History Main / Tontine

* The very [[https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/The_Case_of_the_Chemical_Syndicate first]] ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' story, [[ComicBook/DetectiveComicsNumber27 "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate."]] Stryker, Lambert, Crane and Rogers all own equal shares of the titular syndicate. One decides he wants the whole thing. Murder ensues.

* The very [[https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/The_Case_of_the_Chemical_Syndicate first]] ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' story, "ComicBook/TheCaseOfTheChemicalSyndicate". Stryker, Lambert, Crane and Rogers all own equal shares of the titular syndicate. One decides he wants the whole thing. Murder ensues.

* The very [[https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/The_Case_of_the_Chemical_Syndicate first]] ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' story, "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate". Stryker, Lambert, Crane and Rogers all own equal shares of the titular syndicate. One decides he wants the whole thing. Murder ensues.

See also [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontine Wikipedia]].

* Figured in the plot of an episode of ''Series/BarneyMiller''. Unusual in that the participants seemed to be quite amicable towards each other; it's a pair of elderly men who decide to play cards to see who will claim it. The [[AmoralAttorney lawyer handling the case]] is shockingly indifferent to their fates.

Not to be confused with "Tontine Therapy", an Australian euphemism for smothering someone to death with a pillow which takes its name from pillows with the Tontine brand name. Not that it can't be the murder weapon in the above trope, but the etymology is separate.

* Seen also in ''Literature/TheWrongBox'' by Creator/RobertLouisStevenson and Lloyd Osbourne.

* Variant: In ''The Last Man's Reward'' a group of neighborhood kids living in the same temporary apartment building buys a box of baseball cards at a garage sale, which contains many rare and valuable cards. They hide it in a cave, and the last kid to move out of the apartment building gets to keep the whole box.
* The ''Literature/DoctorSynTheScarecrow'' book "The Amazing Quest of Doctor Syn" involves one member of a tontine trying to wipe the others out.
* The men of Maggody arrange a tontine for possession of the bass boat in Joan Hess's ''Merry Wives of Maggody'', apparently not aware that such a document is illegal and unenforceable. Roy Stiver Lampshades how tontines had never made much sense to begin with, even in mystery novels.
* The Creator/SidneySheldon book ''Bloodline'' featured Roffe & Sons Pharmaceuticals, a company whose founder saw to it that his heirs wouldn't be allowed to sell their shares unless all shareholders agreed to it. Detective Max Hornung, who was investigating the murder of Sam Roffe, compared that with the tontine.

* Thomas Bertram Costain's ''The Tontine'' follows the lives of three young people entered in a Victorian tontine.
* In the short story "The Magnum" by Jack Ritchie, Amos Weatherlee tells Harry Sloan the story of how the cursed object of a tontine has caused the members of the tontine, a group of Spanish-American war veterans including Weatherlee, to [[WhoWantsToLiveForever apparently become immortal]]. [[spoiler: Weatherlee is a Con Man who has made the whole thing up to trick Sloan into buying himself into the tontine.]]
* In Jody Lynn Nye's 1993 science fiction novel ''Taylor's Ark'', the title character rescues a little girl from a colony planet that has been ravaged by a disease that has killed off all of the other colonists except her. The bank that owns the colony worlds wishes to sell them to the highest bidder, and is using the virus to kill off the colonists on said worlds. Unfortunately, the colonists on the planet where the girl was found anticipated this and set up their estate plan in the form of a tontine, making the girl a multi-millionaire.

* Used in the ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in 'The Curse of the Flying Hellfish'", as the quote demonstrates. It's revealed that Abe Simpson and Mr. Burns served together during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and their squad (the Flying Hellfish) acquired a set of priceless German paintings, with the agreement that the last member of the Hellfish to die would get them. It ends when [[spoiler:just as Abe manages to claim the paintings by "discharging" Burns, the State Department shows up, confiscates the painting and presents them to a descendant of their original German owner for diplomatic purposes. The descendant is not too worried about their safety, either.]]

* There is a set of eighty silver goblets that have been reserved for this purpose. Upon each of them is engraved the name of one of the men who flew on the Doolittle Bombing Raid of 1942. With it is a bottle of 1896 (The year of James Doolittle's birth) brandy. This bottle was intended to be opened by the last two survivors of that mission to toast those that have gone before them. With only four men left, all of whom were in their mid-nineties and in failing health, they decided to open the bottle together in 2013.

* The very first ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' story, "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate".

