Deathtrap (plot Device) - Spoofs

Spoofs

The concept of the deathtrap/monologue is featured in many satires.

• Deathtraps were spoofed heavily in the Austin Powers movies, including a replication of James Bond's Shark Infested Water deathtrap. It is first introduced as "an easily escapeable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death" with Austin placed on a platform over a pool (which Dr. Evil calls "the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism"). The trap is escaped by swinging on a grapple of dental floss. As the intended sharks with laserbeams were unavailable due to the complexities of international law regarding endangered species (much to Dr. Evil's disappointment), ill-tempered mutant seabass are used instead. As part of the spoof, Scott Evil, Dr. Evil's son, insists that the deathtrap is pointless and that they could simply shoot them with a pistol, which is nearby, and yells at his father for the further incompetence of leaving them alone. Dr Evil responds that not watching the killing but assuming it went well makes perfect sense.

• In the sitcom Blackadder, Prince Edmund is captured by his nemesis, the Hawk, who straps him into a chair which, in sixty seconds, will mutilate him in a variety of ways. Edmund's friends, Baldrick and Percy, manage to poison the Hawk and his followers, but while celebrating this unlikely victory, the time runs out, and Edmund suffers a terrible fate. In another episode, Lord Flashheart is confronted by a villain who begins an evil villain speech. However, rather than waiting for him to finish, Flashheart merely shoots him without warning.

• Curse of Monkey Island makes fun of this cliché. The villain LeChuck, after capturing Guybrush Threepwood, insists on telling him his plans before executing him. By this dialogue, interesting background story that connect the games together are given to the player. Guybrush does him the favour to listen, but after a while he is so bored that he refuses to listen any more, even if LeChuck pleads to continue.

• The famous line from Watchmen wherein the character Ozymandias takes his time and explains in detail how he will set his plan irrevocably in motion and then, in a deliberate skewering of the monologuing tendencies of supervillains, explains that "Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. I did it thirty-five minutes ago."

• In The Simpsons episode "You Only Move Twice", which generally spoofs Bond villain clichés, supervillain/great boss Hank Scorpio has "Mr. Bont" strapped to a table with a laser à la Goldfinger. Bont manages to escape, only to be tackled by Homer. Scorpio's henchmen promptly shoot Bont.

• Some incarnations of the Evil Overlord List point out the impracticality of deathtraps. Some examples include making sure the deathtrap has a VERY small estimated time of death or such lines as "Shooting is NOT too good for my enemies."