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Convenient Eclipse (view source)

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== [[Comic Books]] ==
* ''[[Tintin (Comic Book)]]'' used a [[Convenient Eclipse]] in "Prisoners of the Sun": when held prisoner by a surviving group of Incas and pending execution by sun-lit pyre, Tintin claims the date of the eclipse is Captain Haddock's birthday, causing the Inca priest to schedule their execution for that day. During the day itself, Tintin fakes being able to command the sun and the Incas let them go. It's a ''little'' more believable than many examples of this trope, as the Inca leader tells Tintin that he must die within a month, but can choose which time for the execution (being a full month, the chance that an eclipse actually ''would'' occur in that time period is a little higher) On the other hand, this ends up creating a factual error: the Incas were skilled astronomers and knew what eclipses were and how to predict them.
** Also, Tintin was given a newspaper that had astronomical tables printed in it. Good thing they didn't give him the sports section.
* Parodied in the [[Don Rosa]] comic story "The Once and Future Duck", where [[Donald Duck]] is about to be executed by (the historical) King Arthur, and he orders his nephews to wow Arthur by predicting an eclipse. After protesting [[This Is Reality|"That only works in old movies and comic books, Unca Donald!"]], they reply "You have two options: get them to pack up camp and move to Madagascar, or stay here and convince them to delay the execution for 237 years!" Don is instead saved from execution when Gyro beeps the horn on his truck and scares the whole camp silly.
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== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Ladyhawke]]''. "Night without a day, day without a night."
* In ''[[The Fugitive (Filmfilm)|The Fugitive]]'', [[Harrison Ford]] leaves the federal lockup with [[Tommy Lee Jones]] in hot pursuit. However, a conveniently passing St. Patrick's Day parade provides the perfect cover for the hero to escape. On most other days of the year, the streets would be relatively empty and Harrison Ford would be captured within moments. (It should be noted that this sequence was a late addition to the script. As filmed, Jones' exit from the lockup is delayed briefly by a security door closed in an attempt to halt Ford; as originally scripted, the delay would have been long enough for Ford to get away.)
* ''[[Apocalypto]]'': Just as Jaguar Paw is about to be sacrificed via heart-ripping by a Maya priest, a solar eclipse makes the priest believe that their god is satisfied with the sacrifices already done, saving Jaguar Paw's life. This seems unlikely, since Maya astronomers and priests understood eclipses as well, and should have known it was going to happen anyway. Pre-Columbian South American civilizations just can't catch a break, it seems.
** Well they aren't exactly {{spoiler|PRE-Colombian}} now are they?
** The priest looks at the eclipse, gives a small smile to himself and ends the sacrifices. He knew it was coming.
* Sort-of inverted in ''[[From Dusk Tilltill Dawn]] 2'': the hero escapes the vampires into the sunlight... Then guess what happens. Note that the moon must have wanted the vampires to win; it literally comes racing across the sky then screeches to a halt when it reaches the proper position.
* The musical remake of ''[[Little Shop of Horrors]]'' has the evil plant coming to Earth during an unexpected eclipse. Never mind the fact that real eclipses are predicted decades in advance, so there's never an "unexpected" one.
** Which would make an alien ship passing between Earth and the Sun [[Fridge Brilliance|pretty unexpected, huh?]]
* ''[[Die Hard (Film)|Die Hard]] 2'' has the bad guys heavily relying on a bad storm on the exact day they need to hold the airport to ransom. On a day with good visibility, it would have been nearly impossible to trick pilots into crashing by messing with the landing systems.
* In ''[[Robin Hood]]'' (the Patrick Bergin version), the heroes need to gain access to the [[Big Bad]]'s castle. They use the fact that it is All Fool's Day, and no group observing the festival can be denied admission, to get in and execute their plan. On any other day of the year, presumably, the castle guards would simply reply by riddling the merry men with crossbow bolts.
 
