->''Your Honor, I move that I be disbarred for introducing this evidence against my own client''
-->-- '''Hyperchicken Lawyer''', ''{{Futurama}}''

->''If the facts are against you, pound on the law. If the law is against you, pound on the facts. And if both are against you, pound on the table!''
-->-- '''Legal aphorism'''

->'''Mad Hatter:''' Oop! I'd like that last statement stricken from the record, please!
->'''Joker:''' Record? Is someone supposed to be writing this down?
-->-- ''BatmanTheAnimatedSeries, Trial''

The case is going against the defendant, and the defense attorney suddenly starts making penguin noises, discussing his sex life with TheJudge, or pulling sex toys out from under the defendant's chair.

The more desperate the case, the more likely the defense attorney uses such antics.

Maybe he’s stalling for time while an associate tries to find the evidence that will show who the [[ClearMyName real killer]] is, or maybe he’s finally just flipped under the strain of the case.

Either way, expect him to be allowed to go on making a mockery of the legal system for far longer than any reasonable Judge in RealLife would allow without having him jailed for contempt. To say nothing of the high chance he would be severely disciplined if not disbarred as soon as the nearest Bar Association ethics panel heard about it.

Often, this antic will result in a PenultimateOutburst.

'''Typical Courtroom Antics:'''
* DisregardThatStatement
* MakeTheDogTestify
* ThePerryMasonMethod
* PlanBFromOuterSpace
* SmokingGun
* SurpriseWitness
* ThatWasObjectionable
* ChewbaccaDefense
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* In ''The KentuckyFriedMovie,'' a court skit features a prosecutor who pulls out a large, floppy dildo and waves it threateningly at a witness, inquiring "Are you aware of the penal codes in this state?"
* ''{{Chicago}}'': This is Billy Flynn's entire law practice. Courtroom antics, Press conference antics, and probably an example on every sub-page of this index.
--> '''Billy:''' As long you keep them waayyyy off-balance/They'll never spot, you got no talents/Razzle-Dazzle 'em/And they'll never catch wise.
* ''DuckSoup'' has a version in which the MarxBrothers are performing courtroom antics not to prevent/assure convictions, but simply because their characters are...well...[[CloudCuckoolander who]] [[CrazyAwesome they]] [[RuleOfFunny are]]. Cases in point: offering the witness bets on whether there's a conviction; sustaining objections on the grounds "I couldn't think of anything else to say either"; and an IncrediblyLamePun or two.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

