Prinny: We challenge you to bowling, dood!
Adell: Bowling, huh? You do know that you're on the side that gets hurt by the ball, right?
Adell: Bowling, huh? You do know that you're on the side that gets hurt by the ball, right?
A group of people or animals are standing around, possibly in the same formation as bowling pins, and a large, often spherical object crashes into them and sends them flying. An appropriate sound effect is optional.
Oh — and the bowler will always get a strike, never mind how difficult that is in normal bowling.
Penguins seem to be a favorite for this.
Related to Foe-Tossing Charge. Compare Human Chess. Not to be confused with Bowling for Ratings.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Excel♡Saga did this. On a mission to discover what the most popular sport in the country is, Excel and Hyatt get a job at a bowling alley right before it gets taken over by an evil terrorist group that wants to prove bowling is the world's greatest sport. Hyatt, a pair of TV hosts and Excel and Hyatt's idol singer doubles get held hostage in one of the lanes, in giant bowling pin costumes waiting to be knocked down by the evil group's balls. Until Excel uses her bowling balls to save them all and beat the bad guys.
- A variation happens in Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu when Sosuke upsets Kaname whilst at the beach (his decision to use a sniper rifle in a Smashing Watermelons contest got her covered in exploded melon bits) she smacks him across the seafront using the baseball bat he'd discarded and into some parasols and deckchairs and they make the sound of felled bowling pins as he connects with them.
- There was one episode in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch Pure that played this trope for laughs. In this episode, the main characters were trying to rescue Hippo, who was imprisoned at the top of a tower where they have to get past a couple of their adversaries, who are stationed on one floor each. On the second floor, the three heroines confront Lanhua, who then splits into twelve chibi versions of herself, ready to play their music. For no reason at all, a bowling ball lands on Hanon's hands. After a brief imaging of the chibis as bowling pins, she rolls the ball, and… you know what happens next.
- During the Dressrosa Arc of One Piece, a minor character (One Orlumbus), uses one Mook to bowl over other Mooks with a move called Killer Bowling. Zoro later likens it to throwing people like cannonballs.
- There was an Officer Jenny in the Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl episode "Stealing The Conversation" who carried around a bowling ball and used it on criminals like this.
- In SPY×FAMILY CODE: White, as the superhuman Assassin Yor Forger infiltrated a Zeppelin to rescue her stepdaughter Anya, she is met with half dozen soldiers who immediately draw their pistols on her. To this she responds by hurling a fire-extinguisher across the deck and knocking the entire firing-line off their feet like nine-pins, complete with the comedic “strike out” sound effect.
- In Tama of Third Street: Do You Know My Tama?, when the characters sneak into a bathouse, Tora winds up standing on a bar of soap and sliding into a pile of bath pans, producing the necessary bowling sound effect.
Comic Books
- The Simpsons: In an issue called "Bowl Me Over", Homer gets kicked off his friend's bowling team, and soon encounters Jimbo, Kearney, and Dolph, who introduce him to their own version of bowling where they roll the ball at random people on the street in an attempt to knock them over. Homer enjoys it at first, but when the bullies want to bowl over Ralph (whom everyone believes is the graffiti artist El Barto), Homer can't bring himself to do it.
- Tintin: Tintin does this with half of a wooden dumbbell on the second-to-last page of Tintin in America, complete with a bubble showing imaginary bowling pins knocked over.
Comic Strips
- Peanuts: One Sunday Strip has Lucy making a very large snowball the size of a bowling ball. Many other characters taunt her for this and walk off. Lucy proceeds to roll the ball down the sidewalk, scattering everybody (except Charlie Brown) like proverbial tenpins. Lucy has another ball in reserve, and the final panel shows Charlie Brown getting bowled over, commenting about "picking up the spare".
Film — Animation
- The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad: In The Wind in the Willows, Mole is Pinned to the Wall with daggers thrown by the weasels. As they advance on him, Mole manages to pull himself free and propels himself onto the weasels, bowling them over with the appropriate sound.
- Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein: While under the effects of Toon Formula, Alvin rolls into a ball and bowls through a bunch of celebrities at a movie premiere party.
- During a bar brawl in The Great Mouse Detective, one strong mouse's punch sends the bar piano flying into the other band members, complete with the sound of bowling pins as the piano knocks the band members away and breaks apart.
