Road-Sign Reversal

It's a good thing signs are held on by one centered nail and never have writing on them!

"Hey, jerkwad, you're going the wrong way! The Enchanted Meadow is in that spooky cave, and the deadly Manticore is in that happy meadow! Can't you read?"

— Dean Toadblatt, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

The racecourse or other path is marked off by arrows. Either a villain or a prankster mucks things up by flipping the sign so the arrows point the other way. Can also include incidents where someone who, with honest intentions, by mistake thinks the sign is wrong and "fixes" it, whereupon Hilarity Ensues. Very often causes a Wrong Turn at Albuquerque.

See also: Rules of the Road, and Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat, as this is one of the ways he does it.

---

Examples:

Advertising

• A '90s French Cheerios commercial had the hare doing this to send the tortoise into a much longer, windier path, but the cereal give so much strength and speed that the tortoise wins the race anyway.

Anime & Manga

• Bashin and Striker do this in ep. 11 of Battle Spirits Shonen Toppa Bashin to try and lure My Sunshine to the Battle Spirits Center.
• Dotto! Koni-chan had an episode making a full Wacky Races homage, so naturally this gag wouldn't be passed off. Koni's friends plan to do this at an Y-shaped fork to send everyone off-track, but Koni sneezes and turns the arrow around, then Koni's friends (who didn't see it) turn it back to normal. They get back on their car and drive in the opposite way and end up crashing down a cliff.
• Dragon Ball had an episode where Bulma and Krillin were fleeing from General Blue through an abandoned pirate hideout. They came to an intersection and Krillin drew an arrow on the ground in dust to tell Goku which way they went, but Blue got to it first and changed it to point the opposite direction.
• El-Hazard: The Magnificent World: Subverted that while Jinnai sabotages a sign to get the heroes going onto a dangerous path, Mr. Fujisawa knows all along they are taking the tough path, but takes it anyway because he relishes the challenge.
• In Go Go Tamagotchi episode 34, where several Tamagotchis participate in a race through various single biome planets, the Spacy Brothers attempt to throw off the other racers by reversing an arrow sign pointing to which direction the racers should go. Himespetchi, Neenetchi, and Oyajitchi, who run a drink stand for the racers, catch on to the trick.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, ZZ flips a road sign to lead the Joestar Group away from their destination, causing them to get lost.
• In Magical Play, Zucchini switches a sign with arrows pointing to "Town" and "Desert." However, since the sign was one large board, he does this by flipping it upside down, words and all. The main characters still fall for it.
• In the Ranma ½ anime, Ranma, Genma and Happōsai travel back in time. Happōsai reverses a sign pointing to Jusenkyō so the past selves will go the wrong way. But a bag thrown by past Genma reverses it again. It wouldn't have worked anyway, because the whole thing takes place inside Ranma's dream.
• Transformers: Cybertron: Ransack does this in episode 15, "Detour."
• Wowser: Used twice in the episode "Motor Maze To The Market" by Ratso, in order to lead Wowser and Bob on a high speed chase in an underground railroad shaft.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!. The Marik-brainwashed Bandit Keith has set up arrows to lure Yugi into a trap. Yami Bakura flips the arrows around so Yugi's friends can't follow.

Asian Animation

• Oye Golu: In "Cycle Race", one of the bullies rotates an arrow sign to lead Adi the wrong way during the bicycle race. Not that he cares, since he goes on to help people instead.

Comic Books

• Asterix: In Asterix and the Chariot Race, the sign pointing the direction to Parma turns out to be reversed, resulting in Asterix and Obelix + several other racers ending up in Venice. At least Asterix and Obelix realize the mistake in time to turn around.
• In "Two-Way Gem Caper" in Batman #164, a crook does this to misdirect the tour bus of the Hootenay Hotshots as part of a needlessly complicated plan to steal a jewel from a museum.
• Mortadelo y Filemón: Mortadelo does this at the end of "Los mercenarios", to lead a squad of mercenaries to the country that hired them, instead of their intended destination.
• Reggie does this to Richie on a ski trail in one Richie Rich comic. The twist is that the wind has already blown the arrows around, so Reggie actually sends Richie down the right trail and himself down the dangerous slope.