*''RumpoleOfTheBailey'' has, in extremis, produced the occasional really impressive CourtroomAntic. In "Rumpole and the Last Resort", he secured an adjournment in spite of an unsympathetic judge by collapsing and dying right there in the courtroom. (It was the season finale, too, so we couldn't be ''entirely'' sure he hadn't been KilledOffForReal.)
** I think it was this that lead to one of the greatest plays on words in TV history (when it's revealed he didn't die): "You all thought I'd kicked the bucket, but really I'd only turned a little pail (pale)."
** You know that standard "We had our differences, but respected each other" speech people give when their worst enemy dies? Rumpole actually ''[[RefugeInAudacity stood up and said thankyou]]'' after this was delivered by [[strike: Judge Bullingham]] the Mad Bull.
* The ''{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Making Money'' has a trial in which our hero, Moist von Lipwig, currently acting chairman of the bank, is on trial for the unexplained disappearance of nearly ten tons of gold. He's very nervous about a former accomplice of his threatening to reveal that he is, in fact, [[BoxedCrook a former con artist]] who had been hanged under an assumed name, and has a slightly guilty conscience as he submits to questioning, when he sees a small dog ([[PetHeir the actual chairman]]) wander in while sitting down and wagging its tail. These are both happening at once because the dog is holding in its mouth its favorite toy - a huge chewy [[ItMakesSenseInContext vibrator]] - which has turned itself on and whose vibrations are ''propelling the sitting dog backwards across the courtroom floor and out of sight'' while everybody tries desperately not to notice and offend the Patrician. Lipwig reasons that a world in which this can actually happen in the middle of a court is a world which can handle him acting as chairman of a bank, and proceeds to [[WashingtonGambit confess everything about his backstory]].
* Several chapters of [[EightBitTheatre Brian Clevinger]]'s novel ''NuklearAge'' are devoted to a lengthy courtroom fiasco. For starters, the heroes' (who are being prosecuted by their arch-nemesis) lawyer happens to be their nemesis' boyfriend, the entire jury is made up of [[JokerJury people whose lives the heroes have ruined]], and the judge is a bloodthirsty man named [[HangingJudge Hangemall Letgodsortitout]]. It needs to be read to be believed.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* ''{{Law and Order}}'' had Jack [=McCoy=] go off on an increasingly hostile rant made up mostly of revealing evidence that was inadmissible so he could get a mistrial and try the case again if/when the body was found. He did get in trouble for it (contempt of court) so it was a bit of a falling on his sword moment.
** An {{SVU}} episode had the prosecution trot out a child witness (whom they had no intention of actually forcing to testify) for the sole purpose of having him dramatically react to the defendant's (his own father) presence. The judge let it fly without so much as a jury instruction to disregard.
* ''{{Ally McBeal}}'' had [[OnceAnEpisode one of these per episode]].
* ''ThePractice'' used it somewhat faithfully.
** ''BostonLegal'', its spinoff, uses it ''obsessively.''
* A rather amusing version from ''TheTenthKingdom'' has Virginia exclaim, after Wolf has practically incriminated himself while being grilled by the Judge, "Your Honor, my client is suffering from post-menstrual tension!"
** Not to mention Wolf's memorably existential self-defense: "Ohhhh, I'm twisting everything I'm saying!"
* Pretty much the entire point of ''ThisIsWonderland''. Courtrooms have seen arguments (not always in English), violence, spoken-word poetry, a fake heart attack, car theft from the courthouse's parking lot, mixups with defendant's names, shouts of “Boo!”, the outbreak of true love, and the occasional FreudianSlip. Judge Maxwell Frasier, who has been known to threaten arrest for this sort of behaviour out of anyone other than himself, would often yawn loudly while people he didn't like were talking, call a recess because he was hungry/bored, or go crazy and scream.
* Inverted in an episode of ''{{Frasier}}'': a mental competency hearing for a wealthy old man, in which Frasier is appearing for the defense, is going very well for Frasier, who is acting like a consummate professional -- until the defendant's senility kicks in and he chooses that moment to start acting like a train conductor, including punching 'tickets' (the judge's notes and Frasier's tie) and announcing arrivals. However, a milder example of this trope played straight appears with Niles, who is appearing for the plaintiff and, as the proceedings are being televised, is playing up to the cameras outrageously. The judge is still quick to tell him off about it, however.
* In an Episode of ''{{Blackadder}} Goes Forth'', George, as a defense lawyer, calls the prosecution lawyer as a witness.
-->'''George''': Do you believe Captain Blackadder is the sort of man who habitualy disobeys orders?
-->'''Darling''': Yes.
-->'''George''': Oh. I was rather hoping you'd say "no".
**The incompetence of George's Courtroom Antics doesn't make much difference though; given that he has already been found guilty of wasting the court's time for bothering with a defence at all and Darling later calls the ''judge'' as a witness (with a lot more success, since he's also the wronged party) this is KangarooCourt at its most blatant.
** The [[WitchHunt Witchsmeller Pursuivant]] episode of series one has the Witchsmeller [[MakeTheDogTestify bring in Edmund's horse]], Black Satin and first decide its silence means it has something to hide, and then when it says "Neigh" he doesn't believe a word of it, bring in a dog which he claims is Edmund's son, and accuse Baldrick of being a witch for saying that carrots don't grow on trees. Maybe it's just because he was playing a sick man, but BrianBlessed isn't the [[LargeHam biggest ham]] in that episode.
*''{{Lost}}'': Kate's trial in "Eggtown" hinges partly on SurpriseWitness (Jack) and even more on Surprise Lack-of-Witness (when Kate's mother is not available to testify.)
* ''NightCourt'' practically runs on this trope, from the Judge of all people.
* Harm shot off a ''sub-machine gun'' in a courtroom once in ''{{JAG}}''.
** Noteably, he actually lost that case, though [[ContinuityNod boy did it get referenced a lot after that]].
* In the {{Red Dwarf}} episode "Justice", Rimmer is arrested for the murder of the entire crew of Red Dwarf barring Lister (including [[FridgeLogic himself, if you think about it]]. Kryten is his lawyer at the subsequent trial, and his defense involves proving Rimmer is too stupid and incompetent to hold enough responbility for any deaths.
** ItMakesSenseInContext, the evidence against Rimmer is that he turely believes he's responsible according to a mind scan; the defence is showing both that Rimmer is the kind of person who think its his fault even when it isn't and he couldn't actually be responsible.
* The Court scenes in ''ArrestedDevelopment'' invariably call upon this trope. Notable examples include Michael throwing a bible at the opposing attorney to prove she wasn't blind, and calling upon GOB's puppet as a witness.
**Although the latter example took place during the filming of "Mock Trial with J. Reinhold". Considering the jury was a house band, "William Hung's Hung Jury," calling Franklin to the stand was not exactly ridiculous. That and the whole not a real trial thing.
* Hardison's performance as a lawyer on ''{{Leverage}}'' was full of this. He started by bringing in a massive amount of information so boring and irrelevant that the judge was falling asleep, when by that point she should definitely have been demanding an ''actual justification'' for why it was important. Then he discredited his opposition's expert witness by bringing up the fact that he was on the no-fly list, which he only knew by hacking into their database and so had no proof of, and claiming that [[YouFailLogicForever if the government didn't trust him to fly how could they trust his testimony]]. The judge ignored their objection and didn't give so much as a DisregardThatStatement.
* ''{Bones}}'' occasionally devolves into this when the characters have to actually get convicted. Notable events include Caroline objecting because she found something offensive, and Angela taking the First Amendment "which protects freedom of assembly, and that includes friendship." In the last case, though, she was actually jailed for contempt of court.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Theater ]]

