History Main / PlotSensitiveButton

*** To be fair to the movie, they had just finished jury-rigging the torpedo, so maybe they just wired it into a handy nearby button.

** In ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', this was referenced when Padmé pressed the same button to start the ship. It was further parodied in ''Podcast/{{Rifftrax}}'':

* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'', Lelouch has a switch shaped vaguely like a chess piece that serves multiple functions, ranging from remote controlling guns of a freshly hijacked mecha, detonating planted explosives, causing his HumongousMecha to launch chaff, and causing Mount Fuji to erupt. Points two and three are especially notable because he did them in the same battle, when he couldn't have conceivably altered its function beforehand. As one might expect from this example, MemeticMutation has turned the switch into the anime equivalent of Franchise/{{Batman}}'s utility belt.

* ''WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget'': Penny's watch could do a lot, from firing a laser, to remote controlling things, to being used as a VideoPhone. It only had three buttons.

* ''WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget'': Penny's watch could do a lot, from firing a laser, to remote controlling things, to being used as a phone. It only had three buttons.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'': Try to figure out which button on Syndrome's remote does what.

* In the ''Series/RedDwarf'' episode "Parallel Universe", Holly invents the "Holly-Hop Drive", a device intended to move the ship instantly to any point in space (although it actually instead moves the ship into an AlternateUniverse). Much to the crew's scorn, the drive is just a red box with two buttons: "Start" and "Stop". In the words of Holly: "If you want to start it, press Start, and you can work out the rest of the controls for yourself."
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'': In the famous (for all the wrong reasons) ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Spock's Brain", the torture wristband magically knows exactly who its user wants to hurt when the single button is pressed. Probably the same technology that allows the transporter chief to know ''which'' three to beam up.

These are often used to control the DoAnythingRobot. Compare ActionCommands, GreenLanternRing, MagicTool, DamnYouMuscleMemory.

* Parodied in Website/TheOnion's report on the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA MacBook Wheel]], which uses a single iPod-style click wheel for all input.

** Amy uses the "all purpose spray" in a different episode to make herself another bikini top, after nibbler steals her original one.

* Certain ''Franchise/SuperSentai'' and/or ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' series have these in the mecha/Zord cockpits; ''Series/ChoujinSentaiJetman'' would sometimes have Jet Icarus' (impressive) arsenal summoned up by seemingly pressing the same couple of buttons every time.

* The second ''Series/{{Aquila}}'' novel says that actions can be reassigned to any button by simply asking the ship's computer.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' featured a theme park which had three shutdown buttons: "Shut It Down", "Shut It All Down", and "Shut It Down, Shut It All Down".

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': Subverted in ''Discworld/WitchesAbroad'', where Magrat tries to use a magic wand by just waving it and wishing really hard for what she wants. It turns things to pumpkins every single time. By the end of the novel, Granny Weatherwax has worked out that the apparently ornamental rings on the end can be twisted & clicked into different combinations for different results.

* ''Series/DoctorWho''

Specific settings ''have'' been referenced. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances "The Doctor Dances"]], the Ninth Doctor tells Rose which one reattaches barbed wire. We don't know how settings are selected. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E6TheKeeperOfTraken "The Keeper of Traken"]], however, the Doctor explicitly states that it can't do anything against purely mechanical locks. Also, since it can only manipulate one device at a time, it can't open deadlocks.

* In ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' there are three switches that the pilot, Wash, always flips whenever he starts doing something. This is remarked on by the actor in one of the commentaries.

* On ''Series/TheColbertReport'', Colbert has a segment named "Bears and Balls", a riff on Jim Cramer's Mad Money. While Cramer has a panel full of buttons which all play different sound effects, Colbert instead has one big red button, which plays a different sound effect whenever he hits it.
* Justified in ''Series/{{ICarly}}'', in the episode "iStart a Fan War," at a convention panel for iCarly, one of the fans asks how Sam's remote control does different things on different shows. Freddy, the Tech Guru, states that he simply reprograms it as needed for each show.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* In ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', Calvin's transmogrifier is a cardboard box with an indicator that points to whatever animal Calvin wants to turn into. If he wants to turn into something that is not listed, he just writes it on the side. The box itself is context-sensitive: crawl underneath it and it's a transmogrifier, go into it from the side and it's a duplicator, and climb in the top and it's a time machine.
-->'''Hobbes:''' Oh no, I'm not getting into that box. I don't want to be transmogrified or duplicated or whatever.\\
'''Calvin:''' What? When the TOP is open, it's a time machine, remember?
** Actually weaponized when Calvin gets rid of his clones by tricking them into running into the duplicator, then flipping it over to turn it into a transmogrifier, whose effect produces a "ZAP" sound instead of a "BOINK" sound.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Parodied in Website/TheOnion's report on the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA MacBook Wheel]], which uses a single iPod-style click wheel for all input.
[[/folder]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode ''I, D'oh-Bot'', Homer 'builds' a robot for Bart with one all-purpose button on the control, although the robot is actually Homer in disguise. As it turns out, the button gives him a mild electric shock when pushed.

** Two sets of three buttons, allowing only one button of each set to be be pressed to activate a given function, allows for 24 functions if sequence matters (12 if it doesn't). If more than one button per band is allowed, you get a *lot* more possibilities.

** Specific settings ''have'' been referenced. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances "The Doctor Dances"]], the Ninth Doctor tells Rose which one reattaches barbed wire. We don't know how settings are selected. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E6TheKeeperOfTraken "The Keeper of Traken"]], however, the Doctor explicitly states that it can't do anything against purely mechanical locks. Also, since it can only manipulate one device at a time, it can't open deadlocks.

Specific settings ''have'' been referenced. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances "The Doctor Dances"]], he tells Rose which one reattaches barbed wire. We don't know how settings are selected. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E6TheKeeperOfTraken "The Keeper of Traken"]], however, the Doctor explicitly states that it can't do anything against purely mechanical locks. Also, since it can only manipulate one device at a time, it can't open deadlocks.

*** On occasion, the Doctor gives the screwdriver to a companion to use. His instructions (except for the barbed wire case, and when Martha used it in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E6TheLazarusExperiment "The Lazarus Experiment"]]) are never more complicated than "point and click", though.

** Fry once made a costume from a can of All-Purpose Spray. Although it's never used again, the name itself suggests this trope.

* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales'': Gyro Gearloose's popsicle-powered time machine (as opposed to his bathtub-shaped one) had a large dial for selecting a time period. Just as in the ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' example above, an illiterate pilot was able to operate the machine by drawing a picture of [[spoiler:Scooge]] ''(sic)'' and turning the dial to it. The dial even ''[[LampshadeHanging sprouted a camera]]'' so it could get a look at the picture.