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Go Look At the Distraction: Difference between revisions

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Go Look At the Distraction (view source)

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{{trope}}
[[File:Obvious_distraction_309.png|link=Freefall (Webcomic)|right]]
 
{{quote|''"Oh look, is that a reason to leave?"''|'''Jeff Winger''', ''[[Community (TV)|Community]]''}}
 
A type of [[Room Shuffle]] where one character actively wants another character out of a room so they can discuss something in private. They'll usually either come up with some absurd reason for the character to go to the kitchen or across the hall or whatever--something along the lines of "Hey, did you know one of the bathroom floor tiles looks just like a map of Tanzania? Go have a look!"--or they say something that they know will make that specific character clear out, like "You know Greg, I was just talking to Bill across the hall and apparently his favorite thing is interminable circus anecdotes."
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== Fanfiction ==
 
* ''[[The Man Withqith No Name (Fanficfanfic)|The Man With No Name]]'', a ''[[Firefly]]'' / ''[[Doctor Who]]'' crossover, has the Doctor throw a [[Hypno Trinket]] up in the air in the hopes that some brainwashed thugs will stare at it long enough for River to beat the snot out of them.
 
== Film ==
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'''Capt. West:''' Commander, I'd like you to leave the room so we can talk about you behind your back.<br />
'''Galloway:''' Certainly, sir. }}
* In ''[[Harry Potter (Filmfilm)|Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban]]'', Dumbledore points out various pieces of landscaping to Fudge in order to keep him from noticing Harry and Hermione sneaking behind him to rescue Buckbeak.
* In ''Gray Matters'', when it's in the middle of the night and Sam tries to get Gray to go to bed so that he can be alone with Charlie:
{{quote| '''Sam:''' Don't you have that big meeting in the morning to get to?<br />
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'''Sam:''' The big meeting in the morning that you have to get to? That big meeting?<br />
'''Gray:''' ''Oh'', that big meeting! }}
* In the 2009 [[Sherlock Holmes (Filmfilm)|Sherlock Holmes]] movie, Sherlock sends the policemen inside the recently deceased Sir Thomas's home to look for bath salts while he continues searching by his lonesome for a secret compartment where Thomas kept his occult paraphernalia.
 
== Literature ==
 
* In ''[[Heidi (Literature)|Heidi]]'' there is a scene where Mr. Sesemann wants to speak about Heidi with his daughter Klara, so he (somewhat clumsily) makes up an excuse by asking Heidi to bring him a glass of water. This errand turns then into a real adventure for Heidi.
* ''[[Harry Potter]]''
** Several adults commit variations of this throughout, with several less than comic results in the 5th and 7th books respectively.
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* At least one ''[[Discworld]]'' novel has someone throwing an object into the air, then gutting the other person whilst they look at it.
** This happened in ''Interesting Times''. Cohen the Barbarian and his Silver Horde is being threatened by several samurai. One of them throws a handkerchief in the air and cuts it in two with his sword, which is sharp and looks like new. Cohen's sword, in contrast, is rusted and chipped, despite being very sharp, and the samurai aren't exactly impressed with it. Cohen asks for another handkerchief, throws it up in the air...then slits the throats of three samurai while they're looking up at it.
* ''[[The Supernaturalist (Literature)|The Supernaturalist]]'' had a character toss an 'ID card' <ref>a blank piece of laminated cardboard</ref> into the air, then shooting (nonlethally) the bad guys when they watched it go. Crosses with [[Hey, Catch!]].
* Once in ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', Harry needs to pick a lock. Since [[Fair Cop]] Murphy is there, he tells her to "look at that zeppelin." Subverted in that Murphy knows ''exactly'' what he's doing, but complies anyway so that she doesn't actually see him doing anything illegal.
 
== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Friends (TV)|Friends]]''
** In one episode, Phoebe uses the word "Crummies" to make Chandler flee the room.
** A slight subversion where Ross distracts Rachel, despite having nothing made up to distract her with. After a short time of Ross trying to think of a conversation, Rachel assumes that he wants to get back together with her.
* In ''[[Titus (TV)|Titus]]'', when the titular character is being annoyed by his less-than-smart brother during a car ride, he shouts, "Dave, cow!", causing Dave to look frantically for the cow and moo at it. Later in the same episode, the same trick is tried, and Dave replies, "That doesn't work every time, you know", before surreptitiously looking out the window for the cow.
* ''[[Scrubs (TV)|Scrubs]]''
** In one episode, JD wants to talk to Elliot, but The Todd is in the room. To get rid of him, JD mimes throwing a ball into the hallway. Todd, naturally, goes to find it then, [[Rule of Funny|inexplicably]], returns after JD and Elliot's conversation and hands JD a tennis ball.
** He tries it again with the Janitor. The Janitor asks what he's doing as the Todd runs past, looking for the ball.
** Doctor Cox Gets the best one, though: ''"Oh my god, is that guy on'' '''''fire?'''''" *Runs*
* ''[[The IT Crowd (TV)|The IT Crowd]]'': [[Double Subversion|Subverted multiple times]] in episode four. Roy at one point gets stuck under a desk, with no way to escape because the employee to whom the desk belongs has returned to it. Moss is called in to distract said employee using this trope, but he fails miserably at it because his attempt is only slightly better than literally just saying "Go look at the distraction!". Eventually, Jen successfully pulls it off by claiming that there's a shirtless construction worker outside, a sure distraction for the all-female employees on the floor... and it turns out there really ''was'' a shirtless construction worker, but hardly an attractive one.
* ''[[ICarly (TV)|I Carly]]''
** In ''iOwe You'', Sam tells Freddie his relative got hurt, sending him running back to his apartment, so she could cry to Carly without him seeing.
** In ''iQuit iCarly'', Sam distracts Carly's group by calling out ''Ryan Seacrest''. They fall for it, prompting Sam to occupy the scaffolding they both wanted to shoot a video from first.
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* In ''[[Due South]]'', Fraser distracts Ray from the fact that he's about to push him out of a plane by saying "Look, Ray! Turtles!" Oddly, it works, even though they're flying over the Arctic tundra at the time...
* In ''[[Murder Most Horrid]]'' episode "A Determined Woman", Dawn French's character, who has travelled back in time to prevent herself killing her husband, sends him out of the house on errands for random implausible items (a specific sort of string and soup from Uruguay). These items of course turn out to be somewhat less than random as they are all present in the house already and his presenting them to the wrong version of her is part of what leads to his murder in the first place.
* ''[[Frasier (TV)|Frasier]]'': When Niles is [[It Makes Sense in Context|dueling his wife's German fencing instructor]], he points offscreen and yells some [[As Long Asas It Sounds Foreign|German-sounding nonsense]] to buy some time.
* Used a couple of times in ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'', though it usually amounts to "Look, a huge distracting thing!"
* ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'' has the most common variant of this trope be asking someone to "go get some water".
* On ''[[El Chavo Del Ocho]]'' had a little conversation that ended outsmarted.
{{quote| ''Not Actual Quote''<br />
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'''Chavo''': If you don't believe me, go yourself. }}
* In ''[[Lois and Clark]]'', a temporarily blinded Superman is staying with Lois, who doesn't know his secret yet. When Jonathan and Martha Kent show up at Lois's apartment (greeting their son with an awkward "Hello, Superman"), Superman suddenly requests oolong tea. Jonathan takes the hint and ushers Lois out to the store for tea so that Superman can be alone with his mom.
* ''[[Community (TV)|Community]]'': Oh, look, is that a reason to leave? And [[Ax Crazy|Chang]] [[Butt Monkey|falls]] [[Too Dumb to Live|for]] [[Too Incompetent to Operate Aa Blanket|it.]]
* ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]''
{{quote| "Excuse me, could I please just distract you for a brief moment?"}}
 
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** In episode 2 of ''[[Tales of Monkey Island]]'', Guybrush shouts "Look! A distraction!" to a pair of pirates, one of whom replies with, "Oooh! What's it distracting?"
* In a ''[[Hannah Montana]]'' game for the Nintendo DS, Oliver is blocking the way somewhere, and you have to choose the right things in a conversation so he'll move. One of the choices is, "Oh, look, a distraction!" {{spoiler|It doesn't work.}}
* In ''[[Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|Chrono Trigger]]'', there is a point where your party meets Dalton on an icy plain. Your party blocks his fireball, but engages in extreme [[Cutscene Incompetence]] when they look behind them, at his request. Cue the party being captured.
* In [[Tales of the Abyss]], when the group is looking for more information on Largo possibly being Natalia's father, they plan on keeping her out of the loop at the moment, and claim that they're going to Chesedonia to investigate the fake Scorer. When the fake Scorer ({{spoiler|Sync}}) greatly upsets Anise by {{spoiler|reminding her of her responsibility for Ion's death, using Ion's voice}}, the party has Natalia accompany Anise around the marketplace. They notice that Anise is somewhat upset at being used as the bait.
* In "[[Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3]]", Qui's UB attack involves him looking past his opponent and proclaiming, "Ah, Lord Frieza!". When his opponent turns, he unleashes a torrent of energy blasts.
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{{quote| '''Bob:''' Look! A distraction!<br />
'''Eddie:''' Ooh! Where?! I collect those! }}
* ''[[Freefall (Webcomic)|Freefall]]'' strip [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff300/fv00228.htm #228] provides the current trope image:
{{quote| '''Florence:''' Helix! Look! It's an obvious distraction!<br />
'''Helix:''' Where?! I don't see any obvious distraction. }}
* ''[[Mac Hall]]''. "Quick, run home! Your mother is on fire!"
* In ''[[Chirault]]'', at one point Astrid sends Teeko to go collect some water from upstream, leaving him and Kiran alone for some interrogation.
* ''[[El Goonish Shive (Webcomic)|El Goonish Shive]]'': "Hey, is that a demonic duck of some sort?"
** [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2005-02-23 nope he's on strike]
* In [[General Protection Fault]], Fooker, wanting to greet the apparently beautiful woman who comes to his apartment first, tells Chuck that someone is keying his car. He immediately comes to regret it when it turns out to be [[Devil in Plain Sight|Trudy]].
* [http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2011/05/23/0274-last-resort/ "Look!! A talking raccoon!!!"] yelled by the talking raccoon Woo to distract a hunter in ''[[Sandra and Woo (Webcomic)|Sandra and Woo]]''.
* Whenever ''[[Captain SNES]]'' needs to distract someone, the go-to fake-out is, apparently, a three-headed monkey.
 
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* ''[[The Legend of Neil]]'' has a drunken Neil distract some moblins by pointing behind them and shouting, "I'm disctracting you!". It works.
* Webtoon ''Krentz and The Hand of Shame 3'' has one character simply shout, "Diversion!" to get out of an awkward conversation. It works because as she says that [[Flat What|an airplane walks by]]. Yes, 'walks'.
* [[Atop the Fourth Wall (Web Video)|Linkara]] has his method of going "Look at the pretty bunny! Look at the pretty bunny!" while waving an adorable rabbit sculpture in front of the camera whenever the logic in the terrible comic he's reviewing falls apart.
 
 
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*** Doubly funny in that they weren't doing anything illegal.
* In ''A [[Pinky and The Brain]] Christmas'', Pinky shouts "Look! A decoy!" to Shotzy.
* In ''[[Beavis and Butt-HeadButthead]]'', Butt-head unsuccessfully tries to get Beavis off the couch so he can sprawl out on the couch by himself. When Beavis refuses to leave, Butt-head tells him "Hey Beavis, my uncle was over earlier, and he left a 6-foot poop in the toilet, and didn't flush". Beavis goes to check it out, Butt-head sprawls out on the couch.
* ''[[Invader Zim]]''
** In one episode Dib shouts "Hey! Look at that garbage can!". Zim turns, while Dib rams an [[Incredibly Obvious Bug]] into Zim's computer. The bug then activates a noisy drill to insert itself, [[Rule of Funny|leaving a huge hole]]. Zim: "Yes. It is rather impressive, that can."
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{{quote| '''Not!Azula''': "Look Zuko! It's your honor!"<br />
'''Not!Zuko''': "WHERE!?" }}
* On ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'', Jimmy is about to discover one of [[Stalker Withwith a Crush|Heloise's]] Jimmy dolls. In order to distract him, she quickly shouts "Look, a meteor!" It works.
 
{{reflist}}
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