Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
alt title(s): Shmuck Bait
Make your choice, adventurous stranger
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder, till it drives you mad
What would have followed if you had. — The Magician's Nephew
You would have to be an idiot to go near schmuck bait. Things like the big red button with the dire warning signs; the dark alley in Vampire Town; the conspicuously untouched treasure chest; or the roomful of frighteningly realistic statues.
Making schmuck bait irresistible is a good trick. Often it takes advantage of the inherent appeal of Forbidden Fruit. Or a Curious As A Monkey character will ensure it gets taken.
See also Genre Blindness, Too Dumb To Live, Idiot Ball, What Does This Button Do, Press X To Die, Obvious Trap, Reverse Psychology.
Not to be mistaken for Snark Bait.
Examples
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- The Dirty Pair once had to deal with a trap that was triggered when one pulled on a little handle on the end of a rope suspended from the ceiling. The designer of the trap then proudly pointed out that it was a lot more effective than the "regular" stuff that burglars/spies/etc. promptly avoid.
- Azumanga Daioh
- "If I were to lose this key right now, we wouldn't be able to get inside the house!" Tomo snatches it and hurls it, later explaining that "when you hear things like that, it just makes you wanna do it, y'know?" Once the key is found, Yomi has Sakaki physically restrain Tomo to keep it from happening again... especially as she thought doing so would be hilarious. Oh, Tomo...
- Tomo's pretty prone to this in the manga, too. She dreams of a Chiyo-killing button... and presses it. She also does this with a freshly-painted wall. Even Osaka, the resident Cloudcuckoolander, manages to resist the urge to push a random button.
- She probably would've, if Tomo hadn't shoved her out of the way.
- In the new years episode of Ninin Ga Shinobuden, Shinobu finds a button with warnings posted all around it, and doesn't even hesitate in pressing it.
- In Dragon Ball, as the heroes find themselves in Pilaf's castle, they notice a series of lit up arrows on the ground. Their initial assessment of it being a trap is disregarded as being far too obvious a trap. It turns out to actually be a trap. Pilaf even lampshades this, "I never believed there were people THAT stupid."
- Slayers Next
- Gourry pushes a button to disastrous effect. Later he finds another button which he doesn't push — when pushing the button would have deactivated the trap he then falls in.
- Parodied some more in Slayers Revolution when Lina and Pokota cannot stop themselves from pushing buttons that say "do not push"; lampshaded by other annoyed members of the group.
- Also, the "Lina Trap". The one with the unicorn horn, which is so ridiculously obvious that glance Lina muses that the trap must have been meant for Gourry (until Lina sees the unicorn horn inside the trap and promptly loses her brain). Although possibly Lina was the only one who would have fallen for that one. Hell, even Gourry lampshades it.
- When the Straw Hat Pirates raided Sir Crocodile's casino in One Piece, they found a sign in the backroom corridors pointing off in one direction that said "Pirates". It lead to a dead end containing a trap door which dropped them in a cage. Luffy considered it fiendishly clever.
- Just a few minor examples from Hell Teacher Nube: Miki reads about astral projection... ends up turning herself into a Long-Necked Woman (permanently). She reads about "pulling" off your consciousness for an out-of-body experience... ends up trapped in the body of a female cat on the run from tomcats in heat. She hears a rumor about compelling other people to your will with their umbilical cords... Kyoko becomes her mindless slave and jumps off the school roof. She starts up a chain letter to con people into giving her money... she ends up bringing disasters upon the entire town and she's forced to experience the suffering of everyone she hurt as means of redemption. A few of her classmates also find playing with fire irresistible, but Miki is the worst one of them all.
- In Mahoujin Guru Guru, Jaba kingdom has a rule that says that you must not stand in front of the guardian statue Pura Pura and tell it "Take care of your health" while boxing with your left hand, picking your nose with your right hand, and having a loaf of bread wedged up your rear. The prince Schmucked himself into getting turned into a pig as a result of violating this rule. Nike had to be restrained from doing so three times.
- When you're a character like Eury Evans from Immortal Rain and you run into a door with "The Wages of Sin" and "Keep Out!" emblazened across the front, are you going to keep on walking? No, of course not. Then there wouldn't be any explosions.
- "Death Note? What kind of sick joke is this?"
- In the Clannad prequel episode, Okazaki and Sunohara make a party ball trap that drops a washtub on whoever opens it. The ball is opened by pulling on a tag that reads "someone please pull this, it will be interesting". Nagisa pulls the tag and gets knocked out by the washtub.
Card Games
- The flavor text for the card Fat Ass from the Magic: The Gathering parody set Unhinged has the flavor text, "Our lawyers say no matter how funny it would be, we can't encourage players to eat the cards. Hear that? Whatever you do, don't eat the delicious cards."
