Line #70 Main/WhammyBid


1	[[quoteright:320:[[ComicBook/BuckGodotZapGunForHire https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/whammybid_6585.JPG]]]]
2	->''"It's going one time, it's going two times\
3	Sold to the gent who wears the stunned expression"''
4	-->-- '''{{Music/Sparks}}''', "Now That I Own the BBC"
5
6	An {{Auction}} is happening, people are bidding in sensible increments and then, all of a sudden, someone puts in such a high bid that no one would dare bid against them. This can be an escalation of a bidding war or a total newcomer. The correct name for this kind of tactic is a Jump Bid, and it can be very effective or land you paying far more than you needed to.
7
8	Used primarily for dramatic effect, either to highlight the value of the item (particularly if it was previously considered of low value or it has a secret use) or to dramatically introduce a character to a scene. Nothing says "I am rich and powerful, look this way" like doubling the bid for a teapot when the last bidder had just got to £900,000. Also very common in BachelorAuction setups. A similar setup can occur in gambling, where a gambler tries to scare off the other gamblers with a huge wager. (Often called 'buying the pot' in this case.)
9
10	If said auction is an AuctionOfEvil which the heroes are infiltrating, they may have to resort to [[TimeForPlanB a backup plan]] that [[LetsGetDangerous does not involve bidding.]]
11
12	Depending on the format of the auction this may or may not be possible in RealLife. Some auctions may limit the margin by which a new bid can surpass the previous high. It also depends on the mechanics of the auction itself. The English auction, where the highest bidder pays the amount they bid, allows this. A Vickery auction, by contrast, takes the legs out from underneath this trope as the one who wins the auction by bidding the highest only has to pay an amount equal to the second-highest bid -- even if the Whammy Bidder made the price jump from $100,000 to $5 million, if no one else beats them the winner only has to pay $100,000.
13
14	Not to be confused with a {{Whammy}} in a GameShow.
15	----
16	!!Examples:
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18	[[foldercontrol]]
19
20	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
21	* 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.]] And his face, and the entire auction house...]]
22	* A slight variation occurs in ''Anime/{{Slayers}} Next'' when Lina and TheRival are one-upping each other bidding on an item Xellos (who doesn't want to sell) has, where Lina only raises her bid by one every time. When a flustered Xellos responds with the bid of 300! 301! that it's worth 300.000.000, Lina instantly accepts. The Whammy-part of that bid hits the auctioneer in this case.
23	* Alex does this in ''Anime/LastExile'' during the auction of a very important PlotCoupon. As it happens, the BigBad is also bidding on the same item. The result is a series of escalating Whammy Bids that takes the price from 1 Million to 50 ''billion''. [[spoiler: Alex would have bid even more if it weren't for the gun pointed at his head.]]
24	* A pretty straight-forward example in ''Anime/GalleryFake''. Fujita doubles the price on a Monet from $10 Million to $20 Million, despite the fact that he had a budget of $10 million.
25	* In ''Manga/HunterXHunter'', Kurapika, working on behalf of a Mafia don, finds himself caught in a bidding war with a rival don. The values get so high that Kurapika's boss loses over half of his fortune in that bid alone, though said boss blamed only himself as Kurapika was simply following orders, especially since said don initiated the bidding war solely out of spite.
26	* In ''Anime/AfterWarGundamX'', this happens when Garrod auctions off the Gundam X. At first everyone's bidding tens of thousands for it, with one guy looking like he's going to win with a bid of over 100,000. Then Ennil El shows up and declares a bid of ''3,000,000''. Nobody bothers trying to top that, and she's more or less declared the winner on the spot.
27	* In the third arc of ''Anime/GreatPretender'', "Snow of London", Team Confidence sets up an entire auction just to scam one man, James Coleman, out of millions of dollars. Cynthia jacks up the bid to many millions of dollars, knowing that Coleman is obsessed with the painting they're selling.
28	[[/folder]]
29
30	[[folder:{{Comic Books}}]]
31	* ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'':
32	** 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 sink\|Included}}s to the bid. Scrooge then wins by adding a sixth kitchen sink.
