History Main / TrailOfBreadCrumbs

* In ''Series/{{Taskmaster}}'', one of the tasks in the fifth series involved the contestants being taken out to the middle of a field wearing a blindfold and asked to walk in a random direction, still blindfolded, for three minutes before having a minute to find their way back to the starting point. In a clear nod to ''Hansel and Gretel'' they are given as literal slice of bread, with the unspoken and implicit suggestion that they should use it to mark their starting point and leave a trail for themselves. Amusingly, only [[Series/TheSmellOfReevesAndMortimer Bob Mortimer]] actually twigs to the fairy tale reference and uses the bread in the intended fashion from the start; two others, [[Series/LivingWithYourself Aisling Bea]] and Mark Watson, only realise the purpose of the bread once they've already started and are some distance away from the starting point, whereas two others -- [[Series/SmackThePony Sally Phillips]] and Nish Kumar -- never actually figure it out and just end up wandering around aimless and bewildered. Perhaps not surprisingly, Mortimer is the only one who finds his way back to the starting point and wins the round.

* In ''[[WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime The Land Before Time V]]'', when the herd leave the Great Valley after its vegetation is devoured by the "swarming leaf-gobblers", Littlefoot and the gang leave in search for food themselves, leaving behind footprints so the herd will follow their tracks and not having to split up.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Balto}}'', when Balto attempts to rescue the lost dog sled team, he scratches every tree he passes to mark his trail. Out of spite, Steele sabotages his mission by scratching every tree in the area. Fortunately, after Balto calms down and gathers himself, he [[TheNoseKnows sniffs the scratches and is able to tell which ones belong to him]].

* In ''[[WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime The Land Before Time V]]'', when the herd leave the Great Valley after its vegetation is devoured by the "swarming leaf-gobblers". Littlefoot and the gang leave to search for food themselves, leaving behind footprints so the herd will follow their tracks and not have to split up.

* In Literature/TheTinderBox the Queen finds out how the Princess has been leaving the palace each night by tying a bag of flour to her that has a hole in it. They follow the trail to the soldier's house.

* In ''[[WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime The Land Before Time V]]'' when the herd leave the Great Valley after its vegetation is devoured by the "swarming leaf-gobblers". Littlefoot and the gang leave to search for food themselves, leaving behind footprints so the herd will follow their tracks and not have to split up.

* In ''Series/{{Taskmaster}}'', one of the tasks in the fifth series involved the contestants being taken out to the middle of a field wearing a blindfold and asked to walk in a random direction, still blindfolded, for three minutes before having a minute to find their way back to the starting point. In a clear nod to ''Hansel and Gretel'' they are given as literal slice of bread, with the unspoken and implicit suggestion that they should use it to mark their starting point and leave a trail for themselves. Amusingly, only [[Series/TheSmellOfReevesAndMortimer Bob Mortimer]] actually twigs to the fairy tale reference and uses the bread in the intended fashion; two others, [[Series/LivingWithYourself Aisling Bea]] and Mark Watson, only realise the purpose of the bread once they've already started and are some distance away from the starting point, whereas two others -- [[Series/SmackThePony Sally]] Phillips and Nish Kumar -- never actually figure it out and

** In "Collective", Harry Kim leaves a trail of playing cards as he goes into the Borg cube to find his crew mates after they have been captured. However one of the Borg children ends up finding the trail, using it to track down Harry.

* In the ''ComicBook/UncleScrooge'' story, "[=McDuck=] of Arabia," one of the nephews is kidnapped by the villains and is taken out into the infamous "Empty Quarter" desert of Arabia force a friend to lead them to the treasure of the Queen of Sheba. Along the way, the nephew is seems to be throwing about stones randomly. In reality, he is able to secretly create an arrow out of those stones and thus gives his pursuing brothers and a local troop of Junior Woodchucks some idea of where the villains are going.

* In the ''ComicBook/UncleScrooge'' story, "McDuck of Arabia," one of the nephews is kidnapped by the villains and is taken out into the infamous "Empty Quarter" desert of Arabia force a friend to lead them to the treasure of the Queen of Sheba. Along the way, the nephew is seems to be throwing about stones randomly. In reality, he is able to secretly create an arrow out of those stones and thus gives his pursuing brothers and a local troop of Junior Woodchucks some idea of where the villains are going.

** Jhonny once used a trail of bread crumbs thinking it would help him find his way home. Sure enough, birds ate the trail and he got lost [[NoSenseOfDirection even though he was right outside his house.]]

* In ''Literature/TheSapphireRose'', Sparhawk and his friends track Adus through a maze by following the blood trail he was leaving from a wound he received shortly before entering the maze. Then they realize that given the length of the trail, she should have already bled to death and discover that at some point the red splatters they had been following had switched from blood to paint.

* In ''VideoGame/{{MOTHER|1}}'', you can eat the Bread item to recover some HP. However, if you Use it instead, you get Crumbs, and by using Crumbs, you return to the spot you were in when you used the bread. Handy!

* ''The Lord Of The Rings: Aragorn's Quest'' has a player-activated glowing trail that leads the player to his next quest objective.

* In ''[[WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime The Land Before Time V]]'' when the herd leave the Great Valley after being devoured by the "swarming leaf-gobblers". Littlefoot and the gang leave to search for food themselves leaving behind footprints so the herd will follow their tracks and not having to split up.

Compare to TrailOfBlood, where the "things" left behind are blood drops.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' episode "The Hard Easy", Jake leaves a trail of lollipops to help him and Finn navigate through a swamp while tracking down a monster. Unfortunately, Jake eventually runs out of lollipops, and the Mega-Frog's trail is so winding that they end up getting lost anyway.

** In Chapter 498, we learn that when [[spoiler: Kushina]] was kidnapped, she left a trail of her hair to for some one to follow. [[spoiler: Minato]] was the only one who spotted the trail, which led to their eventual RescueRomance.

* One episode of ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' has the Team Rocket capture all the Pokemon in a gathering, including Ash's and his friend's; they were tracked down by following trail of ink shot by Misty's Horsea on the road.

* In ''ComicBook/TheSmurfs'' comic book story "Bathing Smurfs", the Smurfs trick Gargamel into leaving his camping area near the Smurf Village by saying that his house is on fire, and then set up a bonfire behind the house to make it look like the house was on fire. Gargamel tries to one-up on the Smurfs by leaving a trail of cherries behind him so that he can find his way back to the camping spot, but on his return, he sees that a bear is scooping up the cherries and eating them.

** In "Faces", the trope is {{lampshaded}} when subspace transponders are used so an Away Team won't get lost in a MobileMaze.

* In ''[[Franchise/WinnieThePooh Pooh's Heffalump Movie]]'', Piglet leaves behind a trail of pink jellybeans so he can find his way back during the expedition. Unfortunately, Pooh eats them.

* In ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'', Garfield retells Hansel and Gretel as having used cream cheese bagels instead of bread crumbs to make a trail that can help them find their way back home in cast they get lost, on their path to look for food. Nermal then asks [[InsaneTrollLogic why did they even look for food when they already had bagels]].

* In ''Film/TheMummyReturns'', Alex leaves behind part of his clothing and a sandcastle of an ancient structure where they are heading to help the heroes tail them. Lock-nah eventually catches him for doing this.