Groin Attack/Live Action TV

Played for Comedy

• The true highlight of Americas Funniest Home Videos, even if some saccharine, unfunny baby clip always wins instead.
• And in the same line of AFV, the newer show It Only Hurts When I Laugh exists on Tru TV specifically to get away from the unfunny baby and pet clips, specifically in favor of more clips like this.
• Honey I Shrunk the Kids
  • An episode has Wayne getting a newspaper to the groin after the paperboy chucked it. Wayne comments that the paperboy has been working out.
  • A later episode has him get another one during training from a kung-fu master that claims that Wayne is the chosen one to stop the ninjas from conquering Matheson. Wayne comments that he is hemorrhaging from the attack and hopes that his training would finish or that there would be no 3rd Szalinski child.
• Saturday Night Live
  • An old sketch had a man volunteer to be the big-helmeted "attacker" in a women's self defense course, and ended up spending an evening getting his groin repeatedly stomped on by the participants.
  • Nerf Crotchbats. As the rap jingle of this commercial parody attests, the Crotchbat is "A hard steel core, covered with Nerf/You'll feel the difference when you hit the turf!" They offer the Nerf Crotch Missile, too!
• In the pilot of Nick Swardsons Pretend Time, a child is dying, and one of his dying wishes on his Bucket List was for a stranger to stick his penis in a fishbowl full of piranhas.
• House
  • Given all the grief House puts his patients through, it's surprising that so far, only one disgruntled relative has kneed him in the groin. That was a particularly painful looking instance, though.
  • Meanwhile, in another episode, a patient's testicle exploded. It also just happened to explode in the face of the resident pretty boy whom House just so happens to love to torture. This is not so surprising once you realize that the entire episode was All Just a Dream on House's part.
  • A newly-freed Thirteen delivers one to a man as a favor to an ex-cell mate.
• Farscape
  • Played straight with lethal consequences: While Chiana struggles for a gun with a male character, the gun goes off. After the initial confusion of which character was shot, the male character falls down, and the camera pans to reveal a smoking gun hole in the crotch area. The reveal of the exact location of the wound was one of the many scenes that was edited out of Farscape when aired in different countries.
  • As Moya's crew turn against one another in "Crackers Don't Matter", Chiana knees Crichton in the groin. The fact that Crichton started hallucinating after this is thankfully coincidental.
  • Subverted in "Hot to Katratzi". Upon meeting the Scarran who had ordered Aeryn and her cut open in the previous episode, Chiana asks if Scarrans have "mivonks" and kicks him hard in the groin. She then falls over in pain clutching her leg.

Scarran: Yes... but they're not external.

