Comically Small Demand

Dr. Evil: Here's the plan: we get the (nuclear) warhead, and we hold the world ransom for... one million dollars!
Number Two: Ahem — don't you think we should, maybe, ask for more than a million dollars?

— Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Someone with authority or power (or the delusion of such) uses it to command, force, or negotiate with people to do mundane or simple tasks for them.

Usually the person ordered may eagerly oblige, having expected a more serious and/or dangerous task or being threatened if refused, though possibly with initial disbelief.

Alternatively, it could be a mundane reward or offer from performing a service, especially if the people needing it are poor or even extravagantly rich.

The reasons for the mundane needs are:

• It Amused Me
• Not Rare Over There
• Pet the Dog
• It's Personal
• Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules! (as in, the demand is a strictly symbolic exchange — the person who made the demand would have even done it for free had they been allowed to)
• Serious Business (everybody else thinks taking the world hostage over Szechuan Sauce is beyond ridiculous, but they don't)
• Not knowing about Ridiculous Future Inflation
• Worthless Yellow Rocks (i.e. money is not valuable to the one requesting something else)
• An excuse to not to do a task or to defect.

If there is a series of demands, you can expect the last one to be this.

When the boss sends people to do important things, then sends one to do something mundane, that's You, Get Me Coffee.

Compare Mundane Luxury, Mundane Wish, Mundane Utility, Comically Small Bribe, Disappointed by the Motive, and Sold His Soul for a Donut. If it involves food, it overlaps with Bratty Food Demand.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Chainsaw Man has many characters making pacts with Devils in exchange for various abilities. Usually, these are debilitating, or at least seriously unpleasant, such as losing a part of your body or having years shaved off your life. There are a few exceptions, however.
  • The Fox Devil is one of the few that aren't outright hostile to humanity, and is a Villainous Glutton that makes deals with multiple humans to eat their enemies and only asks in exchange to take bites of their skin small enough to be treated with bandages. It likes Aki and according to one of the omakes will sometimes settle for just his hair as the offering.
  • When Aki goes to the Future Devil, in exchange for Combat Clairvoyance it only asks that it be allowed to reside in his right eye and see everything it does. Naturally, this isn't the Future Devil being nice; rather, it's that it has predicted Aki will die in a horrible fashion and it wants a front-row seat for when it happens which it then uses to escape custody.
• Goblin Slayer: When Goblin Slayer asks for his help defending Cow Girl's farm from goblins, Spearman made a big deal out of how Goblin Slayer couldn't expect to receive help without offering a reward...then said that he'd help in exchange for Goblin Slayer buying him and Witch a round of drinks afterwards.
• Monster Musume: In one episode, an Ork radical group takes hostages in pure Die Hard fashion and all it demands in order to let them go is that Light Novels and Anime must have more Ork protagonists. That is literally it. The police commissioner gets a conniption when he hears this.
• My Monster Secret: Karen is an Angel who believes she is a demon after losing her Halo. Like demons she offers generous gifts in exchange for a terrible price: a sincere thank-you.
• Noragami: Justified Trope. Five-yen coins are a traditional offering at Shinto shrines, which is why the homeless god Yato only charges five yen (approximately five cents) for his services — the offering is more important than the money itself.
• Samurai Champloo: Early on, Mugen is approached by a Yakuza leader after outclassing every thug in town. The Yakuza boss gives him a job offer, promising Mugen anything he wants if it means he will sign up. Mugen's request? Cooked crabs.
• 3×3 Eyes: Haan's requested payment from Yakumo for teaching him beast magics is... to introduce him to a Japanese girl.
• StrikerS Sound Stage X, Jail Scaglietti's only request in exchange for vital information regarding the current incident is enough Belkan Red Wine for one so that he and the imprisoned cyborgs could honor the death anniversary of Due.
• Parallel World Pharmacy: Lord Farmas' pharmacy offers effective medical care for extremely low prices that even Commoners can afford: roughly "the cost of a loaf of bread". For context purposes: the price was for Farma administering a full medical examination, making a diagnosis, and producing enough doses of both Zanamivir and Acetaminophen to last five days all for a kid that was just suffering from a bad case of Influenza.
  "No child should go without care, so I keep our prices low."
• ×××HOLiC: An internet-addicted woman asks Yuko for help to break her addiction. Yuko then cleaves her computer in half with a baseball bat. For her services, she demands... her child's perfectly ordinary booster seat. Yuko explains later that since she charges exactly what her services are worth. So, all Yuko did was break the woman's computer — she can buy a new one at any time. If she had used magic to break her addiction instead of an object lesson, she would have to charge much more for her services.
• The Way of the Househusband: Chapter 58 portrays it like a terrifying mob shakedown when the infamous ex-Yakuza "Immortal" Tatsu goes door-to-door for Neighborhood Association dues... to the tune of 500¥^note (less than $5 US) per household — literal pocket change. Notably, the yakuza he's demanding the money from has to ask one of his associates if he can borrow it, because there is no reason a wealthy crime lord would carry pocket change.

