Shaggy Dog Story

""What?! That is it, I've had enough! This whole Goddamn adventure has been nothing but pointless build ups towards pay offs that never happen.""

- Black Mage, Eight Bit Theater

A Shaggy Dog Story is a plot with a high level of build-up and complicating action, only to be resolved with an anti-climax or ironic reversal, usually one that makes the entire story meaningless. The term comes from a type of joke (called "gildersome" in The Meaning of Liff) that worked the same way -- a basic premise, a long amount of buildup, and a deliberately underwhelming punchline.

The classic example is a man who bankrupts himself trying to return a shaggy dog to a rich family in England for reward money -- when he finally makes it there, he's told that the dog "wasn't that shaggy" before the door's slammed in his face. The End.

For television, these stories tend to be found in two varieties: serious and comedic.

Serious shaggy dog stories generally put the protagonist on a quest or goal, only to undermine the purpose at the last minute. For instance, a cop spends all episode trying to convict a criminal, only to watch the perp be hit by a car and die before he's brought to trial; or a doctor searches all episode for the cure to a mysterious illness, which seems to miraculously cure itself. This plot highlights the futility of characters' jobs, or the cruel ironies of life. An even crueler variant is Shoot the Shaggy Dog.

Comedic shaggy dog stories are often parodies, undercutting typical plot structures by offering a ridiculous coincidence or unforeseen twist, or even just making the entire episode irrelevant. The Simpsons enjoys these. Comedic shaggy dog stories can be frustrating in their randomness, but often succeed in execution.

This could be cynically viewed as Truth in Television, since a lot of life's events don't seem to have much of a point to them either.

See also Gainax Ending. Can compare to All Just a Dream and Overly Long Gag, and overlap with Happy Ending Override. A reveal that It Was With You All Along may feel like this to the protagonist. For short stories which build up to an unbelievably wretched pun, see Feghoot. Contrast with Shaggy Frog Story, where a familiar story is mangled for comedic purposes.

Not to be confused with Scooby Doo, which is a cartoon featuring Shaggy's dog. Also not to be confused with the Disney's movie The Shaggy Dog.

Anime and Manga
""Who do you admire the most?"
 * The Komuvitan-D miniarc of D Gray Man: Vengeful spirit releases an instantly-transmittable rage virus (originally designed as a supplement to help people work longer hours), Zombie Apocalypse tropes abound, race against time to find the alpha infected and synthesize a cure from his blood...long story short, the alpha is cured at the darkest hour-only to be promptly re-infected three panels later. The situation is fixed (in postscript text) by a side character who had reported to HQ and missed the whole thing, and the next arc begins as if nothing happened. The only thing anyone gets out of this arc is knowledge of just how much Chief Komui cares about his subordinates, even those who passed away years before...
 * In the "Valentine's Day Competition" arc of Mariasama ga Miteru, a whole episode is dedicated to Mifuyu, a minor character who cheats to win a date with popular Sachiko. We get an in-deep explanation of her motivations, which reach back to her childhood when she already wanted to gain Sachiko's friendship, but failed. She is jealous of Sachiko's "petite soeur" Yumi, but then finds her rival is "more special" than herself after all and she decides to give up on the date. In the end she is shown to have cut her hair, cheerfully accepting that she is of minor importance to Sachiko -- and is never mentioned again. The sheer pointlessness of this episode, together with the Family Unfriendly Aesop about "accepting your lower position in life", makes it come dangerously close to being Filler.
 * In Yes Pretty Cure 5, the characters spend working on a plot point that is ultimately resolved in Shaggy Dog fashion:
 * The first series of Ojamajo Doremi has the three main characters working for the entire series to become witches- and succeed- only to give up their powers . This is then turned into a double Shaggy Dog Story when the first episode of the second series has them regain their powers anyway. Then in the finale of the last series,.
 * Here's an analogy for MD Geist. Once upon a time, a man decided to climb a mountain. He fell down and saw a very shaggy dog. Turns out a rich couple lost a very shaggy dog and would give a reward for its return. A woman decided to tag along for the ride after hearing the man's story. When he got on the plane, he found that he couldn't take the dog without preparations, so he took it to the vet. He went to the couple's house, walked directly up to the door with the dog and the woman, and rang the bell. The owners of the dog were happy that they got their dog back, when all of a sudden the man pulled out a shotgun, killed the owners, and shot the dog in the head. The man then walked off into the sunset telling the very confused woman that the battle has only begun.
 * Early in Midori no Hibi, Seiji thinks that Midori has returned to her own body for sure (somehow, she ended up popping out of his right sleeve; replacing his real hand. It's less Nightmare-riffic when you actually read it); it's even a two-parter and he talks about how he misses her. As it turns out, ...
 * The Hayate the Combat Butler manga dedicated a whole chapter to such stories.
 * One of these stories turns out to be a Brick Joke.
 * Naruto's Three-Tails filler arc revolved around Konoha and Orochimaru's efforts to capture the three-tailed beast. In the end, While this is a filler arc and it cannot go against what happened in the manga, knowing what happens in the manga makes the heroes' efforts seem futile.
 * A possible subversion, though, in that three-tails isn't really important to the arc. The real driving force behind the story is the filler character Yukimaru, who Orochimaru is trying to use to control Three-tails. Essentially, the writers shift the focus of the narrative from the Three-Tails, whose fate they have no control over, to Yukimaru. As a filler character, they can control Yukimaru entirely.
 * This also applies to the activities of the Konoha nin during the Hunt for Uchiha arc: they spend the whole time searching for Itachi, and while all kinds of plot happens behind their backs (including unwittingly running into Sasuke's group) they fail to make any leads in battling Akatsuki and by the end of the arc . The only purpose their involvement ultimately served was to demonstrate Tobi's abilities (which he uses to render all of their attacks useless and escape easily).
 * Arguably, the whole  ordeal during the Kage's Summit Arc: Right after Pain's Invasion Arc, Tsunade ends up in a coma from exhaustion
 * In Yu-Gi-Oh 5 Ds the entire Crashtown arc is one of these. In this Yusei comes to Crashtown in order to save . After a series of events in which include turning away from his path of self destruction, the arc ends with Yusei, Jack and Crow leaving Crashtown with  staying behind. What makes it even worse is that this took up a total of 6 episodes, cutting in on the actual plot of the season.
 * The episode "Speak Like A Child" in Cowboy Bebop. After receiving a mysterious tape by airmail, Jet and Spike set out to find a way to play the darn thing so they can find out what's on it. In the end they end up going back to Earth and raiding an antique museum in the basement of a condemned building just for a video player and an old TV,
 * Jet even lampshades it in the preview, stating that the story goes nowhere at all, makes no sense, and all the action is small-scale.
 * In Baccano, the words whispered of the Rail Tracer (a train-riding murderer of urban legend) to Rachel come across as one of these, particularly when her listeners crack up upon hearing them
 * Until they realize what that means.
 * Monster can be seen as a subversion - Tenma's final decision renders the entirety of his off-to-kill-the-monster plan moot and pointless in retrospect, but he could not have reached the same conclusion without undergoing the apparently wasted journey.
 * The first two arcs of Twentieth Century Boys turn out to be Shaggy Dog Stories, coupled with them being arc long Hope Spots as well. However, instead of making those arcs seem pointless and frustrating they help raise the stakes and the tension in the series.
 * Kenji and his friend's plan to stop Friend's cult taking over the world and destroying Tokyo ?.
 * Kanna and co's plan to stop Friend from killing ? . Even if the first goal failed, he still had the second.
 * In Yu Yu Hakusho, Yusuke realizes he can't win the fight with Sensui so he decides to allow himself to be killed so his teammates will be inspired and reach their full potential. However, his friends can't defeat Sensui and Yusuke is resurrected for round two.
 * In Katanagatari, the entire series is more or less this -- ultimately, nobody really gets what they wanted, and nothing really changes because of their actions. Still, the journey was fun, and  got some Character Development out of the whole deal.
 * Bakemonogatari's Tsubasa Cat chapter is kinda like this. Koyomi asked most of his nakama to run around the city to find Shinobu so he can treat his classmate's cat spirit possession (manifestation of Tsubasa's stress over the fact that Koyomi is getting into a relationship with Hitagi). In a true Bakemonogatari spirit, this is all played for Seinfeldian Conversation (and perhaps some World Building). In the end:
 * Koyomi is already part of an Official Couple in the series, Tsubasa's feelings can't be returned.
 * Tsubasa's cat-possession is part psychological, it won't go away for good.
 * Shinobu was always with Koyomi from the start.
 * The Netorare Genre doujinshi series Another World (which had a couple of spinoffs), where the heroine was under the impression that her Nice Guy boyfriend really wanted her to take it regularly in the "back door". As a form of training, she sought the "help" of a particular pervert who relishes said practice due to Freudian Excuse. The resulting turns of events were harrowing to read as she was slowly consumed by lust while being tortured of infidelity. At the end we saw her boyfriend basically brushing off the whole thing as an insignificant curiosity.
 * Much of Planetes. Sure, in the end Hachi is happier and more mature (ditto Yuri, Ai, and arguably Claire,) but most everything is about the same as in the beginning. . The final arc's climax serves as a double dip of this, since not only do  . No, on top of that,.
 * The Ghost in The Shell Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig episode NIGHT CRUISE has no relation to the overall storyline, follows a one-shot character for 90% of the episode, and features the Major and Batou in what could easily be cameo appearances.
 * There are several of these in To Aru Majutsu no Index, most notably the Book of the Law arc and the Daihaseisai arc.
 * The entirety of Shaman King pretty much
 * In the Hentai anime Onmyouji - Ayakashi no Megami there's a big fight between the good and bad guys, with many sacrifices for the good guys. Finally the main heroine succeeds with her plan to unite with the antagonist to stop her. Then the antagonist wins. No explanation given.
 * : One of the big, subjective questions both in the fandom and in the story itself is whether the plot is one of these.
 * Daily Lives of High School Boys might as well be Shaggy Dog Story: The Series.
 * High School Boys and After School: The boys spent most of the skit practicing a campus "Meet Cute" scenario for Tadakuni... only ending with the latter on a Pose of Supplication, saying it is completely useless in the boys' school they're studying.
 * High School Boys and Scary Stories (1 and 2): Tadakuni told extremely horrifying stories invoking extreme actions to Hidenori, Yoshitake and (the eavesdropping) Mei. They were also made up.
 * High School Boys and the Accompanying Girl: After seeing Tadakuni walking with a random girl, his Class 2-A classmates decided to put a halt to his "date"... only to find out that she was just asking for directions.
 * High School Boys and The Power of Friendship: Mei asked the trio to find out who had been stealing her panties (it turned out to be Tadakuni and Hidenori). Yoshitake took the heat, but when she started beating him, he ratted out the two.
 * High School Boys and Traditional Events: the three guys and Karasawa go to the principal and discuss the school's "70-hour fast" tradition. The latter, having only been on his position for three years but unwilling to leave them in the open, makes up a story about how, back in 1984, the principal saved the school from complete shutdown due to low attendance by pleading with prefectural authorities for 70 straight hours. Then Karasawa reveals that Sanada North High was only founded in 1989.
 * High School Boys and the Literature Girl (2): Motoharu went on making wind-related quotes to the Literature Girl. It turned out he spoke to the wrong person -- he intended to speak to his sister Mino.
 * High School Boys and the Train to School: Hidenori spent the whole skit engaging in an Internal Monologue about whether or not he should tell a schoolgirl he sees daily on the trains that she has a hair on a mole on her neck, trying to figure out the consequences, and, eventually, why that was never noticed. After he decided to do so (and still feared a backlash), her response was a bright smile and a "Thank you!"
 * The first and last skits of Episode 4 were about Tadakuni trying to get close to Yoshitake and Hidenori, spending most of the skit eavesdropping (High School Boys and Eavesdropping) or asking Nago for advice (High School Boys and Complaining to Each Other), only to find that the two guys he thought were Yoshitake and Hidenori just happened to be lookalikes.
 * High School Boys and the Cultural Festival (2): Sanada North's Student Council President dared Ringo and her companions to pass through their haunted house without yelling. Ringo coasted through without making so much as a noise... only to finally let out a scream of horror at the sight of a naked Student Council President at the exit.
 * High School Boys and the Cultural Festival (4): After Ringo defeated Sanada North's Student Council President, Karasawa (as an announcer) treated the fighting as but part of a scheduled program.
 * High School Boys and the Biography of a Hero: Hidenori has long idolized "Rubber (Band) Shooter", a masked Bully Hunter who saved him eight years ago. So when he returns to the shrine where he first met him upon hearing the same "Pachelbels Canon" he played back then, Hidenori ran up the steps only to see... shooting rubber bands. Hidenori dashed off the stairs.

Hidenori, before: Rubber (Band) Shooter

Hidenori, after: Hideyo Noguchi."

"Emi: And so, my summer ended without me able to do anything."
 * High School Boys and Holy Night: Hidenori tried his best to avoid being beaten up by Yoshitake's older sister, after he inadvertently pointed out she's always alone during Christmas. Hidenori, being the series' Chick Magnet, went as far as trying to date her. She still beat him up.
 * High School Boys and the New Semester: The boys spent the whole skit discussing the winter break while waiting for the first class of the spring term. Their class teacher came in... and announced that due to a typographical error, school should have started the day after.
 * High School Boy and Ringo's Troubles: Ringo came into North's Student Council to ask whether she is actually too short. After deciding the other members were too Nice Guy to be honest, she decided to ask the Student Council President in the next room instead. The Student Council, fearing that the President was going to say something stupid again, tried to prevent her from leaving the Council room. While their tactics didn't work, the President's answer wasn't stupid either... and Ringo still beat him up.
 * High School Boys and Older Brother: Mei and Yoshitake's older sister asked Yusuke to give the boys a lesson so that they could be "less childish"... only to find he was Not So Different from the main trio.
 * High School Boys and Convenience Stores: Hidenori was given the wrong charge by a trainee employee. After another round of Inner Monologue, he decided to try to get the older employee to straighten up the error... That older employee turned out to be a trainee as well.
 * High School Boys and 100: Motoharu spent the whole skit killing centipedes. Then Mino opened the windows facing the forest and let the centipedes in.
 * High School Boys and Older Brothers and Sisters: Yoshitake's older sister was clearly having a Sanity Slippage for her lack of a boyfriend. Yoshitake and Hidenori at last got Yuusuke to call one of the latter's college buddies (despite all of them being perverts) to date her. While that guy was interested in dating a Joshikousei... what does she look like? Not even Yoshitake knows!
 * High School Boys and the End of Summer: Emi, a girl who lives in Hidenori's maternal hometown, has a crush on Hidenori, who came to visit, and planned to confess to him on the night before he left. The entire episode was about her trying to confess... and right before she's going to say that, Hidenori made a most surprising Reveal: they are cousins.


 * Various cults and evil mages have spent great amounts of time and effort in schemes to resurrect the dark wizard Zeref in Fairy Tail. Then it turns out that Zeref was alive the whole time, and not pleased when he finds out that a bunch of cults have committed many evil acts in his name...

Comedy

 * Norm MacDonald every time he's interviewed so the guy says to me he says to me the guy says..
 * The spoken-word piece "Moose Turd Pie", one of the more famous versions being done by Bruce "Utah" Phillips.