• • In the episode "Coup by Clam", irate that the mechanic boy is actually a mechanic girl, Chiana knees her, to great effect.
• ICarly: Spencer gets whacked there with a ladle by Stu Stimbler's son in "iStake Out", then again in "iKiss" when Sam threw a football to Spencer very hard but not high enough.
• My Name Is Earl
  • The episode "Two Balls, Two Strikes" has a bizarre plot centered around this. Earl tries to make up for kicking this angry Jerkass in the groin (his idea of fun involved cutting off Randy's hair, putting it in water and forcing Joy to drink it) and finds out that the jerkass has become mellow since his balls are deformed and he is getting less testosterone.
  • Also in the episode "Stole a Motorcycle", Randy remembers back to a point where Earl was chasing him down a highway wearing the bottom half of a giant chicken costume. Once Earl catches him, they wrestle for a bit, before Earl kicks Randy twice in the groin. This is made more hilarious by the fact that he kicks him with giant chicken legs.
• Enjoyed on the Fox show Titus. Titus warns his friend about Erin's very sassy teenage niece. When it happens to the guy, he has the classic reaction. the second time, however, when she kicks Titus, she immediately falls to the floor clutching her knee, while Titus knocks on his well protected crotch. "Rookie."
• For a highly scientific explanation of this phenomenon, see The Daily Show's All Star Salute to Getting Hit in the Nuts.
• Scrubs uses this on occasion, especially when Jordan is mad at Dr. Cox.
  • Including one occasion where she persuaded his 3-year-old son to perform a "man check" on him... with his fist.
  • The Janitor always wears a protective cup, because he's had problems in the past with people targeting his groin.
  • The episode featuring the lawsuit attorney (female) and JD imagining her "ball breaking".
  • Randall, the Janitor's aide. Powerful tiny fists, indeed.
• A particular sketch in Jackass involved Johnny Knoxville getting kicked, punched, hit with various objects, etc. in the groin, allegedly to test the groin protector he was wearing.
  • In the movie, he (or one of the Jackasses) hooks up a car battery electric muscle stimulator to his scrotum.
• Vincent Margera (more often known as Don Vito), the obese uncle of skateboarder Bam Margera, is the target of a variety of blows to the gonads in Viva La Bam. This has happened a few other times, usually from Bam.
• Subverted/Averted in an episode of Reaper after The Devil allows Sam to attack him with a baseball bat, although he doesn't feel pain he thanks Sam for being classy enough not to go for the balls.
• In the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode Space Mutiny, the main character not only hits a man in the crotch, but then shoots him there as well. While played serious in the original film, Mike Nelson is quick to riff this: Mike: (as the victim) Ow, why do you hate my groin so much?
• The Big Bang Theory
  • Sheldon's twin sister says that if Sheldon doesn't stop trying to dictate who she sleeps with, they'll have to 'go round like when they were little', to which Sheldon lurches away reflexively, shielding his crotch. Eventually, he says the wrong thing. Gilligan Cut to him lurching out of his room, holding his crotch and talking in a strained voice.
  • In the episode "The Zarnecki Incursion", the guys confront the guy who hacked into Sheldon's World of Warcraft account, only to find that he's a big hulking brute. When Penny comes to pick them up, she decides to go over to the hacker and give him whatfor.

Penny: Good news! Today's the day a girl's gonna finally touch you in your special place. *oof!*

• In the fifth season finale of Lost Sawyer kicked Jack hard in the balls just when it looked like he was going to lose during their fight scene.
• There was Pepsi commercial during the Superbowl that, at some point, involved Justin Timberlake getting hit in the crotch several times by a mailbox post.
  • For those who wanted to see it... The "hits keep on coming" at about the 30 second mark.
  • In another Superbowl Ad, Burt Reynolds gets hit in the groin — among the list of 20 different cliches of a Superbowl Ad.
• To promote Tropic Thunder, Jack Black, Ben Stiller, and Robert Downey, Jr. make a "viral video"; it's this.
• NCIS
  • An episode has Tony spill hot coffee in his lap twice. This time it was karma that got him.
  • Then there was the kid in "Honor Code" disabling one of the kidnappers... admittedly, at six years old, he couldn't reach any higher.
• Even Doctor Who had one, in the classic series no less. Near the end of "Mark of The Rani", The Rani gives The Master a very unpleasant kick (cue newsgroup discussion on whether this means Time Lords have bollocks or if it doesn't count since The Master was in a hijacked body...).
• Red Dwarf
  • In the last episode, "Only The Good", Rimmer kicks Death in the balls and runs away. "Remember, only the good die young!"
  • Rimmer seems to be a favourite character to be involved in these attacks. He gets groin attacked in Back to Earth and Cassandra, and gives himself a voluntary groin attack (it makes sense in context) in Back in the Red.
  • Legion threatens to do this to himself if the crew continues misbehaving, since any pain he feels will be felt by the crew. Kryten is understandably unperturbed.

Kryten: That kind of tough talk doesn't scare us! Others: Yes it does!

