Contents
TV Shows
The Carol Burnett Show
Carol Burnett tickles with a feather a man who fakes to be paralyzed.
TV series
Fortunes at war
Simon Bouldestone (Rupert Graves) asks his friend to tickle him, to verify if he’s paralized. The man starts to tickle his feet and Simon laughs so loudly that the doctor rushes. All the presents laugh a lot.
The woman laughs and claims he is tickling her.
Movies
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
Freddy Benson (Steve Martin) pretends to be paralyzed in his legs while Lawrence Jamieson (Michael Caine) intends to test whether indeed his nerve endings no longer transmit sensation.
And what better way to test the nervous system than by tickling it?
Lawrence removes Freddy’s shoes and begins tickling him with a finger under his foot, Moving the finger slowly up and down, asking him if he feels anything and observing his reaction.
Freddy, with great coolness, suppresses the urge to laugh and simulates a numb face.
Probably, Lawrence wants to find out whether Freddy is pretending to be paralyzed, so he decides to subject him to a physical reaction to force him to betray himself. By tickling him, he observes whether the man actually feels the tickling stimulus, which he cannot ignore if he really is healthy.
Freddy knows that if he were to smile it would show the pretense, so he restrains himself with great willpower (and comical results!).
Ein Sommer im Allgäu (2017)
In swiss movie “Ein Sommer im Allgäu”, a man practices goat torture on his friend, believed to be paralyzed, to show her that she actually still possesses leg sensitivity.
The girl in fact begins to laugh at the tickling the animal causes her by licking her, and realizes that she can feel her extremities again.