History Main / ItWontTurnOff

There's also the comedic version where the inability to shut the device off is neither supernatural nor dangerous, but no less insufferable.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/MuppetBabies1984'', Scooter gets a toy robot, which unfortunately goes out of control and begins causing havoc throughout the nursery. Even worse, despite his best attempts, he can't turn it off. Finally, in desperation, he pushes all the buttons on the controls. [[ExplosiveInstrumentation This causes the robot to explode]].''

** In [[Recap/ThePrisonerE1Arrival the premiere]], he gets sick of listening to his Village-supplied radio (which has an internal power supply and no off switch), throws it on the floor and literally kicks it to pieces, all while the saccharine Muzak refuses to go away.

** In the episode "Dance of the Dead", Number 6 encounters a teletype machine that turns back on after he tears out its innards.
** In the premiere, he gets sick of listening to his Village-supplied radio (which has an internal power supply and no off switch), throws it on the floor and literally kicks it to pieces, all while the saccharine Muzak refuses to go away.

** In ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', when the crew attempt to CutTheJuice to M5, "The Ultimate Computer" of the episode title, it creates its own connection to draw power directly from the engines... and ''through'' one unfortunate RedShirt engineer, who is instantly vaporized. Dr. Daystrom tries to excuse this as merely ''negligent'' homicide, claiming the man "just got in the way" of the power beam. Kirk wants to know what will happen when they ''all'' just "get in the way?"
** In the ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "Memorial", Tom Paris realizes something is wrong when he starts seeing a war taking place on his TV set and he can't change the channels. It eventually turns out to be a memorial on a planet transmitting images of a war that took place there into people's minds so that they would remember the event.
** This is also generally the case for every holodeck malfunction episode in the franchise, as otherwise they could be solved by simply shutting the thing off.

** In "Houses of the Holy", a fundamentalist Bible show appears on a character's TV, and will not leave how often they change the channel.
** And in "Roadkill" at various points, the song "House of the Rising Sun" gets played on the radio, including spontaneously turning on in Dean's car, and playing at one point on a jukebox which is not plugged in.
** In "Long Distance Caller", a phone keeps calling despite being hung up on and then being ripped out of the wall. Later on, a girl gets chat messages that continue to show on her screen, even after turning it off.
* The ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' episode "From Out of the Rain" has the group attend a cinema where silent film footage of what Cardiff looked like in the past is being shown. However, some footage of the Villains Of The Week ends up being edited into the footage (somehow). The man operating the telecine machine attempts to stop it, but finds he can't stop the machine.

* In ''Film/{{Outpost}}'', [=McKay=] manages to get the original bunker radio equipment working, initially producing eerily scream-like static before suddenly switching to classical music. Despite unplugging the radio, McKay is unable to get it to stop functioning before it suddenly shuts itself off in a small explosion.

* In ''Series/{{Bones}}'', Booth went to a [[spoiler: sperm donation facility]], where the television showed a [[spoiler: Family Guy animation]] and wouldn't turn off no matter what Booth did. Later it is revealed that [[spoiler: Booth was having a hallucination due to a brain tumor]].
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', "Conversations with Dead People": Dawn is home alone and watching a movie when she starts hearing strange noises around the house. She mutes the TV, except the sound comes back on - even after she unplugs it. When everything from the living room stereo to the microwave starts doing the same thing, she goes for the axe.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' has a few examples. [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-261 SCP-261]] is a vending machine that dispenses strange snacks. If it's unplugged, it dispenses stranger snacks. [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-158 SCP-158]] can be used to remove someone's soul. After someone accidentally spilled a soul onto a laptop, it started running without power and behaving erratically.

* Some disaster warning messages work this way. There's a video online of a man waking up at 6 in the morning in Japan to get a notification that North Korea was testing a missile. Despite his attempts to shut it off, the warning plays on every channel, on his phone, and even makes his television turn back on when he turned it off. This is because Japan's [[EmergencyBroadcast emergency broadcast system]], J-Alert, has a nifty feature where the broadcasts contain encoded systems that will turn televisions on and tune them to the correct channel as long as they're connected to mains power.

* Some disaster warning messages work this way. There's a video online of a man waking up at 6 in the morning in Japan to get a notification that North Korea was testing a missile. Despite his attempts to shut it off, the warning plays on every channel, on his phone, and even makes his television turn back on when he turned it off.

