Alice needs something from Bob, but Bob wants Alice to get something from Carol, who wants something from Denise, etc. etc. etc.
In a comedy, the chain either collapses or is rendered moot at the end. One common way of this happening is that the item the character at the end of the chain received breaks or is otherwise unsatisfactory, and the character decides to take his original bartered-away item back. The next character decides that, if he doesn't get what he wants, he'll take his original item back as well, and so on and so forth all the way back up the chain. An alternative to this is that character Z wants what character A originally needed, thus closing character A off from the loop.
This is common enough in fairy tales to have its own Aarne-Thompson
type number (550). The best-known variants are "Ivan Tsarevitch and the Grey Wolf" and "The Golden Bird", both of which follow the same pattern: The protagonist is tasked (by a wolf in the first story, a fox in the second) to steal a bird from a castle. He gets caught, but the king of the castle offers to give him the bird if he'll steal a horse from the second castle. He gets caught again, and sent to fetch a princess from a third castle in exchange for the horse. In the end, with the help of the wolf/fox, he manages to keep all three.
In video games, this can be an extension ("extension" being the key word) of a Fetch Quest, as once you've fetched (or otherwise acquired) the first item, you just have to "fetch" the NPCs willing to trade for it.
See also Nested Story, Fence Painting, Plot Coupon, Sidequest Sidestory, Linked List Clue Methodology and Match Maker Quest. Not to be confused with Chain of People.
Example subpages:
Other examples:
- An episode of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. has Saiki forget his wallet, leaving him unable to pay a 980 yen bill. Since his Apport Power has a 10% leeway in what he can receive from a trade, he uses it multiple times to exchange his 500 yen socks for a 1000 yen note...which leads him with more problems that he needs to solve as he inadvertently gets Kaido and his dad in trouble, making him comment he should have just washed dishes.
- One of the many, many gadgets Doraemon has is a straw that enables a Chain of Deals to give the wielder what they want.
- In the events of Hyouka's school culture festival, Oreki is given a broken pen from his sister, which (after many swaps and turns involving a bunch of random objects, and eventually helping the club win a contest) turns into something that provided the key information to solve the mystery of the arc.
- An episode of Kiniro Mosaic has Alice doing this due to reading Straw Millionaire (see below). She starts with couple of dolls which she trades with Isami for a picture of Aya and Yoko, Aya herself takes the picture and gives her an animal book, Alice gives the book to Kuzehashi after which Karasuma gives her a bunny hood, Yoko takes the hood and gives Alice tap water, what Alice gives it to Karen who thanks her by giving her an 10,000 yen ring. She feels bad for getting such a valuable item so cheaply and "trades" it with Isami for Shinobu.
- The One Piece mini-arc Hatchan's Sea-Floor Stroll starts out with one of these.
- Seigi no Mikata has Sumiko wanting to go on vacation. The whole charade begins with a new employee asking her to reserve a seat for the flower viewing and gives her a branch of cherry blossoms. On her way home, a woman asks her to lend her the branch to show to her bed-ridden relative — Sumiko gives her the branch and receives a bag full of organic vegetables. She leaves the vegetables with a colleague of hers, receiving tickets to a play for helping her colleague to get her picky kids to eat vegetables. When trying to cash the ticket in, she's approached by men who want to buy the ticket off of her for a famous woman to view the play and the woman gives her a rare, limited edition bag. Said bag later gets given to the vice president of Sumiko's company because a friend of hers wanted to buy such a bag, but it was sold out and gives Sumiko tickets and a reservation for a 10-Day Luxury Trip abroad.
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Occurs in a couple of Carl Barks comics, in particular when Donald Duck's nephews are involved, who seem to be quite good at this. Maharajah Donald in particular contains two instances of this:
- The story starts out with the nephews cleaning Donald's garage under the pretense that they'll get to keep anything Donald doesn't want, of which the only item in that category turns out to be a stub pencil. They trade it to a nerdy pig for a ball of string, then swap that with a knife from a kite-flying kid, followed by exchanging the knife for a silver belt buckle. "Some hours later", they've worked their way up to a camera, which they exchange for a pearl, which winds up getting the eye of a rich man working on a necklace for his wife who trades them the pearl for a round-trip steamship ticket to India.
- Later, towards the end of the comic, Donald is set to be fed to the royal tigers the following morning. The nephews, searching for a way to free him, happen across another old stub of a pencil and begin exclaiming that they're rich. And rich they become, as they trade that for a good luck charm, then that for a minah bird, then that for a pair of binoculars. By "Early dawn!" they've worked from there up to 500 pounds of cat food, which they throw over the wall of the tiger pit to feed the tigers, thus making them not hungry anymore when Donald gets thrown in.
- Happens in one Sunday strip of For Better or for Worse, with the family trading chores until they accidentally end up right back where they started.
John: Musical chores!
- Older Than Print: The Japanese legend of the straw millionaire is this trope played completely straight. A poor peasant prays to the goddess of mercy for relief from his miserable life. She tells him to travel west with the first thing he picks up off the ground on leaving the temple, which turns out to be a piece of straw. He trades through his travels until fortunate circumstances lead to him being married to a millionaire's daughter. One unique difference, however, is that the tale generally has most if not all trades actually consist of the peasant freely giving what he has to someone in need without expectations of payment, but receiving items as tokens of gratitude.
- The Brothers Grimm:
- In one fairy-tale, Hans trades all the way up to marrying a Princess.
- "Hans In Luck": Hans starts with a lump of gold, but it is too heavy for him to carry. He begins trading for something else, but each trade causes him to have other problems, all the way down to a heavy grindstone, which ends with sinking in a river. But he is still happy for getting rid of it.
- "Death of the Little Hen
": The Hen starts choking on a nut, so her husband, the Rooster, rushes off to the well to get her some water. The well will only give him some water if he brings it a nearby bride's red silk shawl. The bride will only part with the shawl if the Rooster recovers her wreath, which is caught in a tree. By the time the Rooster completes the quests and makes it back to the Hen with the water, she's already choked to death.
- There is a Czech fairy-tale "About the Little Rooster and the Little Hen". The Little Hen and the Little Rooster go searching for nuts (strawberries in another version) together, and the Little Rooster suggests they share everything they find. The Little Hen does share her nut, but the Little Rooster gets greedy and eats a whole nut by himself. He chokes on it and sends the Little Hen for water. The longest chain has the Little Hen asking the Sky to give dew to a Meadow, then the Meadow will give grass to a Cow, then the Cow will give cream to a Malster, then the Malster will give draff to a Sow, then the Sow will give bristles to a Shoemaker, then the Shoemaker will give shoes to a Seamstress, then the Seamstress will give a headscarf to a Well, and then the Well will give water to her and she will give the water to her Little Rooster. The Sky has mercy on her and gives the Meadow dew. Poor Little Hen only takes a beakful of water from the Well. In one version, she comes too late and the Little Rooster dies; in the more commonly known version, she gives him water and he jumps on his legs, healthy, and crows happily.
- In a Turkish fairy tale "The Magpie and the Milk", a magpie is caught on drinking milk from the old woman's pail, so she pulls off his tail. The tailless magpie begs old woman for giving back his beloved tail. The woman agrees to give it back until the magpie finds new milk. Magpie ask the cow for fresh milk, but the cow needed a grass from the meadow, who needed a water from water-carrier, who wanted an egg from hen, that lays two eggs in sympathy and solidarity with the magpie. After completing the tasks, the magpie regains his tail and flies away.
