Cooking the Live Meal

Predators find new ways to make their prey feel vulnerable.

Oh no! A cartoon character has fallen into the hands of toon-eating toons, and they intend their catch to be their next meal. And so the captive is tossed into a pot, or tied to a cooking spit, or wrapped in dough like a meat pie, to be baked in an oven, or roasted over an open fire, or cooked into a stew alive.

It's looking bad, but it could be worse. Imagine this wasn't a cartoon.

Luckily we are in a cartoon world, which means the hungry cooks skip all the tedious and untender tasks entailed in preparing an animal for cooking in the real world. Killing, scalding or skinning, cutting and boning the carcass — when things run on cartoon logic, the entire job profile of the butcher just doesn't exist. Instead the whole, living being is treated like it was a ready-to-cook piece of meat as-is, clothes (if the victim wears them) included.

It's very rare for anything genuinely bad to ever actually happen to the "meal". Part of the reason for this trope's existence is that it gives the victim time to escape, to be saved by friends, or to trick their captor into releasing them. There's also usually some comedy to be had as the would-be meal tries to fast-talk their way out of the situation. Most of the time the worst that will happen is for the victim to amusingly howl in pain at being singed by flames, but without suffering realistic injuries. Comically trying to blow out the fire is a standard gag. Alternatively, the victim may be innocently unaware of the cook's true intentions and may mistake the cooking pot for a hot tub and the baking oven for a sauna. This trope makes sure that in cartoons the peril of being eaten is a source of fun, not horror.

The trope has precedents in fairy tales, in which a somewhat darker tone may prevail, and in which the gruesome threat of being Cooked to Death is taken more seriously, even if the hero or heroine will inevitably evade that fate, without ever going into the oven (instead it is frequently the thwarted ogre or witch or their kin which end karmically in their own oven). Despite being fundamentally unrealistic, Cooking the Live Meal also occurs in live-action film; in such examples, the grim threat of death and cannibalism is mellowed by the silly way the cannibals go about it.

Supertrope to Stewed Alive. Overlaps with Captured by Cannibals and Black Comedy Cannibalism. Often combined with Fattening the Victim, though in typical cartoon logic the cook will often start to prepare the victim immediately after feasting it, so realistically there is no time for the victim to put on fat. May involve Convection Shmonvection, when the "roast" suffers no apparent discomfort from being rotated over an open fire. Contrast Cooked to Death, which is a gruesome death in an oven or boiling pot depicted realistically and without an intent to eat the victim. Contrast also Instant Roast, which is when a cartoon animal is transformed into a finished roast instantly, which also avoids any realistic depiction of the meat preparation process.

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Examples:

Fairy Tales

• "Hansel and Gretel": On the same day the witch of the gingerbread house is about to carry out her long-announced plan of killing and cooking Hansel, she fires a baking oven and tells Gretel to crawl into the oven "to see if it is properly hot" for baking bread, because, as the narration assures us, she wants to lock up Gretel in the oven to bake and then eat her. Gretel, however, turns the tables on the witch by pushing her into the oven and locking the door. The witch's plan for Gretel contrasts with her declared intention to kill Hansel before cooking him.

Films – Animation

• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa: The New York tourists who have been stranded in the African wilderness and turned feral attempt to roast Alex the Lion by tying him to a wooden spit and turning him over a fire. In a parody of the common gag, Alex attempts to blow out the fire as he faces downwards, only for the fire to blaze up even higher as he supplies it with fresh air. He is saved by his father bursting in and freeing him from the spit, which gives Alex an opportunity to assuage the angry tourists by displaying his dance skills.