33	** In one story, Scrooge and Flintheart are competing to buy a historical banknote. Scrooge only bets in small increments, though Donald tries to help by announcing larger bids, until Flintheart finally yells "TWO BILLION DOLLARS!". Scrooge doesn't follow, but a week later, reminds an extremely smug Flintheart that the banknote was historical because of its worth... ''one'' billion dollars.
34	* 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 ''three dollars and ninety cents.''
35	* In ''ComicBook/BuckGodotZapGunForHire'', the titular character places it and the seller (who was covertly selling military secrets using a computerized bid recorder that apparently lacked a "dump last bid" option) gets pissed off at him for it. 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 while pissing off the auctioneer.
36	* In one ''Krazy Gang'' strip in ''Cor!!'', the gang are attending an auction, and notice that a group of shifty characters ''keep'' making whammy bids of fifty thousand pounds for ordinary-looking furniture, which they then smash up. They realise that there's obviously something hidden in the furniture that the crooks are looking for. When the last item comes up, the crooks bid "fifty", then admit they mean fifty ''pence'' -- they've spent all their real money. The gang therefore manage to get the item (and retreive the McGuffin) by bidding fifty and a halfpence.
37	[[/folder]]
38
39	[[folder:{{Film}}]]
40	* In ''Film/GroundhogDay,'' the winning bid for [[spoiler:Phil in the climactic male auction]] is one of these [[spoiler:made by Rita, the girl he's chasing, for the entire contents of her wallet at the time.]]
41	* ''Film/HudsonHawk''. At the auction of the da Vinci Sforza:
42	-->'''Auctioneer:''' We'll begin at $20 million...Thank you, sir. 20.5...
43	-->'''Darwin Mayflower:''' Waldo! 100 million clams!
44	-->'''Auctioneer:''' $100 million to Mr. Darwin Mayflower.
45	* ''Film/{{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.
46	* Happens in the 1947 Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. film ''Film/SinbadTheSailor'', with the twist that Sinbad has already discouraged '''any''' bidding by depicting the ship being bid on as "cursed".
47	* In ''Film/NorthByNorthwest'', the main character so violently insists upon his whammy bids that he gets arrested for disorderly conduct. Which [[{{Unishment}} gives him a police escort out of the place]], safely away from the men in the crowd who wanted to kill him.
48	** PlayedForLaughs in that the whammy bids were ridiculously ''low'' for the objects being sold.
49	* In ''Film/PaintYourWagon'', a drunken Ben Rumson (Creator/LeeMarvin) sees a beautiful woman (in what had been a males-only gold mining camp) and promptly stumbles into the auction selling her. As soon as he figures out what's going on, he bellows, "Whatever the last bid was -- '''double it!'''" and passes out. This leaves the auctioneer to quickly convert the complicated previous bid (in cash, powder gold, tools, supplies, and livestock) down into a single amount and hit up Ben's Pardner (Creator/ClintEastwood) for the payment.
50	* In ''Film/OnceUponATimeInTheWest'', a widow's farm had been put in auction. The bids were in the hundreds when a five-thousand-dollar bid was made. Instead of paying with money, the bidder brought in a wanted man for which a reward in the bid's value had been offered.
51	* In ''Film/SherlockHolmesAGameOfShadows'', Holmes makes one of these, in order to get the attention of everyone in the auction house so he can warn them of the fire that's just started behind him.
52	* Happens twice in ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'':
53	** Batman and 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 his bat credit card.
54	--->'''[[http://comicsalliance.com/batman-and-robin-movie-review David Uzumeri]]:''' '''GOOD THRU FOREVER.'''\
55	'''Chris Sims''': Complete with a “ka-ching!” sound effect. This is another thing that people hate and I love. Because in this universe, why WOULDN’T you give Batman a credit card? It ain’t like he’s not good for it. Keep in mind, this is after Ivy all but actually says “I will, no joke, f*** whoever bids the most.”
56	** Another... [[PlayingWithATrope variant]] (also pointed out by WebVideo/CinemaSins) occurs just before Ivy crashes the party. Three of the guests outbid each other... on different women ("I bid $10,000 for Woman A." "I bid $20,000 for Woman B!" "I bid $30,000 for Woman C!!"). The scale of their bids aside, if they'd just obeyed the rules of an auction and waited for the proper "lot" to come up, the second and third man wouldn't have needed to bid ''at all'' and could have named a much lower price. That said, the whole auction was basically a show to raise money for charity, with the excitement of bidding and "winning" as part of the point, so the men probably would have donated similar amounts regardless.
