May Contain Evil: Difference between revisions
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[[File:DrD MayContainEvil 6642.jpg|link=Kim Possible|frame|[[Suspiciously Specific Denial|Side effects do not include loss of individual personality.]]]]
{{quote|''"But I thought Scum Soda turned people into monsters?"''
|'''Mr. Z''', ''Rampage: Total Destruction''}}
▲{{quote|''"But I thought Scum Soda turned people into monsters?"''|'''Mr. Z''', ''Rampage: Total Destruction''}}
|''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]''}}
When the Trope [[Sealed Evil in A Can]] is [[Not Hyperbole]].
▲{{quote|''"Pleasing taste, some monsterism."''|''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]''}}
A well known corporation has just come out with an amazing brand-name product. They've spammed it over every media channel, and everyone is using it because of its [[Psycho Serum|"health benefits".]]
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Compare [[Sigil Spam]] and [[Evil Tastes Good]].
{{examples}}
== [[Advertising]] ==
* Ads for Polar Ice gum used this as a gimmick, claiming the gum turned people into polar bears. [[Captain Obvious|Of course this was totally not true]].▼
* Ads for [[Hulu]] claim that the service's owners want to melt your brains with TV, because they're evil aliens that feed on brains. True story.▼
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Essett, the [[Ancient Conspiracy]] in ''[[Weiss Kreuz]]'', at one point marketed the "health drink" Freude to young girls as part of a [[Mad Science]] experiment; drinking it regularly eventually caused their skin to degenerate gruesomely.
* The villains of ''[[Blood
* Early ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' used this as a standard plot, with gyms, jewelery and radio shows as the product in question.
* As part of his plan to take down Japan's society in ''[[Speed Grapher]]'', Suitengu used the Tenozu megacorp to distribute products that contained a chemical that would lower people's inhibitions, making them more violent.
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* The early [[Hayao Miyazaki]] film ''[[Flying Phantom Ship]]'' has "Boa Juice", which cause people drinking it to dissolve.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* The soft drink Goruda in "The Golden Ones" strip in ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]'' (actually a product of {{spoiler|the Axons}}) which transforms children into aliens.
==
▲* Ads for Polar Ice gum used this as a gimmick, claiming the gum turned people into polar bears. [[Captain Obvious|Of course this was totally not true]].
▲* Ads for [[Hulu]] claim that the service's owners want to melt your brains with TV, because they're evil aliens that feed on brains. True story.
* In ''[[Undercover Brother]]'', a racist conspiracy involved putting a chemical in fried chicken to make black people act [[Uncle Tomfoolery|like minstrel stereotypes of blacks]].
* ''[[Strange Brew]]'' (1983) had a mind-control agent added to beer.
* Beauline beauty cream in the ''[[Catwoman (film)|Catwoman]]'' movie can transform regular users into [[Made of Iron]], but if someone stops using it they look like a burn victim, ''and'' the heroine's best friend becomes ill enough to be hospitalized simply from using it regularly.
* ''[[The Stuff]]'' takes it to a new level. The eponymous Stuff is marketed as a sort of yogurt and is threatening to put ice cream companies out of business. What it actually is, however, is a living, parasitic (possibly even sentient) alien lifeform that gradually takes over the brain of whoever eats it, then mutates the victim into bizarre zombie-like creatures, and finally consumes them from the inside. All of this is played for [[Black Comedy]] in a movie where the true “villain” is unfettered capitalism.
* The "Regenerate" product seen in the adverts for the ''[[Resident Evil (film)|Resident Evil]]'' films, being made by the giant evil organization.
* The 1989 ''[[Batman (film)|Batman]]'' movie had the Joker lace beauty products with the ingredients for his trademark Smilex poison. The twist was that the contaminated products weren't poisonous on their own; they had to be mixed when the consumer used multiple products together, making it harder to find the cause of the poisoning.
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* Probably unintentionally (although with [[J.J. Abrams]], who knows) averted by the lead-up viral marketing campaign for ''[[Cloverfield]]'', which heavily featured a fictitious drink called "Slusho!", leading to online [[Wild Mass Guessing]] that the monster would be attracted to and devour its imbibers.
* ''[[CSA: Confederate States of America]]'' gives us Contrari, a drug that is supposed to cure [[wikipedia:Drapetomania|drapetomania]], a "condition" that Confederates believe causes their slaves to run away. It pretty obviously just keeps them drugged enough to be compliant.
