Don't Touch It, You Idiot!

"If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry."

— Thief of Time

Another one of the savvy's Stock Phrases. Just like how there are some things nobody is absolutely ever supposed to say, there are some objects the viewer/reader can instantly, instinctively tell nobody is ever supposed to touch: the singular artifact placed on a pedestal in the abandoned Temple of Doom, the Mineral MacGuffin locked in a treasure chest buried in a cave on an uncharted island, the glowing MacGuffin in a display case in the Diabolical Mastermind's study, or the Forbidden Fruit surrounded by signs that boldly warn DO NOT TOUCH! WILL CAUSE THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT!

Who would be dumb enough to touch any of that? Fortunately for the plot, plenty of Genre Blind characters are, all the while ignoring their companion's warning of "Don't touch it, you idiot!" They never listen to them. Cue the rolling boulder/erupting volcano/invasion of Mooks/release of the Sealed Evil in a Can/ticking stink bomb and all their complications/a snarky "I Told You So."

In his analysis of the Fairy Tale, The Morphology of the Folktale, Vladimir Propp concluded that the functions "prohibition" and "disobedience" really formed a single plot function; any prohibition was bound to be violated.

This trope is for variations of a warning Stock Phrase. Otherwise, see Forbidden Fruit and Schmuck Bait (of which the Big Red Button labeled "DO NOT TOUCH" is a subtrope). Plus, if someone ever asks, "What Does This Button Do?", this is the only acceptable way to answer.

Not to be confused with Please, Don't Touch Anything.

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WARNING: UNDER RISK OF SEVERE INJURY OR DEATH, DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING TROPE EXAMPLES

Anime and Manga

• Azumanga Daioh
  • In a Yonkoma, Tomo relates a dream to Yomi where she saw a Big Red Button she just had to push. Then Chiyo ran in and pleaded for her not to push it, because she (Chiyo) would die. Naturally, Tomo pushed it, and Chiyo died.
  • Similarly, Tomo (awake this time) saw a freshly-painted wall with a "Do Not Touch!" sign. She smacked her hand on it, to Yomi's irritation.
  • When they visit Chiyo's summer home for the second time, she remarks how bad it would be if they lost her key to the house right before getting inside by unlocking it. Cue Tomo grabbing the key and throwing it into the grassy area surrounding the house. Needless to say, no one is amused, and when they do find the key, Sakaki is called on to physically restrain Tomo.
• EDENS ZERO: Mosco Versa-0 has a button on his navel labeled "DON'T PUSH", which he tries pushing on numerous occasions. Sister Ivry doesn't say what it would do if pressed, except that she gets incredibly pissed whenever he or anyone else makes the attempt. The final arc reveals it's a Split-Personality Switch Trigger that changes Mosco into Cosmo, a Super-Powered, Sexier Alter Ego who turns Sister into his submissive bondage slave.
• In an episode of FLCL, the mayor's daughter finds Naota, the main character, unconscious with cat ears on his head. She reaches out to touch them, and is then interrupted by Haruko yelling "DON'T TOUCH IT!" into a megaphone. They then have a conversation, with the girl touching the ears and seemingly nothing happening... until she clutches her stomach and passes out. The scene ends with Haruko saying, "I told you not to touch it. Is that my fault?"
• In One Piece, Spandam is given the special Transponder Snail to trigger the near-apocalyptic Buster Call, and brandishes it, and gloats about it, and uses it to manipulate Nico Robin... and then presses it by accident. Whoops. Those Telesnails really have it in for him. After he accidentally triggers the Buster Call, he also accidentally activates his regular Transponder Snail so that everybody on the island can hear his ensuing conversation with Nico Robin in which he claims it's perfectly okay if all Navy troops die as long as he can capture her and get away with his skin intact. They are not amused.
  • In more of a Running Gag, about halfway into the series, Luffy starts saying some variation of, "Hello. I'm Monkey D. Luffy. The man who will become the Pirate King!" whenever he picks up a Telesnail. Half the time, everyone nearby is warning him not to pick up the snail before he does anyway; every time, they scold him for saying too much too quickly, often accompanied with a slap (which, more often than not, does absolutely nothing to him).
• Pokémon: The Series has a few moments when trainers of easily agitated Pokémon will warn others not to handle them too roughly or at all. Usually Pikachu is the one getting warnings about before the inevitable Thunderbolt, though a couple of times it is subverted when either he's warmed up to someone or the other character knows how to pet him.

Comic Books

• The Multiversity: In Society of Super-Heroes: Conquerors of the Counter-World #1, Doc Fate warns "Atom" Al Pratt away from reading the Ultra comic, citing it as the most dangerous object in his library.
• In a Mortadelo y Filemón album, a rival agent is given a box to be delivered to the Súper office, with explicit instructions not to open it (the box contains a magic spider that will turn into a pig any person it touches). The agent can't stand not knowing what's inside, and opens the box to take a peep. The spider touches his nose and turns him into a pig.
• In Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, Brainstorm has several Autobots in his lab on the Lost Light and warns them not to touch the Metafictional Bomb, which would cause anyone exposed to its effects to believe that they were nothing but a character in a fictional series. Swerve says that he's already done so but nothing has happened. When asked when he'd touched it, he states that it must have happened off panel.
• Secret Wars (2015): Some of Doom's Thors are summoned to investigate a mysterious craft. As they're doing so, one tells the moloid who found it not to touch it. As the Thors are talking things over, the Moloid walks over to it, going "ooh, shiny". Cue several armed and angry supervillains stepping out of their universal life-raft.
• Superman:
  • Superman vs. Shazam! has a variant. When Supergirl declares she has figured out how to shut off Karmang's space-warping engine, the Big Bad shouts her to not press the black button because they would be sent into Limbo. Supergirl replies does not care because she has Super-Speed; then she presses the forbidden button, picks Mary Marvel and rushes out of the castle while Karmang is thrown into another dimension.
  • Subverted in The Untold Story of Argo City. Supergirl switches on a machine to release her biological parents from a pocket dimension, but the ionic ray causes their bodies to become molecularly unstable. Suddenly, her adoptive parent bursts into the basement, and starts fiddling with the ray's controls. When she panickily shouts him to not touch the controls, Fred reminds him he is an electronics engineer: he knows what he is doing, what the trouble is and how to fix it.
  • The Girl with the X-Ray Mind: When Lena Luthor was a girl, she went into her brother Lex's lab and touched one of his experiments despite Lex explicitly telling her to not touch it. Lena was zapped with energy but fortunately she was not harmed.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1942): When Steve and Etta are exploring the inside of a space ship filled ceiling to floor with button, levers, plugs and switches Etta tries plugging on of the dangling wires into one of the plugs, and even as Steve yells at her and she retaliates by asking how doing something so small could effect anything on a turned off vehicle the thing launches itself into space.
  • The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016): Tilly Heyday pushes the large red button swathed in caution tape on the experimental aircraft Diana and the Holliday Girls "borrowed", despite the chorus of her friends shouting don't touch it you idiot, in slightly more polite words. Luckily for everyone the button turns the plane invisible and doesn't cause them or their allies any harm.