Comic Books

 * Hellblazer had a mammoth 12-issue story spanning two arcs ("Empathy is the Enemy" and "The Red Right Hand") that ended in a manner that wasn't very well received:.
 * Then again, that entire arc suffered from a bigger issue.
 * One issue of Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was ostensibly about the Backstory of the turtles' vigilante friend Casey Jones. After rescuing the victim of a gay bashing, Casey takes him to a bar and, when the guy wants to know why he does this, spends most of the issue talking about his family and how he became a vigilante after muggers killed his older brother. Only one problem, as the bartender explains after Casey has left...Casey never had a brother. Thus, everything between the initial rescue and that reveal is plot-irrelevant.
 * So... that either makes Casey a victim of a mugging turned brutal beat-down himself. Or a gay man who was once brutally beaten if you want to read between the lines. If not none of this holds true, it was a pretty pointless affair overall, yes.
 * Or, it means that Casey is a schizophrenic prone to confabulation, which actually fits very well with the rest of his character
 * The Crusader subplot in Avengers: The Initiative was quite compelling - Crusader was a Skrull advance agent who went native, and joined together with the heroes of Earth (in human form) to repel other Skrull invaders. At the end of the story, he has saved the day, gets congratulated by Nick Fury himself... and is shot through the head by 3D-Man, who can see disguised Skrulls. 3D-Man simply shrugs his arms and says "Skrull."
 * The ex-mercenary Darca Nyl's arc in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. In the series where he was introduced, a Dark Jedi killed his son, a dying Jedi handed over his lightsaber and told him to stop Lycan, and all during the pursuit people assumed that he was a Jedi, and they needed his help. And he gave it, even at the cost of pursuit time, and it felt good. Even after tracking down and killing Lycan, Darca Nyl decides to keep helping people, because it's right and because he thinks that's what his family would have wanted him to do. ...And then a more recent comic came out, with an older, bitter, isolationist Darca Nyl who failed utterly at helping people and retreated to a cabin where he did nothing but carve statues of his wife and son. The "heroes" of the comic only got him to help by threatening to shoot all the statues.
 * Recent Star Wars comics love this. Old Soldier Able was a clone trooper who survived alone on a forsaken planet for years before the Rebellion found him and recruited him and put him into a commando squad. He was by far the most practical and cynical man there, which sometimes irritated the other Rebels, but he tried to adapt and look out for the last Jedi, Luke. ...And then a comic came out where the whole squad got transformed into rakghouls by a Sith talisman.
 * Ultimate Spider-Man #28: Peter Parker sees the Rhino tearing up Manhattan on the news, and rushes to go fight him. Over the course of the issue, he's sidetracked by various other problems, including a parent-teacher conference, Flash Thompson being a dick, and Gwen Stacy crying in a dumpster. By the time Spider-Man gets to the scene, Iron Man has already easily subdued the Rhino.
 * Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog #7: After finding a map leading to Uncle Chuck's greatest treasure, the Freedom Fighters set out to find it, thinking it might be a great weapon he created. Robotnik, hearing this, tries to beat them to it. After an issue worth of struggles, Robotnik secures the treasure, which turns out to be a bronzed pair of Sonic's baby shoes.
 * Transmetropolitan features a three-issue subplot (issues #10-12, year 2) involving Officer Stomponato, a corrupt sentient police dog, gradually tracking down Spider Jerusalem in order to exact revenge,
 * The French author Gotlib has done a lot of these in his Rubriques Ã Brac.
 * Asterix and the Black Gold revolves around a quest to find petroleum for the Gaulish village, since it's an essential ingredient of their magic potion. Asterix and Obelix fail to bring back even the single drop necessary, and so the Romans attack the village at their full vulnerability - but fortunately
 * Lampshaded when
 * One More Day and One Moment in Time play this frustratingly straight. In One More Day, Spider-Man is given the option of getting a redo from Mephisto, to prevent his Aunt from getting shot. In exchange, Peter has to trade his marriage. Simple enough right? But then, One Moment in Time revealed that Mephisto changed absolutely nothing by taking Peter and Mary Jane's marriage. History still plays out exactly the same. The only reason that his Aunt comes back to life is that in this new reality, Peter spirited May back to life instead of wasting time making the deal with Mephisto. In other words, May could have come back to life in the original reality if he had just spent more time with her.
 * Seven Psychopaths is the story of a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits assembled to assassinate Hitler in the fall of 1941. Little do they know Hitler has already been assassinated. "Hitler" these days is just a role played by a series of body doubles acting as puppets for the Nazi party. The team actually does manage to wipe out the body doubles, thanks largely to the Master of Disguise among them getting himself invited to join them. But the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits idea ultimately backfires, as the Master of Disguise, who also happens to be a narcissistic Glory Hound, decides he can't pass up the chance to become the "most beloved man in Germany", so he kills the only other team member who knew about the body double program and lives out the rest of his days as Hitler. The course of the war remains unaffected.
 * Almost every tale by Edward Gorey has elements of this, notably, The Headless Bust and The Unstrung Harp.

Film

 * The Aristocrats is a film which features many stand-up comedians, comedy writers, and other entertainers and celebrities all performing variations on the same shaggy-dog joke, "The Aristocrats". The joke has long been a sort of "secret handshake" between fellow comedians, or an impromptu contest of improvisational skill. The structure of the joke is thus: a man goes into a talent agent's office, and describes (or performs) his "family act" for the talent agent. The content of the act is improvised by the teller of the joke, usually (but not always) involving as many varied, violent, obscene, or offensive acts as possible. The punchline, when the talent agent asks what the man's act is called, is "The Aristocrats!"
 * There is a short story by Robert Bloch (title sadly forgotten) where a writer refers to a manuscript that's a grotesque parody of gritty, Mickey Spillane-esque mysteries (at one point the protagonist mentions his tragic past, which includes being raped by his grandmother). The working title of the manuscript is "The Aristocrats."
 * A classic example of this trope is found in the Marx Brothers film A Night At the Opera. Groucho and Chico spend several minutes haggling over a contract. Chico keeps objecting to the terms, and Groucho keeps tearing off the sections that Chico won't agree to. Finally, nothing remains but the space where Chico has to put his signature, and Groucho hands him a pen. "I can't write," Chico admits sheepishly. "That's all right," replies Groucho, "There's no ink in the pen, anyway."
 * Time Bandits. In the end, it's revealed that
 * But Kevin, so the story wasn't entirely pointless for him in a way...
 * In the Disney live action-animation mix Bedknobs and Broomsticks, most of the movie is spent searching for a powerful spell which could help the English in World War II,
 * Not only that,, making it a double shaggy dog story.
 * But they are able to use the magic to
 * The French movie Chacun Cherche Son Chat (Released in English as While the Cat's Away) plays with this - most of the cast of the movie is looking for the protagonist's missing cat. The cat turns up on its own, midway through the movie, but it hardly ends the movie.
 * Roger Ebert described M Night Shyamalan's The Village as a Shaggy Dog Story, saying "Critics were enjoined after the screening to avoid revealing the plot secrets. That is not because we would spoil the movie for you. It's because if you knew them, you wouldn't want to go."
 * The "secrets" are that
 * Run Lola Run ends with
 * In the second ending (before the second rewind.
 * Of course, both of those outcomes, just like just about everything else that happens in all three storylines, are caused by, albeit one has to watch the movie several times to notice every single causality. It's basically 'Chaos Theory: The Movie'.
 * Cabaret is a very long, drawn-out version of this trope with singing and dancing. Not only is the entire story totally pointless by the end, but none of the characters have developed in any way whatsoever.
 * The Finnish Affectionate Parody film Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning ends with
 * To make the story even shaggier, it's implied that since
 * Murder By Death is an excellent example of this.  The beauty of it is that the movie is hilarious in large part because of this.
 * The Final Destination series movies are about a group of people who somehow escaped death and then find themselves dying from improbable accidents one after another. They spend the movie trying to figure out death's plan and finding a way to defy it and live. They invariably fail and succumb to the inevitable.
 * "But there was no monster!"
 * The climax of Medium Cool is set in motion by a search for the female protagonist's son. Later, he turns up safe at home.
 * The film of The Bonfire of the Vanities attempts this by changing the book's ending.
 * The Big Lebowski follows a bizarre and convoluted Random Events Plot where ultimately the protagonist fails at everything he tries to do. Not only that, most of it turns out to have been completely pointless to begin with:  All he has to show for the entire movie is  . But hey, The Dude abides.
 * A Serious Man has one scene where a rabbi tell the main character about one of his friends, a dentist, who found Hebrew script inscribed on the teeth of a gentile customer of his. After making many attempts to discern their significance, he gave up without knowing how or why they were there. The protagonist in noticeably irritated by the anti-climax.
 * The 2005 The War of the Worlds. Aliens land and proceed to royally kick the shit out of America with superior technology. In the end, the aliens are defeated because they weren't immune to Earth-born diseases.
 * This is how the original book ended, as well.
 * Though in the book it was Britain who faced the aliens.
 * The late-60s Israeli comedy Sallah Shabbati uses one of these as a side plot: the poor immigrant's latest scheme to get cash (so he can get his family out of the refugee camp and into an apartment) is to answer a newspaper ad asking for a dog. When he shows up at the posh Tel Aviv house with a stray he found in the camp, the woman there reacts in horror: "That's not my Pookie!"
 * Big Deal on Madonna Street: The last shot about sums it up:
 * Lots of Middle Eastern movies seem to be about this, and they're depressing. Case in point: Kandahar, which is about a woman who needs to get to Kandahar before her sister, who had both of her legs blown off by a mine, commits suicide. The movie is about her travelling around trying to meet her sister before the date when she said she'd kill herself - but sadly the woman is arrested while trying to cross a border checkpoint. and that's the end
 * Also A Time For Drunken Horses, which if I remember rightly has two little boys on their own without a family, who begin smuggling goods over a snowy mountain pass with horses. To help the horses survive the bitter cold, they are given alcohol (making this movie a case of Exactly What It Says On the Tin). One day they are smuggling a haul and they give the horses too much alcohol and the horses collapse. The end.
 * My Own Private Idaho - Woobie male prostitute with narcolepsy is looking for his long lost mother with the help of a friend of his. Wherever he goes his mother has just moved on. Eventually he and the friend end up in Italy, where it turns out his mother has just left. The friend then decides to abandon him, and the movie ends with him dumped on a road, alone and asleep, having never found his mother
 * The Maltese Falcon is a superb example of this trope.
 * Well, for the villains, sure. They spend the entire movie manipulating and killing each other (as well as anyone who gets in the way) over the eponymous statue of a falcon which is covered in black enamel but secretly covered in jewels. At the end, they form an alliance and attain it... only to find it is a fake. For Sam Spade, though, it's a grandslam: the falcon lured all these villains out of the woodwork, allowing him to work with them, getting him out from under the police's thumb, make money, and even
 * In Eyes Wide Shut, Bill suspects that his wife is having an affair and gets himself embroiled in some dark sexual circles while trying to sow his own wild oats. It turns out that his situation was not nearly as dark as he thought it was, he decides against having sex with anyone after all, and his wife was never disloyal to him in the first place.
 * Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indy and the Nazis spend the whole movie fighting over the eponymous MacGuffin. Then at the end, the Nazis get the Ark and open it only to be swept away by The Wrath Of God. As is often pointed out, Indy could have done nothing and the movie would have still ended the same way.
 * In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy had no reason to go on her whole adventure to find the Wizard and kill the Wicked Witch of the West. The only thing she needed to get home was right on her feet the entire time. As comedian Dennis Miller noted: "So Glenda appears at the end and says, 'You had the power to go home all along!' I always wanted Dorothy to look at her and say, 'Yeah, bitch? And you had the power to tell me that two hours ago!"
 * Burn After Reading ends with the CIA director and Palmer sitting in an office contemplating what the heck happened. The only thing they learned, they muse, is to not do it again, if only they knew what, if anything, they did to cause the whole thing in the first place.
 * The Britney Spears roadtrip movie Crossroads 2002 has this times three, with three childhood wishes: Britney wants to reunite with her Missing Mom, "Anna-Marie" wants to get married, and "Boomkat" wants to be a singer. Near the end of their journey Britney learns her mom wants nothing to do with her ("Samantha" doesn't want any reminders of her slutty past(!)); Anna-Marie discovers her boyfriend is a cheater, and Boomkat is just not as good at singing as Britney.
 * Monty Python and The Holy Grail: Not that the plot matters much but it is ostensibly about King Arthur's quest for the Holy Grail which Arthur takes seriously whether anybody else does or not. When he gets to the final climatic battle charge,
 * Two Lane Blacktop: The film centers on a cross-country race between a mysterious man and a pair of street racers. Along the way, a girl gets mixed up between the two parties, but she eventually just leaves. We never find out the mysterious man's backstory, and both parties forget about the race before anyone wins.
 * A very unusual example is The Usual Suspects; the ending reveals that the entire movie was, but this revelation actually sheds a fascinating new light on what has been happening.
 * U Turn. Sean Penn finds himself in a lot of trouble by accident due to a misunderstanding and is just trying to make his way out of a nasty town when he gets the mob onto him. His only exit out is his car, but then it breaks down and he needs to get it fixed. Meanwhile people are trying to kill him, and the girl he falls for turns against him and is out to kill him too. When the car is finally repaired he finds she stole his keys. Out of desperation to get out of this town he strangles her to death and retrieves the keys. As he lay dying, he finally makes it back to his car to drive off only to find the mechanic who repaired his car duped him and it breaks down again. He resigns himself to his fate.
 * U Turn. Sean Penn finds himself in a lot of trouble by accident due to a misunderstanding and is just trying to make his way out of a nasty town when he gets the mob onto him. His only exit out is his car, but then it breaks down and he needs to get it fixed. Meanwhile people are trying to kill him, and the girl he falls for turns against him and is out to kill him too. When the car is finally repaired he finds she stole his keys. Out of desperation to get out of this town he strangles her to death and retrieves the keys. As he lay dying, he finally makes it back to his car to drive off only to find the mechanic who repaired his car duped him and it breaks down again. He resigns himself to his fate.

