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Mechanacles: Stay away from that lever!"
Aladdin: Why?
Mechanacles: It'll destroy my precious invention!
[Aladdin puts both hands on lever]
Mechanacles[writing on scroll]: Never tell enemy which lever will destroy invention.
The activation control of choice for any truly powerful effect, usually located dead center on the control console, sometimes under a molly-guard .
Pressing the Big Red Button activates the function of a given machine that is important to the plot, be it firing the superweapon, activating the Self Destruct Mechanism, or emergency shutdown.
In live action, this will often be the only control big enough to make out on camera. In animation, this will often be the only control, period. (At least the only one that's not painted on the background layer.)
Sometimes, it's used as an excellent piece of Schmuck Bait to lure someone into a trap by making it Forbidden Fruit; tell someone not to press it, list all the negative side effects it will cause and all the terrible consequences if they do press it, and you can almost guarantee they will press it.
Of course, if you don't tell them about it, they might walk right up to it and discover by experimentation the answer to the question " What Does This Button Do?"
Almost every piece of factory equipment or freestanding power tool sold in the real world has an actual Big Red Button. It is always an emergency shutdown or power disconnect, intended to save the life of the operator or bystanders by stopping the machine in a big hurry. In nuclear reactors, this is referred to as a SCRAM Switch.
It is not, however, found in real-world examples of certain weapons.
See also The Really Big Button That Doesn't Do Anything complete with a whole lot of quotes that contemplate its mystery.
Or this button you Must Not Press. Or this one, for that matter. Or this one. Or... the one among this mess.
Examples
Anime
- In Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, the firing button for the God Phoenix's bird missiles is big and red and Condor Joe, being the team's gunner, just loves to push it. To emphasize that, the button has a glass cover that retracts when the missile system is armed, but sometimes Joe doesn't wait and punches through it to push the button.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion has one of these, and it might be one of the more realistic things in the series in that it's an emergency shutdown switch for the Eva. Not that it ever seems to help.
- Lampshaded in a strip of Ah my Goddess where Skuld write under a Big Red Button "don't push" of course, Urd want badly to push it because it's staten do not do so. Skuld finally write "push it" do avoid her sister using it. It ends up by Belldandy pushing the button.
- In Gao Gai Gar, Final Fusion is initiated with one of these.
- In Wandaba Style, Susumu always gets his experiments started by exclaiming "Wandaba Style A Go!" and pushing a large button labeled "Wandaba."
Commercials
Film
- Spaceballs has a Big Red Button on Spaceball One that triggers the self-destruction of the ship. Lone Starr knocks Dark Helmet into it, setting off the countdown to the big boom. The bad guys later try to stop the self-destruct sequence with a second smaller, yellow button, only to find it's out of order, prompting Dark Helmet's cry of "Even in the future, nothing works!"
- Oddly, said button seems to be in the guard barracks!
- Also, it seems to be behind glass, so obviously you have to be really certain you want to blow up your base.
- While not as big as most, the button to activate the LTD's turbo engines in Men In Black definitely qualifies. "Remember the little red button? Push the little red button."
- In the classic sci-fi film Forbidden Planet, the Big Red Button is a switch that, when thrown, initiates a chain reaction that will destroy the planet.
- None of them gets much fanfare, but both of Syndrome's consoles have Big Red Buttons. One of them launches missiles, the other launches the rocket.
- In Undercover Brother, Conspiracy Brother pushes a button labeled "Atomic Core" and starts a Self Destruct Mechanism that will destroy The Man's headquarters.
- "Let's see what this so called button does!"
- In Austin Powers International Man of Mystery, Dr. Evil's lair has a button that, when pressed, aborts the nuclear-armed probe that will cause all of the world's volcanoes to erupt simultaneously.
- James Bond examples:
- In Goldfinger, the button that activates the James Bond car's famous ejector seat is under the stick shift. Guess what colour the button is?
- In Dr. No, there's a big red wheel on the wall in the title Big Bad's nuclear reactor control room labeled "Danger Level." Bond turns it to overload the reactor.
- Two in You Only Live Twice: One pushed by Bond to destroy the SPECTRE space ship, one used by Blofeld to activate his base's Self Destruct Mechanism.
