Terrible Interviewees Montage

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES utter a single hilarious sentence that highlights a flaw in your character. This means you are part of a montage of 'failed dates' and will never be seen again."

—Cracked.com, The 5 Stages of a Successful Relationship (in a Romantic Comedy)

A sub trope of the Travelling Salesman Montage, specifically of the job interview iteration. However, that trope focuses on the interviewer, whereas in Terrible Interviewees Montage, the interviewees are the problem. They are all dreadfully unsuitable (and often slightly unhinged) leaving the poor interviewer traumatized to some degree. Expect him to shout "NEXT!" and "Get Out!" a lot. This may be a job interview, a performance audition, speed-dating, or any number of situations.

The montage usually ends with someone perfect (or at least, not QUITE so horrible) for the role coming along and being hired. That, or the interviewer calling it a day, only to find the perfect person for the role outside of an interview situation a scene or two later. Alternatively, the interviewer already has someone who would fit the job just fine, but is trying to avoid hiring them for some personal reason. The series of awful interviewees is then a Rule of Drama plot device to force them to hire someone they don't want to have around.

The advent of speed dating provides an increasingly common premise for the appearance of this trope in any Romantic Comedy.

If the montage focuses on the interviewer's reactions, it may overlap with Bill, Bill, Junk, Bill. Compare the Reality Show equivalent, Hopeless Auditionees.

No real life examples, please; Real Life does not have montages.

Examples of Terrible Interviewees Montage include:

Advertising

  • There was this commercial for the self-help section of FHM magazine that aired in Singapore, depicting a guy who can't say anything but lame pickup lines, or score a job interview to save his life. Yes, a montage with just one guy.
  • Match.com aired a commercial showing a luckless man dating a variety of creepy, awkward, or unpleasant women, before cutting to their slogan and services.

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

  • Fantastic Four
    • At one point, the Wizard held auditions for the fourth member of his latest Frightful Four in Fantastic Four comics. Applicants included an overweight cabbie in a bird suit ("The Osprey") and Captain Ultra, whose strength, flight, and gullibility made him a shoo-in... Until he fainted in the presence of a lit match.
    • In the latest[when?] Fantastic Four cartoon, this scene was reproduced with the Fantastic Four auditioning for new members after the Thing lost his powers. The Fabulous Frog-Man knocked himself out bouncing around, Texas Twister wrecked the audition area, and Squirrel Girl didn't even get to do or say anything before she was rejected. Oh, if only they knew... The cartoon also includes the Captain Ultra bit almost exactly the same, except replace "lit match" with "Johnny giving a flaming thumbs-up".
  • The Legion of Super-Heroes frequently holds open auditions, and, as you might expect, most of the people trying out are total losers. see here for a pretty complete list (with a nifty parody at the end). Some of them aren't that bad, are they?
    • In a subversion, a number of Legion rejects form the Legion of Substitute Heroes, who do good work as a sort of reserve team putting their unconventional powers to work in the field when the main team can't handle all aspects of a crisis.
    • In one issue, the villainous Dynamo Boy, having tricked the rest of the Legion into quitting, held his own auditions — and while he was largely met with the same type of also-rans who show up to other Legion try-outs, he turned down a couple of decent candidates for petty reasons. His reasons being that, using some future technology to get a scan of their personalities, judged they were too decent and wouldn't be converted to evil so easily.
    • Geoff Johns later retconned the reason as to why some applicants were rejected, citing that Saturn Girl had done psychic profiles on them during their try-outs. While some were rejected because their power was lame or they lacked suitable control, others were rejected because they had a variety of psychotic tendencies and deeply disturbed psyches.
    • This was lampooned in the satire, Sergio Aragones Destroys DC. The applicants included Nixon Boy (who can polarize people and make a 18 minute gap appear anywhere), Deja-Vu Kid (who can make events repeat themselves), Cotton-Swab Boy (who can remove earwax anywhere in the universe), Deja-Vu Kid ( who can make events repeat themselves), Windows Lass (who can actually understand Windows 95), and Deja-Vu Kid (who can make events repeat themselves).
  • The Image series Wildguard: Casting Call revolved around a Reality TV show where superheroes competed for a spot on an auspicious team. The first rounds were... bad, and included heroes with lame powers (like Adhesor, who sticks to things), heroes who act more like villains (like Crimson Phantom Vengeance), and "Popstar", a singer who thought she was auditioning for American Idol. The next round was only slightly better. Toughlon and Wannabe made a lot of the others wish they didn't try out in the first place.
  • A seventies Daredevil comic showed Matt Murdock interviewing possible replacements for Karen Page. Up until Becky Blake, all applicants were pretty hopeless. "No I can't exactly type. But I make a great cup of coffee. If you like instant."
  • Justice League of America
    • Some of the possible new League Members in the membership drive montage from Justice League International #24 were less qualified than others:

Oberon: (off panel) Have you ever been convicted of a felony?
The Creeper: Hmmm... You said convicted, right?

