Basic Trope: A character opens a box containing something valuable, but prefers the box instead.
- Straight: Jason opens a birthday present containing a Super Megaroid X-11 Spaceship, then tosses it aside and starts playing with the box.
- Exaggerated:
- Jason opens a birthday present containing a Super Megaroid X-11 Spaceship, then kicks it to the curb and calls the box the coolest gift he's ever received.
- Jason proposes to Jane with an extremely expensive ring. Jane accepts, cheerfully exclaiming that she loves the cute little box the ring comes in.
- Downplayed: Jason opens a birthday present containing a Super Megaroid X-11 Spaceship, plays with the box for half an hour, then abandons it and plays with the spaceship.
- Justified:
- Jason has a very active imagination. He may think the box is a Cool Garage for the Super Megaroid X-11 Spaceship.
- Jason is a cat, and cats like playing with boxes.
- It's a big box, good for hiding in. It's also lined with bubble wrap (pop! pop! pop!)
- The Super Megaroid X-11 Spaceship turns out to be a Shoddy Knockoff Product. It looks terrible, barely functions, and falls apart so fast that the big, flashy box it came in genuinely provides more entertainment.
- The "spaceships are cool" fad ended this spring in favor of a "racing cars are cool" fad, Jason's parents (like many others) didn't get the memo.
- Inverted: Jason gives boxes as presents to his friends, and they play with the contents of the boxes.
- Subverted:
- Jason squeals with delight at the box, since he can use it as a Cool Garage for the Super Megaroid X-11 Spaceship.
- Jason the cat ignores a toy in favour of approaching in the box it came in. It turns out that Jason just wanted to sleep in the box, and he is interested in the toy when he feels like playing.
- Double Subverted: Jason spends so much time decorating the box to be a suitable Cool Garage that he forgets to take the Super Megaroid X-11 Spaceship out of its packaging.
- Parodied: Kids everywhere around the world ask their parents/family/friends/Santa Claus for boxes as gifts.
- Zig Zagged: Jason plays with some of his toys, and some of the toyboxes.
- Averted: Jason loves all of his gifts, and leaves the boxes for his parents to clean up.
- Enforced: The show's producer is a Child Hater who wants to demonstrate the vapidity and ungratefulness of children.
- Lampshaded: Jason's grandfather notes that Kids Prefer Boxes must be some kind of universal law of parenting.
- Invoked:
- Jason's uncle Troper gives him socks inside a gigantic, ornate box.
- Jason's parents, noting this tendency in their son, occasionally go down to the local department store and bring home the leftover large appliance boxes for him to play with.
- Exploited:
- Jason's parents spend less money on presents, because he'll like the boxes no matter the price.
- The show is sponsored by a company that sells cardboard structures as toys. If the kids watching the show see how much fun a simple cardboard box can be, surely they'll be interested in a toy that's basically cooler cardboard boxes!
- Defied:
- Jason's parents forbid him from receiving gifts for personal reasons.
- Jason's parents give him his present without a box.
- Discussed: "You know Jason's going to ignore that fancy toy of yours and play with the box instead."
- Conversed: "Since it's a kid's birthday party on a sitcom, you can bet he'll ignore the biggest present and go for the box instead."
- Deconstructed: After Jason ignores the Super Megaroid X-11, his parents decided to give him boxes as presents in the future.
- Reconstructed: Jason is ecstatic that his parents keep showering him with more boxes to play with. They even start looking for gifts that go well with his habit of playing with boxes (markers and stickers to decorate the boxes, toy cars that can use the boxes as garages, and so on...).
- Played For Drama: Jason's parents get angry with him for being ungrateful.
Go back to Kids Prefer Boxes, and don't forget that cool box you got for Christmas!
