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Devices meant to incur torture or induce death.

Devices[]

Picture Description
Wilkins guillotine blade

Wilkins Coffee

Wilkins: "This machine will make you want a cup of Wilkins Coffee."
Wontkins: "Not me. I'll..."
Wilkins drops the guillotine blade
Wontkins: "...take mine with cream and sugar."

Wilkins electric chair

Wilkins Coffee

Wilkins asks Wontkins, who's strapped into an electric chair, if he has any last requests. Shivering with fear, Wontkins turns down the offer. When he admits to not drinking Wilkins Coffee, his executioner flips the switch. "How shocking."

Ways of making Smithers talk

The Muppet Show episode 104

A prison scene with Ruth Buzzi playing WAC Lieutenant Jane B. Smithers begins with a detainee, in silhouette, being dragged away to an undesirable fate. Smithers has been captured by enemy combatants — Boppity and a whatnot — who inform her that they have ways of making her talk. After she gives them the information they need, she won't stop talking... at which point she's told they have ways of making her stop talking.

Guillotine tms313

The Muppet Show episode 313

Set during the French Revolution, a period in history where public beheading came into fashion as a means of aristocratic execution, the closing shot of "Stayin' Alive" features an ominous guillotine in the background.

TMS323 thumbscrews

The Muppet Show episode 323

Scooter reminds his cast mates backstage that the "torture scene" is next, which involves Sweetums delivering Maid Marion (Lynn Redgrave) to a dungeon overseen by the Sheriff of Nottingham (Gonzo). The Sheriff plans to torture Marion until he learns the location of Robin Hood's hideout, beginning with thumb screws. Placing his own thumb in the device, he explains to Marion how they work as she proceeds to tighten the bar.

TMS323 gonzo rack

The Muppet Show episode 323

Moving onto "the rack" — on which Floyd Pepper says Gonzo can only hope to get maimed — Marion assures that the chained manacles on the Sheriff have been secured to his hands and feet. Marion drives the wheel, pulling the Sheriff on either end, effectively stretching his limbs. He asks, "Isn't that terrific?" before Marion retreats to her bedchambers for a nap. The Sheriff calls after her, "We haven't even tried the boiling oil yet!"

Electronic Cerebrectomy

The Muppet Movie

To force Kermit the Frog to appear in his French Fried Frog Legs commercials, Doc Hopper hires a German scientist named Professor Krassman to use a technological means of coercion. Krassman straps Kermit into his Electronic Cerebrectomy, a device meant to "turn the brains into guacamole."

Backstage winters

The Muppet Show episode 416

After Jonathan Winters's props are stolen, Fozzie Bear offers The Muppet Show guest his own. Wheeling the trunk onstage, Winters picks a hangman's noose up from on top of the box and says, "I was sure this would have held him." Kermit introduces the comedian; Winters smiles to the audience and tosses the noose away.

1982--Alice in Wonderland

The Sesame Street Storytime Calendar 1982

The Queen of Hearts (Herry Monster) sentences Alice (Prairie Dawn) to decapitation.

Nipper stick

Labyrinth

Nipper Sticks are used by goblins to torture denizens of The Labyrinth, including one captured Ludo.

Electricchair-naturecalls

Dinosaurs "Nature Calls"

A black-and-white prison movie shows Rocco being sent to the electric chair. The scene cuts away as the guard pulls the switch, and electricity pulses.

Electricchair-dogcity

Dog City "In Your Dreams"

Ace Hart is taken on the last walkie to the electric doggy bed.

Gonzo stretch table MTI

Muppet Treasure Island

Bad Polly, Clueless Morgan, and Mad Monty kidnap Gonzo and Rizzo in an attempt to acquire the hidden treasure map brought on board The Hispaniola by Jim Hawkins. Their effort to get information out of Gonzo by stretching his limbs fails because he likes it.

Rizzo hot poker MTI

Muppet Treasure Island

Annoyed at their failure to get any information out of Gonzo, the pirate trio turn to the more malleable Rizzo. Clueless Morgan threatens the rat with a hot poker, but before he can inflict damage on his victim, Samuel Arrow interrupts the interrogation, and Clueless burns his own hand.

MFS brain sucker

Muppets from Space

The lab within the C.O.V.N.E.T. headquarters held Gonzo prisoner while Dr. Phil van Neuter prepared to have his brain sucked out with a large piece of equipment. The operation of the device is dependent on the patient's pre-existing conditions such as achy tentacles, detachable head, and gingivitis. Gonzo is rescued by Rizzo and the lab rats after he learns that the procedure is covered by his HMO with a ten-dollar co-pay.

MWoZ buzzsaw table

The Muppets' Wizard of Oz

When the Wicked Witch of the West captures Dorothy Gale and Toto, she has them strapped to a table while a buzz saw slowly descends over them. She warns them that they'll suffer "agony of de-feet" if they don't give up the magic slippers.

Boiling oil Muppet Robin Hood

Muppet Robin Hood #2

Thirty years after looking forward to torture from boiling oil with Lynn Redgrave on The Muppet Show, Gonzo (this time playing Sir Guy of Gisbourne) finally finds himself hung over a vat of boiling oil when he volunteers to be tortured following complaints by Prince John (Johnny Fiama) that Robin Hood is making him look bad.

Hanging Muppet Robin Hood

Muppet Robin Hood #4

Prince John sentences Robin Hood to be hung from a noose, but The Swedish Chef has taken his place, and his band of Merry Men destroy the gallows.

The Muppets (2015) promotion

Katie Lowes and Guillermo Diaz threaten the viewers of a promo for The Muppets that they'll torture Gonzo if they skip through the commercials. Tied up in a thick knot with a drill to his head, Gonzo encourages the viewer to do just that... because they won't want to miss the carnage.

Honorable mentions[]

Picture Description
Statler Waldorf TMS s5 verse

The Muppet Show Season Five

According to Statler and Waldorf in a verse from the show's fifth season theme song, having to watch The Muppet Show is "like a kind of torture".

515 first dropout

The Muppet Show episode 515

Gonzo gleefully describes his dance marathon: "Bone-deadening fatigue will soon start to take its toll. … Soon every step will bring terrible agony. The muscles rebel! The mind goes numb! The hideous torture of never-ending pain and torment will re-" ...a contestant then faints.

CMBB4

Cookie Monster's Best Bites

Cookie Monster considers waiting for his cookies to finish baking to be "Medieval cookie torture."

LettersSanta going postal

A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa

After Gonzo shifts the conveyor belt into high gear in the processing center of a post office, Kermit fervently shouts, "This post office is going postal!" as chaos ensues. The term "going postal" is derived from a series of events attributed to postal workers who had met the end of their rope, erupting in violent outbursts often involving a great deal of bloodshed.

See also[]

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