History Main / CueTheFlyingPigs

* In the ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'' short ''WesternAnimation/RileysFirstDate'', Riley's Mom tells her that her father would never embarrass her in front of her friend, just before AC/DC plays loudly downstairs.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'', the rarity of two genies falling in love is illustrated by the presence of [[UpToEleven flying pigs playing croquet in the skies above Agrabah]].

* Music/PinkFloyd's ''{{Music/Animals}}'' [[BookEnds opens and closes]] with "Pigs on the Wing" (and the album's cover has an inflatable pig, which was carried over to the band's live performances).

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'':
** In season 6's "Best of the Nest", [[LiteralMinded Binky]] asks Brain if he thinks it'll be cold in the summer because the former asked his dad for a computer; his dad said that he would...when it snows in July.

* A joke: In the [[TheSeventies 1970's]], people said America would have a black president when pigs fly. In 2008, they elected UsefulNotes/BarackObama, and sure enough, [[BlackComedy swine]] [[JustForPun flu]].

* There's a Bush's Baked Beans [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwby5Mleyz0 ad]] where Duke asks Jay, "Are you ever going to let me sell the secret family recipe?" Jay replies, "Sure, when pigs fly". GilliganCut to Duke talking to a pig with improvised wings getting ready for takeoff: "Now, just buzz around the house a couple of times and that should do it."

* There's a Bush's Baked Beans ad where Duke asks Jay, "Are you ever going to let me sell the secret family recipe?" Jay replies, "Sure, when pigs fly". GilliganCut to Duke talking to a pig with improvised wings getting ready for takeoff: "Now, just buzz around the house a couple of times and that should do it."

* A joke: In the [[TheSeventies 1970's]], people said America would have a black president when pigs fly. In 2008, they elected UsefulNotes/BarackObama, and sure enough, [[BlackComedy swine]][[JustForPun flu]].

* A joke: In the 1970's, people said America would have a black president when pigs fly. In 2008, they elected UsefulNotes/BarackObama, and sure enough, [[JustForPun swine flu]].

** Kyle's parents will only allow him to go to a concert when he cleans out the garage, shovels the driveway, and brings democracy to Cuba. His parents explain that he wasn't actually supposed to accomplish the last one but he expressed more concern about shoveling the whole driveway.

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}''. In "Dead to Rights", Oliver is trying to repair the radio in the crashed airplane they've taken shelter in. Slade has just killed a boar and brought it back to eat. He says Oliver will get the radio working when pigs fly. Just then Oliver gets it to work, and [[VisualPun Slade throws the boar off his shoulders]] as he rushes over to the radio.

* Subverted in ''Film/AngelsInTheOutfield''. Roger's dad tells him that he'll take him out of foster care and they'll be a family again "when the Angels win the pennant" -- meaning never (the Angels were in last place in the standings at the All-Star Break, a little past the halfway point of the season), only Roger [[InnocentInaccurate takes it literally]] and [[AchievementsInIgnorance makes it happen]], with the aid of supernatural beings. [[TearJerker/AngelsInTheOutfield His dad leaves him in the custody of the state anyway.]] In the ''{{Website/Cracked}}'' spoof, Roger's friend J.P. quips "[[TakeThat It could be worse, he could've said the Padres!]]" [[spoiler:It gets DoubleSubverted at the very end when Roger and J.P. gets adopted by the Angels' manager George Knox; ExactWords come into play because Roger's prayer about wishing for the Angels baseball team to win the pennant never specified that the family he wanted out of it had to include his biological father.]]

* Subverted in ''Film/AngelsInTheOutfield''. Roger's dad tells him that he'll take him out of foster care and they'll be a family again "when the Angels win the pennant" -- meaning never (the Angels were in last place in the standings at the All-Star Break, a little past the halfway point of the season), only Roger [[InnocentInaccurate takes it literally]] and [[AchievementsInIgnorance makes it happen]], with the aid of supernatural beings. [[TearJerker/AngelsInTheOutfield His dad leaves him in the custody of the state anyway.]] In the ''{{Website/Cracked}}'' spoof, Roger's friend quips "[[TakeThat It could be worse, he could've said the Padres!]]"

* Appropriate headlines were done when Apple switched to Intel processors.

* Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin aligning himself with long-time ArchEnemy Wrestling/VinceMcMahon at ''Wrestling/{{WrestleMania}} X-Seven''.

* At ''TLC 2011'', Wrestling/CMPunk, Wrestling/ZackRyder, and [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson Daniel Bryan]] walk out as the WWE Champion, US Champion, and World Heavyweight Champion respectively. Punk and Bryan are Indies wrestlers, which have great difficulty in the WWE and them alone would be enough. Zack Ryder? He was a ''jobber'' who worked his way up to this point through sure, home grown PopularityPower he got purely by himself! This is probably the single biggest Cue The Flying Pigs moment in ''WWE history!'' CM Punk, being who he is, [[LampshadeHanging lampshades this]] to no end the next night.
* Speaking of CM Punk, this was the general reaction when Punk made Vince apologize to him ''on live television''.

* While he remained involved in professional wrestling on some level or another over the years even after retiring, if one only watched WWE, you'd get the impression Wrestling/BrunoSammartino had nothing to do with the sport whatsoever due to a long-standing hatred of Vince [=McMahon=]. So him going to the Wrestling/WWEHallOfFame in 2013 was this to many, be they WWE fans who thought he fell off the grid or fans of other promotions who insisted Bruno had no incentive to take WWE's offer, already being in ''their'' halls of fame.
* Wrestling/BarryHorowitz teaming in Wrestling/AllJapanProWrestling with ''[[Wrestling/StanHansen STAN HANSEN]]'' qualifies, not so much because of any feud between the two, but because of how Hansen is one of the biggest foreign stars in the history of Japanese wrestling and Barry is best known, unfortunately, for his long losing streak.

* Wrestling/ReyMysterio winning the Royal Rumble 2006 for a number of reasons: 1) he's billed at 5'6, pretty much the smallest wrestler on the WWE roster at the time, 2) this is just months after Wrestling/EddieGuerrero's passing and this match was in his memory, and 3) he's the #2 entrant, Wrestling/TripleH being #1. He won through it all, and still holds the record at longest Royal Rumble time at ''62 minutes''.

* In 2001, a wrestler with Wrestling/WorldChampionshipWrestling stated that he didn't want to work with Wrestling/VinceMcMahon (and for a good reason considering what he did with some other WCW talent...). 13 Years later at Wrestling/SurvivorSeries, Wrestling/{{Sting}} debuted.

* If not that, then definitely ''Takeover: Brooklyn'', which may perhaps be the first time in WWE history that fans agreed the best match of the night was a ''Divas'' match (Wrestling/{{Bayley}} vs. Wrestling/SashaBanks) -- let alone that it is far-and-away the frontrunner for Match of the Year (rivaled only by the Lesnar/Cena/Rollins triple threat at the Royal Rumble). The last MOTY with that unanimous level of consent? John Cena vs. CM Punk at ''Money in the Bank'' 2011. It got the point that [[ToughActToFollow just having to follow that match]] was the biggest flaw of the [[Wrestling/KevinSteen Kevin Owens]] vs. [[Wrestling/FergalDevitt Finn Balor]] main event. Adding to that, for the first time ever, the WWE Divas got to headline a WWE special when the thirty-minute Iron(wo)man (re)Match between Bayley and Sasha Banks was made the main event for ''Takeover: Respect''. If ''Brooklyn'' hadn't sent the pigs sailing, that sure as hell did.

** On June 13, 2018, WWE uploaded a video of The New Day preparing for a video game showdown at E3 where they would play ''VideoGame/StreetFighterV''. WWE made sure to mention their opponents...'''Wrestling/KennyOmega and Wrestling/TheYoungBucks'''. Yes, WWE actually mentioned those names on their website.