- In The Chronicles Of Riddick, some bounty hunters coming in for a hard landing on a planet are told to hit the "Party Poppers" by their leader. Said "poppers" are basically retro-rockets on strings, much like a drag chute. The relevant button is simply named "Party Poppers".
- In Cats Don't Dance, Darla Dimple finds all her other efforts to ruin the animals' big musical number flummoxed by way of her being the villain of the picture. Then, she throws a Big Red Button (er...switch) bigger than she is, labelled "Granddaddy of All Switches"...which sets off all manner of fantastic special effects, making the performance that much more spectacular.
- In the 2008 film Iron Man, Tony Stark activates the untested flight system for the Mark I to fly away from the terrorist camp by punching the big red button on his arm.
- The Millennium Falcon has one of these to activate its hyperdrive, natch.
- And the van in Fanboys (a Star Wars homage) has an exact duplicate of the Falcon's Big Red Button, which activates the engine's nitro cylinder.
- In Attack of the Clones, Padme hilariously appears to press the same big red button twice in order to activate two different functions: first to forward a message from Obi-Wan to Coruscant, then to pull up a map of Geonosis.
- Alien: Resurrection. Liquid helium sprays activated by a Big Red Button are set up to control the aliens in their cells. Unfortunately the Mad Scientist fumbles at removing the pin and raising the mollyguard in time to stop the aliens escaping. One alien is clever enough to deduce the connection between the sprays and the Big Red Button, which serves to bite the ass of a security mook.
- In the beginning of the film The Crawling Hand a hysterical astronaut begs the main characters at command central to "Push... the red... Button!" They do, and it blows him up.
- Lampshaded in Monsters vs Aliens. There were two- one launched all of America's nuclear weapons, an identical one right next to it made coffee.
- Students at this Troper's college made a whole (short) movie on this premise. A wacky psychologist takes seven children and places each of them in a (separate) big white room that contains absolutely nothing except a big red button and a sign that says DO NOT PUSH. A timer counts down from four hours, and of course, every child pushes the button, although one does so with 20 seconds left before the timer goes off.
Literature
- This was parodied in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. When Arthur Dent encounters an inviting Big Red Button and pushes it, a sign lights up saying "Please do not press this button again." Later in the book, Arthur encounters a different button labeled, "This is probably the best button to press."
- Subverted in Douglas Adams' The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. Dirk Gently's I Ching calculator is supposed to be able to answer any question by consulting internal references to the I Ching if the user has his question in mind and presses the red button. There is no red button, but there is a blue button marked "red".
- In the Russian novel Death or Glory by Vladimir Vasilyev, the main character finds a mysterious black box with a big red button on it. He muses on how cliché the situation is, but knows that he will press the button no matter the consequences, simply because it must be pressed. This ends up being a "blessing in disguise" of sorts. While their colony is destroyed, the characters manage to elevate humanity to a greater status in the galaxy.
- As in the Evil Overlord List, the Star Trek Deep Space Nine novel Valhalla had Bashir push a big red button on an abandoned alien ship, only to have one of the other characters tell him about a race which wires up its big red obvious buttons to a fatal electric shock to prevent exactly this situation.
- Lampshaded heavily in Discworld where it is explained that no matter what a big red button always attracts attention and that even if you tell everyone the dire consequences of pressing it and even putting up a sign to warn them off, SOMEONE is going to press it JUST to see what it does.
- Especially if they're a wizard.
- The Richard Matheson short story Button, Button features a stranger who offers a couple a box with a red button in it. Push the button, they are awarded a hefty sum of money... and someone they don't know dies. The short story was made into a Twilight Zone episode (also called Button, Button) in 1986, and into a 2009 film starring Cameron Diaz, James Marsden and Frank Langella (The Box).
- A non-technological predecessor: In C.S.Lewis' The Magician's Nephew when Diggory releases the white witch. There is a gong with a sign that urges the viewer to strike it, "Or wonder till it drives you mad, What would have happened if you had".