Jokes
"Steve: Have you seen Bob?
 * Jokes such as the 'Banana And A Piece Of String' joke do this. In this tale a landlord is plagued by a leprechaun who, each evening prevails upon him to lend the leprechaun a half (then a quarter, then an eighth and so on, this joke can and has gone on for over an hour) of a banana and a piece of string. Each night, an explosion occurs in the room given to the leprechaun, increasing in violence as the quantity of banana decreases, beginning with a mere ruffling of the bedclothes and ending in the complete destruction of the inn. Finally, with his inn utterly destroyed the Landlord begs to know what the leprechaun has done and the leprechaun at last agrees to tell him but only on the condition that the landlord never tells anyone the secret.
 * 'Jimmy and the Little Purple Grapes'. Jimmy convinces his mother to let him pack his own lunchbox, and he chooses to take little purple grapes with him. Throughout the rest of the joke, which takes about five minutes(or until the person telling the joke gets bored), every person who hears the phrase "little purple grapes" from Jimmy becomes enraged and gives him an increasingly harsh punishment. At the end of the joke, Jimmy has been beaten up, expelled, disowned, and put in jail because of that one phrase. His cellmate offers to tell him the reason people become so angry if Jimmy will sneak out of jail and get him some cigarettes. This joke is also known by "purple flowers," but the only real difference is the beginning of the story (where Jimmy sneaks out to be with his girlfriend, and he randomly gives his teacher this excuse. The joke follows from there).
 * A traveler was headed down a lonely road when it began to rain. Luckily he happened upon a monastery just off the side of the road. He knocked on the door and was greeted by one of the monks. He asked if he could stay the night, to which the monk replied that their order would gladly shelter him, as long as he stayed out of the tower with no doors. As he settled down for the night he suddenly heard an ungodly noise coming from the tower the monk mentioned, a cross between screaming and the wind on aluminum foil. Then suddenly it stopped and he soon fell asleep. He awoke refreshed and asked one of the monks about the sound, but the monk replied that only monks of their monastery may know what is in the tower. He thanked the monks for their hospitality and went on his way. About a year later he returned to the monastery and asked about becoming a monk. The head monk replied that if he would aid the monastery in small ways they would consider him. So for the next five years he helped tend the gardens, clean the windows, and learn of the monks' religion. He even once helped them recover a holy relic to be housed in the monastery. Eventually the head monk told the traveler he was ready to become a monk and initiated him. The monks recited a prayer for such an occasion and provided him with a robe of their brotherhood, and the head monk said it was time to see what was in the tower. The head monk led the new initiate down into the catacombs, deeper and deeper until the head monk found and pressed a loose brick. This opened a secret passage leading to a spiral stair. Up, up they went. Their legs grew tired until the head monk opened a trap door leading to a room surrounded with ivy covered trellises. They were inside the tower now. The head monk opened a door leading to another spiral staircase leading to the room at the very top of the tower. The head monk pulled out a key and unlocked the wooden door, pulling it aside to reveal a rusty iron door. The door clattered as the head monk pulled it open, and behind it was a titanium door. The head monk pressed a six digit PIN on a panel on the door and it slid open. The room was at first too dark to see anything. The head monk flipped a switch and a dim light bulb flickered on. Finally the traveler saw with his own eyes the source of that mysterious sound which he had spent all those years laboring to discover.
 * There's this: A guy goes to the doctor because of a stomach ache, and the doctor gives him some pills, and warns him of the side effect, headaches, so he gives him tablets for headaches, but these would give him a sore throat, so he gives him a syrup for a sore throat, and lastly warns him of the syrup's side effect:
 * There once was a knight dressed in black and white garb, riding a black and white horse. He decided to get married to a princess and therefore approached the king to ask him for his daughter's hand. But before arriving at the castle, the black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, encountered a guardian. The guardian said: "I am the first guardian! Who are you?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I am the black and white knight, riding on my black and white horse!" The guardian asked: "What do you want?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I want to marry the king's daughter!" The guardian said: "You may proceed!" So the black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, rode on. Soon, the black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, encountered another guardian. The guardian said: "I am the second guardian! Who are you?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I am the black and white knight, riding on my black and white horse!" The guardian asked: "What do you want?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I want to marry the king's daughter!" The guardian said: "You may proceed!" So the black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, rode on. Then, the black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, encountered yet another guardian. The guardian said: "I am the third guardian! Who are you?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I am the black and white knight, riding on my black and white horse!" The guardian asked: "What do you want?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I want to marry the king's daughter!" The guardian said: "You may proceed!" So the black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, rode on. Finally, the black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, reached the castle. The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, was let to the king. The king asked: "Who are you?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I am the black and white knight, riding on my black and white horse!" The king asked: "What do you want?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I want to marry the your daughter!" The king asked: "Do you have a castle of your own?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "No." The king said: "You cannot marry my daughter without a castle of your own!" So the black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, left the castle and spent some years amassing the wealth needed for building a castle. Then, he re-approached the king's castle. Again, before arriving at the castle, the black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, encountered a guardian. The guardian said: "I am the first guardian! Who are you?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I am the black and white knight, riding on my black and white horse!" The guardian asked: "What do you want?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I want to marry the king's daughter!" The guardian said: "You may proceed!" So the black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, rode on. Soon, the black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, encountered another guardian. The guardian said: "I am the second guardian! Who are you?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I am the black and white knight, riding on my black and white horse!" The guardian asked: "What do you want?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I want to marry the king's daughter!" The guardian said: "You may proceed!" So the black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, rode on. Then, the black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, encountered yet another guardian. The guardian said: "I am the third guardian! Who are you?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I am the black and white knight, riding on my black and white horse!" The guardian asked: "What do you want?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I want to marry the king's daughter!" The guardian said: "You may proceed!" So the black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, rode on. Finally, the black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, reached the castle. The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, was let to the king. The king asked: "Who are you?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I am the black and white knight, riding on my black and white horse!" The king asked: "What do you want?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "I want to marry the your daughter!" The king asked: "Do you have a castle of your own?" The black and white knight, riding on his black and white horse, said: "Yes!" the king then said:
 * A man is on vacation in France, and is enjoying his dinner at a restaurant. Suddenly, a man rushes in, leaves a note on the table, and then runs away. The man picks it up to see what it is and what it says, but the note is in French, which he doesn't understand. When the waiter gives him the bill, the man asks him "excuse me, but what does this note say?" and gives him the note. Upon seeing what it says, the waiter instantly goes into a rage and tells the man to leave the restaurant at once. He does, and brings the note with him, wondering what he got so angry about. Throughout the joke, the man continues showing this note to various people, but gets a worse punishment every time: he gets beaten up, put in jail, and forced to leave the country. When finally at home, he puts the note away in a drawer, seeing how it has brought him nothing but bad luck. Still, he's more curious than ever to what the note says. Later, he befriends a guy that's fluent in French, and after being friends with him for several years, he decides to show this man the note. He puts it in front of him, asking him to translate it for him, but makes him promise that whatever it says, he must not get mad or stop being his friend, just tell him what the note says.
 * A world famous conductor, a marvelous conductor, has decided that he's finally had enough, and he's going to retire. He announced his final performance, and as always, the theatre is completely packed. The performance is amazing, and he decides it's a fitting farewell. He leaves after the performance, but is approached by a group of large, intimidating men. They tell him that he can't quit now, he's just too good, and if he retires, they're going to break his legs. Frightened by the threat, he tries to figure a way out of it. He announces another performance. Again, the theatre is packed, and the performance is marvelous...but at the end, he whips out a pistol and shoots a violinist in the head, killing him instantly. He's arrested and brought before a judge, who asks "How do you plead?". He says "I'm guilty, everyone saw me do it." The judge replies, "Then I have no choice but to sentence you to death by electric chair." Before he's brought to the chair, he's asked for his last meal, and he requests a dozen bananas on a silver platter. He's led to the chair, strapped in, and the machine turned on. It looks like he's dead, but as they're unstrapping him, he twitches a bit, before appearing to come back to life. The executioner says "It is a sign from God to set you free! You may go." This process is repeated several times, each time he commits a bigger crime (bringing out a flamethrower and torching his entire orchestra, throwing a grenade into the audience), going into more detail about his prison stay (his cellmate, the condition of the cell), increasing the amount of power given to the chair (much longer than usual, then enough to short out the entire prison building), and the appearance of the man's death lasting longer (he comes back to life when being taken out of the prison, then scratches are heard from inside his coffin). The last time, the minister giving his eulogy opens his coffin after hearing the scratches and out pops the man, good as new. "How do you keep doing this?" the minister asks. "This is incredible!" To which the man replies:
 * Three men were driving down a lonely country road one night. Suddenly, the car broke down. One man was a mechanic, but try as he might, he couldn't get the car to start. They checked, but there was no cell phone reception for at least a hundred yards in every direction. Looking around, they saw a dim light far in the distance, and with no other option, they headed towards it. About halfway there, the wind was becoming fierce. A storm was brewing. They had a brief debate on whether or not to go back to the car, but decided if they were to go back, the wind would be against them, and so continued on. As the rain started to come down, they found the light was from a bed and breakfast. The proprietor was a skinny old woman, so deaf the men needed to shout to get her attention, but polite enough, and was not at all unhappy about them checking in so late. They decided it was late, so they would call a tow truck in the morning, and went to bed. They woke up the next morning and went downstairs for breakfast. The first man ordered Corn Flakes, the second man ordered Corn Flakes, and the third man ordered Fruit Loops. What's the moral of the story?
 * The lion and the elephant are arguing over who's really King of the Jungle; the lion says he's traditionally King, therefore he should be King, but the elephant argues he's stronger, so he should be King. Eventually, they decide to have a football game to settle the matter, and they pick other animals to be on their team. The elephant picks, among others, the rhinoceros because he's big and strong and tough to tackle, while the lion picks, among others, the donkey, because he can kick the ball far with his hind legs. The elephant's team wins the toss and elects to receive. The lion tells the donkey, "Just kick it as high and as far as you can. Oh, and don't kick it to the rhinoceros; he's good." The donkey promises not to kick it to the rhinoceros. The donkey then kicks a beautiful kick...right to the rhinoceros, who runs it back for a touchdown. The lion's team is able to drive back and tie the score, since he has a good team. The lion tells the donkey, "Listen, that was a mistake, and I'll let it go, but don't kick it to the rhinoceros." The donkey says he won't. Once again, he kicks a beautiful kick...right to the rhinoceros, who runs it back for a touchdown again. Once again, the lion's team is able to drive back and tie the score. Dissolve to the 4th quarter. The score is tied. It's being going like this the whole game. The lion is so angry right now steam is coming out of his ears, and says to the donkey, "Listen, if you kick it to the rhinoceros one more time, I'm going to have you for dinner tonight." The donkey says he won't. Once again, he kicks a beautiful kick...right to the rhinoceros. The rhinoceros has it at the 40, the 30, the 20, and he's got no one to stop him, when all of a sudden, he trips and fumbles. The lion's team recovers, and has a chance to win the game. The lion looks around to see what caused the rhinoceros to trip, and that's when he notices the centipede. "Centipede, is that you?" "Yes." "Nice tackle." "Thanks." "Where have you been?" "In the locker room." "The locker room?!? What the hell have you been doing all this time in the locker room?"
 * Billy lived in a boring little town, the only attraction being a run-down old zoo with nothing but run-of-the-mill farm animals. One day, when passing by the zoo, he spots a huge, shiny, brand new enclosure. Running towards it he discovers it houses a bright purple gorilla. The zookeeper sees him admiring it, and he tells him, "Ah, this is the Pan-Pan Fandango Gorilla. Imported him for Nicaragua only this weekend. He's a great animal, and very intelligent: cleans his own enclosure, builds his own shelters, sometimes I think I see him reading the signs! He's really friendly too, you can wave at him and he'll wave back, he plays ball with visitors. Amazing creature. Just one thing - don't touch him." And the zookeeper walks off. Naturally intrigued, Billy sneaks towards the enclosure, and the bright purple gorilla walks up to him. Billy reaches out to touch, and the gorilla reaches back... But the zookeeper arrives and shouts, "What did I tell you! No touching!" and chases him out of the zoo. Billy comes back late that night while the zookeeper's asleep, and finds the purple gorilla just sitting there in the cage, waiting for him. They reach out, and finally touch, and the gorilla lets out a huge roar, suddenly ferocious. Billy runs in terror, but the gorilla leaps out of the enclosure and gives chase. Now, here's where the really long part comes - essentially, the joker describes a round-the-world trip, the gorilla chasing Billy. Maybe he gets on a plane, only to see the purple gorilla piloting a biplane after him. Perhaps he hides in a cave and speaks to friendly animals, but the purple gorilla brings his own animal friends and the boy only just escapes. Maybe they go to China and battle ninjas on the Great Wall. Whatever really - my primary school teacher went for the whole year, telling us ten minute snippets of this at the end of each lesson. Anyway, eventually they reach some suitably climactic dead end - Billy's stuck on a rock jutting over Niagara Falls as the immense and angry purple gorilla closes in, maybe they make it back to Billy's hometown where he falls into the enclosure, maybe they make it to the very edge of the universe and the final confrontation happens on a space station. The purple gorilla finally closes in, and this time Billy cannot see any way out. The purple gorilla closes in, eyes ablaze,
 * Bob worked at a soda bottling plant. One day, Bob decided that there should be new markets for soda. So he packed up what he thought we would be the best selling product -- Fresca -- and set sail for Africa to try and sell it. Just before he left, he said to his trusted friend Steve, “If I do not return from Africa in six months, I want you to come search for me.” So Bob sailed off to Africa with lots and lots of Fresca. Six months came and went, and Steve did not hear from Bob. The six months turned to seven, then eight, and finally a whole year went by without a single message from Bob. So Steve packed his own boat and sailed off to Africa. The trip was a long one. Just as Steve arrived to shore, he spotted a fisherman along the coast with a rod and reel in one hand, and a can of Fresca in the other! So Steve asked the fisherman if he had seen Bob. The fisherman replied “Yes I did. And boy, is he a good salesman. Fish tastes good with Fresca.” Steve then proceeded along a trail that led into the woods. About a day later Steve encountered some large bird hunters. They would alternately shoot their rifles into the air, and take a swig of Fresca. Steve asked if they had seen Bob. The hunters answered that they had, and that “birds taste good with Fresca”. Steve continued on, alternating between woods and plains, and finally a savanna. At that point, he encountered a steel trap on the ground but got away just in time. But the trap was sprung anyway, alarming a group of gazelle trappers hiding behind a nearby hedge. When they saw that it was just a person they were mildly disappointed it wasn’t their usual prey, but they chatted for a while. Steve asked them, how in the world does one eat gazelle meat. They answered, “why, with Fresca of course.” Steve was puzzled for a moment before they continued with “Gazelle tastes good with Fresca.” Relieved to know that he was on the right path, Steve continued on his way. After another couple days, Steve was well into the jungle when he spotted a group of bushmen, complete with tribal bones in their faces, ceremonial body paint, spears in hand, along with, quite out of character, bright green cans of Fresca carried on wooden platforms between pairs of men. Steve carefully approached, but the bushmen were friendly and said “berries taste good with Fresca”. So Steve continued on through the jungle. (Steve keeps encountering different groups of native tribes, missionaries, explorers, etc. all of whom met Bob and all of whom think stuff tastes good with Fresca) After three days, and about to give up hope, Steve came to a primitive tribal village, complete with mud huts like you see on TV. But unlike the Tarzan movies, these huts had stacks of cases of Fresca all around. Upon hearing a horn-like sound, Steve was suddenly approached by the tribe’s leader, with nearly all of the village behind him.
 * Three men were driving down a lonely country road one night. Suddenly, the car broke down. One man was a mechanic, but try as he might, he couldn't get the car to start. They checked, but there was no cell phone reception for at least a hundred yards in every direction. Looking around, they saw a dim light far in the distance, and with no other option, they headed towards it. About halfway there, the wind was becoming fierce. A storm was brewing. They had a brief debate on whether or not to go back to the car, but decided if they were to go back, the wind would be against them, and so continued on. As the rain started to come down, they found the light was from a bed and breakfast. The proprietor was a skinny old woman, so deaf the men needed to shout to get her attention, but polite enough, and was not at all unhappy about them checking in so late. They decided it was late, so they would call a tow truck in the morning, and went to bed. They woke up the next morning and went downstairs for breakfast. The first man ordered Corn Flakes, the second man ordered Corn Flakes, and the third man ordered Fruit Loops. What's the moral of the story?
 * The lion and the elephant are arguing over who's really King of the Jungle; the lion says he's traditionally King, therefore he should be King, but the elephant argues he's stronger, so he should be King. Eventually, they decide to have a football game to settle the matter, and they pick other animals to be on their team. The elephant picks, among others, the rhinoceros because he's big and strong and tough to tackle, while the lion picks, among others, the donkey, because he can kick the ball far with his hind legs. The elephant's team wins the toss and elects to receive. The lion tells the donkey, "Just kick it as high and as far as you can. Oh, and don't kick it to the rhinoceros; he's good." The donkey promises not to kick it to the rhinoceros. The donkey then kicks a beautiful kick...right to the rhinoceros, who runs it back for a touchdown. The lion's team is able to drive back and tie the score, since he has a good team. The lion tells the donkey, "Listen, that was a mistake, and I'll let it go, but don't kick it to the rhinoceros." The donkey says he won't. Once again, he kicks a beautiful kick...right to the rhinoceros, who runs it back for a touchdown again. Once again, the lion's team is able to drive back and tie the score. Dissolve to the 4th quarter. The score is tied. It's being going like this the whole game. The lion is so angry right now steam is coming out of his ears, and says to the donkey, "Listen, if you kick it to the rhinoceros one more time, I'm going to have you for dinner tonight." The donkey says he won't. Once again, he kicks a beautiful kick...right to the rhinoceros. The rhinoceros has it at the 40, the 30, the 20, and he's got no one to stop him, when all of a sudden, he trips and fumbles. The lion's team recovers, and has a chance to win the game. The lion looks around to see what caused the rhinoceros to trip, and that's when he notices the centipede. "Centipede, is that you?" "Yes." "Nice tackle." "Thanks." "Where have you been?" "In the locker room." "The locker room?!? What the hell have you been doing all this time in the locker room?"
 * Billy lived in a boring little town, the only attraction being a run-down old zoo with nothing but run-of-the-mill farm animals. One day, when passing by the zoo, he spots a huge, shiny, brand new enclosure. Running towards it he discovers it houses a bright purple gorilla. The zookeeper sees him admiring it, and he tells him, "Ah, this is the Pan-Pan Fandango Gorilla. Imported him for Nicaragua only this weekend. He's a great animal, and very intelligent: cleans his own enclosure, builds his own shelters, sometimes I think I see him reading the signs! He's really friendly too, you can wave at him and he'll wave back, he plays ball with visitors. Amazing creature. Just one thing - don't touch him." And the zookeeper walks off. Naturally intrigued, Billy sneaks towards the enclosure, and the bright purple gorilla walks up to him. Billy reaches out to touch, and the gorilla reaches back... But the zookeeper arrives and shouts, "What did I tell you! No touching!" and chases him out of the zoo. Billy comes back late that night while the zookeeper's asleep, and finds the purple gorilla just sitting there in the cage, waiting for him. They reach out, and finally touch, and the gorilla lets out a huge roar, suddenly ferocious. Billy runs in terror, but the gorilla leaps out of the enclosure and gives chase. Now, here's where the really long part comes - essentially, the joker describes a round-the-world trip, the gorilla chasing Billy. Maybe he gets on a plane, only to see the purple gorilla piloting a biplane after him. Perhaps he hides in a cave and speaks to friendly animals, but the purple gorilla brings his own animal friends and the boy only just escapes. Maybe they go to China and battle ninjas on the Great Wall. Whatever really - my primary school teacher went for the whole year, telling us ten minute snippets of this at the end of each lesson. Anyway, eventually they reach some suitably climactic dead end - Billy's stuck on a rock jutting over Niagara Falls as the immense and angry purple gorilla closes in, maybe they make it back to Billy's hometown where he falls into the enclosure, maybe they make it to the very edge of the universe and the final confrontation happens on a space station. The purple gorilla finally closes in, and this time Billy cannot see any way out. The purple gorilla closes in, eyes ablaze,
 * Bob worked at a soda bottling plant. One day, Bob decided that there should be new markets for soda. So he packed up what he thought we would be the best selling product -- Fresca -- and set sail for Africa to try and sell it. Just before he left, he said to his trusted friend Steve, “If I do not return from Africa in six months, I want you to come search for me.” So Bob sailed off to Africa with lots and lots of Fresca. Six months came and went, and Steve did not hear from Bob. The six months turned to seven, then eight, and finally a whole year went by without a single message from Bob. So Steve packed his own boat and sailed off to Africa. The trip was a long one. Just as Steve arrived to shore, he spotted a fisherman along the coast with a rod and reel in one hand, and a can of Fresca in the other! So Steve asked the fisherman if he had seen Bob. The fisherman replied “Yes I did. And boy, is he a good salesman. Fish tastes good with Fresca.” Steve then proceeded along a trail that led into the woods. About a day later Steve encountered some large bird hunters. They would alternately shoot their rifles into the air, and take a swig of Fresca. Steve asked if they had seen Bob. The hunters answered that they had, and that “birds taste good with Fresca”. Steve continued on, alternating between woods and plains, and finally a savanna. At that point, he encountered a steel trap on the ground but got away just in time. But the trap was sprung anyway, alarming a group of gazelle trappers hiding behind a nearby hedge. When they saw that it was just a person they were mildly disappointed it wasn’t their usual prey, but they chatted for a while. Steve asked them, how in the world does one eat gazelle meat. They answered, “why, with Fresca of course.” Steve was puzzled for a moment before they continued with “Gazelle tastes good with Fresca.” Relieved to know that he was on the right path, Steve continued on his way. After another couple days, Steve was well into the jungle when he spotted a group of bushmen, complete with tribal bones in their faces, ceremonial body paint, spears in hand, along with, quite out of character, bright green cans of Fresca carried on wooden platforms between pairs of men. Steve carefully approached, but the bushmen were friendly and said “berries taste good with Fresca”. So Steve continued on through the jungle. (Steve keeps encountering different groups of native tribes, missionaries, explorers, etc. all of whom met Bob and all of whom think stuff tastes good with Fresca) After three days, and about to give up hope, Steve came to a primitive tribal village, complete with mud huts like you see on TV. But unlike the Tarzan movies, these huts had stacks of cases of Fresca all around. Upon hearing a horn-like sound, Steve was suddenly approached by the tribe’s leader, with nearly all of the village behind him.

