History Main / SpringTimeForHitler

* Rei of NeonGenesisEvangelion was supposed to be a creepy {{deconstruction}} of {{moe}} and EmotionlessGirl, among other things; but many (if not most) fans still find her attractive.

** Case in point: the [[BritishPoliticalSystem Monster Raving Loony Party]], as they would, stood for the Bootle by-election in 1990, and placed higher than the SDP candidate. Screaming Lord Sutch was suitably disturbed by this result.

* Here's an exchange from the ''Literature/NewJediOrder'', when Wedge's forces were trying to make the [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Vong]] get a few victories they didn't deserve so that they could then be taken advantage of.

* Not exactly intending to fail, but certainly not intending to win. In the Australian {{Dramedy}} ''Series/HouseRules'', a suburban housewife puts herself as a protest candidate for a by-election caused by the death of the local member of parliament. However, when the candidate for the party for whom the electorate is a safe seat fails to lodge his application in time, she finds herself standing essentially unopposed and is elected to state parliament.

* Series/{{Friends}}: In one episode Joey attempts to intentionally set Ross up on a terrible blind date. However he selects an intelligent woman he once dated who loves puzzles and foreign films. Only once he describes her to Phoebe does he realise that he's accidentally set Ross up with his perfect woman.

* In the ''AceAttorneyInvestigations'' manga, Randolph Miller's three hires to watch over the painting- Monet Kreskin ([[{{Nepotism}} his niece, who knows nothing about art]]), Dick Gumshoe(The series' CluelessDetective), and Thomas Bester (a private detective possibly even worse than Gumshoe, [[SmallNameBigEgo but more conceited]])- seem to be poor choices, because none of them know much about art, but then it turns out that [[spoiler:Randolph sold the painting and wants to both stage its theft and kill Max Arden, the only other one who knows the truth]]. Then again, the failure of the plan is largely because Gumshoe's involvement brings in the much more competent Edgeworth, rather than any of the three being more competent than Randolph expected.

* In 1979, Parker Brothers produced "The ''Magazine/{{MAD}}'' Game", a reverse-TabletopGame/{{Monopoly}} game where each player starts with $10,000, and you win by losing all of your money. If by some bizarre coincidence your full name is "Alfred E. Neuman" (''MAD'''s mascot), you may end up acquiring [[LethalJokeItem a unique bill worth a very specific amount of money...which you can never get rid of, so you inevitably lose.]] Except there's numerous opportunities to force another player to trade places with you. [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot It's too bad you'll never actually use the bill unless you bend the rules.]]
* In 1965 Avalon Hill created a game called ''$quander'' (Squander), in which each player started with a million Squanderbucks. The first player to lose all of his money won the game. After come changes, it came to the US under the title ''Go For Broke!'', as well as other countries.

** In the short CarlBarks comic "The Colossalest Surprise Quiz Show", Uncle Scrooge takes part in the title quiz show. The show gives big sums of prize money to the contestants and the questions are ridiculously easy. However, Scrooge learns that he's reached the upper limit of his income tax bracket. This means that he would actually suffer a huge loss if he landed any money from the show. He doesn't want to chicken out, so he goes to the studio, but answers every question: "I don't know." The result? He receives a special bonus prize of $120,000 for being the dumbest person in the history of television.

* ''[[WhizzerAndChips The Bumpkin Billionaires]]'' was a long-running UK comic strip clearly inspired by ''TheBeverlyHillbillies'', and entirely based around this trope. The title family won a huge sum of money, and quickly discovered that they hated being rich... and so each strip would detail a new scheme of theirs designed to lose as much money as possible, much to the despair of their bank manager. Of course, their schemes were destined to fail, often resulting in the family ending up even richer.
* The first arc of ''ExMachina'' concerns an extremely offensive piece of art. It turns out the artist was [[spoiler:so sick of the art world that she sought to make something that no one could possibly praise.]] She fails, it appears in the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and [[spoiler:she vandalizes it in disguise so it can be taken down without her publicly giving in to pressure to remove it.]]

