The Red Stapler - Television Tropes & Idioms

The manga Kami no Shizuku (The Drops of God) is an incredibly powerful example of this trope- thanks to the miracle of internet wine ordering, thousands of Japanese people are treated to a charismatic character's opinion of a specific wine on his quest to find seven specific varieties, and can then go and order those very wines and taste them for themselves. This has caused quite a stir in the world's wine industries.
K-On! did this in regards to Fender instruments. One may wonder why this doesn't apply to Gibson guitars, unless one realizes that Yui's Les Paul is much more expensive that an average Fender—especially since there is no Japanese-made version.
The town of Washimiya, Saitama, Japan experienced a massive surge in tourism and economy thanks to Lucky Star, as the Hiiragi family shrine as based on the local shrine.

Named after the red Swingline stapler in Office Space. As the DVD commentary mentions, the one in the movie was specially painted, since at the time the movie was produced, the company didn't make red staplers, only black ones. Due to the popularity of the movie, they do now.
The release of Jurassic Park (the movie) something like quadrupled the international price of amber.
- Not only that, but there is fake Amber with insects in it that comes from China frequently sold on auction sites, and to much outrage of precious stones sellers everywhere.
If a popular children's movie features animals, it will influence the pet demands of Spoiled Brats. Many of these pets are subsequently abandoned.
- Especially ridiculous with Finding Nemo, since the whole point of the film is that he's supposed to be living in the sea rather than in someone's fishtank. Also ridiculous is the fact that the massive rise in demand resulted in the various fish species that appeared in the film being caught en masse from reefs in the Pacific, resulting in the ecosystem being destroyed from the bottom up.
- Keep in mind though, wild-caught tropical fish tend to do very poorly in aquariums (They often die in only a few days). You're more likely to find captive-bred fish on sale for aquariums.
  - Not that the reverse was any better—apparently, many children attempted to (or did) flush pet fish down the toilet in hopes that they would reach the ocean and be reunited with their family, unaware that neither unintelligent lifeforms nor sewer systems work that way.
  - Imagines the result would be even less like the film if the family in question had a septic system.
- Owls after Harry Potter, which typically do not make good pets, as J.K. Rowling herself has felt obliged to point out. Because of this, Scotland's valleys are home to owls that can carry off a small child. The linked BBC article also says: "It is not the first time a film has sparked demand for unusual pets - the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle film sparked a terrapin craze."
- 101 Dalmatians sparked a rise in the sales of dalmatian puppies.
  - As the page quote mentions, the dalmatian is an extremely high-maintenance dog and any child who thinks that this would be a good dog to own without the sort of dedication children are well known for being incapable of should be set straight rather than obliged in their request.
  - And as the film had a sequel, so did the phenomenon: the release of 102 Dalmatians, with a blue-eyed white puppy named Oddball triggered a run on blue-eyed white Dalmatian puppies from parents who didn't realize that the blue-eyes gene is strongly associated with deafness.
  - Same goes for the Beethoven series and St. Bernard puppies.
  - Marley and Me will probably spark a rise in Labrador Retrievers.
  - But Labradors are allready the most common dogs in the English speaking world, this also extends to mixed breeds, as about half of all mixed breed dogs in Canada and the US have Lab in them.
  - The Lassie and Lad A Dog movies (as well as the Lassie tv show) spawned such a demand for collies that pet breeders nearly managed to ruin what had been a really good breed. Even today, there are tons of badly-bred collies with poor health and the brains of an ice cube.
- Ratatouille led quite a few kids to want pet rats. This actually may have been more of a sensible choice than the previously mentioned animals, as domestic rats make good pets: they're fairly low-maintenance, they're friendlier than their more popular cousins the mice, they can be litter-trained, and they don't particularly smell. It's recommended you buy at least two (preferably of the same gender, because opposite sexes fight unless they're in heat, when they do a different kind of wrestling) if you're not going to be around all the time, because they're quite social and get lonely.
