This Banana Is Armed

An ineffectual character shows up with an ineffectual "weapon", usually something that's not a weapon at all. Har har har! He's without a chance— wait a minute, turns out that this weapon is really dangerous! Related to Improbable Weapon User and Improvised Weapon.

Sometimes used as an end to an apparent Brandishment Bluff.

Can be done with a Finger Gun, especially if the user has Finger Firearms. Compare Lethal Joke Item.

Examples of This Banana Is Armed include:

Comic Books

• Detective Richard Fell was Genre Savvy enough to recognize that the Ax Crazy guy putting razors into grocery produce was probably dangerous with a banana in his hand.

Fell: "So I shot him. He was armed, after all. With death bananas."

• In a Pink Panther comic, Pink Panther threatens the villain with his pointer finger. The villain laughs... and Pink Panther somehow manages to fire from his finger.

Films - Animation

• In the Babar movie, when Baber, Celeste, & Zephir's attempt to impersonate a rhino Totem Pole Trench style with the aid of a cape and a banana doesn't work out, Zephir quickly finds another use for the latter:

Zephir: Stand back!
Retaxas: Watch out! He's got a banana!
Zephir: And I'm not afraid to use it! *squirts it in Retaxas' face, temporarily blinding him and letting Babar snatch his sword*

Films - Live Action

• Played for drama in Chronicle where Andrew points a Finger Gun at a local gang member and uses his telekinesis to knock him down.
• Used in the Hancock when Hancock uses a candy bar to disable a would-be robber.

Literature

• Subverted (or something) in the Discworld novel Sourcery. Rincewind is desparate enough to attack Living God and Reality Warper Coin with… a half-brick in a sock. Not that it actually works or anything, but Coin is so fascinated by the concept (half-bricks in socks don't ever really occur to you when you have limitless magic at your disposal) that he spares Rincewind.

Live Action TV

• Get Smart - Maxwell Smart had a .22 calibre Finger Gun. Fires two shots.
  • Inverted when KAOS abducts Smart, with his escaping being part of their plan. At one point Smart raises a finger to a KAOS guy who throws up his hands, as if Smart had a finger gun. Smart insists it's just a finger and shows the KAOS guy, who gives up and leaves. Alone in his cell, Smart mutters to himself "Come on, Smart. Use that fantastic brain of yours!"
• Doctor Who - "Pssh, what could a screwdriver do?" is a pretty common reaction at first. But did we mention it's sonic?
• One Muppet Show sketch featured Fozzie as an Old West-style criminal whose entire arsenal consisted of fruits and vegetables.

I-I'm sorry, I didn't know the pickles were loaded!

• A literal example in a duel segment of Turkey Television. When choosing their pistols, one of the duelists is forced to take a banana. The real pistol jams, but the banana fires a lethal blast and kills the other duelist.
• Zig-zagged in a Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch with a police sergeant teaching his charges how to defend themselves against anyone armed with fresh fruit. He uses a gun, a 16-ton weight, and a tiger.
  • Pointed sticks?
    • Shut up!

Radio

• The Goon Show - "You fool, you can't shoot me with a banana, it's-" Bang! Bang! "... swine ... it was ... loaded!" *thump"
  • In another episode, Seagoon is told that Moriarty killed himself by pointing his finger at his head, and saying "bang".

Seagoon: That’s ridiculous. [Laughs] How can a man shoot himself by pointing his finger at his head like this and going -
[Gunshot, body falls]
Undertaker: Mine, I think.

Video Games

• In the Time Splitters series, there is a tendency to give the player a massive abundance of powerful weapons from destructive to plain Game Breaker and BFG, however in every installment they include the weapon "Brick", which may sound stupid at first, but has a tendency to do a massive amount of damage.
• In the Worms Armageddon game when it was introduced and every version since then has included a series of very very silly weapons, however the sillier it is the more dangerous. When a worm pulls out a banana, expect at least a member of your team to die if not all of your team and maybe some of your enemies... and probably the worm who threw it too.
• Plants vs. Zombies is based on the premise that you defend your home during a Zombie Apocalypse with assorted vegetables, fruits, mushrooms and other plants that can do massive damage to endless hordes of invading zombies.
• The Heavy in Team Fortress 2 has a taunt where he points a Finger Gun and "fires" it at someone. If you happen to be in its line of fire, it's a one-hit kill.
  • Not that it's easy!
• In Soul Calibur Ghost Pirate Cerevantes normally uses a pistol gun thingy, but his Joke Weapon is a wooden toy sword… which can still use the bullet firing moves.
• The 1993 Amiga game Hired Guns by DMA Design had a banana as the most powerful explosive weapon in the game as a joke item, similar to Worms.

Web Comics

• Stage Select is the trope namer for this page and this page.

Web Original

• A Team Fortress 2 Machinima where the Heavy invents a Sandvich gun proves surprisingly effective.

Western Animation

• Often used in Looney Tunes shorts.
  • "The Unmentionables": Bugs Bunny threatens mobster Rocky with a carrot. Rocky laughs it off, until the carrot fires in his face. Unfortunately, it won't fire again.

Bugs: "That's the trouble with carrots: they're only good once."

• • "Drip-Along Daffy": Nasty Canasta is felled by a tiny wind-up soldier… whose rifle packs a mighty wallop.
• Bounty Hamster - "Hah! You didn't think that banana was loaded!"

Real Life

• The 6th finger, which is a toy that shoot darts.