Crying Wolf: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|'''House:''' At the end of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," the wolf really does come. And he eats the sheep... and the boy... and his parents.

'''Chase:''' The wolf doesn't eat the parents!

 

[[Stock Aesops|You know the story]]. A little shepherd boy cries wolf to get people to come running, because he's bored out of his skull (or whatever). They fall for it. He does it again. They fall for it again. Then, an actual wolf comes along, and the little boy screams his little lungs out (crying "[[You Have to Believe Me]]!") but this time nobody comes, since they think he's just playing that stupid prank again. [[Why Didn't You Just Say So?]] may then ensue. [[Grimmification|Grimmer]] versions will end with the wolf [[Karmic Death|eating the boy]]. Or the sheep. Or [[Kill'Em All|everyone.]]

 

{{examples}}

* Usopp's introductory arc in ''[[One Piece]]'' is modeled on the Boy Who Cried Wolf (or Pirates, in his case), and his name is a portmanteau of "Uso" (lie) and "Aesop". By the point we meet him, he's done it every day ''for ten years''. By then, the village sets their watches by it ("Usopp's coming, time to go to work.").

* Minor instance with ''[[Lucky Star]]'', where Konata can't convince her teacher she's too sick to attend class after she spent the past two days giving other (dumber) excuses.

** Although the social services actually DID show up at her house when her teacher called them. However, this time Satoko refuses to admit to the abuse, so they can't do anything.

* ''[[Code Geass]]'' uses a variant of this in ''R2''. During the Second Battle of Tokyo, Suzaku says {{spoiler|he's carrying a Weapon of Mass Destruction}} in an attempt to deter the Black Knights. Lelouch doesn't believe him because a couple of episodes earlier, {{spoiler|Suzaku lied about a private meeting and brought along soldiers who nearly captured Lelouch.}}...except that {{spoiler|Suzaku ''did'' come alone; Schneizel was the one who sent the soldiers, to destroy any remaining bonds of trust between the pair.}} This results in {{spoiler|Tokyo getting destroyed.}}

* This also shows up in an episode of the ''[[Little Lulu (anime)|Little Lulu]]'' anime. After three false alarms involving falling out of a tree, freaking out over a caterpillar, and thinking that [[Bratty Half-Pint|Alvin]] was going to fall into the lake while rolling in a barrel, Lulu is no longer believed by Tubby and the other boys when she tries telling them that the Westside Gang really did show up. [[Tempting Fate|Up until the end of the episode, that is]].

 

 

* Happened in a Disney comic featuring Scrooge McDuck staging "tests" to see how his employees (among which, [[Donald Duck]]) reacted. Hilarity Ensued when a real thug attacked Scrooge, but he [[Broken Aesop|failed to learn anything]], [[Never My Fault|refused to admit he was ever at fault]], and [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|ends up chasing Donald out of town trying to clobber him]].

* A ''[[Tale Spin]]'' comic had Baloo be late for work due to running into a ghost plane flown by skeletons. Rebecca naturally thinks he's lying until he flies her up there to see it for herself. After the plot is resolved (it was a [[Scooby-Doo Hoax]] created by Shere Khan to hide his secret [[Airborne Aircraft Carrier]]. Really.) Rebecca vows to [[Tempting Fate|never doubt Baloo again]]. The comic ends with Baloo loafing around Louie's [[Aesop Amnesia|while calling Rebecca to tell her he was caught in a hurricane and may be stuck the whole night]].

** There's also a flashback in a later chapter that shows Jack tried to steal the Naughty or Nice list from Santa Claus back in the fifties.

** The Jack of Fables series has more flashbacks with Jack pulling off even more outrageous schemes for cash.

 

 

* The movie ''[[Cry Wolf]]''.

* Chunk has this problem in ''[[The Goonies]]''. None of his friends believe him when he starts a story with "I just saw the most amazing thing in my entire life." More importantly, the friendly sheriff doesn't believe him when he says he's in trouble because the last <s>time</s> several times he called it was a prank.

