The Quiet Game

Wichita: Let's play the quiet game.
Columbus: I've actually been meaning to ask you, have you been to Columbus, because I've been trying to...

Wichita: Have you never played the quiet game?

—Zombieland

Children (and some teens and adults) are naturally talkative. The Fun Personified often shares this trait.

For children, it's because they're learning so much about the world, and their minds are racing as they process all the information they encounter. For older people, this may also be true, or they may come from a background where they wanted to talk but were shut down from being able to do so.

Unfortunately, this tendency to talk, non-stop, stream of consciousness and rapid fire, is annoying, frustrating and aggravating to many people—among them the Child-Hater and the Badly-Battered Babysitter. Often such Elders will resort in desperation, when they feel nothing else has worked to get someone to stop talking for a minute—they propose The Quiet Game.

The idea of proposing it as a game is supposed to make it "fun", but the talkative character rarely considers it so. Proposing it as a game is also supposed to be preferable to the honest and direct route of just saying "please be quiet for a little while," or exploding with "SHUT UP ALREADY".

The general outcome of this gambit, however, results in the one[s] asked to play the game either blithely missing the point, or seeing it for what it is, refusing to play along, or playing along only to declare instantaneous defeat, much to the dismay of the person trying to get a little quiet.

See The Other Wiki for more information.

Examples of The Quiet Game include:

Comic Books

In Young Justice during a game of Truth Or Dare, Impulse is dared to keep quiet for 5 minutes. He barely lasts 5 seconds.

Film

In Zombieland, Witchita proposes it to Columbus, who proceeds to talk anyway.

Newspaper Comics

In a strip of Get Fuzzy, Rob gets tired of Bucky and Satchel's chatter on a road trip and says "Let's play the quiet game."

Live Action TV

McKay proposed this in an episode of Stargate Atlantis.
Will proposed this to Nathan in an episode of Will and Grace, with the prize being a cookie.
The Twilight Zone TOS episode "The Silence". Colonel Taylor bets a talkative man named Tennyson half a million dollars that he can't stay quiet for an entire year. Tennyson accepts the bet and spends a year locked up in a glass cage. After Tennyson wins the bet, Taylor says that he's bankrupt and can't pay up. The Twilight Zone Twist? Before Tennyson went into the cage he had surgery to render himself mute so he couldn't lose the bet.
In one episode of Friends, Phoebe is dating a guy who is getting obnoxious about how passionate he is about everything, so she suggests that they play the quiet game for a little while. After about ten seconds, he says, "I lose! Let's play Jenga."

Web Comic

In Eight Bit Theater, Black Mage convinces Fighter to play the quiet game. For a few months' worth of pages, Fighter is completely silent, and Black Mage simply forgets that he's there. When Fighter finally does speak, he proceeds to rapidly say everything that he wanted to say during the game.

Web Original

In I'm a Marvel And Im ADC, Captain America (comics) gets Deadpool to shut up by handing him a phone and saying it's for him. When Deadpool can't hear anyone on the other end, he responds, "Oh, yeah? Well, two can play the quiet game!"

Western Animation

In "Stare Master" on My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, Fluttershy proposes this as a game to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, telling them that she's a champion. They all immediately say that they've lost.
In Up!, Carl proposed this game to Russell. Russell replied that his Mom loves that game.
Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse try this on Daisy in the Mickey Mouse Works cartoon "Daisy's Road Trip". Daisy wins after launching them screaming out of the car and back again.
Raven pulls this on Melvin, Timmy and Teether in the Teen Titans episode where she has to babysit them.