* A staple of video game {{creepypasta}}s is for the protagonist to find to their horror that they can't turn the game console off once the haunted game starts revealing its unnerving nature, and that this somehow justifies them seeing the game through to its end, even when [[PercussiveMaintenance other]] [[CutTheJuice methods]] would work just as well.

* Some electronic devices that use a LED to show they're on will keep it turned on for some seconds after they have been unplugged, thanks to both LEDs consuming little energy and the one stored on the device's capacitors being enough to keep them shining for a brief time.

* Done by [[LivingToys Woody]] in ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'', when he's teaching Sid a lesson at the end. If a toy is spouting one-liners without its drawstring being pulled, you would probably come to the conclusion that it's busted too. But what really makes Sid freak out is when Woody [[ParanoiaFuel then starts addressing him directly]] ''[[ParanoiaFuel by his full name]]''.

* A staple of video game {{creepypasta}}s is for the protagonist to find to their horror that they can't turn the game console off once the haunted game starts revealing its unnerving nature.

* Played with in ''WesternAnimation/ThePinkPanther''. When some appliance has enraged/attacked him, he would pound it until is totally destroyed and walk away, just for the appliance to leave a last "breath" and the panther hitting it one last time.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/DefendersOfTheEarth'' episode "The Mind Warriors", Ming hacks into the Defenders' Battle Simulation computer and hijacks the haunted house simulation which Kshin has created. Having lost control of the simulation, Kshin goes to warn Flash, Mandrake, the Phantom and Lothar (the Defenders inside the simulation) only to become trapped himself. Eventually, finding that the computer won't shut off, Rick, LJ and Jedda are forced to wreck it in order to save their fellow Defenders. For once, this actually works.
* In the final episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', Kuvira attempts to shut down the spirit cannon after it goes out of control, but since it's drawing on power from the spirit vines all around it, it doesn't shut off and keeps firing, eventually [[ExplosiveOverclocking overloading]].
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' ends with a publicly broadcasted song decrying BabysitterFromHell Vicky. Annoyed with the song, Vicky tries to turn her [=TV=] off, and later [[NoKillLikeOverkill smashes it]], to no avail.
* ''WesternAnimation/CampLazlo'': In "Movie Night", Edward sneaks into the camp's projection room to watch a scary movie he's not old enough to see to prove he's not afraid. When he actually gets scared by the movie, he fruitlessly tries to turn the projector off.
-->'''Edward:''' AAAHH! A ZOMBIE MOVIE PROJECTOR! ''IT WON'T DIE!!!''
* Parodied in the ComicStrip/{{Popeye}} short ''Me Musical Nephews'', where Popeye gets kept awake by loud music and believes it to be coming from a radio, unaware that it's really his nephews playing their instruments. He tries turning off the radio, but when it still "plays", he smashes the radio to pieces and then tries to stomp on the bulbs.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/MuppetBabies1984'', Scooter gets a toy robot, which unfortunately goes out of control and begins causing havoc throughout the nursery. Even worse, despite his best attempts, he can't turn it off. Finally, in desperation, he pushes all the buttons on the controls. [[ExplosiveInstrumentation This causes the robot to explode]].''
* The Abomitons in ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' are machines programmed to destroy threats as indicated; once locked onto a specific threat, they won't stop until it is completely destroyed. In the case of humans, the only way for Abomitons to stop is if that human is ''killed.''
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', Beth questions Jerry on why their phone bill has dozens of charges from "Taddy Mason, LLC." Just then, the TV plays a commercial for Taddy, who explains in detail that he will talk to lonely men and pretend to be their friend as Jerry desperately tries to turn it off.
* The Moonstone Incantation from ''WesternAnimation/TangledTheSeries'', which is the destructive counterpart to the Sundrop's Healing Incantation. Once Rapunzel begins chanting it and activating said power, she cannot stop chanting until someone else brings her to her senses.
* ''WesternAnimation/LeagueOfSuperEvil'': The episode "Ice Creamed" has Voltar getting Frogg to build a mind control device to hypnotize kids into buying Tofu Pops from an ice cream truck instead of the popular and always sold out Fudgy Yummy Fudge Bars. When the machine [[GoneHorriblyRight works too well and the victims become violently obsessed with getting Tofu Pops]], Voltar orders the machine turned off, only for Frogg to tell him that he "[[BlatantLies forgot]]" to put one in and that the only settings are "on" and "''more'' on", the latter of which ends up hypnotizing the entire town, including L.O.S.E. themselves.