* [[Pirates of the Caribbean|Captain Jack Sparrow]] is an interesting case. It's not that he tells outright lies, but usually half-truths, and it's always for the purpose of manipulating people for his own ends. As a result, nobody actually trusts Jack fully and when it turns out he's been honest about something, it's pretty shocking.

{{quote|'''Norrington:''' You really were telling the truth.

'''Will:''' With good reason. }}

* In ''[[Bedazzled]]'' (1967), George (the Devil) gives poor shlub Stanley seven wishes for his soul, but grants them all in the worst-case ways possible. Having claimed more than enough souls to get back into Heaven as an angel (as per a bet with God), he gives Stanley the deed to his soul back, maybe out of pity, but more to make himself look good. At Heaven's gate he's turned away for this selfish gesture - he rushes back to Stanley, desperate to give him back his soul in an altruistic way, but Stanley has been tricked too often, burns the deed, and slips away.

 

 

They only answered "Little Liar!"'' }}

* Willo D Robert's " The Kidnappers" has a protagonist, Joel, with this Problem. so, when he says he saw the school bully kidnapped, no-one will listen( except his friend, sister and the bad guys themselves) this proves to be a really, really BAD thing.

* In one of Nyx Smith's ''[[Shadowrun]]'' novels, an assassin returns to a location several nights in a row to shoot a security camera. While the security guards do keep checking each time it goes on the blink, their response-time becomes slower and slower, until it's long enough for her to sneak inside and swiftly eliminate her target.

* In the [[Kim Newman]] story "Kentish Glory: The Secret of Drearcliff Grange School", one of Amy's schoolfriends, Smudge, is constantly telling wild stories. Then another friend gets kidnapped by sinister hooded figures, and they go to report this to the staff:

{{quote|"Smudge told the story first, which was a disaster."}}

** Amy corroberated the story, which might have helped if a third girl hadn't said she simply ran off.

* In L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''[[Prospero's Daughter|Prospero Regained]]'', when Eramus blames himself for not heeding Prospero's message, Prospero blames himself for having cried wolf once too often.

 

** In another season five episode, House references the story by saying "I don't care how many time he lies, Mom's gonna come running." Which is sad, but true.

* In one ''[[LazyTown]]'' episode Ziggy was playing pranks by saying untrue things, such as there being a monkey playing trumpet outside or Trixie having a spider on her shoulder. The other kids get sick of it, and decide to ignore him, then, when he stumbles on Robbie plotting out loud in a cow costume, they refuse to believe he saw a talking, evil cow with a catapult. Kind of a [[Broken Aesop]], in that it would have been a pretty reasonable thing for them to doubt anyway, even without Ziggy losing their trust by telling lies.

** The problem with that interpretation is, if the boy was exposed for repeatedly starting false alarms, they still would have stopped believing him no matter how many different stories he had told.

{{quote|'''Louise:''' This is like the time you said Richard was sexually abusing you.

'''Nathan:''' It's nothing like that! ''This is true!'' }}

* In an episode of ''[[Lexx]]'', Xev refused to heed 790's warnings that Stan was possessed by a malignant alien influence, since 790 was always saying similar things about Stan and begging anyone in earshot to kill him.

{{quote|'''790:''' Not that I didn't mean it before, but this time I ''really'' mean it!}}

* In one episode of ''[[The Practice]]'', Jimmy defended an accused rapist whose victim had a record for claiming to have been raped in two previous occasions only to have the authorithies investigate and find no evidence to confirm either case. That record makes Jimmy believe his client's claim that the "victim" consented. However, the law prohibits defense from bringing up the victim's sexual life in rape cases. Jimmy even tried (and failed) to convince the judge to allow it. While trying, Jimmy literally accused the "victim" of crying wolf.

** In another episode, Hannah Rose discredit a rape victim by pointing out said victim had been diagnosed with Münchausen.

