History Main / MotivationOnAStick

* How the characters of ''Series/FatherTed'' get [[TheAlcoholic Father Jack]] out on his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OChmy2oAH7c walks.]]

* In the Australian lifestyle program ''Series/TheLivingRoom'', the ''Hack Off'' section involves the hosts presenting silly lifestyle hacks they've thought up. One involved a cat collar with a toy mouse hanging off it on a wire, and to demonstrate its practicality he attached another collar to a male host with chorizo sausages hanging off it. The other hosts decided [[BrainBleach this was too disturbing]] and refused to award him the prize.
* The cast of ''Scaled'' used a cricket on a stick to get Kevin, their overweight bearded dragon, to run on the tiny treadmill they'd built for her.

* The ancient Daemonic Herald of [[{{Plaguemaster}} Nurgle]] Horticulous Slimux from ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'' and ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' dislikes the tiny, capering plague daemons known as Nurglings and will often feed them to his mount Mulch. In order to get the snail-like daemonic mount moving at a reasonable pace he will often dangle a bound and struggling Nurgling from a stick in front of Mulch's ravenous maw, something shown on his tabletop model.

* The riding hedgehog in ''VideoGame/BrambleTheMountainKing'' is guided using an earthworm dangled in front of its gaping mouth.

* Master Kohga of ''VideoGame/HyruleWarriorsAgeOfCalamity'' has an attack where he is [[TooImportantToWalk lifted and carried by his loyal Yiga minions]] to plow through enemies. By extending the attack, he does this with a bunch of Mighty Bananas, the TrademarkFavoriteFood of the Yiga clan, making his minions pick up the pace.
* The "Chow-Man Motor" in ''The Incredible Toon Machine''. Drop some food, usually an egg, in front of him, and he'll start walking on his treadmill.
* ''VideoGame/KingdomRush Frontiers'' has an GiantMook called the Gorillon, a KillerGorilla mounted by a member of a CannibalTribe who dangles a banana in front of it to control its movement.

* The adventure game ''Wacki: Kosmiczna rozgrywka'' uses this as the solution to a puzzle: To exit the Africa level, you need to assemble a carrot-on-a-stick, and use it to ride a donkey.
* This appears as a trinket in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. It increases mount speed by 3%. ''Webcomic/AwkwardZombie'' even points out some FridgeLogic with [[http://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic/still-beats-walking that particular item]].
* In ''VideoGame/ZettaiHeroProject'', the Appetite Engine accessory is a carrot on a stick worn on the player's head. It reduces EN consumption by 50% while equipped, and can be eaten to restore EN in a pinch.

* A variation with a treadmill and a sign which read "plot" was used to keep Karn occupied in one strip of ''Webcomic/{{Adventurers}}''.
* Used in [[http://equestria.fadri.org/017-screw-aerodynamics a strip]] of ''And That's How Equestria Was Made!!'': Spitfire gives Soarin a motivation to fly by dangling a pie before him.

* Sam, the {{Cthulhumanoid}} protagonist of ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'', has [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1500/fc01490.htm done this]] with one of his own tentacles in order to ride an emu. ([[ImpossiblyDeliciousFood He's edible to most Earth species, including herbivores.]])
* In one strip of ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', Roy has Vaarsuvius dangles a spice-infused Belkar with magic to [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0689.html use a sandworm as transport]].
* The Devil does this to several characters at once in ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'', tempting each of them with their most precious vice.

* Played with in one of WebVideo/ThomasSanders' Website/{{Vine}}s when he works out with his trainers holding chocolate and junk food just out of reach.

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' does this on the episode "The Great Divide", where the heroes use it to ride fearsome creatures up a cliff.
* The ''WesternAnimation/ChalkZone'' episode "Rudy's Date" ends with Rudy, Snap and Penny making their way back to the portal Rudy and Penny drew into [=ChalkZone=] by riding a giant baby. To keep the infant from straying from the path, they lure him by tying his bottle to a stick and dangling it in front of him.

* ExtremeOmnivore Toot Braunstein from ''WesternAnimation/DrawnTogether'' does this to herself by giving Ling-Ling a stick with a Hostess treat attached to the end so he can use it to make her move while carrying him on her back. She even encourages him to move it a little as her vision is based on movement.
* ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'', "Wish You Were Ed": The neighborhood kids all participate in an impromptu race. Rolf's method of racing has him riding in a basket atop his pig Wilfred, guiding him forward with a carrot on a stick. When he needs Wilfred to "go with the speed of cabbage", Rolf replaces the carrot with a photograph of Wilfred's mother.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' has [[TheDitz Cosmo]] come up with a variant as an emergency method to keep the power running during an outage while Timmy is [[TrappedInTVLand in a video game to save AJ and Chester]], running on a treadmill to power a generator the TV and console are plugged into, a steak hanging on a hook in front of him:

** In the episode "He's Too Sexy for His Fat", Peter gets Chris to run on a treadmill by sticking a plumber's helper to his forehead with a Twinkie hanging from it. Chris eventually figures out how to get the Twinkie: lay on his back.