== [[Literature]] ==
* In ''[[A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court|A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court]]'' (and any similar guy-from-now-ends-up-in-medieval-times plot), the hero just happens to be around on the same day as a total eclipse, which he can use to his benefit. On any other day of the year, he would simply be run through.
** Did anyone else wonder how on Earth a factory foreman from 19th-century Connecticut could have predicted that? Honestly, how many people here who aren't astronomers can name the date of ANY eclipse, ever, let alone one over 1,000 years ago? They weren't even using the Gregorian calendar in King Arthur's time!
*** [[Rule of Cool]]?
* Occurs in the book ''[[King SolomonsSolomon's Mines (Literature)|King Solomons Mines]]'' (though not the movie versions). The heroes use a convenient ''lunar'' eclipse to con themselves out of death at the hands of African natives. Is slightly subverted when one of the villains tries explaining that the eclipse is a natural occurrence that will pass soon, but no one bothers to listen to her.
** It helps that one of the characters was carrying an Almanac at the time, which documents that sort of thing, and which is often logically carried on long expeditions like the one they were on.
*** Still a remarkable fortune that an eclipse happened right at the same night they were to be executed.
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(And is, by Scepticks, thought to be<br />
Suspicious in its frequency.) }}
* Subverted in ''[[Amelia Peabody|The Last Camel Died At Noon]]'', an [[Affectionate Parody]] of ''[[King SolomonsSolomon's Mines (Literature)|King Solomons Mines]]''. A family of [[Adventure Archaeologist|adventure archaeologists]] are in a lost civilization and looking to impress the natives. The wife asks her husband if a [[Convenient Eclipse]] coming up by any chance, and his response is essentially, "How the Hell would I know? I'm an archaeologist, not an astronomer."
 
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* 1960's ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]'' episode "The Cat and the Fiddle". Batman and Robin are tied under giant magnifying glasses so they'll be broiled to death by concentrated sunlight. An eclipse gives the time to move one of the glasses so it burns through their bonds and frees them.
 
== [[Video Games]] ==
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Parodied in ''[[Darkwing Duck]]''. Darkwing was to be executed by a group of medieval peasants for witchcraft, but noticed that the time of the execution coincided exactly with a solar eclipse and decided to threaten the peasants that he would block the sun if they didn't release him. Unfortunately, the newspaper dates were wrong and he ended up standing on the gallows for 24 hours, pretending to put out the sun, before it actually went dark. Peasants = amazed.
** And it was probably parodied there because it had already been played straight on that show's predecessor, ''[[Duck TalesDuckTales]]''. Scrooge McDuck went into a South American country on the deadline day to resign a lease on the company he owned there, but, like Darkwing, he found himself scheduled to be executed by the local dictator instead. His nephews, who had inadvertently caused this predicament by tricking Scrooge -- and through him, the entire world! -- into thinking it was the next day, consulted their [[Great Big Book of Everything|super-exhaustive Junior Woodchucks Guidebook]] to try to fix things. And what do you know, a [[Convenient Eclipse]] was supposed to happen today! The boys showed the dictator the eclipse, thus correcting the date, and "Unca Scrooge" was not only free to go, but free to resign that lease.
*** The exact same plot was later [[Recycled Script|recycled]] for the ''[[Tale Spin (Animation)|Tale Spin]]'' episode "The Time Bandit".
* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender (Animation)|Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' plays a lesser version where the eclipse comes in a few ''months''.
** And is also portrayed FAR more accurately than in most media, the full Eclipse itself lasting only a few minutes.
** There's also a villainous inversion with the imminent arrival of Sozin's Comet creating a deadline of less than a year for the entire plot (otherwise Aang would have the option to take his time mastering all the elements and facing the Fire Lord only when he was completely ready)
*** Although the comet itself is a case of [[You Fail Science Forever]], since comets are composed of rock and ''ice'', not fire. Could be [[Justified Trope|justified]] though in the sense that Avatar takes place in another world quite different from ours.
* Parodied on ''[[The Simpsons (Animationanimation)|The Simpsons]]'' in "Marge and the Monorail" when an eclipse causes the out-of-control solar powered train to stop temporarily and everyone breathes a sigh of relief... only for the sun to come back out and cause the train to start again.
** "A solar eclipse. The cosmic ballet... goes on."
** "Does anybody wanna switch seats?"
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