Slipping a Mickey - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Kick the jukebox, slam the floor
Drink, drink, drink, drink some more
I can't think
Hey! What's in this drink?
It feels like somebody put something
Somebody put something in my drink"

— The Ramones, "Somebody Put Something In My Drink"

Tricking someone into drinking a drugged beverage. One of the most common causes of Instant Sedation next to a Tap on the Head. Used to knock out a Mook, or more insidiously, for purposes of date rape. If the other person suspects something, they may discreetly dispose of the drink or attempt a Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo.

One of The Oldest Tricks In The Book. To the disappointment of many horny guys, it does not work for that purpose, so you're better not to attempt it.

The person doing the drugging may ask Why Can't You Say Good Night?, and the person who's been drugged may have some Parting From Consciousness Words.

When this is done by adding a lethal drug to outright kill someone, see Tampering with Food and Drink.

Truth in Television: The original Mickey Finn was actually a potent horse laxative. Read all about it on Wikipedia

Has nothing to do whatsoever with a certain Disney mascot.

As this is frequently a rape trope, No Real Life Examples, Please!

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

Mahou Sensei Negima! has the Big Bad of the Mahorafest arc drugging Negi and Setsuna so that they'll be forced to use her time machine to get back on schedule.
Ranma 1/2 has actually used this quite a few times in the manga, usually with Ranma just trying to end a date quicker.
- In an amusing example, female Ranma found herself roped into a date with a sickly boy who wouldn't take his medicine unless she gave it to him... personally. After several unsuccessful tries to just dump the stuff in his mouth, she quickly went "Look over there!" and poured it into his drink, exactly as he poured sleeping powder into her drink. When she woke up a long time later, he STILL hadn't taken the medicine.
Sukisho sees this done to Sora and Nao, with Soushi drugging their tea and taking them in for a vaugely described medical exam.
The heroes in Zero No Tsukaima do this to an an entire detachment of Gallian soldiers during the third season. Since it's so dilute by that point, it takes longer for the effects to appear.
- Also at the end of second season where Saito slips a sleeping potion into Louise's glass of wine so he can get Julio to take her to safety while he sacrifices his life to delay an advancing army.
To keep Jiraiya from interfering with her plans to deal with Orochimaru, Tsunade pours Jiraiya a shot of sake and adds some unidentified white powder to it. The powder has the effect of putting Jiraiya to sleep and sapping his magical energy; Jiraiya comments that Tsunade is the only person he knows that can design a drug that can be slipped into a drink and unnoticed by a ninja.
In the movie of Revolutionary Girl Utena, a flashback shows that Akio did this to his sister Anthy and then took advantage of her sexually. This is icky enough, but it then goes on to show that afterwards he realized that she was awake and began to panic, and wound up stabbing her and then falling out a window to his death. Yikes.
From the same director, Mawaru-Penguindrum has several example of it.
- In episode 8 Ringo drugs a cake that Tabuki and Shouma eat, and proceeds to try and rape an unconscious Tabuki. Luckily, an interruption stops anything from happening.
- And then in episode 10 Shouma is given a spiked desser when hospitalized, and the person who gave it to him (Masako) kidnaps him afterwards.
- And in episode 14, Ringo is the one in the receiving end, when Yuri drug her drink to rape her
If Auguste Beau from Kaze to Ki no Uta offers you wine, drink it at your own risk. Rosemariné fell victim to this in the past, and later in the story, so does Serge. The results in both cases are... less than pleasant.
In Tiger & Bunny, Maverick has a habit of drugging people's drinks before he wipes their mind.

Comicbooks

This has been a recurring problem in DC Comics. In at least one Justice League story, some of those mickeys cause Mind Control.
In one Marvel Comics story that echoes ancient Egyptian myth, Sekhmet, the goddess of destruction, is defeated when she's force-fed chloral hydrate◊, turning her into Hathor, goddess of love◊... and apparently, goddess of LOLcats.
Happens to Gabe Webb in The Maze Agency Annual #1.

