History Main / PoisonedChaliceSwitcheroo

* {{Inverted}} in the fantasy film ''WesternAnimation/Shrek2,'' when Fiona's father the King brings two cups of tea into Fiona's room, one of which he had spiked with a love potion as part of a ploy to get her to marry Prince Charming. After talking for a bit, Fiona reaches for one cup, but the King nervously tells her to drink the other, making up a transparent excuse about one of them being decaf. Fiona obliges, having no reason to be suspicious of her father. At the movie's climax, it's revealed to the audience that the King had actually changed his mind at the last second, instead giving Fiona the untainted cup.

* ''Series/ThePrisoner'' - Number Six is made to believe his aggressive behavior has been neutralized by ultrasound brain surgery - he comes to realize it had been staged and he was being kept passive with drugs, at which point he switches his drugged tea with a cup the scientist in charge is taking with him.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', Obi-Wan and Anakin use TheForce to pull this trick off on a gang of pirates. But then they get knocked out anyway [[AllThereInTheManual between episodes]]. Because the lead pirate's pet sees them and uses a gas to knock out ''everyone''.

* Played with in the 1997 ''ComicStrip/PrinceValiant'' film. The villain spikes Princess Ilene's goblet with some kind of potion (love potion, sleeping potion... wasn't made clear). Ilene distracts him, switches goblets, and pours candle wax into his goblet. The villain get suspicious and switches them back. He drinks first, and as he chokes on the wax, Ilene escapes.

** In ''Sparkling Cyanide'', [[spoiler:Iris Marle]] has a narrow escape from death: [[spoiler:her handbag]] falls off the chair while everyone is away dancing, and [[spoiler:a passing waiter who isn't serving this particular table and doesn't know who's sitting where puts it back up on the wrong chair. When Iris return, she naturally goes to the place marked by the handbag. This results in Iris's brother-in-law getting killed and the murderers' plan going awry]]. Later, Anthony Browne demonstrates the mechanics of the accident with non-lethal (if very bad-tasting) substances: sitting in a cafe with two detectives, he lures them away from the table and [[spoiler:moves the inspector's pipe from one cup to another. When the detectives return, one of them suddenly finds sugar in his tea and another finds out he's suddenly drinking coffee]].

** [[RecycledScript The exact same gag]] was used in an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-4QaAbBKJI early episode]] of ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'', with Stuart Minkus in place of Urkel and Shawn as the bully.

* A recurring [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZOoKCOWlbs series of sketches]] on ''[[Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook The Mitchell And Webb Situation]]'' was of a servant trying to poison his sick master. In one of them, the servant suggests they should have drinks together, but the master quickly catches on and switches the glasses repeatedly until the servant loses track of the poisoned one. The servant then decides that they should have drinks later.

* While not being entirely 100% on the Trope, there is a story in a book in the ''[[Franchise/TheElderScrolls Elder Scrolls]]'' games which recounts the story of a noble man inviting his most trusted followers to a great meal. Most attendees feared that the food was poisoned and thus faked eating it. Once the meal was finished, the lord said that instead of the meal, the cutlery was poisoned, but if attendees who deserved to be poisoned would confess of their wrongdoings against him, they would receive the antidote. [[spoiler:One man admitted consorting behind the lord's back and received the antidote. At this point the lord admitted that the meal and drink were perfectly fine and the "antidote" was actually an incurable deadly poison.]] At the end of the book the writer deduces that the ploy was more to inspire fear into the lord's servants than expose any spies and requests from his employer to be resigned from his position.
** You actually meet the nobleman in question in the expansion pack, ''Tribunal'' - [[DeadlyDecadentCourt King Helseth]].

* Wrestling/TripleH did this with Wrestling/ShaneMcMahon when the latter drugged his water bottle so he would lose consciousness and would have no choice but to join Wrestling/VinceMcMahon’s "[[AssShove Kiss My Ass]]" club. Being GenreSavvy and remembering what happened to Wrestling/ShawnMichaels, Triple H got Shane distracted, and switched water bottles, so Shane drank the drugged water instead. Later that night, Triple H pulled a WoundedGazelleGambit on Vince, and acted like he was under the influence of the drugged water. When Shane lost consciousness instead, Triple H got up, and took down Vince with a pedigree.

