Busman's Holiday - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Busmans Holiday

"Why does my vacation have to turn into a monster hunt? Can't a girl get some time off?"

Merrill, Rune Soldier Louie

A busman's holiday is a vacation spent doing things similar to one's normal work. The phrase dates from a (British) period when a "bus" was a horse-driven coach. But the driver got one day a week off, during which the same "bus" would be driven by someone else. The busman might well take a ride in his own bus to make sure the stand-in driver wasn't mistreating "his" horses.

A detective, for example, goes on holiday. While he or she is on that holiday, a murder will take place in the vicinity and they will be forced to solve that case. If the killer actually knows the detective is there, they're either very stupid or very arrogant.

Often, upon finishing the impromptu adventure, the hero insists on returning back to work immediately stating he needs a vacation from his ruined vacation.

In anime, Hot Springs Episodes and Beach Episodes often turn out to be busman's holidays, especially if the show in question happens to be an action show. If a character doesn't do the job as a calling, but finds trouble anyway, they're probably a Mystery Magnet.

The simplest explanation for this phenomenon is that a regular vacation wouldn't make a very entertaining episode.

Examples

Anime and Manga

The monsters of the week normally only ever attacked the one specific Tokyo district where Sailor Moon and her friends lived (Azabu-Juuban, if you were wondering). However, whatever remote location they decided to go for vacation, the Class Trip, or a Beach Episode invariably either just happened to have one there too... or was the home of such oddities as baby pleiosaurs, or ghosts.
In Rune Soldier Louie the adventurers take some time off to go to the lakeside villa of a friend and end up fighting the "Guardian of the Lake".
Justified in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, because the protagonists themselves are the Mac Guffin for the first season. Not so much justified in the second season.
Lampshaded in episode 9 of The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya by Itsuki. The episode deals with a murder mystery on an island, and he comments at the beginning of the episode how mysteries seem to follow detectives everywhere.
Kindaichi Case Files. The titular hero is always running off on some sort of situation in a far off, isolated place. Many times, it's people requesting his help. Many times, he's just trying to make money for his beloved mother. Inevitably, people start dropping dead. And the phone lines are cut.
Constantly lampshaded in the anime Case Closed. There are even rumours going around that Kogoro is cursed not to say it features multiple cases, often multi-episode, in which Ran, Conan, and Detective Mouri go on vacation, often to some sort of secluded manor or other such vacation home, and usually they stay with several other people. One or more of them is almost always killed and the manor is almost always cut off from the rest of the world for at least a night, and Conan has to figure out what's going on. Ran's usually targeted in these cases, too, for some reason.
This is every holiday in FAKE, beginning with Dee, Ryo, Bicky and Carol's, trip to an inn that just happens to be the scene of a serial killer that just happens to be targeting people of Japanese descent, because the people who raped and murdered his daughter just happened to be part Japanese. Dee just happens, unknowingly, to mention to the killer that Ryo just happens to have a Japanese mother.

Comic Books

Tintin can't go anywhere, ever, for any reason without something happening.
Used to humorous effect in the Beach Episode of DC's Legion of Super Heroes comic; a thief grows increasingly nervous about the endless stream of Legionnaires showing up, convinced they're there to bust him. In fact most of them are only there to goof off, and even the two who are investigating his thefts aren't making much progress and have no idea he's involved; everyone is rather baffled when he finally panics and confesses all.
- The trope is then subverted in the following issue when, on the way back from their vacation, the Legionnaires discover that the Fatal Five have taken advantage of their absence to attack the Legion Outpost while only a few Legionnaires are there to fight them off. Whoops.
Flash, Green Lantern, and Green Arrow once attempted to take a relaxing cruise together. The cruise ship just happens to be secretly transporting a comatose supervillain and a gang of other supervillains on a recovery mission. Hilarity Ensues.

Film

The latest Scooby Doo movie, "Chill Out, Scooby-Doo" had the gang trying to avoid mysteries on vacation—but fails because Scooby-Doo and Shaggy ended up on the wrong plane.
- Along with that, every Scooby Doo episode ever. Very noticeable on What's New Scooby-Doo, because most episodes are ABOUT them going on vacation and encountering a monster.
- There was also an episode of The Thirteen Ghosts Of Scooby-Doo where the crew goes a cruise to help a clearly unhinged Scooby to relax. The cruise ship turns out to be a Ghost Ship heading straight for the Bermuda Triangle. And not only do they have to deal with the ghost crew and passengers, but the Bermuda Triangle's power causes all the ghosts they had captured to be released (though luckily a Deus Ex Machina sorted everything out).
In What About Bob? Richard Dreyfuss' psychiatrist character, Dr. Leo Marvin, goes on vacation to get away from his neurotic, clingy patient Bob Wiley. Bob follows him, and his continued antics lead to the following exchange:
Dr. Catherine Tomsky: Relax, Leo.
Dr. Leo Marvin: I'M RELAXED!
Dr. Catherine Tomsky: Take a vacation.
Dr. Leo Marvin: I'M ON VACATION!
Die Hard and Die Hard 2 both occur while McClane is out of New York, trying to reconcile with his wife, and at Christmas natch. It's not until the 3rd movie that he finally gets to have an adventure in NYC.
- The irony of the 3rd film was that McClane was on suspension, so technically, was on 'vacation', albeit unpaid.

