History Main / GottaCatchThemAll

** This also includes a number of [[TheCameo cameos]] that need to be found... inclduing some VERY unlikely ones. (Flying Maiden[[hottip:*:[[VideoGame/{{Touhou}} Reimu Hakurei]], anyone?)

* NSA's [[BigBrotherIsWatching PRISM]] is going to catch you(r communication's) all. [[ParanoiaFuel Have fun!]]

* ''Series/{{Revolution}}'': In the episode "Soul Train", Rachel explains to Big Bad Monroe that there are 12 pendants and that they are the key to getting the power back on. [[spoiler: This turns into a SubvertedTrope later. Rachel destroys at least three pendants, and Randall Flynn reveals that he is not at all interested in collecting the pendants. A number of the pendants are not even located in the USA, and if they are, they are well hidden. The first season finale has the power turned back on, and the pendants had absolutely nothing to do with that]].

* ''VideoGame/AHatInTime'' is inspired by collectathon platformers for the N64, and thus features the [[PlotCoupon Time Items]], [[NiceHat hats]], attack pins, and even more unusual things like Mafia neckties.

* Demons in ShinMegamiTensei, and Personae in the {{Persona}} series. Enjoy filling the Compendium! In later games Demons and Personae's skill sets are entirely customizable allowing the player to even save their custom layouts.

** ''NeverwinterNights'' is almost entirely based off this trope. First, you need to collect the bits of fantastic creatures to cure the plague, then you need to collect the journals of the cultists to prove they are in Luskan, then after Luskan you need to collect the Words of Power, after which the final battle begins.

** In NeverwinterNights2 Mask of the Betrayer, hunting for clues to the cause of your curse might qualify, as does hunting for allies in the first chapter.
** ''KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'': You get to collect the Star Maps so that you can find Darth Malak's base of operations and power base.
** KnightsOfTheOldRepublic 2 has the Jedi Masters you have to hunt down and gather at Dantooine or kill.
** ''MassEffect'': you collect bits of a coordinate, more coordinates that tell you how to use what you find when you get to the first coordinates, and somebody who can understand the whole thing. A checklist of planets, each with a beginning, middle and end, and each with their own miniature scenario which you must resolve as part of your quest to [[SaveTheWorld Save The Galaxy]].
** ''MassEffect2'': This is very nearly the ''entire point'' of the game. Most of the game revolves recruiting teammates for your suicide mission (with {{DLC}}, there are 12 members in total, though you technically only need 8 to complete the game) and then gaining their loyalty so they don't die during the final mission.

* ''Chinese Tokusatsu ArmorHero'': In the first ever show, they have to seal 52 monsters into 52 cards, in 52 episodes. It's quite a clean show like that.
* ''TheLostRoom'': In this Sci-Fi show, characters are, for various reasons, seeking artifacts known as Objects, which originated in a 1960s motel room and are endowed with curious properties (for instance, one Object is a watch which can boil an egg placed inside the band).

* ''[[ChouSeiShinSeries Chousei Kantai Sazer X]]'': The twelve Cosmo Capsules. When united, the twelve of them grant one wish. So naturally everyone is after them. Each episode even keeps a tally on who has what Capsules.

