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Food as Bribe

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Free lunch every day. Now, that may not seem like a big deal, but think about: Lunch is awesome. If Charlie Manson brought me a free lunch every day, I'd at least listen to his sales pitch on forehead swastikas. "I don't think it's for me, Charlie, but keep talking, this is delicious!"

Sometimes, things can get tough. You might be The Load, the weakest team member who struggles to keep up. Or you might be the Cowardly Lion. Or you're an Obstructive Bureaucrat who won't approve a person's permit or application. Or your Five-Man Band of buddies really wants you to go explore the Abandoned Hospital or to stand up to The Bully for the first time, but you find yourself incapable of getting the motivation. What you need is the proper incentive. But would it be for cash? For a kiss? No? But perhaps you would do it for food.

Food can be a powerful motivator for people. All you have to do is offer them a burger, french fries, or cake and they're like putty in your hands. Typically, it's one treat in particular or a dessert but for some, they can be bribed with any food. And sometimes, depending on the situation, one cookie will not be enough. You'd have to offer them the whole box.

As well, for a starving person, a fast food burger might be enough but for a more well-off person, you might have to offer then a them a Fancy Dinner with steak and lobster might be needed. For animals, bribing them can be just as easy as offering them the food (or prey) their species is known for eating. And if you ever come across an honest, upright Fair Cop you just can't bribe with cash or Flirty Voice Ploy use a flirtatious voice) your way out of a speeding ticket from, try offering him a donut. While this trope is mainly about food bribes, some beverage bribes are included, such as liquor or beer.

Compare Delicious Distraction (when food is used to distract), I Was Told There Would Be Cake and Just Here for the Free Snacks (deciding to go to a function for the complimentary food), And Your Reward Is Edible (you're congratulated with food even if you were not initially promised it), Food Interrogation (when food is used to get information out of someone), and Through His Stomach and Tastes Like Friendship, when food is used to cement a relationship. Supertrope to Food Interrogation. Related to Motivation on a Stick. Can be invoked with Trademark Favorite Food. Contrast Denied Food as Punishment. Sometimes when a person offers a food bribe they don't come through with it. Can possibly be thrown to invoke a Go Fetch situation.


Examples:

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    Advertising 
  • Used in various ads for Klondike Bar. "What would you do for a Klondike Bar?"
  • A Kellogg's Crunchy Nut advert depicted an outlaw evading state troopers, who along with many others comes out of hiding when the troopers pull out boxes of said cereal.
  • An ad for Smucker's Simply Fruit Spread features a woman offering to make her husband a bagel if he'll put a new roof on the house. He completely wigs out with excitement.
    Husband: Wow! A bagel! Just for putting on a roof?!

    Anime and Manga 
  • The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Kurumi Haraga is a frequent victim of this trope, befitting her Big Eater status.
  • In A Channel, Run's mother promises her all the Kobe beef she can eat to motivate her to study harder and apply to a better high school.
  • In Angel Beats!, Matsushita will do just about anything for meat udon.
  • In Assassination Classroom, Koro-sensei bribes his students with popsicles to keep quiet after they catch him looking at porn (a poorly kept secret of his since in prior episodes they could see him looking at it in class). This ends up being a Bribe Backfire, as the students use it to psychologically traumatize him during the Assassination Island Arc so as to keep him place during their assassination attempt. His reaction when he realizes this is absolutely hilarious.
    Koro-sensei: I GAVE YOU POPSICLES!!!
  • Asteroid in Love: Moe may have accidentally invoked this during the School Festival if Mira didn't stop her in a part of the twenty-first chapter that isn't animated. Specifically, when her crush Misa the Student Council President visits the Earth Sciences Club's booth as a panelist of the booth food contest, Moe is seen making half a dozen pancakes to impress Misa. Mira reminds Moe she'd get disqualified if she bribes the panelists. Eventually, Moe serves Misa a single pancake, like any other customer.
  • Ayakashi Triangle: Shadow Mei wants to destroy humanity, but gets increasingly distracted by modern luxuries, especially her Sweet Tooth. She almost kills Haya and Ponosuke over a training accident, but Suzu talks her out of it by giving her a crepe.
  • In Bloom Into You, Touko tries to bribe Yuu into performing in the school play with sweets and tea. Yuu remains stubbornly opposed, due to her Performance Anxiety, despite these bribes. In the end, she does perform in the play, for other reasons.
  • In The Case Files of Jeweler Richard, Seigi bribes Richard with sweets to do all sorts of things and it always works.
  • Ryuk and apples in Death Note.
  • In Delicious in Dungeon, it's horribly clear that Mikbell is abusing Kuro's loyalty - all he thinks being a "good boss" means is giving him food instead of actually paying him properly.
  • One Doraemon issue have Nobita convincing Doraemon to help him finish 3 day's worth of his homework by bribing Doraemon with a huge plate of what seems like twelve dorayakis. Doraemon tries taking a short cut by getting his future self from two hours, four hours and six hours later to help him complete his work in a quarter of the time - Hilarity Ensues as he ended up depriving himself of an entire night's sleep, besides having his pissed-off future selves beat the snot out of him in anger. When Nobita found out about it, he guiltily tries to make up by giving Doraemon another serving of Dorayaki, only for Doraemon to run at the sight of his favourite food in panic.
  • In Doraemon: Nobita's Great Battle of the Mermaid King, Doraemon managed to convince his sister, Dorami to help out in the adventure by bribing her with melon buns, Dorami's favourite food.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • This was how Bibidi would control Majin Buu, at least after he turned into Fat Buu (before that, he basically just sealed Kid Buu in a ball, dropped him on a planet, and then unsealed him to let him destroy it at his leisure). In exchange for following his orders and destroying whatever he pointed him at, Bibidi would feed him cake every night. Granted, several lines indicate that Buu would still rebel against him at times, but their relationship worked out pretty well before Bibidi's death by the hands of the Supreme Kai. His son/clone Babidi meanwhile decided to use the stick instead after unsealing Buu and kept using threats of resealing and insults. Buu didn't like that. Not one bit.
    • Bulma takes Whis to various restaurants to convince him to protect Bulma's family if Beerus ever tries to destroy the Earth again.
    • Vegeta bribes Whis with instant ramen to get him to train him.
    • Bulma tries bribing Beerus and Whis with ice cream when Freeza returns to conquer the Earth. Rather than fight against Freeza (who would fold like wet paper if they were to fight), Beerus simply tells Bulma to stay nearby so he can keep her safe while Goku fights Freeza. The rest of the gang promptly follows her example.
    • In the Super Hero arc of Super, Videl half-jokingly offers to buy Piccolo a tasty treat as thanks for picking up her daughter from preschool. Since Namekians don't need to eat, she buys him a cute plushie instead.
  • Gourmet Girl Graffiti is about the social experience of food, so there are a few examples:
    • Generally speaking, Kirin, being Obsessed with Food, can easily be bribed with it.
      • In episode 4, Ryou, wanting Kirin to stay with her for the following weekend despite having no Cram School, proposes cooking a full-course Chinese meal. Kirin's parents win with the counter-offer of a dinner at a three-star Chinese restaurant.
      • In episode 11b Kirin has a fight with Shiina. So when Shiina offeres to share her lunch with Kirin, Kirin refuses, saying she has her pride. After Shiina announces the lunch was cooked by Tsuyuko, however...
    • Used in the next episode preview skit at the end of episode 6. Kirin and Ryou are still in their bath towels while doing the singing, but Ryou is hiding just off-screen. Kirin then pulls out a popsicle and throws it at her to get Ryou to come. Unfortunately, her towel falls off as she jumps at the popsicle, and Kirin leaps towards her in an attempt to cover her.
  • In K-On!, the band uses cake and other sweets to motivate Yui to join the band, practice, and study.
  • Kaguya-sama: Love Is War:
    • One chapter has Kaguya and Fujiwara reprimanding Shirogane for trying to eat instant ramen in the student council office. Fujiwara quickly joins his side when he gives her one of the instant ramen.
    • Another chapter has Fujiwara giving Shirogane a soda as a bribe to increase her club's funding. It doesn't work.
  • In Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, Elma can be bribed with sweets, which has also gotten her into trouble in the past.
    • Tohru offers her ten cream puffs if she'll go away in her introductory chapter. It works.
    • Kobayashi offers Elma sweets if she'll help Tohru defeat Ilulu. Because she can't actually help Tohru, Elma settles for placing a barrier above the city, allowing Tohru to stop holding back. Elma makes it clear that she's only helping as part of the deal.
  • Hana of My Heavenly Hockey Club. Just about any food will work, if there's enough of it.
  • One Piece:
    • Luffy doesn't consider himself a hero. Why did he agree to save Fishman Island? Because Jinbe offered him meat.
    • Inverted in the Dressrosa arc: Rebecca initially buys Luffy lunch because he was hungry. When Sugar is eventually knocked out and all hell breaks loose across the island, Luffy decides that the lunch Rebecca bought him is reason enough for him to tear Doflamingo a new one (much to Law's disbelief).
    • In the Whole Cake Island Arc, the Straw Hats get info from Pound (Big Mom's ex-husband) by bringing him apple juice.
    • In the Wano Country arc, similar to the Dressrosa example, a little girl named Tama gives a hungry Luffy a bowl of rice. Luffy later learns that she had been saving it for her birthday, that she usually only eats rice twice a year, and that she struggles to make ends meet. Luffy promptly adds this to the list of reasons why he wants to kick Kaido's ass and liberate Wano from Orochi's tyranny.
  • Fancy tuna for Haruhi in Ouran High School Host Club.
  • Pokémon: The Original Series: For much of the Johto arc, Team Rocket are dirt poor and thus almost entirely food motivated. They often postpone a crime for the sake of free food and will happily help anyone who gives them a meal, regardless of which side they're on or how many Gyarados are involved.
  • In Saki, Teru Miyanaga's backstory shows that she was convinced by fellow Shiraitodai student Sumire Hirose to join the mahjong club by him stating that she can eat all the sweets and pancakes she wants.
  • In Episode 9 of Smile PreCure!, when Yayoi doesn't want to get out of bed, her mother lures her downstairs with a promise of hotcakesnote . Of course, this being an April Fools' Plot, there were no hotcakes on the table.
  • 'Tis Time for "Torture," Princess: A common "torture" the Hellhordes' minions inflict on the Princess is to show her delicious food and offer it to her in exchange for information. The first chapter shows this happening with crispy toast and beef stew. The Princess often falls for these ploys quickly because they're foods she's never had and/or has always wanted to try. The few times she doesn't fall for it right away, it's because the food is something she's already eaten plenty of times or dislikes, at which point the Grand Inquisitor adds some unexpected twist that makes the Princess fold. For example, making cup noodles and not opening the cup after they've been left to sit for three minutes, which threatens to make the noodles soggy and inedible.
  • In Episode 9 of Uma Musume, when the members of Team Spica refuse to participate in the triathlon during the training camp, their trainer decides to reward the winners with a dessert buffet, and it worked!

