In-Universe Examples for Live-Action TV regarding Springtime for Hitler:
- 30 Rock:
- After Tracy stars in a serious, Oscar-winning movie, he starts feeling pressured to be a more serious actor and role model, which he doesn't want at all. With Liz's guidance, he does a series of publicity stunts to get people to stop looking up to him, but either people think he's in character or forget what he was doing when he stops (at one point, he saves a man from drowning). In the end, he realized (with the help of Jack Donaghy) that all he had to do to lose respect was resume working on television.
- Throughout the series, Jack makes it clear that he just views his job at NBC as a stepping stone to becoming CEO. In season seven, Jack tries to tank the network by deliberately giving his approval to shows he thinks will fail (such as God Cop, Homonym, and Tank It). His endgame is for the network's worth to drop so much that CEO Hank Hooper will be forced to sell the network. However, these shows all do well. The fact that he can't predict which shows work and which shows will fail is what convinces Jack to name Kenneth as his successor as he has a genuine love of television.
- Inverted in an episode of All in the Family, where Archie is determined to do everything he can to avoid being forced into retirement (including dyeing his hair jet-black). Oddly enough, it works...but turns out at the end that if he had taken the retirement deal he would've gotten a severance package worth more than his salary.
- The Basil Brush Show episode "The Pitz Hotel" Zigzags this trope. Every attempt Basil and Steven make to drive their hotel guests away so that they can get their flat back only makes them more popular. Eventually, they realize that they can make a fortune using the Reverse Psychology approach; only to discover that the landlord is charging them £100 per night for every guest who stays with them. They eventually get things back to normal using a Failure Gambit; hiring Anil to cook the food, sending most of the guests to hospital (they were the lucky ones).
- Batman (1966): Penguin's Get into Jail Free efforts in "The Penguin's Nest/The Bird's Last Jest." When he's put on trial, he launches into an intentionally absurd Insane Troll Logic argument, only for the judges to buy it and let Penguin go.
- Being Human: Annie is trying to play matchmaker between Hugh and his ex, Kirsty, so she gets George to date Kirsty and be the world's worst boyfriend. Unfortunately, Kirsty likes everything they think will drive her away, from German Expressionist films to kebabs, and she even likes George's terrible poetry.Annie: [as Kirsty dives into George's arms] Sod it, maybe you two are meant for each other!
- In one episode of The Beverly Hillbillies, Granny, believing that Jane Hathaway is feeling unloved, persuades Jethro to propose to her, assuring him that her pride will lead her to turn him down. Unfortunately, it was well-known that Miss Hathaway was amorously infatuated with Jethro, and as such, when he proposed, she accepted without hesitation.Elle May: She said 'Yes'! Wait till Pa finds out about this!
Granny: You can wait if you want to; by sun up I'll be across the state line! - In an episode of Big Time Rush Gustavo pays a girl to date Carlos and then get him to break up with her. Unfortunately, when she tries to break up with him he's okay with her spending all his money and being demanding and emotional. The kicker is when they date for real he breaks up with her because she doesn't like corn dogs.
- In the first series of Blackadder, Blackadder resorts to an increasingly desperate set of measures to get out of an arranged marriage including dressing up as a stereotypical Camp Gay of the period. The plan backfires when his betrothed believes he has dressed up as a Spanish nobleman to impress her.
- Boston Legal:
- Early on, the partners decide that Denny is beyond control and that the best way to get rid of him is to have him fail publicly and spectacularly in a high profile case. Brad Chase wants him gone as much as anyone, but he's disgusted by the intended means. He warns Denny, but Denny is convinced he can't fail. Denny has one of his intermittent moments of brilliance during his closing argument and gets a generous settlement for his client, scuppering the plan.
- Denny gets arrested for possessing a concealed handgun and tries to get found guilty so the Supreme Court can overturn the conviction and destroy Massachusetts handgun laws. Despite the most ridiculous closing argument by his own lawyer, he's found not guilty.
- This is the usual plot of the Bubble Gang skit called "Cheche Bureche". Bureche, good Cheche's mean half-sister, wants to mess up Cheche's life, hoping she will fail. However, it backfires as Cheche gets the win due to the mess caused by Bureche, who screams and wails in agony.
- In an episode of Caroline in the City, Richard tries to make his clingy girlfriend break up with him by picking his nose in front of her. This backfired when she takes it as a sign that he's comfortable enough her to indulge in bad habits...and then promptly goes to get her toenail clippers.
