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11[[quoteright:241:[[WesternAnimation/TheTransformers https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/BOT-Overload_6711.jpg]]]]
12[[caption-width-right:241:No ''way'' that button could ''ever'' come back to bite them.]]
13
14->''"Why do we even HAVE that lever?"''
15-->-- '''Yzma''' on a lever that leads into a crocodile pit, ''WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewGroove''
16
17When the MadScientist or GadgeteerGenius creates a machine of diabolical nature, some function gets thrown into the mix that wasn't quite planned, doesn't really serve any practical purpose, and may even be an AchillesHeel-- a lever for flooding the cockpit of the HumongousMecha with its fuel reserves, for instance.
18
19A variant has additions made which do serve a practical use... just not ones which make logical sense for the machine to have. A jetpack that makes martinis and plays the complete works of Music/MarvinGaye, for instance.
20
21Expect LampshadeHanging to ensue.
22
23See also FridgeLogic.
24
25Compare OvenLogic, where the oven dial goes up to thousands of degrees. One has to wonder why the oven had a dial that could go up that high if it wasn't meant to be used that way.
26
27Compare with CowTools, where ''nothing'' about the device makes sense. Contrast with MundaneUtility, where simply being what it is lets the device do something useful -- cooking popcorn with your DeathRay, for instance. Frequently overlaps with SelfDestructMechanism and MoralityDial. See also CapsLockNumLockMissilesLock and OutlandishDeviceSetting.
28
29Also compare with MurphysLaw.
30
31Contrast with MyopicArchitecture, where a builder's or inventor's attempts to ''avoid'' this trope may result in a supposedly "foolproof" security feature being defeated by something so simple it was completely overlooked in the design phase.
32
33The name, for the record, is a play on ''conventional'' wisdom, in reference to the fact that any inventor holding the SanityBall would never install such things to begin with.
34
35----
36!!Examples:
37
38[[foldercontrol]]
39
40[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
41* In ''Anime/DualParallelTroubleAdventure'', Mr. Sanada frequently designs machines with large buttons that you think would activate them, he even coaxes the person to press the button/presses the button himself, before revealing that it doesn't actually do anything. 'It's actually' *Mitsuki sits down on a lever* 'that lever..'
42* When Takarada of ''Anime/KillLaKill'' tries to fight using crab-like PoweredArmor, Sanegayama beats him by shoving his [[WoodenKatanasAreEvenBetter shinai]] up a hole on the back that seems to not only go straight to the unprotected cockpit, but ''[[AssShove straight up Takarada's ass]]''. What purpose such a structure could have served is never even asked.
43* In one of the versions of ''Anime/MazingerZ'', there was one lever on [[SuperVillainLair Hell Island]] served to launch the island spacewards and detonate it. BigBad Dr. Hell uses it to [[spoiler:try to]] [[TakingYouWithMe take Mazinger Z with him]] when he realizes the battle is lost. It happens in Gosaku Ota's manga version.
44* ''Manga/OnePiece'''s "Thriller Bark" arc: when Brook finds a massive store of salt in the kitchen (salt being the only weakness of the countless Mooks on the island), he wonders why the BigBad even keeps it…albeit in a room secured with lock, key, and chains.
45* ''Anime/PantyAndStockingWithGarterbelt'': G-string, a limousine, inexplicably has a self-destruct button that's easy to hit accidentally, has no countdown, and doesn't require any confirmation. [[LampshadeHanging Even Kneesock has no idea why it's there or why anyone would use it]].
46[[/folder]]
47
48[[folder:Comic Books]]
49* ''The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man'': Professor Kline builds a rocketship, but doesn't know how to turn it on.
50* Inverted in ''ComicBook/AtomicRobo'', when Robo's shocked at the ''lack'' of extra options:
51-->'''Robo:''' Relax. All we have to do is ReverseThePolarity and everything'll go back to... normal. [...] There ''is'' no reverse. How could they not include a reverse?! That's just criminally negligent with the kind of ''ludicrous'' stuff we get up to around here!
52* ''ComicBook/BlakeAndMortimer'': In ''S.O.S. Meteors'', the command console of the bad guys' [[spoiler:weather control]] device features a large, conspicuous unlabelled button that immediately attracts Mortimer's attention. It of course turns out to be [[spoiler:a self-destruct mechanism]]. While it does make some sense that they would need one, being located in a hidden base in enemy territory, the fact that all it takes is a simple press of a button with no reversal possible eventually [[spoiler:contributes heavily to their downfall]].
53* ''ComicBook/{{Meanwhile}}'': The Killitron is a doomsday device built by a mild-mannered inventor with no OmnicidalManiac tendencies whatsoever. However, it turns out that it can be used to manipulate entropy, allowing for such miracles as reversing the aging process and transmuting food and water.
54* In crossover ''ComicBook/SupermanVsShazam'', [[BigBad Karmang]]'s space-warping machine, which was built to force two parallel Earths into collide with each other, has a large, eye-catching black button located prominently in the operating panel. It serves to send all people standing in Karmang's castle into Limbo for some unexplained reason.
55* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': Hephaestus created android Golden Girls, only for them to instantly turn against him so he turned on external components that subjugated them to his will and muted their emotions. These are very easy to remove and disable.
56[[/folder]]
57
58[[folder:Comic Strips]]
59* Some examples from ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'':
60** A plane passenger is fumbling around with his seat controls, one of which is a switch marked "Wings Stay On"/"Wings Fall Off".
61** A tech's soundboard at a concert had a dial labeled "Suck" which he was gleefully adjusting.
62[[/folder]]
63
64[[folder:Fan Works]]
65* In ''Fanfic/AndersonQuestKillingVampiresAndWerewolvesAndLeprechuans'', Anderson gets very cross when he realizes the horrid {{Bizarrchitecture}} properties of [[VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}} Yharnam]]. A bit of investigating leads him on the trail of the utter incompetent who designed half the city, and among other things, introduced elevators, pressure plates, strange balconies and similar questionable choices. To nobody's surprise, it's [[Franchise/{{Discworld}} Bergholt Stuttley Johnson]], a.k.a. Bloody Stupid Johnson. Among other idiotic enterprises, he created [[AnomalousArt a reality-defying bust]] whose gaze keeps following you around the room despite not moving, which [[TooSpicyForYogSothoth reacted adversely]] to [[EldritchAbomination Ebrietas]], got declared "the opposite of enlightenment" by the Choir and was the architect who remodeled Cainhurst Castle. Annalise's still kicking herself over the last one.
66* ''Fanfic/RiseOfTheMinisukas'': Jet Alone Kai can apparently feel pain. Upon discovering this, it immediately wonders both why it can feel pain and why it doesn't have the option to turn it off.
67* In ''Fanfic/ThisBites'', after a near-miss with a self-destruct lever whilst trying to show off the now-operational weather control system to the denizens of Karakuri Island, Franky demands to know what Vegapunk's deal was when it came to just randomly scattering self-destruct switches all over the place, proclaiming this to be the third he's found since moving in.
68[[/folder]]
69
70[[folder:Film -- Animation]]
71* In the second ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' movie, the city of Metru Nui uses massive tubes filled with a breathable liquid controlled with magnetism as a transport system, although it mainly is intended for cargo rather than passengers. For some reason, it has a switch that makes it flow in reverse, even though the operator warns the villain forcing him to pull it that it could cause the whole system to explode. It does not explode, but does does give the heroes who were escaping though the tubes a bad time.
72* ''WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewGroove'': The entrance to Yzma's secret lab has a lever that opens a TrapDoor to a [[SharkPool Croc Pool]]. It's right next to the lever that opens the door. While it could be used as a trap, Yzma doesn't seem to intend for it to be used that way (given that the crocodiles are [[AllAnimalsAreDogs about as vicious as golden retriever puppies]] and can be sent away whimpering with just a slap), and she and Kronk can never remember which lever is which.
73--> '''Kuzco:''' [[BrickJoke Okay, why does she even HAVE that lever?]]
74* In ''WesternAnimation/Home2015'', Oh complains about the wisdom of an e-mail system in which "send" and "send all" are two giant buttons on the same screen. One also wonders why a personal communication device has the means to transmit a galaxy-wide message.
75* ''WesternAnimation/MonstersVsAliens'': The latte dispenser is operated by a BigRedButton that is identical and right next to the button that launches all of the US's nuclear missiles.
76-->'''President:''' What idiot designed this?!\
77'''Offscreen Voice:''' You did, sir.\
78'''President:''' [[{{Touche}} Fair enough]].
79* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongebobSquarepantsMovie'', Neptune [[HumanPopsicle freezes Mr. Krabs solid]] when he believes he was the one who stole his crown. At the end of the movie, after learning Mr. Krabs was innocent, Neptune attempts to unfreeze him-only to accidentally turn him into [[HumanityEnsues a human boy]]. Neptune realizes that [[ProngsOfPoseidon his trident]] was set to "[[BecomeARealBoy Real Boy]]" instead of "Unfreeze".
80* ''WesternAnimation/YellowSubmarine'': The submarine has an easily-accessed ejector-seat button. Captain Fred even ''points it out'' to Ringo, who then presses it and finds himself discharged into the Sea of Monsters.
81[[/folder]]
82
83[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
84* ''Film/AustinPowers'': Practically everything Dr. Evil owns.
85* At the end of ''Film/BrideOfFrankenstein'', the enraged Monster is rampaging through the lab. As he approaches a very large wooden lever Dr. Pretorius shouts, "Don't touch that lever! You'll blow us all to atoms!" The question must be asked: if you were collecting all the supplies and fixtures you'd need to build your super high-tech lab, how far down the list would "a lever that will blow us all to atoms" be?
86* In ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'', the agency has a big red button that releases all of the monsters they have stored up and no safeguards at all, other than a plastic covering. The ludicrousness of this is lampshaded in the DVDCommentary.
87* In the original ''Film/{{Cube}}'', somebody speculates that the only reason they were put into the cube was because it had been built as some government pork barrel project, and not using it would be to admit it was pointless.
88* In ''Film/DieAnotherDay'' the villain has a suit that he can use to [[ShockAndAwe shock people]]. For reasons that are not entirely clear, but possibly related to the guy who built it not entirely trusting his boss ([[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness with good reason]]), there's a button on the front that causes it to electrocute the wearer.
89* ''Film/GalaxyQuest''
90** The unavoidable chompers in a starship passageway. Gwen lampshades how ridiculous it is that there is a DeathCourse in the middle of the ship.
91-->'''Gwen:''' Screw that! I'm not doing it! This episode was ''badly written''!
92** The Thermians are technologically advanced enough to build a working starship based on "data" gathered from "documentary footage", namely a hoky sci fi TV show and the [[AllThereInTheManual fan materials surrounding it]]. As a result it has some features [[BlackBox even they don't understand]], such as [[spoiler: a very limited time travel device]].
93* In ''[[Film/{{Garfield}} Garfield: The Movie]]'', [[ComicStrip/{{Garfield}} Garfield]] hits a big red button that immediately stops all the trains at a station. [[RealityIsUnrealistic Signalling control centres actually have these]], sometimes in actual big red button form, to be used in the event of a derailment or collision.
94* In ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2'', Rocket Raccoon, for some reason, included an instant detonation button on the bomb [[spoiler:built to kill [[GeniusLoci Ego the Living Planet]]]] alongside the MagicCountdown button that would give them time to escape. This became a real issue when the Guardians had to depend on [[spoiler:Baby Groot]] to plant the bomb, with Rocket expressively telling him [[DontTouchItYouIdiot not to push]] that particular button, [[WhatDoesThisButtonDo without much success]]. It got to the point where Rocket even asked if anyone had any tape so he could cover the button.
95* A DeathCourse with chutes and flames appears in ''Film/RaceToWitchMountain''.
96* In ''Film/RedPlanet'' the heroes bring a helper robot that was originally built by the military and is equipped with pretty sophisticated, combat-oriented AI. Unfortunately for everyone, a bit ''too'' sophisticated. It has a physical switch for whether or not to be in a combat mode. {{Justified|Trope}}, as the mission was assembled in great hurry, with no spare "civilian" model, while the switch was pre-set on "no". It wasn't until the astronauts plan to disable the robot (essentially killing it) when it self-switches to combat mode in self-defense, spending the rest of the film fighting for its own survival.
97* The trapdoor in ''Film/RedSonja''.
98* In ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'':
99** Spaceball-1 can go to "Ludicrous Speed", which everybody except Dark Helmet realizes is something they shouldn't do. Fortunately the ship is also equipped with a hand-operated "Emergency Brake" which is labeled "Never Use".
100** The Spaceball-1 also has a self destruct button, hidden away in a remote, yet easy to access corridor, with only a few guards on hand. The cancel self-destruct is located in the main control panel, but is out of order.
101** The ship's main radar system is located directly next to an identical machine that makes coffee. Downplayed in that they are helpfully labelled "MR. RADAR" and "MR. COFFEE", though they still end up confusing Lord Helmet.
102* ''Film/SpyKids3DGameOver'': The switch that shuts down the game was right next to the switch that releases the Toymaker from his prison. Mrs. Giggles asks "Who was the idiot that designed that?" The Toymaker ends up escaping from his prison, although Grandpa admits that he released the Toymaker on purpose. The HumongousMecha that the Toymaker pilots in the climax of the film also has giant off switch, which ends up being pulled by the Toymaker himself.
103* ''Film/{{Vacation}}'': Rusty Griswold's plan to get to Wally World via car trip like his father did many years before runs into a great many complications, one of them being the car he rented for the trip, the "Prancer" (an Albanian knock-off van) [[TheAllegedCar is an absurdly idiosyncratic piece of crap loaded with unsafe and stupid gizmos]] [[WhatDoesThisButtonDo with no label]]. One of the many unlabeled buttons in the van's key fob, which Rusty eventually presses, is ''[[CapsLockNumLockMissilesLock a]] [[SelfDestructButton self-destruct]]''. The van [[StuffBlowingUp instantly turns into a gigantic fireball]].
