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"Cyrene? 'Ow am I s'posed ta work on burny chunk 'o soot? It ain't like I can hides in da lava! Mork knows, I ain't tryin' DAT trick again."
Spookums, Dawn of War: Retribution

A stock phrase used after the hero has done some derring-do that obviously was very painful and/or taxing. In saying this, the Hero is acknowledging that he is not open to repeating the experience as he tries to recover.

It's a form of Lampshade Hanging to the kind of exaggerated heroics often displayed in action shows. Can also be used tongue-in-cheek in response to a particularly absurd suggestion.

Contrast with Wasn't That Fun?.

Not to be confused with We Are Not Going Through That Again, where a character refuses a new quest, not just a particular feat, or May It Never Happen Again, for when people outright try to ensure that it won't happen again. See also Let Us Never Speak of This Again, which is often paired with this.


Examples:

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    Advertising 
  • In a particularly Squick-y example from a Quizno's commercial, a talking oven tries to coax a guy into doing some unnamed act. The man looks down at his crotch and says, "I'm not doing that again. That burned."

    Comic Books 
  • In the Tintin story "Explorers on the Moon", after a harrowing trip to the moon and back involving sabotage, stowaways, and near-asphyxiation, Captain Haddock reacts like this after Professor Calculus brings up the possibility of returning.
    Haddock: What?! Us go back there? To the moon? Me, go back to the moon?! May I be turned into a bollard, blistering barnacles, if I so much as set foot in your flying coffin again! Never, d'you hear? You interplanetary goat, you! Never!!

    Fan Works 
  • In Marionettes, Trixie says this after destroying Masquerade's Puppeteer armor with a Death or Glory Attack that drained her mana engine so severely that she can barely stand and momentarily forgets she only has three legs at the moment.
  • Non-comedic version in Prophecy of the end. Laurel is in a coma, and in order to preserve the legacy/reputation of the Black Canary, Oliver has Sara pretend to be her to address the city. After she has:
    Sara: I want you to promise me something, I want you to promise me...that you'll never make me wear this suit again.
    Oliver: You have my word.
  • The Smurfs That Canon Forgot explores how those who were left behind in Smurf Village while Papa Smurf and a handful of others were going through Season 9's time-hopping adventures dealt with their absence. In the sequel, Dreamy becomes incredibly upset upon realizing that the death of Papa is likely to plunge them right back into a similar situation, declaring that he'd rather leave the village entirely rather than go through that sort of schism again.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • Apollo 13: after the crew has perform a course correction without their navigation or guidance equipment, Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) mutters "...Let's hope we don't have to do that again."
  • Used in the movie Jackass: Number Two, during the "Medicine Ball Dodgeball (in the dark)" stunt. After asking how it turned out after getting beaned every which way with medicine balls, Chris Pontius says, "That was fun. Let's never do that again."
  • Bobby in X-Men: The Last Stand after being phased though the ground and back out again.
    • In the second movie, when the team is escaping some military planes in their jet, Storm tries to shake them by doing a barrel roll. An ill-looking Wolverine asks her not to do that again, to which the normally wild teen John agrees.
  • Mortal Kombat: The Movie: Johnny Cage has a bad day during filming because the stuntmen kept screwing things up and didn't want to redo the scene again.
  • In Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Jack Sparrow's response to blowing up a lighthouse (and nearly himself) is "Did everyone see that? Because I will NOT be doing it again!"
  • At the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home, Peter takes MJ swinging around the city with him. This is her reaction once they get back on the ground with her hair a mess and looking like she’s going to barf.