* A hilarious example occurs in ''ComicBook/BatmanGothamAdventures'', Harley and Ivy arc. [[AmiguouslyGay Gal pals]] Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy hear about an upcoming stupid action movie themed around... well, them. Naturally pissed off, they head to Hollywood to stop it, but Ivy sees how much money the flick is budgeted for and decides to [[RunningtheAsylum take over]]. The two don't plan to release it -- Poison Ivy's just [[MoneyDearBoy in it for the money]] and Harley likes seeing the Batman actor blow up "over and over and over again" -- but after they're sent back to Arkham, the film's backers release it anyway. It quickly becomes a smash hit. Of course, the only reason the movie was released was because the company had no choice due to all the money Harley and Ivy sunk into it, and the reason it was a hit was because people thought it was supposed to be a parody of overblown action movies and considered it epic.
* This has happened in ArchieComics a few times:
** One ''WesternAnimation/JosieAndThePussyCats'' story had their sponsor Mr. Cabot lamenting the Pussycats' success, having sponsored them because he thought they'd lose money and he'd get a big tax loss. He tries to sabotage both the Pussycats themselves and the seniors' club he owns by having the Pussycats play there, expecting them both to lose money and give him a big tax loss. Unfortunately, the Pussycats are a hit, and Mr. Cabot's club gets a six-month waiting list for people to join, earning Mr. Cabot another huge fortune.

* In the MortadeloYFilemon book ''El Tirano", the titular pair of agents are given the mission to eliminate a fascist dictator in an attempt to change the Government and fix the relations with his country. Due to their constant failures, which actually end up stopping murder attempts from other people, he gives them the job of personal guards and offers millionaire contracts to their country as a reward. Their attempts at protecting him subsequently send him to the intensive care wing at the closest hospital.
* A ''BeetleBailey'' comic had General Halftrack getting angry about a new television comedy show about an idiot general that looks a lot like him. He happens to run into the screenwriter getting drunk at a bar who explains that he used to do cultural shows and was ordered to make a comedy. He then created what he saw as a terrible show in an attempt to get fired but the show took off and he's now stuck writing it. He and Halftrack then hatch a plan to get the show off the air by writing an episode consisting solely of soldiers marching. [[CriticalDissonance The audience hates it... but the critics praise it as an avant-garde masterpiece]].

* TropeNamer: Creator/MelBrooks' ''Film/TheProducers'', in which two theatrical producers sell 25,000% of the production to investors and plan to create a play that will close on opening night, receiving almost no income, and therefore net them a substantial profit from the unused investment, since the IRS doesn't investigate flops. Basically, they're trying to pull the theatrical version of a Ponzi scheme. Their efforts to create a flop result in a blatantly pro-Nazi musical called ''Springtime for Hitler'', a production starring a spaced-out hippie as Hitler. Unfortunately for the producers, audiences mistake the musical for a {{satire}} and love it. Because the play does not flop, the producers will be completely unable to pay back their investors, resulting in their exposure in investment fraud.

* In ''ManOfTheYear'', RobinWilliams plays a [[Series/TheDailyShow Jon Stewart]] spoof who protests the corruption in politics by running for president himself as a joke. He wins due to [[spoiler:a bug in the voting machines' programs that awards the most votes based on some obscure formula involving double letters.]]
* This is the basic plot of the SpikeLee film ''{{Bamboozled}}'', which stars Damon Wayans as a writer for a television network seeking to get out of his contract. He wants to create an intelligent television program about African-Americans, but the network won't go for his ideas. So to get himself fired he creates a show [[ModernMinstrelsy using the most offensive African-American stereotypes possible]]... and it becomes a runaway hit.
* In the boffo [[TheEighties 80s]] flick ''Film/RuthlessPeople'', Danny [=DeVito=]'s wife is kidnapped the day he was planning to kill her. He refuses to pay her ransom, hoping that the kidnappers will kill her and do his dirty work for him. It's based on ''The Ransom of Red Chief'' by O Henry.

* The entire plot of ''HowToLoseAGuyIn10Days'' revolves around this idea: a girl is writing an article that requires her to act like a horrible date/girlfriend and get dumped, but is unlucky enough to choose as her "victim" a guy who just made a bet that he could make any woman fall in love with him. Thus he refuses to end their relationship no matter what she throws at him.