- In The Lion King (1994), we first see Timon and Pumbaa playing "bowling for buzzards".
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Legend of Everfree: When Rainbow Dash is tripped by Gaea Everfree while running at Super-Speed and propelled against her friends by her momentum, sending them all sprawling, the sound effect heard is one of a bowling ball hitting pins.
- Robin Hood: Robin Hood and Little John do that to Prince John's rhino guards with barrels of wine during jailbreak.
- Scary Godmother: The Revenge of Jimmy: At one point, the big, round monster, Bug-A-Boo is sent rolling across the ground and he knocks away Scary Godmother, Skully, and Harry. Scary Godmother then magically creates a bowling scorecard and congratulates Bug-A-Boo on a "perfect strike".
- The Three Caballeros: In the Cold-Blooded Penguin segment, Pablo freezes up and rolls down a snowy hill, turning into a giant snowball that knocks over his farewell party.
- The Twelve Tasks of Asterix: In the Curb-Stomp Battle the Gauls inflict on the Romans at the beginning, Obelix grabs the Centurion by the foot, spins him around, and throws him at a pack of legionaries, projecting them around upon impact (though there's no bowling sound).
Film — Live-Action
- In The Flintstones, Fred Flintstone uses a round small boulder to bowl over Cliff Vandercave as the latter's escaping the destruction of his rock-crushing machine.
- During the climactic Battle of the Goblin City in Labyrinth, a group of goblins stand up to one of the boulders summoned by Ludo and are knocked down like bowling pins. They imminently retreat.
- In The Matrix Reloaded, after Neo breaks out of the Smiths' Dog Pile of Doom, he performs a hoisting of a Smith over his head before hurling him at a group of approaching Smiths, complete with the sound of bowling pins as they are knocked down.
- The Naked Gun (2025): During the Bank Robbery, Frank Drebin Jr. kicks one of the robbers strongly enough for him to slide on the ground towards a bunch of his comrades and knock them down, complete with the bowling pins sound.
- Small Soldiers: During the climactic battle, Punchit tackles a group of Commando Elite, complete with bowling pin sounds.
Punchit: Strike!
- X-Men: The Last Stand: During the Alcatraz fight, Juggernaut goes straight through a group of guards in his way like a bowling ball. The sound design even makes it sound like he’s actually knocking down bowling pins.
Literature
- The Dresden Files: Harry knocks one vampire into an audience full of them during a duel in White Night, and lampshades the resulting mass knockdown as "Bowling for Vampires!"
Live-Action TV
- In Andor, during the Ghorman Massacre, a KX droid kicks a heavy security barrier sliding across the plaza that sends several resistance fighter flying upon impact like bowling pins, with it played for dramatic effect showing just how strong the droids are.
- In Rescue from Gilligan's Island, the Skipper and Gilligan rescue Mary Ann from a wedding that neither she nor the groom wants to go through with by scooping her up in a wagon full of watermelons just before they get to the "I Do"s. A bunch of people run after them, and they throw the watermelons at the chasers to make them stop. Comes complete with bowling SFX and Gilligan lampshading "Hey Skipper, I got a strike!"
- One of the games in the Spanish game show "Grand Prix Del Verano" consists of a player from a team throwing a big hanging ball to other team members who are dressed like bowling pins. The catch? The player is blinded before the game and has to be voice-guided by the "padrino" (a star guest that supports his team) in the middle of the noises made by the other team.
- In the Married... with Children episode "You Better Shop Around (Part 2)," Al ensures his family wins the Supermarket Sweep-like challenge with the D'arcys by tripping up Jefferson and Marcy with a bowled turkey. Complete with "Steeeeeeee-rike!"
- In My Name Is Earl, Earl is trying to convince a policeman that he should be a bowler. He shows the officer the list of misdeeds he is trying to fix, but the policeman immediately arrests Earl as it's more or less evidence of his numerous crimes. Earl tries to run away, and the officer knocks him down but lets him go afterward, because he did that with a bowling ball, thus proving Earl's point.
- Power Rangers Wild Force: In "The Tornado Spin", the Monster of the Week is Bowling Org, an Org who attacks by rolling a bowling ball that sends people flying when it hits them. Comically, when his ball sends people flying, it makes the sound of bowling pins being struck.