    Jokes 

    Literature 
  • Gets used several times in Animorphs, usually by Marco.
    Marco: That was cool.
    Tobias: Way cool.
    Marco: Let's never, ever, do that again.
    Tobias: Never. Ever.
    Ax: Repetition of that activity would be a very bad idea.
    • In that particular case, morphing cockroaches and sliding down a spiral handrail for several flights of stairs, a ride a skateboarder would have traded both kidneys for.
    • Ax also used this Stock Phrase ("I will not do this again") in a more dramatic Shoot the Dog context, when the plan involved him capturing Chapman and interrogating him in the To the Pain style for hours on end.
    • When the kids morph ants—the ant morph has some very disturbing side effects. Turns out, the termite morph has very similar effects. That's another one nobody's ever doing again.
    • Cassie says this when she leaves the Animorphs for a brief period, referring to a particularly grisly battle.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Doctor Who: In "The Lodger", after bringing Craig up to speed on the situation via psychic headbutt, the Doctor declares that he is never doing that again.
  • In Game of Thrones, Tyrion attempts to gain the trust of Daenerys' dragons by releasing them from their chains. It works, but Tyrion found the ordeal a little too frightening:
    Tyrion to Varys: Next time I have an idea like that, punch me in the face!
  • Grimm: In order to draw out a rampaging Golem, Nick has to threaten the person it's protecting: a child named David. After pretending to forcibly arrest David, the Golem is defeated, and a weary Nick mutters, "That's the last time I yell at a kid..."
  • In episode five of Sherlock, during a typical "bored Sherlock" rant:
    Sherlock: It's either that or Cluedo.
    John: Oh, no. We are never playing that again!
    Sherlock: Why not?
    John: Because it's not possible for the victim to have actually done it, Sherlock!
  • Star Trek: Picard: In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1", after La Sirena emerges from the transwarp conduit (which was a bumpy ride), Raffi calmly says, "And I am never going to do that ever again."
  • Captain Jack Harkness casually drops this in reference to pregnancy in the Torchwood episode "Everything Changes".
  • In one episode of WKRP in Cincinnati Herb gets talked into pretending to be gay and hitting on another guy. The attempt fails, and when he gets back: "I am never doing that again! I get enough rejection from women!"

    Theatre 
  • In Shrek: The Musical, this is Shrek's initial reaction when Princess Fiona tells him that her tower has no door, and they'll have to go down the same way he came up.
    Shrek: What do you mean there's no door? How do we get down?
    Fiona: Why, the same way you got up?
    Shrek: The same way I—?! Oh come on! I just—!

    Video Games 
  • Taken to an extreme by Sharwyn in Neverwinter Nights: "Dying was unpleasant, to say the least. Let's not do that again, shall we?"
  • In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, if you take Flurrie through the plumbing via the toilet in Chapter 3 when you're taken into a more dilapidated locker room than the one you were in at first, she requests that she never does that again.
  • Nob Spookums from Dawn of War: Retribution.
    "It ain't like I can hides in da lava. Mork knows, I ain tryin' DAT trick again!"
  • At one point in The Curse of Monkey Island, Murray the skull jumps out at Guybrush, landing painfully on the ground. He groans that he's not going to do that again.
    • At the beginning of Escape from Monkey Island, pirates have invaded Guybrush's ship and tied him to the mast. Guybrush needs to kick over a blazer of coals and kick one onto a cannon to sink the other ship. Instead, you can choose to kick one of the coals at the pirates off-screen, who retaliates by throwing a knife next to Guybrush's head. Quoth Guybrush, "Better not try THAT again!"
  • Blue Mages in Final Fantasy XIV have access to a few powerful spells that instantly KO their user. They also inflict the "Brush with Death" status, which prevents them from doing it again for 10 minutes (and, unlike most other statuses, cannot be cleared by any method except the timer expiring); the Flavor Text informs you that "Your resolve has deserted you."
  • After just barely escaping a big flying station that decided it didn't want to fly anymore in "Episode 3: Backdoor" of Code 7, Raven has no desire to repeat that experience. META, meanwhile, of course found it very exciting.
    Raven: Okay... not doing that again...
    META: Whaaaaat? But it was so much fun!
    Raven: Yeah, our defenitions of fun might differ a little...
  • In Bioshock Infinite, as the Vox Populi's revolution kicks off, Booker Dewitt gets entangled in the immediate chaos, leading to him boarding a Founder war zeppelin and blowing it up from the inside-out. As the revolutionaries cheer and he reunites with Elizabeth on the ground...
    Elizabeth: Booker! That! Was amazing.
    Booker: (strained) Great! 'Cause I don't think I could do it again...

    Visual Novels 
  • In Katawa Shoujo, the second H-scene in Emi's route, "Storage Space", has her and Hisao trying anal sex. It turns out that they both find it uncomfortable and swear to never do it again.

