Line #44 Main/GingerbreadHouse


1	[[quoteright:330:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/prismacolor13a_6321.jpg]]
2	[-[[caption-width-right:330:[[http://manelleoliphant.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/tales-and-legends-my-lucky-week.html Source]]]]-]
3
4	->''"A gingerbread man sits in a gingerbread house.\
5	Is the house made of flesh?\
6	Or is he made of house?\
7	He screams, for he does not know."''
8	-->-- ''Webcomic/CyanideAndHappiness''
9
10	The Gingerbread House is a stock location in fairy tales. It's where Literature/HanselAndGretel were lured to after their wicked stepmother told their dad the family couldn't afford the kids anymore. Hansel and Gretel wandered in the woods until they found a large cottage made of gingerbread, cookies, cakes, and candy, with clear sugar windows. The hungry children started to eat the house, until its owner invited them inside. Unbeknownst to the kids, she was really a wicked witch who would use the house to lure victims inside and eat them. It's the chocolate palace in ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory''. It is, simply put, a building made of food, usually sweets, but other variations do exist.
11
12	Sistertrope of LevelAte. This often, but not always, overlaps with GiantFood and {{Bizarrchitecture}}. Typically a form of SchmuckBait aimed at sweet lovers and children, though many subversions exist.
13	----
14	!!Examples:
15
16	[[foldercontrol]]
17
18	[[folder:Advertising]]
19	* There was a Skoda advert where a full-sized replica of the car was made out of cake and sweets. It was shot from real life, but by the end of shooting it was out of date and couldn't be eaten.
20	** Subverted by the follow up "[[DarkerAndEdgier Meaner stuff]]" advert showing a more powerful version of the car being made of a bone chassis, melted down katanas, snake venom, barbed wire, road rubber and windscreen wipers made from crossbow parts, put together with brute strength and hi-tech tools.
21	[[/folder]]
22
23	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
24	* ''Anime/FairyMusketeers'': One such house plays into the backstory of Hansel and Gretel.
25	* ''Manga/HeterogeniaLinguistico'': Hakaba inadvertently uses edible moss to repair his hut in Utatsu, leading to a centaurus eating the walls and it becoming known as the "edible house". He repairs it with inedible mud and peat to keep this from happening again.
26	* ''{{Manga/MAR}}'': The team (specifically, Princess Snow) fights against an ugly little girl whose signature ARM is the Gingerbread House - a house of sweets. Eating it makes her grow to sumo-like proportions, gaining superhuman strength and toughness in the process. And of course, as she grows bigger, her voice [[HeavyVoice grows deeper and thicker.]] (Also, she turns into a {{Gonk}}.)
27	* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'': The barrier of [[AdorableAbomination Charlotte]] is a particularly grim example of this trope. In particular it's an IronicHell because she can conjure whatever treat she wishes except for the kind she truly wants, simple cheese.
28	* ''Anime/SailorMoon'': In one NonSerialMovie, the {{Mooks}} of the big bad cast an illusion over the senshi that causes them to see the playground they were fighting in as a gingerbread house.
29	* ''Manga/{{Toriko}}'':
30	** Toriko lives in one, which he does eat, as well as the neighboring animals. It must be periodically rebuilt, much to the dismay of the architect.
31	** The chef Pippi can materialize a gingerbread house.
32	[[/folder]]
33
34	[[folder:Asian Animation]]
35	* In episode 90 of ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolf: Joys of Seasons'', Paddi saves up as many pieces of candy as he can so that he can build a house with them. When he does finish the structure, he becomes extremely bossy with the other goats when they visit it, and he ends up straining his friendship with them. Then Wolffy finds the house and brings it to his castle (the candy house has wheels so that Paddi can move it wherever he wants) and tries to coax Paddi out of it so he and his family and eat him.
36	[[/folder]]
37
38	[[folder:Board Games]]
39	* TabletopGame/CandyLand has this as the last space in editions released before TheEighties (and on reproductions of those editions).
40	[[/folder]]
41
42	[[folder:Comic Books]]
43	* ''Magazine/{{Mad}}''
44	** One MAD parody had a witch putting together a gingerbread house. Unfortunately, the witch forgot to bug-proof it, and the comic ends with Hansel and Gretel discovering a house swarming with ants.
