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alt title(s): Aint No Rule
Ain't no rule says a dog can't play soccer.
So... you're the new kid in town, and you've joined the local sports team populated by the Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits. What you lack in skill, you make up for in Team Spirit and multi-nationalism. But uh-oh... the Opposing Sports Team is in town and gunning for the championship. Their coach is a Drill Sergeant Nasty, the town bully is the star player, and they probably have mob connections.
Thank God, someone on our team has an animal that has just revealed its untapped, unbeatable sporting abilities!
The other team may rant and rave, but there's nothing they can do about it. Why? Ain't No Rule!
...Well, of course there's no rule that says a dog can't play soccer! Even ignoring the fact that such a move would be stymied due to rules meant for other purposes, such as age limitations (find me an arthritis-free dog large enough and old enough to play outside of little-league), registration requirements (legal name, for starters), and school affiliation (these movies almost always use high school sports, although hiring "ringers" was once commonplace for college sports), the very notion that someone would replace a kid on their team with an animal is insane! Still, that doesn't prevent family films aplenty from adopting the premise and taking it to the heartwarming illogical conclusion.
Dogs and monkeys are usually the go-to animals for these kinds of film, but ... there ain't no rule.
Taken to its logical extreme, this trope becomes Loophole Abuse. If there is a rule, then Gretzky Has The Ball.
Examples
Anime and Manga
- Used, surprisingly, in Samurai Champloo. In a baseball game against the Eagleland Navy, ninja Kagemaru is a little shorthanded. Even after conscripting Mugen, Jin, and Fuu, he needs five more players. So he gets a really old man (who dies in his first at-bat), Fuu's pet flying squirrel Momo, and a dog. When one of the American sailors objects, the umpire consults a rulebook, and rules that "I can't find anything about dogs in the rulebook. He's good."
- Also worth noting is the fact one of the name Americans was none other than Abner Doubleday, who has a lasting belief that he invented the game.
- In one chapter of the manga Kochikame, Ryotsu is asked to play on a hockey team. The opposing team has a polar bear and penguin playing, and point out that there Aint No Rule saying they can't.
- In the Ranma ½ anime version of the climax to the Phoenix Pill saga, Ranma needs to win a combination of downhill race and running battle in order to win the pill that will undo the Full-Body Cat's Tongue pressure point that keeps him locked in female form. Unfortunately, he's never skied before, so he stinks at it. Akane mercifully throws him some snowshoes and points out there's no rule saying he has to ski down the slope, just that he has to reach the finish line first with an unbroken miniature snowman. Ranma takes things a step further by soon after hitching a ride on the back of an angry black bear.
- In Mamotte! Lollipop, female lead Nina is distressed to learn that the contest for gaining a professional wizard's license has no rule against killing human beings (i.e. her) to obtain the Magic Pearl.
- Revolutionary Girl Utena: Ain't no rule that says a girl can't wear a boy's uniform!
Comic Books
Film
- Soccer Dog and Soccer Dog: European Pup: Ain't no rule that says a dog can't play soccer!
- The Air Bud series: Ain't no rule that a dog can't play basketball/football/soccer/baseball/volleyball/skateboard!
- The Most Valuable Primate series: Ain't no rule that says a monkey can't play hockey/skateboarding/snowboarding!
- Funky Monkey: Ain't no rule that says a monkey can't play football!
- Ed: Ain't no rule that says a monkey can't play baseball!
- Gus: Ain't no rule that says a mule can't play football!
- The Horse That Played Center-Field: Ain't no rule that says... you know what, you can probably puzzle this one out yourself.
- Subverted in Peanuts, where there ain't no rule that says a dog can't play baseball... but he plays just like every other member of the team (and it's Charlie Brown's team), and he sometimes gets mistaken for a short kid with a big nose.
- Except in the TV specials Charlie Brown's All Stars and Lucy Must Be Traded, Charlie Brown, where in order to get into an organized league, the team must abide by its rules against animal players.
- Babe: Ain't no rule that says a pig can't compete in a sheepherding dog trial! Actually, that one's more a trick of semantics, as the trial registration form requires "Name of Animal." The narrator even mentions that had it been "Name of Dog" they couldn't have entered Babe.