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

* In ''Film/TheRing'', at the start, one of the characters has this problem with a screen showing static. Then it gets worse.
** In the American remake, when Rachel and Noah climb down [[spoiler: beneath the cabin to find the well, Samara's PsychicPowers turn on the TV, then unscrew the floorboards so that it slides down and crashes into Rachel, sending her down the well]]. For a split-second, the TV (which isn't even plugged in) has an image of a silhouette peering down into the well.
** One of the DVD special features combines this with TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou. It is possible to access a recording of The Tape that, once started, cannot be stopped by any means (presumably, short of unplugging the player, manually turning off your TV, or hard-resetting your computer). And to make things worse, this version is even ''longer'' than the actual tape that was shown in the film, with more disturbing content to go with it.
** The short film ''Rings'' (which bridges between the two American ''Ring'' films) takes this up a notch: the protagonist Jake Pierce sees Samara trying to come out of his TV, and when unplugging it doesn't work, he grabs a small lamp and tries ''smashing it against the TV screen''. Even that fails, and he instead picks up his video camera and tries to film her, but Samara then attempts to grab Jake face-first through the ''camera's screen''. [[AllJustADream Fortunately, it was only a dream.]]
** A variation, "It won't delete," from the Japanese sequel ''Ring 2''. Asakawa's former assistant, now investigating the urban legend himself, records footage of a Cursed Video victim and promises to watch the tape so she can be spared. He doesn't. When he reviews the footage, he tries to delete the interview... but it's still there. Even after repeated attempts. Then the mechanism gets stuck, showing a still frame of the victim looking just like Sadako... and it gets REALLY WORSE for him afterwards.
* In ''Film/BruceAlmighty'', Bruce gets a call on his pager from the same number, even after ripping out the battery, hurling it out of the window, and watching it get run over. Justified as the calls are from ''God''.

* While a child is watching a kids' program in ''Film/StirOfEchoes'', the television keeps changing channels to show the original ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968''
* An amusing subversion in the original ''{{Film/Poltergeist|1982}}'': the family's television keeps changing channels on its own, only to have them discover that the neighbor's TV remote uses the same signal. They are essentially having a remote-of-war.
* The horror film ''Film/FourteenOhEight'' had a hotel alarm clock/radio that went off even after it was unplugged.
* ''Film/WeirdScience'' features a computer that goes wild. Turning it off doesn't work. Unplugging it doesn't work. Hitting it with a metal baseball bat causes the ''bat to shatter''.
* ''Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet'':
** In the original ''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet1984'', Nancy yanks her phone out of the wall after she gets a call of Freddy's trademark claw scraping noises. He's still able to call, however, and mock her about [[spoiler:Glen's upcoming death]].
** In ''Film/WesCravensNewNightmare'', Heather's son keeps watching the original ''´Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet1984'', even after Heather pulls the plug on the TV.
* ''Film/MaximumOverdrive'' has a few scenes that fall under this trope, notably the electric carving knife that turns on and attacks a waitress.
* In ''Film/StayAlive2006'', a film in which players of a video game die if their game-avatars do, one character uses a portable game console to send his avatar into the game's analog of a real haunted house. He pauses the game to fetch something from the real house, leaving the console inside his van. Not only does the game un-pause itself, leaving his avatar standing inert while its enemies close in, but the van's power locks and windows seal themselves so he can't get to the controls.
* Played strictly for laughs in Film/TheThreeStooges short "Men in Black" ([[Film/MenInBlack no relation]]). The three play doctors and are constantly being paged, "Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard!" They get frustrated and destroy the paging system but it continues to page them, even as they're shooting it, until it says, "Oh, they got me!"
* In ''Film/TheMothmanProphecies'', protagonist John Klein has been promised a call from [[spoiler:his long-deceased wife]]. When the phone rings at the appointed time, he decides he doesn't want to answer it, and he unplugs and smashes the phone. Moments later, it rings again.