    Web Animation 
  • Homestar Runner:
    • Strong Bad says this in the Strong Bad Email "the chair" after he removes his mask to prove that it is, in fact, his face, and that there's nothing but bone, muscle, and veins beneath it. Naturally, he does this while sitting in a high-backed chair, so the audience only sees a tiny, tiny sliver of loose mask and hears Strong Bad's pained groans.
    • Done by Strong Sad in the email "radio", during Strong Bad's Imagine Spot to demonstrate how radio announcers never sound how they look. Strong Bad temporarily turns the voice of timid and extremely soft-spoken Strong Sad into that of a obnoxiously loud and energetic morning radio host. Strong Sad pleads with Strong Bad "Don't you ever make me do that again!"
  • In Volume 8 of RWBY, poor Blake goes through the wringer when she and some of the others sneak through Atlas. She's rather disheveled after riding through a tube transport system and again when she goes through Ruby's "Petal" Semblance ability.

    Webcomics 
  • Goblin Hollow: A teleportation incident here.
  • In Yokoka's Quest, Yfa is seen carrying Raya when he tells her "Never do that again", after she launches herself at a frog to retrieve a mushroom from its back.

    Web Original 
  • In the first episode of Chroma, Karim notes that the only way to be scared by Troll 2 would be "to watch it on a smartphone, chased by twenty hungry wolves." Before adding "And that's something I'll never do again."

    Western Animation 
  • Saturday Supercade:
    • In one episode, Frogger uses his tongue to prevent a fatal accident. Unfortunately, the only thing he can latch onto is a cactus and, afterward, his tongue is painfully perforated with cactus needles. Cue trope title.
    • In another, he uses his tongue as a grappling wire to get Shelly and Fanny into a film production office through the window. Once they get inside, Frogger's tongue is completely unraveled like a fishing line. Again, cue trope title.
  • Justice League:
    • In one episode, Metamorpho apparently sacrificed his life to stop a monster. Fortunately, Metamorpho is able to reconstitute himself with a satisfied but weary comment, "I'm not doing that again."
    • And when the Flash finally hits top speed to defeat the Big Bad in "Divided We Fall", and the rest of the Justice League pulls him from the brink of merging with the "Speed Force", he remarks "I can never go that fast again. If I do, I don't think I'm coming back." Earlier in the same episode, this is his reaction to the way he took out his evil, Braniac-generated doppelganger (punching through its chest and vibrating until it exploded, knocking him for a loop in the process).
  • In the Challenge of the GoBots episode "Et Tu, Cy-Kill?", Leader-1 ends up having to fly in jet mode, at jet speeds, through a huge corridor filled with stone columns, dodging all of them. Afterward, he transforms, falls to his knees, and says, "I couldn't do that twice."
  • In an episode of Littlest Pet Shop (2012), Vinnie is captured by a young girl named Alice who calls him a girl's name and forcefully feeds him milk, which is bad for lizards. Lucky for Vinnie, a rat named Pete arrives and ties some rope to a fly that allows Vinnie to climb the ceiling fan. But then Alice returns and finds out what's going on. She turns the fan on, resulting in Vinnie and Pete getting thrown out the window. Luckily, they survive the fall, despite it being from a high apartment window.
    Pete: All in favor of never doing that again, say "Aye!"
  • In the Steven Universe episode "Cheeseburger Backpack", after Steven inspires Amethyst to swing across a gravity vortex while holding the other two Crystal Gems, Pearl snaps at the two of them "Don't ever do that again!"
  • Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: In "Foul Play At Funland," Scooby and Shaggy are in a rollercoaster car being pursued by the episode's antagonist, an out-of-control robot. Fred tells them to jump into another car on an adjacent track. They do, and after the rescue is affected:
    Shaggy: Don't ever let us do that again!
  • In the last episode of The Super Hero Squad Show, when the Infinity Sword is broken into fractals again, Falcon states that he's not hunting them all down again.


 
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Jimmy and Secrets

Jimmy gets fed up with the sneaking around and being put in the middle of his friends keeping secrets from each other after Clark piles on that Lois' father is the General while already keeping the secret about evil Supermen. He marches them both outside and demands Clark comes clean to Lois outright.

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