Comic Books

• A 70s Luke Cage: Hero for Hire story featured Cage beating up the Fantastic Four, stealing their Fantasticar and flying it to Latveria to confront Doctor Doom. The ensuing conversation:
  Cage: Where's my money, honey?
  Doom: Money? What money are you talking... You mean the money I owed you for tracking down my robots? You came all the way here for that? A paltry $200?! You are crazy!
• The Simpsons issue with the Smithers-clones starts with a strike going at the Power Plant. Burns decides that, after months of negotiating, it's time to find out what the demands are, and has Smithers tear open the dust-coated envelope;
  Smithers: They're holding out for a five cent wage increase.
  Mr. Burns: Five percent!?
  Smithers: No, five cents. A nickel, sir.

Fairy Tales

• This is a fairly standard motive of a Deal with the Devil: You may sell Cursed Item X to another fool, but only for a smaller price than you paid yourself. Last one is a damned soul.

Fan Works

• Absolute Trust: In Chapter 21, when Avatar Kyoshi manifests in Chin Village, Alec requests that she stick around for two favors. First, deal with the Rough Rhinos when they come to attack the city, and second... give him an autograph.
• Blood Man Luffy: After saving Alabasta from Crocodile, Luffy asks for King Cobra's throne. No, not the kingdom, the chair much to Cobra's relief (as he comments, a single fancy chair can be easily replaced). Because "It'd be so cool to have an actual king's throne on my ship!"
• Boy With a Scar: Played with. When Nami makes an alliance with Luffy and Zoro in Chapter 7, they astonish her by saying that they don't care about money, and she can have whatever they find as long as she pays for their food and booze. She rightfully suspects that there's a catch, and Luffy truthfully replies that he can eat a lot while Zoro truthfully says that he can drink a lot. Nami doesn't believe it's that bad, so she accepts...and she regrets it.
• Code Geass: The Prepared Rebellion: When asked what he wants in exchange for freeing Japan, Lelouch states he simply wants himself and his sister to be left alone. He has money from fleecing nobles and the only power he wants is over himself.
• Colors and Capes: Circe restores Cheetah's humanity in exchange for some pictures of Wonder Woman tied up with her own lasso, since she bears a grudge against Hippolyta and would consider photos of her daughter being humiliated as well worth the effort.
• Dauntless (Allora Gale): Lelouch agrees to help Schneizel overthrow the Emperor in exchange for Japan. Schneizel had both expected and been prepared to offer half the empire.
• Enemy Number One: Saitama is mistaken for a very powerful and dangerous villain (when only that first part is true). So when he breaks into the Hero Association and starts making demands, they're taken aback when all he wants is for them to stop attacking him and for his apartment door to be fixed.
• Going Solo: Angel's price for sharing his blood with Ford and saving the young man's life is that he not date Buffy. As Angel explains, he'll be able to share Ford's senses and he recently broke up with Buffy.
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: It's apparently common knowledge that for the right price, the aurors guarding Azkaban will ignore people sneaking in to give the prisoners time with a patronus, or a supply of chocolate. For Auror Li, that price is "two Knuts and a silver Sickle", because he hates Azkaban.
• Harry Potter and the Shell of the God King: When Illyria reminds Narcissa that impressing her is far more important than impressing Harry, Narcissa asks what Illyria wants. Illyria wants Narcissa to marry Harry and become Lady Potter as it's important for Harry to have a wife but she doesn't want to bother. Given Narcissa's plan was to seduce Harry anyway, it's hardly an arduous task.
• A Jump to the Left: When Faith tells Xander that she's been sent by the Mayor to keep him occupied for the night (with the implication that she's to have sex with him), Xander informs her that they could have accomplished that with a large pizza and a new release from Blockbuster.
• Kingdom Hearts but it's silly: Terra's body has been taken over by Xehanort, and so Aqua tells him to return Terra's heart or pay the price. The price? Sixty dollars. However, Xehanort only has twenty dollars.
• The Mountain and the Wolf: One of the Wolf's demands to serve as Tyrion's bodyguard is the crossbow that Tyrion used to murder his father, currently in Bronn's hands. To Tyrion, three coffers of gold was the main demand, but to a Chaos warrior used to cursed weapons it's obvious the crossbow is far more valuable.
• Now You See It: Hinata thinks Sakura is selling Kiba into slavery for knowledge of some seals. Sakura is actually selling the Kiba swords, but admits she'd sell her teammate for a half empty jar of umeboshi.
• Obito-Sensei: Kurama's price for telling Kushina about the Jūbi is only to able to see out of Kushina's eyes to aliviate his boredom. Kurama justifies this by pointing out that Kushina barely trusts him as it is, so he is content to just seeing the outside world and not even hearing it, as any more would be met with refusal.
• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: Ash gets lost in Celadon City and somehow ends up in an underground Fight Club. After winning the prize money, he gives it to Anthony (the man who trained his Primeape in canon) and only asks for one thing in return... directions to get back to the Pokémon Center.
• Screw the Rebellion, I want Cookies: A Self-Insert fanboy of the Empire offers Emperor Palpatine all the knowledge he has to help secure his rule and all he asks in return is to govern Ryloth and have a small fleet of five star destroyers. The former because he's a fan of Twi'leks and the latter because he always wanted some of the Empire's ships, and because even if he's a fan, he still knows Palpatine is pure evil and would simply kill him if his demand was too great.
• In Discworld fic The Price of Flight, Captain Olga Romanoff puts on an absolutely straight face when she suggests "a new dartboard" from Vetinari. ^note  In context, she has led Ankh-Morpork's Air Watch in delivering a shattering defeat against the Klatchian Air Force and eliminating them as a threat.. Vetinari decodes what she really means, and all the participating Air Watch pilots receive a large cash bonus. While he also confers medals, he also commits the Air Watch to a celebratory parade to receive the Thanks Of The City - which means they have to spend weeks learning all about parade marching.
• This Bites!: While it wasn't intended as such, Cross's demand for flags that the Accino family stole turns out to be this. Don Accino's children are the ones who have to clean them all the time, and Arbell outright says she'd rather eat her skirt than clean one more flag.
• Trolling the League:
  • Cheetah thinks Naruto wants to have sex with her in exchange for turning her human again. Instead, he just wants her to wear a t-shirt claiming he "sucked the pussy right out of her".
  • In the sequel, The (Questionable) Burdens of Leadership of a Troll Emperor, Xanna holds off on collecting the debt the Asgard owe them for curing their cellular degeneration for a few centuries. Once hers and Naruto's empire is advanced enough to make use of Asgard technology, she only demands teachers to instruct their scientists so their society can advance more swiftly. The Asgard are surprised, though pleased, she didn't demand advanced battleships or other weaponry.

