How do the TV-station machinations qualify as "disasters"? Nobody died, nobody was even injured. At worst, a couple of corporations/millionaires made a little less money than they would have otherwise. Boo-fucking-hoo.
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The trope does not require literal fatality disasters.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Just call me Webs
would the short "Rage", by guyjcollins, act as an example for the Web animation section? I feel like it fits in this trope.
"...But know this now, the Truth that I speak, If you harm that little girl, I'll beat your ass into next week!"
Regarding the Tenerife Air Disaster there is this point:
As the crowning moment of criminal negligence, the tower crew was at the same time watching a football game on television, diverting their concentration from their job.
From the documentaries I have seen and the reports I have read this was a rumour but not actually the case and nothing suggests this to be true, should it be removed or should an addnedum be added?
Is it this trope if things are actually knocked down like dominoes? Because if not we've got quite a few misused wicks to clean up.
That's me.
Moved this example here because it didn't happen. This page isn't about coulda beens is it?
- Apollo 13 was notable for the one domino that didn't fall. The "cryo stir" that finally sparked the explosion? Unscheduled. There were stirs scheduled for later in the mission, including while the lunar lander would have been undocked and on the surface of the moon ... and unavailable to serve as a lifeboat in the short time between the explosion and the command module dying, which would have killed Swigert outright and marooned Lovell and Haise forever.
Locally, our writing group refers to this (especially when it results in death, or a particularly gross, excessive (overkill or salt in wound) or inopportune injury) as the "Rude Goldberg" effect.