History Main / FencePainting

-->'''Grandma:''' I figured if I a game out of it, you wouldn't think you were working!
* ''[[Franchise/GreenLantern Green Lantern Corps]]'' had a sub-plot about Kyle Rayner painting a large [[{{Paintings}} mural]] depicting the history of the Corps on the interior of a building. He spends the first days of work priming and realizes it would take a very long time to finish. As numerous other Lanterns keep coming to question him about what he's doing -- and since many of them are aliens who have never painted before -- he gets them to prime the building for him. Guy Gardner even calls him out on using the "Tom Sawyer" trick, even though it was very much a labor of love for everyone involved.

* In a ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' strip, Calvin wants to run the vacuum cleaner, Calvin's mother wouldn't let him pass the vacuum cleaner, until he's "old enough", prompting Calvin's protests until she "lets" him clean the living room.

* ''[[Franchise/GreenLantern Green Lantern Corps]]'' had a sub-plot about Kyle Rayner painting a large mural depicting the history of the Corps on the interior of a building. He spends the first days of work priming, and realizes it would take a very long time to finish. As numerous other Lanterns keep coming to question him about what he's doing — and since many of them are aliens who have never painted before — he gets them to prime the building for him. Guy Gardner even calls him out on using the "Tom Sawyer" trick, even though it was very much a labor of love for everyone involved.

* In a ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' strip, Calvin's mother wouldn't let him pass the vacuum cleaner, until he's "old enough", prompting Calvin's protests until she "lets" him clean the living room.

* An incident in Creator/MarkTwain's ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfTomSawyer'' is the TropeNamer as well as the TropeCodifier. Punished for disobedience, Tom has to whitewash his Aunt Polly's fence. But, when another kid comes along, Tom acts like it's such an enjoyable activity that he ends up getting him, and soon most of the kids in the neighborhood, to perform the chore instead. All the while, Tom treats painting the fence like [[ForbiddenFruit something he'd be proud to do]]. In at least one adaptation, the kids do eventually realize they've been had and turn on Tom. But in the original story, Tom's plan goes off without a hitch.

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[[quoteright:300:[[WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fairly_oddparents_tom_sawyer.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[Music/RushBand Today's Tom Sawyer]], he will ply on you\\
And these trades he is making get by on you]]

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!!Examples

%%* Roger the Dodger from ''ComicBook/TheBeano'' pulls this trope a lot.

* In one ''ComicBook/ArchieComics'' story had Archie finding his friends digging up a yard. They explain that Reggie had found a gold nugget there, and they were looking for more. It then transpires that Reggie was being paid to dig up the yard by the owner, and he planted that nugget to trick the others. After a discussion on the 1849 Gold Rush and GoldFever in general, Moose "convinces" Reggie to share his pay with the rest of the gang.

* In one ''ComicStrip/AndyCapp'' strip, Chalky comes to visit Andy, and finds Flo painting the ceiling. As they head to the pub, Chalky asks Andy how he gets away with leaving all the chores to Flo. Andy replies "I tell her she might be getting too old for it."

* In ''Film/DriveACrookedRoad'', Steve gets rid of a drunk guest who keeps interrupting his conversation with Eddie, and who has been trying to 'help' him all evening, by 'allowing' her to do all the dishes. She starts but then seems to realise that she has been tricked just after Steve leaves the kitchen, but this was all Steve needed, as now he can whish Eddie away to finish their private conversation.

* The main character for ''Literature/TheGreatBrain'' books was pretty good at this. Tom is a budding con artist; while he's home from boarding school he asks his younger brother John (the narrator) if there's anything new in town, and on receiving a negative reply, bets that if John's wrong and there is something new in town, John will do all Tom's chores while Tom's home on break. John [[spoiler:being a 1900s US young male, hadn't thought about babies being born.]]
* ''Literature/FeetOfClay'' features Nobby's resistance to [[GotVolunteered being volunteered]], and he ruminates on military attempts to convince people to volunteer. Specifically, he says that if the sarge asks "Who here likes good food" the person who answers is going to end up PeelingPotatoes.