Films — Animated

• Quest for a Heart: When the Röllis, who pride themselves on not washing themselves, ask the Sage of the Sauna information about the Heart of Understanding, he only demands that they go to the sauna twice a year as payment for the information.

Films — Live-Action

• Austin Powers:
  • Infamously in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, time-traveling villain Dr. Evil plans to hold the world ransom in exchange for "One million dollars!", which the UN members find hysterical. Number Two advises him to raise the amount to $100 billion, because of inflation since the '60s.
  • Inverted in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, where he returns to the '60s and demands his $100 billion, which the President of the US and his staff find equally hilarious, because that amount of money doesn't exist yet. He's told that he might as well ask for a gajillion-bajillion dollars.
• Bad Black: During the prison shootout, Kenny starts yelling demands to the police, one of which is that they put 24 back on the air.
  "Best damn show on TV!"
• The Dark Knight: Subverted. After the Joker is denied his phone call at the police station, he delivers a Hannibal Lecture to the cop watching him in order to provoke him into a fight, manages to defeat him and get his hands on a weapon, marches out into the station with the cop held hostage, and when asked what he wants says "I just want my phone call". The subversion is that the call triggers a bomb.
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Germans offer the Sultan of Hatay a large bribe consisting of "treasures donated by the most powerful families in Germany." The only thing that interests the Sultan, however, is the Rolls Royce that the Germans drove up in. In exchange for the car, he gives the Nazis the removal rights for the Holy Grail and even throws in an armed escort, including a tank. The novelisation fleshes this out by pointing out that the Sultan is already fabulously wealthy and has plenty of treasures of the kind being 'donated' already, and so from his perspective this is a Comically Small Bribe; he just happens to be keen on cars.
• Little Nikita: A rogue Soviet agent, in 1987, demands $200,000 to get him to stop killing other agents.
• Ocean's Thirteen: the plot to rig the dice at Bank's casino is stymied when the factory that makes the dice is shut down over worker demands for higher pay and better working conditions (Largely spurred by their own inside man that they had sent to infiltrate the factory). When the strike shows no signs of stopping, the Ocean crew decides to just pay the worker's demands for $36,000 out of their own pockets. While they're calculating how large the total will be multiplied for each employee, they're corrected that the demand is for $36,000 total, not per person. That balances out to only pennies for each person, and the crew can write a check for the whole amount right then.
• Once Upon a Time in Mexico: Cheech Marin's character Belini asks Agent Sands for a smaller bribe, $10,000 instead of the $50,000 Sands initially offered. An amused Sands skips the traditional briefcase and brings it in a lunchbox. When Sands asks him why he went down, Belini explains that $50,000 was a lot of money for what Sands was asking for, and he recognizes that Sands might very well kill him instead of handing over the cash. He decides that $10,000 is a "reasonable" fee, something they both can live with, and not big enough that Sands would kill him over it. Sands muses that $10,000 might still be too much, but before their final deal is concluded Sands has to kill Belini for a completely unrelated matter.
• Payback: Porter launches a one-man war against the mob to recover his $70,000 share of a $130,000 heist that his mob-connected partner stole from him. As the damage Porter is doing starts to add up, and he finds himself dealing with multiple hits put out on him by more than one criminal syndicate, people start to become sure that Porter is after more than a mere $130,000. Porter keeps correcting them that he only wants the original $70,000 he was owed, which makes people even more shocked. As one of the mob bosses exclaims, "What do you mean it's only seventy? Seventy thousand?! Hell, my suits are worth more than that!"
• In the German movie Der Räuber Hotzenplotz (1962), Petrusilius Zwackelmann is a sorcerer who can theoretically do anything with his powers, but the one thing he can't do is peel potatoes, so he forces a captured boy he bought from Räuber Hotzenplotz to do it for him.
• RoboCop (1987): The voted-out politician holds the city council hostage, demanding three things: "I want a recount. And then I want my old job back." Which would make the recount superfluous. And, of course, he also wants the new 6000 SUX that has reclining leather seats, goes very fast, and gets really shitty gas mileage.
  Lt. Hedgecock: Let the mayor go, we'll even throw in a Blaupunkt.
• Sneakers: At the end of the movie, the protagonists realize they can set their own price with the NSA in return for giving back the "black box," which has the power to reshape global politics. One member demands a Winnebago RV, another wants an international vacation, but to everyone's surprise Carl just asks for a cute NSA agent's phone number. As she's quite flattered, he gets it too.
• We're the Millers: David thinks that a Mexican cop is demanding a bribe of either sex or a thousand dollars. This is a misunderstanding; he's actually asking for a thousand pesos (roughly $80 American). David rounds it up to an even 100 and proceeds without issue.
• Several Hume Lake films, such as We Like Sheep and Xenoviv, had a bonus Gainax Ending where one of the characters turned evil and killed everyone with an army of robots. After killing them all and piling their bodies into a huge stack, he'd climb to the top and yell "I'm the king of the world! Somebody bring me a pecan pie!"
• War Dogs: When an inexperienced Ephraim and David score their first big defense contract, it's revealed that their bid was $53 million lower than the next closest competitor, meaning they could have asked for ~$50 million more and still gotten the contract.