    Asian Animation 
  • In Happy Heroes and the City of Mystery episode 6, Lisa is taken hostage by Rock Warrior but acts surprisingly upbeat about it, acting as though Rock Warrior is her friend and giving him apples as a bribe. Rock Warrior doesn't fall for the trick and keeps carrying Lisa with her.

    Card Games 
  • Munchkin has a card called "Bribe the GM with Food". It serves as an instant level-up, as does "Pay For the Pizza".

    Comic Books 
  • Jughead Jones of Archie Comics more often than not can be lazy and apathetic. However, he's also one of the most famous examples of Big Eater in any media. Naturally, food is one of the guaranteed motivators to get him to do anything.
  • Disney Ducks Comic Universe: In Carl Barks's "The Status Seeker", Scrooge tries to negotiate with the chief of a South Pacific island tribe in order to buy the rare Candy-Striped Ruby. The chief says he has no need for material possessions, as in his society girth is considered a status symbol. This gives Scrooge the idea to offer the chief a few crates of "calorie-loaded candy" in exchange for the Ruby.
  • Coroner Fatty from Inspector Canardo unsurprisingly takes a box of chocolates from Canardo in exchange for helping him.
  • Judge Dredd has the Kleggs, a race of alien reptile mercenaries who demand to be paid in meat rather than money. When the insane tyrant Judge Cal seizes power, he hires an army of Kleggs to do his bidding, and initially intends to feed them citizens, but his right-hand man Judge Slocum manages to convince him that letting the Kleggs get a taste for human flesh would be a bad idea. It's one of the few sane choices Cal makes in his tenure as Big Bad.
  • Wonder Woman (1942): On the rare occasion Etta is not interested in helping Diana or joining in with the latest Holliday Girls plot, which only happens if there aren't lives on the line and it sounds boring to her, she can be convinced to come along in exchange for sweets.

    Comic Strips 
  • In Beetle Bailey, Beetle can get Sarge to excuse him from anything with four simple words: "my mom's homemade cookies".
  • One case where food is offered as payment happens in Peanuts, where Charlie Brown offers to trade players with Peppermint Patty's team, offering Lucy for Marcie. When Lucy complains that he was robbed, Charlie Brown disagrees, saying that he got the better deal because Patty included a pizza. He was more right than he imagined. When Patty realizes what a terrible player Lucy is, she wants to call the deal off; Charlie Brown tells her, "I already ate the pizza..."

