History Main / WhammyBid

* In one Creator/ArchieComics story, Mr. Lodge is holding an auction. Archie overhears Lodge mentioning his hopes to make some serious money on his prized aircraft, and assumes he's talking about a model on his desk. Unaware that the gathered rich men are bidding in the thousands of dollars, Archie joins in on the auction, bidding his pocket money. With Lodge absent, no one knows Archie is just an average teen, and Archie wins the bid. After signing the official forms, he takes the model, leaves, and Lodge suffers a stroke when he learns that Archie bought his prize airplane for ''less than ten dollars.''

* Website/EBay discourages this by displaying the second-highest bid instead of the highest bid. This can and has been exploited by savvy bidders.

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* In the Sabaody Archipelago arc of ''Manga/OnePiece'', a friend of the crew is captured and auctioned as a slave with a starting bid of 70 million Berries. The crew is confident that they can buy her back because they have 200 million Berries, but before they even get to speak, a [[AristocratsAreEvil Celestial Dragon]] buys her for 500 million, crushing their hopes. Of course, [[spoiler: once [[TimeForPlanB Luffy gets there, he crushes HIS hopes.]] [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome And his face, and the entire auction house...]]]]

-->'''Homer:''' Five dollars!
-->'''Mr. Burns:''' Five hundred.
-->'''Homer:''' Five dollars ''cash''.
-->'''Auctioneer:''' Sir, the promise of cash is not an endorsement. The current bid is $500. Going once, going twice--
-->'''Bart:''' Dad!
-->'''Homer:''' Five hundred and ''one'' dollars!
-->'''Mr. Burns:''' Ten million.
-->'''Homer:''' Objection, Your Honor!
-->'''Auctioneer:''' I'm not a judge, but, overruled.

* A few of these were made in Music/YoshikiHayashi's auction of a piano for the March 11, 2011 Japanese quake and tsunami relief effort. They took the price well into the millions of US dollars (''billions'' of yen) before the auction was taken down. The bidders were all {{Troll}}s, [[DownerEnding and the piano actually sold, when the auction resumed, for under $150,000.]].

Sold to the gent who wears [[StunnedSilence the stunned expression]]"''

* PlayedWith in ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsOnline'':
-->''"Isengard bids five."'' [[note]]This is a ''lower'' bid than the current high bid. The wham is that [[BigBad Saruman]] is manipulating the auction.[[/note]]

** In ''A Cold Bargain'', Scrooge [=McDuck=] ups the bid for the ball of bombastium from the low billions to one trillion dollars, driving one bidder out and forcing the remaining bidder to add five kitchen sinks to the bid. Scrooge then wins by adding a sixth kitchen sink.

* ''Into the Void'' by Nigel Findley ([[TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}} The Cloakmaster Cycle]]) there was an item among others at a [[ForgottenRealms Nimbral]] auction that turned out to be mostly useless, but historically valuable artifact of {{Precursors}}. Then the Arcane entered and reminds everyone that the near-monopoly on spelljamming stuff made his kind obscenely rich. He counters current 600 (which is already too much for thing most humanoids cannot even use as a normal sword) with seven ''thousand'' gold pieces. What, someone's ready to buy it for 7,500? T'k'Pek just answers with 10,000.

* In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', an artifact of power once belonging to Morgan Le Fay is mixed in with an antiquities auction. Jason Blood, the human host of the demon ComicBook/{{Etrigan}}, and Klarion the Witch-Boy ([[InsistentTerminology dum, dum, dum]]) have a brief bidding war ending in the low six figures when Blood is forced to concede defeat. Bruce Wayne, who knows Blood, wins it for him with a sudden "One... million."

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', there are certain items in the Jidoor auction house that you just can't win, no matter how cool they seem. You know you're looking at these items when a kid in the audience keeps piping up, demanding his dad get the item for him. No matter how much you bid, you'll eventually be beaten out when the kid's dad puts in a last-minute Whammy Bid, to the shock of everyone at the auction. Even if you have enough money to match the bid (which [[MoneyForNothing late in the game is entirely possible]]) you won't be given the chance. Fortunately, these items are never useful in any conventional RPG sense, so completionists need not worry about the loss.

