Basic Trope: A grumpy adult who confiscates the toys of children that wind up on their property.
- Straight: Little Billy is kicking around his football, which slams against the front door of Old Man Jenkins. Old Man Jenkins storms out, grabs the ball, and gasps "Dang kids! Keep your toys away from my yard!" before taking the ball inside, never to be seen again.
- Exaggerated:
- Instead of walking back inside with the ball, Old Man Jenkins opens up his garage to reveal a pile of similar footballs, onto which he tosses Billy's.
- Billy manages to retrieve the ball before Old Man Jenkins can grab it. Jenkins breaks into Billy's home to steal it.
- Downplayed:
- Old Man Jenkins, a standard Cranky Neighbor, tells Billy to get his football off his lawn when it lands there and warns Billy if it lands there a second time, he's confiscating it.
- Old Man Jenkins confiscates the football and tells Billy he'll only return it to Billy's father.
- Justified: The ball belonged to Old Man Jenkins to begin with, he just let Billy borrow it on the condition Billy only got to keep it for as long as he managed to keep it on on his own lawn.
- Inverted: Old Man Jenkins is kicking around a football, reminiscing on his career as a coach, but accidentally lands it at the feet of Billy, the neighborhood brat, who taunts Jenkins before taking it inside.
- Subverted: Old Man Jenkins angrily confiscates Billy's football, but later returns it to him, apologizing, saying that his mood can sometimes get the better of him.
- Double Subverted: Billy and Timmy are kicking around a football, but accidentally kick it at Old Man Jenkins' front door, who then storms out. Timmy warns "Uh oh, that's Old Man Jenkins. He steals kids toys that land in his yard." Jenkins shouts out "Hey kids! You want your ball back?" "Yes! Thanks!" "Well you're not getting it!" Then Jenkins takes the ball inside.
- Parodied:
- Xoltar, conqueror of worlds, lands his ship on Old Man Jenkins' yard, ready to claim another planet. But Jenkins storms out, shouts "Dang Alien Conquerors! Keep your spaceships away from my yard!" before locking the ship in his garage.
- Old Man Jenkins the Crazy Survivalist neighbor shoots the ball out of the sky like a skeet before it can hit his door and takes the remains into his home.
- Old Man Jenkins does not confiscates the ball. He confiscates Billy.
- Zig Zagged: Billy and Timmy are kicking around a football, but accidentally kick it at Old Man Jenkins' front door, who then storms out. Timmy warns "Uh oh, that's Old Man Jenkins. He steals kids toys that land in his yard." Jenkins shouts out "Hey kids! You want your ball back?" "Yes! Thanks!" "Well you're not getting it!" Then Jenkins takes the ball inside. But then next day Billy and Timmy knock on on his door, and after several rounds of "Can we PLEASE have our ball back?" "No!", Jenkins finally gives it to them, but warns them that if it ever lands on his lawn again, it's gone for good. They land it on his lawn again next week.
- Averted: Billy acientally kicks his football into the lawn of Old Man Jenkins, who invites Billy to come play with his grandson, Alex.
- Enforced: "Billy just got the football last episode for Christmas, so we should probably have an episode where the conflict revolves around it getting stolen from him."
- Lampshaded: "Oh man! Every neighborhood I move to has that one grumpy old guy who confiscates kid's toys!"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: The ball is actually a disguised bomb given to Billy by his dad, an assassin paid to take out Old Man Jenkins, knowing that Billy would accidentally knock it into Jenkins' yard.
- Defied:
- Billy consciously avoids Old Man Jenkins' house, knowing that if the ball landed in the man's yard, Billy would never get it back.
- Old Man Jenkins refuses to discipline neighborhood children via theft, instead taking it up with their parents.
- Discussed: "Why are there so few old people willing to just return people's property to them after finding its way onto their lawn?"
- Conversed: "You'd think the parents of all these kids would try talking to the old guy that stole their ball."
- Deconstructed: Billy goes to his dad after Jenkins confiscates his ball, who gives Jenkins an angry phone call, threatening to report Jenkins to the cops for theft of property "Unless you return the ball I paid for with MY own money RIGHT THIS SECOND!"
- Reconstructed:
- Old Man Jenkins has Alzheimer's and is currently living in the days when his own (now grown up and moved out) son would frequently forget to bring his ball back inside at night, so whenever a football lands in his yard, he brings it inside, thinking it's his son's.
- Billy is too much of a brat to learn his lesson any other way.
- Old Man Jenkins is a Small-Town Tyrant and while this is a small and petty demonstration of his power, it is a demonstration of his power. "Well, I gave you that money, I own you, the police, the mayor, the judge and the governor, and if your dumbass son ever drops a toy in my lawn again, I will fire you, foreclose your house AND KILL HIM! [slams down the phone]"]
- Played for Horror:
- Immediately afterwards, Billy knocks and calmly states in his Creepy Monotone "Give it back." Even after Jenkins slams the door, Billy knocks again and says it again, only louder and more aggresive. Then when Jenkins storms off, Billy appears before him shooting a Death Glare and screeching that statement. Jenkins can only scream and beg for mercy, even offering up the football at last.
- Old Man Jenkins is a child-murdering Serial Killer who believes annihilating a child is the ultimate "confiscation of fun" — you deny them a future, and all the fun things they would have done, all the fun they may have spread. Serves the whole damned world right for letting that kid drop a ball on his lawn.