- In an official website article, the author makes a point about the nature of Magic's goblins by offering readers several large red buttons to push. Pushing them (sometimes after several pushes) causes the text and graphics to become scrambled. Except the last button. That one gives a censored preview card for the new expansion.
Comics
- This comic page
 contains what could be the ultimate in Schmuck Bait. It's too bad it was All Just A Dream. Otherwise that would definitely be Lex Luthor's Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
- An issue of Ultimate Spider-Man features Jean Grey accidentally setting up her own Schmuck Bait, and getting both Peter and herself caught in it when she congratulates him on not mentally picturing her naked. If you didn't get it, she just said the word sequence "Picture me naked" to a teenage boy.
- In the Justice League Confidential story "I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League", Fire does the Orpheus turn-around despite being warned not to do so, thus losing her friend Ice to Hell again. Ice eventually came Back From The Dead some time later.
- Calvin attempts to lure Susie to a spot where he can hit her with a water balloon, but she doesn't notice him dropping (planting) his letter with an obvious secret code until he loudly exclaims to Hobbes that "I hope Susie doesn't read our secret letter, because then all our plans would be ruined." At which point it backfires spectacularly.
- This Greenside cartoon.
Films
- Star Wars: Chewie and the piece of meat. Possibly one of the few instances where it was literally bait. This is also considered a Wall Banger by those who think Chewie should've been too smart to fall for something so obvious. Maybe it was just too obvious and cliché that Chewie suspected it absolutely could NOT be a trap.
- Mom and Dad Save the World has the Schmuck Bait of the "Light Grenade" which will vaporize anybody who picks it up. When the protagonist asks why anybody would do such a thing, he is shown the ingenious inscription, "Pick Me Up". Of course, this is a Planet of Schmucks.
Dick: "Pick me up"?
Sirk: Diabolical, isn't it?
- The Simpsons Movie, Agnes Skinner: "Don't look where I'm pointing!" She was pointing at Bart's penis.
- Joe Vs. The Volcano Joe always wondered what the valve labeled "Do not turn" would do if he turned it. Since he's dying anyway, he goes right up to it and gives it a good turn. Absolutely nothing happens. Joe is incredulous about it. Why have a sign if nothing happens!
- Done with lampshade in The Fifth Element:
- Yellow Submarine, while in Liverpool:
Ringo: Hey, I wonder what would happen if I pulled this lever.
Old Fred: You mustn't do that.
Ringo: Can't help it. I'm a born lever-puller.
- In Shrek 2, the Happy-Ever-After potion that Shrek and his pals steal has a warning label listing possible side-effects. Which is printed on the inside of the bottle. You can only read it after you've drunk the stuff.
- What, no one's invented goblets yet?
- Monsters Vs Aliens features a Big Red Button that launches all of the US's nukes at once. And it's right next to an identical button that makes espresso. That's just asking for it.
- The Transporter: Rule Three: Never look in the package.
- Aladdin: The entire fake treasure in the Cave of Wonders, including giant ruby that Abu touches, that causes a lava eruption and the sealing of the cave.
- Except, interestingly, the magic sentient flying carpet ... which I certainly would consider a treasure, worth a sultan's ransom in and of itself.
- Well, Carpet's sentient. It wouldn't be fair for him if he weren't allowed to move around on his own.
- In Space Balls, Dark Helmet orders Col. Sandurz to stop, whereupon he pulls a lever marked "Emergency Stop - Never Use". This causes Helmet to go flying across the room, squashing his helmet.
- Undercover Brother. The Big Red Button in The Man's island fortress was labeled "Atomic Core": who would have thought it would detonate the base's Self Destruct Mechanism?
Gamebooks
- Kiddie pick-a-path books are veritable minefields of Schmuck Bait. Choose the wrong options, and you're hosed.
- Choose Your Own Adventure too. The trouble with those though is that often times they trick you with options that seem like obvious Schmuck Bait which turn out fine and options that appear harmless leave you to a horrid fate. In one book, for example, you need to choose between whether you should run back into a burning building after a friend or escape. If you return then you live and get a relatively happy ending (complete with rescuing the friend's ancestor from slavery; it's a long story). If you escape from the building then you wind up being mistaken for a thief while trying to put out the fire, are publicly humiliated by being forced to wear a sign that says you're a thief, and then get shot and killed for inadvertently sitting and resting on the steps of a bank (which the police think you're looting).
- In the interactive Zork novels there's usually a trap that asks if you found a certain item that doesn't exist. If you say yes the book calls you out for cheating and doesn't give you the option of going back and trying again that it usually does.