Live Action TV
- The Firefly episode "Out of Gas" features a jerry-rigged Big Red Button to call Serenity's shuttles back in the event of a miracle. When Mal gets his miracle, he goes to hit the button, but collapses before he can, though luckily the ships came back anyway.
- In the 2005 Doctor Who Christmas special, the villains have a literal Big Red Button that activates the hostage-killing mechanism. The Doctor presses it himself, citing the allure of Big Red Buttons That Must Never Ever Be Pressed — and reveals that (he had deduced) the threatened hostage-killing mechanism was just a bluff.
- In the 2009 Easter special "Planet Of The Dead", the Doctor tells Christina to deactivate the security forcefield by pressing the big red button (right above the forcefield).
- This was played completely straight (with lots of unintentional humor) in an episode of The X Files, First Person Shooter, where a video game development company had a literal big red button to erase all data on their computers. You know, in real life people go to great lengths to have backups, especially when developing something as expensive and work-intensive as a game, but apparently in The X Files universe accidental evil AIs with physics-breaking abilities are an ever-present threat that justify installing a big red bankruptcy button.
- In an episode of Father Ted, Dougal is unfortunately confronted with one of these while visiting the cockpit of a jumbo jet.
- Episode six of the UK version of Who Wants To Be A Superhero had a challenge with this labled "Do not touch", though it didn't actually do anything. Some of the superheroes actually pressed the buttons thinking it was the method to win the challenge (to save the world, or a model of it anyway).
- Mighty Morphin Power Rangers had Lord Zedd bring out a spacegoing, especially humongous Humongous Mecha every so often. The planetwrecking Wave Motion Gun was triggered by a Big Red Button.
- Battlestar Galactica. A red-lit button is used to release the outer doors of the Viper launch bay, as seen in several execution scenes.
- Derren Brown is a British hypnotist/magician who specialises in messing with other people's minds. In one episode of his Trick or Treat series, he locked a young woman in a room with a Big Red Button which said 'Do Not Press.' The button was connected to a cage, and in the cage was a cute little kitten. Derren Brown told her that pressing the button would fatally electrocute the kitten, and if she could go for just 5 minutes without pressing the button, she'd get a cool £500.
- With one second left, she pressed the button. The kitten didn't die, however, as Derren had been lying about that.
- Solitary is a Reality Show where contestants are eliminated when they are tired of torturing themselves. Guess how they signify this.
Radio
- The Imagination Station in Adventures in Odyssey activates at the press of "The Red Button". It was changed to "The Flashing White Button" for one episode due to the machine having been rebuilt but it has been "The Red Button" ever since.
Video Games
- Pokemon plays with this kind of thing in Red/Blue. The player is prompted as to whether or not he wants to push the buttons he finds in Team Rocket's hideout. Choosing yes makes the game reply, "Who wouldn't?"
- Maniac Mansion has a Big Red Button at the bottom of the pool, with the warning "Do not press!" written above. Of course, this troper just had to find out what the button did, and ended up detonating the mansion in the process.
- Blasto has an interesting version of this; pressing a large button with the sign "Do Not Press" displayed above it will result in Blasto getting disintegrated by a lightning bolt.
- Pandemonium also uses this, in the level Fantabulous, there exists a button (though green) with "Press this button" printed above it. Kicking the button triggers an alarm and flashing red lights, the camera pans up to see "DON'T!" spray-painted in red above it, and the air station proceeds to count a self-destruct. The button turns red. Pressing this button is a must anyway, as it opens a path to escape the air station.
- Comically obvious in Brain Dead 13, which has a huge and very convenient self destruct button sitting on the Big Bad's doomsday device.
- Portal has the "Fifteen Hundred Megawatt Aperture Science Heavy Duty Super-Colliding Super Button". The biggest red buttons ever (until somebody makes a mecha-sized one).
- The first Ratchet And Clank had a level that, if this troper recalls correctly, took place in a spaceship. On the console in the bridge is, of course, a big red button. What makes this more notable than most is the fact that the Action Command when you approach it is, word for word, "Push the big red shiny button?" It's the self-destruct, of course.
- Mimiron, in the new World Of Warcraft has one of these that sets off his vehicles self destruct mechanism. Press it and win, you get more loot.
