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Trust-Building Blunder

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Well, she learned about trust, just not the lesson you wanted.

Son: (about to jump off a ladder) I’m scared, Dad!
Dad: (with arms outstretched, ready to catch him) Do you trust me, son?
Son: Yes.
Dad: C’mon, son!
Son: (falls down, hitting the ground as his father walks away)
Dad: Rule number one, never trust anybody.

If you aren't familiar with Team Building Exercises, Trust Exercises, Capacitation Courses, and the dreaded Weekend Seminar, you will be before long. The most common example is an exercise in which participants are paired off and one person of each pair is instructed to fall over backwards, trusting that their partner will catch them.

Since we've already established you are reading this on TV Tropes, we can assume these activities can and have been extensively lampooned, mocked, and generally made fun of quite a lot by people.

Here are a few commonly parodied office exercises:

  • Trust Building Exercises: The catcher will not catch the faller, either because they're distracted or just don't like the person. Alternatively, there's such a massive size difference that the (large) faller presents a danger to the (small) catcher. It can also result from the faller falling in the wrong direction, leaving the catcher unable to catch them in time.
  • Wilderness retreats: Hilarity Ensues when the Pointy-Haired Boss fails miserably at surviving, and everyone snarks between escaping bears and mountain lions. A popular excuse for a Paintball Episode or Macho Disaster Expedition.
  • A Blindfolded Trip: the person leading the blindfolded walker will probably get distracted and walk the person into or off of something.

Has nothing to do with building trust in a person who does not deserve it.

May overlap with The Comedy Drop.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • A Geico commercial has the CEO of Geico suggesting he do the "fall back and you catch me" exercise — with the Gecko. Naturally, the Gecko has deep misgivings.
  • A comical online ad by Disney for a Samsung smartphone has film director Rich Moore blunder his way through his workplace, offending and endangering everyone in his path. In one scene Moore sets up the trust fall, only to be distracted by his phone before finishing the count to three.
  • An insurance company had a radio commercial involving actors doing the falling trust exercise. Cue falling, thump, muffled cry of pain, and the catcher saying, "Wait... what's my motivation?" At which the slogan of the commercial came in, "Life's better with a partner you can trust".

    Anime & Manga 
  • In one of Azumanga Daioh's Sports Fest episodes, Tomo and Chiyo-chan are impressed with the boys' cooperative gymnastics, so they decide to try a supported handstand. Unfortunately, Tomo is the supporter...

    Comic Strips 
  • Dilbert:
    • Dogbert was making one of his periodic appearances as a consultant, leading such an exercise. During the "fall backward and your colleague catches you" exercise, PHB fell forward instead. Dogbert's comment: "Okay, maybe trust isn't your biggest problem here."
    • They probably did it more than once. There was one where they were on a wilderness retreat where they used the counselor as a bridge over muddy ground and, given the option to save a coworker from a bear or eat a pile of donuts, got as far as "forming a committee to explore the donut option" before the coworker was eaten.
    • In another strip, Dogbert decides to teach everyone about trust by having them all make out blank checks to him.
      Dilbert: What will this teach us about trust?
      Dogbert: It will teach you that trust is an excellent quality for others to have.
    • In yet another, they have a team-building exercise involving walking barefoot over hot coals, insisting that they would learn something from and about one another as they did so. Wally goes first.
      Instructor: What we learn from Wally's example is "Don't wear alcohol-based aftershave".
    • In still another one (which takes two days to finish), Dogbert challenges the workers to build a sundial using a donut and a pencil. Pointy-Haired Boss eats the donut, and when a janitor says they could have just put the pencil in the donut, they stab him... making him a sundial!
    • In a new strip, Wally instructs Asok to fall into his hands in order to learn about trust, then deliberately misses Asok, explaining, "It wouldn't be trust if it worked every time." The larger point Wally is making is that messing with his co-workers like this makes them easier to tolerate.