- In some variants of this tale (like Armenian), it is the fox that loses its tail while trying escape form the old woman (In this case, the tail was cut off with an axe by a woman), and in order to get it back, it must perform similar tasks. And after completing these tasks, the fox regains his tail.
- In a Russian fairy tale a rooster choked on a bean. His hen hurried to the housewife asking for some butter to lube rooster's throat, but the woman needed some milk from the cow, who needed the farmer to cut some grass for her, but the farmer needed a scythe from the blacksmith, so the hen ran to the smith, got a scythe and unwound the sequence. Naturally, cynical Russians spoofed the story, so when the hen reaches the blacksmith...
Hen: Oh, good blacksmith, please give me a scythe. Our farmer will cut some grass for the cow, who will give milk, which the housewife shall churn into butter that I will lube rooster's throat with for he choked on a bean.
Blacksmith: Why sure, I can give you a scythe, but I also have some butter, wouldn't it be easier if I just give it to you?
Hen: Yeah? And fuck up such a cool quest?! - The Old Woman and the Pig
, wherein the old woman implores a whole sequence to do something to the person before them to get the pig to jump over the stile. The last one does so, and the whole cascade ensues.
Old Woman: Cat, kill rat! Rat won't gnaw rope, rope won't hang butcher, butcher won't kill ox, ox won't drink water, water won't put out fire, fire won't burn stick, stick won't beat dog, dog won't bite pig, pig won't jump over the stile, and I shan't get home tonight!- Which came first? A traditional song after the Passover Seder is Had Gadya (One Kid [baby goat]) in which the kid is bought for two zuzim (small coins) and is eaten by a cat (or weasel), which is bitten by a dog, which is beaten by a stick, which is burnt by fire, which is put out by water, which is drunk by an ox, which is slaughtered by a butcher, who is killed by the Angel of Death, who is vanquished by the Holy One, Blessed be He.
- Inverted in several stories, with each succeeding item being worth less than the one traded away.
- A Scandinavian fairy tale about a man who bets someone that his wife loves him no matter what, and to prove it he has the other man listen by the door while he relates to his wife how he didn't take the cow to the market this morning, but traded it for a horse, which he then traded for a goat, and so on until he finally tells her that he traded a rooster for a meal since he was hungry, so essentially he gave the cow away with nothing to show for it.
- In the tale of "Mr. Vinegar", the titular character's house is destroyed and he and his wife are left with nothing but the door. By chance, Mr. Vinegar is able to recover forty guineas when he drives off a group of thieves, but when he goes to market the next day, while he initially succeeds in buying a cow, he then trades the cow for bagpipes that he can't play, the bagpipes for gloves because his hands are cold, and then the gloves for a stick because he's tired. As Mr. Vinegar returns to his wife, a parrot mocks him for making a series of bad deals, and when he tosses the stick at the bird he is forced to return with nothing, earning a serious beating from his wife.
- In Hans Christian Andersen's "What the Goodman Does is Always Right", a man trades a horse for a cow, the cow for a sheep, the sheep for a goose, the goose for a chicken, and finally the chicken for a sack of shrivelled apples. Two Englishmen who witness these trades say that the man's wife will give him no end of grief for it, and the man says that no, she'll hug him and declare that what he does is always right. The Englishmen offer to bet him a hundred weight of gold on the matter and he says no, only a bushel is enough, since he has only a bushel of apples to wager against them. They all return to the house, and the man recounts his trades; at each step this wife declares that it was a wonderful trade and gives her reasons. In the end, she laughs with delight at the sack of shrivelled apples because she had gone to borrow a handful of herbs from the schoolmistress and been told "Lend?" I don't have anything to lend you. I couldn't even lend you a shrivelled apple!" and now the wife could lend her "...ten, or a whole sack-full! It makes me laugh to think it." The Englishmen cheerfully pay the bet, with their original offer of a hundredweight of gold.
- The Irish fairy tale "Munachar and Manachar" where the former seeks to make a gallows to hang the latter for eating all his raspberries. First he needs a gad, but he needs a rod to make the gad, then he needs an axe to cut the rod, then a flag to sharpen the axe, then water to wet the leather, then a deer to swim the water, then a hound to hunt the deer, then butter to put in the hound's claw, then a cat to scrape the butter, then a cow to give the cat milk, then wheat from some threshers to feed the cow, then cake makings from a miller to feed the threshers, then to gather water with a sieve to get the cake makings. When Munachar has done all these tasks, he goes to hang Manachar, only for Manachar to have burst. (presumably from eating so many raspberries.)
- Ashes of the Past: After being stuck in the Kalos region and unable to help Ash and friends with both Shamouti and Greenfield, Gary Oak resolves to reteach his Alakazam Teleport to avoid missing out on being able to help again, resulting in this trope. The full chain is thus: he needs to borrow Professor Oak's Dragonite, because a man in Geosenge City will give him a fossil for seeing a fully evolved Dragon-type. That fossil can be regenerated into an Anorith, which can be traded for a Liepard, that for a Swoobat, that for a Clefairy, and that for a Gyarados. Showing a Gyarados to Marie in Camphrier Town will get him a letter that he can give to Jacques in Parfum Palace, earning him a Farfetch'd, which he can trade for a Beartic, which he can trade for a Furfrou — and a shiny one, at that. He can then eventually convince a stylist in Lumiose City to give the Furfrou a stylish haircut, which he can show to the Gym Leader, Valerie, to get a Focus Sash, which he can trade in Anistar City for a Silk Sash, which he can give to a girl in Luminose for a Pokémon that can dance, which he can then show to someone in Courmarine City for a Heart Scale, which he can then give the Move Relearner to reteach Alakazam Teleport. Got all that? Now, listen to this: when he talks to Professor Oak to get the Dragonite, he learns that he could have borrowed Misty's Gyarados or Ash's Totodile (who can dance), and the professor not only knows someone who has a Clefairy, but has in his possession a Focus Sash, a Silk Sash, twenty Heart Scales, and a TM for Teleport. Gary is understandably frustrated, but since he went through the trouble of building the list, he borrows Dragonite and Gyarados, leaving him with an Anorith, a shiny Furfrou, and a Teleporting Alakazam.
- In Fate/Revelation Online, Asuna and her friends end up trapped in one of these, using the travel time to chat about the quest logic and boys. They try to explain the concept to Asuna using the example of getting spark plugs to repair a car and building a series of deals for that. Soon they're confusing which step in the example came where and wish they hadn't taken it to begin with. The girls eventually realize it's a "Gift of the Magi" Plot but end up failing it due to Zolgen eating the wife. Liz is telling the story to Shirou later on, who ends up thinking they were trying to fix Merlin's car.
- Much of the comedy in To Get Away From It All
comes from Fuyuhiko, of all people, undertaking one of these. To get a car, he makes a bet with Kazuichi hinging on which of them can get a date first. To get a date, Fuyuhiko has to find makeup, a scarf, a dress, and a wig for Touko so she will give him advice. To get the scarf from Gundam, he has to convince Ibuki and Yamada to switch rooms. The trope is justified (being on a school trip, Fuyuhiko can't simply buy the required items) and lampshaded.
Chiaki: I don't want to initiate another sidequest for you, Kuzuryuu-san.
