Line #97 Main/IslandHelpMessage


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4	[[quoteright:314:[[Series/MythBusters https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Island_Help_Message_1540.png]]]]
5	[[caption-width-right:314:"I reject your page image and substitute my own."]]
6
7	A character(s) stranded on a DesertedIsland (or a desert) builds a message with sticks and/or stones for a passing plane to see. It usually reads "HELP", although "SOS" is common as well.
8
9	Frequently parodied by the character writing a much longer message than necessary, mispelling a word, or having some other wacky problem.
10
11	This is TruthInTelevision, as any large and apparent ground-to-air signal can attract the attention of an aerial search. Many people are unaware that the international symbol is a clear X shape.
12
13	SisterTrope to MessageInABottle. Related to DesertedIsland.
14
15	----
16	!!Examples:
17
18	[[foldercontrol]]
19
20	[[folder:Advertising]]
21	* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8M8xqlZNa8 this ad]] for Greenies dog dental treats, a shipwrecked man tries to get the attention of a passing plane by waving both arms and spelling out "HELP" with large sticks. Unfortunately for him, his dog took a stick from the "P", making the pilot think he's just saying "HELLO" minus an "L". The latter says "Hello!" back, waves, and flies off.
22	[[/folder]]
23
24	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
25	* In ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'', the trio write "SOS" on the beach of the DesertedIsland they are stranded on.
26	* In one novel of ''Anime/ReadOrDie'', Yomiko gets trapped on a desert island. There is a picture of her on the beach with her rescue message. "Send Books!" Of course, as a PaperMaster, given enough reading material, she could probably make herself a way off the island.
27	* In the first ''Literature/FullMetalPanic'' story arc, Sousuke creates a large fire spelling 'A67 ALIVE' as Mithril's satellite is passing over the area so that his allies know that Angel (Kaname), Urzu 6 (Kurz), and Urzu 7 (Sousuke) are alive after being cut off from the extraction team. Tessa responds by sending Sousuke the Arbalest, which enables them to save themselves.
28	[[/folder]]
29
30	[[folder:Comic Books]]
31	* ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'': In one Creator/CarlBarks one-page Scrooge [=McDuck=] strip, Scrooge is stranded on a small island spells out "Help" on pieces of paper hanging on a clothesline. When help doesn't arrive, he replaces the letters with money, and suddenly, an armada of all sorts of boats (including a kayak and a submarine amongst others) appear around the island.
32	* PlayedForLaughs in the ''ComicBook/MonicasGang'' story "Sand, Sea and Surprises" in which Monica and Jimmy Five get stranded on what they think is a deserted island. At one point, while Monica looks for food, Jimmy Five decides to write a message on the sand with a few twigs... and ends up forming a Monica caricature.
33	-->'''Monica:''' You were going to write "help"!\
34	'''Jimmy Five:''' ''Wight''! But then I thought... [[LampshadeHanging Anybody can]] ''[[LampshadeHanging wwite]]'' [[LampshadeHanging "help"!]]
35	[[/folder]]
36
37	[[folder:Comic Strips]]
38	* PlayedForLaughs in a ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' cartoon in which the message says "HELF" and the passing pilot consequently decides it's a false alarm.
39	* One ''ComicStrip/{{Foxtrot}}'' arc has Roger take Peter and Jason on a HorribleCampingTrip[=/=]MachoDisasterExpedition. When he tells them to build a fire pit, he tells them they're doing it wrong, as the stones are in an S shape. The next bird's eye view panel shows they've written "SEND PIZZA".
40	[[/folder]]
41
42	[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
43	* In ''WesternAnimation/Madagascar1'', Alex first builds a Statue of Liberty, but it burns down ([[Film/PlanetOfTheApes1968 "You maniac!"]]), and later, "HELP," [[SignsOfDisrepair but the branches from P fall]], forming "HELL."
44	* ''WesternAnimation/YogiBearAndTheMagicalFlightOfTheSpruceGoose'': Dread Baron and Mumbly write it at the island where the heroes meet them.
45	[[/folder]]
46
47	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
48	* In ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'', the survivors form the word "HELLO" from sheets and curtains on the field next to their hideout. [[RuleOfSymbolism We see it first before they finish the O.]] They get rescued by Finns.
49	* Done again in ''Film/TwentyEightWeeksLater'' where we see American forces pressure-washing off a message on a roof which read "Alive in here!". They probably weren't.
50	* Creator/DickVanDyke creates one out of coconuts when he gets to the island in ''Film/LtRobinCrusoeUSN''. Problem is, by the end (when he really needs it), the coconuts have been covered in sand, and he is being chased by the irate islanders... Fortunately the pilot in the plane overhead rightly assumes him to be a non-native specifically because he is clearing coconuts spelling "HELP" in the sand with a palm branch.
51	%%* ''Film/CastAway''.
52	* A variation in ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice''. In the "Must there be a Superman?" montage, a family is shown sheltering on the roof of their house surrounded by rising floodwaters. Painted on the roof is a large "S" logo. Needless to say, Superman answers the call.
