History Main / JackassGenie

* ''Anime/Moomin1990'': The episode "The Spirit in the Lamp", the titular spirit is a genie-like being who claims to fulfill the wish of whoever summoned him (he only takes one request a week, but can also grant wishes independently). Snorkmaiden is the one who first awakens him, and she asks for a pearl necklace, which she receives. Later that night, the Spirit reads Moomin's mind and learns about his worries that the play his father's trying to write won't turn out good enough, so he decides to go rewrite that play without anyone knowing about it. The next day, Snorkmaiden and Little My get in trouble as it turns out the necklace belongs to Ms. Fillyjonk and the Spirit stole it, and Moominpappa is upset that someone wrote his play for him as he wants the story to come from himself, until Snufkin points out that the rewritten version is actually plagiarized (it's ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet''). As such, the police inspector decides that the lamp is too much trouble to keep around, so he keeps watch over it until a week passes and they can make the one wish that the Spirit actually grants properly: bring the Hobgoblin over to Moominvalley, so he can bring the lamp to another planet where it will never be found.

* Near the end of ''Film/Leprechaun2'', the Leprechaun is trapped in a wrought iron safe by Morty (the leprechaun, being a fae type, is harmed by cold iron), who forces the Leprechaun into granting him three wishes. The Leprechaun grants Morty's wish for his gold by materializing it into his stomach. After the Leprechaun makes Morty waste his second wish by wishing him free of the safe, the Leprechaun grants the third wish (getting the gold out) by ripping Morty open. When Morty whispers "Help me" afterward, the Leprechaun leaves him for dead since he's out of wishes. Suffice it to say, this is the titular Leprechaun's MO in ALL of the films. For added points, the Leprechaun was legally obligated to ask Morty every time if he is certain that this is his wish. That's right: not only was Morty yelled at the entire time to stop, but the villain himself had to ask him every time to confirm the screw up order. The Leprechaun even says outright that this is what Morty gets for being so greedy.

* ''Film/TheThiefOfBagdad1940'' is the TropeMaker for the cinematic versions of this. When Abu frees him from his bottle, the Genie's first impulse is to kill him; only after Abu tricks him does the Genie let him live and grant him three wishes. While serving Abu, the Genie does fulfill his wishes ''without'' any malicious misinterpretation, but he abandons Abu in the wilderness immediately after the third wish.

** The Dreamstone grants its victims' wishes literally, but the ''cost'' of the wishes is so extreme that it usually isn't worth it. For example, Barbara Minerva wishes to be more like Diana, so she becomes beautiful, confident and gets Diana's powers to boot. [[spoiler:However, the Dreamstone takes her morality in exchange, eventually resulting in her turning into [[Characters/WonderWomanCheetah Cheetah]].]] Wonder Woman's wish is for [[spoiler:Steve Trevor to come back to life, but she only gets him back via possessing another man's body, ''and'' she loses her powers in the deal. This is because the Stone was actually created by the Duke of Deception (reimagined in this universe to be the god of lies) specifically as ShmuckBait to doom humanity.]]

* ''Literature/ScreamOfTheEvilGenie'' have you releasing a genie named Jenna [[OurGeniesAreDifferent from a Coke can]], who in classical genie fashion then decides to grant you ThreeWishes. All whom backfires royally on you; wishing to be a celebrity turns you into the star of a ''Barney the Dinosaur''-esque children's show, which you despises, while wishing your favorite video game to come to life will have the game's characters trying to kill you. The worst outcome is probably wishing to be world-famous... and Jenna then [[AndIMustScream turns you into a painting, still aware of your surroundings but unable to do anything]].

* ''Series/FraggleRock'' has an episode where Wembley finds an old bottle and polishes it up, only to notice pictograms saying "Do Not Rub This Bottle". Out pops a genie, who unlike most of these examples doesn't try to trick Wembley with ExactWords or LiteralGenie shenanigans--he just refuses to grant wishes, and instead starts using his magic to prank the other Fraggles. [[spoiler:After an attempt to re-trap him in the bottle ends with Wembley being tricked into letting him back out under the promise that he'll leave Fraggle Rock (but the genie merely goes ILied), he mind controls all of the Fraggles except Wembley. In Wembley's attempts to get him to stop he discovers that the genie actually has to grant any wish Wembley asks of him (he just didn't want to), which results in Wembley wishing to have the other Fraggles no longer be mind controlled, to have everything the genie broke fixed, and for the genie to have a HeelFaceTurn]]

