Book and Switch: Difference between revisions

 

At least, they ''would'' think this except they [[Genre Savvy|aren't idiots]]. Inevitably the switch is discovered and the character executing it is embarrassed. And we all learn a valuable lesson - this character wants people to think he's smart, but he's really either a geek or an idiot. Usually the former for sympathetic ones, the latter for non-sympathetic ones.

 

Often the hidden book comes from the [[Porn Stash]].

 

{{examples}}

== [[Advertising]] ==

* A [[Self-Deprecation|self-deprecating]] in-house ad for ''Heeb: The New Jew Review'' shows an Orthodox Jewish man hiding a copy of the magazine behind an issue of ''Barely Legal''.

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

** Light also puts the Death Note inside a magazine when he is testing it on a biker who is harassing a woman.

* In ''[[Urusei Yatsura]]'' Ataru is shown hiding a girly mag inside one of his books.

* The smart sister in ''Heart of Valor'' by L.J. Smith is reading another book inside her algebra book during math class, her teacher knows but can't call her on it because she's getting all the questions right. She reflects that he'd probably be less annoyed if he knew the book she was hiding was a ''trigonometry'' textbook.

 

* ''[[The Odd Couple]]''- during a rehearsal for "Scrooge", one of the characters (Speed) is hiding porn underneath his script and is sort of not paying attention to the rehearsal. He is suddenly asked to read for the part of Scrooge. But he thinks they want him to read the porn. He balks, saying he would be embarrassed. He's coaxed into reading and begins reciting a passage from the porn, to which a very surprised Felix says, "Charles Dickens never wrote that".

* An episode of ''[[My Wife and Kids]]'' had Junior locking himself in the bathroom with magazines for hours at a time. Although his parents seem to think he is actually pleasuring himself with cookbooks and ''Field & Stream'', it's implied he is hiding porn magazines in them.

* In an episode of ''[[Clarissa Explains It All]]'', Fergusson pretends to his parents that he's reading a book, but he's actually playing on a [[Game Boy]].

* ''[[The Daily Show]]'' plays with this a lot, although it tends to come off more as a spoof of the fact that TV shows frequently just slap a new dust jacket on whatever books happen to be lying around whenever they need a book for a prop than of a real attempt to conceal the nature of the book in question. "Huh. You know, you so rarely see the hardcover edition of the Bible these days. It's almost like someone has taken a random book and given it a dust jacket that says, 'The Bible.'"

* The earliest opening credits for ''[[Home and Away]]'' had Stephen pulling a fake cover from a book Frank was reading.

 

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

* One strip of ''[[Frazz]]'' has child genius Caulfield hiding Shakespeare inside his primary reader book. Which is not a good thing to do on read-aloud day.

* ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' does this on quite a few Sunday editions; Calvin always hides a comic book inside his textbook.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* On ''[[Family Guy]]'', when Brian has to study for his exam, part of his training montage has Stewie catching him trying to read a steamy magazine while hiding it behind something else.

* An episode of ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' has Tucker hiding his PDA behind "A Farewell to Arms."

* ''[[South Park]]'' has Stan Marsh, who's on a Food Network Frenzy, hide a cookbook under a Playboy magazine

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]