Comic Strips

• Nodwick: In a short strip, Yeagar pull a sword from a stone, which is surrounded by signs saying "Don't be a jerk! Leave it alone!", "You toucha dis sword, we break you face!", and so on. Drawing the sword is supposed to result in many, many misfortunes (most of which are ridiculous and hilarious), though none of these actually seem to come to pass. Putting the sword back in is apparently just as dangerous, as is removing the sword again. In the end Yeagar ends up removing and replacing the sword about a dozen times, unleashing a different bizarre and humorous curse each time, before getting tired of the whole thing and breaking it.
• Susie of Calvin and Hobbes once asked Calvin to pass a note for her, adding "And don't read it, okay?"
  Calvin you stinkhead: I told you not to read this. —Susie

Fairy Tales

• "Aladdin": The titular character is told that he'll die instantly if he touches the walls.
• A number of European folk tales follow the same pattern; there is one about dogs with gigantic eyes and a snuffbox that would summon them to act as genies. In all of these tales, the protagonist follows the prohibition, though in some cases he may accidentally brush an item with his clothing and trigger disaster.
• This is a staple of fairy tales. It usually falls into two categories: The good vs. evil sibling stories and the husband and wife stories. In the former, the good child/sibling is told not to do or touch something and obeys while the wicked child/sibling does not and suffers some form of punishment. In the husband and wife stories, the protagonist (either the husband or the wife) finds a spouse through magical means and is given some sort of order, like not to hit them with iron or to sit on a rock without moving. The order is inevitably ignored or disobeyed, causing said magical spouse to be forced to leave the protagonist. In some fairy tales, the spouse is gone for good, but in others they are found again after several years of searching and trials. This kind of fairy tale goes way back to the myth of Psyche And Cupid, when she was told not to look at her husband when he came to her at night.

Fan Works

• In the Futurama fanfic Blame It on the Brain, Wernstrom opens the rift that banished the Brainspawn even when one of his research team suggests that whatever was banished was sent away for a good reason.
• In The Writing on the Wall, Daring Do is called in to investigate a mysterious structure in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by ominous spikes and with writing on the wall saying "Do not enter this place or you will die a horrible death". Daring concludes that this structure is full of riches and all the warnings are a bluff meant to scare away grave robbers. Nope, the warnings are 100% accurate, complete with a simplified description of the nature of radioactive waste.

Film — Animated

• Aladdin: Aladdin is told to "touch nothing but the lamp" when he enters the Cave of Wonders, and is successful in following this bit of advice (except for touching the magic carpet, which was apparently permissible). His monkey sidekick Abu, however, doesn't have the self-control that his master does, and it results in the two of them having to make a daring escape as the Cave of Wonders collapses around them.
• April and the Extraordinary World: April really shouldn't have fiddled with Pops' prototype (especially as he had already told Darwin to keep his paws off it). Activating it causes a surge of electrical energy that allows the villains to home in on her location.
• Batman and Harley Quinn: A customer at Superbabes decides to grope Harley, which ends badly for him. When he complains, the manager points out a "look but don't touch" sign.
• Subverted in Coraline when Coraline flips a switch before seeing the "Don't Push" sign. What she thinks is a light switch actually shuts off the electricity in the room that her dad's computer is in... while he's still using it.
• "Design for Leaving" has Daffy Duck install automatic devices on Elmer Fudd's home, controlled from a panel of buttons. Elmer's attention immediately goes to the Big Red Button at the end, But Daffy warns him "No, no, no! Not the wed one! Don't ever push the wed one!" At the end, Elmer can't resist and pushes it. It causes the house to be lifted up hundreds of feet up in the air, in case of a tidal wave.
• In Finding Nemo, Nemo defies his father by swimming up to a boat, despite his warnings to not do so. When he reaches it, Marlin yells at him "Don't touch the boat!" Nemo does touch the boat, but on his way back he's caught by scuba divers, setting up the plot.
• In Monsters University, the first event in the Scare Games is a race through an underground passageway littered with poisonous urchins. The host warns the contestants that "you don't want to be touched by these babies!", to which Art, Oozma Kappa's resident Cloudcuckoolander, responds with "I want to touch it." When the race begins, Art immediately dives towards one of the urchins and grabs it... and blows up like a balloon from the toxins.
• In Smurfs: The Lost Village, as Team Smurf sail down the river on a raft:
  Brainy: [to Clumsy Smurf, referring to a lever on said raft] I wouldn't touch that if I were you.
  Clumsy: Oh, now all I wanna do is touch it.
• In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Toad's first interaction with Mario is to surprise him by yelling at him not to touch a mushroom he's about to touch or else "[he'll] die!", only to realize his mistake and clarify that that specific mushroom is safe.
• In The Sword in the Stone, the owl Archimedes warns young Arthur not to touch the titular sword, especially since choral voices and beams of light appear when he does. Arthur, of course, ignores the warning and pulls out the sword anyway. And is promptly crowned king.
• Subverted in the movie Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo; when visiting the Japanese police center, Beast Boy notices a red button and is about to touch it... only to be intimidated into not doing it by Raven.
• Yellow Submarine:
  Old Fred: [to Ringo] Now whatever you do, don't touch that button. [points to it on console]
  Ringo: Which button?
  Old Fred: That one! [points again]
  Ringo: This one! [punches it accidentally and is ejected out of the sub]
  Old Fred: [groans] That was the panic button!

Film — Live-Action

• Aliens: "Nobody touch nothing."
• Though nothing comes of it, Ash says almost exactly this line to his medieval love interest Sheila in Army of Darkness when she tries to examine the mechanical gauntlet he's building. Ash goes on to chastise her with "your primitive intellect wouldn't understand alloys and compositions and... things with molecular structure," his voice trailing off as it becomes clear that he doesn't really understand any of it either.
• Babe: Pig in the City: A tag labelled "DO NOT PULL" can be seen on the back of the pants of Fugly's clown costume. During the film's climax in the ballroom, it accidentally gets pulled off by a waiter, which activates the suit's inflatable pants, creating more problems for Esme who's forced to wear it.
• One of the protagonists in Battleship is warned not to walk on and touch the giant mysterious floating structure. Naturally, since the character in question has the survival instincts of mayo, he does both.
• During the climatic last scene of Bride of Frankenstein, when the monster is wreaking havoc in Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory, Dr. Pretorius shouts, "Don't touch the lever! It'll blow us all to atoms!" Guess what the monster does next.
• In The Brink's Job, while robbing a gumball factory one of the thieves notices a door with a sign that says DO NOT OPEN THIS DOOR. Hilarity Ensues.
• In the climax of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Rocket gives Groot a bomb with which to destroy Ego, showing him which button, if pressed, will activate the five-minute timer before it blows and which will set it off instantly. When Rocket asks Groot to repeat his demonstration, he keeps gesturing to the death button, provoking this reaction in Rocket. Subverted as Groot does, in fact, press the countdown button and all the Guardians escape alive.
• A subversion occurs in the James Bond movie GoldenEye; as Q describes the operation of a pen-grenade he'll be using on his next assignment, James finds and picks up a good-sized sub sandwich. Q sees this and immediately grabs the sub out of his hands, telling him:
  Q: Don't touch that! (Beat) That's my lunch!
• Joe Versus the Volcano: There is a large pipe with a sign saying "DO NOT TOUCH" however this is a subversion as Joe has never had the guts to actually open the Main Drain and see what happens. When he does, nothing happens. (However he did always wonder what would happen.)
• The Lord of the Rings:
  • The Fellowship of the Ring: While the gang is deep in the mines of Moria, Pippin the Hobbit innocently fiddles with an ancient suit of armour... Gandalf reacts appropriately.
  • And then there's the same hobbit playing around with Palantír in The Return of the King.
  • And Wormtongue in The Two Towers examining the gunpowder with a lit torch in his hand, which Saruman quickly guides away.
• The Marvels (2023): Part of the plot kicks off when Captain Marvel and Monica Rambeaux see the Negative Space Wedgie caused by the villain's plot, and both decide to touch it. After much hijinks ensue, an exasperated Nick Fury asks Carol why she did something so transparently dumb in the first place. Her only defense? "It was glowing!"
• Men in Black: Agent K tells Agent J not to touch anything. What does Agent J do? He touches a small ball thing. Cue destruction and mayhem.
• Men in Black II: An Ironic Echo occurs when Agent J says this when Agent K, having been neuralized in the previous film, touches a small round object, which turns out to be a tiny planet.
• The Mummy Trilogy:
  • The Mummy (1999): "NOOOOOOO!! YOU MUST NOT READ FROM THE BOOK!" (Although in this case, just touching it is fine.)
  • Evelyn apparently does not learn from the past; in The Mummy Returns, when they find a chest locked in a ancient Egyptian safe:
    Evelyn: Come on, no harm ever came from opening a chest.
    Rick: Yeah right, and no harm ever came from reading a book. You remember how that one went?
    Thirty seconds later a wall crashes in and the Nile floods the room.
• In Pan's Labyrinth, after being told by the faun under no uncertain terms not to eat any of the food in the Pale Man's room, that her very life depended on it, and brushing away the frantic warnings of the fairies, Ophelia takes two grapes from the banquet table and awakens a child-eating monster who bites the heads off two of the fairies and nearly gets her. Of course, the point was to show how Ophelia did not blindly obey orders and thus was the opposite of her fascist step-father. Unfortunately, it came across as making her look rather Genre Blind (worked a lot better when she disobeyed the fairies and opened the door they weren't pointing at). Who would be crazy enough to stay in the presence of the Pale Man any longer than necessary, anyway?
• Prometheus, to an incredible extent given that the crew are meant to be experienced scientists. Brad Jones remarked during his Midnight Screenings of the film that you could retitle it "Dude, Don't Touch That: The Movie". Special mention should go to Millbourn, who apparently thinks what is quite clearly an alien snake (and hissing like a cobra) should be petted like a dog.
• In The Rocketeer, when Cliff and Peavey first discover the stolen rocket-pack hidden in an airplane in the hangar, Peavey is examining the pack while Cliff holds one of its ignitions buttons, making Peavey say "I wouldn't touch that if I were you...", but he does, making the rocket-pack fly around the hangar.
• The Emergency Stop lever on Spaceball One is labelled "NEVER USE".
  • Later, Lone Star locates the self-destruct button for Spaceball 1. The sign under the button reads “SELF DESTRUCT BUTTON. DO NOT PUSH UNLESS YOU REALLY, REALLY, MEAN IT!”
• Inverted in Space Jam. Near the end of the film, Michael Jordan comes in with a basketball and asks his fellow top athletes to touch it, but they initially refuse to, thinking it's some sort of trap.
• Time Bandits: "Mum! Dad! It's evil! Don't touch it!" Boom.
• Van Helsing: "If there's one thing I've learned, it's never be the first to stick your hand into a viscous material."
• Subverted in Mom and Dad Save the World: The light grenades, which instantly vaporize anyone who picks them up, have the words "Pick Me Up" on them. However, because this is a planet of idiots, this works, one managing to wipe out an entire platoon of soldiers.