104[[/folder]]
105
106[[folder:Literature]]
107* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' has BunglingInventor "Bloody Stupid" Johnson, who has added quite a number of useless and dangerous things to his inventions:
108** In ''Literature/{{Hogfather}}'' he added some things to the bathroom in Unseen University that Archchancellor Ridcully would come to regret.
109** He also designed a nice, upper-class neighbourhood that just happened to break the laws of space and time. You can just throw the trash out of the window into the yard, since it's probably not your yard, anyway. Front doors have a habit of opening into the bedrooms of a different home. It also has a very low crime rate, as thieves generally prefer to break into one house at a time.
110** Or the post office sorting machine, which included a wheel with a circumference-to-diameter ratio of exactly 3 (rather than [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi the usual three-and-a-bit]], which he thought was untidy), and which soon started sorting letters before they were written. Nobody complained. Then it started receiving mail that was never written in the first place. And then the alternate universe mail started pouring in.
111** And his pipe organs usually include special sound effects such as thunder or animal noises, with at least one example also being connected to the building's plumbing system. The UU organ, located in the middle of a city with a million inhabitants, also includes one pipe that plays a BrownNote so loud that it causes earthquakes.
112* ''Grim Expectations'' from Creator/KWJeter is set years after ''Infernal Devices'' so George Dower Jr.'s selling of his father's blueprints have unleashed a wave of [[DidntThinkThisThrough inventive madness]]. One invention is a mechanical cherub that can fly and sing from a recorder. Problem is that rather than using a steam engine, the cherub is actually a thin ceramic shell over the rotting corpse of a baby. Gases from the decay is what makes the cherub lighter than air. When a cherub was damaged inside a church, it became a flaming rocket that ignited the rest of the cherubs. Eventually all that fire and corpse gas resulted in an explosion that leveled the church.
113* ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' features the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, a company built entirely around this concept. In the words of the Guide itself, their corporate strategy is based on building devices whose "superficial design flaws completely mask their fundamental design flaws". In other words, you get so involved in getting the thing to work at all that you completely fail to realize that it's incapable of doing what it was made to do in the first place. From the first book alone, examples include a superintelligent robot with a suicidally depressed personality and an intelligent drink dispenser "perfectly tailored to your individual tastes" which, no matter what you ask for, always gives you exactly the same horrid concoction almost but not quite entirely unlike tea.
114* ''Literature/KittyCatKillSat'': Lily spends a lot of time complaining about the control designs for her space station. Long story short, half the station was built by an extremely progressive pan-species collective, and the other half was built piecemeal by the many racist states that followed after them. That means that Lily has to deal with oddities such as the fact that the station is fully ''capable'' of accepting written commands, but refuses to do so unless the crewmember is explicitly logged as disabled. Lily, being a housecat, lacks the means to speak human languages, but she's perfectly healthy for her species, so the system won't accept written commands. Not to mention her critical lack of thumbs; pretty much every single human-descended species or animal-uplift or genetic engineering project was designed with thumbs and hands, so none of the controls were designed for someone with only paws to work with. And, again, large parts of the station were built by racists from multiple different species, so they were ''intentionally'' designed to be impossible for anyone besides their specific species. Lily finds it impossible to even code up a speech synthesizer to translate her self-created Cat language into a human language that will allow for easier voice commands, because her programming software is racist and refuses to do any translations.
115* ''Literature/PleaseDontTellMyParentsImASupervillain'':
116** Repeatedly {{Lampshaded}}, where it is apparently a fundamental rule of [[TheSparkOfGenius Mad Science]] powers that anything they make will include a SelfDestructMechanism, whether or not there is any logical reason for one or the inventor intended to put one in.
117** Also comes up in [[Literature/PleaseDontTellMyParentsIveGotHenchmen the third book]], where Penny builds a machine that makes a horde of rampaging giant robots. She actually admits that she has no particular reason to ''want'' a horde of rampaging giant robots, but still leaves the machine intact. And sure enough, at the book's climax the machine is activated and we get a rampaging horde of giant robots.
118[[/folder]]
119
120[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
121* ''Series/{{Chuck}}'' Versus the Mask, the museum's computer room has a big red readout that says system failure. Talk about a complete lack of faith in your system. [[FridgeLogic Shouldn't they have hired a curator who knew how to use a computer?]]
122* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
123** Davros, the MadScientist who created the Daleks, decided that it would be a good idea for his mobile life support system to have a clearly marked on/off switch on the panel in front of it.
124** The ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' story ''[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho048Davros Davros]]'' gives a justification for this, as it was put there by the doctors who saved him as an option for him to kill himself if the pain ever became too much. He never took it.
125--->'''Davros:''' When I press this switch I will die. The poison in that projectile injector will kill me in a moment. It is a perfect, efficient, killing machine. It will be painless they say. They tell me they know the pain I am in. As if they could? And just like pressing this switch I will end that suffering forever. They say I should be the one to do it. But they are weak. They cannot bring themselves to look at me let alone kill me. They hesitate. They fear me. Even when I am like this. And they have their perfect, pure, strong bodies. They fear me. And well they should. I am no longer like them. I am above them. I have the ultimate power. The power of life and death. This body is my dominion. Mine to command. No one else's. I can sense them. Out there in the corridor. Cowering. Not daring to speak. They are the frail ones. They are the crippled. They are the ones without choice.\
126They will die. They will lose this war and they will die. I could join them in defeat and death. But if I survive then something stronger will emerge. A new race, a supreme power in the universe. I will not press this switch! I will not cower! [[PunctuatedForEmphasis I will not die! I will not die! This is not the end!]] This is only… The beginning!"
127** The episode [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E742 "42"]] has a sequence where Martha is trapped in an escape pod falling into a sun. The recall button for said pod is located on the ''outside'' of the spacecraft.
128** ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E5WarriorsGate Warriors' Gate]]'': Apparently the TARDIS console has a switch that can take the ship out of the Space/Time Vortex -- to press it while in flight would be suicide. Naturally, the Doctor ''almost'' pressed it, but Romana stopped him just in time.
129** A very early episode has the First Doctor explain that the lock of the TARDIS' doors can only be opened with a special key, and if forced would destruct and render the TARDIS permanently inaccessible. It was never mentioned again. If it worked, it would give any villain a sure-fire way to end the Doctor's adventures completely, even without getting inside - just mess with the lock until it broke.
130* ''Series/FarOutSpaceNuts:'' "I said ''lunch'', not ''launch!''" Maybe those two buttons shouldn't be right next to each other?
131* ''Series/GetSmart''. Professor Carlson, the MadScientist that CONTROL uses to create the ShoePhone gadgets, is a bit like this. In one episode he invents a gadget that he admits does nothing at all. "But in the event you are captured by the enemy, they'll be so intrigued by the way it works, you'll have time to escape." Then there's the time he creates a camera that's secretly a recorder and a tape recorder with a hidden camera. When asked why he doesn't just hand them a tape recorder and camera, he replies that his mind just doesn't work that way.
132* ''Series/TheGoodPlace:'' The titular Good Place has Janets, omniscient living databases who cheerfully answer any and all questions and help everyone they meet. The Bad Place has Bad Janets, who are endlessly rude and surly. The first time one appears, Tahani even asks what their purpose even is.
