"No, no, no! Vanilla on the BOTTOM and chocolate on the TOP! I can't eat this!"
—Greg Heffley in his daydream, Diary of a Wimpy Kid
While we might relate to someone who feels they're Too Hungry to Be Polite, we all agree that you should be as polite as possible when asking or waiting for food. These characters, on the other hand, aren't.
They could be polite if they wanted to, they just don't want to, because they just have no manners. Maybe they're a Spoiled Brat or an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist. Maybe they're actually OK, just a bit rough-around-the-edges or too young or badly socialized to know better, but they always have to be quite impolite in general and not just acting impolite in this one scene. This behavior is also common among spoiled nobles/royals and Viking-like characters.
Their way of demanding food is often hammy as well as rude, and will often involve pounding on the table, yelling at the top of their lungs, and/or chanting. They may also demand a very specific way of preparing the food or start yelling at the server to hurry up within moments of requesting it. They also tend to shout, "Where's my X?!" referring to the food or part of it.
Compare Wacky Cravings and One-Track-Minded Hunger. May overlap with Nice to the Waiter. Also compare Comically Small Demand if someone outright mugs someone else for food.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Back in The '80s-slash-early Nineties there was a Latin American advertisement campaign for Tang involving "Jaime", a stereotypical belligerent coddled rich kid who constantly demanded to his butler "I WANT MORE [Tang]!!" and his butler, after giving him a refill, thought "he doesn't deserve it" while walking away. The campaign was eventually retired (probably because the audience thought Jaime was a bit too bratty for their tastes) and when the "I want more!!" campaign returned in The New '10s it was changed: the demand is now made by an excited family that is thirsty after a day of adventuring together to an amused salesman.
- A French condom commercial
shows a Bratty Half-Pint throwing a screaming fit in a grocery store, demanding a bag of candy from his long-suffering father, followed by a reminder to use protection.
Anime & Manga
- Doki Doki! PreCure: In Episode 15, Regina wants to eat corn, but is disatisfied with the corn the Selfish Trio offer her, saying she wants rich, luxurious, buttered corn, and leaves, annoying the Selfish Trio with her bossiness. This scene is cut from Glitter Force Doki Doki.
- Fake Saint of the Year: When Ellize was a child, she would make demands for better bread since it was too hard. Justified Trope at least in that case, as she had Past-Life Memories from earth and her new world didn't have the technology for soft bread due to a thousand year dark age.
- HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!: In Episode 6, Hime rudely rejects Ribbon's fish meal and demands pancakes instead, prompting an argument.
- One Piece: During Brook's introduction to the crew, this gets mixed with Hypocritical Humor to contrast Brook's refined manner of speech and conduct with the fact that he is also thoughtlessly rude. Brook speaks at length about how he is a gentleman and well-practiced at waiting patiently for a meal... after which he immediately starts loudly chanting "Dinn~nner! Dinn~nner!"
- Rehabilitating The Villainess: Shael being a Royal Brat Womanchild, getting caught up in her Stock Shoujo Bullying Tactics, she makes demands like these of protagonist Eren with his Food as Bribe sweets that he uses to manage her.
Comic Books
- Asterix: In "Asterix in Spain", as part of their Pity the Kidnapper ordeal, the Romans bringing Pepe to Gaul as a hostage remember the time he demanded oysters while weeks away from the sea, threatening to hold his breath until things went his way. He actually makes good on his threat too, as Asterix later discovers when Pepe demands to drink a cup of wine (which, predictably, makes him sick).
- In the Tintin book "Land of Black Gold", the Emir's son gets kidnapped, but the kidnapper soon realizes what a bratty captive the little rascal is. At one point, the boy demands ice cream, and when he doesn't get his will, he derails their car.
Comic Strips
- Calvin and Hobbes: One strip has Calvin demanding a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, with chunky butter, no jelly, open face, on white bread, crust off, cut in a specific way. His mom glares and gives him a sandwich that has none of the special preparations he demanded (it's smooth butter, with jelly, closed face, on wheat bread, the crust is on, and it was cut the opposite way), at which point he asks if she was actually listening.
- Garfield: In an early comic, Jon's cousin Judy visits with her bratty daughter Tammy who proceeds to demand food by repeatedly yelling "Mommy!" then repeatedly yelling "I'm hungry!". Garfield offers to "disappear" her.
Fan Works
- The Bolt Chronicles: After pushing Mittens into a cake, Bolt makes a peevish and ill-advised request for one of the title pastries in "The Cakes." The angry cat responds by dropping one on his head.
Films — Animation
- In Plan Bee, Queen Akif insists on being fed royal jelly, leading to Bing meeting Queen Beatrice.