Tribal Leader: Yes. He a good man.

Steve: Oh, you mean a good salesman? He sold you all this Fresca?

Leader: He a good man.

Steve: How was he a good man?

Leader: He taste great!

Steve: (with a mixture of surprise and horror, as he noticed the huge metal cauldron perched on wooden sticks) You mean you ate Bob?

Leader: Yes. Bob taste good with Fresca. (as the rest of the villagers nod and make approving sounds)

Steve: You mean you ate his... nose?

Leader: Yes. Nose taste good with Fresca.

Steve: You... you ate his... eyes?

Leader: Yes. Eyes taste good with Fresca.

Steve: You...you ate his... ears?

Leader: Yes. Ears taste good with Fresca.

Steve: You ate his... arms?

Leader: Yes. Arms taste good with Fresca.

Steve: You ate his... legs?

Leader: Yes. Legs taste good with Fresca.

Steve: You ate his... lungs?

Leader: Yes. Lungs taste good with Fresca.

Steve: You ate his... heart?

Leader: Yes. Heart taste good with Fresca.

(etc. etc. etc.)

Steve: Uh... wait a minute. Wait one minute. You don’t mean to tell me you, you ate his...., you know, his, uh, THING?

Leader: Yes.

Steve: (pauses a few seconds) You ate his, THING with Fresca?

Leader: No.

Steve: Huh? But I thought...

Leader: No eat THING with Fresca."


 * Ladies and gentlemen, the Depressed Guy Joke. So there's this guy. He's really, really depressed. He's too depressed to even commit suicide. That's how depressed this guy is. Because he's just so very depressed, he lives in his mom's basement and just sits there being depressed. Well, one day, his mother noticed that the circus was in town. She figured she would buy him a ticket to try to cheer him up, because he's just so depressed, it's depressing. She gives him a ticket for seat 53B, and sends him on his way. Because he's so depressed and has nothing better to do, he goes ahead and arrives a couple of hours early, while the circus is still setting up. Everyone else is really busy, so he wanders over to a nearby giraffe and starts talking to it for a few minutes before wandering off elsewhere. When he came back, the giraffe had fallen over dead. Its long neck was flopped over the side of the enclosure, its tongue was hanging out of its mouth, and flies had already gathered around the body. [Note: This part of the joke should ideally continue for as long as the patience of the teller and listener will allow, along with the creativity of the teller.] The circus finally opens, so the guy goes in, finds seat 53B, and sits down. The show soon starts, and there are acrobats, and jugglers, and magicians, and lion tamers, and everything else that makes a circus worth seeing. At the very end, after the other acts have cleared off the stage, this tiny little car drives out. The door opens, and this massive, morbidly obese, practically spherical clown steps out. The clown asks, "Would the person in seat 53B stand up, please?" The depressed guy goes ahead and stands up, because he has nothing better to do. The clown then says, "Well, there's one end of the horse, but where's the other?" This just makes the guy even more depressed. He goes home and doesn't come out of the basement for thirteen years. All that time, he is planning his revenge on this fat clown. Well, thirteen years after he first went, his mother notices that the same circus is back in town. She goes ahead and buys him another ticket for seat 53B, because she figures that the third time's the charm, and there is no third time without a second time. So the depressed guy returns to the circus, just like the last time. The skeleton of the giraffe is still there, as a modern art piece for some reason. There are a bunch of art critics gathered around it, debating its meaning. The depressed guy listens for a while, before going to take his seat. Well, the show goes just like it did thirteen years ago. The list of performers is exactly the same. The depressed guy gets a little less depressed at the anticipation of getting his revenge on that clown. The show goes on, until finally, the same tiny car comes out onto the empty stage. The same gargantuan clown comes out of the car, and asks, "Would the person in seat 53B stand up, please?" The depressed guy stands up, ready to really give it to the clown. Once again, the clown says, "Well, there's one end of the horse, but where's the other?" The depressed guy takes a deep breath, and shouts,
 * Latvian jokes seem to be this. Their humor stems from the fact that they are written in broken English, but are also quite depressing and horrifying. An example:
 * "Three Latvian are brag about sons. “My son is soldier. He have rape as many women as he want,” say first Latvian. “So?” second say, “My son is farmer. He have all potato he want!” Third Latvian wait long time, then say, “My son is die at birth. For him, struggle is over.” “Wow! You are win us,” say others. But all are feel sad."
 * Or the infamous "Passion fruit Story": A boy has to do an assignment on tropical fruits for a geography assignment, as he hands it in, the teacher asks: "What did you do your assignment on?" the boy replied "Passion fruits". The man is then overcome with rage and sends him out of the class. As the principal walks by, he asks why the boy is out of class. The boy replies, "I did a report on passion fruits". The principal expels him on the spot. The boy goes home, tells his mother about the passion fruits and she throws him out. The boy is homeless, and lying on a park bench when a police officer arrives, asking him why he is homeless. Cue the boy getting a (25 year) life sentence. As he gets his case appealed, he explains the passion fruit story. He gets another 25 year life sentence. Near the end of this sentence, the 65 year old man gets approached by someone saying he can explain the whole passion fruit incident, and to just say you murdered someone to avoid another life sentence. The man goes to his hearing and says "I killed a man, won't do it again" and he is freed. As he crosses the road, about to find out what the hell is going on he crossness the road without looking and gets hit by a car.
 * A variation is "Beaver". The joke opens with a teacher in a class of third-graders going around the classroom asking students what their favorite animal is. While you get the usual puppies and kittens, a kid known for being a troublemaker says his favorite animal is the beaver. Offended, the teacher leads the student up the chain of command demanding he repeat what he said and each person being offended, from vice-principal to principal to superintendent and on and on until he ends up in front of the president of the United States, who decides the best way for the kid to atone for his behavior is to apologize on the floor of the UN. At the UN, the boy says what he said in class, and a member of the general assembly considers what he said so offensive he runs out into the street and gets hit by a car. Final line: "And the moral of the story is: Look Both Ways Before You Cross the Street!".

Literature
""And that's how the Universe began, is it?" said Arthur.
 * An exemplary use of this trope is in Thomas Bangs Thorpe's The Big Bear of Arkansas. The eponymous character seems to follow the archetype of the romanticized American frontiersman, engaged in an epic struggle against nature. The narrator of the story sits in rapt attention while "Big Bear" regales him with the tale of his pursuit of a legendary giant bear; the story meanders pointlessly for a while, and ultimately Big Bear fails to kill the bear before it dies of shock. Why did it die of shock? Because it entered Big Bear's property while Big Bear was taking a shit, and died at the sight of it. That's right, the whole point of the story was to get the reader to listen to a twenty minute story about the narrator voiding his bowels. It gets better - the entire story of his "chasing the big brown bear" may have been nothing more than an extended metaphor for Big Bear's attempting to move a particularly bulky "load." Big Bear of Arkansas is effectively nothing more than a prank against the credulity of New Englanders who over-romanticized life on the frontier.
 * Lawrence Sterne's The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy is probably literature's most famous example of this - the gist is that the book contains precious little of his life (it starts years before the narrator's birth and only ever gets to the stage that Shandy is around 6 months old before heading off back into the period before his birth again) and none of his opinions (his family get plenty of room to air theirs though). It's also very funny.
 * In the final book of His Dark Materials trilogy it is revealed that
 * Also, a number of plot points and much buildup from the first two books is casually tossed aside in favor of a tear-jerker ending enforced by destiny, despite all that talk about it being Lyra's job to overthrow destiny in the first book. The third Shaggy Dog of the books is then tied to the second, since after all the character buildup and romantic subtext, the two main characters are each put on a separate bus, never to see each other again, and with no sufficient reason why they feel the need to go along with this, so the third book of the series is a shaggy dog to the third power.
 * Guy De Maupassant's 1884 short story "The Necklace". A young, lower middle class couple borrows some nice clothes and jewelry from an upper class friend to wear to a party. During the course of the party, the lady loses a nice necklace. Hiding the truth, the two buy a duplicate of the necklace, are forced to sell their house and all their possessions and basically work as slaves for the next twenty years to pay back all the loans, only to be told at the end, resulting in a horrifyingly despicable Know Your Place Aesop that almost borders on Shoot the Shaggy Dog.
 * Readers today can also see the Aesop as "Honesty is the Best Policy". If the borrower had simply told the truth at the beginning, they would have avoided all their problems.
 * An alternate Aesop overlaps with Character Development - the woman in question was bitchy, and used money that her husband would have used to go on a holiday to buy a dress for herself for the party (she didn't borrow it, just the necklace), and borrowed the necklace because she couldn't stand the thought of people seeing her in anything less than stunning attire -- all her self-worth came from her appearance and what people thought of her. After having to move down a couple social classes to pay back their debts, she learns to sympathise with others, to value herself for who she is, not what she looks like, and becomes a much nicer person as a result. An alternate Aesop could easily be that hard work builds character and looks aren't everything.
 * A particularly Downer Ending version is found in the Warhammer 40000: Gaunt's Ghosts book Necropolis. The Ghosts, Vervunhive Primaries, Bluebloods, North Cols, and scratch companies all endure horrendous losses in the ultimately (if just, just barely) successful defense of Vervunhive... and at the end, Vervunhive is abandoned, as the city has been damaged virtually beyond repair and no survivor wants to return. Still, at least the Ghosts got some new blood in the end, as many of the Vervun defenders were impressed by the Ghost's heroism and elected to join them after the battle ended.
 * Also, the Chaos troops would probably have moved on to attack other hive cities had they succeeded in destroying Vervunhive.
 * In the Dragon Age Prequel novel, Rowan is in love with Maric, who she's been politically arranged to marry.  What was the entire point of that?
 * Probably to introduce King Cailen, the son of Maric and Rowan, who is apparently ruling Fereldan by the time the Game starts. (and not doing a very good job, from the looks of it.) Loghain doesn't seem to have a very high opinion of the new king.
 * Yeah, but Cailen would have been born anyway had circumstances been different. Only this time Rowan wouldn't have been in a position she hated. So I ask again: What was the point of that?
 * To emphasize just how far Maric and Loghain value duty over their personal feelings and desires, and giving each of them reasons to become bitter at old age. In case you missed it, it's not a love story, and it isn't supposed to be.
 * The short story "God's Hooks" by Howard Waldrop, in the spirit of all stories about catching improbably large fish, ends with the fish not being caught, making the whole story pointless. (Assuming you think that whether the fish gets caught is the point.)
 * American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (and the film adaptation) - Patrick Bateman becomes increasingly insane and homicidal and a lot of people die at his hands, culminating in him confessing to his lawyer... but in the end, no one believes him, and the book and film end as they begin, with him making boring small talk with boring, self-absorbed people. Patrick himself says at one point: "There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothing..."
 * The Andromeda Strain; the entire book is spent trying to find a cure for said strain, only to reveal at the end that Granted, it's still dangerous, but...
 * Harry Potter, particularly the climax.
 * Also, take note that this actually does something in the plot..
 * Further, it may have been according to plan and it allowed things to happen for the "good guys":
 * My Sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult: Anna was conceived to be a donor match for her sister Kate, who has had aggressive leukemia since she was 2. When her parents ask Anna to donate a kidney when Kate's kidneys fail, she
 * Made even worse in that . Jodi Picoult writes this a lot.
 * The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway: Santiago spends the better part of the book fighting one fish as a classic stoic Hemingway Hero. In the end, he, but it is simply   To add insult to injury, a white resort guest simply mistakes the greatest fish he ever caught for a dolphin washed up on shore.
 * In the Geronimo Stilton book, Geronimo Stilton, Secret Agent, Geronimo has to chase after the deed to The Rodent's Gazette, which was carried off by a very strong wind. Over the course of his search, he ends up going through the wharf, the dump, the sewers, and even his archrival's office, and only succeeds in nabbing the deed with help from his Secret Agent Childhood Friend. He gets the deed back to his grandfather's office by the exact deadline, only to find out the whole thing was just a test set up by his grandfather, who had the real deed in his office the whole time.
 * One of the (many) criticisms against the Magic the Gathering novel The Quest for Karn is that it comes off as an unintentional example of this. "Karn is the only hope of saving our world from the invading Phyrexians! We have to find him! Yay, we spent a whole book finding Karn and we saved him! Only the Phyrexians won anyway. Huh."
 * A previous Magic the Gathering novel, The Darksteel Eye (Which takes place on the world Karn created, incidentally) revolved around the search for three artifacts which will summon the Kaldra Champion who is expected to win the day for the good guys...
 * In Michael Crichton's Sphere the main characters are investigating a most-likely alien ship, that landed on the bottom of the ocean. Inside they find
 * Not really. It ends on a subtle hint that implies that at least one of the characters
 * The War of the Spider Queen is a series of six novels set in the Forgotten Realms world. The plot revolves around a small group of elite warriors, priests, and wizards who are send to investigate the sudden and total disappearance of the chief dark elf goddess Lolth. After traveling the world for months and visiting no less then three hellish dimensions, they have finally located her whereabouts. But as they approach the demonic temple in Hell, where her physical form is located After they've returned home, even the leader of the group is completely frustrated about the fact, that all she did was for nothing.
 * Splinter of the Minds Eye. The Kaiburr Crystal, which amplifies a Force-Sensitive's power many times over, was sought by Luke, Leia, and Vader. And it worked all right. But it also lost power the farther it was from a specific site on the planet, and was completely useless offworld. All that fuss and Brother Sister Incest vibes for nothing.
 * The tragedy of Daisy Miller ultimately (intentionally) comes from this trope. Winterbourne realizes he misjudged Daisy and should have trusted his own opinion of her rather than everyone else's
 * Neil Gaiman's novella collaboration with Yoshitaka Amano, The Sandman: The Dream Hunters, concerns a tale where a monk is cursed by a onmyoji to die from an entrapping dream, so that the onmyoji can find peace with himself. A fox, who had earlier fallen in love with the monk after trying to trick him, attempts to save the monk. In the end,
 * Lewis Carroll's poem The Hunting of the Snark. A dysfunctional party's search for the mythical Snark ends with.
 * With the exception of one chapter entirely about how two natural enemies in the party become best friends. The ending, in which the crew was apparently transformed by witnessing the Baker's heroic efforts, might have gone somewhere if it hadn't ended at that exact point... which is very clearly why it ''did'.
 * Older Than Dirt: The Epic of Gilgamesh is not only one of the oldest written stories still in existence, but also an ancient Shaggy Dog Story, in which we learn about this epic (if often cruel by modern standards) hero, who slays monsters, challenges gods, dares seek immortality... then fails in his quest due to sloppy packing, and dies of old age.
 * Neil Gaiman's American Gods concludes, after countless chapters of the protagonist not really doing anything proactive towards the main plot, with a minor side character being literally told, in person, by the three fates, how to stop The Chessmaster. Then, she does it. Unsurprisingly, it works. Our hero, thus freed from the cumbersome narrative demands of the Big Bad, goes on to face a trivial side villain who apparently wants to die anyway, watches as no fewer than four potential love interest characters head off their separate ways, and... that's it. The book ends on neither a bang nor a whimper, but a note so soft, you could swear it was waiting for a moment to unleash all the epicness inherent in its premise to this day... but it's not.
 * There has been at least one short story published since then, which features Shadow taking a much more proactive role in his life in general, so there's that.
 * Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about an idealized future floating city, ruled by an emperor-like leader, that in the end is brought down under the weight of a bunch of military spaceships - all in service of setting up the last line of the story, which is a fairly bad pun. The title of the story? "Shah Guido G." As Asimov himself admitted in commentary, it's all there in the title. (If you don't see it, split the title between the "i" and the "d." Now read.)
 * Oddly enough, despite the lampshade it isn't actually all that good an example - sure, the point of the story was to set up a bad pun, but as the other character in the framing story points out, the narrator did bring down the floating city (it just happened to be by manipulation), and that led to a better, more vibrant society being established. In other words, the struggle of the story is not unexpectedly rendered moot when it ends.
 * In the Callahans Crosstime Saloon series by Spider Robinson shaggy dog stories and puns are the common thread through the entire series. Most shaggy dog stories in the series are elaborate build-up to a mindnumbingly horrendous pun to the delight of the crowd (once the BSOD wears off).
 * While Catch-22 itself is not a Shaggy Dog Story, it's made of them. For example, the protagonist Yossarian is a bombardier in WWII. He asks his friend Doc Daneeka to ground him. Yossarian has flown dozens of combat missions and is due to be replaced, but his Pointy Haired Boss of a commander insists on sending his men into greater danger and more missions than any other bomb group. Yossarian asks on the grounds that he's crazy. Doc Daneeka points out that anyone who is crazy must be grounded. Of course, they have to ask to be grounded in order to be grounded. Asking to be grounded in the face of danger is a sign of sanity. Anyone asking to be grounded must therefore be sane, which means they cannot be grounded. Doc Daneeka informs Yossarian of all this and sends him back up to fly. This is where we get the colloquial expression Catch 22 for a situation where the rules of an organization result in damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't. The book is full of similar scenes. It works as a rich source of Black Humor and as a means of delivering the book's Aesop.
 * Otherland, by Tad Williams, has a layered use of this trope. One of the main protagonists, !Xabbu, is an African Bushman (San for the overly pedantic) who is close to, if not the Last of His Kind, and relates many of his tribe's stories to the other characters throughout the novels. These stories lack the narrative structure one would expect of Western literature and frequently have endings that are only tangentially related to their beginnings. Loop back to the main plot: the Other, the quasi-sentient operating system of the eponymous network, which the protagonists are trapped inside of, also appears to have developed a warped sense of narrative causality and keeps trying to steer them into its vision of how its "story" should play out, which is disturbingly random at times. The final blow comes when, after the protagonists have solved the Win to Exit plot, it's discovered that the Other's deepest secret is completely unrelated to any part of the plot which has been revealed to this point, and the resolution of that secret threatens to render everything else that's happened in the story irrelevant. This is discussed extensively by the characters.
 * In True Grit and the 2010 movie based on it, Mattie goes to great effort to see Rooster Cogburn for the first time 25 years after he saved her life and vanished into the night. Would have been a touching reunion if he hadn't died three days before.
 * Kevin J. Anderson's Darksaber. At least, the part about the eponymous superweapon. To make a long story short: the Big Bad built it using shoddy labor and substandard material, and the first time he tried to use it, Rocks Fall Everyone Dies (literally, in this case). All the good guys had to do was show up, and their contribution to the finale was complete.
 * Niel Hancock's Circle of Light series. Much of the plot revolves around the heroes' efforts to keep the Arkenchest out of the hands of the Big Bad. At the end,.
 * In The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, Ford Prefect, three Pan-Galactic Gargleblasters into drinking himself senseless, tries to explain how the universe was made in the first place (which is essential to understanding how it ends). He gets Arthur to picture a film of a black ebony conical bathtub draining of sugar (or fine sand) threaded through a projector backwards so it looks as though the sand is spiraling into the bathtub from the bottom.