133* ''Series/{{iCarly}}'': In "iBattle Chip", Gibby's modified Phaser suddenly overloads and explodes when Gibby sets it to "overload".
134* ''Series/{{The Librarians|2014}}'': In the season 2 opener, Flynn is opening various doors around the Library, and encounters a room containing a hive of giant bees.
135--> '''Eve''': Why do we even ''have'' that door?
136* ''Series/SesameStreet'':
137** An episode involves a high-powered air conditioning system being installed in the Furry Arms Hotel. Humphrey specifically states that it's only meant to be turned up to 10. If the knob is turned up to 14, it will break. Those are literally his exact words. Guess what the resident penguins end up doing.
138** During the "Slimey to the Moon" arc one episode involves a crisis aboard the spaceship where the worms cannot get along after weeks of confinement. An incident leads to a button inside the ship being pressed that is specifically designed to put the ship off course if pressed. A bit of research reveals that there is a button to reverse the effect of the first button, but it is on the tip top of the ship's exterior--so that it cannot be pressed by accident!
139* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': "Court Martial" has Kirk being court-martialed under suspicion of accidentally ejecting an "ion pod" with a crew member still inside it. The prime evidence is (falsified) footage of the bridge during the incident, which includes a closeup of the arm of Kirk's captain's chair, which has three buttons on it - presumably the three things it was determined a Starfleet captain needed to be able to do at any time: "Red Alert," "Yellow Alert," and "Eject Pod."
140* Inverted in one episode of ''Series/TheSuiteLifeOfZackAndCody'', Arwin creates two machines (a letter sorting machine and a pair of robot arms), when either machine malfunctions he tells the person he's with to push the red button only for them to point out there is no red button.
141-->'''Arwin:''' I always forget the red button.
142* In the ''Series/TheWubbulousWorldOfDrSeuss'' episode, "The Muckster", Jane Kangaroo orders the titular invention to help her clean her messy house for her appearance on ''The House and Home Show'', with specific instructions from the Cat in the Hat and the Little Cats [[SchmuckBait never to turn the dial to 6]]. When Jane is tempted to turn the dial to 6, Junior reminds her not to do so, to which Jane questions why the Cats would put a 6 on the machine to begin with.
143[[/folder]]
144
145[[folder:Music Videos]]
146* In the video for "Rocking The Suburbs" by Music/BenFolds, the audio fidelity notably drops at one point. Cut to Ben and the video's director (Music/WeirdAlYankovic) at a mixing board, whereupon the director improves the audio quality by turning down the Suck level on the mixing board.
147* PlayedForLaughs at the end of the video for Music/{{Genesis|Band}}' "Music/LandOfConfusion", featuring puppets by the crew of ''Series/SpittingImage''. After a bad dream and in need of water, the puppet UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan tries to call for a nurse from his bed, and reaches for two buttons right next to each other labeled "Nurse" and "Nuke". Guess which one he presses instead.
148--> "Man, that's one heck of a nurse!"
149[[/folder]]
150
151[[folder:Radio]]
152* ''Radio/BleakExpectations:'' When he builds a supervillain lair on a volcanic island, Mr. Benevolent also puts in a self-destruct button. He's not quite sure why, beyond that it seemed like the thing to do, but adding to this he didn't even bother to cover it to stop it being pressed by accident, which inevitably happens after a mishap with a brain-swapping machine and a dinosaur.
153[[/folder]]
154
155[[folder:Roleplay]]
156* In ''Roleplay/DinoAttackRPG'', neither the Brickspider Bot v1.0 nor Cyber-Bully were quite sure why Evil Ogel's ElaborateUndergroundBase came with a doorbell.
157[[/folder]]
158
159[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
160* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' has this problem with certain mechs. For example, the Charger is an Assault-class mech (putting it between 80 and 100 tons, making it the largest class of generally available mech) that was originally built for scouting duties, usually left to mechs less than half its weight. The designers also actively discouraged non-scouting duties for it, removing most of its weapon hardpoints. Other mechs have less glaring but still present issues, such as a mech that only shoots 10 long range missiles a turn having two tons of ammo, or 240 missiles, while their main armament only has one ton of ammo despite doing considerably more damage. And this is in a game where unused ammo can ''explode'', taking the limb and everything attached to it out as well.
161* The gnomes of ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}''. Their inventions seem to start with an idea, then modify as they go to fix perceived problems in ways that seem reasonable until you look at the whole. Some examples:
162** Falling into water while wearing heavy plate armor tends to be inconvenient. Wouldn't it be nice to take the armor off in a hurry when you need to? So it's set up to be removed quickly. If you fall into water, you might be a little panicked, so the way to remove it should be easily accessible, right? Bright red painted crash bar on the front. And plate armor -- especially ''gnome-modified'' plate armor -- is going to be expensive, so you want a way to retrieve all the pieces if you do need to remove it like that, so... all the pieces are attached to the belt with wires so you can easily find them....
163** A gnomic effort to light their caverns involved piping magma through them. When this made the average corridor hot enough to flash-fry gnomes, they poured water on the pipes. The net result was that it was ''still impossible to see'' because when you pour water on a tube of magma, you get huge quantities of steam. And it was still hot enough that you wouldn't want to spend too long in the corridors unless you were literally a fire elemental. But by the gods, it was lit!
164* ''TabletopGame/GeniusTheTransgression'' has quite a few instances of these in the player character's Wonders, which often have flaws attached (like a time machine that needs a wall outlet, for example).
165* In ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'', pretty much anything that comes out of Alpha Complex's R&D labs for testing during a Troubleshooter mission will have buttons for useless or detrimental features located right next to what would be actually helpful functions with a different mission profile, none of them labelled. The manual is, of course, above your security clearance, and quite possibly the security clearance of the guy who wrote it.
166[[/folder]]
167
168[[folder:Video Games]]
169* In ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'': Black Hole Rising, [[MadScientist Lash]] proposes to the more practical [[MagnificentBastard Hawke]] that an airport she just finished for him be equipped with add-ons like a self destruct sequence.
170* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'': In Ozzie's boss battles, you win once the correct switch behind him is hit. The fact that he ''always'' has at least one switch that opens a trap door under ''him'' is what qualifies him for the trope.
171* ''VideoGame/DoubleDragonNeon'': During the Giant Tank boss, [[BigBad Skullmageddon]] tells his goons to keep the Lees away from the tank's weak point, before realizing...
172-->'''Skullmageddon:''' Why does it even ''HAVE'' a weak point? Couldn't you put a cover on it?
173* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' has a fondness for these, with players often ending up with levers that serve no purpose but to flood parts of their own fortress with lava. This is particularly pronounced in games when [[SuccessionGame players swap out between years]] so that no-one knows what the lever actually ''does'' and building around it. For example, Blog/{{Boatmurdered}} had a lever that, when pulled, flooded a siege workshop. It turned out it had originally been put in [[spoiler:to irrigate the farms]] and became hilariously useless later [[spoiler:when someone built a siege workshop on them]].
174* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'', if the boss battle with MadScientist Dr. Lugae and his KillerRobot Barnab/Balnabas goes on too long without either/both being defeated, Lugae will notice something on his creation and go "WhatDoesThisButtonDo" Again, note that ''he'' made the dang thing. [[spoiler:Not surprisingly, it activates the SelfDestructMechanism, which can take out the party if they're low on health.]]
175* In ''VideoGame/HopkinsFBI'', the title character must find and disarm a bomb in a bank. The bomb he uncovers has four indicator lights labeled "Powered", "Armed", "Halted", and "Explode". The last one, of course, lights up [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin just before the bomb explodes]]. By then, there's not much of a point to it, is there?
176* In ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'', the clan VIP room's shower temperature can be set so low that it makes shards of ice rain down on the user. When you use it, your character questions why someone would even make something like this.
177* ''[[VideoGame/{{Kuukiyomi}} Kuukiyomi 3: Consider It More and More!!]]'': In the 69th situation, the player character is in the toilet and there are three buttons available (from right to left): big flush, little flush and "?". The third one [[spoiler:creates a "hee..." sound when pushed]].
178* Between the two ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' games, there are several examples, all designed by Aperture Science's {{Cloudcuckoolander}} founder.
179** The fuel system de-icer is also a sentient, malevolent A.I. that can [[spoiler:slowly flood the facility with massive amounts of "[[DeadlyGas deadly neurotoxin]]" stored in a large tank]]. Their attempts to tame said AI largely consisted of bolting on new personality cores, including one that ''specifically made her angrier''.
180** A portal gun capable of warping space was originally designed for use as a shower curtain.
181** Turrets that are sapient, and capable of feeling pain.
182** [[MoralityChip Empathy Generators]] on the turrets, because apparently someone thought that turrets should feel sad for shooting people. To keep them able to shoot people anyway, they also installed an Empathy Suppressor.
183** [[SpringsSpringsEverywhere Aerial Faith Plates]] are basically catapults that can propel the player vast distances. Their intended use was to load cargo onto trucks, despite the fact that the cargo is thrown with such force that it breaks and/or bounces back out.
184** [[EnergyWeapon Thermal Discouragement Beams]], giant lasers that were apparently installed to keep office workers from [[DisproportionateRetribution leaving their desks]].
185** Propulsion and Repulsion Gels, which were originally conceived as [[{{Squick}} dietary aids]] despite the latter containing an element that "does not like ''the human skeleton.''"
186** And finally Conversion Gel, which literally just paints surfaces white so portals can be put on them. Any old white paint would have sufficed, but no, Aperture Science felt the need to make the white pigment out of ''crushed moonrocks'', complete with implications that not only did the obviously enormous cost of procuring said rocks bankrupt the company, but also that a major character developed terminal pneumoconiosis as a result of it.
187** Basically, it can all be summed up with a quote from Aperture founder Cave Johnson:
188--->''""Science isn't about WHY. It's about WHY NOT. Why is so much of our science dangerous? Why not marry safe science if you love it so much? In fact, why not invent a special safety door that won't hit you on the butt on the way out, because you are FIRED!"''
189* The Egg Dealer from ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'' is a prime example of this. It's essentially a slot machine on wheels that attacks by rolling the slots to cause various effects (dropping bombs, summoning MechaMooks, etc.). But Shadow can use his homing attack on the slot buttons to trigger them manually and cause effects that benefit himself, like causing Dr. Eggman to target himself with a missile barrage, fall on his own bombs, or ''trigger Shadow's SuperMode''.
190-->'''Eggman:''' [[OhCrap N-n-n-no! Not Shadow Fever!]]
191* Awesomemod (a mod for ''VideoGame/TheSims3'') has a configuration setting called "[=ExplodeInBFBVFS=]", which allegedly causes your game to explode in "a big fiery ball visible from space". [[spoiler:All it really does is display a funny message when you try to run the game, and then immediately quits.]]
192* The final level of ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'', Final Fortress, is set on the flagship of Eggman's giant flying armada. For some reason, it has a bunch of giant self-destruct buttons lying around that destroy sections of the ship when pressed. The first time Team Sonic press one, Tails openly wonders why Eggman would build all these self-destruct switches in the first place (in the English dub, [[BlindIdiotTranslation this is butchered into]] "Wonder why it self-destructed?").
193* [[BigBad Evil]] MadScientist Sludge Vohaul in ''VideoGame/SpaceQuestIIVohaulsRevenge'' is kept alive by a life support system equipped with a single button that, if pressed, turns it off ''immediately'' with no apparent [[FailsafeFailure failsafe]]. Furthermore, it's placed deep ''inside'' the workings of the machine where nobody can normally reach it, but inconveniently small foreign objects that get inside ''can''. Vohaul may, in fact, have a death wish, since he's also working on a ''shrink ray'', which he uses on someone that has no trouble ''killing him''.
194* In ''VideoGame/SpongeBobSquarePantsBattleForBikiniBottom'', Plankton builds a machine to create himself an army of robots. Unfortunately, they end up [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters turning against him]] because he had the machine set to "Don't Obey" instead of "Obey". [[spoiler: It then turns out the machine made a robot in his image which becomes part of the final boss fight.]]
195* In ''VideoGame/SteelBattalion: Heavy Armor'', the SelfDestructMechanism is located next to the switch for the headlights. Which would be a problem even '''if''' the controls weren't complete garbage.
196[[/folder]]
197
198[[folder:Web Animation]]
199* In ''WebAnimation/BarbieLifeInTheDreamhouse'', Barbie's MasterComputer, Closet, has a button that can change it from a helpful servant, to a power-hungry tormentor. No-one among Barbie's gang can remember why Closet has such a button, not even its inventor, Ken.
200* A ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' cartoon reveals that the "Multi-function dragon" has a number of scales that, when hit, cause the dragon to do a number of tasks. And there's one labeled "instant death" that simply kills the dragon (which the King of Town's Knight hits by accident). True, it's a living creature and not a machine, but the end result is more-or-less the same.
201* ''WebAnimation/TeamNeighborhood'': The main plot of ''Cable Calamity'' is kicked off when a drunk [[VideoGame/DeusEx JC Denton]], on a mission to destroy the internet, mistakenly hits the button labelled "Destroy Only The BLU Team’s Internet".
202[[/folder]]
203
204[[folder:Webcomics]]
205* ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'' give us this gem: "[[http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/21p70/ You just cut the elevator?! What are you doing?!]] [[LampshadeHanging Why is there even a button for that?]]"
206* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', upon learning that the gate in Dorukan's dungeon that Elan destroyed was one of five seals on an EldritchAbomination's prison, Vaarsuvius [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0278.html questions the logic]] of having a SelfDestructMechanism. (There is a reason, namely to create a NoMacGuffinNoWinner scenario rather than risk allowing the forces of evil control of said abomination.)
207* In ''Webcomic/BobAndGeorge'', it's revealed that several of Dr. Light's robots have [[MoralityDial Good/Evil switches]] for no obvious reason. Bass, not having been created by Dr. Light, instead has an Evil/Stupid switch (which is [[TheDitz firmly in the "Stupid" position almost all the time]].)
208* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', a NoFourthWall [[http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=304 strip]] reveals that the cartoonist has a button to turn himself and anyone nearby into busty cheerleaders. His minion is unclear on why that button exists. Also, it seems cartooning is more exciting than one might expect.
209* ''Webcomic/HomestuckBeyondCanon'' opens on a ship that has, among other things, a shooting range and a large number of fully stocked drinks cabinets...but no landing gear. Dirk is rather disgruntled to learn that the only way to land the thing is a controlled crash. (For bonus points, their most qualified pilot is [[HandicappedBadass Terezi, who's completely blind but can "see" through scent]].)
210* The artistic variation shows up [[https://starslip.krisstraub.com/20061025.shtml here]], in ''Webcomic/{{Starslip}}''. Vanderbeam, alone on the ship, is trying to calm down and forget about ghosts, so he goes around looking at art. He looks at Edward Munch's ''The Scream'', [[AuthorAppeal Henri Fuseli's]] ''Nightmare'', and [[FamousFamousFictional Hox Torvus']] ''Vanderbeam Being Eaten by a Ghost'', prompting this:
211-->'''Vanderbeam:''' Heavens, why did I ever commission this piece?!
212* ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'':
213** [[https://www.xkcd.com/1590/ The "high-pitched hum generator"]], apparently the source of that humming noise some people can hear in what would otherwise be a silent room. The AltText lampshades this.
214** [[https://xkcd.com/2139/ Email Settings]] has settings such as auto-replying to emails even when you are not on vacation, using only non-ASCII characters, or hiding important mails.
215[[/folder]]
216
217[[folder:Western Animation]]
218* In ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' Stan dies and goes to Heaven, and tries to use his gun to threaten people into sending him back to Earth. Everyone laughs at the idea that they could be harmed in Heaven...until Stan steals an Angel's "Heaven Gun" which CAN kill anyone. As he runs out, one guy questions why they have those.
219* ''WesternAnimation/AvengersAssemble'' In "Mojoworld", Mojo's hoverchair is disabled when Hawkeye hits a completely unprotected circuitboard on its underside. Hawkeye immediately lampshades the poor design.
220* Parodied by Creator/CartoonNetwork with a ''WesternAnimation/{{Birdman|1967}}'' short (link [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPKymEC_Hss here]]). Falcon 7 asks why Birdman allows [[LoyalAnimalCompanion Avenger]] on his console, while Birdman insists he's "fully-trained" and demonstrates by ordering Avenger to press the Coffee button...which is right next to the Doomsday button. [[spoiler:He gets the coffee, but accidentally hit the Doomsday button too.]]
221* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand'' where Buzz was being hunted by the Shape Stealer, [[DemonicPossession a creature that could possess anyone]], Commander Nebula had him hide in the Master EscapePod. Unfortunately, the creature had taken control of Buzz, and used the pod's ManualOverride to lockdown Star Command and cause it to self destruct. The look that Mira gave Nebula when he explained the pod had master control over the station was priceless.
222-->'''Commander Nebula''': Well, {{it seemed like a good idea at the time}}!
223* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/CareBearsAdventuresInCareALot'', Grizzle takes over Care-a-Lot using the Caretaker II, a belly-badge-stealing ray that can turn invisible. Naturally, it gets lost while invisible, and while looking for it, Grizzle warns his minions not to press [[BigRedButton the blue button]] that releases all the belly badges, complaining that he never should have installed that button.
224* Some examples from ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'':
225** Recurring teenage villain Cree explained that the only reason she escaped from a prison spaceship was because one of the pilots accidentally pressed the "Blow Up the Engines" button during a fight over trading cards.
226--->'''Cree:''' Who else but a bunch of stupid kids would put a "Blow Up the Engines" button on a spaceship?
227** In another episode, the ice cream MonsterOfTheWeek is defeated when Numbuh Three [[ImMelting turns on the heater in the ice cream factory]]. Quote The Delightful Children from Down the Lane:
228--->'''DCFDL''': A HEATER!? Who puts a HEATER in an ICE CREAM FACTORY?!
229* In the episode of ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'' where [[MultipleHeadCase the three-headed son]] of the chicken from outer space appears to take revenge on Courage, one of the attempts was a complex {{Rube Goldberg|Device}} [[RubeGoldbergHatesYourGuts booby trap]] that lead to Courage being ChainedToARailway while the three-headed son came at him on a train. Courage managed to save himself by throwing a track switch, after which the three heads looked over the plans and wondered why in the world that was included in the trap.
230* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'':
231** The opening credits show the FreakLabAccident which gave Danny his powers occurred because the Fenton Portal has an "On" button ''inside'' the portal.
232** [[SadlyMythtaken Pandora guards her box so no idiot can release its evil contents]], so why does she have a release switch?
233--->'''Pandora:''' I knew that "spew" switch was going to come back and haunt me.
234* A few examples from the ''WesternAnimation/{{Dilbert}}'' cartoon:
235** Lena's Depruner prototype happens to have "decapitate" button on it. This ends up going badly for her when Alice traps her inside the Depruner and presses the button to do exactly that.
236--->'''Leena:''' I knew I shouldn't have added that option.
237** Zigzagged with a voice-operated temperature changer Dilbert installed in his shower. While he calibrated it to respond only to his voice so that [[{{Jerkass}} Dogbert]] cannot mess with it while he's in there, it reacts to ''any'' number he says, regardless of context, which Dogbert takes advantage of by commenting that the device's voice sounds like "the computer from that stupid movie", and trying to remember its name, tricking Dilbert into say "It was ''Film/TwoThousandAndOneASpaceOdyssey''", with expected results.
238--->'''Dogbert:''' On the plus side, you look very clean.
239* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/EekTheCat'', a professor built a rocket ship to Jupiter, and he told the astronauts that before launch they must make sure the absurdly huge switch is set for Jupiter and not the sun. One character asked, "Why is that even there?"
240* ''WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewSchool'' naturally has taken the infamous "wrong lever" from [[WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewGroove the movie the show spun off from]] and turned it into a RunningGag, the results of which are [[DifferentInEveryEpisode different almost every time]], ranging from Yzma being crushed by falling objects, to pulling the school's fire alarm, to absolutely nothing (which prompts Yzma and Kronk to take the stairs to the secret lab instead).
241* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': In the episode [[Recap/TheFairlyOddParentsS2E5ActionPacked "Action Packed"]], Timmy wishes his life were more like an action movie, and finds himself thrust into a {{Troperiffic}} adventure to stop Jorgen von Strangle from draining the magic of other fairies (including his fairies, for that matter) to make himself stronger. Naturally, the machine he uses to do this has a "reverse" settings that sucks the magic back out of him and restores the fairies he drained.
242-->'''Jorgen:''' [[BigNo NO!]] Why did I put a reverse switch on it?!\
243'''Timmy:''' 'Cause this is MY movie!
244* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' had Professor Farnsworth's glow-in-the-dark nose making machine. About halfway through the episode, he prepares to insert a note from Leela's parents into it to analyze it and hopefully translate it. This exchange took place:
245-->'''Fry:''' Isn't that the machine that makes noses?\
246'''Professor:''' It can do other things! Why shouldn't it?
