History Main / SpringTimeForHitler

* The power chords to Music/REOSpeedwagon's "Keep On Loving You" were a similar reaction by guitarist Gary Richrath to singer Kevin Cronin's song, which Gary thought was [[SillyLoveSongs sappy]] and [[GenreAdultery uncharacteristic]] of the hard-rock group. The combination became an early example of the '80s PowerBallad, and their first number one single.

* According to WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows, the Music/SirMixALot song "Baby Got Back" was one of these. It was apparently designed to fail. As you might have guessed, it didn't. [[OneHitWonder Not by a long shot.]]

* In ''Webcomic/{{Life}}'', [[http://www.cha0sden.com/Life/?comic=428 to Lex's consternation,]] [[spoiler:when he sends 'Edward' to go ask Madison out, Madison doesn't say no]].

* Similarly, in ''LightNovel/TrappedInADatingSimTheWorldOfOtomeGamesIsToughForMobs'', the protagonist Leon reincarnates as a nameless NPC in an Otome Game, and wants to live a normal life in peace and quiet. Unfortunately, his attempts to get demoted by doing bad behavior, and to shift fame and glory onto the game's five capture targets instead of himself, all end up backfiring, leading to him being promoted. The former, due to having one of the most powerful aristocrats in the Kingdom backing him, and the latter because of said capture target's HonorBeforeReason stubbornness and the appreciation of their families [[BribeBackfire for the bribes Leon sends them]].

* "Lord" [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Dexter Timothy Dexter]] (1747-1806) was an eccentric American businessman who owed his success to the fact that people kept giving him deliberately bad advice for business ventures in order to embarrass and financially ruin him, only to be frustrated when he actually followed their advice and made huge profits through sheer dumb luck. For example, he ''actually'' [[LiteralMetaphor sold coal to Newcastle]] at a profit because there just happened to be a miner's strike when he arrived.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* This troper is a member of a group that runs a village Christmas Festival. Children's parade through the town, switching on the Christmas lights, festive stalls selling Christmas tat. A couple of years ago we had to cancel the festival due to extreme weather that battered the town. Afterwards we realised we'd made more money from the insurance payouts and unreturnable pre-payments than we would have done if the festival went ahead. Oops!
[[/folder]]

** One of the big early Brexit supporters was UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, who was cynically believed to be feigning his support to try and win the harder right wing of the party and wrest the leadership from Cameron. Much like Cameron, he ''also'' suspected the referendum would fail -- however, his popularity among the electorate was [[HoistByHisOwnPetard credited with swinging the referendum in favour of Brexit]]. It's telling that after Cameron resigned, Johnson [[WhatHaveIDone didn't even contest the subsequent leadership battle]]. (It is speculated however that the real reason Johnson didn't stand was due to another prominent Brexiter Michael Gove backstabbing him and trying to become Leader himself.) And ''that'' didn't work either, as Cameron's successor Theresa May made such a hash of the negotiations with the EU that ''she'' was forced to resign, and Johnson was tapped to be PM -- and was thus in charge of negotiating a course of action he didn't even really want.

* A long-forgotten B mystery movie, ''The Falcon in Hollywood''. A murder occurs on a movie set and in the end the killer turns out to be [[spoiler:the film's producer, who had oversold investment shares and under-reported the cost, and was deliberately trying to make it a flop by doing things like hiring a director who had never directed the film's genre before, casting a motley assortment of has-beens and unknowns, etc. The producer turned to sabotage and murder when the film being made was turning out to be surprisingly good]].

* ''Lobster Man From Mars''. A Hollywood film producer screens a science fiction BMovie in order to get out of paying millions in back taxes, only to go to prison when it's a [[SoBadItsGood great success]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheClevelandShow", the members of the Hip Hop Illuminati have Cleveland make Kenny West completely fail at his next big concert because they're sick of his big ego offending them. Kenny ends up enlisting Cleveland Jr. and his rejected school marching band members for a polka band concert...except Keny ended up mixing rap with it, which won over his fans.

