Basic Trope: A giant monster that's in a city and usually (whether intentionally or not) attacking it, sees a food-shaped sign and eats it, thinking it to be actual food.
- Straight: A giant dinosaur is stomping through a city and sees a giant ice-cream shaped sign on top of an ice cream truck. The dinosaur says, "Mm, ice cream", and eats it.
- Exaggerated: The dinosaur eats all the food-shaped signs in the town.
- Downplayed: The dinosaur only takes a lick.
- Justified:
- The dinosaur was not very smart and the sign was very realistic.
- The dinosaur is very hungry.
- The dinosaur's digestive system is geared towards the materials the billboard is made from.
- Inverted: The dinosaur is in a Level Ate and sees some Giant Food shaped like a clock and either eats it because it eats clocks or tries to tell the time on it.
- Subverted: The dinosaur picks the ice cream sign up but doesn't eat it.
- Double Subverted: Another one does.
- Parodied: The dinosaur notes, "That tastes funny" after eating it.
- Zigzagged: There are several 50-foot dinosaurs and they pass the sign around, trying to decide whether or not to eat it.
- Averted: The dinosaur doesn't eat the sign.
- Enforced: To add a joke in the scene where a giant monster rampages through the town.
- Lampshaded: "Hey! That sign was very expensive and the monster ate it!"
- Invoked: The townspeople feed the dinosaur the food-shaped signs in hopes it won't eat them.
- Exploited:
- The dinosaur was raiding the town for food. That sign satiates it and it leaves, so everyone wins.
- The heroes subdue the dinoasaur by pacing the sign with tranquilizers.
- Defied:
- The dinosaur refuses to eat anything in that town.
- The townsfolk refuse to put up food-shaped signs, for fear that a monster may eat them.
- Discussed: "I wonder how that sign tasted to that monster?"
- Conversed: "You know that thing where a monster eats a food-shaped sign, thinking it's food?"
- Implied: The ice cream sign is there in one scene, but not there in the next.
- Deconstructed: The dinosaur gets sick.
- Reconstructed: The dinosaur's body works differently from ours, and it can stomach anything.
- Played for Laughs: The dinosaur puts salt and pepper on a sign of a burger before eating it.
- Played for Drama: The dinosaur looks like it's about to eat a shop shaped like what it sells, but there are people in it!
Back to This Billboard Needs Some Salt.