    Fan Works 
  • The blunder in But Who IS He? is that the workforce has to have training at all; once after Sherlock informs a woman that her husband is dead (most likely in his usual subtle manner), the police department is almost sued and has to undergo two days of sensitivity training, something which Lestrade looks back on with dread. John then realizes in horror that the only thing worse than going through a sensitivity workshop would be going through it with Sherlock.
  • Friendship is Witchcraft: "Cherry Bomb".
    Pinkie Pie: Ugh! You know how I get about abandonment! I'll have to do lots of trust exercises to get over this.
    [Pinkie throws herself, backwards, off the moving wagon]
    Pinkie Pie: Rarity catch me!!
    Rarity: What? Why me?
    [Pinkie and Rarity both fall to the ground]
  • This Miraculous Ladybug fan comic depicts a hypothetical scenario where Marinette and Adrien's class have to do trust falls after the two of them reveal their hero identities to each other. Chloé refuses to do them with Sabrina, Kim does his to Alix without warning and ends up on the floor as a result, resident couples Juleka and Rose and Alya and Nino do well, and Marinette and Adrien give everyone heart attacks with their idea of a trust fall (the latter jumping off a basketball hoop and the former catching him while blindfolded).
  • In this Naruto fanfic, Sai and Sakura are called upon to demonstrate a trust exercise to Academy students. Unfortunately, Sai has never done trust exercises before and thinks he's supposed to trust Sakura not to actually fall. Predictable results ensue.

    Film — Animation 
  • Frozen (2013): Multiple:
    • Anna tries climbing a rock cliff all by herself with no gear, all the while bickering with Kristoff. After much effort, she asks "Please tell me I'm almost there!" and the camera cuts back to show that Anna has only managed to get five feet up. Thankfully, that's when Olaf returns telling them he's found a staircase to Elsa's ice castle.
      Princess Anna: [laughs] Thank goodness! Catch! [She jumps and lands in Kristoff's arms] Thanks! That was like a crazy trust exercise.
    • Played straight near the end. Kristoff is blindfolded and Anna's leading him by the hand. He's promptly led face-first into a pole.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • In Birthday Girl, the bank branch managers are doing the falling backwards exercise. The catchers fail at their role because they are stunned at the sight of their model employee stuffing a couple of guitar cases full of money in the vault room across the hall.
  • Brightburn. Caitlyn is reluctant to touch Brandon because she's freaked out by him stalking her; this causes her to drop him during a school trust exercise. He retaliates by crushing her hand when the teacher orders Caitlyn to help Brandon up.
  • In Force of Nature: The Dry 2, five women take part in a corporate hiking retreat and only four come out on the other side. The mystery of what happened to the fifth is what drives the film.
  • Mad Love (1995): While Matt drives along a windy mountain road, Casey covers his eyes and gives him directions on how to drive. With her help, he successfully passes a truck (causing the driver to do a Double Take), but a minute later the two of them almost get into an accident with another truck, causing them to swerve off-road and crash and rendering the car useless.
  • Mean Girls had a high-school version of the falling-backwards exercise: Everyone was supposed to admit a flaw, then fall backwards. One of the members of the Alpha Bitch Girl Posse apologized for being so beautiful it made everyone jealous. After she turns around, everyone except for one girl (another member of the Girl Posse) walks away in disgust. You can probably guess the outcome. Played with when another girl falls and everyone catches her — and her very heavy electric wheelchair.
  • In Old School, the frat pledges have cinderblocks tied to their penises with long lengths of rope, under the trust that the rope will be long enough not to castrate them when thrown from a high ledge. The ropes are indeed long enough, but unfortunately one pledge happens to toss his into a manhole and is dragged along with the block.
  • The protagonists of the slasher movie Severance (2006) are a sales team out on a team building weekend in the Hungarian wilderness.
  • In Trust, one character jumps off a building so that another will catch her. Her love interest doesn't want to do the same since he is much larger than her.
  • In Welcome to the Jungle, what was supposed to be a weekend retreat to a jungle island goes From Bad to Worse and eventually becomes a Whole-Plot Reference to Lord of the Flies of all things.

