"I feel like a side of beef."
"You shouldn't hang me on a hook, Johnny. My father hung me on a hook once. Once!"
— Danny Vermin, Johnny Dangerously
A simple way to humiliate a victim is to pick them up by the clothes, hair, or scruff of the neck, and hang them on a conveniently placed hook (or hook-like projection, such as a nail), usually by their clothes. This is notable for its simplicity, needing little or no equipment apart from the hook itself, often places the victim high up where they can easily be seen, and can show the strength or size of the person doing the hanging. The victim may be subjected to a Humiliation Conga, or simply left there. The victim is likely to wriggle for comic effect and might eventually wriggle free. Other tropes which may follow on from this are Come to Gawk, Make an Example of Them, and Dead Guy on Display.
This is likely to be done by a school bully, especially in a Boarding School of Horrors or Good Old British Comp; or by an adult to a child, playfully or otherwise.
Compare Unwilling Suspension for examples of somebody being more durably confined in a high place. If done by one's underwear, it crosses over with Wedgie. See also Vaudeville Hook. Do not confuse with Hooks and Crooks, where hooks are used as weapons, or Hanging Around, which is about hanging nooses as a means of execution.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You: In Chapter 12, Rentarou hangs Shizuka on a coat hanger by her vest to stop her from chasing him while he searches for the other kiss-zombified girlfriends.
Comic Books
- Joker: The plot follows a young crook named Johnny Frost who sincerely believes joining the Joker is his chance at success. He unfortunately equates "working for the Joker" as "carrying the Joker's authority", leading to repeated and fully-deserved humiliation, like trying to order Killer Croc around and getting suspended on a meat hook until Croc feels like listening (also granting Johnny a good look at Croc's lunch).
- The Adventures of Tintin: In Destination Moon, professor Calculus is put in a very bad mood by a remark of Haddock's and when interrupted by a security guard, actually manages to lift the guy and hang him by his shirt on a coat hook.
Comic Strips
- Calvin and Hobbes:
- One time, Hobbes steals Calvin's clothes and hangs him on a tree by his underwear, in the path of angry hornets, after hearing that said hornets are angry because Calvin's been throwing rocks at their nest all morning.
- In another instance, Calvin tries to shoot a suction cup arrow at Hobbes. He misses and Hobbes retaliates by sticking the arrow to a wall and using it to hang Calvin up by his shirt.
Fan Works
- In The Loud House fanfic Part of the Gang
, Lincoln is aggravated with his younger sister Lola, so he hangs her from the coatrack by the neck of her dress.
Films — Animation
- Gulliver's Travels (1939): When Gabby is lured into the spies' hideout with a "detour" sign, the spies tie him into a sack, which they hang on a coat hook, along with Gabby's hat. They leave him there, but he eventually escapes, still in the sack.
- Muzzy in Gondoland: In the sequel, Muzzy hangs Corvax and Timbo on coathooks before getting to work to find a way to turn the baby Amanda visible.
- Tangled: While hiding out at the Snuggly Duckling, one of the thugs tries to hit Flynn Rider in the nose, but after getting distracted by Rapunzel, they hang him on a hook for a few minutes afterwards.
- Valiant: Big Bad General von Talon is hooked by Valiant at the end on the old mill to both restrain and humiliate him.
- Wreck-It Ralph: Played for Drama. Just before Ralph and Vanellope can leave for the big race, Vanellope says she forgot something and heads back inside. King Candy appears, returns Ralph's medal, and tells Ralph that if Vanellope races, Litwack will assume that the game is broken and pull the plug. He adds that while everyone can escape, Vanellope will be an exception because she's a glitch and will therefore die when it is unplugged. After King Candy takes his leave, Ralph and Vanellope argue, and it culminates with him picking her up and hanging her on a nearby candy cane tree before destroying the car while she tearfully begs him not to.
Films — Live-Action
- The Cat in the Hat (2003): The Cat gets the kids' sleeping babysitter Mrs. Kwan out of the way by hanging her on a coat hanger and stowing her away in a wardrobe, much to the kids' amusement.