45	** One issue of its Brazilian counterpart made a parody where, after eating too much of the gingerbread house, Hansel and Gretel started eating a house made of Alka Seltzer.
46	* ''Comicbook/MonicasGang'': Jimmy and Maggy find the fabled house and Maggy, being a BigEater, started eating it. Fearing the witch, Jimmy tried to discourage her. In the end, they left without knowing that the witch isn't so bad as the tale suggested and Hansel and Gretel are actually her grandchildren.
47	* ''Series/ElChavoDelOcho'': Doña Clotilde told the tale to El Chavo, Quico and La Chillindrina. When she recalled how she liked hearing her mother telling the tale, the kids thought her mother was the witch from the tale.
48	* Parodied on ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'', where a WickedWitch with a house made of brussel sprouts notes how her neighbour seems to be better at attracting kids with her gingerbread house. The caption notes that she was later forced to sell her home.
49	* Polly Green, the official Witch of Halloween in ''ComicBook/JingleBelle'', transforms her family's house into a self-repairing gingerbread house as a Christmas gift. Her family's initially unhappy because all they demanded expensive junk they expected her to conjure with her magic, but then they get a whiff of gingerbread and turn ravenous. After spending most of the day eating the house, the Green Family sans Polly have become morbidly obese with Polly saying they should've looked at the nutritional facts she summoned with the house. Polly's not trying to eat them though, she exploited her family's constant overindulging attitude to teach them a lesson for always guilt tripping her into giving them free stuff. Polly turns the house back to normal and puts her family on an exercise regime expected to last until next Christmas.
50	[[/folder]]
51
52	[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
53	* ''WesternAnimation/CloudyWithAChanceOfMeatballs'' (both the book and the movie) features a house made of Jello.
54	* Shrek and Fiona stayed in one for the honeymoon in the beginning of ''WesternAnimation/Shrek2''.
55	* Gingy is shown building one in ''WesternAnimation/ShrekFourD'' (the Platform/ThreeDMovie that plays at Ride/UniversalStudios), before it ends up getting destroyed.
56	[[/folder]]
57
58	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
59	* ''Film/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'': See ''Literature'', below.
60	* ''Film/HanselAndGretelWitchHunters'' naturally has this, with the twist that as part of its DarkerAndEdgier nature eating the implicitly enchanted house gave Hansel something analogous to diabetes. He requires regular medicinal injections to keep from going into shock.
61	* ''Film/{{Nightbooks}}'': The final part of the movie takes place in one. [[spoiler:It turns out it really is the very same gingerbread house from ''Literature/HanselAndGretel''.]]
62	[[/folder]]
63
64	[[folder:Folklore]]
65	* The witch's gingerbread house from "Literature/HanselAndGretel," recorded by Creator/TheBrothersGrimm in 1812, is the TropeCodifier.
66	* OlderThanPrint: The legendary land of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockaigne Cockaigne]] is said to have houses of barley sugar roofed with cakes, according to a 13th-century poem.
67	* "Invitation to Lubberland", the original European version of "Big Rock Candy Mountain", involves a lot of this kind of thing, such as streets with pudding pies, powdered beef, and bacon; also, "The lofty buildings of this place / For many years have lasted; / With nutmegs, pepper, cloves, and mace, / The walls are there rough-casted, / In curious hasty-pudding boil'd, / And most ingenious carving; / Likewise they are with pancakes ty'd, / Sure, here's no fear of starving."
68	[[/folder]]
69
70	[[folder:Literature]]
71	* In ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'' the book (and the second movie adaptation) shows why having a house made of sweets (in this case, chocolate) could be a very bad idea- ''especially'' in a hot climate. This happens when Wonka has a chocolate palace built for a prince in India, and it quickly melts in the heat of summer.
72	* In T.H. White's ''[[Literature/TheOnceAndFutureKing The Sword in the Stone]]'', Morgan Le Fey's house is a feast of food. Unlike most examples, this is a test. As in many folkloric accounts of Fairyland, if the boys eat anything, [[FoodChains they will be trapped]]. It's also a subversion in that the house is so over-the-top as to be nauseating instead of tempting. Morgan, being a fae, has little experience of food.
