History Main / SpeakFriendAndEnter

* In ''VideoGame/SpaceQuestII'', the Labion natives welcome you into their home and tell you to "say the word" when you're ready to move on. As demonstrated in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-siZx4REO8 at least one Let's Play]], this trope can still confuse people.

* ''Film/BedknobsAndBroomsticks'': Near the end, they realize the spell they were looking for was in the [[spoiler:child's book]] all along. This make a large part of the movie somewhat of a ShaggyDogStory in retrospect. The best part is that the child in question spotted this immediately, but kept getting a dose of NotNowKiddo.

* In ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'', Ranma gets a cursed spatula attached to his hand ([[ItMakesSenseInContext don't ask]]). It will only come off when it is "used properly". Every attempt to use it to cook results in disaster and magic energy bolts flying all over the place. Then someone realizes that the Japanese phrases "use properly" and "use fish flakes" sound identical. They sprinkle on some fish flakes and the spatula falls right off.

---> "Why couldn't I have been named George or Bob?"

* In an Italian ''[[ComicBook/MickeyMouseComicUniverse Mickey Mouse]]'' story, Mickey and Pluto are kidnapped by aliens and subjected to tests to find out which of them is the [[MistookTheDominantLifeform dominant lifeform]]. Mickey keeps finding the difficult solutions (e.g. running through a complicated maze) and Pluto finds the "common sense" ones (just walking around the maze), so the aliens conclude that Pluto is the superior intellect.

* ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'': After trying and failing for a week to get some treasure in a video game by beating a very tough boss, Jason takes a break and comes back to find that his non-gamer sister Paige had somehow done it. He begs and pleads with her to tell how she did it, and she eventually reveals that she... just walked up and took the treasure. [[SheatheYourSword Don't provoke the enemy and he won't kill you]].

* In the ''Literature/{{Dinotopia}}'' book ''The Lost City'' two boys have to race to the end of a room containing an obstacle course. One begins making his way through the obstacles. The other, after taking a moment to think, just runs straight through the middle of the lanes, avoiding all the obstacles, and wins. The dinos think this solution quite clever, and praise the boy, although his friend accuses him of cheating.

* ''Literature/TheMarvellousLandOfSnergs'': At the end of a subterranean maze, the protagonists stumble upon a locked door. Gorbo tries to push it open but it does not work. Then he charges the door once and again and again until his whole body hurts. Then Sylvia grabs the doorknob, and instead of pushing, she pulls the door open effortlessly.

* ''Series/HeadOfTheClass'': Dr. Samuels gives the class an assignment: how do you measure the height of a building using a barometer? After several explanations, he asks the new sub Mr. Moore how he would do it. Mr. Moore says to the super, "If you tell me how tall this building is I'll give you this neat barometer.". This is a reference to a tale of [[http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/barometer.asp similar smartassery]] on the part of Niels Bohr (in his university days).

* In the first series of ''{{Series/Raven}}'', this was the final challenge on each qualifying week. There was a portal that lead to the finals, and it had a riddle on top, such as “Answer with wisdom and move forward”. Each of the three remaining warriors would go to a rock and whisper their answer into a hole in said rock. If they gave the correct answer, “wisdom” in the aforementioned case, the portal would open and let them continue. The first two to do this would appear in the finals, the third being eliminated from the quest. The final week dropped this, presumably since the finalists would now be onto this format, replacing it with a KnightsAndKnaves style puzzle instead.

* In the ''{{TabletopGame/Paranoia}}'' adventure "Send in the Clones", the PC's encounter a door with a panel of buttons nearby. If they push the buttons and succeed in a difficult skill roll, the door opens. If the skill roll fails, the door stays closed. If they just push on the door, they find that it was open all along.

