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alt title(s): Mc Guffin; Golden Fleece
" In crook stories it is almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is most always the papers."
(a.k.a. McGuffin or maguffin) is a term for a motivating element in a story that is used to drive the plot. Unlike Chekhovs Gun, it actually serves no further purpose — it won't pop up again later, it won't explain the ending, it won't actually do anything except possibly distract you while you try to figure out its significance. In some cases, it won't even be revealed. It is usually a mysterious package/artifact/superweapon that everyone in the story is chasing. It is the most famous kind of plot coupon.
To determine if the story is using a MacGuffin instead of another plot device is if the item itself is interchangeable, requiring relatively little differences to the core plot. In a crime story, the MacGuffin could be the Mona Lisa, a large diamond, a bank vault, a computer terminal, or a museum artifact; the story would be exactly the same. It doesn't matter what specific power or value the item possesses, only that there is a desire for the characters to possess it. Alternately: if the story's setup can be summarized as "Quickly! We must find X before they do!", X is a MacGuffin.
The term was coined by Alfred Hitchcock to refer to his version of the traditional mystery story Red Herring.
The word MacGuffin comes from a school-boy joke, where two men discuss an item, and one says it's a MacGuffin, a tool used to hunt lions in the highlands, but when the other points out that there are no lions in the highlands, the other states "Well, then it's not a MacGuffin".
In academic circles, the term The Golden Fleece is sometimes used in place of MacGuffin, after the artifact from Jason And The Argonauts, which is a traditional MacGuffin.
The term is commonly misused as an item or artefact that everyone is fighting over. While this is a common variant - perhaps the most common - it is not the only type. Another form of MacGuffin is an item which a character is trying to bring to someone else, and the story comes from the obstacles they face on their way.
Compare Magnetic Plot Device. Not related to Mac OS. Or is it?
MacGuffin sub-tropes:
Examples:
Anime
- In One Piece, the titular treasure is a MacGuffin; nobody knows exactly what it is, but everyone wants to get their hands on it. This is even more evident in the earlier drafts for the manga called "Romance Dawn", where there was no mention of One Piece, and Luffy was a pirate just for the hell of it.
- In Piano, Miu's self-composed piano piece is the MacGuffin. Theoretically, the entire series is built around it. In actuality, it takes a back seat to the "slice of life" drama that makes up the story. The audience only really gets to hear it in the first episode, and even then, it's just an extract. The series finishes just as Miu walks on stage to perform it, a source of snarling frustration if the viewer's been wondering just what the heck she's been working on all this time. Still, at least no-one tried to kill her to get their hands on it.
- In Pokemon the entire Orange League episodes are caused by Ash trying to get the mysterious GS Ball to a Pokeball expert named Kurt. No one knows what's in it. By the end of the Johto League episodes, it's simply forgotten. In the games, the GS Ball contained Celebi. However, Celebi has appeared in the anime/movies since then, with no known connection to the GS Ball. One wonders that if they wanted to know what was in the GS Ball, why they didn't just throw it.
- Apparently that wouldn't work. They tried throwing it, using a crowbar, electric saws, and even a freaking laser. Nothing worked, and it was completely forgotten about later. Chances are, not even the producers really knew what the hell was in it.
- The GS Ball in the anime was supposed to be exactly like how it was in the games, but the producers decided to use Celebi for the movies, so when they had Ash give the ball to Kurt, the producers left that subplot unsolved in hopes that the audience would forget about it.
- Every single episode of Get Backers revolves around one of these. Somewhat justified, as the characters retrieve, transport, protect, etc. things for a living.
- The Steam Ball from the movie Steamboy is another MacGuffin whose function and purpose are both made explicit over the course of the film, without ever quite reaching Artifact Of Doom level.
- Ojamajo Doremi: In the first ep, Doremi Harukaze's crush on a certain school soccer player eventually results in her becoming a witch apprentice, before being completely discarded at episode's end.
