Loser Buys Lunch

Sally: So Stickers, last one to Flo's buys?
Lightning: I don't know. Why don't we just take a drive?
Sally: Um, nah. [drives off]
Lightning: Yeah. Ka-chow! [drives off]

— Cars

Well congrats to you, you lost. Maybe its The Big Game, or The Bet based around one. Now you have to do this subtrope of the Humiliating Wager and buy them food or pay for it, since the bet stated so. It's especially humiliating when the winner is a gluttonous Big Eater and scales their meal accordingly.

This trope comes in two flavors:

1. The winning wagerer is a Jerkass rubbing in the failure.
2. This is a fun, friendly thing where a meal is bought to help cheer up the loser.

Occasionally, the loser can get revenge on the winner by intentionally screwing the order up and getting the wrong food or the one item they know the winner hates. This isn't very sporting though, so it's only when either the winner is a total dick about it and kind of had it coming, or the person paying is a jerk being a Sore Loser who can't stand the humiliation and is getting a nonlethal revenge.

Note that this is different from when the penalty for losing the bet means the loser eats something, typically something gross or nonedible (like clothes), since the winner ain't the one eating it and they usually (though not always stated) bought and paid for it themselves. See also Enemy Eats Your Lunch, where losing means your lunch is forcibly taken by the victor to Kick the Dog.

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Examples:

Advertising

• One advertisement had Leonard Nimoy make a bet with Zachary Quinto, and when the latter loses, it's he who has to buy lunch.
• A 1993 McDonald's ad featured Michael Jordan and Larry Bird playing HORSE for a Big Mac and french fries. Despite calling increasingly absurd trick shots both men keep swishing every attempt, and are still going at it when it fades to black.

Anime & Manga

• The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: One of Haruhi's standing rules when the SOS Brigade gets together for weekend outings is that whoever arrives at the train station last has to buy lunch for the whole group. Unfortunately for Kyon, no matter how early he arrives he's always the last one there.
• Azumanga Daioh:
  • During the pool episode, Yukari challenges Nyamo to a "Steak Cup Relay". When Yukari looses, she claims that she named it in honor of all the steak that she and Nyamo had had together.
  • For each of the Sports Fest episodes, Yukari makes a wager with Nyamo over whose class will do better. Typically the claim is that the money will be used to buy juice for the winning side. The first of the three Sports Fest episodes zizags this slightly, as Nyamo, after paying Yukari, then promptly reminds her of the fact that she owes her money, confiscates the bill back, and then treats her class instead.
  • After Yukari and Nyamo do a round of basketball, losers treat the winners to drinks from the vending machines. Yukari gets Nyamo a cola, but then shakes it up. However, Nyamo is called away to help a student, so she tells Yukari she can have the cola. No points for guessing what happens next.
• In chapter 64 of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, at Elma's request, she and Tohru have a practice fight. At the end of it, Elma says "I win, gimme food," and Tohru argues that she won and Elma should treat her. A brief, immature argument later and Kobayashi offers to treat both of them instead, which both of them readily agree to.

Asian Animation

• In episode 5 of Adit & Sopo Jarwo, as a punishment for accidentally ruining Jarwo's food, Jarwo challenges Adit to a football match where the loser must buy the winner Kang Ujang's meatballs. After some blatant cheating, Jarwo wins. Conveniently, today turns out to be Kang Ujang's birthday so the meatballs are free and Adit doesn't have to pay anything.

Comic Books

• Asterix: In Asterix and the Golden Sickle, the protagonist makes a bet with Obelix whether they encounter wolves or bandits first. The loser has to buy a round of beer for the winner. They meet wolves first, though Obelix finds a bandit slightly later.

Films — Animated

• In Cars, Sally challenges Lightning to a race from the Wheel Well Motel to Flo's, where the loser has to pay for their food.

Films — Live-Action

• In Fantastic Four (2005) Johnny has invited his nurse to go skiing with him...
  Nurse: Last one down springs for room service!
• In The Fifth Element, when a down-on-his-luck Korben Dallas refuses to open his mail for fear of what might be in it, Mr. Kim, the restaurateur serving him, gives him some encouragement by betting him his lunch that it will be good news. Dallas lets Kim open the letter, whereupon he triumphantly announces...
  Kim: You are fired! Oh...
  Dallas: Well, at least I won lunch.
  Kim: Good philosophy. See good in bad. I like!
• The final scene of Justice League (2017), a friendly race between Superman and The Flash, where if Flash wins, he gets to boast his victory to everyone. But if he loses, he'll need to buy the team "brunch".

