History Main / TheButlerDidIt

* ''Home Alone 4'' subverts and averts this trope. The main character belives that the butler of his dads rich girlfriend helped two burglars (his old enemys) get into her high tech Mansion. He made quite a mess driving them away so everybody belives its just an excuse (he was about 9 years old). It turns out it was the , erm, nice housekeeper who is revealed as one of the burglar's mum.
* The loyal butler Cadbury in ''RichieRich'' was framed by the villains for the bombing of the Rich's plane to kill Richie's parents. Since Cadbury also happened to be Richie's guardian in light of Richie's parents being missing, by removing Cadbury from the picture, the villain placed himself as Richie's new guardian so he could effectively isolate Richie from the outside world.
* In DarkAndStormyKnight the butler, Jeens, didn't do it, but he was obviously involved in some messy business. But "Those bodies were never found."

* ''Film/TheHauntedMansion''

[[quoteright:108:[[DresdenCodak http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/AllTheButlersDidIT.png]]]]

* Invoked and lampshaded in ''[[MaryRussell The Beekeeper's Apprentice]]''
-->'''Russell''': * affronted* Are you telling me the butler did it?
-->'''Holmes''': I'm afraid it does happen.

* Reinhard Mey has a song "Der Mörder ist immer der Gärtner" (The Murderer is Always the Gardener). In the last verse, someone offs the sinister gardener: it's the butler.

* In ''ComicBook/TrinityWar'', [[BigBad the Outsider's]] true identity is [[spoiler:Earth-3 Alfred Pennyworth who has been working for years to bring his master Owlman and the rest of Earth 3's the Crime Syndicate to Prime Earth.]]

* In Creator/TerryPratchett's [[{{Literature/Discworld}} Discworld]] Vimes is well aware that his butler, sorry, gentleman's gentleman Wilikins is a very good fighter who isn't afraid to kill. Examples include:
** Thud: When the Big Bad's Elite Mooks break into Vimes' house, [[spoiler: Wilikins stabs one with an ice knife, then empties their flamethrower down the tunnel they entered through, to discourage any others]].
** Snuff: It's apparent to both Vimes and Vetinari that he killed [[spoiler: Stratford, the question was whether Vimes ordered it and that they either can't or won't prove it.]]

* In one number of ZipiYZape the twins volunteer to investigate who stole from a woman. Their first question is if she has a butler. She has not.
-->Well, if you had a butler, solving this would be a lot easier.

* The whole trope came into being from the fact that in Victorian England serving staff were more often than not underpaid, overworked and typically disgruntled. Occasional murders of employees thus weren't unheard of. There is a record of a valet who had memorised his master's schedule to the last detail and once brought him his pillow just before he had intended to ask for it. The master, angry at his presumptuous servant, sent him away and called him immediately back to bring him the pillow. The valet shot him.

** And even on a couple cases where it looks like the butler or the housekeeper/groundskeeper ''could'' have done it because s/he had motive (Namely ''Billionaire Birthday Blues'' wherein the [[spoiler:two victims had caused the death of the housekeeper's granddaughter]]) s/he is shown to be above it. [[spoiler: In ''Billionaire...'', said housekeeper even delivers a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to the culprit, her granddaughter's suitor who had just invoked LoveMakesYouEvil as his FreudianExcuse.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarePants''' ''The Great Patty Caper'', Spongebob, searching for the key that was stolen, says, "We know you did it! The butler always commits the crime!" to the fish who works on the train that is ''not a butler''.
* WesternAnimation/TheBackyardigans play with this in their genre spoof episode, "Whodunnit?". It ''was'' the butler (ie. Tyrone with his hair combed) who took the jewels, but only because the lady of the house (Tasha) gave them to him. Turns out it was all a put-up job in order to liven up a dull afternoon.

* "What, No Butler?" by DamonRunyon (1933)

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheLooneyTunesShow'', BugsBunny is reading a mystery novel. And by the time he finishes it, this is how he said it went:

* Prodied in the German crime spoof ''Film/DerWixxer''. The butler Alfons Hatler looks, sounds, and behaves [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed exactly as one might expect]] [[AdolfHitler from a character with such a name]], but turns out to be guilty of nothing more than calling a few people [[ServileSnarker nasty names]].

* In ''UminekoNoNakuKoroNi'', although the "butlers" are more like servants, this is what Eva suspects during the first arc. During the second arc, [[spoiler:Kanon goes missing after he and Jessica are killed in another 'closed room murder', and as he has a master key]], Rosa comes to the conclusion that [[spoiler: either Kanon (who had disappeared), Gohda or Kumasawa (neither of whom had an alibi) killed Jessica, as they were the only ones who could have locked the door to Jessica's room.]] As it turns out [[spoiler:she was right. Maybe.]]

* Subverted in the German crime spoof ''Film/DerWixxer''. The butler Alfons Hatler looks, sounds, and behaves [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed exactly as one might expect from a character with such a name]], but turns out to be guilty of nothing more than calling a few people [[ServileSnarker nasty names]].

* Averted in the German crime spoof ''Film/DerWixxer''. The butler Alfons Hatler looks, sounds, and behaves [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed exactly as one might expect from a character with such a name]], but turns out to be guilty of nothing more than calling a few people [[ServileSnarker nasty names]].

* Averted in the German crime spoof ''Film/DerWixxer''. The butler Alfons Hatler looks, sounds, and behaves [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed exactly as one might expect from a character with such a name]], but turns out to be guilty of nothing more than calling a few people assholes.

* ''TheThreeStooges'' episode "If a Body Meets a Body".

* There was a ''Comicbook/{{Batman}}'' story arc where Bruce Wayne was [[BruceWayneFugitive accused of murder]]. One background character, upon hearing the accusation, commented "He has a butler, doesn't he?".

** Then there's "Last Rites," a two-part {{Batman}} story set during ''FinalCrisis'', with one chapter called "The Butler Did It" and the other "What the Butler Saw." It turns out that Alfred the butler [[spoiler:is actually the Lump, a telepathic parasite hiding inside Batman's memories as he is used for clone fodder by the gods of Apokolips]]. It's GrantMorrison, what can we say.

* During one of MaryRussell 's first cases in ''The Beekeeper's Apprentice'', Russell is startled to find that the butler actually did do it.
-->'''Holmes''': I'm afraid it does happen sometimes.

* ''TheBrothersKaramazov'', while it is a bit more complicated, ultimately plays this one straight.

* ''PhoenixWrightAceAttorney: [[spoiler:Justice for All's final case, with Matt Engarde's butler, Shelly de Killer, a.k.a. "John Doe". He's not the victim's butler, though, and in point of fact is less of a 'butler' and more of a 'professional assassin using a butler's position as his cover'.]]

* [[spoiler: Straight with a twist]] in ''AceAttorney''. [[spoiler: The butler technically did it--but he's not actually Matt Engarde's butler, he's assassin Shelly de Killer posing as a butler. The player knows this before Phoenix does, so it's a bit of FridgeHorror when you realize Phoenix is in the same house as the kidnapped Maya, but has no idea she's only two doors away.]]

* Butler, Valet, Gardener... [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Garak]] has held many [[BlatantLies perfectly legitimate jobs where his employer happened to suffer a tragic end.]]

* ''The New Adventures of WinnieThePooh'' turned this into a RunningGag in the episode ''Tigger, Private Ear''. At the climax of the episode, Tigger [[JokerJury cross-examines himself]] at a trial to get Piglet off the hook: