History Main / PubliclyDiscussingTheSecret

* PlayedForLaughs on a regular basis by the TropeCodifier, ''Series/GetSmart''.
** Max would often call CONTROL Headquarters on his shoe phone and openly discuss mission details in plain sight of dozens, if not hundreds, of onlookers. One episode even had Max use a phone that was hidden in a fire hydrant, while people passed him on the street.

* In one episode of ''Series/{{Callan}}'', Callan and his fellow operative are in a bar in [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar West Germany]], talking heatedly about their mission to rescue an agent from behind the IronCurtain. Lucky East German agents never visit bars near the border, isn't it?

* Subverted in ''Film/TheManFromUNCLE2015''. The KGB and CIA spymasters are briefing the protagonists in a cafe, announce they're going to [[HeadbuttingHeroes leave them alone to get acquainted]], and get up to leave...along with everyone else in the cafe, as all the other customers are their men.

** ''Film/CasinoRoyale'': After making contact with Mathis, Bond and Vesper proceed to discuss their secret mission in a café just off the town square. Mathis also brings up blackmailing Royale's chief of police, with none of the other patrons noticing any of it.

* ''WebVideo/TheBoothAtTheEnd'' plays off of this trope. The Man at the Booth discusses lucrative, dangerous, and questionable information with visitors who come to see him at his Booth. There are always some other customers in the diners that he appears at, yet he seems not to mind, or care. This leads to a waitress asking about his "business." And then the Man gets a new ''friend...''

Happens all the time on ''Series/{{Leverage}}''. You would think that, considering the number of times the team runs a scam that depends on no one knowing that they're running a scam, that they'd strictly avoid discussing their scams in public, but they still do, and no one seems to notice or care.

** Invoked in ''Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice'', both the book and film. Tiger Tanaka, James Bond's contact with the Japanese equivalent of MI6, says it's a Japanese custom.

-->'''*Nerdy makes [[FlatWhat 'you've gotta be kidding me']] expression*'''

* In one episode of ''{{Callan}}'', Callan and his fellow operative are in a bar in [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar West Germany]], talking heatedly about their mission to rescue an agent from behind the IronCurtain. Lucky East German agents never visit bars near the border, isn't it?

Can be {{justified}} if the secret in question is an OpenSecret. Usually isn't LampShaded at all. Contrast OvertRendezvous, PublicSecretMessage, and EasilyOverheardConversation.

* A RunningGag in the first season of ''{{Series/Roswell}}'' was Liz and Maria discussing the fact that Max, Isabel, and Michael are aliens in places like the Crashdown Cafe or West Roswell High School's cafeteria. Though they were GenreSavvy enough to not actually ''use'' the word "aliens", the word they decided to use was "Czechoslovakians", [[{{SubvertedTrope}} which manages to be no less weird and attention-grabbing a thing to talk about in New Mexico]].

* A RunningGag in the first season of ''{{Series/Roswell}}'' was Liz, Maria, and Alex discussing the fact that Max, Isabel, and Michael are aliens in places like the Crashdown Cafe or West Roswell High School's cafeteria. Though they were GenreSavvy enough to not actually ''use'' the word "aliens", the word they decided to use was "Czechoslovakians", [[{{SubvertedTrope}} which manages to be no less weird and attention-grabbing a thing to talk about in New Mexico]].

* A RunningGag in the first season of ''{{Series/Roswell}}'' was Liz, Maria, and Alex discussing the fact that Max, Isabel, and Michael are aliens. Though they were GenreSavvy enough to not actually ''use'' the word "aliens", the word they decided to use was "Czechoslovakians", [[{{SubvertedTrope}} which manages to be no less weird and attention-grabbing a thing to talk about in New Mexico]].

* A RunningGag in the first season of Series/Roswell was Liz, Maria, and Alex discussing the fact that Max, Isabel, and Michael are aliens. Though they were GenreSavvy enough to not actually ''use'' the word "aliens", the word they decided to use was "Czechoslovakians", [[{{SubvertedTrope}} which manages to be no less weird and attention-grabbing a thing to talk about in New Mexico]].

-->'''Dodgson:''' You shouldn't use my name.
-->'''Nedry:''' Dodgson, Dodgson, we've got Dodgson here! Nobody cares. Nice hat. [[OvertOperative What are you trying to look like, a secret agent]]?

* In ''Film/JurassicPark'' Dennis Nedry and Lew Dodgson discuss the plan to steal dinosaur embryos from [=InGen=] in a Costa Rican restaurant. Dodgson even demonstrates the functions of the shaving cream can used to smuggle the embryos there while sitting at the table. Nedry [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] their OvertRendezvous, believing that HiddenInPlainSight is in full effect here:

* ''Series/SesameStreet'' plays with this in an older insert from TheSeventies, in which Herry tells Grover a secret ([[{{ItMakesSenseInContext}} basically, the alphabet]]), and tells him not to tell anybody, so Grover says he won't. Cue a montage of Grover telling a monster named Pamela, Pamela telling another monster named Fenwick, Fenwick telling yet another monster named Rosemary, until they all join in a group reciting of the alphabet, just as Herry walks by; Herry walks over and remarks, "You're very good at reciting the alphabet, Grover. But you're lousy at keeping secrets!"