Literature

• Aru Shah and the End of Time: The lamp of The Sleeper which was lit by our "squished bundle of hormones and incompetence" protagonist.
• Bartholomew and the Oobleck:
  • Bartholomew, who already knows the oobleck's sticky nature, tries to tell the Royal Trumpeter not to touch it when some flies into his horn. The trumpeter has already grabbed it and winds up with his hand stuck inside the horn.
  • The Captain of the Guard, trying to prove that the oobleck is harmless, decides to demonstrate by eating some. Bartholomew tries to stop him, but he's not fast enough.
• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew: Polly tries to tell Diggory how ridiculous it is to want to ring the bell just because a sign dares you to ring it, but Diggory just has to find out what happens. He releases the Sealed Evil in a Can. In fairness to him, the sign implied that it had a magical power to drive them insane from the uncertainty of what would have happened if the button isn't pressed. It's never revealed if this was a bluff or the truth.
• The Chronicles of Prydain:
  • There are at least two major artifacts (and several minor ones) that can cause painful injury, or even instant death, if the wrong people try to handle or use them. The sword Dyrnwyn is the most plot-central example; the inscription on its hilt, visible above the sheath, begins: "Draw Dyrnwyn, only thou of royal blood." Taran, who grew up on a farm but doesn't know his true heritage, tries to draw it anyway, and his companion all but quotes the page title warning him not to. Eventually he decides to do it anyway. The sword promptly stuns him with a blinding flash. What, did you think he was King Arthur? Of course, it later turns out that Eilonwy had mistranslated the inscription, it really read "Draw Dyrnwyn, only thou of noble worth". After four books of Character Development, Taran is able to safely draw the sword.
  • Dallben warns people not to touch the Book of Three. Bad things happen when his warnings are ignored. Fortunately, the book seems to be somewhat sentient when it comes to people touching it. It punishes Taran's innocent curiosity with the equivalent pain of a few mere bee stings. King Pryderi, on the other hand, wants to steal the book and use its secrets to gain power, and he is not so lucky. According to the backstory, Dallben himself made this mistake. Touching it turned him from a youth to an old man overnight.
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck: In a flashback, a younger Greg has to stay with his Aunt Cakey for the night while his parents are away. Right before Greg goes to bed, Aunt Cakey tells him not to touch the clothing iron because it's still hot. Guess what Greg does after Aunt Cakey goes to sleep.
• Discworld:
  • Common with the wizards. In fact, at one point Ridcully had to put up another sign to specifically deter other wizards, which in effect says "No, don't do it even to see what would happen". In Hogfather, Ridcully finds a bathroom that has been boarded up, had a sign put up warning not to open the room, and the door hidden behind a bookcase. So, of course, he opens it to see why it was closed up. At the end of the book he orders it closed up again, and the guy who does it is careful not to bang the nails in too securely in certain knowledge he'll be ordered to reopen it under the next Archchancellor.
    • Ponder Stibbons realises the best way to deter fellow Wizards from interfering with anything which is potentially dangerous, hangs signs, warning that magic for chartered accountants and insurance actuaries is being tested here and lots of unresolved accountancy postulates are flying around. Wizards tend to read things like this, lose interest, and wander away.
  • Susan Sto Helit reflects at one point that if you put a switch in a remote cave and painted a sign saying something like "End of the World Switch Do Not Pull", the paint wouldn't have time to dry.
  • In Men at Arms Vimes tries to warn Carrot not to touch the gonne, whose mental urging to bloodshed and megalomonia he barely resisted enough to put it down. Fortunately Carrot promptly smashes it against a pillar.
• Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles: Played with in Dealing With Dragons. The character who is only identified as the stone prince knows he has to use the tin dipper, not the one made of solid gold and covered in jewels, to take the Water of Healing from the well. But he figures it can't hurt to just have a look at the gold one, right? Wrong, but at least he did something better than panic as he watched himself become petrified, resulting in a seriously subverted Taken for Granite situation.
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Harry's companions ask him what in blazes he thinks he's doing when he reaches for a glass orb on display above an inscription that includes his name in the Department of Mysteries. Harry actually picks it up, fully hoping that something dangerous or at least exciting will happen to make their excursion there worthwhile. Be Careful What You Wish For...
  • In the second book, when Harry wants to pick up the diary that was flushed out, Ron stops him. He says that he has no idea if it could be dangerous, mentioning examples of people unwittingly touching books that force you to sing in nothing but limericks or similar issues. Harry retorts that they won't find out if the diary is dangerous until they touch it. It isn't. At first.
  • He did realize he shouldn't stick his hand blindly into Dumbledore's Penseive in Goblet of Fire. Such a shame he managed to accidentally touch it by leaning in too far.
• In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent sees an "inviting large red button" in the Heart of Gold. Upon pressing it, a sign lights up reading "Please do not press this button again."
  • Also shows up in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment in the film adaptation with Arthur trying to work an escape pod's controls.
• In Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light, the demons are bound in a vault the door of which is inscribed with the words:
  "Go away. This is not a place to be. If you do try to enter here, you will fail and also be cursed. If somehow you succeed, then do not complain that you entered unwarned, nor bother us with your deathbed prayers." Signed, "The Gods".
• In The Lost Fleet, Marine officers always make sure to remind their boarding parties not to touch any controls in captured territory.
  Captain Desjani: Do you ever wonder what they did before humans invented buttons to push? There must have been something they weren't supposed to do.
• In the Ravnica Cycle, it's mentioned that the police labmages prevent this by putting curses on cops who touch the evidence.
• Septimus Heap: This is about Alther's reaction to Jenna touching the time-travelling Glass in Physik. Needless to say, she does touch it, falls into it and ends up in a time 500 years before.
• In Six-Gun Snow White, the women of Oh-Be-Joyful knows Snow White shouldn't be opening her door and accepting gifts, but she wants a mother too much to listen.
• In The Southern Reach Trilogy, when the biologist discovers a strange fungus growing in the shape of writing within the Eldritch Location Area X, the anthropologist immediately yells "Don't touch it!". The biologist has enough restraint to not actually touch it, but nonetheless gets too close and causes things to begin going wrong.
• A few from Rob Keeley's Spirits series:
  • In Childish Spirits, Charlie can't leave the piano in the nursery alone. He comes to realise his mistake when Edward the boy ghost slams the lid down on his fingers.
  • In The Spirit Of London, Ellie finds a door marked PRIVATE and just has to go through it... Luckily, as she finds the plot on the other side! No immediate penalty, but it does allow a ghost imprisoned in a jar to stow away in her rucksack.
  • In The Sword Of The Spirit, TV presenter Chris Costello is told not to break the seal on an unearthed chest - and immediately does so, unleashing a dark knight's ghost.
• Peter David's Star Trek novel Strike Zone features an ancient alien device that is obviously a gun of some sort. It has a warning label that says "Extremely stupid weapon. Do not use." It fires a beam that can punch through almost anything and follows the curvature of the planet it's on. Yes, that's right: if you fire it, the beam circles the globe and hits you from behind.
• Basically what the bird in the Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms book Sleeping Beauty tells Siegfried about the Niebelung ring. Unusually for this trope, he actually had the sense to listen.
• Space Jockey by Robert A. Heinlein. The pilot of a Moon rocket has the Bratty Half-Pint of a VIP visit the control room. Despite being repeatedly warned not to touch the controls, he insists on showing them what Captain Space, Defender of Earth! would have done about a meteor and turns on the jets, sending the pilot flying across the room and the rocket off course. The kid is abruptly removed from the control room and when the VIP puts in a complaint it's treated with the contempt it deserves.

