History Main / SmithOfTheYard

* ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' takes this UpToEleven - not only are celebrity detectives a thing, but many of them, including the protagonist, are ''[[KidDetective teenagers]]''. Indeed, the very first chapter of the manga begins with Shinichi making the papers ''and'' the TV news, the latter outright calling him the police department's savior.
** Later on, Kogoro Mouri begins attaining the same reputation; everywhere he goes random civilians recognize him[[note]]The one exception being the Moonlight Sonata murder, which is used to demonstrate what an out-of-the-way island the murder is taking place on.[[/note]], and he's been impersonated at least twice.
** Brutally {{Deconstructed}} in the Detective Koshien case, which assembles four teenage detectives from the four ends of Japan to compete. Turns out [[spoiler:one of them wasn't as good as he claimed and pinned a murder on an innocent, who killed herself; not only did he not care, he actually ''went back and tampered with the crime-scene'' so it'd fit his theory better. Said innocent's friend arranged the whole tournament to smoke him out, and [[BestServedCold return the favor]].]]

** A notable subversion in [[Film/{{Sherlock}} the film starring Robert Downey Jr.]] Holmes is universally known by many of the important people in the city, but is less known in the down low of things. While he is known for his eccentricities, he does not let his picture get taken and thus he is hard to describe in detail. This makes it easy for him to adopt a disguise whenever he needs one, and he is VERY good at it.

* ''Series/ColonelMarchOfScotlandYard'' even has it inherent in the title.

-> ''"Well, what will we see if we look out of the yard?"''

* ''PrivateEye'' refers to the police as "Knacker of the Yard" or "Inspector Knacker", a pun on this and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knacker%27s_yard Knacker's Yard]].

Most detectives in fiction barely get recognition. [[Series/{{CSI}} Gil Grissom]], [[Series/WithoutATrace Jack Malone]] and [[Film/TheMalteseFalcon Sam Spade]] could happily walk into a bookshop in their respective cities, [[HotLibrarian seduce the owner]] and leave without being recognized.

* In the Literature/{{Discworld}} books, everyone in Anhk-Morpork knows Captain Carrot. If you ask Vimes about his second-in-command's acquaintances, you'll conclude that everyone in the ''world'' knows Carrot. Once Ankh-Morpork gets a newspaper, Vimes himself is a regular feature in it as well.

* ''LiveActionTV/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' made a RunningGag out of these characters, as can be seen in the page quote. This eventually led to the "Flying Fox of the Yard" sketch (which closed off the famous "Argument Clinic" sketch), where a policeman called Inspector Thompson's Gazelle of the Yard arrests the entire show on, amongst others, the charge of [[HypocriticalHumor "always saying it's 'so-and-so of the yard' whenever the fuzz arrives"]].

* Paul Temple

** Lampshaded in one story, as Holmes's need for disguises was explained to be a result of criminals recognizing him from all the coverage he was getting... including that from his good friend, Dr. Watson.
*** It really doesn't help that Holmes has very striking features and is described as being very tall.

* Similarly, Detective Sergeant [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Slipper Jack Slipper]] became known as "Slipper of the Yard" for his role investigating the Great Train Robbery. TheOtherWiki notes that the fickle press later nicknamed him "Slip-Up of the Yard" after his attempts to bring Ronnie Biggs to justice continued to fail. Nonetheless, he eventually retired as a Chief Superintendent, so it wasn't a massive hindrance to his career.

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* Creator/SpikeMilligan wrote a serial for ''TheTwoRonnies'' entitled ''the Phantom Raspberry-Blower of Old London Town''. The investigating officer was Corner of the Yard, aka. Ronnie Corbett.

* Nick Carter from ''Film/AdeleHasntHadHerDinnerYet'' has "America's Greatest Detective" written on his office door, the newspapers report about his cases and even his arrival in Prague makes the headlines.

--> --''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus''

Not so for Smiths of the Yard. They are very well-known. The newspapers follow their activities. When there is a major crime and they are involved, the papers will say, "Smith of the Yard is on the case". If they're not and the crimes are particularly diabolical, the papers will call for their involvement. In RealLife, the Yard is Scotland Yard, headquarters for the Metropolitan Police of Greater London. The Yard has become synonymous with police to the extent that any police version of the NationsOfTheWorldMontage will feature a shot of the New Scotland Yard sign.

* [[Creator/AgathaChristie Hercule Poirot]]

* A post 1930s example: Detective Sergeant [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Pilcher Norman Pilcher]] of the Drug Squad, who gained a certain level of fame and notoriety in the 1960s by being the police officer at the centre of a number of high-profile celebrity drug busts, including [[RollingStones Mick Jagger]], Donovan, [[Music/TheBeatles John Lennon and George Harrison]]. Given that it was nearly always the same man present, this led to accusations that he was either only going after them to increase his profile in the tabloids and / or actively planting drugs on them to secure a conviction (not that they weren't already actively using drugs for the most part, but still). The fact that he was later convicted of perjury and obstructing the course of justice didn't help his credibility when it came to these accusations.