So let's say you're a kid (or even an adult), and you really like Cupio Bars. You'd eat them for every meal if you could — but your parent(s)/guardian(s)/spouse won't let you. They insist that you have a varied diet with a base of four food groups (and not one of them is the kind you'd like to be considered part of the base). You are allowed some Cupio Bars for a treat, but your consumption of them is limited. And even worse, they're keeping a whole supply of Cupio Bars around and you are not allowed to have any without their permission. So what do you do to sate your craving without getting in trouble? You wait until they're asleep or busy, or otherwise presumably unable to catch you in the act of sneaking snacks! The particular snack being snuck can be anything, as long as it is made clear that the Sneaker really wants it, so much that they're willing to risk getting in trouble in order to attain it illicitly.
Sometimes, the kid manages to get away with it. However, more often than not, the child is caught by their parent/guardian and punished. In this case, An Aesop about the immorality of stealing and violating parental trust usually follows. If it is an Adult Child, it is even more likely that they will be caught because no matter how much comedic potential a scenario involving an actual kid doing this has, it can't be nearly as funny as an adult behaving like a naughty child and being caught in the act by an angry authority/parental figure. For added comedy points, the Sneaker may be punished or reprimanded in the same way an actual child would be. For adult cases, contrast Troubling Unchildlike Behavior, where a child is trying out disturbing things associated with older ages.
Supertrope to Tempting Cookie Jar. Contrast Discreet Dining Disposal, when someone is eagerly given a food item and it's one of the last things they'd eat and see also Secret Snack Stash for cases in which a character keeps their own supply of tempting foods.
Trust us, we all know how prevalent this is. Anyone who claims that they never did this is most likely either lying or else their family didn't have any desirable foods in the house. Therefore, please don't post any Real Life examples unless they're especially interesting and aren't repetitions of examples already posted in the media namespaces.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Tubby did this in Episode 4 of the Little Lulu anime, with apples, bananas, sausages, crackers, and potato chips, which he then hides in different areas of the woods.
Board Games
- In the classic version of Chutes and Ladders by Milton Bradley (it's now made Hasbro) the top of one of the chutes has a kid attempting to retrieve cookies from a high-up shelf.note At the bottom of that slide, however, they appear to have broken the cookie jar. This is actually the longest chute in the game — #87 to #24. Mention of that particular chute is made in the commercial for the game.
Comic Strips
- A Running Gag in Calvin and Hobbes involves the many elaborate and often ill-conceived plans Calvin develops in his attempts to raid the cookie jar. Unfortunately, his Mom is never fooled for a second.
Mom: Calvin, just how dumb do you think I am?
Fan Works
- In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Mercy stuffs snacks into her handbag at Wiktoria Fries' birthday party. This makes Lexi wonder if she's paying Mercy enough.
Films — Animation
- In Kung Fu Panda, Shifu is surprised to see the uncoordinated Po perform athletic feats in raiding the pantry. To test him, Shifu points out Monkey's secret cookie stash on the topmost shelf. Within seconds, Po was balancing himself on the shelf, gorging himself.
- In Turning Red, Jin sneaks a Timbit while Ming looks away, then another while Ming is talking with Mei.
Films — Live-Action
- Subject of a joke in Die Hard, when one of the "terrorists" sets up his police-ambush station behind a shop counter, and snitches a candy bar... after looking around to make sure no one's watching.
- Full Metal Jacket plays this for drama as a weeping Leonard Lawrence is forced to eat a stolen jelly donut while the rest of his platoon does push-ups.
- In the film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the Weasley brothers notice a bowl full of baked goods on the table when they arrive home with Harry. Assuming their mother is asleep, they whisper to each other, "Let's sneak some," and do just that. However, their mother is indeed awake and she pops up out of nowhere and angrily asks them where they've been. Realizing that she's seen them holding the contraband snacks, the Weasley siblings guiltily put them away. However, she doesn't say anything about the snacks. Justified, however, because she was worried about their safety and the possibility that they would get in trouble with the Ministry of Magic, compared to which sneaking snacks is small potatoes by any standard.
- In Miss Congeniality, Gracie Hart is found by her beauty pageant trainer sneaking donuts underneath her dress.
- On "Something's Cookin'", the cartoon that opens Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Baby Herman sees the cookie jar atop the refrigerator and crawls up the kitchen counter and into harm's way. Herman easily evades danger, while the frantic Roger takes all the lumps.
- The "break the cookie jar" trope can be found in the 1969 educational film "Drugs Are Like That", a movie they used to play in elementary schools back in the early 1970s. A little girl retrieves some cookies from a high cupboard shelf, whereupon a disturbing "what if?" scenario follows. Here's a clip of the scene in question for anyone who's interested. (this is Part 2; the cookie scene starts 1 minute into the clip)
- In The Wizard of Oz:
- When Dorothy and Toto visit Professor Marvel, Toto eats a sausage from the professor's toasting fork.
Dorothy: Toto, that's not polite! We haven't been asked yet.
- The animated trees are none too pleased about Dorothy taking their apples.
Tree: How would you like it if I was to come along, and pick something off of you?
