A mallet is a construction worker's tool. It is a hammer with a large head (stop snickering), which is usually composed of either wood or rubber, depending upon its usage. A rubber-headed mallet is ideal for pounding out large surface areas such as sheet metal, without leaving scars or indentations. A wooden mallet is mostly used a carpenter's tool for hammering in dowels.
The douchey yuppie yard game known as Croquet employs a mallet with a longer shaft (again, stop snickering), which the user grips with both hands and knocks some balls around (you're just not going to stop, are you?).
The DC Animated Universe character Harley Quinn often used a giant hammer for the purposes of bashing things. Her counterpart in the DC Extended Universe also made use of such a device.
Appearances[]
- Heathers: In the 1988 dark comedy Heathers, teenage high school student Veronica was forced to play Croquet (wielding the appropriate mallet) with her wealthy and aloof family.
- Shining, The (1997): In the TV version of The Shining, Mister Ullman shows Jack Torrence a Croquet court. Later, when Jack goes insane, he stomps through the Overlook Hotel in search of his son Danny while carrying a mallet, which he intends on using to beat him to death (in the original film, Jack carried an axe, not a mallet).
- Suicide Squad: Harley Quinn uses a brightly colored over-sized mallet as one of her preferred weapons of choice, however, she favors a baseball bat for most of her fighting.
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (1974): Though one might think that a chainsaw was Leatherface's favorite murder weapon, he actually got a lot of mileage out of a good ole fashioned rubber mallet. This is what he used to clobber Kirk, and later Jerry, before turning them into jerky.
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (2003): Leatherface uses a mallet to bop Kemper over the bean before dragging him down to his work shop to skin his face off.
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, The: A mallet is one of several tools seen in the Lee Bros. Meat Processing Plant. The Hewitt family also possesses several mallets and other such items, which they wield for reasons other than their intended use.