Milkman Conspiracy - Television Tropes & Idioms

Den Mother: Would you care to join us in our Rainbow Squirt Pledge of Purpose?

Rainbow Squirts: "To promote niceness. To make the world prettier. To share candy with everyone. To obfuscate the true nature of the Milkman. To protect the Milkman at all costs. To destroy all who would harm the Milkman, or threaten to reveal his secret objective."

— Psychonauts, in the eponymous level

You can't destroy the Milkman!...

...don't tell that to Kiwis, cause it might get infected. INFECTED WITH THE TRUTH!

— Raocow, while playing An Untitled Story

The hero has inadvertently become involved with the Ancient Conspiracy or Corrupt Corporate Executives, who are secretly The Chessmaster of the impossibly confused Xanatos Roulette in which the heroes find themselves. They've worked through the layers of intrigue and espionage, and are about to discover just who is The Man Behind The Man. But rather than being the Government, or the Freemasons, or the Illuminati, it's... the local fishmongers.

A Milkman Conspiracy is any conspiracy operating from an organisation so pathetically uninfluential that it should by all rights barely be able to overcome zoning regulations, yet is somehow able to sink its fangs into vast swathes of the Earth. Named for a level of Psychonauts in which the paranoid fantasies of one of the characters involve being a milkman-spy at the center of a war between an army of secret agents and... a troop of homicidal Girl Scouts.

If the organization is not secret, this becomes just a Weird Trade Union. If it is not powerful even in the story, this is a Brotherhood Of Funny Hats. Compare Almighty Janitor.

This trope has nothing to do with this guy,

just wanted to point that out.

Examples:

Card Games

The card game Illuminati occasionally displays this. While you typically need to have groups that would logically be powerful, small ones help you out as well; people can win by taking control of the Furries.

Film

In Hot Fuzz, a vast campaign of murder and intimidation is covered up by a conspiracy of a few village shops, the local pub, and the local Inspector, all for the purposes of ensuring they continue to win the "Village of the Year" award.
- It's what is called 'the little Hitler problem' in the UK: a 'Neighborhood Watch' scheme getting a little beyond its brief...
The 1967 film The President's Analyst features a plot to enslave all humanity masterminded by TPC (The Phone Company. Arguably, this group has (or maybe had) a bit more power and influence than most in this list.
- Whence the real reason The Phone Company was broken up into several smaller pieces.
Hilarious subversion in the film The Stupids. The titular family believe they've uncovered one of these, involving the police, garbage collectors, the New York Times, the local deli, the local Chinese restaurant, and bees (my God) to steal all the world's mail and deliver it to a man called "Sender" (Christopher Lee!). The twist is that, not only does this conspiracy not exist, but in their efforts to thwart it, the Stupids manage to mess up an actually dangerous conspiracy entirely by accident. Oh, and they find Sender, and he turns out to be, not Christopher Lee, but Bob Keeshan!

Literature

In The Demon Headmaster series, the head teacher of a small comprehensive secondary school attempts to take over the world using (in order): a school, a computer summer camp, a Merchandise Driven TV show, a small-time lab, a university computer lab and, most amusingly, a nightclub.
- Quite a bit of the time though he only needs these to get himself on TV with lots of viewers, then his powers do the rest.
In The Illuminatus! Trilogy, the real Illuminati, the one of which Hagbard Celine is Primus, maintains its control over world affairs by operating through Discordians and anarchists, two groups of people who by their very nature are disorganized and individualistic.
- There are many errors in that sentence. Keep them that way, and we'll let you live.
- The Card Game allows similar outcomes. Though most players will keep the big, all-powerful groups at the top of the power structure, there is nothing keeping you from having the Boy Scouts in charge of the International Communist Conspiracy. Or the High Fashion Designers controlling the Mafia. One house rule that some play with is to explain how these weird arrangements occur.
Tom Holt's books feature a literal milkman conspiracy as imagined by Danny Bennett, a journalist hellbent on proving that the real power behind world governments lies with... the Milk Marketing Board.
The Crying of Lot 49 features a vast conspiracy which is either a secret postal service masquerading as a swingers' club, or an eccentric dead man's estate masquerading as an secret postal service masquerading as a swingers' club, for a prank. Needless to say, the protagonist's just as confused as you are. Don't expect anything to be explained.
- W.A.S.T.E - We Await Silent Tristero's Empire.
- The signs are everywhere!
V.F.D. in A Series Of Unfortunate Events sometimes resembles this; many of its members work as teachers, librarians, or taxi drivers (hence, it is strongly implied that such innocuous-seeming people in the reader's own life could be involved), and they often carry out plots in bizarre, inefficient ways.
- It resembles this nearly completely. All the villainous and well.. sorta-heroic adults end up part of V.F.D. The original acronym's meaning? Volunteer Fire Department. If that's not a Milkman Conspiracy, I dunno what is.
In the book Michaelmas, the benevolent secret ruler of the planet is a respected TV journalist in the Walter Cronkite mode.
In Catch 22, Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder (magnificent bastard extrodinaire ) is only the head of the mess hall, but manages to become more powerful than any of the generals by organizing a vast international trading company through the mess hall.
The Dark Heresy novel Scourge the Heretic briefly mentions this when it becomes apparent that a people-smuggling conspiration has its hideout in a former mining shaft now in use for growing mushrooms (by the Fratery of Comestibles for the Cultivation of Edible Fungi), though it's immediately noted that they probably just don't have any idea what goes on in their holdings.