** In "Road to the North Pole", Brian and Stewie use a mutant elf's torn off arm to make the mutant reindeer fly pulling Santa's sleigh.

** ''The Beast With a Billion Backs'' opens with a pastiche of 1930s cartoons, and has Zoidberg powering the Planet Express ship by chasing a fish on a stick.
** At the end of ''Bender's Game'', [[spoiler:with dark matter rendered useless as a fuel]], Professor Farnsworth proposes an alternative fuel: Nibbler power! Which turns out to be a fair number of Nibblonians motivated to pull a ship by a single chicken hanging from a stick.
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'', Garfield is ordered to plow the backyard for Jon's garden. He ties Odie to the plow and puts a harness on him with a bone that Odie chases after to plow up the yard.
* In ''WesternAnimation/KickButtowskiSuburbanDaredevil'', Gunther's backside is used as the carrot on the stick to get Oscar the dog to chase him and thereby pull the sled to rescue the school bus full of kids from a snow-filled gully.
* In Hanna-Barbera's version of ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleRascals'', the Rascals have a wooden vehicle which Pete pulls while pursuing a bone.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS8E24FatherKnowsBeast Father Knows Beast]]": Pinkie Pie exploits this trope to get Sludge the dragon up and moving as he's being rehabilitated, first with a cupcake on a stick with her on his back (to Twilight's shock), then by walking past his room with a cart full of gem-topped cupcakes that Sludge chases after.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Trollkins}}'' where most of the cast take part in a road race, the Sheriff modifies his car for the race. His idea of tuning? By having a male rabbit, in a treadmill that powers the car, run like crazy when he's shown a caged female.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/WildWestCowboysOfMooMesa'' episode "How the West was Shrunk", the shrunken C.O.W.-Boys make their way to Dr. Wolfenstein's lair by riding on bees, which they control by guiding them with twigs dipped in honey.

* On ''WesternAnimation/YogisSpaceRace'', Jabberjaw uses a stuffed raccoon on a stick to make Buford run on the treadmill.

* The adventure game ''Wacki: Kosmiczna rozgrywka'' features this as the solution to one of the puzzles. To exit the Africa level, you need to assemble a carrot on a stick, and use it to get a donkey to carry you.

* Used in the Tropefest short film ''Film/{{Cargo|2013}}'' which can [[http://youtu.be/gryenlQKTbE be seen here.]] A man is [[ZombieInfectee bitten by zombie and knows that he will turn]] but he is alone with his baby (mommy was the one who bit him). He has to get the baby to an area that he thinks may be safe, and he doesn't want to kill his baby when he turns. So he gathers [[spoiler:some organs, suspending them in front of him, and ties his hands together so his zombie self will trudge along till he reaches the safe area, unknowingly carrying the baby on his back. He even puts a balloon on his back to keep the baby quiet and not alert his zombie self.]] The film manages to play this to a devastatingly tearjerking effect.

* Used in the Tropfest short film ''Film/{{Cargo|2013}}'' which can [[http://youtu.be/gryenlQKTbE be seen here.]] A man is [[ZombieInfectee bitten by zombie and knows that he will turn]] but he is alone with his baby (mommy was the one who bit him). He has to get the baby to an area that he thinks may be safe, and he doesn't want to kill his baby when he turns. So he gathers [[spoiler:some organs, suspending them in front of him, and ties his hands together so his zombie self will trudge along till he reaches the safe area, unknowingly carrying the baby on his back. He even puts a balloon on his back to keep the baby quiet and not alert his zombie self.]] The film manages to play this to a devastatingly tearjerking effect.

* Literature/TheAdventuresOfSamuraiCat: In ''Samurai Cat Goes to Hell'', demons traverse the River of Blood by riding a giant turtle, which they steer by dangling a large dead sturgeon in front of it. The dim-witted turtle keeps reciting "Fish... fish... favorite fish..." as it plods along, reaching and snapping in vain at the bait.

* The ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime episode "Pokemon Food Fight": Ash and his friends plan to lure a sleepy Snorlax into moving up and over a mountain by luring it with an apple attached to the end of a pole with a string. [[SubvertedTrope It wakes up just enough to eat the apple, then goes back to sleep before they could get it to move.]]

* ''VideoGame/PizzaTower'' has Gustavo riding on a giant rat. He holds stick with cheese in front of a rat.

* ''PizzaTower'' has Gustavo riding on a giant rat. He holds stick with cheese in front of a rat.

* In the Australian lifestyle program ''The Living Room'', the ''Hack Off'' section involves the hosts presenting silly lifestyle hacks they've thought up. One involved a cat collar with a toy mouse hanging off it on a wire, and to demonstrate its practicality he attached another collar to a male host with chorizo sausages hanging off it. The other hosts decided [[BrainBleach this was too disturbing]] and refused to award him the prize.