"No," said Ford, "but it's a marvelous way to relax.""


 * In The Wise Mans Fear, Kvothe introduces the mercenaries he's traveling with to this trope, with a story of a child born with a golden screw for a belly button, who goes in search of why he was born that way. It takes an entire page to tell, and the end of the story is that he finds the screwdriver that fits the screw, and when it's unscrewed, . As none of his companions have ever heard a shaggy dog story before, their reactions are... amusing.
 * The Patchwork Girl Of Oz is all about Ojo's quest to gather the ingredients needed to cure his uncle of a curse..
 * To make it even worse, the quest for the ingredients was endorsed by both Dorothy and Ozma, who the characters met about halfway through the story. The two characters know both the Tin Woodsman and Glinda well, yet the fact that Glinda can do magic and the Tin Man is a Actual Pacifist apparently do not occur to them, or at least are not worth mentioning.
 * In Animorphs Book #28, "The Experiment", the group spends most of the time investigating the Yeerks' efforts to make a drug that will eliminate free will.
 * David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest is one of these in its entirety. The narrative is famously long, and doesn't appear to be going much of anywhere until the last third, when the action finally picks up. Then the last hundred pages or so are occupied with a description of one of the protagonists having a fever dream. The closest thing to resolution occurs in a throwaway flashback in the book's first chapter. Some readers think this is brilliant, others hate it.
 * Tolkien's The Children of Hurin has shades of this. Turin spends the whole book trying to fight against his curse and even kills the dragon Glaurung who has been destroying his life, only to find out that his wife is actually his sister and both kill themselves. The shagginess is only compounded in The History of Middle Earth material The Wanderings of Hurin where Turin's father, having been forced to watch the curse destroy his children's lives, tries to avenge them and his wife's deaths... only for him to ultimately make things worse and is basically told that he isn't helping anyone. Then he kills himself.
 * In the Spellsinger novel The Day Of The Dissonance, Jon-Tom travels hundreds of dangerous miles to fetch medicine for the ailing wizard Clothahump. Not only does it turn out that the "life-saving" medication is just ordinary aspirin, but Jon-Tom already had several identical tablets in the pocket of the jeans he was wearing when he arrived in Clothahump's world.
 * R. J. Rummel's Reset -- Never Again . The entire book could have been excised from the series and it would not have affected the overreaching plot at all.
 * The first chapter of Wayside School is Falling Down has Louis carry a heavy and fragile package from the first floor of Wayside School, to Mrs. Jewls' classroom, located on floor 30. After he climbs 30 flights of stairs and reaches her door, he has to hold it up for several more minutes, while the kids decide who should open the door. After Louis finally brings the package inside the room, Mrs. Jewls unpacks a computer from inside it, and proclaims that the computer will help her students learn new things more quickly.

Live Action TV
"Rimmer: What a sad story... wait a minute. How did they open the car door?"
 * Law and Order frequently uses serious shaggy dog stories, where the suspect avoids being convicted only to be caught for another crime, dying unexpectedly (and sometimes spectacularly), or otherwise being punished by the forces of Fate. Also, frequently the controversial issue of the day which the defense attorney's scheme is hinged around ends up being irrelevant when a simple, personal motive appears in the last five minutes.
 * Doctor Who. Fans who did dislike RTD's stint as Head Writer usually complain about these. One noted example built up the return of a Dangerous species, and then dismissed them with hardly any time on air.
 * In an episode of Gilmore Girls, Richard and Emily are drawn closer as they try to find the owner of a stray dog that had happened upon them, leading the audience to expect that the experience will lead them to end their separation. In the end, though, the dog's owner claims it and it's back to status quo. The only real revelation to come from the affair is the gender of the dog, which was not what they had thought -- it was a very shaggy dog.
 * Professional Wrestling example: In a bizarre invocation of the Fleeting Demographic Rule, WCW's Halloween Havoc 2000 pay-per-view featured a Sting vs. Jeff Jarrett match, with Jarrett dressed up in Sting face paint. Throughout the match, several fake versions of Sting interfered in the match (reminiscent of 1990's Halloween Havoc, when Sid Vicious fought Sting and was later attacked by a fake), and the real Sting easily handled all of them. One would expect there to be a big payoff from all the fake Sting madness, but the match ended with Jarrett whacking the real Sting with his guitar to win the match.
 * WWE one - John Cena made a shocking comeback to win the 2008 Royal Rumble just two or three months after an injury that was said to put him down for at least six. He invoked his title match against Randy Orton (who was awarded the WWE Championship upon Cena's injury)... and then won by DQ so he didn't take the title. Then he got another two title shots, and lost both of them before moving into another feud without ever getting any revenge on Orton.
 * New characters Nikki and Paolo from season three of Lost turned out to be one big Shaggy Dog Story; after an entire episode spent setting up their circumstances and motivations, they are killed off (horribly) before they can affect the plot in any way. This is mostly the viewers' fault, though- they'd been planned to be more important but nobody liked them so they were quickly written out.
 * Depending on who you talk to, the show has quite a few examples, up to and including the entire thing.
 * In an episode of Red Dwarf, Lister tells Rimmer a story that at first seems to be a serious example of why it is cruel to give machines personalities. He discusses a pair of artificially intelligent shoes that are discontented with their existence and try to escape it by stealing a car. They then accidentally drive it into a canal and "die". A priest, however, comforted the shoes owner by telling him that the shoes had gone to heaven. Turns out the entire lecture was just an excuse for Lister to deliver the Incredibly Lame Pun "Shoes have soles". Rimmer, however, doesn't get it.

"Hawkeye: She throws her arms around you, but you push her away!
 * On Babylon 5, the character of Talia Winters was set up for a big arc from the first season. Kosh copied her personality, she was granted telekinetic powers, and she was growing increasingly disillusioned with the Psi Corps. When the actress wanted to leave, they wrapped up the "implanted personality" arc in one episode where her only significant role was in the last 10 minute "big reveal". She was then Put On a Bus and was never heard from again, except for the implication she was killed off screen.
 * This one's a big case of Real Life Writes the Plot: Talia's actor, Andrea Thompson, had recently divorced Jerry Doyle (who played another major character, Michael Garibaldi), and was being offered a much juicier gig on JAG. She dropped out, and Talia's arc (except for the ) was picked up by Lyta Alexander (who had been established in the Pilot Movie but hadn't joined up for the first season over some contract dispute).
 * CSI: Ending Happy features a dead guy who five other people attempt to murder in a single night, but it eventually turns out that he died accidentally due to a lawn chair collapsing.
 * An example with a twist from The Torkelsons: One character is in a contest to spend time in Paris with a family. As would be expected, she loses. But it's how she loses that makes it a Shaggy Dog Story: She had the highest scores... but the French family wanted to have a boy spend time with them, and there was only one boy in the finals. Meaning the finals had been meaningless before they had even started (Which counts as a Crack Defeat as well).
 * The Wonder Years, the entire damn show. An important part of the plot, if not the most important part, was Kevin being in love with Winnie Cooper. How does the show end?.
 * The Two Ronnies' famous monologues by Ronnie Corbett in his chair. Ostensibly all about telling a single, usually only moderately funny joke, the real joy was in the meandering way he eventually got to the punchline over five minutes, wandering off on a variety of bizarre tangents in the process.
 * Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia: "America's Next Top Paddy's Billboard Model" is this from the perspective of the modeling contestants (especially the ones who had a threeway with Mac in order to win). The winning model's prize was supposed to be a place on the bar's new billboard, but it turns out that before the contest even began, Frank had already put the billboard up with himself on it.
 * A two-episode arc of Power Rangers RPM focuses on Tenaya 7 trying to steal a rare diamond to power up her Monster of the Week, which she claims will ensure easy victory for Venjix. Even though she does steal the diamond, the Rangers destroy the monster in their Megazords within 10 seconds without breaking a sweat.
 * In an episode of Charmed, a summoner spends the entire episode working on a spell that would bring back a very powerful Big Bad from earlier seasons, the Source. It succeeds, but then Piper hits the summoner with her power three times and both the summoner and the summoned Source are vanquished. In less than two minutes.
 * Charmed was made off this trope. In the 1st season, there was an episode in which they meet their male counterparts, supposedly as powerful as they are, only evil. They died in the last 30 seconds of the episode.
 * An episode of Seinfeld details Kramer's quest to return a pair of pants. However he falls on the way, ruining the pants (which he had worn). Elaine later asks what Kramer was planning to wear back after he returned the pants, but as a Cloudcuckoolander, he doesn't understand the question.
 * NCIS's episode SWAK has . They spend the entire episode running around trying to find who did it and why, so they can get a cure, only to find out that.
 * The Joey-Rachel relationship in Friends. There's a few episodes centering around Rachel secretly having feelings for Joey. The cliffhanger of Season 9 has Joey and Rachel kissing. In the first two episodes of Season 10, there's some serious drama about how Ross will feel about the whole thing. And the episode after that...they decide they're better off as friends. The fact that they even went out at all is only mentioned once in the rest of the season.
 * Charlie's little sub plot in Season One of Heroes. Hiro witnesses her die brutally, so he goes back in time six months to prevent the whole thing. Several months take place as the two of them fall in love. When Hiro tries to tell her that she will die, she tells him that she has a blood clot in her brain and will die shortly anyway. Oops. Waste of six good months.
 * Not really, if only from the perspective that what he went through with Charlie forced Hiro to grow up a little bit and fully realize the ramifications of his powers. Would that he had remembered this AFTER the first season...
 * It's also not that much of a Shaggy Dog story if you read the novel Saving Charlie, where the relationship is developed further. Also, Hiro's "accidental" teleports keep carrying him back to the task of saving Claire Bennett and Charlie eventually calls him on the fact that Hiro is neglecting his destiny just to spend time with her. That doesn't stop the two of them from losing their virginity to one another on the night before Charlie is supposed to die though.
 * Of course that wonderful story was tossed in the garbage and this really DID become a Shaggy Dog story as of Volume 5 when Hiro went back to save Charlie and was successful. He somehow managed to get his past self to go to back in time to fall in love with Charlie, get Past Ando to hang around until Past Hiro gets back AND talked Past Sylar into using his powers to cure Charlie's blood clot (Don't Ask)... only to have Charlie get "lost in time" by this Volume's Big Bad!
 * To cap off in a way that probably reaches Shoot the Shaggy Dog levels, in the season (and series) finale Hiro meets Charlie again. She's old, and asks Hiro not to go back in time, because she's built a family during 65 years and doesn't want to lose that. Doubleyoo. Tee. Eff.
 * The search for a virus that occupies much of the first third of Season 3 of Twenty Four..
 * On one episode of Taxi, Ascended Extra Jeff gets fired when he gets blamed for Louie's theft. Alex eventually guilts Louie into confessing to the boss ... except the boss doesn't believe his confession, and yet is so impressed by Louie's "sacrifice" that he re-hires Jeff.
 * The Scrubs episode "My Princess". Dr. Cox tells his son a story about a patient from that day, but as a fairy tale. The patient is referred to as a maiden who is being attacked by a monster who can not be killed, and the entire episode is about JD and Elliot's search for a cure for her. At the end, Cox tells his son when asked that the "maiden" lived happily ever after - only to walk out and strongly hint to his wife that in reality the girl died.
 * The Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode "Move Along Home" has several main cast members struggling to escape from an incredibly lifelike game -- only to eventually fail, and end up back in reality with no consequence except that Quark doesn't get to keep a bunch of gems he would have won from the aliens of the week. Said aliens are rather surprised at their relief to still be alive; after all, "It was only a game!"
 * I Carly: Both plots in "iSpaceOut". Carly gets Space Madness and the trio lose the chance to go into space, whilst the mute freaky little girl that spooked Spencer just leaves without talking or any explanation about who she is or where she came from, except that Carly could see her ruling out the previous ideas of a hallucination or vision from Spencer.
 * A throwaway joke in an episode of Mash details Hawkeye telling a story about his tent mate B.J. Hunnicut (in a smoking jacket with a zipper down the back) and Lana Turner (in a pink angora sweater with a zipper down the back).
 * A throwaway joke in an episode of Mash details Hawkeye telling a story about his tent mate B.J. Hunnicut (in a smoking jacket with a zipper down the back) and Lana Turner (in a pink angora sweater with a zipper down the back).

BJ: I-what? I push her away? Why?

Hawkeye: Your smoking jacket is covered in angora lint.

(BJ groans)

Hawkeye: In a fit of pique, she leaves.

BJ: But what about the zippers down the back?

Hawkeye: They didn't catch on."

"Dougal: Was it a ghost?
 * Whose Line Is It Anyway did this in one of their Improbable Missions. Ryan and Colin had to wash the Emir of Groovefunkistan's burnoose. They had to go through all sorts of things--climbing the outside of the hotel using Ryan's hair, dealing with a bomb on the faucet of the bathtub, the cat being wet, and so on..
 * In general, a Game Show contestant hitting a Whammy in a Golden Snitch or All or Nothing situation tends to result in this trope. However, a couple shows deserve special mention because they're set up to make this happen so often, it has to be an intentional budget-saver:
 * The British show Golden Balls consists of nearly an hour of bluffing and random money distribution to determine the size of the pot and to eliminate 2 of the 4 contestants. At the end, the two contestants left each have to decide whether to share or steal the prize fund. The rules give zero incentive whatsoever to share, and if both players opt to steal (the only Nash equilibrium in the decision table), then nobody wins a single quid, and the entire hour was moot.
 * Another British show, The Million Pound Drop, and its American spin-off Million Dollar Money Drop, after taking most of an hour with plenty of Padding to go through about 7-10 questions, require players to answer a final question (which they cannot opt out of) to win anything at all. The final question is multiple choice with two answers to choose from; if the players pick the correct one, they keep their winnings, and if they pick the incorrect one, they lose all their winnings at the very last second and they leave with zilch. The final question is always an Unexpectedly Obscure Answer which may as well be a coin flip, leading to many teams taking a considerable sum of money into the final question only to lose it.
 * Dollhouse: It's amazing just how unimportant Alpha ends up being.
 * In an episode of Father Ted, Dougal asks Ted if he's ever seen a ghost. Ted starts telling a story of how he was staying at his great-aunt's spooky old house in the middle of nowhere, and was staying in a bedroom where a heartbroken girl had allegedly hung herself many years before. He describes how the room was icy cold, lit by a single candle, and then suddenly he heard a creak.