73	* The almost forgotten nursery rhyme King Boggen:
74	-->King Boggen, he built a fine new hall;\
75	Pastry and piecrust, that was the wall;\
76	The windows were made of black pudding and white,\
77	Roofed with pancakes -- you never saw the like.
78	* A gingerbread cottage appears in ''Literature/TheLightFantastic'', although we're told the Confectionery School of Architecture never really caught on, even amongst witches (outside high-magic areas like the Forest of Skund, the walls go soggy). "Black" Allis Demmurge (in ''Literature/WyrdSisters'') is also described as living in a gingerbread cottage (although ''Literature/{{Maskerade}}'' claims that once she'd gone really peculiar, she "turned people into gingerbread and lived in a cottage made of frogs"). References are also made in a couple of books to health-conscious witches experimenting with crispbread, but that proved even less popular.
79	* Fairly common in ''Literature/{{Xanth}}'' books. Lots of food grows on trees, and Bink's family lives in a cottage made from cottage cheese.
80	* The giant peach in ''Literature/JamesAndTheGiantPeach'' qualifies, being a home for the anthropomorphic insects with whom James interacts. At the end, the peach gets eaten, and James and his new family move into a house made from the peach's pit.
81	* ''Literature/CloudyWithAChanceOfMeatballs'' (both the book and the movie) features a house made of Jello.
82	* In ''Literature/ATaleOf'', a series that serves as a TwiceToldTale retelling of the Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon, the overarching BigBad trio of the Odd Sisters lives in one of these.
83	* Subverted in the Franchise/{{Whoniverse}} book ''Literature/TimeLordFairyTales'': The titular "Gingerbread Trap" just ''looks'' like one of these to lure hungry kids inside, and is actually a prison cell.
84	* ''Literature/GothicHospital'' begins with the narrator describing his dream world, starting with a steam train dropping him off at an unattended station which at first appears to conform to this trope, appearing to have been constructed of various candies, but is revealed to be made of [[SubvertedTrope normal materials]], largely concrete cast into the shapes of piles of confectioneries and painted, apparently in an attempt to lift the morale of children being sent to the titular hospital.
85	[[/folder]]
86
87	[[folder:Live Action TV]]
88	* Heston Blumenthal created one of these for his themed dinner-show program. It was just big enough to walk into if you crouched, and absolutely ''everything'' was edible. [[SerialEscalation Including the doormat and stained "glass" windows.]]
89	* The fairy-tale inspired ''Series/OnceUponATime'' has a Hansel & Gretel episode complete with the expected Candy-House, though it's unclear whether the structure itself is edible. It's just as likely that the bright colors outside and similarly pastel pastries inside are all part of the trap.
90	* ''Series/TheGreatBritishBakeOff'':
91	** Done as a Showstopper in series 3 -- although it was specified that the building should ''not'' be the traditional cottage, leading to a gingerbread barn, a birdhouse and a Roman coliseum.
92	** Returned in series 4, though "structure" wasn't specified, leading to, of all things, a gingerbread ''[[Series/DoctorWho Dalek]]''.
93	** The free-form version reappeared in series 5 (with highlights including a gingerbread dragon and pirate ship) and yet again in series 7 (in which a gingerbread pub, complete with sticky floor and lime jelly pool table cover, wins Candice Star Baker).
94	* The ''Series/HeyYouWhatIf'' episode "You Could Build A Gingerbread House?" demonstrates that you could make a full size gingerbread house that was completely edible (including the windows), but would be highly impractical, and only survive for a few months before rotting away.
95	[[/folder]]
96
97	[[folder:Music]]
98	* Boat example, Creator/ShirleyTemple's trademark song, "On the Good Ship Lollipop"
99	* [[Music/InsaneClownPosse Violent J]]'s song "Candyland" has this.
100	* The Traffic song "A House For Everyone" begins with
101	--->My bed is made of candy floss
102	--->The house is made of cheese
103	--->It's lit by lots of glow worms
104	--->If I'm wrong, correct me please
105	* The märchenoper (opera based on a fairy tale) ''Hänsel und Gretel'', composed by Engelbert Humperdinck in 1891. Far from being quaint and charming, the opera pulls no punches describing what it would be like to be cooked alive in an oven. The famous house is surrounded by a fence made of gingerbread children - Rosine Leckermaul's previous victims - who sing a chorus entitled "The dead arise, but cannot see."