- This also happens in the book. The lines on the form there were "Name of Owner" and "Name of Entry."
- Subverted in Ratatouille: There Ain't No Rule saying a rat can't become a chef (in fact, the phrase "Anyone Can Cook" practically qualifies as Arc Words), but there is a rule that a rat can't be in a restaurant kitchen. Remy spends most of the film trying to be a chef without getting caught breaking the second rule; near the end of the film, the presence of Remy and his clan in the kitchen of Gusteau's still constitutes a health code violation that gets the restaurant closed down. Even that is just a temporary setback for Remy, as he and his (human) friends just open a bistro.
- A non-animal-related example is The Absent-Minded Professor, where the professor put flubber on the shoes of his school's basketball team when they are losing an important game. As a result, the team suddenly find themselves able to easily make impossibly high jumps to win the game. Although the coach of the opposing team protests this development, the stunned referee refuses to stop play because there is no rule that establishes a height limit of players' jumps, even though it is obvious this sudden advantage for the team appearing mid-game must be be the result of some kind of external aid that is likely against the rules.
- However, notice that no one gets called for travelling for moving without dribbling, even though some players take many leaps without passing.
- Non-animal version in Semi-Pro : Ain't no rule says you can't play drunk. Well, there is a rule, but they can't enforce it. ("Remember those 30 free throws I did in Minnesota last year?" "Yeah?" "I don't.") By the way, that is just the gist of the scene. If anyone remembers the real quote, replace that one.
- In the movie Blades Of Glory there ain't no rule saying two guys can't skate as a pairs team. (In Real Life, there is.)
- In Zoom, in the final scenes of the movie as we see the 'Happy-Ever-After' scenes for each of the super-powered kids, we watch the expanding boy playing soccer as the goalie and being the team hero, as there Aint No Rule against being able to expand your body parts to block the entire goal so no shots can go in.
- In the film version of Stuart Little, most of the boats in the race are being operated by remote control. Guess there Aint No Rule that says a mouse can't be sailing one.
- Shows up in the ending to "Juwanna Mann", where a male basketball player is forced to play for a WNBA team, crossdressed, and wins the final game for them. He wins by making a slam dunk, which IS forbidden in WNBA rules. In fact, it was brought up earlier in the movie that he could NOT score using slam dunks.
- Necessary Roughness" and Waterboy. Ain't no rule that a man can't play football among boys!
- In D2: The Mighty Ducks, the Ducks try on new uniforms (which were the uniforms of the just-created Anaheim Ducks, which in the timeline of the films were not yet invented) for the third period of the final game (they before had been Team USA). Despite the opposing coach's protests, the play-by-play announcer notes that he has "just been informed that there is no rule against changing uniforms during a game".
Literature
- In the second Flat Stanley book, Stanley ends up being used as a sail in a boat race. A judge is heard saying that it is not against the rules to use your team mate as a sail.
- The Kid Who Ran For Principal by Judy K. Morris. Ain't no rule that says a student can't run for interim principal for the purpose of firing an ineffective and cruel teacher.
- In the Thursday Next novel Something Rotten, Aint No Rule saying a genetically re-engineered Neanderthal can't play croquet (although it was in dispute; there are rules saying non-humans can't).
- Well, anything in genus Homo is technically human...
- Wasn't this one more of a subversion? The rule that non-humans cannot play croquet would normally have prevented him from playing, but the reconstruction involved using some human genes for the vocal cords. As a result of the small percent of human DNA, he wasn't technically non-human, so they let him play.
- In L. Sprague de Camp's short story "Nothing in the Rules", one team at a girls' swimming competition contains a mermaid, who of course wins everything. In response to the opposition's outrage, the team coach points out that the rules only specify that all entrants must be female; nothing is said about species. The officials are reluctantly forced to admit that he's right. Whereupon the opposing coach visits the city zoo and borrows a female seal, who (properly incentivized with a bucket of fish) outswims the mermaid.
- In Real Life, human-only clause or no, both seal and mermaid would be immediately disqualified for not using the proper swimming form called for by the event.
- De Camp addresses this, if memory serves, by only having the mermaid compete in the freestyle events.