- The American Astronaut has Sam, who must return the late king of Venus to his family in Earth, to do so, he must provide Venus with a new king; so he will give the owner of Jupiter a woman and he will give in return The Boy Who Saw A Breast so he can be the new Venusian king. The woman for the Jupiter ruler in turn, is a clone of Eddy, the owner of the Ceres Crossroads who wanted a cat.
- Comin' Round the Mountain: When Wilbert needs to win the turkey shoot to prove his worth, Al bribes someone to make sure he wins. That man in turn bribes another guy to do the same, and the second guy bribes a third guy, who bribes a fourth guy. Unfortunately, the other guy gets caught out, resulting in a resurgence of the McCoy-Winfield feud.
- In the movie The Comrades Of Summer, the Russian baseball team needs a new backstop. One of the players steals the manager's Walkman and goes through a series of trades in this style. In the final trade he gets a new backstop and two new Walkmans.
- A minor bit in Death Grip has Mark describe how he set up a stable cycle of pills, soap, and money at the group home he was at, the chain only ending because one of the people trading pills for soap actually needed those pills and died as a result.
- Marcello Marcello turns this ad infinitum, considering it is supposed to be a Romantic Comedy.
- The Pirates of the Caribbean films tend to enjoy these types of deals and counter deals: In At World's End, Will Turner needs the Black Pearl to rescue his father, but Sao Feng promises it to Beckett; Beckett wants Jack Sparrow's compass, which Will eventually barters with Beckett, though Davy Jones' condition is the murder of Calypso; but the pirates want Calypso alive, and Barbossa wants her released, though Sao Feng thinks he's already captured her... while Jack swans through it all messing up everyone's chains looking for immortality... which he (sort of) had before the pirates came to rescue him because Barbossa needed — oh, you get the point.
- The 1980s children's novel The Seventeenth Swap is about a boy who wants to buy a special pair of boots for his crippled friend, but can't afford them. What he does have is a rare stamp that he trades to a stamp collector, and sixteen swaps later, he's able to get the boots.
- Orca follows this trope, as Vlad has to fulfill a series of deals in order to obtain a cure for a friend.
- Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's children's book The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish has the protagonist trade his father for two goldfish, then have to unravel the chain that resulted afterwards to get his dad back.
- John tries such a chain in Me and My Little Brain after talking to a man who could start with a fifty-cent pocketknife and trade up to a twenty-dollar cow. He manages about nine or ten trades easily, but the chain collapses because he never considered what he would want out of the whole deal. He accepts a piglet as payment in the final trade, but since he can't keep it at home or afford to board it elsewhere, the other boy offers to take it back.
- In Henry Reed's Big Show, Henry goes to visit an auction, and starting out with some fireplace tools that turn out to be valuable to another bidder who missed them, he parlays the two dollar bid on the tools through to another item and another, until he ends up getting an item and two dollars for his item, finally ending up with two items that the owner bid $40 apiece, a lot of money to Henry. By the time he's finished he's essentially traded things so that he ends up getting something worth $100, which cost him nothing because he got the original $2 back during one of the trades.
- One Fine Day, an old children's book in which a fox gets his tail hacked off for trying to steal a woman's goods; in order to get it back he has to give her a sewing needle, leading to a chain of deals.
- This is how the Deveels in Aspirin's Myth Adventures series make their fortunes. The graphic novel even contains a visual representation of a chain of deals that begins with a coat hanger and concludes with a giant ruby.
- In the Star Wars Legends, this is the species hat of the Squibs. The more complex and outrageous the deal, the more prestigious it is.
- If You Give a Mouse a Cookie is about the chain of deals that will result if you do what the title says.
- Francis Spufford's Alternate History novel Red Plenty has a Soviet black marketeer whose entire business is built on these kind of arrangements.
- In one of the Jennings books, Jennings sends off for a sheet of free stamps from a catalogue, hands them round to his friends, and then discovers they were only free "on approval" and so has to get them back. Unfortunately, his friends have already traded them for numerous other possessions, which they can't demand back because those have been traded for other possessions, and so on.
- In Taipan!, Dirk Struan and Jeff Cooper manage to set one up. Impressive since they are the only ones involved.
Cooper: ...and Venetian glass. Exquisite!
Struan: Made in Birmingham. New method. I can sell you them for ten cents each.
Cooper: Ten thousand at six cents each.
Struan: Ten. Brock'll charge you twelve.
Cooper: Fifteen thousand at seven cents each.
Struan: Deal... if you promise to only import from Struan and place another order for at least thirty thousand within a year.
Cooper: Deal... if you agree to take a shipment of cotton from Charleston to London on the return trip.
Struan: How many tons?
Cooper: Three hundred. Standard contract and payment.
Struan: Deal... if you will act as a broker for us in this year's tea auctions, if we need one. - In the Shel Silverstein poem Smart, a boy trades a dollar his father gave him for two quarters, then three dimes, then four nickels, and finally five pennies. He thinks he made a great chain of deals because he has a bigger number of coins to count at the end, but his father knows better.
- In Gautrek's Saga, Ref receives a gold ring from King Gautrek for giving him a whetstone to throw after his hawk. By presenting the gold ring to King Aella of England, he receives a ship with cargo and two pet dogs with collars of gold in return; by presenting the dogs to King Hrolf Kraki of Denmark he gets another ship and an armour and helmet. He then gives the armour to the warlord King Olaf who in exchange lends Ref his army so Ref can blackmail Gautrek to give him his daughter in marriage. This works because every king wants to surpass the generosity of the others, and especially Gautrek's.
- A Simple Survey: In one short story, the narrator had dropped a 100 yen coin, which another person found. The second person used it to bet on a horse race, and won, getting a hundred times the money back. They then used this in pachinko, getting even more money, but a robber stole it all. Then a random bystander intervened, causing the money (in an attache case) to fall down a slope. Yet another person picked it up and used it for day trading, gaining an immense fortune, and donated half of this to children in a poor country. This then somehow led to oil being discovered in that country, lifting it out of poverty.
- A variant of this occurs in one Sesame Street picture book where Ernie tells Bert to wear a pot on his head and when Bert asks him why on earth he would want to wear one, explains that he broke his piggy bank so he had to put its change in the cookie jar, then put the cookies in the milk bottle, then the milk in the flower pot, then the flower in a kangaroo's pouch, then the kangaroo's baby in a bird's nest... His account of this chain of "moving things from one place to another" goes on for quite a while, until it finally concludes with him admitting that he put the goldfish in Bert's cowboy hat. When Bert demands to know how he's going to be able to play cowboy without his hat, Ernie simply places the pot back on Bert's head and says, "Giddyap, cowboy!"
- Alvin's Swap Shop has the eponymous main character take up ownership of a "swap shop", starting with a "trained ant" and moving up to having the entire shop full from trading.
- Second Chance Cat Mysteries: In book 1, Sarah Grayson explains that she got her house this way, over the course of a few years. She cleaned out a barn, which had an old Volkswagen beetle (which hadn't been driven in twenty-five years) in it; the owner said if she could get it out, it was hers. She did, then got her stepbrother to fix it up a bit, traded it for an old MG, traded that for a camper van that she lived in for six months, traded that for a one-room cabin that she and her college roommate lived in for their last year of college, and finally used the cabin as a down payment on her house.
- Gordon Korman's book The D Minus Poems Of Jeremy Bloom has Jeremy do this in one of his poems, trading away his telescope, but then winding up trading his new prize for something else, over and over, until he finally learns the guy he'd originally traded the telescope to had swapped it for something, and the telescope's new owner is willing to trade it for Jeremy's latest possession. So in the end, Jeremy gets his telescope back and everyone's happy.
- In The Discworld Atlas, Dolly "Diamond Dol" Bodkin, the source of the Atlas's information on The Great Outdoors, arrived in the area with a mule and some sacks of rice, and quickly found that all the isolated groups that had settled in the area wanted something one of the others had, eventually ending up with some very nice furs which she used to found the Haddock Creek Trading Company.
- Winnie-the-Pooh: In a storybook where Pooh and the gang reenact various fairytales, the third chapter which adapts The Rooster and the Mouse has Pooh break his favorite honey pot and asks Christopher Robin for some paste to fix it; this soon sends he and Piglet into a sequence of deals to obtain specific things should they have their request fufilled: Christopher Robin asks for a bunch of carrots from Rabbit, who wants a loaf of bread from Kanga, who wants wood for her fire from Eeyore, who wants a drink of water from the bubbling stream.
- The Mystic Archives of Dantalian has a story like this, starting with a red paper clip, and ending with a teddy bear.
- The Seven Geases by Clark Ashton Smith is about the magical version of this.
- In the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode "A Hen in the Wolf House", Raina's plan involves one of these — in exchange for her not revealing that Simmons is a mole within HYDRA, Coulson will hand over Skye, whom she will deliver to Skye's father in exchange for the Obelisk, which she will deliver to Daniel Whitehall in exchange for him not torturing her to death. Things don't go as planned.
- One episode of the Discovery Channel series Alaskan Bush People features a needs for a generator. The deal chain involves a box of DVDs, a truckload of firewood, and some fish before the generator is brought home to illuminate the cabin.
- The premise of the A&E reality show Barter Kings: the two hosts each pick a starting item, go on their own chain of deals, and then reconvene at the end to compare who ended up with the higher value final item.
- In one episode of Breaker High, Sean and Jimmy need kitchen access from the chef to bake a pizza, who will only give them the key in exchange for a manicure from Ashley in exchange for phone minutes from Alex in exchange for Denise repairing his shorts in exchange for some Dramamine from Max in exchange for Max's Boombox from Captain Ballard in exchange for a written note from Max forged by Tamira in exchange for a picture of Max from Cassidy, who gives it to Sean "for the school yearbook" and takes it back when she realizes what it's really for, causing Sean to continually try shoddy alternatives as the chain falls apart.
- Happens in an episode of Dark Angel as a side note rather than a plot point. Apparently this sort of thing is common, given the setting.
- In the Frasier two-part episode "Semi-Decent Proposal"/"A Passing Fancy", Frasier wants to go out with a woman named Claire, but is afraid he'll screw things up. He asks Claire's friend Lana to set the two of them up, which she agrees to in exchange for him tutoring her son Kirby to a B- in History. Kirby however, refuses to make an effort, so Frasier promises Kirby that Roz will be his junior prom date if he gets a B (and keeps it a secret from Lana). Frasier then has to get Roz front row seats to a Bruce Springsteen concert in exchange for her cooperation. Naturally, this being Frasier, all the parties involved run into each other at the same restaurant, Lana mistakes Roz for a hooker, and chaos ensues. But after the chain has been unraveled and everyone has stopped yelling, in a surprising turn for a sitcom (where these kinds of incidents usually end up in No Sympathy) everyone just winds up laughing at the ridiculousness rather than staying mad at each other.
- In the Green Acres episode "Water, Water Everywhere", Mr. Douglas runs out of water and finds it is because someone dug a new well. Every time someone in the episode digs a new well, they take water from someone else's well.
- An episode of Grey's Anatomy features a chain of kidney donations: patient A's relative will donate to patient B, patient B's relative to patient C, et cetera. The chain almost falls apart at a number of occasions.
- Important Things with Demetri Martin: One sketch portrays a particularly long and redundant chain of deals when a woman goes into labour on a plane.
- In the Law & Order episode "Kid Pro Quo", a rich pornographer wants his kid in a prestigious private school, but is bumped out by a minority girl with better entrance test scores. The pornographer contacts a friend of his in the cement business, who gives a big price break on cement to a building developer who basically gives the headmaster of the school his apartment (which was going Co-Op, but the headmaster didn't have the money to exercise his legal right to first refusal) for free, who in turn bumps the girl for the porno guy's kid. The girl's parents complain to the Head of Admissions (who personally okay-ed the admission). She threatens to raise a public fuss if the decision isn't reversed, leading to her becoming the Victim of the Week.
- In the Leverage episode "The Gimme a K Street Job", Sophie has to run one of these in Congress to get a vote for a bill, using a series of different aliases and regional accents.
Nate: Sophie, where are you?
Sophie: Trying to improve the air quality standards in Massachusetts.
Nate: For corn subsidies?
Sophie: No. To get me the fishery concessions that I then trade for logging rights, that get me the redistricting deal that gets me the grant funding that gets me the solar subsidies that finally gets me the bloody stinking corn subsidies. I don't know how anything gets done around here. - In the Madam Secretary episode "You Say You Want a Revolution", Secretary McCord and her staff must bargain with various people, from members of Congress to Cuban officials to a fugitive revolutionary in Cuba, in order to lift an embargo on Cuba. Each deal leads to a more complex deal, and the embargo is lifted.
- In the Malcolm in the Middle episode "Reese Drives", Francis starts one of these in an attempt to fix a hole in the roof of the lodge where he works, agreeing to make exchanges between just about all the loggers in the community. The problem for Francis is that it's a chain of promised deals, and he keeps making grander and grander promises to try to ground out the chain at something he can manage. He keeps going unsuccessfully until they find out it's rapidly becoming a complete sham and kick the crap out of him.
- In Married... with Children, Al does this using a barter system to get a recliner. He unfortunately has to undo it to get back the shoes (the ones he usually sells and what he started the system with) when he finds that his boss is coming for an inspection.
- In the The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel episode "Vote for Kennedy, Vote for Kennedy", Susie must play speed networking in the Stage Deli between different patrons who have connections with the media networks in order to secure Midge a spot on a big telethon. She's going so fast that at least twice, she ends up trying to negotiate with someone who's not remotely involved in the entertainment business.
- M*A*S*H:
- The plot of "For Want of a Boot". Hawkeye needs a new pair of boots. Supply sergeant Zale will send in the requisition form if Hawkeye can arrange for a dentist to fix his teeth. The camp dentist Captain Futterman won't do the work unless Hawkeye gets him a three day pass to Tokyo. Before Colonel Blake will issue the pass, he wants Major Houlihan to stop complaining to the Army brass about him. Margaret agrees to not send in a negative report on Colonel Blake if Hawkeye will throw a birthday party (including a birthday cake) for Major Burns. Corporal "Radar" O'Reilly will get the cake if Hawkeye can get Nurse Murphy to go out with him. Nurse Murphy agrees to do so in return for a hair dryer. Corporal Klinger wants a Section Eight discharge (which must be signed by four officers) for his hair dryer. Unfortunately Hawkeye can't get Major Burns to sign, so in turn each person in the chain refuses to cooperate, causing the deal to collapse.
