(When reading this entry, please instruct the voice in your head to use a tone of rapid, breathless excitement to properly convey the importance and amazement involved, a la Billy Mays.)
A common phrase often heard in infomercials that resemble a high pressure sales pitch! After demonstrating why the product is the best thing ever, how it lets people who don't know how to use a strainer to drain pasta without burning themselves and does your taxes for you! A price is set! But wait! There's more! In addition to the product, you can get more of them, in a handy travel size, along with this other product that helps you sort your drawers and store food, and costs far more than a couple of mason jars or some of those Glad disposable tupperware things!
All this for only 69.99, or four equal payments of 49.99! Operators Are Standing By! But only if you act now! Don't think, it's a great deal! Buy now! Offer Void in Nebraska.
(Your mental voice may calm down now, if it wants to.)
A stock phrase uttered by infomercial hosts after telling you all about the great product they're hawking. They proceed to sweeten the deal by adding a few more things, or refills, or another product that's not selling so well on its own, or "double your order" when that's how much they intended to sell for the price in the first place. But only if you act now! Now! Now!
There's even a bit of unintended humor to the phrase, since it can give the impression that the ad itself knew you were about to change the channel on it.
The phrase has become so associated with infomercials that it's hard to believe that it's Older Than Steam, but it's one of The Oldest Tricks in the Book. The only reason that we can't date it back before the 1400s is that we simply don't know a lot about common life before the Renaissance - until then, nobody wrote down what the average person said or did (or if they did we don't know it). Suffice it to say that archaeologists wouldn't be at all surprised to find the Latin equivalent of "But wait! There's more!" scrawled on the wall of a Pompeii shop.
Examples:
- Ron Popeil wasn't the Trope Maker, but he certainly popularized it in 20th century America.
- In Australia, Tim Shaw was notorious for this thanks to his Demtel infomercials
to the point where he introduced an award at the Logies with this trope which included steak knives. He's also taken the same approach to commercials for McDonalds and Pizza Hut.
- This is also associated with the late Billy Mays.
- Notably parodied in a Volkswagen commercial, where even the breathlessly excited voice wearied of revealing the car's features.
- Many infomercials no longer use it entirely straight, but rather with an obvious wink and a nod in the shiller's voice, knowing that the audience is familiar with the line.
- Not the same thing as throwing something in for free (usually), but a Spiritual Successor to this trope can be found in corporate presentations at tech conventions, in which the original speaker goes back on stage to announce "one more thing", usually a surprise update to a popular product line. Popularized by Steve Jobs' keynote speeches for Apple.
- Megumi uses this line on Satou, Misaki and Yamazaki in episode 18 of Welcome to the NHK in order to sell them on the dietary supplement/keep Satou in the pyramid scheme.
- Parodied in this Transformers parody comic, in which SwindleCo is selling a weapon so awesome, it's illegal to mention by name.
- Byleth says this word for word in Chapter 7 of Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Fifth Path which the narration Lampshades as "the first example of an infomercial saleswoman."
- Jedite does this occasionally in Sailor Moon Abridged.
- Scary Movie parodies this trend when the a copycat killer is explaining his actions.
- Fast Forward did several parodies of Tim Shaw. In one skit he sells so many extras he also throws in a free warehouse to hold them all, and in another he ends up getting stabbed in the back with his free steak knives as the only way to stop him selling more.
- In the NCIS: Los Angeles episode "In The Line Of Duty", Eric parodies this trope while presenting evidence to the rest of the team, including saying the trope name verbatim.
- Horrible Histories: Nero does this while reciting his deeds in "The Evil Emperors' Song", where four of the nastiest Roman emperors try to outdo each other via Villain Song:
Nero: Poisoned my stepbrother, ordered men to kill my mother,
Tried to drown her but she fled, so I had her stabbed instead!
[Beat]
Wait, there's more!
With my first wife, dear Octavia,
I showed truly bad behaviour,
Chopped her head off, gave it to
My girlfriend who I then killed too! - In The Peter Serafinowicz Show, terrible salesman Brian Butterfield often uses this phrase in his adverts - ending in an anticlimactic "That's all."
- The Tom Waits song "Step Right Up" from Closing Time parodies this Stock Phrase and the associated commercial banter by endlessly cataloging all possible amenties into a single pitch. Waits was very upset when Frito-Lay used a soundalike for a Cheetos ad.