Comic Strips

• In one FoxTrot sequence, Jason and Marcus strike out into the wilds of suburbia in search of adventure (wearing pith helmets, no less). Along their way they encounter the streets of "Maple" and "Oak;" Maple Street is lined with oak trees and Oak Street is lined with maples. Helpfully, they decide to switch the street signs around to correct the error, but wind up attracting the attention of the police in the process. The boys are unaware that doing so is a misdemeanor.

Eastern Animation

• One of the Shapoklyak's pranks in Cheburashka.

Films — Animation

• The Amazing Maurice: Ollie the Snake does this in Mr Bunnsy has an Adventure, the children's book that serves as the Framing Device for the film; flipping a sign to send Mr Bunnsy into the Dark Wood.
• In The Fearless Four, the truck that was carrying Fred to the sausage factory gets attacked by some wasps. Not only does this cause the truck to free Fred, but to accidentally hit a signpost that pointed to the directions of Bremen and Paris, thus making the two respective signs switch positions. Afterwards, Fred meets Buster and the two decide to follow the sign that seemingly leads to Paris, when in reality it does so to Bremen. Later, Gwendolyn and Tortellini end up joining the two, thus following said wrong direction as well.
• Listed as one of the things Stitch is programmed to do in Lilo & Stitch, along with backing up sewers and stealing everyone's left shoe.
• This is one of the dirty tricks the three bullies in Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown pull during the raft race.

Films — Live-Action

• In Ace of Aces, a Bavarian celebrational cart pulled by oxen inadvertently causes a road sign reversal just as protagonist Jo Cavalier is driving a Jewish family, the Rosenblums, down South, directly leading them to Adolf Hitler's house in Berchtesgaden instead of the Austrian border.
• In The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, Huxley's henchmen turn the arrow on the sign that leads to Huxley's Castle in the opposite direction to trap Elmo in a cave.
• Battle of the Bulge (1965). During the attack, German infiltrators switch the road signs around, making it appear that the road to Malmedy leads to Ambleve. The U.S. troops going to Ambleve follow the sign and are captured by the Germans, leading to the Malmedy Massacre.
• Something similar in intention is done by a British villager in the beginning of Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks. He's painting out the signposts in order to confuse any possible invading Nazis.
• The reedited-for-TV version of Blazing Saddles includes a scene that was originally left on the cutting room floor. While Bart and the Waco Kid are being chased by the villains, the duo come to an arrow-sign mounted on a post, smack it so that it starts spinning in circles, and run on. The villains ride up, wait for the sign to finish spinning, and charge off in the indicated direction.
• Czechs are shown reversing street signs in an effort to confuse the Soviets in Czechoslovakia 1968.
• In the Disney movie Diamonds on Wheels, the crooks attempt to waylay one of the cars competing in a rally by removing the real arrows and laying new ones for the driver to follow.
• In The Hazing, one of the items the pledges have to obtain is a detour sign. They steal one from some roadworks. As they drive off, a car drives the road they have just removed the sign form, followed by an off-screen crash.
• Played for Laughs in Jurassic Park when Nedry was attempting to leave the island, but in his haste, drove over the road sign showing the way to the docks. Nedry spins it like a roulette wheel and follows where it lands.
• Labyrinth: Sarah draws arrows on the ground to show which path she's already taken. When she's not looking, goblins flip and turn the tiles with the arrows on them, so she loses her way.
• The Little Rascals movie: Porky pushed the race track arrow from right to straight.
• A Reversed Road Sign to Sainte-Mère-Église briefly confuses invading Allied forces in The Longest Day, until an American officer sees through the trick and orders the sign cut down.
• The Love Bug:
  • In the first movie of the series, some road sign spoofing sends all the following racers into a mine.
  • Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo. The misdirecting arrow sends our heroes onto a very narrow cliff edge and almost causes them to die via avalanche.
• An accidental version happens in The Outlaws IS Coming! when the Stooges sneak into the hotel to sabotage the guns of the outlaws who are staying in Room 9. A group of showgirls are staying across the hall in Room 6. When the showgirls close their door, the loose room number turns upside down: changing from '6' to '9'. As a result, Moe enters the correct room and sets about sabotaging the outlaws' guns, while Larry and Curly Joe sneak into the showgirls' room, and become increasingly baffled by the very feminine items they find in what they believe to be a room full of hardcases.
• In Preservation, Mike and Sean insist of going hiking off trail over Wit's objections. Mike paints trail markers (a smiley face) on trees as they go to mark the way back. However, when he and Wit are fleeing the hunters trying to find their way back to the main trail, they find the hunters have painted the same symbol on all of the trees in the surrounding area: meaning they have no way of knowing which way to go.
• In Quick Change, the three bank robbers must get to Kennedy Airport as soon as possible. They inadvertently exit the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and traverse an unfamiliar Brooklyn neighborhood where the road signs are being replaced by city workers. When they ask which way the original signs were pointing, the workers respond by showing them the arrow spinning freely on the plate, saying they have no idea either. This scene is even funnier if one has ever tried to get back onto the BQE.
• In Satan's Cheerleaders, Stevie swaps the signs on the locker room doors resulting in Coach leading the University Dean into the girls locker room instead of the boys.
• In Summer Holiday, Stella forces Jerry to edit a French sign so that the London bus is stuck up a mountain.
• Done by the Red Feathers in Troop Beverly Hills.
• Two Thousand Maniacs! gets its plot going with a fake diversion sign.

