History Main / TheLittleDetecto

* TheFifties ScienceHero Film/CommandoCody has no problem building a detector for whatever {{unobtanium}} is being sought by the enemy [[FilmSerial for this week's plot]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', Bender once claimed to have built-in Gaydar.

* Gargamel had various items used for detecting Smurfs in ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' cartoon show.

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[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

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-->'''Ripley''': What's it key off?\\
'''Ash''': Micro changes in air density.

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E5TheTimeMonster "The Time Monster"]], the Doctor tracked down the Master with a device that Jo christened "a TARDIS sniffer-outer".
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E4TheAndroidInvasion "The Android Invasion"]], in which androids are passing as humans, has a robot detector. It's a small box with a single red indicator light on it.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink "Blink"]] memorably featured the timey-wimey detector. [[BuffySpeak It goes 'ding' when there's stuff.]]
** [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor "The Day of the Doctor"]]: The Tenth Doctor has a gadget intended to detect [[VoluntaryShapeshifting Zygons]]. However, it's not ''quite'' as reliable as he'd like.
%%Its an Everything Sensor** The Doctor's [[MagicTool sonic screwdriver]] is often used in this fashion.
* In ''Series/TheFlash2014'', Earth-2 has a ''cellphone app'' that can detect nearby Metahumans.

* ''Series/TheMuppetShow'': Bunsen Honeydew once invented a gorilla detector. It completely failed to detect the gorilla until after it had already attacked his computers, and him. Bunsen originally attributed the failure to the fact that the attacker was not actually a gorilla.

[[folder:Multiple Media]]
* ''Toys/{{BIONICLE}}'' has the Kanohi Elda, [[MaskOfPower Mask of Detection]]. It functions as a detector for the fabled Mask of Life, and signals to its wearer with an ever-intensifying headache. And it can't be turned off. Yeah, nasty mask... but when the situation called for the Mask of Life to be located, headaches were among the least of the wearer's worries.

* Auspexes in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' range from handheld devices to helmet-mounted trackers, mostly used to track invisible enemies, though some can be used to detect incoming enemies. [[Literature/CiaphasCain Unfortunately, they can apparently only be calibrated for one species at a time, and if there's something not entirely human about...]]

--> Little Detecto: ''"Are you security clearance Green or lower?"''
--> Hapless clone: ''"Yes..?"''
--> Little Detecto: ''"Then you are still receiving acceptable levels of radiation."''

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Podcast/{{Bookburners}}'': In ''Anywhere But Here'': When Sal goes to the Vatican Library, she gets shown "The Orb" which, with some enhancement over the centuries, detects magical activity all over the globe and gives both time and GPS coordinates.

%%Its an Everything Sensor** The Doctor's [[MagicTool sonic screwdriver]] is often used in this fashion.

* On ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'', Officer Jenny (Junsa in the original) just happened to have a sleep wave detector in her pocket when the situation called for it. Dogasu (he compares the dub to the original) says [[http://dogasu.bulbagarden.net/comparisons/kanto/ep027.html here:]]

* ''Series/BlakesSeven''. In "Seek Locate Destroy", molecular shift detectors are set up around a Federation base that Blake is expected to attack. No explanation is given as to [[ForgottenPhlebotinum why we don't see them installed at other Federation bases]] in later episodes.
-->'''Escon:''' Apparently there's an enormous kinetic potential set up by teleport communications. A rough analogy would be the static buildup during an electrical storm.
-->'''Travis:''' Yes, well, [[LaymansTerms I'm always grateful for a rough analogy]]. What does it do?
-->'''Escon:''' It tells us exactly where and when they land.

** Leela has "This thing on my wrist" which sometimes acts as one.

* In ''Anime/DigimonTamers'', the D-Arc is able to detect where are the Digital Fields, which contain Digimon that crossed to the real world.

* ''ComicBook/ImmortalHulk'': Doctor [=McGowan=] produces a device that detects gamma radiation, showing that [[spoiler: Jackie has become a gamma mutate]].