- However, it also covers half the room with fire, causes him to go into a frenzy that increases the damage of everything he uses, gives him several methods of combatting said fires that also hurt you if you happen to be in the wrong place, and finally, places a timer on how long you have to kill him before the room goes kablooey. good luck.
- In Sins Of A Solar Empire, the TEC Starbase can be upgraded to have the big red button. With the second level of this, the starbase explodes in a sizable area (More than the range of most attackers), causing enough damage to kill all but high leveled, full HP capital ships.
- Mass Effect has no actual buttons but lampshades this trope anyway if Tali is in the party on Noveria. When Mira is explaining the the neutron purge, Tali will provide immortal line:
Tali "Don't press big red buttons.
- Independent game Liberal Crime Squad allows you to push a "big red button" in a nuclear power plant to release waste in to the environment. The catch is you need a character with the right skill to push the big red button.
- Conker Bad Fur day use this, the mechanical boss' weakness is a Big Red Button on his back.
- In Evil Genius, one can be used to trigger a Death Trap. Popping up out of the ground with a big sign that says "Do Not Press", it compels low-willpower enemy agents to press it anyway, which activates whatever trap you've linked to it.
- Pajama Sam 2: Thunder and Lightning Aren't So Frightening gets the game rolling with this trope. The titular protagonist pays a visit to the factory that apparently is responsible for the world's weather, with the intent to stop the thunderstorms that have been creeping him out so much. He gets an explanation that enlightens his viewpoint almost right off the bat, but he trips on his cape, causing him to fly into and press a giant red button on the control panel; said button inexplicably causes partial destruction of the factory. Sam ends up with the responsibility of locating the missing parts, a task that covers the rest of the game.
Web Animation
Web Comics
- From the always-surreal The Unfeasible Adventures of Beaver and Steve: in this instalment of the story arc, "The Revenge of the Shoe Goblin", the day seems to have been anti-climactically saved... but then Steve spots a Big Red Button marked "Self Destruct Mechanism, for use only in case of anti-climax"... and the inevitable happens, with the result that planet Earth gets stomped by a size 6 billion shoe, and humanity is wiped out. Again. Thanks a lot, Steve.
- Subverted in Dan And Mabs Furry Adventures, with the shiny button that decorates the keyboard of Jyrras' main computer.
- Subverted in this Exterminatus Now comic
Virus: Quick! Let's hit the Self-destruct and get out of here!
Lothar: Dude, real evil labs don't have 'Self-Destruct' systems in their control room. What, did you expect a big red button marked SELF-DESTRUCT: DO NOT PUSH?
*Aforementioned button is displayed*
Lothar: Son of a crap?!
Virus: Told ya *press*
P.A. System: You have activated the decoy Self-Destruct system. Please remain where you are. Armed guards will arrive immediately to capture you or shoot on sight, depending on their mood. Real evil labs don't have Self-Destruct systems in their control rooms. What are you, stupid?
Virus: Dammit!
Lothar: Hah! I win! Wait, shit.
- Played with in this Cyanide and Happiness comic.
- Adventurers!: "TO STEAL BIG THING PRESS BUTTON"
- From College Roomies From Hell, one word: NIRVANAAAAAAAAAA!
- In The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob, Bob encounters a Big Red Button so big he has to jump up and down on it to activate it.
- In SSDD the fission reactor on the Britannia had a "scram" button that stopped it dead, unfortunately the Inlay that sabotaged it ripped that button out before the protagonists had the chance to press it.
- In this xkcd comic, it shows that given the consequences for pulling the big lever, a regular person will learn not to pull it. An engineer or scientist on the other hand will pull it again, ostensibly to learn whether it happens every time.
Western Animation
- Coop's Big Red Button in Megas XLR. Its label and effect would change depending on the situation, like when Coop yells "Maybe you'll like this better, then!", the button is actually labeled "This Better Then". He even has a button labeled "Big Red Button of Irony".
- A couple episodes draw attention to this, in fact. One episode had the button marked "Five Minutes Until End of Episode," activating a brand-new power that saves the day.
- Another episode had Coop use it twice, for two different results. The second time, it's labeled "The Exact Same Button Coop Used Like Five Minutes Ago."