• • Inverted in "The Last Day". Hudzen 10's promotional video shows Hudzen destroy a brick with his groinal attachment.
• A staple part of Bottom. The Spouts of Evil is a particularly good example.
• The Rick Mercer Report combined a spoof of a bank commercial with the feeling people get at tax time to get "Knee In My Package".
• In the final episode of Blackadder II, Blackadder and Melchett escape from German captors by carefully memorizing their daily routine, then striking at the moment where they're at their weakest — when they taunt the prisoners with pelvic thrusts. Afterwards Blackadder remarks, "Trust me to get the hard one!"
• Myth Busters
  • In the "Viral Hour" episode, during the "Fainting Goat" segment, Tory gets clocked in the groin by a playful goat. (Okay, he probably didn't think it was funny, but at least one viewer did.)
  • He got one earlier than that when they were testing the Ben Franklin kite flying myth. Their kite was having stability problems, so they tied a rock to its tail. Tory was standing next to the kite when it suddenly whipped around and smacked him in the groin with the rock. We then get a shot of Grant sitting on the ground, laughing hysterically. Bonus points for this being seconds after they dub it the "kite of death" when it took a swing at his upper body.
  • During the "Plywood Builder" revisit, Tory donned padding before the test ... and Grant decided to test it with a knee to the crotch.
  • During the Mythbusters top 25 countdown, after talking about the above mentioned incidents, Tory wonders if he still can have kids.
  • Averted during the Mythbuster Challenge between Adam and Jamie. To test pain endurance, they had a duel with pain(t)ball markers, one shot each per round, stepping closer each round, until one cried uncle. Jamie managed to shoot Adam in the belly button twice (with Adam noting that it hurt worse the second time). One of Adam's shots (unintentionally) hit Jamie in the groin, which did nothing because they were both wearing cups. Unsurprisingly, Adam lost.
• Pro Wrestling Tag Team the Dudley Boys have a signature move called the What's up. Bubba Ray will grab the legs of a downed opponent and raise them up off the ground while his brother Devon climbs to the top turnbuckle. Bubba will then scream "WAZZUP?" as Devon dives off the rope and head butts the crotch of whoever Bubba is holding.
  • When Ivory was with the Dudleys she was the one to do the dive.
  • A version of this move is used in Tekken.
  • Goldust's "Shattered Dreams" involves tying up the opponent in the corner ropes before delivering a running kick.
  • The low blow in general, which is seen at least once on every wrestling show. There's also the "Testicular Claw," where a wrestler will grab his opponent by the... Well, you know...
• In the How I Met Your Mother episode "The Goat" Ted punches Barney in the groin after being offered "one free shot" as punishment for Barney breaking the Bro Code by sleeping with Robin, Ted's ex-serious-girlfriend.
• In Drop the Dead Donkey, the Globelink team go on a bonding paintball weekend. At one point, Henry storms into view ranting about Joy being a psychopath, and then the shot widens to reveal his crotch is covered in yellow paint.
• Top Gear
  • Jeremy Clarkson did this to James May during a challenge involving the presenters trying to escape a roadblock in home-converted stretch limousines. With a paintball gun. At point-blank range.

May: That was chuffing agony.

• • And Richard Hammond headbutted poor May in the groin during the Vietnam challenge, when he (and his motorbike) fell over onto him. Both of them seemed to think it was more funny than painful.
  • When they were coming up with car-related art, Jeremy puts paintballs into the airbox of a Formula 1 car so they would be shot out of the exhaust and onto a canvas. The canvas wasn't strong enough to withstand the high-velocity paintballs, and Jeremy was stupidly standing right behind it. You could actually hear his screams through his helmet, over the sound of the F1's engine. After donning a cup, he used a sheet of aluminum as a canvas.
  • While showcasing a flaw on Jeremy's Porsche 944 he was using for a challenge, Richard and James slam both doors which immediately causes the sunroof to fall in. On the swing back after shutting it, May inadvertently pops Clarkson.
• Barely averted in Odyssey 5. Hedonistic scientist Kurt Mendel has an attack of paranoia and is convinced that his friends are Synthetics (artificial humans). His former lover, Angela Perry, gets Kurt to swallow his medicine by pointing a Beretta 9mm at his testicles.

Angela: I will do it, Kurt! Kurt: Oh God, even as a Synthetic, you are a ballbuster...

• Used at least once in That 70s Show.

Kelso: Hey, you guys know what my favorite ballet is? Hyde: The Nutcracker? (said while chucking a basketball directly at Kelso's nether regions)

• • "Tater Nuts."
• The Young Ones
  • In "Oil", Vyvyan swings a cricket bat square into Rik's crotch while he's prone on the ground, leading to Rik's immortal line:

"Ha, ha, joke's on you, missed both my legs."