* ''{{Warehouse13}}'': This is a show, similar to ''TheLostRoom'' above, where objects have special powers for one reason or another (for example, a gun invented by Nikola Tesla is shoots energy bursts that knock people unconscious), and the Warehouse is trying to collect them.
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': Season 4 revolved around the protagonists trying to stop demons from breaking the seals that keep Lucifer locked. It was pretty hard, since the demons only had to break 66 seals of the 600 that exist. In season 5, they learn that [[spoiler:the rings of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse could be used to lock Lucifer again. Luckily, they already had two of them at that time.]]
* ''PowerRangers'' and ''SuperSentai'':
** These shows have created a meta-example of this. To further make use of the Merchandise Driven nature of the show, the number of HumongousMecha have expanded in recent years. Gaoranger/Wild Force is seen by many as the start of it, with 22 Power Animals/Wild Zords, all of which were released in toy form.
** However, there are times when the plot really is 'collect the six whatevers.' ''Operation Overdrive'' revolved around the five jewels to a magical crown (other artifacts empowered by them were clues, but also powerful themselves.) The Rangers also once had to go collect the pieces of the DismantledMacGuffin (which ''they'' broke and scattered. Didn't want the bad guys to get the Zeo Crystal, didn't realize they'd actually be needing the thing.)
* ''Series/{{Community}}'': In the episode "[[Recap/CommunityS1E07IntroductionToStatistics Introduction to Statistics]]". Annie has a breakdown if everyone doesn't show up to her Halloween party.
* ''Series/TheCollector'':
** One of [[DealWithTheDevil the Devil's clients]] got the ability to get rid of guilt by transferring it to others through tattoos, turning them into sinners. His redemption required finding them all and completing their tattoos, restoring his memories of the guilt's reason as well as their original behavior.
** Another client had to re-absorb the people made from her split personalities.
* ''Series/TheLegendOfDickAndDom'': The heroes are questing for potion ingredients (the claw of a siren, the mists of time, a pint of milk...) to cure a plague.
* ''Dream House'': Both editions of this game show (ABC, 1968; NBC, 1984) had couples vying for rooms of a house in each show. Collecting seven rooms won them a new home.
* ''Seven Keys'': This 1961 ABC game show had a player collecting up to seven keys to open a vault full of prizes by completing a board of 70 squares in fifteen chances. Getting all seven keys won everything automatically.

* ''Series/OneHundredDeedsForEddieMcDowd'', a show on Nickelodeon. The title character, a juvenile delinquent, was turned into a dog and needed to do 100 good deeds in order to regain his human form.
* Ezekiel Stone, the main character of Fox's short-lived 1998 series ''Series/{{Brimstone}}'', is released from Hell by the Devil to use his police skills to track down and retrieve 113 damned souls who escaped the afterlife back to Earth. Short life meant he got nowhere NEAR his goal.
* Ditto with Jeremy Piven's ''Series/{{Cupid}}'', who was supposed to unite 100 couples. The show only ran 15 episodes, and some of them didn't add any couples to his tally.
* The six pieces of the Key to Time in ''Series/DoctorWho''.
** Subverted in 'Last of the Time Lords' where Martha talks about having to travel around the world to collect the four hidden pieces to a gun that could kill the Master and prevent him from regenerating. [[spoiler: When the Master catches her and reveals that he knows her plan, she laughs at him and says, "You really believed that?" Turns out the whole thing was a bluff and her actual plan was something else altogether.]]

* The premise of ''FridayThe13thTheSeries'' is that Micki and Ryan must recover all of the cursed antiques purchased from their uncle's store.
* In ''MyNameIsEarl'', Earl must fix all the things he's ever done wrong in order to clear his karma.
* In the first ever ''Chinese Tokusatsu ArmorHero'' they have to seal 52 monsters into 52 cards, in 52 episodes. It's quite a clean show like that.
* In the Sci-Fi show ''TheLostRoom'', characters are, for various reasons, seeking artifacts known as Objects, which originated in a 1960s motel room and are endowed with curious properties (for instance, one Object is a watch which can boil an egg placed inside the band).
* The main plot point of ''{{Reaper}}'' is that the lead has to catch escaped souls from Hell, similar to ''Series/{{Brimstone}}'' mentioned above.
* The twelve Cosmo Capsules in ''[[ChouSeiShinSeries Chousei Kantai Sazer X]]''. When united, the twelve of them grant one wish. So naturally everyone is after them. Each episode even keeps a tally on who has what Capsules.
* ''Series/WMACMasters'', a short-lived show that was a strange cross between ProfessionalWrestling, ''AmericanGladiators'', and ''PowerRangers'', featured this as its central mechanic. Winning a competition allowed one of the competitors to take his opponent's "symbol" (a medallion with a symbol engraved that relates to the character's nickname), and once one of the competitors got the symbols of each of the others, he could challenge for the championship.
* ''{{Warehouse13}}'' is a show, similar to ''TheLostRoom'' above, where objects have special powers for one reason or another (for example, a gun invented by Nikola Tesla is shoots energy bursts that knock people unconscious), and the Warehouse is trying to collect them.
* Season 4 of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' revolved around the protagonists trying to stop demons from breaking the seals that keep Lucifer locked. It was pretty hard, since the demons only had to break 66 seals of the 600 that exist. In season 5, they learn that [[spoiler:the rings of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse could be used to lock Lucifer again. Luckily, they already had two of them at that time.]]
* PowerRangers and SuperSentai have created a meta-example of this. To further make use of the Merchandise Driven nature of the show, the number of HumongousMecha have expanded in recent years. Gaoranger/Wild Force is seen by many as the start of it, with 22 Power Animals/Wild Zords, all of which were released in toy form.

