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{{trope}}
[[File:Operation Rabbit Plan 1.jpg|thumb|400px|Because every operation needs a plan]]
{{quote|''"Begin Operation: [[Buffy-Speak|Something-Thingy]]!"''
|'''Evil Blah''', from the Flash movie ''[[The Demented Cartoon Movie]]''}}
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Favorite things to fill in the blank:
* '''Mythological allusions''', especially common if a scientist or academic named the thing, which they often do: Phoebus, Perseus, Hercules, Gemini, [[Princess Principal|Changeling]]. These are also common examples of "hero can work it out with the right information".
* '''Animal name''', with or without attached adjective: [[Looney Tunes|Rabbit]] (as shown in the page image), Stone Rhino, Burning Hawk, [[Worms|Concrete Donkey]], Iron Serpent...
* '''Tool name''': Crowbar, Hammer, Icepick...
* '''Sports position''': Usually from American football, probably influenced by the real life Operation Linebacker during Vietnam. Operation Quarterback, Running Back, Pinch Hitter...
* '''Location name''', either specific locations or general types of locations: [[Mobile Suit Gundam|Odessa]], [[The Penguins of Madagascar|Antarctica]], [[A Bridge Too Far|Market Garden]], [[Inglourious Basterds|Kino]]. Most infamously, Operation Sedan (a nuclear weapons test, named for a city in France), which would cause an international incident when the name was later mispronounced as "Sudan", leading to the question of whether the US was performing illegal tests in other countries.
Common subversions, parodies, and spoofs:
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* In ''[[Mai-Otome Zwei]]'', the name of the operation to free the hostages from the bus is named "Operation Silent Sea," based on the assumption that [[Leeroy Jenkins|Haruka]] would be excluded from it. Unfortunately, she gives [[Cranial Eruption]]s to the people who tried to knock her out with a large rock, and heads to the scene on her own.
* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory]]'' is partly named after Operation Stardust, which starts with [[Gundamjack]]ing a [[Super Prototype]] Gundam armed with a nuclear bazooka.
* ''[[Princess Principal]]''{{'}}s "Project: Changeling" drives the entire plot.
* Miho in ''[[Girls und Panzer]]'' is known for giving her battle plans ... uninspired ... names in this format.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
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* At one point during fifth year in ''[[Hermione Granger and the Boy Who Lived]]'', Hermione assigns the <s>Weasley</s> [[The Duke of Wellington|Wellesley]] Twins to "Operation Prankster":
{{quote|"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make Umbridge's life a living hell." }}
* In the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' fic ''[[Xendra]]'': when the Scoobies make plans to expand their intelligence on the DRI, they spend some time discussing what to call their plans, at one point invoking this trope. But ultimately this is averted, as they can't agree on any of the words to fill in the "Blank", and simply end up calling whatever they do "The Op", "The Other Op", and "The Other Other Op", as needed.
== [[Film]] ==
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* ''Operation Terror'', a suspense novel by Gordon and Mildred Gordon that was adapted into the 1962 film ''Experiment in Terror''.
== [[Live
* In the ''[[Angel]]'' episode "Groundstate", Gunn asks what they'll need for "[[Sarcasm Mode|Operation Chance in Hell]]".
* In ''[[3rd Rock from the Sun]]'', Sally and Harry determine that Mary's brother Roy, who seems to be an alien abductee, knows too much and must be done away with. Their plan to get rid of him is fittingly named "Operation: Kilroy".
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'''Michael''': No, let's try to top that.
'''Narrator''': They never did and five minutes later, Operation: Hot Mother was under way. }}
* The last episode of season one of ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' is
* [[Stephen Colbert]] was once given a flag that had been flown over the US Embassy in Afghanistan (?){{verify}} during an (apparently actually real) mission known as Operation: Beef Hammer. As he noted, it doesn't get more American than that.
* One episode of ''[[Blackadder]] Goes Forth'' has General Melchett call for volunteers to take part in a mission codenamed Operation: Certain Death.
* [[Played for Laughs]] in ''[[Chuck]]''. The protagonists are running a top secret operation tasked in part with protecting the Human Intersect Project, one Chuck Bartowski, and in part with using his abilities for spy business of all kinds. It's called "Operation Bartowski". [[Face Palm]].
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* ''[[Space: Above and Beyond]]'' gives us "Operation Roundhammer", the code-name for an all-out assault on {{spoiler|The Chig Homeworld}}. For bonus points, the moon that the operation is planned to be launched from is code-named "Anvil". The operation is even mentioned in [[Foreshadowing]] earlier in the series, with earlier missions being stated to be in support of it, without revealing to the viewers just ''what'' Roundhammer was supposed to accomplish until the penultimate episode of the series.<ref>They are [[Shaggy Dog Story|forced to abort the operation]] when the Chigs find out about it and sue for peace, only for the negotiations to break down in bloodshed and renewed war.</ref>
* ''[[Nikita (TV series)|Nikita]]'': Division missions are all codenamed this way. According to Michael, the more innocent sounding the name, usually the more devastating the mission.
== Music ==
* ''[[Operation Mindcrime]]''
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
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** Revealed by [[Word of God]] in a filler that this had been a long planned joke, but that's something else entirely.
* ''[[Full Frontal Nerdity]]'' has [http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=1961 Operation Fuchsia Tiger Asteroid].
** And refers to [[Random Name Generator]] [https://www.codenamegenerator.com/ codenamegenerator.com]
== [[Web Original]] ==
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{{quote|"The plan was codenamed Operation Foliage Gear. The Federation had gone back to random computer-generated operational code names after Operation Ziggurat had failed to relieve the siege of the planet Babylon due to poor security. }}
* In ''[[Fenspace]]'', the organized anti-piracy and anti-slavery effort -- which became an outright war -- was called "Operation [[Zero Wing|Great Justice]]".
* Per ''[[Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do In An RPG]]'',
{{quote|1332. Even if silence is required for the entire adventure, we are not naming the Black Ops Operation: Mimecrime.}}
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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* ''[[Family Guy]]'':
{{quote|'''Army General:''' Peter Griffin! Surrender immediately, or we will institute "Operation: Bomb the Crap out of Your House". The guy that names things is on vacation, apparently.}}
* An old ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' short had Wile E. Coyote attempt to capture Bugs Bunny with a number of complex scientific contraptions, the name of the cartoon (and each device, with an ascending number as the previous attempts fail) is "Operation: Rabbit". This now provides this page's image.
* This also occurs frequently on ''[[Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines]]'', whenever Dick Dastardly devises a new plan to [[Catch That Pigeon]]. In fact, two of the shorts were titled "Operation Anvil" and "Operation Birdbrain".
* Parodied in ''[[South Park]]: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut'', where the U.S. Army had two different operations: The minorities were in "Operation Human Shield", part of the "all-important first attack wave, expected to have heavy casualties" while the whites were in "Operation Get Behind the Darkies", who, well...
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Naming Conventions]]
[[Category:Truth in Television]]
▲[[Category:Operation Blank]]
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