  - And unlike mice, you can train them to sit on your shoulder.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles prompted a craze with kids wanting to buy turtles as pets. Around the release of Finding Nemo a man commented they were still recovering from it.
- Beverly Hills Chihuahua did its best to avert this with a message in the credits saying, essentially, "make sure that you really want and are prepared to care for a dog should you get one."
  - Aren't other films with animals doing this more these days?
Similarly, Dirty Harry caused sales of Smith & Wesson's Model 29, the famous .44 Magnum that Harry Callahan used in the movie, to skyrocket. Most were shot once and returned within a week.
- Not to mention that it drove prices into orbit AND THEY STAYED THERE! making it nigh impossible for many REAL shooters to buy them new. Thanks for nothing, Callahan.
CB radios and Smokey and the Bandit.
Sideways led to increased American sales of Pinot Noir, the wine favoured by the main character. At the same time, Merlot sales declined in America because he doesn't drink it, and says so in one scene.
The Aliens Power Loader. Inquiries were made to purchase the things but since they don't exist and the prop wasn't real...
There was a rumor that the Hoverboards from Back To The Future II were actually real, but had been banned due to inherent risk of lawsuits over injuries. According to Snopes, both Mattel (whose logo is prominent on the Barbie-pink hoverboard Marty McFly used) and the studio received a bunch of letters inquiring where you could get one of those wonderful toys... This was not helped when Robert Zemeckis, the film's director, gave an interview where he jokingly said they were real. This article suggests that Zemeckis owes an apology (or preferably a real hoverboard) to all the children who saw Back To The Future II for the trauma brought on be the realization that they could not, in fact, buy a hoverboard.
- Oh, he didn't just do that, he shot fake footage of them being tested, using the same effects used in the movie.
  - The "Hoverboards are real" footage was done as part of a "Making of..." documentary for the movie.
An inversion: Psycho caused the number of showers being sold to drop dramatically.
- Similarly, Jaws and beach attendance. And other oceanic activities; see below. Heck, there are even fairly serious stories of people being afraid of taking a bath after seeing Jaws.
- The film did, however, raise something. Sadly, it was the number of people who were afraid of sharks, even the harmless ones.
- A popular Asian Urban Legend goes that the Jaws series actually increased the demand for Shark's Fin Soup.
The movie Deliverance nearly bankrupted the camping industry.
Similarly, the 'My Buddy' doll line has never recovered from the first Childs Play movie.
Because Eddie Murphy wore a Mumford Phys. Ed. Dept T-shirt in Beverly Hills Cop, the T-shirt became a huge seller. Indeed, the shirts are sold pre-faded to match the original faded design he wore.
The Toy Story movies created a huge demand for simple plastic green army men that led to several companies cashing in on it with videogames and such.
- Not to mention the effect the second movie had on Barbie sales.
  - One story goes that in pre-production of the first movie, Pixar asked permission to use Barbie and Mattel said no. When they saw the increased sales for Mr. Potato Head (and every other brand toy used in the first movie) they were only too happy to give permission to use Barbie characters for the sequel.
  - The Slinky company had previously taken the Slinky Dog off the market years before Toy Story. And brought it back because of the movie.
It Happened One Night, a 1934 Frank Capra screwball comedy, had one scene in which Clark Gable takes off his shirt to reveal he's not wearing an undershirt. The movie coincided with sales of undershirts dramatically declining, and if you go by a persistent interpretation of that correlation, that makes this Older Than Television.
- Another legend has it that JFK killed top hat sales by appearing hatless at his inauguration...except he did have a hat.
While declining sales caused the last of the creameries which manufacture the centuries-old Wensleydale cheese to teeter on the edge of closure in the early '90s, Wensleydale received a chance mention in the popular Wallace And Gromit shorts. Noticing the increased interest, the creamery persuaded Aardman Animation to endorse a Wallace And Gromit-branded cheese, which worked to rebuild Wensleydale into a thriving product worldwide.
There was a huge spike in sales of heart-shaped sunglasses after they were featured in the movie poster for Stanley Kubrick's 1962 adaption of Lolita.