- In "The Price of Tomato Juice", Radar discovers that Colonel Potter loves tomato juice. Requisitions officer Major Burns refuses to order any unless he gets a pair of nylons. Corporal Klinger has a pair, but won't give them up unless he gets a two day leave in Tokyo. Colonel Potter agrees to give Klinger leave, but the commanding general in Tokyo wants Major Margaret Houlihan to go to Tokyo to be with him. Luckily the Major is entirely willing to cooperate. Then it turns out that Col. Potter had forgotten that he was allergic to tomato juice so the whole chain was for nothing.
- In Suzy Eddie Izzard's three-part series Mongrel Nation, there was a scene where Izzard demonstrated the barter system by buying lunch. Result: this trope.
- In My Name Is Earl, during the Prison Arc, Earl meets a man named Glen, who was on his list (before it got confiscated). The thing Glen wants most is to earn all his remaining Camden Scout merit badges. In order to do that, Earl has to make deals with the leaders of the prison gangs. All of them end up forgiving Earl of the resulting debts, because as a result of getting Glen the badges (and getting him paroled), they aren't being subjected to lockdowns.
- In the Naturally, Sadie episode "Whose Line Is It Anyway?", Rain attempts to pull one off in order to obtain hot concert tickets. Ron has backstage passes and wants a date with Chelsea, Chelsea wants an appointment with an exclusive stylist which Mallory has, Mallory wants someone to produce a demo tape which Hal can do, Hal will work for food...
- The Office (US): In "Garage Sale", Dwight attempts to trade up to "the finest item" at the warehouse Garage Sale via one of these, starting with a single red thumbtack. This is a Shout-Out to the "One Red Paperclip" project (see Real Life, below). Amazingly, he's able to work his way up to a telescope, which he ultimately swaps with Jim for a packet of "miracle legumes".
- An episode of New Amsterdam (2018) features a chain of kidney donations which threatens to fall apart repeatedly.
- In The Rookie (2018), after Tim Bradford transfers to the role of Court Liaison Sergeant so that he can stay in the precinct and be in a relationship with his former trainee Lucy Chen, she sets up a complex network of deals to convince other officers to retire or transfer to other divisions so that Bradford can move to a more suitable role in Metro. These deals include volunteering her roommate Tamara as a babysitter for another officer, and Chen herself helping Smitty — one of the most difficult officers in the division — clean his virtually toxic RV.
- Stargate SG-1 had one of these in "The Ties that Bind"... which also features Daniel Jackson as the Butt-Monkey. Daniel and Vala needed to recover an item Vala stole from a former lover so he would reveal how to sever the bond left behind by the bracelets. Doing this involves a chain with other people: the vendor she sold the item to wants the item he traded for it, an ex-smuggler at the monastery she sold that item to wants his old shuttle back, and the Lucian Alliance that has the shuttle isn't going to part with it so they have to steal it. Predictably, even when they finally get all the items back to their rightful owners, the bracelets' owner reveals that he doesn't know how to sever the connection but he thinks it will wear off...eventually.
- In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, this is the B-plot of "Progress" (notable for containing the first mention of self-sealing stem bolts) and the premise of "In the Cards". In "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River", we learn that such chains are a tenet of Ferengi philosophy — the "Great Material Continuum"
(see the below quote). This last example is an unusual instance of this trope being played for laughs and not ending in disaster, even though Nog using O'Brien's access codes puts the chief in serious danger of being arrested, court-martialed, or murdered by Martok at various points in the episode.
Nog: There are millions upon millions of worlds in the universe, each one filled with too much of one thing, and not enough of another. And the Great Continuum flows through them all like a mighty river, from "have" to "want" and back again! And if we navigate the Continuum with skill and grace, our ship will be filled with everything our hearts desire! - The Unusuals: The B-plot of the episode "One Man Band" involves Casey having to do one favor after another for her fellow cops (each of which involves having to do a new favor for someone else) so she can arrange for a friend of a friend to be sprung on a minor charge. In the end, she does get him out...just in time to find out that he was actually guilty of the hit and run one of the other detective is investigating, which he can now destroy the evidence of. She fixes the situation by going to the person who requested the original favor: her father, the richest man in the city. He calls in his own favors to get her new evidence which the cops can use to arrest the guilty person.
- The Zoey 101 episode "Favor Chain" centers around this. Zoey wants a ride to the book store to meet her favorite author, and when she asks her dorm advisor, Coco, to do it, Coco agrees if Zoey can get Micheal to cook his grandmother's ravioli recipe. Micheal will do it if Stacey will finish their school project by herself while he cooks. Zoey convinces Stacey to finish the project if Zoey can get her a date with Logan. Logan (reluctantly) agrees to go on a date with Stacey if Zoey gets back his class ring he lost in a bet with Dustin. Dustin will give the ring back if Zoey convinces Lola to be his assistant in his magic show. Lola, who's looking after a teacher's baby, agrees to do it if Zoey can find someone else to look after the baby. Zoey gets Chase to do it if Zoey can get a group of comic book nerds to stop trying to befriend him. The nerds agree to leave Chase alone if they can have a computer software that Quinn invented. But when Quinn can't hold her end of the deal because Mark accidentally destroyed her software, the whole chain of favors falls apart. In the end, Zoey stills gets Coco to drive her.
- "Cat & Mouse", a children's song by Mike Jackson and Ian Blake, has the mouse try to do a chain of deals to recover her tail after the cat steals it. She finally gets to the crow, who offers her a feather in exchange for a piglet from the sow... who flatly refuses.
Sow: I know you miss your tail, but think how much I'd miss me baby.
- The song "There's a Hole in My Bucket"
features a similar situation regarding items needed to fix said bucket. It ends up looping indefinitely. A bucket is required, but there's a hole in it. A straw is needed to fix the bucket, but the straw is too long. An axe is needed to cut the straw, but it's too blunt. A stone is required to sharpen the axe, but it's too dry. Water is needed to wet the stone, but it needs to be carried somehow. A bucket is needed to carry the water, but there's a hole in the bucket...
- Cabin Pressure: Douglas runs his smuggling operation this way. He started with a cheese sandwich and within months has traded his way up to goods worth 500 euros.
- One episode of the children's show Jungle Jam and Friends had Millard the monkey constantly trading away what he had, never satisfied, until he finally winds up with nothing but a stick. The the stick saves his life when he falls down a well and it catches on the walls. Then the stick breaks.
- Our Miss Brooks: In "Bartering With Chief Thundercloud", Miss Brooks sets up a chain of deals to get a new coat. Unfortunately, Chief Thundercloud cuts in and ruins her scheme . . . that is, until it turns out the patient and longsuffering Mrs. Thundercloud demands the chief get her a housecoat from Miss Brooks.
Chief Thundercloud: Squaw, be quiet!
- This is kind of the plot of 13 (2007).
- A couple of Paranoia missions sort of work like this, requiring the PCs to submit an approved form A, which they can't get until another department approves a form B, which they can't get until another department approves a form C... and in some cases, they circle back around to needing an approved form A, at which point they need to do something treasonous (forgery, bribery, blackmail...) to break the loop. Sometimes a bureaucrat indicates that a cash bribe would cost more than the PCs have, but there is this one specific item he hasn't been able to get his hands on, or this one specific citizen he hasn't been able to take out, etc.
- In 7th Sea, the Vendel (Dutch) have a periodic competition where contestants put into a money pot and each get a small item like a pillow, sword, bag of flour, etc. All contestants have one day to do chains of deals, and whoever has the most profitable item at the end of the day gets the pot.
