History Main / WackyWaySideTribe

* ''Literature/DonQuixote'': The last chapters of the First Part are dedicated to solving a RomanticPlotTumor, reading a [[ShowWithinAShow Novel Within A Novel named ''"The Ill-Advised Curiosity"'']] and to [[ForgottenTrope hearing the tale of the Captive Captain]], leaving Don Quixote as a mere spectator in his own book. In the Second Part Cervantes makes an AuthorsSavingThrow when Don Quixote [[LampshadeHanging opines]]:

* The DoctorWho serial ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E2TheMindRobber The Mind Robber]]'' starts with a BottleEpisode where the Tardis materializes in a white void containing aggressive robots. As soon as the characters escape, these robots have no bearing on the plot of the rest of the serial.
** The earlier serial "The Keys of Marinus" is entirely made of this - the characters have to collect PlotCoupons from various locations on the planet, each of which has a different culture and threat. There's a LotusEaterMachine world that only Barbara can see through, a murder investigation world where the Doctor is a lawyer and has to use ThePerryMasonMethod to save Ian [[BetterManhandleTheMurderWeapon after he picked up the knife]], an ice world where they have to fight ancient guardians and so on.

* The film ''Ator l'invincibile 2'' (1984) contained a sequence right in the middle involving a tribe of cannibals. Oddly enough, the USA DVD release (''FilM/CaveDwellers'') was titled after the WackyWaysideTribe. This film richly deserved the MST3K treatment it received.

* About halfway through Creator/JohnFord's ''Cheyenne Autumn'' (1963), there's a 15 minute sequence set in Dodge City, featuring JamesStewart as Wyatt Earp. This broadly comic segment shows Earp gambling and shooting a violent cowboy, while townspeople panic about the approaching Cheyenne. Obviously meant as comic relief, it's long, self-contained, features none of the main characters and is [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment jarringly out of place]] in such a downbeat, serious movie. Unsurprisingly, some theatrical screenings and television airings removed the entire scene.

* About halfway through Creator/JohnFord's ''Cheyenne Autumn'' (1963), there's a 15 minute sequence set in Dodge City, featuring JamesStewart as Wyatt Earp. This broadly comic segment shows Earp gambling and shooting a violent cowboy, while townspeople panic about the approaching Cheyenne. Obviously meant as comic relief, it's long, self-contained and [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment jarringly out of place]] in such a downbeat, serious movie. Unsurprisingly, some theatrical screenings and television airings removed the entire scene.

* About halfway through Creator/JohnFord's ''Cheyenne Autumn'' (1963), there's a 15 minute sequence set in Dodge City, featuring JamesStewart as Wyatt Earp. This broadly comic segment shows Earp gambling and shooting a violent cowboy, while townspeople panic about the approaching Cheyenne. Obviously meant as comic relief, it's long, self-contained and jarringly out of place in such a downbeat, serious movie. Unsurprisingly, some theatrical screenings removed the entire scene.

A WackyWaysideTribe is never integrated into the plotline -- it is, instead, an isolated flurry of eccentric action that is frequently three times as annoying as the basic story elements. It could be an angry predator, a natural disaster you'll never hear of again, or a crazy old hermit, but most often, it's a tribe.

* The film ''Ator l'invincibile 2'' (1984) contained a sequence right in the middle involving a tribe of cannibals. Oddly enough, the USA DVD release (''CaveDwellers'') was titled after the WackyWaysideTribe. This film richly deserved the MST3K treatment it received.

* The ''TsubasaReservoirChronicle'' anime did this. I don't remember exactly what happened but I think the group had to face some "god" that was terrorising the village, but it turned out to be a HUGE Tornado-bird.
** Almost everything you ''think'' is plot-relevant turns out to be instead this, and the original plot is abandoned later when the ''real'' plot kicks in.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'' uses Wacky Wayside Islands for the needs of filler.

* The Cannibal Island sequence in ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean: Dead Man's Chest''. This one is particularly inexplicable, given that the movie is two-and-a-half hours long, leaving one to wonder why the producers thought it needed more padding.
** The scriptwriters have explained in interviews that the key point is the cannibals' belief that Captain Jack is a deity trapped in human form, which was supposed to prepare the audience for the revelation in the sequel that one of the other characters actually is a deity trapped in human form. That still leaves most of the sequence as unnecessary padding, though.
*** And since the natives were presented as [[UnfortunateImplications superstitious savages who probably believe all kinds of wacky stuff]], it's hard to notice that as foreshadowing even ''after'' the reveal is made in the third movie.
** According to the commentary, it was also supposed to address the idea that Jack could escape Davy Jones and the Kraken by simply staying out of the ocean. Because, you know, he tried that once and it didn't work.

* The ''{{Redwall}}'' series is full of these. In ''Martin the Warrior'', the verse roadmap has nothing but {{Wacky Wayside Tribe}}s, and that's not even counting the uber-annoying pygmy shrews. In the early books they were generally well integrated into the plot, but as the series has aged and decayed, they've become more and more grating. For some reason, all of them mysteriously disappear and are replaced by completely unrelated {{Wacky Wayside Tribe}}s by the next book, even if there's only a gap of one or two generations.

