History Main / WhatDoYouMeanItsPhlebotinum

* In ''MarriedWithChildren'', Al's used socks keep getting stolen by space aliens. By the end of the episode, he discovers that they're needed for spaceship fuel.

** In a meeting with Scarran Emperor Staleek, Staleek mentions their "delicacy," the Crystherium Utilia flower, to John. Taking this to be a revesre WorthlessYellowRocks situation, Crichton mentions that the flowers grow wild on Earth (the Bird of Paradise). What Crichton didn't know at the time was the the Scarrans were dependent on the flower to [[SmartBall maintain their intelligence]] above that of a caveman. And that he just drew a big Scarran bullseye on Earth by telling them that. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Oops.]]

* In ''The Pirahna Club'', main character Ernie works at [[BurgerFool a horrible fastfood joint]]. A foreign (Japanese, IIRC) competitor realises that their fries are never as tasty, and resorts to espionage to find out the secret. It turns out that [[ItMakesSenseInContext there is grease from Ernie's]] [[TheAllegedCar incredibly old DeSoto]] in the frier. Cue the spies trying to buy, borrow or steal Ernie's car - [[HilarityEnsues which he loves and won't part with]].

* The premise of ''SheepInTheBigCity'' consists of the military pursuing the eponymous sheep in order to power their “sheep-powered raygun“.
* Subverted in one episode of ''{{Futurama}}''. Fry finds himself with a large heap of money and uses much of it to buy the last can of anchovies in existence, bidding against the megamogul Mom. Mom, seing the amount he pays for it, reasons that the anchovies must have some special property, like their oil being able to lubricate every robot in the world forever, but as it turns out, Fry just likes anchovies a lot.
* In one episode of ''MightyMax'', it turns out that aliens want Earth's toxic and radioactive waste; it's apparently an extremely valuable commodity on their home planet. Win-win for Earth, Max and the aliens.
* ''SpiderManAndHisAmazingFriends'' had an episode where travelers from the future needed three substances to repair their ship. Spiderman's friends identified two of them as rare compounds found in lava and deep ice water, respectively... the third turned out to be ivory.

** Which is a bit of FridgeLogic, because apparently, in the future, people have 'hover conversions' of their older cars to make the car fly through the air solely by electricity that Mr. Fusion generate for free...but for some reason leave their internal combustion engines intact to drive the cars down the streets. Perhaps gasoline is also free, but wouldn't it be rather difficult to make the wheels tilt like that ''and'' keep the gasoline-powered engine and transmission hooked up, instead of just stripping out all that and attaching electric motors to each wheel? (And removing the engine would create a better place to put Mr. Fusion than sticking out of the back of the car.)\

* In ''[[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077305/ The Cat from Outer Space]]'', the title character is looking for a few kilograms of a common (from his point of view) but unknown (to humans) substance to fix his spacecraft. Cue TheReveal:
-->'''Frank:''' Wait, that's ''gold''.

** Which is a bit of FridgeLogic, because apparently, in the future, people have 'hover conversions' of their older cars to make the car fly through the air solely by electricity that Mr. Fusion generate for free...but for some reason leave their internal combustion engines intact to drive the cars down the streets. Perhaps gasoline is also free, but wouldn't it be rather difficult to make the wheels tilt like that ''and'' keep the gasoline-powered engine and transmission hooked up, instead of just stripping out all that and attaching electric motors to each wheel? (And removing the engine would create a better place to put Mr. Fusion than sticking out of the back of the car.)

* In an episode of ''LambChopsPlayAlong'', the alien Zarc needs "zappelmeis"[[hottip:* :The German-ish spelling is just because it kind of sounds German; Zarc didn't have a gratuitous German accent or anything.]] to fuel his rocketship and get back home to Yzarc. As it turns out, "zappelmeis" is apple juice.
* An episode of ''CaptainKangaroo'' featured a stranded alien who desperately needed a "glump-full of gleedle" to fuel his ship. It turned out to be a glassful of milk.
* The ''Series/TalesFromTheDarkside'' episode "Barter" (a parody of ''ILoveLucy'') features an alien who needs ammonia desperately (he drinks it, so it's either food or medicine to him) and is willing to trade for it.