• • Rik slips and falls down the stairs, hitting every wooden support in the banister groin-first. By the time he reaches bottom, he has a pile of broken-off banister pieces between his legs and an expression more bug-eyed than anguished.
• Don't know whether this goes here or under "Real Life", but Daily Buzz host Mitch English once did this to himself during a segment on poi balls.
• Friends
  • While not a groin attack, it's worth mentioning that it subverts the idea of women never being hit in the chest for comedic purposes. The gang is having a game of American football in one episode. Monica throws the ball to Phoebe who catches it, but it strikes her in the chest hard. However, it is played for laughs as she squeals: "Oh! Broken boobs!". Since she flashed Chandler not long after, we can assume nothing permanent was done.
  • Also, The Stinger in the episode "The One With Rachel's Going Away Party" where Rachel is moving to Paris and the gang helps to pack her stuff away, Joey asks Phoebe to kick him in the spuds after he's stuffed a load of styrofoam down there. Unfortunately, not enough.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
  • Det. Stabler gets knee'd in the crotch by a very upset mother (or maybe her son) and groans about needing Special Victims for his "special victims". As far as we know this is the first time this was done in SVU, which is odd considering all the other kinds of sexual bodily harm that's occurred.
  • Later, a (female) perp makes advances to him by throwing herself at him and grabbing his nuts.
• Celebrity chef (something) Bell prepared Rocky Mountain Oysters for Johnathon Ross by slicing them open and skinning them, to horrified cries from the host and the crowd.
• This is how the The Long Big Punch Up IV: Gladiator ends during The Last Fast Show Ever possibly through the use of a wait for it... Bollock Knife
• An episode of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! had moments of a midget socking people in the balls.
• Supernatural: Nutcracker. It's as bad as it sounds.
  • In the season 2 episode Nightshifter, Dean takes a serious crotch shot from a shapeshifter...posing as a petite blonde woman.
• Stargate SG-1: In the middle of a rather epic fight between Vala and Daniel aboard the Prometheus, she uses a fire extinguisher which happened to be within reach to strike him in the groin.
• ER had several examples of this, usually with either Carter or Morris as the victim.
• Zack of The Suite Life on Deck inflicted one upon himself with a croquet mallet.
• Choujin Sentai Jetman subverts this. Gai Yuuki would target mooks' groins, but instead of striking it, he'd squeeze them to unnerve the Mook, before beating them in the more proper place.
• In the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode "The 5 Wood", a German Shepard bites Larry's penis.
• On The Tonight Show, Ed Ames was demonstrating the proper way to throw a tomahawk. The painted target received one of these, courtesy of Accidental Aiming Skills.
• Oz features Johnny Post getting dismembered, his penis cut off and mailed to the Homeboys, as a retaliation for burning Dino Ortolani alive.
• This segment on Attack of the Show covered a montage of female examples created in the battle simulation game Fight Maker 2. This led to backlash from various feminist blogs such as Feministing, who blamed the creators of Fight Maker 2, believing that they had created some sort of misogynist vagina-punching game.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus.
  • In one episode, a French film takes place in a trash dump. In one scene a nun kicks a policeman in the groin.
  • When Inspector Leopard is trying to arrest director Yakomoto, he knees a fellow police offer in the groin to show how violent he is.
• In a retrospective episode of Murphy Brown, Murphy is having labor pains in the hospital, and a male coworker is annoying her with "Tell me what you're feeling! I want to know the pain that only a woman can feel!". She beckons him to come close. Cut to him sitting on a stool, months later, describing the events to the audience: "Well, I didn't get to feel the pain that only a woman can feel, but I did get to feel the pain that only a man can feel."
• Happens in the Goodies episode "Hype Pressure". Context: Bill has become a sixties-era flowerchild, and refuses to sing a violent song on Tim's show. This ensues:

Bill: Sorry, man, you're not getting that. From now on, I am a child of peace. Tim: I'll smash your face in. Bill: (hands over a flower) Love. Tim: (drops it and grinds it into the floor with his shoe) Bill: ...(looks around, then grabs Tim by the shoulders and knees him in the groin — as Tim's doubled over in pain, Bill starts flashing the peace sign everywhere) Love, love, love.

• When Vince is first learning to walk the tightrope in The Cape, he ends up falling on it nuts first.
• When stopping Evan from fooling around with a pair of long scissors, Divya in Royal Pains threatens this in a Fridge Brilliance fashion:

Divya: (grabs Evan's wrist) Cut it out, or I will use those for their intended purpose!