- When Dorothy and Toto visit Professor Marvel, Toto eats a sausage from the professor's toasting fork.
Literature
- In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom tries to steal sugar from under his aunt's very nose, and has his knuckles rapped for it.
- In Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw, the lunch snacks start disappearing and Greg starts thinking that his older brother Rodrick is doing it. He hides in a laundry hamper to find out who's doing it and discovers that his dad is the culprit. It turns out that he's doing this because his New Year's resolution turns out to be more than he bargained for.
- In The Great Brain at the Academy the priests who run the Catholic Boarding School Tom and his brother attend forbid all candy. Tom thinks this is silly, so he sneaks out after lights-out weekly to buy candy bars from a local drugstore to sell to the other boys at the school for double price. Towards the end of the book he and the head priest have a conversation during which the priest explains why they have the ban.
- In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter's overweight cousin Dudley is put on a diet and at one point, he gets in trouble for attempting to sneak sweets into the house. Aunt Petunia insists that the entire family follow the diet so Dudley won't feel singled out, which Harry gets around by having his friends send him sweets and snacks and hiding them in his room.
- Maya Angelou describes in her memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings how she and her older brother Bailey would steal various delicious food items from the Store that their grandmother owned. So this particular example is Truth in Television as well as literary.
- Very darkly played out in Life As We Knew It. When Miranda, the heroine, goes into the pantry, she sees the bag of chocolate chips that she bought months earlier in there, she gives in to hunger as well as chocolate cravings and starts eating some. Her mother catches her and makes her eat the whole bag. Then she tells Miranda that she isn't allowed to eat for the next day or the day after that. The End of the World as We Know It has happened, though, and therefore, unauthorized sneaking of any kind of food cannot be condoned or encouraged if the family is going to survive.
- In Cherie Bennett's young adult book Life in the Fat Lane Lara gains over 100 pounds in just a few months. Her mother thinks she's just eating too much and sneaking snacks, but Lara denies it. It turns out she has a rare genetic disorder that makes her gain weight no matter how little she eats or how much she exercises.
- Lord Peter Wimsey: There are references to this in Gaudy Night.
- Harriet is visiting her Oxford college and reminds a staff member that she recalls the woman's habit of leaving the buttery door unlocked at night. The woman indulgently smiles and notes that young women have healthy appetites.
- Later, the topic is mentioned again as a reason to initially dismiss the sounds of someone moving through the college after dark, thereby allowing some cover for the author of the poison pen letters and vandalism.
- The punishment that the Trunchbull deals to Bruce Bogtrotter for supposedly stealing a slice of her chocolate cake in Matilda is used to show just how sadistic she is to great effect. She schedules an assembly during which she sits Bruce down at a table and puts the rest of the cake in front of him for him to eat. Poor Bruce is expected to eat that 18-inches-in-diameter monstrosity in its entirety, even if he gets sick. And every child attending Crunchem Hall is watching him eat and feeling sorry for him as they wait with bated breath for him to break down from the effects of forced over-eating.
- In Mort, the wizard Cutangle acts guilty when he's found raiding the castle pantry in the middle of the night, even though there's no indication he's not allowed to, and all he found was half a jar of mayo, some very old cheese, and a mouldy tomato.note
- Rod Allbright Alien Adventures: Rod's inability to lie comes from the time he swiped one of his mother's famous chocolate cookies, despite her telling him he couldn't have one, and tried to deny it when she caught him. The resulting punishment (time-out in a corner) for lying ensured he wouldn't lie again until he has no other choice, during a life-or-death confrontation with the book's villain.
Live-Action TV
- In Cluedo, there were various incidents of people stealing food from Mrs White's kitchen, and being duly admonished.
- Professor Plum has his knuckles rapped by Mrs White, when he helps himself to a snack after using rat poison.
Mrs White: You wash your hands before you handle those! You've been putting more of that stuff about, you ought to know better, sir.
- A window cleaner helps himself to a sausage roll, to Mrs White's annoyance.
Mrs White: How dare you!! You set one foot in my kitchen again, and you'll get a taste of this! (points a sharp knife at him)
- In the same episode, Mrs Peacock admits to pinching one of Mrs White's delicious sausage rolls while confessing to the murder of the same window cleaner.
- Professor Plum has his knuckles rapped by Mrs White, when he helps himself to a snack after using rat poison.
- On Diff'rent Strokes, Arnold gets caught sneaking in a powdered doughnut after all junk foods are banned from his house.
- In the Fawlty Towers episode "Gourmet Night", Basil is constantly eating savouries, including from a pile of them on the engine of his car, when he is trying to mend it himself. In the kitchen, Sybil catches him at it, and neatly confiscates the plate with "are you at those again?".
- In an episode of Necessary Roughness a football player keeps failing his weight checks despite being on a strict diet. Everyone thinks that he is sneaking snacks while no one is looking but he vehemently denies it. In the end footage from a nanny-cam reveals that he is sleep eating. The stress in his life has gotten so bad that he is sneaking snacks while he is sleep walking and is not aware of what he is doing.