Literature

• Re:Zero: Some of Subaru's requested rewards for helping save Emilia's life include asking for her name, petting Puck's fur, and working in the mansion.
• Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants: after shrinking Jerome Horwitz Elementary School and the people inside to hold them hostage from his Humongous Mecha, Professor Poopypants makes his first demand for a pencil from the reporter reporting on the incident.
• In REAMDE, the middleman Wallace "tasks" Peter with getting him a drink as a test: will Peter accept a junior role from him. Dodge happens to be watching and explains what Wallace is doing and why to Zula.
• In the children's book Big Max by Kin Platt, the King of Pooka Pooka offers Big Max a room full of diamonds, a room full of emeralds, or a room full of gold for finding Jumbo, his prize elephant. But when Big Max does find Jumbo (he was at his birthday party), all he asks for is a slice of the cake. (No wonder the illustration of Big Max's apartment doesn't have any furniture...)
• The Dresden Files:
  • Discussed in Summer Knight when Harry has learned the debt he once owed to his evil, psychotic Fairy Godmother the Leansidhe has been sold to her sovereign, Winter Queen Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness. Mab makes a contract with Harry to repay the debt by doing her three favors, which he can refuse with no backlash from Mab^note She makes sure she sets things up so there is probably fatal backlash for his refusal, but not directly from her. Harry inquires if these favors could be this concept and she just asks for the salt three times at dinner. Mab doesn't dispute the idea.
  • Earlier, in White Night, Harry makes several demands of Lara Raith after saving her from a horde of monsters and exposing treachery within the ranks of her court, among other things. The first few demands are serious (she will stop her subordinates from systematically murdering practitioners of magic, and release a number of The Fair Folk she has imprisoned) — and then he asks for mouthwash, because he has "a funny taste in [his] mouth" from kissing her earlier as part of a spell. Her response is apoplectic.
  • In Small Favor, Harry cashes in his favor from the Summer Court when faced with an incredibly powerful fae who easily dispatched a Fallen angel "like an uppity pixie". Harry's request? A cake donut with white frosting and sprinkles. Not only does the fae deliver the donut, it's warm and accompanied by coffee. Of course, the true purpose was to delay the fae long enough for Harry to escape the deadline it was under to kill him, and the fae played along.
  • In Cold Days:
    • To test the limits of a powerful fae forced to serve as his orderly, Harry demands a Coke. One is instantly provided, but it's warm, because Harry didn't specify otherwise. He then tells Harry to expect the same level of response from commands to the fae if he dislikes what Harry asks of him.
    • When he calls up Donar Vadderung (a.k.a. Odin) for advice and some information, Vadderung says he'll give it to Harry in return for one favor (which is standard) and... a nickel, in reference to Lucy.
  • Near the end of Skin Game, Harry asks the mercenary Goodman Grey how much he owes him. Harry had hired him to go along with Nicodemus's plan to rob Hades (for which Nicodemus was going to pay him 2 million dollars plus any loot Grey could grab from the vault they were hitting to which Nicodemus estimated could be about $20 million) then betray him, and they got into a fight with three fallen angels possessing dangerous entities and nearly been killed, before riding him miles through Chicago, so Harry is expecting the price to be something truly formidable. He charges him one US dollar. That's still more than he can give right then.
• Happens some times on the Discworld:
  • In Guards! Guards!, after the Night Watch saves the... after the Night Watch is honored for saving the day, the city's Patrician, Lord Vetinari, asks them to name their reward. The guardsmen put their heads together and request a five-dollar pay raise, a replacement tea kettle, and perhaps a dart board, and are worried the dart board is too much to ask. Vetinari, who is deeply cynical about human nature, is left bemused.
  • In Men at Arms, after Carrot learns of his royal heritage, he requests a private audience with Vetinari. Initially, all Carrot asks for is a replacement dart board, but then it's subverted when he goes on to describe his ambitious plans for the expansion of the Watch. Since this is still less than he was expected to be asked for^note Carrot could not more obviously be the rightful heir to the throne of Ankh-Morpork, but he's perfectly happy being a copper — so much so that he actually disposes of the evidence proving his birthright himself, and is of course good for the city, Vetinari agrees.
  • By Night Watch Discworld, Vetinari is savvy enough to have spotted the pattern. After a Time Travel incident in which Vimes goes back to take the place of his own mentor and participate in an infamous civic uprising, Vetinari figures out what happened and seems ready to offer Vimes a huge reward. Vimes is furious that he would dishonor the memories of the people who died in this manner, but is taken aback when Vetinari's offer is far more reasonable: Vimes can have the old Watch headquarters restored, and the grave of those who died will never be disturbed.
  • In The Science of Discworld, the Elf Queen tries to bribe Rincewind with his heart's desire. However, due to a previous incident involving Rincewind being stuck on an island for too long, his only real desire is potatoes (having gotten a little, ah, "confused" between them and sex). This baffles and enrages the Queen, and she stomps off, but had she actually provided some potatoes, she might've had Rincewind; he shouts after her he'd be happy with a bag of crisps. Humorously, this started out as Rincewind concentrating on potatoes so the Elf Queen couldn't read his mind and find out what the wizards' plan was, but shifted into "I want potatoes" pretty quickly.
• Happens to Dunk in The Hedge Knight when an attempt to protect a lowborn puppeteer from an evil prince lands him in a public Trial by Combat to prove his innocence. When he tries to recover his shield for the trial, a smith at the tournament reveals to him that he's got Dunk's shield and has reinforced it and added a brand new steel rim. When Dunk asks him what he owes him for the work, the smith just smiles and replies "for you? A copper.".
• In Lord of the Rings, Gollum's idea of being a Dark Lord involves demanding fresh fish, straight from the ocean, for dinner every day... and nothing else. That's comically little comparing to Sauron desiring absolute obedience from everyone, Galadriel desiring everyone to admire her, Saruman wanting to analyze and dissect everything and build machines, Gandalf desiring to force-feed his teachings to everyone, and Boromir wishing for an invincible army. It's suggested that this is part of why the Ring failed to fully corrupt Gollum, even after 500 years; Gollum simply doesn't want anything particularly important.