57	* Happens at the start of the third ''Film/TheLibrarian'' film. Flynn partly does it, as he's arguing with his girlfriend on the phone, who promptly dumps him after the auction anyway. Meanwhile, Charlene nearly has a heart attack, as he goes ''way'' over the budget allocated for the auction. The final bid is £1,000,000. He then promptly smashes the "priceless vase" to reveal a pouch with the PhilosophersStone. After returning to the Library, he is chastised for spending too much. Charlene then scoffs at his suggestion that they use the stone to turn something into gold and sell it cover the costs.
58	* Happens near the end of ''Film/MouseHunt'', where a wealthy art collector bids $25 million on the house, [[spoiler:just before it's destroyed by water damage]]. The same guy previously tried to buy the house prior to the auction for "only" $10 million, which one of the main characters turned down in the hopes of getting more.
59	* ''Film/InOldChicago'': The auction for a charitable performance from Belle starts at $5 and goes up to $6. Dion then bids $100, an absurd amount in 1867, and wins.
60	* PlayedForLaughs in ''WesternAnimation/RalphBreaksTheInternet'': Ralph and Vanellope find themselves on [=eBay=] and, observing the bidders, think an auction is a game where you shout out higher numbers than your opponents. They engross themselves in shouting increasingly large numbers until they suddenly owe over twenty thousand dollars for an item that originally went for $200.
61	[[/folder]]
62
63	[[folder:{{Literature}}]]
64	* In ''Literature/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.]]
65	* Inverted in ''Literature/SoulKitchen2006''. After the underdog hero's limit of €200,000 has been easily matched by the evil property developer, a break in his concentration allows the hero to win with a ridiculously low increment of €15.
66	* ''Into the Void'' by Nigel Findley ([[TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}} The Cloakmaster Cycle]]) there was an item among others at a [[TabletopGame/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.
67	* Ostap Bender attempts to purchase the eponymous ''Literature/TheTwelveChairs'' with one, for no other reason than his love for dramatic effects. It bites him in the ass when it turns out his partner squandered half their money and they don't have enough to pay the commission fee.
68	* Happens in ''[[Literature/TalesOfKolmar Song in the Silence]]'', when the winning bid for a good mare is half again what she's worth.
69	* ''Literature/TheBoxcarChildren'': In the book ''The Mystery Bookstore'', bidding on an old bookstore and its contents starts at 50,000 dollars and, in just seven bids, quickly hits 80,000. Then a final bidder outdoes everyone and wins by jumping the price to 100,000 dollars. [[spoiler: It's Grandfather Alden, who bought the bookstore as an investment and hires one of the earlier bidders, who happens to be a friend of his, to run the place.]]
70	* In the ''Franchise/DoctorWho'' [[Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] short story "Fergovy" in ''Decalog 3: Consequences'', the Doctor finds himself at an AuctionOfEvil where various criminals are bidding for a famous work of art that the Doctor himself had previously donated to a museum. Just as it's about to sell for 220,000 mega-[[WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture credits]], the Doctor loudly bids three hundred thousand, then asks if they'd take a post-dated cheque. He's just trying to keep everyone off-balance, of course.
71	[[/folder]]
72
73	[[folder:LiveActionTV]]
74	* Happened on an episode of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', where [[TricksterGod Q]] bid a million bars of gold-pressed latinum during an auction of Gamma Quadrant artifacts. Whether he would have actually paid up is a matter for conjecture. Though being TheOmnipotent he would have no difficulty conjuring latinum out of thin air.
75	** A more conventional example took place when Jake and Nog were bidding on a lot of artifacts including a 1951 Willie Mays rookie card that Jake wanted to give to his baseball-loving father. Nog's entire life savings amounted to five bars of gold-pressed latinum, and when the bidding goes up to four, a mysterious stranger wins the auction with a bid of ''ten''. Jake and Nog wind up [[HilarityEnsues having to perform a series of favors for the entire crew to get the items they need to trade for the card.]]
