Malachi crunch

English

Etymology

Originally a fictional demolition derby manoeuvre, perpetrated by the Malachi brothers, in which two cars working in tandem simultaneously ram into another vehicle, appearing in the US television sitcom series Happy Days, season four, 1976.

Noun

Malachi crunch (plural Malachi crunches)

1. A simultaneous attack from two sides.
   • 1995, Maximum Rocknroll, number 143, San Francisco:

     That means I have cut the interior of my lips up during our performance via the ol' mic/tooth Malachi Crunch.

   • 2004, Scuba Diving, page 91:

     Or did you have a full-on Malachi crunch? How soon you can hit the road again depends on the nature of the accident, the extent of the injury and the time it takes for a full recovery.

   • 2011, Ebin Weiss, Bike Snob‎^[1], page 31:

     I never would have guessed that the streets of my youth, trod by Jews walking to shul on Saturday and strafed by jetliners landing at nearby Kennedy Airport, were actually in the middle of a Malachi Crunch of hipness and cultural relevance back in the 1890s.

   • 2020, Douglas Lain, In the Shadow of the Towers‎^[2]:

     Taking individual cars out Malachi-crunch style was certainly harder than simply driving over the top at them at high speeds and crushing them like old beer cans.

   • 2021 November 1, Katharine Murphy, The Guardian‎^[3], archived from the original on 7 May 2022:

     But instead of Roman Holiday, Morrison found himself on the receiving end of a Malachi Crunch from Biden and Macron.