Comically Small Bribe: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|'''Dr. Venture:''' Okay, I see how it is. And what would you prescribe for... ''(brings out a ten-dollar bill)'' Alexander Hamilton?

 

Hey, you. Yes you. I'm looking for some... information. What, you can't disclose that? Maybe this '''shiny new quarter''' would change your mind.

 

Can also apply to unusually small payments, tips, or demands. Usually [[Played for Laughs]]. Contrast [[Worthless Yellow Rocks]], where the characters treat something as being less valuable than it is, rather than more valuable. Compare [[Not Rare Over There]], where something is valuable to someone, but only because they need it and can't find it.

{{examples}}

== Advertising ==

* A commercial for the now-defunct Pets.com company had their sock puppet mascot attempt to get into an apartment building by bribing the doorman with $3, quickly upped to $4 when the doorman seems to be seriously considering it.

* A commercial for 10-10-220 had [[3rd Rock from the Sun|French Stewart]] bribing a Maître d' with $1. It doesn't work until after Stewart explains the service.

 

* Invoked and inverted in ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' where Goku ends up paying a pedestrian a huge amount of money for giving him information about the city as well as where Bulma lives at. Justified because he legitimately thought that he was supposed to pay people for the information they gave due to a misunderstanding when he attempted to take a taxi (the driver was requesting that Goku pay him if he wants to use a taxi, but Goku thought he meant he should pay him for him to tell him where Bulma's house was located) as well as having absolutely no concept of how to use money during that time.

* L from ''[[Death Note]]'' shared a secret about something he uses to keep himself safe. He then tried to bribe one of the people he told it too by with a strawberry. There is absolutely no reason to believe the bribed person would share it anyways.

 

* A variation: In ''[[Spider-Man]]'', [[Harmless Villain|The White Rabbit]] once tried to hold New York for ransom for a million dollars. They counter-offered her $1.50.

 

== Film ==

* In ''[[Strange Brew]]'', a doughnut is used as a bribe.

** It ''was'' a jelly, eh.

 

== Literature ==

** The inverted version occurs in ''Labyrinth.'' A refugee from [[Wretched Hive|Jackson's Whole]] hands Miles and Bel Thorne her entire life's savings in cash, hoping it will be enough to engage them as mercenaries to get her off the planet. Bel tells her the price is wrong—then peels one single dollar off the stack, hands her back the rest, and tells her this is more like it. Needless to say, It's Personal for Captain Thorne.

 

* As the preview for ''[[South Beach Tow]]'' shows, at least one car owner tries this on the truck driver, saying "You can buy all the Ho-Hos you want."

* ''[[Dinosaurs]]'' episode "License to Parent":

'''Eric:''' Really? Well... ''[produces $1 bill]'' Perhaps my friend Mr. Washington will help you change your mind. }}

* Happened on ''[[Monk]]'' once. Monk tried to bribe a doorman for information with three dollars; when he refused, Monk upped it to four. Finally, Sharona made him talk with forty dollars. After, Monk asked for his four back; when the doorman refused, Monk informed him that "we have a four-dollar credit on any future bribes."

** Subverted in the Season 6 episode "Mr Monk Goes to the Bank." Disher attempted to bribe the living statue for information relating to a bank robbery at a trust bank. It didn't work, but the reason it didn't work had absolutely nothing to do with the amount of money Disher attempted to bribe him with: It's because his job required him to stand absolutely still until his beeper tells him when to take a break.

* ''[[Three's Company]]'': When Cindy goes missing, Mr. Furley goes to the Regal Beagle to find her. He pays a blonde girl three dollars to tell him anything she knows. [[Hilarity Ensues]] when the girl turns out to be an undercover cop and arrests Furley for cheap solicitation.

'''Bob''': Jackson, huh?... ''[opens wallet]'' He's not in, do you have anything you'd like to tell Abe Lincoln and the Washington twins? }}

* ''[[30 Rock|Thirty Rock]]'' has Jack Donaghy offer Josh a comically small contract negotiation offer of $1 for a year of comedy work. Josh is so intimidated by Jack's negotiation skills that he almost takes it.

* At a time when [[The Beatles]] were being offered millions to reunite, a 1976 ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' sketch had producer Lorne Michaels making an on-air appeal to the group, offering them a check for $3000 to perform on the show. [[John Lennon]] and [[Paul McCartney]] happened to both be in NYC and watching the show that night, and were amused enough to briefly entertain the idea of [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|heading over to the studio just for the hell of it.]] They then talked themselves out of it, sadly.