* In the American remake of ''Film/TheGrudge'', this happens to one of Kayako's victims, Susan. Right after finding no one there outside her apartment after her initial relief at seeing her (now late) brother through the peephole of her door (especially considering the scare she went through when she was leaving her office building being pursued by Kayako's vengeful spirit), the signature death rattle suddenly emanates loudly from the phone she was holding. In terror, she drops and breaks the phone, yet the rattle can still be heard. Of course, it got worse from there.
%%* A Hungarian movie revolves around a delivery crew being ordered to deliver a giant television set to a family that won it on a lottery. First they need to turn it off, but it won't turn off. They want to pull the plug on it and put it on the truck, but even after tracking the cord back to its origin for several hours they can't find it, so they end up cutting it. Naturally, this still doesn't shut it down, and they end up carrying the set through half the country while it's still on. The movie was a not so subtle commentary on the media, obviously.
%%Don't uncomment the above example without finding the title of the work referenced.

* In the ''{{Film/Apocalypse}}'' film series movie ''Revelation'', One Nation Earth converts Willy Spino and Cindy Bolton try to stop the anti-Day Of Wonders virus program from uploading onto the computers by pulling out the disk and destroying it, and even trying to destroy the computer it was uploading on itself, all to no avail. And it's all being done to [[IncessantMusicMadness "Amazing Grace" being sung in the background.]]
* ''Film/TheOmegaMan''. A sign of the protagonist's SanitySlippage due to being TheAloner. He hears a cacophony of ringing phones in a GhostCity, causing him to cover his ears and scream "THERE IS NO PHONE RINGING!" until it stops.
* In ''Film/DuckSoup'', Pinky turns a dial on a radio, thinking it was the safe he was there to crack, which plays a ''very'' loud and energetic rendition of "Stars And Stripes Forever". He tries to muffle the radio with pillows, to no effect. He then throws it on the floor and smashes it to pieces; again, the radio continues to play. Pinky has to settle for throwing what's left of the radio out the window.
* Played for laughs in Mel Brooks's Creator/AlfredHitchcock pastiche ''Film/HighAnxiety'', where the luckless Doctor Wentworth is tortured to [[BrownNote ear-bleeding death]] by the blaring, repetitive rock music from a car stereo that resists all his attempts to turn it off.
* A variation ("It won't disconnect!") in ''Film/{{Goldeneye}}'', the infiltration to Boris' server continues, despite him desperately ripping hardware out of it.

* ''Film/ShaunOfTheDead'' has a scene that centers around this trope. As the title character and his team of family/friends are hiding in a bar from zombies, the jukebox automatically turns on due to being on random. SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs. Oh, and the kicker: The movie is set in England, and the song that plays - [[Music/{{Queen}} Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now."]] It takes an axe or something to stop Freddie Mercury.
-->'''Probably everybody''': God, kill the Queen!

* ''Film/Siren2010'': When Marco is searching the yacht, he finds a tape deck in one of the cabins, playing a cassette of Silka singing. Marco removes the tape and the song stops for s few seconds. Then in starts again, despite there being no tape in the player.
* ''Film/{{Scarecrows}}'': In an odd inversion of the way the trope usually works, Bert steals a truck and drives off in it. When the truck stalls, Bert thinks it has flooded and pops the bonnet. When he looks inside, he discovers that the truck doesn't have an engine.

* In ''Film/BigDriver'', Tess is hallucinating that her GPS is giving her advice about hunting her rapist. Freaking out, she unplugs it, only for the now black screen to apologize.

* In the first ''[[Literature/TheThreeInvestigators Three Investigators]]'' novel, the main characters are told about a cursed electric organ that played both when nobody was near it, and when it was unplugged. (The guy who owned it did experiments to be sure.) They later investigate the organ, but it turns out to be just a trick, like everything else in the haunted house.
* In Creator/AlanGarner's ''Elidor'', the magical artifacts the children bring back to the mundane world cause all the appliances in their house to start running, even when not plugged in.

* In the horrifying dystopia that is ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', one of the most iconic objects were the telescreens, which could never be switched off or silenced; and were also used by the government for keeping watch on people everywhere, including in their homes.
* One of God's angels [[DoNotAdjustYourSet takes over the airwaves]] in the Literature/LeftBehind book ''Desecration'' to deliver a message from [[Literature/TheBible Revelation 14:9-13]] to those who have taken the MarkOfTheBeast and worshiped Carpathia's image.
* ''Literature/JohnDiesAtTheEnd'': David is tormented by songs on the radio that are altered to racist screeds and personal insults that only he can hear. When he tries to turn the radio off, he finds that it was off all along.
* In one ''Literature/HomerPrice'' story, a donut machine is incorrectly assembled and won't turn off until it's used up all the batter in it. Too bad they made an extra-large batter recipe and now have hundreds of donuts they can't sell (until they come up with a marketing gimmick).