- One of the bonus movies from Kung Fu Panda reveals that Mantis used to be very impatient and rude, and he's shown yelling at a waiter, demanding him to hurry up.
- In the movie based on The Tale of Despereaux, the leader of the dungeon rats demonstrates his authority to Roscuro by showing him a large group of rats surrounding a pile of food and chanting, "Eat! Eat!" but not actually daring to eat any until the leader has rung the gong. Rats are all quite boorish in this movie, with the exception of Roscuro.
Films — Live-Action
- In Casper, the titular character's mean uncle Stretch shouts, "Gimme my meal!"
- Creepshow: In the segment "Father's Day", we see exactly how much of an insufferable son of a bitch Nathan Grantham was in life (so we really aren't going to shed a tear when he dies) when he spends a huge chunk of his screen time (and what is implied to be endless In-Universe hours) banging on the table and screaming to his daughter Bedelia that he wants his Father's Day cake now!!
- In one of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies, Greg imagines himself as a pampered rich man when he's older, demanding his ice cream sundae be replaced with a different one that has the vanilla on the bottom and the chocolate on the top.
- The Hangover Part III:
Alan: Mother! Oreo smoothie, now!
- In the direct-to-video feature Lamb Chop in The Land of No Manners (a video predating Lamb Chop's Play-Along), Lamb Chop demands the bread at supper, the latest in a series of instances in which she used bad manners that day. Shari refuses to give her said bread but it's Charlie Horse asking "Lamb Chop, I love you but where are your manners?" that causes a Rage Breaking Point: Lamb Chop declares she has had it with manners and storms off to her room.
- In Robin Hood - czwarta strzała, the Merry Men demand breakfast loudly. When they get it, they sing about the importance of breakfast while eating.
- In Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Veruca Salt, an archetypal Spoiled Brat, gets a song called "I Want it Now" where she demands to be given various things, including a number of foods, such as a "bean feast", cream buns, and pink macaroons.
Jokes
- One joke involves a customer saying, "Send me a crocodile sandwich, and make it snappy!".
Literature
- Harriet the Spy has an example of the "too young to know better" variation: according to Harriet's mother, her first sentence was, "Gimme cookie!".
- A Series of Unfortunate Events: In "The Bad Beginning", the evil theater troupe bang on the table when waiting for their food because they're hammy and impolite.
- It's a Running Gag in the Discworld books that Granny Weatherwax can never get the punchline of the "Send me a crocodile sandwich, and make it snappy!" joke right.
- In Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Spoiled Brat Manny will throw a tantrum if his food isn't prepared in the very specific way he demands. He won't even accept his sandwich being cut in halves instead of quarters.
- Mr. Men: Mr. Grumpy yells at Mr. Meat (a butcher) and Mrs. Fairy (a cake store owner) to give him some sausages and cake respectively, scaring the two of them. He ends up paying for it when Mr. Tickle tickles him, making him drop both the sausages and the cake.
- In Harry Potter, this is Dudley Dursley’s primary mode of interaction with the world. He’ll demand a new dessert if his doesn’t have enough ice cream on top and makes a point to eat anything Harry seems to like too much, even if it makes him sick.
Live-Action TV
- Batwoman (2019). In "Off With Her Head", Mabel Cartwright keeps demanding tea from Alice—even scalding her hands when she doesn't get the temperature right—until the day Alice snaps and uses Mabel's own oxygen tank as an improvised flamethrower.
Mabel: I said I need you to warm this tea!
Alice: Consider it a pleasure. (breaks off valve on oxygen cylinder)
Mabel: What the hell are you doing?
Alice: Long live the Queen. (burns her alive) - Fawlty Towers: Basil has to deal with a Bratty Half-Pint who won't eat his chips cause they're the wrong shape. Basil being Basil, handles it with his customary grace:
Basil: Oh dear, what shape do you usually have? Mickey Mouse shape? Smarties shape? Amphibious landing craft shape? Poke in the eye shape?
- Jessica Jones (2015): Kilgrave refuses to try unfamiliar food, ordering his favorite pasta dish at every restaurant he enters (even forcing a Chinese chef to schlep around the block to borrow the ingredients from another eatery).
- In the Kids in the Hall sketch "Love and Sausages", Scott Thompson plays the protagonist's elderly father who loudly and repeatedly demands sausages.
- In an episode of The King of Queens titled "Taste Buds", Doug manipulates Arthur into doing this so Carrie will take them to whatever restaurant Doug wants to go to. For example, when Doug wants pizza, he gets Arthur to reminisce about his time in the Army when he served in Italy, which causes Arthur to demand "I want pizza" to Carrie.