- One of the stages of the Japanese game show Takeshi's Castle involved the contestants picking cards dressing them up in bowling pins and having a guard roll a giant ball at them
- Ultraman Ginga have this happening in the final episode, where Exceller's alien henchmen, with a bunch of Mecha-Mooks, tries detaining the (human-sized) heroes. One of the henchmen gets shoved into a group of mooks, and as a hilarious nod to The Matrix Reloaded, it's accompanied by the sound of bowling pins being knocked over!
Theatre
- The Reginald de Koven opera Rip van Winkle has a ball-less variation. Rip, having drunk the Magic Flask, is revealed as young once more, and, as the stage directions put it, "the astounded and terror-struck Dutch folk... tumble over like rows of ninepins." Hendrick Hudson's voice then rings out, in a Call-Back to the bowling scene: "A strike for Rip and Peterkee!"
Theme Parks
- In the former Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast ride at Universal Studios Florida, Ooblar accidentally rams into a group of Yolkians set up like pins, resulting in this, complete with the sound effect as well as Ooblar yelling "STRIKE!".
Video Games
- In Army Men: Sarge's Heroes, in the Cut Scene before the final mission, Sarge confronts General Plastro who says he will use the last remaining portal to destroy the Green Nation and marry Vicky Grimm, they share the following dialogue:
Sarge: She wouldn't marry you on your best day.
Plastro: How about my worst?
[Sarge kicks over a wooden block, and knocks down some Tan soldiers, guarding Plastro, off a ledge, complete with a wooden pins being knocked down sound effect] - In Day of the Tentacle, there's a bowling ball that you see for nearly the entire game, but which is too heavy to pick up. In the climax, our heroes are merged into one body, and the Evil Minions guard their captive in bowling-pin formation. Guess what? The three heroes together are now strong enough to pick up the bowling ball. If you can get past the Big Bad who's now guarding the room it's in...
- In Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, one map during the Tournament Arc has Adell and Rozalin encounter ten of Etna's Prinnies, who challenge them to a game of bowling. As soon as they assume their formation, Adell warns them that they're in for a bad time, as the map also contains a black "12-Pounder" Prinny to serve as the ball.
- Elf Bowling: The premise of the game is that Santa's elves are tired of being underpaid so they decide to go in strike, and Santa retaliates by throwing bowling balls at them, knocking them over like pins.
- In Evolution (1999), Mag can actually acquire and equip Bowling parts for his cyframe which can knock over enemies in the form of this trope.
- Played for Laughs in Jazzpunk where the player is escaping from a band of mooks by barging past them, resulting in the sound of bowling pins being knocked over. Lampshaded twice — firstly when one mook utters, "Bowling joke" before being knocked over, and secondly when the last group of mooks contains a giant bowling pin in mook clothing.
- Kid Icarus: Uprising: one room in the Chariot Master's tower is set up like this; one of the giant boulders that can be struck with a melee attack to send it flying, sitting at the top of a slope, at the bottom of which are a group of Monoeyes. It's actually not that easy to get a strike... on a single downhill send, but as the ball can also bounce back up the slope, Pit's more likely to take them all out with one hit than not.
Viridi: Hey, look! It's a giant bowling ball and some ugly bowling pins!
Hades: My troops are a worthy sacrifice for the sport of kings! - In Kingdom Hearts III, in the Monstropolis world, Mike and Sulley's "Scream Strike" team attack ends with Sora grabbing Mike and rolling him like a bowling ball. There are a couple endurance rounds where you must try and make Boo laugh to move forward; when the laugh meter is full, a special version of "Scream Strike" happens where the enemy Unversed stumble into a ten-pin formation and Sora wipes them all out with a single bowl.
- LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga: During the Battle of Coruscant, R2-D2 triggers a giant ball to knock over several battle droids.
- One of the most effective (if not essential) tactics in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is to use Skills and/or regular attacks that have either a wide area of effect or can hit through multiple targets at once to achieve this. The end result is enemies being left vulnerable for follow-ups (some of which trigger automatically if you have a high Bond Level with your Party Members) that do a healthy chunk of damage. The game even has a helpful indicator (located below your current character's feet) of an enemy's trajectory before you hit them with an attack, further cementing this. Additionally, if you knock enemies into your allies instead of other enemies, they too will swat them into the ground, leaving them susceptible to the aforementioned automatic follow-up attacks.
