She can't even resist...
A common form of punishment in animated shows that involves stretching a character's face on either side. Generally done to imitate a smile (usually to the Comically Serious member of the cast for maximum humiliation) done out of frustration by one character towards another, or as a form of restraint. Optional "Gwwwommm" sound effect, and while not always done to the Rubber Man, the general idea is the same.
Compare Squish the Cheeks and Finger-Forced Smile.
Examples
- In the "Onegai My Melody" In episode 9 entitled "I Wish I Could do a lot of Rope Jumps!" You can see at the end of the episode in a short sequence how both protagonist Uta Yumeno and her friend Mana Fujisaki start to stretch each other's faces, Uta's platonic love and antagonist from the first season Keiichi Hiiragi sees them to Uta's horror who ends up being the one with the stretched face.
- In the FAKE OVA, Ryo stops a horny Dee and stretches his face out, making what one fan dubbed the "Gumby Face."
- The Mokonas in Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- and ×××HOLiC can have their whole bodies stretched out like this, usually with the sound effect.
- Fai once tried to make Kurogane look less grumpy by doing this to him. It didn't work.
- One of the lighter moments of Gunslinger Girl has Giuseppe grab Henrietta's cheek and stretch it out because "I felt like it", though it's actually because she reminds him of his dead little sister, who he used to do the same thing to.
- Azumanga Daioh:
- Yomi does this to Jerkass Tomo at one point.
- Yukari and Nyamo also do this to each other.
- In Princess Tutu, Lilie stretches Ahiru's face this way several times.
- Similarly, in the Read or Die manga, Nenene does this a few times to Yomiko when frustrated.
- Nancy does this playfully to Yomiko in the OVA, as well.
- And in the anime, Yomiko tried to do it to Anita to ease her nervousness. Anita was not amused.
- Michelle does that from time to time to herself, after she does something stupid.
- Sha Gojyo and Son Goku do this constantly throughout the different anime series in Saiyuki.
- Happens many, many times in Negima! Magister Negi Magi. Usually Asuna to Negi, or Kotaro and Ayaka to each other. Chachamaru uses this to cancel Negi's spellcasting.
- As Monkey D. Luffy of One Piece actually is a Rubber Man, it's no surprise that this happens to him a lot. This is actually how he demonstrates it most of the time, including the first time it comes up.
Nami: "Rubber man"?
Luffy: (pulls his cheek out about a foot) Yeah, see? - Pictured above is Haruhi of Haruhi Suzumiya doing this to punish Mikuru, for not following her nonsensical baseball signals in "The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya".
- Done by Alisa on Nanoha when she gets annoyed at the lead character's Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life monologue during the first episode of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.
- In StrikerS, Teana does this to Subaru.
- In the anime version of Chrono Crusade, Shader does this to Chrono in a flashback. The scene does a good job setting up her Perky Female Minion personality.
- In Candy☆Boy, Kanade does this to Yukino rather often.
- In K-On! Mio and Ritsu do this to each other after Yui announces she wants to join the Light Music Club after all.
- Mio does it again as punishment to Ritsu after the latter forgot to turn in their club application in episode 5 of season 1.
- After exchanging hats at the end of the Cupid's Day festival in one of the rare lighthearted and tender moments of Code Geass, Shirley combines this with an Almost Kiss on an unsuspecting Lelouch.
- Ranma ½: Ranma often does this to Ryoga out of fits of jealousy when he sees Ryoga and Akane together in what appears to be a romantic moment between the two of them.
- Junpei and Celsia do this to one another quite frequently in the more slapstick scenes of Those Who Hunt Elves.
- Used frequently in both A Certain Magical Index and its sister series A Certain Scientific Railgun, with Index and Kuroko usually being the ones on the receiving end.
- Holo does this to herself early on in the Spice and Wolf anime; while explaining that wolves don't have cheeks (which is why they can't chew their food), she adds a visual aid.
- In episode 7 and 92 of Fairy Tail Lucy angrily pinches Happy's cheeks.