Live-Action TV

• Many episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, e.g., "The Tale of the Mummy's Curse", when the daughter of a museum curator finds a secret compartment in a mummy's coffin. As she reaches to open it, her brother tells her, "Don't touch it! There's a curse!" She finds a potion and ring that grant immortality, accidentally raising the mummy back to life.
• Played for laughs in an episode of Babylon 5, where Garibaldi is shown into his guest quarters and told not to touch anything. He immediately begins touching everything in the room, saying "Touch! Touch!" aloud.
• Bozo The Clown played this for laughs in a confrontation involving Bozo, Oliver O. Oliver, and a big cartoon lever.
  Oliver: ...I pulled it, and nothing happened to me!
  Bozo: There was too something happened to you, Oliver! You got your hands all covered in paint! I just painted that thing!
• In an episode of Burn Notice, Michael narrowly averts Better Manhandle the Murder Weapon by saying this to someone who was about to do so.
• In Canada's Worst Driver, host Andrew Younghusband told a guy not to turn the ignition switch because the vehicle was already running. Said contestant did two or three times.
• In the Dad's Army episode "When Did You Last See Your Money?", the bank has sustained damage in an air raid and Mainwaring's office has no ceiling. A tarpaulin has been put up to keep the rain out. Wilson comes in - through a wall that isn't there - and he just can't leave anything alone:
  WILSON: Awfully wet in here, isn't it?
  MAINWARING: Yes. Well, this tarpaulin's full of water from last night's rain.
  WILSON: Ah I see, yeah. (gives it a poke)
  MAINWARING: Wait — don't poke it! You'll only make it worse!
  WILSON: Sorry, sir.
  • A leak starts, meaning Mainwaring has to work with an umbrella up, which he won't share with Wilson, who's getting wet:
    MAINWARING: Well, that's your fault isn't it, you shouldn't go about poking things.
• Kelly in Dead Set repeatedly tells people in the house "don't touch the doors" because there are zombies outside. Of course, one of the housemates is an asshole and opens it just to tease Kelly, which lets a zombie in and kills Angel.
• Doctor Who:
  • In "The Daleks' Master Plan", the Doctor's companion, Steven, tells Katarina "NO! NOT THAT!" regarding a certain switch or button... which opens an air lock.
  • The last words we hear in "The Face of Evil" is the Doctor shouting at Leela not to touch that button after she's slipped inside the TARDIS. Cue the TARDIS dematerialising, and the Doctor now has a new companion.
  • The incident with Adric and the TSS in "Kinda" also falls into this category. Adric attempts to escape in the TSS, even though the Doctor has told him to leave it alone, and quickly loses control of it. The following story ("The Visitation") picks up the TARDIS crew while the Doctor is in the middle of reprimanding Adric for his foolishness:
    The Doctor: How many times have I told you, Adric, not to interfere with things you don't understand?
    Adric: I was trying to escape.
    The Doctor: In the TSS? You were lucky you didn't destroy the whole Kinda tribe.
  • "Father's Day": "Don't. Touch. The Baby." — which Rose then does, of course. (At least it was by thoughtless instinct, not by intentional disobedience or due to curiosity as a character flaw.) This leads to the Doctor actually dying in that time line before the Reset Button is hit.
  • Lampshaded in "The Christmas Invasion": The Doctor discovers the "Big Red Button" the Sycorax are using to control any human with A+ blood, and says, "How am I gonna react when I see this? A great, big, threatening button. A great, big, threatening button which must not be pressed under any circumstances, am I right? [...] Which leaves us with a great, big, stinkin' problem. I really don't know who I am. I don't know when to stop. So if I see a great, big, threatening button which should never, ever, EVER be pressed, then I just want to do this." [presses the button]
• The Eureeka's Castle special "Don't Touch that Box"^note Which guest stars Luther Vandross. does this.^note Minus the "You idiot" part. It is a preschool series, after all. There's even a song about it.
• Farscape: The Ancients' relatives give John a very VERY strict warning about wormhole travel:
  Multiple voices: And NEVER return to a familiar place prior to the last time you left.
  • Cue John returning to Earth over a decade before he left. *Face Palm*
• In Father Ted, Dougal finds himself facing a "Do not press" red button in the cockpit of an airplane and is instantly entranced by it, but does resist the temptation. However, when asked later on to press a button nearby, he "accidentally" press the red one, and the plane empties its fuel tank.
• The Goodies plays with this in the very first episode, as the Crown Jewels have a sign placed by them reading "Please Do Not Steal". It doesn't do much good.
• Hiro in Heroes immediately goes to open the safe his dead dad (in a Video Will) told him never to open. Inside is the formula he's not supposed to touch, and another video from dead dad saying, "I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH THAT!" Sadly, even that second reminder doesn't get Hiro to put the thing away before someone steals it.
• Robbie Rotten says this to one of his clones in LazyTown regarding a trap meant for Sportacus.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Not knowing about the nature of the Stranger or why would a living being fall from the sky, Poppy makes the logical conclusion that he might be dangerous. Too bad Nori doesn't listen to her friend's warns to not approach the Stranger and pokes his face. He suddenly wakes up, grabs Nori by the hand and starts to shout. Luckily, he passes out before harming anyone.
• In Lost in Space, Dr. Smith made a constant habit of touching alien artifacts and devices even after being warned that it was a bad idea. This never worked out well.
• In the series Meet the Browns, Played Straight — when Mr. Brown gets a job as the hospital janitor, he is told by his supervisor to be especially careful around a prized bust of an ancient Greek historical figure that was donated to the hospital and by no means to touch it. He is then given a large floor buffer by his supervisor to clean the hospital lobby and waiting room with, but he accidentally rams the floor buffer into the podium the bust was on and it comes crashing down, shattering on the floor. He pays Derek, his neighbor to fix it, and the bust actually gets repaired decently enough to the point where it looks like nothing happened to it, but ironically Brown's supervisor himself breaks it again.
• In Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2024), John and Jane are having a hushed disagreement in front of Toby about the cottage John bought without asking her—that is, until Toby picks up something out of curiosity, and they exclaim at the same time:
  Both: Don't touch that!
  John: It's dynamite, dummy.
• In Once Upon a Time "The Jolly Roger", Regina has agreed to teach Emma how to do magic. She leads Emma down into her vault, full of powerful and dangerous magical artifacts, and warns her not to touch anything. Emma picks up the first thing she sees. Regina promptly snatches it away and repeats her warning.
• The Partridge Family: In "Al in the Family," Reuben's incompetent nephew temporarily takes over as the family's manager. During one show, he sees a large red button with a sign that says "DO NOT TOUCH." He immediately presses it, turning off all the stage lights.
• Stargate SG-1 season 9 has the newly reformed SG-1 enter a dormant laboratory used by Anubis for unknown purposes. Colonel Mitchell starts pushing buttons looking for the light switch, whereupon Dr. Jackson forcefully informs him that while he may be the CO, he's also the new guy and should now stand in the corner while the grown-ups work.
  Jackson: New guy!
  Mitchell: Hey! You touched that...
  Jackson: I know how to read that.
• Star Trek: Enterprise. Trip creates a new captain's chair for Archer in "Borderland". As they're about to go on a mission he says they don't have time to go over the controls, "...but try not to hit that button."
• The trope is parodied in this Studio C sketch.
• In one episode of That '70s Show, Eric is jealous of the attention his father Red gives to Hyde, and resolves to do something stupid to get Red to notice him. Kelso immediately suggests bouncing a bowling ball off the living room couch to see what would happen. Hyde insistently tries to warn Eric against doing this, but Eric refuses to listen. Of course, the bowling ball bounces off the couch and smashes through Red's TV set. Eric gets some attention from his father, all right...but not exactly the kind he was looking for.
  • Later in the episode he even kicks himself for thinking anything Kelso said was a good idea.
• In the Cousin Skeeter movie New Kids on the Planet, mission control warns Bobby, Nina, Skeeter and Nicole not to touch a Big Red Button that sends the ship they've sneaked aboard into hyperspace. Skeeter places a Post-it Note reading "Do not touch" on the button... and presses it anyway.