Live Action TV

British TV show The Avengers featured another literal Milkman Conspiracy in the episode "False Witness", with the added twist that the dairy produce was absolutely central to their scheme. The series also featured, on other occasions, sinister cabals of nannies, window cleaners, hoteliers, romance novelists, secretaries, farmers and retired Vaudeville performers.
- -and don't forget the 'British Fanatics' who killed government ministers by tricking them into getting off trains at disused stations, and then murdering them. Why? Because the trains no longer run on time under the current government...
In the Devilfish episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Mike and the Bots start making fun of Dolphins, only to find out that Dolphins are a space-faring race that attack the Satellite. Later, Mike gets cocky and starts teasing an electrician, only for him to call in his dolphin buddies to start blasting the Satellite again.

Machinima

In Red Vs Blue, a bizarre Milkman Conspiracy is set off when Vic, the obnoxious dispatch operator back at "Blue Army Headquarters," is told, in the past after some time travel, that "Red and Blue are the same thing." Vic takes this literally and it eventually turned out that because of all this, the commander-in-chief of both Red and Blue armies is, in fact, Vic, who has been setting them at war with one another over one offhand comment.
- The conspiracy deepens: Vic manages to do this because he's actually the computer that's running the Capture the Flag game that everyone is playing. At least, that's what the last episode implied.

Manga and Anime

In Read Or Die spinoff Read or Die the TV, the governments of the world are all merely puppets, secretly being controlled by that wretched hive of scum and villainy: The British Library.
In Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, the mastermind behind everything turns out to be Miyo Takano, AKA Droopy-tan, the nurse at the Irie Clinic who looks perpetually stoned.
- However, technically... Takano works for a mysterious background organization called 'Tokyo', and the Irie Clinic and everyone who works there was established to discover the effects and Irie himself to find a cure for the town's Hate Plauge 'Hinamizawa Syndrome'. so while it appears Takano isn't in a position of power, in reality, she's one of the most powerful and dangerous characters, connection-wise.

Newspaper Comics

The title characters in the Modesty Blaise story "The Head Girls" are spies who are trained as secretaries, then placed with high ranking scientists and government officials, giving them access to their bosses' secrets.

Tabletop Games

Tabletop roleplaying game example: the Mak Attax cabal in Unknown Armies who have infiltrated "the world's largest fast-food chain" in order to spread magic randomly through the population. It is also heavily implied that they saved the world from disaster at least once, by performing a powerful ritual on the stroke of midnight on December 31, 1999.
- The New Inquisition are funded by a man who's essentially a black Steve Jobs. While they can go a a little overboard, their leadership is a pretty good man.
  - You must be thinking of a different Steve Jobs than I am.
A few of these operate in Hunter The Vigil — some within the government, some outside:
- Task Force: VALKYRIE operates off the budget of the U.S. Treasury, and uses it to create highly-advanced technology with which to fight monsters.
- The Cheiron Group operates out of the medical branch of a Mega Corp, and dissects supernatural beings to make the parts work for humans.
- The Barrett Commission is a low-ranking Congressional body dedicated to keeping the influence of vampires and their servants out of the US Government.

