History Main / UpsideDownBlueprints

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': In "A Big Ball of Garbage", the Planet Express crew is sent to a giant ball of garbage about to fall on New New York to activate a time bomb to destroy it. But once they activate it, they realize to their horror that the timer was installed upside down, and instead of 25 minutes, the bomb was set to explode in ''52 seconds''. After barely escaping with their lives, Professor Farnsworth wonders how it all went wrong, as he holds the bomb's manual upside down.

* ''Series/SesameStreet'': In Episode 836, Big Bird builds a snowman, but has it standing on its head. When Maria sees it, she asks him if he looked at a picture of a snowman in a book, and he tells her he did. However, he held the book upside down when he did it. When Maria builds the snowman right-side-up, big Bird tells her that he liked the snowman better when it was upside down.

* In WesternAnimation/ChickenRun, when Ginger shows Mac the blueprints of her new escape plan:

[[folder:VideoGames]]

** In "Goofballs", the Beaver Brothers play with Lola's tablet, messing up the plans for the log cabin that the Looney Builders were building for them. As a result, the directions get flipped over, and the Looney Builders end up building the log cabin uspide down.

[[quoteright:299:[[WesternAnimation/{{Minions}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/upsidedown_pyramid.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:299:"What does 'dn ǝpᴉs sᴉɥʇ' mean?"]]

[[quoteright:300:[[WesternAnimation/{{Minions}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/upsidedownpyramid.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:"What does 'dn ǝpᴉs sᴉɥʇ' mean?"]]

Where JustFollowingOrders gets too extreme. When a construction worker unknowingly is looking at a blueprint the wrong way, instead of figuring out what's wrong with it, he just says "[[ShrugTake Oh, well]]" and [[TooDumbToLive builds his project accordingly to the misread plans]]. It's only after construction is finished that the worker realizes his error, [[OhCrap only for it to be too late]]. Expect yells of YouFool or the worker experiencing a DopeSlap for his idiocy.

Where JustFollowingOrders gets too extreme. When a construction worker unknowingly is looking at a blueprint the wrong way, instead of figuring out what's wrong with it, he just says "[[ShrugOfIndifference Oh, well]]" and [[TooDumbToLive builds his project accordingly to the misread plans]]. It's only after construction is finished that the worker realizes his error, [[OhCrap only for it to be too late]]. Expect yells of YouFool or the worker experiencing a DopeSlap for his idiocy.

Where JustFollowingOrders gets too extreme. When a construction worker unknowingly is looking at a blueprint the wrong way, instead of figuring out what's wrong with it, [[TooDumbToLive he builds his project accordingly to the misread plans]]. It's only after construction is finished that the worker realizes his error, [[OhCrap only for it to be too late]]. Expect yells of YouFool or the worker experiencing a DopeSlap for his idiocy.

* ''WesternAnimation/BugsBunnyBuilders'': In "Goofballs", the Beaver Brothers play with Lola's tablet, messing up the plans for the log cabin that the Looney Builders were building for them. As a result, the directions get flipped over, and the Looney Builders end up building the log cabin uspide down.

* ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' has a cartoon of an angry-looking devil, a "[[NumberOfTheBeast 999]]" on the door, and the painter going "I must have been holding the dang work order upside down!".

* At the beginning of ''WesternAnimation/{{Minions}}'', after the newly constructed pyramid crushes the Egyptians flat, Norbit realizes that he had the blueprints upside down, earning himself a DopeSlap.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/Rugrats1991'' "[[Recap/RugratsS3E23Passover Passover]]" special, Chuckie builds an upside down pyramid for Angelica, who takes on the role of Pharaoh in Grandpa Boris' story. Angelica is shocked when she sees the upside-down pyramid, and Chuckie tells her that he followed the instructions the way she wanted him to. Angelica then turns the instructions right-side-up, and Chuckie realizes his mistake.
* ''WesternAnimation/TaleSpin'' had a story about a pyramid that was accidentally built upside down and into the ground to the great embarrassment of the Pharaoh, who put a curse on the foreman to guard the shameful secret as a {{mummy}}. [[spoiler:They end up correcting the error by lifting the entire thing out of the ground and flipping it over, allowing the mummified foreman to rest in peace.]]
* George Jetson of Creator/HannaBarbera's ''WesternAnimation/TheJetsons'' is assigned by his BadBoss to find a way to thwart competitor Cogswell Cogs from spying on him from Cogswell's newly-built neighboring building. The blueprints are shown, including a property line ''directly through Cogswell's building!'' Somehow, the architect never saw this as a FatalFlaw; ChildProdigy Elroy Jetson, however, did.