    Fan Works 
  • Asylum of Doom: Dib gets Gaz to accompany him on a trip to the ruins of the Burke Lunatic Asylum by promising to buy her Bloaty's Pizza Hog for a whole month.
  • Hobbes is easily bribed to do something with tuna in Calvin & Hobbes: The Series.
  • Can I Keep Him?: Because Hiccup has "the attention span of a sparrow", the only way Mirabel can get Hiccup to sit still is by dangling food in front of him.
  • Cutie Mark Crusaders 10k: Rarity needs Rainbow Dash to move some floating islands around so they can grow crops on them, but Dash refuses to do anything about it in a time-efficient manner. Rarity blackmails her into getting to work by threatening to eat the entire known supply of Thunder Puffs if she doesn't get the islands moving.
  • In Dragon Ball Z Abridged, Freeza offers to give Goku a pizza if Goku will let Freeza power up to 100%. Goku's having none of it. Then Freeza offers two pizzas. Goku still isn't interested, and charges at Freeza. Then Freeza offers two pizzas with stuffed crust...
  • Finding a Family:
    Harry: Well I will continue to press this issue until I receive an apology.
    Daphne: How about, in Neville and Luna's stead, I ask one of the house elves to sneak you a couple of treacle tarts? Away from Madam Pince's eyes?
    Harry: Done! Deal!
  • Played with in the fifty-ninth chapter of Kyon: Big Damn Hero. After Kyon and most of the girls in the Brigade teleport to Yuki's Pocket Dimension for some training, Hanyuu instantly assumes they went somewhere to do "naughty things" and runs off to inform Rika, only to be stopped by Kuyou buying off her silence with cookies. Funnily enough, the "bribing" part only happens in Hanyuu's head, as Kuyou only wanted to share some of her cookies with her.
  • Metal Gear: Green:
    • One town in Africa under warlord rule is offered more food, medicine and amnesty from the MSF in exchange for not fighting them. The locals eagerly accept it, rounding up all loyal to the warlord to offer to the MSF. When MSF tanks drove through their town, they celebrated their liberation from tyranny.
    • Izuku (disguised as Akatani) offers Ochako a MRE for the details of a student's Quirk. Ochako reluctantly takes it, given she has very little choice for that matter.
  • In My Huntsman Academia, Izuku quickly learns that the best way to get Nora to do anything is to offer her pancakes or threaten to take them away from her.
  • Suggested in Skyhold Academy, when the teachers are cleaning the school's main hall. Bull suggests that they get some of the students to pitch in by offering them pizza. It doesn't actually happen, because a plot point wanders into the room and diverts their attention, but they do consider it briefly.
  • The Spectacular Spider-Man: Lost In Gotham: Initially, Damian has no interest in going with Stephanie and Tim to spy on Duke's date. When Tim offers to buy him as big a soda as he wants, though, Damian changes his mind.
  • In the Encanto fanfic That Catch in Your Throat, Sierra lures Hombregrande into having a bath with an arepa.
  • There Be Dragons, Harry:
    Ilsa: Butterscotch pudding. It's Theodore's favorite.
    Harry: You're telling me this, why?
    Ilsa: Because sex can't always get you what you want. And Theo can be stubborn, it's in our nature. But if you can't get in his pants, you can certainly get in his stomach. Never hurts to have a bit of leverage.
  • In Protection- The Three-Phase Plan, Remus gets Sirius out of bed by offering to make chocolate chip pancakes.
  • In The Witch of the Everfree, when Twilight starts asking Cadance how old she is compared to Shining Armor, Cadance distracts her by ordering her coffee.
    Cadance: Hey! Wow! They have lava cake on the menu! Let's get a round of those, and I'll let you have coffee if you stop asking questions.
    Twilight: Celestia says I can't have coffee after the accident with the west garden.
    Cadance: That's why it's bribery, Twilight.
    Twilight: ...Deal.
  • In the Sherlock Holmes fanfic All God's Little Creatures, Watson invites/ushers two of the Irregulars into the house because it's wet out. Bert, not being as familiar with Watson, resists being pushed through the door of 221 Baker Street, but Alfie makes him stop by saying that the doctor will give them some cocoa.
  • In Never Trust a Bunny, Plagg reveals to Adrien this is the reason why he caused the dinosaurs to go extinct. Around 66 million years ago, Fluff came to interveen regarding Tikki's obsession with the dinosaurs and neglecting the evolution of other animals. So he brought a sample of cheese from a possible future to Plagg, who enjoyed it enough that Fluff told him if he can get rid of the dinosaurs, then the mammals can evolve so that one species (humans) can domesticated others to make as much cheese as he desired. One large asteroid later, and the dinosaurs (and almost all the mammals) are now extinct.
  • A Mother's Touch subverts this. Yoko arrives during the tense meeting of Reiji wanting buy You Show with boxes of store-bought sushi. Himika looks down on this, thinking that this nothing but a bribe to make the Akabas go away. Turns out it wasn't. Yoko honestly did want to buy sushi for everyone and she reveals that, as co-owner of You Show, she doesn't do bribes.
  • the superhero game: In the very first chapter, Jason has to deal with Klarion the Witch Boy, who's de-aged the adult heroes and aged up the teenage heroes. Jason ends up giving him one of Alfred's chocolate chip cookies and promising him the rest of the bag he'd brought if Klarion restores everyone, which works.

    Film — Animated 
  • Ballerina: Camille's mother got her into the ballet school by making the best ribs in town. The school's choreographer, who claims to be a vegetarian, makes a point to single out Camille as the only girl who didn't earn her spot.
  • The Bob's Burgers Movie: Bob makes a burger for his banker, Mr. Dowling, in hopes that it'll persuade him to grant the restaurant a loan extension (and because he can't pay him with money). Not only does Dowling not grant the extension, he also rejects the burger becuase he's cutting down on red meat.
  • Brave: Merida gets her brothers to help her and Bear!Elinor get out of the castle by offering to let them have all her desserts for three weeks. When this is met with a hard look, she revises the offer to a whole year of her desserts. They help her out after that.
  • In A Goofy Movie, Max pays his friend Bobby with spray cheese to assist him in hijacking a school assembly.
  • Incredibles 2: When Jack-Jack shifts into another dimension, Bob uses a cookie treat to lure him back into his home dimension. It's an effective enough bribe, but when Bob doesn't continue to feed him cookies, Jack-Jack has a tantrum and shifts into his demon imp form and starts biting Bob's arm.
  • The protagonist of Kung Fu Panda is motivated to do great deeds and work his butt off in training... for food. He uses this to his advantage while brawling Tai Lung for the Dragon's Scroll, which ends up stuck on top of a building during the scuffle. He immediately imagines it as a peanut cookie and effortlessly scales the building to get it. Tai Lung thinks the scroll is giving him power.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • Home Alone 3: The brother's parrot only plays along with the scheme if you have two crackers.
    Parrot: Double, or nothing!
  • In Kopps, the police officers bribe Göran with a bottle of vodka to make him steal a package of sausages at the local supermarket.
  • In The Matrix, Cypher betrays the resistance so he can get plugged back into the Matrix. One of the reasons he does this is so he can enjoy the virtual food in the Matrix without knowing it isn't real. The Agent offering him the deal is treating him to a steak dinner in the Matrix at the time.
  • In The New Centurions, the police have been ordered to crack down on street prostitution. The veteran cop pulls up in a paddy wagon brandishing a bottle of booze, so the hookers will go along willingly. Once the hookers are too drunk to work the streets, the police let them go.
  • Operation Daybreak: A member of La Résistance smuggles an SOE agent past a German roadblock with some fresh fish he's caught. "I'll make it worth your while..." The German soldiers don't know this, of course; they just assume they're turning a blind eye to a curfew violation for a local Czech with whom they're on friendly terms.
  • In Strange Brew, Bob and Doug McKenzie successfully bribe the secretary at Elsinore Brewery for information by using a doughnut: "Perhaps one of THESE would refresh your memory?" She gives them a little information but holds out for another before giving up the full scoop.
  • A nasty version in Threads, where the government guards the few remaining stocks of food because it's the only way of forcing the survivors to work on the post-nuclear clean-up operations. Money is now worthless and food is the only currency.
  • Subverted in Tremors. In an early scene, Val and Earl decide to leave Perfection for good, but are stopped by Nancy, who offers them work with free lunches and beer. In the next scene, they're on their way out of town, hardly able to believe they turned the offer down.
  • Goldstone. Maureen, the corrupt mayor of the eponymous Australian mining town, bakes cakes for local cop Josh and later for Detective Jay Swann. However they both turn down actual bribes when offered.