* The monsters in the 2016 horror-comedy ''[[Attack of the Killer Donuts]]''. These tiny fiends are created when an experimental chemical is accidentally dumped into a donut shop's deep fryer, resulting in donuts that are living and ''evil''. Not exactly the most competent monsters, but then, they ''are'' just donuts.
== [[Literature]] ==
* Basis of most of ''[[The Demon Headmaster]]'' books and their television adaptation, whether it's a mind-controlling computer game, a frightening pig-themed TV show or a DJ.
* The Trippy Show in ''When the Tripods Came'', a prequel to ''[[The Tripods]]'' trilogy.
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* In Kevin Brockmeier's ''[[The Brief History of the Dead]]'', it is suggested that the lethal virus threatening the world {{spoiler|was spread by a new Coca-Cola formulation}}.
* In ''[[The Candy Shop War]],'' {{spoiler|white fudge}} is a delicious treat with the mild side effects of [[Lotus Eater Machine|total addiction]] and mind control.
* In Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction books ''[[Oryx and Crake]]'' and ''The Year of the Flood'', the BlyssPluss pills are marketed as the ultimate sex aid: they act as contraceptives, prevent the transmission of STDs and enhance sensation. Unfortunately some of the pills also contain an artificially
== Live Action TV ==▼
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' uses this trope to a ridiculous extreme. The new series alone has had phones which turn you into cybermen, school dinners used to control children, television sets that steal your face, emotion patches that killed the entire government of New New York and 99% of New Earth's population, and a phone network of brainwashing.
** Season four has {{spoiler|1=Weightloss treatments that animate your flesh and SatNavs/catalytic converters that poison you.}}
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* In S2:E9 ("Seasons Greedings") of ''[[Lois and Clark]]'', a displaced toymaker comes up with a chemical formula which makes anyone who smells it act extremely greedy and childish. He invents a new toy (the Atomic Space Rat) to unleash the toxic substance on the public.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* The ethos of the Pentex Corporation from ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' went something like this: cram products full of corrupted spirits that serve [[Cosmic Horror|a divine embodiment of entropy and suffering]]; work towards encouraging a general [[Crapsack World|crapsack atmosphere]], so that your customers can act as receptive hosts; watch as the possessed customers mutate and degrade into hideous monsters; claim profits and soldiers.
** There also was an entire source book about Pentex and its subsidiaries which explored the multitude of themes possible. It also noted that the rather heavy-handed approach described above was once taken by a Pentex-owned computer hardware corporation. What do you get when you plunk a spirit of entropy and destruction into every piece of hardware you sell? Yup, a product that is entirely unreliable and won't be bought, thus entirely undermining the purpose of the whole thing. When the Pentex Board of Directors learned of this, they were... [[Bad Boss|disappointed]]. The CEO's successor takes a more moderate approach, using it primarily to supply the other branches of Pentex with cheap computers - and of course selling a few outdated and mildly tainted models to schools.
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* A majority of cyberpunk game adventures are about stopping an evil corporation from putting a nasty product onto the market - or testing it on unsuspecting street people.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* "[[New and Improved]]" Buzz Cola in ''[[The Simpsons Hit
▲* "[[New and Improved]]" Buzz Cola in ''[[The Simpsons Hit and Run]]'', was almost used by Kang and Kodos to control human behavior for a galactic "reality show". Soon after the first plan failed, they let the "all purpose evil cola" seep into the water supply and ground, [[Zombie Apocalypse|causing the dead to]] [[Rise From Your Grave|rise from their graves]].
* And of course, Scum Soda from ''[[Rampage]]: Total Destruction'', which made people turn into giant monsters. The worst part is, even after the public found out [[Apathetic Citizens|nobody seemed to care anyways]]...
* Proto-Cola of ''[[Defenders of Dynatron City]]'' caused people to mutate. Strangely, it was both played straight and parodied at the same time: The [[Big Bad]] tried to use it to scare away the inhabitants of the city, but the people who used it viewed the mutations as [[Cursed with Awesome|beneficial]].
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* Teleporter technology, the new killer app of United Aerospace Corporation in ''[[Doom]] 3''. Yes, we do acknowledge that right now it tends to, well, open the gates of Hell, but our engineers are diligently working on the problem and we expect to have a marketable solution shortly!