76	** One youtuber [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SSnwRshpDc estimated the value]] of a single bar of latinum at $2,000...which would mean, Q bid two BILLION dollars.
77	** Yet another episode had Quark learn that he was dying, and per Ferengi custom , he auctioned off the rights to his dessicated remains. The winner turned out to be his nemesis, Liquidator Brunt, [=FCA=], with a whammy bid of 500 bars of latinum. However, when Quark finds out he ''isn't'' dying, he has to find a way to either satisfy the auction, or be exiled from Ferengi society.
78	* This happened on ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'' when Buster came in late and put in an obscenely high bid on [[BachelorAuction a date]] with his mother Lucille. Unfortunately he didn't realize that his mother wasn't up for bid at the time, it was next door neighbor [[PlanetOfSteves Lucille II]]. She thought it was a romantic gesture to show how much he cared for her.
79	** And in a later bachelorette auction, GOB also pulls a whammy bid... and also uses it on Lucille 2 instead of his mother.
80	* In ''Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy'', when the villains are auctioning off the Pink Ranger's quassar saber, [[Series/PowerRangersInSpace Astronema]] [[spoiler: (actually, Karone)]] announces her presence this way. Then she immediately ups her bid to [[AnOfferYouCantRefuse "all of you get to live"]].
81	* The Reality TV show ''Series/StorageWars'' has this as a tactic employed by the star bidders, usually, but not always, Dave Hester.
82	** Mark Balelo [[EstablishingCharacterMoment first appeared on the show]] by making several whammy bids in quick succession.
83	* Allen and Ton on ''Series/AuctionHunters'' also use this method at times.
84	** In both of these examples their plan is to scare other bidders off when the smaller incremental bids would eventually go higher anyway.
85	* In ''Series/{{Angel}}'' when Cordelia's [[EyeScream eyes]] are being bid on due to their prophetic powers, to stall she goads two bidders get into a war with each other, until eventually one kills the other. Then a Wolfram and Hart lawyer who'd been on the phone with her bosses presumably gets permission to bid, and wins the auction immediately.
86	* In the ''Series/TwoBrokeGirls'' second-season premiere, "And the Hidden Stash", Max puts in a $200 bid, $75 above the current bid at the time, for the loving cup she has convinced Caroline her father hid money in.
87	* ''Series/CutthroatKitchen'' can have this with its sabotage auctions. Each contestant gets $25,000 to bid on sabotages that start at $500 and must be topped by at least $100 -- and the winner of the competition only gets what they haven't spent at the auction as a prize. Nevertheless, contestants routinely top bids by $1,000 or more (usually justifing it by saying they want to con the other bidders into blowing their money). There are also cases of contestants starting out with a whammy bid if they really want to avoid a sabotage; the current record for an initial bid is ten ''thousand'' dollars.
88	* ''Series/AllCreaturesGreatAndSmall1978'': In the episode "The Pig Man Cometh" James engages in a series of whammy bids for a house. Played with in that he knows he cannot afford to pay out, but he is trying to run up the bids for the benefit of the widow who is moving out, and he knows that the other buyer is a noted bad tempered old miser who has intimidated most of the other locals into not bidding themselves. It's played slightly differently in the book, in that at first he honestly wants the house, then keeps raising the bar as he keeps telling himself he can stretch out the mortgage, but said the other guy keeps upping him; likewise, in the end, he gives up, but still gets the widow's thanks since he managed to get her far more money than she initially was hoping for.
89	* Zig-zag: Any contestant on ''Series/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.
90	* ''Series/PersonOfInterest''. In "One Percent" the POI is an eccentric billionaire, so Reese spends ten million bidding on some handwritten letters by UsefulNotes/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.
91	* ''Series/BigWolfOnCampus'' has Tommy take part in a BachelorAuction for charity where a woman his age slams a ''$5000'' bid on him. It turns out she's a female werewolf from an entire country of werewolfs (and even pays in ''their'' currency, which is how Merton figures her out to begin with), and her plans for Tommy are [[spoiler:entirely amiable and good natured.]]
92	* ''Series/TheGoldenGirls'' has a downplayed example. They're at a BachelorAuction (where Blanche, Sophia, and Rose have secretly planned to bribe an attractive man to bid on Dorothy, not expecting the bid to climb above $50) where the bidding on Dorothy starts at $10. Her ex-husband Stan promptly walks in and bids $100. The bidding quickly climbs from there as Sophia and Blanche frantically try to stop their shill from bidding higher.