- Played with in an episode of CHiPs. Newly-transferred CHP officer T.C. can seemingly do no wrong; he's so good at his job, the other officers start a pool on when he'll finally screw up. T.C. finds out, and enters the pool himself...just to show that he's a good sport about the whole thing. At the end, Sgt. Getraer points out that he missed an important clue during an investigation, finally making a tangible mistake. But guess who wins the pool?
- Community: When making a commercial for Greendale, Jeff is forced to play the role of the Dean and wants to get out of it. He first tries making an over-the-top performance of him, but the actual Dean loves it. He then tries getting his scene filmed in front of the Luis Guzman statue, planning for it to get cut because the commercial would be using Guzman's image without his permission, and calls his lawyers about it. To Jeff's surprise, Guzman accepts being a part of the ad, and this kicks off the rest of the episode's plot as the Dean becomes a Prima Donna Director over that.
- In one episode of Covert Affairs, Annie is trying to make herself look like someone Trapped by Gambling Debts so her mark will have a reason to believe she needs a way out, and incriminate herself in providing one. She bets her last chips on an event with extremely low probability... and it comes up, winning her thirty thousand dollars.
- Taking the self-referentiality up another level, in season 4 of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Mel Brooks casts Larry David in the lead of The Producers, believing that he will make the show a flop and therefore never have to deal with revivals of it again. Of course, it's a success. Brooks and his wife Anne Bancroft imitate the scene in The Producers in which the two heroes commiserate at the theater bar.
- Dexter, "Si Se Puede". Now that Dexter has Miguel Prado very interested in his... extracurricular activities, he suggests a target that would be impossible to get to through his means — an Aryan Brotherhood leader in a maximum security prison, giving out kill orders to his gang on the outside — in the hopes that Prado will leave him alone. Instead, Miguel goes for the plan whole-hog, arranging for the victim to get transferred into county for testimony so Dexter can spring him and kill him. In retrospect, Dexter should have known that an Assistant District Attorney, especially one as popular as Prado, may have enough pull to do this.
- An episode of Diagnosis: Murder has a race car promoter doing her spin on the scheme: She sponsors a driver with a terrible race record and sells the various backers for nearly three times the money she'd ever get with him winning, confident that after a terrible race season, she'll make a profit on the backings. Of course, the driver suddenly has the best winning streak of his career, driving her to murder.
- In an episode of Drake & Josh, Drake wants to break up with his girlfriend Ashley because of her Annoying Laugh. However, he can't because Ashley's mom is his English teacher. So he takes her on a textbook Springtime for Hitler date.
- Another blatant example was on Elementary where an undersea treasure hunter discovers the location of a sunken Spanish galleon but his research reveals that the ship held nothing valuable when it sunk. Thus, he sells investors on funding his expedition with the promise that each of them would get half the gold he finds, overselling them by about 1500%. The explorer would then spend a small portion of the money to dive down to the wreck, "discover" that it is empty, meaning that he wouldn't have to give the investors anything, and then pocket the remaining $14 million with no one the wiser. Just as he's about to set sail, however, a shady researcher appears with a pirate captain's log that indicates the ship really does have gold on it but not enough to cover his promises (he'd have to pay out $100 million if he found $10 million). He thus tracked the researcher down to kill him and then arranges for a rival explorer to get the log so he'll get to the wreck first, clean it out and give the hunter an excuse for his investors why there was no gold there. Holmes and Watson actually show the key clip from the movie to cite how he was running the exact same scheme as he's arrested.
- The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin:
- When Reggie Perrin decides to tank his hyper-successful Grot stores, he hires the three most incompetent people he knows, along with a random manual laborer, and puts them in jobs completely outside of their experience. All four of them reveal unsuspected talents for their positions, and Grot's profits soar even more.
- Most things about Grot embody this trope. The company was founded as a resounding fuck you to the business world and was intended to be an embarrassment that died quickly. It became a multinational.
- In Father Ted, Ireland, desperate to lose the Eurovision Song Contest so they don't have to host it again, send Father Ted and his really, really bad song "My Lovely Horse" to the competition. It's an aversion, though: it worked.
- Frasier:
- One episode has Niles being forced to act like an ass in front of his wife's friends so that she will have an excuse to break off the marriage while maintaining her social image (It Makes Sense in Context). One attempt has him rudely criticise a man's drinking problem. Instead of being insulted or offended, he has an epiphany and realises that he needs to stop drinking. Everyone ends up thanking Niles and praising him as a good person.
- In another episode, the brothers Crane desperately try to sabotage the performance of a truly abysmal actor, to save him (and themselves) from humiliation. The show goes on anyway.
