Instant Home Delivery

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A character orders something (that they will likely will end up hurting themselves with) and places the order in the mailbox/calls it in/whatever you can think of. The ordered goods will be delivered within seconds. At its extreme, the character places their order form in the mail box, closes it, and then opens the mailbox again to pull out what they ordered, without any postal carrier even touching it.

Please do not confuse this with Express Delivery or any other childbirth-related trope. May be an Acceptable Break From Reality in a Video Game.

Examples of Instant Home Delivery include:

Anime and Manga

  • In an episode/chapter of Hayate the Combat Butler, Nagi orders something from Amazon and it is delivered in 30 minutes. Lampshaded by Hayate and Maria, who wonder when Amazon started offering that service.

Comic Books

  • Thanks to matter-manipulation nanotechnology, instant delivery is a common feature of life in Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan.
  • A tie-in comic book to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? lampshaded this as one of the better things about living in Toontown. In fact, the item Roger ordered arrived before he placed the order, prompting him to declare that the modern world is moving a little too fast.
  • Subverted in Scott Pilgrim Volume 1. Scott orders CD's from amazon.ca so that the girl he likes/is obsessed with/is stalking will deliver them. One scene change later he runs to the door, and no one is there. His roommate reminds him that he put the order in less then three hours ago. In actuality the package arrives the next morning, given amazon, this is damn near uncanny.
    • Played with even more in The Movie; the delivery arrives straight after Wallace's lampshading, but only thanks to one of the movie's many Smash Cuts. Scott's still sitting by the door, though.

Film

Live Action TV

  • Mystery Science Theater 3000: "We ordered it from Instant Monkeys Online, and it came instantly, just like the ad said!"
  • An episode of Sesame Street had The Count order something by telephone, saying "and I need it fast!" We immediately hear the delivery truck squeal to a stop outside.
  • Happens in the Charmed episode "Sin Francisco", thanks to magic.
  • In an episode of My Hero (TV), George orders an animal translator from his home planet so he can understand why Janet's mum's dog is so upset. Janet protests that by the time it arrives, the dog will be gone... at which point the package arrives. George complains about service decay.

Music

Newspaper Comics

  • Garfield once ordered a cup of coffee over the Internet. It arrived instantly.
  • Erudite and intellectual Zebra of Pearls Before Swine occasionally mails letters to the lions who are attacking his herd. He always gets a reply the next day, but it's never good news.