    Literature 
  • Between Silk And Cyanide: Leo Mark's relatives provide him with cakes for his superiors so they won't post him to the front line (they don't know that he's a codebreaker, who'll never get posted there for security reasons). This leads to a Running Gag when various VIP's are impressed by his delicious cream cakes, demanding to know where he got them in a rationed WW2 Britain.
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The leader of the Oompa-Loompas agreed on behalf of his people to work in Willy Wonka's titular factory so that they could A: happily live off their beloved cacao beans and B: get away from Loompaland.
  • Templeton the rat in Charlotte's Web only helps out Wilbur and the others when it's pointed out to him that if Wilbur is taken away to be slaughtered, the trough that is Templeton's primary source of food will be empty. Templeton also only travels to the fair with them when the others tell him that fairgrounds are a smorgasbord of leftovers. Finally, Templeton initially refuses to help carry Charlotte's egg sac until Wilbur offers to let him eat first from his trough for the rest of his life.
  • Discworld:
    • Night Watch: The narration mentions that the Ankh-Morpork City Watch has been reformed to the extent that they don't accept bribes, except donuts and beer. And even Vimes sees that as the grease that keeps the wheels turning.
      • Once the "glorious revolution" gets going, the rebels' methods of persuading the opposition's troops to switch sides include free steak dinners. This is wildly successful, because the revolutionaries hold all the city's meat-packing facilities and cattle yards, so have tons of fresh beef to spare, whereas the government's conscript-soldiers have been living on reduced rations for days.
    • Unseen Academicals: Supreme Chef Glenda Sugarbean gets in to see Lord Vetinari twice by doing this to the palace guards. However, it's later revealed that the guards are under orders to take all bribes offered, bring the people in question to a waiting room, and then lock it until Lord Vetinari decides what to do with them. Unfortunately, they also dispose of any food bribes afterwards in fear of poison, which in this case even Lord Vetinari considers a crime against good cooking.
  • In one of the Dragaera novels, Vlad offers to treat another character to dinner at Valabar's in exchange for help in one of his schemes. As Valabar's is the undisputed best restaurant in the Empire, his offer is instantly accepted.
  • The Dresden Files: Harry Dresden is known to secure the loyalty of the Wildfae with pizza. It started as a simple quid pro quo: Pizza for information. Now they're his own little personal volunteer army.
  • In the beginning of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Uncle Vernon is trying to seal a business deal by inviting a potential client to dinner.
  • In Healing Wars, Danello makes a peace offering to Nya of fish cakes and stuffed peppers in an attempt to convince her to speak to him again after an unwanted rescue. It works.
  • Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson. Colonel Adam Hazzard comes home from campaign to find that his wife has been placed under house arrest. Rather than keep shouting to her from the street, he points out to the sentry that under regulations a superior officer can relieve him while he goes and gets something to eat. Though as the army's pay has been somewhat irregular due to the recent political upheaval, he has to give the soldier a few dollars so he can buy it.
  • The four heroes of Musketeer Space bring an enormous amount of cake (Porthos's engineer is a stress baker) when the try to talk their boss, Amiral Treville, into letting them rush off and track down Milord de Winter. Unfortunately, it doesn't help.
  • In the Serge Storms novel Orange Crush, a lobbyist considers the food and drink he provides at campaign functions to be part of the lobbying, with the impact being about ten cents on the dollar (a free meal worth fifty dollars provides as much influence with a politician as a $500 donation to his campaign).
  • Release That Witch: After Roland creates ice cream sandwiches in the fantasy world, it usually becomes one of the rewards for doing any particularly dangerous or annoying work inside his inner circle.
  • Roys Bedoys:
    • In “Stop Lying, Roys Bedoys!”, Roys goads Maker out of his favourite pencil, lying that he will give him candy.
    • In “‘CAN’ You Play with Me?”, Loys tries to get Roys to play with him by offering him candy and ice cream.
    • In “Beware of Strangers, Roys Bedoys!”, an evil man tries to trick the Bedoys brothers into letting him in by offering them ice cream.
  • In The Search for Delicious, the woldwellers, dwarfs, winds, and mermaids are all totally uninterested in human problems and will only help people if they're getting something out of it. One woldweller gives information to Gaylen and Hemlock in exchange for rabbits, and dwarfs make a new shoe for Gaylen's horse in exchange for apples.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire gives us Nettles, a Dragonstone peasant girl who lived well before the main story, during the civil war called "the Dance of Dragons" when three wild dragons could be found there. There were attempts made to either recruit or kill said dragons (because having random, arguably sapient, unaffiliated Weapons of Mass Destruction around isn't generally considered wise). Most went badly because "recruit" generally meant "find and try to fight them into submitting to your will". Nettles found the one known as Sheepstealer and, because it liked to steal and BBQ sheep, she left gifts of mutton carcasses out until it got to know her and link her with good things. She got to be a Dragon Rider, rather than a burns victim.
  • Stephanie Plum:
    • The title character is often bribed by her mother by food. Seeing as how she is a very good cook and Steph is often broke, it is a very powerful motivator. When regular food just won't do, cake will usually seal the deal.
    • In one book former hooker Lula has witnessed a murder but is reluctant to go to the police station to make an official statement. Joe finally gets her to go by promising to buy her a bucket of chicken and a Carvel ice cream cake.
  • In the later books of the Vorkosigan Saga, Miles Vorkosigan is known to use Ma Kosti's cooking to bribe people, though this tends to lead to half-joking threats to kidnap her.
  • A Christmas Carol: The two gentlemen in the Bad Future discuss whether or not to attend the dead man's funeral. One of them opines that he might feel inclined, if there's a free lunch afterwards.
  • Inverted in Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse. Mops has spent her whole conscious life not eating except through the intake port implanted in her stomach. The chef she's talking to, who delights in seeing humans try his food for the first time, is convinced to share his confidential information by the idea that the first thing Mops eats ever will be his dish.
  • Serpico. The NYPD are so used to accepting free food, they don't notice how much disdain they are regarded by a cafe owner who keeps trying to push food that isn't selling onto them. He's shocked when Serpico pays for his food and actually runs down the street after him to return the money. Eventually they compromise on Serpico only paying what it costs the owner. Serpico in turn starts leaving large tips, and notices how the attitude of the owner and waitresses changes accordingly.
  • Holo from Spice and Wolf can usually be bought with apples, but will occasionally demand fancier foods (most notably, the honey-pickled peaches that are considered a delicacy in the city they were visiting at the time).
  • Want to get the Raven Consort in Raven of the Inner Palace to do something for you? Offer her food. This is due to her rough upbringing where food was often a luxury.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Agent Carter: In a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome, a hamburger and a bottle of booze are more effective in convincing a homeless wino to talk than a sympathetic ear.
  • The Amanda Show: Amanda's stalker Penelope Taynt tries to bribe Barney the security guard so she can sneak into Amanda's show. After failing to bribe him with money and jewels, Barney finally gives in when Penelope gives him a pizza. A very nice slice of pizza.
  • Batwoman (2019). The security in the WayneCorp building is a little lacking, as Mary proves when she just waltzes in.
    Luke: How did you get past security?
    Mary: Carl at the front desk loves double whipped Frappuccinos.
    Kate: Good. (aside to Luke) He'll be making them soon.