Music

• The Ramones have a song called "You Should Have Never Opened That Door" on Leave Home, which is a Genre Savvy song about horror films.
• In the music video for AC/DC's Heatseeker, there's a lever marked "Under no circumstance should you touch this lever." Angus Young casually tosses his hat on it, causing a missile to launch.

Myths & Religion

• Classical Mythology: There's the story of Pandora's Box, which released all kinds of evils and diseases into the world. Pandora knew something bad would happen if she opened it, but she did it anyway.
• The Bible: In Book of Genesis, God told Adam and Eve to not eat the forbidden fruit. They did it anyway out of selfishness and careless pride, gaining sentience and shame, and causing the Fall of Man.

Pinballs

• In Scared Stiff, Elvira will warn you not to touch the crate on the playfield if you hit it with the pinball. Of course, you have to hit it repeatedly to start multiball and other bonus modes.

Podcasts

• The Magnus Archives: The coffin in "Do Not Open" has those three words scratched on its lid. Thankfully, the protagonist isn't Too Dumb to Live and is smart enough not to do so. Though it's not for lack of trying on the part of the coffin.

Puppet Shows

• The Muppets (2015): When Kermit's away, Scooter takes over the show production, and the first thing he does is touch the thermostat, which Kermit (being a frog) keeps warm so he doesn't dehydrate. The result? Beaker gets a full blast of freon to the face, then Miss Piggy's wardrobe is destroyed by condensation... then the entire studio wiring is blown out.

Tabletop Games

• At least two separate pieces of fluff text in Warhammer 40,000 books list "Don't touch tha-" as the last words of a Sergeant or squad leader regarding Tyranid Spore Mines.
  • The Gretchin who pilot Looted Wagons are often told "Don't Press 'Dat", where "'dat" is the button to some emergency function that the Ork overseer hasn't had time to disable yet. The player has to roll dice each turn to see if the Gretchin give in to the Schmuck Bait.
• The Tomb of Horrors actually relies on this. Amongst other things, the rod that will kill you if you do it, the trap that will kill you if you stick your hand in, the three chests that are ALL trapped... Really, don't touch the whole module and go play something else.
• Every D&D adventuring party can recall the party member who died by trying on the cursed armor (usually over the rest of the group's protests.)
  • Or having to make a hasty retreat because someone touched a load-bearing floating rock.
  • It's basically an unwritten rule that if the party wants to survive long, never trust anything that has not been properly identified. Don't drink the unidentified potion, don't put on the unidentified ring, don't try and use the unidentified wand, etc.
• Munchkin has the Duck of Doom, with the text "You should know better than to pick up a duck in a dungeon."

Video Games

• The original Space Quest featured a button marked "This button is not to be pushed at any time" in the escape pod. Pressing it caused the player to wind up in King's Quest I where the pod would plummet straight into a moat filled with hungry alligators.
  • In the VGA remake the scene was changed to the pod winding up in Conquests of the Longbow instead, and would simply crash and burn against a hillside.
• In Modern Warfare 2, there is a credits sequence which takes place in a museum. The museum contains scenes from the game, with statues that move when you get close. There is also a big red bell that reads 'Do NOT press this button'. Pressing it results in every statue coming to life and attacking you.
• There's an item in Shadow Madness called Pandora's Box, the item description of which recommends the player to save before using. It displays a pretty CG movie that shows the end of the universe.
• In one of the Thief games, there's a "Do Not Press" red button inside a butcher's shop in a warehouse district. Pushing it releases a giant spider to attack you.
  • There's another one several missions later, presumably for those who missed the first and/or the terminally slow on the uptake. This one releases SEVERAL giant spiders.
  • In the levels with alarms that the guards can activate, there's nothing preventing you from pushing the button and turning on the alarm...
• The Ulduar raid in World of Warcraft features a large button labeled "DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON". Pushing it causes the nearby boss, Mimiron, to yell at you ("Didn't you read the sign that says 'do not push this button'?"). It also activates Mimiron's hard-mode encounter, which involves the room you're in starting to explode, as well as the classic "This room will self-destruct in X minutes" warnings over the loudspeaker.
• The button in the pool in Maniac Mansion, though of course you know that most everyone pushed it, despite the warning anyways.
• In The Lost Vikings 2, one of the Vikings pushes a button labelled "Do Not Touch", thinking it read "Donut". This launches them across time and space, forcing them to have another quest to find their way home.
• The Dumb Ways to Die video game has a level telling you "Don't touch the red button." Doing so grants you an Earth-Shattering Kaboom.
• Diablo II: Marius finds himself venturing into the tomb of Tal Rasha alongside the Dark Wanderer, eventually finding the shackled mage in the flesh. Before the Dark Wanderer can release him, Tyrael involves himself and the two duke it out. Marius approaches (under the belief Tal Rasha wants to be released from his miserable fate), only for Tyrael to call out to him not to do it. Marius doesn't listen.
  Tyrael: Fool! You have just ensured the doom of this world. You cannot begin to imagine what has been set in motion this day. Go to the Temple of Light in the city of Kurast. There you will find the gate to Hell opened before you. You must find the courage to step through that gate, Marius! Take the stone to the Hellforge where it will be destroyed. Now run... Take the stone and run!!
• In a somewhat inverted example (in that when you place a sign, people will generally do the opposite), in Minecraft online servers, if you put up a sign on your house that says "Do not grief", chances are, you will be one of the first ones to be targeted for griefing. Of course, if you're dumb enough to believe that posting a sign would actually convince a griefer to not grief your house, you probably somewhat deserve it.
  • In a straight example, many death traps have a sign that says "Do not push this button" or "Do not try to steal from this treasure chest." Guess what people do?
• In Fallout 3, you are sent to retrieve a GECK (which converts the area around it into pure energy and forms fertile soil) from a radiated Vault, but you are given the option to activate it instead. The game asks you twice if you're sure, and flat-out tells you the second time that you will die if you turn it on.
• Buck from Wildstar says this to HIMSELF in the cinematic trailer when he accidentally activates something in a broken-down giant robot, unleashing a swarm of killer drones.
  Buck: ...had to go and touch it.
  • At the end of the trailer, when the whole party falls into an ancient crypt, he repeats his warning:
    Buck: Nobody. Touch. Anything.
• In Dragon Age II Mark of the Assassin, Tallis the rogue warns you not to touch the mysterious forest altar. Obviously, that's what every player ever is going to do. She then says "I TOLD you not to touch it!" when it summons a Sky Horror and a bunch of ghostly assassins. (Your ass is probably grass if you are playing on the highest difficulty.)
• Starship Titanic has a big red button that say "Press to disarm bomb". No prizes for guessing what happens if you do press it.
• In Safecracker, the library of Crabb Manor has a strand of cloth marked "PULL", with a sign next to it that says "Please do not pull". Ignoring the sign results in the player dropping down a 2-story chute to the basement - and landing on their head, for good measure. At least someone had the courtesy to place a welcome mat at the end of the chute.
• In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, the party has made their way through Lohengrin Castle, encountering many strange barriers and orbs and finally finding themselves in a room at the top with a large orb that Emma is sure is the source of the mysterious force that's trapped them in the castle and is generated the monsters and such. Seeing it, Millium summons her large combat mechanism, Airgetlam, to smash it, even though the others warn her not to and they don't know what could happen. Sure enough, when Airgetlam tries to smash it, it's blocked by a barrier and ends up toppling on top of Millium. It's the same sort of barrier that went up when she had tried to smash the main door open, and only after this happens does she remember what happened before. And then the boss monster appears...
• Appears as a joke on the menu screen of the Codemasters game Death Stalker. Option five simply says "Never Use". Using option five anyway causes the screen to go completely blank... for a few seconds. On reappearing, option five now says "Never Use Again".
• One task in Nancy Drew: The Secret of Shadow Ranch is to collect eggs from a henhouse. One chicken has a sign above her reading "Hey you! Don't even think about taking my eggs when I'm here. It makes me crazy!" If Nancy tries to collect eggs from her, she will get attacked. A second time, and she will get kicked off the ranch.
• When The Darkness Comes: The narrator leaves the player in a room while they try and fix the game, with the instruction not to touch anything. Of course, the only way to progress is to touch the button in the middle of the room, which sends you falling to a new location.

