Basic Trope: A quick explanation for illegally obtaining something.
- Straight: Alice asks Bob where he got that Briefcase Full of Money. Bob says he saw it fall off a truck.
- Exaggerated: Alice sees that Bob's swimming pool is loaded with money. Bob says a truck holding it crashed.
- Downplayed:
- Bob shows Alice an envelope of money that he says he found in the park.
- The goods did fall off the truck, but when the trucker came back for the missing goods, Bob lies and says he never saw them.
- Justified: Bob really did see the briefcase fall off the back of a truck and no one saw him pick it up.
- Inverted:
- Bob throws a Briefcase Full of Money onto a truck.
- Bob tells Alice that his Briefcase Full of Money got lost at airport security.
- Bob catches a Briefcase Full of Money after it falls off the back of a truck, and claims he got it by selling heroin.
- Bob disposes of a suitcase full of drugs by throwing it onto the back of a random truck.
- Subverted:
- Bob tells the truth to Alice — he got the money dealing drugs.
- "It fell off the truck... when my buddy kicked it off".
- Double Subverted: ...but this particular briefcase fell off the back of a truck.
- Parodied:
- Alice tells Bob that he got a truck when it fell off the back of the truck.
- There is a specific IRS tax form for any "misplaced items" you sell/buy and their taxation. Technically it is not admitting to any crimes, unless you forget to file and pay this tax, and then you will get it worse than Al Capone.
- Implied: Bob is mentioned repeatedly to be very deep in the red, but when Alice goes to his house to deliver some food, she finds him playing games on a top-of-the-line Playstation.
- Zig Zagged: Bob has multiple briefcases obtained in many ways. He tells the truth about some, lies about others but some of them even turn out to be empty.
- Averted: Bob doesn't obtain the briefcase or there is no truck.
- Enforced:
- As part of an Easy Come, Easy Go storyline. Bob must somehow lose the briefcase as easily as he obtained it.
- Bob is a superhero who has access to certain gadgets that are too expensive even if he is supposed to not be part of the Fiction 500, so the writers decide to add that he "just happened to find“ said expensive gadgets.
- Lampshaded: "Yeah, Bob, who's really going to buy that excuse?"
- Invoked: A truck driver holding briefcases of money decides to test out some speed bumps.
- Exploited: Alice asks Bob for some hush money from the briefcase to keep quiet about his acquisition.
- Defied: Bob turns down the briefcase, thinking no one would buy his excuse.
- Discussed: Bob works for the mafia whose boss tells Bob to fabricate a lie about the briefcase.
- Conversed: "There's no way Bob can rationally cover for that Briefcase Full of Money. Watch him lie about it."
- Deconstructed: Nobody buys Bob's lies of how he got the Briefcase Full of Money, back of a truck or otherwise, and the police arrest him for his troubles.
- Reconstructed: But security camera shows that Bob did get the Briefcase Full of Money, which did fall from the back of a truck. This prompts the police to pardon him for his honesty.
- Played For Laughs:
- Bob's nice hat really did fell out of a truck and he's done every attempt to give it back to its original owner to no avail, but his explanation is taken by everybody else as him using code words to conceal him committing a crime, with explosively hilarious results.
- The local criminal underground has an Uber-style delivery service for their illicit sales that involves a truck driving past the customer's house at top speed and tossing the purchased item to their curb (all sales final, by the way).
- It's very clear that Bob is saying Blatant Lies and everybody just looks at him with a nonplussed stare and say a little "huh-huh" but otherwise let it slide, especially if it's an item they direly need at the moment.
- The collateral damage of Bob's antics include a large number of expensive items falling into a truck and the driver sneakily driving off to fence them.
- The item that fell off the back of a truck is broken and useless. Which obviously happens when something fragile falls off a truck.
- Played For Drama: Bob knows that his excuse is not believable, it's a code for "I acquired it illegally" without admitting anything, as well as an implied threat to anyone who wishes to inquire further.
- Played For Horror:
- The illegal item Bob acquired (and then sold) is the cause of the plot's disaster, which leads to many people dying in horrible ways.
- The owners of that "truck" are not happy that Bob stole from them. And they will make sure that Bob and everybody related to this "transaction" die screaming because of it.
I found the back button when it Fell Off the Back of a Truck.
