Tickling
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Tickling is the act of touching a part of the body, so as to cause involuntary twitching movements or laughter. Such sensations can be pleasurable or exciting, but are sometimes considered highly unpleasant, particularly in the case of relentless heavy tickling.
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In popular culture
- Trout tickling is mentioned in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, the servant Maria refers to the approach of the hated Malvolio, head of Olivia's household, with the words "for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling". Trout tickling is also mentioned as a poaching method in Roald Dahl's classic novel Danny the Champion of the World.
- In some science fiction literature, devices known as tickling boots are depicted as punishment-torture devices employed by some technological societies. The British science fiction show The Tomorrow People featured tickling boots in the episode A Man for Emily. Tickling boots also appeared in several short story-plays on the Nickelodeon program Kids Writes.
- In the 1960s era comic book Magnus: Robot Fighter there is one instance of a weather control tower producing "Tickle Rain". People hid under transparent plastic domes that had handles on the inside, so that the first people who managed to get under the domes could hold the domes down from the inside and then watch the "unfortunate" others being tickled to helpless hysterics by the rain drops.
- In H. P. Lovecraft's short novel The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath the author describes nightgaunts—ebony-skinned, faceless, flying creatures that guard forbidden places from trespassers. When disturbed, the nightgaunts carry their victims away to unpleasant fates, tickling the poor captives into submission on the way. The more the captive struggles, the more he is tickled.
- In the VeggieTales episode Esther... The Girl Who Became Queen, which is based on the stories of the Biblical Book of Esther, instead of being executed by hanging—as described in the biblical book—offenders were instead exiled to 'The Island of Perpetual Tickling'.
- In the popular 1987 cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a minor villain named Don Turtelli, would frequently use tickling as a form of interrogation. When capturing a hostage, his normal procedure would be to tie the victim to a chair, bare feet propped up, and tickle the soles of their feet with a feather until the hostage told him what he wanted to know.
- A Star Trek audio story for children, entitled "To Starve a Fleaver", released in the 1970s and written by Alan Dean Foster, told the tale of the Starship Enterprise becoming infested with tiny parasites called meegees, which instead of drinking blood, feed on mirth expressed by their hosts. When a host isn't happy, the meegees move around and tickle their hosts to get them to laugh.
- In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy III, the villain Man Ray is kept from performing evil acts by a tickle belt.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Tickling" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.