- De Camp wrote a similar story, Throwback in which a genetically recreated prehistoric human becomes a football player. In this case any "humans only" rules don't apply because before the story began the recreated cavemen fought for their civil rights and were legally recognized as people, even though they are technically not the same species as most humans.
- Non-sports example in Discworld, with its orangutan Librarian: "The librarian was, ex officio, a member of the college council. No one had been able to find any rule about orangutans being barred, although they had surreptitiously looked very hard for one." Less ridiculous than it sounds, though, since he became an orangutan after he became the librarian.
- Susan's thought process in Soul Music, on the subject of leaving school without permission:
There's going to be trouble over this. ... I'm on the back of a horse a hundred feet up in the air, being taken somewhere mysterious that's a bit like a magic land with goblins and talking animals. There's only so much more trouble I could get into... Besides, is riding a flying horse against school rules? I bet it's not written down anywhere.
- In Discworld, the laws of nature work like this; Ponder Stibbons has discovered that, like a busy local authority, the universe has failed to forbid a lot of things simply because it never occurred to it anyone would do them. The trick is to get things done before the universe rewrites the rulebook and pretends it was impossible all along. The breakthrough came with the invention of Hex, which can repeat the same spell several times a minute in minutely different ways, the universe making each one impossible just too late, allowing him to (for example) assemble the texts of books that haven't yet been written.
- ...while it is true we have to ride out, Death added, drawing his sword, it doesn't say anywhere against whom.
- Sports example, the Librarian again - Aint No Rule saying an orangutan can't play football! Since the wizards are writing the rules of football themselves as they go along, of course, there wouldn't be...
- Another non-animal: in the Macdonald Hall book The Zucchini Warriors by Gordon Korman, Cathy from the girls' boarding school across the street pulls a Sweet Polly Oliver and serves as quarterback, leading the team to victory. Naturally, once it's found out, the team coach attempts to argue that girls can too play football (despite having said in a prior interview that they can't). The referee shuts this down by pointing out that, as this is the Macdonald Hall football team and Cathy is not a student there, she's not eligible to play.
- In Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, it is a frequently cited legal precedent that there ain't no rule a horse can't be a count's heir (or at least, there wasn't in Lord Midnight Vortala's time).
- Ain't no rule that a chicken can't be mayor. This one is from the book Herb Seasoning by Julian Thompson. Said chicken actually understands English and can write in (no pun intended) chicken scratch, but she's really being used as a figurehead for a conman. Long story, just read the book. Oh, and there Aint No Rule that says the cure for depression can't be a mixture of eel slime and aspirin. Applied topically, of course.
- Perhaps not a sport in the normal sense, but Ender wins a Battle Room match with this, due to the victory condition just being opening the enemy's gate. Everyone had just assumed that you had to disable all the enemy soldiers first...
- Aint No Rule is Ender's chronical condition. Actually, those "omitting" those rules wanted Ender to "break" them. And Ender fails in his own eyes because he wants to break rules and be disqualified. The victory over Buggers is won using a very similar against-rules move; Ender thought the battle was simulated and he would be disqualified for his crazy/suicidal/xenocidal tactics.
- In Thomas E. Spencer's poem "How McDougal Topped the Score
 , McDougal's dog isn't technically playing cricket... but there ain't no rule that says you can't get your dog to fetch the ball and keep it away from the fielding side while you run 50!
Live Action TV
- On Family Matters, Steve Urkel challenges Laura's Guy of the Week to a contest to see who can climb to the top of a rope faster. The loser has to stay away from Laura forever. Steve is absolutely terrible at rope climbing, but he wins because there Aint No Rule that says he can't use a rocket pack to fly to the top instead of climbing in the usual way. This is quite ridiculous as a way of winning a rope-climbing contest, because, well, it's not rope climbing! The guy in question never appears again, but a generous interpretation would claim that he just faded into the background like every other girl/guy of the week, and didn't stay away because he actually honored Steve Urkel's beating him in the contest.
- In Babylon 5, Ivanova becomes the Green Drazi leader by grabbing the former leader's ceremonial sash:
Ivanova: You're saying just because I'm holding this right now, I'm Green leader? But I'm human!