Literature
- C.S. Lewis' The Sorcerer's Apprentice (The Magician's Nephew in later publications) embodied this trope in a bell that the main characters came across. The sign by the rope for the bell essentially said that ringing the bell might very well bring about the end of the world and kill its ringer, but, as it note, if you don't ring it you're going to be stuck wondering what would have happened for the rest of your life. Of course, they ring the bell, which resurrects Queen Jadis (also known as the White Witch) who was the villain for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, to which this was a prequel.
- Polly, one of the two children, points out to the other, Digory, that ringing the bell would be incredibly stupid, and attempts to stop him. He (literally) twists her arm, overpowering her long enough to ring it.
- It's implied that the message under the bell was also a spell. It was deliberately placed there by Queen Jadis to ensure that she would be awakened if ever anybody came to her dimension after she managed to destroy it.
- Implied, but denied— when Crystal Dragon Jesus asks Digory if he really thinks he was enchanted, he admits he was just using that as an excuse. It was meant to ensure her release, but only through the all-consuming power of Schmuck Bait.
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: "Harry, whatever you do, block out all visions Lord Voldemort sends to you." Harry has vision, decides it's real, acts on it. Tragedy Ensues.
- Used or referenced excessively in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Pretty much anything in Discworld that is labeled "Do Not Touch" will be meddled with. In the very first book, Rincewind gets stuck with the Eighth Spell of Creation because he went and opened the Octavo on a dare, when every student was perfectly aware that it was not to be touched.
- The wizards of the Unseen University are basically the people who put the Schmuck in Schmuck Bait. As a footnote explains: Any true wizard, faced with a sign like "Do not open this door. Really. We mean it. We're not kidding. Opening this door will mean the end of the universe," would automatically open the door in order to see what all the fuss was about.
- In Hogfather, Archchancellor Ridcully discovers a hidden door, which his predecessor had had sealed off, leaving a sign saying, "Do not, under any circumstances, open this door." So, naturally, Ridcully has it unsealed. One of his subordinates asks if he'd seen the sign, and Ridcully says, "Of course I've read it. Why d'yer think I want it opened?"
- A footnote reads "This exchange contains almost all you need to know about human civilization. At least, those bits of it that are now under the sea, fenced off, or still smoking." The room behind the door turns out to be a bathroom designed by Bungling Inventor "Bloody Stupid" Johnson. It is sealed again later in the book after an incident involving a device that links the shower to the university's powerful pipe organ, with a sterner warning sign, but the janitor (who knows his wizards) doesn't pound the nails all the way in.
- Perhaps not coincidentally, in the novel Thief Of Time, Lu-Tze reasons that he should go to Ankh-Morpork, a veritable city of schmucks, because "the day someone pulls the plug out of the bottom of the universe, the chain will lead all the way to Ankh-Morpork and some bugger saying 'I just wanted to see what would happen.'" Guess what city the Unseen University is in?
- Also in Thief Of Time a narrated line points out "If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH,' the paint wouldn't even have time to dry."
- In The Last Continent, the wizards discover a window that has been turned into a portal to a desert island. The Archchancellor props it open and attaches a warning that "showed some thought has gone into the wording: "Do not remove this wood. Not even to see what it does. IMPORTANT!" It half-works, as somebody later removes it... accidentally.
- In Soul Music, the Librarian picks up on the beat that is infecting the world, and literally pulls out all the stops on the University's mighty organ, including the ones "with faded labels warning in several languages that they were on no account to be touched, ever, in any circumstances" before he begins to play. (This is mostly to illustrate the magnitude of the music, since nothing bad actually happens when he plays.)
- Ridcully would disagree, citing a solid wall of noise filling the University as a good example of "something bad". And then it explodes, of course, but that's mostly Ridcully's own fault for shooting the bellows to make it stop.
- There's also the circle of stones up on the moor in Lancre, mentioned in Lords And Ladies. They're there partly to keep the elves out, and partly "in the hope that enough daft buggers would take it as a warning, and stay away." Guess what happens.
- In The Last Hero, it's revealed that mysterious treasure maps, and accompanying tales of how perilous the treasures' locations are, were placed in the paths of guillible heroes by the gods, who consider Schmuck Baiting a spectator sport.
- In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent pushes a button labeled "please do not push this button." When he does, a sign lights up that says "Please do not push this button again."
- There's a failed attempt at Schmuck Bait in The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea. Some mooks charged with capturing the protagonist set up some road signs: "This road is the winner of the Safest Road in Ireland competition. This road is so safe that a boy can cycle down it with his eyes shut." The boy keeps his eyes open and easily avoids the feeble roadblock set up to trip him. Obviously the mooks didn't grasp the fundamental principle of Schmuck Bait — they should have told him not to shut his eyes.
- Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space series is loaded with schmuck bait, most of it left behind by the Inhibitors. There are unusual alien artifacts designed to get attention of intelligent space-faring life forms and contain difficult puzzles as locks. If you're smart enough to open it, it signals the Inhibitors to wake up and come exterminate your race for being too intelligent. The artifact found around the neutron star in the book Revelation Space is transformed into Schmuck Bait by a later culture, the Amarantin's (genuine) attempts to disguise it, keep others away and warn them.
- The Dark Tower: Whatever you do, Allie, don't tell Norm "nineteen". Given that it's a Stephen King book, it's played for suspense and Nightmare Fuel. Norm, incidentally, is a man who was bought back to life, and after Allie tells him "nineteen", whatever he tells her is so horrifying she begs the lead to put a bullet between her eyes.
- One book in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles mentions a well full of Water of Healing, which has hanging nearby two dippers: an ordinary one, and a golden, jewel-encrusted one that turns to stone anyone who touches it. One of the characters in the book is a prince who was Genre Savvy enough to know not to use the gold dipper, but still picked up to take a look at it (after all, it's not every day you see a golden, jewel-encrusted dipper); when he started turning to stone, he thought quickly and dipped his arm into the water, making him a living statue.
Live Action TV
- The term "Schmuck Bait-y" was used in the Mutant Enemy bullpen and by Joss Whedon in DVD commentaries to describe settings that were dark and gloomy and seemed dangerous. Handy term for places they were bound to send characters.
- Lost's island is covered in Schmuck Bait. In the early days of the series, the characters were constantly traipsing into the jungle even though they knew the "monster" was out there. In the episode "Walkabout", Jack and Sawyer go into the plane's fuselage to investigate growling. David Fury, late of Mutant Enemy, referred to this as "Schmuck Bait" on the DVD commentary.
- Dougal on Father Ted has had problems at least twice with do-not-push buttons, once (evidently) on a SeaLink ferry, and then in the cockpit of an airplane.
- The Middleman warns Wendy there are three things she should never, ever bring up in conversation with Sensei Ping. The minute said sensei pisses her off...
- In the opening episode of episode of Heroes season three, Hiro receives a posthumous message from his father saying that he must not open the safe in the office. Any one who has watched Hiro for five minutes knows this was idiocy on his father's part. And it was... The fact that one of the things in the safe was another message saying "I told you not to open the safe!", while funny, makes it clear that his father actually intended to make him open the safe.
- Derren Brown Trick of the Mind had an episode all about this trope. He argued that signs telling us not to do something will only encourage us to do it. In the program, he came to a class and told some young children, two at a time in the room, to not press the button on the box. They do, and some stuff flies out from it. He also paints a sign on a wall telling people not to look through the hole. They do, and Derren's there to look right back at them. The programme's climax is him telling a woman to not press a button otherwise it will kill the cat inside of the tank. She presses it, however the cat wasn't killed, the button just turned the lights off if anything (so there's no need to call the RSPCA, OK).
- Doctor Who. The Impossible Planet. Don't turn around.
- Also the episode "Blink". Don't look away, don't run, and whatever you do, don't blink. Guess what that statement encourages you to do. And when you do do it, you'll end up decades in the past.
- And "The Christmas Invasion":
The Doctor: And how am I going to react when I see this: A great big threatening button. A great big threatening button which must not be pressed under any circumstance. Which leaves us with a great big stinking problem, cause I really don't know who I am and I don't know where to stop. So when I see a great big threatening button which should never ever ever be pressed, then I just want to do this! [presses it]
- Although this one seems like schmuck bait because it is a subversion of a subversion, in that the great big threatening button which should never ever ever be pressed actually does bugger all when it's pressed; the Sycorax are using a cheap bit of intimidating but otherwise minor and harmless mind control to try and bully the Earth into accepting their terms, and the Doctor's actually calling their bluff.
- Inversion in Candid Camera, when they put a bowl in a public place full of money with a sign that said "FREE MONEY". Nobody touched it, assuming it was Schmuck Bait.
- The Twilight Zone (1980's version) episode "Button, Button". A couple is given a box with a button on it. They're warned that if they push the button they'll receive $200,000, and a person they don't know will die. They finally push the button and receive the money. Then they're told that the box will be re-programmed and given to someone they don't know. The same premise is the plot behind the upcoming movie The Box (the reward has been increased to $1,000,000). Unknown at this time if they press it, or how the people are killed.
- In another version of the story, the wife pushes the button and the husband dies, causing the insurance money to pay the promised sum. When she complains to the button-giver, he responds, "Did you really think you knew your husband?"