- Still better, Megas does, in fact, have a "Save the World" button (right under "Destroy the World", "Smite the World", and "Destroy the World Worse".) But it's been removed.
- He also has a button that is simply titled "The Button", which has the following warning posted around it: "Danger", "Do Not Touch", "This Means You!", and "NEVER EVER PRESS". Said button launches an entire arsenal of nukes from Megas, though Kiva stops him from using it (to which he replies "What's the point of having nukes if I never get to use them?")
- Cadet Stimpson is forced to guard the History Eraser Button in The Ren And Stimpy Show's "Space Madness" episode. He eventually caves to the pressure of the voice-over announcer◊ and pushes the button, erasing history.
- Johnny Bravo
Man: No! Don't press that button!
Johnny: (pause) Aw, now I got to.
- WALL-E ends up pushing the big red button repeatedly to stop his doomed escape pod, with no visible result. Well, there were some...
- In Dexters Laboratory, Dee-Dee was fond of pushing the Big Red Button that would wreck one of Dexter's inventions or otherwise cause trouble. A vapid "Oooh! What does THIS button do?" became her main Catch Phrase. One would think that eventually, Dex would learn to stop putting Big Red Buttons on everything he builds.
- In the pilot for the obscure, short-lived cartoon Madballs, Freakella correctly guesses that this is the button to press in order to start Glob and Dweeb's ship:
- In the Looney Tunes short Designs for Leaving, Daffy Duck equips Elmer Fudd's home with "time-saving gadgets" operated from a push-button control panel. The panel includes one Big Red Button which Daffy warns to never touch. At the end of the cartoon, curiosity gets the better of Elmer and he pushes it. A display lights up reading "In case of giant tidal wave", and the entire house rises up hundreds of feet over the ground. Daffy arrives by helicopter and says "For a small price, I can install this little blue button to get you down."
- Parodied in Family Guy; Peter finds himself in front of a big red button with accompanying sign reading "DO NOT PRESS THIS BUTTON". When he presses it, the only observable result is an elderly Asian black belt who enters the room, bows to Peter, and then kicks him in the crotch.
- Lampshaded in the Tom And Jerry movie in which our cat and mouse heroes are attempting to stow away on a river boat and Tom is searching wildly for the start button. Jerry says that he should push the red button because "It's always a red one!" The push it aaand... yup. It is the start button they were looking for.
- Apparently there was a Big Red Button in Kim Possible which Shego employed.
- Bonkers lampshaded this trope after a criminal toon told Bonkers not to push a very obviously hazardous-to-himself-and-his-human-partner big shiny red button, citing that it's a built-in rule for cartoon characters to push big red buttons once it's pointed out - making it a literal Rule Of Funny.
- Played with in Monsters vs. Aliens: the President has two big red buttons, non-labelled and put side by side: one launches all of America's nuclear weapons, and the other activates the coffee machine. In a credits tag, one of the other characters asks for a cup of coffee from the President, who proceeds to press the wrong button.
- Used in prett much every episode of Phineas And Ferb, by Dr. Doofensmirtz, to to the point that he laments in one episode "Someone always finds my self-destruct button."
- In "Hail Doofania!", Phineas and Ferb build a big red self destruct button on their rainbow generator. Naturally, it gets activated, which prompts Ferb to comment, "In hindsight, I question the logistics of including a self-destruct button in the first place."
- An episode of Gerald Mc Boing Boing has the family buy a car. Gerald's dad sees the car has a big red button (alright it wasn't that big but it was red) in the car and presses it, activating an ejector seat.
- From the Donkey Kong Country episode "The Big Chill Out":
K. Rool: With my KCCBM, we'll be up to our tails in Coconut Chills before you can say "Blast off!"
(Klump pushes the big red button and launches the KCCBM)
Kritters: Hooray!!
K. Rool: I wanted to push the big red button!!
Klump: But you said "blast off" and I didn't get to say anything!
Truth In Television
- The (in)famous Stanley Milgram experiment instructed participants to press a button (though it wasn't big and red) that they were told would deliver an electric shock to a human victim. In spite of clear warnings written on the switches and vocal complaints from the victim, most people pressed the button repeatedly when the experimenter told them to do so.