Green Drazi: Rules of combat older than contact with other races. Did not mention aliens. (looks embarrassed) Rules change... caught up in committee. Not come through yet.
- On The Brady Bunch, Marcia joins Greg's Boy Scout troop because there Aint No Rule that says a girl can't be a Boy Scout. Greg tries to retaliate by joining Marcia's Sunflower Girls Group, but he is prevented because in his case, there is a rule- not against boys joining the group, but because there is an age limit which he is too old for. Instead, he gets younger brother Peter to join.
- Similarly, on My Three Sons, Chip once joined the girls' field hockey team (in retaliation for a girl attempting to join the track team.) There Wasn't No Rule preventing this, but there was a rule about uniforms, which forced Chip to play wearing a skirt, at which point Hilarity Ensued. This troper's vague and possibly inaccurate recollection is that the conflict was ultimately resolved by Chip unexpectedly turning out to be a lousy field hockey player compared to the more experienced girls, and Learning a Valuable Lesson.
- One episode of The Twilight Zone has a coach putting a robot on his baseball team as the pitcher - ain't no rule against that. But then the team doctor informs him that the rules do say a baseball team consists of "nine men". Trying to correct this by giving the robot a heart ruins it.
Puzzles
- A puzzle requires drawing a full box with an X in the middle without taking your pencil off the paper. Normally, this would be impossible...but there Aint No Rule that says you can't fold the paper over before you start to draw; with this trick, you just draw a square "C" over where the the paper overlaps, unfold the paper so the "c" "breaks" into two horizontal lines, then draw an hourglass in the empty space, all without lifting up the pencil.
- I've never seen that variation, I'm more familiar with having to draw a circle with a dot in the middle without taking your pencil off the paper.
- It should be noted also that you are not allowed to write over the same line twice in the above example, and the way I learned to work around it was to simply draw a triangle on the outer edge of the box to circumvent one of the edges, making it possible.
Tabletop Games
- One Magic The Gathering card exemplified this trope: Chaos Orb. To wit, the card says that to use it, you have to drop it from a height of at least one foot and have it flip completely over at least once. When it hit the table, any card it touched was removed from play along with it. Two versions of this trope became apparent:
- Ain't no rule that says you can't rearrange your cards to absurd places so that no two cards would be able to be touched by the Orb (there quickly was one that said you couldn't move any after the Orb started being used), and
- Ain't no rule that says you have to have your Chaos Orb in one piece when you throw it. (There was, however, a rule about the minimum number of cards in a deck, and destroying one (literally) of your cards in the deck broke the rule about altering deck configuration, so...) This led to the joke Unglued card Chaos Confetti.
Video Games
- Explicitly invoked by Aegis in Persona 3: "Nowhere in the school regulations does it state that canines are prohibited from attending school." It doesn't happen.
- My World, My Way is built around Ain't No Rule as a gameplay aspect. Why struggle when whining can change your situation?
- The secret opponent in the 2009 Punch Out game is none other than Donkey Kong
Webcomics
- Webcomics trope-poking: Red Mage of 8-Bit Theater would like to direct your attention to the Air Bud clause (Ain't no rule that says you can't use dice in rock-paper-scissors).
- Spoofed in this xkcd strip.
- The webcomic Concerned (set in the world of Half Life 2) shows the erstwhile hero telling a monster called a Gargantua "There's no rule against having a Garg play soccer! This is gonna be the best season EVER!"
- In the webcomic Brat-halla, there ain't no rule saying that a god dueling another as a tie-breaker in the Pantheon Games can't call in his independently sentient, disembodied eyeball in a Humongous Mecha to help him.
- For extra amusement, after t'other god tries to cite its absence in the rules, that there ain't no rule saying you can, the eyeball in its mech comes in and cites the rule in question. Linksky.
- Subverted in this strip of Chasing The Sunset.
- According to The Whiteboard, there is no rule forbidding the use of cross-country skis in paintball games. Doc checked very carefully.
Web Original
Western Animation
- Parodied on The Simpsons; after adopting a horse, Homer spends hours training it as a placekicker, then checks the rulebook to see if horses can play in the NFL. (Turns out, there is a rule.)
- In the Looney Tunes short "Gone Batty", when the Gas House Gorillas knock out the heroes' lineup with dirty tricks, the Sweetwater Shnooks put their mascot, a baby elephant named Bobo, in to play for them. The Gorillas protest, but as the umpire says, "There's nothing in the rule book that says an elephant can't pitch! Now play ball!"
- Done again in "Baseball Bugs", but with the elephant (and everyone else on the team) replaced by Bugs Bunny. Who then proceeds to invoke Loophole Abuse everywhere.
- Parodied on Clone High, where Lincoln directs a film called 'It Takes a Hero', based on the premise that "There's no rule that says a giraffe can't play football."
- Subverted in another episode, where there is a rule that says that women and animals cannot play boys' basketball.
- In the 1980's Dennis The Menace cartoon, there ain't no rule that says a dog can't play football. There is, however, a rule that says plays cannot be made with a player's mouth, so Ruff is disqualified.
- An episode of South Park that parodied (and was slightly named after) You Got Served (and these kinds of movies), had Stan's Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits dancing team include a dancing duck. Who gets injured, forcing Butters to finally join the crew with disastrous results.
- Even then, apparently there Ain't No Rule saying one team can't cause the death of the entire other team
- There also ain't no rule that a peewee hockey team can't stand in for the Colorado Avalance against the Detroit Red Wings.
- An old episode of "Bots Masterd" had a robot playing children's baseball since each team was allowed one robot. (for carrying equipment but the rule didn't specify)
- Kim Possible, there is no rule that Ron can't try out, for the Cheer Squad.
- Of course not. Male cheerleaders, though rarer than female ones, are still very real. It's against a number of discrimination laws to bar either sex from anything, including cheer leading. Especially since he was a mascot.
- In an episode of Noddy In Toytown, Noddy is attempting to tow a giant jelly with his car, only for it to become unhitched as he is going up a hill, so it rolls back down it. The jelly rolls into Toytown where Noddy is finally able to stop it. An amused Mr. Plod (the policeman) sees the jelly and consults his rule book, and while there is a section on jelly there is nothing against the law over speeding jellies.
- King Of The Hill, Ain't No Rule that says a 45-year-old high school dropout can't come back and play the last game of the season for his old team, just for the sake of tying a record.
- Actually, there is. From the UIL eligibility guidelines, a player is ineligible to play high school sports if they "are [not] enrolled in a four year, normal program of high school courses, and initially enrolled in the 9th grade ... more than 4 years ago or in the 10th grade ... more than 3 years ago." I'm pretty sure this guy is a ways away from being a freshman, so...
- Animaniacs: Ain't No Rule that a chicken can't have whatever job he wants. Of course, no matter how well Chicken Boo does, he'll still get run out of town once he's found out.
Real Life
- The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Founders knew that in any situation for which there Ain't No Rule, the government would be tempted to claim authority. The amendment prevents this by flipping the onus around: any powers that the Constitution doesn't specifically assign to the federal government are delegated to the states or the people, which of those is not specified.
- Averted, the federal government has successfully stretched the Interstate Commerce Clause so that it can put its hands in any cookie jars it wants to.
- Specifically, the ICC states that the federal government has authority over any affair taking place in multiple states (more or less) that's commerce related. The federal government has used the clause for such esoteric things as the FBI, the Interstate Highway System, and more.
- The Ninth Amendment would also apply; this is the "including but not limited to" amendment. It states just because certain individual rights have been laid out in the earlier amendments doesn't mean there aren't other rights that haven't been laid out. This is always fun to point to when someone says, "Show where in the Constitution...."
- This is where the Right to Privacy comes from, in theory. Many people have tried to challenge it on the basis it having no basis in the constitution, which is where the catch-all clause comes in.
- Ain't no rule that a student can't be elected to the school board: documentary-maker Michael Moore. http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=1999-12-12
- Real Life human example: Bill Veeck, former owner of the Cleveland Indians, did this as a publicity stunt on occasion. Ain't No Rule that says a midget can't pinch-hit! Ain't No Rule that says a one-armed man can't play center field!