Literature

• Alex Rider:
  • In Stormbreaker, a new sign is posted on the footpath to Port Tallon to send Alex into an ambush.
  • In Skeleton Key, General Sarov rigs a second set of runway lights, which causes a plane to crash into a swamp while attempting to take off.
• In the third series of Deltora Quest the main characters are caught out by one of these.
• Done to spring a trap in "Dolan's Cadillac", by Stephen King. Though it's removing a sign so he drives into a construction zone's hole rather than reversing it; the protagonist notes the man he wants to trap wouldn't have fallen for the latter.
• The very first trick Macha and Bodhb try to pull on Pidge in The Hounds of the Morrigan. It's much eerier than the usual examples, because, of course, they have magic.
• James Bond does this during the car chase scene in the novel version of On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Live-Action TV

• The 'removing road signs to confuse invading troops' version happens in All Creatures Great And Small. A local tells the soldier who is removing a sign that, if he wants to confuse the Germans, he should leave that particular sign up as it has been pointing the wrong way for years.
• In the Amazing Stories episode "Mummy Daddy", an actor playing the role of the Mummy in a horror film receives a phone call that his wife has gone into labour. On the way to the maternity hospital, he is mistaken for a real Mummy by superstitious villagers. They start shooting at him, and one of the shots spins the road sign for the maternity hospital.
• This is one of the pranks De Plaaggeest plays on Bassie & Adriaan. Because of it, the two accidentally set up their tent on a soccer field rather than the camping place they were looking for.
• Doesn't involve arrows or directional signs, but in an episode of Corner Gas, Oscar changes a sign warning about a pothole in the road to one warning about a speed bump that was built over it by flipping the sign upside down. He tries to do it again when they go back to the pothole at the end of the episode (because it "looks more natural"), but it won't hold in place, so he says they have to build the speed bump again.
• CSI: A variation in "Anatomy of a Lye". A man deliberately alters the trail map his fiancee is using so she will not beat his time on a particular trail run. However, his alteration causes her to be trapped in the mountains during a flash flood and she drowns.
• In one episode of the 1960s live-action Dennis the Menace, Dennis sees a corner street sign that had been knocked over by a car and puts it back up, unintentionally reversing it. This results in a swimming pool company bound for a house with a similar address to Mr. Wilson's to dig a large hole in his backyard. Then, at the end of the episode, Dennis, feeling bad about getting Mr. Wilson's yard destroyed, decides to turn the sign back the right way, unaware that it was already corrected and he had reversed it again, causing the swimming pool company's cement crew to go to the wrong house and finish the job.
• Doctor Who: The Master does this to delay the Doctor's journey to the town of Devil's End in "The Daemons".
• Frontier Circus: In "Winter Quarters", horse thieves move one of Tony's trail markers to send the circus up the wrong trail and strand them on top of a mountain.
• In the series finale of Grange Hill, a boy does this with the arrow of a sign saying something like "Year 7s this way". This happens on several other occasions, including one mis-spelled by Mr Sutcliffe as "secetary's office".