- The book and film also killed Lolita as a first name. Humorously, the girl is actually named Dolores and Lolita is Humbert (who was Nabokov's idea of the complete pseudo-intellectual)'s "fancy" nickname for her.
- My sister and brother in law intentionally named my neice after the movie. They are both movie buffs though. Her middle name was taken after the little girl from "Aliens" (Newt)
  - So that's why Dolores Umbridge was so messed up... On a serious note, use of Dolores also dropped dramatically after the 1940s.
In the modern classic The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman is in the middle of an existential crisis and is given the trite advice "I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Plastics." Nevertheless, nationwide investment in plastics increased dramatically.
Sales of Vans shoes increased following the release of 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High, where Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) wore his Vans black-and-white checkerboard slip-on shoes.
1999 - The first Matrix film is released, 1999 - James Marsters joins the regular cast of Buffy The Vampire Slayer as "Spike" (up till then a recurring villain). Which one of these two caused the huge demand for black leather dusters is an exercise left up to the reader.
- The Columbine massacre also helped, at least among high school students who sympathized with the killers. Many schools responded by modifying their dress codes.
- A similar craze happened in Hong Kong after John Woo's A Better Tomorrow came out, with lots of young people taking to wearing a Bad Ass Longcoat like Chow Yun-Fat's Mark Gor wore in the movie.
  - Which led to a Lampshade Hanging in the sequel where Ken tells the neighborhood kids how dumb their taste in fashion really is.
- Before the Matrix came out, there were no phones anywhere that slid open like the modified Nokia 8110 seen in the movie. The original wasn't spring-loaded; you had to slide it open and closed manually. After the movie opened, people wanted the spring-loaded, flick-open version, and cell phone companies had to design one to meet the demand that suddenly appeared.
Top Gun. After the airing, sales of Ray-Ban Aviators skyrocketed. So does the entries to the US Navy, but that's a different thing.
- Disproved Urban Legend. The Navy met its set enlistment goals for that year and the following, numbers which were set before the movie came out. Whether or not there was increase in officer pilot applications might be a different story.
- Yvan eht nioj.
- Ditto for the Gargoyles sunglasses worn by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first Terminator movie, though not to as great an extent.
- Also for the (again) Ray-Ban Wayfarers. During the 50s they were vaugely popular, then Audrey Hepburn wore them in Breakfast At Tiffanys...
- Tom Cruise made Wayfarers popular a few years before TopGun in Risky Business
- Will Smith helped sales of Ray-Ban RB 2030 - Predator 8 Wrap shades after Men In Black.
Surprising non-inversion (given some of the other "water tragedies" listed above): Sales of tickets on Seabourne cruises spiked after Speed 2: Cruise Control.
- Seabourne knew what they were doing. Before the movie came out, the company was asked what they were thinking, allowing a movie about people not having much fun on a cruise take place on their company's ship. Seabourne representatives just said it was free publicity. They were right.
The movie Contact apparently created quite a bit of publicity for the SETI program. Even ten years later, it's usually how people know of it.
- Somehow, I doubt that was entirely by accident, given Carl Sagan's support for the program.
The Japanese movie Shall We Dance? greatly increased the popularity of ballroom dancing in Japan. (It also greatly increased the respectability of the behavior, which helped; as the movie shows, it was a furtitive practice prior to the movie, because it was regarded as disreputable.)
- Dirty Dancing produced a similar effect in the US when it was first released.
  - And Dancing With The Stars has resulted in increased demand for ballroom dance classes in the US as well. Here's an article with a recent example (as of 2009).
The production of Night At The Museum involved a few chaotic events at a real museum that caused a small media frenzy, which resulted in a drastic increase of attendance at the museum. The film itself renewed interest in visiting the museum, causing an increase in visitors.
- Which in turn lead to the sequel Battle of the Smithsonian, where the museum directors couldn't sign on fast enough, in hopes that they could make lightning strike twice.
The film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange caused sales to go up for "Ludwig van"'s 9th Symphony recordings.