* Wrestling/RomanReigns was pretty much designated as the next Wrestling/JohnCena, despite the active resistance of the fans. That meant he would always win and only lose via shenanigans. It seemed nothing would change Wrestling/VinceMcMahon's mind about that. And then, not even three months after they finally gave him his moment at ''Wrestling/WrestleMania 32'' to the disgust of the majority of the fanbase, [[EpicFail he violated the Wellness Policy]]. That meant the company had to get the title off him ASAP before he went on a forced vacation. He subsequently lost clean to Wrestling/SethRollins for the title, and then Wrestling/DeanAmbrose, of whom many were convinced the company was ''never'' going to pull the trigger on, cashed in his newly won Wrestling/MoneyInTheBank contract to finally become WWE Champion. After setting up Wrestling/TheShield triple threat for ''Battleground'' the following night, Roman was suspended. When he came back, he ate another clean pin from Wrestling/DeanAmbrose for the triple threat, much to the shock of the fans. And yet, despite this unprecedented turn of events, the IWC was ''still'' convinced Roman would get back his push soon afterwards. It wasn't until Roman ate another clean pin, at the hands of Wrestling/FinnBalor no less, who had just debuted on the main roster, to make Finn the new #1 contender for the new WWE Universal Championship, did fans realize how deep in the doghouse Reigns was.
* For nearly nine years after his retirement, nobody, not even the man himself, would believe you if you said that Wrestling/{{Edge}} would wrestle again, let alone win a Wrestling/RoyalRumble and main event Wrestling/{{Wrestlemania}}.

* After seven long years of people giving up hope that CM Punk would ever return to pro wrestling, [[HesBack he finally came back]] and under the banner of Wrestling/{{AEW}} to boot.

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': In "The Time Traveler's Pig", Stan has Soos modify a dunk tank so that the dunking mechanism can't be triggered. Soos does so, and claims that it would take "some sort of futuristic laser arm cannon" to actually set it off. Unfortunately, he didn't account for time travelers from the future who happen to have laser guns...

* This was the reaction of a lot of computer user's given Microsoft's openness to Linux in the late '10s, hosting Linux servers on its Azure cloud computing service and releasing its Windows Subsystem for Linux. It happened again with Richard Stallman giving a talk at Microsoft headquarters in 2019.

* Director Creator/WernerHerzog said that he would eat his shoe if Erroll Herris finished his documentary "Gates Of Heaven". Herris did, so he did.

* Creator/HunterSThompson and the Battle of Aspen. Thompson ran for Sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, of which Aspen is the county seat. Folks said that the long-haired hippie-types who formed the "Freak Power" movement to elect Thompson would win when pigs flew, or some such. Thompson shaved his (already [[BaldOfAwesome balding]]) head, and began referring to the crew-cut Republican candidate as "my long-haired opponent".

[[caption-width-right:350:"Breaking News: Woman crushed by mutilated pig!\\

* Invoked straight in an early ''Webcomic/CogaSuro'', where a pug literally flies across the panel as Steve reailses that he is right and [[SmartGuy Jerry]] is wrong--at the time, an unusual situation indeed.

* In ''Film/ForrestGump'', the bitter and legless Lt. Dan mocks Forrest's optimistic ambitions, telling him "If you're ever a shrimp boat captain, that's the day I'm an astronaut!" Years later, after the two have made a fortune in the shrimping business, Dan attends Forrest's wedding wearing titanium prosthetics - which Dan cheerfully points out is the same material used on NASA's space shuttle.

* A 2015 Super Bowl [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQo0TfuueaY Doritos commercial]] showed a young boy asking an older guy, possibly his brother, if he can have a Dorito. His brother tells him he can have one "when pigs fly." The boy is then shown working on some plans and then the scene changes to a pig flying on a rocket, after which the kid is given a Dorito. The commercial shows the kid then patting the pig on the back, it having apparently come out of the experience [[NoAnimalsWereHarmed no worse for the wear]]. "Good boy."

* In ''Film/{{Dogma}}'' Jay propositions Bethany, and she turns him down. So he says, "What if the world was about to end?" and she agrees so he'll shut up. Fast forward all the way to the end of the movie, when Bartleby is close to unmaking reality, and Jay tries to make good on their "deal."

* In ''Film/ItsAVeryMerryMuppetChristmasMovie'', Miss Bitterman is threatening the Muppet Theater with foreclosure, and says they will raise the money to save it "when pigs fly." In swoops Miss Piggy, still suspended from the cables from the act they had been practicing. After a {{beat}}, Bitterman adds, "For the record, I consider that a coincidence, and not a sign from God."

* In the Creator/DianaWynneJones book ''Literature/DarkLordOfDerkholm'', an elf makes a sarcastic prophecy that he'll find his brother "when pigs fly." As it happens, the main character is a wizard who breeds flying pigs...

