History Main / PricelessMingVase

** Exaggerated in "Shell Shocked" when SpongeBob accidentally breaks ''all'' the shells in Angry Jack's Shell Emporium while shopping for a new shell for Gary.

* An episode of ''Anime/TheAdventuresOfTheLittleKoala'' revolved around Roobear and his friends going to a local museum and seeing one. Upon noticing it's about to fall over, Roobear manages to break its fall. Unfortunately, his finger is now stuck in it and he can't get it out. He desperately tries to hide the situation from everyone including his family, resulting in him not eating in days or else risking revealing it. Eventually, his not eating causes his finger to slim down enough to slip right out and the vase (surprisingly) falls safely back into its display undamaged.

* In one episode of ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' the Gang breaks into a family's house to steal a priceless vase but get frustrated with sneaking around and give up. They then awkwardly walk past the family to the front door, only for Frank to see the vase in their living room and try to [[InstantKnots grab it with his whip]], shattering it.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': In "Wet Painters", [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick are hired to paint Mr. Krabs's knickknack-festooned living room with paint that supposedly never, ''ever'' comes out. They manage to paint the entire room (pretty much by accident) without getting paint on anything else. At first it appears that they are off the hook, until [=SpongeBob=] notices a ''tiny, nearly microscopic speck of paint'' on [[NumberOneDime Krabs' first dollar earned]]. Trying to wipe it off only spreads the paint all over, and they spend the rest of the episode trying to get it off, then hiding it from Mr. Krabs. Finally, Krabs discovers the painted bill, and '''licks it clean!''' Turns out [[ShaggyDogStory Krabs only told them the paint was unwashable]] to mess with them, which causes him to laugh so hard, he gets spit all over the walls, [[LaserGuidedKarma washing off all of the paint]].

** In another episode, Bubbles can't keep her hands off a Ming vase (the object of the very first crime Mojo Jojo ever committed). Mojo does save the vase before it falls, but when he's zapped by his own laser, it's destroyed anyway. He ''definitely'' wasn't fine with it.

* Happens in ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}'' numerous times. From [[http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/narbonic/series.php?view=archive&chapter=10293 this strip]]:

'''Dave:''' Sorry. I tend to cause foreshadowing.\\

** And sure enough, before the evening's gaming is over, Dave has opened an interdimensional portal that causes the house to be swarmed by angels. While attempting to fix the microwave.

* The whole ''plot'' of ''Manga/OuranHighSchoolHostClub'' centers around Haruhi having broken one of these. Lampshaded with a giant blinking arrow over it the moment it appears on screen... and every time during the next few shots before it is finally broken a few minutes later. The way they set up the whole scene, it's impossible to NOT see it coming.

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]

* One of the priceless artifacts stored at the Jade Palace in ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'' is the Urn of Whispering Warriors, said to contain all the 5,000 souls of the Tenshu Army. Naturally, when Po arrives at the palace, he ends up breaking it. The end credits shows a palace goose [[CallBack gluing the urn back together, fragment by fragment]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989'': Ariel's grotto full of human objects, including a large statue of Prince Eric, which King Triton destroys when he finds out about it.

[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]

* This is a OncePerEpisode occurrence in Creator/JackieChan movies. Mocked by ''Website/TheOnion'' headline "Jackie Chan attacked while carrying World's Most Expensive Wedding Cake." For example, Jackie Chan spends considerable time protecting the pottery treasures of China from damage in ''Film/RushHour'' while fighting [[BigBad Juntao's]] men--and then one of the vases gets shot. Beautifully averted in ''Film/ShanghaiKnights'', however, where a fight between Jackie and several mooks takes place in a room full of these. Originally, the writers were planning to play this trope straight, until they realized that it would be much funnier if the mooks were afraid of breaking the vases because they belonged to their boss. This results in Jackie using them to his advantage by running the mooks ragged trying to keep him from breaking any of them.

--->'''Clouseau:''' Is this vase of great value?
--->'''Larocque:''' It is a worthless imitation.
--->''[Clouseau slams the vase on the nearby desk, breaking both the vase and the table in the process]''
--->'''Larocque:''' ''[cringing]'' But that desk was ... priceless.

-->'''Eddie:''' You want me to break anything else?
-->'''The Dukes:''' NO!

-->'''Larry:''' This vase was so valuable. There's only five of them in the world.
-->'''Aunt Kate:''' ''[unflinching]'' Four.

* ''Film/TheyCallMeBruce''. Bruce is waving around nunchucks in a dojo and ends up breaking the OldMaster's expensive vase. The master throws Bruce out of his class, telling him to keep the chucks so he can practice with them...in the closet!

--> '''Matthew''': Sorry about the vase.
--> '''The Dowager Countess''': Don't be, don't be. It was a wedding present from a frightful aunt. I have hated it for half a century.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'': Jon once bought a real Ming vase. Garfield casually reached over and shoved, smashing it to the ground. ('[[WordSchmord Ming, shming.]]") Jon had a brief HeroicBSOD followed by a hysterical meltdown, screaming "YOU DUMB ANIMAL! YOU'RE SO STUPID! YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU DID!" Then, once he had left, Garfield privately reflected (in very eloquent language) that he had smashed the vase as a protest against the autocratic tendencies of ImperialChina.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

--->'''Stu''': Wow, that ''is'' a nice elephant, Chaz!\\
(Loud '''CRASH'''! is heard)\\
'''Chaz''': '''''[[TheScream AAAAAAHHHH!!!]]'''''\\
'''Stu''': Oops...\\
(''Episode ends'')

--> '''Brak:''' Take this, Ming! I'm sick of your dynasty!

* ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPandaLegendsOfAwesomeness'': A RunningGag follows along with the movies as listed above; any time the Vase of Whispering Warriors appears on screen it gets broken again.
--> (smash) (ghostly moaning) '''Po''': "Sorry, guys."

->'''Archie:''' I've never heard of a '''Manchu''' vase!\\
'''Mr. Lodge:''' '''Old!''' Valuable! Very '''rare'''! And they're not such a '''Cliché''' as those '''Ming'''...\\

** In the episode "Busted", Bloo breaks a bust of Madame Foster while roughhousing. His attempts to fix it just makes things worse. At one point, he actually has Madame Foster herself pose as the bust after covering her in flour. Mr. Herriman finds out about this, and it looks like Bloo is going to be evicted like Herriman threatened earlier, but then he laughs, saying that the bust gets knocked over and broken so many times that Mrs. Foster had several dozen copies made, which he keeps in a closet, just in case.

** Peter launches himself out of a catapult. Cut to a scene involving a room full of neatly stacked dominos, priceless crockery, and the owner's "newborn haemophiliac baby", with a wide open window. Cue Peter speeding though the air towards the window only to land just outside without harming a thing. He even leans in to comment on the man's "really nice things".

[[folder:Fanfiction]]
* In ''FanFic/TheApprenticeTheStudentAndTheCharlatan'', Sweetie Belle accidentally breaks a vase Rarity owned while Nova is teaching her how to control her magic. Rarity blames Nova, seeing it as his fault because he didn't dissuade Sweetie Belle from levitating it, and it leads to a bit of an icy relationship between the two of them.
* ''FanFic/AdoptedDisplaced''; in "Three More Things", Scootaloo knocks over and breaks one in [[WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures Uncle's]] shop. After he sweeps it up (and to reassure the [=CMC=] that it's not a big deal), Uncle [[LampshadeHanging says there's millions of Ming Vases around the world being broken]].

* PlayedForDrama in ''A Single Shard'', by Linda Sue Park -- though these are priceless ''celadon'' vases. Tree-Ear accidentally breaks a vase belonging to Min, the master potter, and must work for him to pay off the vase's value.

* Rikki Fry's father collects these in ''[[{{Literature/Chalet School}} The Chalet School and Richenda]]'', and her habit of touching them, despite repeatedly being told not to, gets her sent to the Chalet School as punishment.
* Creator/NeilGaiman's Literature/{{Neverwhere}} had an unusual subversion. Mr. Croup, the sophisticated member of "The Old Firm", is a connoisseur of objects like Ming china. He will deal even with enemies to prevent them destroying such items, if [[spoiler:they offer him a chance to personally destroy the objects himself. He delights in the destruction of rare beautiful objects, preferring to eat them.]]

* When Richard Hammond painted and James May sculpted for a "car art" challenge on ''Series/TopGear'', the former plunged his work by accident to a pond, then crashed the latter's sculpture.

* The ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' episode ''Back And Back To The Future'' involves a time loop. Each time, Crichton goes into Zhaan's room and talks to her, picking up a delicate mask on a display shelf, then as he's playing with it he ends up dropping it and causing it to shatter, to Zhaan's distress. However, on the final loop, since Crichton has figured out what's going on, he instead [[SubvertedTrope carefully sets the mask down]] before [[DoubleSubversion deliberately stomping on it]].

* ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPandaLegendsOfAwesomeness '': A RunningGag follows along with the movies as listed above; any time the Vase of Whispering Warriors appears on screen it gets broken again.

** In the episode "The Terrific Trio" the titular trio are robbing a house, and one of them accidentally break one of these vases. He quips "Oh well, Ming was a boring dynasty anyway."

* ''Film/ChildrensPartyAtThePalace'': Whilst at the picture gallery of Buckingham Palace, Horrid Henry breaks a ceramic vase on accident when he tried to open a locked cabinet.

* ''Series/PieInTheSky''. One episode has an expensive wine picked up as war loot as the MacGuffin, but it turns out the real bottle was accidentally broken years ago and the label stuck on another bottle. Ironically that also turns out to be a rare vintage when it's tasted.

** In the same episode, Bernard and Manny wind up drinking a priceless bottle of wine and spend much of the remainder of the episode trying to augment a cheap bottle of wine to replace it.

** Lampshaded in another story, when told that a certain vase is a Ming by Veronica, Archie goes into a tirade to Jughead on how cliche'd the whole concept is, almost breaking it several times. At the end of the story, Mr. Lodge comes in and says that the vase is ''not'' a Ming but dates from a different dynasty, and thus vastly more expensive. Cue Archie fainting.
** ''Another'' story involved Archie very nearly destroying several of Mr. Lodge's treasures, only to have Jughead catch it at the last second every time. The story ends with Mr. Lodge forbidding Veronica to go on any more dates with Archie unless Jughead accompanies them.

* ''Theatre/{{Cats}}'': During [[ThoseTwoBadGuys Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer's]] number, the lyrics tell you that they're the ones responsible for breaking, among other things, "a vase which was commonly said to be Ming."