    • A similar montage from JLA #5:

Damage: Hi, name's Damage. Maybe you've heard of me... Sorry about the ceiling. And the... ah... the landing pad, and the other thing...
Martian Manhunter: We'll fix it. Next.
Hitman: Name's Monaghan, Tommy Monaghan. I've got X-Ray vision and telepathy and I kill superpeople -- for money.
Martian Manhunter: Next. And please, no smoking.
Hitman: (to next interviewee) Don't mention money. They don't like it.

    • Of course, this was followed up with:

Hitman: I just came so I could look at Wonder Woman with my X-ray vision. Now I can die a happy man.

Film

  • One of the funnier parts in Armageddon, with the twist being that all the guys being shown had already been hired on and we were watching the higher-ups regret this decision as they saw their psych evaluations.
  • Eddie Murphy has one of these with his various possible dates in Coming to America.

"I was Joan of Arc in a former life..."
"I have a secret... I worship Satan!"
"I'm almost single. My man's on Death Row!"

  • The Commitments, about the story of Jimmy Rabbitte attempting to put together a soul band in Dublin, features a montage of unsuccessful for applicants to his band (including Cajun bands, riverdancers, Joni Mitchell wannabes and one poor deluded boy who only turned up because he assumed the line of people outside the door meant Jimmy was selling drugs).
  • The opening of Erin Brockovich.
  • Happens at the beginning of The Librarian.
  • Mrs. Doubtfire invokes this trope: it's a telephone interview, and Robin Williams' character secretly changed the phone number for the want ad, so he's the only applicant. He uses his voice-acting skills to make up all sorts of terrible prospects before taking on the Mrs. Doubtfire persona, in order to make Mrs. Doubtfire a shoo-in for hiring.
  • Mystery Men has one of these with useless superheroes. Not that the protagonists themselves are lame to begin with, but these guys just suck even worse. The Waffler (Dane Cook), Ballerina Man, PMS Avenger... (that last one only works 4 days out of the month).
  • In Sex and the City The Movie, when Carrie hires an assistant.
  • Inverted in Shallow Grave, where three roommates interview potential lodgers. The interviewees are regular people, while the roommates take the opportunity to grill them with sadistic and bizarre questions.
  • Drillbit Taylor subverts this. The interviewees all seem properly qualified... then all bolt after finding out the low wages.
  • Audition has one of these: an audition is held, nominally for a TV role, but its actual purpose is to find a woman for the main character to date. One woman removes her coat to reveal a yellow bikini underneath, another actually strips naked. Of course, given who he ultimately ends up picking, he really would have been better off with any of the failed auditionees.
  • In The Producers, the collection of misfits who turn out to audition for the lead in the play Springtime for Hitler. The twist being that, even then, none of them are bad enough. It also gives us this memorable line when they get a good candidate: "That's our Hitler!"
  • Bring It On features a montage of unsuitable candidates trying out for the cheerleading team, before Missy comes in and blows them all away with her gymnastic talent. Not that they were all useless: the rejects include a ballet-dancer (male), a dancer with a routine aimed at titilation (female), and the younger sister on one of the active cheerleaders who simply seems underage.
  • The Replacements also has one for the team's cheerleaders. Which was a footage of actresses trying out for the roles of the cheerleaders, which the creators have decided to incorporate into the film.
  • Master of Disguise had such a montage for applicants for the title character's assistant. However, said montage didn't show any of the supposedly horrible interviewees, instead consisting entirely of the mentor yelling "GET OUT!", "FREAK", or simply "OUT" over and over again.
  • The auditions for the musical in Mr. Holland's Opus are classic. "We've been at this all day, and the only ingenue we seem to have is Todd Markham!"
  • No Reservations, when Catherine Zeta-Jones's chef character is trying to replace Aaron Eckhart's sous-chef character.
  • 10 Things I Hate About You has this when Cameron and Michael interview their schoolmates to have one of them date Kate Stratford so Cameron could date her little sister Bianca as their the girls' father has a oldest-one-dates-first rule.
