Take That/Playing With
Basic Trope: Some form of entertainment takes a potshot at some other form of entertainment.
- Straight: Alice and Bob, a sitcom, makes fun of the plotlines of Troperz, another sitcom, in one episode.
- Exaggerated: Every episode from Alice and Bob is a potshot at one thing or another.
- Downplayed: Alice and Bob do two jokes against Troperz, but that's it.
- Justified: The makers of Alice and Bob made Troperz a show within a show in Alice and Bob. Which Alice and Bob do not like.
- Inverted: They genuinely compliment Troperz.
- Subverted: A line that seems like a "take that" really isn't...
- Double Subverted: ...but they just said that to get the other show out of their hair.
- Parodied: After a while, Alice and Bob starts to make fun of how much it makes fun of other shows.
- Deconstructed: The fans of Troperz aren't laughing. The producers decide to sue and they win in court. Alice and Bob is cancelled. (The last episode ends with one of the main characters saying "FUCK YOU, TROPERZ!" while blowing up a statue of the protaganist of Troperz.)
- Reconstructed: The fans of Troperz find it very funny and start regularly tuning in, building a new audience.
- Zig Zagged: That really wasn't a "take that". Or was it? No, it really wasn't.
- At the end of one episode, a character insults Troperz. He apologizes in the next episode... then insults Troperz AGAIN. He apologizes at the end of that episode. He's sorry for real.
- Averted: Alice and Bob avoid taking potshots at the competition.
- Enforced: "Hey, we're competing with Troperz, so let's make fun of them all the time...that'll show them!"
- Lampshaded: "Wow, we've been making fun of them a lot, haven't we?"
- Invoked: A writer from Troperz takes a potshot at Alice and Bob, so a war of Take Thats is started.
- Defied: Despite many opportunities to do so, the writers of Alice and Bob decide to take the high road and avoid making fun of their competitors.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Exploited: The network airing Alice and Bob decides to use the war to boost its ratings.
- Played for Laughs: The writers of Alice and Bob all cook up 3,718 different Take Thats at Troperz (of which 72 get on the air), and the producers of Troperz do not notice any of them.
- Played for Drama: A group of fans of Troperz beat up the writers of Alice and Bob for making fun of their favorite show. This starts a literal war between Alice and Bob and Troperz. As the conflicts between the two shows begin to increase, the network airing Alice and Bob and the network airing Troperz start taking desperate measures to keep the peace, all of which fail.
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