History Main / TheSnackIsMoreInteresting

* In ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', Colonel Quaritch is sipping coffee in the cockpit of his flagship, while it's barraging the [[SpaceElves Na'Vi]] Hometree with missiles. Because [[MemeticMutation Colonel Quaritch doesn't give a fuck about your Na'Vi]].

* One recurring sketch on ''Series/TheCatherineTateShow'' has Tate as a woman who finds herself in exciting situations with her friends, including hearing about a proposal, going on a beach vacation, or moving into her first apartment with a partner. Tate leaves the scene to get a snack of some kind, at which point something [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill something ridiculously horrible happens to the friend]]--the newly-engaged woman is brutally murdered in a drive-by shooting, her fellow vacationer is eaten alive by a shark, and the ''entire apartment building'' collapses with her partner inside. The camera cuts to Tate's character returning with her bag of snacks and calmly observing the awful carnage as she munches away without comment.

** Admiral Fujitora is seen enjoying a bowl of udon while his ship is under fire, among the various instances of him eating in various situations.

** Tony Stark is often seen eating, be it a burger just before a press conference or pizza during a heated conversation with Obadiah in ''Film/IronMan1''; donuts before talking to Nick Fury or strawberries after an unsuccessful attempt to explain himself to Pepper in ''Film/IronMan2;'' or dried blueberries while arguing with Captain America in ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}.'' It has become such a defining trait of the character that they used it in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ty1zVZQ8X4 the teaser]] for ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar,'' where Creator/RobertDowneyJr is quarreling with Creator/ChrisEvans over a donut.
*** This is a bit of RealLifeWritesThePlot: Downey Jr. ''himself'' would hide snacks on the set to deal with hunger pangs, and frequently took out food during scenes without being prompted. This was so in-character for Tony Stark that the producers [[ThrowItIn kept the shots with him eating.]]

A character enters what should be a serious situation for them, and yet seems completely bored with the events. Instead of giving the occasion his full attention, they seem more invested in the snack they happen to be eating. Apples, potato chips, or any other food that's particularly noisy are popular for this since the obnoxiously loud crunching can drown out what's going on around the eater.

** Mello also likes sweets, but limits himself to chocolate bars. He makes a distinctive cracking sound when he bites off pieces while driving his machinations.

* ''Anime/DragonBallZBattleOfGods'' - Whis is more interested in trying Earth food than watching Beerus pummel the heroes, and doesn't really seem to care one way or the other whether Beerus destroys the planet (as long as it's not before he gets a chance to try everything). Beerus himself is more interested in his drink than Goku's transformation to Super Saiyan God, only paying attention once he's ready to fight.

* ''Manga/{{Yaiba}}'': [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain the Spider Man]] is first introduced disguising himself as a table full of delicious food to lure the starving heroes. However, the heroes are so hungry that they promptly ignore him when he tries to introduce himself and decides to finish the food before paying attention to him.

** When the God of Skypiea Enel encounters Nico Robin in the submerged city of Shandora he is seen eating an apple, this reflects his complete narcissism, security in his power and hedonistic lifestyle. In reference to this, when Enel taunts in the licensed game One Piece Grand Battle! Rush!, he eats an apple. Eiichiro Oda, the original writer, also claimed apples were Enel's favourite food in an SBS.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: Queen Clea has a particularity cruel iteration where when she sets up an execution or torture to watch while eating a meal. She gloats at her captives and then ignores them to give her food all of her attention until things get interesting by her standards, which generally means her victims are panicking and painfully dying which she'll watch with rapt attention while finishing her meal.
* In ''ComicBook/MisterMiracle2017'', Scott Free ends up put on trial by [[TookALevelInJerkass an uncharacteristically antagonistic Orion]] after being accused of being a secret agent of Darkseid. Anticipating [[ThisIsGonnaSuck just how exhausting it's about to be]], he and Barda gets a veggie tray, and he begins crunching on a carrot in annoyed resignation [[KangarooCourt once Orion starts appointing himself accuser, defender, and judge]].

* In ''Fanfic/The75'' by [[https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2978014/mintjellyfish mintjellyfish]], Kelso wins the 12th Hunger Games with a booby trap that kills a career tribute who comes after him as he eats, and then insists on finishing his meal before leaving the arena.
--> ''Twelve kills, and he cares more about lamb stew.''

