http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VisualPun

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When a phrase which is usually used as a metaphor is shown literally. This can be because The Ditz didn't understand the statement, or can just be a simple gag. This kind of humor is considered dated and a bit old fashioned, so most audience won't do more than smirk  at least when adults are involved (children tend to be more easily amused). Occasionally this action can be performed literally without the verbal set up. It is a frequent pitfall when dealing with a Literal Genie.

Common versions include requests to "give me a hand" being met with disembodied hands and quotes of Marc Antony "lend me your ears"  well, use your imagination.

These can be quite a nightmare for translators: purely textual puns can be rewritten into something else, but when the pun has a visual component (which usually cannot be changed), it becomes much harder to come up with something that makes sense.

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B-Roll Rebus is when news and documentaries do this with Stock Footage. Compare Stealth Pun, which is sort of like a Visual Pun without the visuals. Of course, sometimes a Visual Pun can be a stealth pun. But, you know, they're stealthy about it. Supertrope to Rules of the Road in cases where road signs are literal, not figurative, depictions of what's up ahead. Metaphoric Metamorphosis falls under this trope too. See also Literal Metaphor which is often a Sister Trope.

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Anime & Manga

Asian Animation

In one episode of Happy Heroes, Big and Little M. use a Trojan horse in Doctor H.'s Internet router. The Trojan horse is literally a giant rocking horse.

In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons episode 7, Paddi has his pet egg Eggy sneak into Mr. Slowy's laboratory to find him something to eat, and Eggy retrives an egg that Paddi, after eating it, finds out is actually an egg-shaped bomb. The Chinese words for "egg" (蛋, or "dan") and "bomb" (炸弹, or "zhadan") have Chinese characters that are pronounced the same but are different (蛋 and 弹 both being pronounced "dan", in this case).

The Simple Samosa episode "Sabse Sweetest Kaun?" depicts Mayor Royal Falooda as a medieval king - in other words, a literal "royal" falooda.

Card Games

Munchkin is rife with these. For example, the card "Steal a Level", where the card's effect is that you steal a level, as in the gaming term, from an opposing player. The illustration is someone stealing a level, as in the tool.

Magic: The Gathering: The symbol for Phyrexia sets greatly resembles the Greek letter Phi. As in, Phi-rexian . Look at the illustration for Bronze Calendar. It's a bronze colander. The Revised Edition game manual included Richard Garfield's account of the creation of the game. He mentions that the pre-release version used placeholder art for the cards, including a few of these. For example, "Heal" was a photograph of someone's foot, while "Power Sink" showed Calvin sitting in a toilet, "because what is a toilet except a power sink?" Foresee depicts a four-eyed woman.

Dang You To Heck is essentially an unofficial, mormon-themed version of Cards Against Humanity. The creators had to change its name from Mormanity for legal reasons but kept a visual reference to the original name in their logo: A sea cow playing a trumpet in the manner of most depictions of the Angel Moroni , or a "mormon manatee".

Comic Books

Comic Strips

Here in Dilbert, Phil, The Prince Of Insufficient Light darns a man to Heck with his spoon. No, not his giant spoon. Much worse.

in Dilbert, Phil, The Prince Of Insufficient Light darns a man to Heck with his spoon. No, not his giant spoon. Much worse. A The Far Side strip shows a couple driving around with a map of Nowhere, approaching a sign that reads "Now Entering The Middle."

An early Calvin and Hobbes strip features Calvin showing Hobbes an "antelope"... by taking him over to an anthill, pointing to one, and saying "See, she's climbing down the ladder to her boyfriend's car!" Hobbes is not amused.

Garfield: This strip featured Frank, a friend of Jon's, meeting Garfield for the first time and rubbing him. Garfield reacted violently and stated "Some people rub me the wrong way".

strip featured Frank, a friend of Jon's, meeting Garfield for the first time and rubbing him. Garfield reacted violently and stated "Some people rub me the wrong way". Dykes to Watch Out For #346, before the 2000 election: Ginger : Vote for Nader and youll get what you deserve. Bush.

Which is exactly where the croquet ball ends up.

An Inside Woody Allen strip features a store which runs on this trope. Suitcases are shaped like hearts, spades, clubs and diamonds; hand mirrors have a thumb and four fingers, etc. When Woody says he'd like to complain to the manager because it's "too literal" the clerk points to a door labeled "Head Office" which is shaped like a person's head.