** Tom Bombadil. One of the reasons why the ''LOTR'' movies are often considered AdaptationDistillation is because the entire segment involving him was left out. Tolkien managed to do this better than most, however; Bombadil returned to help Frodo a few chapters later, he was referred to and had his existence acknowledged at the council, and his gift of Barrow-blades proved fruitful against the Witch-king in the third book.

* The trolls and Beorn in ''Literature/TheHobbit''. The spiders and elves count too, on a lesser note. One might argue that ''most'' of the journey in ''The Hobbit'' actually consists of random encounters with exotic peoples and characters; of them, only Elrond and Gollum have a notable influence on the plot.

* The ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'' has a few:
** In ''Brisingr'', Eragon stops his life-and-death, good-or-evil flight from TheEmpire to enjoy a cup of tea with a dubiously sane magician.
** Eragon and Arya have a (relatively) brief discourse on the nature of spirits at around the same time.
** Roran is sent off to capture a city. His exploits while doing so are never mentioned again.

A WackyWaysideTribe, if well done, can also help flesh out the world and give a sense that there are things going on that don't revolve around the main characters. If poorly done, however, it can imply the opposite, with the main characters repeatedly solving hundred-year-old mysteries that no one else has managed to solve.

** Though most villages are benign, there are some seriously weird examples in [[VideoGame/{{Grandia}} the first game]], such as Laine where the horned [[HotAmazon giantesses]] do all the work while mature males turn into bovines, and Gumbo, where every year, the villagers sacrifice two lovers to the volcano and, because of this, nobody in the village becomes a couple in fear of being sacrificed. When Justin and Feena arrive in Gumbo the village chief mistakes them for a couple and [[FalseReassurance rolls out the red carpet for them]].

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' has the episode "The Great Divide", featuring a literal wacky wayside tribe- or rather, two of them locked in an a never-ending ColdWar. Unlike a great deal of the seemingly unrelated events in season 1 it is never brought up again and is widely regarded as the worst episode in the entire series.

* May be justified in ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader''. Like in ''The Hobbit'', most of the journey is a series of random encounters, but exploring the distant lands is, in fact, the very ''goal'' of Caspian's expedition.

* ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'' is modeled on ''The Odyssey'', and involves numerous islands inhabited by random Wacky Wayside Tribes. The movie version, however, half-heartedly tries to subvert this trope by adding a connecting plot to the encounters.

* The trolls and Beorn in Literature/TheHobbit. The spiders and elves count too, on a lesser note. One might argue that ''most'' of the journey in ''The Hobbit'' actually consists of random encounters with exotic peoples and characters; of them, only Elrond and Gollum did a notable influence on the plot.
* May be justified in Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader. Like in ''TheHobbit'', most of the journey is a series of random encounters, but exploring the distant lands is, in fact, the very ''goal'' of Caspian's expedition.

*** The quest concerning the dirt farmer being abducted by ogres has no such excuse, however.
**** Actually, that was probably to establish Miko as a psychotic Knight Templar.

* The trolls and Beorn in Literature/TheHobbit. The spiders and elves count too, on a lesser note.

* A rather unfortunate example in ''The Courts of Chaos'', the fifth novel in ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfAmber''. Corwin is on a quest to deliver a McGuffin while being hounded by his evil brother Brand. However he can't use his magic deck to simply teleport, so he has to reach the place by horse. Despite the book being less than 150 pages, over a half of them involve Corwin being sidetracked by random and irrelevant adventures; including him meeting a talking raven, finding the tree Yggdrasil, having a picnic with a seductive lady and getting his horse stolen by Leprechauns. This also counts as a case of TrappedByMountainLions as the book ''does'' have a lengthy plot, only Corwin misses most of it.

** Ghan-buri-ghan and the Woses, who do provide a way to get the Rohirrim to Minas Tirith without having to plow through an army of orcs en route -- but the whole sequence is similar to the Bombadil section in seemingly coming out of nowhere.

* Quidditch throughout the ''HarryPotter'' series. More so as time goes on, which may explain its diminishing frequency. It's telling that the actual games being played are among the first things the later movie adaptations ditched.

--> ''"...and I know not what could have led [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis the author to have recourse to]] [[ShowWithinAShow novels]] and [[RomanticPlotTumor irrelevant stories]], [[ItsAllAboutMe when he had so much to write about in mine; no doubt he must have gone by]] [[{{Filler}} the proverb 'with straw or with hay, &c.,' for by merely setting forth my thoughts, my sighs, my tears, my lofty purposes, my enterprises]], [[DoorStopper he might have made a volume as large, or larger than all the works of El Tostado]] [[hottip:*:Alfonso de Madrigal, philosopher whose works "have more than twenty volumes.".]] would make up"''.

* The Cannibal Island sequence in ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean: Dead Man's Chest''. This one is particularly inexplicable, given that the movie is two-and-a-half interminable hours long, leaving one to wonder why the producers thought it needed more padding.

* The ''Inheritance Cycle'' has a few:

* ''TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'' is modeled on ''The Odyssey'', and involves numerous islands inhabited by random Wacky Wayside Tribes. The movie version, however, half-heartedly tries to subvert this trope by adding a connecting plot to the encounters.