Handy Remote Control: Difference between revisions

 

This allows a way for the character to show confidently that he's had a trump card all along and was waiting to use it.

{{examples}}

* In ''[[.hack|.hack: Legend of the Twilight]]'', Shugo gets the Twilight Bracelet, that basically does whatever is convenient to the storyline.

** It has also been in the possession of Kite and possibly Tsukasa.

* In ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'', Roto uses one of these during the Dark Tournament to threaten Kurama's mother by saying that pressing the red button will signal his brother, who has been stalking her, to kill her. It appears from other character comments to be his single strategy in any given fight.

* Vegeta from ''[[Dragon Ball]] Z'' has a remote to recall his spacepod to his location. With the amount of punishment Vegeta has taken at the point he uses it it must be one tough piece of machinery. The same remote can also be used to self-destruct another spaceship.

 

* Subverted in the comic ''[[Global Frequency]]'', where a terrorist threatens that he can blow a bomb remotely any time with one. The heroes jam transmissions, but it turns out that he lied; it's hardwired to the bomb. So they shoot the guy's ''entire lower arm arm'' off with dual uzis and pistols.

* [[Batman]] usually has at least one in his Utility Belt. The Joker sometimes carries one too.

{{quote|'''Dr Manhattan''': What's that in your hand, {{spoiler|Veidt}}? Another ultimate weapon?

''' {{spoiler|Ozymandias}}''': Yes. Yes, you could say that. (The remote is {{spoiler|for Ozymandias' television, showing Manhattan how he has saved the world from nuclear war}}.) }}

 

== [[Film]] ==

* The Joker uses one to blow up a hospital in ''[[The Dark Knight]]''.

* Jason Bourne has one in ''[[The Bourne Series (film)|The Bourne Identity]]'' that makes cars' alarms go off, creating handy distractions.

 

== Literature ==

* Nadia has one in the first book of the [[Red Mars Trilogy]]. It was pressed on her by Arkady, her lover and the leader of the rebellion, in a moment of madness, then mostly forgotten. Then, long after Arkady's death, the peaceful caravan she's travelling with gets [[Death From Above|targeted]] by the government/metanational forces on Phobos just because there are members of the first hundred with it. Nadia used the remote, and we're reminded that [[Colony Drop|Arkady led the team that build the Phobos base]].

 

* In ''[[The A-Team]]'', the team is helping a firefighter group end the interference of a rival group. The heroes placed a firebomb in the enemy's firehouse early in the story. When the villains interfere with a dispatch, a member of the A-Team calmly produces a remote control, pushes the button and notes, "Your firehouse is on fire." The villains radio back to their firehouse and are stunned to hear that the team was not bluffing.

* Multiple examples in ''[[Babylon 5]]''

{{quote|{{spoiler|'''[[Smug Snake|Mr. Morden]]''':''[[Tempting Fate|So what are you going to do, Mollari? Huh? Blow up the island?]]}}

{{spoiler|'''[[Magnificent Bastard|Londo]]''':''Actually, [[Nuke'Em|now that you mention it...]]'' '''[[Kinetic Clicking|*click*]]'''}} }}

* Al's handheld device in ''[[Quantum Leap]].''

* The original ''[[Mission: Impossible]]'' television series abounds with these, containing a single pushbutton, which can cause whatever action is next called for in the plot. So common that it's one of the stock shots that appears in the closing credits of many eps. Barney also rigged entire cars for remote control and drove them under pretty tough routes, at least once per season; sometimes with people inside, sometimes not.

* One of the opening sequences to ''[[News Radio]]'' showed [[Conspiracy Theorist|Joe]] using a small device to force a traffic light to change.

* ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'''s [[Mad Scientist|Pearl Forrester]] once installed electrodes in [[Everything's Better with Monkeys|Professor Bobo's]] brain, allowing his body to be controlled by an "all-in-one universal remote we got at Target for nine bucks".

 

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

* In ''[[Garfield]]'' the remote control for the TV has only one button, as does the remote for the garage-door causing a mixup once.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* In [[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]], Revolver Ocelot is surrounded by two opposing armies. He's killed both their commanding officers, and his six-shot revolver is out of bullets, yet not a single round is fired in his direction, because he's holding a detonator for explosives to sink the tanker they're all aboard.

 

* In [[Holiday Wars]], The [[Easter Bunny]] has a remote that zaps and controls [[April Fools' Day]], as seen [https://web.archive.org/web/20160313095542/http://th3rdworld.com/web-comic/holiday-wars/episode/holiday-wars-episode-41 in this strip].

* [[Playing with a Trope|Played with]] in [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2003-07-15 this] ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' strip.

* [http://moltenblade.comicgenesis.com/d/20080802.html This device] from ''[[Molten Blade]]''. Seems to have a switch ''and'' a moderately-sized red button.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* In one story of the [[Whateley Universe]], Generator (Jade Sinclair) is being harassed by Peeper, the 'Howard Stern' of [[Super-Hero School]] Whateley Academy. She pulls out a remote control and uses it to drive a caterpillar-sized robot down his shirt, inside his pants, making it grab hold of the back of his tighty-whiteys, then give him a wedgie, and ''then'' lift him forty feet in the air by the back of his shorts in the worst wedgie ever. Subversion: the remote control is a fake; the 'robot' is actually possessed by a copy of her own mind.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

 

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