- The Imperial Seal and the Dragon Jade from Ikki Tousen.
- Definitely true with the Key of the Twilight in .hack//SIGN Everyone chases after it for the entire series, and yet no one has the slightest idea what it's supposed to be, often questioning its existence, what it is, what it's supposed to do, and why they're chasing after it. Some viewers are still confused about what it's supposed to be.
- The Crystal Flowers from Petite Princess Yucie, giving the Platinum Princess candidates an excuse to visit each other's worlds.
- In Tokyo Godfathers by Satoshi Kon the baby, Kiyoko, found by the titualr homeless people rests between this and Magnetic Plot Device to the point where the characters start considering the baby to be literally blessed. Also she is technically a MacGuffin Girl.
- In a certain episode of Lupin III in which Goemon and Lupin are both trying to get an ancient document from police headquarters, which turns out to be the laws and regulations guide of Japanese policemen...circa 1885 or so, and another such episode where Goemon is up against his former rival-what-killed-his-master, searching for a secret scroll with the final technique. Turns out the scroll is blank and on top of that, the scroll is another one of those Be Yourself metaphor things. Considering the nature of this show, there's probably more.
- The series played with it at one point - Lupin is captured by a Rich Idiot With No Day Job and strapped with a bomb; the guy takes Fujiko hostage as well and sends Lupin to steal a file from the police. The file is the rap sheet for a minor criminal, and none of the heroes can work out why he'd want that. Turns out the rich guy is the criminal, with serious plastic surgery.
- Barring a scant handful, every... single... movie revolves around a MacGuffin, which is inevitably lost by the end.
- In Windy Tales, the wind manipulation powers are used mostly as a backdrop for the more slice of life nature of the tales in the title.
- In Zettai Karen Children, the prophecy about Kaoru turning against non-espers is harped upon endlessly, but has totally no bearing on the ending of the anime. Sure, it could be construed as a no ending, but after some 50 or so episodes it's not any less egregious.
Comic Books
- Every alien race in Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire gets into a holy war at the same time to get "The Winslow", a furry alligator-like creature that has extreme religious significance for no reason whatsoever.
- No reason? It fulfills one of the 14 Accepted Signs of Divinity. Specifically, the one that is "Be the Winslow". So Yeah.
- Lampshade Hanging in the rather atrocious Tenchi Muyo comic by Pioneer, in which Sasami has a special delivered package from Jyurai, which turns out to be Macguffins, a light and tasty delicacy. In fact, they're so good "why else would people chase after them?"
- The Secret Six ongoing kicked off with an arc centering around a rather interesting MacGuffin: a get out of Hell free card.
Film
- The perfect Alfred Hitchcock example is the "government secrets" that motivate the action in North By Northwest (1959).
- Also the man the hero is mistaken for, especially when it's revealed he doesn't really exist
- Another typical MacGuffin is The Maltese Falcon. It gets the characters together, pits them against each other, but turns out to be worthless.
- The stolen money in Psycho.
- Also used by in Pulp Fiction in the form of the suitcase with the mysterious glowing contents, which is an homage to the 1955 movie Kiss Me Deadly, whose suitcase originally housed a superweapon — a nuclear device. Fans speculated that its Pulp Fiction counterpart held Marcellus' soul. Tarantino called a MacGuffin a MacGuffin, and has made it very clear that he neither knows nor cares what was in the case.
- To paraphrase Samuel L Jackson, the case contained a couple of heavy-ass batteries and some lights.
- The silver case in Ronin. In fact, the film's final scene goes slightly out of its way NOT to reveal what's inside it.
- The stoner-flick Dude, Where's My Car? has two; first, the titular car, which serves primarily as a plot device to lead our half-baked heroes into zany misadventure after zany misadventure, and second, the Continuum Transfunctioner, an incredibly powerful device (It's power is only exceeded by it's mystery) being covertly fought over by two different alien races (which represent themselves as hot chicks and creepy Germans, respectively), a fight that the protagonists slowly find themselves caught in the middle of.
