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Fox-Chicken-Grain Puzzle: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|'''''RATS!''' Your goose is cooked!''|a failure message from one computer version of this puzzle}}
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This is an ancient puzzle. The oldest known example was found in ''Propositiones ad Acuendos Juvenes'', which dates to the late ninth century.
A more complicated version, but which operates on much the same principle, involves a barrier (usually a bridge), four people who all move at different rates, and some item that is required in order to cross the barrier (most often a flashlight). The puzzle is to get all the people across within a specified amount of time, which seems to be too short. Probably the most well-known version of this is:
{{quote|Four men want to cross a bridge. They all begin on the same side. It is night, and they have only one flashlight with them. At most two men can cross the bridge at a time, and any party who crosses, either one or two people, must have the flashlight with them.
The flashlight must be walked back and forth: it cannot be thrown, etc. Each man walks at a different speed. A pair must walk together at the speed of the slower man. Man 1 needs 1 minute to cross the bridge, man 2 needs 2 minutes, man 3 needs 5 minutes, and man 4 needs 10 minutes. For example, if man 1 and man 3 walk across together, they need 5 minutes. }}
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There's yet '''another''' variant called "Missionaries and Cannibals" where the poor missionaries get eaten if the number of cannibals are greater than theirs.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* The cannibals and missionaries version is mentioned in ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'', with wolves and sheep.
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* ''[[Mongrels]]'' references this in the first episode with Nelson the fox, his chicken "girlfriend" and a bag of grain they were eating. They solved it by knocking out the boat's owner and stealing it.
== [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]]s ==
* ''[[
** The bridge type showed up in a recent quest.
* The free children's MMO ''[[Poptropica]]'' has a puzzle involving this.
== Music ==
* ''[http://www.songworm.com/lyrics/songworm-parody/WolfHenandCorn.html Wolf, Hen, and Corn]'' is a filk about this.
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* Parodied in a ''[[Dilbert]]'' [http://dilbert.com/strip/2003-11-27
== [[Video Games]] ==
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* In a subquest in ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'', in order to make one of the cockatrice go back home, you must transport the cockatrice, a wolf and the boy across a river.
* An [[Adobe Flash]] game has a more complex variant [http://jayisgames.com/archives/2006/06/raft_iq_puzzle.php involving a raft, eight people and a convoluted set of rules]. [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|Good luck!]]
* The obscure dating game ''Sprung'' on the [[Nintendo DS]] had a variation to this on Brett's story. At one point Brett will be asked to go to Sanctuary with Becky, where he will bring his buds Lucas and Danny while she brings Alex and Erica. The catch, however, is that Becky wants a calmer night, so she doesn't want any funny business ([[Fridge Logic|nevermind that Sanctuary is a raving night club where the nameless other people not mentioned in the game are probably doing just that]]). The puzzle comes where Brett meets everyone but Becky at the front of the club and he has to get all of them inside one by one. However, if Lucas and Alex or Danny and Erica are left alone and Brett comes back to them later, he will catch them making out, leading to Becky to see this, her announcing the night was ''ruined'' and you getting slapped with a game over. The puzzle is extended further because it's not only a matter of getting everyone inside, but also a matter of keeping everyone happy which means a lot of shuffling out people whom are already fine inside (such as dragging Danny out because he gets panicked over the sight of too many people, or dragging Lucas out for pep talk). Further rules are also added as time marches on, including how the aforementioned couples ''can'' later be left alone without problems after an event happens where Brett talks them down, or how new pairings are made that ''can't'' be left alone without you interfering with them (such as how, at one point, Danny and Lucas will fight if left alone).
* Appears as a series of wood-inlay pictures on a puzzle box in ''[[Nancy Drew (video game)|Nancy Drew]]: The Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon''. It uses a dog, a cat and a bird, presumably because a bag of grain would be hard to identify in silhouette. Nancy deduces the animals' starting side ''for'' you, from no clues whatsoever!
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Referenced in ''[[Xkcd]]'' [http://xkcd.com/589/ some time ago].
* ''[[Full Frontal Nerdity]]''
== [[Web Original]] ==
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{{quote|'''Tamika:''' Everybody knows that riddle!
'''Sonny:''' What riddle? (Pulls curtain open, revealing a chicken, a coyote and a sack of corn) }}
** Eddie and Philly Phil manage to get through it in fewer than seven steps due to Eddie bribing the coyote with a $100 bill to not eat the chicken.
{{quote|'''Philly Phil:''' What's a coyote gonna do with a hundred dollars?
'''Eddie:''' [[Looney Tunes|If cartoon memory serves right, he's gonna use it to buy a pair of Acme Rocket Skates.]] }}
* Showed up in the 20th season ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|Simpsons]]'' episode "Gone Maggie Gone". Homer is trying to get across a river with Maggie, Santa's Little Helper (who is trying to tear up Maggie's doll), and a jar of candy-coated rat poison.
{{quote|'''Homer:''' [[Lampshade Hanging|Why did I bring the baby and the dog to the poison store??]]}}
** In the same episode, Cletus asks Homer for help with getting a fox, duck and corn across, but then "the puzzle done worked itself out" when both the corn and the duck are eaten.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Stock Puzzle]]
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