* ''Series/FraggleRock'' has an episode called "[[Recap/FraggleRockS3E8WembleyAndTheMeanGenie Wembley and the Mean Genie]]". Though he's something of a subversion in that he's [[TheBully a bullying jerk all on his own]], and it's Wembley using the wishes (which he apparently can't twist) that fixes his damage.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Utawarerumono}}'' Uitsalnemetia is implied to actually want to help people by the wishes he grants, but due to BlueAndOrangeMorality and the fact that a DealWithTheDevil ''has'' to be made and a price paid, it doesn't tend to work out even if the intention was pure. He is revealed to have played it strait once in the past in a fit of blind rage after [[spoiler:his wife and unborn child was dissected by a group of scientists]], he decided to ''grant'' their wish of immortality by turning the culprits into immortal amorphous slimes. [[spoiler:The dark side of Uitsalnemetia that was born from this incident however plays this trope straight as an arrow with none of the pure intentions of the original]].

** In "Torg Potter and the Chamberpot of Secretions", the Djinn of the Chamberpot interprets ''every single wish'' someone makes as asking to be turned into a chocolate statue. The first two times it happens it's ''sort of'' a case of being a Literal Genie ("Could you make me some chocolate?" and "Make me irresistible to women"), but the third time, no-one even really makes a wish, they just shout "Oh good bloody hell!" The genie claims this is Viking for "Turn me into chocolate." When it's pointed out that the Vikings didn't ''have'' chocolate, he retorts, "But if they ''did'' they would have called it 'bloodyhell'." That said, this genie's special thing is that he'll grant you an actual proper wish on the second wish if you manage to get past the first one. The [[ThreeWishes third wish]] is "witheld for tax purposes." Incidentally, the reason this all is in the story is to parody the implausibility of how in [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets the original]], a series of coincidences led to no-one ever being killed by [[spoiler:the basilisk, even though just looking into its eyes was lethal. Time after time, the witness would happen to only see it in a mirror or similar, so rather than being killed outright, they would become paralysed instead, which could be safely reversed.]]

* In WebVideo/Stampylonghead's 2014 Halloween special, he tells the story of an evil pig who transforms into a zombie pigman by night called Mr Porkchop. He was originally a human pig shepherd who was trying to raise the largest pig in order to win a competition. A witch offers to grant his wish for a pig larger than every other in exchange for all his other pigs. When he agrees, she just turns him into a Pigman and takes all his pigs.

** Rather than destroy Elisa, Puck uses his powers to turn her into a gargoyle. Thus, as he puts it "The ''Human'' Elisa Maza is no more." Demona, still not getting the drift, then makes him do it to the entire population of Manhattan. Needless to say, HilarityEnsues. Puck did say that the Mirror that was used to summon him wasn't Aladdin's lamp, implying even if he wasn't being a trickster, he couldn't kill all the humans as Demona wanted.

** The film also reveals that years ago, King Harold and Queen Lillian nearly made a deal with Rumpelstiltskin to save Fiona in exchange for giving up Far Far Away, which was averted when Shrek ended up becoming her savior. In the alternate universe, without Shrek to save her, they ended up sealing the deal, only to learn to their horror that it not only stipulated them to give up Far Far Away, but also [[ReducedToDust their own existence]], leaving Rumpelstiltskin free to reign as king.

No matter what you wish for, the Jackass Genie will find a way to twist it so you end up worse off. Expect him to milk ExactWords and MetaphoricallyTrue for all they're worth. And taking the Literal Genie approach of making sure your wish is very specific is nothing but a trap. Unless you know a rule that he absolutely ''has'' to follow, he'll just [[MovingTheGoalposts move the goalposts]] and screw you over anyway: "You asked to be rich, you didn't ask for the money ''not'' to come from a third party..."

->''"[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E125TheLastNightOfAJockey The Last Night of a Jockey]]" is an old ''[[Series/TheTwilightZone1959 Twilight Zone]]'' episode about a jockey who gets suspended from riding horses, then wishes he was bigger. The wish, obviously, backfires, because ''The Twilight Zone'' was basically one giant PSA about the dangers of evil genies.''

** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E38TheManInTheBottle The Man in the Bottle]]", a genie grants a man four wishes. The genie fixes a broken display window for free, but then the man wishes for a million dollars... and after giving away a lot of his money, [[TaxmanTakesTheWinnings gets stuck paying the tax on a million-dollar lottery win]], leaving him no better off than he started. The man's third wish is to become the head of a contemporary foreign country who can't be voted out of office. The genie turns him into UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler at the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, in a bunker under attack. The man has to use his fourth wish to escape this fate. [[spoiler:[[BrickJoke Then he accidentally breaks the window again]].]]

** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E12WhatYouNeed What You Need]]" has a reluctant case; the peddler himself is benign or even charitable with his ability to give people exactly what they are going to need in the near future, but when the gambler tries to abuse the peddler's power, the peddler gives the gambler some shoes that have no traction, especially on ice, and uses them to get away and get the gambler killed by car accident.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': The episode "Tooth and Consequences" has a dentist wish for his crush to love him back and for his patients to respect and look forward to their appointments. A tooth fairy grants it, but his crush's love is suffocating and his patients now won't leave him alone. He ends up hopping a freight train to get away, where he meets other dentists having gone through the same thing. Apparently the tooth fairy is running a con because he wants more people to lose their teeth.

* ''Film/TheThiefOfBagdad1940'' is the TropeMaker for the cinematic versions of this. When Abu frees from his bottle, the Genie's first impulse is to kill him; only after Abu tricks him does the Genie let him live and grant him three wishes. While serving Abu, the Genie does fulfill his wishes ''without'' any malicious misinterpretation, but he abandons Abu in the wilderness immediately after the third wish.

* ''Film/TheThiefOfBagdad1940'' is the TropeMaker for the cinematic versions of this. When Abu frees from his bottle, the Genie's first impulse is to kill him; only after Abu tricks him does the Genie let him live and grant him three wishes. While serving Abu, the Genie does fulfill his wishes ''without'' any malicious misinterpretation, but he abandons Abu in the wilderness immediately after the third wish.

* The eponymous genies from the ''Film/{{Wishmaster}}'' series deliberately interpret any wish they're given in the most negative manner possible -- typically involving a CruelAndUnusualDeath -- then take the victim's soul to Hell for further torture. For instance, some poor guy is rendered blind simply for answering a question in the negative ("You don't want to see this, do you?"). Depending on how vague the wish is, the Djinn can interpret it any way he wants. Near the end of the second film, the casino manager wishes "this nightmare would just be over" and the Djinn decides that means "kill everyone". However, he still has to obey the LiteralGenie conventions because he can't just ignore a wish because he doesn't like it. When a security guard wishes for him to go away, he's forced to do just that. When he then threatens the guard as he walks away, the guard responds with "The only way you're coming through this door is through me. And that is something I'd love to see." The results [[LiterallyShatteredLives are predictable]].

* The wish-granter in ''Film/Interstate60'', O. W. Grant, will grant wishes this way if he doesn't like you or thinks your wish is boring.

* In ''Film/Aladdin2019'', Genie demonstrates how he ''can'' be this trope to Aladdin when Aladdin carelessly wishes "Make me a prince," conjuring a random prince out of thin air to illustrate the "grey area" of his request before allowing Aladdin to properly word his wish to get the intended result. [[spoiler:In the climax, Aladdin tricks Jafar into wishing to be "the most powerful being in the universe," and Genie uses that ambiguity to make him into a genie bound to a lamp, as opposed to the original where Jafar just wished to be a genie without considering the ramifications.]]

* ''Film/TalesFromTheCrypt'': The Chinese statue in "Wish You Were Here" grants its owner three wishes, but grants them in the most perverse way possible. The inscription on the base even warns them of this.
* [[EldritchLocation The Room]] in ''Film/Stalker1979'' is an interesting twist on this trope. It does not twist wishes to screw you over; quite the contrary, it grants you your greatest desire, with no catches attached. But you don't get to ''ask'' for what you want, the process is automatic, and what you ''think'' you want may not be what you actually get. Case in point, the protagonist's mentor, Porcupine, went into the Room to wish his dead brother back to life, [[spoiler:and was given a huge sum of cash because deep down he wanted to be rich more than he wanted his brother back, subsequently [[DrivenToSuicide killing himself]] out of self-loathing]]. Put simply, whether the Room is a Jackass Genie depends on whether you know what you truly want and whether you really ''want'' to know.

* ''Film/{{Absentia}}'': Callie makes a deal with the creature in the tunnel to save her pregnant sister in exchange for herself. She doesn't specify enough, as the creature ends up tearing her sister's unborn baby and throwing it to her.

** Kyoko wished for people to listen to her priest father, who was ridiculed for his radical preaching. [[spoiler:They did, but we’re basically brainwashed puppets. When the father found out, he snapped and killed her entire family and himself.]]