- Mission Impossible III features Ethan Hunt trying to keep a nasty weapons dealer from acquiring "The Rabbit's Foot", a small cylindrical kajigger that's assumed to contain some sort of biological weapon (though it's never explicitly stated as such). At the very end of the film, as Hunt leaves to enjoy his honeymoon, he asks his boss just what "The Rabbit's Foot" was, but his boss says he'll only tell him if he stays with the IMF. They all have a good laugh about it, and the movie ends. Shockingly some film reviewers (professional critics!) expressed outrage that they didn't get to find out what the all-important item was, suggesting unfamiliarity with the trope.
- The first film also had a disc as the primary Mac Guffin, though it was clearly defined as being a list of undercover CIA agents.
- In Cast Away, the one box that Tom Hanks never opens, even delivers at the end. We never know what was in it. However, in an Easter Egg on the DVD, it reveals a press conference by the director who, when asked what was in the box, said it was a solar powered, satellite phone
- The Allspark from the 2007 Transformers movie is little more than just an object sought by both robot factions.
- The title train of 3:10 to Yuma is a classic MacGuffin.
- "Rosebud" from Citizen Kane.
- The Spanish Prisoner revolves around a secret and valuable industrial "Process" its protagonist has invented.
- Each Indiana Jones film involves the search for a MacGuffin. George Lucas and Harrison Ford has even said that the items are MacGuffins, the stories could be told with almost anything else in its place.
- Although, they actually do end up doing something. Like killing the bad guys.
- When the screenplay for Good Will Hunting was published as a book, director Gus Van Sant wrote a preface in which he admitted that Will's math talents were a MacGuffin: he doesn't solve a math problem the details of whose solution affect the plot (otherwise, the movie would be more a science-fiction story about the invention of fusion power, or whatever).
- For that matter, there's the titular proof in Proof. What it is doesn't matter, only whether Anthony Hopkins or his daughter Gwyneth Paltrow was the one who proved it.
- Escape From New York: the tape with the secret of nuclear fusion.
- In Mel Brooks' High Anxiety, which contains parodies of numerous Hitchcock films, the lead character (who is terrified of heights) is checking into a hotel when the receptionist informs him that though the hotel had reserved him a lower-level floor, "a Mr. MacGuffin called and requested we change it to the 17th floor." Though MacGuffin is probably a reference to the villains stalking the main character, the name is never mentioned again.
- Its A Mad Mad Mad Mad World is based around a bunch of fools trying to locate and claim a hidden stash of $350,000.
- Lampshaded in The Departed: "Our target: microprocessors. Yes, those. I don't know what they are, you don't know what they are, who gives a fuck?"
- The letters of transit in Casablanca.
- Done for humor in the Beatles' movie Help!. Ringo is given the ring of the goddess Kaili, which he can't get off and which various villains and bad guys are trying to get. One mad scientist character comes out with the classic Mc Guffin line: "With a ring like that, I could—dare I say it?—rule the world!!"
- Wonder Woman (1974). A list of U.S. undercover agents stolen by the Big Bad and put up for sale to the highest bidder.
- In the 1979 film The Double McGuffin (narrated by Orson Welles), a group of precocious children (including Lisa Whelchel) find a briefcase full of cash and run afoul of Ernie Borgnine and Lyle Alzado.
- The "Beaugard" painting in Animal Crackers.
- The gold in The Italian Job.
- Raising the money to pay the orphanage's debts in The Blues Brothers - honestly, I'm just here for the music.