They're used for vasectomies.

• An episode of Republic of Doyle starts with Doyle being (falsely) accused of cheating at poker. He is about to be pummeled by two goons when he fakes a heart condition, falls on his knees and punches both the goons in the groin with his fists.
• Fiona in Burn Notice shoots a guy in the crotch with a beanbag round. Ouch.
• This is a staple of The Benny Hill Show, Benny Hill ending up frequently the victim of accidental groin hits. Usually followed by him walking away with arched legs while making tingling bell sounds.
• Sex and the City: Samantha grabs Richard by the balls out of anger/jealousy upon finding out he's screwing yet another woman.

Richard: It's the black and white ball, not the black and BLUE ball!

• 1000 Ways to Die is a show that's specialized in Black Comedy and Gorn. Therefore, it has many of these:
  • The zoophilic Russian soldier who tries to rape a raccoon after cockblocked by a fellow soldier. The raccoon bit off the private's privates.
  • The guy who whizzed on the electric fence—with obvious (and unlikely) consequences.
  • The heretic priest who got his groin split in two on his own invention during the Spanish Inquisition as punishment for building the device in the first place, though this is more Karmic Death...he DID build the device, but he was accused of being a heretic and thus was the first victim... Hoist by His Own Petard.
  • To add on to this list, the Portuguese man treating Brazilians like slaves and forcing them to pan for gold. While swimming in the Amazon River, he stops to urinate, and gets a candiru fish to lodge into his urethra. As if that wasn't disturbing enough, he rips the still lodged candiru out (and therefore, the inside of his penis), spilling out blood which attracts a school of piranha that eat him alive.
  • "Hertz So Good": A man with a "Prince Albert" penis piercing dies from being shocked by an old electrical transformer. The episode has a shot of him lying on the ground, smoke curling around his crotch.
  • The bitter gymnast who dismounted off a trampoline — and lands on top of one of the supports for the parallel bars. The force was enough to rip her rectum and vaginal opening and cause fatal damage. Doubles as Impaled with Extreme Prejudice.
  • The abusive football coach who died of sepsis after the star kicker of his team kicks him in the crotch — with cleats that have lead insets in them (the force of which sent a bone fragment into his kidneys). Usually, when men get kicked in the groin, they wish they were dead. In this case, there was no wishing.
• The very first episode of Brazilian series As Brasileiras has the protagonist getting jealous at her husband and using a kitchen knife on his Teeny Weenie. Then she discovers her jealousy was without reason, and Hilarity Ensues in order to reattach his manhood...

