Could This Happen to You?

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
"Let's cut to the commercial break like a news show. (ominous voice) Something in your house may kill you. Find out what--after the break."
—Craig Ferguson
"Why is the news always the same as the miniseries that was just on? What are the odds of that?"
—Dilbert

Occasionally, you'll see a segment from a News Broadcast, usually following a Made for TV Movie, that asks a question like the following: "Space alien invasion/drug dealer invasion/deadly refrigerator/mountaintop plane crash cannibalism: could this happen to you?" Fictional or otherwise, segments like these typically serve a triple purpose:

  1. Strike fear into the hearts of viewers who stake their survival on keeping tabs on the late-light news;
  2. Pull in big ratings with the promise of lurid tales of death and violence;
  3. Plug the Made for TV Movie.

Rarely is the correct answer given ("No. That's just stupid."), and rarely is the answer given before the end of the news (see Film At Eleven) - and yet to this day, sensationalism still compels folks to keep their eyes glued to the screen of the 10PM news.

See also You Can Panic Now. The equal and opposite reaction to Ripped from the Headlines.

Examples of Could This Happen to You? include:

Live-Action TV

  • An episode of Beakman's World dealt with the ridiculous question of whether or not your intestinal gas could cause the toilet to explode. Lester the Rat spends the entire segment holding it and waiting to see if it's safe for him to use the restroom. Apparently all the times throughout his life that he used the toilet without an explosion weren't proof enough for him.
    • Of course, as par for the course with Beakman's World, the question was not that ridiculous. It turns out they used to explode until the modern flush toilet's air trap came along.
  • Parodied by real-life news anchor John Beard on Arrested Development. No matter how outlandish or irrelevant the story he's teasing, he'll always throw in something like "What this means for your weekend, at 11."
  • In-universe during an episode of Fresh off the Boat, family matriarch and homemaker Jessica Huang watches nightly news and reads Stephen King novels. Both help her deal with her boredom of the kids being at school and her husband running the restaurant. She was banned from the latter because Louis got mad at her for micromanaging his restaurant and not trusting him. As a result, however, Jessica becomes paranoid about issues like sexual harassment suits at the restaurant and Eddie potentially becoming a date rapist after he gets busted for spreading a "dirty video", aka the harassment video the parents brought home from the restaurant. After she beats up Eddie with a stuffed toy to teach him about "date rape," however, and refuses to apologize, Eddie gets mad at her and Louis confronts her for going overboard. She admits that she needs a job, and Louis hands her a few newspaper listings that he circled. She gets better after earning her real estate license.
  • Parodied during an episode of Wishbone where David didn't know that Sam was allergic to coconut and accidentally got her sick by offering her energy bars with the ingredient. When they go to check on her the next day, Wishbone narrates dramatically about allergies and how they can happen anywhere. Fortunately, Sam just needs a day of bedrest and she's fine by the afternoon.

Video Games

  • The GTA Radio segments for Ammu-Nation (the gun store parody) love this trope. One particular version of this was citing a statistic about how a burglar could break into your house, have his way with your wife, then have time to go back for seconds before the police would arrive. After warning the listener not to let this happen to them, they used this to segue into the Ammu-Nation ad.
    • Some of the other commercials for other products, like for sunscreen and other similar products, would also warn of dire consequences that could happen to the listener, then would immediately segue into the commercial, often exaggerating the dire consequences of not doing so in the process.

Western Animation

  • In Family Guy, TV anchor Tom Tucker practices in front of a mirror for different ways of announcing a president's hypothetical assassination. One of his different methods is this.
  • Being the Trope Namer for Kent Brockman News, this is something he does quite often on The Simpsons:

Kent: I'm Kent Brockman, on the eleven o'clock news tonight... a certain type of soft drink has been found to be lethal. We won't tell you which one until after sports and the weather with 'Funny' Sonny Storm!"

  • There's also this gem:

Kent: A certain house-hold fabric could kill you! Find out after the break!

Real Life

  • Happens all the time in real life news reporting. Be it chemicals in various things that could give your child cancer, or a new credit card scam, or what have you, this is transparent and frequent. While they sometimes have valid points, it's a very cheap tactic (forgoing responsibility to the public and focusing on profits by taking advantage of fear-mongering).
  • German TV channel Pro 7 does this on the slot before or after every single movie that is about a major nature phenomenon that usually ends with the world obliterated. More often than not, this will be done via a special episode of some kind of science-show and tell the audience how unlikely the event in real life would be. Sometimes also done with alien invasions, Roswell and ghosts.
  • The "X? In my Y?" meme started from an ad (currently providing the page image) that took this approach to warning of porn and computer viruses.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Could_This_Happen_to_You%3F?oldid=1975745"