Fairy Tales

In most if not all versions of the fairytale "The Twelve Dancing Princesses", the princesses prevent anyone from learning the secret of how their dancing shoes are worn out every night by giving their assigned watchers a drugged drink; the hero must perform a Discreet Drink Disposal in order to stay awake and solve the mystery. Robin McKinley's version of the story hangs a lampshade on the fact that nobody previous to the hero thought to do this but simply drank what they were given.

Films — Animated

Basil and Dawson are given drugged drinks in The Great Mouse Detective. Basil is Genre Savvy enough to test his drink first, but Dawson is not so fortunate.
In Asterix Conquers America, the Indian medicine man tricks Asterix, Obelix and Getafix into smoking a tainted peace pipe to knock them out. Getafix even anachronistically says "He's slipped us a Mickey."

Films — Live-Action

Done to Nina in Black Swan when she's at the bar with Lily. Maybe.
Done both to and by the main character of The Rundown, using poisonous native fruit.
In the 1956 film Around the World in Eighty Days, Fix drugs Passepartout's drink and knocks him out—in the book, he just gets him drunk and persuades him to smoke opium, with the same result.
In The Big Lebowski, Jackie Treehorn makes a "Hell of a Caucasian" for the Dude.
Nicely avoided by the would be victim in a 50s b/w film. The husband brings a carafe of orange juice with one glass poured out. Due to the rest of the film the wife is very suspicious. When the husband returns to the room he asks why she hasn't drunk her juice and she says that it tasted funny. He pours a glass from the jug, tells her it tastes fine and makes her drink her own glass. Shortly afterwards he admits the juice in the glass was poisoned and that she is dying. He's a bit upset when she tells him that she poured a fresh glass, poured the first glass back into the jug and washed that glass.
This is also an Abbott and Costello routine. Lou realizes his drink has been poisoned, so he distracts the bad guy ("HELLO! Steve, old boy!") so he can switch the glasses. Hilarity Ensues, especially when the move was faked.
The Three Stooges also did several variations on the theme, often with a disgusting cocktail Moe would dub an "Icky-may". In "Pals and Gals", the recipient of the spiked drink actually died!
In The Bank Dick, W.C. Fields labors to keep the bank examiner from doing his job - lures him into his regular saloon for a quick drink, and surreptitiously asks the bartender if "Michael Finn" has been in. The doctored drink leaves the examiner very ill.
Used twice on Rigby Reardon in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.
The Living Daylights - Kara gives James Bond a martini laced with chloral hydrate.
The President's Analyst - affable Soviet spy Kropotkin rescues Dr. Schaefer and gives him a drink from a flask while appealing to his sense of reason to get him to defect to Russia...but to cover his bases, the drink is drugged to knock him out.
- Earlier on, an agent of the Canadian Secret Service adds LSD to the ice supply of a nightclub, sending everyone who drinks (including several Federal agents) into a tripped-out orgy, and making it easy to abduct the doctor in the chaos.
In The Divine Secrets Of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood, the titular sisterhood slips a roofie into Sidda's drink so they can take her to the old cabin and explain to her the secrets of her mother's past.
In Hard Candy, the pedophile learns the hard way that the rules about never letting someone else mix your drink apply both ways when his would be victim drugs him this way.
Irene Adler pulls a clever one on Holmes in Sherlock Holmes using an unopened bottle of wine. she uses a syringe to inject the drug through the cork and a match to re-melt the wax and conceal the hole.
Pretty much the primary plot point of The Hangover.
While not directly referenced in the film, the Rifftrax for Spider-Man suggests that this happens to Norman Osbourne a lot.
Kevin (as Norman): I drank a whole bottle of Grey Goose and woke up on the floor; someone must have slipped me a Mickey!
Done in The Naked Truth , at one point to someone who was Micky Finned the previous evening from the very same bottle. At the very same place.
Eraser. Arnold Schwarzenegger takes a bottled water invitingly placed in a bucket in front of him. When one of the corrupt feds also goes to take one, The Mole quietly stops him and gives him a drink from the fridge, saying: "You'll like this better." Within moments Arnie's feeling the effects of the knockout drug — of course it doesn't slow him down much.
The point of the 1950 film, DOA. The protagonist is told he's been poisoned, and has only a couple of days to live. The film chronicles him trying to find out who poisoned him and why.
In Arsenic and Old Lace, Aunt Abby and Aunt Martha poison lonely old men who have no family to put them out of their misery. They hold a prayer service for them, and the bodies end up in the Panama Canal.
In Misery a kidnapped Paul tries it, but his captor accidentally knocks the glass over.