Live-Action TV

• In an episode of NYPD Blue a suspect promise to confess his crime (a rather grisly murder) for two 2-liter bottles of Coke. It has to be Coke though: not Pepsi, not RC, not Diet Coke.
• In one episode of Once Upon a Time, Rumplestiltskin gives Snow White the potion she's looking for and only takes a strand of her hair for payment. She has no idea why, but gives it to him. It turns out he needed it, along with a strand of Prince Charming's hair that he gets in a later episode, for a True Love spell.
• The New Statesman has a case of the demander simply being too stupid to understand what he ought to be asking; Piers Fletcher-Dervish has finally been given some actual power, and demands a bribe from Alan in exchange for information that has the potential to substantially increase Alan's (already considerable) wealth. After dramatically declaring that he wants his share of the dirty money floating around, he demands "One. Pound. Fifty... Cash!" Alan manages to keep a straight face as he "reluctantly" hands over the bribe, and Piers promptly grabs it as if he were afraid Alan was going to snatch it back.
• The Wire: in "Sentencing", after being arrested Wee-bey, a longtime hitman for a massive drug empire, demands some take-out food to confess all of the murders he's ever committed. Given that he's already facing a life sentence at best for a different crime he's being charged with, he has nothing to lose by confessing, and prison food sucks.
• Patriot: Ichabod threatens secret agent John Tavener with blackmail and states that he's still deciding on what his demand will be. He ultimately reveals his demand to be... "nonsexual cuddling," which amounts to a long, therapeutic hug. The critically depressed and stressed-out John actually really enjoys it, and he later gives a hug to another depressed friend.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus: In episode 1-8, "Full Frontal Nudity", Luigi and Dino Vercotti try to shake down an army colonel for 15 bob ^note  15 shillings, or about $15 US in 2019 a week. The colonel considers this so silly that he stops the whole sketch, and it's neither the first nor the last time in the episode that he does so.
• The Muppet Show: One Newsflash reported on the kidnapping of the Atlantic Ocean, with a ransom demand of two Christmases a year and kisses from Mommy every night.
• In Person of Interest, it is revealed that the amount of money Harold Finch and his partner asked of the U.S. Government to create the Machine was $1 (that's right — a single dollar. They were already living large as tech moguls in the Fiction 500 bracket). This leads to a hilarious moment in a later flashback when a CIA officer gets angry at hearing that the Machine will be a Black Box (it will surveil all electronic traffic in America, but the government will not have any access to this feed nor it will be able to reprogram the Machine in any way) and demands this feature to be changed or he will see that all funding of the project get pulled... and when he hears how much the project is costing the government, he does a double-take. A similar example of this trope happens when Finch asks mob boss Elias to remove a bounty on their current protectee. Elias agrees, as long as Finch agrees to play chess with him.
• Married... with Children: When Al and his colleague at the shoe store blackmail their boss for running a sweat shop and she tells them that she'll give them anything they want, they demand a pitiful 250 dollars, and initially not even per person.
• Ghosts (UK): After three days of non-stop trying to scare Alison away, she tells the ghosts she can’t leave and asks them what they want from her. The answers? Tank documentaries, a portrait taken down and to simply say hello. Subverted with Thomas, who wants Alison to leave her husband, kill herself and spend eternity with him, all of which is soundly rejected.
• 30 Rock: When NBC is interested in creating his show idea, Gold Case, Kenneth initially asks for the Head Page position and a new clock radio. However, with Jack's guidance, he quickly amends it to add 5 points on the back end, 20% gross on merchandising, a creator credit on this and any international editions...and a new clock radio. (The show tanks almost immediately, but Kenneth keeps the clock radio.)
• Puppets Who Kill: In Dan's Umbrella, Bill steals all the brains of Canadian celebrities from the CBC. Dan, wanting to just end this madness, offers to give them the brains in exchange for his umbrella from their Lost & Found.

