Go Look At the Distraction: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

A type of [[Room Shuffle]] where one character actively wants another character out of a room so they can discuss something in private. They'll usually either come up with some absurd reason for the character to go to the kitchen or across the hall or whatever—something along the lines of "Hey, did you know one of the bathroom floor tiles looks just like a map of Tanzania? Go have a look!"—or they say something that they know will make that specific character clear out, like "You know Greg, I was just talking to Bill across the hall and apparently his favorite thing is interminable circus anecdotes."

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]]'' has this little gem in episode seven, at least in the Japanese version—Ichigo yells "It's a flying huge radish!" and actually throws a radish from one of her shopping bags into the air, in order to distract Bu-Ling. It doesn't work very well.

* [[Beyblade Metal Fusion]]: Done by Tetsuya while he was in an [[Austin Powers]]-esque disguise to learn more about a new device Madoka created. "Hey look, are those rainbow colored crabs in the sky?" [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]], as he ended up pointing to multi-colored crab balloon-banners actually floating in the air behind them.

 

* In one ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]'' strip, Dave is sent on an elaborate and extremely convoluted snack run to get him out of the house while the others eat a pizza in his absence.

* A [[Running Gag]] in ''[[Nodwick]]'', employed whenever Arthax and Yeagar needs to get Piffany out of the way so they can do something horrid to Nodwick behind her back.

 

 

* ''[[Shrek]]''

** After Shrek is... uh, wounded by an arrow, Fiona tells Donkey to get blue flowers with red thorns so he would leave them alone. Donkey then stumbles upon a ''field'' chock full of blue flowers with red thorns... and subsequently complains that his task would be easier were he not colorblind.

* ''[[The Producers]]'': Used at the beginning of the most recent version. Max tells Leo to use the bathroom while he deals with the octogenarian nymphomaniac at his door. Leo uses the bathroom but gets done before Max can get rid of the old bat. Leo then comments on how sorry he was to interrupt him 'feeling up the old lady'.

* In the film ''[[Old Yeller]]'', when the mother is treating Old Yeller for an injury from a wild boar, she claims that she needs a horned toad and asks the younger brother to go get one.

* ''[[A Few Good Men]]'' has this exchange:

{{quote|'''Capt. West:''' Commander Galloway, why don't you get yourself a cup of coffee.

* In the 2009 [[Sherlock Holmes (film)|Sherlock Holmes]] movie, Sherlock sends the policemen inside the recently deceased Sir Thomas's home to look for bath salts while he continues searching by his lonesome for a secret compartment where Thomas kept his occult paraphernalia.

 

* In ''[[Heidi]]'' there is a scene where Mr. Sesemann wants to speak about Heidi with his daughter Klara, so he (somewhat clumsily) makes up an excuse by asking Heidi to bring him a glass of water. This errand turns then into a real adventure for Heidi.

* ''[[Harry Potter]]''

** Several adults commit variations of this throughout, with several less than comic results in the 5th and 7th books respectively.

** And in ''[[Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows]]'', Luna does this in the Great Hall {{spoiler|to let a fatigued Harry, along with Ron and Hermione, to slip out of the room to be by themselves after Voldemort is defeated.}}

* In "The Tower of the Elephant" (a ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'' story) Taurus sends Conan to check whether there are guards in the garden. Conan suspects this, but obeys. Taurus shuts the door and gets killed.

* ''[[Bored of the Rings]]'': "Look! The Winged Victory of Samothrace!"

 

* ''[[Friends]]''

** In one episode, Phoebe uses the word "Crummies" to make Chandler flee the room.

{{quote|"Excuse me, could I please just distract you for a brief moment?"}}

 

* In the ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' tabletop roleplaying game, characters who are lawful and/or good tend to be especially susceptible to this... especially Paladins or Monks, who MUST keep to the straight and narrow or lose their powers. Often, the player will realize it is in their best interests to be easily distracted when their friends want to do something immoral that will benefit them in some way, leading to a sort of selective ADD.

* Played with in ''Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising''—played straight early on, with the party distracting their paladin so the rest of the group can do some [[Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique]] on a captured badguy. Later, after learning to trust the players a bit more, the DM has his paladin [[I Need to Go Iron My Dog|wander off intentionally]] to allow the party free rein.

:When he comes back to find that a demon they'd been interrogating had "inexplicably" had the holy water they'd had him bless dumped over its head, he says, "I feel ''dirty''."

 

* In ''[[Half Life|Half-Life 2: Episode Two]]'', Eli Vance sends his daughter Alyx to make some tea for him, so that he can privately talk to [[Player Character|Gordon Freeman]] about their "mutual friend," the G-Man. Unfortunately, just when it looks like we're coming up on [[The Reveal]], Alyx comes back with the tea, and Eli promises Gordon that they'll talk more later. {{spoiler|"Later" never comes, as the next time we see Eli, he's rather unpleasantly killed by a Combine Advisor.}}

* ''[[Monkey Island]]''

* In a ''[[Hannah Montana]]'' game for the Nintendo DS, Oliver is blocking the way somewhere, and you have to choose the right things in a conversation so he'll move. One of the choices is, "Oh, look, a distraction!" {{spoiler|It doesn't work.}}

* In ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'', there is a point where your party meets Dalton on an icy plain. Your party blocks his fireball, but engages in extreme [[Cutscene Incompetence]] when they look behind them, at his request. Cue the party being captured.

* In "[[Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3]]", Qui's UB attack involves him looking past his opponent and proclaiming, "Ah, Lord Frieza!". When his opponent turns, he unleashes a torrent of energy blasts.

** [[Fridge Logic|Including his Lord Frieza]].

* In the first season of [[Tell Tale]]'s ''[[Sam and Max]]'', Max is asked by Sam to distract a body guard so Sam can assault the president. One of Max's distractions involve shouting [[Comically Missing the Point|"hey, look at Sam!"]]

 

* Seen in the webcomic ''[[Narbonic]]'' during the "Lovelace Affair" storyline.

{{quote|'''Dave:''' I'm back. Artie, can you explain why we need vegan burritos right ''now''?}}

* Whenever ''[[Captain SNES]]'' needs to distract someone, the go-to fake-out is, apparently, a three-headed monkey.

 

* ''[[The Legend of Neil]]'' has a drunken Neil distract some moblins by pointing behind them and shouting, "I'm disctracting you!". It works.

* Webtoon ''Krentz and The Hand of Shame 3'' has one character simply shout, "Diversion!" to get out of an awkward conversation. It works because as she says that [[Flat What|an airplane walks by]]. Yes, 'walks'.

* [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]] has his method of going "Look at the pretty bunny! Look at the pretty bunny!" while waving an adorable rabbit sculpture in front of the camera whenever the logic in the terrible comic he's reviewing falls apart.

 

** Reverend Lovejoy once got Ned Flanders to leave by telling him there was an oil stain in the parking lot that looked just like St. Barnabus.

** Bart gets the Red Hot Chili Peppers out of Moe's by telling Moe to look at a wall. Moe does so and isn't sure what it is he is supposed to be seeing, but continues looking regardless. He even charges Homer to do the same.