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* The 1989 WesternAnimation/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|1987}} once helped a stranded alien to fix his spaceship and get home. At the end of the episode, he was only missing the ship's fuel source, "grutnyp". It turned out to be pizza.
* In ''MarriedWithChildren'', Al's used socks keep getting stolen by space aliens. By the end of the episode, he discovers that they're needed for spaceship fuel.
** Apparently, his foot odor was Just. That. Powerful.
* In ''Series/{{Farscape}}'', Crichton searches for a complex chemical compound as medicine for Moya. It turns out to be the local equivalent of salt on the planet on which they've landed.
-->'''Alien Woman:''' It's only ''onlux''!

* The premise of ''SheepInTheBigCity'' consists of the military pursuing the eponymous sheep in order to power their “sheep-powered raygun“.
* Subverted in one episode of ''{{Futurama}}''. Fry finds himself with a large heap of money and uses much of it to buy the last can of anchovies in existence, bidding against the megamogul Mom. Mom, seing the amount he pays for it, reasons that the anchovies must have some special property, like their oil being able to lubricate every robot in the world forever, but as it turns out, Fry just likes anchovies a lot.

* Inverted in the ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Star Trek]]'' episode "City on the Edge of Forever", where Spock and Kirk are marooned on 1932 Earth, but Spock says that he "only" needs a fair-sized block of platinum in order to build a computer to prevent GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel from taking effect. Meanwhile, their job only pays 15 cents an hour. Spock doesn't know that platinum is fairly rare on Earth, and is completely unobtainable in such quantities.

* In one episode of ''MightyMax'', it turns out that aliens want Earth's toxic and radioactive waste; it's apparently an extremely valuable commodity on their home planet. Win-win for Earth, Max and the aliens.
* In an episode of ''LambChopsPlayAlong'', the alien Zarc needs "zappelmeis"[[hottip:* :The German-ish spelling is just because it kind of sounds German; Zarc didn't have a gratuitous German accent or anything.]] to fuel his rocketship and get back home to Yzarc. As it turns out, "zappelmeis" is apple juice.
* Some incarnations of ComicBook/{{Venom}} of SpiderMan fame feed off of a chemical found in the human brain. Eventually Eddie and he discover that this same chemical just prominent enough in chocolate bars to sustain him.
* An episode of ''CaptainKangaroo'' featured a stranded alien who desperately needed a "glump-full of gleedle" to fuel his ship. It turned out to be a glassful of milk.
* The Series/TalesFromTheDarkside episode "Barter" (a parody of ILoveLucy) features an alien who needs ammonia desperately (he drinks it, so it's either food or medicine to him) and is willing to trade for it.
* One issue of ''Magazine/{{MAD}}'' (back when it was still an anthology) had an alien whose planet was destroyed by unstoppable goo. Turns out it's strawberry Jell-O. He freaks out on realizing it.
* Similar to the ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' example, "makers" (nanomachine hubs that can assemble almost anything) in ''{{Transmetropolitan}}'' can run either on "base blocks" of transmutable matter... or on garbage. People are shown collecting street garbage before the garbagemen can come clean the streets, so that they can run their makers cheaply.
** Makers can work on anything. It's just that garbage is free. The advantage of "base blocks" is that they're hyperdense, which means a lot of matter to be used, so a maker can run on one for a long time.
* In ''The Pirahna Club'', main character Ernie works at [[BurgerFool a horrible fastfood joint]]. A foreign (Japanese, IIRC) competitor realises that their fries are never as tasty, and resorts to espionage to find out the secret. It turns out that [[ItMakesSenseInContext there is grease from Ernie's]] [[TheAllegedCar incredibly old DeSoto]] in the frier. Cue the spies trying to buy, borrow or steal Ernie's car - [[HilarityEnsues which he loves and won't part with]].