93	[[/folder]]
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95	[[folder:Radio]]
96	* In part one of the ''Radio/CabinPressure'' two part GrandFinale "Zurich", Carolyn is forced to sell GERTI. She's about to go for £8,000 to a scrap metal dealer, when Carolyn's hated ex-husband Gordon suddenly appears and bids £15,000. Carolyn then urges Douglas to bid 20 thou, saying they'll sort it all out later, and the bidding gets up to 90,000 before Gordon bids a quarter of a million. For a moment, Carolyn is prepared to let even Gordon have her for that kind of money, but Arthur isn't, and shouts TEN MILLION POUNDS! Later, when Carolyn is explaining to the auctioneer that Arthur is a idiot ManChild who doesn't ''have'' ten million pounds, she claims that the same goes for Gordon and the last real bid was the scrap dealer.
97	[[/folder]]
98
99	[[folder:VideoGames]]
100	* You can do this in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker''. Betting about 10% or more of the current bid will make all the others betters shake their heads for several seconds. It's the most effective tactic to keep opponents from bidding at all.
101	* 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 (such as a scale-model airship) are never useful in any conventional RPG sense, so completionists need not worry about the loss.
102	* ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'' games can have this happen during the AuctionOfEvil if enough money is bid. This is particularly visible in ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor2'' in Special Auctions, where it is almost a ''necessity'' to ensure you [[ItMustBeMine actually acquire that rare demon]].
103	* This is in fact the entire point and plot of the ''VideoGame/{{Oddworld}}'' game ''Munch's Oddysee''; the protagonists must make a hapless glukkon absurdly rich by stealing money from other glukkons, then mind-control him into buying a can of eggs from an endangered species with one such Whammy Bid. And the whammy goes both ways, as the sum is effectively all of said glukkon's new fortune.
104	-->"'''THREE MILLION MOOLAH!!'''"\
105	"I can't beat that! I can't beat that..."\
106	"Lulu takes the bid at three million moolah!"\
107	''(Mind control wears off)'' "Wha-? '''NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!'''"
108	%%* PlayedWith in ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsOnline'':
109	%%-->''"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]]
110	* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' has you attend a Nopon-run auction with Adenine, who wants to get her hands on a rare book. She directly recommends exploiting this trope by going large to stun the other bidders, but hilariously enough even the ''minimum'' bid you can place will achieve that [[PlanetOfHats (Nopon merchants are notorious for their penny-pinching)]].
111	* ''VideoGame/Uncharted4AThiefsEnd''': Nate, Sam and Sully have infiltrated a black-market auction to steal a vital clue in their latest treasure hunt, during which Sully is forced into a bidding war with a very wealthy rival treasure hunter to buy time for the Drake brothers to get into position. Once they're ready to make their move, Sully goads the rival into making a dramatically huge bid out of annoyance, just to make it sweeter when they steal it out from under him seconds later.
112	* ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'': In the sixth Lostbelt, the party is trying to win an auction for Muramasa, who has been enslaved by faeries. Oberon discusses the maximum amount of funds they have to bid, and suggests saving this tactic for near the end of the auction for best effectiveness. However, Altria doesn't appreciate the constant one-upping nature of an auction and impulsively bids everything you have near the start, meaning your main opponent has plenty of time to recover from the shock and match the bid. Oberon is not amused.
113	[[/folder]]
114
115	[[folder:WesternAnimation]]
116	* ''WesternAnimation/CarmenSandiego'': Carmen and V.I.L.E. are seeking a dubloon that was eaten by a fish up for auction. Carmen tells Zack and Ivy to bid to win. Zack ups a bid from $100 to $150...''thousand''. No one in the auction house knows how to react, except the auctioneer of course. They're spared actually having to ''pay'' that amount when El Topo steals the fish first. Though having access to V.I.L.E.'s accounts probably would have enabled them to pay it anyway.
117	* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' lampshaded it in the ''Film/{{Taken}}'' parody episode where Meg gets kidnapped in Paris. Stewie and Brian disguise themselves at a slave auction, with Stewie being the "girl" put up for bid, and Brian was the bidder. For the sake of ending the bid early, Brian bids a much higher price than everyone else so far.