Ted: No. So no, I've never seen a ghost."


 * The season one How I Met Your Mother finale "Come On," ended with Ted coming back to his apartment and finding Marshall, engagement ring in hand, as Lily had broken up with him to go to an "art fellowship" in San Diego. Since it was a Foregone Conclusion that the two would end up together, Lily's art fellowship thing petered out for no particular raisin. Why needlessly make Marshall angst for six episodes?
 * The Barney/Robin romance also falls prey to this. After an entire season of Barney pining silently over Robin after a Love Epiphany, involving a lot of Character Development for both of them, they finally get together...and break up seven episodes later over almost nothing, to allow Barney to revert back to his whorish ways and Robin to revert back to her commitment-fearing, career-driven lifestyle. This one is still going back and forth.
 * Pretty much every girl that Ted falls in love with and hooks up with. Particularly Robin. We know right from the first episode that Robin is not the mother but a large part of Season 1 and 2 and in a few other seasons is dedicated to Ted pining over Robin, Robin pining over Ted, getting together and breaking up, thinking of restarting their relationship, having a non-strings attached relationship and then deciding they are Better As Friends.
 * In-Universe, there's an episode where Marshall, Lily and Barney spend the entire time trying to guess which Canadian celebrity invited Robin over to look at which collectible and propositioned her to engage in which sex act. At the end, she finally tells them. They probably would have been more impressed if they had known who The Frozen Snowshoe was, what Harvey's trays were or how one performs an Old King Clancy. And then, the audience is shown that Robin was being an Unreliable Narrator anyway.

Music
"Arlo: (after finishing the initial story) "That's not what I come to talk to you about, though. I just thought I'd mention it.""
 * Weird Al Yankovic's song Albuquerque is a long, rambling story about the singer's escape from his mother "who tied [him] up and force-fed [him] nothing but sauerkraut until [he] was twenty-six-and-a-half years old" (because "IT'S GOOD FOR YOOOOOOOOOOOU!") and his subsequent escape, journey to Albuquerque, plane crash, battle with a hermaphrodite with only one nostril, encounter with flesh-eating weasels, donuts, marriage, kids, divorce, job at Sizzler, and so forth. Near the end, he loses his train of thought after telling a few vaguely related anecdotes and then remarks that the only thing he was trying to say with the story was that he just really hates sauerkraut.
 * Trapped in the Drive-Thru deserves a mention as well. A husband and wife argue over what to have for dinner, and finally decide to go to a fast-food place. At the drive-thru, another argument ensues over what to order, followed by the husband realizing he doesn't have his wallet. Wife offers her credit card but they don't take credit, and she only has $3 in cash on her. Husband scrounges through the car looking for loose change to cover the difference, doesn't have enough and is ultimately forced to cancel the wife's chicken sandwich ("I wasn't even really hungry in the first place"). A 10-minute-long buildup that ultimately culminates in the husband biting into the burger at a red light only to realize.
 * Arlo Guthrie's classic folk/parody "Alices Restaurant" clocked in at about nineteen minutes on the original record; about five of them are strictly necessary to tell the story (and the title of the song isn't actually related to the point of the whole thing). Later versions, updated to reflect how times have changed since, are longer still; one performed shortly after Richard Nixon's death is about twenty-six and a half minutes long, though not all of the added material is completely extraneous. This is lampshaded by Guthrie in most recordings and performances.


 * Robert Fripp once penned a Roald Dahl-styled children's story called "The Saga Of Rodney Toady", about a man who is constantly picked on for being fat and ugly. Neighbors would make fun of him behind his back, girls would ask him out to dates just so they can stand him up and his parents would tell him to find a fat and ugly girl to marry. The end of the story just has Rodney buying "rude books with rude pictures in them". It can be found on the 1968 album The Cheerful Insanity Of Giles, Giles & Fripp, which includes, among other things, other Shaggy Dog Stories in the form of songs like "Call Tomorrow", "Digging My Lawn" and "The Elephant Song".
 * Rap group Atmosphere has a song called "Hair", in which rapper Slug details the story of a fan trying to seduce him at a bar. The song progresses through the night as Slug and the girl go back and forth, with the fan's advances eventually winning over Slug. They get into her car, and as they're driving to her place, the song ends "Her drunk ass turns to look at me and she says/You're so beautiful from the hair to the soul/I can't believe that I never met you before/It feels like I've been waiting for you me whole life/She missed the red light, we hit a pick-up truck and we both died.
 * This is followed up on a later album by a song called, appropriately enough, "Scalp". The narrator is asked by a shady friend to pick up a mysterious package at a warehouse and drop it off at another location. He gets into his car but has an internal struggle as to whether or not he should do such an obviously morally dubious thing. Deciding against his better judgement, he starts driving to the warehouse... "Pulled out on Lindale/Killed by a couple of drunks,broadside of my pick up truck"
 * Interestingly, both songs are explicitly from Slug's point of view.
 * "Billy The Mountain" by Frank Zappa, which details a destructive roadtrip of the titular mountain and his wife Ethel (a tree). One Studebacher Hoch tries to stops Billy, but when he threatens Ethel, Billy laughs, causing Hoch to fall to his doom, which ends with the moral of the story being "a mountain is something you don't want to fuck with".
 * The Fiery Furnaces. Pick a song. Any song.
 * Special mention goes to "My Dog Was Lost But Now He's Found" for being a literal shaggy dog story.

Newspaper Comics

 * This Dilbert comic.
 * Scott Adams in general is fairly fond of this trope, often times inspired by real life stories from readers about Pointy Haired Bosses.
 * When the extended flashback in the strip Nine Chickweed Lane began, it was promoted as being the story of how Gran fell in love with her husband; it finished as being how marrying O'Malley was a consolation prize because her true love and Juliette's birth father had to return to Austria.

Radio

 * Every "Bebop-a-reebop Rhubarb Pie" sketch on A Prairie Home Companion is one of these.
 * Garrison Keillor in general is a master of this trope.

Theater

 * Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
 * The entire play Waiting for Godot consists of two guys waiting for a guy named Godot,
 * Which is the point of the play...
 * Any Beckett play with a plot fits this trope.
 * Gyorgy Ligeti's opera Le Grand Macabre: Death (called Necrotzar) announces the end of the world. People prepare for the final moment. At the end: nothing happens, except Death dies. Cue Epileptic Tree justifications.

Video Games

 * Arc Rise Fantasia has one happen to Paula and Luna, the We Challenge You! sidequest involved running around all over the world searching for hidden clues, at the end of the search, the whole thing was revealed to be
 * The endings of both Earthworm Jim games, of the comedic kind. In the first game, the cow launched by the hero in the first level suddenly plummets into the ending and crushes the newly rescued Damsel in Distress. In the second, it turns out the Love Interest, the Big Bad and the eponymous earthworm -- were all cows in disguise.
 * The plot of the Tower Defense game Immortal Defense is a Shaggy Dog Story of truly epic proportions. At the end of the game, after nearly a hundred missions of defending your beleaguered home world against increasingly impossible odds, you finally learn that . Of course, it's arguably worse for your enemies, as this revelation also means that . And to top it all off, unless you've gotten Hundred Percent Completion, it's implied that . Damn.
 * The game's creator has said that.
 * Original The Longest Journey was this so much, it hurts: April goes on an epic quest, discovers that she is supposed to  sees all her friends and acquaintances   only to discover that she was  Of course, one could argue that she did save the Twin Worlds but...
 * The sequel Dreamfall gives us a rare glimpse of how the protagonist of a shaggy dog story acts after their meaningless quest. April is understandably depressed and cynical. The series then doubles-down on the shaggy dog aspect by

"As a side note: There is a DLC being made to remedy the lack of resolutions (which forced the inferences as to the conclusion listed above). As to whether this will retroactively "Un-Shaggy Dog Story" the game as released is highly debatable."
 * In Hellgate London, the humans are trying to kill Sydonai and expel all the demons from Earth.
 * Prince of Persia: The 2008 game.
 * To wit: Elika, much to no one's surprise, is forced to use her own life force to restore Ahriman's can...
 * To be fair, the game IS a trilogy, so not having a definitive ending is kind of to be expected. Plus, it doesn't seem like sealing Ahriman was actually the point, but rather what mattered was the Prince's transformation.
 * I thought that was the bad end, i.e. you have the option to walk away from the can to get the good end. Or is Stupidity your only option? Or, worse yet, is it Cutscene Incompetence?
 * To elaborate a bit, here's how the ending plays out - when you the credits start rolling. When you  the credits stop. The official strategy guide for the game even states outright that this is a good place to stop if you don't want a bad ending. The player still controls the Prince, but there's nothing left to do aside from   - which the player must do themself, without any coaching from the game. Doing so leads to the downer ending where
 * The epilogue expansion turns this around.
 * Diablo 1 did this. The protagonist finally defeated the Big Bad, only to become corrupted by it's Soulstone and become the new Diablo himself.
 * And this is because the protagonist believes that they are strong enough to fight the spirit of Diablo.
 * The plot of the Neo-Geo shooter Cyber-Lip has the protagonists being send to a space colony in order to destroy an insane supercomputer who controlled an army of androids supposed to protect humanity from marauding aliens. After destroying the eponymous computer,
 * Both of the first two Monkey Island games deploy this trope comedically. The first involves the protagonist attempting to rescue a Distressed Damsel, only for her to escape the villain's clutches on her own, and you bungle her attempt to destroy the villain. The second is about the protagonist searching for a legendary treasure,
 * In the first game, Guybrush spends a lot of time searching the potion which can destroy ghosts: but
 * There are only two things that are clear from the ending of Contact: The bad guys weren't really evil, and- despite deceiving both Terry and the player- the Professor isn't either. So... why all the drama?
 * Every entry in the Geneforge series, except possibly the last. Each game concludes its plotline with the player victorious- and usually on a hopeful note for the world at large, if you play right. But then the next game rolls around, and the world has gotten more Crapsack, the bad guys more threatening, the good guys less sympathetic, and your achievements in the previous games are barely mentioned. An air of hopelessness and futility hangs over the proceedings by the end of Geneforge 3, and never goes away.
 * The ending of the obscure, bizarre PC-Engine game Legendary Axe II. You finally claim the throne from your ne'er-do-well brother, but shortly afterwards a topless assassin chick with purple hair and a scimitar the size of Shaq jumps out of literally NOWHERE and...it cuts to the credits! WHAT.
 * At the end of Ultimate Spider Man, you as Peter Parker/Spider-Man have to fight Eddie Brock/Venom to the finish to keep him from killing Bolivar Trask, the man who apparently had something to do with both of your parents' deaths and get your hands on the file which tells you the truth about the incident. During the cutscenes after beating Venom you don't actually get to find out what was in the file and . And then the game got retconned.
 * It's only a Shaggy Dog Story for Eddie, not Peter and the player as we do get to see what was in the file during the final cutscenes.
 * In the brilliantly-written Time Hollow, the intrepid hero finds himself in a completely altered reality, with no memories whatsoever of how it happened and no idea how to set things right. All he has is a mystical pen with the ability to alter something that happened in the past, each time changing his present reality in drastic and unpredictable ways. Sometimes solving a problem creates an entirely different problem, which he must then seek out and fix. After countless twists, turns, harrowing confrontations, and narrow escapes, the pieces ever-so-gradually fall into place (with several pieces falling out in the meantime). It turns out that if the hero goes to a certain location to save a certain person's life, this will avert the long chain of events which caused time to go out of whack, and everything will return to normal. Of course, by then it should be readily apparent that had he just known that beforehand, he could've just done that right away and saved several weeks of trouble.
 * Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. Most of the levels (especially Sonic's) have absolutely no story relevance.
 * That feels like a "Did not do the Research" comment, considering that in game, the story is fine until the very end. which then means that the game is a Shaggy Dog Story for the player.
 * More referring to Sonic's part of the main game, not the last story. Silver and Shadow actually have the meat of the plot (Iblis, Mephiles, etc), but Sonic just runs around saving Elise like 7 or 8 times, and fighting Eggman, who also doesn't do very much. Sonic has more relevance in last than his own story despite.
 * The main campaign of Neverwinter Nights 2 feels like this. The player goes through a long meandering plot involving at least three different fake big bads before defeating the actual Big Bad, and then.
 * Although actually,, allowing for the sequel Mask of the Betrayer. However, one of the endings of that is also a Shaggy Dog Story, as you . Fortunately, the other three endings do have varying degrees of meaning to them.
 * A better example is The developers themselves have admitted you shouldn't have to.
 * The recent updates to Portal have turned it into a Shaggy Dog Story.
 * Arguably the original too, since it's revealed during the credits that.
 * Every ending of Covenant of the Plume is some variant of this. For summary purposes, the hero Wylfred has made a deal with the dark goddess Hel that will help him slay the other goddess Lenneth, who he blames for the death of his father. The degree to which the trope applies varies, however:
 * In the A Crystalline Prophecy add-on scenario for Final Fantasy XI was a cross between a Shaggy Dog Story and All Just a Dream. You can get some actual decent gear rewards from the missions, but the story itself would have resolved in the same manner had you not been involved, not to mention that none of the NPCs involved remember anything that happened or mention it ever again.
 * Final Fantasy XII, the overarcing plot of the game concerns rising tensions between two opposing Empires just waiting to be sparked into a war by a third party's intervention. Ashe, princess of a subjugated country under the Archadian Empire and the focus of the playable party's story, wants to acquire the power to challenge the Empire herself, or to weaken their power. Bbut other characters are constantly warning her that revenge is a pointless goal and her efforts are only increasing the air of paranoia around the larger nations, and ultimately Ashe accepts that yes, revenge is meaningless. However this revelation has only come at the end of the game, and up until then the party ventures into dungeons looking for ancient relics of power, only to find them useless for various reasons and go looking for another one.
 * In The Lost Crown, you can have Nigel collect photos and recordings of various hauntings, as well as find the legendary Saxon crown. In the end,
 * At the end of Nelson Tethers Puzzle Agent
 * This is averted in the sequel where you go back
 * Episode 3 of Strong Bads Cool Game for Attractive People starts with Strong Bad's game console breaking. He then sets out to form a "Battle of the Bands" to raise the repair money.
 * Episode 1 also qualifies: while Strong Bad literally achieves his goal of beating the snot out of Homestar, his briefly successful efforts to ruin Homestar's life - specifically, turning him into a publicly disgraced criminal fugitive without a girlfriend - are undone by Strong Bad himself when he has to kick Homestar out of his house.
 * At the end of the second episode of Hector Badge of Carnage you find out that  This annoys Hector since it means that he did not have to
 * Touhou Project has this in several storylines. Several times, the incidents Reimu and Marisa set out to stop are just some people they don't know temporarily doing something fairly harmless for personal reasons, and didn't bother to tell others, and the plot would have been resolved if nobody had ever tried to resolve the incident. Of course, since there's a climactic (if pointless) battle, and Defeat Means Friendship, the only real result of the story is "Reimu meets new friends".
 * Immaterial and Missing Power features a plot based around finding out who was causing mysterious parties to take place. When they find out it was just a Bottle Fairy oni looking for an excuse to get drunk, they just go ahead and have the parties anyway.
 * Imperishable Night involves exiled lunarians trying to hide the Earth in a bucket, but failing at making it work properly, so they were going to just abort the plan, anyway.
 * Phantasmagoria of Flower View revolves around a very large cast of playable characters, many of whom don't even care about the event or want to stop it, anyway, finding out that the incident is a natural occurrence and harmless to begin with.
 * Mountain of Faith's plot is a new shrine appearing on top of the youkai mountain and telling the Hakurei Shrine that they'd be absorbed. Not a major incident, but certainly cause for some concern. Except that when you get to the god of the shrine they turn out to be perfectly reasonable and the whole 'you will be assimilated' thing was her Miko being over-eager.
 * Undefined Fantastic Object has Youkai subordinates of a sealed priestess rescuing her... but she turns out to actually be fairly nice, and was sealed for wanting humans and youkai to get along. Since the modern era is one of peace to begin with and the totality of her plan is establishing a temple, the characters don't really mind letting her go free.
 * Ten Desires sees hordes of divine spirits appearing. It turns out that this is a side effect of someone powerful reviving... and she finishes doing so before the PC gets there.
 * Silent Sinner in Blue is probably the most Egregious example, as the entire thing is a giant Gambit Pileup where one of the plotters decides at the last moment that she'd rather just get drunk than actually achieve her objective, and steals the lunarian's booze instead of their legendary treasures.
 * Silent Sinner in Blue is a Shaggy Dog Story. The overall story, Bougetsushou, is not. The full ending is in Cage in Lunatic Runagate, where it turns out that this was all a plot to, and the sake was a perfect choice for doing that.
 * Happens at the end of every chapter of Wacky Races NES game.
 * The first Doom game. You fight through hordes of monsters, including literally going to Hell and back... only to find on your return to Earth that the aliens have already invaded.
 * Played for laughs in Rex Nebular And The Cosmic Gender Bender. The titular protagonist is sent to a Gendercide-ridden planet to retrieve a valuable vase. Over the course of the game, he loses his ship, destroys a large city, causes the deaths of several people, kills a small dog, suffers through repeated bouts of gender-bending, and gets kicked in the nuts, not to mention averting several deaths by a hair along the way. In the end, he accidentally breaks the vase in front of his customer while arguing about payment. Which they had already agreed on, note.
 * By Word of God (there would have been a sequel-TC, but it seems to be Vaporware), the Voinian story in Escape Velocity Override is this: all storylines happened, but where all the others had a big impact in some way, the Voinian storyline is effectively rendered moot by the UE storyline -- you kill one of the UE's Admirals, but Vice Admiral D'Erlon is talented enough to pick up the slack, you bomb the Emalgha's mining planet into dust, but they still maintain enough production capacity to help the UE offensive, you devastate one of the UE's colonies, but it isn't important enough to cripple the UE... all culminating in the Voinian officer you report to making references to a superweapon project sure to bring the UE to its knees, but it is too important to let humans in on the project -- Word of God is said project is the Voinian Dreadnaught, which you destroy in the course of the UE story before it even reaches UE space.
 * Mass Effect 3: There are cases where the resolutions to various sub-plots either get overwritten by the impact of the ill-explained ending or are completely ignored from having any real resolution explained.
 * The three most visible cases are: the The Geth War-; Krogan Genophage- and the Salvation of Earth-.


