His character also forgot fuses exist and that you can't kill yourself with a toaster in a bath
In modern toasters in modern homes. The trope absolutely did stem from this being possible in the past at least. Many toasters would not have a fuse, and older homes and electrical wiring did not have GFCI outlets in bathrooms and kitchens. So you could be electrocuted until you tripped the home circuit breaker. And jamming that into the closed position would be all you have to do before your electro-dunk in that case.
Well I almost died from a massive head/neck/back injury. I lost all memory from around 2 minutes before until 3 hours after it happened. I highly recommend going out this way. Seriously I was just having a great morning riding my bike to work. Then a guy is pulling a big piece of glass out of my face in the hospital. It is kinda like anesthesia but even more disconnected and black void space.
I decided to donate blood once. As an underfeed and idiot 18 year old this was probably the worse decision I could ever have made. I remember feeling proud of myself for not feeling squimish. Then suddenly I couldn't figure out why all of the sounds were gone and everything was getting dark. Thought it was funny that my peripheral vision was gone. Last thing I remember was a guy in a labcoat running over and putting an ice pack on my chest. Then nothing. Not even silence, just nothing
Suddenly I was awake and the nurse was yelling at me for lying to them about eating breakfast that morning. Idk what death is like, but if it's anything like that? Yea, I'm okay with that. It was peaceful
I had a stroke in my sleep. I do not recommend going out that way. The nightmares it caused was horrible. It made me realize dying in your sleep isn't the best way to go that we all think it is.
I'd imagine the cause of death would be a huge factor. Pain receptors quite often don't detect major things. Hence a scratch can go undetected, but a deep very quick cut might destroy every pain receptor near it and you won't even notice an enormous wound.