* In the ''Series/{{Community}}'' episode "[[Recap/CommunityS1E07IntroductionToStatistics Introduction to Statistics]]". Annie has a breakdown if everyone doesn't show up to her Halloween party.
* ''[[Series.TheCollector The Collector]]'': One of [[DealWithTheDevil the Devil's clients]] got the ability to get rid of guilt by transferring it to others through tattoos, turning them into sinners. His redemption required finding them all and completing their tattoos, restoring his memories of the guilt's reason as well as their original behavior.

* In ''Series/TheLegendOfDickAndDom'' the heroes are questing for potion ingredients (the claw of a siren, the mists of time, a pint of milk...) to cure a plague.
* Both editions of the game show ''Dream House'' (ABC, 1968; NBC, 1984) had couples vying for rooms of a house in each show. Collecting seven rooms won them a new home.
* The 1961 ABC game show ''Seven Keys'' had a player collecting up to seven keys to open a vault full of prizes by completing a board of 70 squares in fifteen chances. Getting all seven keys won everything automatically.

* ''OneHundredDeedsForEddieMcDowd'', a show that was TooGoodToLast on Nickelodeon. The title character, a juvenile delinquent, was turned into a dog and needed to do 100 good deeds in order to regain his human form.

** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]'' should get special credit; it's one of only three N64 games that was so detailed and complicated in gameplay that it needed the RAM Expansion Pak to play. In addition to Pieces of Heart, weapons, songs, wallets, fairies, hidden bosses, and various other odds and ends, the game has 24 masks to collect. Only five of them are absolutely necessary to complete the main storyline (though some others make it easier), but the other 18 are necessary for 100% completion. Oh, and the 24th one? Obtainable only by collecting all of the other masks.

* The ''{{South Park}}'' episode ''Chinpokomon'' mercilessly sends up the Pokemon phenomena through the medium of the kids being swept up in the craze, and the bafflement of their parents at the impenetrable non-sequeterial nature of Japanese animation.

* ''KeychainOfCreation'' chronicles the story of a group of heroes searching for the five Keys of Creation, powerful weapons which can open any lock or [[SealedEvilInACan unseal any can]], in order to keep them out of the wrong hands. About two hundred comics later, they still only have the one they started with.

*** Simply put, this is because there is a '''''ton''''' of collectables. There's 200 Golden Bananas ({{Plot Coupon}}s), 3500 regular Bananas (required to access each level's boss; there's 100 bananas for each of the five Kongs on each of the seven Levels), 35 Banana Medals (required to access minigames required to beat the game), 20 Banana Fairies (and [[spoiler:the secret 201st Golden Banana]] that you get for collecting them all), 40 Blueprints (increases time limit of the final level's TimedMission and can be exchanged for Golden Bananas), and countless Banana Coins (currency to obtain new skills), among others. Now you know why it's one of the three N64 games that needs an Expansion Pak to be played.

*** Simply put, this is because there is a '''''ton''''' of collectables. There's 200 Golden Bananas ({{Plot Coupon}}s), 3500 regular Bananas (required to access each level's boss; there's 100 bananas for each of the five Kongs on each of the seven Levels), 35 Banana Medals (required to access minigames required to beat the game), 20 Banana Fairies (and [[spoiler:the secret 201st Golden Banana]] that you get for collecting them all), 40 Blueprints (increases time limit of the final level's TimedMission and can be exchanged for Golden Bananas), and countless Banana Coins (currency to obtain new skills), among others. Now you know why it needed an Expansion Pak to be played.

* Much of the plot of ''TheSilmarillion'' is the various forces of Maiar, Valar, Elves, and Men seeking the three Silmarils of Feanor -- particularly the sons of Feanor, who have sworn a terrible vow to oppose anything in the entire cosmos that prevents them from gaining the Silmarils.