 * In Kid Kool, the goal is to save the king, who is dying by finding the "seven wonder herbs." If the player doesn't finish the game quick enough, the king dies before you even GET to the end. Bonus points since the game's controls are so bad, that it's virtually unplayable.

Web Comics
"Marluxia:
 * The ending of the seven year long webcomic Bob and George shows that.
 * In Gastrophobia, almost all the chapters end with the plot getting humorously undermined.
 * Almost every single arc in Eight Bit Theater is one of these.
 * Not quite. There are indeed a number of Shaggy Dog Stories in 8-Bit Theater, such as the Chocobo Breeding arc and the random town arc from right before the Orb of Air quest, but most of the story arcs don't fit the definition. They tend to end in anticlimaxes, but the anticlimaxes themselves do further the plot.
 * Turns out the entire plot is one of these; . According to the author, this was his plan from the very beginning.
 * The first season of Ansem Retort ended like this. After a demon invasion, fighting through FOX headquarters, one character fighting Ansem, another getting god-like powers, and using said powers to summon a dragon with a nuke on its back, the president of FOX was defeated  Of course, this is lampshaded:

Zexion:"


 * One story arc in Blip. K is speaking with Bang over the cell phone, and she hears as he gets attacked by someone with a knife. Fearing the worst, K enlists a friend and drives from San Francisco to Los Angeles to make sure Bang doesn't bleed to death in a parking garage. They can't find him at the parking garage, nor at any hospitals.
 * El Goonish Shive:
 * Susan's uniform crusade was cut short when.
 * The race through Swedekia in the Temple of Swedish Furniture arc also qualifies. The last TV stand that Elliot and Noah were racing for had already been purchased the previous day, and the store's online inventory didn't register that piece of information.
 * The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: The  story arc ends with the  apparently being devoured by Yoshi. It gets better.
 * The Dark Legacy Comics spinoff, The Stonemaker Argument, consists mostly of these. In particular, "The Dr. Noodle Improbability."
 * Some Pv P's storylines in the last couple of years have been massive buildups leading to either tremendous jokes or epic storylines, only to fizzle out on a short, mediocre anticlimax.
 * Much of the humor in Pictures for Sad Children revolves around awkward, drawn out, just uncomfortable (and usually surreal) conversation with no conventional punchline at the end.
 * Irregular Webcomic: In the Fantasy arc, in strip 516, the heroes receive their epic quest to find the Ruby of Dwarven Might. About 2500 strips later, they finally locate the Ruby:.
 * The Electric Wonderland comic "Day of Fools" has Trawn race to warn Aerynn of a scan for hackers and magicians.
 * ''Brawl in The Family has comic number 260. This has Princess Peach actually do something instead of just sitting around in a game but... see it for yourself.
 * Frequently used in Mountain Time, but most notable in one instance that took 12 episodes to reach its shaggy conclusion -- notable because Mountain Time stories hardly ever last more than one episode.
 * DM of the Rings, a webcomic running the plot of The Lord of the Rings, is resolved in exactly the same way as the book... Except Frodo and Sam aren't Player Characters at that point. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas are, and are essentially railroaded into distracting the Big Bad and doing nothing of value while an NPC wins the campaign by succeeding at a Will Save. The players are underwhelmed.
 * This strip of Something of that Ilk even references the trope in its title.

Web Original
"Then a nuclear weapon detonated in midair above them, vaporizing the city."
 * The Story Guy videos from Loading Ready Run are based almost entirely around this trope. Installments such as Gilled Cheese and Rare Book have the Story Guy go on at great length for what is eventually revealed to be no point at all.
 * This story is the best and most perfect incarnation of this trope. Be warned, it's a very long read.
 * Dear God!
 * In Survival of the Fittest, this occurs more often than not, due to the brutal nature of the game. Entire arcs can be left either unresolved or rendered entirely meaningless when someone integral simply dies.
 * This is more or less Simon Wood's entire arc is one of these. Poor guy couldn't even pull a off right.
 * Alex Rasputin; killed two people in v4, and was on the path to redemption. Suddenly,
 * This video about World of Warcraft.
 * Charlie the Unicorn always ends up on quests like this.
 * In his review of Taylor Swift's Fifteen, Todd in The Shadows tells the story of a heart wrenching break up from his past. He then destroys the mood of the story by revealing that it never happened to him but was instead the plot of an episode of Saved By the Bell.
 * "Why are you gay?" "Well, a long time ago, I was sitting at home on the computer..."
 * The Nostalgia Chick's Dark Nella Saga didn't change the show's Black and Gray Morality at all. The Chick's still a Jerkass, Nella's still the abused friend, and Dr. Tease is still evil. Tropes Are Not Bad however; the Dysfunction Junction they have going is just too fun to die.
 * The last sentence of "How David Weber Orders A Pizza", after several thousand words exhaustively describing the ordering and delivery of a pizza, is:


 * The Saga of Biorn ends with the noble, aging Death Seeker Viking, seeking entry to Valhall, succeeding at dying in battle by saving a convent of nuns from a giant... Except the nuns end up burying his corpse in consecrated ground and sending him to Christian heaven at the last moment instead.

Western Animation
"Marge: You kids must be so happy, your cute little cartoon friends are back on the air!
 * One The Simpsons example is in "The Day The Violence Died", in which the original creator of Itchy and Scratchy sues the animation studio that stole it from him. Bart discovers the key piece of evidence that wins the trial and bankrupts the studio, which - the kids realize too late - means the end of Itchy and Scratchy cartoons. Bart and Lisa desperately try to solve this new problem, and after nearly giving up (and starting on trying to get Apu out of jail), Lisa finally discovers something in a legal textbook, and the kids rush to the studio only to find everyone celebrating the return of Itchy and Scratchy, the release of Apu, and Krusty's reunion with his estranged wife, all thanks to Lester and Eliza, two kids who strongly resemble Tracy Ullman-era Bart and Lisa.

Lisa: Yes, well, technically everything worked out alright, but...

Marge: But?

Bart: Well, I wasn't the one who solved the problem, and neither was Lisa. There's something unsettling about that."

"Grampa: We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell stories that don't go anywhere. Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m'shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt. Which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Gimme five bees for a quarter, you'd say. Now where was I... oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones..."
 * Another episode parodied the phrase: Moe comments on how tired he is of hearing the barflies' shaggy dog stories, which prompts an offended Barney to leave the bar - a literal shaggy dog in tow.
 * Another episode, "Missionary: Impossible", started with Homer attempting to make a bogus $10,000 pledge to PBS anonymously, being found out, being chased by an angry mob when he can't pay, begging Reverend Lovejoy for salvation, and getting sent to a remote island mission for his trouble. The rest of the episode focuses on his hambrained attempts to bring religion, and later gambling, to the natives (with a minor subplot involving Bart taking over as man of the house). It ends with Homer accidentally triggering a natural disaster, and just as he's about to plunge into lava...the episode cuts to a donation request, ending with Bart (out of character) pledging $10,000 and saving the network. In short, the whole zany misadventure was nothing more than an elaborate Take That at (take your pick) PBS/Fox's programming/RupertMurdoch/snpp.com, yes, friggin' again/anyone who takes this show too seriously.
 * This is the current mode of practice of the strike-busters from "Last Exit to Springfield":

"Nikolai: So long, filthy commoners.
 * The G.I. Joe episode "The Viper is Coming" featured the Joes discovering several COBRA bases and plots around the world based on cryptic phone calls from someone calling himself "The Viper". Characters on both sides try to discover who the Viper is as he seems to predict COBRA's every move. Finally, the Viper's latest call warns them that: "This is the Viper. I be there at noon today. Be ready." The Joes call in reinforcements and barricade the house where the calls were being received. Right at 12 PM, an old immigrant in overalls shows up. In a heavily accented voice, he declares: "I'm the Viper. I've come to vipe your vindows."
 * An episode of Animaniacs which spoofed the Three Musketeers used the same Vindow Viper gag.
 * The Fairly Odd Parents, "Odd, Odd West": Timmy steals a deed to a ghost town "Dimmesdale Flats" from "Vicky the Kid" in order to save the town (a childhood memory of Dad's) from bulldozing, and gives it to his dad. The town still gets torn down anyway after Dad then sells it to the bulldozing people for $8, and Dad tells Timmy that he's realized that his childhood sucked (after spending a day in the local jail).
 * SpongeBob SquarePants, after 10 minutes' screen time of "Procrastination", frantically writes a 800-word report for Mrs. Puff's driving school on what not to do at a red light and runs off to school to send it in. He encounters Mrs. Puff who tells him two things: There's a field trip to a red light today, and the assignment has been canceled. Probably a good thing, since the resulting report (filled with things like "karate chopping the TV" and "shooting the breeze with the mailman") would probably get him an F if it actually mattered.
 * Not that Spongebob can ever get a passing grade anyway.
 * In another, Spongebob and Patrick start their own business selling chocolate door-to-door, and one customer in particular goes crazy on them, yelling "CHOCOLATE!" over and over, and chases them throughout the episode. The two otherwise have no luck getting rid of the chocolate. By the end, the customer finally has them where they can't escape, and then politely says, "I'd like to buy all your chocolate."
 * Actually, Spongebob and Patrick did succeed in selling most of their chocolate by "stretching the truth". Unfortunately, a Con Man who previously tricked them into buying too many bags for their bars, deceived them into buying even more while taking all the money they had made. Fortunately, that guy was the only person they hadn't sold any chocolate too.
 * "Good Ol' Whatshisname": Mr. Krabs tells SpongeBob and Squidward that he'll give a prize to whoever finds out the name of every customer at the Krusty Krab. Squidward, thinking the prize is a tropical cruise, goes out of his way to win the contest, even winding up in jail in the process-- only to find out that the prize was just a brochure for a tropical cruise.
 * Even better is that the titular character shouts his name at Squidward right from the start.
 * 'I'm With Stupid', there, Spongebob pretends to be dumb so Patrick will look good in front of his parents. However, Patrick takes it too far and believes Spongebob really is dumb. He, and his parents, then start to openly mock Spongebob, leading to him turning insane and leaving Patrick's house in frustration. Then, it is eventually revealed that those two weren't even Patrick's real parents, the real ones are in Squidward's house, asking him where Patrick is.
 * The Sealab 2021 episode "7211" is pretty much an old Sealab 2020 episode redubbed exactly like before, with the crew helping repair the nuclear submarine Aquarius, captained by a man who held a grudge against Murphy. Sounds odd for an Adult Swim comedy, huh? Well, until the end, where the only joke of the episode has Aquarius ram into Sealab, blowing it up, and making all the work the crew did pointless... as well as stranding them at the bottom of the sea.
 * The South Park episode "Stanley's Cup" involved Stan coaching a pee-wee hockey team. One of the kids has cancer, and requires a victory for the team to recover. At the end, after grueling training, during which they believe they will be put against another pee-wee team, the team is instead pitted against the Detroit Red Wings and beaten horribly, the kid with cancer dies, and the episode ends with their opponents celebrating as if the episode had been about them, with one of them (for example) being congratulated by his hard-ass father.
 * This is made even more frustrating when compared to the earlier episode "The Losing Edge", which not only was already a subversion of these movies (wrapped in an inversion), but it was much more clever and satirical about it.
 * It's important to note that the episode "The Losing Edge" was also a commentary on some truly atrocious parental behavior during the 2004-05 Little League season and the lengths some parents will go to ensure their child's success, even to the point of disregard for their child's well being.
 * In another South Park episode, Stan doesn't believe his vote between a Turd Sandwich and a Giant Douche for school mascot is important, and in the course of being shown the importance of voting he is exiled from the town, hunted down by P. Diddy and his posse (Vote or Die and all that), and tries to live with PETA until Diddy and his boys shoot them all. When he goes back and finally casts his vote, it turns out the result would've been the same if he had voted or not. He proclaims his vote didn't matter, and gets a speech about how it still was important. The news of PETA's death then reaches town and the old mascot is brought back instead, with the punchline "Ok, now your vote doesn't matter."
 * Made brilliant by the fact that it was actually Stan's refusal to vote that really mattered. Might count as a Broken Aesop.
 * Even more metaphorical, as in the end it's the actions of a single person (Stan or P. Diddy, depending on how you look at it) that renders the votes of everyone else null and void.
 * A Looney Tunes short featuring Porky Pig had him being "hounded" by a stray dog throughout the picture. When he finally gets home, he sees a news report asking for the return of the dog and offering a big reward. Porky gets the dog (who reversed himself from jumping over a bridge) and head over to the mansion where the owner lives. The dog replaces himself with a toy dog while Porky isn't watching, and Porky is told that the dog is not the owner's, additionally saying that the missing dog was a talking dog. As Porky ponders over this revelation, the lost dog, who up to this moment didn't talk, lifts up Porky with his arms and says, "Well buddy, you've got yourself a dog!"
 * The third Futurama movie had this when
 * Of course, one might argue that the Professor gained the important knowledge of, although this was never really made perfectly explicit.
 * Also, Bender's plotline in "The Prisoner of Benda". He attempts to steal Robo-Hungarian Emperor Nikolai's jewels while in possession of his body, and once everything is resolved...

Bender: ¡Adios! And I'm left with the real jewels safely inside... (Looks inside his chest cabinet.) his compartment! All right, I'll need accomplices."