Literature

Hercule Poirot has had this happen to him several times, most notably in Murder on the Orient Express and A Death on the Nile. Since both books were written in the 1920s-1930s, this shows the age of the trope.
- Miss Marple had this in A Caribbean Mystery.
  - Lampshaded in Nemesis, where Miss Marple considers that her tendency to stumble into crimes is similar to an "accident prone" friend of hers who has been in four taxi accidents.
It's even older than that: in a couple of the Sherlock Holmes stories (The Devil's Foot and The Reigate Puzzle), Holmes has worked himself almost to the point of a nervous breakdown, prompting Watson to drag him off on a vacation. Of course they immediately run into a mystery that needs solving — much to Holmes' delight, and Watson's annoyance.
There is a Dorothy L. Sayers novel called Busman's Honeymoon, where super-sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey goes off on his honeymoon with his detective novelist wife, only to ran slap bang into a locked room murder mystery.
- In lampshading the trope, Busman's Honeymoon is pretty much the trope namer, but the trope also occurs in The Nine Tailors (murder following Peter on vacation) and Have his Carcass (murder following Harriet, Peter's future wife, while she is on vacation).
The equivalent expression in Diane Duane's Young Wizards books is "Wizard's Holiday," which became the title of the seventh book.
A couple of Discworld novels have hung a lampshade on the idea that wherever Commander Vimes goes, usually on diplomatic missions as Duke of Ankh, he can't help looking for crimes. And he usually finds them.
- Somewhat justified in that he hates his diplomatic duties and goes out of his way looking for opportunities to revert back to Copper Mode. Which is why Vetinari always sends him, of course. For that matter, he's also quite ill-at-ease with the whole "being married" thing, at least until Sam Jr. shows up.
In the Finnegan Zwake novels, Finn's mystery-writer uncle is followed wherever he goes—Latin Land, Qurac, the Land Down Under—by real murders.
God forbid the Baby Sitters Club could take one vacation without babysitting, not matter how contrived. The sole exception was Stacey's Lie. Oh, and even if they went on vacation without Mallory's five billion younger siblings or Kristy's step-siblings, then there would be some parents who for some stupid reason needed a sitter for the exact amount of time they'd be there.
The girls of Team Kimba can't go anywhere in the Whateley Universe without something happening, or someone attacking them. Over Christmas break, the six girls go to six different cities. Six fights with badguys.
In Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma novels, Fidelma, a Dark Ages defence lawyer, seems to keep finding murders when she's off-duty, whether she's attending the fair at a neighbouring kingdom or on pilgrimage to Rome.