* OlderThanSteam: Creator/WilliamShakespeare [[TheZerothLawOfTropeExamples did it]] in ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}''. Specifically, it was done with ''swords''. Laertes cut Hamlet with a poisoned sword in a fencing match, and in the ensuing scuffle Hamlet took Laertes' sword and cut him as well. In the exact same scene, Gertrude (accidentally or not, depending on the director) drinks the poisoned wine Claudius meant to use on Hamlet if the sword trick failed.

** In the final HerculePoirot novel, ''Literature/{{Curtain}}'', [[spoiler:20th-century [[Theatre/{{Othello}} Iago]] Stephen Norton has manipulated Barbara Franklin into trying to poison her husband. While everyone else is looking at meteors, Hastings, completely unsuspecting, swivels the table around to get at a book, and Barbara drinks the poisoned coffee.]]

* ''ElChapulinColorado'': In one story, El Chapulin is helping two pirates to defect and a girl offers the Captain a cup of wine while El Chapulin is given a drink from a similar cup. Suspecting the Captain's wine to be poisoned, he and Chapulin keep playing switcheroo behind each other's backs until Chapulin pretends to switch and the Captain ends up drinking a sleeping potion.

* The ''Film/JamesBond'' parody in ''{{Concession}}'' mocked this trope:

** Also in ''Curtain'', [[spoiler:Poirot tells Norton that he plans to kill him. Both are drinking hot chocolate, and Norton asks to swap cups. Poirot agrees, but he had dosed the pot of chocolate with sleeping tablets he had been taking for a long time (and thus developed a mild immunity to). Norton falls asleep, and Poirot later kills him.]]

** ''ComicBook/ButtonMan'': Harry agrees to let the person he is there to kill pour them both a drink, clearly expecting his drink to contain a sedative. So he switches the drinks and the other guy "accidentally" spills his, confirming Harry's suspicions. Then it turns out that both drinks were drugged, and the poisoner just spilled the drink to fool Harry into thinking the other one was safe.

* ''ComicBook/NikolaiDante'': [[PlayingWithATrope Played With]]. Nikolai and his half-sister Anastasia, who typically kills people by poisoning them are having a drink together. Nikolai's crest warns him that his glass may be poisoned, so he makes an obvious effort to switch the glasses, at which point Anastasia remarks that, as an experienced poisoner, she would expect a wary individual to try and switch glasses, so she would logically poison her own glass, instead. Then, when Dante switches glasses ''again'', she remarks that since she's immune to her own poison, anyway, she would logically poison both glasses.

* The [[Film/TheThreeMusketeers2011 2011 version of ''The Three Musketeers'']] has a variation where it's the chalice themselves that were poisoned.

** An early episode of ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'' used [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-4QaAbBKJI the exact same gag]], with Stuart Minkus as Urkel and Shawn as the bully.

Two enemies are sharing a drink and one of the glasses contains poison. At ''least'' one of them will attempt to poison the other by switching glasses while the other's back is turned. Common joke is either that someone poisons a chalice, then they get switched over, or someone [[IKnowYouKnowIKnow knows he's got a poisoned drink]], and tries to find a chance to [[DiscreetDrinkDisposal dispose of it without being obvious]], or pretending to swap the glasses, waiting for the enemy to really swap them and drink. A common trick (most famously seen in ''Film/ThePrincessBride'') is to poison both drinks.

* In ''TheTwoRonnies'' serial "Done To Death," the two detectives suspect [[FemmeFatale Blanche]] has poisoned their food. They both make several attempts to change their plates with hers; in the end, they both think they've succeeded and start eating, only for Blanche to remark innocently that she's got her original plate back. [[spoiler:Fortunately, the food wasn't poisoned in the first place.]]

* In the Creator/AgathaChristie short story "Accident
', a man suspects a woman of being a murderer. Before he can be certain, he must take a drink she offers him. He waits for her to drink first; she hesitates before pouring her drink into a plant. Confident he's beaten the switcheroo, he drinks from his vessel [[spoiler:and promptly dies]].

* In an episode of ''StarWarsTheCloneWars'', Obi-Wan and Anakin use TheForce to pull this trick off on a gang of pirates. But then they get knocked out anyway [[AllThereInTheManual between episodes]]. Because the lead pirate's pet sees them and uses a gas to knock out ''everyone''.