106	* German comdedy band ''Die Doofen'' had the song ''Ich bau dir ein Haus aus Schweinskopfsülze'' (I'll build a house of pork in aspic for you)
107	[[/folder]]
108
109	[[folder:Radio]]
110	* The radio version of ''Series/LittleBritain'' had a sketch about a group of builders constructing a gingerbread house for a witch, and discussing various building materials, etc.
111	[[/folder]]
112
113
114	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
115	* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' ''Bio-Tech'' offers the concept of biological buildings which are made of flesh, and alive. As an option, you might have the walls grow redundant sections which can be eaten, and regrown.
116	[[/folder]]
117
118	[[folder:Video Games]]
119	* ''[[VideoGame/KatamariDamacy We Heart Katamari]]'' has a gingerbread house level where you have to roll up as many sweets as possible for two fans: Hansel and Gretel.
120	* ''VideoGame/NobodySavesTheWorld'': The Sweet Home dungeon is a witch's house made of candy, though she assures you it's not to lure children for her to eat, it's to lure ''ants''.
121	* ''VideoGame/SagaFrontier'': Kylin's Paradise is a giant refuge for children made out of gingerbread cookies and candy treats.
122	* A witch with a gingerbread house shows up in ''VideoGame/KingsQuestIQuestForTheCrown''. If Sir Graham tries to eat from the house, she'll turn him into a Graham cracker.
123	** In the {{Fan Remake}}s, she'll only use him for lawn ornamentation if she catches him. Once you've boiled her in her own stew, you actually [[LastLousyPoint get a point if you sample the goods]].
124	* The closest its brother game ''VideoGame/SpaceQuest'' gets is a reference to ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'' during the 6th game, and an EasterEgg if you use the otherwise-useless tongue icon on one of the Xenon ruins.
125	* Q's Winter Wonderland in ''Videogame/StarTrekOnline'' features an entire life-size gingerbread village populated by sapient gingerbread people who are constantly fending off attacks by the snowmen who previously claimed the land as their own.
126	* In ''VideoGame/RugratsCastleCapers'', the BossRoom of "[[LevelAte Dessert Island]]" takes place in one of these, where Angelica, who is dressed as Gretel from ''Literature/HanselAndGretel'', summons Gingerbread Men to attack the babies. To defeat her, the babies have to feed the Gingerbread Men cupcakes.
127	[[/folder]]
128
129	[[folder: Web Original]]
130	* WebVideo/EpicMealTime made one that is made '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rUEpmbdZLw OF MEAT AND CHEEZ WHIZ!]]'''
131	[[/folder]]
132
133	[[folder:Webcomics]]
134	* In ''Webcomic/{{Pibgorn}}'', after Geoff's house was destroyed, Dru magics up [[http://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/2002/11/07 a new one]] to replace it.
135	-->'''Geoff:''' That aroma... it's gingerbread!
136	-->'''Dru:''' I love that new-house smell.
137	* ''Webcomic/BiterComics'': A witch attempts to lure children into her gingerbread house, but is disappointed when they go for her neighbor's much tastier [[http://www.bitercomics.com/comic/gingerbread-house/ junk food house.]]
138	[[/folder]]
139
140	[[folder:Western Animation]]
141	* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' had a building made out of cheese ([[RunningGag and, no, it wasn't just a building ''covered'' in cheese]]).
142	* ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'': In "Yarnbenders", when Rocko tells Filburt the story of Literature/HanselAndGretel ([[DerailedFairyTale or at least tries to]]), he changes the gingerbread house to one made of healthy snacks, but Heffer changes it to a house of pizza. They argue back and forth until [[TakeAThirdOption Filburt declares that the house be made of fishsticks]].
143	* In one Creator/ChuckJones ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' short, Jerry hides inside a huge wheel of Swiss cheese and sculpts out a home inside.
144	* On ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', the Neptunians working for Robot Santa Claus beg for food despite living in gingerbread houses because "it's either food or shelter, not both."
145	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' featured, in a warped version of "Hansel and Gretel," a gingerbread house. Homer starts eating it, of course, prompting it to collapse. The witch yells "That was a load bearing candy cane, you clumsy oaf!"
146	** And let's not forget his gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane.