- On the old Nickelodeon show Salute Your Shorts the main councilor Dr. Kahn's niece Ellen, a Bratty Half Pint that bordered on Enfant Terrible, visited and caused problems for all the campers. They eventually figured out that she liked seeing them upset so they ignore her but tell her she will be punished if she pushes a button. It turns out the button activated a Robinson Goldberg Contraption designed to give her a Humiliation Conga complete with Produce Pelting and a Bucket Booby Trap leaving the nasty little girl Covered In Gunge
- Iron Chef and Iron Chef America both have the Ice Cream Machines. The Iron Chefs seemingly can't resist trying to make ice cream or other frozen dishes out of ingredients like trout and cod roe (IC French Hiriyuki Sakai seems particularly vulnerable to the machine's siren song). Nine times out of ten, this earns them scolding from the judging panel (if not outright Squick).
Mythology
- "Do not under any circumstances bring this horse into your city, because then us Greeks will never ever be able to conquer Troy."
- The Odyssey. "Hey, we're a bunch of incredibly hungry sailors on an island inhabited by the juicy-looking cattle of the sun god! What's that, Odysseus? We can't eat them? C'mon, what could happen, it's not like we can piss off the gods even further..." They basically decided that whatever the gods were going to do would be better than starving to death while stuck on that island. (And they might not have been particularly wrong — drowning may or may not be a particularly nice way to die, but it's better than starving.)
- I would posit that the scene in which Odysseus' men open the bag of wind that Odysseus specifically told them not to touch and blow their whole ship off course again (because they thought the bag contained treasure) is also high caliber, epic grade schmuck bait. Actually, Odysseus' men are kind of schmucks on a regular basis.
- The tale of Pandora's box. All she had to do was not open the box, and everyone would be happy. But no, she just had to see what was inside. So she opens it.
- There's also the story of Orpheus, who went to the underworld to retrieve his dead wife, but was warned not to look back at her before he got back to the world of the living. He looked back. She died again. To be fair to Orpheus, he did wait; he just didn't wait long enough. He was out of the underworld; she was not. Not completely, anyway.
- Don't eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
- Bluebeard's wives invariably fell victim to this trope.
New Media
- Neopets has the Lever of Doom. The text reads "There's a strange lever sticking out of the space station wall, with a notice that reads, 'DO NOT PULL'. So you probably shouldn't pull the lever. You can if you want. But you shouldn't." The link reads "Pull the lever anyway". When you inevitably do? "Oh no!! An evil mechanical hand emerges from a panel and steals 100 Neopoints from you!!" The worst part is that it's Schmuck Bait with a purpose — there's a teeny-weeny chance that you'll be granted an exclusive avatar when you push the button. Users have been known to blow 80,000 Neopoints — 800 pulls — or more getting it, the lever laughing at them the whole time.
- Any site that has a link featured on Webpages That Suck. The name says it all. For that matter, most sites on Portal of Evil, as well.
- The UK Cartoon Network website had a large red button featured in the top banner that said "DO NOT PRESS". It was also introduced in the site's homepage intro "Just don't push the big red button". *Cue an arrow pointing to it*. This editor would like to know what happened if you did press it.
- The website for My Parents Are Aliens also had a button in its side menu which when you rolled over it highlighted in red and a voice said "Do not press" (and was labeled accordingly). The question is, what did happen if you pressed it?
- One of the random boxes in Warehouse 23 contains a laptop that, when picked up, types the message "Do you want to continue? Y/N" Choosing "yes" just makes the screen go black until you futz with it again. Choosing "no" results in... your heart stopping. Well, you did say you didn't want to continue...
- For one day Twitter was cannibalized by a "Don't Click" hack that, upon clicking a button, sent a Tweet to your followers with the link to the button and a "Don't Click" warning. (Read all about it.)
- From Uncyclopedia: Do NOT click any links!
- This YouTube link is a not Rick Roll. The bait here being that you avoid the link because you're told it's not a rick roll...
- Don't do a google image search for "goatse" with the safe search off. It's for your own good. Seriously, you'll be sorry.
- Those who believe in the Magical Computer are prone to this kind of error: Do not run this script, ever!
- Encyclopedia Dramatica, THE most offensive encyclopedia on the web, has a page to apologize to anyone that is offended by its material. You would have to be an idiot beyond all measure to actually look at that page. For all the people holding that ball out there, type the word "offended" into the search bar at the Encyclopedia Dramatica website. But, be warned, definitely NSFW (gore as well as sexual)!
