History Main / CuttingCorners

* ''Franchise/JurassicPark''
** Even though John Hammond in ''Literature/JurassicPark'' claims to have "spared no expense" when building his park, in truth he's actually done a lot of cost cutting in areas that won't be immediately visible to the tourists. For instance, he tried to reduce the number of employees (and thus the need to pay them) by having many of the park's functions being run by computers, including animal care, tour guides, and security. Said computer is programmed by a single guy who Hammond also short-changes, leading him to develop a grudge and take a bribe to steal dinosaur embryos from the park. This robbery involves shutting down the main computer, which the park can't function without.

If the company ''used'' to be generous, but has since downgraded to cheaper versions, or "BYO", that's a sure sign that they're in some kind of financial trouble, or are cozying up to a potential buyer. Bonus points if the things they're being stingy with are essential (and already cheap -- or in some cases ''just paid for'') items such as pens or pads of sticky notes.

** In "Drive Thru," Krabs get the idea to operate one when a costumer mistakes a hole in the wall for a drive-through window. As usual, Krabs' greed gets the better of him when he rejects the microphone-and-speaker system, the menu, and the arrow sign [=SpongeBob=] brings for the drive-thru in favor of tin cans on a string, the menu written on napkins taped together with packing tape, and a sign made out of an old pasta noodle (despite that using the drive thru items would not cost Krabs any money at all since they’re already paid for). He then smashes more holes to make Spongebob and Squidward, who are already overworked, service more customers and earn more money, which results in the Krusty Krab collapsing due to a lack of structural support.

* ''ComicBook/TheBoys'': Vought's entire approach to business seems to be "use political connections to get contracts, spend as little as possible on actually delivering the product, use political connections to escape fallout". Among other things, their sub-par fighter planes nearly cost the U.S. the Pacific theater in WW2 while the initial run of superpowered people was a dismal failure, their version of the M1 fiasco was ''even worse'' (even the Vietcong knew not to loot them, preferring to [[DecapitationPresentation stick the heads of the former owners on the rifles]]), and their method of raising supers is to put them in a school run by a known pedophile, traumatizing them into becoming the hedonistic sociopaths that cause all the problems in the series (they eventually ''do'' remove him, but only because the coverups are getting too expensive).

--> '''Vann:''' This is a Bureau car. Lowest-bidder autodrive is not something you want to trust.

-->'''Park ranger:''' I'm afraid that's no longer true, ma'am. Budget cutbacks have forced us to eliminate anything the least bit entertaining.\\

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' bit above, as insane CEO Cave Johnson's funding ran out from buying $70 million worth of moon rocks, he was forced to turn from astronauts and Olympic athletes to homeless people as test subjects in his endless quest ForScience. In the promo for the Perpetual Testing Initiative, he inadvertently shows the cons of ''not'' following this trope - barring the VisualPun of a literal corner-cutting machine, he says Aperture does not stand for it... and is completely bankrupt as a result.
** The Initiative is one of the few things of Aperture Science that really does work and it was made for the sole reason to have "backwater universe yokel" to build test chambers on the cheap and [[spoiler: ends with the company finding a universe made of U.S. dollars and solving their money issue]].

** In "Drive Thru," Krabs get the idea to operate one when a costumer mistakes a hole in the wall for a drive-through window. As usual, Krabs' greed gets the better of him when he rejects the microphone-and-speaker system, the menu, and the arrow [=SpongeBob=] brings for the drive-thru in favor of tin cans on a string, the menu written on napkins taped together with packing tape, and a sign made out of an old pasta noodle (despite that using the drive thru items would not cost Krabs any money at all since they’re already paid for). He then smashes more holes to make Spongebob and Squidward, who are already overworked, service more customers and earn more money, which results in the Krusty Krab collapsing due to a lack of structural support.

** In "Drive Thru," Krabs get the idea to operate one when a costumer mistakes hole in the wall for a drive through window. As usual, Krabs' greed gets the better of him when he rejects the microphone, speaker, and sign [=SpongeBob=] brings for the drive-thru in favor of tin cans on a string and the menu written on napkins (despite that using the drive thru items would not cost Krabs any money at all since they’re already paid for). He then smashes more holes to make Spongebob and Squidward, who are already overworked, service more customers and earn more money, which results in the Krusty Krab collapsing due to a lack of structural support.

