History Main / RippedFromThePhonebook

* In the first episode of ''WesternAnimation/HuntikSecretsAndSeekers'', Lok Lambert goes into a phone booth to find Dante Vale's phone number while fleeing from the Organization. He eventually finds the number on its page and tears it out and runs out of the booth just as it explodes.

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/BackToTheFuture https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ripped_page.png]]]]

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', Marty searches for Doc in a phonebook in a cafe and rips the entire page out for one number.

This can be TruthInTelevision, although it might just be LifeImitatesArt. In either case, it can get very frustrating after the Oh-don't-know-how-many-times one has gone to look up something in the phone book at a public pay phone only to discover several pages missing, including the one you needed. (Of course, this is getting rarer as phone books at public telephones, and indeed public telephones themselves, are increasingly hard to come by. Factor in TechnologyMarchesOn, where people can simply type the number into their cell phone, or take a photo of the page they need with a camera phone, and it'll likely be a dead horse before long.)

* Toaster does this in ''WesternAnimation/TheBraveLittleToaster''.

* ''Film/{{Superman}}''. Lex Luthor is looking through a book in his library to find some information about a meteor landing in Addis Ababa, When he finds it, instead of just showing it to his henchmen he rips it out and hands it to them.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Lisa does this to Dr. Nick's ad in "My Sister, My sitter".

* In the first episode of ''WesternAnimation/HuntikSecretsAndSeekers'', Lok Lambert goes into a phone booth to find Dante Vale's phone number while fleeing from the Organizagion. He eventually finds the number on its page and tears it out and runs out of the booth just as it explodes.

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', Marty searches for Doc in a phonebook in a cafe and rips the entire page out for one number. The cafe owner doesn't seem to mind; maybe he was used to seeing it happen all the time in Bogart flicks.
** Although he does respond to Marty holding the page and asking him a question by interrupting with a snippy ''"Are you gonna order something, kid?"''

* Hilariously [[UpToEleven taken to the extreme]] in ''Film/{{Knowing}}'' when Nicolas Cage's character crowbars an ''entire door'' (which of course has information written on it) off of its hinges and takes it with him. Well, he was in a hurry.

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/BackToTheFuture https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ripped_from_the_phone_book.jpg]]]]

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[[folder:Film]]

* In ''Film/TheTerminator'', Kyle Reese does this with the page containing the listing for "Sarah Connor". A DeletedScene has Sarah doing it when she finds Cyberdyne Systems in a rather tattered phone book. Averted by the Terminator himself, since the cyborg's flawless memory allows it to instantly memorize the listings.
* Hilariously [[UpToEleven taken to the extreme]] in ''Film/{{Knowing}}'' when Nicolas Cage's character crowbars an ''entire door'' (which of course has information written on it) off of its hinges and takes it with him. Well, he was in a hurry.
* In ''Film/AngelsAndDemons'', when Vittoria Vetra rips the page from a priceless document by Galileo (likely the only one left in the entire world) to the shock of Dr Langdon, rather than waste time copying it.

* In ''Film/TheLastBoyScout'', Jimmy Dix (Damon Wayans) uses a pay phone (in a police station no less) to get an address so he can track down where Joe Hallenbeck (Bruce Willis) is. He rips the page from the phone book as Joe's daughter looks on. She then traces the information he wrote down, and rips ''that'' page out of the phone book and follows him, leaving the phone book back at the police station with two missing pages!

* ''Film/{{Superman}}''. Lex Luthor is looking through a book in his library to find some information about a meteor landing in Addis Ababa, When he finds it, instead of just showing it to his henchmen he rips it out and hands it to them.