- Mario Party 1 and its sequel both have the 1 vs 3 minigame appropriately titled "Bowl Over", in which the lone player must knock over the 3 pin-shaped opponents along with the other stationary pins. The former game would allow the lone player to hit at least one pin while stealing coins from the opponent they knock over, while the latter game has it mandatory for the lone player to knock over all 3 of the pin-shaped opponents to win the game, giving them 2 rounds, otherwise, the opposing teams wins the game.
- Metroid Prime 3: Corruption has an area where ten enemies are lined up like bowling pins and marching forward. Players who see this for what it is and run into them as a morph ball are rewarded with an achievement.
- Plants vs. Zombies has the minigame "Wall-nut Bowling" and its sequel, where you place Wall-nuts, Explode-o-Nuts, and in the latter Giant Wall-nuts, to knock over the approaching waves of zombies. You can also earn coins proportionate to how many ricochets you get per Wall-nut.
- The Massive Multiplayer Crossover PlayStation Move Heroes has "Bowling" as one of the five weapons classes, joining the Frisbee of Death as Improbable Weapons.
- Squeeballs Party has two bowling-themed minigames where you bowl over pins with Squeeballs mounted atop them.
- Both Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Donkey Kong Country Returns feature Mooks shaped like bowling pins for you to run over with Rolling Attacks.
Webcomics
- In El Goonish Shive, this is inverted during the "Nanase Craft And The Crypt of Zappiness" storyline. Nanase turns
herself into a human bowling ball and knocks down giant pins.
Western Animation
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: In "Sheen's Brain", one of Jimmy’s inventions turns Sheen into a genius, but soon causes him to gain a giant head, Psychic Powers, and go mad with power. At one point, Sheen uses telekinesis to remove a giant bowling ball from a bowling alley’s sign and send it rolling towards Jimmy and Carl. It hits them, making the sound of bowling pins being knocked over.
- Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog: In "Trail of the Missing Tails", Sonic does this to Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts when they pounce at him, turning them into bowling pins and knocking them over.
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold:
- In the Batman Cold Open of "Invasion of the Secret Santas!", the Sportsmaster traps a championship bowling team in giant pins and rolls an explosive bowling ball at them. Batman saves them by knocking the bowling ball away with a batarang.
- During the climax of "Legends of the Dark Mite!" Batman rides one of the Tweedle brothers and sends Joker, Catwoman, Riddler, and Two-Face flying.
- It happens in ChalkZone to a group of cartoon penguins who enjoy being knocked down.
- The Critic
- A Couch Gag in one episode had Indiana Jones running from that boulder, which then hits a bunch of Nazis who just happen to be there, and, well, you know...
- In "Frankie and Ellie Get Lost," part of Sherman's "clean up New York" project involves scraping all the old gum off the sidewalk and sticking it into a big ball. When one wad too many is added, gravity takes over and the gigantic ball rolls down the street and into the Today Show studio, leading to the Spinning Paper headline "Gumball Crushes Gumbel."
- In the Halloween Episode of Curious George, a man dressed in a bowling ball costume trips over and rolls into a few other people dressed as bowling pins, knocking them over.
- Donald Duck does it to his own nephews in "Donald's Snow Fight". Huey, Dewey, and Louie were hit with snowballs so terribly, they literally turned into "duck-pins" before Donald had threw a good-sized snowball in their general direction!
- Described, but not seen, in one episode of Donkey Kong Country (1996); during one battle, DK scrunched King K. Rool into a ball and used him to bowl Klump and Krusha over. When we cut to King K. Rool's lair, we see the king wearing an arm cast.
King K. Rool: That last defeat by Donkey Kong was not only damaging but humiliating! When was the last time either of you were used as a bowling ball!?
- Ed, Edd n Eddy: In "Every Which Way But Ed", Eddy rolls a bowling ball at Ed and Double D, knocking them over and making them both become shaped like very large bowling pins.