- A practical joke that had a switch conveniently labeled "Magic/More Magic" would "magically" crash the computer it was attached to if it was switched from "More Magic" to "Magic". It wasn't supposed to do anything— the switch was completely inoperative. And yet, every time it was set to "Magic"... Maybe it won't crash the computer this time.
- The xkcd games forum had a thread titled "Post here and be banned". Everyone who posted in the thread (except the founder) was banned. After a point, anyone who posted was permanently banned.
- 4chan's "/b/" imageboard had a similar thread, with the site's founder and admin, Moot, taunting the /b/-tards to post in the thread and be banned. They were. Amusingly enough, Moot himself posted in the thread to laugh at the shmucks who had taken the shmuck bait... Only to be banned himself.
- The Facepunch forums have Idot Culls semi-regularly, which often consist of an admin or moderator creating a thread with an OP something along the lines of "do not post in here or you will be banned" or some other very specific instructions with a clear threat. Of course, if you do post in it you get permabanned but that doesn't stop idiots from doing it anyway, hence the name "idiot cull".
- The TV Tropes Wiki has its share of Schmuck Bait:
- Every single external link on the Ear Worm pages is an invitation to get a song stuck in your head.
- Likewise, many of the external links on the Uncanny Valley page are invitations for a creep-out.
- Pixie MUD had "This is the Line of Death. You cross it, you die." Yes, players crossed it. Yes, they died. And just to rub it in, the MUD promptly announced it to all online players.
- Would anyone like to guess what going to "about:inducebrowsercrashforrealz" does in Google Chrome? Exactly What It Says On The Tin
- The site www.crashie.com will crash Internet Explorer 7 and below. Not sure if it smashes 8, though.
- A popular (though still quite annoying) prank on You Tube uses this. It basically works like this-Someone browsing the site sees a link to a video with the description "Funny Family Guy Moments" (or some similar title), said someone clicks on the site and turns up the volume in order to hear it better and, CUE THE REALLY LOUD BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! Alas, many people fall for it.
Professional Wrestling
- Every single time The Rock asks somebody a question, he cuts them off before they can give him an answer.
The Rock: How dare you little jabroni come on The Rock's show and not even have the class to introduce yourself? What is your name? Chris Jericho: I told you— The Rock: IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS!
- "It doesn't matter" is something of a Catch Phrase for The Rock, to go along with his many, many others.
Tabletop Games
- Tomb of Horrors
- Keep on the Shadowfell has a door marked "Do Not Enter. SERIOUSLY." That's where the slime is. The slime that can kill an entire party by itself.
- The tragic tale of the Head of Vecna.
- Any Call of Cthulhu game is inevitably schmuck bait for anyone with passing knowledge of Lovecraft's work. Why read the fabled book of dark magic? Why go into that creepy cave? Because otherwise the game would be over. Specifically Horror on the Orient Express takes this to ridiculous levels. A suspiciously well-informed quest-giver tells you that you must save the world by collecting the six parts of an ancient doomsday artifact, all located conveniently on the path of the Orient Express. Inevitably, the Genre Savvy players ask themselves why they're re-constructing a statue that can destroy the world when the individual parts are dangerous but not cataclysmic. When you finally reach the end of the line after fighting cults, vampires, and fascists and suffering character deaths, permanent insanity, and increasing stat penalties as you collect the parts, it turns out, of course that the quest-giver was the Big Bad all along, and just wanted some Xanatos Suckers to collect the parts for him. Then again, the alternative to taking the Schmuck Bait is to just not take the job, in which case you sit around and stare at each other until the Keeper can come up with a new adventure.
- The Computer strongly advises Troubleshooters not to press any buttons labeled "Do Not Press". During the course of this mission, you may encounter buttons incorrectly labeled "Do Not Press" by traitors. Troubleshooters are advised to press these buttons. The Computer is your friend. Trust The Computer. In one of the depreciated computer crash campaigns, it's described that the computer was infected with some ancient evil. After the players manage to trap it, it is stored in a box labelled "Do Not Open". The schmucks in Alpha Complex open it, and unleash the ancient evil (again).
- In another official adventure, one of the Troubleshooters' secondary assignments is to test an experimental "Traitor Killer". When you pull the trigger, it explodes. This is intentional; the assumption is that the traitor on the team will volunteer to test it so that it won't be used against him.
- Munchkin is guilty of this trope in nine different shades; Space Munchkin's "TRAP! The Most Fiendish Trap of All!!" actively illustrates this with a Big Red Button.
Video Games
Web Comics
- Note that the Perry Bible Fellowship picture above is merely a Photoshop◊, and thus originally not an example.
- In this strip, El Goonish Shive does a Lampshade Hanging on the "dark alleyway" variation as an excuse for revealing Grace's secret:
Grace: Why not go through that gap between the buildings?