If the company ''used'' to be generous, but has since downgraded to cheaper versions, or "BYO", that's a sure sign that they're in some kind of financial trouble. Bonus points if the things they're being stingy with are essential (and already cheap -- or in some cases ''just paid for'') items such as pens or pads of sticky notes.

* ''Webcomic/Freefall'' has the Pournelle/Niven Transfer Station. Not long ago, the station was flush with cash due to their important role in moving a moon to orbit the planet Jean. However, since the moon was set in place, the Station's revenue has considerably decreased, and their manager indulges liberally in this trope in hopes of forcing all the unionized workers to retire in order to exploit free robot labor. The strategy implodes when Sam and his crew pick up the robots that intended to work in the Station and takes a long while to explain them in detail why working for free will harm the humans they intend to help.

* ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'': Averted by Uncle Scrooge. He may be a miserly penny pincher and will ask the construction crew if each component is necessary, but he will not compromise on proper construction since obviously a building that is proven unsafe is a total loss financially. After all, Scrooge would rather swallow his pride and spend the money now instead of having to spend twice as much money later for repairs/rebuilding. He seems to pay a fair wage to his employees as well -- save Donald, whom he always employs for 30 cents an hour. Depending on the writer, this can vary from the Italian comics where it's portrayed as basically indentured servitude (the Italian Scrooge is a far bigger Jerkass than his American counterpart), to the beloved Creator/DonRosa version who treats it as more a humorous afterthought for Donald's assistance on his adventures.

* ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'': Rossweisse is one cheap Valkyrie. She only shops at 100 Yen stores ($2 Shops) and considers them a good first stop on a date, is seen fighting with old ladies for sale items, and only ever buys clothes on clearance. When Issei hits her with [[ClothingDamage Dress Break]], she's so upset she can't replace her outfit at the same price she [[SkewedPriorities forgets to cover herself]]. This is eventually revealed to be because Odin pays his Valkyries (or the underperforming Rossweisse, at least) a criminally miserly wage; Rossweisse is easily enticed to ''formally defect'' when Rias simply offers her a better benefits package.

* ''Anime/YuGiOh'': Despite being absurdly wealthy, Maximillion Pegasus' Duelist Kingdom Tournament does this a lot. There is no food or sleeping arrangements for the contestants (only the four finalists who make it to his castle get these) and there is no transportation to get the losers off the island (they are forced to take a rowboat back). Even when Yugi wins the tournament, they were stuck until Kaiba provided his helicopter.

* The film of ''Film/ASoundOfThunder'' makes an important plot point of mentioning that the [[TropeMaker trope-making]] and [[TropeNamer trope-naming]] ButterflyOfDoom situation from the original novella normally wouldn't happen because of a bio-filter that the TimeMachine has, but the CorruptCorporateExecutive running the Time Safari company shut it down to save on electrical bill money. Unfortunately, the film doesn't make it clear ''how'' bio-filters would eliminate the problem, since the issue is someone ''stepping'' on a butterfly in the past, not bringing it back to the future.

* ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'': A RunningGag is the show's production often working with the very bare minimum of resources, which is partially due to Chris spending portions of it on luxuries for himself.

* ''[[WesternAnimation/{{Sixteen}} 6teen]]'': The episode "Cheapskates" gives us Jen’s latest boyfriend Griffin, who lives up to his nickname "El Cheapo" given to him by the rest of the gang after witnessing his ''many'' ridiculous ways of getting by without spending money. However, Jen refuses to acknowledge it despite the rest of the gang pointing out how much he’s been mooching off of her as well as other things they’ve seen him do (to name a few, eating mustard packets for breakfast, stealing toilet paper from the washrooms, and pouring leftover coffee into a mug and getting the barista to nuke it [[{{Squick}} which ends up being the coffee he gives to Jen]]). That is until Griffin pushes things too far with his idea of their latest "date", which consists of people watching while eating birdseed stolen from the pet store after going to a children's storybook reading, at which point Jen admits everybody was right about him and dumps him. Then it turns out at the end of the episode that Griffin is actually completely loaded, with an outraged Jen chasing him down to get back all the money she loaned him.