- Pokémon: The Series:
- One of the more memorable scenes in Pokémon: The Original Series has a certain electric mon fall victim to this by serval school children. Here's a hint to what happens to next: Red spots on its cheeks are full of dischargeable electricity.
- In the Pokémon the Series: Black & White anime Iris tends to pinch the cheeks of pudgy pokemon like Tepig and Dawn's Piplup.
- Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!: When Hana brings Shinichi to visit her house for the first time and meet her mother Tsuki, at one point Tsuki calls Hana to come over, and begins pulling her cheeks as she scolds her for not telling that her senpai was a guy. Shinichi for his part seems to enjoy seeing Hana getting punished.
- Food Wars!: At the end of the Regiment de Cuisine, Erina pulls Soma's cheeks while lecturing him for doing what he wanted and throwing her whole plan off, though she accepts they only won thanks to him doing exactly that.
- My Lovely Ghost Kana:
- Kana does it twice to Daikichi at the end of volume 2. Both times, it makes poor Utako scream in horror, as she's not aware of Kana's existence and only sees Daikichi's face getting suddenly deformed for no apparent reason.
- Kana can stretch her own face in a similar manner, and uses this face to prank people, especially young kids.
- GTO: The Early Years: In Chapter 206, Eikichi teases Saejima for being the comic relief and stretches his cheeks.
- Fuuka does this to Yotsuba in Volume 13. It's a realistic version, where Yotsuba's face doesn't stretch that far, and Fuuka is only imitating something she knows both she and Yotsuba have seen on cartoons. She obviously doesn't intend to hurt a 5-year-old.
- Tomo-chan Is a Girl!: Misuzu's favorite method of punishment for Carol for her shenanigans involves pulling on her cheeks. When they meet for the first, Misuzu's own mother also does it.
Art
- A very old (and very disturbing) Japanese shunga painting shows a man stretching his face out vertically one way and horizontally another.
Film
- Twice in UHF.
- George Newman's aunt pulls on his cheek until it's nowhere near the rest of his face to get him to smile for her friends.
- George sticks his fingers in his friend Bob's mouth in order to yank it into a smile.
- The King of Comedy - Robert De Niro's face gets given a good workout from an expert: Jerry Lewis.
- In Turning Red, when one of Mei's aunties pinch her cheeks it stretches to three times its normal size.
- The title screen to Super Mario 64 lets you stretch out various aspects of Mario's face and hold them in place for hilarious results. Perhaps as a nod to this, one minigame in Mario Party involves doing this to another character's face and trying to match it as closely as possible to a given image.
- The Touhou Project fan movie
that depicts the meeting of Yukari and Yuyuko has Chen doing this on Yukari in an attempt to cheer her up.
- An secret anime segment in Disgaea 2 shows Flonne doing this to Laharl.
- In Grandia II, Ryudo does this to Elena shortly before the dungeon containing Valmar's Tongue.
- In the Ace Attorney games quite a few shocked expressions and meltdowns include this, though it's a slight variation as they are self-inflicted.
- In Madou Shouhei Kleinhasa, Lulun does this to Roze in one scene.
- During his route in the visual novel Sweet Fuse: At Your Side, Shidou pulls on Saki's cheeks to see her smile.
- Mirai does this to Hibiri in a certain CG on the Hebijo storyline of Senran Kagura Burst.
- While not exactly the same, Sora does this to Riku in Kingdom Hearts upon running into him since the first time they were separated as a way of seeing if he's real.
- One of The Simpsons Halloween specials had Ned take over the world and put everyone in smile machines that mechanically did this via hooks. Slight Nightmare Fuel, actually, especially if you'd ever been to an orthodontist.
- "Now remember everyone, BIIIIIIIG Smiles!"
- Homer: (to another hooked smiler) "What the hell are YOU smilin' at?"
- "Now remember everyone, BIIIIIIIG Smiles!"
- Done on Osmosis Jones by the title character to Da Chief.
- Porky Pig's dog follows him to work at the tire factory ("Tire Trouble," 1939) and falls into a rubberizing solution. The dog proceeds to manipulate his face into the forms of celebrities of the day.