Films — Live-Action

• The 7th Voyage of Sinbad: A Cyclops has taken Sinbad's men captive and locked them in a cage, before returning to remove Sinbad's Lancer Harufa and tie him to a spit over a fire whilst he's still alive and screaming. The Cyclops even pulls up a stool to sit while it turns the spit, proving that the mute, brutish giant is more intelligent than it looks. Sinbad meanwhile escapes from the cage and saves Harufa while the cyclops is distracted.
• And Now For Something Completely Different: One of the numerous absurd transition scenes in which the announcer says the movie's title phrase features the announcer in a suit and tie being roasted on a spit over an open fire by three middle-aged British ladies. Though the spit appears to be going through his chest, the announcer is alive and well and seems quite indifferent to the situation.
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: After the Company are captured by a party of three Trolls, half of them are tied to a spit without being killed first, which means they end up shouting and complaining about the flames whilst the Trolls turn them over. That said, the Trolls are very divided on how exactly they should prepare their dinner:
  Tom: Don't bother cooking them. Let's just sit on them and squash them into jelly!
  Bert: They should be sautéed and grilled with a sprinkling of sage!
  Tom: That does sound quite nice!
  William: Never mind the seasoning. We ain't got all night. Dawn ain't far away. Let's get a move on. I don't fancy gettin' turned to stone.
• Jack the Giant Slayer: In the giants' kitchen, a giant cook wraps the captive Elmont (fully clothed and conscious) up in dough and places him in an oven to be baked as a pig in a blanket. He is however able to cut himself free and climb out of the oven thanks to a knife given to him by Jack.
• In Ridley Scott's fantasy film Legend, there's a hellish-looking kitchen in Darkness's castle. The boar-like cooks place prisoners in giant pies to cook them and serve them up as lunch.
• Morozko: Having captured hero Ivan, Baba Yaga intends to shove him into an oven to roast and eat him, but Ivan tricks her and shoves her into the oven instead. But he needs her magic which he hopes will help him to find his lost love Nastenka, so he saves her at the last minute.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: The cannibalistic natives of Pelegosto attempt to roast Jack Sparrow by tying him to a wooden pole and placing him over a fire, alive and fully clothed (even including his hat). However, they are distracted by their other captives escaping just as the firewood is being kindled, making the Pelegostos chase after the escapees and giving Jack the opportunity to free himself by bouncing the pole until it jumps out of its mounts.
• Song of the South: In the "Laughing Place" story, Br'er Rabbit is tied up to a spit and is about to be cooked by Br'er Fox and Br'er Rabbit. It's not known if Br'er Fox planned to prepare Br'er Rabbit before cooking him, but when Br'er Bear almost unties Br'er Rabbit so he can show him his Laughing Place, Br'er Fox grabs the spit and puts it right over the fire; had not Br'er Bear insisted on seeing the Laughing Place, Br'er Rabbit would have been rotisseried alive.
• Star Wars: Return of the Jedi: After capturing Luke, Chewie, and Han Solo, the Ewoks carry them into their village tied to poles and place them over fire pits strewn with bones. As the Ewoks pile up wood beneath them, 3PO (who is the only one to understand their language) informs Han that he is going to be the main course of the coming banquet. The Ewoks are just about to kindle the fire under Han when Luke scares them into submission by use of the force.
• The Three Stooges:
  • Evoked in the two-reeler "Violent Is The Word For Curly": After the title character hides in an ice cream truck and is frozen solid, Moe and Larry try to thaw him out by attaching him to an improvised rotating spit above an open fire.
    Moe: The directions say five minutes to a pound. Haha, we'll be here a month!
  • In "I'll Never Heil Again" the daughter of the king of Moronika, disguised as a fortune teller, shows Hailstone, Pebble, and Herring a terrifying vision of what their allies might do to them through a special telescope: All three of them are tied to a roasting spit, and turned over the fires of Hell, with demons poking them... and seasoning them!
• In the Abbott and Costello version of Jack And The Beanstalk, the giant captures Jack (Costello) and ties him to a rotating spit in his fireplace, complete with an apple in his mouth. Jack manages to get rid of the apple to cry for help.

Literature

• In Edgar Allan Poe's short story "Bon-Bon" about a French chef's conversation with the Devil, the Devil reminisces about all the famous sinners whose souls he claims to have eaten in Hell, and especially fondly recalls "Quinty" Horace, who entertained him by singing his famous carmen saeculare just while the Devil "toasted him, in pure good humour on a fork."
• Max and Moritz (suggested): Breaking into the bakery, Max and Moritz fall into a trough of dough and are caught by the baker, who rolls them up like two loaves of bread and shoves them into his oven to bake them. There is no definitive indication that the baker intends to eat them, but the fact that the narration describes them as "brown and good to eat" when they come out sounds rather ominous. However, apparently contrary to the baker's expectation, Max and Moritz are still alive and eat through their crusts from the inside while the baker is not looking, and run off.
• The Tale of Samuel Whiskers: The rats wrap Tom Kitten in a dumpling with the intent to cook him into a roly-poly pudding. However, they don't get to the cooking stage of the recipe before Tom is rescued.