  • In the The Big Bang Theory episode "The Laureate Accumulation", Sheldon and Amy try to smooth things over with the Nobel laureates, whom Sheldon managed to insult and offend at various points in the past, by sending them cookies. It doesn't take: they either reject them on sight or, in Frances Arnold's case, because they are oatmeal and raisin.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy and Cordelia are shamelessly pandering for votes for Homecoming Queen. One contestant offers a cookie, only for Buffy to barge in front of her and hand out large cupcakes. Cordelia then appears handing out baskets of chocolates, taking the cupcakes and throwing them in the trash.
  • In Burn Notice, one of Mike's tradecraft tips is to cultivate an asset to do you a favor by taking them to a fancy meal, since many people who wouldn't accept a cash bribe will gladly eat on someone else's dime. The problem, of course, comes when the asset realizes what you're doing, and tries to keep the gravy train rolling by procrastinating on that favor.
  • Daredevil (2015): Ben Urich bribes the Metro-General nurse this way when he's petitioning an extension for his wife's medical care. He does it at the end of the negotiation because to do it at the start would be cheating.
  • In the Dinosaurs episode "Slave to Fashion", Earl bribes the baby with a cookie in order to find out who stole his money to buy a mink coat.
  • Doctor Who, "The Dalek Invasion of Earth": An old woman informs on the TARDIS crew to her Dalek overlords and is rewarded with food, in short supply in an After the End Vichy Earth. She stares at an orange for a moment, realizing it's been years since she had one.
  • Duck Dynasty:
    • When the guys have a huge backlog of orders to fill, Miss Kay organizes a "packing party" and cooks up vast amounts of food as an incentive for the neighbors to come help. It works amazingly well.
    • Miss Kay offers to bake some sweet potato pies for the guys if they'll put up her Christmas lights.
  • Farscape. In "Thanks for Sharing", Jool is grouchy because she's hungry, there's nothing sweet to eat on the ship, and she's stuck looking after a wounded Captain Crais. John Crichton wants her to put aside this to do a tissue sample test for his own personal reasons.
    Jool: And I why should I do your selfish and unnecessary work?
    Crichton: Because I know where Rygel stashes his womilyn cake...and it's sweeter than the sweet thang, sweet thang.
  • Game of Thrones. The Affably Evil Master of Whispers Qyburn is shown giving the Street Urchins who act as his spies candied plums from Dorne, an incredible luxury for children who've grown up in Flea Bottom. Though he's also shown doing them other favours, like healing a child who'd been beaten up by his father, and ensuring that father mysteriously disappeared so he won't do it again.
  • In an episode of The George Lopez Show, Angie is having a tough time dealing with a family death. George uses non-verbal signals to tell his mother to give Angie a hug. She promptly refuses, so he walks over to the fridge and takes a beer out. His mother is hesitant until he gestures as if he's advertising the beer in a commercial. His mother complies. Needless to say, Angie is shocked.
  • Good Luck Charlie: Bob can be easily distracted by this trope.
  • Heartbeat. When Dr. Kate Rowan is made the judge for a school competition, she finds herself being plied with free local produce by various parents. She asks a friend what to do and is advised to politely accept food but refuse offers of monetary compensation.
  • Henry Danger: In the b-plot of "Secret Room", Piper runs over a cop with her car, breaking the cop's arm, and is about to be sent to jail as punishment. But when the cops take her home to hug it out with Jake first, Piper decides to bribe the cops by offering to make them their traditional soup. To her surprise, the cops accept the bribe and Piper makes the soup, delivering it to them without even spilling one drop, successfully getting off the hook.
  • Hogan's Heroes use this on Sergeant Schultz regularly as a way to convince him to tell what he knows or declare that he knows nothing.
  • iCarly: Sam can be bribed with food for a variety of reasons. Once, so that she'd leave resident Butt-Monkey Freddie alone for a while, and earlier in her life so that she'd be someone's boyfriend. Both times, the food in question was bacon.
  • Kamen Rider OOO: While Ankh genuinely does need Eiji to get Cell and Core Medals from enemy Greeed and Yummies, he is frequently bribed into good behaviour with icy poles.
  • Kel on Kenan & Kel would do anything for a bottle of orange soda.
  • Takahashi from Koisenu Futari is convinced to fake being Sakuko's boyfriend with the promise of crab for dinner.
  • Law & Order:
    • In one Law & Order episode, the detectives convince a pair of streetwalkers to share any information they might have concerning the episode's case by offering them free doughnuts and coffee for breakfast.
    • Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Stabler and Benson once use food to get a starving girl to start talking about a murder suspect.
  • On Limitless, Brian needs to convince an imprisoned hitman to confess to a murder and rat out his employer. The hitman is already serving multiple life sentences so another murder conviction is not going to change anything for him, but he's not going to do the FBI a favor for free. Brian offers him a dozen bagels from a Brooklyn bakery famous for its baked goods. The hitman agrees to testify in exchange for a dozen bagels delivered to him in prison every week.
  • Married... with Children: During one episode, Al gets Kelly to help him work on the car by telling her they're going for ice cream.
    Kelly: Get in the car, get out of the car. You sound like one of my dates. They always promise me ice cream, too, and I never get any.
  • Person of Interest: "The Cold War" opens with Harold Finch annoying an Asian food vendor with an overly-specific sandwich order. He brings the sandwich back to their secret headquarters and nervously presents it as a peace offering to Sameen Shaw, currently handcuffed to a bench and not happy about it.
  • Power Rangers RPM: In "...And Action", the cast gives the viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the show without actually breaking character. Ziggy has to offer Doctor K sweets to get her involved.
  • In a Season 1 episode of Prison Break, Bellick tries to get Tweener to be his mole by offering him a burger.
  • In the Psych episode "Shawn Interrupted", Shawn needs to get a possibly-insane character in front of a hidden camera in the hospital library, so he uses a bowl of Skittles to do it since he's already seen that they're his Trademark Favorite Food.
  • On Shake it Up, Flynn will do anything if you give him ice cream.
  • Star Trek: Voyager: Despite coming from a Post-Scarcity Economy, Voyager is stranded far from the Federation and so supplies need to be rationed. This includes use of the food replicator, so replicator rations are being used as an unofficial currency.
  • Star Trek: Picard. When Jean Luc Picard goes to ask Raffi Musiker for help, she greets him at gunpoint despite him carrying a bottle of wine from the vineyard he now runs.
    Picard: I just want to talk.
    Musiker: There isn't anything you could say that I'd want to hear.
    Picard: {slowly turning around and walking away} Secret Romulan assassins are operating on Earth.
    Musiker: {eyes the bottle} Is that the '86?
    Picard: {waves the bottle at her}
    Musiker: {lowers her gun} God... damn it. {tosses the contents of her cup}.
  • Supernatural:
    • The Winchesters do this every time they have to talk to Death. He's quite fond of fast food, so feeding him before talking to him (or more to the point, asking a favor of him) is a good way to improve his mood.
    • When Dean has to ask a favour from Rufus, a cantankerous old Hunter, Bobby warns him to bring a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label whisky as a bribe. Hunters are pretty much all Functional Addicts, but Rufus at least has moderately discerning tastes.
  • On Teachers (2016), Ms. Feldman is once shown doing an interesting variation—she bribes her students with Wendy's coupons.
  • In Series 12 of Top Gear, James May eventually agrees to spend the night tuning a Renault Aventine if Clarkson and Hammond buy him a bag of chips and leave him alone.
  • Young Sheldon: In "A Sneeze, Detention, and Sissy Spacek", Mary fails to chase down Sheldon after he builds a habitat for him to use while riding out flu season. Afterwards, Meemaw makes a tray of chocolate chip cookies and sets them just outside the barrier to lure out her grandson...only for Sheldon to yank them inside without ever leaving the habitat.

