History Main / WeWait

* From ChuckNorrisFacts: "Chuck Norris doesn't sleep. He waits."

** And American airports, where you're supposed to be there two hours ahead of time for the security stuff, and spend an hour and 45 minutes waiting on it. (Unless, of course, you show up on time, [[MurphysLaw in which case it'll take two hours...]])

* ''WesternAnimation/DangerMouse'': In "The Great Bone Idol," Count Duckula has found the Great Bone Idol. Greenback has opened it and released the imprisoned bark of Cerebrus emanating from a bone which is calling upon all the dogs in the world. With the bone in his hand, Duckula asks what's next. "We wait," says Greenback. Duckula then tosses the bone back into the idol and it locks back up. Greenback, Duckula and Stiletto are now overwhelmed by dogs with no way of controlling them.

* Lampshaded in the ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' abridged parody of the first movie, ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNlRCUiCz0k Dead Zone]] ''

* In ''Literature/{{Edgedancer}}'', Lift tells this to Wyndle as they begin TheStakeout. This being said, she gets tired of it pretty quickly and goes to sleep, telling Wyndle to hold the fort and wake her up if anything happens.

* A WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy manatee joke has Peter as Zan of the Wonder Twins. He/Jayna get called on a mission. She leaves, he turns into a tampon and jumps into her purse:

* An episode of WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb revolves around the main characters sitting around and waiting to see exactly how the titular characters inventions keep disappearing right before their mother gets home. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qia8DnY6-mg They even break out into a song about how they're waiting for something to happen.]]

* ''Radio/OurMissBrooks:'' Miss Brooks stakes out a burglar in the episode [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "The Burglar."]]

* Said by veteran Igarashi to rookie Rin in salvage manga ''Wa ga na wa Umishi''. TheScrappy Rin whines about the team having fun when people are in trouble. Igarashi shoots him down: Being a pro means doing nothing unless the time is right.

* When Hermione and Harry see their past selves in Hagrid's hut, Harry wants to rush in and capture Peter Pettigrew [[spoiler: who is hiding as Scabbers, Ron's rat]]. Hermione says they must wait until actions they take won't disrupt what for them are past events. She and Harry are forced to wait until the group comes back out of the tunnel, knowing that Pettigrew gets away and Lupin will change into his werewolf form.

* The Doom novels had this trope invoked frequently from the second book through the fourth book, generally expressed as "Hurry up and wait."

* Selatcia, the leader of TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness watching Dethklok in ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'' is constantly telling his underlings, "We Wait," "We Watch," "It's too soon," or some variation thereof. [[spoiler:When two of them actually try to do something, one gets killed, and the other eventually gets brainwashed.]]
** In this case, it's justified by his goal: Selatcia ''[[MoleInCharge wants]]'' Dethklok to bring about the prophesied Metalocalypse, and thus prevents his Illuminati-like group from taking action to prevent it.

* ''Radio/OurMissBrooks:'' Miss Brooks stakes out a Burglar in the episode [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "The Burglar."]]

* When Hermione and Harry see their past selves in Hagrid's hut, Harry wants to rush in and capture Peter Petigrew [[spoiler: who is hiding as Scabbers, Ron's rat]]. Hermione says they must wait until actions they take won't disrupt what for them are past events. She and Harry are forced to wait until the group comes back out of the tunnel, knowing that Pettigrew gets away and Lupin will change into his werewolf form.

* ''Webcomic/{{Jerkcity}}'' [[http://www.jerkcity.com/jerkcity652.html uses this for the same purpose it uses everything else.]]

Used to be commonly rendered as "And now we play the Waiting Game...", but this line is now ''[[DeadHorseTrope never]]'' [[DeadHorseTrope played straight]]. Take this example from ''TheSimpsons'':

* Lampshaded in the ''DragonBallZ'' abridged parody of the first movie, ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNlRCUiCz0k Dead Zone]] ''

* Invoked in the penultimate confrontation of ''TheBluesBrothers'': Bob and the Good Ole Boys have bought tickets to the Blues Brothers' show, and must now wait for the band to actually come on stage.

** Since this was a ClosedTimeLoop world, it wasn't just that they shouldn't - logically, they couldn't.

* Many SherlockHolmes stories include Holmes, Watson, and Lestrade waiting for the criminal to fall in Holmes' trap.
* In ''ASongOfIceAndFire'' Illyrio Mopatis' [[spoiler: plan to restore the Targaryens has involved over 15 years of this.]] As changing events required repeated extensions of the wait time, [[spoiler: Lord Connington gets tired of it and goes off-script, invading Westeros with Aegon without reaching Danaerys.]]

