Charlie Brown's finest hour.
"Waspinator happy at last."
So they've been constantly injured, the
butt of every joke and misfortune,
much to the audience's amusement, and it seems
the universe itself just likes screwing with him. So what's happening now? Huh... he's happy?
Yes, it seems that fate/God/the writers finally decided to Throw The Dog A Bone. It can be them ultimately coming out ahead, or just having a break for once, but it's generally very satisfying to whoever it happens to and
any fans that had felt sorry for him.
One way this can happen is if the "Dog" character
gets a girlfriend. This can be very irritating to fans of the female character, who is considered a
reward and objectified in particularly bad versions of this; by this trope's very metaphor, a "
bone." (Even "better", listen to
fans complain if this
doesn't happen.)
If the bone is thrown only to be cruelly snatched away later, then this becomes
Yank the Dog's Chain, a set-up for the writers to further toy with the hapless character.
Compare
Karmic Jackpot,
Earn Your Happy Ending.
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- The Trix rabbit is occasionally given a chance to actually try the cereal depending on the outcome of a poll. People vote for him to get it every time, and by now you would think the company would get that people really feel sorry for the guy and hate those greedy kids.
- They probably do and know that sympathy for the rabbit makes people remember the commericals more.
- Of course the audience is supposed to sympathize with the rabbit—they're supposed to want the cereal as bad as he does.
- One Christmas-themed Cocoa Pebbles commercial ends with the real Santa showing up, and Fred and Barney for a change sharing a bowl of the cereal as friends.
- After attempting to get back together with the woman who rejected him for a Swiffer Wet-Jet (buying flowers, dedicating radio songs to her), the broom finally found a new girlfriend - the rake.
- A priceless Super Bowl Coke commercial where Macy Balloons of Stewie and Underdog are fighting (aka bumping into each other) in order to get that balloon of a Coke bottle. Eventually, the bottle starts to float away. Both characters turn and see a round shape on the horizon. It's CHARLIE BROWN, who then wins the prize. Watch it here
.
- Even better, he gets it in full view of a little girl in a blue dress and carrying a football(hint hint).
Fan Works
- The story No, I am NOT a Brony, GET ME OUTTA EQUESTRIA! has a Fourth Wall Mail Slot chapter in which BronyWriter pulls the hero, TD Powell back to Earth for the purposes of the Q&A, and while he makes it clear that he'll be sending TD back to Equestria for future chapters, he lets him have his date with his longtime crush Danae first.
Magazines
- MAD's Monroe is occasionally thrown a bone, though they often Yank the Dog's Chain in the very same comic. Two examples:
- Getting to make out with his Irish cousin. When his parents find out, they force him to sleep in his roofless tree house in the pouring rain.
- Having the school bully steal his date at the cinema, but then getting him to eat a rotten hot dog he found on the floor of The Rocky Horror Picture Show screening next door.
Newspaper Comics
- One strip of The Born Loser had the protagonist having a moment of good luck for once. Once.
Role-Playing Games
Tabletop Games
- After years of being Warhammer 40000's Butt Monkey, shown dying in droves in the fluff, getting saddled with unplayable units, and being to some extent incompatible with the current core rules, around the transition to 4th Edition the Imperial Guard finally got a decent codex. Their 5th edition update brought such treats as support gunships and the ability to field more tanks than any other army, pushing the guard into full Who's Laughing Now? territory.
- The Dark Eldar went over a decade without an update to their extremely limited and increasingly dated model range and notoriously unforgiving rulebook, before finally getting not just a codex packed full of background fluff and viable units, but some of the most detailed models Games Workshop has ever produced.
Real Life