53	[[/folder]]
54
55	[[folder:Literature]]
56	* Played straight in Creator/JoeHaldeman's early ''Franchise/StarTrek'' novel [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_Judgment "Planet of Judgment."]] When Captain Kirk's survey party is trapped on a planet without means of communication, they lay out a series of symbols once used by stranded airmen to communicate with the Enterprise.
57	* In ''Literature/TheMartian'' Mark considers spelling out messages with rocks for the Mars-orbiting satellites to read as a last resort, in Morse code because dots and dashes are easier to make. [[spoiler: After Pathfinder's radio is fried he does that.]]
58	* During the Korean War arc of ''The Corps'' novels, shot down airman Pick Pickering tries to signal for rescue by tromping out PP in a rice paddy followed by an arrow in whatever direction he's planning to travel that day every morning. This is noted by people looking at aerial recon photos, but before they can send a rescue party, he stumbles upon a column of NATO soldiers on the march and gets rescued by them.
59	* ''Literature/UseOfWeapons''. Cheradenine Zakalwe has been attacked and seriously wounded, and stumbles around apparently at random until it's revealed at the end of the chapter that he was spelling out a distress signal for the Culture spacecraft orbiting above.
60	[[/folder]]
61
62	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
63	* ''Series/DoctorWho'': While stranded at the start of the Twentieth Century, Yaz, Dan, and Professor Jericho leave one around the Great Wall of China for Karvanista who along with the Lupari fleet is protecting Earth in 2021. Karvanista sees the message but it only annoys him, as he doesn't have a time machine so what's he supposed to do about it?
64	* This has been a challenge in several seasons of ''Series/{{Survivor}}''.
65	* ''Series/{{Lost}}'': In the episode "SOS", appropriately enough, Bernard gets frustrated that the other survivors have apparently given up and accepted their fate, so he decides to build one of these signs. [[spoiler:Bernard abandons the sign after his wife Rose reveals that being on the island has cured her terminal cancer, and if they leave, she'll die within months.]]
66	* Played with in ''Series/{{Friends}}''. The gang is trapped at a rest stop somewhere in upstate New York and Joey writes "help" in sticks on the snow. Only he spells it "pleh" so the guys in the planes can read it.
67	* In part 2 of ''Series/LittleBritain Abroad'', Lou spells out a large sign which reads "Help...we are in a bit of a kerfuffle."
68	* ''Series/GilligansIsland'': Upon hearing a radio broadcast that a NASA capsule is crossing the south Pacific (presumably within eyeshot of their island), the castaways try writing "SOS" in burning logs to get their attention. [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption As usual]], Gilligan does something that angers the Skipper, and he chases Gilligan across the message, rolling the logs around and distorting the message. When the astronauts fly by, they see the message: "SOL", the name of the mission leader, and assume it's a "You're awesome!" message. Skipper punished Gilligan by making him write "SOS" a zillion times on a chalkboard until the Skipper felt he had enough.
69	* ''Series/HogansHeroes'': In one episode, Hogan tricks Klink into calling a nighttime fallout rollcall. After all are accounted for and the men are allowed to be at ease, Klink lets the [=POWs=] have a smoke. What Klink doesnt know is that the men are arranged in the form of an arrow, the glowing cigarettes showing an American bomber overhead the correct way to go for their target.
70	* ''Series/IDreamOfJeannie'': In the pilot, spacecapsule wrecked astronaut Tony Nelson makes one, inadvertantly using Jeannies bottle as part of the last S.
71	* The final ''Series/{{MASH}}'' episode has a variant of this, when B.J. uses a bunch of rocks to tell Hawkeye "GOODBYE".
72	* As part of the tasks they had to complete in the "stranded on an island with nothing but duct tape" episode of ''Series/{{Mythbusters}}'', Adam and Jamie had to create a signal for help. They ended up with a huge SOS on the beach made of strips of duct tape held down with rocks.
73	* Averted in the 1985 Australian mini-series ''Series/AThousandSkies'' where the help message the crashed aviators write in the desert sand is a [[CasualDangerDialogue request for more cigarettes]] (as their crash made national headlines, anyone looking for them already knows they're in distress).
74	* ''Series/Watchmen2019'': Adrian Veidt does a particularly nasty version of this trope by killing ''hundreds'' of his {{Expendable Clone}}s, using their bodies to spell out an appeal to be rescued on the surface of Europa that can be seen by a passing satellite.
75	[[/folder]]
76
77	[[folder:Video Games]]
78	* Played with in ''VisualNovel/AceAttorneyInvestigationsMilesEdgeworth'' when Edgeworth and Kay are trapped in the kidnapper's hideout. Examining the paint causes Kay to suggests they write "HELP" in giant letters with it. Edgeworth comments that with them being in a building no one would see it, causing Kay to then suggest they set the paint on fire, so that they cause someone to think a crazy arsonist is about and call the cops. Edgeworth just shoots down this suggestion with a silence.
79	* In ''VideoGame/DeadIsland'', one of the early sidequests is completing a "HELP" message spelled out of boxes, which was abandoned because the zombies attacked while they were building it. The same happens to you when you try it.
