History PlayingWith / CoolAndUnusualPunishment

* '''Straight''': Alice is impertinent to her boss Bob, so as a punishment, she must hold a block of ice while her boss recites bad poetry.

** Holding ice and listening to bad poetry [[FauxHorrific is considered as bad as torture]].

* '''Justified:'''

** Alice is too much of a stubborn jerk (or idiot) for any other kind of punishment to work - many of them [[{{Unishment}} are even enjoyed by Alice]].

-->'''Alice''': "Oh no! You're not going to make me hold a block of ice while you recite bad poetry, are you?!"
-->'''Bob''': "What? That's crazy!"

* '''Double Subverted''': "...I was planning on having you drink tea with pepper in it."
* '''Parodied''': Alice is ordered to sit in "[[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus the Comfy Chair!]]" every time she mis-spells a word in the report. Eventually [[{{Unishment}} Alice comes to like it a lot]], too.
* '''Zigzagged''': Bob is considering different ways of punishing Alice, which include making her hold ice while he recites bad poetry, making her clean the bathroom, making her drink tea with pepper, and making her [[WritingLines write lines]].

* '''Enforced''': "We want Bob to come across as a MeanBoss, but we [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold don't want him to seem]] ''[[JerkWithAHeartOfGold too]]'' [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold mean]], and we want to keep this comedy show funny. Let's have him punish Alice in a goofy way!"

* '''Invoked''': The lame punishment is supposed to be lame - not every peccadillo can have a risk of demotion and/or redundancy dangling over it.
* '''Exploited''': Alice figures out that Bob doesn't actually know how to discipline his employees, and starts seeing what she can functionally get away with.
* '''Defied''':
** Bob makes sure his punishments don't get too weird lest his employees think he's insane.

* '''Deconstructed''': Even if it is something as bone-headed as [[Series/BrooklynNineNine creating secret handshakes with everybody else in the building but the guy who screwed up]], punishment is punishment and it will cause some kind of backlash if it goes for too long, goes too far, is seen as too disproportionate or petty by any third parties, [[DidNotThinkThisThrough or was not properly researched]] to avoid hitting any {{Trauma Button}}s or {{Freudian Excuse}}s that are (unknowingly) turning them into (very unfunny) torture.

** Because of a SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome, the "lame and unusual" punishment turns out to not be "lame" at all. It does not matters if it's death metal or a constant loop of Chuck Mangione's "Feels So Good", place a pair of headphones up to eleven and duct-tape them to someone's head for twelve hours straight and they will end up deaf anyway. The punishing party, which kind of hoped the "lame" part would let them get away with RefugeInAudacity, gets arrested.

** The "cool and unusual" punishment ''was'' supposed to be lame and a joke, something to use as a slap on the wrist for very minor misdemanors in the office, but Alice turns out to have an AbsurdPhobia to the elements of the lame punishment (and the reason that phobia exists [[DarkAndTroubledPast is pretty dramatic itself]]) and the resulting revealing FreakOut leaves someone hurt.
** Alice files a report on HR about how she found the punishment offensive (for reasons that are true [[ConsummateLiar or made up]], depending on how sympathetic she is meant to be), leading to a schism in the office between those who thought it was a "cool" and those who thought it was an awful punishment and Alice's boss in hot water.
* '''Played for Horror''': It's a "cool and unusual punishment"... in the eyes of the CompleteMonster, and EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor.
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* '''Defied''': Bob makes sure his punishments don't get too weird lest his employees think he's insane.

* '''Played for Laughs''': The "cool and unusual punishment" is the latest FauxHorrific meme like a marathon of Sixties rock concerts (in the Reggaeton/AutoTune era). [[DependingOnTheWriter It depends on what would be funnier]] if everybody in the cast reacts to that in the regular "tearing my ears out would be less punishing" fashion (except for that one guy who is TooKinkyToTorture, or rather [[OnlyOneFindsItFun too lame]]) or it's just a single character who turns out to have an AbsurdPhobia.

* '''Parodied''':

* '''Invoked''':

* '''Played for Laughs''':

* '''Played for Horror''':

* '''Justified:''' Bob is not allowed to get violent [[NoodleIncident like last time]], but he needs to make sure that Alice doesn't do it again, so he has to be creative. And the weirder the better since Alice surely wouldn't want to go through ''that'' again.

* '''Reconstructed''':

* '''Deconstructed''': Even if it is something as bone-headed as [[Series/BrooklynNineNine creating secret handshakes with everybody else in the building but the guy who screwed up]], punishment is punishment and it will cause some kind of backlash if it goes for too long, goes too far, is seen as too disproportionate or petty by any third parties, [[DidNotThinkThisThrough or was not properly researched]] to avoid hitting any {{Trauma Button}}s or {{Freudian Excuse}}s that are (unknowingly) turning them into torture.

* '''Deconstructed''': Even if it is something as bone-headed as [[Series/BrooklynNineNine creating secret handshakes with everybody else in the building but the guy who screwed up]], punishment is punishment and it will cause some kind of backlash if it goes for too long, goes too far, is seen as too disproportionate or petty, [[DidNotThinkThisThrough or was not properly researched]] to avoid hitting any {{Trauma Button}}s or {{Freudian Excuse}}s that are (unknowingly) turning them into torture.

* '''Deconstructed''':

** NotSoHarmlessPunishment

* '''Exploited''':

* '''Exaggerated''': Holding ice and listening to bad poetry [[FauxHorrific is considered as bad as torture]].