Live-Action TV

• Blackadder: In "Dish and Dishonesty," Edmund has Mrs. Miggins begin roasting Baldrick on a spit as punishment for bungling an assignment. (Though they probably don't intend to actually eat him.) She unties him after they think of another solution.

Puppet Shows

• The Muppet Show: Used as a Running Gag, where oftentimes whatever the Swedish Chef is attempting to make is alive, or comes to life during the sketch, and often fights back. This includes:
  • Making fish chowder with a live fish, who at one point grabs him and tries to drown him.
  • Making turtle soup with a live turtle; the turtle hides in its shell, and eventually turns a cannon on him.
  • Making frog legs out of Robin the Frog; Kermit steps in to stop him and rescue Robin.

Video Games

• The Elder Scrolls: The series' giants are known to have humanoid remains tied to spits over fires at their campsites. It is unclear if this is simply a method of executing intruders or if this is part of their meal preparation, or both.

Western Animation

• Amphibia: In "Night at the Inn", one of the few comedic things about the episode's featured Cannibal Clan is watching them rotate a drugged Anne, Hop Pop and Sprig on a rotisserie over a fire. Otherwise, the clan's doings are largely Played for Horror.
• In the Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers episode "Pie in the Sky", an owner of a pie factory aims to make chicken pot pies cheaply by tricking live migratory birds into flying into her factory where they are trapped, dropped into pie tins, covered in dough, and sent off to the ovens, with the birds still alive. Naturally the Rescue Rangers end up running afoul of this process at one point.
• Disenchantment: In "Faster, Princess! Kill! Kill!", Elfo is lured into Hansel's and Gretel's gingerbread house, fed with candy (implied to be laced with hypnotics), and unwisely lies down to sleep in a pan, and is predictably shoved into an oven to be roasted, with Hansel and Gretel being unmoved by both his cries of pain and his promises to show them to his pot of gold. Fortunately Bean and Luci arrive at the gingerbread house a little later and save him. Somewhat inconsistently, Hansel's and Gretel's cellar also houses a butcher shop with plenty of body parts of their victims lying around.
• Family Guy: During Brian's Mushroom Samba in "Seahorse Seashell Party", two evil Brians with their heads on humanoid bodies are rotating a naked Peter Griffin on a stick above a fire, while Peter sings "Wheels on the Bus".
• Looney Tunes
  • "Bedevilled Rabbit": On a stint in Tasmania, Bugs Bunny is caught by the Tasmanian Devil and (after learning that rabbit is the Tasmanian Devil's favorite food) tied up like a turkey with an apple in his mouth while Taz seasons him with pepper and salt. Bugs can however persuade Taz to untie him so Bugs can cook "wild turkey surprise" for him (which turns out to be sticks of dynamite arranged in a turkey shape).
  • "Bill of Hare": The Tasmanian Devil escapes from a crate and subsequently tries to eat Bugs (who is incidentally just preparing carrots for himself), first by tossing Bugs into his own carrot stew, then roasting him over a fire tied to a cooking spit, and finally putting him between two sides of bread as a "rabbit sandwich". Each time Bugs can escape by persuading Taz that he is not doing the cooking right in some way or other.
  • In "Holiday for Drumsticks", Daffy Duck's hillbilly owners Pa and Ma decide to have Daffy for Thanksgiving. After Pa has chased him some time trying to kill him with an axe and a gun, Daffy implores Thomas the Turkey for help; Thomas (who has no real interest in saving Daffy, as without Daffy he might become dinner himself) pretends that he has got him a passage to Rio and sends him off with a ship's ticket and a suitcase to board the boat to safety. The gangway however leads straight into the oven (which Daffy thinks is his cabin). The episode ends with Ma vainly trying to kindle the oven besides a big pile of used matches, with Daffy blowing out the match from inside the oven every time Ma lights a new one.
  • In "Operation: Rabbit", Bugs is uncooperative toward Wile E. Coyote's plan of eating him. Wile E.'s first solution is to install a pressure cooker on the entrance of Bugs' burrow, intent on cooking him inside his own home. Fortunately, Bugs comes out by the backdoor, tricks Wile E. into looking inside, and closes the cooker on top of him.