  • The Phantom of the Paradise features a segment in which Swan reviews the possible replacements for his unwanted star, Phoenix. Each of the applicants is given a bar or two of the Phantom's latest song to sing, one starting off where the other left off (usually about five seconds in): the winner of this little contest is Beef, an Ambiguously Gay glam-rocker chosen specifically to piss the Phantom off.
  • The Fabulous Baker Boys has a long line of terrible singers audition for the act, and the brothers are about to give up, and then Michelle Pfeiffer shows up...
  • A variant is used in Zodiac, where the cops interview a number of half-baked witnesses who think they know something about the killer. They finish off with someone who provides them with genuinely useful information that gives them their best lead.
  • Subverted in Up in the Air; the montages in the film are all people getting fired, not interviewing for a new job.
  • The first High School Musical features a montage of terrible wanna-be student actors as Ms. Darbus either snarked them or reacted in horror. Eventually, Ryan and Sharpay go last and are, essentially, the only people who deliberately audition that are remotely capable of acting or singing on key... thus getting the lead roles. Though Darbus still ends up catching Troy and Gabriella singing a duet after auditions are over and decides she wants callbacks with them. Of course, this still begs the question of who is going to play the rest of the parts if nobody else in the entire school can sing or act without breaking pitch, being genuinely creepy, or locking up with stage fright.
  • The Bewitched movie does this twice, both times for the role of Samantha in the Show Within a Show remake of the original Bewitched; among the many poor showings are a few unexpected cameos.
  • Singles, where most of the responses to Debbie's video dating tape are borderline psychotic, and the only guy worth considering "likes the way the world looks from a bicycle".
  • Let's Get Harry (1986). A group of American construction workers want go down to Columbia to rescue a colleague kidnapped by terrorists. They want to hire a mercenary to advise them—cue a series of Walter Mitty types in greens with outrageous claims on their previous military experience, before they get to Robert Duvall in a suit with a pre-prepared plan on how he's going to go about the job.
  • In Shackleton (2002) the title character is interviewing people for his expedition, including a youth who prepared by taking a bath full of ice, and an army officer whose superior was quite enthusiastic when he proposed taking off for the South Pole (this is on the eve of war). But not to worry, if war is declared "I'll make my own way back." The third interviewee also seems dubious as he was inspired by a dream to join the expedition, but as he's an experienced sea captain they can make better use of him.
  • The 40-Year-Old Virgin includes a speed dating sequence that fits this trope completely, with the added humor of his individual friends' reactions to the same girls. The main character, failing to find a match at speed dating, even meets his real love interest in the following scene.
  • In The Fighting Temptations, the main character is looking for people to audition for a church choir. The interviewees include a girl who sings Amazing Freaking Grace badly, a bunch of kids who do a dance about Jesus baptizing them, a guy who sings "Isn't She Lovely" (including the instrumental) and some hillbilly who plays multiple mouth-related instruments but doesn't sing.
  • National Lampoon's Van Wilder starts (after a random kid's suicide attempt) with Van interviewing students to be his personal assistant. All the candidates are rejected. Later, Van receives the last candidate in his dorm—a shy Foreign Exchange Student from India named Taj. He gets the job not because of any qualifications but because he wants Van to teach him... things.
  • The Way of the Gun features a montage of the two main characters getting interviewed at a sperm bank. Being opinionated criminal thugs, they each give very suspicious or bizarre answers to simple questions.
  • The opening credits montage of This Is Spinal Tap includes on-the-street comments from fans saying what they like about the band. This being a Mockumentary, the comments are carefully chosen to illustrate that Spinal Tap's fans are idiots.

Female Fan: It's like you become one with the guys in the band, I mean... there's... there's no division, I mean... you just... the music just unites... people... (beat)... with the players.