- Don't forget the live, unrehearsed re-enactments. Ahem.
Perhaps a double-case, but the more recent example is particularly notable: perhaps everybody has dreamed of owning an Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger. One of those dreamers was James May who was astonished to find out that the car has massive depreciation and low demand in Britain due to having a spotty reputation - that is, until a few days after his DB5 segment, in which values started to skyrocket again.
- BMW's cars promoted in the Pierce Brosnan James Bond films had a huge spike in sales as well.
- In supplemental material for Thunderball it is revealed that the military, upon seeing the film, were interested in acquiring the pen-sized device Bond uses to breathe underwater. Unfortunately the device doesn't actually exist. Production designer Peter Lamont politely informed them that the effect was created in the editing room.
The Monroeville Zombies hockey jerseys from Zack And Miri Make A Porno.
- This movie also apparently increased popularity of the Fleshlight.
V For Vendetta and Guy Fawkes masks. In the early rush stage of Project Chanology it was almost impossible to find a mask - costume shops kept selling out.
- Of course, those particular masks started being made in the United States because of the movie in the first place. It's not really an example of this trope, since those masks were essentially movie tie-in merchandise.
- No, that can't be an example of the Red Stapler because the mask was popular in that case not because of the movie, but because of some other shmuck whose identity is associated with the mask.
The Detroit Zoo is producing snowglobes of their fountain in response to the snowglobe that appeared in Coraline.
There used to be a time where the Red Ryder BB gun was a very popular toy, especially in the first half of the century. Named for the comic strip cowboy character Red Ryder (who also appeared in numerous films between 1940 and 1950, and on television in 1956), the BB gun is still in production despite the fact that the comic strip was cancelled in 1963. It is arguably the most famous BB gun in American history. By the time the movie A Christmas Story came out, the Red Ryder Gun was already venerable (and perhaps more famous then the comic strip that inspired it). So the gun lived this trope twice: The popularity of the Red Ryder Comic gave birth to the actual gun, while A Christmas Story caused another surge in popularity for the Red Ryder, almost 50 years after its first release. Ironically, the model of Red Ryder BB Gun described in the movie does not actually exist or even match any prototype. It's the Buck Jones Daisy BB Gun that has the sundial and compass in the stock.
- Fallout 2 acknowledges A Christmas Story. While the Red Ryder BB gun is a weapon so weak it's not even worth using, there exist a unique Red Ryder Limited Edition BB Gun, who's one of the most powerful small arms, especially for shooting monsters in the eye.
- Much like the red Swingline, a Christmas Story Special Edition Red Ryder was released, which conformed to the features listed in the movie (including the compass in the buttstock).
Shirley Temple set several trends for girls. The curls obviously were a fad. She also wore a white rabbit coat in one film and the popularity of such coats exploded for upper class girls.
Shortly after the movie Wayne's World came out, the Queen song Bohemian Rhapsody (which Wayne, Garth, and their friends sing along to in one scene) peaked at #2 on The Billboard Hot 100 charts in 1992.
- Freddie Mercury's tragic passing a few months earlier also helped.
- This was at the tail-end of a period (1986-92) that saw lots of older songs re-entering the American charts after being prominently featured in movies: "Twist and Shout" (Ferris Buellers Day Off); "Stand By Me" (Stand By Me); "La Bamba" (La Bamba); "Do You Love Me" (Dirty Dancing); "What a Wonderful World" (Good Morning Vietnam); "Unchained Melody" (Ghost).
- Rare in-universe example: The main character/narrator of Microserfs remarks that Wayne's World did wonders for the second hand sales of AMC cars.
- In 2007, "Don't Stop Believin'" was used in both The Sopranos and Family Guy in the same week, which shot it up to the top of the iTunes downloads 26 years after it was originally released.
According to the movie's trivia section over at IMDb, the use of caller ID increased more than threefold after the release of Scream.
When Michael Douglas used a (now comically large) mobile phone in the 1987 film Wall Street it established the mobile phone as an essential business accessory, leading to the modern popularity of mobile phones.