    Literature 
  • In Good Omens, Crowley and Aziraphale end up in the middle of a corporate team-building paintball exercise. For fun, Crowley decides to use his powers to turn all the paintball guns into AK-47s. Death Hilarity Ensues. (Don't worry, they all have miraculous escapes.) Even before he made the switch, though, the narration mentions that most of the participants are trying to find a way to permanently injure and disable the other players (who are all naturally rivals for better jobs), such as trying to shoot their ears. He gave them all what they really, really wanted. All of them were wishing they had real guns. Be Careful What You Wish For.
  • In Susan Cooper's King Of Shadows, a Jerkass drops the hero in the falling-backward exercise... and is promptly bawled out by the director and kicked out of the group on the spot.
  • One sci-fi story ("The Minimum Man" by Robert Sheckley) features a clumsy, accident-prone protagonist who miraculously gets accepted into the space exploration corps and shipped off to explore a new world. He eventually ends up learning that they pick the people most prone to accidents that can lead to these kind of things after his 'helper' robot causes a disastrous trust-building blunder with a new sentient race he discovers because the robot was programmed to intentionally cause such things to happen if he starts getting too competent.
  • In The Science of Discworld II, Archchancellor Ridcully, who's been getting some odd ideas from management books he's acquired through L-Space, takes the wizards on a team-building retreat. Wizards do not do team-building.
    Dean: I'm on your side, you damn fool!
    Chair of Indefinite Studies: You can't be! You made such a good target!