  • In "Rabbit Every Monday", Yosemite Sam catches Bugs and forces him to go into his stove (which Bugs does, though not without complaining and grumbling). Bugs then acts like there's a party inside the stove and tricks Sam into going inside. Once he does, Bugs closes the door and adds a few more logs to the fire to "warm the party up a little". Confusingly, it then turns out there really is a party inside the stove, causing Bugs to go back inside to join the fun.
  • Two French chefs look towards cooking Bugs for their respective restaurants in "French Rarebit". Chef Francois has Bugs in a stew pot when Bugs offers him the recipe for Louisiana Back Bay Bayou Bunny Bordelaise a la Antoine (name drop for an actual restaurant in New Orleans that has been in business since 1860). Bugs shows how the recipe is prepared, dressing Francois and the other chef (Louis) as rabbits and putting them both in the oven with a giant carrot loaded with dynamite.
• Robot Chicken: A sketch from "Kramer vs. Showgirls" deconstructs this trope by having Darkwing Duck sell his body to a Chinese restaurant to pay for Gosling's needed kidney transplant. The scene then cuts to him in the oven getting roasted alive, banging against the oven door from the inside, and begging the chef to kill him; the latter however refuses because "the live ones cook better". Darkwing is then served up to Michael Moore in front of Gosling.
• Played with in the Sonic Underground episode "Friend or Foe?". After capturing Sleet and Dingo, Knuckles ties them to opposite ends of a cooking spit and begins roasting them over a fire. He clarifies that he's not going to eat them, prompting sighs of relief from the pair... then he summons his pet dinosaur Chomps, who is going to eat them. Fortunately for the pair, Sleet has a doctored hologram portraying Sonic and his siblings as the actual thieves, which convinces Knuckles to let them go... though in the time it takes him to retrieve and view the hologram, the spit is left stationary with Dingo positioned directly over the fire, much to his discomfort.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Broken Alarm", because SpongeBob overslept due to his alarm clock being unplugged, the Krusty Krab customers are desperate to eat anything, with one fish being tied to a pole while another one rotates him above a fire.
• Tom and Jerry:
  • In the short "That's My Mommy!", Tom exploits the naïveté of the duckling Quacker, who believes Tom to be his mother, by trying to cook him by successively tying him to a spit and roasting him on an open fire (which Quacker believes is meant to keep him warm), baking him as a pastry (by tucking him into a "bed" of dough), and by fattening him up and oven-roasting him as a "stuffed duckling" (which Quacker interprets as having dinner and then going to sleep in his bedroom). Each time Quacker is saved by Jerry, but runs back to his "mother" until finally Quacker learns the truth by reading Tom's cookbook while the latter is preparing to cook Quacker in a stew. When a heartbroken Quacker wants to jump into the bubbling pot to please his "mother", Tom has a change of heart and saves Quacker.
  • In "His Mouse Friday", Tom washes up on a tropical island as a castaway. Starved for food, he gets sight of Jerry and tricks him into stepping into his frying pan, turns him a few times by throwing him into the air like a pancake, then dons a napkin and grabs a fork and knife in apparent anticipation of the feast. Jerry however simply jumps out of the pan right onto the panhandle, catapulting the pan into Tom's face.
  • In "Jerry and the Goldfish", Tom gets an appetite to eat Jerry's new friend Goldie the goldfish and doggedly tries to cook her, first by stewing her in her own bowl by putting it on the stove like a pot, coating her in flour and frying her in a pan, tying her to a gridiron and roasting her in the fireplace, toasting her in a toaster and putting her between two slices of bread like a sandwich, finally stewing her in a pot with vegetables. Each time Tom is unable to complete the procedure thanks to Jerry's interference.

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