Basic Trope: A verbal put-down Tempts Fate — someone says that something will only happen if something else improbable happens. The improbable thing promptly happens.
- Straight: Charles says "Alice and Bob will get together...when pigs fly!" A winged piglet appears as Alice and Bob are walking down the street, holding hands. Charles is flabbergasted.
- Catholic priest Joe offers rabbi Notgoy Jewstein a pork sausage sandwich, when Joe asks Notgoy when will he eat the sandwich, Notgoy replies with "On your marriage!", this scene is being onlooked by atheist onlookers Alice and Bob, they laugh off the situation as a joke because Catholic priests must be celibate, and pork is not kosher. Cue Joe's marriage and Notgoy eating the sandwich he was offered by Joe. Alice and Bob are flabbergasted.
- Exaggerated: Every pig in the world sprouts wings and starts flying. Meanwhile, a news report on a conveniently located television reports on the Pope converting to Lutheranism, a man becoming a monkey's uncle, Dogs and cats petitioning for Funny Animal marriage rights, and extremely low temperatures in Hell, complete with footage of the Devil refereeing a snowball fight between his ex-mortal guests and the fallen angels.
- Downplayed: A pig walks by with nonfunctioning wings glued to its back. This elicits chuckles from the other characters, but doesn't convince Charles of anything - at least, not until he hears that Alice and Bob have been with each other all night.
- (continuing from Straight 2) Joe makes a fake marriage venue out of cardboard and white paint, except no one's there at the fake venue except Joe, with Alice, Bob and Notgoy onlooking the scene, they all laugh off the situation and Joe eats the sandwich he initially meant to give to Notgoy as a joke.
- Justified:
- Charles is Tempting Fate
- The same mysterious force that causes Alice and Bob to get together causes the pigs to fly, possibly in response to Charles' comment.
- Inverted
- The cause and effect are reversed; i.e. "Pigs will fly . . . when Alice and Bob get together!"
- Sign of the Apocalypse
- Subverted: Charles makes his comment and then receives word that Alice and Bob got together. He expects a pig to fly by, but nothing out of the ordinary happens.
- Double Subverted:
- Parodied: A honey-glazed ham falls from the ceiling into Charles' hand.
- Zig Zagged: A flying pig appears. Later, it turns out it was a balloon. Except Alice and Bob really did get together, and the next morning Charlie SWEARS he sees a pig flying in a parabolic arc through the air. Then it turns out someone launched it from a catapult. Alice and Bob are still together though.
- Averted: No pigs or pig parts appear when Charles makes his comment.
- Enforced: The writers couldn't resist.
- Lampshaded: "So...about those pigs, Charles..."
- Invoked:
- Charles makes the comment because he wants to see flying pigs, and tempts fate in order to do so.
- Dave attaches mechanical wings to a few pigs and waits for the inevitable "when pigs fly" comment.
- Exploited: Charles makes his comment, then when the winged pig comes by he catches it and shows it off as a freak show attraction for profit.
- Defied: Charles cuts himself off the moment he's about to say the phrase, thinking he's going to be Tempting Fate.
- Discussed: "Don't say that! You know the moment you say that, a flying pig will turn up!"
- Conversed: "Yeah, yeah, and then the pigs start flying, seen it already."
- Implied: The day after Charles says the phrase he sees on the news a report about "a freak accident where a car crashed into a winged p-", but Charles changes the channel before the reporter finishes.
- Played For Drama/Played For Laughs: A flying pig appears, and begins terrorizing the city.
- Played For Horror:
- The "when pigs fly" line is part of a doomsday prophecy.
- The flying pigs are generically-engineered man-eating monsters and they swarm and kill Charles.
- The Slasher Film villain decides it would be funny as hell to kill Charles via "flying pig" (loaded to a rocket, cannon, or airdropped and crushes Charles' head, the slasher is not really picky).
You'll go back to Cue the Flying Pigs, when pigs fly!
