Remote Control Ruckus

He wanted wrestling, she wanted "Tragic Love."

It's finally here! The live season finale of the greatest show ever! All right, I know you're probably saying to yourself, "Lincoln, with ten sisters, there's no way you're going to get to watch your favorite show." And you'd be right. Every Sunday at 8, it's the same thing. But tonight, I have a plan.

— Lincoln Loud, The Loud House, "Left in the Dark"

Two or more characters (usually children, and often a boy and a girl) disagree on what TV show to watch. If it's a boy and a girl, the girl usually wants to watch a show with ponies, princesses, and rainbows, while the boy wants to watch a show with race cars, superheroes, sports or giant robots. As a result, they end up getting into a brawl over the TV remote, with the channel rapidly changing back and forth depending on who's holding the remote at the time. This trope may be used to deliver An Aesop about the importance of sharing, especially in a children's show.

This can also apply to other situations that involve fighting over a remote control without switching channels, such as a hero and a villain fighting over a remote that controls a Conveyor Belt of Doom.

No relation to Handy Remote Control or Universal Remote Control.

Related tropes:

• Car Radio Dispute: Fighting over the car radio instead of the TV remote.
• Lost the TV Remote: This may be the end result of a Remote Control Ruckus.
• Show Within a Show: What the characters are inevitably fighting over.

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Examples:

Advertising

• The launch advert for Vodafone TV Play combines this trope with Fisher Kingdom as a family warring over the device's remote experience the action playing out across Film Noir, Medieval European Fantasy and The Caper. The remote changes to an appropriate MacGuffin in each setting e.g. as a sceptre in the medieval sequence. The conflict is resolved when the father gets the chance to pick The White Lotus.
• In this commercial for the Xfinity X1 Voice Remote featuring the minions from Despicable Me, Kevin and Stuart start fighting over the remote when they can't agree on whether to watch soccer or Top Chef. Both minions summon their supporters and prepare for a fight, but Bob defuses the conflict by changing the channel to disco, which makes everyone happy.

Anime & Manga

• Lupin III: Part II: Episode 53 opens with Lupin and Jigen — each armed with their own remote control — fighting over what they want to watch (Lupin wants to watch a soap opera, Jigen a Spaghetti Western). The end result is the TV breaking.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: In "Moment, Heart, Together", Shinji and Asuka fight over the TV by repeatedly changing the channel on their respective remotes.

Comic Books

• Archie Comics: The cover art of Laugh Digest #86 shows Archie and Reggie having a remote-control war, and Veronica commenting to Betty, "I knew it was a mistake getting two remote controls!"

Comic Strips

• Garfield: In this comic, Jon and Liz end up fighting over the TV remote, with Garfield and Odie enjoying the show while eating popcorn.

Fan Works

• Not the intended use (Zantetsuken Reverse): Chapter 7: Leon Belmont wanted to watch cage wrestling, but his family members had other ideas and he only couldn't contest it because he's a ghost that can't affect the physical world.
• In One Angry Person (a fanfic of The Loud House), Lincoln goes to watch TV, but his sister Lori snatches the remote, saying she deserves it more because she's older. Then, Leni and Lisa show up, wanting to watch a fashion show and a documentary respectively, and then Luna and Lynn show up, wanting to watch a concert and a game respectively. This leads to a huge fight, with Luan and the twins joining in even though they didn't say they wanted to watch anything.

Film — Animation

• My Neighbors the Yamadas: One skit in the movie involves the parents Matsuko and Takashi fighting over a show, as Matsuko wants to switch from Takashi's baseball game to a romance movie. Takashi starts blocking Matsuko's remote remote with his newspaper, and before long the two get more caught up with their fight than the TV itself. While their daughter Nonoko wonders how no one can watch TV anymore, grandmother Shige jokes that the overdramatic dueling is more entertaining. Matsuko wins with a fake out.

Literature

• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: In Rodrick Rules, Mr. and Mrs. Heffley suddenly start acting extremely lovey-dovey in front of Manny, and Greg realizes it's because they found a crude picture Manny drew of two people yelling at each other and himself crying. He realizes it's actually meant to be him and Rodrick fighting over the remote control, but decides not to tell their parents about that.
• Dirty Bertie: In one story, Bertie's older sister Suzy has her mean friend Bella over for a sleepover. When Bertie wants to watch his favourite show, he gets outvoted when both of the girls want to watch a movie called Pop Princess instead.

Live-Action TV

• Even Stevens: Towards the end of the show's claymation intro, Ren and Louis are both fighting over the TV, both of them having a remote that they turn to their channel of choice. Then the two remotes grow a Laser Blade and this turns into a lightsaber duel, until both remotes are pointed at the TV, exploding it into the show's title.

Music

• A variation occurs in the video for Brandy and Monica's song "The Boy is Mine". Brandy and Monica play next-door neighbors in an apartment building and their TV's are on opposite sides of a common wall. Unbeknownst to them, both their TV remote controls are tuned to the same frequency so when one changes channels on her TV the other's TV changes to the same channel.

Video Games

• The Trope Namer is the online game Remote Control Ruckus. Two siblings, Jimmy and Kimmy, want to watch their favorite TV shows at the same time, Mega Action Battle Robots Alpha and Happy Funshine Pony Land. The player chooses one of them to play as, with the goal being to steal the remote from the other sibling and keep it away from them as long as possible by running around the living room.
• ANNO: Mutationem: A variation. While at the Flores household, Ann can examine a mini-handheld game controller and reminisce to when she shoved Ryan over to quickly grab at it.
• Remote Fu is an online game based on The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Remote", where the members of the Watterson family fight over the remote.