Literature

  • The fifth book in the X Wing Series has Wedge Antilles go through a series of misfits and psych cases while recruiting for Wraith Squadron, complete with much snarking from his 2IC. In a subversion, the oddball applicants are the ones he ends up taking on, since the idea is specifically to get a squadron on the cheap by filling it with last-chancers and dropouts. Well, he took a couple of normal-seeming ones too, but as it turned out all of them had issues. And Wedge did reject a few—the Talz who was good at flying combat but always flew on the edge of a nervous breakdown, the guy who stole the framed holo of Wedge's parents, and the one who was certain that all superiors were out to get him. All of the screwups he accepted were people who he believed had better qualities that could overcome their flaws, and he was right. The auditions also provided room for the (first) Lieutenant Kettch joke; his second-in-command, Wes, says that the next pilot is an Ewok specially modified in a lab with arm-and-leg prosthetics with which to reach the controls. After that, Wedge refuses to believe Wes when the latter claims that the next prospect is a Gammorrean... but he is, one who has been modified to be calmer and more intelligent.
  • In one of the Stephanie Plum books, Stephanie, Connie, and Lula get stuck trying to find a new staff member (Vinnie's out of town). Turns out the only hireable candidate isn't what she claims to be....

Live-Action TV

  • The first episode of Frasier, and again in a later season episode where Daphne moves out and they need to find a new housemate. Also after Frasier hires a matchmaker. He ends up falling for... the matchmaker.
  • On the Firefly episode "Bushwhacked", the crew is placed under arrest and subjected to interrogation. The resulting montage alternates between the serious (Mal, Shep, Zoe, Inara) and the hilarious (Jayne, Kaylee, Wash).
  • Inverted when George is interviewing students for a scholarship in Seinfeld; he picks a bad student after several—as he puts it -- "annoying little overachievers".
  • House
    • In season one, when Cameron quits for the first time. It's not that the interviewees are so very awful, though, it's just that House is determined to find fault with everyone he interviews (since he doesn't really want to hire anyone new, but would rather have Cameron back). And of course, he wouldn't be House if he couldn't find something to hate in everyone he met...
    • Another episode has a variation on this, where House bets that Chase will do well in speed dating simply because he's pretty. What follows is a montage of Chase himself being the terrible interviewee as women continue to fawn over him.
    • Not to mention House's and Wilson's terrible dates.

House's date: And I'm on fire for the Lord!

  • The Vicar of Dibley, when the vicar is recruiting for the choir.
  • Kenan and Kel
    • When searching for a new employee for Rigby's. Some of the attendants were a man who hadn't bathed in 7 years and a naked one.
    • In another episode, Kenan and Kel are looking for actors to pose as Kenan's parents during a parent/teacher conference (It Makes Sense in Context). Two of the couples couldn't speak English (and the latter couple is Japanese while Kenan is clearly black), and the third couple (the one that they eventually decide upon) is made up of an obnoxious actor and a woman who is almost as dumb as Kel is.
  • Stargate SG-1, in the first episode of the season 9 Retool. Due to SG-1 being split up and unwilling to get back together, Mitchell goes through a host of inferior replacements, such as a language enthusiast, an overly-military soldier, and even two random scientists that only came to him in order to get an endorsement for some kind of android they were planning.
  • New Tricks
    • The first episode has one of these, when Sandra and Jack are interviewing for UCOS candidates. As well as Brian and Gerry (who appear towards the end), who are hired, some of the candidates include an overly-aggressive ex-police woman, a drunk, a very elderly ex-cop who suffers a heart attack as soon as he's offered the job, and a guy who walks in, sees Jack, mutters "Ah, shit..." to himself and walks right back out again. When the first thing the very first candidate to walk in does is cheerfully ask "This new unit -- no blacks, obviously?", it's clear from Sandra and Jack's faces that they're expecting one of these.
    • Sandra also suffers through one of these while speed-dating.
  • Dead Like Me features one in the second season. George drags her heels in hiring someone, allowing the featured interviewees to make further appeals.
  • In the Wishbone rendition of a couple of bits of the story of David, after King Saul takes the suggestion to have a musician around to soothe his soul, we are "treated" to three musicians, one of whom plays two pipes at once; it actually sounds good for about one second before you and Saul realize that it's going to get incredibly, annoyingly repetitive extremely quickly. The last one delivers a blatt, almost prompting the king to give up... before a servant comes up and lets on that he knows of a shepherd boy who's good with a harp...
  • In the first episode of Pie in the Sky, detective-turned-restaurateur Henry Crabbe asks potential chefs how they would prepare a steak and kidney pie. Typically interviewees are shown to view something that simple as a task to produce it as quickly and cheaply as possible, while Henry wants quality, or claim that it's beneath the dignity of a chef to make such a common dish at all. The last interviewee impresses Henry with a technique which will take a day to produce, answers his questions quickly and decisively, then Henry sits back and says "I know you don't I? Breaking and entering..."—it turns out the boy learnt to cook in prison. He got the job.
  • That '70s Show
    • In an episode, the guys are applying for a job at Fatso Burger, and give the worst possible answers, except for Eric. An example:

Interviewer: Tell me, what do you consider your best quality?
Eric: Well, I'm a real people person.
Hyde: I don't answer stupid questions.
Fez: I speak Dutch.
Kelso: My eyes. Oh, and I guess my butt too.