• Hank Zipzer: In "Open Day", Mr. Joy is attempting to shut down the music department. As part of this, he exiles Mr. Rock and Emily to the music room for the duration of Open Day; ostensibly so they can explain the music curriculum to visiting parents. He then takes down all of the signs pointing to the music room to ensure that no parents find their way there.
• In Hi-de-Hi!, Ted does this in order to stop Clive's relatives from getting to the church to prevent Clive and Gladys' wedding.
• In Home and Away, a guy on the race turns the arrow around and his competitor (who is already going the wrong way) just follows it.
• JAG: A sign marking an entrance into the Free Fire Zone in "Desert Son" has been knocked down, which nearly gets Harm and Meg killed.
• Done by Crime during a car race in episode 15 of J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai.
• Done to trick Hokuto into a trap in episode 9 of Kagaku Sentai Dynaman.
• On Kenan & Kel, Kel accidentally knocks down the arrow in a restaurant pointing to the bathrooms and puts it back up the wrong way, causing everyone who was looking for the bathroom to end up getting trapped in the restaurant's walk-in freezer instead.
• Robbie Rotten does this in "Little Pink Riding Hood" on LazyTown to trick Stephanie into getting lost in a forest.
• Done in The Legend of Dick and Dom Wacky Racing episode "The Cabbage Ball Run".
• Ethel does it in the The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour episode "Lucy Hunts Uranium." When everyone gets into a madcap race back to town to claim the money for the uranium they've discovered, Ethel moves a detour sign to throw off the Ricardos.
• This is an important plot point in an episode of Mathnet. George Frankly had two invitations to a mystery weekend at The Qualms, a quaint inn in the woods, where he would essentially be roleplaying as Sherlock Holmes. While making their way there, he and partner Pat Tuesday fail to notice that the wind blew the sign in a different direction until later. The butler informs them that they're not at the inn they thought they were, meaning that the kidnappings they thought were part of the roleplay are in fact real.
• In the M.I. High episode "The Others", Blane foils the government agents testing the team by swapping the signs pointing to the library and the cafeteria.
• The Janitor does this to JD during his birthday triathlon in Scrubs. JD ends up biking uncontrollably down a near-vertical hill.
• Sesame Street: In a live-action insert, Maria tries to teach the viewers the concept of a One Way sign. However, the wind keeps turning the One Way sign the children pass back and forth, leading them back and forth the other way. The children following the sign eventually tie it down with some string so it can't sway back and forth in the wind anymore.
• In Secret Garden, Joo Won and Oska zoom past the "To Coastal Road" sign at high speed, causing it to flip around. This proves pivotal to the plot of the whole rest of the series, as it winds up causing Ra Im to take a wrong turn into the woods, eventually finding the mysterious house.
• The wind blowing a road sign around is how Miranda and Skye Sailendra end up in the remote town of Barren Barren in the first episode of Snake Tales.
• Thunderbirds: In "Move And You're Dead", the bridge Alan and Grandma get stranded on is not officially opened to traffic yet. Alan's rivals temporarily remove the roadsigns in order to lure the two onto the bridge, and return them afterwards to keep other cars from reaching the bridge.
• The 2007 To the Manor Born 25th Anniversary special.
• Gang members do this in The Wire. It's not played for laughs at all because it confuses a group of cops and prevents them from coming to the aid of one of their own when she gets shot.