- The premise of VH-1's Free Radio is that a radio station's shock jock leaves for satellite radio. The station gives an idiotic intern his own show, to keep 'em afloat. His show becomes more popular than the original shock jock's.
- Friends:
- In one episode Joey is making ends meet by giving acting classes. Then just as gets an audition for a boxer role, he learns that one of his students is also up for that, and decides to give him the advice to play the role "supergay". The next class has Joey lamenting that "they liked the stupid gay thing and cast him".
- Another episode has Joey attempting to intentionally set Ross up on a terrible blind date. However he selects an intelligent woman he once dated who loves puzzles and foreign films. Only once he describes her to Phoebe does he realize that he's accidentally set Ross up with his perfect woman.
- In another episode, Phoebe learns that her apartment is fixed from the fire, but worries that Rachel is too happy living with Joey and wouldn't move back in with her. So she tries to drive Rachel into moving out by giving Joey a drum set and then a spider, both of which Rachel enjoys. It gets even worse when it was found out that the apartment was rebuilt with only one bedroom instead of two, meaning that Rachel couldn't have moved back anyway.
- One episode of The Games had Gina attempting to make a strike situation worse in order to teach the Minister a lesson. It backfired, and she ended up saving millions of dollars in wage demands and single-handedly bringing financial stability to the Games. Everyone was shocked.
- Get Smart:
- In the episode "Double Agent", Maxwell Smart needs to lose a lot of money gambling so that KAOS will think he has gambling debts and is willing to defect. Naturally, he ends up winning. He even discards a poker hand of four kings, only to be dealt four aces.
- In the episode "The Whole Tooth And...", Smart has planted a tooth containing secret plans on microfilm in the mouth of someone who turns out to be a criminal. He needs to get arrested and jailed to retrieve it. Attempting to get arrested by not paying his restaurant bill results in the waiter and manager making excuses, expressing sympathy, offering to let him pay later, and finally they and a half dozen other customers all pay out of their own pockets.
- Good Luck Charlie:
- In "Double Whammy", Teddy tried to purposely mess up her tryout to avoid the embarrassment of becoming the school mascot after Amy forced her to try out as a "family heiratage". However, she ends up getting the role by default due to being only the one who showed up.
- In "Wentz' Weather Girls", Tedy and Ivy try to get fired from the newly opened weather-themed restaurant run by Ivy's father by causing havoc. Unfortunately, the customers love it.
- In the fourth season premiere, PJ and Emmett want to move into a bigger apartment. However, since their apartment lease limits them to staying for at least five years, they aren't allowed to move out and instead try to get the landlord to kick them out by doing illegal acts in the building. Unfortunately, the landlord actually loves their antics and joins them. So the two eventually give up and choose to stay.
- In the first season of The Good Place, Michael's neighborhood starts randomly becoming a World of Chaos because Eleanor was sent there by mistake. When Michael works out that something there doesn't belong, he employs Eleanor to help him find it. To avoid being found out, Eleanor convinces Michael that the best thing to do is stop working and do anything to take his mind off of work... which leads him to realize that humans are spontaneous and unpredictable, so it must be a person that was placed in his neighborhood by mistake.
- In Hellcats a law professor is trying to teach his students the meaning of failure by assigning them to research the fake case Koramatsu vs Tennessee but he didn't count on two of his students finding a guy named Koramatsu and convincing him to sue the state.
- House: After Chase claims that women aren't shallow enough to be attracted to him solely based on his looks, House bets him $100 that no matter how undesirable Chase acts during a Speed Dating event, he'll still get no fewer than twelve out of twenty women who want to go out with him again. After one night of trying as hard as possible to turn women off, the Mr. Fanservice is $100 poorer.Chase: (with a stereotypical Surfer Dude accent) I play video games.
Speed Date: (genuinely impressed) Wow! Professionally?
Chase: (snorts) I wish, bro. - Not exactly intending to fail, but certainly not intending to win. In the Australian Dramedy House Rules, a suburban housewife puts herself as a protest candidate for a by-election caused by the death of the local member of parliament. However, when the candidate for the party for whom the electorate is a safe seat fails to lodge his application in time, she finds herself standing essentially unopposed and is elected to state parliament.
- iCarly: In the episode "iGot Detention", Carly tries to get detention in order to film an episode of her webshow in their alongside her best friend (and co-host), Sam. Her first attempt, via triggering the school's fire alarm, fails because it turns out there really was a fire (the microwave in the teacher's lounge had just burst into flames) and the teachers are thankful to her for doing it. She later accomplishes her goal by total accident.