* Inverted in one episode of ''[[WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle Peabody's Improbable History]]'', where Sherman is shocked that it appears for once, Mr. Peabody makes a mistake when he designed the Great Pyramid upside down. However, Peabody reveals that he deliberately designed the pyramid upside down as part of a BatmanGambit, knowing that the Pharaoh's bratty nephew would try to destroy it. Instead, the nephew's attempt to blow up the pyramid [[NiceJobFixingItVillain results in it landing right-side up]].
* Inverted in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/MightyDucksTheAnimatedSeries'', where the Saurians have stolen a missile and loaded it into a launch platform pointing downward. Upon looking at the plans, Siege comments that they did it wrong, the missile supposed to be pointed upward, only for Wraith to flip the plans around, showing that the missile is ''supposed'' to go downward, their plan being to use it to create a volcano.

[[folder:Real Life]]

* The ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' TV episode "Home Is Where the Hurt Is" has a variation of this trope, where Lumpy messes up with the blueprints and the new house built for Giggles is an amalgam of upside-down rooms, doors leading to nowhere, deadly pits and hazards, and twisted halls that lead to the deaths of the many careless characters wandering within.

* ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' has a variation of this idea, where blueprints are messed up and the house built is an amalgam of upside-down rooms, doors leading to nowhere, deadly pits and hazards, and twisted halls that lead to the deaths of many of the careless characters wandering within.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' "[[Recap/RugratsS3E23Passover Passover]]" special, Chuckie builds an upside down pyramid for Angelica, who takes on the role of Pharaoh in Grandpa Boris' story. Angelica is shocked when she sees the upside-down pyramid, and Chuckie tells her that he followed the instructions the way she wanted him to. Angelica then turns the instructions right-side-up, and Chuckie realizes his mistake.

* ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'': In the episode "Going Nowhere Fast", after being zapped by a particle accelerator from Negaduck, Darkwing gains SuperSpeed and uses this to try and be a better hero. One of the things he does is single handidly build a new skyscraper in a matter of seconds, but since he held the blueprints upside down the whole building ends up being constructed upside down. [[IdiotHero Darkwing being Darkwing]], he fails to realize his error and instead states that [[NeverMyFault the architect should be sued]]. He breaks it down again later after it's revealed the new super speed comes with RapidAging, and he has to run backwards to undo this effect.

[[folder:Comic Strips]]

* ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' has a cartoon of an angry-looking devil, a "[[NumberOfTheBeast 999]]" on the door, and the painter going "I must have been holding the dang work order upside down!".

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]
* At the beginning of ''WesternAnimation/{{Minions}}'', after the newly constructed pyramid crushes the Egyptians flat, Norbit realizes that he had the blueprints upside down, earning himself a DopeSlap.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''Series/TheGoesWrongShow'': In the episode "90 Degrees", a miscommunication with the set crew caused the dining room set to be built sideways, complete with all the furniture. To compensate for this, the camera is placed on its side, though the actors are still visibly struggling to get through the scene without breaking the illusion that gravity is working normally. Later this trope is played more literally when the actors discover that the hospital room set is completely upside down, forcing one of the actors, playing a dying patient, to cling to the hospital bed for dear life.

[[caption-width-right:300:"Pancake" [[SquashedFlat is right!]]]]

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