Theme Parks

• The "plot" of Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges at Universal's Islands of Adventure begins with Bluto switching signs so that the riders go down some "dangerous" rapids instead of the idyllic river. A thorough soaking ensues.

Video Games

• Mario Party 3:
  • In Woody Woods, Monty Mole pops out of his hole every turn to switch the directions the players move. He also does this whenever a player comes to his army-like hut to pay him five coins, or lands on the nearby Happening Spaces.
  • In the Backtrack duel board, there are five special tiles in the pointers of the path's star-shaped layout. Each of these tiles has an arrow sign close to it. If a player lands on one, then the arrow sign will point at the opposite direction, forcing the player to move backwards in their next turn.
• In Outta This Kingdom Zircon flips the sign leading to McDuckus Cheetus so it points to the Cold Lands instead.
• WarioWare: Move It!: During Dribble and Spitz's story, which takes place at a motorboat race, a seagull sits on a road sign, causing it to change directions and sending nearly every competitor the wrong way as a result. The only one who doesn't go the wrong way is the High-Octane Hippo, who ends up claiming a Dark Horse Victory.

Webcomics

• In a MLP-based webcomic Friendship is Dragons the trope is subverted and defied; in its version of the story Rainbow Dash doesn't flip the sign, but tricks Applejack into believing she did. Applejack tries to defy the trope and ends up going the wrong way anyway.

Web Video

• Unwanted Houseguest The Hand of Death does this to send the Houseguest to Litchfield Asylum.

Western Animation

• Occurs in the first episode of 101 Dalmatians: The Series to lure Cruella away from the three main puppies she's chasing after in her car.
• In the first episode of Around the World in Eighty Days, Fix does this to prevent Fog and Passepartout from reaching Buckingham Palace.
• In "It's Wrong to Cheat" from Bali, after Bali's friend Tito suggests cheating on a game during Bali's birthday party, Bali has an Imagine Spot in which he's in a boat race and he his friends initially lose to another racer who cheats by doing this, but then ends up losing after an on-camera review of the race shows his cheating. Back at Bali's, Bali tells Tito that he only wants to win if they play fairly. And they do.
• Blaze and the Monster Machines: Crusher pulls off this trick in "Race to Eagle Rock" and "Deep Sea Grand Prix". Blaze falls for it both times, but it's the latter that he actually realizes he went the wrong way.
• In an episode of The Busy World of Richard Scarry, an inadequately supported sign flips and sends people looking for a stall selling corn into the middle of a cornfield, causing them to become Lost in the Maize.
• In the first episode of Camp Lakebottom, Jordan does this to send the bus carrying McGee, Gretchen and Squirt to Camp Lakebottom instead of Camp Sunnysmiles.
• Subverted in the Courage the Cowardly Dog episode "Cajun Granny Stew", where he does this to try trick a fox (who has kidnapped Muriel) into driving into some rocks. The Fox doesn't buy it, and runs over the sign and Courage (who wisely decided to stand directly behind the sign). Subverted again when the fox immediately falls off a cliff.
• Cyberchase: In "The Creech Who Would Be Crowned", one of the ways Hacker tries to cheat the race in Tikiville is by having Buzz and Delete spin a sign showing the cardinal directions so that the other racers go the wrong way.
• Danger Mouse: In "The Invasion of Colonel K", Baron Greenback switches the signs inside Colonel K's body (It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context) so that DM and Penfold end up travelling to the lungs rather than the brain.
• In an episode of Danger Rangers about pedestrian safety, a kid does this during a race in a failed attempt at cheating.
• Dennis the Menace and Gnasher: Dennis does this to temporarily confuse the Greytowers Prep triathlete (who is already cheating). It delays him long enough for Gnasher to disable his bike.