- That second one was from World War Two, when most of the two-armed players were overseas.
- The first may have been inspired (though Veeck denied it) by the James Thurber short story "You Could Look It Up," in which the manager of a team in a slump puts a midget in to pinch hit to walk in the tying run. The story is a double subversion: The midget swings at and hits a pitch, and because he can't run, is thrown out at first, losing the game. However, the hysteria that results from him pinch-hitting breaks the team out of their slump and they go on to win the pennant.
- And like many of the real life examples on this page, a rule was instituted once the lack of a rule was exploited. In this case, midgets specifically were not banned, but a rule was passed stating that in the future, all players' contracts had to be approved by the league office before the player could play in a game- and the commissioner made it clear that stunts like the Eddie Gaedel incident would NOT be approved.
- There is, however, a rule against batting sitting or laying down. (Which would also make it nearly impossible to hit someone's strike zone without also hitting the ground.)
- Another real life example: George Burns and Harpo Marx were once playing golf on a very hot day, and decided to take their shirts off. A nearby group complained, and the club manager came out to inform them that club rules required them to wear shirts on the course. A little while later, he received another complaint - this time they were playing without pants. When he went out to tell them to put pants on, they asked to see the rulebook on that - and it turned out that there was no rule requiring club members to wear pants on the course, because nobody had ever thought to need it.
- This may have been the inspiration for an English amateur cricket team barred from entering the dining room of the hotel in which they were staying on the grounds that they were not wearing ties. To his credit, the maitre'd apparently took them reappearing wearing properly-knotted ties but no shirts or trousers in the spirit in which it was intended.
- The downs system of American football and basketball's shot clock were added when teams took advantage of the lack of such a rule to simply indefinitely keep possession of the ball.
- Lord Byron, famed English poet, was forced to send his dog home during college, as Cambridge forbade keeping one. Byron's response was, of course, to scour the rules and find that there was no specific prohibition against keeping a bear. Obviously, he got one.
- Ain't no rule that says a horse can't sit on the Roman Senate.
- Ain't no rule that says a penguin can't be Colonel-In-Chief of the Norwegian King's Guards.
- Ain't no rule a Bear can't enlist in the Polish Army. (NSFW version)
- Ain't no rule a cat can't be a train station master in Japan.
- At the time of the infamous "Snowplow Game" in 1982, there really wasn't a rule you couldn't plow a section of the field in football before a field goal. Needless to say, after the game there was one.
- Making it funnier? The plow driver was on a prison work release program...for robbery.
- Ain't no rule that says robot cats can't serve as ambassadors in the Japanese government.
- Ain't no rule that says a dog can't be enlisted in the Royal Navy.
- Avoided by most Internet services (forums, hosts, etc.) in that their Terms of Use specifically say you can be reprimanded for any reason by the owners/moderators. Effectively seals the "Ain't no rule" loophole.
- Similarly, try reading a software EULA or copyright agreement all the way through. They can be paraphrased as saying "We can do whatever we want, whenever we want, and you have no rights whatsoever." The phrase "in perpetuity throughout the universe" is popular.
- Ain't no rule that says you can't drop trou during a halftime speech or penalty kick.
- There may not be a rule, but there's usually a law...
- All laws are, by definition, rules. So if there is a law, there is, in fact, a rule. Which makes it really funny when people try to use this justification for steroid use (which has been illegal without perscription in the United States since 1990).
- I'd say that this is the wrong trope for that...try this one.
- Ain't no rule that says a fictional pundit can't run for President. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party of South Carolina decided there was a rule that said all candidates had to be "serious".
- Pat Paulsen did it first, in 1968. Then again in 1972, 1980, 1988, 1992, and 1996.
- Election law also has a rule about incumbents appearing on TV - the network has to give equal airtime to each candidate. When one of the candidates has his own daily TV show, it makes things problematic.
- As if the other candidates' don't already each have a half-hour's worth of ads on each network, each day during the campaign. Suuure.
- This also came up during Governor Schwarzenegger's election campaigns; networks which had planned various airings of his movies were forced to cancel them, as airing a candidate's film work would have the same legal effect as airing his political advertisements.