Sarah: Hmmm, dark alley... night... two unarmed teenage girls... screams wouldn't be heard over nearby traffic... sounds good, let's go!
Grace: Uhm, wait a second...
- Freefall had "The bright, shiny temptation of the Eject button".
- Subverted in Ursula Vernon's Digger by the eminently sensible and practical title character.
Traveling Merchant: Tell me, wombat — if I gave you a box and told you that it must not be opened, ever, under any circumstances, what would you do?
Digger: Hmmm... Encase it in concrete, probably. Actually, I'd encase it in lead first, if the box materials could take the heat, then in concrete. Then I'd put it in the foundations of a useful public works project. Something they wouldn't be digging up again in a hurry. Grain storage, or mole dung composting... I'd have to check and see what was available... how big a box are we talking about, anyway?
- xkcd proves that the difference between genius and idiocy is only a very fine line indeed, laid out in easily-erased ink.
- This switch.
- Discussed in the Queen of Wands commentary to the horrible, putrid, awful, bad milk strips.
- The Order of the Stick's Castle Self-Destruct. Do Not Touch Ever. (No, not even then.)
- Vaarsuvius is fond of using Explosive Runes in this way, so much so that it has become something of a signature spell for him.
- "Gosh, I hope none of the adventures comes close to the conspicuously barely guarded gate over there! One touch would utterly destroy it, wink wink!" — Xykon, showing how many ranks he has in Reverse Psychology.
- Gadgeteer Genius Jyrras from DMFA has a big red button on the control panel of his main computer, which, if pressed lock the whole system and displays the message "Warning Idiot Detected By Keyboard"
- Oglaf in the "Forbidden Door" strips; averted by the Genre Savvy apprentice. "This is what, a moron trap? Fuck off." (Some other strips of that comics are Not Safe For Work.)
- College Roomies from Hell: Nirvanaaaaaaaaaaa!" (Interesting variant in that there are no warning signs or anything, but it's still Schmuck Bait, for reasons mentioned in the strip.)
- In The Dementia of Magic, here.
"In the event that someone reading this does try, I wish to preemptively state on the record that I told you so."
- In Sluggy Freelance Riff's latest robot, the Mark 19, has a sign over its crotch reading, "Do Not Kick!" Torg kicks it. Hilarity Ensues.
- Castle Heterodyne in Girl Genius is one big, intelligent fortress of Schmuck Bait. "And what's worse is... it likes to think it has a sense of humor."
- Head Trip strip "For The Critics".
Web Original
- Gearworld, a Livejournal blog of a fictional travelogue, contains two instances of Schmuck Bait. Each instance had been discovered by a previous group of exploring monks, and they had left carved plaques behind to commemorate and warn about the experience.
"PLEASE DO NOT STRIKE GONG
While we fully understand that you are curious as to what happens when the gong is struck, we must strongly advise against it. The results are most unpleasant and dramatically fatal. Human nature being what it is, we realize that this warning may not stop you, and may in fact only drive you to strike it, but since we are unable to destroy the gong, and the lock was evidently insufficient to keep you out, we can only hope that you will take our advice. There are neither riches nor knowledge here, but only an ugly death.
Respectfully,
The Monks of Perdition
(In Memory of Brother Wu)"
- Unusually, in each case Eland carefully reads the warning and wisely leaves it as is.
- This quote
Western Animation
- Perhaps the most potent distillation of Schmuck Bait was the History Eraser button from The Ren and Stimpy Show episode "Space Madness". The annoying narrator promptly enters the scene with the following:
Narrator: Oh, how long can trusty Cadet Stimpy hold out? How can he possibly resist the diabolical urge to push the button that could erase his very existence? Will his tortured mind give in to its uncontrollable desires? Can he withstand the temptation to push the button that, even now, beckons him ever closer? Will he succumb to the maddening urge to eradicate history? At the mere! push! of a single! button! The beautiful shiny button! The jolly candy-like button! Will he hold out, folks? Can he hold out?
Stimpy: ... NO I CAN'T!!! (beep)
Narrator: Tune in next week fo—
- In the Ben 10 episode "Tourist Trap", IT looks like a harmless, gigantic ball of rubber bands, despite the build-up to IT appearing, and the numerous warning signs surrounding it. Thinking someone's pulled a fast one on them, Ben decides to have his own brand of fun with IT, and his normally-more-sensible cousin Gwen doesn't even try to stop him. This, of course, releases the Monster Of The Week to wreak havoc, simply because that's how the freakin' thing amuses itself. The conclusion of the episode implies that after the creature has been released, gone on a rampage, duplicated itself, rampaged more, fought Ben, continued to cause destruction, nearly killed people, and, oh yeah, more rampaging, until it was finally captured... Absolutely nothing about how this thing was contained will be changed. Everything will be fine, the mayor insists, "so long as people mind the signs." At least this time the creatures are put inside a giant lightbulb, where the crazed little suckers are easily visible.