** Brexit was also part of how outsider candidate Jeremy Corbyn gained the Labour leadership in 2015 -- Conservatives who were afraid of losing their majority lobbied hard for Corbyn, even encouraging readers to join the Labour Party (it cost just £3) to vote in the leadership election for Corbyn. The idea was that Corbyn was hard-left and so unpalatable to the electorate that people would vote in the Tories just to avoid him. Once the referendum came down, Theresa May called a snap election in 2017 hoping to take advantage of the distaste for Corbyn and pick up an electoral mandate to make Brexit happen. It backfired on her, as the Conservatives ''did'' lose their majority[[note]]and to boot, had to form a coalition with the Democratic Unionist Party, based in Northern Ireland and ''not'' happy with May's plans to make Brexit happen while avoiding a hard border with the Republic of Ireland by effectively cutting Northern Ireland off from the rest of the UK[[/note]]. The Tories lucked out in 2019, once the popular (or at least more popular then Jeremy Corbyn) Boris Johnson was the PM and they battered Labour in [[CurbStompBattle their worst defeat since Margaret Thatcher]].

* In 1955 somebody got the idea to adapt a popular episode of a TV anthology series to film. Creator/BurtLancaster and his business partner decided to fund it, figuring the low-budget picture wouldn't make any money (who would pay to see a film they could watch for free on TV?) and they could use the expenses as a tax write-off. Compounding this plan was their casting of [[Creator/ErnestBorgnine some fat, ugly guy best known for playing villains]] as the romantic lead. The film? ''Film/{{Marty}}'', which became a huge box office smash and ended up winning four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor. ''Website/{{Cracked}}'''s [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20660_5-classic-movies-made-by-people-who-wanted-them-to-fail_p2.html 5 Classic Movies Made by People Who Wanted Them to Fail]] describes its production as having "literally started out as the plot of ''The Producers''."

* In ''VideoGame/MedievalIITotalWar'', unlike its predecessor ''[[VideoGame/RomeTotalWar Rome]]'', it is not possible to change your Faction Heir, presumably for historical accuracy. If the game decides that your Faction Heir is going to be that greedy, incompetent governor in the middle of nowhere instead of your kickass, utterly loyal and upright general, your only option is to have your faction heir killed as described in UriahGambit. However, if he survives, there is a good chance that he'll come away with a trait that makes him even ''harder'' to kill in the future. Good luck with that...

* As an experiment, "Music/TheMostUnwantedSong" was created by combining a whole bunch of themes and instruments that people claimed to hate. Not surprisingly, [[http://www.wired.com/listening_post/2008/04/a-scientific-at/ it's hilarious]]. (And far better than the "Most Wanted Song" they made to go with it.)

* ''Series/Batman1966'': Penguin's GetIntoJailFree efforts in "The Penguin's Nest/The Bird's Last Jest." When he's put on trial, he launches into an intentionally absurd InsaneTrollLogic argument, only for the judges to buy it and let Penguin go.

* ''Series/Batman1966'': Penguin's GetIntoJailFree efforts in "The Penguin's Nest/The Bird's Last Jest." When he's put on trial, he launches into an intentionally absurd InsaneTrollLogic argument, only for the judges to buy it and let Penguin go.

* In the 2001 Japanese movie ''Film/Waterboys'', a boys' synchronized swimming club asks a dolphin trainer to help them train. Uninterested, he makes them do chores for him, drags them around verious places and takes every opportunity to ditch them in hopes that they'll give up. He's shocked when the "training" actually improved their skills by leaps and bounds.

* [[spoiler:Alita Tiala]] in ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'' hires the title character, thinking he would be incompetent enough to lose [[spoiler:and get Wocky Kitaki convicted,]] due to Apollo being a rookie. Apollo manages to get his client off, and pin [[spoiler:Alita as the real murderer]].