147	** And the iconic "land of chocolate" sequence, when he imagines edible roads, sign-posts, small dogs, and candy-shops (where they're having a fifty percent off sale.)
148	** Also, in the episode "Trash of the Titans", Homer ran for sanitation commissioner and accused his opponent of luring children to a gingerbread house.
149	* The Sugarcube Corner bakery in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' has a cupcake motif going for it, though whether it's actually edible is anypony's guess. The most widely accepted {{fanon}} is that [[SubvertedTrope it's made out of ordinary construction materials and only fashioned to look like a pastry]].
150	* ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'': Garfield told Nermal a version of the tale, but have to soften it for Nermal. Instead of pushing the witch into the oven, Hansel and Gretel reported her to the City Hall for building a house with lower quality materials. The house had to be demolished, which created job opportunities as a demolishing area, one of those taken by Hansel and Gretel's Dad. As Nermal felt sorry for the witch, Garfield added she opened a daycare.
151	* Titans Tower became a gingerbread house in the ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'' episode "Mother Mae-Eye."
152	* In the episode "Flapjack the Gentleman" in ''WesternAnimation/TheMarvelousMisadventuresOfFlapjack'', Lady Nickelbottom's mansion and all of her furniture is made out of candy. Naturally, the plot of the episode revolves around the main characters trying to dismantle the house and make off with it.
153	* In the short, "Fit to Be Stewed" from the ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' episode, "Buster's Directorial Debut", Witch Sandy invites Buster and Babs into her house, which is made out of carrot cake. While Babs makes herself at home, Buster becomes suspicious of Sandy's kindly hospitality. In fact, Sandy is revealed to want to cook and eat the two rabbits, but her recipe tells her not to substitute toon rabbits, so she turns Babs into a [[FurryConfusion non-anthropomorphic rabbit]] and tries to do the same to Buster.
154	* In the ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'' episode, "Sonically Ever After", Dr. Robotnik's Portable Portal Transporter transports Sonic, Tails, and Robotnik into a book of fairy tales. One such story called "[[Literature/HanselAndGretel Hansel and Nettle]]" involves Sonic and Tails as the two children and Robotnik as the Witch. To lure them into a trap, Robotnik's house is revealed to be made out of [[TrademarkFavoriteFood chili dogs]].
155	* {{Deconstructed\|Trope}} on ''WesternAnimation/RightNowKapow'', where the two cast members playing Hansel and Gretel point out that an actual house made entirely of gingerbread and candy would have several sanitary and structural issues that would make it unfit to live in.
156	* One shows up in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Disenchantment}}'' when Princess Bean investigates a mad old witch sentenced to die for the disappearance of several citizens of Dreamland. Hansel and Gretal also appear, though in a twist, they were the ones killing (and eating) people after having imprisoned their adopted mother and driven her insane.
157	* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'' has the titans each interrupting Robin to tell a FracturedFairyTale. Beast Boy and Cyborg's is a pastiche of Hansel and Gretel, where the children lampshade that the witches candy house would be sticky and get her hair stuck to it all day. This witch's scheme is interrupted by other witches, each with their own food houses like an appetizer house, and a meat and potatoes house. While the witches argue over poaching each other's prey, the children quickly devour all their houses, leaving them to lament being homeless.
158	[[/folder]]
159
160	[[folder:Real Life]]
161	* A Toronto confectionery company built an actual gingerbread house large enough for children to walk through, using giant candy canes for structural members and sheets of candy glass for the windows. It was displayed in one of the city's larger shopping malls, then donated to the local children's hospital.
162	* In Bergen, Norway, there's a gingerbread ''city''.
163	* Of course, dollhouse-sided versions of these are popular, especially around Christmas. Sometimes they actually get eaten.
164	* Gourmet cooking schools and architecture firms sometimes compete to build elaborate gingerbread castles, clocks, entire doll villages, and other structures (usually no bigger than table size). Traditionally these are fundraisers for charities that benefit children. Though they look beautiful, by the time the contest is over the structures are generally so stale and dried-out as to be inedible (and some contests permit glues or preserving sprays that aren't meant to be eaten).
165	* The annual Festival of Trees in Atlanta, GA, always had a gingerbread house competition. The creators of the houses were usually the chief chefs of hotels or businesses in the city.
166	[[/folder]]

Context Main / GingerbreadHouse