* In the ''Fanfic/OppositesDestroy'', the heroes are forced to fight Djinn, a Genie of the necklace who had a habit of manipulating his masters' wishes to produce the worst possible outcome as he believed that genies should rule humans rather than serve them. Djinn has a long history of bending the rules of geniehood to harm his masters as much as possible by twisting their wishes, with it being lampshaded that even Jafar, as bad as he was, had far less experience as one than Djinn does. For example, if a master wished to meet a nice girl, where Genie might send him to a well where a nice girl goes to get water, the average Jerk Genie would just drop the master next to the nearest available girl regardless of factors such as age or personality, and Djinn would transport them to the daughter of a mercenary in the hopes that he'd be killed by said man. Djinn hates Genie so much because when they ended up with the same master Genie actively interfered with him doing this, and Djinn, hating his servitude and believing that genies should rule the world, vowed revenge. Djinn first appears when he is able to manipulate a little girl who has just heard Aladdin's story into making a sequence of wishes that free him from the usual limitations of genies while retaining his full power, and one of his first acts is to kill his would-be master just because he could before flying to Agrabah to try and kill Genie.

No matter what you wish for, the Jackass Genie will find a way to twist it so you end up worse off. Expect him to milk ExactWords and MetaphoricallyTrue for all they're worth. And taking the Literal Genie approach of making sure your wish is very specific is nothing but a trap. Unless you know a rule that he absolutely ''has'' to follow, he'll just [[MovingTheGoalposts move the goalposts]] and screw you over anyway: "You asked to be rich, you didn't ask for the money ''not'' to come from your spouse's life insurance..."

* ''Series/{{Goosebumps}}'': The live-action adaptation of "Be Careful What You Wish For" mostly keeps Samantha's wishes granted by the witch backfiring in the same way, but changes the ending to give the AlphaBitch a karmic comeuppance. Instead of Judith turning Samantha into a bird, she instead wishes for herself to be "Beautiful and adored forever" in which she is turned into a statue in the center of the city park with people commenting on how beautiful she is.

--->'''Marceline:''' But don't you want... abs?!\\
'''Demon:''' OK. ''[has his head replaced by abs]''

** In "Torg Potter and the Chamberpot of Secretions", the Djinn of the Chamberpot interprets ''every single wish'' someone makes as asking to be turned into a chocolate statue. The first two times it happens it's ''sort of'' a case of being a Literal Genie ("Could you make me some chocolate?" and "Make me irresistible to women"), but the third time, no-one even really makes a wish, they just shout "Oh good bloody hell!" The genie claims this is Viking for "Turn me into chocolate." When it's pointed out that the Vikings didn't ''have'' chocolate, he retorts, "But if they ''did'' they would have called it 'bloodyhell'." Tat said, this genie's special thing is that he'll grant you an actual proper wish on the second wish if you manage to get past the first one. The [[ThreeWishes third wish]] is "witheld for tax purposes." Incidentally, the reason this all is in the story is to parody the implausibility of how in [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets the original]], a series of coincidences led to no-one ever being killed by [[spoiler:the basilisk, even though just looking into its eyes was lethal. Time after time, the witness would happen to only see it in a mirror or similar, so rather than being killed outright, they would become paralysed instead, which could be safely reversed.]]

-->'''Jack:''' Evil spirit of the well! You will not claim another innocent! I wish thee... ''destroyed!''

* ''[[https://youtu.be/xQVAuG_gVXE?si=kdHhsV7WeHUhJ5u9 We Got a Monkey's Paw]]'' is about the two roommates playing around with the titular object (it's presence is explained as due to one of them being a [[CollectorOfTheStrange collector]] of {{CursedArtifacts|s]]). Naturally, this trope ensues.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DY3Xik8-vc "As You Wish"]] by Persuader.

* In Creator/LarryNiven's "Literature/TheWishingGame", it is established that literal genies in a bottle do exist. They can only be coaxed out of the bottle with the promise to play the 'game of jynn', where they match wits with the human that freed them. So presenting the client human with three wishes, and placing some kind of sadistic twist to the request is their only motivation to grant wishes in the first place. Granted, the only persons that can gain possession of a genie are some very old and canny sorcerers, who believe they can outwit the genie. So at least there is sport in this contest. This genie was a cross between a Jackass Genie and a Literal Genie, in that he cannot change the original wish or add on to it, and that the game has a very specific goal: to grant the wisher nothing in the end. So one previous, not-so-clever, non-sorcerous player of the game wished for [[spoiler:"wealth", so the genie granted enormous wealth on the spot, such that the wisher could not carry it away before bandits stole it. However, the genie had to rely on already nearby bandits, and the genie only partially won because the man grabbed some of the wealth and ran since the wish neither allowed for creating bandits from nothing nor sealing away the wealth so the man couldn't reach it]].

** Professor Armstrong is an AdventureArcheologist seeking to unlock the secrets of the past. [[spoiler:The Cephalopods send him back in time to witness it for himself, where he ends up mummified.]]