- The Eden of Grisaia has an example where the person making the deals has not the slightest idea what she's doing because she's just following the directions of a dopey sounding computer. In the morning, with a thousand yen Michiru buys thousands of discarded cellphones. She has the rare metal stripped out and sells those and then uses the money to go up increasingly complicated chains often involving being flown around to separate countries and trading boats or beers for people. Very late at night, she returns home with no clue where she's been all day, only knowing that she's had a growth on her initial funds of at least 10000%.
- In Family Project, Chunhua gets a free piece of candy on the street as an advertisement and gives it to Tsukasa. Tsukasa trades it for a pack of cigarettes. He gives the cigarettes to a guy on the street and gets a 5000 yen gift certificate. He uses that to pay Masumi's debt at some store or another, and she gives him thirty lottery tickets, enough for three tries at a game. Chunhua tries three times and eventually gets a personal computer worth 300,000 yen. Lampshaded.
- Parodied here
by 8-Bit Theater.
- An early Skin Horse storyline ("Borrowers") featured an increasingly absurd chain as main character Tip tried to deal with an increasingly bizarre string of escaped/lost sentient lab experiments living in their facility's basement and had problems with their neighbors. It proved to have some consequences, since he ended up screwing up the whole chain of deals his boss was used to dealing with - which resulted in her having to find out if the new leadership down in the basement is amenable to talking with the folks upstairs. Lampshaded at several points during the whole chain.
- Slightly Damned provides its take on these.
- Featured in Gold Coin Comics, starting here,
where it begins with a crappy belated birthday card.
- Awkward Zombie lampshades the ridiculousness of Zelda examples here,
imagining a chain of deals that proves to collapse in on itself because the last person wants the very thing Link went questing for in the first place.
- When it happens with the patients in Awful Hospital, the traded items ranged from bleeding skulls to malaria.
- The SMBC Theater sketch Internet Bartering
parodies the One Red Paperclip example nicely.
- Episode 9 of My Little Pony: The Mentally Advanced Series. Twilight needs holy water from Pinkie, who wants vengeance on Fluttershy, who wants her hairbrush back from Rarity, who wants Applejack to lend her some farm hands for her work. Eventually Subverted: in the end, Twilight can't remember who wants what or why, and instead gets some holy water from the mayor.
- SCP Foundation, SCP-2791 ("Fauste Bank plc").
The beings behind SCP-2791 use a series of complicated agreements (including Blood Magic contracts) to allow their customers to avoid the consequences of a Deal with the Devil.
- Or perhaps you need me to trade a Yoshi doll, for a ribbon, for a can of dog food, FOR EVERY OTHER PIECE OF GARBAGE IN THE LAND!
.
- Schaffrillas Productions' Big Damn Movie Why Tamatoa is My Favorite Character Ever
has a long string of this involving cameos from various YouTubers, ultimately reaching 29 deals. It ends up a "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot when William reveals he had the Mort plushie that I Hate Everything, the second person in the chain, was looking for.
- ''Battle for Dream Island:
- Battle for Dream Island Again: In "Start The Shift", Book got trashed up, and needed to get repaired to win the challenge. So Book goes to the New & Improved SuperShop". She goes to the top floor, "Magazine Makeovers", to get herself fixed, "but unfortunately, the stylists can’t fix her because they ran out of pages. So they advise her to go to the "Print Store" downstairs to get the paper they need to fix her. While Book leaves, Spool lampshades the extreme quest Mirror had set her on, and they're fully aware of it, as they exclaim that only the most resilient customers can survive their style of makeovers. Once Book heads to the print store, she finds it to be operated by former conductor, Pan Flute. He explains that after his orchestra died and his concert had a bug infestation, his musical career was over. So when asked if he can supply her some paper, he offers to give it to her if she can get his music career back. So she heads down to "Career Advisor" and asks for a musical career, but the cashier won't give it to her unless she gets them a fruit cup, so she heads to the fruit cup store, but the cashier will do it for a first-aid kit, she heads to the first-aid kit store, but the cashier wants a buzzer, then she heads to the buzzer store, but the cashier wants a cow lamp, she goes to the cow lamp store, but the cashier wants a pair of wings, then she heads to the wings store, and the cashier wants some lemonade, and when she heads to the lemonade store, the cashier wants some fries, and Book can actually get those by taking some from Fries. So after chasing FriesMart, she brings Fries over to the store and exchanges for the lemonade, and after making every trade, she was finally able to get her makeover. Unfortunately, the stylists messed up her cover, making all her efforts pointless.
- In the The Power of Two episode "The Seven Wonders of Goiky", Just Not does this in an attempt to repair the rollercoaster they were assigned to. They start with a block, which they trade for wires from The Strongest Team on Earth. They trade those wires for a shattered mirror from Team8s and unofficially trade that mirror for a glass pane from The S, who were in Yellow Face's commercial at the time. They trade that glass pane for the decapitated corpse of Tree from Death P.A.C.T Again, and trade the corpse for Teardrop's Dream Island gates, which are then traded for a rollercoaster piece from Are You Okay that was rigged with a bomb that caused them to lose the challenge.
- Jet Lag: The Game: Invoked in season four, where Ben and Adam were prompted to buy an inexpensive ring at a pawn shop so they could resell it at another pawn shop for half the purchase price.
- One secret task in the Secret Life SMP is to make a series of at least four trades starting with seeds and ending with a golden apple. Scar receives this task, and trades four seeds for a camel, a camel for a zombie spawn egg, a zombie spawn egg for five diamonds, and finally, five diamonds for a golden apple. Being someone who often puts on a businessman persona, he notes how appropriate this task is for him.
- Stoogeposting: In "The Three Stooges: The Art of the Trade", Curly gets into a chain of deals involving the Stooges' car, a can of gasoline, a bicycle, and a candy bar. Moe's relieved to hear he got the car back in the end, only for Curly to say he traded it away for something else.
- The Ed, Edd n Eddy episode "Who, What, Where, Ed?" features a chain that starts with Eddy trying to get a chicken egg from Rolf, who wants sawdust they have to borrow from Kevin, who wants paint they have to borrow from Jimmy, who wants clams they have to borrow from Johnny, and so on, driving Eddy closer and closer to insanity (as well as Lampshade Hanging) with every turn. The chain goes to Jimmy twice, they're forced to get something different for Johnny because they can't get the anchor he originally wanted from the Kankers, and eventually stretches back to Rolf. And while the Eds finally resolve the chain by trading Rolf Ed's yo-yo, Ed breaks the egg the second they get it because he thinks he needs to set the chicken inside free. As a result, this whole fetch-quest ends up being All for Nothing.
- In one of the "Lord Bravery" segments of Freakazoid!, Lord Bravery is given a Cease-and-Desist order on his name, as it was first used by a bakery. As it turns out, the bakery resorted to Lord Bravery because the name the owner wanted to use was already taken. The owner offers to give Lord Bravery back his name if the owners of the business with the name she wants will give it to her. This leads to a ridiculously long chain of businesses with ludicrously inappropriate names that ends only with the discovery of a shop owner who is quite happy with his business' name, since he has the same name, causing the chain to collapse. Lord Bravery has no choice but to change his moniker to Lord Smoked Meats And Fishes, making people respect him even less than they did before.
- Looney Tunes:
- This is the basis for the short "Leghorn Swoggled", with Henry Hawk making a long string of deals in order to catch Foghorn Leghorn. After making a bunch of deals (dog wants a bone, cat knows where to get a bone but wants a fish, mouse knows where to get fish but wants cheese) he remarks "I wonder what the cheese will want?"