    Live-Action TV 
  • One episode of 1000 Ways to Die features a guy who was put in charge of his department's trust building exercises, and it goes as expected since the guy was only hired because he's related to an executive. A consultant who was interviewed for the bit says that these exercises are meant to build up camaraderie, and when done well, employees can actually benefit by applying the general lessons they were taught at a seminar. The consultant also mentions that when done badly by applying whatever cliché technique seen on TV or in a book, as done by the guy in the story proper, employees will not learn anything, and will only make existing office tensions even worse.
  • In 3rd Rock from the Sun, the aliens teach a youth group a lesson on trust through one of these exercises, by not catching the faller, and delivering the Aesop "Don't trust anyone!", and then divide the group into two teams identified by different coloured bandanas, in a very Gangland fashion.
  • Played with in Angel. Angel Investigations are working on their We Help the Helpless advertising. "We'll catch you when you fall!" In the background, Fainting Seer Cordelia promptly keels over without them noticing.
  • In the Bones episode "The Patriot In Purgatory", Brennan (inspired by watching a basketball game with Booth) gets several of the Squinterns together to identify various lost remains in a "team-building" exercise. Played for drama(and sudden Mood Whiplash) when Vasiri identifies the body of a homeless vet who was present at the Pentagon during the 9/11 attacks. Emotions ran high throughout the investigation, and by the end even Brennan was in tears, reflecting on her stint identifying remains at the WTC wreckage, and realizing that Booth might have easily been at Ground Zero, meaning he could have died before they met.
  • An episode of UK newsroom comedy Drop the Dead Donkey had the characters attend a weekend paintballing seminar. Naturally, given that they are all a bundle of collective neurosis and almost universally hate each other, it didn't turn out well.
  • Both work- and family-related example; at one point in Frasier, after a week sharing a practice has completely frazzled their nerves to breaking point, Frasier and Niles are dragged into the office of a fellow psychiatrist for some impromptu couples counselling. He tries the standard 'fall into your partner's arms' exercise, but they're equally paranoid of each other and refuse to participate. Exasperated, the psychiatrist gets up on the box himself to show him how easy it is... but Niles and Frasier are too busy glowering at each other suspiciously to notice, and he falls flat on his ass.
  • In an episode of Hannah Montana, Oliver is stressing during his and Miley's rehearsal of the school play. Miley assures Oliver that she won't let him fall on his face and suggests they do trust exercise again. However, she gets distracted by a sudden doorbell ringing and rushes to answer it making Oliver fall down.
  • The second episode of Hippies has Simon Pegg's character do this with the lead of a musical he's directing. The lead falls just as Pegg is turning to the others to explain the exercise.
  • In an episode of Lost Girl, Bo and Kenzi go undercover at a juvenile detention camp; Bo as a counselor, Kenzi as an inmate. Bo organizes a trust-falling exercise, choosing Kenzi as her partner. Kenzi deliberately lets Bo fall, figuring it will help her gain the trust of the other inmates. And also because it's funny.
  • In the Made in Canada episode "Corporate Retreat", the staff at Pyramid Productions spend the day at Y.E.S., Canada's most irritating and least effective corporate teambuilding programme. Stuck for the day with a supremely annoying programme director, the staff are forced to take part in dressed-up versions of school sports day events like egg-and-spoon races, and over the course of the day, production adviser Veronica gets covered in insect bites, film production head Victor gets severe burns on his forearms after dozing off by a campfire and falling into it, and CEO Alan gets so sick of the Y.E.S. director that he knocks him to the ground with one punch - and watches in disbelief as he springs back to his feet, none the worse for wear. Inevitably, the characters participate in the "fall backwards and your partner will catch you", and television production head Richard surprises Victor by actually catching him - only to immediately drop him after chiding him for his lack of trust.
  • The Mentalist: Agent Michelle Vega asks Kimball Cho to do a trust fall to rebuild his trust in her in the seventh-season episode "Black Market". Cho tells her if she tries it, she'll end up on the floor. But, though they don't do the trust fall, Cho does ask her to go with him to the gun range at the end of the episode.
  • DCI Tom Barnaby's (predictable) contempt towards team building exercises is on display in the Midsomer Murders episode "Days of Misrule" when he is forced to go on one by the new chief superintendent. Hilarity Ensues.
  • In the Murphy Brown episode "Retreat", the crew go to a camp to compete against a group of bankers in a series of teamwork exercises and fail miserably. For instance, in a simulated river crossing, all the bankers make it across but only one reporter does by actively sacrificing the others.
  • In the Mystery Science Theater 3000 pre-movie sketch for Gamera, Tom Servo and Crow try the trust-building exercise and Crow lets poor Servo fall.
  • Happens in New Girl twice.
    • In 'Table 34', Jess and the gang go to a dating convention for East Indians. Each are inducted into the event and have to take part in activities. After kissing Nick the night before, Jess is still uncertain about her feelings for him. Her boyfriend Sam arrives and they take part in a team activity where a hula-hoop must travel from one end of a circle to the other. Each member holds hands and the couples deemed compatible have less trouble moving the hoop from one to the other. Jess struggles to move the hoop to Sam, which Nick views as a sign of their incompatibility. In a later exercise, Jess and Nick have to make a table out of newspapers. Those with tables that can hold a phone book have better success as a couple. Of course, the two construct a sound table that is strong enough for Nick to stand on.
    • In 'Teachers', Jess attends a workshop for teachers in the area. She is paired up with her co-worker Ryan, who she is pining for but hasn't asked out because he is her inferior. Despite her professionalism, the two work perfectly together in the team-building exercises. In one scene, Ryan must navigate her through an obstacle course while she is blindfolded. They make record time. As Jess reaches the end, she trips, but Ryan catches her in his arms.
  • The Office (US):
    • Ryan invites all the managers of the different Dunder Mifflin branches on a camping retreat type thing....except Michael. Hilarity Ensues when Michael decides to go off into the forest by himself, Bear Grylls style.
    • Also the blind egg race from the Survivor style beach games Michael uses to pick his replacement. Dwight screams at Kelly so much she drops the egg out of frustration, Jim misleads Karen into the water as a prank and Stanley drops it right at the start so he can be disqualified and return to his crosswords.
  • Psych: Shawn has to get Gus out of a weekend trust-building retreat to work a case.
  • Tosh.0:
    • Daniel Tosh did "surprise trust falls" for a few episodes. Over numerous clips, only one person ever caught him...and it happened in the shower of a gym with a primarily gay clientele (the guy who caught him was indeed gay).
    • One episode has a web video that of a group of people trying to catch a guy who is demonstrating a trust fall, and they end up dropping him.
  • The Wimzie's House episode "Who Do You Trust?" features exactly this.
  • In the Wings episode "One Flew Over the Cooper's Nest", psychotic Sandy ambushes Joe in his psychiatrist's office for some emergency couples therapy. (She's under the impression she and Joe are married.) Sandy decides to do the trust game with Joe, but since she's completely delusional and Joe is sick of dealing with her, he simply lets her fall.
  • The X-Files episode "Detour" has the protagonists en-route to a "teamwork conference." Of course, they run into some trouble on the way and end up having their own wilderness retreat from hell.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • An amusing inversion during some recent WWE sketches. Daniel Bryan and Kane have to attend anger management, during which time they're directed to catch another participant in a trust fall exercise. Neither of them does so, leading to them understanding each other a little better.