Video Games

  • Need more ammo or a better gun during a firefight in Metal Gear Solid 4? Don't worry, Drebin offers instant battlefield delivery.
    • Bizarrely, they hint that they use the Mark II to carry the stuff back and forth, despite the fact that it moves nowhere near that fast...
    • Ditto for Just Cause 2: Sloth Demon/Tom Sheldon appears instantly when called with whatever gun, vehicle, or upgrade you were about to ask him for. He can also shuttle you around in his helicopter, which apparently flies several times faster than a fighter jet.
  • The Sims 2 features nearly instantaneous home delivery of groceries, not to mention the fact that you can enter purchase or construction modes and instantly buy and place any product in the game's catalog.
  • In addition to more conventional shops, Xenosaga allows the party to purchase things via UMN (the Internet, essentially) and all goods arrive instantaneously
  • Items in Final Fantasy VII prequel Crisis Core are bought over Zack's company-issue cellphone. The items appear in in your inventory the moment you purchase them, even if you're miles from civilization.
  • The Russian Mafia black marketeers in Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction might as well start identifying themselves with the tagline "delivered by airlift in 30 seconds or less."
  • The relatively obscure Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf (based on the Ralph Wolf cartoons) enabled you to post an order for an item in a certain mailbox, only for it to arrive by air mail seconds later. Sometimes next to the mailbox, other times in ridiculously out of the way places.
  • In Day of the Tentacle, a diamond is sent by "Pronto Post Light-Speed Delivery" and arrives about one second after hanging up the phone. "Now that's service!" Bernard quips. Pony Express riders in the colonial era seem to have a similar response time with picking up a letter from a mailbox.
    • Maniac Mansion established the Edison house as having some kind of magic mailbox. Wierd Ed's package and mailing off a manuscript or demo tape to Three Guys Publishing are essential to several of the story endings
  • In Harvest Moon: Animal Parade for the Wii your character can order pretty much anything over the phone and have it delivered instantly, but it costs twice as much as if you went to the store and bought it.
  • In Animal Crossing series, special orders at Tom Nook's store (and, in the first game, fossil identifications) take only one day to show up in your mailbox at no extra charge. That's slower than some of these examples but still several times faster than real-world free shipping.
  • EarthBound has a pizza delivery guy who will satisfy your Hyperactive Metabolism within three minutes, real-time. Even if you are in a volcanic cavern on the other side of the world, a Floating Continent that can only be reached by teleportation, or a secret alien base beneath Stonehenge, he will show up anyways.
  • In the Legend of Zelda game Ocarina of Time, it is possible to acquire a cow from the ranch. This cow will soon show up at your house all the way over in Kokiri Forest ... your tree house. Which is accessed by a slender vertical ladder. How they get the cow up there is anybody's guess.
  • The Labian Terror Beast mating call whistle from Space Quest 2 shows up almost immediately after Roger places the form in the mail.
  • In An Untitled Story, any furniture bought from landlord in SkyTown will be delivered to your home as soon as you leave the screen.
  • Sorcerer, the second game in the Enchanter trilogy, justifies this via Time Travel and Rule of Funny, as the company promises delivery of the item as soon as you mail out for it.
  • An upgrade in the campaign mode of StarCraft II allow your SCVs to have Supply Depots instantly beamed down onto the battlefield from the ship, which lets the SCV spend more time collecting minerals and gas or constructing other types of buildings. Justified in this case, as it is a technology reverse engineered from Protoss warping capabilities.
  • Several examples in Kingdom of Loathing, but one of the oldest is the Discount Telescope Warehouse telescope delivery: "You drop the order form in a mailbox in Seaside Town, and see a bolt of light whoosh across the sky over your head, toward your campsite. When you head back, there's a shiny new telescope there!" Upgraded lenses arrive similarly, but after fully upgrading the telescope, "You fill out the form and drop it in a mailbox in town. No sooner has it hit the bottom of the box than a tiny pixie appears next to you" to give you meat compensation instead.
  • Somewhat averted in Pokémon Channel, as anything you order will turn up the next day, but played straight if you order a bus pass.
  • Interactive Fiction Kurusu City has a local store. Since you don't have cash to purchase the item at the store, you have to take the ship and bill option. It takes 43 seconds to be delivered, and as an cruel Unwinnable by Design, can crush an item you forgot to collect from said mailbox.

Web Original

  • Played with in The Angry Video Game Nerd's Atari 5200 review, in which he ordered a replacement controller for the system which turned out didn't fit properly and was useless. He's seen placing the order, then a cutaway to a clip from Paperboy, throwing the parcel, then the Nerd opens his front door and gets hit in the face with it.
  • "My new internet penis is here!"

Web Comics

Western Animation

  • This happens with any product Wile E. Coyote orders in the Road Runner vs. Coyote cartoons. Say what you will about Acme's quality control, their distribution system is second to none!
  • Also, in the cartoon where Bugs Bunny squares off against the opera singer, he orders a set of ear-muffs through the mail. They arrive in seconds, while the letter is still in the mail box.
  • In the Futurama episode "The Route of All Evil," Cubert and Dwight order a pedal-powered spacecraft out of the back of a comic book. The ad says "Allow four to six seconds for delivery." As the boys wait impatiently by the mailbox, Cubert sniffs, "More like seven."
  • Averted whenever anyone orders something on The Simpsons. The scene will always cut to the delivery "six to eight weeks later."
  • In one episode of Danny Phantom Sam orders pizza (and later some updated computer software) and they both arrive within seconds. It's implied that she gets this kind of service because she comes from a wealthy family, the "little people" just have to wait it out.
  • Happened in Invader Zim. Notable as the delivery was intergalactic and still took place in a few seconds.
  • In the Goofy cartoon about home exercise equipment, he places his order form for the equipment in the post box, and the moment he closes the door, the bottom door of the box opens, with the package containing the equipment coming out.
  • Courage usually gets his stuff delivered just a few seconds after ordering it from a guy named Mr. Mouse.
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