- A serious example from I, Claudius, a favor-seeking senator informs an ailing Caligula that he'll gladly offer the gods his own life in exchange for that of the Emperor, if only the gods would take it. Caligula soon recovers from his illness and of course, being Caligula, insists that the senator commit suicide since "obviously" the gods have taken the man up on his offer, in exchange for restoring Caligula's health.
- I Love Lucy:
- In one episode, the girls start making Aunt Martha's Old Fashioned Salad Dressing, only to find it costs more to make than they can charge. In the second commercial, a randomly picked studio audience member (Lucy) disses the product. But this effort to "un-sell" the salad dressing only increases orders to a level three times as much. Lucy and Ethel even get notes saying "Keep up the comedy bits making fun of the product! We love it!".
- In another episode, when Lucy and Ethel exceed their shopping allowance while in Florida, Lucy comes up with a plan to ask Ricky and Fred to take her and Ethel fishing with them. Knowing they'd say no, the two would use it as an excuse to shop and show the boys the purchases when they got back, with them being unable to get upset about the expense. Unfortunately, Lucy's plan hits a snag when Ricky agrees with the idea (having decided to take the girls fishing so they couldn't shop).
- In the third series of The IT Crowd, Jen is elected Employee of the Month, and has to make a speech. The geeks plot to make her the laughingstock of the office by feeding her a bunch of complete nonsense about IT to use in the speech — like, for instance, the "fact" that the entire Internet resides in a small black box. Unfortunately, it turns out that nobody else attending the speech is even remotely computer-literate either. Though it does end up causing an embarrassment when the "Internet" is destroyed through a fight spilling over from next door...
- In L.A. Law, Gwen Taylor rejects a prosecutor's light sentence for her drug addict client so that he'll get a wake-up call by doing more time. To her shock the prosecutor shrugs and gives her a deal with no jail time at all. The client's father, the one who wanted him to do hard time in the first place, is so angry he tries to get Gwen fired, and she's only spared by the surprise intervention of Rosalind Shays.
- In Las Vegas, a man heads to Vegas after being dumped by his girlfriend and tries to gamble all his money away (not trying to lose on purpose, but intending to keep gambling until he does lose it all), after which he plans to kill himself. He ends up winning millions of dollars, which prompts the casino's management to investigate him. After learning his story, they call his girlfriend, who, taken aback by how hard their breakup hit him, agrees to give him another chance.
- In the third season Made in Canada episode "Beaver Creek: The Movie", Pyramid Productions CEO Alan has written a TV script called Water on the philosophy that many successful television series revolve around water in some way. Production heads Richard, Veronica, and Victor all know the script is terrible and, dreading the idea of Alan holding incessant production meetings for the series, try to kill it by sticking it in Development Hell. Richard also gives a copy of the script to Mandy Forward, who played the title character in Adele of Beaver Creek in the 1980s and is reprising the role for a TV movie, but who also wants revenge on Alan for making a pornographic parody of Beaver Creek using the same sets, and looks forward to telling him to his face that his pet project is awful. However, to everyone's surprise, she loves the script, and offers to make two more Beaver Creek movies if she can play the female lead in Water. Veronica, Victor, and especially Richard are not sure whether to be delighted that the full Beaver Creek trilogy (essentially a licence to print money) can now be made, or frustrated that their efforts to strangle Water at birth have failed.
- One skit on MADtv had Bill Cosby (played by Orlando Jones) try to "better capture the black experience" with "Cosby's Crib", where the parents actively dissuade their son from becoming a doctor by explaining how selling crack renders a FAR higher profit-margin. It got picked up for eight seasons, and was a critical darling for showing how real black people act.
- Malcolm in the Middle:
- An episode features Francis playing Commandant Spangler at pool. If Francis wins, the other cadets will beat him to a pulp because they fear if Spangler loses, he will pettily take it out on the entire school. However, Spangler threatens to punish Francis personally if he doesn't play at his best. Eventually, Francis makes the decision to half-ass his game, but Spangler catches on and tries to make Francis win by intentionally playing badly. Francis returns the favor. In a downplayed example of this trope, it escalates until no-one cares about the score; everyone is just too impressed by the amazing trick shots both players are making to lose the game and once they're done Francis and Spangler congratulate each other on their feats.
- Another episode had two members of Dewey's special needs class running against each other in a school election. Realizing that the campaign was costing their friendship, one of the kids tried to throw the election by deliberately triggering his Tourette's syndrome during a big speech. Naturally, dropping a Cluster F-Bomb in front of the whole school makes him so popular that he wins anyway.
