Basic Trope: An item of some sort is crushed beyond any and all repair during an Overly Long Gag.
- Straight: The MacGuffin is crushed by two cars, a truck, and a motorcycle.
- Exaggerated: After the motorcycle comes a literal parade, a bunch of elephants, army tanks, a mobile ICBM, a flatbed carrying an entire cruise liner...and a little old lady with a cane. Then it's hit by a meteorite.
- Downplayed: Agitated Item Stomping
- Justified: The MacGuffin landed in the middle of the street during a very bad time, such as a holiday parade or the arrival of the circus.
- Inverted: The MacGuffin, in the form of a Hyper-Destructive Bouncing Ball, falls into the middle of a parade. Carnage ensues, until the ball finally comes to rest, unmarked, Atop a Mountain of Corpses.
- Subverted: The MacGuffin goes through all that, but appears salvageable.
- Double Subverted: Only to get stomped on and then kicked down an open manhole by some Jerkass.
- Parodied: The MacGuffin is trampled by... a litter of playful, mewling kittens. As the Tiny Adorable Ball of Violence passes on, the MacGuffin is inexplicably wrecked.
- Zig Zagged: Numerous things look set to destroy the MacGuffin but miss or cancel one another out in increasingly coincidental ways, while also hindering the efforts of the guy trying to retrieve it. He finally reaches it, loses his footing, and steps on it. Wincing, he looks under his foot... and it's undamaged! Then he gets hit by a car, a bike, another car...
- Averted: Nothing runs over the MacGuffin.
- Enforced: "Let's put in an Overly Long Gag!"
- Lampshaded: "Wait, why wasn't the street cordoned off for the parade?"
- Invoked:
- The villain deliberately throws the MacGuffin in front of a fleet of trucks.
- After the MacGuffin gets run over once, The Prankster redirects a passing parade over the same spot for good measure.
- Exploited: Someone throws a can of sealed evil in front of a passing parade in order to crush open the can.
- Defied: A random person in the marching band sees the MacGuffin, picks it up, and returns it to Alice before anything bad can happen to it.
- Discussed: Bob, after getting hit by a bike. "What, no elephants?" *thud*
- Conversed: "Now watch, everybody and their dog is gonna trample that."
- Implied: The MacGuffin lands in the street as circus music is heard from a rapidly decreasing distance. The camera pans to the horrified heroes. Alice yells, "Oh no, not the circus!" and makes an "I Can't Look!" Gesture. Then Bob yells, "Oh no, not the jugglers!" and makes an "I Can't Look!" Gesture. Then Charlie yells, "Oh no, not the clowns!" and makes an "I Can't Look!" Gesture. Alice asks, "Are they almost gone yet?" and the heroes peek between their fingers. Alice yells "Oh no, there's more of them!" and covers her eyes again. Bob yells, "Oh no, not the elephants!" and covers his eyes again. Then Charlie yells, "Oh no, not the poodles!" and covers his eyes again. As the circus music fades away, the camera pans to the Squashed Flat MacGuffin.
- Played For Laughs:
- Cringe Comedy example: A marching band parades through a pile of Road Apples. The Show Must Go On, so the band members keep an increasingly strained Stiff Upper Lip until it's all over. Cue the Mass "Oh, Crap!" and the Vomit Chain Reaction.
- Played For Drama:
- The MacGuffin is destroyed, and it was the only way to defeat Emperor Evulz... Now what?
- The MacGuffin in question is some kind of Living MacGuffin.
- In a story where Armies Are Evil, the invaders march over a child's doll (presumably the offscreen kid is dead).
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