- Home Alone 1: Marv and Harry hang Kevin on a coat hook when they finally catch him. They threaten to do exactly what Kevin did to them: burn his head with a blow torch, smash his face with an iron, and Marv starts to bite off Kevin's fingers. Kevin is then rescued by Old Man Marley.
- James and the Giant Peach: Near the end of the film version, Aunts Sponge and Spiker are covered by Miss Spider's silk and hung by the hook of the largest crane in the world.
- In Johnny Dangerously, Johnny hangs Danny Vermin on a door hook. Danny gives his Mad Libs Catch Phrase, "You shouldn't hang me on a hook. My father hung me on a hook once. Once!" Johnny smirks, then opens the door, swinging Danny painfully into a wall.
- In 9 to 5, the ladies keep Hart prisoner, with a metal cable hooked to a harness to keep him from leaving the room he's in. It's later revealed that they can also trigger a device that retracts the cable, leaving him hanging helplessly from the ceiling.
- In One Crazy Summer, bully Teddy has challenged Hoops to a layup contest. Since there isn't a basketball court nearby, Teddy's goons hang poor Ack-Ack on a hook and make him form his arms into a hoop. The impromptu basketball bashes him in the face a few times as well just to add to the humiliation.
- Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed: At the end of the film, after his plans have been foiled, the Evil Masked Figure tries to escape but falls through a section of catwalk that Velma had broken earlier and gets snagged on it, leaving him helplessly dangling in midair.
- Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows: When Moriarty captures Holmes partway through the film, he impales him with a meat hook through his shoulder, hoists him up, then proceeds to knock his helpless archnemesis around (while singing!) for no real reason other than to gloat.
Literature
- Adrian Mole: Barry Kent's final act of menacing Adrian is to hang him on a cloakroom hook, calling him a "copper's nark". He does this after Adrian tells his father about being menaced. After this, Adrian's grandmother puts a stop to the menacing once and for all.
- In Captain Underpants and the Big, Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy, Part 2: The Revenge of the Ridiculous Robo-Boogers, Mr. Krupp (in Melvin Sneedly's body) demands Ms. Anthrope to get him some coffee or she's fired. She retaliates by hanging the principal-in-a-kid's body on a coat hanger by his underwear.
- The Famous Five: In Five Go Off to Camp, Julian tells the story of how his schoolmaster Mr Luffy saw a bully leading a boy around by the belt; Mr Luffy then hung the bully on a coat hook, saying "I can pick up a belt, too".
- In The Horse and His Boy, Prince Rabadash accidentally does this to himself. Dueling Prince Edmund in the middle of a battle, Rabadash leaps on top of a wall, then realizes his elevated position makes him more of a target than before. So he jumps back down, yelling "The bolt of Tash falls from above!" as he does—only for his hauberk to catch on a wall hook, leaving him dangling helplessly. The Narnians and Archenlanders all have a good laugh at him, before taking him down to imprison him normally.
- Nibelungenlied: After cheating his way through Queen Brünhild's engagement challenges, Gunther brings Brünhild to Worms to marry her. Brünhild however realizes that Gunther is keeping a dirty secret from her and pays him back by refusing to let him consummate the marriage in the wedding night. Instead she wrestles him down, ties him up with her girdle, and hangs him up on a nail in the wall for the night, only taking him down in the morning.
- Reign of the Seven Spellblades: In volume 4, Oliver and Chela hold an informal sex education seminar for their friends. Chela comments that statistically it's likely that four or five of them will have had Their First Time by the time they graduate, "possibly with someone seated at this very table." Katie, who crushes on Oliver, quickly looks away from him in embarrassment... and her gaze lands on Guy, who misunderstands and gives her a "No. Just… No" Reaction. Offended, she has their pet troll Marco grab him by his shirt collar and hang him up somewhere high by his jacket for the remainder of the scene.
Live-Action TV
- Done for the sake of a Visual Pun in the Doctor Who story "The Sun Makers". A bureaucratic villain refers to the captured Leela's status as "pending". There's then a cut to her hanging from a wall hook.
