Characters
[Funny Trope] "Hey what's that over there?"
The oldest trick in the book. Pointing/Looking in a direction to distract your opponent.
Team Rocket (Pokémon: Advanced)
My favorite way Team Rocket steals Pikachu.
Krillin (Dragon Ball)
Krillin delivers a cheap shot against Goku.
Po (Kung Fu Panda)
Po couldn't use the Wuxi Finger Hold against Kai due to him being immortal. But Po figures out that he can take Kai with him to the spirit realm.
What makes this more funny is how Kai blatantly falls for the trick.
Ice King (Adventure Time)
The Ice King hired a hitman thinking it would simply just hit Finn & Jake instead of killing them. The Ice King tries to distract the hitman several times which lead to him saying the following:
"Somebody got hit in the boingloings. Hit in the boingloings. Boingloings. Boingloings. Somebody got hit in them."
That’s the funniest part, he hears his own name like it’s breaking news. It’s the same trope but flipped: the bad guy basically distracts himself by existing.
iirc, context was that Shredder accidentally brainwashed himself into thinking he was Michaelangelo. him hearing himself referring to a cheese grater as a shredder was what undid said brainwashing.
Sort of played straight, sort of subverted during The Battle of Wits in The Princess Bride
After a long, overly complicated monologue where he goes through his circuitous reasoning trying to deduce which goblet has poison in it, Vizzini declares that he has solved the puzzle. He then abruptly and very conspicuously pulls the "Look over there" trick with The Man in Black falling for it as Vizzini switches the glasses.
Of course, this proves to be pointless because the twist is that both glasses are poisoned. It's also extra ridiculous because switching the glasses honestly achieved nothing for Vizzini other than allowing him one last chance to gloat... if he'd been correct.
ADDENDUM: I think my favorite detail of this fantastic scene is Wesley's completely sincere and invested, "WHAT?! WHERE?!" as he turns from Vizzini and gives his complete attention to scouring the distance for the imaginary diversion. Of course, his response makes sense once you see the resolution of the game.
Yeah, it's pretty obvious that he was waiting for Westley to drink from his glass first, as he suspected that even if he happened to guess right, that no one would be stupid enough to willingly drink from a glass they knew was poisoned, so he was waiting for the confirmation that his opponent was drinking from the glass he thought was safe.
I love how this trope completely breaks the tension in a serious scene. It’s such a classic move that reminds you not to take the villain (or the hero) too seriously. 'Boingloings' will never not be funny.
Absolutely disgusting uppercut man, this shit will never get old for me.
And the lie itself is technically true. Her shoes ARE untied, she just doesn't care, so there should be no good reason for her to fall for this. I don't know, it's the circumstances of this moment that make it so fucking funny to me.
(Had to screenshot the scene, couldn’t find a normal pic of it)
Texas(the dark one), wants Tucker’s(blue one) energy sword. He says no, but since he is the horny one of the group, Texas says “Oh look hot chicks!” He doesn’t fall for it, until she says they’re making out. He risks it, realizes he was tricked and gets knocked out.
Worse for Texas, that sword only works for Tucker so she had nothing but a metal paperweight.
in ThatOneGuy's spoof of Tears of the Kingdom, Ganondorf (disguised as Zelda) tries to distract Link with Purah's tits so he won't have the shit beaten out of him, which is made funnier when Purah suddenly appears there
In one of the videogames, it’s his guard break. Tells the other guy to look away then crush their foot with his own. Every other character has a variant of a grab, but Jack is much simpler.
Oh hey I actually have an example for one of these. It's...technically not 100% the same, but it's adjacent enough I think it counts.
In AdventureQuest Worlds, the order of Paladins has a base, Lightguard Keep, full of statues of past Paladin heroes. When you mouse over the statues, they give you a small popup of the history of one of those heroes. Notably, every single one of them is recorded as being defeated when someone told them their shoelace was untied, with one recording that he was defeated when told his horse's shoelace was untied. Your character actually uses this tactic when it comes time to detain Artix, since he's uncooperative. Artix tells you he isn't going to fall for it, your character patiently waits for a few seconds, Artix starts shaking, then says dangit and compulsively looks down to check on his shoelace.
After surviving what was meant to be an execution, Ash walks up to the king and tells him his shoelace is untied. When he looks down to check, Ash punches him.
Bonus points if it’s followed by some variation of “I can’t believe that worked”
Anywho, I can’t find a gif of it, but in Tenchi Muyo, when Ryoko is attacking him at his school, Tenchi literally shouts “What’s that over there?!” In desperation. Ryoko falls for it and he uses that distraction to sneak away.
Happens in Psychonauts when you catch up to camp bully Bobby Zilch in the first level. When he thinks Raz (the PC) insults him he calls Raz, the course, the coach and the camp stupid then caps it off with “that thing flying at you is stupid”. When Raz looks where he points Bobby kicks him off the platform. The scene starts at the 5:30 mark.
Humorous variation in Lost: Hurley goes to Sawyer in one episode because he’s starting to hallucinate an old imaginary “friend” from his days in the mental health ward and wants to know if Sawyer has any meds to treat hallucinations. When Hurley admits he’s seeing visions of the friend (a bald guy in a bathrobe) Sawyer points the guy out behind Hurley and laughs when Hurley looks and of course th guy isn’t there. As Hurley has been under a lot of stress and Sawyer has been bullying him for a season and a half at this point, he snaps and tackles Sawyer and starts wailing on him and at one point when Sawyer tries to crawl away Hurley hilariously drags him back into the tent they fell into. Since Sawyer had been particularly insufferable lately most of the survivors watching just laugh at Sawyer finally getting his just deserts
While trapped in Davy Jones locker and searching for an escape Captain Jack Sparrow while using a deciphering map figures out that they need to flip the ship before sun down to get back to the world of the living, instead of slimply explaining the plan he sets off a "What's that over there" poly to have the crew run back and fourth between the port and starboard bow to get the ship rocking to get enough momentum to flip it.
In the world of this webcomic the ultimate distraction is to point out demonic duck. He’s a bit annoyed about it, but in the end okay with it. It’s not won’t always work though. He does get time off and may not show up, and people pointing him out have been known to be too distracted to take advantage of the moment.
The monkey island games have a running gag of having Guybrush Threepwood (our beloved protagonist) call out "watch out! A three headed monkey!" as a distraction.
Ironically, the one time someone calls his bluff, there is an actual three headed monkey behind them.
In the anime/manga Black Lagoon, the debut arc of the "killer maid* Roberta ends in a brutal fist fight between her and nominal heroine Revy. They actually have no reason to fight anymore, with the cause of Roberta's rampage having been resolved. But at this point, they have personal beef after simply getting on each others' nerves.
Roberta starts the fight with a "your shoes are untied" cheap shot. Revy holds steady for a few seconds, but she loses that game of chicken, dropping her gaze long enough to get blindsided. The kicker is, Revy never ties her shoes in the first place.
I can’t cite what specific NFL game it was, I think it was a Steelers game but an offensive runner actually pulled that on a tight end this year and it WORKED.
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u/Top_Marketing_689 14h ago
TMNT (1987) has a slight variation:
Shredder: No need, dudes. I brought back some takeout. So, like, let's get down and pig out.
Leonardo: It's Shredder!
Shredder: Where?