* In the ''Franchise/DisneyFairies'' book "A Snowy Surprise," Vidia claims she'll appreciate other talents "when it snows in Pixie Hollow" (where it's [[ItsAlwaysSpring always spring or summer]]). One day, however, it does snow and all the fairies, including Vidia, enjoy playing in the snow. Rani points out to Vidia that she must appreciate another fairy's talent now, since the snow was all the work of the water fairies.

* Music/PinkFloyd's ''{{Music/Animals}}'' [[BookEnds opens and closes]] with "Pigs on the Wing." (and the album's cover has an inflatable pig, which was carried over to the band's live performances)

* Music/TheMegas have the song "Hell Has Frozen Over," which features [[PlayingWithFire Fire Man]] and [[AnIcePerson Ice Man]] teaming up to take on [[VideoGame/MegaManClassic Mega Man]] even though they had thought such a union could never be. Just to drive it home, the majority of the chorus is the words [[TitleDrop "Hell has frozen over"]] over and over again.

* ''VideoGame/DukeNukemForever'': Several years ago, 3D Realms employee George Broussard said that ''Duke Nukem Forever'' would be released "when pigs fly." On September 1, 2010, however, his Twitter account [[CallBack linked to a picture of a flying pig]], and a playable demo of ''Duke Nukem Forever'' (whose development had been picked up by Gearbox) was on display at Penny Arcade Expo.

* At the end of the season 6 finale of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', [[StageMagician Trixie]] says that [[RealityWarper Discord]] can join in on her magic act "when pigs fly." Discord, being [[{{Troll}} Discord]], says "your wish is my command," before creating flying pigs under him and Trixie and sending them flying down the street.
* During an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'', [[SadistTeacher Miss Simian]] refuses to apologize to Gumball and Darwin after accusing them of something they didn't do, despite Principal Brown urging her to do so. She replies she'll apologize "when fish grow legs and walk out of the water". Darwin (who happens to be a fish with legs walking around on dry land) is about to reply, but Gumball immediately proceeds to cover his mouth}.

** Perhaps ironically, the Finnish band was Lordi, which was almost not admitted due to accusations of Satanism. Definitely ironically, the song with which they won was "Hard Rock Hallelujah," which the band's "face", Mr. Lordi, [[TheDevilIsALoser used as proof that they're not Satanic.]]

* Creator/HunterSThompson and the Battle of Aspen. Thompson ran for Sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, of which Aspen is the county seat. Folks said that the long-haired hippie-types who formed the "Freak Power" movement to elect Thompson would win when pigs flew, or some such. Thompson shaved his (already [[BaldOfAwesome balding]]) head, and began referring to the crew-cut Republican candidate as "my long-haired opponent."

* In the ''Series/ShakespeareReTold'' adaptation of {{Theatre/Macbeth}}, the prophecy is that Macbeth will be killed "when pigs fly". Cue a visit, near the end, from the Police Helicopter Squad.

** An interesting variant happened with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujDG1BHFAN0 this guy]], who said that if [[Franchise/KingdomHearts Sora]] was ''not'' the final DLC fighter, he would take a bite out of his ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts'' disc. Then Sora was actually revealed, as the final DLC fighter.

* This trope was also quoted more than a few times, including on this very wiki, when [[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Ridley]] [[PromotedToPlayable was announced as a playable character]] in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' (as seen in the Quotes page for this trope). Previous installments had not featured him as playable in part because the developers presumably couldn't get him to work properly as a fighter due to [[EvilIsBigger his greater size]] relative to most of the other fighters. When he ''did'' finally become playable, celebrations broke out. Similar claims have also been made regarding other unlikely candidates being announced in ''Smash Bros.'' since then, including [[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry King K. Rool]] (who hadn't been seen in a video game since ''2008'' and [[VideoGame/BanjoKazooie Banjo and Kazooie]] (who had been absent for nine years since their appearance in a game at all following the Xbox 360 version of ''Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing'', and hadn't shown up on a Nintendo console since the 2005 Game Boy Advance game ''Banjo Pilot'', the last ''Banjo-Kazooie'' game on a Nintendo console). Prior to any of those examples, [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Cloud Strife]]'s reveal for ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU 3DS/Wii U]]'' solicited this reaction due to his limited appearances on Nintendo consoles, and that his home game hadn't been on a Nintendo console at that point (which eventually happened on the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch).