History Main / CantGetInTroubleForNuthin

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[[folder: Video Games]]

'''GM:''' [[RefugeInAudacity The Kruel Klown Koalition.]]. They're racist clowns. With mutant battle-koalas.\\

* ''Film/HoubaOnTheTrailOfTheMarsupilami'': Pablito is trying to get thrown in jail to join with Dan Geraldo and helps him escape. However, when he pretends to steal an old woman's bag a few meters away from policemen, the corrupt cops aren't paying attention and [[NeverMessWithGranny he just gets a few cane strike for his troubles]].

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Batman}}'', the Penguin, acting as a respected restaurateur as part of a FalselyReformedVillain scheme, has considerable difficulty when he actively ''tries'' to get thrown in prison so that he can consult an expert forger criminal colleague. When he was finally sent to prison, he learned [[spoiler: the colleague was just getting released]].

* In Terry Pratchett's ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' series, there is a character named "Done It" Duncan, for his habit of telling the city watch, "Whatever it was, I done it!" in order to be given a bowl of soup and a night in jail out of the cold. They never believe him, but sometimes let him stay anyway. He is a valuable source of information, as he often reveals who the real perpetrators were. "It was me, not Coalface's boys like everyone says".

* [[''Literature/TheBookThief]] has Liesel blow up in outrage at Ilsa Hermann when she tells her she can no longer afford to send her laundry out for Rosa to clean. After Liesel yells at Ilsa, she feels terrible about it and decides to tell [[ApronMatron Rosa]] what she's done in hopes of getting punished. Much to her frustration, Rosa (who is usually a very strict disciplinarian) tells Liesel [[ObliviousGuiltSlinging she doesn't believe she'd say such horrible things.]] The narration notes that Liesel would have rather gotten a beating.

* In one episode of WesternAnimation/{{Detentionaire}}, Lee crosses the 13th Graders, [[TheDreaded The most feared students at A. Nigma High]], by wandering into their territory following a clue. They demand that Lee fight them at 3:15 after school, but the former isn't initially worried due to his year long detention taking place at that exact time. He only starts to freak out when [=VP=] Victoria gives Lee an amnesty day due to a clause in the student charter ([[spoiler:With TheReveal of Victoria's [[BitchInSheepsClothing true nature]], this might have been intentional]]). His first plan is to intentionally get into trouble, first by starting a food fight, and then by putting framed pictures of himself in the trophy case. This fails to get him detention because both Barrage and [=VP=] Victoria don't believe he did it, citing that he just got a detention-free day, why would do anything that might endanger that? When getting in trouble doesn't work, Lee's second plan is to try and frame the 13th Graders, but that doesn't work out either. In the end, Lee decides to just man up and fight them.

-> Smoking Rhino: You are truly a kind and approachable character.
-> Mr. Peanutbutter: And tough?
-> Smoking Rhino: Tough not to love, you big galoot!

* In one episode of WesternAnimation/{{Detentionaire}}, Lee crosses the 13th Graders, [[TheDreaded The most feared students at A. Nigma High]], by wandering into their territory following a clue. They demand that Lee fight them at 3:15 after school, but the former isn't initially worried due to his year long detention taking place at that exact time. He only starts to freak out when [=VP=] Victoria gives Lee an amnesty day due to a clause in the student charter ([[spoiler:With TheReveal of Victoria's [[BitchInSheepsClothing true nature]], this might have been intentional]]). His first plan is to intentionally get into trouble, first by starting a food fight, and then by putting framed pictures of himself in the trophy case. This fails to get him detention because both Barrage and [=VP=] Victoria don't believe he did it, citing that he just got a detention-free day, why would he want a detention? When getting in trouble doesn't work, Lee's second plan is to try and frame the 13th Graders, but that doesn't work out either. In the end, Lee decides to just man up and fight them.

* In one episode of WesternAnimation/{{Detentionaire}}, Lee crosses the 13th Graders, [[TheDreaded The most feared students at A. Nigma High]], by wandering into their territory following a clue. They demand Lee to fight them at 3:15 after school, but Lee isn't worried because he has a year long detention. He doesn't start to freak out until Vice Principal Victoria informs him about a clause in the student charter that grants students with year long detention an amnesty day. His first plan is to intentionally get into trouble, first by starting a food fight ,and second by putting framed pictures of himself in the trophy case. The reason both Principal Barrage and Vice Principal Victoria don't give him detention is that they don't believe he did it, citing that he just got a detention-free day, why would he want a detention? (When getting in trouble doesn't work, Lee decides to try and frame the 13th Graders, but that doesn't work either. In the end, Lee decides to just man up and fight them.)