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's early song "Mr. Popeil" is an homage to Ron Popeil's commercials, in the musical style of The B-52s.
- Jihad Jerry and the Evildoers (A.K.A. Jerry Casale of Devo) has the song "That's All She Wrote" which includes this phrase in the chorus. Considering how often Devo parodies corporate taglines, this is probably no coincidence.
- Played with: Todd Rundgren's song "International Feel" keeps promising "more," "yet there's more," but never specifies anything.
- But Wait, There's More obviously revolves around the trope, as players try to convince others that their product is the best to solve a certain need. Players invoke the trope with the bonus abilities of their invention.
- At Universal Studios:
- In the former Ghostbusters Spooktacular show at Universal Studios Florida, when showing off the "Ghostbuster starter kits" to the guests, Louis Tully mentions, "But that's not all! Because if you act right now, we'll throw in these handsome ghost blasters for no extra charge!"
- In the JAWS ride, the Captain Jake's commercial states that if you mention the commercial, you'll get an actual life jacket (but not without noting that the offer is subject to availability).
- Monkey Island:
- Spoken by LeChuck in Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 4: The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood, when, after confessing to the court that he was the one who spread the Pox of LeChuck, he has something else (i.e., the Voodoo Lady's diary) to show to the court.
- As an archetypal Snake Oil Salesman, Stan also frequently says this line.
- In Persona 4 this happened weekly, without fail during the in-universe shopping show, "Tanaka's Amazing Commodities."
- Pascal uses the exact line in Tales of Graces when presenting her Derris Bit invention.
- This trope is why one of the rooms in Super Metroid (which contains an additional, hidden pickup) is called "The Billy Mays Room".
- Smoldep from Smoldeps Magickal Adventure says this trope word for word right before introducing her Pop Quiz.
- From Banana-nana-Ninja!:
Sudoku: [in his pitch for the Omni-Functional Kitchen Gadget] It slices! It dices! It sautees! It purees! It frappes! It even does the dishes! But wait — that's not all! Act now and you'll also get this Ridiculously Complicated Cheese Grater, absolutely free!
Clea: But doesn't the Omni Gadget grate cheese for you?
Sudoku: [demonstrating the OFKG's cheese-grating capability] Of course it does! - In the Cyanide and Happiness short "Book", the salesman says this at one point. There's then an awkward pause while the other guy waits for him to continue, and just as he's about to interrupt, the salesman resumes his pitch at an ever faster speed than before.
- The Nostalgia Critic is in the habit of saying this in his strained, pained ironic way when the stupidity of a particular scene just keeps coming. Here's an example.
- The Pythia in Greek Ninja says this to Sasha after she's dropped the bomb on her that she's the reincarnation of Eli of Thrace.
- Epic Rap Battles of History has Billy Mays lead his second verse with these exact words in the battle with Ben Franklin, just before Mays dies of a heart attack in mid-battle... so that Vince Offer can sub in instead.
- On Phineas and Ferb, Doofenshmirtz creates the scorch-inator to destroy the towers that broadcast infomercials, because he has an addiction to them and it's taking time away from his evil plans. His speech to Perry the Platypus is in the form of an infomercial, and at the end he says: "But wait! There's more!" It is then revealed he doesn't actually have anything more to say.
- Transformers: Animated featured Swindle, a gratuitous parody of Ron Popeil and shameless shill-bot for all manner of hardware. He practically oozes with insincere charm and is only too happy to try and sweeten his deals to sucker in buyers, right down to quoting the trope verbatim and claim he's throwing in 'extras' for them. Notably, while some Decepticons fall for the 'extras' pitch, Megatron is much too Genre Savvy for this, outright mocking Swindle's claim of having any scruples at all.
- In a rather unorthodox example, there was a speech given on the floor of the Canadian House of Commons by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in around 2007 during which another Conservative MP sitting behind him would shout, "But wait, there's more! There's more!" after every spending promise.
- Bill Nye invokes a variation of it ("Wait, wait, there's more!") in his famous debate against Ken Ham, when talking about the topminnows and sexual reproduction.
BUT WAIT! There's more! I'M NOT DONE YET! Call now and we'll include this list of indexes, so you can continue to ruin your life, absolutely free!