Literature

In the Callahan's Crosstime Saloon story "The Guy With the Eyes", Callahan saves the world by slipping an alien advance scout a Mickey Finn so he misses his check in with his alien overlords. Said scout clued Callahan in on how to defeat him by giving the alias Michael Finn.
In The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, the stupid Mafia gang needs a way to disable some bodyguards without killing them. Naturally, they have heard of a "Mickey Finn" and decide to try it. Of course, being who they are, they find out that once they put it in the drink and offer it to the bodyguards, the bodyguards immediately notice that their drink smells funny. A gang member has to force them to drink it under threat of shooting them.
In Going For The Gold, a mystery novel by Emma Lathen, one of the athletes is slipped OTC cold medicines right before going down the ski run. Because she never takes medications, the "drowsiness" side effect hits her much harder than normal. Because she is an Olympic skier (the setting is the Lake Placid Olympics), she makes it down the ski run in one piece and can still provide important evidence.
Used on Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon.
The title character of Mac Slade Private Dick: The Case of the Hardboiled Dicks mistakes "Mickey Finn" for a real person.
In the short story The Fly-By-Night, a father attempts this on his daughter Celia, as he fears she's fallen under the titular creature's spell and wouldn't let him dispose of it if she was awake. To ensure she's knocked out, he uses eight ground-up sleeping pills. She notices the odd taste, but he forces her to drink anyway, completely destroying their relationship in the process. Not that it matters with the Mandatory Twist Ending calling in Diabolus ex Machina, anyway...
In Sunny Ella, wicked stepmother Mona brings Ella a cup of tea as a peace offering after an argument. Not surprisingly the tea was drugged, to ensure Ella didn't wake up while Mona performed a rather nasty surgery on her.
In the Katherine Kurtz novel High Deryni, Stefan Coram, who has been masquerading for several years as Rhydon of Eastmarch, breaks out a flask for a traditional toast at the start of a four-on-four arcane duel. He takes the first swig himself and lets his three colleagues drink before stopping King Kelson and his side from partaking. The flask was poisoned to ensure the outcome of the battle, but the poison was sufficiently slow-acting to allow for the ''dénouement'' and the coup de grâce.

