History Main / ReadingsBlewUpTheScale

* ''Anime/FairyTail'': During a test of strength on a power reader during the Grand Magic Games arc, Cana uses the weakest of the 3 Fairy spells, and the device shatters and only leaves behind a reading of 9999. This is just after one of the Ten Wizard Saints (one of the most powerful mages on the continent) attacks it and gets below 9000, it also makes for a subtle reference.

* In one episode of ''Series/GilligansIsland'', Gilligan was playing with a lie detector that had been used earlier. When Mary Ann asked him if he took the coconut cream pie she made and he said no, the lie detector blew up.
-->'''Gilligan''': Well, it was delicious.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', Kanaya's [[ThingOMeter "flighty broads and their snarky horseshitometer"]] [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004619 explodes]] when Kanaya watches Rose [[spoiler:[[OffTheRails blow up her first gate]]]].

* ''Anime/YuGiOh'': The first sign that the Egyptian God Cards live up to the hype is when Kaiba first uses Obelisk the Tormentor in a training duel against an AI: using Obelisk's special ability causes the instruments monitoring the situation to spark, smoke and fizzle out, and when Obelisk obliterates [[SoLastSeason Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon with a single blow]], the AI explodes violently.

** In ''Literature/TheLastContinent'', Ponder Stibbons' magic-measuring [[ThingOMeter thaumometer]] melts when the magic field used to create the Last Continent exceeds its limit of one million thaums.
*** Subverted when Ridcully licks his thumb, holds it up, observes the octarine spark and comments that, yes, that looks about right.

-->-- Freeza's Scouter, ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'', before it self-destructs

* ''Anime/YuGiOh'': The first sign that the Egyptian God Cards live up to the hype is when Kaiba first uses Obelisk the Tormentor (the ''weakest'' of the Gods) in a training duel against an AI: using Obelisk's special ability causes the instruments monitoring the situation to spark, smoke and fizzle out, and when Obelisk obliterates [[SoLastSeason Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon with a single blow]], the AI explodes violently.

* ''Anime/FairyTail'': During a test of strength on a power reader during the Grand Magic Games arc, Cana uses the weakest of the 3 Fairy spells, and the device shatters and only leaves behind a reading of 9999. This is just after one of the Ten Wizard Saints (one of the most powerful mages on the continent) attacks it and gets below 9000, it also makes for a subtle reference.

* The Phobos computers in the ''VideoGame/{{Darkstalkers}}'' OVA do this when reading Donovan's power (at the same time that Donovan is unleashing a very powerful attack on the Phobos).

* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': If scouters aren't getting [[AGlassInTheHand broken]], they're blowing up while their owners are still wearing them. No wonder they got phased out of the series.
** After Bulma jury-rigged Raditz's scouter, Goku's DangerousForbiddenTechnique made it explode from across the planet.
** Vegeta did this three times in the Namek arc. He made Cui's scouter explode when demonstrating his new power level, and blew up Zarbon's scouter when he actually killed Cui. Frieza's new scouter exploded when Vegeta proved he could actually go toe-to-toe with him (at least until Frieza transformed).
** A filler scene later on showed that SSJ Goku and final-form Frieza could blow up computers in different ''solar systems'', implicitly killing the random superpowered mooks watching them.
** In the first Cooler movie, Sauza's scouter explodes when the injured Goku is given a senzu bean.
** In the OVA where Vegeta's brother Tarble showed up, Goku demonstrated his scouter was obsolete by casually making it explode in this manner.
** In ''[[Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF Resurrection "F"]]'', Frieza's emergence from a healing tank makes every scouter on the spaceship explode.
** In ''Anime/DragonBallSuperBroly'', the new scouters avert this and just stop measuring if a power level is too high.

''([[EpicFail lie detector beeps and explodes]])''\\
[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6eINkIZMr4 He didn't understand.]]

[[folder: Fan Works]]

[[folder: Film]]

** Professor Frink invented a [[ThingOMeter sarcasm detector]] in "They Saved Lisa's Brain", which of course explodes in the presence of the Comic Book Guy's overwhelming sarcasm.

** A similar example from the episode "The Springfield Files":
--->'''Agent Scully:''' Now we're going to run a few tests. This is a simple LieDetector. I'll ask you a few yes or no questions and you just answer truthfully. Do you understand?\\

** In [[Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF Resurrection "F"]], Frieza's emergence from a healing tank makes every scouter on the spaceship explode.

Someone has a meter that breaks down or explodes when the readings are too high for it to handle. Note that it's '''not'' from measuring something that could reasonably destroy the scale, like design flaws, or measuring greater extreme heat than a thermometer can withstand. This is when the extreme amount of the readings ''themselves'' cause the destruction.

** In ''Discworld/MovingPictures'', a resograph (a device designed to measure changes in the nature of reality) starts going haywire thanks to the influence of the filmmakers in Holy Wood. Eventually, the showing of an EpicMovie about the Ankh-Morpork Civil War causes a rift in reality big enough to allow a [[EldritchAbomination Thing from the Dungeon Dimensions]] to escape onto the Discworld, which makes the resograph explode violently.
** In ''Discworld/TheLastContinent'', Ponder Stibbons' magic-measuring [[ThingOMeter thaumometer]] melts when the magic field used to create the Last Continent exceeds its limit of one million thaums.

* ''Anime/FairyTail'': During a test of strength on a power reader during the Grand Magic Games arc, Cana uses the weakest of the 3 Fairy spells, and the reader shatters, this is just after one of the sages(supposedly the most powerful mages in the world) attacks it and gets below 9000, it also makes for a subtle reference.

* {{Downplayed}} in ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive''. [[spoiler: While Tedd's ridiculously high magic levels don't cause the loud scary magic analysis wand to explode, they did mean that when he was tested as a baby and instinctively shielded against the loud scary thing, he had enough spell resistance to block the loud scary magic analysis wand and cause it to detect him as having zero magic potential.]]