- Don’t forget Nice Guy Eddie’s enormous car-phone in Reservoir Dogs (1992).
The 1977 film Saturday Night Fever created a nationwide craze for disco music and disco dancing (together with discotheques), while before disco was mostly confined to the New York and Philadelphia gay communities.
After the release of the 2003 version of "The Italian Job," sales of Mini Coopers, featured heavily in the movie, increased by 22%.
Pulp Fiction caused great demand for John Travolta's UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs T-shirt.
Juno caused demand for hamburger-shaped phones.
- A STAGGERING rise in demand, by all accounts. According to a New York Post article this troper came across just after the film's release, burgerphone sales rose a whopping 759% in a month.
Oh, and let's not forget "Vote for Pedro" shirts...
After M&M/Mars declined the opportunity to have Elliot lure ET The Extraterrestrial with M&M candies (not wanting to be associated with a weird-looking and potentially child-scaring alien creature), the production used Reese's Pieces. When the film was a success, it led to an explosion of demand for Reese's Pieces, leading to triple shifts of production for a while.

The popular children's novel Little Lord Fauntleroy created a fad for dressing little boys in the style of clothing described and illustrated in the book, based on outfits author Frances Hodgson Burnett had designed for her own sons. And a generation later, there was a backlash against that kind of outfit for boys by fathers who remembered how much they'd hated them as youngsters.
In 1933, James Hilton wrote a book called Lost Horizon, where the survivors of a plane crash stumble upon a perfect utopia called Shangri-La. The book is obscure now, but Shangri-La and what it represents - longing for a faraway place of beauty, spiritual replenishment, and supernatural longevity - stuck around. When Tibet realized that heavy logging of their old-growth forests was causing disastrous floods, they turned to tourism, found that it paid really well, and renovated a village, renaming it Shangri-La.
Harry Potter books reportedly increased the popularity of boarding schools among children in Britain.

A Different World (the spin-off to The Cosby Show) increased African-American's knowledge of and attendance to America's Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
- Of course, that was arguably part of the show's intent.
The "hero" of Time Chasers wears a Castleton State College T-shirt through most of the movie. The MST3K episode which mocked this movie not only created a demand for the shirts, but made the movie popular enough to get a DVD release.
- Eerily enough, one of Crow's riffs during the episode was "remember when everyone got the Nick Miller haircut and started wearing Castleton T-shirts?"
- Many of the movies MST 3 K riffed on experienced retroactive popularity (or repopularization in some cases) which played a part in the cancellation of the show as the rise in the licensing fees for some the movies made it difficult to sell the show in syndication.
Disney's Davy Crockett caused a wild sensation in the '50s, popularizing (among other things) coonskin caps as a must-have item among children. As seen in Back To The Future.
- This Troper's uncle (as a child) wanted one, but there are no raccoons in Britain. So he decided the neighbour's tabby cat was near enough... He got in a lot of trouble for that.
Due to the run of the original Knight Rider, there was an increase in demand for Trans-Am Firebirds - preferably with all the gadgets, including the front scanner, that KITT possessed. Unfortunately, flashing lights on non-emergency vehicles tend to be illegal, and it was eventually requested that Knight Rider no longer refer to the car as a Trans-Am.
Tommy Hilfiger's popularity in the hip hop scene can be traced to Snoop Dogg wearing a Tommy shirt during his Saturday Night Live performance.
For a show which spends most of its time talking about unaffordable supercars, Top Gear has a reputation as being able to destroy an everyday car's sales with a single negative word. Manufacturers will occasionally refuse to provide a car for the show to review, fearing they'll hate it, but this tends to rile the presenters more, and they'll often name and shame such cars before going on to review them "covertly" anyway.
- Most notably perhaps, the presenters spent an entire series mocking the forthcoming Dacia Sandero before it had even been finished. By the start of the next series, Renault had cancelled the UK release (of course, this was probably for "unrelated reasons".)