* ''{{Lost}}'' Season Five: The characters have become TrappedInThePast, which is still an improvement over random, erratic and increasingly Frequent TimeTravel they've been expiriencing. When ased NowWhat, Sawyer replies WeWait. They wait [[TheSlowPath for three years]] and end up going native.

* ''MagicTheGathering'' has the aptly named card [[http://magiccards.info/od/en/102.html Standstill]].

* In ''SluggyFreelance'' [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness Hereti-Corp]]'s overall plan for finding Dr. Steve's base lab is to wait until Torg (one of only three or four living people who's been there) gets scared enough of Oasis that he goes to the lab looking for a tool or weapon to stop her with. May be the best strategy, since their two attempts to force the information out of Torg both ended with a lot of Hereti-Corp personnel getting killed.

* ''[[Jerkcity]]'' [[http://www.jerkcity.com/jerkcity652.html uses this for the same purpose it uses everything else.]]

* Selatcia, the leader of TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness watching Dethklok in ''{{Metalocalypse}}'' is constantly telling his underlings, "We Wait," "We Watch," "It's too soon," or some variation thereof. [[spoiler:When two of them actually try to do something, one gets killed, and the other eventually gets brainwashed.]]

* Subverted by Mr. Burns on ''TheSimpsons''.

* A FamilyGuy manatee joke has Peter as Zan of the Wonder Twins. He/Jayna get called on a mission. She leaves, he turns into a tampon and jumps into her purse:

* An episode of PhineasAndFerb revolves around the main characters sitting around and waiting to see exactly how the titicular characters inventions keep diapering right before their mother gets home.[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qia8DnY6-mg They even break out into a song about how their waiting for something to happen]]

** And American airports, where you're supposed to be there two hours ahead of time for the security stuff, and spend an hour and 45 minutes waiting on it. (Unless, of course, you show up on time, in which case it'll take two hours...)

* ''[[Jerkcity]]** [[http://www.jerkcity.com/jerkcity652.html uses this for the same purpose it uses everything else.]]

* When Hermione and Harry see their past selves in Hargrid's hut, Harry wants to rush in and capture Peter Petigrew [[spoiler: who is hiding as Scabbers, Ron's rat]]. Hermione says they must wait until actions they take won't disrupt what for them are past events. She and Harry are forced to wait until the group comes back out of the tunnel, knowing that Pettigrew gets away and Lupin will change into his werewolf form.

-->--'''Darkwing''', ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck''

* In ''FinalFantasyX'', when Tidus asks what they should do while Yuna is praying to the Fayth, Kimahri answers: "Pick spot. Shut up. Wait."
* NES action-adventure/rail shooter ''TheGuardianLegend'' has this advice for opening a locked door: "Wait, wait forever..."

* When Hermione and Harry see their past selfs in Hargrid's hut, Harry wants to rush in and capture Peter Petigrew [[spoiler: who is hiding as Scabbers, Ron's rat]]. Hermione says they must wait until actions they take won't disrupt what for them are past events. She and Harry are forced to wait until the group comes back out of the tunnel, knowing that Pettigrew gets away and Lupin will change into his werewolf form.

* The idiom "Hurry up and wait".

* In LarryNiven's ''[[KnownSpace Protector]]'', the transmogrified super-intelligent Brennan is taking the hero on a sub-light {{Ramscoop}} ride to Alpha Centauri. The hero is riding in a stasis chamber, so that the years-long journey will pass in an instant for him. Mid-way through the trip, though, a battle with a Pak ramscoop forces them to throw the stasis chamber at their attackers, thus depriving the hero of a means of waiting out the remaining years to their destination. Brennan asks, "Just how much boredom can you stand?"

* In ''FinalFantasyX'', when Tidus asks what they should do while Yuna is praying to the Fayth, Kimahri answers: "Pick spot. [[INeedYouToShutUp Shut up.]] Wait."

Note that if someone gets tired of waiting and attempts pre-emptive action, the consequences are usually dire.

If it's the hero having this exchange, it's often followed by a TimeCompressionMontage. If it's the villain, we generally cut directly to our heroes approaching the trap.