The school is out of money, the
protagonist is out of a job, or a good cause requires money. What do you do? A fundraiser of course!
The protagonists (often schoolchildren) have to sell something for fund raising, usually candy, and there is a reward for the person who sells the most. After initial failure, the protagonist will employ a
Zany Scheme to sell obscene amounts of it and end up with a mountain of money. The
Lonely Rich Kid will just spend their own. More often than not,
the reward ends up being lame.
Examples:
Television
I am a little sunflower / Sunny, brave, and true. / From tiny bud to blossom, / I do good deeds for you.
- My Gym Partner's a Monkey
- In the episode "The Trial of Henry Blake", from M*A*S*H, one of the charges brought against Henry is that he let Radar try to sell shoes to everyone. When Henry returns from his trail, he's welcomed by the camp — with everyone wearing the wing-tipped shoes Radar was selling.
- Beavis And Butthead: The Trope Namer minus the "Episode" in which the protagnists go around houses for charity. Hilarity Ensues even more than SpongeBob SquarePants.
- In an episode of Doug, Doug and the rest of his scout troop have to sell chocolate bars door-to-door. No one buys them, until they realize it was because cement got mixed up with the ingredients where the bars were made. The episode is actually called "Doug Door-to-Door".
- Coconut Nut Clusters from Reno 911!. Jones and Kimball end up pretty badly mangled. Everybody else has a pizza party without them.
- An early Daria episode involves characters going door to door selling various things (candy bars, phone services, etc.). Unlike most examples, however, it only serves as 1/3 of the episode's plot.
Real Life
- These kinds of fundraisers, as well as regular door-to-door sales, are not unusual.
- In recent years, these have become discouraged.