* According to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUhZAL-hLRk this podcast]], the Iron Dominion arc of ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' was a joke pitch Creator/IanFlynn inserted among his actual #200 pitches to make the rest look better, and he had to scramble to make it work when it was approved.

* This is the RunningGag for the ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'' story,"Recap/AsterixAndTheCauldron": desperate to try and replace "stolen" money (it's a long story), Asterix and Obelix try, first, to steal the replacement money from one of the nearby Roman camps (no money there), then they try and steal from their old victims the pirates (again, no money there). They try selling boars (they have so little understanding of economics they sell their whole stock for a pittance), join a gladiatorial arena (they win so effortlessly they put it out of business), attempt to perform with a theatrical group (Obelix causes a riot in a bout of stage fright), try to win money by gambling (they fail), and finally try to rob a bank (it's already empty, because of Caesar's taxes).
** Later reused as the RunningGag ''again'' in "Recap/AsterixAndTheLaurelWreath": to try and get into Caesar's palace to steal his laurel wreath (it's a long story), they get the bright idea of selling themselves as slaves from a vendor called the House of Typhus (where, in a MythologyGag to [[Recap/AsterixAndTheCauldron the previous story]], they end up selling themselves for a pittance). Finding out they actually got bought by a common Roman patriarch and not Caesar, they try to get themselves thrown out; first by serving up a [[CordonBleughChef deliberately grotesque dinner]] (the family's son demands they be kept, because it works as a HideousHangoverCure), and then by waking them all up in the middle of the night by banging pots and pans and claiming it's a Gaulish tradition to throw celebrations like this (the inspired family promptly throws their own raucous all-night party, which keeps the Gauls up all night). Then they deliberately get themselves thrown in prison so they can search Julius Caesar's palace (no luck), then allow themselves to be sentenced to be thrown to the lions in plans of pulling off a snatch and flee for the wreath, only for Caesar to not be present in the audience the day of their sentencing.

** Later reused as the RunningGag ''again'' in "Recap/AsterixAndTheLaurelWreath": to try and get into Caesar's palace to steal his laurel wreath (it's a long story), they get the bright idea of selling themselves as slaves from a vendor called the House of Typhus (where, in a MythologyGag to [[Recap/AsterixAndTheCauldron the previous story]], they end up selling themselves for a pittance). Finding out they actually got bought by a common Roman patriarch and not Caesar, they try to get themselves thrown out; first by serving up a [[CordonBleughChef deliberately grotesque dinner]] (the family's son demands they be kept, because it works as a HideousHangoverCure), and then by waking them all up in the middle of the night by banging pots and pans and claiming it's a Gaulish tradition to throw celebrations like this (the inspired family promptly throws their own raucous all-night party, which keeps the Gauls up all night). Then they deliberately get themselves thrown in prison so they can search Julius Caesar's palace (no luck), then allow themselves to be sentenced to be thrown to the lions in plans of pulling off a snatch and flee for the wreathe, only for Caesar to not be present in the audience the day of their sentencing.
* In the Vertigo limited series ''Cruel and Unusual,'' disgraced TV producer Bobbie Flint has been [[ReassignedToAntarctica put in charge of the sleazy network owner's privatized jail,]] and is appalled by the inhumane conditions; prisoners are stored in silos, guards constantly beat prisoners and no one cares, and the owner won't spring for a new electric chair despite the old one setting ''two out of three prisoners on fire.'' She comes up with an idea; host the nation's first televised execution (of an obviously insane prisoner) to let the public see how bad it is and start the outrage machine. Unfortunately, it has the opposite effect...and Jail TV is born.
* One issue of ''ComicBook/MarvelAdventures Spider-Man'' sees Peter get roped into trying out for the baseball team, and he discovers that he's a natural outfielder, much to his shock. Turns out all the years of fighting bad guys as Spider-Man have honed his muscle memory to the point where he can't ''not'' move fast or catch projectiles.