Western Animation

• The Amazing World of Gumball: In "The Remote", the Watterson family have a fight over who gets the TV remote when they end up wanting to watch their own shows. It breaks out into a fight because all of their shows are scheduled at the same time. However, due to an elaborate trick by Anais, she gets the remote in the end.
• Arthur: The conflict of "D.W. the Copycat" kicks off when D.W. and Arthur get into a fight over the remote; D.W. wants to watch Mary Moo-Cow while Arthur prefers Bionic Bunny. Their mother settles the argument by asking "Who got there first?", with D.W. winning.
• Batman: The Animated Series: "Joker's Wild" begins at Arkham with Joker and Poison Ivy watching TV, and arguing over what to watch. Ivy wants to watch a show about gardening, while Joker wants to watch comedy videos, acting like little children all the while. Annoyed, a nearby guard takes the remote and forces them to watch the news.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: In "Operation: C.O.U.C.H.", Numbuh 3 and Numbuh 4 fight over whether to watch the "Rainbow Monkey Share-Time Special" or the "Manly Man Yelling and Dropping Heavy Things Hour." In the ensuing fight, the remote gets dropped into the couch cushions, with Numbuh 4 discovering an entire world inside the couch when he dives in after it.
  Numbuh 3: We can't watch this! My show is educational! You need to learn about sharing!
  Numbuh 4: Oh, yeah?! Well, you need something big dropped on you!
• Family Guy: In "North by North Quahog", Chris is watching Two and a Half Men, and Meg wants him to change over to George Lopez, which he claims "only furthers the stereotype that George Lopez is funny". A fight breaks out, allowing Brian (who was left in charge of the kids while Peter and Lois are away) the chance to see if he can parent.
• The Jetsons: In "Elroy Meets Orbitty", George and Jane, a married couple, argue over whether to watch sports (George) or a soap opera (Jane). Eventually, the TV glitches out and plays a combination of both shows.
• The Loud House:
  • The show's intro sequence has a scene where Lincoln grabs the TV remote, and then has to run away with it while being chased by all ten of his sisters, who clearly want the remote for themselves.
  • The plot of the episode "Left in the Dark" kicks off with Lincoln trying to beat his sisters to the couch so he can determine what they will watch that evening. He even tells the viewers how fights for the remote are common among the siblings, with a flashback showing one of these fights.
  • In one episode, Lincoln says it's time to watch his favourite Show Within a Show, ARGGH!. His sister Lucy snatches the remote from him and says, "You mean Vampires of Melancholia."
  • In "Any Given Sundae", the twins are arguing over whether to watch a pageant show (Lola) or a show about penguins (Lana). Eventually, their baby sister Lily switches to a show called Penguin Pageants, which is about just what it sounds like.
  • In "Friendzy", Lincoln wants to watch TV with his friends, but he finds Lynn and her friends watching the TV instead, and they assert that since she has more guests, she has more say.
• The Oblongs: Beth and Milo get into a fight over the TV remote after Milo tries to change the channel during Beth's show. When their parents find them fighting, Bob tells them to go to the "naughty corner", but Pickles overrides this by telling the kids to fight over it harder, much to Bob's surprise. She even lets Beth use a sock full of quarters because she's smaller than Milo.
• Rocko's Modern Life: "Popcorn Pandemonium" begins with Rocko and Heffer treating Mr. Bighead's big-screen TV like a Drive-In Theater, since there isn't a drive-in theater in O-Town. Heffer wants to watch a sci-fi movie, while Mr. Bighead is trying to watch a football game. After Heffer and Mr. Bighead inadvertently destroy the TV with a channel-changing war, Rocko and Heffer go to the Googa Plex cinema, getting the main plot underway.
• Rock, Paper, Scissors: One episode has the trio fighting over the TV remote to watch their respective favorite shows. Scissors decides to gain control by getting a "Power Shark", until said shark takes the remote for itself to watch a trashy reality show none of them like.
• Rugrats: In "Silent Angelica", Stu and Drew fight over the remote, as the former wants to watch a football game on television, while the latter wants to watch a golf tournament. When Dil gets a hold of the remote, he changes it to a badminton game, which Stu and Drew settle on watching.
• The Simpsons: "Marge Vs. Singles, Childless Couples, Teens, and Gays" begins with Bart and Lisa fighting over what to watch on television. Bart wants to watch a Crocodile Hunter Expy, while Lisa wants to watch Dollhouse Do-Overs. As the two fight over the remote, they accidentally change the channel to a TV show hosted by the Raffi expy, Roofi, starting Maggie's Roofi addiction.
• WordGirl: WordGirl fights Mr. Big over his mind control remote. This causes Mr. Botsford, who is being mind-controlled, to alternately say "Mr. Big" and "The mayor," expressing who he's going to vote for depending on who has the mind control remote.

Real Life

• This person posted a story about their twin sons fighting because they didn't want the other to choose what show they got to watch, even though they both wanted to watch Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse.
• In 1993, a man named Michael Lenick was shot by his wife Marlene with a .38-caliber handgun when he wanted to watch football and she wanted to watch the news. Before shooting him, she infamously told him she'd "had enough of that football."

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