You've probably seen it during The Golden Age of Animation. Here, a character eats a strip starting at one end of the corncob, along its long axis (takka takka takka), reaches the other end (ding!), rotates the corncob a few degrees, and returns to the starting end (kachunk!), repeat. This action mimics typing on an old-fashioned mechanical typewriter with a moving carriage. They then continue in a different spot.
This trope isn't used much these days on account of ubiquitous computers making typewriters obsolete (kids would just ask what those sounds are).
Compare Rapid-Fire Nail Biting, which may also use a typewriter sound effect, and Buzzsaw Jaw, where the sound effect is (or at least can be) a buzzsaw. See also Rhythm Typewriter (typewriting as percussion).
Mind you, this trope is not about people eating typewriters.
Examples:
- Walkers used to run adverts for their "French fries" (basically long, thin potato-based snacks) where they were eaten like this (though without the ding).
- Templeton does this in the fairground scene of Charlotte's Web.
- Doraemon: The Records of Nobita, Spaceblazer (2009 remake only) has Chammy (a sentient, rabbit-like alien creature Doraemon had a crush on) eating a dorayaki Doraemon offered her in this manner.
- Rare live-action example in Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, where Chaplin is strapped into an automated eating gizmo that presents the corn this way.
- In The Girls Guide To Hunting And Fishing, the narrator says her older brother normally eats corn on the cob this way, but the first time he brings a girlfriend home from college he's suddenly too adult to do it in front of her.
- A downplayed example occurs in an episode of the 1975 version of Filmation's Ghostbusters. Kong asks Spencer to grab him a hot dog on his way to the office. After being given his hot dog, Kong uses a typewriter to help him put mustard on it.
- An episode of Happy Endings concludes with Alex proudly displaying a corn cob on which she's spelled out Dave's name.
- One of the many wacky inventions introduced by comedian Ed Wynn in his stage shows was a typewriter reconstructed for eating corn on the cob, complete with carriage return bell.
- In The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve, Juror No. 5 in "Return of the Great Departed Soul" eats several cobs of corn while making typewriter sounds.
- Happy Tree Friends: In Pop's Barbecue Smoochie, the "Corn" button gives Pop a corn cob that he eats this way.
- Beartato demonstrates, complete with DING!
- Out of the Inkwell features a literal example of this trope with the corn being attached to a typewriter.
- On Animaniacs, Wakko did this once, complete with Leroy Anderson's "The Typewriter" as accompaniment.
- One Porky Pig cartoon when Porky was a farmer had chickens getting into his cornfield and doing this.
- Used in the Classic Disney Shorts Building a Building, Mickey's Trailer, Donald's Cousin Gus and Pueblo Pluto (the latter case used with Pluto biting on a buffalo bone).
- Scooby-Doo has done this several times with corn on the cob.
- Tom does this with a rib in an episode of Tom and Jerry and with a slice of watermelon in the MGM short "Busy Buddies".
- Happens on the Sanjay and Craig episode "Tufflips' Tales of Terror" during the "Haüs of Vings" short when the duo eats the roof of said "haüs".
- In the opening sequence of Tiny Planets, one of the protagonists eats a corn cob like this before setting out on the day's adventure.
- The Nazi goat ("A Beowulf in sheep's clothing") in the Daffy Duck cartoon "Scrap Happy Daffy" does this to a pile of tin cans in Daffy's scrap yard.