- In the Married... with Children episode "Luck of the Bundys," Al is hit with an incredible string of good luck. Al, of course, knows this is trouble because of the "Bundy Curse," where any good luck a Bundy has will later be offset by an equal amount of bad luck. It gets to the point where he's dealt a royal flush in a poker game. He immediately discards it, knowing that if he played that hand, he was doomed. Of course, he ends up with four aces and wins the hand anyway.
- The premise of the 2017 comedy The Mayor is a young rapper runs for mayor of his small California town just to get publicity for his new album. He acts up majorly in debates, no sense of decorum, rants about how normal folks really feel and slamming his opponent, convinced this will get him in the limelight and make his album a hit. On election night, guess what happens...
- In the first episode of Mr. Belvedere, Kevin's grades on his report card is lower than the deal his parents made for him to get his drivers license. Despite not getting high enough grades, his father decides to let him have his drivers license anyway, since his mother is busy with school. Kevin later admits to Mr. Belvedere that he had changed his grades from B's to D's because he was afraid of handling the responsibility of driving.
- One episode of the TV series Monk featured a killer who developed a rather ingenious method of mailing bombs to his siblings (so he could cut them out of an inheritance), which involved breaking into US Postal Service drop boxes and gluing the bombs to the roof, before setting himself up to deliberately lose a traffic court case and end up in jail, where he'd be when the glue finally weakened, and the packages dropped into circulation; he even took the precaution of mailing a bomb to himself. Unfortunately for him, on his way to commit his traffic infraction, the future killer instead ends up in a head-on collision and in a coma, effectively giving himself the perfect alibi and removing any ability to actually use the money he's murdered his sister for.
- Even better, Monk and Sharona begin visiting the dead woman's relatives, which include her comatose brother, her killer, staying in a hospital. Monk accidentally makes a mess and then unplugs the killer's life support to clean it up with a vacuum. When they visit the other brother the next day, Monk and Sharona learn this jolt was just enough to bring the brother out of his coma; this interview also coincides with the other brother getting his mail bomb, which Monk is able to prevent from detonating, and which ultimately leads to the comatose brother being identified as the killer.
- In The Munsters episode "Herman Picks A Winner", after Eddie is caught gambling at school, Herman decides to teach him a lession by taking his ten dollar savings and deliberately betting it on a losing horse. Much to Herman's shock, however, the horse ends up winning, bringing in three hundred dollars. Thinking it was just a fluke, Herman decides to try again, only for the other horse to win again, resulting in 14,364 bucks. Unbeknownst to Herman, it's revealed that Grandpa had used his magic to make the horses win due to thinking Herman was making a mountain out of things. Unfortunately, the bookie joint Herman had placed his bets at thought he was Born Lucky at picking horses and abducted him to pick winners for them, under threat of wearing a cement overcoat if he was wrong.
- In NCIS, it's revealed that Leon Vance was initially recruited in 1991 for this type of operation. His superior set him up for a very messy Uriah Gambit in order to boost his own career. Thanks to a hotshot Mossad operative named Eli David (Ziva's father), Vance not only survives but ends up being noticed by the higher-ups. The superior's further attempts aren't much better (for him, that is). Vance's career eventually leads him to become NCIS director, while the superior is relegated into obscurity.
- One Neighbours storyline saw Lou Carpenter setting up a restaurant named Little Tommy Tucker's which he intended to make a loss so he could declare it a tax write off. He had the staff dress up in embarrassing Victorian street urchin style costumes and required the patrons to "sing for their supper" by doing a turn up on a stage. Inevitably, the whole thing was so kitsch that the restaurant became a success.
- NewsRadio:
- In the episode "Pure Evil", Dave has been demoted to being Bill's producer while Lisa has taken his job as news director. In an attempt to be fired from his job and hopefully restored to his previous one, he lets Bill do a fake interview with President Bill Clinton. Unfortunately, Dave is not fired, as Bill's routines garner the station its best ratings ever.
- Taken up a notch in the "Who's The Boss?" two-parter.
- In Part 1, Lisa (recently promoted to station manager) gets sick of Bill constantly doing as he pleases, which Dave can relate to. They get the idea to make Bill boss—assuming he'll do an awful job and learn a lesson. Instead, he proves to be a magnificent boss, everything runs perfectly for the first time ever, and he abdicates his position after rubbing Dave and Lisa's noses in it.
