Milking the Giant Cow: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

If they fall to their knees while doing so, they are contractually obligated to raise their hands to the heavens, grasp the invisible teats, and pull down a few times, as if milking an oversized bovine.

* ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'': Jafar milks the giant cow quite a few times. Even on the cover art!

* [[Disney]]'s ''[[Pinocchio (Disney film)|Pinocchio]]'': [[Large Ham]] Honest John waves frantically and points with his walking stick at every opportunity. [[Sissy Villain|The wrist motions can make one wonder what the artists were going for here.]]

 

== Film -- Live Action ==

* A staple of silent film in general, thanks to the lack of dialogue to convey thoughts.

* In ''[[The Room]]'', Tommy Wiseau wildly throws his arms downward while uttering the film's most famous line, "You are tearing me apart, Lisa!"

* Since the actors of ''[[Bitter Lake]]'' performed the entire movie in fursuits with largely immobile faces, they resorted to overacting the body language in a desperate attempt to sell the flat vocal acting.

* [[Star Wars|David Prowse]] milks the proverbial cow like he's getting a bonus for every hand gesture he makes.

 

* John Moore's humorous fantasy novel ''Heroics for Beginners'' specifically cites this term:

 

== Live Action TV ==

* In ''[[Power Rangers]],'' suited characters often kick the wild gesturing [[Up to Eleven]]. It's especially noticeable when still suited outside fight scene (like figuring out device, etc.) In the early years, these gestures would be accompanied by the same swishing-through-air sound as martial arts strikes. [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?]]?

* Along with his oddly placed vocal pauses and emphasis on unusual syllables, this is a key element to the [[William Shatner]] acting style, famously perfected as Captain Kirk on ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]''. Indeed, one filk song ("Star Trek Rhapsody") even name-checks it:

'''McCoy''': And I'm sorry, [[He's Dead, Jim]]. }}

* ''[[Angel]]''. Wesley does this while spoofing the Buffy/Angel romance in "Fredless".

 

 

* The director for the [[Music Video]] to [[Elton John]]'s song ''I Want Love'' accused [[Robert Downey, Jr.]] of doing just this. Her solution? Taping his hands in his pockets to remind him that understatement worked more for this concept (the idea was just Downey walking and lip-synching to the song in a cold 'institutional' building). Works, too.

* Vocalist Kamijo has always been [[Chewing the Scenery|partial to a nice piece of stage]], but he takeshis wild dramatic gesturing [[Up to Eleven]] in the last couple of minutes of [[Versailles]]' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne423XWtjf4 Ascendead Master PV]. The rest of the band join as well- if they can get away with taking their hand away from their instrument for a minute, they do just that and make it worth it.

* [[King Diamond]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tl-N9FJMpY shows us how it's done].

 

== Software ==

 

 

== Theater ==

 

* This is pervasive enough that [[William Shakespeare]] ranted about it in a [[Character Filibuster]] in ''[[Hamlet]]''. Yes, [[Zeroth Law|Shakespeare troped it first]].

::In the same dialogue: <small>[[No Except Yes|Be not too tame neither]]:... ''[but]'' [[Tropes Are Not Bad|suit the action to the word, the word to the action]]; with this special o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end ''[is to hold]'' the mirror up to nature... Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve... O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise... ''[that]'' have [[Large Ham|so strutted and bellowed]] that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men and [[Uncanny Valley|not made them well]], they [[Take That|imitated humanity so abominably]].</small>

* In the [[Reduced Shakespeare Company]] play ''The Complete History of America (abridged)'', Reed tries to mime steering a car, but his gestures are off enough that Austin tells him, "Stop milking that cow!"

 

 

== Video Games ==

 

* In ''[[Ape Escape]] 3'', Specter and Dr. Tomoki have a tendency to do this in FMV cutscenes, making them look like mad puppets.

* Xehanort from ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' tends over-exaggerate with his hands throughout the series, but his latest (or earliest?) incarnation as [[Birth By Sleep]]'s Master Xehanort takes milking the giant cow ([[Chewing the Scenery|of]] '''[[Large Ham|darkness!]]''') to a fine art. The man is seemingly unable to make speeches without making clutching/grasping motions of some sort.

* ''[[The Legend of Zelda CDI Games]]'': The cut scenes: "Gee, it sure is boring around here!"

* ''[[Xenosaga]]'': Virgil is seen doing this in Episode One, when lecturing about the expendability of realians.

* The characters of ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' indulge in this a fair bit.

* In ''[[Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army]]'' and ''[[Raidou Kuzunoha VS King Abaddon]]'', [[Large Ham|Dr.]] [[Mad Scientist|Victor]] is made incredibly awesome by his abuse of this.

* In the in-game cutscenes in ''[[Heroes of Might and Magic V]]'', the characters have a very small pool of body language expressions, almost all of which are highly overblown and [[Large Ham|Hammy]].

 

== Web Comics ==

 

== Western Animation ==

* In ''[[The Secret of NIMH]]'', Mrs. Brisby does this at least once, mainly as a way for the animators to underline her anxiety.

* The ''[[Venture Brothers]]'' resident cow-milker is Dr. Orpheus; he'll gesture wildly [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|even if saying rather mundane things]].

* In the crossover episode of ''[[Captain N]]'' and ''[[The Legend of Zelda|The Legend Of Zelda Cartoon]]'', everyone celebrates by ''lifitng their arms up and down''.

* Daffy Duck in the ''Great Piggybank Robbery'' and other [[Looney Tunes]].

* [[Avatar: The Last Airbender|Katara]], while mocking Sokka for his big ears, decides it is necessary to mime "elephant ears" using her hands, along with pointing dramatically as if she has an [[Ace Attorney|objection]]. Apparently this is a genetic trait: later, in season two, Sokka gets a little...intense while cheering and booing during the earthbending tournament.

* Rarity in ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' is prone to this, as per her [[Large Ham]] tendencies. The characters in general all seem to fall under the constant movement variant as even when they're just talking to each other, there's constant movement.

 

== Real Life ==

* [[Adolf Hitler]] [[Truth in Television|had a tendency to do this while giving speeches]]. His [[Internet Movie Database|IMDb]] page lists "dramatic hand gestures" under [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0386944/bio#trademark trademarks].

** It was very common to gesticulate like that in Central European rhetoric at the time; speeches from people opposed to Hitler feature similar gesturing (though less froth-mouthed screaming).

* MMA fighter Anderson Silva has a tendency to do this at extremely emotional moments.

* When the terms of the Arab Maghreb Union (a common market treaty between Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Lybia) were being read out, [[Muammar Gaddafi]] [http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ozNAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=O1kMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5058,5224658&dq=gaddafi+tunisia&hl=en started waving his fists in the air] with a smile (he was known for having been particularly ''obsessed'' with a Pan-Arabian/Pan-African union).

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Stock Poses]]

[[Category:Chewing the Scenery]]