Literature
- The Ring of Power in Lord Of The Rings is, in fact, a Mac Guffin, as many, many books have been written to that effect. Don't believe it? Consider the fact that it's possible to re-enact the whole plot with a Ring whose only power is to corrupt the wearer and turn them invisible — a magical Maltese Falcon. Any other practical use for the Ring, or mechanism for how it would be used to "rule the world" must be taken for Word Of God, since it can't be shown in the context of the work without breaking the setting. This is actually even more cut and dried in the films where the whole moral aspect of using the rings was over-simplified to the point where fans argue about whether anyone but Sauron could have actually used it for its intended purpose (and if they couldn't, then it's a full-on Clingy Mac Guffin since no one but the villain can benefit from it).
- The sole purpose of Angus Mcguffin in Jasper Fforde's The Fourth Bear.
- Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov's vast fortune in The Brothers Karamazov is said to exist, but even the narrator casts aspersions as to how much money he really has, if any. The sons' owed inheritance is the MacGuffin which gets the plot moving in the beginning, but it is only brought up past the middle of the book in passing. The argument could also be made that the sub-plot involving the schoolboys, which is almost entirely unrelated to the main events of the novel, is a MacGuffin to explore some other themes of spirituality.
- Anthony Horowitz parodied The Maltese Falcon in a children's book called The Falcon's Malteser, which had the MacGuffin (a package containing what turned out to be a box of Maltesers chocolates) actually introduced by a character called MacGuffin.
- In Charles Dickens' Great Expectations: The Great Expectations themselves. They are used to drive Pip's actions and ambitions, but are never specifically described or realised in the end
- Lampshaded in Walking On Glass by Iain Banks. At the end of Steven's story, Steven finds a box of McGuffin's Zen Brand matches, on the back of which is written the answer to Quiss and Ajayi's riddle. Quiss and Ajayi have forfeited all future attempts to answer the riddle, because Quiss has destroyed the Game Table, but we know that their current attempt, earned by completing a game of "Tunnel", will be correct because Ajayi finds a copy of Walking On Glass in the remains of the Game Table.
- The plot of the classic satirical novel The Twelve Chairs by Ilf and Petrov revolves around a treasure hidden in a chair. Of course, by the time the main characters find it, the treasure is long gone
- Isaac Asimov's Black Widower mystery stories have the out of print books in "Sunset on the Water", a lucky coin in "The Lucky Piece", and the data in "The Alibi". The data is a somewhat lampshaded MacGuffin, as the government agent telling the story points out that the details are unimportant, but still secret.
- In The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin, the main characters find and use a vital object called 'The Maguffin'.
- A Series Of Unfortunate Events features a mysterious sugar bowl (a.k.a. the Vessel For Disaccharides) that everyone is looking for. In the last volume, they don't find it. It is implied to possibly contain horseradish.
- The Queen's diamond studs in The Three Musketeers.
Live Action TV
- Due South: The two-part first season episode "Chicago Holiday" features a matchbook that supposedly will give the owner control of the entire Chicago west side (whatever that means). The list is passed from hand to hand, but we never learn what is actually written on it, nor is it really important except to further the plot. There is also a hotel cleaning woman named "Mrs. MacGuffin", an In/Out Board that shows Mac Guff as "In", and a store security guard "Niffug, C. M.", whose name tag we conveniently see in a mirror, all obvious Shout Outs to Hitchcock.
- The Prize for being the last Immortal standing in Highlander.
- Season 2 of Prison Break has the characters chasing a MacGuffin all season: Charles Westmoreland's money. It briefly ends up in the hands of T-Bag and Bellick, but aside from an insignificant amount being spent, it only serves to move the plot along. Many things happen because of it, but it ends up as nobody's prize.
- Done to the point of extreme irritation in Alias as it's obvious by the end of season two that the writers can't come up with a satisfactory explanation for the prophet Rambaldi but are still going to drag out one tired MacGuffin for the rest of the series.
- The remake of Battlestar Galactica turns Earth into a Mac Guffin Location, uses that fact brilliantly in the third season's mid-season ending, then catches the audience off guard in the series finale. Most of the haunting clues the crew of Galactica have been encountering either fall into place or help promote the idea that the "route to Earth" they have been following is really a series of "predestined convenient encounters." The character of Hera becomes the final Mac Guffin needed to find a home planet that turns out to be the real Earth long into its past.