Live-Action TV

Walker, Texas Ranger: The Season 4 episode "A Silent Cry," where the college-aged daughter of one of Walker's friends is raped by a group of guys after one of them places a GHB-like substance in her drink. The girl was one of several of the gang's victims (one of whom dies as a result), and Walker and Trivette spend the episode searching for the group.
The Twilight Zone TOS episode "The Jeopardy Room''. A Soviet commissar tricks a defector into drinking a glass of drugged wine with him to put him to sleep so the defector can be placed in a Death Trap.
Babylon 5
- Londo gets slipped a mickey in "Born to the Purple".
- The episode "Intersections in Real Time" uses a drugged sandwich. (That one is implied to cause extreme nausea, rather than sedation. The audience gets a massive Discretion Shot.)
Heroes. Peter, Suresh, and Parkman do this to Noah's alcohol in order to kidnap and interrogate him. After he passes out, they carry him out of the bar by casually saying, "Looks like our friend had a few too many."
- Which was a Hoist by His Own Petard moment, as Noah and the Haitian had done the same to Parkman early in the first season.
- And Suresh had done this before; during first season, he drugged Sylar's tea in order to interrogate him.
Parodied in Seinfeld:
George: I'm gonna slip him a mickey.
Jerry: What? In his drink? Are you outta your mind? What? Are you Peter Lorre?
On Ed, Shirley once suggested solving a problem by "slipping them a mickey". She didn't seem to know what it was.
Torchwood Cardiff Branch has something they call "Retcon" which is given to unsuspecting people like a Mickey to give them Laser-Guided Amnesia.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, of course, has to deal with the aftermath of victims being slipped Mickeys.
Ditto CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and its spinoffs. One ep of the original had Catherine wake up naked in a motel room after one of these. She wasn't raped, but photos taken were used to try and blackmail her casino mogul father.
- In CSI NY, a senator whose daughter was raped attempted to set up the rapist by having a woman get with him and then claim to have been raped by him. But the ploy backfired when the CS Is found the levels of GHB/Rophypnol would have been at lethal levels if she'd actually been given them by him at the time she said.
In The A-Team, they often drugged B.A.'s milk so they wouldn't have to deal with his fear of flying.
On The West Wing Zoey, the President's daughter, has agreed to take ecstasy but is getting cold feet. Her boyfriend decides to move things along by putting the drug in her drink. What he doesn't know is that GHB has been substituted for the drug he thought was E. (GHB is perhaps not as pernicious as popularly portrayed, but mixing it with alcohol is a very bad idea.) Thus begins a kidnapping plot which leads to a Constitutional crisis (the President—aware of the frightening implications of his willingness to do almost anything to get her back—agrees to temporarily give up his office under the 25th Amendment). She's found alive, eventually.
Happens a couple of times in House. Mainly between House, Wilson, and Cuddy.
In Carnivàle, this happens to Ben in the episode "Old Cherry Blossom Road" via a cup of tea. Things get worse from there.
Happens in two episodes of Misfits. Played for laughs in the first case, as Nathan's brother spikes Simon's beer with ecstasy to get him to enjoy the party (and accidentally reversing his power in the process); most definitely not played for laughs when Mark spikes girls' drinks as a prelude to rape.
An episode of It Ain't Half Hot Mum was based around the Concert Party having Sergeant Major's drink spiked so he would act drunk and disorderly and be demoted. However, Graham (who's recently been appointed an acting NCO) takes the blame for Williams's actions, and returns to the rank of Gunner.
'In "I Love Lucy'', in the first episode ever filmed, Lucy cuckoos out believing Ricky is planning to murder her. Naturally he responds, worried about her jumpiness, by spiking her drink with sleeping powder.
Lucy: I got a Micky from Ricky!
Hank is a victim of it in the Californication season 5 finale
On an early episode of The Practice Lindsay can't figure out why she's so violently ill one morning. It turns out an ex she met up with the previous night drugged her in order to have sex with her. (When confronted, he actually defends himself by saying that Lindsay was always so uptight about sex, she needed help to "loosen up.")

Music

The video for Toby Keith's "As Good as I Once Was" shows Keith dropping a GHB pill in a young woman's drink. However, when one of Keith's other friends returns sooner than expected, Keith quickly gulps down the drugged drink.

Newspaper Comics

In the Conan the Barbarian newspaper comic, Conan is slipped a mickey by the tavern wench Renea, who sells him to slavers while he is unconscious.

Porn

In Batman's grapefruit juice in Batman XXX.

Professional Wrestling

In 2006, when legislation was proposed to require professional wrestling organizations to test its performers for drugs, a storyline was contrived and intertwined with the Vince McMahon-Shawn Michaels feud, whereby McMahon's daughter Stephanie placed a powdery substance in Michaels' water bottle before his match against Shane McMahon. Predictably, Michaels began to get woozy and eventually passed out from the powder's effects, leading to Shane's easy victory; Vince subsequently pinned an unconscious Michaels in an impromptu match immediately following – after which the Spirit Squad, a band of obnoxious male cheerleaders, beat down the prone Michaels.
- The storyline continued on a later episode of WWERAW, with Vince McMahon attempting to drug Triple H's water. Triple H, however, was wise to this trick and – off-camera, and unseen by the television audience – switched drinks. During the subsequent Triple H-Shane McMahon match, Triple H pretended to "pass out," but when Shane turned to taunt the audience, he saw Vince begin to go into a dazed state and fall unconscious. Shane realized what had happened ... before turning to see an angry Triple H waiting to finish him off.

