A type of prank involving a tied dollar bill, or some valuable object, left on the ground and then pulled away when someone attempts to pick it up. May be used as a lure.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Appears in the censored version of Dragon Ball to replace Bulma using a lure of panties.
Comic Books
- Done by the Prankster in an old Superman comic. Seeing the obvious string, no one picks up the dollar assuming it is a prank. However, the string actually triggers an explosive to blow a hole in the wall of a bank.
Film
- The old "duck on a dollar" trick from The Little Rascals.
- In Go West, Harpo uses this
on Groucho. Groucho is trying to fleece Harpo & Chico out of all their money but H&C reverse it by giving Groucho a 10 and getting 9 change, over and over again.
- Yellowbeard: Commander Clement wants to get some information out of Harvey "Blind" Pew but doesn't want to pay for it. Each time he drops a coin into Pew's cup, Clement yanks it back out again with a string.
Live-Action TV
Music
- Appears on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind.
Newspaper Comics
Video Games
Western Animation
- Mr Burns does it in an episode of The Simpsons to bait children: dangling a large denomination bill on a string out of the window of his limousine and then driving away as Bart tries to pick it up.
- On Family Guy, when it's revealed that Lois' mother is Jewish, Carter, her husband, attempts to bait her this way (due to the Greedy Jew stereotype). She doesn't fall for it.
- The "Couch Fishing" episode of Beavis And Butthead.
- In the Sponge Bob Square Pants episode "Frankendoodle", SpongeBob does this to Squidward.
Real Life
- When Alex Rodriguez left the Mariners to play for the Rangers (and eventually the Yankees), he got a cold reception when he came back to play against his former team. One of the disgruntled Seattle fans put a dollar bill on a fishing line and cast it out onto the field when A-Rod showed up to bat. The fan was ejected from Safeco, but not before the rest of the Seattle crowd cheered his protest.