* Played with on an episode of ''[[The Golden Girls]]''. Rose is regaling Blanche and Sophia with another St. Olaf story. It starts off like ''The Boy Who Cried Wolf'', only this boy Shepard actually WAS losing his sheep to a wolf, but he never caught him in the act. So he became known as "The Boy Who Didn't Cry Wolf". Finally, when the boy did catch the wolf, this being St. Olaf [[Insane Troll Logic]] comes into play. The townspeople assumed that if the boy never cried wolf when it ''was'' there, now that he was crying wolf it probably wasn't. {{spoiler|It was a bear. The boy is now known as "The Boy Who Cried Continuously".}}

* In an episode of ''[[Top Gear]]'' where the boys [[Awesome but Impractical|turn cars into trains,]] Jeremy Clarkson passes James May on an adjacent track and sees that James' buffet car is on fire. When Jeremy tells him his train is on fire, James doesn't believe him; the fire was on the side he couldn't see and Jeremy isn't the most trustworthy co-presenter around. As a result, the buffet car burns down completely and all the passengers James is carrying run away.

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

 

 

* A [[Muppet]] sketch on ''[[Sesame Street]]'' adapted the classic fable, with Cookie Monster taking the place of the wolf.

* The [[The Muppets|''Muppet Classic Theater'']] special adapted the classic fable as well, with Gonzo as the titular boy who cried wolf. Unlike most of the other examples, though, Gonzo is not deliberately lying; he's just over-excitable and jumps to conclusions a lot, his imagination well-helped along by overreacting sheep who panic over everything (a couple of falling rocks means an earthquake, a few drops of water hitting him is obviously the signs of a tidal wave). He honestly believes it every time he rushes to warn the villagers of impending doom, but since the disasters are always ludicrous and never even remotely true, the result is the same: When the Big Bad Wolf shows up, the villagers don't bother to listen to Gonzo's cries for help.

** Which might be interpreted more along the lines of ''[[The Sky Is Falling]]'' than of deliberate pranking.

 

 

== Web Comics ==

 

 

== Western Animation ==

{{quote|'''Bart:''' I'm just gonna lie on the floor now. Please don't let me swallow my tongue.}}

* Inverted and subverted in the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "The Death Camp of Tolerance". The boys tell their parents that Mr. Garrison and Mr. Slave are gay, but their parents accuse them of being homophobic and take them to a tolerance museum. They tell them again, but [[It Got Worse]] because they end up in a tolerance camp run by a pseudo-Nazi [[Would Hurt a Child|who threatens to kill them if they screw up.]] And it's ''then'' that the parents see Garrison and Slave are doing stereotypically gay things, and then they bail out the nearly-dead kids while Garrison and Slave themselves are sent to the camp.

* An episode of ''[[The Angry Beavers]]'' deals with Dagget discovering how much fun slapping his tail on the surface of the water is. Norbert tries to get him to stop abusing it because of this reason (even though the whole thing comes off as a metaphor for something else...), and indeed an actual wolf shows up and no one takes Norb seriously when he tries to warn them with the tail slap.

* This is also done in ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]''. The Gangreen Gang trick the Mayor into leaving his office so they can use his hotline to Powerpuff Girls to play crank calls on them, sending them after Mojo Jojo, Fuzzy Lumpkins, and finally Him when they were just minding their own business. When the trio finds out that the gang was responsible for the girls attacking them, they attack the gang and when the real Mayor gets back to his office and sees the fight, he calls the Powerpuff Girls, but they don't believe him and even incinerate their phone.

** Buttercup pulls this on her sisters in the comic book story "Who's Afraid Of The Closet Monster?" (issue #29).

* Naturally, this occurs in the [[Three Little Pigs]]' followup ''Three Little Wolves'': Practical sets up a horn as a wolf alarm, only to find his brothers abusing it and laughing at his expense. He warns them that "Someday the Wolf'll get ya. Then you'll be in a fix. You'll blow that horn and I won't come. I'll think it's one of your tricks." Which is exactly how it plays out, though they finally get his attention by tricking the wolf into blowing the horn with all his might.