Webcomics

• In a Breaking Cat News strip, the cats repeatedly sniff at a cactus even though this leads to the needles pricking their faces. Tommy asks if anyone has tried leaving the cactus alone, but Elvis stubbornly refuses to do so.
• Subverted in Digger, when a mysterious man asks the wombat main character what she would do "if I gave you a box that must not be opened, ever, under any circumstances?" She promptly launches into a description of encasing it in concrete and using it as a foundation block for a long-lifespan public works project, with allowances for extra measures depending on the specifications of the box itself, without even bothering to ask why.
  Trader Manuel: Heh heh heh. Excellent. Why did I never consider a wombat before?
• Played with in Exterminatus Now: The Mad Scientist Laboratory has a Big Red Button for the Self-Destruct Mechanism labeled "Do Not Push". Of course, the Mobian Inquisition wants to destroy the base, so they push the button. It turns out that it was a decoy that just set off the alarms.
• In Girl Genius, Zola repeatedly warns her minions not to touch anything that looks even remotely suspicious while inside Castle Heterodyne, since it's probably a trap that will kill them. When one of her minions asks if she's trying to scare them, Zola explains that Castle Heterodyne is worse than dangerous: it likes to think it has a sense of humor. Another minion demonstrates this by trying to pick up a gold coin off the floor; the floor promptly opens beneath him and drops him to his most likely very painful death.
• Goblins:
  • Saves A Fox repeatedly tells everyone not to touch anything in her quasi-dungeon crawl with Grem, K'Selliss and Dies Horribly. Naturally, everyone else keeps doing it anyway. Eventually this frustrates Saves so much that she begins angrily screaming she doesn't care anymore, they can touch whatever they want, she's going to save her breath. K'Seliss takes this as permission to grab her ass.
  • This also gets K'Seliss in trouble later when he rips the finger off an undead abomination, intending to eat it. The end result is anything but pretty.
• In Homestuck, Sollux, for some inexplicable reason, creates a code that, if run, will curse the user and everyone he knows to horrible fates. He gives it to Karkat, who almost instantly runs it despite being told not to.
• In one Nodwick story (the first appearance of Baphuma'al, in fact) the heroes are hired to get a pillow from an old wizard's house. They are given these explicit instructions by their employer: "You must not disturb any objects other than the pillow, as most items are cursed, trapped, or both. Touching anything may jeopardize your mission... As well as three nearby fiefdoms, a monastery, and a winery I am quite fond of." Naturally, Yeagar doesn't believe this, and convinces Nodwick to try to steal a fancy and valuable "Elysium Barcalounger"; this leads to a Gory Discretion Shot where Piffany and Arthax require a squeegee to collect their remains in order to restore them.
• The Order of the Stick: When confronted with the "Threads of Creation", Elan cannot help being fascinated and attempts to touch them. Serini immediately bonks him in the head with her staff to stop him, even though she has no idea what it would do (only that it is dangerous). Considering those threads are the same materials that make the Snarl, who is known to cause Cessation of Existence, Serini can only be praised for acting swiftly.
• Sleepless Domain: Kokoro finds a tiny crab-like monster while out on patrol and immediately goes to pick it up. Undine, incredulous, blasts it out of her hands and warns her that, in spite of its small size, it very well may have had "weird powers or something." The monster then promptly falls back down, directly onto Kokoro's head.
• This conversation from Tales of Zenith:
  Reverend: Tam, how did you keep people from touching the painted wall? Every time I do I have to touch up for fingerprints.
  Tam O'Shanter: What kind of sign did you put up?
  Reverend: Just "Wet Paint: Do not touch."
  Tam O'Shanter: Oh, that's why. That's really not good enough. A "wet paint" sign is practically an invitation saying "please touch". I used a stronger one.
  Reverend: What did yours say?
  Tam O'Shanter: "Notice: This wall is the edge of the Most High Shrine of God. Touching will result in irrevocable damnation for eternity."
• Vexxarr does not want anyone touching his ship's fearsome and unpredictable main weapon. Unfortunately...
  Vexxarr: Do not fix the zorp weapon. Do not touch it! Do not allow stray photons to glance off its valence cloud! If you find yourself thinking about the zorp weapon you are being far too interactive! Do I make myself clear?
  Mahakalosian engineer: So... you're saying we should put it back?
• In Wapsi Square, Bud warned Monica that she shouldn't touch an artifact because it had frightened a group of Nazis enough to make them kill each other. Naturally, Monica touched it, but not before Tempting Fate. Bud expected this, and had even taken bets on whether or not Monica would touch it.