247* From the ''WesternAnimation/HarleyQuinn2019'' episode "Dye Hard", during a fight in [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Wayne Tower]], Harley finds a gun and doesn't realize what it is until she fires it at a mook. For some unfathomable reason, it turns out it's a "Cancer Ray". ''[[BlackComedy A gun that causes cancer]].''
248-->'''Mook''': Harley Quinn... you gave me cancer?!\
249'''[[EvenEvilHasStandards Harley]]''': ''(dropping the gun in disgust)'' [[LampshadeHanging Why would they even make this!?]]
250* [[Franchise/MastersOfTheUniverse He-Man and She-Ra]]'s [[ChristmasEpisode Christmas Special]] shows Orko launching a rocket that's manipulated by one easily breakable lever.
251* ''WesternAnimation/IronManArmoredAdventures'': Killer Shrike's flight tech is directly linked to his wrist blasters. After Iron Man smashes the blasters, he points out to the plummeting villain what a bad idea that was.
252* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'': The Lorwardian Motherships' engines have an "off" switch.
253--> '''Warmonga:''' Long have I questioned the wisdom of that accursed switch!
254* ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR'': Sometimes Coop can't even make sense of his own designs. Some examples:
255** Megas has 3 buttons labeled "Destroy the world", "Smite the world" and [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill "Destroy the world, worse"]], and one button labeled "Save the world". Guess which button is needed? Guess which one is missing from the control panel?
256** Megas is low on oil in one episode, so Coop literally wrings the grease out of several cheesesteak sandwiches directly into a small tube that refills the tank. The gauge goes from "Empty" --> "Need a little" --> "Almost There" --> "Enough" --> "No really, I'm fine" --> and ''"PLEASE STOP!"''
257** Similarly, one of Megas' temperature gauges goes all the way up to "GOOD CRIPES!"
258* ''[[WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse Mickey Mouse Works]]'':
259** One ''Mickey to the Rescue'' segment features Mickey trying to untie Minnie from some railroad tracks before she gets run over by Pete's locomotive. After his attempts to free her [[EpicFail end up getting them both tied]], Mickey ends up using his tail to pull a nearby switch that diverts the train just when it was about to hit them.
260-->'''Pete:''' Oh, I ''knew'' I shouldn't have put in that second set of tracks!
261** Another short from ''House of Mouse'' had a portable carwash that for some unknowable reason included a switch with the settings "wash car" and "destroy car." You can guess what Goofy accidentally does at exactly the wrong time.
262* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'': Most of Dr. Doofenshmirtz's inventions have some sort of reverse, or self-destruct function, especially when this would make no sense. Some examples:
263** In "The Monster of Phineas-n-Ferb-enstein", Dr. Doofenshmirtz's ancestor builds a device to make a potion that will make a person "Evil-Er". For some reason it also has a "Fairy Princess" setting.
264** In "Hail Doofania!", the RoleSwapPlot episode, the Rainbow Generator features a SelfDestructMechanism.
265--->'''Ferb:''' You know, in retrospect I questioned the inclusion of a self-destruct button in the first place.
266** In ''[[WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerbTheMovieAcrossThe2ndDimension Across the 2nd Dimension]]'' Doofenshmirtz mentions he once deployed an army of robots and hid the self-destruct buttons on their feet. Guess how the robots were defeated. To contrast this, the alternate Doofenshmirtz never put anything like that on his machines which has led to his success in taking over the Tri-State Area and is unpleasantly surprised to find out his alternate self would add something so dumb as a self-destruct button to the inventions themselves (he ''did'' have a self-destruct button for his army of robots but it was on a remote control).
267** According to Phineas, the reason the Other Dimension-inator didn't work the first time was that the self-destruct button was causing the machine to stop working just by being installed.
268** In "Finding Mary [=MacGuffin=]", Doofenshmirtz spends an entire episode looking for an on-off switch so he can activate his latest [[ThingOMatic -inator]]. It turns out that all the -inator does is open the cage that he had trapped Perry in.
269** In "Candace Gets Busted" Doofenshmirtz builds a Go-Away-Inator which spins a wheel of locations and sends whatever it's pointed at away. Near the end of the episode it sends a group of people into Doof's pants. It turns out that that "My Pants" setting was there because he confused the -inator's wheel with his dry-cleaning wheel.
270--->'''Doofenshmirtz:''' [[VoodooShark Wait, why do I have a dry-cleaning wheel?]]
271** In "Phineas and Ferb Hawaiian Vacation", Doofenshmirtz puts a molecular-scale control panel on his De-Evolution-Inator, which comes in handy when he needs to use it on himself after turning himself into an amoeba.
272** In "A Hard Day's Knight", Doofenshmirtz and Perry fight each other in giant robots. Doof's is a dragon which can breath fire...but the cockpit is in the dragon's mouth.
273--->'''Doofenshmirtz:''' [[LampshadeHanging That was a stupid design.]]
274* ''WesternAnimation/RandyCunninghamNinthGradeNinja''
275** Jerry Driscoll built a death ray with an adjustable blast radius as part of a contest. He was disqualified because no one was willing to test if the "universe" setting worked.
276** Viceroy designed the [[MechaMooks Robo-Apes]] with a "[[StrikeEpisode Strike Mode]]" and an "[[TheBerserker Ape Mode]]".
277* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'', Rocko and his friends are trying to fix his car, but are unable to despite trying everything. Until Filbert notices the car has a "fixed/broken" switch on the under the hood that's currently set to "broken".
278* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/Rugrats1991'', Stu builds a doll-making machine, only for the dolls it makes to turn out wrong (i.e body upside down, legs attached to head, arms at wrong end). It's later revealed during Tommy and Chuckie's adventure in the basement that the reason for this was because [[HadTheSillyThingInReverse it was set in reverse]], which Tommy inadvertently fixed when he held the lever for ballast to grab Chuckie and ended up setting it into 'Forward'. Still, one has to wonder [[FailedASpotCheck why Stu never noticed that error]], let alone put a forward/reverse lever on the machine in the first place.
279* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
280** The "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E5TreehouseOfHorrorIII Treehouse of Horror III]]" segment "Clown Without Pity" features a murderous Krusty doll: "Yep, there's your problem. Somebody [[MoralityDial set this thing to evil]]."
281** The "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS16E1TreehouseOfHorrorXV Treehouse of Horror XV]]" segment "The Ned Zone" features Ned desperately trying to stop Homer from pressing a button in the nuclear plant that makes it explode and destroy Springfield. [[spoiler:Ned is given no other choice than to kill Homer, but even ''that'' doesn't stop him from pressing the button.]]
282** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS20E3DoubleDoubleBoyInTrouble Double, Double, Boy in Trouble]]", Bart sets a bunch of Roombas from "off" to "malevolent sentience". They promptly go on a mini-rampage.
283* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': Chef gets a new TV with a "Human Eradication Mode" which, if selected, causes the TV to grow limbs and laser guns, and attempt to wipe out the human race.
284* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': Plankton equips his [[MobileSuitHuman Robot Mr. Krabs]] with a Penny-Powered SelfDestructMechanism.
