Basic Trope: Upon hearing something shocking, a person messily spits out what they were drinking.
- Straight: Upon hearing that his father was a feared demonic prince, Bob spews out the coffee he was drinking.
- Exaggerated:
- Upon hearing his father has a gray hair, Bob sprays out his drink.
- Bob spews drink out of his mouth, his nose, his ears and his eyes.
- Bob, upon being shocked, starts spitting his drink. Even though he wasn't drinking anything.
- He does a spit take involving more of the liquid than has actually been imbibed.
- Bob doesn’t just spit out his drink, but also his bodily liquids.
- Bob, upon hearing something shocking, spit-takes loudly and messily out the other end.
- The Spit Take lasts for several minutes...
or several hours.
- Downplayed:
- Upon hearing that his father was a feared serial killer, Bob dribbles out a few drops of his drink, but manages to swallow most of it.
- Bob visibly chokes on his drink but doesn't spill anything.
- Bob manages to spit the drink back into his cup.
- Bob has a Jaw Drop reaction in the middle of his drink, causing it to spill out of his mouth and all over his lap.
- Justified:
- Truth in Television, and a staple of physical comedy.
- Bob spits out his coffee with milk after being told, "You're Drinking Breast Milk".
- I Ate WHAT?! is also happening in this situation.
- Inverted:
- Upon hearing his father was a feared demonic prince, Bob nearly chokes to death on his coffee.
- Bob, upon hearing something shocking, takes a deep swig of whatever he was drinking.
- Subverted: Bob is drinking coffee when someone tells him something extraordinary. He starts to react, then calmly continues drinking.
- Double Subverted: ... until the last fact is mentioned, which either makes the whole thing much more important, or would seem like the least shocking part of it.
- Parodied:
- Bob's Spit Take hits everyone in the room, staining their very nice clothes.
- After hearing the news, Bob takes a drink just to do a Spit Take.
- Zig-Zagged: Something shocking is said to an entire group of characters drinking. Some react with a spit-take, some take a sharp swallow, some do neither.
- Averted: Bob, receiving shocking news while taking a drink, does not spit any of it out.
- Enforced: "So I told our actor about his bonus, and he did an honest to God spit take! It was hilarious! I say we work it in."
- Lampshaded: "I should have waited until you swallowed that drink... This was a new coat."
- Invoked: "Wait, wait, let him get a sip of that before you tell him... It'll be hilarious!"
- Exploited: Someone manages to film the Spit Take and posts it online for a few laughs.
- Defied:
- "I need to tell you something that might upset you..." "Wait, let me put this cup down."
- Bob started to spit his wine but managed to stop himself, checked the wine bottle, decided that the wine was too good and expensive to be wasted like that, and forced his drink back down.
- Discussed: "Yeah, I'd say that's the sort of news might cause someone's drink to go flying out their mouths."
- Conversed: "Funny as it is, I don't think I've ever really seen anyone do a spit take in the real world."
- Implied: Alice goes to tell Bob something and comes back covered in liquid.
- Deconstructed: Bob's indiscretion earns him a Death Glare from everyone who was in the line of fire, and the conversation is derailed for a few minutes as he cleans up after himself.
- Reconstructed: But everyone decides that it was Actually Pretty Funny.
- Played For Drama: Alice knows that Carol is planning to serve Bob drugged coffee, and goes to warn him. When she gets there, Carol is nearby and he's already taking a sip, so Alice has to try to make up something shocking enough to make Bob spit out the coffee (and then find a way to get rid of the rest of it).
(spits out drink) You want to go back to Spit Take!?