Tabletop Games

• In Vampire: The Masquerade, a vampire who is owed a favor by another vampire will usually hold onto this debt for decades, using it only in the most dire circumstances. Occasionally, however, the vampire will let their debtor settle the accounts by doing some relatively minor task. In this case, the Comically Small Demand is actually an Insultingly Small Demand: essentially, the creditor is saying to the debtor, "You are so insignificant and worthless that this is all I think you're capable of doing for me, and it isn't even worth the effort to hold onto the favor for the future."
• In Changeling: The Lost, one way Changelings replenish their magic is by making deals. The deals themselves can involve any goods/services, mundane or otherwise — it's the act itself that's important. This can cause problems with humans unaware of The Masquerade, who naturally wonder why that strange unlicensed exterminator will clear all the insects out of their house for just a cheap trinket. There's also the fact that when a normal human breaks a fae bargain, the Wyrd will often punish the mortal by causing him to stumble into the Hedge and get caught by the True Fae. No changeling would wish that fate on anyone, so they try to ensure that the bargains they make are extremely easy to keep.
• Beast: The Primordial: Beasts with the Hunger for Power feed the Horror by subjugating others, forcing them to acknowledge the Beast's power and do their bidding. For Beasts that are trying to restrain their Horrors, feeding in ways that cause only the bare minimum of suffering necessary to sate the Horror, this can take the form of petty tyrannies such as forcing a former rival to polish your nameplate.

Video Games

• ANNO: Mutationem: In a side-mission at Noctis City, after learning members from the Factio Pugni had stolen bombs and are planning to set them off, Ann comes across a homeless vagrant who explains that he saw the gang-members, but then asks for a minimal amount of five credits before telling her where they are located.
• In Dawn of War 2: Retribution, Inquisitor Adrastia attempts to hire Blood Knight ork pirate, Kaptain Bluddflagg, to kill a rogue Space Marine leader and anyone else who stands in his way. Bluddflagg asks for her hat as payment. Negotiations break down.
• Fallout: New Vegas: You can convince the owner of the laser pointer of a Kill Sat to sell it to you for 1000 caps ^note The price of a brand new SMG and a few clips and convince him to down it to 20 caps^note the price of two bottles of water . On the other hand, said owner is a kid and thus not very math-wise, and is also unaware of what exactly it is he's holding.
• Fire Emblem: Awakening: Gaius's only demand upon being recruited is that he be provided with candy. It probably helped that he didn't really appreciate the goals of the group he was with at the time.
• In Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, one of the inmates at the prison took the police commissioner hostage with a flame-thrower. When asked what he wanted, he paused to think, then demanded a curry dinner. He then torched the office when his curry was too spicy. It turns out this was actually because he was being controlled by an outside force to destroy documents in the office, rather than any reason of his own.
• In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, there's two little girls who won't tell you any gossip about the other townspeople, not even for two whole rupees! (They're so little that they're pleased to get even one rupee each.)
• Resident Evil 6: Jake Muller's scenario's ending has him sending a text message to Sherry that he's dropped his price for his blood to 50 dollars. He goes even further in the secret ending, where he's seen taking an apple as payment from a kid for getting rid of some B.O.W.s. It's a pre-arranged price, too.
• Saints Row IV: The ending to the Enter The Dominatrix DLC, the Space Raptor enemies of the Zin save the Saints from the simulation. Their King, Cirano, offers the Saints a reward for each of them. For Pierce, a dinosaur with guns, for Donnie, to be respected, for Kinzie, vengeance, for Shandi, to be Cirano’s queen, as for the Boss? They don’t want anything and instead asks if the King wants to go bowling with them.