Fan Works

AMV Hell 3 has a "MULTI KILL!"... only it's not three players being fragged in quick succession as per Unreal Tournament but rather Multi from To Heart killing.

In Altered Histories Harry casts a disarming spell on a Polish thug with a rather literal result.

Harry casts a disarming spell on a Polish thug with a rather literal result. A Different Professor : Sirius: That was beautiful, Madam Bones. I don't think I have ever seen anyone cut a politician off at the knees with that amount of skill and so little bloodshed. In fact the last time I saw anyone cut off at the knees I actually saw my cousin Bellatrix cut someone's legs off at the knees.

: In A Collection of Harmonious OneShots Hermione gets annoyed at Ron dating Lavender to try to make her jealous and Harry comments that a ton of shit is going to drop on Ron if he keeps up this sort of thing. Hermione then decides to get revenge by conjuring a brown cloud which drops a literal ton of shit on Ron immediately after the Gryffindor/Hufflepuff Quidditch game.

Hermione gets annoyed at Ron dating Lavender to try to make her jealous and Harry comments that a ton of shit is going to drop on Ron if he keeps up this sort of thing. Hermione then decides to get revenge by conjuring a brown cloud which drops a literal ton of shit on Ron immediately after the Gryffindor/Hufflepuff Quidditch game. A Diplomatic Visit: Used by Discord a few times in the sequel Diplomat at Large. In chapter 6, he pops in and claims "My ears are burning" (because he was being talked about). They're literally on fire. Twice in chapter 7. First, when he says he needs to cause more chaos to get back in shape, he's enclosed in a dodecahedron-shaped bubble. Second, when he tells Luna that "The timing is key", his head morphs into an old-style skeleton key.



Films  Animation

Films  Live-Action

Literature

Magazines

A New Scientist cover feature about how we don't know what most of the chemicals in food actually do, was illustrated by a picture of a lettuce, with 90% of it hidden underwater. An iceberg lettuce.

Music

Pinballs

Pro Wrestling

Any time a garbage can was weaponized in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling after Giant Baba coined the phrase Garbage Wrestling to describe it.

Women's Extreme Wrestling champion T.H.A.I. wore fishnets under jeans, with a fish shape cut into the jeans so you could see them.

Johnny Curtis had the gimmick of creating visual puns when he first showed up on WWE Smackdown.

Roleplay

In We Are Our Avatars, Kari's moniker is "Blind Follower"; after her brief Gender Bender moment, she is near-sighted, and needs glasses.

Software

Beta versions of Windows 7 had a wallpaper with a fish (a betta to be exact) blowing 7 bubbles. This is a pun on Windows 7 beta . This wallpaper also sneaked its way into some of the final versions as well.

. This wallpaper also sneaked its way into some of the final versions as well. This same fish was used for the Consumer Preview edition of Windows 8. The bubbles here form the number 8, as a pun on Windows 8 beta .

. Also in Windows, the button to close an open window is a red button with an "X" in the middle. So to close the window, you have to "X"-it.

Theatre

Spamalot has one during this musical number at around 4:31. What's the... oh, "Hay". Duh.

at around 4:31. In The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged), two of these are thrown in near the end: Pontius Pilot and the Axe of the Apostles.

The Deaf West revival of Spring Awakening has an actor-specific example during "The Bitch of Living": The line referencing a girl named Marianna Wheelan has Anna - played by wheelchair-using actress Ali Stroker - wheel by with a bit of a sassy flourish.



Theme Parks

The Haunted Mansion has the opera singers as a visual pun on The Phantom of the Opera, and the Grand Ballroom scene contains a ghost of Caesar, as in "Great Caesar's ghost!"

Muppet*Vision 3D has Waldo, the new 3D Muppet, allowing his nose to jump off his face, grow legs, and start dashing in circles. "Don't cha just hate it when your nose runs?"

A hidden detail on the pathway surrounding Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges at Universal's Islands of Adventure shows a different kind of "school of fish" - a small schoolhouse sitting on top of water.

In Animal Actors, one of the show's birds is taken off the stage by a "stage hand"  a human hand sticking out of a part of the set.

Mickey's Philharmagic used to have a smell pun. During the "A Whole New World" sequence they would pump in the scent of Jasmine's perfume, which, naturally, smelled like jasmine. Unfortunately, too many people were allergic to the scent, and so the scene is now odorless.

Video Games

Web Animation

Webcomics

Web Original

Web Videos

Real Life