    Mythology 
  • The Kappa is a fearsome monster that likes to eat human entrails and blood. And babies. One way to survive an encounter with one is to offer it the one treat it enjoys more than human flesh: cucumbers. Offering a kappa a cucumber inscribed with your name on it will earn you your safety and maybe even the kappa's friendship.

    Religion 
  • The Bible: Jacob is able to get his brother Esau to sell his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew.

    Roleplay 

    Tabletop Games 
  • In Nomine: One of the more reliable ways to distract Haagenti — the Prince of Gluttony — and his minions is to offer them food. Pleasures of the Flesh suggests emphasizing this in scenarios where Haagenti is played for comic relief, such as by depicting them as very easily bribed or distracted with anything edible ("Hey, is that a truckload of mozzarella?")

    Theatre 
  • In Camelot, Morgan le Fay can be reliably bribed by her nasty nephew Mordred with promises of sweets.
  • In The Birds by Aristophanes, the promise of a meal of roasted poultry is enough for Heracles to give away the scepter of Zeus to the birds, thus ceding them the rule over the world.

    Video Games 
  • In Bendy and the Ink Machine, Henry bribes Boris for the lever out of the safe house by heating up some bacon soup for him.
  • Dishonored There are two ways to force Anton Sokolov to cooperate after kidnapping him. The first is to fill his cage with man-eating rats. The second is to buy him a bottle of his favorite liquor.
  • Dragon Age: Origins:
    • Your companions have different ways of getting past the guard to the Circle Tower. Morrigan or Shale will scare the living daylights out of him, Leliana will regale him with stories, and Sten... will offer him cookies (that he stole from a kid "for his own good"). Truly, Templar discipline is to be feared. It's less funny when you learn the guard is an example of what lyrium does to the brain.
    • When choosing a champion to fight for you in a Trial by Combat, you can try to choose your dog. Arl Eamon is quick to point out that the dog's loyalty could be bought with a ham bone.
  • In Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, a potentially universe-destroying fight between the Player Character, Goku, God of Destruction Beerus, Mira, and the Masked Saiyan is averted when the Supreme Kai of Time drops in her secret weapon - a supply of pudding. This annoys Mira and the Masked Saiyan, causing them to run off. However, because the Supreme Kai is a Lethal Chef, all it does is nearly poison Goku and anger Beerus, forcing the Player Character to stop Beerus.
  • To make friends with the Apple Kid in EarthBound (1994), you have to give him a food item.
  • The final zone in Hades has Cerberus, the resident Big Friendly Dog and guardian of the Underworld's gates, standing between you and the way out. Instead of fighting him like you do with the previous bosses, you have to head through tunnels filled with Satyrs and other very tough enemies in search of a Satyr Sack that you can give to him to let you pass.
  • You have the option use a donut to do this at two occasions during Nugget's mission in Kindergarten.
    • To convince Buggs to eat the chicken nugget Nugget wants him to eat.
    • To convince Ms. Applegate not to send you to the principal's office after you blow up the statue of the principal.
  • The King of Fighters XV: Kula is swayed over to join Krohnen and Ángel when they offer her ice cream. Keep in mind that the former attempted to murder Kula's mother figure in The King of Fighters 2001, and the latter aided and abetted him.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The original The Legend of Zelda features this in the seventh dungeon, as you have to buy a bait to pass a particularly hungry Moblin enemy.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: Cece runs for mayor of Hateno Village against incumbent Reede, the latter of whom disapproves of her fashion craze drawing the town away from its agricultural traditions. At one point Cece tasks Link with giving the undecided voters mushrooms to sway them to her side. This doesn't quite work out for her, not because those people dislike the mushrooms or even have anything against Cece and her fashions, but because they simply think her fancy clothing line is impractical for their farming work.
  • Used in The Lost Crown to get Mr. Tibbs to follow you back from Ulcombe Church. Luckily, the cat adores cheese.
  • In Lost Souls (MUD), this is the most pleasant way of getting past Kerberos, the three-headed dog guarding the fiery portal from the cave of Tainaron to the River Tethys.
  • Night Delivery: There's a cat on a dumpster near the apartment building that will swipe at you if you try to interact with it. You can get a can on tuna from one of the tenants as a tip for delivery, and use it to placate the cat.
  • In Paper Mario 64, an Anti-Guy guards a chest with a very useful badge in Chapter 4. You could try to tough it out and beat him in a straight fight, or you could just bring him some Lemon Candy in exchange for the badge.
  • Maybe it counts more as "bait" than a "bribe", but ever since Honey was introduced as an item in Pokémon in Gen IV, it can be used to attract Pokémon. In Gen VI, it can even be used to attract Pokémon Hordes.
  • In Portal, you are meant to be motivated by cake.
  • In Runaway 2: The Dream of the Turtle, the protagonist encounters a jungle lemur who agrees to help him for beer.
  • In Shadows of the Damned, this is how you get past the baby-faced door guardians; it seems that, in the Underworld, the youngest demons get stuck with this job for the first century ("Eh, everyone's gotta start somewhere," says the first one). Thing is, you have to find out what they like first before they open; some of them simply like strawberries, but others have stranger (and more unpleasant) tastes, like eyeballs and brains. They are demons, after all.
  • Spelling Jungle: Some of the animals in both games can be bribed by Wali, using an apple (in Spelling Jungle) or mackerel (in Spelling Blizzard), which turns them pink for ten seconds until it wears off and either holds them in one place so Wali can pass safely or put them under his control.
  • Stigmatized Property: The crow on the second floor walkway of the apartment building won't give up the diary page in its beak until you give it a fish.
  • In Tales from the Borderlands, the only reason Yvette goes along with Rhys and Vaughn's crazy plan to screw their Bad Boss Vasquez out of millions of dollars is that Rhys offered to buy her lunch. Although she sells them out to Vasquez almost immediately.
  • Tequila & Boom Boom:
    • Boom Boom isn't happy to see Tequila. You need to get beans from the general store to make him more cooperative.
    • There's a tasty looking cake in the general store. You need to get this as well as pay off Melissa's store tab to get both her and her family to warm up to Tequila.
  • In Them's Fightin' Herds, Arizona convinces the guards to let her into Reine with a bottle of milk.
  • This is sort of how you recruit Winston to your team in Wandersong. If you grab a dish from Beth's Diner, he will use it to befriend the dog that sits outside the pub all night.
  • Wishbone and the Amazing Odyssey: When the crew arrives at Aeaea, Wishbone tries to get the crew to go ashore. They aren't interested until he says there's probably something to eat on the island besides seafood.

