Incredibly Obvious Bug: Difference between revisions

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* This is used to some degree in ''[[Veronica Mars]]''. Though the devices themselves are not incredibly conspicuous in design or form, merely the fact that Veronica Mars has given you a teddy bear, stapler, iPod, novelty pencil, gift basket, paperweight, school spirit button, etc. should be a red flag not to divulge your deepest secrets directly into it. Chances are that it not only captures perfect audio, but also captures video that can be [[Enhance Button|blown up into high resolution stills]] when appropriate.

** There's a pretty straight instance in "Clash of the Tritons": Veronica plants a tracking device under Duncan Kane's car. With a big, convenient red LED to show you that it's active. It's still hard to see above the tire, granted, but in a dark garage...

** And when she's trying to bug someone with a little bit of [[Genre Savvy|genre savvyness]], she'll sometimes plant ''two'' bugs: One incredibly obvious one for her target to find, and a less obvious one for them not to find.

* An attempt at making a truly unobtrusive listening device was made on ''[[Get Smart (TV)|Get Smart]]'', with CONTROL spending thousands of dollars to create a literal "bug" -- a tiny, perfectly lifelike, robotic fly with listening devices and radar built in. At the rollout, Max is so fooled by the disguise that he swats the fly.

* Played for laughs in ''[[Allo Allo (TV)|Allo Allo]]'', where a listening device in the Colonel's office is disguised as a vase of daffodils. When it is activated, one of the daffodils rises a few inches and rotates to point at whoever's talking. In a later episode, this incident is referred to, and everyone agrees that they won't be fooled again... and we notice that the desk lamp is rotating to point at whoever's talking.

* Subverted on ''[[Lost (TV)|Lost]]'': your typical flashing bug is planted in the terrorists' hangout, but it's put there to allow Sayid to find and disable it, thus winning favor with the terrorists and beginning his infiltration.

* ''[[Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon]]'' Act Zero has Sailor V and Artemis attaching (offscreen) a rather noticeable blinking tracking device to the suitcase the villains of this episode carried around. Of course, they only notice it after she finds them and points this fact out; then again, this entire episode was never meant to be taken seriously....

* Subverted in an episode of ''[[Ocean Girl]]''. A bug the size of an ashtray with a blinking red light is placed under a table. The two children who find it don't hesitate at all to destroy it. The evil corporation hunting them down wonder how it got found.

* [[Exploited Trope]] in the US version of ''[[The Office (TV)|The Office]]'' in an episode where Dwight gives Jim a wooden mallard with a listening device planted in the bottom. Jim quickly discovers the conspicuous walkie-talkie underneath it; however, the true purpose of the mallard was to distract attention away from the ''real'' bug, which Dwight had hidden inside a ballpoint pen.

* ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]'': A large bucket of water sat outside Hogan's barracks with a ''very visible'' periscope that popped up and looked around. (The eyepieces were in the two-tap faucet in the barrack's sink.) There is also the picture of Hitler in Col. Klink's office. It shows Hitler giving a speech with a microphone. Of all obvious places to stick a hidden microphone....

 

== Web Animation ==

 

 

[[Category:Applied Phlebotinum]]

[[Category:Incredibly Obvious Bug]]