* In ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'', Mac was putting gold spray paint on Frank's chair. Partway through, Mac asked Frank why he wants him to do it & Frank said he wants people to think his chair has been dipped in gold. Mac then criticized the idea & asked Frank how he got him to do it, to which, Frank replied, "If you make my chair look real nice, I'll tell you."
-->'''Charlie:''' Has that chair been dipped in gold?
* An episode of ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'' has Corey trying to trick his friends, until Minkus reminds them of Tom Sawyer.

* ''Series/TheAmandaShow'' has a [[ShoddyKnockoffProduct Blockblister]] video in which "Tom Zawyer" ([[Creator/AmandaBynes Blini]]) manages to convince a boy ([[Creator/DrakeBell Biscotti]]) to paint the fence, despite his actress' BadBadActing when pretending to have fun. The boy also [[BreakingTheFourthWall breaks the fourth wall]] to tell the viewers, "Little do I realize I am being duped!" Naturally, the Blockblister patron who wrote his book report on this, instead of on ''Tom Sawyer'', ended up receiving an F.
* In ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' episode, "The Collaboration Contamination", Sheldon is jealous that Amy is collaborating with Howard on a project, and Bernadette uses this to get him to do chores around the house, telling him that Howard loves doing chores and Sheldon doing them for him would upset him. She even mentions the TropeNamer when she asks Sheldon if he's read ''Tom Sawyer''. Played with in that Sheldon genuinely ''does'' enjoy cleaning and organizing tasks that most people try to avoid (and admitted to Bernadette that he ''was'' having fun) but he was still upset over the deception.
* In the ''Series/MurdochMysteries'' episode "Marked Twain", Higgins pulls rank on a recently demoted Crabtree by instructing him to interview a suspect who lives ten miles out of town. Crabtree consoles himself by suggesting he can get a look at an attractive woman who lives nearby, which inspires Higgins to pull rank again and conduct the interview himself. Visiting HistoricalDomainCharacter Creator/MarkTwain himself approved.
--> '''Mark Twain:''' Too bad you don't need a fence painted.

* Subverted in ''VideoGame/TheNextBigThing''. The task to be done is, in fact, a dangerous and untested MadScientist's experiment, so you would think you need to scam someone into testing it...but the MadScientist is more responsible than most, so he doesn't want you anywhere near the thing. In fact, he's only accepting volunteers who are aware it's a terrible idea, but are suicidal enough not to care, and who meet the standards he's set for being worthless to society. The scam is you need to convince ''the scientist'' that ''you're'' worthless to society, so you can test his experiment and abuse it for your own ends.