* A variant in the film ''{{WesternAnimation/Paranorman}}'' is that ''acquiring'' a snack is more interesting. A man sees a group of zombies coming toward him down an alleyway while he waits for a vending machine to dispense his bag of chips. He hesitates as they get closer and closer, not wanting to abandon his snack. In the end he ''does'' run off...only to come back a second later to grab the chips once they have finally fallen, and run off again.

* In ''Film/BigGame'', during the first hour of frantic search for the president, Herbert is shown chewing on a sandwich more often than looking at the screens.

** Tony Stark is often seen eating, be it a burger just before a press-conference or pizza during a heated conversation with Obadiah in ''Film/IronMan1''; donuts before talking to Nick Fury or strawberries after an unsuccessful attempt to explain himself to Pepper in ''Film/IronMan2;'' or dried blueberries while arguing with Captain America in ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}.'' It has become such a defining trait of the character that they used it in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ty1zVZQ8X4 the teaser]] for ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar,'' where Creator/RobertDowneyJr is quarreling with Creator/ChrisEvans over a donut.

* In ''Film/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'', while Harry interacts with Buckbeak the hippogriff, Draco Malfoy casually munches on an apple to show his contempt with the proceedings.
* One scene in ''Film/LittleNicky'' features a bunch of passerby chasing Nicky down the street because they think he's a monster. One guy starts to join in the chase, then decides his candy bar is more important and continues with that instead.

* In ''Film/TheHuntForRedOctober'', Captain Ramius reveals to his officers that he announced to Soviet Naval Command their intentions to defect to the Americans. During the scene, he is much more interested in his dinner than the fact he has evidently made their defection even harder.

* Invoked as a kind of subtle 'fuck you' in ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanTheCurseOfTheBlackPearl''. When negotiating with Captain Barbossa over the command of the Black Pearl, Jack Sparrow picks up a green apple from a basket in the middle of the table and casually begins munching on it while musing out loud. Thing is, Captain Barbossa is only in command of the Pearl because he mutinied against and overthrew Jack, has been cursed by Aztec gold to an existence of living death where he is unable to taste anything, apples are his favourite food, and the current topic of conversation is Jack musing about how, if Barbossa ''hadn't'' mutinied against and overthrew him, Jack would have been captain when they found the gold and would ''also'' have been cursed. So Barbossa has to watch and seethe as this guy he hates eats an apple that Barbossa yearns to taste again while 'casually' discussing about how Barbossa's own actions ended up preventing Jack from being inflicted with the same curse that Barbossa suffers under.

* In ''Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1990'', Raph is shown eating an apple after taking down a small group of Foot ninjas just before the big climactic fight scene. It's actually a call back to a cut scene where the Turtles were training by dueling each other while tossing the apple around, having to take a bite out of it before tossing it to someone else (ninja hot-potato). The scene still works on it's own, as a demonstration of Raph's contempt for his enemy; they're so far beneath him skill-wise that he can have a snack while taking them out.

* As part of the deconstruction of BritishStuffiness done in ''[[Literature/HardaHorda Dear Mr. M.]]'', when a constable shows up to question the main character's family about the rape and murder of their house servant (and there is a serial killer on a spree in the area), he picks the worst moment possible - they are in the middle of their [[BritsLoveTea five o'clock]]. As a result, the police officer is first treated like dirt and then quickly ''thrown out'', because the cream pie is more interesting than providing any sort of help to resolve the gruesome death and the tea is getting cold. After all, why even care about some low-born aboriginal girl that was part of the household for months, when there are more important things? Notably, they have nothing to hide, yet [[BeAsUnhelpfulAsPossible they are deliberately unhelpful]], ''because''.

** The folk song honoring the 10th Foot Infantry in ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'' starts out as a BawdySong where a maiden in May is carrying a cheese, when she passes by a soldier. She drops her bodice, and rather than helping her, the soldier runs off with the cheese. That's why they're nicknamed the Cheesemongers.
** Done intentionally in ''Literature/{{Night Watch|Discworld}}''. Vimes knows a crowd of angry civilians is heading toward the Watch house, with the intent of rioting, so he does the logical thing; he opens the doors, unshutters the windows, and sits out on the stoop with a cigar in one hand and a mug of cocoa in the other. When the demonstrators arrive, instead of finding the place defiantly preparing for a siege, it is instead open and welcoming, which [[ShamingTheMob defuses the tension]]. One drunken man still tries to have a go at Vimes by [[GrievousBottleyHarm breaking a bottle for use as a weapon]], but winds up with a fist full of shards. This is where Vimes' choice of activity comes in handy; the entire crowd saw him with both hands full when this happened, so no one can claim he laid a finger on the man.
* In ''Literature/DragonBones'', the heroes asked for entry into a castle. As they're from Shavig, and the people in Oranstone (where they are) consider them barbarians, there is some teasing on both sides. Ward is handed an apple by his companions, and eats it while talking to the guards.

* Renly Baratheon in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' interrupts a tense truce negotiation with his stern elder brother Stannis -- a meeting between two warring claimants to the throne, affecting the lives of thousands -- by taking out a ripe peach and ostentatiously tucking into it. The combination of irreverence, mock-boredom and [[FruitOfTheLoon sheer comical incongruity]] of the action infuriate Stannis, and he later finds himself more fixated on that insult than anything else that was decided at the parley. This small scene has undergone a bewildering degree of MemeticMutation, to the point that Renly's ''WebVideo/SchoolOfThrones'' counterpart is never seen ''without'' a peach (occasionally even DualWielding them).

* A eighth episode of ''Series/{{Cheers}}'' saw Woody resolve to elope with his girlfriend Kelly, and Sam comes along to help him get into Kelly's bedroom window. Sam climbs the ladder first, looking for Kelly's room, and later comes back down to Woody, munching away from a bag of popcorn that he obtained from a chambermaid. Woody is aghast, as he's there to make a life-changing proposal, but when Sam mentions it's ''cheddar flavored'', [[ManChild Woody]] says [[AttentionDeficitOohShiny "Oooh, gimmie!"]]

** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E3TheSeaDevils The Sea Devils]]", the Third Doctor -- in the middle of a sword fight with the Master -- calmly pins his opponent to the wall by holding his sword point to his throat, then calmly eats a sandwich as he remarks about how violent exercise makes him rather famished. During all this he's basically treating the Master like he's little more than an amusing distraction at best. As the sandwich was originally set out for the Master, this overlaps EnemyEatsYourLunch, and being a sandwich, this naturally averts TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodSandwich.

* In the ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' episode "[[Recap/SherlockS02E01AScandalInBelgravia A Scandal in Belgravia]]", a rather tense scene has just played out at Baker Street [[spoiler: (Mrs. Hudson was attacked by CIA agents - Sherlock took care of them)]]. Mrs. Hudson is rather upset, John is confused, concerned and trying to comfort her, and Sherlock... is eating a mince pie he got out of Mrs. Hudson's refrigerator.

** Sam gets a call from her friends telling her they're trapped in a teacher's house. She says something along the lines of "that sucks," picks up an apple and takes a bite.

** One example involves Shawn bluffing his way on to a murder scene...in search of spices to add to the Mee Krob he conveniently has instead of looking for clues.

** In another sketch, Kristin Wiig plays Cheryl, the host of a home makeover show. For the season finale, they surprise a woman named Lita (Creator/EmmaStone) with a two million dollar renovation of her house and yard. Lita is politely grateful, but spends the entire segment calmly chomping on chips while Cheryl desperately attempts to get a bigger reaction out of her. For the punchline, Lita's neighbor drops by with some hard-boiled eggs his wife made, and ''that'' is enough to make her have a joyful breakdown ("THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!").

* Patrick Jane from ''Series/TheMentalist'' will often make himself a pot of tea or a sandwich using food taken without asking from the kitchen of the person who's murder he's solving (as well of the kitchen of almost every other house he visits over the course of the investigation). Sure, he's paying attention when he eats it, but he has to leave the room (again, without asking) for a few minutes to prepare it. [[spoiler: Of course, since he investigates ''murders'' one of them inevitably involves poisoning... of the victim's tea. Patrick ends up in the hospital and spends most of the episode hallucinating from side-effects]]

** In "Mors Praematura", Root and Shaw break into a room which turns out to be a CIA "Pick-up site". Root begins to eat an apple and tells Shaw there's a CIA agent behind her. They get into a fight with Root watching and eating her apple all the while Shaw is beating up the agent until Root decides to simply use her taser and end the fight quickly.
** Shaw herself is a BigEater, so this trope is used to show her sociopathic indifference. When a paramedic informs her as a four-year old of her father's death in a car accident, [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior Shaw just says she's hungry and asks for a sandwich]].