  - Season 14 has May drive the Sandero in their trip to Romania, which he was rather excited about. He remarked that it's a good, honest small car that has everything you need and nothing you don't. He loved it so much, he said he was going to drive it back to the UK after the super car trip. Unfortunately a lorry driver "accidentally" backed into it when he met back up with Clarkson and Hammond, who of course laughed at him.
- Subverted in their American Supercars special. Dodge refused to loan them a Charger because they'd given so many of their other cars bad reviews, so Richard Hammond bought one... and he loved it.
Home perm kit sales sky rocketed in Britain after Ashes To Ashes, which features a permed Keeley Hawes, began running.
At the height of its popularity, Power Rangers most definitely did get the youngsters fixated on martial arts, although it was less of the "take classes, study disciplines and earn belts" sort than it was the "yell 'hi-yah!' and kick your cousin in the groin" variety, as this editor can personally—and painfully—attest.
- Or 'take on ten kids at once in the playground'. I think I won.
  - Look on the bright side... If you managed to hurt more than a few of them during the melee, it was a Phyrric victory.
The Dukes Of Hazzard revitalized popularity in the late-60's model Dodge Charger, but also smashed so many of them that they remain hard to find to this day.
Inversion: Australian TV show Kath and Kim decreased the popularity of chardonnay. Having it drunk by two of the least classy middle class women in all of Melbourne, one of whom pronounces it "card-donnay" might have something to do with it.
Applications to ER medical residency programs skyrocketed after "ER" premiered.

The music video for "Sk8er Boi" inadvertently resulted in a massive demand for Wilkesboro Elementary School shirts, much to the school's surprise and delight.
- Avril Lavigne also wore a Napanee Home Hardware t-shirt, a hardware store from her tiny Ontario hometown, for an appearance on SNL. The demand was such that the chain began producing them in large quantities and selling them nationwide.
Sales of deodorant Teen Spirit skyrocketed with the release of the Nirvana song. And plummeted after the song faded away. Far worse than burning out.
- Not that Kurt knew Teen Spirit was a deodorant. He just liked the phrase after it was directed at him by his friend, Bikini Kill singer Kathleen Hanna. Apparently he was quite disappointed to discover its origin. It's not nearly as clever as when he thought it was some kind of metaphor.
After Jay-Z said in "Show You How" 'we don't drive X5's, we give 'em to baby mamas', BMW X5 sales dropped notably.
Josh Homme's use of the rare Ovation GP type of electric guitar has increased demand and prices for original examples.

Mexican Professional Wrestling fans have made a tradition of wearing a replica of their favorite wrestler's mask when they go to the shows. This show of support has also made inroads north of the border, with the recent success of masked wrestlers like Rey Mysterio and The Hurricane.
- Not to mention that the popularity of The Hurricane's previous gimmick, "Hurricane" Helms, Green Lantern fanboy, led to a sizable number of fans showing up to arenas festooned in Green Lantern merchandise as a show of support for Helms. One wonders if the switch in gimmicks was just so Helms could move WWE merchandise instead of DC merchandise...

Abbyshot Designs has more or less devoted its entire line of clothing to faithfully reproducing coats and others apparel originally seen in video games, movies, and anime.
- As do many fans.
University of Nevada hoodies were sold out from the university online store after pictures of Nevada-tan surfaced. Nevada-tan is the Internet nickname for a Japanese girl who murdered a classmate in 2004, deriving from a widely published photograph of her wearing a University of Nevada hoodie. The store temporarily withdrew the hoodie from sale after learning the reason for the sudden increase in demand.
This happens, for good and ill, with baby names all the time:
- "Madison" as a first name was almost nonexistent when the movie Splash was made; it's currently the fourth-most-popular girls' name in America.
  - What makes this particularly worth noting is that when the mermaid picks the name by looking at a street sign, Tom Hanks immediately says (roughly) "That's not a real name." Watching the movie in 2007 made that line hilarious.
  - It would be hilarious if it weren't so depressing. Poor, poor girls.