    Visual Novels 
  • In the fifth case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, the lunch lady witness Angel Starr is fond of offering people lunches to get them on her side. In the first trial, she offers the judge a triple-decker bento if he allows her to testify one more time. He agrees without a second thought. Ironically despite being her goal to get the defendant convicted due to a personal hatred, her additional testimony and following provision of new evidence ends up proving there's more to investigate and not to hand down a ruling yet, which wouldn't have happened if she hadn't bribed the judge.
  • In Strawberry Vinegar, Rie is giving food to Licia in exchange for... not getting sent to Hell. Sounds like a fair trade.
  • In Tsukihime, Shiki regularly uses curry bread to get Ciel to talk to him.

    Web Animation 
  • Homestar Runner: In the Strong Bad Email "monster truck", adult admission to Awexome Cross '98 is just five dollars, but "kids and old people" will have to buy their way in by giving Strong Bad fried chicken.
    Strong Bad: KIDS AND OLD PEOPLE NOT ALLOWED! WITHOUT A BUCKET OF FRIED CHICKEN! FOR MEEEEE!
  • The Most Popular Girls in School: Poor Deandra often falls victim to this trope. Not that she ever minds.
  • A man in Pony & Boy climbed a mountain because his mother promised him chocolate pudding.

    Webcomics 
  • Awful Hospital double subverts this when Methanyll tries to gain Fern's trust with "a selection of fine cheeses". When that falls flat, they try a different tack:
    Methanyll: Not a cheese person, I take it? We do have a fine selection of alcoholic bev—
    Fern: Lead the way.
  • Cursed Princess Club: The Pastel Princesses are eager to go to Plaid Prince Lance's birthday party, but their dad King Jack had forbidden them from interacting with the Plaid Princes while he's away (and had been resistant to allowing such interactions even when he was there). After one long and grueling expedition, he returns to the Pastel Palace very hungry, sees Gwendolyn with a plate of freshly-baked brownies, and asks if they're all for him. Gwen had actually planned to share the brownies with her siblings (who wanted to eat their sorrows away over the likelihood that they would miss Lance's party), but she improvises and gives them all to her dad to make it easier to convince him to let them all go to the Plaid Kingdom for the event.
  • In Dominic Deegan, Oracle for Hire Garrit demonstrates why the testimony of talking animals isn't admissible in court by bribing Spark to change his story about Bumper in one story arc.
    Spark: I saw nothing. Bumper sucks. Gimme fish.
  • Freefall:
  • In General Protection Fault, Trudy Trueheart obtained a stockpile of advanced alien weapons by bribing an Alien Overlord... with cheese. Apparently, Earth is the only place in the galaxy where cheese is made, and their attempts to synthesize it (see: cattle mutilations) have so far failed.
  • When Psycho Mantis in The Last Days of FOXHOUND wants to learn how Anti-Telepathy Nanobots work, he first goes up to the inventor and tries to force it out with telepathy, but she points out that she also has them installed. So he offers to buy her all the ice cream she can eat, which looks like a date to his coworkers.
  • In The Order of the Stick, Elan attempts to use a bard song to guide the patrons out of an inn without them learning that there are two assassins on the premises. It turns out to have worked on exactly one patron, purely based on the line "If you do we'll ... uh, give you free pudding!" There is no pudding.
  • The Greenhouse: Mica successfully bargains for good behavior from the demon possessing her, 'Red', in exchange for regularly removing the talisman that prevents Red from feeding... on her soul. This actually works quite well, but soon begins to cause (or at least accelerates) Possession Burnout.
    Mica: I think she was just hangry.

    Web Original 
  • Lieutenant Sabien of Black Jack Justice can barely tolerate Jack Justice and Trixie Dixon at the best of times. However, in later episodes, the private eyes discover Sabien can become a lot more cooperative with the gift or promise of good food. In one instance, they even go so far as to hold a sting operation on a pair of suspects at a fancy restaurant specifically so that they can eat a nice meal on the client's dime afterward.
  • Cream Heroes has a Kittisaurus Villains episode where TT offers snacks to a hungry DD in exchange for him selling her catnip.
  • A surprisingly sensible variation occurs in Critical Role when adventuring party Vox Machina agree to deal with a monster terrorising a farming community in exchange for a supply of fresh produce for the staff at their keep, as the farmers can't afford cash payment for their services.