* Downplayed in ''Film/EternalSunshineOfTheSpotlessMind''. In the last scene when Clem tracks down Joel at his apartment, we see her in the car holding a ripped out telephone page with Joel's address marked up.
* A variant in ''Film/{{Disconnect}}'', where Ben's father rips the page with Jason's picture from the school's year book for later use.
* ''Film/DoctorStrange2016'' starts with the villains breaking into Kamar-Taj's library to steal a page from a TomeOfEldritchLore depicting a DangerousForbiddenTechnique, which they do just by ripping the page out, showing their contempt for the Ancient One who owns it. As Strange points out at the end of the movie, they should have stolen the whole book, given that it warns ''why'' it's a DangerousForbiddenTechnique.
* ''Film/CradleOfFear'': After getting the email containing the address where the {{Snuff Film}}s are made, Richard goes to a newsagent and surreptitiously rips the page showing the location from a street directory.

* In one episode of ''Series/LoisAndClark'', there was a plot point where Lois was looking for information on an individual but it wasn't in the phone book nor yellow pages. It was however in the white pages and she promptly tore a page out of a copy in the phonebooth.

* Glory with the Magic Box ad in the ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' episode "Shadow". And a different use of the trope is shown in Season 7's "Showtime". A Potential steps off a bus and goes to a public phone to look up Buffy's address, only to find the page ripped out. Having identified herself by turning to the torn page, the Bringers move in to kill her.
* In the season 3 pilot of ''Series/{{Fargo}}'', when Maurice arrives at Eden Valley, he looks up E. Stussy in a gas station's phone book and rips out the page with his address in full view of the attendant. Not only does it lead to him killing the wrong person, it also provides evidence that the killing wasn't random.
* ''Series/TheFBI'': In "The Monster", fugitive Francis Jerome looks up the phone number of the woman he is hunting in a directory in a phone booth, then calls her to make sure she is there. When she answers, he hangs up and rips the page from the phone book.

* Toaster does this in ''WesternAnimation/TheBraveLittleToaster''.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Lisa does this to Dr. Nick's ad in ''My Sister, My sitter''.
* Mary does this in ''WesternAnimation/MaryAndMax'' when looking for the address of an American, wanting to ask a question about the country. She does this because her mom drags her along (causing to rip out the page in the progress) after she's trying to flee the post office, having been caught shoplifting.

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* In ''Discworld/TheLightFantastic'', a scheming and ambitious wizard discovers the one piece of information that makes sense of a major crisis threatening the existence of the Disc itself. Rather than share the vital knowledge, and in order to discredit his rivals and boost his claim to the Arch-Chancellory, he bribes the Librarian with bananas [[note]]A magical accident has just transformed the human Librarian into the form of an orang-utan[[/note]] to locate all the copies of this particular Book, plus cross-references to it in other books, and check them all out on his ticket - so that nobody else can find them.

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/BackToTheFuture http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/24263308_4.png]]]]

* In the season 3 pilot of ''Series/{{Fargo}}'', Maurice rips the page with Stussy's address from the phone book at a shop. The shop owner complains as Maurice leaves in a hurry.

!!'''Examples'''

Whenever an investigative character looks up information in a telephone directory and find the one piece of information they've been looking for, they'll rip out the entire page from the phone book. A lot of the time, the directory was one of those found next to a public telephone, which mean that our Sam Spade or Intrepid Reporter has just ruined the chances of anybody else looking up anybody who's name begins with B. Perhaps it helps to [[RuleOfDrama show how rushed and straight to the point]] they are but you'd think people in those professions would have gotten used to carrying around a pen and notepad.

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[[AC:Literature]]
* In ''Discworld/TheLightFantastic'', a scheming and ambitious wizard discovers the one piece of information that makes sense of a major crisis threatening the existence of the Disc itself. Rather than share the vital knowledge, and in order to discredit his rivals and boost his claim to the Arch-Chancellory, he bribes the Librarian with bananas [[note]]A magical accident has just transformed the human Librarian into the form of an orang-utan[[/note]] to locate all the copies of this particular Book, plus cross-references to it in other books, and check them all out on his ticket - so that nobody else can find them.

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