    Radio 
  • Cabin Pressure has the blindfolded trip version in "Ipswich", when the entirety of MJN Air are made to do a safety drill recovering a dummy from a burning fuselage. The instructor puts Arthur in the lead, knowing full well by that point Arthur is a complete moron. The drill fails not because of a lack of trust, but because Arthur is so colossally stupid he manages to get everyone lost.

    Video Games 

    Web Animation 
  • DOOM INCORPORATED depicts the Doom Slayer working in an office building. When the employees do the trust fall exercise, Doom Slayer crushes his partner, since he's still wearing his armor.
  • In the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls Digital Series webisode "A Fine Line", after boasting that "Time flies when you're with your best friends!", Sandalwood attempts a "trust fall" out of the blue. Except he obviously takes Microchips by surprise with this stunt and falls flat on his back offscreen.

    Webcomics 
  • Alluded to in Freefall when Florence gathers a few trusted robots to share what she's learned about Gardener in the Dark, a Brown Note for Jean's robot population. Because there's the possibility that humans might be harmed no matter what she does (and thus the robots' human-protection safeguards may threaten to kick in if she gives them the whole story), she asks permission to disable their motor controls before explaining things. Sawtooth Rivergrinder (a terraforming robot the size of a dump truck) remarks thusly:
    Sawtooth: I would have liked to build trust on a simpler level first, but I suppose I can't exactly fall over backwards and ask you to catch me.
  • General Protection Fault had a rather disastrous company hike early in its run. You would think Dwayne would realize making a bunch of geeks go out into the woods just isn't going to work out...
  • PVP has had two so far, paintball and a LARP.

    Web Original 
  • The Cooking Comically blog features this recipe for "Trust-Fall Chicken":
    "It's time for some team building. See, this recipe is like a trust-fall. But instead of falling, you'll be cooking. And instead of trusting me to catch you, you'll have to trust me to rock your face with slow-cooked chickeny deliciousness."
  • One Fail Army video has a trust fall with two young girls. The girl who falls does so... forwards and lands on her face, while the other watches in bewilderment.
  • Jake and Amir's "Trust Fall" and "Trust Fall 2" (five years apart) both open with Amir asking Jake if he can trust him and then falling backward without warning. In the second, Murph punishes Jake for "letting" Amir fall by forcing him to imitate the fall. And then stuns Jake by actually catching him.
  • In a crossover between NerdCubed and Emma Blackery in which they answer fan questions, Dan demonstrates his distrust of Emma by referencing these exercises and falling backwards, without her catching him. To be fair, he gave her no warning — but to be equally fair, she wasn't all that concerned even after he fell.
  • This OfflineTV video sees the group go through various egg-themed exercises to rebuild their trust in each other. This being OTV, they snark at the premise repeatedly, several of them fail at the main exercise (carrying an egg representing another member over "the stones of truth" without breaking it — Lily gets special mention for attempting CPR on her egg after dropping it, which goes about as well as you'd expect), and declare at the end that they haven't learned anything outside of a couple Spoof Aesops.