- By the end of Part 1, Lisa doesn't want to be station manager again due to the pressure and craziness of the office. She's willing to let Dave takeover again, but he doesn't want the job by this point. (He reasons that since his demotion, he's happier and actually enjoys coming to work.) So, the trope really kicks into gear in Part 2, where Jimmy decides to hold an election for station manager. Both candidates actively try to fail (openly expressing their desire to lose, giving ridiculous answers to questions, etc.). Ultimately, Lisa wins the election, but Jimmy declares Dave "the new boss"—much to everyone's confusion. note Though he failed at failing, the trope is subverted when Dave accepts what happened and even likes it.
- The Office has an episode where Jim tries to sabotage Dwight's speech by giving him a bunch of quotes from Mussolini, Hitler, etc., but in the end, Dwight's speech is a huge success. Jim apparently forgot that those leaders rose to power with the help of stirring rhetoric (which was how Dwight got through to the audience).
- In the Only Fools and Horses 1985 Christmas special "To Hull and Back," the owner of a boat rental company agrees to let the Trotters hire one of his boats, thinking that they're certain to sink or otherwise badly damage it, which will result in a hefty insurance payout. In a subversion, while the Trotters fail to sink the boat, the owner's scheme doesn't backfire on him in any way, meaning that he still ends up with the rental fee that Del paid him, and can try the scam again at some point.
- In Power Rangers Wild Force episode "Fishing For A Friend", in order to revive Toxica from the org spirit world, Jindrax needed to have her horn charged by the force that destroyed her, namely the Wild Force Rangers' Jungle Blaster. Not wanting to fight the Rangers himself, he was instead fortituous to find them fighting Locomotive Org, deciding to wait until the Rangers formed the Jungle Blaster before jumping out and letting the horn get blasted. Unfortunately, Locomotive Org ended up being too much for the Rangers to handle and were soon on the verge of actually losing. As such, in order to get what he needed to revive Toxica, Jindrax had no other choice but to help the Rangers defeat Locomotive Org.
- In season 8 of Red Dwarf, Cat tries to get himself sent to the infirmary (as part of a plan to break out of prison) by picking a fight with the biggest, nastiest inmate on the ship, by openly disrespecting him before declaring the inmate his bitch. The inmate presumes that the Cat must be even tougher than him to speak to him so brazenly and agrees, much to Cat's dismay.
- Blatantly used in an episode of Remington Steele as Steele and Laura investigate attempts on the life of a bad singer who, to their surprise, is headlining a sold-out music tour. Going over the books of her bosses, they realize the two have been selling the rights off to various backers for 50 percent each, figuring with the woman's lack of talent, they'd only do a couple of shows before ending the tour with a fortune. Sadly, they never counted on a millionaire becoming so obsessed with the singer that he bought out every one of her shows. In keeping with a running theme of the show, Steele openly cites the movie as the inspiration for the scheme.
- In the Reno 911! episode "We Don't Want the Pope," the Catholic Church is considering Reno as a possible city to visit, and the police have to make it look as bad as possible to prevent that from happening. It seems like this trope is in effect when the Pope's representatives say they're impressed by the way the police didn't hide their city's problems, and that they're in desperate need of help from the Church. Then it's subverted when they laugh at the idea that the Pope would ever go to Reno, spit at them, and take off in their Helicopter.
- Rumpole of the Bailey: "Rumpole and the Heavy Brigade" has Rumpole hired in one of these by a pair of gangsters, convinced that his reputation as Incompetence, Inc. following a run of poor cases in district court will ensure their stuttering brother will go down in order to cover up their own crimes.
- Seinfeld:
- In the episode "The Millennium", George is approached by headhunters from the Mets who want to hire him for a more lucrative position than he currently has with the Yankees. However, due to his contract, he cannot quit his job to take the new one, he must be fired. No matter what he does, he, of course, cannot get fired. Some of his attempts include: dressing in Babe Ruth's uniform and spilling food all over it, and "streaking" on the field during a game wearing a flesh-coloured nylon bodysuit (he was too embarrassed to actually go naked). All of these end up getting him praise from Steinbrenner (who starts wearing Lou Gherig's pants until he worries he might contract ALS) or being massively popular with the fans ("HEY! BODYSUIT GUY!"). When he finally commits an offense bad enough to get fired for (driving around the parking lot in his car while insulting Steinbrenner over a megaphone, and dragging the World Series trophy from his bumper), Mr. Wilhelm steps in and takes all the blame by claiming the whole thing was his idea and George was Just Following Orders, getting himself fired instead. After Steinbrenner leaves, Wilhelm gleefully reveals that he was after the same Mets job George was.