Web Comics

• El Goonish Shive: In a filler comic, Susan asks Jerry to repay her for risking her life among other traumatic things and demands 10 dollars.
• Hero Oh Hero: Played straight and later subverted. First Burk agrees to help a town with its bandit problem in exchange for... being allowed to use the guy who asked him's bathroom (he'd have done it for nothing, but he really needed to go). The subversion comes when The Aristocrat defeats a bandit and asks for nothing in return but his clothes repaired, whatever his medal's pointing at and... a statue of himself erected in the middle of the town.
• The Last Days of FOXHOUND: After Revolver Ocelot and the Patriots ruined Psycho Mantis' life, Ocelot is against the idea of asking Mantis to wipe Liquid Snake's memory on account of any hard feelings he has towards them. But instead:
  Psycho Mantis: I'll do it for fifty bucks.
• In Red Meat, Papa Moai is an omnipotent transdimensional being who resembles an Easter Island statue. He usually speaks portentously of transcending time and space, but has more minor and immediate concerns like finding decent tobacco, or filling in a crossword with the help of the other characters.
• Schlock Mercenary: Early on, lowly corporal Schlock acquires a controlling interest in his own mercenary company due to a stock crash. With dread in their hearts, his bosses ask what his demands are...
  Schlock: I wanna be a sergeant.
  Tagon: [with an admirably straight face] You drive a hard bargain, soldier.
• The Weekly Roll: Torvald turns out to be on the run from dwarven tax collectors (taxes and the evasion thereof are Serious Business to dwarves). When they catch up to him, Torvald would rather die than make any reparation, but Becket asks if Torvald's debt could be paid off by a third party. When the collectors agree to this, it turns out Torvald owed them eighty-four gold (the which sum party sociopath Trevor regularly exceeds on booze). And after Becket pays, Torvald declares he now has a life-debt towards Becket. Interestingly, both parties recognize it's a tiny amount of money, but...
  Tax collector and Torvald (simultaneously): It's the Principle of the Thing.

Web Original

• In the Das Sporking recapping of Fifty Shades Freed, the third book in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, Gehayi and Ket Makura note that Jack Hyde's ransom demand of five million dollars really isn't that much to demand from a business tycoon, especially since a previous book confirmed that Christian makes one hundred thousand dollars an hour.
• Homestar Runner: In the Strong Bad Email "other days", Strong Bad receives a letter from Bubs threatening to call in a "cut-off-your-toes-style collection agency" if Strong Bad doesn't pay back the $3.62 he owes at the concession stand.
• In the Whateley Universe, the Imp decides to assist Lady Astarte and the Shielders in rescuing a few kids from the Triangle. She demands a terrible payment for her work, though, under that whole "mercenary clause" business: an ice cream sundae. With extra scoops.

Web Videos

• After working out in Unraveled that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate stages add up to seventeen million dollars in OSHA fines, Brian David Gilbert puts in a special coda for Masahiro Sakurai, where he tries to blackmail Sakurai with the evidence...demanding fifty bucks, because he's in a tight spot right now and just needs to get through the month.
  BDG: Also you could send me Kirby's phone number. I know he is real, where are you hiding him?
• In Goofy Wants His Money, Goofy hounds his roommate Damian for his money he lent him back. After months of terrorizing him, Damian asks what he owned Goofy. It was 3 dollars, 42 cents, five rubber-bands, an old boot and half a bean.
• Bum Reviews: Chester believes Family Guy stole his "Live Long and Suck It" joke and wants compensation. His settlement is a box. His lawyer did a Double Take once he read it out loud and asks if Chester's actually going through all this legal trouble for a box, only for Chester to clarify he wants a furnished box. His lawyer instantly quits.