    • In another episode, the guys are in Canada, and are questioned in the same way by the Mounties.
    • Another episode uses this montage when the gang is trying to find Hyde a girl.
  • The game "Hats" on Whose Line Is It Anyway uses this trope as inspiration; the most usual theme is "world's worst dating service videos".
  • Happens in the first episode of the second series of Men Behaving Badly when Gary is trying to find a new flatmate: the initial candidates interviewed consist of a layabout, an incomprehensible Geordie, a catatonic man, a seemingly normal man who turns out to have a disturbing fetish, three social inadequates, three psychopaths, a man with a big dog, and Gary's mother.
  • Happens in The L Word, when, in a flashback, Alice's college band is looking for a new bassist. A few hilariously bad players later, and a hot girl with bass skills gets the job, and subsequently helps Alice realize her attraction to girls.
  • In Green Wing, Caroline doesn't want to take The Ace, Angela, as a flatmate, but is eventually forced to do so when the other applicants include an unashamed web cam obsessed Casanova Wannabe and a Cloudcuckoolander who didn't seem to quite get over the trauma of being an only child.
  • NCIS has a montage of bad witnesses after a bank robbery.
  • In Thirty Rock, they hold open auditions for a new castmember of TGS, with horrible acts including several of the show's writers, a street performer dressed as a robot, and NBC anchor Brian Williams doing stand up comedy. In a twist, Jack doesn't choose the perfect candidate Liz wants, and instead picks the random guy dressed as a robot. Who actually becomes the new cast member, despite having no acting experience whatsoever and not even knowing what he was auditioning for.
  • In the episode "Honey Trap" of the British sitcom The Thin Blue Line, Inspector Fowler attempts to find someone who can replace Constable Habib in the upcoming trivia contest. He resorts to the perps in the detention room. Fat chance.
  • Power Rangers:
    • Bizarrely done in Power Rangers Turbo where Divatox holds a large "cattle call" of monsters in one episode trying out to work for her, all of whom are rather pathetic. Even her dimwitted henchman Elgar comments how he hates these gatherings. Eventually, Torch Tiger gets the job, not that he avoids messing up.
    • Power Rangers RPM has the Green Ranger audition, with candidates chosen by the resident Plucky Comic Relief, Ziggy. Interviewees include a ventriloquist and dummy (two for the price of one), a hula hoop girl who can't hula hoop (hypnotizing), and a mime (he's in a box). Ziggy himself ends up becoming the Green Ranger purely by accident.
  • One scene from Misfits, where Sally the probation worker is given the task of interviewing the young offenders, all of whom take it upon themselves to be as rude, annoying, sarcastic and/or angry as possible—apart from Simon, who despite being a deeply troubled and socially inept young man with a conviction for arson, is by far the most polite.
  • There was an unusual variant in one CSI episode where the protagonists were investigating the murder of a patient in a high-security mental hospital. The terrible interviewees in that case were the victim's Ax Crazy fellow patients, and needless to say little information of value was forthcoming. The programme thoughtfully flashed up extracts from the patients' medical records between each clip just so the viewers would know what symptoms to expect.
  • The seventh season finale of The Office, "Search Committee", has the titular committee interview people for the position of regional manager. Notably, one of the interviewees was none other than David Brent, from the original British version of the show.
  • In the Sex and the City episode "Three's a Crowd", a montage of bad potential candidates for Three-Way Sex is shown, including a geek couple seeking a woman who can impersonate Agent Scully.
  • In Charmed's episode, "Rewitched", Paige went to a speed dating event at P3 and went though a montage of awful dates until she meets the last one, "Whit".
  • Used in the Boy Meets World episode "Band on the Run" when Cory and Shawn hold auditions to find new members for their fake band. However the trope was played with because one of the auditionees was actually talented but was rejected because he would make them look bad.
  • American Idol has several of these in the first couple of episodes of every season, usually capping off each montage with someone good.
  • A promo for Rizzoli & Isles shows the two leading ladies' reactions to a series of bad speed dates, alternating between the cop ("No, I did not bring my handcuffs.") and the medical examiner ("I can't write you a prescription."). By the end of the clip, the BFFs give up on dating and go out drinking with each other.
  • In the second episode of Covert Affairs, Annie, being the new girl is assigned to "walk-in" duty, as in attending everyone who "walks in" to report suspicious activity. Naturally, this tends to attract a lot of crazy people...