- In "Dime to Retire", Daffy Duck runs a scam in the hotel Porky Pig is staying at. First, he lets a mouse into Porky's room, which drives Porky nuts by eating a piece of celery, prompting him to have Daffy bring in a cat to chase it off for a mere $5, only for the cat to refuse to let him sleep on his bed. Thus, Daffy brings a dog to scare it away for $10, only for the boxer (after hearing a bell, courtesy of Daffy) to start punching Porky, after which Daffy charges $26 to bring in a lion to get rid of it, which naturally tries to eat Porky. Then, for another $72, Daffy uses an elephant to drive out the lion. However, the elephant then takes up most of the room, so for $666, Daffy releases the mouse back into Porky's room to scare it off, leaving Porky with the celery-eating mouse all over again.
- The Life and Times of Juniper Lee: In "It's the Great Pumpkin, Juniper Lee", June manages to successfully complete a Chain to un-spell a few monsters before the spell becomes permanent at midnight. The last of those "deals" involved winning a wrestling match. When she finally presents the protein shake to the agent demon with only a literal minute to spare:
Vikki: What is this?
Juniper: What do you mean "What's this?!" (pants rapidly) I went to the Land of Gwugar, traversed the Grembleback Beach, climbed Grand Gorge of Gorgia, trudged through the Snows of Malaperta, braved the Rapids of Remular, survived the Forest of Fire and Ice, swam the Vast Fields of Nothingness and fought Jordan the Destroyer for this! It's your PROTEIN SHAKE!!!
(Vikki stares back apathetically)
Vikki: ...Oh, yeah. (takes a sip before looking down at it) I thought I asked for no banana.
Juniper: (grabs Vikki by the blazer) UN. DO. THE MONSTER SPELL. - In an episode of Recess, the gang arrange such a chain to enable Mikey to achieve his dream of becoming a crossing guard. The chain works perfectly, and Mikey is able to enjoy his new job. The next day, he announces to his friends that he quit due to the number of problems he suffered as a guard.
- Parodied on 2 Stupid Dogs. An off the hook payphone tells the dogs to get a quarter, so they go to a change machine, but they need to get a dollar. This leads them on a quest to get larger and larger sums of money, each of which is eventually traded in for a smaller amount right down to the quarter. Which is then used to phone the larger dog, in prison with a $10,000 bail.
- Chowder goes through a Chain to retrieve his lost hat, but accidentally gives the hat away in the process, requiring an undoing of the chain... and a redoing... and another redoing... and it's all done to a certain song. (Lampshaded at the fourth stop, when a giant says "I'm beginning to see a pattern here...")
- In an episode of House of Mouse, after accidentally spending the rent money on cheese, Mickey is in desperate need of $50. Merlin will give Mickey $50 in exchange for a sword for Arthur, The Headless Horseman will give Mickey a sword in exchange for a pumpkin to use as a head, Cinderella will give Mickey a pumpkin in exchange for an alternate ride home, Aladdin will give Cinderella a carpet ride home if he can get a rose for Jasmine, Beast will give Mickey an enchanted rose in exchange for a book for Belle, and Yen Sid is in no mood at all to share his books, scaring Mickey off and throwing the whole chain apart.
- Garfield and Friends had this occur in the U.S. Acres segment "Goody-Go-Round". The episode had Orson wanting to get Bo a record player. Booker has one but wants a skateboard. After failing to hit Roy's three practical jokes, one of which involved super-hot chewing gum, Orson convinces Roy to part with his skateboard in exchange for a pie. Lanolin is willing to give up her pie for a stepladder. Wade is more than happy to get rid of his stepladder, but Orson insists on giving him something... specifically, the spicy chewing gum he got from Roy. When Wade realizes how horrible the gum is, he takes back his ladder, causing the whole chain to temporarily reverse. Orson finally restores order, while Wade gets revenge on Roy by tricking him into chewing his own gum and gets to eat the pie instead, happily noting to the viewers that "Everybody got what they wanted. Or what they deserved."
- The Jimmy Two-Shoes episode "The Collectors" sees Jimmy going through one when he accidentally throws Beezy's chewed gum collection away via turning it into a giant balloon. Unfortunately, it ends up in the hands of the Weavil Chief, who wants a "My Little Gremlin Astronaut" from Lucius, who wants his girlfriend Jez to come to a dance with him, but Jez wants a giant diamond that the Schwartzentiger owns the keys to, and he'll hand the keys over for one of Molotov's ray guns, but Molotov needs a toy for his children, specifically Dr. Scientist's electric ball, but Dr. Scientist wants a mustard sandwich from Chef Garbage, who is out of mustard, which means Jimmy needs some of Beezy's mustard (another thing Beezy collects).
- In Dave the Barbarian, Candy owes a huge debt to a troll, who agrees to cancel it if she can collect the money that Chuckles owes him instead. Chuckles doesn't have it but says the Queen of the Mole People owes him money. She, meanwhile, has a debt from the original troll. In the end, Candy just has the troll write a check; they pass it around until it gets back to the troll, thus settling all the debts. Then they sing a song about an egg named Steve.
- In the Futurama episode "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings", the Robot Devil accidentally trades his awesome robotic hands for Fry's stupid human ones, allowing Fry to become a musician and impress Leela. Since Fry won't trade back, the Devil goes through a chain of dealsnote until he gets Leela's hand in marriage, which Fry is willing to trade for.
Robot Devil: Ah! My ridiculously circuitous plan is one-quarter complete!
- In the Phineas and Ferb episode "Tri-State Treasure: Boot of Secrets", while at a swap-meet Candace tries to get an extremely rare Ducky Momo antique which is very expensive. The seller will only trade for another antique found at the swap-meet and what follows is Candace doing an extremely long chain of trading with very bizarre sounding items. Despite her efforts, she still doesn't get the antique due to Doofenshmirtz's De-Age-Inator making the antique she was going to trade for it look too new.
- In the The Penguins of Madagascar episode "Operation: Good Deed", Mason's back gets injured by a bucket and he needs a massage. King Julien will let the Penguins borrow Maurice, who gives excellent massages, if they can get him a flamingo feather for his crown, Pinky will give them one of her feathers in exchange for some peanuts, Burt will give them his peanuts in exchange for some hay, Roy will give them his hay if they can get Bada and Bing to stop throwing their banana peels into his habitat, and Bada and Bing will stop throwing their banana peels if they can get them a pizza.
- Baloo and Kit invoked one in an episode of TaleSpin where they flew odd cargoes around the world, opting to always turn down the offered cash at his destination and instead trade it for another odd cargo. Much to the disbelief of Kit, as the refused cash offers keep getting larger, and it was his money that started the chain (with the promise of getting double the money back). The final cargo they pick up is seemingly worthless, but upon returning to their point of origin, they learn that it's actually a very rare and valuable commodity and they net a small fortune selling it. Unfortunately, a pair of gangsters they annoyed at the start of the episode then show up, and in the panic to escape, they lose all but double the original money they started with.
- Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy's portion of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Trade Ya" features Rainbow Dash going through such a chain to get a first edition book she wants to complete her set. The trade includes Rainbow Dash trading her lucky horseshoe for a crystal chalice; the crystal chalice for an antique chicken statue; the antique chicken statue for a Discord lamp; the Discord lamp for an Orthrus; and finally, the Orthrus, along with Fluttershy as a trainer, for the Daring Do first edition book.
