Instant Plunder, Just Add Pirates

Only the scurviest Ninja fanboy would dare accuse that Pirates have no code of awesome! If there be room f'r pirates in yer story, but pirates not be the main point of yer tale, the pirates'll be there anyway.

If yer story be taking place in the Caribbean in the Great Age of Piracy, that be easy. But if it ain't, don't let that stop ye! Battle of Gettysburg? Arr, the scurvy graycoats would've won that, if Picket's Charge hadn't run full-tilt into a band of Bluebeard's blistering buccaneers! Not in the history books, you say? Aye, that scalawag Meade paid us good gold to let him have the credit. So... just between you an' me, aye?

So if your story be draggin', or the game be slow, or ye just need a bit o' color to make up for all them blasted Ninjas, mind ye just throw in a few freebooters, and yer good as gold!

A Sub Trope of Pirate and Rule of Cool.

Compare Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot, Sky Pirate, Space Pirates, Instant Awesome Just Add Ninja.

Film

 * The Princess Bride: The Dread Pirate Roberts.
 * A Fairly Odd Movie Grow Up Timmy Turner has Timmy fighting a bunch of pirates for his birthday in the opening scene.

Literature

 * The corsairs that Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas fight in Lord of the Rings.
 * There are pirates in My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding. Cursed pirates, yet.

Live Action TV

 * The 2011 Super Sentai season is the pirate themed Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. (Kaizoku means pirate.)
 * Also, there are plenty of series where pirates show up where you wouldn't expect them. In Tensou Sentai Goseiger, one sea animal-based Mecha Expansion Pack gives the main robot a pirate theme.

Newspaper Comics

 * Brewster Rockit has pirates. Space pirates. Space software pirates.
 * Milton Caniff was hired by Joseph Patterson, Editor of the Chicago Tribune--New York Daily News Syndicate, to create a new comic strip. Caniff suggested several titles, and Patterson liked his suggestion "Terry", but then added the words "and the Pirates" to the title. Which pretty much obligated Caniff to add some pirates, which were not in his original concept for the strip.

Video Games

 * To get your ship in Final Fantasy I, you have to fight a gang of pirates who've been terrorizing the town.
 * And in Final Fantasy II same thing!
 * In Final Fantasy V, you're kidnapped by pirates... and Captain Faris becomes a party member because "he" is actually royalty.
 * Pirates steal one of the stars in Super Mario RPG.
 * Pirate sharks, actually.
 * Mario also joins a pirate crew in Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door for one chapter.
 * Chrono Cross has the pirate captain Fargo.
 * In Disgaea 2 there are random chances in the Item World that pirates will attack you. Even though they are called pirates, lots of them don't have a ship, and rather are pirates only in name while following a Gang of Hats pattern, like Wealthy Pirates using only rare equipment and surfing into the stage in a rare treasure chest, or the mage pirates being mages, and similar.
 * In Disgaea 3 it's possible to become a pirate yourself.
 * In Disgaea 4 a Promise Unforgotten, you can make "your very own pirate ship, yarr!"
 * The Pirate class in Dragon Quest games that have job systems.
 * First village in Croc 2 has you fighting pirate dantinis.
 * Roughly one-sixth of Epic Mickey (perhaps more, as it's a pretty long chapter) deals with a large group of pirates stranded in a jungle. Justified, as it's based on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride, a major attraction at Disneyland.

Web Comics

 * In the webcomic Zap, Reona is kidnapped by Space Pirates.

Western Animation

 * In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Katara gets a scroll to teach waterbending from a gang of pirates.
 * Teaching kids the valuable lesson that it's ok to steal from thieves who (probably) stole the thing in the first place
 * The "Pirate of the Airways" episode of Goldie Gold and Action Jack.
 * Futurama had the Planet Express ship once attacked by Space Pirates.
 * Too late did they realize that their children was their only real treasure...
 * In Codename Kids Next Door there's a pirate named Sticky-Beard and he has a crew who's obsessed with candy. Their ship can sail through land, leaving a massive furrow in its wake. He occasionally plays the Worthy Opponent to Numbah 5 in her candy-hunter adventures, and holds a begrudging respect for the girl as she can "eat him under the table" when it comes to sugar/FrothyMugsOfWater.
 * The Venture Brothers ran afoul of ghost pirates in the Sargasso Sea - though the 'ghost' bit was a ruse, and the pirating wasn't a lucrative business, their main plunder being from a Toys-R-Us shipment.
 * Re Boot had the Pirates of the Saucy Mare show up to plunder Mainframe. Initially intended to be one-off villains, they reappear halfway through season 3 and help the heroes through the rest of it.