- Taxi: When Louie made a pact with God to survive surgery, he tried to be nice to people. Bobby wanted to prove that Louie couldn't do it. Eventually Bobby pushed Louie too far and ended up on the receiving end of this trope.
Video Games
- In The ClueFinders Search and Solve Adventures: The Phantom Amusement Park, Leslie and Santiago reprogram robots used to forge artwork to capture the game's antagonists. Jacques in particular is caught by their jacket and suspended high enough that he cannot get free.
- Fallout 4: Raiders love to hang corpses up on something around their camps, like a tree, possibly for intimidation, or because they think it makes them look cool.
- Final Fantasy XIV: Jacke Swallow, leader of the Rogue's Guild, is on the receiving end of this after pilfering V'kebbe's favorite sandwiches. After the latter finds out her sandwiches are gone, she "enforces" the code and hoists him up in Limsa Lominsa as payback.
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Zero gets hung on a hook by his rival Berkley to humiliate him. He gets rescued by C.J.
CJ: (as he pulls down Zero from the hook) Man, they some pretty strong drawers!
Zero: Yes, my hero. Carl, he came back and humiliated me! I shall probably turn to prostitution now, where I will be found dead, and broken. I am a 28-year-old man, whose landlord just helped him down from a hook, from which I had been hanging from my underwear, contemplating my inadequacy, for nearly two hours. Ow! Ooh, my crack... - Home Alone (Sega): If Kevin gets caught by Harry or Marv, then he gets hung on a hook. Kevin can wiggle his way off the hook by Button Mashing the jump and fire buttons simultaneously.
Web Videos
- alantutorial: After Alan gets kidnapped and forced to make videos, his captors put him through a variety of punishments and humiliations when he rebels. At least twice, Alan filmed a video while hanging from a hook on the door of the room.
Western Animation
- Cyberchase: Near the end of "Eureeka", Digit uses a crane to grab The Hacker in the back of his pants. He was dangled by the hook and was flung out into the distance.
- The Mickey Mouse short "Building a Building" has Peg-Leg Pete use a crane hook to grab Minnie by the seat of her bloomers so he can harass her.
- Rugrats: In "Toys in the Attic", Tommy and Angelica spend the weekend at Boris and Minka's house. After the two toddlers break some of Boris and Minka's possessions, having mistaken them for toys, Boris and Minka childproof their house. As they do this, they sit Tommy in a chair and hang Angelica on a hook by her dress. A humiliated Angelica blames Tommy for breaking everything, even though she was equally guilty of doing the same thing.
- Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: "Spooky Space Kook" sees Freddy hooked by the ceiling in an abandoned military base, after the "ghost" surreptitiously hooks his pants with a hook. Even Velma doesn't know how to get him down. Freddy complains that he feels like a side of beef. Daphne later ends up caught on a hook the gang was using to catch the werewolf on during Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf?.
- The Simpsons: In "Skinner's Sense of Snow", the students of Springfield Elementary School are trapped in the school when it is snowed in thanks to Principal Skinner refusing to let the students go home early or close the school in general. When the students have to spend the night at the school, Nelson tries unsuccessfully to escape, so Skinner punishes him by having Groundskeeper Willie hang him on one of the coat hooks on the wall. Nelson then orders the other students to fight back against Skinner, saying there aren't enough hooks to hold them all. To prove him wrong, Skinner counts the hooks, then asks Sherri and Terri if they can share one. They tell him they can, so Skinner tells Nelson that they're fine.
- South Park: In "Cat Orgy", Cartman has to contend with his violent Babysitter from Hell, Shelly. She's going to invite her "boyfriend" and his band over, so she hangs Cartman by his underwear from the coat rack. When Cartman listens to the music, he's shown covering his ears and shouting for someone to shoot him in the head.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Hooky", SpongeBob plays with a fishing hook only for it to get caught on his pants. He's forced to remove them — in front of Pearl and her friends, no less — only to then find it's also caught on his underwear. He refuses to remove those, but in his struggle to escape getting reeled in, they're ripped off anyway, leaving SpongeBob naked and humiliated. It turns out that Mr. Krabs and Squidward were behind it, in a successful attempt to teach SpongeBob a lesson.