* ''VideoGame/ZorkGrandInquisitor'':
** In Hades, the player is tasked with answering a bunch of questions on the Hades Hotline telephone before he/she can call a shuttle. It's made especially confusing (the Hotline strives for "customer dissatisfaction") by the fact that, for example to press 6, you need to press 2, and to press 4, you need to press 0. The puzzle is doable, and there are only 5 questions, but it can also all be overriden if the player [[spoiler:casts "Kendall" to simplify the instructions.]]
** Another example presents a puzzle board with several moving pieces activating a lock that opens a small cage holding a skull that the player needs. The player, who at this moment is controlling a rather dim-witted troll-like creature, [[spoiler: simply smashes the cage open with a club]] to proceed.
* ''Bureaucracy'': this InteractiveFiction game, written by Creator/DouglasAdams, has a puzzle that consists of a locked door in an apartment complex. The way to get the door open is to do something no experienced adventure game player would ever think of trying, but someone faced with the same situation in RealLife would probably have no trouble finding the answer. [[spoiler: Simply knock on the door, and the person inside lets you in.]] It's that kind of game.
* In the third ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', knocking on the door is also the solution, contrary to anything your support team suggests, to getting through a random locked door in the enemy base.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'', Lightning tries almost everything to get a certain door open. Then, for some reason, she ''gives the door a hug'', and says: "I'm sorry. Please open." The door pops open, and every other door of that type opens without a fuss from then on. This happens because [[spoiler:the doors are fal'Cie, and thus living creatures who don't respond well to being punched and knocked on.]]
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', Ipsen's Castle has a movable wall that Zidane tries increasingly extreme methods to open, from banging on it to dropkicking it. It's only when he takes a break and leans against it does it actually move.
* ''VideoGame/LeatherGoddessesOfPhobos'': The player is captured by aliens and thrown into a cell. The way to escape is [[spoiler:simply to open the door -- it's not locked]]. Many players were stuck for weeks on this point. Lampshaded in-game as well -- the other prisoner admits he never thought to try it.
* In the Creator/{{Infocom}} game ''Journey'', the characters find a gate with an inscription reading "Please only say 'gate open' to enter storage-room." [[spoiler:Clues allow the player to read this correctly as "Storage-room entrance. To open gate, say only 'Please'."]]
* In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', to choose your Jedi class, you are asked a series of questions, one of them being "You are at a locked door. What do you do?" [[spoiler:One of the choices is "knock".]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Scribblenauts}}'', puzzle level 10-11, the player is given the clue "Write the answer!". [[spoiler: "To beat the level, you actually have to write Answer in the notebook."]]

* In ''VideoGame/SpaceQuestII'', the Labion natives welcome you into their home and tell you to "say the word" when you're ready to move on. As demonstrated in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-siZx4REO8 at least one Let's Play]], this trope can still confuse people.
* In the old game ''Might & Magic: The Lava Pits of Aznar'', one of the secret doors opens with an unexpectedly simple password. To quote the [[http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2020/03/game-359-might-magic-lava-pits-of-aznar.html CRPG Addict]]:
-->''...a set of runes only tells you to "speak the word" to open the door. You can spend a frustrating hour trying to figure out what the word could possibly be, or you can remember your "obvious clues" in cryptic crosswords and realize that what you want to say is literally THE WORD.''

* ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'' has this in the chapter "Death Volley". The entrance of the Inocktek temple has [[http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/14p26/ an inscription of a riddle]], explaining that anyone who wishes to enter must answer the riddle "loudly and with pride". Doc sees all the prior, failed answers to the riddle, and realizes what's up. He just walks into the temple without saying anything. The riddle was just a trick to make attempted temple raiders give themselves away to the sound-activated laser guarding the entrance.

* Happens in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Timon and Pumbaa}}'' where the duo are enlisted in a Survival of the Fittest training camp to get fit and healthy by a wolverine who secretly plans to eat them afterwards because he favors lean food. While Pumbaa faithfully follows his fitness guidelines, Timon lazes around and does absolutely nothing. After a pumped up Pumbaa surpasses a gruesome maze of challenges, when it's Timon's turn all he does is walk across the white starting line, erase the "start" etched on the ground next to it, walk back to the front of the starting line and then write down the words "Finish" on the ground, completely ignoring the maze of challenges.
* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'': In the episode "Syren", Master Fu is working on completing the recipe for a kwami power-up potion; the ingredients are all written as riddles (for example, the potion for the aquatic transformation requires "a branch from the dragon king's garden", ie. seaweed), and he's deciphered most of them, but is stuck on the last, "a tear of joy". As it turns out, the potion needs literal TearsOfJoy.

* ''Franchise/Pokemon'' uses a variant of this trope, amazingly enough, in [[Anime/Pokemon2000 the second movie]]: "And the world will turn to Ash." (This was a {{Woolseyism}}; the Japanese version simply referred to "a trainer".)