Myth And Legend
- The Finnish national epic, The Kalevala, revolves around various people searching for and fighting over the Sampo, which is eventually lost at sea. The standard Kalevala compilation by Elias Lönnrot describes it as a mill which produces gold, wheat and salt, but he made this up - his original sources never specified what it was.
- The Golden Fleece in the story of Jason and the Argonauts. By that same token, many of the tasks performed by Hercules.
- The Fleece was actually full of gold, an behalf of being used repeatedly to filter water from a river containing gold dust. Worth its weight in gold, in other words.
Tabletop RPG
- The Paranoia adventure "The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues". The title Black Box. What it does is eventually revealed, in some versions of the adventure, but it's unlikely your player characters will live long enough to discover it.
Video Games
- Every single Tomb Raider game involves Lara on a quest to collect some kind of artifact, except for Unfinished Business.
- This trope is sort of subverted in Tomb Raider Legend when the MacGuffin is the legendary sword Excalibur, which Lara uses as a weapon in the final boss fight.
- The BMW M3 from Need For Speed: Most Wanted counts as a MacGuffin: the entire career mode is about climbing through the Blacklist until you defeat Razor and recover he took away from you, it's pretty much as powerful as a fully tuned Ford Mustang, you only get to use it at the very beginning and at the very end, and also doubles as a Bragging Rights Reward for clearing the game.
- Nobody's mentioned Chrono Trigger yet? It both uses it straight and subverts it, formerly with the Gate Key (which gets stolen once, but is only mentioned twice in the context of the story as a convenient device to open Time Travel gates. It's subverted with Marle's pendant, which seems to be just as much of a MacGuffin at first, but later becomes vital and useful after its upgrade. Not only is it used to obtain the Cool Ship, but it allows you to open the closed boxes that are scattered everywhere in the game world.
- The Chrono Trigger example can be extended to many console RPGs. As soon as the Rebellious Princess or Mysterious Waif joins the party, odds on you'll get their pendant/gem/other valuable heirloom too. The object's relevance varies wildly between actually useful in game (generally opening magical seals or an equippable item), ultimate cosmic plot power, true MacGuffin style object that everyone wants which is actually just junk, mentioned a handful of times in conversation, and an utterly irrelevant item that just clogs up your inventory. Of course, whichever it is, there's no way you'll avoid chasing after the damn thing if it gets lost or stolen.
- In fact, the sequel to Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, is perhaps an even better example than its predecessor: The Frozen Flame, a mystical artifact which grants its owner ultimate power, is used to drive the plot up until Chronopolis. However, it turns out that instead of an "artifact" it's a giant honkin' rock which is neither frozen nor a flame, and while it does technically posess great power, it requires a huge lab and tons of futuristic equipment to use it. Which, by the way, you don't get to... it appears as a background graphic before a boss battle, and then you never see it again. And then you kick yourself and realize that if you hadn't been chasing the Frozen Flame, you'd be back in your home world, living the idyllic (and very boring from a gameplay standpoint) life you led in the first 15 minutes of the game.
- Then again, everyone would still think you were dead. And probably worse: Kid would still be around to butcher the English language.
- More like butcher the Australian accent.
- The Seal of Metatron from Silent Hill 3 is a MacGuffin of the Maltese Falcon kind: you have to pound your way through a rotten hospital in Dark Silent Hill to get it, you can't use it during normal gameplay, it's supposed to kill God, and in the end, Claudia says it's just a piece of worthless crap.
- The firespawn Blaze in the game Mortal Kombat Armageddon has been accused of being a living MacGuffin; the quest to defeat him originally meant to prevent The End Of The World As We Know It, but the added side-effect of gaining godlike power inspires the other characters besides those intended on beating him to go after him and provide the basis of the game. As per the nature of the MacGuffin, Blaze's power in relation to whoever defeats him changes with the person, and is never solidly defined.
