History Main / IncrediblyObviousTail

* ''Film/McQ'' (1974). Creator/JohnWayne (following directly behind in a conspicuous [[CoolCar green Pontiac Firebird Trans Am]]) tails a Bureau of Narcotics van carrying $2 million worth of confiscated drugs to the top secret location where the drugs are to be burned. One can only assume the Bureau driver has gotten careless.

Compare IncrediblyObviousBug, OvertOperative. [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] a (literal) [[[TippedOffByTheTail tail that a character tries hard to hide, but unintentionally makes it really obvious]].

Compare IncrediblyObviousBug, OvertOperative. [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] a (literal) tail that a character tries hard to hide, but unintentionally makes it really obvious.

* ''[=McQ=]'' (1974). Creator/JohnWayne (following directly behind in a conspicuous [[CoolCar green Pontiac Firebird Trans Am]]) tails a Bureau of Narcotics van carrying $2 million worth of confiscated drugs to the top secret location where the drugs are to be burned. One can only assume the Bureau driver has gotten careless.

* Mika Waltari's ''The Dark Angel'' describes the city of Constantinople as a place where distinguished guests are always under surveillance, so the main character doesn't believe for a second that the emperor gave a servant to attend to his needs for pure benevolence. It turns out, however, that the servant is a shrewd man and doesn't necessarily view it as his duty to answer to the emperor (or more specifically to the emperor's vizier) above all else. But more generally, most "assigned" servants are rather obvious tails.

* ''The Enemy'' by Desmond Bagley. A British scientist runs to Sweden after an attack on a member of his family. A GovernmentAgencyOfFiction follows him but only finds the scientist and his bodyguard killing time there. In order to shake things up, they pretend to be a KGB team conducting a ridiculously inept tail, but this backfires badly when the bodyguard responds by shooting dead the man he's guarding after they're cornered. The rest of the book is spent finding out what was so important about the scientist [[HeKnowsTooMuch he had to be killed to prevent him falling into enemy hands]].

Compare IncrediblyObviousBug, OvertOperative.

Whenever a character is being tailed, the pursuer will be very obvious to the prey if the prey would only [[NoPeripheralVision look behind himself/herself]]. Occasionally this is done deliberately, if the authorities ''want'' the suspect to know that they're onto him so that he won't do what he's thinking of doing.

** Bond does this when he tries to get a cab driver to FollowThatCar into New York's Harlem district. As a white Englishman he sticks out a mile, causing a black CIA agent who's following Bond in turn to quip that, "You can't miss him--it's like following a cue ball!" It's not helped that the villain that Bond is following [[WeAreEverywhere has an extensive counter-surveillance network]] reporting Bond's progress via radio.

[[folder:Film]]

* ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic''. Despite being a trained professional, Sosuke Sagara fails completely in his attempts to covertly follow Kaname Chidori to guard her from kidnappers, as his {{n|oSocialSkills}}ature makes him competent on the battlefield but knowing nothing about how to act like an OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent. Such as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb9SmBszsdg jumping from a freaking train.]] While it's moving. "I wanted to get off at this station, it had nothing to do with you."
** The ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic'' novels would later go on to state that Sosuke's ''real'' job is to be the obvious bodyguard, so that anyone going after Kaname will focus on him and miss Wraith.

* Makoto in ''VideoGame/Persona5'' begins following the PC around after being asked to investigate them and their friends. She doesn't change her outfit, and is clearly visible the whole time. With little to hide her except a book she's pretending to read. It's possible to actually walk up and talk to her.

* Finnegan to Miriam in ''[[Film/HillTwentyFourDoesntAnswer Hill 24 Doesn't Answer]]''. Among other things, he accidentally has his NewspaperThinDisguise [[RushedInvertedReading upside down]] (he can't tell himself because he doesn't read Hebrew), leading Miriam to come over and turn it right side up for him.

* In ''Film/TheGrandBudapestHotel'', Jopling, who has a very distinctive appearance, closely follows Kovacs' streetcar on a motorcycle, and is immediately visible from the window. Due to Jopling's brutality, this may be a deliberate threat.
* Finnegan to Miriam in ''[[Film/HillTwentyFourDoesntAnswer Hill 24 Doesn't Answer]]''. Among other things, he accidentally has his NewspaperThinDisguise [[RushedInvertedReading upside down]] (he can't tell himself because he doesn't read Hebrew), leading Miriam to come over and turn it right side up for him.

* Justified in ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove'', because the Turkish and Bulgarian agents (spying for the British and the Russians, respectively) tail each other as a matter of course, and no secret is made of it. Red Grant kills one of the Bulgarians tailing Bond to put an end to this casual state of affairs and [[LetsYouAndHimFight get the two sides fighting each other]].

Not to be confused with the thing {{cat girl}}s have. Or that thang J-Lo has, either. Compare IncrediblyObviousBug, OvertOperative.

* Aggressively averted in ''Creator/EEDocSmith'''s [[Literature/Lensman First Lensman]], where an army of operatives were recording and tailing a group of drug dealers as they distributed the large stash of thionite throughout their organization. The tails were changed every 15 seconds, "long before anybody, however suspicious, could begin to suspect any one shadow". Since it was all coordinated with telepathy from the Lensmen controllers, without the need for speaking into your sleeve or having a radio earpiece, it was accomplished flawlessly. Well, there was that one incident with a not-so-innocent bystander, but the only result of that was a black eye...