Played for Drama

• Vala Mal Doran does this to Daniel Jackson in a fight in Stargate SG-1. Rather than a kick however, she hits him with a fire extinguisher. Can be seen as funny, considering the whole scene is that Daniel is getting beat up by a girl, but his reaction is more realistic.
• In the Kate Modern episode "Back on Brick Lane", Gavin, who is having a mental breakdown, chases after and pounces on Jennifer — a complete stranger — mistaking her for Kate. Jennifer knees him in the groin and runs off, yelling hysterically. Gavin lies on the ground, coughing and sobbing.
• In the FX drama Sons of Anarchy, a child rapist's testicles are cut out with a pair of livestock castration tongs in the most graphic method possible on television.
• Taken to an extreme in Blackadder. The title character is punished by being strapped into a torture chair which will simultaneously cut his hands and feet off as well as attack his balls with a drill.
• On The Wire, Snoop and Chris try to torture Omar's friend Butchie to find out where he is. When he refuses to crack, they finish him off by shooting him in the groin.
• Probably a rare example of this occurring on a female is Don Draper's attack on Bobbie Darrett in Mad Men.
• In Spartacus: Blood and Sand, a very well endowed gladiator recruit gets crucified and castrated, much to the dismay of his sponsor, who bought him because of said asset. She should have thought twice before she told him to go kill Spartacus, whose life was considered far more valuable than that of a gladiator trainee.
• On ER, two hoops-playing doctors half-jokingly discussed which body part(s) they'd be more willing to lose, given a Sadistic Choice between amputations. The most difficult choice? Whether to lose two arms or one penis.
• Deadliest Warrior has an inadvertent Groin Attack by the Aztec representative using the Atlatl & Tlacochtli. One of the show's host claims one could survive an arrow to the groin; he is alone in that belief, if the wincing the others did is any indication.
  • Up to Eleven, in the Celt vs Immortal episode, where a Celt was shown slicing a man's groin in a battle with his sword.
• Methos from Highlander the Series pulled a notable example once, when Stephen Keene, a genuine good immortal who believed Duncan was evil came after Duncan. When Methos couldn't talk Duncan into being sensible about the whole issue, he promptly incapacitated Duncan, then fought Keene in his place. At one point during the fight Methos fakes a fall, which makes Keene move in for the kill. Methos blocks the attack, then brings out a concealed dagger and stabs Keene with it below the belt. An outraged and horrified Keene barely manages to croak out "You bastard" before collapsing.
• On an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, a Yandere seduced the current wife of her ex-brother-in-law online by pretending to be a British man and then gave her cocaine laced with dioxin. She instructed the other woman to vaginely insert the drugs, which killed her. That’s right she pulled of a groin attack by tricking a female into killing herself with chemical laced coke. She later justified herself by saying the wife was not a good girl because she would shove drugs up her crotch.
  • There was also a Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Episode where a man was a serial rapist, who married one of his rape victims (she didn't know he was her rapist). At the end during The Reveal, the woman says "You're the man who raped me!?" and instantly pulls a Groin Attack on the man (using her knee). Cue a quite priceless look from Stabler as they duck his head while he groans in pain to stuff him in the police cruiser.
  • Subverted on another Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode, when the police doctor is collecting samples from a suspected pedophile, who whines that it hurts when she plucks hairs from his head. Stabler and the doctor point out they'll need pubic hair samples too, clearly anticipating his distress at getting painfully plucked there as well; the suspect, however, drops trou to reveal that he'd already had his groin rendered permanently hairless by electrolysis.
    • In the same episode, one of the pedophile's victims burned and mutilated the crotches of his little sister's dolls to act out his anger.
  • A rare female example happened off-screen in one episode. A woman kicked her younger brother's who was actually her son therapist right between her legs when she mistook the therapist's rather controversial methods for signs that the therapist was seducing him. The team got involved because the injuries looked like evidence of rape and the guy became their prime suspect though he ultimately turns out to be the only pure victim in the whole mess.
• Tales from the Crypt. In "Split Personality", after being caught by the twins he was conning, Joe Pesci's character is tied into a bed and is forced to see much to his horror as the twins cut him in half using a chainsaw. And guess where they started cutting him? Right in his groin. Ugh.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  • Buffy shows other Action Girls how it's done:

Angelus: (mocking) You can't do it. You can't kill me. (she winds up... there's the kick...) *WHACK* Buffy: Give me time.

• • The season 5 finale also has a rare female example. It's hard to see due to the pace of the fight, but at one point Glory clearly punches Buffy in the groin. And yes, it hurts just as much for women, and Glory is a god... ouch.
  • Also, repeated with emphasis and a very sharp axe in the series finale.

Caleb: Stupid girl. You'll never stop me. You don't have the-- Scythe: *THWACK* Buffy: Who does nowadays?

• • This was off screen, otherwise it'd be permanently affixed as the trope image.
  • She attempts this again to Twilight. Given who he is, it's a surprise he didn't run screaming.
• In Burn Notice Fiona subdues a very large and strong thug by shooting him in the groin with a beenbag round from her shotgun.
• A pretty gruesome one happens in the Grand Finale of the Chilean night telenovela El Laberinto de Alicia (Alicia's maze). The Big Bad, Esteban alias Carlitos (the titular Alicia's boyfriend and a pedophile who raped many children) gets this from his sister Sofia, who does this because one of his victims was her daughter. After offering herself as his hostage she drugs him, ties him to a bed, castrates him with a scalpel and leaves him there to bleed to death..
• In the Criminal Minds episode "A Real Rain", attempts to catch a killer Vigilante Man who's going about killing perceived escapees from justice are taken by surprise when 1. one of their undercover cops dies in the field and 2. the man responsible shows up, claiming to be the man they were looking for. Questioning him, they specify a question about stabbing in the groin a man who had preyed on children ("It's what he deserved.") and confirm, since that wasn't a facet of this particular homicide, no, he's not.