* SpiderManAndHisAmazingFriends had an episode where travelers from the future needed three substances to repair their ship. Spiderman's friends identified two of them as rare compounds found in lava and deep ice water, respectively... the third turned out to be ivory.

* Some incarnations of Venom of SpiderMan fame feed off of a chemical found in the human brain. Eventually Eddie and he discover that this same chemical just prominent enough in chocolate bars to sustain him.

* Similar to the ''BackToTheFuture'' example, "makers" (nanomachine hubs that can assemble almost anything) in ''{{Transmetropolitan}}'' can run either on "base blocks" of transmutable matter... or on garbage. People are shown collecting street garbage before the garbagemen can come clean the streets, so that they can run their makers cheaply.

* In ''BackToTheFuture'', the "Mr. Fusion" attachment causes ''everything'' to become this — you can run your car on used coffee grounds and banana peels, and throw away that useless plutonium.

* Inverted in the ''[[StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Star Trek]]'' episode "City on the Edge of Forever", where Spock and Kirk are marooned on 1932 Earth, but Spock says that he "only" needs a fair-sized block of platinum in order to build a computer to prevent GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel from taking effect. Meanwhile, their job only pays 15 cents an hour. Spock doesn't know that platinum is fairly rare on Earth, and is completely unobtainable in such quantities.

* One issue of ''{{Mad}}'' (back when it was still an anthology) had an alien whose planet was destroyed by unstoppable goo. Turns out it's strawberry Jell-O. He freaks out on realizing it.

* The 1989 ''TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' once helped a stranded alien to fix his spaceship and get home. At the end of the episode, he was only missing the ship's fuel source, "grutnyp". It turned out to be pizza.

As if the usual shenanigans weren't enough, now

To truly fit in this trope, the material should be of '''immediate use''' - serve as fuel, weapons, medicine, field repair parts, etc.

!!Examples:

* In ''MonstersInc.'', the monster civilization gets all its energy from... the screams of children. [[spoiler: And the laughs, which are far more powerful.]]

* In the Carl Reiner movie ''Spirit of '76'', a time machine sets off for 1776, but runs out of the fuel tetrahydrozeline, and ends up in bicentennial year 1976 instead; fortunately, they learn that tetrahydrozeline is the active ingredient in Visine eyedrops.
* Inverted in the ''[[StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Star Trek]]'' episode "City on the Edge of Forever", where Spock and Kirk are marooned on 1932 Earth, but Spock says that he "only" needs a fair-sized block of platinum in order to build a computer to prevent GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel from taking effect. Meanwhile, their job only pays 15 cents an hour. Spock doesn't know that platinum is fairly rare on Earth, and is completely unobtainable in such quantities.

** Makers can work on anything. It's just that garbage is free. The advantage of "base blocks" is that they're hyperdense, which means a lot of matter to be used, so a maker can run on one for a long time.

** Is the alien a Letonian, by any chance?

* An episode of ''Captain Kangaroo'' featured a stranded alien who desperately needed a "glump-full of gleedle" to fuel his ship. It turned out to be a glassful of milk.

* Spider-ManAndHisAmazingFriends had an episode where travelers from the future needed three substances to repair their ship. Spiderman's friends identified two of them as rare compounds found in lava and deep ice water, respectively... the third turned out to be ivory.

** [[FridgeLogic How can one trael through space without this knowledge?]]

* The TalesFromTheDarkside episode "Barter" (a parody of ILoveLucy) features an alien who needs ammonia desperately (he drinks it, so it's either food or medicine to him) and is willing to trade for it.

** Only when it's in flight mode, and only when it's traveling through time. It needs gasoline for a trip to the corner drugstore.
*** Which is just one of the many {{AssPull}}s of the third film.

* In one episode of ''{{Futurama}}'', Fry buys the last can of anchovies in existence, not knowing that they produce an oil that could lubricate every robot in the world forever.

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