• In "Parade Problem" on Ella the Elephant, one of these kicks off the problem described in the title. An unwitting seagull reverses a sign, causing a delivery van with frozen bananas to go the wrong way.
• Subverted in Family Guy. Peter looks as if he's going to do this in the episode "Chitty Chitty Death Bang," in order to get the circus parade to come to Stewie's birthday party. Instead, he beans the parade leader with the sign and takes his place.
• The Duke employs this in an episode of Gawayn in order to send the questers off in the wrong direction.
  Rex: That is the lamest plan ever! You're gonna get them lost?! How exciting...
• In the Harry Potter parody of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, when sabotaging Gunderstank. Billy spins the signs when Grim leads a field trip, so the signs are reversed yet upside down.
  Dean Toadblatt: Hey, jerkwad, you're going the wrong way! The Enchanted Meadow is in that spooky cave, and the deadly Manticore is in that happy meadow! Can't you read?
• Il Était Une Fois...: In the episode with the 1890s automobile racing, one group is ahead of the pack, and decides to mess everyone behind by adjusting a road sign to Bordeaux. However, the previous scene showed the sign being spun by a breeze, and the cheaters actually correct the sign before going down the wrong road.
• Inspector Gadget: In "Monster Lake", Dr. Claw swaps a road sign to send the Gadgetmobile plunging off a cliff.
• In Little Red Riding Rabbit, the wolf does this to send Red on the long way to Grandma's house.
• In "You're My Hero" from Mack & Moxy, the villain Shellfish Sheldon switches a sign with two directions, one that leads to the "town square" and the other to "very deep pit," causing the heroes to end up in the very deep pit, leading to a lesson about calling 911. This is probably the closest Sheldon actually comes to succeeding on the show, as he actually manages to get the "Great Helpee," but the heroes manage to get it back from him before it hatches. Then Sheldon has to call 911 because he ended up in the very deep pit.
• Milo Murphy's Law: In "A Christmas Peril", Future Cavendish reverses a sign so he and Dakota won't find and argue over the party's last eggroll. Unfortunately, Future Dakota has the same idea.
• Totally subverted in Mouse TV. An arrow in the mountains points to...wherever, we'll never know, the slope is far to steep for the free-climbing mouse and elephant. The mouse solves it pragmatically by turning the arrow around to point to the earth and make an impromptu picnic.
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Fall Weather Friends," Rainbow Dash flips the sign marking the path for the Running of the Leaves, sending Applejack off the track. She hastily flips it back when she hears Twilight Sparkle coming, to keep from being caught.
• The New Adventures of Superman: In "The Prankster", Superman switches a pair of signs to cause the Prankster to drive his scooter into a river.
• A vintage Popeye cartoon had him and Bluto in a car race - Bluto moves the letters around on a sign reading "Route D" to read "Detour", sending Popeye up a long, twisty mountain road.
• In the Robot Chicken spoof of The Fast and the Furious, Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane does this to trick, "them Duke Boys", possibly as an homage to the actual show, The Dukes of Hazzard. This leads them over a cliff, to Roscoe's horror.
• Rocky and Bullwinkle:
  • Used by Boris Badenov in one of the openings (see it towards the end of this video). However, instead of rotating the entire arrow he's able to remove the arrowhead from one end and attach it to the other instead.
  • And, during the Upsidaisium arc, Boris and Natasha decide to switch the sign pointing to a 900-foot cliff with the one pointing to the mountain to which they (and the heroes) are going. The catch is that they come up with this plan independently, and cancel each other's efforts out. Boris and Natasha fall down the cliff (non-fatally), while Rocky and Bullwinkle continue on without noticing at all.
• Happens in an episode of Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics. The cheaters mistakenly switch the signs back, resulting in disgust from their teammates (although they DO get a 50 point bonus for "chivalry" because the judges think they did it to help their opponents).