- Scooby-Doo fans know of his own Pandora's Box, the Chest of Demons.
- Subverted in a Garfield animated TV special where a young girl and a cat live in a Utopia of a garden. The garden also contains a box which they are warned they must never ever open. After a moment of temptation, they never ever open the box and live happily ever after.
- This is based on a book of stories on Garfield's previous (and one future) lives, in which the same thing happens.
- In an episode of Garfield and Friends, Garfield is trapped in a haunted house and finds a rope hanging from the ceiling with a sign that says "DO NOT PULL ROPE." Naturally, he pulls on it and is dropped through a trap door. "There's your lesson for today, kids. When it says 'Don't Pull The Rope,' don't pull the rope."
- The Simpsons Halloween special has the Super-Fun-Happy-Slide button in Burns' vampire mansion. Before pulling it, Bart even lampshades the fact that it's Schmuck Bait: "I know I probably shouldn't, but when am I gonna come back here?" Also, "What is your fascination with my forbidden closet of mystery?"
- Family Guy: Peter is in a bland room with a button accompanied by a sign warning not to push the button. He pushes it. An old kung fu master, wearing a traditional martial arts outfit, walks into the room, bows politely, and beats Peter senseless.
- In El Tigre Manny and Frida find a chest covered in warning signs with a skull shaped lock. They declare "It's like an us trap" and consider that it might be a testbefore immediately disregarding their concerns and crack it open. Unlike most cases of this trope bad things don't immediately happen when the Artifact Of Doom is unleashed. It's only when they trick Manny's mom into putting it on to resume her abandoned superhero identity that things get out of control
- Your funeral.
- In My Little Pony: Twinkle Wish Adventure, the mayor gives Cheerilee the box containing Twinkle Wish, the sleeping wishing star, and warns her that it must not be opened until the next day at sunset, and even tells her "The fate of the entire festival is in your hands." Quite naturally, the box ends up opened mere minutes later, and Twinkle Wish is snatched away by a passing dragon.
- Free ACME Bird Seed
- OTOH, it's subverted each time since the Coyote is the schmuck, rather than the Road Runner.
Real Life
- The Science Museum in London currently (since 2007) has an exhibit called "DO NOT TOUCH". A large pole with a barred-off bare metal waist is surrounded by brain-searing yellow warning signs, proximity-sensor klaxons, and screens telling patrons that the pole will give them an electric shock. You can't not touch it. Yes, you do get an electric shock.
- This Place is Not a Place of Honor: The US Department of Energy is designing monuments that warn future visitors away from nuclear waste disposal sites such as Yucca Mountain and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The ideas they've come up with are fascinating — but not one of them has managed to avert the site being Schmuck Bait of the highest caliber. To their credit, they're well aware that anything they design is potential Schmuck Bait, and they're actively working to minimize the bait factor.
- Any Wet Paint sign.
Tell a man there are 978,301,246,569,987 stars in the sky, and he will believe you. Show him a "Wet Paint" sign, and he will check and get his finger stained. — Julian Tuwim
- Apparently, some tech departments will periodically send out emails with viruses attached, informing everyone at large not to open attachments like that. If someone does, a conveniently-attached tracer lets the department tell managers which of their employees cannot follow directions.
- Whatever you do, don't look down. (Cue person immediately looking down.)
- Oh, by the way, we snuck into your house last night and wrote the word "gullible" on the ceiling above your computer.
- Links to wiki sites. This one included.
- The Rape Tunnel, an art installation by Richard Whitehouse. Exactly What It Says On The Tin: If you enter this tunnel then the artist will attempt to rape you. It's a followup to his other piece, The Punch-You-in-the-Face Tunnel.
- Thankfully , this was a hoax.
- The Punch-You-in-the-Face Tunnel however, isn't. The artist then got sued by someone who went in to get punched in the face because the artist punched her in the face like he promised.
- In poker, massively overbetting with unbeatable hand sometimes causes people to call you, because "surely, if he really had a hand, he would bet less so as to get paid".
- Oh, no, Roman Army! Don't send all your forces into our middle! It's so weak and unprotected! We'll definitely be defeated if you just send your forces into the middle of the battle field!
You think clicking here◊ will take you somewhere else...◊but there is NO ESCAPE!
Highlight only in case of emergency: Not now you idiot! In case of emergency!
|
|
◊ will take you somewhere else...
◊but there is NO ESCAPE!