Live Action TV

Similarly, any time Jessica Fletcher (of Murder She Wrote) leaves Cabot Cove, she immediately gets involved with a case. Technically, crime solving's not her "real" job, but it might as well be as far as the series goes. (One wonders if Cabot Cove's unusually-high murder rate actually drops when she's gone... As a stand-up comedian once said, "Wherever that little white woman goes, people die!")
- The show even lampshaded it once.
- Come on, we all know Jessica commits the murders and then frames some loser.
This also happens to Lt. Columbo (Columbo) at least twice.
Scully on The X Files, in the episode Chinga.
One episode of Angel opened with the title character going to Tibet. First we see the other characters back home discussing it and one saying that Angel should have just "gotten drunk and gone to Vegas," only to be told that that's stupid. Then there is a delayed Ironic Echo Cut to the Tibetan monastery, where Angel is in an intense fight; someone walks in and is stunned by the carnage, to which Angel responds, "Demon monks. I should've gone to Vegas."
- In Season 4, they actually do all go to Vegas for a bit of a vacation and to visit Lorne. Of course, it ends up that Lorne has been held hostage for some time and is being forced to read destinies, so they have to rescue him.
There have been two instances where Dr. Gregory House has gotten time away from the office. The first time he was constantly on his cell phone helping with a case back at the hospital. The second time, there was a disease outbreak to solve on the plane itself.
In the Homicide Life On The Street episode "The Last of the Watermen", Kay decides to call in an impromptu sick leave to escape Baltimore's grisly murders. She returns to her family in Chesapeake Bay, only to end up in the middle of another homicide investigation.
In the aptly-named "Captain's Holiday" episode of The Next Generation, Picard accidentally ends up spending his vacation trying to stop the evil aliens' master plan to conquer the universe - which is his day job.
In the Monk episode "Mr. Monk Goes on Vacation", Monk's assistant Sharona takes him on a vacation against his will, where he is incredibly uncomfortable and simply sits on the beach fully clothed. When a murder mystery pops up he couldn't be happier, and drags Sharona into helping him solve it. Upon their return Sharona asks that they never go on vacation again, then says "I can't believe I just said that!"
- And it's lampshaded in "Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever":
  Natalie: Everywhere you go, every time you turn around, somebody is killing somebody else.
  Stottlemeyer: That's true.
  Monk: What?
  Stottlemeyer: There was the time you went on vacation, and then on the airplane...
  Monk: These things happen!
  Stottlemeyer: And that stage play...
  Monk: It happens!
  Natalie: To you!
In the Doctor Who episodes City of Death and The Leisure Hive, the Doctor and Romana go on holiday only to, well, have to save planets/people, of course. At the end of the second episode, the Doctor mentions wanting a holiday from his holiday.
- Not to mention all the times it happened in the new series. Sometimes their destination just happens to have a current problem, sometimes they end up in the wrong year and/or location and notice something weird before they get back in the TARDIS. We do occsionally hear about trips where nothing went wrong though...but obviously, those aren't as fun to watch.
Technically not the same, but... in Engine Sentai Go-onger, the rangers are all unemployed, but their former jobs mimic the vehicle basis of their Engine partners/mecha (Go-on Red, for example, was a former racecar driver whose Engine partner is a condor/racecar hybrid, Go-on Black is a former policeman whose Engine partner is a German Shepherd/police car hybrid, etc.). Also, their primary headquarters is a large mobile home, which the rangers have to drive themselves.
Hammy British detective series Rosemary and Thyme also suffered from this trope. While its leads are primarily gardeners, they moonlight as detectives. Whenever they're off somewhere fixing a garden- sometimes abroad, however much this stretches belief- someone pegs it, and it ALWAYS has something to do with their primary calling. It verges on the ridiculous at times, but never had something ridiculous in a verge.
None of the major characters in The Sentinel can go on vacation without ending up being chased by armed goons.
In Pushing Daisies Ned's visits to a magic show and a cooking contest both end up with mysteries to be solved.
- And to a swimming show. One wonders if death isn't following him around in a way other than the obvious.
In the Star Trek TOS episode "The Trouble With Tribbles" we see Scotty spend his time off reading technical journals. When Kirk asks if he doesn't relax, he replies "I am relaxing!". And when Scotty is later involved in a bar brawl and thus temporarily suspended, he thanks Kirk for giving him time to read even more technical journals.

Video Games

Super Mario Sunshine has Mario and Princess Peach take a vacation on Delfino Island, only for Mario to get framed for messing up the place, and Peach to get kidnapped again. And again.
- Pretty much the same thing happens in Super Mario World, sans framing.
- And in Super Mario 64, he thinks he's just there for some cake, at least until some Lakitu with a camera talks to him as if he knows he's going on an adventure.
- And then there's Paper Mario, where he's invited to attend a party.
- And that festival in Super Mario Galaxy...
Whenever Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney takes an interest in anything, someone will die in connection to it. Many members of the Economy Cast pick up on this, but think it's them with the bad luck.
- Previews indicate this will continue in the Gaiden Game, Ace Attorney Investigations. The second case has Edgeworth on an airplane. When he goes to use the in-flight elevator, there's a body inside.
A bit of a Running Gag in Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core is that every time Zack attempts to take a vacation at Costa del Sol, he ends up having to save the town from some sort of monster attack and thus completely ruins his vacation. At least these missions allow for Fan Service...

Web Comics

The beginning of this episode of The Order of the Stick. Note the Lampshade Hanging in the sixth panel.
* Dewey the librarian in Unshelved spends his day off reading

Western Animation

Kim Possible does a lot of traveling as part of her "charity work"; but, on top of that, any family vacation, cheerleading away game, or visit to her Nana's house inevitably runs headlong into something evil.
The Real Ghostbusters episode, "Bustman's Holiday".
An episode of Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command has Team Lightyear take a vacation together. Of course, Plucky Comic Relief XR immediately gets involved with a mob of bounty hunters and everyone winds up in a gunfight.

Real Life

Truth In Television, with the ultimate example probably being Wieliczka Salt Mine. What does a salt miner do on his day off? He mines salt. But he gets creative about it. http://www.thesalmons.org/lynn/saltmine.html

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