    Western Animation 
  • Played with in American Dragon: Jake Long's episode where Haley trains alongside Jake to be a dragon protector. While her Teacher performs with her the basic Trust exercise by the book, Jake's Grandfather lets him fall into a cauldron of disgusting potion, telling him the lesson was to "Trust no one but yourself".
  • Happens in Beavis and Butt-Head. The episode Substitute features a substitute teacher who makes an effort to connect with the class. He assumes the titular duo are misguided youths who have never been given any encouragement. He tries to show that he trusts them by standing on his desk and falling backwards, but unfortunately, Beavis and Butt-head realize when it's already too late what they're supposed to do, and he ends up needing a substitute himself.
  • In Daria, a scene has Daria and Jane in the hated hell of gym class. Daria is meant to be "spotting" for a classmate on the trampoline — effectively trusted to advise her that she's getting too near the edge. Instead she is more focused on a difference of opinion with Jane. The inevitable happens, and the classmate who is trusting Daria to watch out for her ends up taking that jump too far, right off the edge. There is a shriek and a crunch...
  • Dragons: Riders of Berk: "In Dragons We Trust" opens with Hiccup trying to coax the other riders into a trust-building exercise with their dragons: deliberately fall off their back in mid-flight and let them catch up. Snotlout is the only one who leaps at the chance. Unfortunately, Hookfang doesn't even realize his rider just jumped off...
  • In a Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist episode with Winona Ryder, Dr. Katz refers to this.
  • In the Futurama episode "Murder on the Planet Express", the Professor notices his employees are having trouble trusting one another and hires a guy to run the crew through a trust-building exercise. On their way out, he picks up a random hitchhiker to be his assistant, and as he's demonstrating the falling exercise, the hitchhiker turns out to be a shapeshifting alien monster and eats him. The crew run into the ship's panic room in alarm, but some issues come up and the pairs who have the worst trust issues (Fry and Bender, Leela and Amy, Hermes and Zoidberg) are sent out to resolve them. They manage to succeed, but then the monster gets into the panic room and starts assuming people's forms and eating others. The crew scrambles around in panic and all are eaten until only Bender and Fry are left, and they put one another through a series of tests to confirm one another's identities and resolve not to trust anyone but the two of them. And then the organizer shows up and tells them that his partner only pretended to eat their friends and that the two of them had won. They shoot him until he's dust and shoot some more, then the rest of the crew shows up.
  • Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law: Phil Ken Sebben, Harvey's boss, tries to get him to participate in a trust fall. A Running Gag for the series is Phil's inability to place objects properly in space, due to his eyepatch; so, he tells Harvey to stand a few feet to his side, in front of an open window. Harvey refuses, despite Phil's increasing insistence ("FALL, YOU BASTARD!")
  • In the Hazbin Hotel episode "Scrambled Eggs", most of the characters in the hotel take part in some trust building exercises as part of the hotel's agenda to reform sinners, starting with a Trust Fall from a bit of height with the addition that they have to tell something about themselves first. The main catch here is that Niffty says something so disturbing nobody wants to catch her, so she just falls and hurts herself. Which, being a masochist, she likes, and she goes back to jump down to the floor again and again. After that, Angel Dust suggests they could build trust with some BDSM since that requires trust, and finally Vaggie takes them into some random combat somewhere to learn to trust each other, which actually kind of works, although it seems to be as much about respect and shared experience as trust specifically.
  • Justice League: The story "Secret Society" has the villains doing this to build trust before taking on the League. Grodd, the leader, also ramps it up, as the ones falling do so off a cliff about 30 feet up, and the "catcher" uses their powers to bring them down; for example, Sinestro using his ring to let his partner fall slowly. Giganta, paired with Killer Frost, warns her that she's heavier than she looks. After the camera cuts away, we hear a loud thud, followed by Frost saying a deadpan "Ow". It's done mostly to avert the inevitable betrayal that ends most Villain Team Ups. Grodd is being savvy and because he does this, his villain team is one of the more successful, going so far as to cause a temporary disbanding of the Justice League.