- Also, Earth itself could be considered a MacGuffin in the entire series, as any other realm could've been used as the main conflict (and, in fact, battles with other realms have been featured, though the Earth/Outworld one is the focus of the series). Beyond "ultimate power", it's unknown just what specifications Earth has over other, more powerful realms (like Edenia) as a prime target for conquest.
- Finally, Shinnok's Amulet was the MacGuffin for at least three games in the Mortal Kombat series, even though the most we ever learn about it is that it can only be created once (proven false by Quan Chi making a fake one), and that it's used to fuse the Kamidogu (yet another MacGuffin in Deception) and, thus, all of reality together.
- The eleventh level quest in the sarcastic MMORPG Kingdom Of Loathing is, literally, the Quest for the Holy MacGuffin.
- The Chaos Emeralds of Sonic The Hedgehog can be considered this - they're incredible power sources, but in only a few games are they ever used to power anything, and only some of them in those cases.
- The Water Chip and GECK from the Fallout games, are both classic examples of a MacGuffin, both of whoms main purposes is to get the player out of the starting area.
- The Ankaran Sarcophagus from Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines; prince LaCroix's obsession with it, and the effect it has on the various vampire factions of the city, drives much of the plot. Subverted in a most satisfying fashion in the anarch and independent endings, where it turns out it contained a bomb planted by your Trickster Mentor intended to kill said prince — even the fact that you were the Xanatos Sucker that allowed the plan to succeed was worth it for the sight of LaCroix opening the casket and finding out what his 'gateway to infinite power' contained...
- In Splinter Cell: Pandora Tommorrow, the player character's first mission is to infiltrate an embassay being raided not Guerrillas. It's stressed that your objective is to destroy a computer containing sensitive information. Even the hostages being held are of secondary importance. When you contact the man that knows where this information is, he gives you an email he stole from one of his captors and your next objective his to decrypt it. The initial computer you were sent to smash- the one that was so critical it was worth risking the lives of dozens of hostages- is never mentioned again.
- The assassins in the "Tribunal" expansion pack for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind are essentially an army of living Mac Gruffins. The player is attacked by them in his or her sleep, and has to find their base. Ultimately, this serves only as an excuse for the player to enter the area added by the expansion—why the assassins actually attacked you is never explained (though the question of who hired them is.)
- The Amulet of Kings in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The entire main quest line revolves around getting the Amulet and the Emperor's son to the same place. Once you do, you get to see the ending sequence but not to participate in it.
- Isabella in Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is a living MacGuffin. Completely amnesiac except for mysterious knowledge concerning where the protagonists should go next, her return is eventually demanded by the game's Big Bad on pain of aerial bombardment... after which it's revealed that nothing about her is particularly special (literally since she's a clone); the bastard just wanted to see what would happen if he held the last settlement of man Hostage For Mc Guffin.
- The optical disc from Metal Gear Solid. Snake gets it early on and doesn't really know what it's for, but unbeknownst to the player, almost the entire plot revolves around that disc.
- Crysis Warhead, the entire game is chasing a MacGuffin. But with more explosions.
- The entire plot for Threads Of Fate involves the main characters questing after the [relic] of ultimate power, capable of granting any wish. It winds up getting transported to another dimension right after the final boss fight, and just short of the opportunity to really begin abusing that sucker's power. C'est la vie.
- Kingdom Hearts has the seven Princesses of Heart in the first game, although the heroes are only concerned with Kairi, who also serves as something of a Macguffin Girl herself (though less so in the second game, where she takes a more active role and is more established) until her actual rescue late in the game, where she actively rescues Sora and then gives Sora a powerful keyblade. The titular Kingdom Heart itself serves as a Mac Guffin, however, as the organizations are all desperately seeking it, dispite not truly knowing what it is or what it does.