Video Games

Killer7 has the United States government controlled by Japan. This isn't so bad, except their method of control is by hypereducating and brainwashing the students of a single elementary school. In Seattle. Oh, and the principal is Harman Smith. Not to mention the fact that US Presidential Elections are rigged by the Education Ministry, who also have the power to authorise global war against both the US and Japan.
The one manipulating everything in Ever17? No, it's not Lemu. It's not Tsugumi, or Lemurians (blame The Kid for that one) or anything like that. No, it's You's (stupid pronoun name girl) mom and some guy who hadn't been mentioned once so far. How? ...That's not important right now, just look at how happy the end is!
In Resident Evil 4, the Los Iluminados cult, led by Ozmund Saddler, are a bunch of Spanish farmers and zealots... with an island fully equipped and devoted to studying the Las Plagas ~~virus~~ parasite and creating many types of monsters. Still, they are only farmers.
The teams in Team Fortress 2 operate this way. Reliable Excavation and Demolition and the Builders' League United are fronts for two organizations that secretly control every government in the world and are constantly at war with each other. Signs in the game's maps reveal more fronts for these organizations, such as Red Bread and Blu Corn. It's hinted that every major corporation in the world ultimately has ties to one or the other.

Webcomics

Narbonic features a vast conspiratorial organisation made up solely of guys named Dave.
- All the guys in the world named Dave. At one point, protagonist Dave Davenport gets kicked out and his name becomes David. Being evil, the other protagonists don't care and decide to keep calling him Dave anyway.
In The Adventures of Dr McNinja, a rivalry between raptor-riding banditos and a man so ripped that he grew a fart-fueled jetpack is revealed to have been the result of a sinister plan orchestrated by Fox News. The plan is foiled, however, by the weatherman.
- Well come on, everyone knows they have an agenda. Hell, they come out and tell you what it is.

Western Animation

In The Simpsons, a secret colony of super-powerful elves extend their influence... through horse racing.
- Also in The Simpsons, the Freemason-esque "Stonecutters" are shown to have infiltrated the Egg Council, for their own nefarious ends—and also claim to have held back the electric car, kept Martians under wraps, and chose the winners every Oscar night.
  - And kept Atlantis off the map.
  - And made Steve Guttenberg a star.
  - And controls the British crown.
  - And keeps the metric system down.
  - And robs cavefish of their sight.
  - We I mean, ''they'' do!
- Also, while under the effects of an ADD drug, Bart discovers the secret machinations of...Major League Baseball.
Huey Freeman believes that every white man is in on the conspiracy, and that you can't bribe them with cheese.
In season 2 of Sam And Max Freelance Police, the mysterious "Them" that has Bosco living in fear is revealed to be Three mariachis (actually, three time-shifted versions of the same mariachi) who travel through time and space so they can perform at every birthday ever.
- To be fair, there is some truth in that Bosco is also being watched by Flint Paper. He was hired by Mama Bosco to find the one that ruined her store in the 60s. Someone's been spying on poor Bosco since before he was born.
  - In season 1, it's revealed the government does spy on Bosco. And keep nukes aimed at his shop! It's not paranoia if your right!
In The Centurions episode "Max Ray.. Traitor", Max uncovers a network of spies who disguise themselves as janitors.
Dexter's Laboratory had a Suck E Cheeses which was a front for an secret organization which made a We Can Rule Together offer to Dexter.
- Another episode had Dexter infiltrate a secret lair in pursuit of some masquerade-shattering photos his mother dropped off at the local photo development booth. (The zit-faced teen running the booth turns out to be The Man Behind The Man.)
Ben 10, at least before the time jump. The world last, best defense against the alien supermenaces (apart from Ben) are 'Plumbers', guys who spend most of their time in blue collar jobs such as crossing guards, electricians, school teachers and most likely, actual plumbers. When aliens show up, they drag the battlesuit out from the back of the closet and fire up the laser rays they keep in a false bottom.
In Teen Titans, Beast Boy discovers that the local burger chain hides a conspiracy of alien cows (I think, it's been a while) who are plotting to enslave mankind.
- The episode is called "Employee of the Month" Intelligent space tofu kidnaps cows to use as fuel while selling a "Meaty Meaty" substitute through a store front managed by a android made of tofu. Better than it sounds.