Videogames

Done to Max Payne by Mona Sax in the first game.
- Turns into Narm on repeated viewings. Sax offers to buy Payne a drink, and he says "As long as you don't try to slip me a mickey." We see him start to lose consciousness two panels later.
In the Sam & Max episode What's New, Beelzebub?, the eponymous duo mess up a party by spiking the punch with the juice of the Forbidden Fruit. Detective Flint Paper uses this exact expression:
Flint Paper: Somebody put a Mickey Finn in the happy juice and I'm gonna find out who!
Ledon from Suikoden I does this to the active party when they stop at his inn on the way up Mt. Tigerwolf by putting sedatives in their tea so he can take their belongings.
In The Saboteur, the Femme Fatale Skylar drugs Sean in order to secret him away to her superiors in the British Intelligence. Bonus points for, upon realizing it, Sean says "You slipped me a Mickey."
The Mad Doctor in Heavy Rain tries to do this to Madison so that he can tie her up in his basement and vivisect her.

Webcomics

In Penny and Aggie, Cyndi has this done twice to Stan, her opponent in the student council presidential election, the first time successfully.
In Wizard School, Goatsie is excited at a summoned pile of drugs because he wants to slip someone a roofie.
In Erstwhile, the farmer's clever daughter does this to the king.
In Sinfest, Slick is offered some. Even he rejects it.

Web Originals

At Halloween in the Whateley Universe, Whateley Academy student G-Force (one of the Cape Squad, but with homophobic issues) is given a mickey, but it's a deviser drug that amps up his powers and lessens his inhibitions. After that, a telepath aims him at a student with known gender issues. Badness happens.

Western Animation

Looney Tunes: The use of GHB substances and similar "mickeys" was a common gag used by the antagonists, in an attempt to gain the upper hand. Examples:
- "The Fair Haired Hare": In a cartoon where Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam are battling over property rights, Sam drops a poisonous powder in Bugs' carrot juice. Bugs immediately is wise to the trick and tries to switch glasses, but when an irritated Sam tries to get the upper hand, Bugs spins the table around a la a roulette wheel. Sam loses his patience and forces Bugs (at gunpoint) to drink, but only after he agrees to drink his glass. Of course, Bugs drinks the pure carrot juice ... and Sam blasts off like a rocket and lands several miles away.
Done in Columbia's "The Schooner the Better" by a Buzz Buzzard expy trying to conscript a Chilly Willy-esque penguin, only to have the tables literally turned on him.
- The WWII-era short Plane Daffy has spy Hata Mari slipping a courier a drink from a bottle labelled "Mickeyblitz Finnkrieg" (complete with lemon slice and cherry on a toothpick straight from the bottle) - the courier promptly starts babbling secrets like an auctioneer.
Quagmire of Family Guy likes getting his dates Roofie Coladas.
Subverted in Drawn Together where Captain Hero slips himself the roofie for the purpose of getting himself date raped, passes out, only to have Xandir point out it was a candy. He gets annoyed when they don't take advantage of his faux-drugged state.
Double subverted in Beavis And Butthead when the title characters slip a vial of "Spanish Fly" into what they think is a girl's milk - moments before her boyfriend drinks it.
In one Animaniacs episode spoofing Film Noir, Yakko is slipped a Mickey, meaning there's a mouse in red shorts in his drink. He declines, saying, "Sorry, I work for Warner Bros."
Happens to Goofy in the Classic Disney Short How to Be a Detective.
Henry Cabot Henhouse becomes Super Chicken when he imbibes his super sauce.
Popeye, in an attempt to have Nurse Olive Oyl care for him, force feeds spinach to Bluto to make Bluto beat him up so Popeye'll end up in the hospital.