Crazy Guy: I know who killed Kennedy.
Annie: It's been well-documented that Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald.
Crazy Guy: Ted Kennedy.

  • An episode of Angel does this with Cordelia looking for apartments.

Professional Wrestling

  • A segment of WWE Wrestlemania 27 featured Snoop Dogg and Theodore Long holding auditions for wrestlers with musical talent to join Snoop on tour. Featured acts include posh brit William Regal rapping, Beth Phoenix and Great Khali doing a song from Grease, and Zack Ryder singing Rebecca Black's "Friday".

Theatre

  • In Merrily We Roll Along, we see a few of the auditions for Frank and Charlie's first show, one of which is for a woman who doesn't so much sing as screech and clearly has no idea how bad she is.

"I can go higher!"
"That's okay, we'll call you."

Video Games

  • An audio sketch in one of the You Don't Know Jack games depicts Black Sabbath, in 1971, trying to find someone to recite the opening line of "Iron Man", only for all of the auditionees to fail miserably. Just as Ozzy Osbourne is ready to give up, a delivery boy with a naturally-distorted voice is heard to say, "I'm from the drycleaners. I've got your ironing... man."
  • The Lego Adaptation Game Rock Band tour mode starts with this.

Web Animation

  • Homestar Runner does this twice in a Strong Bad Email about who gets to check emails after Strong Bad retires. Also briefly seen in "haircut" when Strong Bad is trying to find someone with hair to cut.
  • Bowser's Kingdom episode 6 had Jeff looking for a new partner after Hal had quit the Koopa Troop. They included a Rex, a Shy Guy, a Wiggler, and a Metroid. After the montage, Donkey Kong became his partner.
  • D&D 4th Edition: The Mindflayer's Interview. "So, why would you make a good Thrall?"

Web Comics

  • Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire
  • In Keychain of Creation, they almost start with one of these, where Misho and Marena are looking to round out their posse.
  • Seen in an early Patchwork Champions strip, when Lucky and Timebender were looking to fill out their ranks.
  • A Game of Fools has Sylvester and Joey's equally terrible attemps at finding jobs during the Slopbucket arc.
  • In Las Lindas',' Mora and Taffy go through one of these when on a series of blind dates.
  • Semi-example in Jack—the first couple of candidates are okay, then there are two scary ones, and the one who gets hired. Thalmus rejected the first two because he could find nothing with which to blackmail them.
  • Flaky Pastry starts out this way, with Marelle and Nitrine looking for another roommate to help them pay the rent. All but one of the rejected housemates become recurring side-characters later on, too.
  • Implied to have happened before Sabrina got her first job in Sabrina Online.
  • Brawl in the Family gives us a couple of strips regarding brawlers who would make bad bunkmates, with Dedede as the "interviewer" (though it bears mentioning that the guy's usually rather easily impressed when it comes to interviewing people).
  • Reverse example in this Loserz strip, where Ben and Eric ask out various girls—with their usual success rate.
  • Subnormality gives us the Dating (russian) roulette: Six speed dates in a row, you have to settle on ONE mandatory date without seeing the others after you make your choice or being allowed to pick someone you already rejected. Hope you don't land on the bullet!
  • In The Order of the Stick prequel On the Origin of PCs, there's one when Roy tries hiring for the Order, but there's a subversion: he's basically looking for anybody, and almost everybody refuses.

