The hero gets cornered by a group of thugs that want to steal whatever he has on him. One thug grabs up the hero by the ankles and starts shaking him so hard, causing a plethora of items to fall from his person. Bonus points if the items would be completely impossible to conceal, such as a cannon, a ladder, or maybe even an elephant.
This is a comedy trope in which the above happens to the unfortunate character. Expect to see this trope show up in comedy or Western Animation.
Justified if the shaken character has a Bag of Holding. Compare Minion Maracas.
Examples:
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Animation
- Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: In Great War in the Bizarre World episode 45, some bunny guards stationed at the gate of Darton's amusement park see another bunny and search him, turning him upside down and shaking him. Some of his snacks fall onto the ground, and the bunny is kicked out of the outside of the gate afterwards.
Anime & Manga
- The Grenadier manga had an Omake comic where Mikan decided to test the secret of Rushuna's Unorthodox Reload by grabbing the latter's breasts (while she's undressed) and shaking. Cue bullets spilling out of an embarrassed Rushuna's cleavage and forming a pile up to about her knees; afterwards, she insists that they're just ordinary breasts.
Comic Books
- Gilles de Geus sometimes used this technique in his days as a highwayman.
- In The Spirit Satin the thief hides a stolen medallion down her shirt. Unfortunately for her, the title character chooses to turn her upside-down and shake it out, rather than reach in.
Films — Animation
- Adventure and Richard were subjected to this treatment by the pirates in The Pagemaster. A bunch of swords and an accordion fall out of Adventure's pages, Richard temporarily loses his all-important library card.
- A gorilla actually does this to Professor Porter in Tarzan, causing several objects to fall out of his pockets, including a stuffed Little Brother toy.
- Occurs in The Three Caballeros when Panchito stakes Donald and Jose's hands, causing stuff to fall from their shirts.
- Kung Fu Panda: In the opening dream sequence, a group of thugs have taken a bar hostage and one of them does this to a captive bunny.
Films — Live-Action
- Trope Codifier (if not Ur-Example) is probably Harpo Marx in Animal Crackers. He's stolen a painting but promises to give it back. The police officer shakes Harpo's hand, which causes a bunch of silverware to pour out of his sleeve.
- In The Court Jester, Roderick shakes Gwendolyn and suddenly the key to the secret passage, which Gwendolyn had hidden in her Victoria's Secret Compartment earlier in the scene, drops to the floor.
- In Delusions of Grandeur, after his disgrace, Don Salluste is trying to stop the servants removing all his ill-gotten riches from his chambers by intercepting the gold coins and other precious dishware and stuffing them in his pants. As he tries to gets away with his pants overstuffed, his ex-valet Blaze catches him and starts shaking vigorously the greedy old man, making the many precious items fall off.
- Done in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them with a Niffler, a magical creature resembling a platypus that can hide a nigh-unlimited amount of riches inside its pouch. When Newt catches one inside a bank vault he divests it of hundreds of pounds of gold and jewelry by this method.
- Happens to Ethel Merman, of all people, in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, when her character attempts to secure a set of car keys by dropping them down the front of her dress. The other characters turn her upside down and shake the keys back out.
Literature
Video Games
- In ClayFighter 63⅓, when characters are hit, various random objects associated with them fly off.
- Rather morbid example in Duke Nukem Forever: when exploring alien-infested areas, you'll find cocooned EDF soldiers hanging from the ceiling. If you punch or shoot them, they always drop useful stuff like guns, ammo and grenades.
- Used in Escape from Monkey Island. The fallen items are all things you picked up earlier in the game.
- In Hollow Knight, after Millibelle turns out to be a thief and scams you for money with her fake bank, you can encounter her in the Pleasure House. To get your money back, you are required to smack her around, and your stolen money will fall out from her body.
- Limbo of the Lost has a troll who pops up between chapters to shake Briggs and remove unnecessary items from his inventory.
- In the Metal Gear series, after Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, picking up (or dragging) and dropping a(n) dead/sleeping/unconscious soldier will drop 2 or 3 items (like a book, or ration).
- A major example here, the entire game is based around this possible trope. Mischief Makers. You can shake objects/people and sometimes they will drop items, mostly crystals, that you pick up. The game is based around this system.
- Sam & Max Hit the Road has Sam and Max go on the carnival ride "Cone of Tragedy", which first suspends them upside-down, then shakes and twirls them around in a very unpleasant way. Once the torture is over, Sam realizes that all his inventory items fell out during the ride and he must recover them from a Lost-and-Found office.
- In Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, Murray Hippo can shake guards to get coins and sometimes even loot.
- This trope is referenced in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, as a Shout-Out to the Metal Gear Solid example above.
ISDF Guard: Ugh... okay, it's... some kind of shock round... electric!