* MMO ''[[City of Heroes]]'' has at least a couple of easy examples from friendly neighborhood evil corporation Crey Industries. One is Crey Cola, a subtly addictive soft drink that would condition people to buy more and more of it as they drank. The other is the Crey OS, a computer operating systems which controls the minds of its users via subliminal messages, causing them, among other things, to want to buy more Crey-made products. That's sort of their business plan, to a large extent.
** Then there's the actual drugs (Superadine especially) which make you super powerful... and irreversibly mutate you, and a great example you don't learn about
** {{spoiler|The Circle of Thorns are named for the 'spirit thorns' they use to make themselves more powerful. Only they don't actually make the user more powerful, they [[Grand Theft Me|replace his soul with that of an ancient and powerful sorcerer]]. So it almost literally contains evil while being marketed as a power-up.}}
** Almost everyone in [[Mirror Universe|Praetoria]] drinks Enriche instead of ordinary water. It makes you happy... and if not actually Brainwashed, less inclined to notice or care about the cracks in Emperor Cole's little Utopia.
* The Happy Boxes from ''[[Mother 3]]''. Do ''you'' have one yet? [[Brainwashed and Crazy|It'll improve your life!]]
== [[Web Comics
* Helen Narbon of ''[[Narbonic]]'' invented a self-cooling soft drink in a non-canon storyline. The problem (or rather, plan, since she's evil) was that it was STILL self-cooling inside the human body. 80% of the world's population died of hypothermia. Good thing it was non canon :p
* When in ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'', never accept a soda from Dr. Germahn. Odds are it'll shrink you but not your clothes. Granted, all he'll probably do is leer, so it's less "evil" and more "creepy", but still not a very pleasant experience.
* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' had the evil Hereti Corporation create the fast food chain House of Cheese. The food itself isn't harmful (at least not the stuff they give to the customers; a special pizza that instantly clogs arteries is reserved for their enemies), but the restaurant's ''logo'' is designed to [[Brainwashed and Crazy|trigger a homicidal response]] in the slightly unhinged [[Phlebotinum Rebel|fugitive experiment]] they're after. Once she sees a House of Cheese restaurant, she'll go insane and kill everyone inside, and Hereti Corp can use the series of fast food restaurant massacres to track her down.
** Just to drive the trope home, every pizza is served with a small toy, that can be ''poison'', or antidote. Explicitly labeled, for your convenience.
* In ''[[User Friendly]]'', Pitr orchestrates a hostile takeover disguised as a merger between Pepsi and Coca-Cola, forcing them to produce Pitr-Cola, whose only ingredients are [https://web.archive.org/web/20171007214205/http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20020520 caffeine and blind obedience].
* In ''[[Goats]]'', the transdimensional pudding has "evil" listed in the ingredients. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130605110843/http://www.goats.com/archive/990216.html Right after riboflavin.]
* ''[[Prequel (webcomic)|Prequel]]'' has [https://www.prequeladventure.com/2018/11/14648/ fun] with charms [[Drunk on the Dark Side|affecting the user]]:
{{quote|'''Katia''': You were using some professional charm perfume made by bigshot Telvanni wizards. Turning the user into an egotistical megalomaniac seems like a pretty big design flaw for them to…
'''Katia''': [[Explain, Explain, Oh Crap|Okay, no, this…]] this explains everything I’ve [[You Know What They Say About X...|ever heard about the Telvanni]].
'''Sigrid''': You never once found it strange how many of them [[Screw Yourself|are married to clones of themselves]]? }}
==
* From the ''[[SCP Foundation]]'', SCP-377 may or may not be this. This is a box of fortune cookies, and the fortunes are ''always'' right, often (but not always) predicting the recipient's gory and/or violent death. Whether they actually ''cause'' the deaths is unknown; seeing as nearly everyone who uses them works for the Foundation, such predictions aren't much of a surprise.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Renuyu in ''[[Batman: The
* Power-8 from ''[[X-Men: Evolution]]'' was a delicious, refreshing sports drink - unless you happened to be a mutant, in which case it was poisonous.