80	* One of the things you can choose to do in ''Dyscourse'' is helping Teddy build a driftwood SOS. When you get back to camp Steve asks if Teddy's sure he spelled it right.
81	* In the original ''Survival Kids'' game (the series that went on to become ''VideoGame/LostInBlue''), the way to get the quickest ending was to build one of these on the beach. You'd then get rescued. (It is, of course, a long ways from the Best Ending, which you need to unlock New Game Plus mode--in which your character rescues the other child on the island, befriends them, the two of you escape on a Lost Technology ship, and grow up to get married.)
82	[[/folder]]
83
84	[[folder:Webcomics]]
85	* In ''Webcomic/PicturesForSadChildren'', Creator/DavidFosterWallace writes a [[http://www.picturesforsadchildren.com/index.php?comicID=122 help message]].
86	* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', Elan [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0696.html writes a message]] in the desert for Girard if he scries their location:
87	-->'''Message:''' [[RougeAnglesOfSatin Help! There's a epic soresirer litch comming to take you're Gate!!1! Luv, Elan]]\
88	'''Roy:''' ...So, are you planning on...\
89	'''Vaarsuvius:''' There will be a proofing stage, yes.
90	[[/folder]]
91
92	[[folder:Western Animation]]
93	* ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'': Linda goes for a flying lesson in the "[[Recap/BobsBurgersS4E3Seaplane Seaplane!]]" episode and it turns out that the instructor likes to fake an emergency landing near a remote island then seduce his female students with a picnic of wine and cheese that just so happens to have. After the seaplane floats off, Linda makes a help message out of the wine bottles that he left from his previous visits.
94	-->'''Linda:''' Sheesh, this island's seen a lot of emergency landings.
95	* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', Bender is one rock short of forming the word "Help". Zoom out to see his message is much longer than that.
96	-->''TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: I, BENDER, BID YOU HELLO! YOU DON'T KNOW ME, THOUGH YOU MAY HAVE HEARD OF ME, BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT. LONG STORY SHORT... I NEED HELF''
97	** In another episode, "T: The Terrestrial", Fry gets stranded on Omicron Persei 8 and Lrrr's son Jrrr leads him to a tech dump filled with advance communication equipment; of course rather then using the tech to call home, Fry aligns them to spell out SOS. By an unbelievable stroke of luck, Bender ends up spotting Fry's message from Earth.
98	--->'''Bender:''' SOS? Those are the letters that Fry knows!
99	* There's an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheJetsons'' wherein George and the Space Cubs of Troop 54 get stranded in the wild untamed area of the moon, and Spacely's son fires off flares that read HEPL. George reads it aloud, and the kid, realizing his mistake, fires another flare that strikes out his typo and corrects the last two letters so it does say HELP when all is said and done.
100	* Hilariously {{parod\|y}}ied in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/CowAndChicken'' where Cow and Boneless got stuck on the roof of Cow and Chicken's house. Cow spots a helicopter flying by and starts writing something with ripped out roof tiles... Which turns out to be "My cousin and I were playing catch but I tossed him too high, we got stuck on the roof and now we need [runs out of space]" The pilot reads all this, goes "Need what?" and distractedly crashes onto a tree.
101	* ''WesternAnimation/TheCritic'''s parents were stranded on a South Pacific Island once; [[CloudCuckoolander His father]] spelled out a message on the beach, which was acted upon by a CrazyPrepared rescue crew: "Need Gin."
102	* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' features a similar joke to the ''Futurama'' example mentioned above except with sharks.
103	* {{Parodied\|Trope}} in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'', when Brain and Binky are waiting to be picked up by their parents.
104	-->'''Brain:''' [[DiscussedTrope Binky, that only works for a plane, not a car]].
105	* A channel bumper for ''WesternAnimation/IAmWeasel'' featured Weasel and Baboon stranded on a deserted island; Weasel gets rescue by using black and white stones to form the Creator/CartoonNetwork checkerboard logo.
106	* In the ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'' episode "Whatever Happened to Della Duck?", Della, trapped on the Moon, writes a lenthy SOS message in scrap, but it gets destroyed by the Moon Mite. She has just enough scrap left to turn the surviving "S" into a "$", which she thinks should get Uncle Scrooge's attention. It probably would have if [[YankTheDogsChain the moonmite hadn't interfered]].
107	* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'': When Gumball and Tobias are stuck on a rooftop and see a nearby helicopter, they attempt to write a help message--using their own bodies. It didn't work because their message ended with a question mark (''NEED HELP?'').
108	[[/folder]]
109
110	[[folder:Real Life]]
111	* In 2015, a 63 year-old British tourist called Geoff Keys got lost in the Australian outback. He was found after a search helicopter spotted the message "HELP 2807 -->" (the latter parts was the date and an arrow pointing in the direction he was travelling) that Geoff had carved in into the sand.
112	* In 2024, three mariners in their 40s were stranded on Micronesia's Pikelot Atoll, and were discovered and subsequently rescued after a maritime surveillance aircraft spotted the word "HELP" that they spelled out with palm fronds.
113	[[/folder]]

Context Main / IslandHelpMessage