* ''Fanfic/CheatCodeSupportStrategist'' has Midoriya figure out how to make a device that detects gravitational anomalies in order to figure out [[spoiler: where Ochako goes once she gains the ability to teleport from One For Alll]] He later learns he can also use it to detect Kurogiri's warping as well.

* ''Literature/RamaII'': Nicole, the life sciences officer, uses robotic nanites to monitor the heart rates and chemical levels in the bloodstream of the Newton astronauts. It tells her when [[spoiler: Reggie is drugged]], though that data was tampered with and she had to recover the originals, and also tells her that Takagishi has a weak heart, which is what [[spoiler: did him n; she had warned him that his arrhythmia was flaring up, and he had gone on a night mission and had an unfortunate encounter with an octospider]].

* In ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', many spells work like The Little Detecto. They have titles beginning with "Detect", as simple as that. Earlier editions had quite a few; Detect Magic, Detect Evil, Detect Good, Detect Undead, Detect Traps...etc. 5th edition simplified them to four broader spells: Detect Evil & Good [[note]]Detect any creature that is magically formed in relation to a CharacterAlignment (e.g. Demons, Celestials, etc) -- earlier editions had similar spells for ''each alignment''[[/note]], Detect Magic[[note]]Makes any magically affected item or person glow, indicating the intensity of magic and the school it belongs to[[/note]], Detect Poison & Disease[[note]]Instantly sense and identify any poison or poisonous creature or disease within 30ft[[/note]] and Detect Thoughts[[note]]You can sense any thinking creature within 30ft., and also try to read the mind of any one such creature nearby[[/note]]. They all have the stipulation, in every edition "it is blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt" to help a savvy DM keep them from breaking the game (as all of them are level 1 spells, aside from Thoughts, which is second).

** "Numbers" Riktor designed numerous Little Detectos for different things. The only one that became relevant to the books was the resograph, which alerted the wizards to a serious incursion in reality. Probably named after the Richter Scale.

* In ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', many spells work like The Little Detecto. They have titles beginning with "Detect", as simple as that. Detect Magic, Detect Evil, Detect Undead, Detect Traps...

The trope namer is a gadget from one ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' cartoon that was used to detect mice.

* The [[ChurchOfHappyology Church of Scientology]] uses these. Depending on who you ask, they detect how unhappy you are, or how many dead souls have glomped onto your body. Or maybe they just detect how tightly you grab the metal cans of the thing. Who knows...

** There's also "Locate City", but that's mostly known for a trick called the Locate City Nuke. It involves placing 4 different metamagics on the otherwise harmless spell so that it becomes a viable target for putting a metamagic spell that throws people outside the range of the spell. Since Locate City's range is measured in miles and being thrown out of the range does 1d6 per ten feet, it kills pretty much everything in range, including the caster.
** Lesser Globe Of Invulnerability, a normally useless spell, comes into play here as it can stop you being thrown the 400ish miles for over 200,000d6 damage.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Pokemon}}'' games, there's also the Item Finder, which shows you when you're close to items... which can be everything from medicine, to Poke Balls, to glass flutes, to [[VendorTrash chunks of gold.]] How it picks these up and ignores everything else is never explained other than "It's just a game, [[MST3KMantra relax.]]"

* ''Fanfic/CheatCodeSupportStrategist'', the ''Anime/MyHeroAcademia'' fanfic, has Midoriya figure out how to make a device that detects wormholes in order to figure out [[spoiler: where Ochako goes once One For All gives her quirk the ability to make wormholes.]] He later repurposes it as an all-purpose teleportation-quirk detector, allowing him to locate wherever Kurogiri warps.

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* Creator/JRRTolkein's ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': Elven swords, made during their war against the goblins, glow when in the presence of orcs. During ''Literature/TheHobbit'', the protagonists discover three such swords hidden in the cave of the trolls. Glamdring and Orcrist are taken by Gandalf and Thorin, while Bilbo takes up a much smaller sword and names it Sting. Frodo inherits Sting, and its detection ability is used in Moria and Mordor.

* The ChurchOfHappyology uses these. Depending on who you ask, they detect how unhappy you are, or how many dead souls have glomped onto your body. Or maybe how tightly you grab the metal cans of the thing.