118	-->'''Brian:''' Oh for goodness sake. $500,000!
119	-->'''Auctioneer:''' We have $500,000 from the man who doesn't quite get how auctions work.
120	* During an auction for anchovies in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', Fry tries to one-up Mom with a bid of "one jillion dollars!", to the surprise of everyone. Except the auctioneer. "Sir, [[EleventyZillion that's not a number]]." Fry gives a replacement bid of fifty million dollars, which still wins the auction.
121	* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries''
122	** In "The Demon Within", 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 ComicBook/KlarionTheWitchBoy ([[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."
123	** Subverted in "Harlequinade": A really big bomb is up for auction. The gangsters bid increasingly absurd amounts for it. And then they hear ComicBook/TheJoker's voice: "How about nothing? That's right... I'm talking zero, zip, zilch, nada."
124	* ''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 ''one million bleens'' 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.)
125	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Hurricanes}}'': When Stavros Garkos tried to acquire a McGuffin at an auction, he instructed his proxy to start with one of those.
126	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
127	** In "The Real Housewives Of Fat Tony", Homer left Bart and Lisa to keep his spot at a DMV line. In retaliation, when it'd be his turn to be served, Bart and Lisa auctioned it. After several people made bids, Fat Tony offered a lollipop for it. Being a mafia boss, his offer was quickly accepted.
128	--->'''Lisa:''' Sold to the lowest bidder.
129	** "All About Lisa" featured Bart and Homer trying to find a very rare penny for their coin collection. They find one at an auction, but are up against Mr. Burns.
130	--->'''Homer:''' Five dollars!\
131	'''Mr. Burns:''' Five hundred.\
132	'''Homer:''' Five dollars ''cash''.\
133	'''Auctioneer:''' Sir, the promise of cash is not an endorsement. The current bid is $500. Going once, going twice--\
134	'''Bart:''' Dad!\
135	'''Homer:''' Five hundred and ''one'' dollars!\
136	'''Mr. Burns:''' Ten million.\
137	'''Homer:''' Objection, Your Honor!\
138	'''Auctioneer:''' I'm not a judge, but, overruled.
139	** Inverted in "Homer's Enemy", which has the subplot of Bart walking into an auction for repossessed lots. When a random lot is offered, Bart decides to bid a single dollar on it for fun, with none of the bored participants bothered to challenge him for it. He wins and is sold an abandoned factory which he and Milhouse use as a personal playground. It completely falls down overnight by the end of the episode.
140	** Inverted in "Bart The Fink". Krusty's family heirlooms are auctioned without his notice, though due to an incompetent auctioneer who makes no starting bids, they are sold for prices seldom above a buck.
141	* In ''[[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Porky and Teabiscuit]],'' Porky Pig collects $11 for a farm delivery when he attends an auction where the auctioneer is bidding off a rope. When Porky tells another spectator the time is 11 o'clock the 11 is mistaken as his winning bid. The auctioneer takes Porky's $11 and hands him the rope which has a broken down nag at the end of it.
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143
144	[[folder:RealLife]]
145	* 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]].
146	** Happened in another charity auction of his as well, and is so expected now that if he is auctioning ANYTHING and a bidding war begins between two or three bidders, it's best to wait until someone looks at it and the {{troll}}s are banhammered and prices reset.
147	* Some of these were placed when Pope Benedict's old car went up for sale on eBay, again running the price over a million dollars before the bids were cleared. When the auction was relaunched, though the previous high bids were not reached, the hatchback still sold for over $240,000.
148	* When an edition of one of Creator/TerryPratchett's books that was ''so'' rare it wasn't even part of his own collection came up at a Discworld Convention charity auction, Terry would usually whammy bid it. Following his death, Rob Wilkins continued this. At the 2022 Convention he did so by phone from a ''Series/GoodOmens 2'' production meeting in the US. Discworld fans being what they are, these whammy bids did not always stop the bidding -- in the 2022 case someone kept raising it until Rob started increasing the bid by noticably ''smaller'' amounts, and joked that he no longer had plane fare home.
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Context Main / WhammyBid