** In a subsequent episode, George Harrison came on but was dismayed to learn that the $3000 was for ''all of them'', meaning $750 for each ex-Beatle. ("Pretty chintzy.")

{{quote|'''Felix:''' Will...um...''this'' get us anything?

'''Owner:''' ''(Glances at bill)'' Yeah -- two fives. }}

{{quote|'''Radar:''' Hey, Mac?

'''Olson:''' The name's Olson.

* Addressed in ''[[Burn Notice]].'' They explain that actual cash in bribing someone is only part of the whole plan. If the location isn't too high security (like an upscale parking garage), you behave like an obnoxious tool offering five bucks and the guard will let you in just to get something from your stupidity.

 

 

== Radio ==

* ''[[The Goon Show]]'', in which people will gladly perform insane actions for photographs of money or bags of sweets. (Of course, that last one was Bluebottle, and he's generally portrayed as a young and mildly insane Boy Scout, so...)

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* A common net result of the skill check rules of ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' when applied to bribery attempts. Players with high enough charisma, diplomacy, or raw luck can offer pitiful bribes and see amazing results. Couple it with a natural 20 and a permissive DM will allow a soldier to commit high treason for a bag of jellybeans. This has gotten only easier in fourth edition, with social interaction taking on a more rules-governed, mechanical aspect.

 

== Theater ==

'''Cyrano:''' …Which I fill for you with cream cakes!

'''The Duenna:''' ''(changing her expression):'' Ha. }}

 

== Video Games ==

* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker|The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker]]'', there are two little girls on Windfall Island who won't tell you anything they know unless you pay them 2 rupees. [[I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You|And even then, they try to be dodgy about it.]]

* In ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'''s Minagoroshi chapter {{spoiler|Hanyu/Oyashiro-sama}} is highly against {{spoiler|letting Takano into the shrine storage}} when {{spoiler|Rika}} offers to take her. As a joke, {{spoiler|Rika}} says she will charge 100 yen for each picture taken or 10000 yen up front for as many as they want. {{spoiler|Hanyu}} is instantly satisfied at the thought of using this money to buy nothing but sweets.

{{quote|'''Sam:''' Maybe a few...''Washingtons'' will help change your mind?

'''Max:''' Or maybe a few...''Lincolns?'' }}

 

== Web Comics ==

* ''[[Ctrl+Alt+Del]]'': Ethan [http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20090126 continues to demonstrate] his [[Cloudcuckoolander]] credentials.

* In ''[[Oglaf]]'', the Mistress bribes ([[Incompatible Orientation|straight]]) [[Butt Monkey|Ivan]] to give a blowjob to the [[Depraved Homosexual|Xoan]] [[Bishounen|Ambassador]]... for a pinecone. Eventually the Mistress explains that the box holding the pinecone was enchanted to "[[Justified Trope|make you want whatever's in it]]".

 

== Web Original ==

* [[The Angry Video Game Nerd]] does its own spin on this. When [[Pat the NES Punk]] {{spoiler|discovers a gold ''Nintendo World Championship '90'' cart in a game bundle the Nerd bought}}, the Nerd tries to trade it back for some very common/pack-in games, such as ''Combat'' for [[Atari 2600]] and ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]''/''[[Duck Hunt]]'' for [[Nintendo Entertainment System|the NES]]. [[You Can't Thwart Stage One|It goes along as well as you'd expect.]]

* In ''[[Blogging Twilight]]'', when Dan reaches the part where Alice bribes a guard with a "thousand dollar bill", he is initially confused as to what currency that is exactly, seeing as there is no thousand dollar bill in either US currency or Euros. He ultimately concludes that it must be a thousand Lira which is worth about seventy-five American cents, noting "So this guard is either really stupid and doesn't know much about money, or he's very poor and needs whatever funds he can scrounge up to buy half a potato for dinner." (Presumably the text meant to suggest that Alice still had thousand dollar American bills, [[wikipedia:Large denominations of United States currency#.241.2C000 bill|printed from either 1928 or 1934]])

 

== Western Animation ==

* In ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]'', some male scientists are successfully bribed with ''women's nightgowns''.

* ''[[Camp Lazlo]]'': In "The Tusk Wizard", Raj attempts to bribe Nurse Leslie into removing a perfectly healthy tusk by offering him a quarter.

 

== Real Life ==