  - Don't forget what "Madison" originally meant: it was a last name meaning "son of Maude." Of course, "Allison" (in at least one interpretation) means "son of Alice" so it's not terribly unusual, but it's nevertheless frustrating.
- A similar example is the name "Kayleigh" which first appeared in a 1985 hit single of the same name by the British progressive rock band Marillion and created out of the name of an ex-girlfriend of singer Derek "Fish" Dick who was named Kay Lee. It is now one of the most popular names for girls in the United Kingdom.
- This kind of thing is Older Than Radio. Millions of baby girls were named Alice after Lewis Carroll's book came out.
  - Including, no doubt, Bob's friend.
- Not to mention that J. M. Barrie essentially invented the name Wendy for Peter Pan.
  - Popularized? Yes. Invented? It's controversial/complicated.
- The name "Pamela" was invented for a book, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded.
- "Adolf/Adolph" used to be a perfectly respectable and popular male name. Not so much these days, because of... well... you know...
  - Related: The Swastika (Except, of course, in India)
  - Not to mention those funny little mustaches. Let's face it, these guys ruined a lot of things for everyone.
  - Like the entirety of Norse Mythology? Invented entirely by booze-crazed adrenaline junkies and ruined for polite conversation by the ultimate Stop Having Fun Guys. Sigh...
  - Because of this, you still can't go to a Wagner production in Germany for fear of being accused of er... nostalgia.
- The popularity of "Katrina" as a name for baby girls increased slightly after the 2005 storm.
  - That's odd. You'd think it would decrease. Both of the Katrinas I know were kind of mortified when they heard the name of the big storm that would destroy New Orleans.
  - Maybe it was just the power of suggestion based off of the incessent media coverage.
- In 2000, Sonny Sandovol, the frontman of P.O.D. and a born-again Christian, gave his daughter the unusual name of Nevaeh, which is "heaven" spelled backwards. By 2007, Nevaeh had become the 31st most popular name for baby girls in the United States, ahead of Sara, Vanessa, and Amanda, with most of this popularity coming from evangelical Christian parents. Coincidence?
- After The Omen came out, the name Damien experienced a slight decline in popularity, having been ranked 283 out of 1000 in 1974, 387 out of 1000 in 1975, and 285 out of 1000 in 1976.
  - Although there was a one-day spike of the name for children born on June 6, 2006 — which, not coincidentally, was also the release date of The Remake.
- In 1918, Italian general Armando Diaz signed the Victory Address, a short document meant to inform the population of the victory against Austria in WWI. It was shown in schools, barracks, town halls etc, and many children were required to memorize it. The Address ended with the words "firmato: Diaz" (signed: Diaz), which led many to think that "firmato" ("signed") was his name. In the following years, many children were baptized with that name.
- French space-opera comic-book Valerian invented the name Laureline for the female protagonist. It is not an unheard name for French women today. "That Other Wiki" says so it must be true.
- The less we think about how Isabella is currently the most popular girls' name in the country, the better.
  - People have named their children Renesmee. Suddenly, Isabella being the most popular girls' name in the country sounds like a much better outcome.
  - Not to mention how the name Edward, arguably badass, will now be associated with sparkly vampires... *sigh* THERE ARE OTHER EDS YOU KNOW! WHO DON'T SPARKLE!!!
A bizarre example of the news having this effect: following the revelation that former Russian spy Alexander Litvenenko had been poisoned with the radioactive element polonium, a Polish restaurant in Sheffield called Polonium saw its bookings skyrocket.
When Chef Paul Prudomme first introduced his famous recipe for blackened redfish, it became so popular that it put the redfish on the endangered species list.
Even the United States Government stocks the red stapler.
Demand for Portuguese Water Dogs went up 50% after the Obama family adopted one so that the allergic daughters could have a puppy.
In the Netherlands, after a show of the famous comedian Youp van't Hek in which he had a running gag about Buckler beer (non-alcoholic) not being manly, sales dropped so bad that shortly after, up till this day, you cannot buy Buckler beer in Holland. In other countries you still can.