    Western Animation 
  • In the Adventures of the Gummi Bears episode "My Kingdom For Pie", Duke Igthorn tries to bribe Tummi with a feast in order to find Gummi Glen.
  • In an episode of Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Fat Cat ships in a gang of nutty fruit bats from Jamaica to use as jewel thieves, paying them with fruit. Even he is amazed at how easy it is:
    Fat Cat: Imagine, trading nectarines for necklaces! Bananas for brooches! And tangelos for tiaras!
  • A few episodes of Clifford the Big Red Dog show that Mac refuses to listen to what Jetta wants him to do unless he's offered a Tummy Yummy as motivation. It also shows up when the four main dogs end up in obedience classes; Mac wins a prize named "Tricks for Treats", and predictably Jetta has to bribe him to come up on stage to accept it.
  • Ed, Edd n Eddy:
    • In the episode "Honor Thy Ed", Kevin says he will give Eddy a jawbreaker if he and his friends go in the abandoned house. However, Kevin backs out of the promise a few minutes later and sucks on it after the kids see Ed fake being strangled.
    • In "Three Squares And An Ed", Eddy implies that Jonny would do anything for granola. In this case, it's dressing up as a leprechaun to distract Jimmy, who's guarding a grounded Ed.
  • In Futurama, when Bender retracts his limbs and head into his body, Leela tries to coax him out with a beer. "Would you do it for a Bender-snack?"
  • The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: Billy's dad Harold accepts fried food in exchange for fake doctor's notes to get the boys out of gym class.
  • Jackie Chan Adventures this apparently partiallynote  precipitated Tohru's Heel–Face Turn. It's actually based on a Brick Joke two episodes earlier. Jackie tries to convince Tohru that working at Section 13 would be better and states that every Tuesday is Donut Day. Tohru then repeats this statement when confronting the Chans.
  • Johnny Test: Dukey will do anything for steak.
  • Kaeloo:
    • Quack Quack the duck will do just about anything if you offer him his Trademark Favorite Food, yogurt.
    • In Episode 56, Pretty steals Kaeloo's pet horse, and they both get into an argument and decide to ask the horse who it wants to be with. Kaeloo offers it carrots as a reward if it comes to her.
  • Besser, the principal from The Kids from Room 402, gets a cake from Polly so he can raise her grade from A- to A.
  • Kim Possible: The closing scene of "Emotion Sickness" shows Drakken frantically running and dodging plasma blasts from a Moodulator-enraged Shego. He tries yelling various apologies and pleas to calm her down, concluding with "I'll cook you dinner!"
  • Looney Tunes
    • "Prince Violent" has Yosemite Sam use an elephant to help him break into Bugs's fortress. However, with each failed attempt, Sam yells at the elephant and occasionally clubs him, eventually telling him to get lost so he can do it himself. After a few more failures, Sam finally manages to get in, only to find that the elephant is working for Bugs now and chases Sam away with a club. It's then revealed that Bugs is convincing him to work for him by paying him with peanuts.
    • "Water, Water Every Hare" has the Mad Scientist open the door containing a huge, hairy monster, and order it to capture Bugs Bunny. As an incentive, the mad scientist promises to prepare "a spider goulash" if the monster succeeds in capturing the rabbit. Immediately, the monster goes on the hunt.
  • Miraculous Ladybug: Adrien tries to make Plagg reveal the secrets Ladybug is hiding from him with promises of rare cheese. Though sorely tempted, Plagg refuses.
  • Used a couple times in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
    • Subverted in "The Ticket Master". Twilight is faced with this several times throughout by her friends in their attempts to gain her extra ticket to the Grand Galloping Gala, but Twilight manages to turn away the bribes each time despite stating several times how hungry she is.
    • Pinkie Pie uses this against Spike in "Party of One" as part of her Perp Sweating sequence.
  • Ready Jet Go!: In "Pet Sounds", the kids are training Mitchell's dog Cody. After experimentation, they realize that they can use dog treats to motivate Cody to do tricks.
  • Recess:
    • The main six try to bribe Brittany A. to give her sister Ashley A.'s diary back by using candy. It doesn't work.
    • In another episode, the Ashleys bribe T.J. with candy to get him to hang out with them after realizing he found a $100 bill.
  • Scooby-Doo: Perhaps the Trope Codifier. In almost every incarnation, Scooby and Shaggy are willing to do anything for Scooby Snacks. As exemplified in the theme song to Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!:
    And Scooby-Doo, if you come through
    Then you can have yourself a Scooby Snack
    That's a fact!
    In one of the more modern cartoons, Scooby and Shaggy think ahead and bring their own Scooby Snacks so they can't be persuaded this way. Unfortunately, Fred is still one step ahead of the two of them, because they didn't think to bring milk.
  • The Simpsons:
    • In "Homer and Apu", Homer gets sick eating expired cold cuts from the Kwik-E-Mart, and when he gets better, he storms into the store to tell off Apu, who offers him a pound of frozen shrimp as consolation. When Homer notices that it isn't actually frozen and smells funny, Apu ups the bribe to two pounds, which Homer eagerly accepts. He gets sick again, naturally.
    • In "Treehouse Of Horror VIII", the "Easy-Bake Coven" story features Marge and her sisters as witches who decide to go eat the village's children. After they start to leave with Rod and Todd, the Flandereses offer them gingerbread kids instead, which placates the witches and has them spare the two. Eventually the village catches onto this and it then became tradition to placate them with treats, which would develop into trick-or-treating.
    • In "Treehouse Of Horror XVII", Chief Wiggum shows up at the Golem's wedding to arrest him for murder, but the female Golem convinces him to let him go by telling him latkes are being served at the reception. Wiggum doesn't know what latkes are, but he agrees to let him go as soon as he knows that they're fried.
  • In Smurfette's origin episode in The Smurfs (1981), Smurfette tempted Greedy with a scrumptious smurfberry cake into opening the village dam gate so she could flood the village back before she was changed into a real Smurf.
  • On South Park, when Ike's birth parents come to take him back to Canada, he refuses to get in their car until they offer him chocolate.
  • In the Timon & Pumbaa episode "Mind Over Matterhorn", Timon attempts to get past a goat border guard by bribing him with money, only to be stopped by Pumbaa, who tells him bribing is wrong. Timon gets him to keep quiet by feeding him a bug.
  • Played with in the Tiny Toon Adventures episode, "Fields of Honey"; when Buster and Plucky argue over whether Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck is the greatest cartoon star ever, they decide to bribe Hamton with pieces of cake so he can help them settle their debate. Buster bribes Hamton with a single slice of carrot cake, while Plucky bribes him with an entire wedding cake. However, this has no effect on Hamton, who tells them he always liked Porky Pig the best.
  • Total Drama Island: Owen's Big Eater status is easily exploited to sway his allegiances. Early on, Heather gets him to vote against Justin (despite Owen's obvious crush on him) by giving him a piece of cake, and at the end of the season, Gwen turns it right back around by promising to buy him a box of donuts to join her alliance against Heather (though if she won the $100,000 prize, she would have split that with him too; the donuts were a backup if she lost).

    Real Life 
  • Fancy Dinners have long been a way to smooth the waters of diplomacy. In fact, in the British Diplomatic service, it used to be a requirement to have a high tolerance for liquor. At times expensive food or drink was used as a bribe. A wine bottle might save face for instance when money is insulting. After all, the spy you want might be a traitor, but he wants to be known as a cultured traitor.
  • Cory Monteith mentioned that the choreographer for Glee uses candy as a bribe so that they can keep working.
  • Many parents offer to give their little ones candy, ice cream, cookies, or any other kind of sweets if the child behaves themselves.
  • In the United States, if friends or family members are helping you move, it's an expected courtesy that you'll provide food to everyone who's helping you, to the point where it can sometimes be used to convince people into it. After all, it may be hours of labor, but hey, free stuff! Not offering food to the movers is considered quite rude.
  • Many of the extras' services and rent for some vehicles appearing the original Mad Max were paid for in beer.
  • Napoleon supposedly once faced an enemy army that was ill-supplied. He promised them food if they joined his army, and it worked.
  • Animal trainers are fond of using this trope. For many animal species, it's the only training method that works.
  • Bonobos (a type of ape related to the chimpanzee) have been observed exchanging food for sex.
  • Taken to extremes by praying mantis males, who offer themselves as food-bribe in exchange for mating.
  • Offering police officers complimentary coffee or food is a common practice for urban restaurants and food-carts, as being seen to be on good terms with the cops can discourage petty robberies and vandalism. It can also discourage the cops from booking the proprietor if he's caught speeding, selling contraband under the counter, and so on, which is why the practice is forbidden in many jurisdictions. Donut Mess with a Cop is the logical conclusion of this trope. The pastry and the profession became so linked together thanks to a store policy of Dunkin' Donuts, which offered free donuts and coffee to uniformed officers. As one of the first food stores in the country to have 24/7 operations, it was cheaper to feed the cops than to actually install security systems to prevent would-be robbers, especially during the wee hours of the morning.
  • While everybody involved denies it, it's widely believed that, when the Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels were hired to provide security at the Altamont Free Concert in 1969, they were paid in $500 worth of cold beer, which they proceeded to drink during the concert. Sure enough, having security provided by an untrained mob of surly, drunken outlaw bikers ended badly, and played a major role in Altamont going down in history as one of the worst concert disasters of all time, as documented in Gimme Shelter (1970).

 
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Alternative Title(s): Scooby Snacks, Bribed With Food

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Food bribes don't work on Yuu

Yuu is stubbornly resistant to the idea of being part of the school play, even when delicious food is on the table.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (2 votes)

Example of:

Main / FoodAsBribe

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