* In ''TheHalfbloodChronicles'', Shana is being auctioned off by the elves. She's about to be sold for 200 gold pieces when a new bidder in Lord Dyran's livery bids 300. Twisted a bit, in that the ''real'' reason no one counter-bids is that no one is suicidal enough to cross Lord Dyran. [[spoiler:Twisted further, in that the bidder isn't one of Lord Dyran's men.]]

* Zig-zag: Any contestant on ''ThePriceIsRight'' who, in the One-Bid round, bids $1 ''less'' than the previous high had made a Whammy bid, unless the contestant is trying to get the item's price exactly right. Otherwise, if a contestant bids $900 then the next bids $899 and the item is $850, the second contestant still loses because the objective is to not go over the price.

If said option is an AuctionOfEvil which the heroes are infiltrating, they may have to resort to [[TimeForPlanB a backup plan]] that [[LetsGetDangerous does not involve bidding.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Superfriends}}'': Several villains wanted to make a bid for a piece of Gold Kryptonite, which had the power to permanently render Franchise/{{Superman}} powerless. {{ComicBook/Darkseid}} then caught all of them by surprise by offering one bleen. (The currency they used.) Despite easily having the money to make a better offer, no other villain would defy him. Then imagine his shock, when a group of criminals (actually Super Friends in disguise) suddenly bid ''$1 million'' and the New God has to seriously compete. (Amazingly enough, Darkseid eventually swallows his pride and backs down, figuring he can far-more easily steal it later.)

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* ''WesternAnimation/{{Superfriends}}'': Several villains wanted to make a bid for a piece of Gold Kryptonite, which had the power to permanently render Franchise/{{Superman}} powerless. {{ComicBook/Darkseid}} then caught all of them by surprise by offering $1. Despite easily having the money to make a better offer, no other villain would defy him. Then imagine his shock, when a group of criminals (actually Super Friends in disguise) suddenly bid ''$1 million'' and the New God has to seriously compete.

* In the Sabaody Archipelago arc of ''Manga/OnePiece'', a friend of the crew is captured and auctioned as a slave with a starting bid of 70 million Berries. The crew is confident that they can buy her back because they have 200 million Berries, but before they even get to speak, a [[AristocratsAreEvil Celestial Dragon]] buys her for 500 million, crushing their hopes.
** Of course, [[spoiler: once Luffy gets there, he crushes HIS hopes. [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome And his face.]]]]

* In ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'', Franchise/{{Batman}} and [[{{Sidekick}} Robin]] are hypnotized by the seductive Poison Ivy. Batman and Robin then both start bidding on her, but then Batman bids a whopping $7,000,000 on her, with the help of…'''''A [[BerserkButton BAT]] [[ArtifactOfDoom CREDIT]] [[MemeticMutation CARD]]?!?'''''

* Happened on an episode of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', where Q bid a million bars of gold-pressed latinum during an auction of Gamma Quadrant artifacts.

* ''Series/PersonOfInterest''. In "One Percent" the POI is an eccentric billionaire, so Reese spends ten million bidding on some handwritten letters by AlbertEinstein just to get his attention, much to the alarm of Harold Finch who's actually paying for this (Finch himself has [[ArbitrarilyLargeBankAccount spent more than that just to get access to a POI]], but it's his money). Then Reese finds the POI has done a runner, so tells the auctioneer he can keep the letters and rushes off.

* This is in fact that point of the ''VideoGame/{{Oddworld}}'' game ''Munch's Oddysee''; the protagonists must make a hapless glukkon absurdly rich, then mind-control him into buying a can of eggs from an endangered species with one such WhammyBid. And the whammy goes both ways, as the sum is effectively all of said glukkon's new fortune.

* ''HudsonHawk''. At the auction of the da Vinci Sforza:

* ''Theatre/{{Oklahoma}}'' (1955): Will Parker (somewhat inadvertently) bids $50 for his girlfriend Ado Annie's picnic basket (which was a ''lot'' of money at the time the story was set). The previous bid was 90 cents. He's then immediately outbid (ItMakesSenseInContext) and doesn't pursue the picnic basket any further.

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* ComicBook/{{Buck Godot|Zap Gun for Hire}} uses one that bumps the bid from 47,050 credits to one billion. "Let's see someone top that."
** Slightly different in that Buck had no intention of winning the auction or paying his bid, and no one thought he did. He was just wrecking an illicit automated auction, which is why the guy running the auction was so mad.