- In The Odd Couple episode "The Fat Farm", Felix talks Oscar into joining him at a weight-loss retreat he attends every year. Outside food is not allowed, but Oscar manages to sneak in a number of items from a deli nearby. Unfortunately for him, Felix can identify every one by smell... as well as the can opener Oscar brought.
- Scrubs: When Elliot made cookies for both of them, JD ate all of his in the time it took her to change her pants, with the reasoning that Turk will come to steal them. Elliot scoffs, mostly because JD's Imagine Spot depicted Turk using a gas grenade to incapacitate them, but their piano mat goes off in the dead of the night, followed by Turk leaving with Elliot's half of the cookies.
- On one of the early The Simpsons shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, Bart steals the cookies Marge made, calling it "the perfect crime". They find him later on the floor with a tummy ache, moaning, "There is no perfect crime."
Video Games
- Beyond: Two Souls: An amusing example in the "My Imaginary Friend" chapter, where little Jodie can have Aiden use his telekinetic powers to get her a cookie from the jar on top of the fridge after her mom told her no.
- Kris of Deltarune is noted to do this, with their mother resorting to locking up her chocolate to keep it from them.
- In Fortune Summoners, The Rival, Colm, sneaks snacks on a school trip (since they were only allowed to bring a certain amount with them) by hiding them in his water bottle.
Visual Novels
- Averted with the protagonist of Double Homework as a mark of how much he cares about his Olympic ambitions. Even after his training regimen falls by the wayside, he keeps his dietary habits.
Web Comics
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid has Greg Heffley hide in the laundry hamper to find out who's been stealing the lunch treats and discovers that his dad is the thief.
Web Original
- wikiHow provides this guide on How to Sneak Candy Into Your Room, directed toward teenagers.
- So many parenting forums have had members post about their children doing this that it would be easier to make a list of these where no one has ever brought it up!
Western Animation
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: A short involves Jimmy Neutron trying to sneak a cookie from the cookie jar and being caught by his mother, who scolds him at first, but relents and says he can have just one little cookie. The short revolves around his usage of an invention that enables him to attain multiple cookies.
- An episode of American Dad! involves Stan sneaking the cookie dough that Francine specifically told him not to eat. Hilarity Ensues when Francine berates him for committing Parental Incest with Hayley and Stan thinks she caught him stealing the cookie dough.
Stan: Okay yes, you caught me, but can you blame me? It's just so sweet and tasty!
- Captain Flamingo: In "Exhibit Yikes!", Milo sneaks to the pantry for a box of ice cream sandwiches. Although he was tempting to not eat it as he has to eat supper first, he decided to eat it anyways without getting caught, which he then regrets as he could get in trouble. He then finds a brochure in the fridge for a military school for problemed children which he fears that he might go there if he gets in big trouble. At the end of the episode, Milo's mom reads a letter from the museum thanking Milo for stopping the thief from stealing the jewel so as a result, she rewards him with some ice cream sandwiches. Unfortunately, Milo ate some of the box earlier in the episode since she noticed that there are some missing, which causes him to get in trouble.
- Dexter's Laboratory: "The Muffin King" revolves around Dad trying to get his hands on Mom's newly baked muffins, a treat he is completely obsessed with, and he ends up coming up with a ridiculous Batman Gambit to get his hands on one after Mom recruits Dee-Dee and Dexter to keep him away from them.
- The Dragon Prince: Ezran often sneaks jelly tarts from the kitchen, even using the castle's secret passageways for this purpose.
- In The Penguins of Madagascar episode "Skorca!", Private is on lookout duty and is warned not to eat sugary snacks. He brings along a box of peanut butter Winkies, assuming that he can restrain himself. He eats the whole box and goes on a sugar high, during which he sees a giant killer whale flying through the streets (actually a balloon float), which the others dismiss as a Winky-induced hallucination.
- The Simpsons:
- Homer does this sometimes, like the time he spent all night eating 64 slices of American cheese. Or in the Treehouse of Horror episode where he sold his soul for a donut — but the contract doesn't take effect until he eats the whole donut so he keeps the last bit in the fridge with a note: "Daddy's soul donut — do not eat." Then late at night he eats it. "Mmmmm, forbidden donut."
- In one episode, "Comic Book Guy", a character whose gluttony sometimes overshadows even Homer's, tries to sneak food into a movie theater. The ushers frisk him, and find he's got damn near half a fridge hidden in his clothes. He just disdainfully tells them they'll never find it all no matter how much they search him, and that he's "baking cupcakes as we speak".
- In The Smurfs episode "Gormandizing Greedy", Greedy is caught sneaking around a pie underneath his Smurf hat.
Other
- There is a children's game that revolves around finding out "Who Stole the Cookie From the Cookie Jar?" that goes something like this:
Group: Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?
(Beat)
Accuser: [name of a child in the circle] stole the cookie from the cookie jar.
Accused: Who, me?
Group: Yes, you!
Accused: Not me!/Couldn't be!/Wasn't me!
Group: Then who?
Prev. Accused (now Accuser): [name of a child in the circle] stole the cookie from the cookie jar.
