Trope Workshop:Crane Game Gag

We have all seen them. You see the machine with toys. All you have to do is fork over a quarter. Just point the claw, press the button, and get a toy. Easy, right?

Wrong.

The Crane Game Gag is when a character has drama ensuing from engaging with an arcade game. It's fifty-fifty if you either get the toy or not. Only a specialist or someone who rigs the game can win. If the person wins, they usually have a system or a method. If they lose, Hilarity Ensues.

It is a subtrope of Collectible Cloney Babies.

Anime and Manga

 * Cardcaptor Sakura in the anime features this in the Freaky Friday Flip episode. After the latest card makes Syaoran and Kero switch bodies, Syaoran ends up trapped in an arcade crane game machine. Turns out that Kero is the only one with the skills, owing to his many hours spent gaming. He gets frustrated when the first few attempts go south.
 * In Romantic Killer, Hijiri asks how a game like this is fun when he follows Anzu to an arcade after their work shift ends. He says that with his wealth, he could buy all the toys in the arcade. Anzu tells him part of the fun is not knowing what you will get.
 * Sailor Moon:
 * During episode 109 of S where Minako gets her heart stolen, she's playing a crane game while talking to Usagi about making herself worthy. Usagi, flashing back to when Minako and the Senshi died in season one as well as everyone getting their hearts stolen, starts banging her against the machine, begging her not to risk her life. As a result, Minako wins twenty toys, which she proceeds to give to everyone. When her heart gets removed and she runs off with it, the Senshi toss the toys at the daimon to distract it.
 * Yu-Gi-Oh: the season 0 manga shows a variant with Capmon, Capsule Monsters. Kids collect these monsters from vending machines and then use them for battle. You get random capsules from a machine and thus do not know what levels you will get, making the odds high-stakes. Yugi nearly tears apart a machine when he only gets level one monsters, asking why it isn't working. (Turns out it was rigged.)
 * One episode of Lucky Star shows Kagami having so much trouble getting a particular toy from a crane game that the montage includes a shot of her getting more change in order to keep playing.

Film

 * Toy Story features Sid getting into a battle with a crane game machine at Pizza Planet. He already won an LGM but sees a Buzz Lightyear in there. Woody tries to save Buzz, but Sid's more stubborn and better equipped with the machine. The LGMs believe the "Claw" takes you to a better place.
 * This trope comes back as a Brick Joke in Toy Story 3 when the LGMS weaponize a larger "Claw"

Literature

 * In The Boxcar Children, a variant exists with gumballs in The Pizza Mystery. Benny uses pennies to get a silver gumball at a gas station. A silver gumball can be traded in for a free treat. He ends up not getting any on the first four, but gets the fifth when a random stranger puts in a penny and shoves his inside. Because said stranger is a jerk, however, Benny refuses to get a treat, looking upset. At the end of the book, he wins a gumball on his first try, but insists on keeping it as his treat and souvenir for the trip.

Live-Action TV

 * In Squid Game, a crane game toy fumble caps off the terrible day Gi-hun is having. When he's pickpocketed by Sae-byeok and coerced by loan sharks just as he earns enough money from betting on horse races to treat his daughter for his birthday, he's reduced to winning her a prize from a crane game. Though a child kindly helps him acquire one, the gift ends up being a gun-shaped cigarette lighter. Ga-yeong takes it well. TV Sins pointed out how dumb Gi-hun was since the next crane game had Stitch plushies in them.

Western Animation

 * In Bluey, Bluey and Bingo get frustrated after failing to get a toy from a claw machine. Their parents cheer them up by replicating the machine at home, using chopsticks, their toys, and sound effects.
 * In Clarence, the titular character pretend to get trapped in a claw machine. He "helps" his friend Voo win a toy dinosaur while saying he is trapped forever.