* A more dramatic version of this trope appears in the 1937 film ''StageDoor''. Katharine Hepburn plays an aspiring actress who hopes to make it on Broadway, which is against her father's wishes. [[spoiler: So her father invests in a play on the condition she star in it, and since she's not only green but also questions everybody, it's thought the play will flop and she'll come back to her father. However, Hepburn finds out right before the curtain is to go up that TheWoobie wanted the part she's playing and killed herself because she didn't get it. Completely heartbroken, Hepburn's character gives the performance of her life, critics love it, and the play becomes a smash hit, meaning she'll never go back to her father]].
* ''AllTheQueensMen'' ends up [[spoiler: featuring]] this trope. An English Colonel sends his bumbling secretary, a disgraced U.S. soldier, a socially inept language expert, and [[EddieIzzard a transvestite]] on a mission to steal an Enigma machine in 1944. The plan is to have them dress up as women and infiltrate the factory where the machines are made and steal one - unfortunately, the mission ends up going south from the beginning when the city they're supposed to airdrop near is just a facade. Attempting to radio command for help doesn't give them any help and nearly gives away their position. But in the end they infiltrate the factory and steal enough parts to make an Enigma machine thanks to [[ChekhovsSkill the secretary's skill with repairing typewriters]]. [[spoiler: But when the secretary comments that Germany won't even notice that a machine is missing since they only stole the parts, they realize what's really going on - the Allies already ''have'' an Enigma machine and have cracked its codes, so stealing one wasn't their mission. Their ''real'' mission was to ''attempt'' to steal one in such an obvious and ridiclous way that they'd be caught immediately - so that when the Germans interrogate them, they'll say that their mission was to get an Enigma. Thus the Axis would still think that the Allies didn't have one, so that the Axis powers would continue using the already-cracked codes. The secretary tries to give himself up out of a sense of duty to the Allies so that they can complete the real mission, but the others rescue him. While doing so, they make sure to try, and fail, to keep the Enigma machine.]]

* One of the earliest examples of this trope occurs in the Leonard Wibberley novel (later adapted into a PeterSellers movie) ''Literature/TheMouseThatRoared''. Set in the years immediately following WorldWarTwo, it's about a minuscule European nation, the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, that declares war on the US, planning to surrender and accept a bounty of post-war aid. Instead, the dozen-man invasion force accidentally ''wins'' the war by capturing a newly-made [[WeaponOfMassDestruction superweapon]] and its creator while strolling through a Manhattan evacuated for a nuclear drill.

* Here's an exchange from the ''NewJediOrder'', when Wedge's forces were trying to make the [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Vong]] get a few victories they didn't deserve so that they could then be taken advantage of.

* The OHenry story ''The Cop and the Anthem'' focuses on a hobo who intentionally tries to get arrested so as to go to jail during the winter by committing various petty crimes, all of which he fails to get arrested for. Somewhat subverted in that in the end [[spoiler:he decides to clean up his life, then immediately gets arrested for loitering outside a church.]]

* The first book of the ''JesseStone'' series by Robert B. Parker has the alderman of Paradise, MA, attempting the same gambit by hiring the self-destructively alcoholic Jesse Stone to be the new police chief, believing he will be easy to control. [[spoiler:Unfortunately for them, he sees the new job as his last chance before his life gets completely ruined (as well as being self-aware enough to be suspicious that they hired him after he was drunk for the interview), and takes the opportunity to bring down their entire right-wing militia and swing the rest of the police force to his side.]]
* The first ''JackReacher'' novel, ''KillingFloor'', features this trope. [[spoiler:The chief of detectives in Margrave, GA, Capt. Finlay, was going through a messy divorce when he interviewed for the job, and looked utterly incompetent. Since the Mayor and Police Chief are involved in the plot that's the centerpiece of the book, he's hired. Unfortunately for them, he's quite competent.]]

* In Don [=DeLillo=]'s ''{{Libra}}'', the Kennedy assassination is portrayed as a plot set in motion by an ex-CIA agent who intended it to fail so that the United States would be steered into a war with Cuba. Due to postmodernist confusion, somewhere along the line the "failing" part fell out of the equation, but the facts are so fractured and disjointed that no one will ever know for certain how that happened.

* Political Canadian satire TheBestLaidPlans by Terry Fallis. It's about a political strategist for the Liberal Party who wants to get out of politics, and attempts to destroy his credibility by managing an unelectable candidate (who doesn't actually ''want'' to be elected himself, and is only running in order to get out of teaching an English course to first-year engineering students) in a strong Conservative riding. Despite the candidate refusing to allow any sort of campaigning to be done, he somehow becomes popular with the voters.

* In an episode of ''ILoveLucy'', the girls start making Aunt Martha's Old Fashioned Salad Dressing, only to find it costs more to make than they can charge. An attempt in a second commercial- in which a randomly picked studio audience member (Lucy) disses the product however, only increases orders for the product to a level three times as much with notes saying "Keep up the comedy bits making fun of the product! We love it!".

* One ''{{Neighbours}}'' storyline saw Lou Carpenter setting up a restaurant named Little Tommy Tucker's which he intended to make a loss so he could declare it a tax write off. He had the staff dress up in embarassing Victorian street urchin style costumes and required the patrons to "sing for their supper" by doing a turn up on a stage. Inevitably, the whole thing was so kitsch that the restaurant became a success.