- Likewise, NBC was unable to re-run the episodes of Law And Order featuring Fred Thompson, when he was running for President in the 2008 election cycle.
- While in Britain the law is adamant that a motor-bicycle & side-car set is still a motor-bicycle – not a motor-tricycle or a motor-car, they’re not to picky as to what defines a motor-car, which leads on to: There ain’t no rule saying you can’t take you ‘B’ Licence practical test with a motor-bicycle. The four criteria for allowing a vehicle to be a test candidate’s choice for a ‘B’ licence test (the one a car driver has to pass):
- A: Vehicle must be capable of at least 100km/h.
- B: The seat the examiner is to sit in must have an adjustable headrest.
- C: The seat the examiner is to sit in must have a working safety—belt.
- D: A suitable area must be made available on the vehicle so the examiner can place his own rear—view mirror.
- Attaching a side—car to a motorcycle makes it possible to satisfy the last three criteria. If the candidate passes, they are allowed to drive a car without having to have seen the inside of one!
- This is likely an artefact of the days when passing a test in a car entitled you to ride a motorcycle as well, which is really not much more sensible.
- One year in the mid-seventies, the University of Regina's Anarchist Party ran a frozen turkey as their candidate for president of the student council. And won. (Student government for that year consisted of weekly general meetings open to all students and motions decided by majority vote, over which the turkey presided.) At the end of the year, the Anarchists cooked and ate their president. Possibly U of R's charter was amended to prevent this reoccurring.
- Michael Larson managed to take home $110,000 in winnings on Press Your Luck by finding and exploiting a flaw in the way in the game worked. By freeze-framing videotapes of the show and memorizing the patterns in which the light moved around the board, Larson was able to time his buzzer presses so that they always stopped on the most advantageous squares. CBS protested, but in the end, they were forced to give Larson the money because even though his win was far from kosher, nothing he did was technically against the rules.
- There wasn't a rule for a lot of things in the US Army, until Skippy came along.
- That's the case for a lot of Skippy's entries, but there are also a few where he was quite surprised to find there WAS a rule.
- There was no rule in cricket about bodyline, or beaning, the batsmen. The English cricket team took full advantage of this during an Ashes test against Australia, with riots predicted over the repeated balls flung full speed at the head of cricketing legend Sir Donald Bradman. After the infamous match bodyline was written into the rule book.
- Similarly, until a certain Australia vs New Zealand match in the early 80s, there was no rule saying you couldn't bowl underarm. New Zealand required a six (ball hit over the fence without touching the ground) off the final delivery to tie the game, so Australian captain Greg Chappell ordered his brother Trevor to roll the ball along the ground.
- In 1980s Japan, there was a rule banning the uncensored display of the penetration of a vagina by a penis. However, there was no rules against phallic tentacles doing so.
- And before that, censorship laws only forbade the display of pubic hair; genitals were, technically, okay. You can see where I'm going with this.
- Likewise, the used schoolgirl panties started being sold in vending machines because there wasn't a law on the books restricting it.
- In casinos offering Blackjack, card-counting with a device is illegal. However, card-counting in your head is not.
- This has not, however, stopped them from throwing out people who they suspect of doing so. Technically a casino could throw out anyone who just happens to be winning a lot if they felt like it. Ain't no rule says they can't!
- This Troper has a close friend who is a casino guard who can attest to this. For the record, though, you have to win a LOT before they would consider ejecting you, as one high winner doesn't really affect the casino that much and is, in fact, a walking advertisement.
- At one of the Winter Olympics, Canadian Skiers didn't know there was a rule against "tobogganing", or slowing yourself using your butt. When they did this, other athletes immediately complained to the judges, who opened that year's rulebook to cite it — and discovered the rule against this maneuver had been accidently omitted...
- Norse Law used to work like this. Each year the laws were read out (about 1/3rd a year) and if a law was left out and no one made a point of it that law was removed.
- There may be a rule in baseball and softball about teammates assisting a runner, but there's not one about opponents assisting a runner...which led to a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming when college softballer Sara Tucholsky hit the only home run of her career, but tore her ACL rounding first. Two members of the opposing team carried her around the bases so her home run would count. (More complete summary at the Real Life C Mo H page)
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