Web Original

• The emailed-around Don't Press The Red Button thingy.
• Referenced and lampshaded several times in Ursula Verson's Gearworld journal. The explorers of the labyrinthine, self-modifying and seemingly boundless structure known as Gearworld find that it contains many hazards, several of which are marked by polite signs left by an unknown group calling themselves the Monks of Perdition. These signs always take the Forbidden Fruit factor into account and plead the reader to heed them while acknowledging that they may very well choose not to do so. The uncovering first such sign can be found here:
  PLEASE DO NOT STRIKE GONG
  While we fully understand that you are curious as to what happens when the gong is struck, we must strongly advise against it. The results are most unpleasant and dramatically fatal. Human nature being what it is, we realize that this warning may not stop you, and may in fact only drive you to strike it, but since we are unable to destroy the gong, and the lock was evidently insufficient to keep you out, we can only hope that you will take our advice. There are neither riches nor knowledge here, but only an ugly death.
  Respectfully,
  The Monks of Perdition
  In Memory of Brother Wu
• Red vs. Blue's Church, upon discovering that "the stupidest being in the universe" will be responsible for a prophesied apocalypse, attempts to warn the team ditz, Caboose: "Don't touch anything, don't look at anything, don't breathe on anything!" By then, though, it's already too late.
  • In a previous season, while the Red Team is attempting to fix their jeep, Sarge tells Donut not to touch anything. Unfortunately for Donut, he ignores this advice and when Grif attempts to start the engine, Donut gets his hand caught in the machinery.
    Sarge: Donut, I told you not to touch anything! You touched EVERYTHING! That's the exact OPPOSITE of touching nothing!
• Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series had a variation of this, where a magic door appears in front of Serenity, Duke and Tristan, telling them to open it. When Duke asks what's behind the door, it answers "You will enter a world of deep, unending pain and torment! ...Oh, and, uh... ponies." The following dialogue actually happens twice:
  Serenity: Ponies! I love ponies!
  Duke: Serenity, NO!
  * opens the door*
• "DO NOT OPEN! - (Challenge accepted)" by YouTuber Big Clive. The video description reads "Apparently this valve actuator is dangerous to open. Let's open it." Clive suspects that the danger lies in a powerful spring. He is correct, but forewarned is forearmed, so he avoids injury.

Western Animation

• In the Adventures of the Gummi Bears episode "He Who Laughs Last", "Don't Touch It, You Idiot!" becomes "Don't Eat It, You Idiot!". Tummi eats a piece of literal Forbidden Fruit which causes him to slowly turn into a tree. Made even worse when Zummi loses his medallion, which is needed to reopen the Great Book and find the spell to save Tummi.
• Adventure Time: In "Bun Bun", Cinnamon Bun doesn't even get to finish warning Bun Bun not to push the button that will release the Fire King from his prison before she gives in to curiosity and pushes it anyway.
• Amphibia: Sprig really doesn't learn when it comes to pulling levers.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Frylock spends the entire episode chastising Shake this way in the episode "The Broodwich".
  Frylock: Will you just throw that damn thing away? If you keep it around here you're gonna eat it and then you're gonna die!
• It's impossible to count how many times in Archer that the title character (or someone else on the team) sets off an alarm or activates a time bomb by touching something that clearly is not meant to be touched.
• Apple & Onion: In the episode "Falafel's Fun Day", Falafel fixes the air conditioner and tells Apple and Onion to not touch it because if it goes past six, it drips water everywhere. Apple, looking upside down, sees the air conditioner at nine and sets it to six when in reality he sets it to nine, which causes the water to drip onto the TV, making it short-circuit and explode. Falafel is furious, telling them "I told you not to touch it".
• Arthur:
  • In "Arthur's Big Hit", D.W. breaks Arthur's model plane. He worked on it for days and told her a million times "Don't touch it!", and she still decided that throwing it out of the window was a good idea. When she failed to apologize, (blaming Arthur for building a plane that couldn't fly) Arthur lost all patience with her and hit her, yelling, "I told you... NOT TO TOUCH IT!"
  • In Arthur's Perfect Christmas, Arthur hates the "Tina the Talking Tabby" song D.W. loves, which causes him headaches. He groans and tries to change the radio station, but D.W. prevents it.
    D.W.: Don't even think about touching that dial!
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • In "The Siege of the North, Part 2", Iroh threatens Zhao not to hurt the moon spirit. When he does it anyway, he receives a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from the ocean spirit and Aang in his full avatar state.
    Iroh: Zhao, whatever you do to that spirit, I'll unleash on you ten-fold! Let it go now!
  • Aang and Zuko find "some kind of mystical gemstone" in the Temple of Doom in "The Firebending Masters", and Zuko goes right for it. To make a short story shorter, the two end up buried in superglue gunge for the next couple of hours.
    Aang: Well, don't touch it!
    Zuko: Why not?
    Aang: Remember what happened out there with those spikes? I'm just very suspicious of giant, glowing gems sitting on pedestal.
    [later]
    Aang: You had to pick up the glowing egg, didn't you?
• The Batman: The Animated Series episode "Harlequinade" has a very funny one after Harley Quinn wants to listen to the Batmobile's radio and presses a button that instead expels the Batmobile's parachute.
  Batman: Listen, and listen good. You don't touch anything, say anything, or do anything unless I tell you! Got it?
  Harley: [small voice] Yes, sir.
• Codename: Kids Next Door:
  • In "Operation: F.O.U.N.T.A.I.N.", the team are in an ancient temple that resembles a school, and are currently in what looks like a cafeteria, complete with food. Numbuh Five is certain that a trap is here (seeing as they barely survived the one in the last big room) but her warning as they walk through it is distorted like some twisted game of "whisper down the alley":
    Numbuh Five: Nobody touches anything!
    Numbuh One: Numbuh Five says, don't touch anything!
    Numbuh Four: Numbuh One says, don't punch a thing!
    Numbuh Three: Numbuh Four says, try the onion rings!
    Numbuh Two: Well, you don't have to tell me twice!
    Numbuh Three: [screams]
    Numbuh Two: What? I was going to share... [is cut off as he realizes that taking the food has triggered a Drowning Pit trap]
  • In "Operation: M.A.C.A.R.R.O.N.I.", Numbuh 13 causes two of Sector V's planes to crash because he touches something he shouldn't:
    Numbuh 2: I told you not to touch that!
    Numbuh 13: Well, sor-ry! Gee, you guys are even touchier than Sector N!
• Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines: In "Zilly's A Dilly", Klunk tries to warn Dastardly not to touch the lightning rod installed on his airplane (Klunk saying this in his peculiar mode of speech) but Dastardly touches it anyway and gets the bejeezus shocked out of him. Zilly (who has been hypnotized into being brave) translates the warning, to which Dastardly moans "Now he tells me!".
• The plot of the Defenders of the Earth episode "A Demon in His Pocket" revolves around Kshin disobeying Mandrake's instruction not to touch his sorcery books and summoning a demon in an attempt to teach a group of bullies a lesson without fighting them himself. (The Defenders' Code of Honour forbids them to fight unnecessarily.) Needless to say, things rapidly spiral out of control and Kshin is left with no choice but to tell Mandrake what he has done, even though he knows he will be in trouble.
• Told countless times to Dee Dee by Dexter in Dexter's Laboratory, the former being the Trope Namer of What Does This Button Do?. The results are just as you would predict.
• One Fairly OddParents episode features the following exchange:
  Presidential Aide: Mr. President, whatever you do, do not touch that red button next to the salt!
  President: You mean this button? [presses it, launching a nuclear missile, and knocks over the salt for good measure]
  • There's further hilarity when the episode cuts back to the aide telling the president he almost caused nuclear war, and the salt shaker is shown superglued onto the table.
• In the Johnny Bravo segment "Bootman", the leader of the Astounding League of Super People, Mr. Elastic, tells Johnny not to push a certain button. Johnny's response? "Aw, now I got to!" This results in the superheroes being Thrown Out the Airlock.
• Justice League:
  • In "Paradise Lost", while the League is exploring an area with a number of magical artifacts, the Flash picks one up and accidentally blows a hole in the wall. Batman yells at him not to touch anything, since it could be extremely dangerous. Pan over to Superman and J'onn quickly putting down artifacts. Wonder Woman, at least, was smart enough to not touch anything.
  • In Part III of "Starcrossed", the League is trying to figure out the controls of a Thanagarian fighter:
    Flash: [presses a button at random] What's this do...?
    [A laser beam blasts a hole in the side of Wayne Manor, narrowly missing Alfred.]
    Batman: [through clenched teeth] That's... not... helping.
• Kaeloo: In Episode 104, Olaf tells Stumpy not to touch the Big Red Button on his lair's control panel, but he does anyway. The lair blows up, but everyone escapes except Olaf.
• In The Legend of Zelda (1989), Link tells Zelda not to touch the Armos statues while they explore a labyrinth. Guess what Zelda does while asking "Why?". In the ensuing battle, she accidentally touches another and Link is thrown into touching a third.
• "Pandora's Box" is a Terrytoons film starring Super Mouse (who would later become Mighty Mouse) based on the old mythology tale. Pandora and her boyfriend are mice (of course), and she stumbles upon a mysterious box. Her boyfriend calls out "Don't touch it!". Pandora opens it anyway, and out comes a horde of demonic cats. "I told you not to touch it!"
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Inspiration Manifestation", this is Owlowiscious' response to the stone spellbook in a secret chamber hanging over a pit with a Sickly Green Glow emanating from the ceiling. Spike grabs it without a second thought.
• The Out of the Inkwell cartoon "Koko's Earth Control" has Koko the Klown and his dog Fitz enter the control room for the planet Earth, and Fitz's attention turns to a lever marked "Danger/Beware - If this handle is pulled, the world will come to an end." Naturally, despite Koko's attempts to stop him, Fitz pulls the lever, and although we don't see the world end as such, things do get really crazy.
• In the first episode of The Real Ghostbusters, construction workers digging more tunnels for the New York subway system come across a door with a demonic face that repeatedly tells them to not open it until Doomsday. Because they're on a schedule, and because they don't want to be told what to do by a talking door, they attempt to continue digging. When the door sees that they aren't going to listen to it, it then opens, unleashing Hell on Earth into New York's subway system.
  Doomsday Door: Do Not Open Until Doomsday!
• In The Ren & Stimpy Show short "Space Madness", Ren, inflicted with the titular disorder, brings Stimpy to a room with a shiny red button. When Stimpy goes to touch, Ren slaps his hand away and shouts out, "DON'T TOUCH IT! IT'S THE HISTORY ERASER BUTTON, YOU FOOL!!"
• The Simpsons:
  • "Treehouse of Horror IV":
    • In "The Devil and Homer Simpson", Homer's sold his soul to the Devil for a doughnut — but he's smart enough to know if he doesn't eat it all the Devil doesn't get his soul. So later that night, as he's rummaging through the fridge, among lots of tasty goodies there's a chunk of doughnut surrounded by notes saying things like "DADDY'S SOUL DONUT" and "DON'T EAT". Of course, since Homer is half-asleep, and even at the best of times isn't too bright, he eats it anyway.
      Homer: Mmm... forbidden donut...
    • In "Bart Simpson's Dracula", when Bart is running from vampires, he sees a switch labeled "Super Fun Happy Slide". Despite knowing it would turn the stairs into a slide and send him right to the vampires, he pulled it anyway. His reasoning: "I know I shouldn't... but when am I gonna be here again?" Of course, he may have already been a vampire.
  • In "Treehouse of Horror VI", Groundskeeper Willie puts a note on the school thermostat saying "Do Not Touch - Willie". Homer thinks it's good general advice before cranking up the thermostat, causing a fire that kills Willie.
  • In "Homer's Enemy", Frank Grimes stops Homer from drinking acid instead of his Buzz Cola by slapping it out of his hand, splashing it against a wall which instantly decomposes. Of course, Grimey is instantly in trouble for ruining the wall instead of being praised as a hero for saving Homer.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • "I'm Your Biggest Fanatic" has a Running Gag in which Patrick touches something he's not supposed to touch and is promptly chastised by a security guard.
    SpongeBob: Look! Dr. Manowar! — the man who got stung by Big Lenny and lived!
    [cuts to Manowar, who has a very large welt on his face]
    Dr. Manowar: —and now it only hurts when you touch it.
    [Patrick touches the welt, causing Dr. Manowar to cry out in pain]
    Patrick: Touch.
    Security Guard: Do I have to follow you all day?
  • In "Krabs à la Mode", Mr. Krabs scolds Squidward for touching the thermostat, and continues to insist that nobody touch the thermostat even when the Krusty Krab is frozen, falling for a poorly drawn sticky note reading "62 degrees" that Plankton tapes over the thermostat.
    "WHOOOOO! TOUUUUCHED! MEEEE! THERMOSTAAAAAAT?!
    "Don't! Touch! THE THERMOSTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!"
• Star Wars Rebels: In "Through Imperial Eyes", Ezra and Kallus have snuck into Grand Admiral Thrawn's office, and Ezra sees Hera's kalikori from a previous episode. He thinks of taking it, but Kallus tells him not to on the grounds that they're "not here to steal art". The main reason, however, is that if Thrawn finds anything that looks out of place, it will be a dead giveaway for Ezra, as it was bad enough Thrawn expected an ambush when he came in.
• In the Thomas & Friends episode "Down the Mine", Thomas spies a "Danger" sign at a local mine warning that engines must not proceed past it, due to the ground not being strong enough to support the weight of a locomotive. Naturally, Thomas, not realizing the danger, resolves to pass it anyways—and when he does, he promptly falls into a mineshaft.
• A Thousand and One... Americas:
  • In the eighth episode, Chris is told about a delicious type of vegetable, the tuber or yuca, that is consumed in South America and the Caribbean; when he's next to one, he grabs it and tries to eat it. However, a girl who is accompanying him (Tiau) hastily takes it away from him, and scolds him by saying it's very dangerous to eat it raw and that it must be cooked first.
  • In the twenty-third episode, Lon approaches a cauldron where something with a deceptively delicious smell is boiling, and is then alerted by a Xingu native not to approach it (Chris then follows suit by scolding him). At first, Chris thinks the cauldron was cooking someone else's meal, but the native clarifies that the cauldron is actually concocting a juice derived from tuber, and it's extremely poisonous (it can only be consumed once it's fully prepared).
  • Near the end of the twenty-fifth episode, Chris is about to touch one of the statues shaped like serpent heads (located near the entrance to the temple dedicated to Quetzalcoatl), but the Toltec man who accompanies him hastily alerts him not to do so. Chris apologizes and then asks what the statues shaped like that represent (he only knows they're not portraying Quetzalcoatl), but the man tells him that it's a secret and then bids him farewell before departing to resume his Courier duties. Chris wakes up before curiosity starts taking away the best of him.
• Tom and Jerry: In Sorry Safari, Tom tries to catch Jerry while accompanying his master on a safari and learns the hard way to keep his hands to himself.
  "DON'T TOUCH MY GUNS!"'