Web Original

  • The Kate Modern episode "Skittle Yourself" featured Charlie going through one of these. Might be a subversion, since she ended up hiring Lee, who wasn't exactly perfect, but was better than the other idiots who showed up.
  • The Guild, in season three, sees Codex seeking someone to replace Tinkerballa. None of the applicants measure up to the exacting standard of not being completely creepy or frightening. With the threat of Riley possibly joining the guild, Codex hastily recruits Clara's husband, a stupendously poor choice from the group's perspective.
  • The YouTube film Interviews with My Next Girlfriend is a very tongue-in-cheek montage of speed-dating type "interviews" with nine women who cover just about the entire spectrum of lesbian stereotypes.
  • Played with by Echo Chamber: The Administrator wants Tom to have a female cast member for the show. Tom wants Dana to do it, but because she refuses, Tom holds a casting call. Hilarity Ensues. And then Dana just winds up joining the cast anyway. That's how terrible the interviewees were.
  • Mario and Luigi suffer this while trying to start a band in season 1 of Stupid Mario Brothers.
  • The computer-oriented website The Daily WTF has a section titled Tales from the interview for both terrible interviewees and terrible interviewers.

Western Animation

  • CatDog episode "CatDogPig" had one of these, the applicants included a hulking, thuggish bull and a shifty looking chicken with pockets stuffed full of junk who tried to assure Cat "I am most definitely not a kleptomaniac".
  • The Simpsons
    • Mr Burns does it a couple of times.
    • Also the montage of Be Sharpes auditions to replace Chief Wiggum.
  • Dexter's Laboratory does one in "DeeDee and the Man", when Dexter "fires" DeeDee and is looking for a replacement "spastic sister" (at one point interviewing a manic nun: "They asked for a spastic sister, and who did you get? Nun other than me! Get it? 'Nun' other?").
  • One Looney Tunes cartoon which has Porky Pig handling a Talent Agency revolves around this.
  • Batman: The Animated Series has the Joker trying out new Harley Quinns after abandoning the original in prison (she gets her revenge at the end of the episode). A string of less-than-stellar ladies (and a cameo of Paul Dini in a Harley suit) meet his ad, including one who can't even spell Joker and calls him "Mr. G". He ends up hiring a busty but not-too-bright actress, but she's not perfect; best summed up by the Joker's muttered line, "I should've gone with the fat guy."
  • King of the Hill
    • One of these in the episode "Junkie Business", when Hank has to hire an accessories associate for the propane dealership. A highlight includes a man who has been on welfare for every Democratic presidency except Clinton and Truman. When an absolutely ideal candidate, who happens to be a rather attractive woman, does apply, uptight Hank passes her over and unwittingly hires the titular junkie instead.
    • Double subverted in "Bill Gathers Moss", where Bill looks for a roommate with the guys' help. After two terrible applicants, the third is a former Playmate of the Month who is cheerful, pleasant, and seems to take a shine to Bill—but Hank still rejects her over Bill's objections. Later on it turns out she's part of a counterfit merchandise ring, meaning Hank was right without realizing it.
  • The Venture Brothers
    • Played straight when the Guild of Calamitous Intent approves the application of Dr. Orpheus (and team) for an Arch Enemy.
    • Another in season 4 when the Revenge Society recruits members.
  • Pinky and The Brain, when screenwriters pitch world domination plans.
  • Futurama has a variation where Fry and Bender go apartment-hunting; it also manages to play with the trope by having the last apartment they view be practically perfect, but they reject it anyway because it's in New Jersey.
  • In the pilot episode of 6Teen, all the friends are trying to get jobs. You see all the mistakes they make and it gives all the exposition of each of their characters.
  • Rocko's Modern Life when Rocko was interviewing assistants for the comic book shop. Given the surreal nature of the show, this quickly degenerates beyond the usual weirdos and has an alien snapping its claws, a worm crawling across the table, giant dentures, and a hovering face made of eggs and bacon.
  • Phineas and Ferb turns one of these montages into a song with the Mix-and-Mingle Machine in "Cheer Up, Candace".
  • Once in Jackie Chan Adventures when Drago needed new henchmen (having fired the The Dark Hand gang). Naturally, Strikemaster Ice and co. end up being the last interviewees and wipe the floor with all of the previous ones.
  • On Jimmy Two-Shoes, when Heloise falls victim to George Jetson Job Security, Lucius goes through one of these.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, in the episode "Hearts and Hooves Day", when the Cutie Mark Crusaders are looking for a suitable stallion for Cheerilee:

Sweetie Belle: This one's too young
This one's too old
He clearly has a terrible cold
Sick Stallion: Achoo!
Apple Bloom: This guy's too silly
He's way too uptight
Uptight pony: I say!
Sweetie Belle: Well nothing's wrong with this one
He seems alright
Scootaloo: His girlfriend sure thinks so.

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