* On an episode of ''Series/ICarly'', Carly and Sam are planning a big 50th-webcast show. Sam gets detention for the night on which the show was being held, though, so Carly and Freddy decide to broadcast the show from detention. Trouble is, no matter what they do, it backfires (Carly pulls a fire alarm; there was a real fire. Freddy grafittis a window; it gets washed off. Carly breaks a teacher's chair; she's so happy that she gets a paid vacation she doesn't investigate. Etc.) Eventually, Carly gets detention for slamming her locker in frustration from the failed attempts of getting in trouble, from a SadistTeacher, and Freddy hides in a closet.

* Robert Beltran reportedly wanted out of his commitment to ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' so desperately that he was willing to try almost anything to get fired, including deliberately giving his worst performance, and publicly accusing Brannon Braga of being gay.

* Series/TheATeam investigates a prison where inmates are forced to fight the death. To get into the jail they plot to get themselves arrested. When BA drives dangerously, the team acts drunk and insults the police they are let loose because the {{Corrupt Hick}}s already have federal heat on themselves. So Hannibal demands the keys and drives their van through a window of the sheriff's office.

* In ''WesternAnimation/DudleyDoRight'', the titular character tries to get kicked out of the Mounted Police so that he can [[FakeDefector infiltrate Snideley Whiplash's gang]], but everything goes wrong, from "You blew up the dam! The irrigation problem has been solved!" to "You burned down that building! We had been trying to tear it down for years and never got around to it!". He finally does manage to get in trouble, though...[[spoiler: by eating his peas with a knife]], something no Mountie should ever do!

* In ''Series/GetSmart'', Max has to get into jail to retrieve a microfilm off a convict...all his attempts to get arrested backfire, but he finally gets caught for littering - he gets the sentence he needs by insulting the judge.

* In season five of *WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman*, Mr. Peanutbutter wants to be seen as a "tough guy" who can be believable as the tough protagonist of his dream project. His insults are seen as tough love and by committing battery, he accidentally realigns one guy's shoulder and fixes another's strabismus.

* In one episode of WesternAnimation/{{Detentionaire}}, Lee crosses the 13th Graders, [[TheDreaded The most feared students at A. Nigma High]], by wandering into their territory following a clue. They demand Lee to fight them at 3:15 after school, but Lee isn't worried because he has a year long detention. He doesn't start to freak out until Give Principal Victoria informs him about a clause in the student charter that grants students with year long detention an amnesty day. His first plan is to intentionally get into trouble, first by starting a food fight ,and second by putting framed pictures of himself in the trophy case. The reason both Principal Barrage and Vice Principal Victoria don't give him detention is that they don't believe he did it, citing that he just got a detention-free day, why would he want a detention? (When getting in trouble doesn't work, Lee decides to try and frame the 13th Graders, but that doesn't work either. In the end, Lee decides to just man up and fight them.)

* In ''[[Literature/JeevesAndWooster Joy in the Morning]]'', Bertie Wooster tries everything to get Florence Craye to call off their engagement. Finally he kicks her beloved little brother in the pants, and she thanks him: he had destroyed some of her scrapbooks, and she was going to kick him herself.

* Happened on the Film/FreakyFriday episode of ''JimmyNeutron''. Jimmy and Cindy failed each other's tests and then tried to damage each other's reputations.

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[[folder: WesternAnimation]]

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[[folder:Comics]]

[[folder:{{Fanfiction}}]]
* The ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' fanfiction ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/394020/1/The_Zors_Pizza_Chronicles The Zor's Pizza Chronicles]]'' has a sequence in which the main characters decide to die and go to Hell because there's a creature there that can be used to [[spoiler:revive [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Aeris/th]]]]. In order to get there, they need to do something bad first before dying, but Cloud finds that everything he tries backfires - for example, snuffing out Cosmo Candle at Cosmo Canynon, only to be congratulated by a parent whose kids were always getting burnt by the flames.

[[folder: {{Film}}]]

* ''Film/AmericanPsycho'', both the book and the movie. Patrick Bateman commits a series of heinous crimes including chasing a hooker with a chainsaw, going on a shooting spree, blowing up several police cruisers, and hiding in his office as a helicopter searches for the perp. While hiding, he phones his lawyer and confesses to everything, but later on, nothing has come of this. He meets his lawyer, who laughs the whole thing off and mistakes him for someone else. Bateman becomes angry, (who had just called "Bateman" spineless, after all, Patrick Bateman couldn't pull off a murder, let alone about 20), informs the lawyer that he IS Bateman, and insists the crimes actually happened. He is apparently saved again when the lawyer informs him he had dinner with someone he supposedly killed just a few weeks ago , tells Bateman he no longer finds this funny, and leaves. Bateman slinks down in his chair and delivers a speech about how there are no more barriers to cross, etc.
** In both the book and the movie, Bateman is shown to suffer from hallucinations and other psychotic (duh) episodes. It is left unclear whether he really does embody this trope, with the reason being that everyone is so interchangeable to each other that they can't notice when someone dies, or whether he imagined the whole thing.