- In "The Visa", George gets a new girlfriend who thinks he's the funniest guy out of all his friends. He then convinces Jerry to try not to be funny at all so the girl won't realize that George is actually not that funny. Jerry takes it to extremes and acts like a Straw Nihilist around her. This backfires, as George's girlfriend ends up becoming very attracted to Jerry's "dark and disturbed" persona and says she wants to break up with George. Of course, when George tries to prove how disturbed he is by coming clean about the whole thing, she breaks up with him anyway.
- In "The Switch", Jerry wants to break up with his current girlfriend Sandy, who never laughs, and date her roommate who laughs at everything he says, or in other words, do "the switch". George and Jerry spend hours coming up with a plan, until eventually George comes up with this: Jerry will ask Sandy to do a menage a trois with the roommate. This will disgust her, causing her to break up with him and tell the roommate all about how disgusting he is. The roommate will then be flattered by the request. Jerry will call at a time when he knows Sandy is at work and the roommate will go out to dinner with him. Later on, Jerry ends up trying the plan, and it backfires because both Sandy and the roommate are up for the three-way, while Jerry himself isn't "an orgy guy".
- In the following episode, George is very worried when he discovers his new girlfriend has a male roommate who looks quite a bit like him. He figures they must be sleeping together on the side, as the two of them are so similar she must have a type. After successfully getting the roommate out of the way, George discovers to his dismay that all of the apartment's velvet furniture (George loves velvet) belonged to the roommate, and went with him when he left. Considering this a deal-breaker, he attempts to get out of the relationship by proposing a threesome. This time, not only are the girlfriend and roommate both into the idea, they had the idea first and were going to ask him.
- "The Strike" also features a variation of this trope. George hands out cards for donations made to "The Human Fund" to his co-workers so he can get out of buying them gifts. Unfortunately, he also mentions the past, which includes the celebration of Festivus, and George having to pin his father in the "Feats of Strength" which he hates. This intrigues Kramer and easily gets George's father Frank to revive the holiday and a celebration is hastily arranged on the 23rd of December. When Mr. Kruger finds out that "The Human Fund" is a fake charity, he is invited to the festvius dinner where he is nominated for the Feats of Strength but passes. Guess who does the Feats of Strength?
- An episode of Sliders, "The Weaker Sex", was set in Lady Land where women are the dominant gender and no man has ever held public office before. Cue Prof. Arturo running for mayor. He gets far, but he realizes he doesn't want this life, nor can he back out without setting back mens' rights in this dimension. So he plans to throw the election by faking an emotional breakdown during a mayoral debate to make himself look weak. However, the plan ends up backfiring. As it turns out, the reason men do not have equal rights on this world is because they are regarded as aggressive and insensitive, and Arturo's display of emotion caused many women to change their views and support him.
- A Square One TV episode of Mathnet was a remake of The Producers from the audience's point of view. An over-the-hill former Broadway starlet, Lauren Bachanall, raises $2 million and puts up another $2 million of her own money for a revival of her ancient breakout hit, "Anything Went." George Frankly and Kate Monday see the show since Kate's college roommate, Eve Adams, is the number two actress. At Sardi's, the reviews come in saying that while Lauren was horrible, the play was saved by Eve's powerhouse performance. The next day, Lauren can't be found, so Eve, as understudy, takes Lauren's lead role to even greater critical acclaim. Unfortunately, the search for Lauren turns up a ransom note for $5 million and a taped message implying that Eve was in charge of the kidnapping. When Lauren is found a couple of days later, she confirms that Eve kidnapped her to take the lead role — and that Lauren gave her $2 million to the kidnappers to temporarily pacify them. After doing a little digging, the Mathnetters realize that Eve couldn't have kidnapped Lauren, because she was performing a matinee at the time. Further, the account for the show only ever had the backers' $2 million (which was withdrawn before Lauren was kidnapped). It becomes clear that Lauren wanted the show to fail so she could take the backers' money and run. When the show became a hit, she faked the kidnapping so that she could explain why her non-existent $2 million was missing. And, of course, since this is a Broadway show, the explanation is given during an "ad-libbed" musical number. The episode's title: "The Case of the Un-Kidnapping."
- In Star Trek, Cardassians are very much practitioners of the Kangaroo Court, where the sentence is predetermined and the Conservator, the Cardassian Equivalent of a defence lawyer, is more or less there to help the accused to come to terms with their sentence rather than to defend their client, and are heavily invested in making sure the outcome is what the court says it will be because the Cardassian government values stability over justice. So, in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Tribunal", Conservator Kovat accidentally wins his case for Chief O'Brien when Commander Sisko brings in a captured deep cover Cardassian agent that framed O'Brien with the implicit threat of exposing them. Upon realizing he managed to get an "Innocent" verdict, Kovat says aloud "They'll kill me." He is very likely not being hyperbolic.