** Even his own daughter Pearl isn’t safe from his corner-cutting, especially in regards to her birthdays. Her friends recall one party where everyone had to share one balloon and the "pony ride" was nothing but a rickety construction barrier with a horse head attached to it that fell apart when one kid got on. Then comes her sixteenth birthday, where the popcorn is stale, the punch is dishwater, the statue of Pearl is made from raw krabby patties, the cake is made of cardboard (and frosting), and the entertainment is Squidward doing renditions of the songs sung by her (and also his) favorite band (although all of it was partially just a way to stall for time so [=SpongeBob=] could get to the Krusty Krab with Pearl’s real gift).

** The episode "Jacob Two-Two and the Priceless Puck" goes even further with Pleaser’s many budget cuts, which according to Mr. Dinglebat are diversionary tactics to keep him one step ahead of disgruntled voters. Most notably his decision to replace the Canadian Ministry of Intrigue Spying and Tattling and replacing it with an automated "24-Hour Juicy Gossip Hotline", to which Dinglebat notes is a terrible idea as there won’t be anyone to help Canada with its national crises and will cause mayhem as a result. Then there's the prime minister's idea of security measures for guarding a priceless diamond, namely hiring [[DumbMuscle aggressive and dim-witted hockey players from the Montreal Marvels’ farm team]] instead of an actual top-notch security team. Needless to say, they aren’t the most competent at the job. Although while Dinglebat is contempt with letting the diamond be stolen, believing that [[LaserGuidedKarma the huge blow it will deal to Pleaser’s PR is well-deserved]], Jacob convinces the spy to help save it anyway as it is the right thing to do. After saving the diamond from being stolen, Dinglebat uses his actions as leverage to convince Pleaser to restore funding to CMIST (the latter being forced to do so in front of national television after getting caught trying to make the promise with his fingers crossed).

* While AdaptedOut of the movie, both the book and the Creator/TelltaleGames' ''VideoGame/JurassicParkTheGame'' make an explicit mention of the fact that the technique of using [[LegoGenetics any type of DNA to "patch up" the missing sequences of dinosaur DNA without double-checking compatibility]] was a cheap option which was pretty much doomed to cause unpredictable mutations (the movie shows one of said mutations, causing some female dinos to become male because of the usage of frog DNA, but it doesn't mentions that it was the cheaper option).

-->-- '''Principal Skinner''', ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS12E9HOMR HOMR]]."

[[folder:Podcast]]

* The ''UNN Von Braun'' in ''VideoGame/SystemShock 2'' emerged this way, with [[MegaCorp [=Tri-Optimum=] ]] trying to beat everyone to building the first faster-than-light ship. Because of this, among other things, the ship's computer is so badly unprotected that someone once hacked it into singing Elvis Presley songs for 3 hours, and its engines are constantly leaking radiation, made worse by the lack of anti-radiation gear. The audiologs you find lampshade much of this, and you spend a majority of the game getting around these obstacles.

[[folder:Visual Novel]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse:
** Surprisingly averted by Uncle Scrooge. He may be a miserly penny pincher and will ask the construction crew if each component is necessary, but he will not compromise on proper construction since obviously a building that is proven unsafe is a total loss financially. After all, Scrooge would rather swallow his pride and spend the money now instead of having to spend twice as much money later for repairs/rebuilding.
** He seems to pay a fair wage to his employees as well -- save Donald, whom he always employs for 30 cents an hour. Depending on the writer, this can vary from the Italian comics where it's portrayed as basically indentured servitude (the Italian Scrooge is a far bigger Jerkass than his American counterpart), to the beloved Creator/DonRosa version who treats it as more a humorous afterthought for Donald's assistance on his adventures.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7180034/1/Soul-s-Light Soul's Light,]]'' an ''[[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Evangelion]]'' and ''Literature/DresdenFiles'' crossover, Harry is sent to [[DisastrousDemonstration sabotage the Jet Alone demonstration]]. In the ensuing chaos it comes to light that, to save money on the prototype, the company had used a cheaper nuclear reactor. One which lacked an automatic safety system and was currently overheating while refusing to accept orders. Harry chose to hoof it on hearing that.