* In one superhero arc strip of ''Webcomic/ArthurKingOfTimeAndSpace'', [[TheCape Kingman]] is entirely immune to WeCanRuleTogether speeches, but is almost tempted to let Tom Sawyer go when he offers to let him whitewash the fence.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': Cartman manages to make a dying amusement park thrive by creating ads telling people they aren't allowed in. This false scarcity creates booming interest in the park. However, this was completely unintentional on Cartman's part; he really ''didn't'' want to let anyone in and wanted to keep the park all to himself, only creating the ads to {{troll}} people. But then, one of the rides breaks, so Cartman is forced to let in two customers per day so he could afford to hire a repairman to fix it. Then, he has to let in two more customers per day so he could hire a security guard to stop people from sneaking in. Then he has to let in more, and so on and so on, until the park was totally packed all day every day. Cartman was making tons of money from the now-thriving park, [[WorthlessYellowRocks but he didn't even care]], because all he wanted was his own private amusement park where he didn't have to wait in line for rides.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' parody of Tom Sawyer, Bart (as Tom) tries this but Milhouse doesn't fall for it. So Nelson (as Huck) threatens him with physical violence, which works much better.
* From ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', when characters enter books to hunt down a giant brain...
-->'''Brain:''' Tom Sawyer, you tricked me! This task has been less fun than previously indicated. [[LargeHam May this corny slice of Americana be your prison for all eternity.]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/MissionHill'' episode ''Hot for Weirdie'' they start a fake nightclub in an electrical closet with a 100% reject rate. Naturally, this makes all the hipsters in the neighborhood insane to get in.
* A ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'' short has Mr. Herriman punish Bloo with the chore of sorting the trash. Mac comes up with the idea for Bloo to make the other imaginary friends think that the job is fun so they would wanna do it and the two of them can sneak off and play (having been inspired by the Tom Sawyer book). This actually works, but Bloo begins to think that sorting the trash really is fun and forces everyone else to leave so he can have all the fun to himself, until he remembers that sorting the trash is not fun and is now stuck doing the job himself.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' episode "Car Trouble", Dr Drakken [[KidnappedScientist kidnaps a cybernetics expert]] to help build an army of robots. His attempts to coerce the captive fail, but Shego's insulting suggestion that he simply lacks the ''ability'' to help (with Drakken joining in when he sees that it's working) manipulate him into proving himself by cooperating fully.
* The ''WesternAnimation/WhereOnEarthIsCarmenSandiego'' episode "Chapter and Verse" has Zack and Ivy crash-land in Hannibal, Missouri, breaking a picket fence. A local Mark Twain impersonator orders the duo to fix and repaint it. In order to resume their pursuit of Carmen, Ivy takes inspiration from Twain's ''Tom Sawyer'', and leads Zack in convincing some children to paint the fence for them. He even manages to trade his brush for a skateboard and some fishing wire.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/MuppetBabies2018'' episode, "Gonzo's Clean Sweep", Gonzo tricks his friends into doing his chores for him so that he can practice his latest stunt. He tricks Kermit and Animal into putting the blocks away by pretending the blocks are gems and the toy box is a treasure chest, Fozzie and Summer into sweeping up the leaves by pretending they're fallen stars covering the moon, and Piggy into setting the table by telling her she's serving lunch for the Queen. As a result of doing Gonzo's chores for him, his friends are behind on their chores and don't get to have their ice cream, which results in a MyGodWhatHaveIDone moment from Gonzo and him using his new stunt to help his friends finish their chores.

* Lobster was actually considered a poor person's meal until a few fishermen got the bright idea to send small amounts of them to the inner United States where rich people wouldn't know the stigma against eating it. It also helped that lobster ended up being scarcer than people thought after all, helping its popularity among the wealthy even further. It helped, too, that the railroads were looking for a new entree they could serve right about the same time, and also new techniques in storage and preparation for lobster were being discovered that dramatically improved the flavor and shelf-life.

* An incident in Creator/MarkTwain's ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfTomSawyer'' is the TropeNamer as well as the TropeCodifier. Punished for disobedience, Tom has to whitewash his Aunt Polly's fence. But, when another kid comes along, Tom acts like it's such an enjoyable activity that he ends up getting him, and soon most of the kids in the neighborhood, to perform the chore instead. In at least one adaptation, the kids do eventually realize they've been had and turn on Tom, but in the original story, Tom's plan goes off without a hitch.

* There are two different examples in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'': The first involves literally painting a fence with white paint as part of a choice adventure, while the other requires you to [[Music/TheRollingStonesBand paint a red door black]] in order to prove yourself worthy to ride a giant sandworm (your own character does a LampshadeHanging on the silliness of it all).

Compare StoneSoup, WaxOnWaxOff, and BriarPatching.

* Lobster was actually considered a poor person's meal until a few fishermen got the bright idea to send small amounts of them to the inner United States where rich people wouldn't know the stigma against eating it. It also helped that lobster ended up being scarcer than people thought after all helping its popularity among the wealthy even further. It helped, too, that the railroads were looking for a new entree they could serve right about the same time, and also new techniques in storage and preparation for lobster were being discovered that dramatically improved the flavor and shelf-life.