** In an episode of "Series/CarolineInTheCity", Richard tries to make his clingy girlfriend break up with him by picking his nose in front of her. This backfired when she takes it as a sign that he's comfortable enough her to indulge in bad habits...and then promptly goes to get her toenail clippers.
* ''Series/TheOfficeUS'' has an episode where Jim tries to sabotage Dwight's speech by giving him a bunch of quotes from Mussolini, Hitler, etc., but in the end, Dwight's speech is a huge success. Jim apparently forgot that those leaders rose to power with the help of stirring rhetoric.

* In one episode of ''CovertAffairs'', Annie is trying to make herself look like someone TrappedByGamblingDebts so her mark will have a reason to believe she needs a way out, and incriminate herself in providing one. She bets her last chips on an event with extremely low probability... and it [[MillionToOneChance comes up]], winning her thirty thousand dollars.

* {{Series/Friends}}: In one episode Joey attempts to intentionally set Ross up on a terrible blind date. However he selects an intelligent woman he once dated who loves puzzles and foreign films. Only once he describes her to Phoebe does he realise that he's accidentally set Ross up with his perfect woman.

** Yet another episode had the boys write a book called "''The Tale of Scrotie [=McBoogerballs=]''" which would be so inhumanely disgusting it would be banned. They put the blame on Butters, but everyone loves the book despite making them vomit regularly. Butters then writes a followup called "''The Poop That Took a Pee''" which the boys find so stupid it will get Butters banned, but readers love this as well. However, someone is inspired to kill the Kardishans because of the book, which finally gets Butters' work banned. Also subverted in that The Poop That Took a Pee was implied to only be successful because no-one would admit that the book wasn't as 'good' as the previous work.

** In "Team Homer", Mr. Burns' performance is dragging down Homer's bowling team, so Moe says Burns might end up having a little "accident". As Burns limps into the bowling alley, complaining of a knee injury and saying he'll have to withdraw, Moe leaps out (in a ski mask) and bashes his knee with a tire iron, popping it back into place and allowing him to stay on.

* RobertPattinson has been very vocal about his outright hatred for the ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' series and the characters, particularly his own character Edward Cullen. In interviews he's said that he portrays Edward as a pathetic, socially maladjusted loser, just the way he imagines a 100-plus-year-old virgin would be. Unfortunately for him, this only seems to have encouraged the crazy fangirls.

* ChuckPalahniuk wrote ''Literature/FightClub'' when his novel ''Literature/InvisibleMonsters'' was rejected by his publishers for being too disturbing. He intended to make ''Fight Club'' even more disturbing to give them something they would at least remember. The publishers liked it, and it was published.

-->'''JimButcher:''' When I finally got tired of arguing with her and decided to write a novel as if I was some kind of formulaic, genre-writing drone, just to prove to her how awful it would be, I wrote the first book of ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles''.

* According to crime novelist [[ValMcDermid Val [=McDermid=]]] (the author behind ''WireInTheBlood''), this is basically what happened when she wrote her [[GenreAdultery children's picture book]] ''My Granny is a Pirate''. For a while there was a trend of celebrities writing children's books, and [=McDermid's=] publisher wanted her to write one too, and refused to listen when she said that that was a particular skill she didn't possess, so she sent her a poem she had made up for her son when he was younger.

* A somewhat similar case of ExecutiveMeddling occurred during the first season of ''Series/WKRPInCincinnati''. CBS wanted more broad, kid-friendly comedy in the show. Producer Hugh Wilson wrote "Fish Story" as a TakeThat to the executives, a broad farce with silly costumes (Herb in the WKRP "carp" costume fighting the WPIG pig), pratfalls, and contrived explanations. Wilson hated the episode, and wrote it under a pseudonym as the last episode in CBS' initial 13-episode order. It got great ratings, and has always been one of the fans' favorite episodes.

* Happens in an episode of ''TouchedByAnAngel'' where a professional basketball player accepts a large sum of money to throw a big game. He takes a bunch of ridiculous shots trying to miss on purpose, but thanks to the heavenly intervention, he makes every bucket.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/BarbieLifeInTheDreamhouse'' episode "Bad Hair Day", Barbie takes her bad hair day and tries to turn it into a full-blown fashion disaster, in hopes of giving her rival Raquelle a spot in the sun for once. Being [[ParodySue Barbie]], she instead ends up starting a fashion trend.

* In ''ThirtyRock'', Jack finds himself increasingly out of favor with network owner Hank Hooper and likely to be passed over for a promotion. The only way forward for his career, he decides, is to tank the company so hard that Hooper decides to sell it, giving Jack a chance to start over with a new owner. He loads NBC with terrible programs which, naturally, all become hits, but his success puts him back in the running for CEO, so all's the better.

** An episode of ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' averts this trope completely. Jerry laments that his girlfriend stopped speaking to him because she assumed he was [[NoseNuggets picking his nose]] after spotting him scratching it. George, who is dating a very much unwanted girlfriend yet is uncomfortable about dumping her, is inspired to deliberately pick his nose while she can see him doing it. It works.
-->'''George:''' I was in there right up to my wrist!

* ''TheOffice'' has an episode where Jim tries to sabotage Dwight's speech by giving him a bunch of quotes from Mussolini, Hitler, etc., but in the end, Dwight's speech is a huge success. Jim apparently forgot that those leaders rose to power with the help of stirring rhetoric.

* {{Friends}}
** In one episode Joey attempts to intentionally set Ross up on a terrible blind date. However he selects an intelligent woman he once dated who loves puzzles and foreign films. Only once he describes her to Phoebe does he realise that he's accidentally set Ross up with his perfect woman.

-->'''[=McDermid=]:''' But eventually, she just kept going on and on ''and on'', and the only way I thought to shut her up, was to send her something. [...] So I had written this, well, I had made up really, I hadn't even written it down to begin with, this poem about my granny being a pirate. You know: ''"My granny is a pirate! She sailed the the seven seas. She's captured many pirate ships, but was always home for tea."'' And I sent this off to my publisher thinking; at least she'll shut up and leave me alone now, but no. No no no. She called me and said: "Darling, we love it! We want to publish it, darling!" And I'm like; Oh, for Christ's sake...

* A ''BeetleBailey'' comic had General Halftrack getting angry about a new television comedy show about an idiot general that looks a lot like him. He happens to run into the screenwriter getting drunk at a bar who explains that he used to do cultural shows and was ordered to make a comedy. He then created what he saw as a terrible show in an attempt to get fired but the show took off and he's now stuck writing it. He and Halftrack then hatch a plan to get the show off the air by writing an episode consisting solely of soldiers marching. The audience hates it... but the critics praise it as an avant-garde masterpiece.

* According to crime novelist [[ValMcDermid Val [=McDermid=] (the author behind ''WireInTheBlood''), this is basically what happened when she wrote her [[GenreAdultery children's picture book]] ''My Granny is a Pirate''. For a while there was a trend of celebrities writing children's books, and [=McDermid's=] publisher wanted her to write one too, and refused to listen when she said that that was a particular skill she didn't possess, so she sent her a poem she had made up for her son when he was younger.

* According to crime novelist Val[=McDermid=] (the author behind ''WireInTheBlood''), this is basically what happened when she wrote her [[GenreAdultery children's picture book]] ''My Granny is a Pirate''. For a while there was a trend of celebrities writing children's books, and [=McDermid's=] publisher wanted her to write one too, and refused to listen when she said that that was a particular skill she didn't possess, so she sent her a poem she had made up for her son when he was younger.

* William Ashbless is a fictional poet created by writers James Blaylock and Tim Powers as a reaction to what they felt was the poor state of poetry in the 1970s. They wrote deliberately bad poetry under the pseudonym and still managed to get it published.

* In 1979, Parker Brothers produced "The ''Magazine/{{MAD}}'' Game", a reverse-TabletopGame/{{Monopoly}} game where each player starts with $10,000, and you win by losing all of your money. If by some bizarre coincidence your full name is "Alfred E. Neuman" (''MAD'''s mascot), you may end up acquiring [[LethalJokeItem a unique bill worth a very specific amount of money...which you can never get rid of, so you inevitably lose.]]

* In 1979, Parker Brothers produced "The ''Magazine/{{MAD}}'' Game", a reverse-TabletopGame/{{Monopoly}} game where each player starts with $10,000, and you win by losing all of your money.

->''"We got the wrong play. We got the wrong director. We got the wrong actors. Where did we go '''right?'''"''

* ''Literature/TheMouseThatRoared'', an adaptation of the book starring PeterSellers, features a tiny European nation defeat the United States on accident, having planned to surrender and receive post-war aid.

* ''Film/TheMouseThatRoared'', starring PeterSellers, features a tiny European nation defeat the United States on accident, having planned to surrender and receive post-war aid. Based on [[Literature/TheMouseThatRoared the book]].

[[CrossTheLineTwice Winter for Poland and France.]]]]