- Monty Python's Flying Circus:
- In the episode "Mr. Neutron". When Carpenter goes in search of Teddy Salad, he meets some "Eskimoes" (actually MI6 agents) who want to eat fish. When they don't get it, they repeatedly and loudly chant demands for it and pound on the table.
- During the Spam Song, the vikings pound on the table while demanding spam.
- Mr. Johnson from Sesame Street is quite demanding with his food and will often yell at the waiter (who's usually Grover) if he gets an order wrong.
Poetry
- "The Tummy Beast" by Roald Dahl features a strange creature in a child's stomach who rudely demands that the child eat food to feed him, and in one instance, he threatens to "twist [the child's] guts" if the kid doesn't hurry up.
Theater
- In the musical adaptation of The Vampire Chronicles, vampire child Claudia sings "I Want More", a song about how she revels in her Horror Hunger, can't wait to sink her teeth into the next source of blood, and doesn't care how rude or evil she's being about it.
Web Original
- Many of the restaurant and fast-food anecdotes on Not Always Right are examples of this.
- The titular character of Caillou The Grownup always demands other food his parents or restaurants serve, usually pizza, in this version he’s a selfish, spoiled, immature, Psychopathic Man Child.
Web Videos
- In the Twisted Translations video about Beauty and the Beast, the singer sings, "Demand for food!" and drums his fist on the table, but accidentally hits Lumiere's flames and shouts, "I am burning!"
- Cream Heroes has a video entitled Please Save Me, This Guy is Worse than Lulu. It features Dodo playing this trope for all it's worth. Not only does his meow drown out all others, Claire worries she might start getting noise complaints due to how loud he's being. That's when he's not running around the countertop, crashing into TT, trying to grab Claire's hands while she's mixing and pushing other cats out of the way. And when Claire isn't being fast enough? He grabs a sachet of cat food she accidentally dropped and runs off with it. Even after he's eaten, he tries to steal the spoon the food was mixed with for the purpose of licking and biting it.
- In Andrew Rousso's Timmy shorts, Timmy (the soul of a Crusades-era knight in the body of an American 5-year-old) unilaterally and dramatically demands dino nuggies for thanksgiving after his parents forget to buy a turkey on-time. His father reminds him (Timmy) that he "kinda OD'd on the dino nuggies" last time the family had them. He also throws a similar tantrum when his dad refuses to cut the crusts off his PB&J and demands a crunchwrap supreme from Taco Bell and three Capri-Suns to "cure this I N S U L T."
Western Animation
- Courage the Cowardly Dog: In "Little Muriel", Courage tries to take care of Muriel when she is aged down into a small child. He tries to serve her macaroni and cheese, but she keeps demanding him to remake it with more cheese, less macaroni, etc. When he finally serves a meal she deems perfect, she throws it in his face and mutters, "I hate macaroni and cheese."
- Family Guy: In "Baby, You Knock Me Out", Peter threatens to start breaking windows if Lois doesn't make him flapjacks and starts making good on it offscreen, even lampshading the whole situation.
Peter: This is crazy. Is nobody really making me flapjacks yet? At this point, you're all being as irresponsible as I am.
- Downplayed in Little Princess: The Princess isn't that bad, but she's still a bit demanding because she's four years old. In "I Don't Want a Cold", she asks for food by yelling, "I'm hungry!" at the top of her lungs.
- In a Show Within a Show in Rick and Morty, Gazorpazorpfield, a parody of Garfield, is a rude jerkass alien cat who demands enchiladas from his master Jon while insulting and belittling him.
- Rugrats: Angelica, being a bratty little girl with a Sweet Tooth, often rudely demands food. In "Angelica Breaks a Leg", she fakes breaking her leg to get attention and demands chocolate pudding in the middle of the night, only to later decide that she doesn't want it after all. Near the end of the episode, karma catches up with Angelica when Charlotte, who injured her leg for real, demands her and Drew to bring her whatever food she needs, which ironically enough, includes chocolate pudding.
- In The Simpsons episode "Last Exit to Springfield", Homer claims that he got a scar on his head during a strike. A flashback shows that while the other workers were protesting, Homer was at a nearby food truck pounding his fist on the counter and chanting "Where's my burrito?!" until the pounding causes the shutter door to slam down on his head.
- In Time Squad, Buck Tuddrussel is often upset with his robot partner Larry for making him food that he deems too "fu-fu" and won't even try it, while rudely demanding that he should go make him nachos or burgers instead.
- Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production: In one episode, Bugs finds himself babysitting a boy who ends up demanding mac and cheese. Every time Bugs makes it, the boy says it wasn't correctly made, forcing Bugs to make it again. When Bugs spends an hour to get the meal right, the boy throws it on the ground saying he isn't hungry anymore.