- In Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, Guybrush Threepwood begins his quest to find the "Big Whoop", a legendary treasure known and craved by all pirates, even when no one knows what it is.
- Averted with the Secret of Monkey Island itself. Although mentioned frequently across the series, the task of finding it is never used to drive the plot. Guybrush does find it accidentally in the fourth game, but it happens so randomly that the player would never know they found the Secret, if it weren't for the FMV movie named such. Heck, the creator of the series still says that he never told anyone what the real secret is, and that he might do a final game to wrap up the series.
- Wing Commander II lampshades this with Specialist MacGuffin, the poor soul who first spots the traitor aboard your ship radioing a Kilrathi commander. He's promptly shot for his efforts, though not before he grabs the traitor's flight insignia.
- Planescape Torment has the Bronze Sphere as its primary MacGuffin. It becomes a Chekhovs Gun if you take it with you throughout the whole game and deduce the identity of the Good Incarnation.
- Kane & Lynch: Dead Men features a pair of briefcases early on that Kane and Lynch must try to capture within three weeks to save Kane's family. After finding that one of the cases is missing from its vault, they try and fail to find the last case, and even after they're betrayed by The7, they cause a mass jailbreak to get a crew together and continue all the way to Japan to capture the second briefcase. We never discover what's in the briefcases.
- The quests, especially open-world leveling quests, in World Of Warcraft fall into a small number of broad categories, the most common being 1) Talk to someone, 2) Kill something (or X number of somethings), and 3) Collect something. The Collect-something quests involve MacGuffins. The majority of players don't bother to read quest text in detail; they just check it for the name of the MacGuffin(s) they need to collect this time.
Webcomics
Web Original
- The Project Orwell software in series 1 of KateModern, which is mysteriously absent from the second series.
Western Animation
- Every other Uncle Scrooge Comic Story, and to a lesser extent, DuckTales, is essentially a search for a historical MacGuffin. It matters not whether the already-ultra-rich Mc Duck searches for the Golden Fleece, Solomon's Mines, the remnants of the Trojan Horse, the Crown of the Crusader Kings, the Candy-Striped Ruby etc. so much as it's something valuable for both him and Glomgold to get involved.
- Don Rosa's life stories of Scrooge Mc Duck make this even more explicit by detailing his adventures around in search of wealth, and the sharp downturn after he could just like back and manage it. The treasures he's now seeking are less important than the ability to zoom halfway across the planet to do it.
- An episode of the Sam And Max Freelance Police cartoon revolved around the heroes chasing an FDA inspector, trying to feed him a sample of their favorite snack food so that he'll realize how delicious they are and lift the ban he's placed on them. That snack food: "Glazed MacGuffins".
- Codename Kids Next Door, "Operation Report" refers to its MacGuffin as The Goods until practically the end of the story, where it turns out to just be a pizza they were suppose to get. But at least they actually reveal it... the mysterious ice cream flavor that Numbuh 5 and the Delightfuls were fighting over in "Operation Flavor" gets "name-cancelled" the only it's going to be mentioned when the others have phoned Numbuh 5.
- In an episode of GI Joe, Shipwreck finds himself conscripted into entertaining a group of children while the other Joes guard a machine actually called "The Macguffin Device".
- In a nice touch, it's a MacGuffin in the trope sense as well; neither the Joes nor Cobra knows what the thing does, they just don't want the other side to have it.
- A Wacky Races-inspired episode of Teen Titans involves Robin's high-security suitcase. Its opening at the end is, of course, a textbook use of The Unreveal.
- Taz-Mania did a story in the same vein, with secret agents chasing two Tasmanian Devils with a certain orange juice box, right down to ending on the opening of the container without revealing what's in it.
- The Golden Disk in Transformers: Beast Wars started as a MacGuffin... but in the second season, it evolved out of that status, with Megatron demonstrating exactly what it was and why it was so dangerous in his hands.