* In ''[[Machinima/RedVsBlue Red vs. Blue: Reconstruction]]'', Agent Washington is tasked with pursuing [[TheJuggernaut the Meta]]. Starting in Episode 3, the audience learns that the Meta is in fact pursuing Wash instead, and often at close range (at one point, he hitchhikes on the back of Wash's tank). [[spoiler:Turns out Wash knew from the beginning that he was being pursued, and was in fact counting on that to lure the Meta into a trap.]]

* Aggressively averted in ''Creator/EEDocSmith'''s [[Literature/Lensman First Lensman]], where an army of operatives were recording and tailing a group of drug dealers as they distributed the large stash of thionite throughout their organization. The tails were changed every 15 seconds, "long before anybody, however suspicious, could begin to suspect any one shadow". Since it was all coordinated with telepathy from the Lensmen controllers, without the need for speaking into your sleeve or having a radio earpiece, it was accomplished flawlessly. Well, there was that one incident with a not-so-innocent bystander, but the only result of that was a black eye...

* Lampooned in ''Film/LoadedWeapon1'', where the villains are following a car so closely they're in the back seat. Once the cops realize they're being followed, they make a hard turn and "lose them" -- as they're no longer in the backseat.

* ''The Berlin Memorandum'' by [[Creator/EllestonTrevor Adam Hall]]. The neo-Nazis release Literature/{{Quiller}} in the hope of [[TrickAndFollowPloy following him back to his base]]. As he knows he's being followed anyway, the Nazis don't bother hiding themselves, as Quiller is [[JustBetweenYouAndMe working against the clock]] and has to contact his superiors regardless.

** In ''The Mandarin Cypher'', Quiller is sent to make contact with a low-ranking agent keeping tabs on the widow of a British scientist, sees what to him is an Incredibly Obvious Tail and asks the agent how long she's been under surveillance by the Opposition. The agent can only respond with OhCrap, as he had no idea they were there. Later Quiller is tracked to his hotel by the Opposition without realising it, showing he's not above such mistakes himself.

* In ''Film/EyesWideShut'', after crashing the mansion orgy, Bill tries to go back to the mansion to find out what happened to his friend. He receives a letter asking him to stop looking into it. After this, he is followed by someone on the streets of New York City. [[spoiler:This man was hired by Zeigler, the host of the party at the beginning of the film, to be an obvious tail so that Bill would stop looking into what happened at the mansion.]]

* ''Series/TheBill''. The local CID are following around the wife of a bank robber who provided an alibi for her husband to put pressure on her. At one point she breaks down crying in the street. Next scene has the detective walking into the DCI's office, who demands to know why he isn't out following the woman. He says it's because the Chief Superintendent shut the door in his face (the woman and her husband having come into the station to complain).

** In "Super", Carter leaves her apartment to find an empty van parked across the street and several men watching her and immediately realizes the CIA is watching, justified by the fact they want her to know, they're trying to get her to admit to helping Reese escape them in the previous episode.

* in ''FanFic/WhyAndWere'' by Creator/AAPessimal, Johanna Smith-Rhodes encounters this when she realises she is being followed in the street. She deduces, as her tail is a black Howondalandian, he is most likely working for the Zulus. She realizes there must be a second spy on her tail, one who is taking more care to remain inconspicuous, but fails to identify the second follower until she is tipped off by a street vendor who owes her a favor.

* Lampooned in ''Film/LoadedWeapon1'', where the villains are following a car so closely they're in the back seat. Once the cops realize they're being followed, they make a hard turn and "lose them" - as they're no longer in the backseat.

'''Servo''': "Next week on ''Mitchell'' - the cloverleaf!"

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
** In ''Literature/GoingPostal'', Vetinari deliberately sends a clerk who is unskilled at surveillance, explaining that he would like the target to become "a little more nervous" to provoke him into rash actions and mistakes. As Reacher Gilt reflects, "if you saw [Vetinari's] spy it was a spy he wanted you to see."
** A similar deception is used by the City Watch in ''Literature/{{Maskerade}}'', in which two incredibly-obvious police "spies" sit in the audience to await the Opera Ghost, while undercover cop [[spoiler:Andre]] blends in behind-the-scenes to actually pursue the culprit.

* ''Series/{{Dexter}}'' has this all over the place. Dexter, as an experienced serial killer, presumably has mad stalking skillz, but some of the tailing he does would be obvious to anyone--and he's usually stalking other seasoned killers, too. In one episode of season 8 for example, Dexter 'stalks' his victim by [[http://www.a-suivre.org/usa/IMG/jpg/dexter-traque-sa-proie.jpg standing behind a window and staring directly at him, in broad daylight, for hours, with a bright blue shirt.]]

* ''Series/{{Chernobyl}}''. When Shcherbina takes Legasov for a walk, Legasov spots a couple that he recognizes as a man and women who tried to find out details of the disaster from him in a bar earlier. Legasov stuck to the official line, which is just as well as they're KGB. Shcherbina points out that if the KGB is observing them openly, it's because they want them to know they're BeingWatched.

* One of the classic tailing tricks used against people who know that it's likely they'll be tailed is to send two people - one relatively obvious and one extremely discreet.

%%%% "Kuroko following anybody, Misaka and Kuroko tailing their dorm supervisor." is not context. It is a pair of sentence fragments that say tailing happens. Examples are not self-evident.
%%%%%* ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun''.
* In ''Manga/DeathNote'', Raye Penber did this, and unfortunately for him he was spotted.
* ''Manga/DetectiveConan'':

%%%%%%%%* ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' Ed and Al noticed a huge guy in a trench coat following them.