* A ''[[Dexter's Laboratory]]'' short had DeeDee pulling the old ''"What's that"'' gag, pointing to Dexter's chest then flicking his face when he looked down. The 3rd time, she cries out "What's that" for real and Dexter's got his eyes closed, refusing to fall for the gag as a face-sized bug is latched onto his head.

* The second [[Animated Adaptation]] of ''[[Clifford the Big Red Dog]]'' had a story called "The Dog Who Cried Woof" in which Cleo pranks Clifford and T-Bone with a ghost story.

* ''[[The Raccoons]]'': In one episode, Bert Raccoon found out Cyril Sneer wanted to pave the forest but nobody would believe him because of how he jumped into conclusions before.

* ''[[Wheel Squad]]'' had an episode where Enzo was having a tunnel built to grant potential customers easy access to World Mart. Unfortunately, the construction was threatening the neighborhood, so they started a petition. Fearing the petition wouldn't be ready on time, the heroes tried to forge signs of dinosaurs having lived there so archaeologists would delay the work until the petition was ready but the hoax was soon exposed. Later on, the heroes investigated and found out remains of an Ancient Roman bath house. As it sometimes happens when the hero finds out the villain's secret, the villain appeared to confront them about it. One of the heroes told Enzo he couldn't keep them from telling about the bath house and Enzo said he didn't have to, since nobody would believe them after the dinosaur hoax. Neverthless, they ''did'' convince someone to investigate and the truth gets out.

* Some [[Care Bears]] invoked the trope using a swamp monster instead of a wolf and the others refused to believe when they were attacked by a "real" swamp monster, who was actually Mr. Beastley in disguised but the Care Bears didn't know it.

* Played straight and inverted in ''[[Regular Show]]''. One Episode, ''Grilled Cheese Deluxe'', revolves around Mordecai and Rigby having a lying contest. Their lies end up escalating to them using a Grilled Cheese Sandwich to save the city from an Antimatter Explosion. ([[It Makes Sense in Context]]) When habitual liar Rigby tells the truth about what happened to the sandwich, he's not believed. Mordecai then lies about what happened, and is believed.

* In the second season of [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]], Twilight Sparkle gets worked up over nothing on several occasions, on one occasion [[It Makes Sense in Context|throwing a whole town into chaos]]. This bit her in the plot big time when she realized {{spoiler|Princess Mi Amore Cadenza was [[Not Herself]], but nopony believed her}}.

 

== Real Life ==

* Does anyone even bat an eyelash anymore when a car alarm goes off?

** Some car thieves actually count on this, setting off a car alarm until the person gets frustrated and shuts it off entirely. Robbery ensues.

* In [[Real Life]], this happened to [[Andy Kaufman]]. Having built his career on an increasingly outlandish series of [[Worked Shoot|worked shoots]], a lot of people thought his increasingly fragile, sickly appearance in 1984 was another prank in the making (indeed, he had once considered faking his death). But he really was dying of lung cancer, succumbing that May... though there are still a few who think [[He's Just Hiding]].

* In a somewhat related example to the above, [[GG Allin]] would have friends call his brother (who was also in the band) and say that GG died, which is nothing compared to his onstage antics (throwing his shit into the audience, bashing his head in with a microphone, beating up audience members, [[It Got Worse|et cetera]]). Eventually, he got used to it, so he ignored all calls like that. When GG Allin died of a drug overdose, band members, friends, and others called him to say that he died. Guess what happened?

** A violinist travelling to Chicago made a joke about having a [[Senseless Violins|machine gun in his case]]. Airport security did NOT have a sense of humour, but deliberately so. He missed the flight.

** Anne Frank and her family knew ''from British radio'' that if they were captured things would be bad, yet the soldiers liberating the camps were utterly surprised/horrified.

** The Germans actually did commit a genocide shortly before WWI broke out, the [[wikipedia:Herero and Namaqua genocide|Herero and Namaqua genocide]] in German South-West Africa (modern day Namibia).

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Stock Aesops]]

[[Category:The Oldest Tricks in The Book]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]

[[Category:A Failure to Communicate]]