* The video for the Music/BarenakedLadies[='=] "Falling For the First Time" involves a night watchman's security monitor starting to play a PerformanceVideo of the band, and his attempts to stop it (he tries switching the feed back, pounds on it to try and get it working again, then pulls the plug). It still keeps showing the band, so he eventually pries the monitor out with a broom handle and throws it into a dumpster. [[spoiler:At the end of the video, we see the ''actual'' band members stealing valuables in the background (with the watchman oblivious), while the "haunted" monitor in the dumpster shows Ed giving a wink to the camera before it finally shuts off, implying it was all a ruse to distract the watchman.]]

* Variant: In ''Franchise/SilentHill'', phones with the cord cut off can still ring and make calls in or out.

* In ''Videogame/{{Doom 3}}'' there's an [[ApocalypticLog audio log]] that mentions a technician getting his hand torn off by a machine which had somehow activated despite being disconnected from the power grid. The log also states that the machine is still running and they're unable to turn it off. Presumably the work of the [[LegionsOfHell demons]], who were already messing with the Martian colonists before they invaded.

* ''VideoGame/{{Imscared}}'' takes this trope to the logical extreme; there are moments where it seems like the game has ended or crashed, until you find that it is downloading text files onto your computer telling you to keep playing. Even after you complete the game, the last text file greatly implies that [[OhCrap White Face is still haunting your computer]].
* One recurring bit of creepy in Harbour Cottage, from ''VideoGame/TheLostCrown'', is how the cottage's vintage landline telephone keeps playing snippets of Walter de la Mare's poem "The Listeners" after dark, despite the wiring having been chewed to bits by rats years ago.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLng80h9W1U This]] sketch on Youtube.
* ''WebAnimation/SaladFingers'' has a radio and a telephone that emit noises despite clearly being nonfunctional. At least, Salad Fingers ''hears'' noises coming from them...

* [[@/{{Scythemantis}} Bogleech]] mocks this trope with a ''human ghost'' [[http://www.bogleech.com/comics/comic58-spirit.htm that was never plugged in]].
* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic's Halloween special had him criticizing an old Teddy Ruxpin doll... and then later that night it starts threatening him. The Critic declares it's time he removed the batteries, only to discover they've been out the whole time.

* In Chapter Two of ''Literature/{{Antlers Colorado}}'', the antagonist is [[spoiler:an evil entity bound to a lake that often uses TV, radio, and books (via rearranging the text) to get its messages across. It's confirmed by the characters who have been dealing with it that the only way to get the medium that's being hijacked back to normal is to follow the entity's instructions.]]

* ''Film/ShaunOfTheDead'' has a scene that centers around this trope. As the [[WhatAnIdiot title character]] and his team of family/friends are hiding in a bar from zombies, the jukebox automatically turns on due to being on random. SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs. Oh, and the kicker: The movie is set in England, and the song that plays - [[Music/{{Queen}} Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now."]] It takes an axe or something to stop Freddie Mercury.

* ''Film/ShaunOfTheDead'' has a scene that centers around this trope. As the [[WhatAnIdiot title character]] and his team of family/friends are hiding in a bar from zombies, when his greater-than-stupid friend Ed decides to break the tension by turning on the nearby jukebox. SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs. Oh, and the kicker: The movie is set in England, and the song that plays - [[Music/{{Queen}} Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now."]] It takes an axe or something to stop Freddie Mercury.

Compare SorcerersApprenticePlot. See also AIIsACrapshoot for a sci-fi equivalent, and if it's a character struggling to shut off a superpower they may have, then that's PowerIncontinence.

* In ''Film/StayAlive'', a film in which players of a video game die if their game-avatars do, one character uses a portable game console to send his avatar into the game's analog of a real haunted house. He pauses the game to fetch something from the real house, leaving the console inside his van. Not only does the game un-pause itself, leaving his avatar standing inert while its enemies close in, but the van's power locks and windows seal themselves so he can't get to the controls.

* In the ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "A Thing About Machines" an AssholeVictim discovers that the clock ringing is the one that he destroyed the innards of yesterday.