"Ron: I hate irony."
 * The Weekenders, "Tickets": Tino spends the entire story agonizing on who (out of the other three) to take to a concert after winning two tickets for it. After he makes his choice, the two find out that the two slips they're holding... can be redeemed for 4 tickets, and thus all four get to enjoy it. Moral of the day: Always read the fine print! (BTW, Carver got picked.)
 * In "Party Planning": The gang prepares for a party by taking dance lessons. "Lateral gravity" takes effect at the actual party, meaning that the boys and girls stay on opposite sides of the room the whole night and those lessons were a waste of time. At the end Tino notes how they walked away from this party with no humiliation.
 * Codename Kids Next Door: "Operation ROBBERS" sees Numbuh 5 rounding up a bunch of kids who are robbing them of their homework, but then Numbuh 4 (fighting another robber) crashes into the bus they're on making her heroics meaningless as the robbers escape.
 * Although, at the end of the episode,
 * Ben 10 gets one in an episode where Ben breaks Gwen's computer and enters a wrestling competition to get the money to replace it. At the end of the episode, he discovers that the computer was never broken. Gwen had put a security system on the computer so it only looked like the computer was completely dead. Result? An utterly wasted episode.
 * Also, the episode where Grandpa sets out to find the Sword of Ekchuah, in the Mayan temple. They fight off Enoch and his forces constantly through the episode and even a Mayan guardian alien type thing. At the end, however the sword turns to dust as soon as Enoch touches it. What a waste of time
 * That part is lampshaded by Max who jokes that "that's what happens when your weapon is 5,000 years old".
 * An episode of My Gym Partners a Monkey had Adam and Jake joining the hall monitors. It turns out that the force is TOTALLY corrupt, useless and tries to get rid of Adam when he tries to stop the corruption. So Adam goes and tries to get rid of their Dirtnuts by bribing the truck driver not to get rid of them to stop them from being corrupt. However, the force has Dirtarts and then Adam is blamed for the corruption, since the bribe was caught on video so the force gets away scot free.
 * Used beautifully in the "Winter" part of the Samurai Jack episode "Four Seasons of Death". A tribe of yeti-like humanoids harvest a giant crystal from a cave and forge it into an Infinity Plus One Sword. They do battle with each other for the right to wield it, the most powerful of their tribe coming out on top. He stands on a mountain pass, bearing the mighty sword, and awaits Jack's arrival. Jack arrives... and defeats the yeti-man with one hit, shattering the sword. He walks on, oblivious to the effort the tribe had expended in trying to stop him.
 * Done again in an episode focusing on a group of Bounty Hunters that gather and discuss their plans and reasons for going after Jack. When the moment of truth arrives, Jack defeats them all in the time it takes for a drop of melting ice to fall.
 * Done yet again in "The Tale of X-9", where the entire episode is seen through the eyes of X-9, a retired robot assassin with an emotion chip that led it to question the morality of its actions on Aku's behalf. One day after a job X-9 found a stray dog, adopted it, and stopped working for Aku. That is, until the day when X-9's creator told Aku about the dog and the chip. Aku promptly kidnapped the dog, saying that X-9 would get it back if he managed to kill Jack. Jack wins. X-9's last words are asking Jack to take care of Lulu (the dog). The episode ends there.
 * Lulu, sweet thing...
 * One episode of Kim Possible features Kim, Monique, and Ron on a mission to recover some top secret clothing designs. When they finally return the designs, at the end of the episode, the designer says he changed his mind.
 * Another episode features Ron going on a global trek to find an overdue library book he borrowed from Kim. In the process, he trounces the plans (and hideouts) of several of Kim's major enemies...only to eventually discover the book was in his backpack the whole damn time.
 * Yet another episode involves Drakken attempting to take over the world with the stolen "Energy Ray X". Unfortunately, Kim has a severe cold, so she can't stop Drakken. So Ron sets out to stop Drakken. But then Drakken comes down with a cold. So he sends Shego...who also catches a cold. So she sends out Duff Killigan...and I think you know where this is going. Eventually, Kim decides to take some cold medicine and drag herself out of bed to try and bring back the stolen Ray X. In the resulting fight with Shego (who tried to shoot Kim with Ray X out of desperation), Ray X is destroyed. Kim and Ron return to the scientists who had originally built Ray X, asking it actually did, and why it was so important to get it back. The scientists immediately reply, "The ray was a cure for the common cold." Ron then lampshades pretty much the entire episode.

"Brian: So what you're saying is that what you experienced in the simulation didn't really happen, or even matter?
 * The Tale Spin episode "A Spy in the Ointment" invokes this trope twice in the same story. Baloo and Becky meet Jack Case, a fellow who claims to be a spy, and who has to get to Thembria (a fictional Soviet Union analogue country) as soon as possible. Baloo isn't convinced Case is telling the truth, but Becky insists he's a spy because "look at his trench coat! That's a SPY'S trench coat!" After risking their lives to get him to Thembria, our heroes discover Case is not a spy, but a mailman, assigned to deliver a package to the Chairman. But it turns out said package had been switched by mistake; instead of a gift of rare expensive fishing worms, the Chairman is going to get a frilly jewelry box. Fearing an international incident, Baloo and Becky reluctantly risk their lives again to try and switch the boxes, only to fail in the end. But it turns out the Chairman mistook the jewelry box for an antique tackle box, so no harm was done in the end; and as Baloo points out, even less harm would have been done if they had never gotten involved in the first place.
 * One example is the Family Guy episode "The Juice is Loose", where Peter meets OJ Simpson, and, at first, attempts to prove that he murdered his wife and Ron Brown. But then, when he finds out, he despairs that he is innocent and can never get away from the accusations. So Peter lets him stay at his house, but the family is suspicious of him. The entire episode is set up as a twist on the normal narrative about OJ, with him actually being innocent. At the end, the town comes in an angry mob to kick him out, but then O.J. makes an emotional speech about how nobody is perfect, and we shouldn't judge people for making a few mistakes. It works, and the whole town is on his side. But then, he stabs and kills three people for absolutely no reason, and runs off. After which, Peter just nonchalantly says "Oh, I guess he did do it.", and the episode just ends.
 * The "Stewie Kills Lois"/"Lois Kills Stewie" two-parter, which turns out to just be a simulation Stewie was operating to find out what would happen if he killed Lois and took over the world, lampshades it.

Stewie: Yes, that's correct.

Brian: So it was sorta like a dream?

Stewie: No, it was a simulation.

Brian: Yes, but theoretically, if someone watched the events of that simulation from start to finish, only to find out that none of it really happened... I mean, you don't think that would be just like a giant middle finger to them?

Stewie: Well, hopefully, they would've enjoyed the ride.

Brian: I don't know, man. I think you'd piss a lot of people off that way. *leaves*

Stewie: Oh, at least it didn't end like The Sopranos, where it just cut to black in mid-sen-"

"Basketball coach: Time goes faster in space."
 * "Partial Terms of Endearment" was about Lois becoming a surrogate mother for her college girlfriend and her husband, but after becoming pregnant, said girlfriend and husband end up dying, leaving her and Peter with the conflict over having an abortion. The final scene of the episode is made as though it's about to introduce a "new member of the Griffin family", only for Peter to break the fourth wall and say, ""We had the abortion," and the episode ends on that abrupt note.
 * Transformers Animated episode "Decepticon Air" focuses on the Elite Guard returning to Cybertron with the Decepticon Prisoners. Sentinel Prime orders Jazz to fly at full speed through an ion storm in order to get there faster. What results is Swindle, who was previously Mode Locked, becoming free, who frees the other Decepticons, who take over the ship. This leads to Optimus Prime, answering Sentinel's distress signal, transwarping onto the ship as the Autobots and Decepticons fight which leads Lugnut being knocked away and Swindle escaping with parts to the Elite Guard's ship. The episode ends with Optimus being dropped off back on Earth (Implying that it took them even longer to get back), and Sentinel's coronation as Magnus on Cybertron. What makes this a Shaggy Dog Story is that not only did taking the shortcut to get back to Cyberton become meaningless, but they're now missing two Decepticons.
 * The Penguins of Madagascar, "Crown Fools": Skipper accidentally bumps King Julien's crown into a sewer and has to go in after it. After having to fight a giant rat for it, Skipper finally returns the crown to Julien, who discards it for being smudged and then asks for his spare crown.
 * Marlene, who had spent all that time trying to find a replacement crown, was not amused and ended up chasing Julien with a crowbar she borrowed from Rico.
 * Most Squidbillies episodes end up like this.
 * As do a lot of Aqua Teen Hunger Force episodes.
 * On one episode of Goof Troop, Pete is given money to pay a contractor to renovate a lakeside house his wife Peg was selling. Pete spends it on a harpoon gun for his boat instead, kicks out the contractor and tries to fix the house himself with help from Goofy. Naturally, the house gets destroyed, and Pete has to buy an identical house from across the lake - which belongs to the contractor, who asks for Pete's boat in return. After going to all the trouble of replacing the house before Peg arrives with the buyers, the sale is made, only for the new owners to demolish it immediately afterwards because they were only interested in the land. Cue Pete having a nervous breakdown.
 * Yet another episode involves Pete stealing Goofy's mortgage money. When Peg lets Goofy stay at their house as a result, Pete tries to give back the money only to find it lost. He spends the rest of the episode trying to pay Goofy back with his money with Goofy refusing out of decency. When he finally gets Goofy to take the money, PJ and Pistol earn that exact same amount in their work program Pete established. Pete pays them the money, and they give it to Goofy. Then Goofy finds his actual mortgage money in a device that's been around the whole time. Cue Pete having another nervous breakdown.
 * In an episode of I Am Weasel, Weasel and I.R. are astronauts terraforming a planet to prepare it for colonization. Their robot goes on strike, so they spend the next four years terraforming the place and building a huge futuristic colony. When the colonists arrive...they are revealed to be a termite colony who immediately proceed to trash the place. Weasel then breaks down crying.
 * One episode of Hey Arnold has Arnold accidentally dropping his grandpa's favorite pocket watch down the sewer where it is stolen by a crazy man called "The Sewer King". After a battle of chess and a long chase sequence through the sewer, Arnold finally returns home, exhausted and filthy, with his Grandpa's pocket watch. Grandpa then accidentally drops the watch into the garbage disposal and it falls down the drain (how? God knows). He then just grabs another pocket watch... from a drawer full of identical pocket watches. Cue Arnold taking a long depressing walk outside, as well as fetching a quart of milk for Grandpa.
 * The Jimmy Two Shoes episode Cerbee in Love has Jimmy trying to set Cerbee up with Jez's dog. At the very end, he finally gets them together. They each lick each other once before losing interest.
 * Wakfu's first season revolves around a certain troubled time mage trying to turn time back to prevent the whole arc from happening.
 * This happens a few times in Dave the Barbarian. One in particular is where a pair of nomads put a curse on the hero's town where it would get hotter and hotter all because the eponymous hero asked an innocent question about their merchandise. Dave was then forced by his older sister to go a journey to find the artifact that could break the curse. After a perilous quest where the heroes are captured by a gang of dragons and their own pet temporarily turns against them, they return with the artifact only to find that the sister who made them go on the quest in the first place had managed to convince the nomads to remove the curse.
 * To make matters worse, Dave, upset that he went through all that hell for nothing, accidentally smashed the nomads again with a door and they angrily cast another curse which caused the episode to end.
 * One that happens to be both serious and comedic is Total Drama World Tour. This third season ends with  (more or less the good guy in this scenario) defeating   and winning the prize of $1 Million. Good so far, but then the volcano where the final challenge ended begins to erupt,   (now a feral shell of his old self) tackles   and grabs the briefcase with the prize money as he and it both fall and sink into the volcano. The ultimate outcome? Everyone has to swim out of Hawaii,   loses the million,  shoots down like a comet from the volcano (sinking Chris and Chef's boat in the process), and , who got caught in the ensuing lava flow, has to be put in a protective suit in an homage to Darth Vader. Well, see you again next season!
 * The Venture Brothers has a lot of these, usually disguised as actual plots. For example, in one first-season episode, Rusty and Brock are kidnapped, and Hank and Dean seek out their dead grandfather's Retired Badass team to rescue them. In the end, despite all the cool things they do, they get beaten up by Brock as he's breaking himself out. In this case, it's simply to highlight the Crapsack World.
 * Two Stupid Dogs loves this. One episode has them cross the Grand Canyon to find someone who called them jerks (actually it was just their echo). The episode ends with them finally reaching the other side, only to hear the echo coming from their previous location, prompting them to go back. Another episode has Little Dog travel around the world, looking for his lucky bone, even though it's painfully obvious it's on his head. When he finally finds it by accident, he puts it somewhere he'll be sure to remember: back on his head (something he would allegedly never do, because it's so stupid). Then there was an episode where he wants change for a public phone, just because the voice in the phone says so. After a long chain of deals, that even involves Big Dog getting arrested for attempted bank robbery, he finally acquires a quarter, inserts it in the phone, and uses it to call his partner, who is now in the prison. Also possibly worth noting is that Big Dog is, in fact, quite shaggy.
 * The Invader Zim episode "Zim Eats Waffles" is all about Dib trying to catch Zim working on his Evil Plan using a hidden spy camera... But he has no recording capability and whenever anyone else looks at the camera image, Zim is busy eating waffles and doesn't do anything that would expose him. In the end, Dib fixes the recording drives only in time for the camera to get ruined and his computer lab wrecked by an army of Cyborg Zombies Zim unwittingly released earlier in the episode (during a time nobody else was watching, of course).
 * In "Germs", Zim asks the "burgerlord" why McMeatie's food is completely germ-free. The clerk gives a lengthy explanation about the government engineering "Space Meat" to feed astronauts on long voyages..
 * One episode of The Powerpuff Girls features the heroines trying to solve riddles quickly, lest the one known as HIM make the Professor pay! At the end of the episode, they finally reach the location of the last answer, a Greasy Spoon style restaurant. Oh no! They're in the wrong restaurant, they want the one across the street! By the time they get there they are seconds too late, and the Professor MUST PAY... full price on the breakfast cooked by HIM because they bet the Professor could eat for free if the girls solved the riddles on time. The Professor agrees to pay, but says he'll never come back because the food was lousy anyway, and HIM chases after him, trying to win back his patronage. At the end, the girls are left blinking in confusion and the narrator cannot even say his catchphrase, and ends with a "so, um...yeah."
 * A recurring motif in the children's series Towser, with each episode building up to a blunt final line voiced by Roy Kinnear, delivered totally deadpan and highlighting a strange pointlessness about everything that had just happened. Most obvious is when Towser attempts to give his friend Sadie the moon for her birthday, but resorts to fooling with a white balloon. Thinking himself terribly clever, he leaves, the episode ends with Sadie explaining to a friend, 'It's a balloon. Towser seems to think it's the moon...'.
 * Happens in several episodes of Regular Show:
 * In "Slam Dunk", Mordecai and Rigby wage an escalating basketball war with Muscle Man and High-five Ghost for the rights to use the computer so that Mordecai can make a website for Margaret. After a climactic duel for control of the basketball in space leading to a from-orbit slam dunk for the final point, Mordecai approaches Margaret... and finds out Margaret already had it made, since she asked two months ago


 * In "A Bunch of Baby Ducks", Mordecai and Rigby have to find someone to whom they can give a bunch of baby ducks that have been following them around so that they can clean the park fountain. In the end, they fight a climactic battle with a duck poacher to help reclaim the ducklings with the help of their rightful mother. As they reported to Benson, the good news was they got rid of the baby ducks, but the bad news was that the fountain was destroyed
 * The Storm Hawks episode "Thunder Run" has the gang rush to save their friend after he pissed off a mob boss. The mob boss asks for "Rosen Yoga" and gives the team until sundown to retrieve it. They do, and "Rosen Yoga" turned out to be Frozen Yogurt (the Mob Boss has an incredibly bad lisp that makes him mispronounce things).
 * In one episode of Doug, Patti invites Doug to a dinner party she'll be hosting that weekend, with liver and onions on the menu. Doug is horrified, but doesn't dare back out for fear of offending her, so he spends the entire week trying and failing to make himself eat liver and onions so he'll at least know what he's in for. When he finally forces himself to try it at a restaurant on the night before the party, he realizes that it isn't anywhere near as bad as he thought it'd be. The next evening, he arrives at Patti's house, ready to chow down, only for her to tell him that she was joking about the liver and onions; everyone's eating hot dogs instead.

Other

 * A rare wordless example. It even has dogs.
 * The Great White Sheet Game: Typically played at co-ed college parties with some amount of alcohol, often on road trips where the participants have multiple hotel rooms. One person who has never played before is chosen as the Player, while all those who have played before take on the roles of "Master" (for the leader of the game) and "Others". The Player sits on a bed, and has a sheet tented over him. The Master then explains that this is a test, and that the Player must follow the instructions that the Master or the Others give, to the letter. The game then proceeds, first with the Master describing a scene: "You are walking through the desert. It is hot, and you are thirsty. You realize you don't need to be wearing as much as you are. Take something off, and pass it to me." Usually, the Player removes something inconsequential--jewelry or shoes. The Others then continue in the same vein--embellishing and otherwise confounding the statement, but always with the admonition to remove something the Player is wearing needlessly. As time goes on, articles of clothing start coming off and getting passed out.
 * Boy Scouts of America has a version where a number of newer scouts stands before a crowd and all place blindfolds on themselves. They are ordered not to make a sound for the duration of the game and are told to take an article of clothing off. The ones who take the blindfold off are quietly told to remain silent and the game is ended when the boys all have their blindfolds off or there are any boys reduced to their undergarments.
 * There are cards in Munchkin that can make a battle this: say you've encountered a Plutonium Dragon and its Evil Twin, facing painful death should you fail to beat them or run away. After numerous bonuses and anti-bonuses have been played on the monsters, the dragon's Baby Clone, and its Mommy, have been introduced to the fight, multiple one-shot items have been used to help or hinder you, several different methods of backstabbing have been employed, lengthy negotiations of teaming up have been had, and you're ready to reap your whopping eight levels and twenty-five treasures... Some asshat plays a few cards, making the dragon and its twin, clone, and the clone's mommy already dead (and dead broke), or something to the effect, leaving you without any levels or treasure, and everyone many cards poorer. Which is, of course, very munchkinly indeed, and highly recommendable in the spirit of the game.

Real Life
''Use Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment when adding examples here. Please avoid adding examples related to religion, politics, or any other topic that could rile people up.''
 * The balloon boy hoax: a balloon built for science experiments flew off, and the police were tracking it over several hours because they thought a six-year old boy was trapped in there. It turned out the boy was hiding in a box in his home the whole time. Not only that, but the family staged the entire thing just to get on TV.
 * The Hot Room Yes, this really happened.
 * Dreams are often this. You know the kind -- you dream up an entire parallel universe with a Lord of the Rings-style epic plot with several crucial subplots, tons of characters, and that takes place over what feels like a lifetime...only to build up to a cheap jump scare at the very end, and/or to vanish into total oblivion within a few seconds of waking up.
 * Incidentally you will try to invoke this whenever something particularly bad happens.
 * The infamous tale of the Indy Racing League.