Yank the Dog's Chain: Difference between revisions

** Note that the entire ''[[Married... with Children]]'' series is basically one long chain-yanking session.

*** ''Married with Children''? Chain-yanking session? [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]?

* In one episode of ''[[Nowhere Man]]'', Tom Veil recuperates on a woman's farm and they fall in love. On the verge of abandoning his search to regain his old life, he gets another lead. He hesitates, then takes the lead. She leaves; [[Status Quo Is God|he goes back on the road]].

** Another, a [[Christmas Special|Christmas episode]], had Veil reunited with his family, learning that it was all a mistake and the authorities had been looking for him to testify against the people in the photo at the centre of his drama. It was all an elaborate plot, of course.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[Paranoia]]'' reminds Friend Gamemaster to let the players score some temporary victories along the way to their inevitable hosing.

* ''[[Ravenloft]]'': the Dark Powers deliberately go out of their way to inflict this on those who have done unpleasant enough things to qualify as Darklords. As Lord Soth demonstrates, the way to get them to cut it out is simply to stop caring.

* At the end of the Kamikaze Kate arc in ''[[Misfile]]'' [[Our Angels Are Different|Rumisiel]] has successfully exorcised a very scary ghost and saved (at least) one soul from damnation and proven himself a [[Badass]]. Ash is ecstatic, this means he can get back to heaven and fix things. Except... heaven is full of [[Jerkass]]ess (and Rumi is such a screw up) that just one deed like that isn't even going to close to evening the score, so [[Status Quo Is God|nothing changes]].

** Later, Rumi gets the news that Heaven is willing to give him a hearing about letting him back into heaven. The catch? The next available hearing is in {{spoiler|73 years. Ash doesn't take it well.}}

{{quote|'''Germany:''' Oh brothers, with Russia off my back, I have a chance of winning this war!

'''Newspaper Headline:''' United States Declares War On Germany.

*** Then again, Jeremy seems to be as mellow and kind to Candace when she's disheveled with branches in her hair as any other time. Candace ''fears'' being humiliated in front of him, but he's so much of a legitimately [[Nice Guy]] that it may be impossible. You could say Jeremy is the personification of [[Throw the Dog a Bone]].

** Happens at the end of "My Fair Goalie" to Football X-7 creator Professor Ross Efrop, who was forced into hiding when it was discovered his name was a palindrome, as the British at the time were very anti-palindrome. He is about to come back out when he's still shunned for his name being a palindrome.

* The ''[[Invader Zim]]'' episode "Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom" has Dib finally achieve everything he wanted, including respect and acclaim, after being [[Touched by Vorlons]], only for it all to be a fantasy created by Zim's [[Lotus Eater Machine]].

** To get back at him for throwing a muffin in his face, no less...

** Or in the episode "Peter's Daughter", where Peter vows to treat Meg better if she wakes up from a coma, which she's in because he made her go into the kitchen to save his beer when the house flooded. Meg gets a sweet, affectionate, (over-)protective father, as well as a boyfriend, because she starts dating a med student who was there when she woke up. Then Peter accidentally ruins her relationship ... then she finds out she's pregnant ... But then Michael (her boyfriend) proposes to her, saying he loves her and wants to be there for her. [[Shotgun Wedding|Ignoring the fact that her dad was there with a rifle]]. So Meg's going to get married ... {{spoiler|except on the day of the wedding, she realizes she isn't pregnant, and isn't sure she can go through with it. Her mother tells her to do what she thinks is right, ("Thanks, Mom. I love you." "I, uh, you too.") and Meg tells Michael the truth when she gets to the altar, prompting him to run out of the church.}}

* This is pretty much standard for the [[Black and Nerdy|nerdy]] [[Butt Monkey]] Tucker from ''[[Danny Phantom]]''. He usually ends up getting the short end of the stick either through his numerous failures to pick up girls or constantly getting the most emotional/physical abuse due to his comic relief character setting. The best shown is "King Tuck" where he [[Dork Horse Candidate|runs for school president]] in order to get some respect from others—including his friends. After Danny and Sam gets [[An Aesop]] that they should listen to Tucker once in a while, they promptly, ''in seconds'', ignores and walks off when Tucker's rambles about his interests. Worse, for no reason other then to play up his [[Butt Monkey]] status, the writer gets two popular girls to chase after him with intent to do some bodily harm. Poor guy can't catch a break.

** Also in "You May Already Be A KaBlammer!", he's upset over the fact that no one finds him funny, so June tells him that she'll be his sidekick as long as he's hers.

** And since he's famous for falling in love, only to be rejected, he gets his happy ending in episode 29, which was the so-called "last episode" (they ended up making a lot more, and some didn't get to air due to the cancellation), when a girl gives him a kiss: June.

{{quote|'''Edd:''' I'm touched! That you would interrupt a cliché plot ending for my sake!}}

* After being tortured, mutilated, and reduced to a [[Brain In a Jar]] throughout the first three seasons of ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' (2003), Baxter Stockman finally regains a whole, human body in the episode "Insane in the Membrane". Unfortunately, it's not long before Stockman's new body begins breaking down, and the doctor begins losing limbs. Worse still, he begins losing the one thing he'd managed to keep throughout his tribulations: his mind.

* Near the end of season 2 of ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'': The [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]] who ran the Earth Kingdom's secret police has been arrested! The real leader has promised them support against the Fire Nation! Sokka's finally seeing his dad after two years, and his girlfriend's in town! Toph's mom wants to reconcile with her! Aang is going to train to master the Avatar state!... Wait, there's still two episodes left. And as soon as Sokka says "[[Tempting Fate|Everything's gonna be perfect, now and forever]]," you know something's gonna happen. Sure enough, before ''this'' episode is even out: the secret police are still loyal to the man they "arrested"; Toph was tricked and captured by bounty hunters hired to drag her home; and it's not Sokka's girlfriend that's in town, it's [[The Dragon]] in disguise—and the king, not knowing better, welcomes her with open arms. And in those next two episodes, [[It Got Worse]].

* ''[[Kim Possible]]'''s [[Unlucky Everydude|Ron Stoppable]] never seemed to come out on top in the first three seasons. At the most extreme levels of yankage he somehow managed to get all of his 99 million dollars he got from Bueno Nacho stolen by [[Idiot Ball|keeping it all]] [[Took a Level In Dumbass|in his pants]], leaving him with nothing [[Fridge Logic|(though most can't figure out what happened with the continued royalties after that payment)]]. [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain|Drakken]] also has his leash [[Kick the Dog|yanked]] a few times more than comfortable.

 

== Real Life ==

** They also wanted to see the end of death and misery. Well, the Spanish flu and the Great Depression got in the way of that...

** Speaking of WWI-Mustard gas. It might splash undetected as a liquid onto a soldier's skin or clothes and then when they went down into the trenches where it was warmer the liquid would heat up into a corrosive gas. So just when you think you're safe, you've escaped the fighting with your life you discover you and all your buddies are gonna die...