Western Animation

• The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police:
  • In one episode, the duo bust a terrorist group holding a TV studio hostage. The Terrorist's demands? To make the programming nothing but figure skating.
  • When Darla builds a mecha for Sam and Max to destroy an impending meteor, the duo agreed that it would look like Max and even share his name in exchange for Sam having full control of its radio.
• Ben 10: Omniverse: As seen in "Universe vs Tennyson", the penalty for unauthorized reality warping is five Taedons.
• On SpongeBob SquarePants, Barnacle Boy is tired of Mermaid Man treating him like a child, so he becomes a supervillain and forms a Legion of Doom. They eventually defeat Mermaid Man, and Barnacle Boy makes his demands. Instead of world domination (as Man-Ray suggested) or making Mermaid Man eat dirt (as the Dirty Bubble suggested), Barnacle Boy simply demands to be called Barnacle Man and to eat an adult-sized Krabby Patty, after which he reverts back to being a superhero. Even lampshaded by a frustrated Man-Ray. "Was that it?!"
• In one episode of Superman: The Animated Series, Superman needs the Parasite (still incarcerated after their first encounter) to drain the memories of a comatose criminal to find the location of a bomb. Parasite had one demand in exchange for his cooperation; cable TV in his jail cell.
• In a Justice League episode, Batman asks Circe what her price is to lift her spell from Wonder Woman. Circe's demand is "soul-shattering" — Batman must sing a song for her in a night club, in front of an audience. Turns out he has a great voice.
• The Simpsons: In "Homie The Clown", The Mafia is after Krusty because he didn't pay his debts to them, with Fat Tony personally hunting him down with his men and later calling a world-wide search. In the end, it turns out that the amount of money in question is just $48, which he pays in hand. They even give him $2 change for $50.
• Family Guy:
  • In "Death Is a Bitch", Death comes to collect Peter, but sprains his ankle, so Peter is forced to take over Death's job while Lois nurses him back to health. Lois takes the opportunity to ask Death to spare her husband; Death agrees, but says "you've got to do something for me." Lois hesitantly begins unbuttoning her shirt, only for Death to clarify that he only wants her to get him a fruit cup from the kitchen.
  • Subverted in another episode where Peter's house becomes a sovereign nation (It's a Long Story) and he is discussing the terms of his surrender to the United States of America with Mayor West. After his other comically small demands (surrendering if he will be allowed to keep his neighbor's pool, for one) are denied, he hurriedly asks West to hand over the ballpoint pen he's holding just so he won't walk away empty-handed. Mayor West points out that it's a dime-a-hundred pen and he's got a lot more in reserve, but when Peter says that he wants it anyway, West refuses to give it.
  • In "You May Now Kiss The... Uh... Guy Who Receives", Brain holds Mayor West hostage unless he drops the Gay Marriage Ban. Since he was only going to sign the ban to distract from the Dig Em controversy, agrees to drop it since the hostage situation proved enough of a distraction. And even agrees to drop the hostage charges in exchange for the spare keys to a Volkswagen Scirocco.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012), Pigeon Pete says he'll only help the turtles if they give him "a lot of bread", by which he means literal bread.
• In BoJack Horseman, two paparazzos snap some incriminating photos of the titular character with the intent to blackmail him. When they finally make their demands (after several failed attempts to get anyone to care), it is for the outrageous sum of... $150 dollars. Each.
• In Futurama, criminally insane robot Roberto robs a bank (which he had already robbed twice before) and demands "the remaining dough... and all the calendars... and that pen!"
  "Try to break it so most of the beads are on my end!"
• In a House of Mouse episode, this is played with in that the demand is only revealed to be comically small afterwards. When Donald is angry with Mickey and Jafar hypnotizes him into asking for revenge in exchange for "the lamp," Donald assumes it's Aladdin's lamp and ventures deep into the prop room to get it. When he delivers it, it turns out that Jafar just wanted Mickey's table lamp.
• In one Mickey Mouse (2013) short, while multiple characters are beating up Donald (actually Goofy in Donald's body) for no real reason, Scrooge joins in, asking "Donald" about the single dollar he loaned.
• In DuckTales (2017), Bradford offers Black Heron to join his organization he calls the Organization for World Larceny (O.W.L.) if he breaks her out of SHUSH prison. Heron, finding the name bland, refuses to join unless he agrees to call it the Fiendish Organization for World Larceny (F.O.W.L.). He reluctantly agrees.
• South Park: In "Die Hippie Die," a group of hippies invades South Park, and the only person capable of dealing with them is Cartman, who's in jail for an earlier stunt. All of the adults in town gather to ask him for help and try bribing him with a cake, but he demands something even more precious: a remote control Tonka bulldozer, batteries included. As part of the deal, Cartman says that Kyle can never be allowed to have a Tonka truck of his own and has to watch him play with the toy. The adults agree, and, once the day is saved, the episode ends with Cartman happily having fun with his bulldozer and refusing to let Kyle take a turn with it.
• The Brak Show, Zorak had invented a new game called “I steal your mail and keep it.” Which is just him stealing people’s mail. Dad gets Zorak to play the role of a Pimp and Prostitute in his negative ad against neighborhood association president Galrog in exchange for letting him steal their mail for a week.
• Kim Possible: Downplayed with Frugal Lucre. While his demand isn’t comically small (Six Billion Dollars), the method of it is (everyone in the world sends him one dollar).
• The Real Ghostbusters: In "Chicken He Clucked", Cubby is driven mad by the constant smell of chicken due to living next to a chicken stand, so he summons a demon named Morganon to rid the world of all chickens. Morganon, embarrassed by such a request, tries to offer him his own country but Cubby refuses to budge. Morganon compromises with giving him the power to make anything he wants disappear, thus allowing him to get rid of the chickens for himself. Morganon later becomes a laughing stock and teams up with the Ghostbusters to break the deal with Cubby.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In Equal Fights, the villain Femme Fatale is robbing banks. The teller starts putting money in the bag, before she tells him he's filling it with $100 which has Ben Franklin's face on them. She demands he fills it with Susan B Anthony dollar coins instead.

---