History Main / CounterProductiveWarning

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': In the episode "Enemy In-Law", Plankton starts dating Mr. Krab's mother, which Mr. Krabs disapproves of. He goes to confront Plankton and tell him that he will never get the Krabby Patty formula from her since he is not family. Turns out that not only was Plankton dating Krab's mother out of actual interest, but he didn't even know she knew the formula. So from that moment he actually focuses on marrying her so she will tell him the formula.

** A ghost appears called Technus, loudly introducing himself as the ghost for science and electronics. Danny says he won't allow him to use the lab's technology to take over the world. Technus simply looks around to see all the technology at his disposal and thanks Danny for the idea.

* ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'': [[spoiler:During the final confrontation against Giygas, when it proves to be immune to every attack the party can dish out, [[TheDragon Porky]] gloats about it, saying that the party may as well give up now and cry to their mommies. This gives the player a hint as to how to defeat Giygas, as Paula can use her "pray" ability to reach out to the friends that the party has made throughout their journey, and all of their cheers weaken Giygas, with there eventually being enough cheers to defeat it for good.]]

Compare and contrast DoNotDoThisCoolThing and SchmuckBait, which are similar but involve intentional use of ReversePsychology. See also ThoughtAversionFailure, where telling someone not to think about something is a sure way to bring it to mind.

SubTrope of SayingTooMuch. It often overlaps with both NiceJobBreakingItHero and NiceJobFixingItVillain. Compare with BriarPatching, with the hero giving an idea for the villain to follow, but they actually want it to happen. Can lead to YouJustHadToSayIt, and is usually a result of ThoughtTheyKnewAlready.

** When the mean clique of the school is angry about having to wear uniforms and show Raven a big wheel of cheese, Raven remembers a vision about a cheese getting rotten and stinking the school. Raven asks her not to follow that plan. Only for them to say they were planning on just eating it, but that it was a great prank.

Compare and contrast DoNotDoThisCoolThing and SchmuckBait, which are similar but involve intentional use of ReversePsychology.

* TheOtherWiki refers to this rule as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Don%27t_stuff_beans_up_your_nose "Don't stuff beans up your nose"]]. Just like telling a brat who's been finding new ways to cause trouble to not stuff beans up their nose and promptly does it, don't give vandals new ideas.

-->'''Mr. Nezzer:''' ''Puggslyville...'' Oh, I hear it's nice this time of year. Mr. Lunt, four tickets to Puggslyville, please

* Invoked in Literature/InterestingTimes: Rincewind goes around an army camp informing soldiers that per the scouts' reports, they will ''not'' be facing 2,300,009 invisible vampire ghosts. This causes the soldiers to wonder why such a SuspiciouslySpecificDenial was needed, and Lord Hong's attempt at damage control (telling the soldiers it doesn't matter because they'll have ghosts too) backfires because due to the Empire's repressive policies, the soldiers only see themselves as facing ghosts from outside and inside their borders.

* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'': [[RepetitiveName Senior Senior, Senior]] was originally a billionaire who drained Europe's power grid to power his island, not realizing he was causing blackouts. Kim and Ron traveled to the island, with Kim trying to convince him to conserve energy. While there, Ron comments on how the island would make a perfect SupervillainLair. This gives Senior the idea to become a supervillain to alleviate his RichBoredom.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'': In the episode "Enemy In-Law", Plankton starts dating Mr. Krab's mother, which Mr. Krabs disapproves of. He goes to confront Plankton and tell him that he will never get the Krabby Patty formula from her since he is not family. Turns out that not only was Plankton dating Krab's mother out of actual interest, but he didn't even know she knew the formula. So from that moment he actually focuses on marrying her so she will tell him the formula.

* ''Manga/KenichiTheMightiestDisciple'': A rare hero-on-hero version, PlayedForLaughs: during their first meal together, the Ryozanpaku Dojo Masters notice that Kenichi is very defensive of his food and ask why. Kenichi tells them that he expects them to try to steal his food and he will need to fight them off for the sake of 24/7 martial arts practice like the {{Sadist Teacher}}s in martial arts films. The Masters then answer that no, they were not going to do that, but now that he told them that it ''do'' sounds like a good idea...

It often overlaps with both NiceJobBreakingItHero and NiceJobFixingItVillain. Compare with BriarPatching, with the hero giving an idea for the villain to follow, but they actually want it to happen. Can lead to YouJustHadToSayIt, and is usually a result of ThoughtTheyKnewAlready.

* Happens twice during an episode of ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom''

* ''WesternAnimation/FairlyOddParents'': In ''WesternAnimation/FairlyOddBaby'', when Cosmo and Poof go missing, the others begin a frantic search for them. Timmy, Wanda, and Jorgen then break into both Anti-Fairy world and Pixie World while both villain groups are coming up with an evil plan, and unintentionally inform them that they could use the raw untapped magic power of a fairy baby to take over the universe.

* ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'': Mina demands Crowley tell her everything about his plot involving the "Moonchild", leading to Crowley looking into it and, well, plot something involving the Moonchild, [[spoiler:otherwise known as the Antichrist and Literature/HarryPotter]].

* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'': [[RepetitiveName Senior Senior, Senior]] was originally a billionaire who drained Europe's power grid to power his island, not realizing he was causing blackouts. Kim and Ron traveled to the island, with Kim trying to convince him to conserve energy. While there, Ron comments on how the island would make a perfect SupervillainLair. This gives Senior the idea to become a supervillain.

--> its presence here gives me some options I didn't have before.

* ''Literature/AscendanceOfABookworm'': Thanks to a mix of polygynous ExoticExtendedMarriage and FeudingFamilies situation, Rozemyne's noble "biological" family includes a half-brother named Nikolaus that she's supposed to avoid interacting with because her mother and the boy's are on different side of the conflict. At a later point of the story, the status quo changes in a way that allows Rozemyne and Nikolaus to properly communicate with each other, revealing that Nikolaus would like to be in Rozemyne's employ if it weren't for their respective mothers. One of the rules about the Royal Academy is that it's a place for ten to sixteen year old noble children to be among each other without the interference of adult family members. Rozemyne has also, by that point of the story, agreed to have an acquaintance be her retainer only while they are both at the Royal Academy. Because of this, Rozemyne's "full brother" Cornelius, who is much more wary about Nikolaus' motives than she is, assumes out loud that her idea of a compromise between the desires of everyone involved is going to be making Nikolaus a second "Royal Academy only" retainer. Rozemyne hadn't thought of it until he suggested it.

* In one episode of ''Series/HannahMontana'', Miley's identical cousin comes to visit and starts disguising herself as as Hannah Montana to take advantage of her. Then Miley's friend, Lily, catches her and asks her to not expose the secret that Miley Stuart is Hannah Montana... To which her cousin says it never crossed her mind, but then she becomes focused on exposing the secret.

** When the mean clique of the school are angry about having to wear uniforms, and show Raven a big wheel of cheese. Raven remembers a vision about a cheese getting rotten and stinking the school. Raven ask her not to follow that plan. Only for them to say they were planning on just eating it, but that it was a great prank.

* ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'': [[spoiler:During the final confrontation against Giygas, when it proves to be immune to every attack the the party can dish out, [[TheDragon Porky]] gloats about it, saying that the party may as well give up now and cry to their mommies. This gives the player a hint as to how to defeat Giygas, as Paula can use her "pray" ability to reach out to the friends that the party has made throughout their journey, and all of their cheers weaken Giygas, with there eventually being enough cheers to defeat it for good.]]

** A ghost appear called Technus, loudly introducing himself as the ghost for science and electronics. Danny says he won't allow him to use the lab's technology to take over the world. Technus simply looks around to see all the technology at his disposal and thanks Danny for the idea.
** Later in the episode, Technus has amassed a large amount of appliances, but is unable to control them. Danny notices he hasn't upgraded the software of the computer he possessed, and says he won't allow him to use it. He notices the disc and says that is a great idea too, and even tells Danny he should be a professor.

* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'': [[RepetitiveName Senior Senior, Senior]] was originally a billionaire who drained Europe's power grid to power his island, not realizing he was causing blackouts. Kim and Ron traveled to the island, with Kim trying to convince him to conserve energy. While there, Ron comments how the island would make a perfect SupervillainLair. This gives Senior the idea to become a supervillain.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'': In the episode "Enemy In-Law", Plankton starts dating Mr. Krab's mother, which Mr. Krabs disapproves of. He goes to confront Plankton and tell him that he will never get the the Krabby Patty formula from her, since he is not family. Turns out that not only was Plankton dating Krab's mother out of actual interest, but he didn't even know she knew the formula. So from that moment he actually focuses on marrying her so she will tell him the formula.

A common gag. You have an evil character planning to do something horrible, evil, or at least wrong. Then our hero comes and tells them that they will stop them from doing some specific action. Turns out the villain hadn't actually planned for that specific action, but now they actually have an idea to follow, thanks to the hero. So now the hero situation is worse, and they are the only ones to blame for talking too much. Expect the villain to thank them for the idea, either sarcastically or sincerely, depending on how naïve the character is. Depending on the context, this can show the hero as dumb for helping their opponent, or show the villain as dumb for not noticing such an obvious idea right away.

* ''VideoGame/Earthbound1994'': [[spoiler:During the final confrontation against Giygas, when it proves to be immune to every attack the the party can dish out, [[TheDragon Porky]] gloats about it, saying that the party may as well give up now and cry to their mommies. This gives the player a hint as to how to defeat Giygas, as Paula can use her "pray" ability to reach out to the friends that the party has made throughout their journey, and all of their cheers weaken Giygas, with there eventually being enough cheers to defeat it for good.]]

-->''[Pause. Mr. Nezzer sports a sinister grin.]''

[[folder:Comics]]

Invoked in Literature/InterestingTimes: Rincewind goes around an army camp informing soldiers that per the scouts' reports, they will ''not'' be facing 2,300,009 invisible vampire ghosts. This causes the soldiers to wonder why such a SuspiciouslySpecificDenial was needed, and Lord Hong's attempt at damage control (telling the soldiers it doesn't matter because they'll have ghosts too) backfires because due to the Empire's repressive policies, the soldiers only see themselves as facing ghosts from outside and inside their borders.

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!! Indexes: IndexBackfire