Grenade Tropes

"'Old on to tha pin, throw the udder part!" —Ork Tankbusta, Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War

Tropes to do with hand-held explosive devices.

• Blinded by the Light: Along with being deafened by the noise, the usual result of getting hit with a stun grenade (also called a flashbang).
• Fake in the Hole: Tossing something at your foes and pretending it's a grenade, causing them to dive for cover.
• Grenade Hot Potato: A grenade is live and the characters spend the next few seconds trying to pass it off on someone else, until someone gets the bright idea to lob the grenade far away.
• Grenade Launcher: A Cool Gun that fires grenades.
• Grenade Spam: Tossing around more grenades than humanly possible.
• Grenade Tag: Using a Sticky Bomb on the unwary.
• Insert Grenade Here: Shoving a grenade into a buttoned-up armoured vehicle for maximum carnage.
• Jumping on a Grenade: A type of Heroic Sacrifice where a soldier jumps on a grenade to shield his comrades from the blast.
• Molotov Cocktail: a.k.a. "the people's grenade".
• Pineapple Surprise: Pulling the pin out of a grenade while someone else is still wearing it.
• Pin Pulling Teeth: Pulling the pin out with your teeth: It looks cool, and frees up a hand for mowing down enemies with a machine gun, but isn't possible without damaging your teeth. This is not done in Real Life.
• Sticky Bomb: Your basic grenade, now with adhesive.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: For people who use thrown explosives and incendiaries as a Weapon of Choice.
• Throw the Pin: pull the pin and throw it. Wait, you still have the grenade?!?!?
• Trick Bomb: Fictional (or sometimes Real Life) handheld explosives with unusual properties, such as Sticky Bombs and Stink Bombs.

See also Stuff Blowing Up for the effects of grenade use.

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Cooking off examples

• Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979) had an example of 'cooking off'. One of the terrorists is about to throw a hand grenade into the hold (having already pulled out the pin) when Telly Savalas (playing the Big Bad) grabs hold of his hand. The mook struggles against his grip in wide-eyed silence for a couple of seconds until Savalas releases him so he can throw the grenade. Incredibly stupid in real life, but it did make Savalas' character look suitably Badass and cool under pressure.
• Tom Clancy has another 'cooking off' example in Without Remorse. He notes that John Kelly had personally cut the grenade fuse to a precise length, in order to make the timing more predictable.
• Played for Laughs on The Simpsons when a soldier pulls the pin before delivering an extended And This Is For speech to the enemy. Key word: extended.
• In The Rock, one of the bad guys pops the pins and spoons on two grenades, and loudly counts to three before throwing them through the door towards the good guy. It still takes more than five additional seconds for the grenades to explode.