Shoot the "No Shoot"
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A character goes though a shooting course and the way they handle the "no shoot" targets is used for comedy. Variations include intentional shots on civilian targets and being penalized for missing seemingly harmless targets.
Examples of Shoot the "No Shoot" include:
Advertising
Anime and Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Film
- In Men In Black during his test to be inducted into MiB, the future Agent J is put through a shooting range. J shoots only the eight year old girl target instead of the monstrous aliens. He justifies it by asking what an eight year old white girl is doing in middle of a ghetto at night with a stack of college level textbooks, while the aliens weren't actually hostile. While ambiguous on if this was an intended solution to the test, this (among other odd solutions to the other tests) results in him being chosen over the other candidates, as the majority of aliens on Earth aren't hostile and just tourists. The novelization explicitly states this was correct, and for the right reasons.
Literature
Live-Action Television
Music
Myths and Legends
Newspaper Comics
Oral Tradition
Pinball
Podcasts
Professional Wrestling
Puppet Shows
Radio
Tabletop Games
Theater
Video Games
- Accidentally used in SWAT 4 against live (or live as you can get with a video game anyways) humans. The player can't actually use their hands to force non-cooperative but non-hostile NPCs to comply. This means the player will lose points unless they Taser/beanbag shot/pepper spray trapped employees, hostages and elderly bystanders (Tasers and beanbags on the last one is, in real life, frequently lethal but perfectly fine in game) who refuse to be cuffed. Let's Plays typically have fun with this oversight. The expansion pack fixes this by allowing the player to use their hands to force compliance, but you can still use a taser or other less lethal weapon with impunity if you don't care about wasting ammo.
Western Animation
- In the The Simpsons episode The Springfield Connection Marge goes through the police academy. While seemingly excelling at the shooting range, Chief Wiggum disappointingly notes "You missed the baby, you missed the blind-man...".
- In Futurama episode Law and Oracle. During police academy baton training Fry avoids hitting a civilian target, then intentionally hits his instructor.