* ''Film/ThatManFromRio'' - Adrian rescues his girlfriend Agnes when she's abducted in Paris and spirited away to Rio, where she drags him into an adventure with one hair's-breadth situation after another. As they're driving to Brasilia in their underwear (getting caught in a fierce storm shortly before) he has enough and pulls into a police station. He turns himself in, running off a list of offenses - entering their country without a passport, using a plane ticket he stole from an old pensioner, getting into fights with several people, including policemen, indecently dressed, and driving a stolen car - but as he speaks French the policeman doesn't understand a word. Adrian throws his hands up and exclaims "Nothing - just Rio and Brasilia!" and the policeman cheerfully points the way. Back on the road he mutters "I should take up crime!"

[[folder: Jokes]]

[[folder: {{Literature}}]]

* In ''[[Literature/JeevesAndWooster Joy In The Morning]]'', Bertie Wooster tries everything to get Florence Craye to call off their engagement. Finally he kicks her beloved little brother in the pants, and she thanks him: he had destroyed some of her scrapbooks, and she was going to kick him herself.
* In one the sequels to ''DoctorInTheHouse'', a character tries to deliberately fail his final medical exam. (If he passes, he will be obligated to marry a woman he no longer loves.) He attempts to deliberately fail the written exam but, never having failed a test in his life, finds he is unable to deliberately write down wrong answers. He gets drunk before his final oral exam and refuses to answer one of the questions. The examiner then realises that he has been using that diagnostic example too much and thanks the student for drawing it to his attention. At this point, he might still have passed if he had not then thrown up on the examiner.

[[folder: LiveActionTV]]

* ''Series/ThirtyRock'' - after attaining A-list celebrity status, Tracy desperately wants out. He tries disgracing himself publicly, but all of his boorish antisocial antics are embraced as the quirks of a genius artist by an adoring public.

* In an episode of ''TheRedSkeltonShow'', Freddie the Freeloader wants to get sent to jail for Christmas because it's nice and warm, and he likes the people there. But no matter what he does, he can't get there. Then he meets someone who gives him the incentive to remain on the outside. Only then does he get dragged off to jail.

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[[folder: NewMedia]]
* An amusing thread on one of the ImageBoards talked about a GM doing this to wangsty [[AntiHero antiheroes]] that were getting on his nerves.
--> Player: Eternally I fight a war on two fronts. I must protect the city, and I must battle the inner demons of my own cruel desires! What are we up against this week?
--> GM: [[RefugeInAudacity The Kruel Klown Koalition.]]. They're racist clowns. With mutant battle-koalas.
--> Player: Damnit! [[KickTheDog I go burn down an orphanage.]]
--> GM: They're all [[ComicBook/FantasticFour skrull]] infiltrators. You make the front page of the Times for your heroism.

[[folder: NewspaperComics]]
* Sometimes given as an explanation for Wally's behaviour in ''{{ComicStrip/Dilbert}}''. He knows that his severance package would be greater than his future wages, so he's trying to get fired. The company know this as well, so they just put up with him. This is based on [[TruthInTelevision an actual colleague of Scott Adams at Pacific Bell]].
* At the beginning of a weeklong arc in ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'', Roger declared that he was going to take Jason golfing after school the following day, never mind that Jason was clearly utterly uninterested in the game. The final panel of the Monday comic that week showed Ms. O'Malley, Jason's teacher, on the receiving end of a hailstorm of paper darts, yelling "Jason Fox, are you ''trying'' to get detention!?" (His scheme failed.)

[[folder: ProfessionalWrestling]]
* Comes up sometimes when a heel with a title is desperately trying to retain it by getting himself disqualified. No matter what he does - hitting his opponent in the crotch, using a foreign object, slapping the referee, or just getting himself counted out - an authority figure (assuming it's a face) will just keep restarting the match with no disqualifications. (Of course, this often ends up playing right into the heel's hands, since [[TheUnfettered he can now do whatever he wants short of murdering his opponent with no consequences]], so maybe it's a subversion.)
** A notable occurrence was in a late 2006 edition of Smackdown when Undertaker and Kane, known as the Brothers of Destruction, wrestled as a tag team for the first time in five years against newcomers Montel Vontavious Porter and Mr. Kennedy. MVP and Kennedy tried to walk out and get counted out, only for Theodore Long to restart the match with no countouts. Shortly after, they got themselves disqualified, leading Long to restart the match again with no disqualifications or countouts. From then on, it was a one sided match with Undertaker and Kane utterly destroying the heels, to the massive approval of the audience.

[[folder: Theatre]]
* The plot of the 1938 musical ''Leave It To Me!'' involved a bathtub manufacturer being made an ambassador to the USSR as an unwanted reward for campaign contributions and trying various schemes to get himself recalled.

