History Main / WhammyBid

* VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2 has you attend a Nopon-run auction with Adenine, who wants to get her hands on a rare book. She directly recommends exploiting this trope by going large to stun the other bidders, but hilariously enough even the ''minimum'' bid you can place will achieve that [[PlanetOfHats (Nopon merchants are notorious for their penny-pinching)]].

* In the ''Franchise/DoctorWho'' Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe short story "Fergovy" in ''Decalog 3: Consequences'', the Doctor finds himself at an AuctionOfEvil where various criminals are bidding for a famous work of art that the Doctor himself had previously donated to a museum. Just as it's about to sell for 220,000 mega-[[WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture credits]], the Doctor loudly bids three hundred thousand, then asks if they'd take a post-dated cheque. He's just trying to keep everyone off-balance, of course.

* In the ''Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse'' short story "Fergovy" in ''Decalog 3: Consequences'', the Doctor finds himself at an AuctionOfEvil where various criminals are bidding for a famous work of art that the Doctor himself had previously donated to a museum. Just as it's about to sell for 220,000 mega-[[WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture credits]], the Doctor loudly bids three hundred thousand, then asks if they'd take a post-dated cheque. He's just trying to keep everyone off-balance, of course.

* ''VideoGame/Uncharted4AThiefsEnd''': Nate, Sam and Sully have infiltrated a black-market auction to steal a vital clue in the hunt for [[PirateBooty Avery's treasure]] before the BigBad (a very wealthy rival treasure hunter mostly in it for his own ego) can buy it up, and Sully is forced into a bidding war with him to stall for time. Once Nate and Sam are in position, Sully goads the rival into making a dramatically huge bid out of annoyance, just to make it sweeter when they steal it out from under him seconds later.

* ''Series/BigWolfOnCampus'' has Tommy take part in an auction for charity where a woman his age slams a ''$5000'' bid on him. It turns out she's a female werewolf from an entire country of werewolfs (and even pays in ''their'' currency, which is how Merton figures her out to begin with), and her plans for Tommy are [[spoiler:entirely amiable and good natured.]]
* ''Series/TheGoldenGirls'' has a downplayed example. They're at a date auction (where Blanche, Sophia, and Rose have secretly planned to bribe an attractive man to bid on Dorothy, not expecting the bid to climb above $50) where the bidding on Dorothy starts at $10. Her ex-husband Stan promptly walks in and bids $100. The bidding quickly climbs from there as Sophia and Blanche frantically try to stop their shill from bidding higher.

* Happened on an episode of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', where [[TricksterGod Q]] bid a million bars of gold-pressed latinum during an auction of Gamma Quadrant artifacts. Whether he would have actually paid up is a matter for conjecture.

* When an edition of one of Creator/TerryPratchett's books that was ''so'' rare it wasn't even part of his own collection came up at a Discworld Convention charity auction, Terry would usually whammy bid it. Following his death, Rob Wilkins continued this. At the 2022 Convention he did so by phone from a ''Series/GoodOmens 2'' production meeting in the US. (Discworld fans being what they are, these whammy bids did not always stop the bidding -- in the 2022 case someone kept raising it until Rob started increasing the bid by noticably ''smaller'' amounts, and joked that he no longer had plane fare home.)

* When an edition of one of Creator/TerryPratchett's books that was ''so'' rare it wasn't even part of his own collection came up at a Discworld Convention charity auction, Terry would usually whammy bid it. Following his death, Rob Wilkins continued this. At the 2022 Convention he did so by phone from a ''Series/GoodOmens 2'' production meeting, and joked he no longer had plane fare home.

* In ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'', Franchise/{{Batman}} and [[{{Sidekick}} Robin]] are hypnotized by the seductive Poison Ivy. Batman and Robin then both start bidding on her, but then Batman bids a whopping $7,000,000 on her, with the help of…'''''[[WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic A]] [[BerserkButton BAT]] [[ArtifactOfDoom CREDIT]] [[MemeticMutation CARD]]?!?'''''
** "Never leave the cave without it."