- An episode of Stitchers has a Senator's son murdered and the investigation leads to the tech company whose app he was publicizing. It turns out the CEO of the company has a history of setting up companies, getting investors to pony up to 3000% more capital than he needs, putting out an app designed to fail and when the company quickly goes under, he pockets the money and shrugs it off as just another bad tech move. For once, his app actually becomes a major success, the investors wanting their money and pushing him to commit the murder in order to have the excuse to close the app down. Too bad the team figures out the truth to confront him at his press conference.
- Taskmaster (NZ): For the 'commit a crime' task in "My Uncle John", Leigh attempts to commit a culinary crime by making a cheese toastie with the wrong kind of cheese and a variety of condiments he doesn't consider belong in a toastie. The result is praised by Paul as the best cheese toastie he's ever tasted, and even Leigh himself admits it tastes so good it makes up for the fact that he's comprehensively failed the task.
- The premise of Ted Lasso is Rebecca, the new owner of a British association football team, wanting to destroy it to get back at her abusive ex-husband since the team was the only thing he loved. So she hires the titular character as the new coach...an American football coach who doesn't know anything about association football. Despite his ignorance of how the sport works, Ted is undaunted and starts pushing the team into becoming winners though kindness and positive reinforcement. This ends up being subverted by the end of the first season, as Rebecca realizes how many people will be put out of work if the team goes under (and that her ex-husband doesn't actually care about the team's fate after all), and she refuses Ted's resignation so they can both build the team into real winners.
- Top Gear had one epic race where the three were tasked to get from Basel (Switzerland) to Blackpool (England) with only a single tank of fuel and no refills allowed. Jeremy Clarkson, believing that the whole thing was impossible and that he could at least run out as he passed his home, decided on a hugely powerful, gas-guzzling Jaguar and intentionally wasted fuel by driving fast and powering the gadgets in his car (including using the heaters on the back seats simply because he could). While the other two presenters, Richard Hammond and James May, made more sensible choices for their cars and were extra-careful to save as much fuel as they could, Jeremy's car didn't die as planned, and as he passed by the exit where his house would be, Clarkson noticed that the Jaguar still had over 130 miles of range and finally decided to take the race seriously. Jeremy finished less than a minute after the winner, so if he hadn't been trying quite so hard to fail, he would've won.
- Happens in an episode of Touched by an Angel where a professional basketball player accepts a large sum of money to throw a big game. He takes a bunch of ridiculous shots trying to miss on purpose, but thanks to the heavenly intervention, he makes every bucket.
- In Veep, Dan fears he'll eventually run afoul of hotheaded CBS This Morning anchor Jane McCabe and that she'll fire him and destroy his career, so he tries to get fired by intentionally screwing up before it ever comes to that. He gets his nemesis Jonah Ryan on as a guest and baits the already volatile Jonah into dropping a Cluster F-Bomb; this of course makes for compelling TV and gets him promoted to co-anchor.
- WKRP in Cincinnati: After the station's changeover to Rock finally turns a profit, Carlson's mother announces yet another format change. Johnny reasons it out: WKRP is meant as a tax-write-off, meant to lose money. Rather than destroy her son's dreams, Mrs. Carlson relents and accepts the profitable station — poor thing.
- Xena: Warrior Princess did a Whole-Plot Reference to The Producers in "The Play's the Thing". Gabrielle loses one of her scrolls, and it's found by Zehra. It's talky and preachy, so Zehra figures she can con people into making big investments for a guaranteed failure. She convinces Gabrielle to produce it as a play, but while she gets those investments, Joxer, Minya, and the rest of the cast chafe at Gabrielle's peaceful vision. They start to make things Bloodier and Gorier, which Gabrielle initially opposes, until it occurs to her that her message is worthless if no one goes to see the play. So, she goes all in for the violence—making the play entertaining and worrying Zehra to no end (especially as she took investments from warlords).
- Young Sheldon: In "Teen Angst and a Smart-Boy Walk of Shame", Sheldon tries throwing a football and rocking CC to sleep, hoping that he will fail and learn how to cope with failure, but he doesn't fail at either of them.
- Zoey 101: In one episode, Zoey and Chase run for class president after nominating each other unwillingly. However their friendship winds up on the rocks when Chase’s friend/roommate Logan tries to buy him the election. In an effort to tank his own campaign he launches an anonymous Attack of the Political Ad against himself but people think Zoey made it and blame her. In the end both decide to drop out, leaving perennial loser Mark Delfiggalo to win.