* In ''Series/ILoveLucy'', Lucy has an elaborate plan to announce to Ricky that she was pregnant, in which she prepares for him his favorite meal when he comes home for lunch. Unfortunately, as she's trying to talk to him, he's more focused on the food, among other distractions, much to her annoyance.
* Elevated to a BatmanGambit in Stefan Poliakoff's 1999 BBC miniseries ''[[http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/523425/index.html Shooting the Past]]''. An American businessman (Liam Cunningham) has bought the BigFancyHouse that for decades has been the home of the immense Fallon Photo Collection and its QuirkyHousehold curators. By the end of the day, the librarians must leave and the collection, with the exception of a few valuable pieces, is to be destroyed. Chief archivist and BunnyEarsLawyer genius Oswald Bates (Creator/TimothySpall) suggests having lunch as if nothing whatsoever was happening. As businesses and authorities run on fear, he reasons, not showing any will impress and scare the Americans and they'll possibly back out of the deal and leave, or at least allow more time to find a new home for the collection.

* ''Series/DarkMatter2015'': The episode "Built, Not Born" has a flashback to how Two (then Portia Lin) gained command of the ''Raza''. An argument over the Android escalates into a brutal brawl in which she kills the previous owner and his right-hand man. Throughout the fight, Boone (Three) is calmly sitting there enjoying a meal -- even when she's slammed down on the table right next to his food, and shoots her attacker repeatedly. At the end of the fight...

* Ema Skye in ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney''. Even in the middle of a crime scene she sometimes does nothing but munch her beloved chocolate snackoos.

* One of Miguel's intros in ''VideoGame/Tekken7'' is him walking into the stage with an apple in his hand, taking a single bite and then wastefully throwing it away.

* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'': When Shirou is [[EnemyMine forced to team up with Kotomine]] in the Heaven's Feel route, they [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxSgw3XbFS0 meet in a Chinese restaurant]] where Kotomine has already ordered a [[BlazingInfernoHellfireSauce ridiculously spicy]] mapo tofu. Not only is Kotomine clearly distracted by his food, but his normally-sinister dialogue [[NarmCharm sounds absurd]] when he's constantly gasping for breath and talking with his mouth full. The effect is even worse since Shirou is a SupremeChef who believes in using [[FoodPorn good food]] to deepen friendships, meaning he's almost as disgusted by Kotomine's MasochistsMeal as he is by [[CardCarryingVillain Kotomine himself]].

* An oversight in ''7 Days a Skeptic'', the second game of the ''VideoGame/ChzoMythos'' allows you to do this: if on the first day you get an english breakfast but don't use it, you can wait until the chase in the final day, go to the cafeteria and use it there. Even with a supernatural killer with a machete in the same room, your character will calmly sit down, eat all his food and even ''comment on how disgusting it was''.

* WesternAnimation/BugsBunny is frequently performing this with his trademark carrot, as a possible holdover from his days as ThePrankster. When asking "Eh... What's up, Doc?", he's often feigning caring, and is even asking and talking while chewing.

* ''Literature/{{Franklin}}'' has a non-food variant. In "Franklin Plays the Game," when Franklin's team plays against Bear's team in soccer, Skunk, Bear's goalie, sits and reads a book because the book is more interesting. Franklin's team never even gets close enough to goal to make an attempt at scoring.

* [[http://imgur.com/gallery/OevvBMO This picture of a guy breaking up with his girlfriend while eating Cheetos]] became viral after it was posted on Reddit. Doubles as a StealthPun if the reason for the break-up was cheating.

* During the Normandy landings and afterwards, US Army troops working alongside their British counterparts would often get somewhat annoyed that the Brits would sit down and get [[BritsLoveTea a cup of tea]] going practically the minute the shooting stopped. This was usually [[JustifiedTrope for a good reason]]: They'd been ordered to hold position to wait for reinforcements or more ammunition, and were specifically ''trained'' to take any opportunity to grab a brew and preferably some hot food, because you never know when the next chance might come.

** In another sketch, Kristin Wiig plays Sheryl, the host of a home makeover show. For the season finale, they surprise a woman named Leah (Creator/EmmaStone) with a two million dollar renovation of her house and yard. Leah is politely grateful, but spends the entire segment calmly chomping on chips while Sheryl desperately attempts to get a bigger reaction out of her. For the punchline, Leah's neighbor drops by with some hard-boiled eggs his wife made, and ''that'' is enough to make her have a joyful breakdown ("THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!").