* Defense attorney Henry Drummond ''calls the prosecutor to the witness stand'' in ''Inherit the Wind.'' This actually ends up becoming Drummond's CrowningMomentOfAwesome. This was based on the real cross-examination of William Jennings Bryan by Clarence Darrow from the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* Done a lot in the ''Gyakuten Saiban'' series of games (better known in the states as ''AceAttorney''); the first game alone has the protagonist using all of the above tricks. There's a twist in that Phoenix himself (a defense attorney) maintains a level of professionalism, but many of the prosecutors do not. In the first game, Manfred von Karma practically intimidates the judge into letting him run the courtroom; in the second game, von Karma's younger daughter Franziska (also a prosecutor) tries to cow the judge, the witnesses, and even the defense by smacking them with her whip, even going so far as to whip poor Phoenix ''unconscious'' after losing case 2; and in the third game, prosecutor Godot throws his scalding hot coffee across the room in a fit of pique several times. Ironically enough, Phoenix himself often gets berated by the judge for much less.
** Not to mention that all of Godot's responses tend to consist of bizarre philosophical tangents, most of them about coffee. Also, whenever the judge mentions that he's ready to render judgment or something like that, Godot cuts him off with 'I'll be the one to pass judgment, old man!' ... Yeah.
** The tradition continues into the fourth game, which has an entirely new cast. Of note is the main prosecutor, who doubles as a rock star. At one point he even doubles the 'penalty' (damage) the player will receive by ''air guitaring.''
** See [[http://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic1-100107.php here]] for an excellent example of Franziska's whipping-ness.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

* Richard of ''LookingForGroup'' went through something like this, with the twist that he's on trial for ''not being evil enough''. He killed ''[[http://lfgcomic.com/page/157 everyone]]''.
* The following from one of ''{{Irritability}}'''s early strips:
-->'''Judge''': Even if you ''did'' have yout fingers crossed, you can't lie under oath!
-->'''Chappy''': You don't understand you fat old bastard, I ''totally'' had them crossed!