285-->'''Plankton:''' Coin-operated self-destruct? Not one of my better ideas.
286* The trope image comes from ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'' episode "[[Recap/TransformersG1BOT B.O.T.]]", which is about the Decepticons trying to rebuild Bruticus because he is supposedly the only one big enough to use their gigantic superweapon (even though they still have both Devastator and Menasor). Despite the Decepticons' success, the Autobots manage to foil their plans and destroy it. How do they do this? The B.O.T. presses a button on a ''human-level'' control panel clearly marked "OVER LOAD" [''sic'']. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin True to its label]], [[SelfDestructButton it overloads the superweapon and makes it explode]].
287* ''WesternAnimation/WabbitALooneyTunesProduction'': After some failed attempts to remove skunk stink off himself, Wile E. Coyote invents a machine to suck all the stink molecules off his body. [[HopeSpot While the machine initially works as intended]], Wile E. finds out too late that he forgot to install an off switch. We see that the later stages of the machine involve ''tearing apart and reassembling the user''. To add insult to injury, the released stink attracts a group of skunks that climb in through the top (implying that other small animals can sneak in as well), before the malfunctioning machine overloads and explodes.
288-->'''Wile E. Coyote:''' It's working, you can turn it off now!
289-->'''Bugs Bunny:''' Uh... there is no off button.
290-->'''Wile E. Coyote:''' [[BigWhat WHAT?!]]
291-->'''Machine:''' STAGE 2 COMMENCING
292-->'''Wile E. Coyote:''' (LoudGulp)
293* All of the vehicles in ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' have features that no sane person would ever include in acar, such as the Compact Pussycat's automatic personal grooming facilities. But, then again, no one ever accused the Wacky Racers of being sane.
294[[/folder]]
295
296[[folder:Real Life]]
297* Many heating devices can reach temperatures far beyond the point where they stop being useful. Some hot tubs get hot enough to kill people, while some toasters get hot enough to burn any type of bread into a hunk of charcoal. This is both handy and intentional for 240 volt heating appliances, however, in case they end up being used in a three phase circuit: Line to line voltage on a 3 phase circuit is only ''208 volts'', meaning there is a serious reduction in power (for example, a 2400 Watt 240 Volt device, when plugged into a three phase circuit, can only crank out 1800 Watts[[note]]Power equals voltage squared divided by resistance, and heating appliances are essentially big resistors that get hot[[/note]]) and that surplus of heat is [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools suddenly a lot more useful]].
298* Car speedometers often go higher than is safe to travel in the car in question, or is designed to read velocities that the car isn't even capable of reaching. In both cases it's fully justified. For the former, driving a vehicle at its maximum speed for any length of time (redlining) will drastically shorten the lifespan of the car and can burn out the engine, so they are designed with much higher speeds than what would be practical to prevent this. For the latter, often there is one type of speedometer which has to cover a whole range of cars. There's also the fact that it's ideal to have the most common max speed (like 50 or 60 mph) near the top of the speedometer, which makes it relatively easy to see without taking your eyes off of the road for too long. Part of the reason is also ego stroking to the drivers, who on average reported greater satisfaction with their car when the speedometer ranges significantly beyond what the car can actually do than a speedometer that goes up to its engineering limit, all other aspects of the car being the same; the (false) notion that the car ''could'' go 200 mph since that's how high the speedometer goes makes the driver think their car is awesome.
299* Volume controls often go much higher than is ever practical. In some cases, this is simply to prepare for uncommon usage, while in other cases, maximum volume would actually blow out the speakers.
300* Computer keyboards:
301** One desktop PC keyboard from around 2000 had special keys to turn the computer on and off, so you wouldn't have to reach down, fumble for the switch, etc. Of course the keyboard drew its power from the computer, so the "On" key never worked. The "Off" key didn't have that problem, but it was in the upper right corner, and thus very easy to hit by accident.
302** Up to this day, keyboards, especially compact keyboards, utilize all this pesky unused space above the arrow keys by placing power control buttons... [[DamnYouMuscleMemory where the Print Screen, Insert or Delete button would usually go]]. Constantly shutting the computer off (often losing unsaved files in the process) gets frustrating enough that some users ''tear out those keys''.
303* An inversion of this contributed to the Apollo 13 accident. While emptying a cryogenic oxygen tank using a heater, the dial used to watch the temperature did not go above the expected maximum, and as a result no one knew that the temperature was getting significantly higher and damaging some equipment.
304* Tandy computers had a button that functioned as "Escape" (ESC) on modern computer setups, only it was called "break", because it broke whatever loop a program was stuck in. On the Tandy Platform/ColorComputer 3 it was even bright red, leaving many uninformed users to be terrified to touch the button for fear the button was something that would break your computer. ("Break" is still on your keyboard - it's usually a secondary function on your "pause" key.)
305* The first incarnation of the Platform/AppleII computer had the "reset" button right above the "enter" key. Since the "Enter" key is pressed more often than any other key, and the "reset" button will instantly hard-reboot your computer, this caused some problems.
306* Military equipment typically comes with a scuttle mechanism to destroy it when capture is imminent (generally by triggering a thermite charge - the "scuttle charge" - on top of the case). This is occasionally confused with the "Battle Short" switch on military equipment which may conceivably be used as a scuttle mechanism, but that's not its primary purpose: what it does is short out all the breakers and governors, allowing you to run the equipment over its rated maximum power. This is useful in combat when having your equipment overload is preferable to getting hit with high explosive, but if you leave it engaged in other circumstances you are likely to have a bad day.
307* Zawinski's Law of Software Envelopment-- Every program attempts to expand [its features] until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.
308* There is a software development practice called gold plating: continuing development past the point where extra effort is really worth the value. This usually results in adding extra features that the customer did not request, in hopes that any extra effort will be noticed. This is considered bad management practice, because even in the event that the customer is glad to see these features (which is not guaranteed!), he will not pay extra for them (since adding things without request and then demanding money is a type of fraud) while the developers' time is wasted on developing these features and continuing to support them anyway. There's also the potential for the extra features to cause a bug that interferes with usage of the requested features.
309* Microsoft Office got a little out of control with its EasterEggs in the 90s, to the point of falling into this trope. Excel 97 contained a ''flight simulator'' that could be accessed by performing a long series of actions in a spreadsheet. Microsoft later banned this practice for worry of complaints regarding their products taking up extra disk space for such features - and because an EasterEgg which increases the complexity of a program for no real reason can result in additional bugs, not to mention you probably don't want your programs to contain potential backdoors which wouldn't typically come up in beta testing.
310* If you frequently use any chat where Enter=submit message, odds are you'll end up submitting an incomplete message at least once because you hit Enter when you meant to hit the apostrophe or were trying to put in a line break.
311* The [[http://www.stupidhackathon.com/ Stupid Shit No One Needs & Terrible Ideas Hackathon]] is, as the name might imply, all about producing completely worthless and absurd nonsense. Participants have produced such gems as "[=NonAd=] Block" (blocks all content except ads) and "Outcognito Mode" (publicly tweets everything you do).
312[[/folder]]

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