on someone's head.

* ''Literature/TheEyreAffair'' pays homage to the anvil tradition in the subplot involving the Minotaur who has been tagged with a slapstick marker.

Not to be confused with DroppedABridgeOnHim. {{Anvilicious}} is unrelated conceptually, but we call it that for having the same amount of subtlety as the average anvil dropped on the average head. The {{anime}} equivalent is DropTheWashtub. If something more surreal than an anvil is used for the purpose, that's DropTheCow.

* ''LetsPlay/HermitcraftServer'':

* On Day 6 of the Minecraftian ''[[LetsPlay/LifeSMP 3rd Life SMP]]'', Smallishbeans attempted to {{invoke|dTrope}} this on Scott Smajor by setting up a trap at his base while he was away, so that two anvils would fall on his head when he tried to enter. {{Subverted|Trope}} in that the trap was not set up correctly and only succeeded in giving Scott two free anvils.

** {{Exaggerated|Trope}} in the crossover with ''LetsPlay/EmpiresSMP'' when [=ImpulseSV=] is tasked with killing someone via anvil during the Multi(verse) Tag event. He accomplishes this by dropping a cluster of ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill 200 anvils]]'' on Scott Smajor with a redstone contraption.

* Also played for drama with realistic results in ''Film/LethalWeapon2'' when Riggs dispatches TheDragon by dropping a shipping crate on him.

* YouTube star Guava Juice gets an animated anvil dropped on his head as part of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7cbbmG4oqM a video taking viewers' dares.]] He ends up with a case of CirclingBirdies.

** In season 9, Docm77 takes advantage of a moment that LetsPlay/{{Etho|sLab}} is AFK to drop an anvil on him, something he's wanted to do for over ten years. This sparks a war between the two, waiting for the other to go AFK for even a few minutes to drop an anvil on them. This also prompted Doc to go [[AxCrazy Anvil-Crazy]] and attack any AFK player, and even several non-AFK targets. Eventually, several Hermits started to join in the anvil war as well.

** While on a quest spree, one of the quests Cubfan135 is tasked is to kill someone with an anvil. He manages to kill Scar with the 8th anvil Cub deployed.