[[folder: WebComics]]
* Although Florence in ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' had previously been jailed just for her association with a wanted criminal, when she tried turning herself in for tampering with a global robot update ([[TheFettered because she's strongly conditioned]] for LawfulGood acts), the robotic police were too generous.
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[[folder: WesternAnimation]]

[[folder: RealLife]]

* ''Film/FreakyFriday'' (the classic 1976 version) had ''[[Creator/JodieFoster Jodie Foster's]]'' character driving a car near the end of the movie [[spoiler:to get away from the police.]] As Annabel made a attempt to get the police off her back, the police car was damaged [[spoiler:as it was split apart]] while getting to her mom on time [[spoiler:while on a hang glider in the sky as the water skis destroy the barge that her mom's employees are on, making it sink in the water.]]
* ''Film/ThePrincessDiaries'' had Mia Thermopolis [[spoiler:putting ice cream on Lana's cheerleading uniform and smearing it all over her chest]] while getting Lilly to say "Lana got coned!" out loud (through a megaphone), making Lana really upset at the young princess (as Vice Principal Gupta stops the cheerleader from making fun of her by saying "send it out for dry cleaning" as punishment). Lana was never seen in the sequel [[spoiler:as Disney had written her out.]]
** Also subverted when Mia [[spoiler:and Queen Clarisse]] are taking her light blue Mustang for a test drive in San Francisco when they saw it rolling off one of the steep hills and [[spoiler:into a San Francisco trolley that was crossing,]] the Nun called the police and [[spoiler:a tow truck]] to have her Mustang repaired. As soon as the police got there, [[spoiler:Queen Clarisse uses a hand brake from Mia's Mustang]] to serve them as her royal subjects [[spoiler:while saying "The Genovian Order of the Rose".]] Unfortunately for Disney, this was an inside joke to get [[spoiler:Mia out of jail immediately]] by riding in a police car [[spoiler:along with her estranged grandmother.]] However, near the end of the movie, Mia [[spoiler:uses her newly fixed Mustang to get up the hill]] but is facing a serious punishment of driving without a license [[spoiler:as the rain comes down while saying "I am invisible and I am wet" before singing her reprisal version of "Catch a Falling Star" with the cover down shortly before Joe arrives.]]

* In ''YoungDracula'', Ingrid pulls the fire alarm at school, setting off the sprinklers at the same time, in a deliberate attempt to get suspended so she can prove to father how evil she is. A horrified Vlad shows up and turns off the alarm... just in time to get blamed for setting it off.

Unfortunately for the focus of the story, every single thing they do [[PlagueOfGoodFortune is appreciated by the intended victims]], from telling them their hat looks stupid ("What? Oh! I hadn't realized I'd put on the wrong hat this morning!") to burning down their house ("Thank you! That house was full of hideous artwork insured for well more than it was worth! I can finally buy medicine for my sick children, and a house that doesn't have asbestos leaking from the ceiling!"). This even happens when the character would normally get in trouble with the victims [[HairTriggerTemper for purely imagined]] [[{{Tsundere}} slights.]] The gratefulness is usually in direct proportion to the heinousness of the misdeed.

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Batman}}'', the Penguin, acting as a respected restaurateur as part of a CivilianVillain scheme, has considerable difficulty when he actively ''tries'' to get thrown in prison so that he can consult an expert forger criminal colleague. When he was finally sent to prison, he learned [[spoiler: the colleague was just getting released]].

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Batman}}'', the Penguin, acting as a respected restaurateur as part of a CivilianVillain scheme, has considerable difficulty when he actively ''tries'' to get thrown in prison so that he can consult an expert forger criminal colleague. When he was finally sent to prison, he learned [[spoiler: the colleague was just getting off]].

* Donny Osmond tells the story of being encouraged by his agent to rack up a minor arrest or two to get rid of his squeaky-clean image as a young adult. On one occasion, he saw his chance while walking ahead of a random cop, so he turned back nervously and started running. The cop stopped him but let him go as soon as he saw the name on his ID. Osmond later recounted that while it's long been said that a would-be actor "couldn't even get arrested in Hollywood", he had never heard of it being literally true until it happened to him. Unfortunately for his youngest sister, ''MarieOsmond'', he was released from prison.

* Donny Osmond tells the story of being encouraged by his agent to rack up a minor arrest or two to get rid of his squeaky-clean image as a young adult. On one occasion, he saw his chance while walking ahead of a random cop, so he turned back nervously and started running. The cop stopped him but let him go as soon as he saw the name on his ID. Osmond later recounted that while it's long been said that a would-be actor "couldn't even get arrested in Hollywood", he had never heard of it being literally true until it happened to him. Unfortunately for his youngest sister, ''Music/MarieOsmond'', he was released from prison.