- Lilo & Stitch: The Series:
- In "Dupe", Gantu uses 4 new experiments as minions, and he forces another experiment, Dupe, to clone them. However, this divides their strength, creating 400 weaklings who are easily defeated by 3 clones of Pleakley. One Pleakley grabs a clone of Plasmoid, curls him into a ball, and rolls him towards some other Plasmoids, knocking them away and making the sound of bowling pins being struck.
- In "Frenchfry", the titular experiment is activated and cooks delicious food for Lilo, Stitch, and Pleakley, which has the side-effect of making them huge, round, and bouncy. When Lilo goes to hula class and tries dancing in this shape, she falls over and bounces around until she rolls towards the other girls and sends them flying, which makes the sound of bowling pins being knocked over.
- in the My Life as a Teenage Robot episode "I Was A Preschool Dropout", after Jenny reaches her Rage Breaking Point after being ostracized by the entire kindergarten class she was forced in, she begins beating the hell out of all them. After whacking the Enfant Terribles off the playground, the remaining brats are all knocked over one by one.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- In "Dragonshy", this happens to Rainbow Dash when a dragon's roar propels her out of a cave and she knocks over Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie.
- "School Daze – Part 1": Gallus, while carrying Sandbar, accidentally drops him, causing the young earth pony to crash into the world leaders, knocking them over like bowling pins.
- The Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon "Oh, What a Knight" featured Oswald bowling over the Big Bad and his knights.
- Pac-Man does a variation early in the episode "Around the World in 80 Chomps". The Ghost Monsters are arranged like bowling pins, and Pac-Man approaches them like a bowling ball. Instead of knocking the ghosts down, he chomps them in his usual manner.
- The Phineas and Ferb episode "Bowl-R-Ama Drama" has P&F trying to set a record for the world's biggest bowling ball. Meanwhile, Dr. Doofenschmirtz's minions are giant robotic penguins, suspiciously shaped like bowling pins, attacking the town in a triangular formation. The ball gets away from them, and... well, you can guess what happens next.
- Popeye does it to some of Abu Hassan's mooks in Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves.
Popeye: How does that strike ya?
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998)
- In the episode, "Power Lunch", the girls use this attack on the Gangrene Gang, who gain superpowers after gorging themselves on junk food at a mini-mart. Blossom uses her ice powers to freeze the road like a bowling lane, and Buttercup rolls Bubbles towards the gang.
Buttercup: Str-i-i-i-ke!- Also done in the episode, "Film Flam", in which they do the same thing with the bank robbers at the beginning.
- In the Rocko's Modern Life episode "Schnit-Heads", a religious cult based on sausage wants to go "bowling for sinners" with our heroes... as the pins.
Rocko: You can't chuck bowling balls at us!
Cult Leader: Yes, we can! Says so in the Great Book of Bratwurst. "And if there is one among you who does not follow the ways of the Schnitzel, let that one go, and do not throw bowling balls at them."
Rocko: You see? It says let us go.
Cult Leader: It's a matter of interpretation. - Shaun the Sheep: The rotund Shirley bowls over the rest of the flock in "Shirley Whirley".
- Skylanders Academy: In "Thankstaking For The Memories", one of the things Spyro and Stealth Elf do during the time they're alone at the academy is sheep bowling, consisting of Spyro launching Stealth Elf into a horde of sheep.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In "Frankendoodle", Doodlebob draws a bowling ball with the magic pencil which he hurls at Patrick, who gets knocked into bowling pins complete with the sounds.
- In "Something Smells", SpongeBob's bad breath concentrates into a ball, which rolls into a marching band perfectly set up in a pin formation.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "Destroy Malevolence", Obi-Wan takes out several battle droids in a very short period of time by Force-pushing two droidekas into groups of other droids. After he escapes, one droid is impressed, causing General Grievous to smack its head off.
- Steven Universe: Future: In "Rose Buds", Amethyst greets the rest of the "Famethyst" by rolling into them and knocking them over, complete with bowling pin sound effects.
- Taz-Mania: In "Yet Another Road to Taz-Mania", Taz and a group of spies get trapped in a pin-setter, set up on the bowling alley, and knocked down by a bowling ball.
- The Tex Avery Cartoon "Batty Baseball" has a pitcher use a bowling ball to knock down the player at bat, catcher, and umpire; there was even a pin reset to put them all back in place.