- The Anti-Life Equation in the Diniverse. Several villains, most notably Darkseid, want it, and the chase for it is a recurring plot point. The equation itself, on the other hand, is not: What it does remains undefined and the two who finally get their hands on it promptly vanish from this reality. (The comic book version, on the other hand, does define the Equation, and some of those seeking it have been able to use it. Basically, it is an empirical scientific formula which demonstrates the meaninglessness and futility of existence, which allows one to control the will of others entirely. Its ominous name comes from the idea that "if someone possesses absolute control over you - you're not really alive." Scott "Mr. Miracle" Free has known the Equation all along but chooses not to use it.)
- The titular Black Cauldron
- In the book, on the other hand, the Cauldron was very much its own thing. Hen Wen, on the other hand, basically served to be chased and clashed over until finally doing something in the final book.
- In an American Idol parody episode of The Simpsons, the prize winner gets to star in their own "Itchy and Scratchy" episode. After that, it is never brought up again in the episode.
- The entire plot of Kung Fu Panda, to an extent, revolves around the Dragon Scroll—who gets it, who deserves it, how and when it will be used. Tai Lung went to the Dark Side because he was not granted it, then spends twenty years in prison thinking of nothing else, escaping only when he learns it will be given to someone else. The Furious Five, meanwhile, all want it so they can stop the Big Bad and prove their worth to their master, while everyone from Shifu on down to Po believes the panda needs it and its ultimate power to win. And the final battle is literally an endless series of hot potato tosses back and forth around the village square, with Tai Lung and Po constantly in pursuit of each other to get the scroll back.
- The kicker? The scroll is blank, without any special secret written on it. The double kicker? What seems a worthless artifact is actually a reflective parchment geared to make Po gain the confidence to believe in the Be Yourself lesson. Tai Lung doesn't get it at all, and thinks it really is a worthless MacGuffin which he has wasted his whole life pursuing. The rage this discovery produces contributes strongly to Po's victory.
- At least two episodes of Kim Possible revolve around a pure MacGuffin: in "Sick Day" it's "Ray X" which is repeatedly stolen and recovered when the players are incapacitated by a cold they pass to each other (and "Ray X" is revealed to be a cure for the common cold, after it has been destroyed). "Adventures In Rufus-Sitting" sees the Non Human Sidekick Rufus swallow a microchip - pursed by three villains and protected by Kim.
- Another is the Pan Dimensional Vortex Inducer. Dr. Drakken says outright that he only wants it because his rival Professor Dementor has it. No-one but Dementor and its inventors even know what it does until near the end.
- Several episodes of The Secret Show revolve around the U.Z.Z. agents trying to prevent the theft of "The Secret Thing," which is so secret that nobody knows what it is or what it does, but everyone wants it just the same.
- The Crystal Coconut in Donkey Kong Country is almost always in danger of being stolen by the Kremlings.
- In an episode of The Adventures Of Super Mario Bros 3, Mario and friends have to keep a magic wand safe from the Koopas until the king it belongs to comes to pick it up.
Real Life
- In the international arena, weapons of mass destruction (More here)
 , especially nukes function as a MacGuffin in that the threat of them, of a fanatic sect acquiring one or the means to make one is a fundamental driving element for political action. Those who have them want to keep them. Those that don't want to get them. Those that do don't want others to have them, and wars are fought on this basis. And yet, they never get used, amazingly so, considering how many radical sects already are in possession of them.
- Yes, two were dropped to conclude World War II, the impact of which is still felt today, but since they've gone thermonuclear, since they've become a global commodity and a global threat, not one nuke has been used in hostility to this day. It almost gives hope for the future of mankind.
- So-called "dirty bombs" are a real Mac Guffin. What would happen if someone detonated a dirty bomb in a major city? It wouldn't be completely pleasant, but it wouldn't be nearly as bad as you think.
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