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* ''SouthPark'' skewered it with the "ChewbaccaDefense" ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense]]) in the episode "Chef-Aid".
* ''{{Duckman}}'': Duckman resorts to desperate measures such as accusing a witness of being Japanese and acting generally ridiculous. "A-HA! You ASSUME! But everyone knows that when you ASSUME... (pulls out a chalkboard) uh... wait, there's some kinda trick to this..." Eventually his nonstop insanity causes the real culprit, King Chicken, to [[ThePerryMasonMethod confess]] rather than have to listen to him any longer. What makes this particularly funny was the fact that Cornfed actually got Duckman acquitted before he used these tactics.
* On the short-lived ''ClerksTheAnimatedSeries'', Randal calls a series of "surprise witnesses" during Dante's trial. All of the witnesses are directors of movies Randal didn't like, and he demands refunds from each of them. After he's finished, the witnesses leave, without ever saying a single word that has to do with the trial's actual proceedings.
* Subverted on ''{{Futurama}}'' where increasingly outrageous antics (the DEFENSE calling the JURY as a witness, then is later instructed to "disregard its own testimony") and requests ("Your Honor, I know the case is closed and you've rendered your verdict, but I want to testify") are met with the judge simply saying "I'm going to allow this."
** Double subverted in the same episode. The judge even says "I'm going to allow this" when the attorneys do things that are completely conventional, such as cross-examining a witness.
* Parodied on ''TheSimpsons''; while stalling for time in Bart's suit against the makers of Itchy and Scratchy, Lionel Hutz decides to call all his surprise witnesses ''again'', to groans from people in the court; the group includes RalphWiggum, a Santa Claus in a cast, and Billy & Benny [=McCrary=], the "world's fattest twins".
* ''HarveyBirdmanAttorneyAtLaw'' is chock full of these.
* In one episode of ''{{Rugrats}}'', Angelica sues her parents for feeding her broccoli. Once in court, she instantly wins over the judge, calls her doll Cynthia and her stuffed zebra as witnesses, and the jury awards her all of her parents assets without even deliberating. It turns out that the episode was AllJustADream of Drew's.
* Lampshaded in KingOfTheHill when Hank is at a workman's comp hearing after being accused of faking a back injury because he was photographed after Yoga cured him. He asks permission to call in a suprise witness (his Yoga instructor, who proceeds to prance around, accuse the officials of having bad energy, and hit on the secretary) leading the chairman to remark that they'd never had anyone call in suprise witnesses before. PlayedStraight several times with [[RightWingMilitiaFanatic Dale Gribble]], who defends himself in a drug case by rejecting the courts authority because the American flag has the wrong trim, convinces Hank to fight his wrongfully incurred bill for renting pornography by accusing [[PlanBFromOuterSpace a vast artificially intelligent computer network known as "The Machine"]] of attempting to defraud him, and when representing himself in a case against his cigarette company calls himself to the stand as a witness in a scene that looks like a cross between [[ThePerryMasonMethod Perry Mason]] and [[LordOfTheRings Gollum]]
* Animaniacs had an episode where Dr. Scratundsniff gets a parking ticket and the Warners defend him in court to contest. Examples include holding up a badger to the witness and telling another witness that they "shouldn't swear, its not nice," after having asked if they swear.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* TruthInTelevision, as anyone who still pays attention to JackThompson knows. Subverted in that he actually got disbarred for it.
** Aside from his videogame-related shenanigans, this is also someone who once introduced dozens of pages of gay porn into evidence--pages which were then put directly into the evidence database.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Lea_Houston Temple Lea Houson]] fired two pistols into the ceiling, scaring the jury and causing them to flee the courtroom. He said to the judge that he did it to "prove his client's fear of the victim's 'incredible speed' of gunfire". [[{{CrowningMomentOfAwesome}} He then successfully argued for a mistrial, as the jury wasn't sequestered.]]
* The above example in the Scopes trial (prosecutor called to the witness stand by defense) is not unique. It happened to prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi in the Manson trial (this was deemed justified by Bugliosi having also been very involved in the investigation of the case).
* I'm pretty sure a lot of courtroom tropes from before the 1980's originated in the trial of Bruno Hauptman who was accused of kidnapping and murdering Charles Lindbergh, Jr. The defense was paid by William Randolph Hearst in exchange for working half-heartedly and betraying his client's confidences (the lawyer also received nightly visits of NYC showgirls with Champagne, curtsey of Mr. Hearst), a whole string of surprise witnesses who tended to contradict their own testimony and their statements to police, women fainting after pointing to Hauptman, and a judge who did absolutely nothing to reign in on the prosecutor's (who was also the Attorney General of New Jersey) excesses and violations of procedure (both wanted to use the case to advance their political careers). [[{{SoYeah}}]]
----
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