Kiss Up the Arm

And she didn't even have to speak French this time.

A comedy/romance trope in which a guy starts by kissing a woman's hand and works his way up her arm to her neck. Usually used to identify the man as either The Casanova or a pervert. Mostly a Dead Horse Trope nowadays, but can be found in many older works (particularly animated shorts).

Common reactions are shyness and stuttering, swooning, or slapping.

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Examples:

Films — Animation

• In Shrek, during Robin Hood's Unwanted Rescue attempt on Fiona, he kisses up her arm, which disgusts her.

Films — Live-Action

• The Addams Family: Gomez Addams with his wife Morticia. He goes all the way from her hand to her shoulder, then switches to the other shoulder and kisses the other arm down to her fingers.
• In Singin' in the Rain, while filming the Show Within a Show Don kisses up most of Lina's arm. Played for Laughs, since he's insulting her in-between kisses.
• Gender-Inverted and parodied in Batman (1989): Vicki Vale kisses up the Joker's arm.

Live-Action TV

• The Addams Family. Gomez Addams did this regularly to Morticia whenever she spoke French.
• Gender-Inverted and parodied in a sketch/dance sequence on The Benny Hill Show parodying the "Naughty Bits" of The Kenny Everett Show. In this version, the (old, ugly) men play the parts normally done by young women and young women have the male roles. A woman kisses up an arm, finds the face of Benny Hill at the top, gives a disgusted Aside Glance, and kisses back down the arm to go away.
• Star Trek: Voyager. In "Shattered", Captain Janeway finds herself Strapped to an Operating Table in Tom Paris's The Adventures of Captain Proton holodeck program. In order to escape, she has to vamp up to hammy holodeck villain Dr. Chaotica.
  Chaotica: Oh Arachnia, you DO love me!
  Janeway: How can I resist your... magnificence?
  Chaotica: Together we will rule the cosmos, and grind out enemies into dust! (kisses his way up her arm; Janeway looks disgusted)
  Janeway: (later, to Chakotay) If we restore the timeline, remind me to cancel Mr. Paris' holodeck privileges.

Music

• In MC Hammer's "Addams Family Groove" for the 1991 film he kisses up Morticia's arm.

Theater

• In a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream the two male leads (under the influence of a love spell) both grab one of Helena's hands and kiss it. They try to one-up each other by kissing up her arm, and it finished with one of them sniffing her hair. Needless to say, Helena is not amused.

Web Comics

• In one of A-gnosis's spinoffs to the webcomic, the god Dionysos does an even more naughty variant of this, by licking up the arm. Here's the picture. The recipient is delighted.

Western Animation

• The Addams Family (1992): Gomez Addams also does this in the animated series, as pictured above.
• In the Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels episode "The Dummy" upon finding a diamond ring Captain Caveman does this to Taffy then puts it on her finger and asks her to marry him, before she can respond the ring is taken by the police as evidence.

• In the Tex Avery MGM Short Little 'Tinker, BO Skunk thinks he's kissing the arm of a female rabbit he's trying to woo, but she runs off because of his smell before he reaches her with his eyes closed, and he unknowingly ends up kissing along a tree branch before kissing an owl that was perched at the top on the beak, who promptly passes out.
• Kaeloo: Often, when Kaeloo and Mr. Cat are flirting, Mr. Cat plants kisses up Kaeloo's arm, but never manages to get any further than that.

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