Real Life

• British artist Damien Hirst has spoken of an exhibition he will never be allowed to do. It consists of a big red button with DO NOT PRESS written under it. When people (inevitably) ignore the sign and press the button, a boxing glove shoots out and punches them in the face.
• The 'DO NOT TOUCH' art exhibit in the Science Museum in London has a bare metal pole surrounded by yellow and black warning stripes and large signs warning people not to touch it, as they will get an electric shock. Yes, visitors always touch it. Yes, you do get shocked.
• Infamously, former US vice president Mike Pence touched a NASA equipment that had a big "Critical Space Flight Hardware DO NOT TOUCH" sign.
• Nintendo Switch cartridges have a foul-tasting (albeit harmless) bitter coating added to them, to discourage small children from putting them in their mouths and the consequent choking hazard. Upon learning this, many, many people's reaction is to immediately try licking a cartridge...

Other

• In the Evil Overlord List, one of the items is that all devices will have a well concealed self-destruct button, and an obvious button labeled "do not press" which will trigger an immediate spray of bullets into anyone stupid enough to disregard it.
• The Indiana Jones and The Temple of the Forbidden Eye attraction at Disneyland revolves around a recently-discovered temple where an ancient deity resides, offering to bestow upon visitors endless wealth, eternal youth, or visions of the future, on the one condition that they don't look into the deity's eyes. If they do, they'll be led to certain doom. Almost as soon as the ride starts, the vehicles enter the treasure room, which contains a large statue of the deity's face on the far wall ... and you can guess what happens from there.

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Don't click here, I'm warning you!

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