You Won't Like How I Taste
Please don't eat me! I'm nothing but skin and bones; I won't make a good meal, and you won't like the way I taste!
Some variation of that phrase is spoken throughout fiction by characters caught between a rock and a slobbering monstrosity trying to eat them. For obvious reasons, it's quite common in animated comedies featuring animal characters, too. The phrase is not usually expected to actually dissuade the predator from attacking—often, not even by the character in question, who'll likely consider it quite radical and far-fetched—but it can be good for stalling, giving our heroes more time to think of an effective means of escape.
In some rare cases, it's related to Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth and Regret Eating Me. Not the opposite of I Taste Delicious.
Anime and Manga
- A Fairy Tail filler includes Happy being abducted by runaways from a dark guild who hope to eat him. What makes his use of this trope odd is that he isn't saying this to stall. He's genuinly concerned that he'll taste bad because he really has to pee.
Comics
- In Strontium Dog, a mutant tries to dissuade Durham Red from sucking his blood by saying that he's ananemic and, therefore, unnapetizing.
Fairy Tales
- The Grimm fairy tale The Three Billy Goats Gruff is likely the trope originator.
Film
- In The Lion King, Zazu says this to the hyenas.
Literature
- Subverted in Mogworld, wherein Jim says the line to a monster, realizing a second later that, being a zombie, he's more than likely telling the truth.
- In Kids Praise 9: The Search For Psalty's Missing 9, Psalty and the kids encounter a tribe of bookibals who plan on eating the main character. One of the kids tries to dissuade them by pointing out Psalty's name is indicative of how he'll taste.
- In James and the Giant Peach, the centipede says this to the huge cloud man.
- In The Silver Chair, a Talking Stag tries this and fails to avoid being eaten by giants. The protagonists overhear them talking about the incident later, which results in an Alien Lunch moment of horror when they realize they are eating the Stag.
Live Action TV
- A sketch on The Muppet Show has Kermit, as Sindbad the Sailor, telling Sweetums that frogs taste terrible "even with lots of ketchup." To back it up, he asks his crew, "Have I ever been accused of good taste?"
- Inverted in the episode I Was a Teenage Werewolf on Mystery Science Theater 3000, where they have the soon-to-be-first-victim saying "I'm probably very tasty and well-marbled. Not something I've often thought about..."
Tabletop Games
- "Tastes Bad to Monsters" is actually a beneficial status in one tabletop game.
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse has the Merit "Bad Taste", which puts any werewolf or other monster who bites you at some disadvantage due to nausea. Unfortunately, it also means that dogs, wolves and other werewolves won't lick your face or hands, which is a problem socially.
- There is a spell in Dungeons & Dragons that turns your blood into an acid that injures any monsters that bite you.
- And a lower level spell, called "Horrible Taste", which causes nausea in any monster that bites you.
Video Games
- In Super Mario 64 DS, a penguin tells Yoshi not to eat him because he tastes terrible and gives cavities. Yoshi promptly spits him out.
- This is a common response in the second Ys game when Adol turns into a monster. (Ironic, since the monsters in question are harmless kangaroo-like creatures.)
Web Comics
- Digger tries to convince Grim Eyes and other hyenas that she is unclean and therefore inedible.
- In Dreamwalk Journal, Fleur says the line to her hungry spider companion.
Western Animation
- In Totally Spies!, Alex tries it on a giant squid, adding "Once, a mosquito bit me and it was sick for, like, two weeks afterward!"
- Ami, to a sasquatch in Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi: "I'm not part of your balanced diet! I'm not kosher!"
- In Taz-Mania, Wendel says it to Taz. Taz tries to eat him anyway and discovers that Wendel was telling the truth.