As an April Fool's joke, thinkgeek.com listed a Tauntaun Sleeping Bag. Customers were more than a little miffed to realize it was a practical joke. The site has since negotiated with Lucasfilm to get the sleeping bag approved and licensed. It will be hitting their online store in November 2009.
- "Classic Star Wars sleeping bag simulates the warmth of a Tauntaun carcass"
- A previous April Fools joke that turned into a real product was the 8-bit tie.
A fairly well-known aphorism for auto manufacturers: Win on Sunday, sell on Monday. It's their usual explanation for sponsoring racing teams.

The massive success of The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time resulted in sales of ocarinas to rise.
- To this day, Renaissance Fairs still sell baby-blue ocarinas, usually with a Triforce-like sign to indicate them.
  - Which probably come from Songbird Ocarinas, who has been running the same ad in Nintendo Power for 12 years.
The Army Men series.
Team Fortress 2: Ask around any knife/blade shop and chances are they have had a number of people asking about butterfly (a.k.a. balisong) knives, thanks to that globetrotting rogue, The Spy.
- Too bad in most of the United States it's illegal to send them through the mail. Even if it is "express mailed to Mystery, Alaska".
- And if you do find a shop that has some left over from the before the ban, expect to spend around $70 for your little cosplay prop.
- Unless this was recently pushed through Congress without anyone hearing about it, that's not true at all. The entire USA is not California, though sometimes it seems like it, since Paypal, E-bay, and Google are all based in CA, and all impose CA state law bans on their users (Google will not allow banner ads for anything banned in CA, nor will E-bay or Paypal allow you to use their services to purchase anything banned there). Though some states (like the aforementioned) have bans, the Federal mailing regulations that have been in place since the 20's or 30's only cover spring-powered "automatic" knives (with loopholes for now-popular "assisted opening" knives). Gravity/inertia knives, like balisongs, are still exempt, though the online price for cheap junky ones have doubled in price from $10-15 to now $25-30. Butterfly knives are illegal to possess at home in only a very small number of states.
Fallout 3 apparently greatly increased the interest in the 1940s music that makes up most of the soundtrack. That Other Wiki says Roy Brown's Butcher Pete increased in iTunes sales by 700% after the game's release.

Zippo did not make cigarette lighters with the BMW logo on them until Strong Bad was repeatedly seen using a BMW lighter.
- I'm still holding out for their Fuck Communism lighter, and I don't even smoke.
  - Well, you hold it back in now.

When The BBC began a re-run of Thunderbirds in 1992 (ironically the first time it had ever been simulcast nationally) demand for Tracy Island toys outstripped supply. Blue Peter helpfully gave instructions for building a home-made version.
- The video release of which ran out in minutes.
- Forget the video, demand was such that there was a huge lead time in receiving a paper copy of the instructions from the BBC. (Bear in mind, this was before internet access was widespread.)
Kim Possible's sidekick/pet naked mole rat has led to kids wanting one for their very own. Common sense provides it's not really a Speech Impaired Animal in real life, but what even parents might not know is that the naked mole rat is basically blind, anti-cute, and one of the only mammals that are eusocial— like bees— and so can only survive in an underground colony with hundreds of other mole rats.
- A mother in Finland once wrote an article stating that Kim Possible encouraged her daughter to take up cheerleading and martial arts lessons. A poster on a forum commented a similar thing happened with Power Rangers (see above).
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sparked a pet turtle craze as mentioned above. Sadly, parents and children alike had no idea how to properly care for them, to say nothing of the fact that the kid would in theory be well into his 70's or older before his pet bit the dust. As a result, many turtles really did wind up in sewers in the 90's. But on the lighter side, TMNT also caused a surge in the popularity of pizza.
- Nonsense! Pizza was always popular, it will always be popular, and it was always at war with Eastasia. No, Eurasia! Hey! Wait! Where are you taking me? GAH! Gaaaah! GAAAAH!!! *Muffled sounds*
  - While pizza was always popular, TMNT made it even more popular.

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