• Scooby-Doo:
  • Done to lure the Mystery Machine into a trap in Scooby-Doo! and the Loch Ness Monster.
  • Dracula does this to send Shaggy and Scooby into the tar pits in Scooby-Doo! and the Reluctant Werewolf.
• In "Down on the Farm" from the 2007 revamp of the 2003 Strawberry Shortcake, Purple Pie Man reverses the arrows on the signs that Strawberry Shortcake made the country fair to save Caramel Corn's farm. However, Huckleberry Pie spots it and they reverse the arrows in time to hold the fair.
• A non-racing version occurs in one episode of Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Bitty Adventures. While trying to deliver a package, Strawberry encounters a sign that tells her the way to go, only for a breeze to flip the markers, knocking off the one she needs.
• In the Sofia the First episode "Enchanted Science Fair", Amber turns an arrow pointing to the top of the mountain (where a flower all the kids need grows) to keep the others from following, but when Sofia and James come to it, James switches it back, thinking he's doing the same thing.
• Superfriends 1973-74 episode "The Fantastic Frerps". King Plasto diverts a shipment of raw plastic from the real GREPS building to his imitation building by changing a road sign.
• Taz-Mania: In "Road to Tazmania", a spy does this to send Hugh, Drew and Taz to the Spy Mart.
• At the beginning of the Tiny Toon Adventures episode, "High Toon", Beaky Buzzard sits above two signs, one leading to the amusement park, AcmeLand, and the other to No Man's Land, otherwise known as Prairie Junction. Beaky sneezes and switches the signs around, and as a result, Buster and Babs, who are on their way to AcmeLand, go to Prairie Gulch, which at first, they think is the Wild West section of the park.
• In an episode of the Viva Piñata cartoon, the heroes flip a road sign to get the bad guy off their trail and send him towards a volcano. Of course, as he's driving a really slow forklift, it takes him 50 years to actually reach the volcano.
• One of Dick Dastardly's favourite dirty tricks in the Wacky Races. Not surprising since, as has been mentioned elsewhere, Wacky Races (ahem) borrowed a lot of Road Runner gags.
• Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner: Wile E. Coyote tries this a few times with the Road Runner and a detour sign. The gag being that the way the Road Runner goes turns safe, while Wile E.'s way turns out to be the one with the road out... cue whistling sound...
• The World of David the Gnome: When gnomes have wedding parties, there is always a concern about trolls coming and spoiling everything, so they will put up signs deliberately pointing in the opposite direction to throw them off, while gnomes will know better and go the other way. It doesn't always work.

Real Life

• During the War of 1812, "Walnut St." in Washington DC was changed to "Tunlaw St." to confuse the British.
• There's a sign the wrong way near Monument Tube station in London, implying that Cannon Street is to the East.
• Mentioned in The Longest Day entry above, the switching (or removal) of signs did regularly happen in WWII. In fact it was one of neutral Ireland's main defenses. Road signs were arranged so that following them would lead the invaders in a big circle. Still practiced by some locals today, though that's more so that they can troll the tourists who get lost and stop to ask for directions.
  • Also during WWII, in the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans devised Operation Greif, intended to confuse Allied troop movements by doing things like reversing road signs, placing phony minefield warnings, and giving wrong verbal directions to any Allied units they encountered.
  • Similar tactics were used inside Britain, in case of Nazi invasion. Road signs were routinely removed, often confusing domestic military units traveling through the countryside. This was often made worse by the fact that villagers would be very suspicious of any stranger asking for directions while using the "wrong" accent — i.e., one that marked him as from out of town, though this tended to be more a problem for Free Polish and Free French soldiers, whose accents were often mistaken to be German rather than their native countries.
• During the Prague Spring, the inhabitants of Prague removed or painted over street names to confuse the invading Red Army.

---