* In one episode of ''[[Kim Possible]]'', Drakken develops "Dr. Drakken's Brainwashing Shampoo and Cranium Rinse", which does [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|exactly what it says on the bottle]]. He then attempts to market it; this is a complete failure, both for the obvious reason and because he put his face on the bottle. He then attempts to work out a [[Product Placement]] deal with a rapper; when she's not interested, he decides to promote the product ''himself'' by appearing on ''[[American Idol|"American Starmaker"]]'' and singing about it. [[Hilarity Ensues]].
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* One episode of ''[[Archie's Weird Mysteries]]'' involved an energy drink that when drank turned certain people (about one in every 10,000) into hulking monsters (like, literally [[The Incredible Hulk|Hulking]]). {{spoiler|In a twist, the company had no intention of doing so, and immediately fixed the problem when Archie told them. However, they kept the whole fix secret to save their reputation, so the episode ends with them convincing Archie not to tell the public as hundreds of people would lose their jobs if the company went down.}}
* ''[[The Oblongs]]''. The kids get rich selling a sugar-laden energy drink everyone loves. It's obvious the drink is a horrifically unhealthy mess, but it turns out to be much, much worse. They used discarded 'morphine bottles' from the local hospital for their containers; the remnants of the morphine is what the people really wanted.
* ''[[The Fairly
** However, the problem was that the lemonade would randomly fulfill the drinkers' wishes (often without the wish needing to be stated, even), resulting in chaos.
* ''[[Drawn Together]]'' had an episode where the villain's conspiracy was to ship grape menthol pencils for students writing SATs, so that [[Refuge in Audacity|the black ones would fail, stay stupid, and keep buying overpriced bling]].
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** ''[http://phineasandferb.wikia.com/wiki/My_Name_is_Doof His name is Doof and I'll do what he says, whoop whoop!]''
* ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' sees Cobra try this twice: Once with mind control music in "Cold Slither" and once with brainwashing personal products in "Let's Play Soldier"
* The ''[[Totally Spies!]]'' episode "Passion Patties" has the Spies investigating a new super-addictive (and [[Temporary Bulk Change|super-fattening]]) cookie being sold by [[Scout Out|the Happy Girls]], which were the result of a mad scientist (and disgruntled ex-Happy Girl) putting an additive in the cookies.
== Real Life ==▼
▲== [[Real Life]] ==
* Tropical Fantasy Mountain Dew, only sold in Harlem (New York City) was thought by some paranoid blacks to contain infertility drugs dispensed by the KKK.
** Similar rumors abound regarding far-more-widely available menthol cigarettes. There is a small grain of truth in this, though: while they don't outright make you infertile, they ''can'' make you impotent. Then again, so can any tobacco product.
* Not that long ago, Hamas started a panic in Gaza over aphrodisiac chewing gum, supposedly sneaked into their territory by Mossad to 'destroy the morality of their youth'. Probably best described as a combination of paranoia and [[Values Dissonance]].
* With all the toy and food scares from products made in China, this is probably an example of [[Truth in Television]]. Only, without the mutant powers (yet).
* Pop Rocks, a candy that fizzled when you put it in your mouth (the main reason being it had carbon dioxide in tiny bubbles) and would give off sparks if stomped on, got a number of urban legends that kids stomachs had exploded from consuming too much of the material (usually in combination with soda, causing a carbon dioxide cascade effect), the most popular of these being the actor who played Mikey in the Life cereal commercials. None of this proved to be true (and was thoroughly [[Jossed]] by ''[[
* Rumors have long abounded about [http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/bubbleyum.asp?print=y Bubble Yum bubble gum containing spider eggs], which would hatch and grow in kids' stomachs. Even presuming a gum processing company had such low standards of cleanliness to allow this to happen, the point being ignored is the fact a spider would drown and be dissolved from the hydrochloric acid in one's stomach. [[Viewers are Morons|But apparently, this wasn't enough to assuage both kids' and parents' fears, and the makers of Bubble Yum had to take several full-page ads out to assure the public that there was no danger]].
* [[Urban Legends]] persistently surround McDonald's, usually that the meat in the hamburgers is not beef. Exactly what the rumor says it is varies from year to year; among the most surreal claims was that it was kangaroo meat, which would have had to be shipped halfway around the planet to be used in the US.
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* Coca-Cola used to contain a small amount of [http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/cocaine.asp cocaine].
** Its infamous [[Secret Ingredient|"secret formula"]] will probably continue to generate conspiracy theories until the sun goes cold.
*** "Secret formula" is not the same as secret ingredients.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Applied Phlebotinum]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:
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