Sam Fisher: Interesting. You have any extra?
ISDF Guard: Gah, it's not like you can shake me, and make my ammo fall on the floor to pick up! - Wario Land: Shake It!: By grabbing enemies and shaking the Wii remote, things will fly around. Garlic, money, or even the armor they're wearing.
Web Animation
- In the Chimney Chickens episode Comeback King, Rob McLaury mugs Wade O'Donnel by holding him by the ankles and shaking coins onto the floor.
Web Original
- An entry from Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do in an RPG includes an entry clarifying that this is not an acceptable substitute for a pickpocket roll.
1108. Picking his pocket means more than just turning him upside down and shaking him vigorously.
Webcomics
- Played for poignantly inappropriate laughs here in Awkward Zombie.
- Girl Genius : Gilgamesh takes down Bangladesh and knives start falling all over the place.
- Unsounded: Duane, attempting to retrieve his map from Sette, suspends her in the air with magic and shakes her:
Sette: These things're mine! Thief! Thieeeef!
Duane: Says the lass raining pocketwatches.
Western Animation
- Classic Disney Shorts:
- In "The Band Concert", Donald Duck is disrupting Mickey's orchestra with his flute playing — every time Mickey snatches his flute away, he produces another and continues. At one point the trombonist grabs him by the neck with the slide of his horn and shakes him rapidly — dozens of flutes fly out of his coat.
- "The Worm Turns": When Pluto bites Pete on the rump and shakes him around, various things fall out of Pete's pockets, including a blackjack, a steak, a handkerchief, a coin purse, and a pocket watch.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy:
- In "For Your Ed Only", Ed does this to Eddy after Edd catches him reading Sarah's diary. This is due to Ed and Eddy having landed in Sarah's bedroom, wrecking it in the process, when one of their scams went bust, upon which Eddy decided to steal it and use it to humiliate Sarah after all the pain she inflicted on them.
- In "Brother Can You Spare An Ed", Ed and Edd are hanging from a tree as pinatas in a desperate attempt to get the money to pay Sarah back. Jonny hits Edd three times; only a shoe falls. Jonny hits Ed once; a boatload of junk lands on him.
Jonny: Check it out, Plank! Coconut earmuffs!
- In The Fairly Oddparents episode "Inspection Detection", the police do this to Francis after Timmy successfully proves he is the real shoplifter while the latter is prepping for Fairy Inspection Day, and the former was Caught on Tape stealing a tub of lard by Cosmo, transformed into surveillance camera.
Francis: Uh... I got that stuff off the internet?
Cop: [about to handcuff Francis] Ri-i-i-i-ight! - Looney Tunes: In "Baby Buggy Bunny", Bugs Bunny finds out that the "baby" he's caring for it actually a midget criminal in disguise and gives him a sound spanking, with deadly weapons falling from his person with each slap on the rear.
Bugs: And believe me, Finster, this hurts you more than it does me!
- In Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor, Sindbad (Bluto) pummels Popeye like a punching bag and all sorts of things fall out of his pockets — assorted ship fittings, binoculars, a life preserver, an anchor...
- Rocko's Modern Life: This happens to Rocko in the episode "Carnival Knowledge", when he gets on a carnival ride run by a crooked slug.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In "Can You Spare a Dime", SpongeBob violently shakes Mr. Krabs begging him to hire Squidward back. Then the lost first dime that kicked off the plot (and which is actually a huge stone coin) falls from Mr. Krabs' back pocket.
SpongeBob: THIS is a dime?!
Mr. Krabs: I been in this business a long time, boy. - In "Squid Wood", Squidward shakes SpongeBob repeatedly, causing several game pieces to fall from his pockets.
- In "Can You Spare a Dime", SpongeBob violently shakes Mr. Krabs begging him to hire Squidward back. Then the lost first dime that kicked off the plot (and which is actually a huge stone coin) falls from Mr. Krabs' back pocket.
- In the Tom and Jerry Independence Day short "Safety Second", after Nibbles, who could never resist playing with firecrackers despite Jerry telling him not to since he could get hurt or killed doing so, is caught pulling a firecracker out of his diaper, Jerry demands he hand over the rest of them. Nibbles gives him a small one and tries to run for it, but Jerry grabs him, holds him upside-down and shakes him up good to find a ton of firecrackers hidden in his diaper, at which point he punishes him by making him stand in the corner.
- VeggieTales:
- Larry-Boy does this to a bandit by capturing him with his Super-Suction Ear then shaking him so hard, causing the milk money that he stole from some kids to fall off of him.
- This is a throwback to an early episode, "The Story of Flibber-o-Loo", where the three Scallions shake Larry to the point that his milk money falls out. The Scallions then drop Larry in a hole and run off with his money.