* ''VideoGame/[[CriticalDepth]]'', being a game from the developers of the below-mentioned ''VideoGame/TwistedMetal'', have the alien Cephalopods acting as the game's equivalent of Calypso, with the same approach to granting the factions' desires:

* The Devil in the remake of ''Film/{{Bedazzled|2000}}'', who twists all of Elliot's wishes. He wishes to be rich and married to his crush and the Devil makes him a Colombian druglord despised by his wife. He wishes to be emotionally sensitive, because chicks dig sensitive guys, so now he can't help but burst into tears if he even glances at a sunset. He wishes to be a great basketball player with a humongous body, and the Devil also makes him stupid and gives him a small penis for no reason at all except to make him waste another wish. He then explicitly asks to be erudite and witty, AND for a big penis, so the Devil makes him gay. He wishes to be President of the United States, so the Devil turns him into Abraham Lincoln on the night he's assassinated. She also counts a demo wish for a Big Mac and fries he made before he'd even signed the contract. At least, in that case, he got what he wanted (even if he had to pay for it).
* The original ''Film/{{Bedazzled|1967}}'' does this too. The main character wishes to be a famous rock star, but he almost immediately loses his fans to a new, more popular singer who is, of course, the Devil. His last wish is to be living in peace with the object of his affection far away from the busy city. So the Devil turns them into lesbian nuns.

* Enslaved djinn in ''Literature/TheDaevabadTrilogy'' often turn out to be this. When an ifrit places a slave vessel for a human to find, they usually do so hoping that the human will create a lot of entertaining chaos, and the djinn themselves are trapped in a FateWorseThanDeath and fight it by granting wishes in the worst way possible. The eventual fate of an enslaved djinn's master is always to be killed by them through some form of LoopholeAbuse.

Genie jackassery is a natural repercussion of the [[GenieInABottle original mythologies]], where most wish-granting djinn are [[TheFairFolk faeries]] enslaved by sorcerers (usually [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon this specific one]]) and are ''rather unhappy with their servitude''. As such, they will take every opportunity to screw over their master. Genies following this tradition are basically sending AnAesop that "you shouldn't consort with magical beings, full stop" or "Only God/Allah can work magic." [[note]]A more reasonable Aesop might be "Don't enslave sentient beings against their will," but given the time period...[[/note]] Nowadays that might be because "[[MiseryBuildsCharacter hard work is good for you]]" or "WantingIsBetterThanHaving".

No matter what you wish for, the Jackass Genie will find a way to twist it so you end up worse off. Expect him to milk ExactWords and MetaphoricallyTrue for all they're worth. And taking the Literal Genie approach of making sure your wish is very specific is nothing but a trap. Unless you know a rule that he absolutely ''has'' to follow, he'll just [[MovingTheGoalposts move the goalposts]] and screw you over anyway: "You asked to be rich, you didn't ''not'' ask for the money to come from your spouse's life insurance..."

No matter what you wish for, the Jackass Genie will find a way to twist it so you end up worse off. Expect him to milk ExactWords and MetaphoricallyTrue for all they're worth. And taking the Literal Genie approach of making sure your wish is very specific is nothing but a trap. Unless you know a rule that he absolutely ''has'' to follow, he'll just [[MovingTheGoalposts move the goalposts]] and screw you over anyway, like in "Literature/TheMonkeysPaw": "You asked to be rich, you didn't ''not'' ask for the money to come from your adult son's life insurance. What was that? You want your son back? Sure, I'll just send a shambling zombie to your front door..."

No matter what you wish for, the Jackass Genie will find a way to twist it so you end up worse off. Expect him to milk ExactWords and MetaphoricallyTrue for all they're worth. And taking the Literal Genie approach of making sure your wish is very specific is nothing but a trap. Unless you know a rule that he absolutely ''has'' to follow, he'll just [[MovingTheGoalposts move the goalposts]] and screw you over anyway, like in Literature/"TheMonkeysPaw": "You asked to be rich, you didn't ''not'' ask for the money to come from your adult son's life insurance. What was that? You want your son back? Sure, I'll just send a shambling zombie to your front door..."

No matter what you wish for, the Jackass Genie will find a way to twist it so you end up worse off. Expect him to milk ExactWords and MetaphoricallyTrue for all they're worth. And taking the Literal Genie approach of making sure your wish is very specific is nothing but a trap. Unless you know a rule that he absolutely ''has'' to follow, he'll just [[MovingTheGoalposts move the goalposts]] and screw you over anyway, like in "Literature/TheMonkeysPaw": "You asked to be rich, you didn't ''not'' ask for the money to come from your adult son's life insurance. What was that? You want your son back? Sure, I'll just send a shambling zombie to your front door..."