- If You Give a Mouse a Cookie was parodied in an episode of Robot Chicken, with completely ridiculous circumstances and consequences like the mouse becoming a vampire from drinking too much milk and somehow developing a taste for human blood, turning the family into vampire servants who in turn vampirize the rest of the town, leading to the National Guard coming in and also being turned into vampires, leading to the town, then the whole United States, and then the entire world getting nuked. It all ends up being a woman rationalizing to her son why she stabbed her husband to death.
- An episode of The Simpsons has Lisa go on a "take your child to work" day with Homer, but come lunch time she has nothing to eat. Homer starts a series of trades with the last morsel of his own lunch to put together an elaborate salad and place setting for her.
- An episode of Hercules: The Animated Series has Phil's island sunk once Poseidon is annoyed at the loud Bacchanal being thrown there. Herc and Hermes go to Poseidon hoping he can restore the island before Phil comes back from a convention. Poseidon's condition is getting eye lotion from the monster Argus. Who wants a love arrow from Cupid. Who wants some water from the Pool of Forgetfulness to get one of Aphrodite's songs out of his head. Pain and Panic can give the water in return for fireproof shorts, who Hermes knows that Hephaestus can forge as he owes him a favor. And Hephaestus is... giving a lecture at Phil's convention! Herc is found, and flies back with Phil as Hermes goes through the chain, and thankfully he ends just as Herc arrives, preventing him from finding sea instead of an island.
- In the first episode of Star Wars Resistance, Kaz is signed up to a race at the Colossus against his will, and if he doesn't compete, he'll get thrown off the platform to almost certain death. In order to compete, he has to obtain parts for the Fireball, the only vehicle available; in order to get the parts, he has to fetch lunch for the acquisitions team, as he has no money; in order to get the lunch (and placate the stand's owner, who has a grudge against him), he offers to put the stand's logo on the Fireball to advertise it.
- In The Ghost and Molly McGee episode "A Period Piece", Darryl is shown making phone calls to sell goods he acquired; he talks someone into buying a giant cheese wheel and is told they can only pay in trampolines, which he accepts. He then talks to another client who buys the trampolines in exchange for some pogosticks.
- The impracticality of this in large-scale societies is one of the major reasons (the others being transportability and storability — if one item in the chain is a fifty-pound sack of grain, getting it to the next person in the chain could be difficult) for introducing currency,* as opposed to relying on barter for trade. With barter, you have to find someone who both has something you want and wants something you have in order to make a trade (for example, the shovel-maker may need a new pair of shoes, but the shoemaker doesn't need a shovel), while with currency you only have to do the former because you know almost everyone will want currency. And even if you do find the proper chain, this can also take a great deal of time — a chain of deals with X people in it takes 2X-1 steps to perform (X-1 arrangements for future trades plus X trades), while just paying for something is a one step transaction.
- In the residential housing market, many sale contracts are conditional on the buyer's current home being sold. This means a situation can arise where the sale of a home is dependent on the sale of another home, which is dependent on the sale of another home, etc. making for a very long chain of held-up contracts. When the last seller finds a buyer who is not tied to selling a current home, the entire chain of contracts goes through very quickly thereafter.
- Apartment swaps in the USSR were a combination of both of the above. Most people lived in state-owned apartments, and the only way to move to a different neighborhood was to swap apartments with someone else. Of course, this gave rise to situations where someone wants to move from neighborhood A to neighborhood B, and at neighborhood B there is an apartment available for swap but its current tenant wants to move to neighborhood C. To deal with such situations, there arose agencies that built long chains of swaps.
- As documented on One Red Paperclip
, in the course of one year (July 2005 to July 2006) Kyle MacDonald negotiated a chain that started with a single red paperclip and ended up with a house — in only fourteen trades! And now he's putting the house up for trade. Someone get this man the Infinity +1 Sword. Incidentally, he borrowed the paperclip back. To bend into an engagement ring to propose to his wife. For the compressed summary of his deals, he traded the paperclip for a fish pen for a doorknob for a barbecue for a generator for an 'instant party' package for a snowmobile for a trip to Yahk for a cube van for a recording contract for a year in Phoenix for an afternoon with Alice Cooper for a KISS snow globe for a movie rolenote for a house.
- Inspired by the above, TikTok user Demi Skipper traded a bobby pin up to a house
worth $80,000.
- Daisy chain for kidney donors. Someone in need with of a kidney may have a friend willing to donate to him, but who isn't compatible. So the healthy friend signs up to donate a kidney to anyone that needs it if his sick friend receives a kidney. The result can be a complicated Chain of Deals (all thankfully arranged by sophisticated computer algorithms) in which multiple pairs of friends (recipient and incompatible donor) trade kidneys with other pairs until everyone receives a healthy kidney. The longest such daisy chain of such chain involved 11 people receiving kidneys, all from one non-directed donor offering his kidney to whoever needed it starting the chain. In case anyone is interested they can sign up to be start their own chain of kidney deals (and officially become badass) here
.
- Without getting into specifics, players of any kind of Collectible Card Game (or, indeed, collectible anything-that-comes-randomly-blind-packed game) have likely committed to a three-or-more-way trade in order to get that last card for their precious deck/army/complete expansion set. One of the more entertaining chains is Jonathan Medina's "Pack to Power" chain, wherein he used the contents of a single Magic: The Gathering booster pack to eventually trade for one of the Power Nine, basically the most powerful and expensive cards in the game.
- Interestingly, electrical power systems are often protected by a chain-of-deals-like system. In interlocking, you must satisfy certain conditions in order to operate an item of equipment (disconnectors, earth switches, access gates etc.) which involves following prescribed sequences of opening/closing switches to obtain keys to access other sequences to obtain another key that opens the shutter to the hand crank you need to operate the item of equipment you were interested in the first place. For added super-bonus fun, on offshore windfarms certain steps entail sailing between individual turbines, key clutched in hand. The reason for this intentional complexity is to ensure that all equipment is made safe before anyone gets anywhere near it, and that there is no danger of damaging the main grid.
- Medieval Trade tended to be an extremely complex chain of IOUs spreading from India to Europe and beyond, known in English as bills of exchange. They're the ancestors of modern checks, and could involve money, but as often as not they just directly involved traders swapping goods.
- Certain stores offer perks for money spent, such as discounts on fuel from their branded stations. Some will apply this to gift cards and even point out in their commercials that you can use this as a way of getting bonuses on items that you ultimately purchase somewhere else. Naturally, there will be a limit to what stores they offer gift cards for, but if one of those stores happens to carry the gift cards for another store...
- Hermit crabs will actually form up in a nice orderly line
when an empty shell is found in order from smallest to largest, and will all "trade-up" as each crab ahead of them vacates their shell for a larger one.
- Thanks in no small part to the Obstructive Bureaucrats in Washington, DC, some units in the US Military often have to go through such a thing to just get supplies they need but the bean counters won't let them have directly. This involves one unit contacting another about a part they need for a vehicle or other piece of equipment that broke down, and this ends up with the Quartermaster having to go through a long chain from one unit to another to get the part. On the plus side, this does give the logisticians a lot of practice of moving equipment where it's needed. However, this means that units are sometimes ill-prepared for when they actually go into combat, and the casualties that result. If it weren't for chains like this, many more soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan could've been killed due to a lack body armor for the troops and armor kits for the vehicles.