* This was used in an eighth season episode of ''Series/{{MASH}}'' called "Old Soldiers" with Col. Potter. Note that in this case, the tontine was not an investment, but rather a bottle of brandy, to be drunk in a toast by the last surviving member of the group.
%%* It has been used as recently as ''Series/DiagnosisMurder''.
* In ''Series/TheDailyShow'' during the "You're Welcome" session John Hodgman (Resident Deranged Millionaire) suggested that they solve national debt problems by making Social Security a tontine. And by making murder legal. Seconds later he attempted to strangle Jon Stewart.

* ''Series/MurdochMysteries'': In "Kommando", the murdered soldiers were all members of a tontine, which muddies the waters as to motive.

* Used in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', as the quote demonstrates. It's revealed that Abe Simpson and Mister Burns served together during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and their squad (the Flying Hellfish) acquired a set of priceless German paintings, with the agreement that the last member of the Hellfish to die would get them. It ends when [[spoiler:just as Abe manages to claim the paintings by "discharging" Burns, the State Department shows up, confiscates the painting and presents them to a descendant of their original German owner for diplomatic purposes. The descendant is not too worried about their safety, either.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'', "The Double Deuce." When members of Woodhouse's old UsefulNotes/WorldWarI flying squad start dropping dead ([[spoiler:of perfectly natural causes that were played up as "dubious" by [[IfItBleedsItLeads desperate-for-sales newspapers]]]]), he suspects that it's because of the tontine they set up. Cheryl, Pam and Cyril hear about this and discuss starting an ISIS tontine, pointing out that since the rest of their coworkers are either field agents that go on dangerous missions or work in parts of the building with NoOSHACompliance it'll be that much easier to win. Cyril does acknowledge that Tontines are illegal, but it doesn't stop him from joining in.

* Creator/AgathaChristie used this as a plot in several of her books.

* "[[Recap/TheWildWildWestS2E16TheNightOfTheTotteringTontine The Night of the Tottering Tontine]]" on ''Series/TheWildWildWest''.

* Variant: Creator/ElleryQueen's ''Literature/LastManToDie'' featured a tontine, but instead of foul play, the last two members died on the same night. Which one died first?

* Similar to the'' Blackhawks'' example above, Creator/MarvelComics has a WWII-era group who put aside a bottle of liquor as a tontine: the Young Allies. ComicBook/BuckyBarnes tracked down the other two survivors, and they have a laugh over it-- thanks to being cryogenically frozen over the years, Bucky is still in his mid-twenties and will obviously outlive them all. Bucky says he'd rather share the bottle with them now instead of drinking it when they're dead, so they each have a glass. Bucky finds himself the sole survivor very shortly afterward, and [[LibationForTheDead pours the rest of the drink]] out over a memorial to his friends.

* In Creator/DCComics' ''ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey'' #75, we learn that the [[ComicBook/{{Blackhawk}} Blackhawk Squadron]] had a tontine. As with the ''Series/{{MASH}}'' example below, it was in the form of a bottle, and was drunk by the [[FishOutOfTemporalWater time-tossed]] Lady Blackhawk, last surviving member of the squadron.

* Film/TheHappytimeMurders: After talking to the former producer of "The Happytime Gang," Phillips and Edwards learns that essentially all of the former actors were put into a tontine, in that each of the surviving actors gets an equal cut of the residuals when the show starts being replayed in syndication - but with each actor that dies, each slice to the surviving actors gets bigger, until of course there's only one recipient still alive.

->''"Duh, essentially, we all enter into a contract whereby the last surviving participant becomes the sole possessor [[SophisticatedAsHell of all them purty pictures.]]"''

* ''VideoGame/CrusaderKings'':
** "Gavelkind" succession causes a ruler's lands to divide equally upon all his heirs, [[SuccessionCrisis fratricidal wars]] are practically guaranteed.
** The "open" succession plan used by Muslim rulers in ''VideoGame/CrusaderKingsII'' is even worse. Muslim rulers have to grant titles to their sons (and due to polygamy they tend to have many) to avoid [[DecadentCourt decadence]] penalties and when they die their title passes to the son who already had the most lands, with fratricide almost guaranteed.

* Figured in the plot of an episode of ''Series/BarneyMiller''. Unusual in that the participants seemed to be quite amicable towards each other; it's a pair of elderly men who decide to play cards to see who will claim it.

->''"Duh, essentially, we all enter into a contract whereby the last surviving participant becomes the sole possessor of all them purty pictures."''

* In ''VideoGame/CrusaderKings'' "gavelkind" succession causes a ruler's lands to divide equally upon all his heirs, [[SuccessionCrisis fratricidal wars]] are practically guaranteed.