Live-Action TV

• Corner Gas:
  • In "Slow Pitch", Oscar makes a wager with Wes that whoever loses the upcoming slow-pitch softball game between Brent's team and Wes' team will buy beer for the winners. Brent and Hank meet with Wes to call off the bet, but thanks to some egging on by Paul the bartender, they get competitive and up the prize to beer and nachos.
  • In "Lacey Borrows", Davis and Hank play with a paper football and Hank bets that if Davis makes the next shot, Davis buys Hank's lunch. Davis thinks that's a terrible bet and it should be that if he makes the shot, Hank buys him lunch. They argue for a bit, then when Davis makes the shot, they realize they aren't sure what to do and they agree to just buy lunch for each other.
• On Seinfeld, there's the guy who found a "dating loophole" where he makes a bet with a woman he knows he is going to lose (for example, he bets Elaine that Dustin Hoffman was in Star Wars) where the loser buys dinner. This allows him to date any woman he wants as many times as he wants without ever having to actually ask a woman out, and thus, never get rejected.

Podcasts

• Trials & Trebuchets: While on a field trip in the Plane of Isathil, Integrity bets Murundeen that she could beat him in a race even while she's carrying all of both teams' supplies, with the loser of the race having to buy the winner 20 gold's worth of snacks from the campus store. She ends up losing the race and has to buy Murundeen snacks.

Sports

• Inverted in the sport of curling. In some parts of the world, it's tradition for the winning team to buy drinks for the losing team after the game—or for both teams to buy drinks for each other.

Video Games

• BlazBlue: Continuum Shift features a Heads I Win, Tails You Lose situation between Anti-Hero protagonist Ragna and Morality Pet Taokaka. Whenever Tao fights Ragna, she proclaims that she's hungry and he says she eats way too much. Regardless of the outcome, Ragna has to pay.
  Taokaka (if she wins): Lunch is on you, Good Guy!
  Ragna (if Tao loses): Alright, alright, I'll buy you some lunch.
• In Growing Up, you can motivate Alex to do her homework by making a bet where whoever is the last to finish has to buy burgers.
• Interstate '76 has a side-mission that has Groove race Taurus through a winding road with the reward being that the loser has to pay for lunch. After the race, the restaurant comes under attack by Creepers and the bet is briefly forgotten. But after the final Creeper is killed, Groove reveals he does remember the bet.
• The first fight in the story mode of Mortal Kombat 1 has Kung Lao and Raiden facing each other in a martial arts match to settle a bet over who will pay for their meal at Madam Bo's teahouse.

Webcomics

• Played with in Freefall. Sam and Max, both trying to skip out on the check at a restaurant, agree to a race where the loser pays both checks. The restauranteur, having dealt with them before, arranges for them to race at washing dishes, then "accidentally" misses seeing who wins the first two times. The third time...
  Restauranteur: What would you call two guys who were tricked into washing dishes not once, but three times?
  Sam: Sounds like a couple losers to me.
  Restauranteur: Gentlemen, your bills.

Western Animation

• The Simpsons:
  • Used in "Treehouse of Horror II" in the segment with Homer's dream. Smithers tells Mr. Burns that Homer, who was fired early in the segment and was found napping in a grave when they went grave robbing, is still alive when they put his brain a robot. When they sew Homer's brain back into his body, Homer keeps saying "Ow! Ow!" which Smithers points out as proof he's still alive, to which Mr. Burns notes he owes Smithers a Coke.
  • In "Treehouse of Horror V"'s "The Shinning". Mr. Burns orders Smithers to cut the cable and put all the beer in their car, the intent being that without beer and TV the caretaker, Homer and by extension his family, will focus only on taking care of his hotel. However, Smithers states that maybe depriving the previous caretakers of distractions, beer and cable TV, is what led them to go insane and kill their families, to which Mr. Burns responds: "Perhaps. Tell you what, we come back and everyone's slaughtered, I owe you a Coke."

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