  • In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Frenemies", Tirek and Chrysalis are made to do trust-building exercises by Cozy Glow to get them to, well, trust one another. Tirek is assigned to catch Chrysalis after a fall and Chrysalis is made to guide a blindfolded Tirek down a flight of stairs. It goes about as well as you'd expect, with Tirek stepping out of the way just before Chrysalis lands and Chrysalis returning the favor by pushing him down the stairs the first chance she gets.
  • In The Owl House flashback episode "Them's the Breaks, Kid", Eda has to participate in a trust fall with a student made of slime. She messes with everyone by casting an illusion that makes it seem as if she fell right through him and the flesh dissolved from her bones instantly.
    Slime Student: Not again!
  • One episode of the The Ripping Friends has Rip and Slab doing an extreme version of the "fall and I'll catch you" routine that has Rip standing above a kiddie pool full of piranhas. Of course, Slab fails to catch Rip and the piranhas tear him to shreds.
  • In a Robot Chicken skit, Dr. Phil does the "fall and I'll catch you" with a criminal. He catches him, says, "I won't hurt you, (Beat) but they will," before throwing to a bunch of cops who proceed to beat the guy down.
  • The Simpsons:
    • In "The War of the Simpsons", the trust-fall exercise is part of a marriage retreat run by Rev. Lovejoy, but Homer is out fishing instead. Lovejoy tells Marge, "Even if he were here, I wouldn't recommend it."
    • In "You Only Move Twice", where Homer works for a goofy, friendly Bond villain, Hank Scorpio, he is subject to the trust-fall exercise:
      Scorpio: The key to motivation is trust. Let me show you what I mean. I want you to close your eyes and fall backwards, and I'll catch you. That's gonna show you what trust is all about. Ready?
      Homer: Right.
      Scorpio: Three... Two... [phone rings] One second...
      [Scorpio turns to answer the phone and Homer falls]
      Scorpio: Oh, my God, the guy's on the floor. [goes to help Homer] Uh, that was a phone call; don't chalk that up to mistrust, now.
    • "Mountain of Madness" has Mr. Burns organizing a country in the mountains, where people work in pairs racing towards a cabin. Mr. Burns, ditching Smithers for "being a pill", randomly pairs himself with Homer and of course cheats by using a snowmobile. Later, when the cabin has been buried by an avalanche and nobody can find the actual finish point:
      Carl: Maybe the "Cabin" is a place inside each of us created by our good will and teamwork?
      Lenny: Oooh! ... naw, they said there'd be sandwiches...
    • In the Tracey Ullman Show short "Bart Jumps," Homer urges Bart to jump off a table to get over his fear of falling, only to repeatedly get distracted and fail to catch him.
  • In the Sonic Boom episode, "It Takes a Village to Defeat a Hedgehog", Dr. Eggman gathers all the villains in Bygone Island to execute a plan to destroy Sonic. Eggman has all the villains engage in team-building exercises, including the classic trust-fall. Shadow makes absolutely no attempt to catch Eggman, who tumbles onto the floor.
  • In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "New Leaf," Plankton, after apparently undergoing a Heel–Face Turn, spends the day with Mr. Krabs at a carnival, where Mr. Krabs performs the typical backwards fall while blindfolded to cement their new friendship. The only problem is that Plankton is, well...a plankton. He just barely manages to complete the task successfully, and winning Mr. Krabs's trust is essential to convincing him to hand over the Krabby Patty formula. Too bad Mr. Krabs gives him a fake recipe.
  • El Tigre's Maria holds therapy sessions for his Rogues Gallery. One of the sessions is the fall-catch trust-builder, but it fails when the faller, El Oso, is MUCH bigger than the catcher, El Cucharone, and squashes him flat. ("Hey, I trusted you, man!")
  • On Wishfart, Dez tries the fall-catch trust-builder with Akiko. However, because Akiko is a ghost, Dez ends up falling straight through her.

 
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Hazbin Trust Fall Exercise

Vaggie has everyone do the trust fall to get everyone to trust each other, but it's not exactly working out.

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