- The "electrocutions" got progressively worse, with the victims (who were merely voice actors in another room) eventually screaming in horrible agony, and then finally going silent to imply that they had been killed.
- Be honest, here people. If you saw a Big Red Button clearly marked "Don't Push!!" wouldn't you push it? I know I would, just out of curiosity.
- British artist Damien Hirst has spoken of an exhibition he will never be allowed to mount: it would consist of a big red button and a "Do Not Press" sign. If anyone did give in and press it, a boxing glove would come out and puch them in the face.
- While my life is free of Big Red Buttons, when I encounter something Never To Be Used my policy is to break it. Or throw it away. "The best way to avoid temptation is to physically avoid temptation."
- Then after getting shocked, what you would do next depends on what kind of person you are.
- When color programming was introduced in German television, there was an actual big red button that the Chancellor of Germany was supposed to push in order to switch on the new technology. Of course, the technicians behind the scenes were a little trigger-happy and turned on colour transmission shortly before he actully pushed it, ruining the effect... for those few people who actually had color TV sets at that time.
- The New York Stock Exchange has a Big Green Button that triggers the bells that signal the opening and closing of business. The Exchange invites guests to press the button almost every business day. Guests include representatives of corporations on the company's first trading day, political officials and foreign dignitaries.
- One of the computer floors this troper has access to has many red buttons and switches. Most mainframes, storage arrays and tape robots have one. We tend to refer to them as "carreer-ending buttons/switches". However, the
best worst one is located near the exit and is actually green: It cuts the power to the entire computer floor. (The red one there just activates the fire suppression system, still not a smart thing to do without a good reason though.)
- At the chemical plant where this troper works, there is literally a big red button in each control room that acts as the emergency stop for that section of the plant. It sits on the wall about six feet up, and it is so stiff that you need to punch it. However, it is real and you get fired if it goes off without good reason.
- For a 2009 diplomatic visit to Russia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brought a big red reset button (connected to nothing) that she would offer for a Russian official to push, symbolically forgiving previous tensions. Of course, the Russian word printed on it that was supposed to read "Reset" didn't.
- This troper once worked at an amusement park running rides. The emergency stop buttons (the ones that would cut power to the ride and potentially leave children stuck up in the air) were big and red on every one of them.
- Most modern elevators have a Big Red Button, which may be an emergency stop or a fire alarm. Surprisingly, most elevator riders seem to be able to keep their hands off it.
- It's the curiosity that makes us push it, whether because we don't know what it does or because a sign says not to. If the button says 'EMERGENCY' we can figure what it does so we don't need to push it; We know it's not going to do anything cool - it'll probably land us with a fine.
- There is also one in every escalator. I personally pressed it several times when I was young. But same as lifts, I suppose everyone already know what it does so it isn't too enticing.
- This.
- aemergency stops are red and big.
- Parodied in the European Nuclear Research Center CERN, of all places. The experiment station Atlas's control room has a big red button placed in the anteroom, labelled: "Your Unique Chance to Press an Emergency Button!" When pressed, the only thing that happens is that the screen above the button switches on and you get a lecture.
- I can't remember where I heard it, but during my tenure in the Navy Combined Cadet Force, I heard that a submarine had a relativley inoculous red button on the wall with warnings on the panel below and Do Not Press above. It was positioned in a high-traffic area of the vessel. At the end of a year they counted how many times the button was pushed - it averaged about twice a day, through all kinds of situations the sub had been in!! ...Though I suspect that, since this is after all a military sub and anyone there would be highly trained to even be there in the first place, they knew that this Big Red Button wasn't actually linked in to anything remotely dangerous.
- The closest thing to a Big Red Button on cars turns on the four-way hazard warning flashers. On European cars it's a Big Red Button going back as far as The Sixties, but on most American ones from before The Nineties it's hidden on the underside of the steering column for some reason.
WebOriginal
Other
- Gaia Online randomly shows an enormous red button on its main page. It's actually a good button; it directs newcomers to the sign-in page, so they want people to get tempted and click it.
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