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What Does This Button Do?
Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.
When it comes to curiosity, there are generally two main types. The first type is patient enough to wait for an explanation to be given, usually by an expert on a subject and/or its creator. Someone who can break it down into a more simplified language, to a point where it can be easily understood, what its benefits are, what dangers it may impose, and the like. The second type... does not have that kind of patience. Or insight. Or anything resembling restraint. They're willing to stumble blindly towards a control panel and start randomly pressing buttons. Usually, they'll ask the all-important question, "What Does This Button Do?" just before doing so, or just after doing so if the work emphasizes them being unthinking rather than reckless.
This is the kind of thing that can result in self-destruct sequences being set off, Wave Motion Guns made to be even more dangerous without anyone who knows what they're doing to run them, all while someone with half a brain will scream warnings (and insults to their intelligence) just before things get wrecked.
A very bad way to tempt fate. An even worse way is to leave the button unlabeled, among Billions of Buttons, or both. The proper response to anyone who asks this question is, "Don't Touch It, You Idiot!", although "What Were You Thinking?!" also crops up as a regular post-press reaction in either frustrated hiss or yelling flavours. Note, however, that Big Red Buttons are usually a Chekhov's Gun: even in the event that a curious character is prevented from pushing it, rest assured that you'll eventually find out what the button does. Compare and contrast Are These Wires Important?, for cases where the character is deliberately trying to make something malfunction, and Caps Lock, Num Lock, Missiles Lock, when the button's placement means that it's highly likely to be pressed by accident.
Beware! Savvy villains may leave them lying out in the open as Schmuck Bait...
Examples:
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Advertising
- An ad for Cable One, in which a supervillain has his plans to destroy Earth from his outer-space lair spoiled by a slow Internet connection, has "Common Sense" say the trope name and push the self-destruct button.
- The Metro Trains safety ad Dumb Ways to Die has Ninny asking "I wonder, what's this red button do?" Cue an enormous explosion.
- In the 1995 Philips CD-i informercial A Day with Sid, Ed & Cd-i, in a scene deriding PCs, a woman tries and fails to start a game in DOS for her son. While she goes looking for the manual, the boy instantly becomes bored and, having been told not to touch anything, immediately starts pressing random keys. Two keypresses in and a Windows 3.1-style dialog box appears asking if he wants to erase the hard drive. Up to five keypresses later and the screen is literally flashing red. A dramatic press of the enter key (while his mother helplessly tries and fails to run across the room) later and the obvious happens.
Anime & Manga
- Tomo from Azumanga Daioh once found a button that would kill Chiyo when pressed. She pressed it anyway. It was only in a dream, though (not that it alleviated Chiyo's anxieties about Tomo, anyway).
Chiyo: Please don't kill me. Even in a dream.
- Bleach: This shows up in the Beast Swords filler arc, where Senbonzakura finds himself in a room in the 12th division that has surveillance cameras all over Seireitei. He starts pressing buttons at random and ends up messing with the Shinigami on the cameras in various ways: Renji gets his bathwater superheated, Omaeda's barbecue explodes, Matsumoto's treadmill suddenly stops, and so on.
- Asked in Episode 15 of Bodacious Space Pirates when Marika brings the yacht club aboard the Bentenmaru to fill in for her quarantined crew. Answer: It fires the ship's main cannons.
- Combattler V: In episode 16, Kotaro — a little kid of Hyoma's acquaintance — visited the Nanbara Connection. When Ropetto shows him the team's vehicles, Kotaro can't help to get in Hyoma's jet fighter, point at a random button and ask what it does. Ropetto tried to talk him out of touching it, but Kotaro pressed it anyway.
Kotaro: What does this button do?
Ropetto: That's the ignition button. Don't touch it.
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Steel Troops has Chizuka messing around with a button of a Humongous Mecha. The robot then fires laser beam that destroys an empty building nearby.
- EDENS ZERO: Rebecca attempts to teach Shiki how to fly her spaceship, but he immediately starts pressing buttons, which makes them crash.
- Fire Force: When visiting Vulkun's home, Iris can't resist pushing the buttons scattered around his inventions. She even taps on some of Licht's more bizarre research items in his lab.
- Isekai Quartet: When the KonoSuba group finds a mysterious button, Aqua immediately wants to press it. Kazuma holds her back, pointing out it could do something dangerous. Megumin says she agrees with his logic but presses it anyway. Pressing it whisks the group away to the series' school setting.
- Mazinger Z: This series mixed this trope with Falling into the Cockpit, and deconstructed both of them (funny and ironic, keeping in mind that Mazinger Z was the first mecha show where the pilot fell into the cockpit). When The Hero Kouji sat in the Hover Pilder (the flying device that controls the Super Robot) for the first time, he knew absolutely nothing about piloting. His little brother suggested to him that maybe it was a really bad idea, and he angrily replied he only needed to figure out what each button did. So then he began pressing random buttons to ascertain which did what... and he nearly got himself and his brother killed. Mazinger-Z went on a rampage, destroying everything on its path, and it only stopped when Sayaka showed up and carefully explained to Kouji what he had to do (after getting baffled at the thought of someone doing something SO stupid). And it was way worse in the original manga version since Kouji activated Mazinger-Z in the middle of a big city. To be fair, though, the person who had built Mazinger-Z was dead, so it was not like if Kouji could consult someone about it at the time.
- In One Piece, Franky goes searching through the laboratory of the world's most brilliant scientist for a ship that can take him to the rest of the Straw Hats. He comes across a "Pirate button", and...
BOOM!!
The world refers to this incident as the Future Kingdom's great disaster: "The Nightmare of Baldimore".
Audio Play
Comic Books
- A gag in Achille Talon has just a single button labeled "do not push". The main character gets more and more unhinged as he desperately tries to resist the temptation of pushing it until he finally gives in. It electrocutes the pusher.
- One Archie Comics story has Mr. Lodge having trouble with his kitchen because every appliance is built into the wall, and the buttons are unlabeled. On Archie's suggestion, the two of them test each button which results in variations of The Door Slams You until Mr. Lodge gives up, has Archie gather firewood, and cooks lunch over a campfire in the kitchen.
- Done in Górsky & Butch, in a direct Dexter's Laboratory parody. (Unfortunately, the button was in the middle of a bomb that Gorsky was trying to disarm.)
- The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016): After Diana and the Holliday Girls "borrow" an experimental aircraft in order to go join the fight against the Duke of Deception and try to prevent him from awakening the Titan, they pass an allied aircraft. When Diana talks about contacting them on the radio, Tilly Heyday pushes the giant red button covered in caution tape while cheerfully chirping "maybe it's the radio!" while the others, in horror, tell her not to. It turns out to be the button to turn the plane invisible.
- Teen Titans; Tim Drake manages to smuggle a batmobile to California under the 'Batarang budget' and tells the group not to touch the blue button after being asked that question. A page later reveals it most likely contacts Batman, right after Kid Flash has managed to crash the car upside down.
- In Watchmen, Laurie is exploring Nite Owl's aircraft and starts pressing buttons on the panel. She presses one and it turns off the lights. Then, she taps another button with the fire marked on it for the cigarette lighter. It's not a cigarette lighter. After the fire is put out and Dan mentions the air-to-air missiles, Laurie announces that she has just quit smoking forever. In a nice bit of Foreshadowing, Dan mentions that The Comedian did the same thing back 1977... In the film version she doesn't smoke, but still pushes the button just to see what it does.
Comic Strips
Fan Works
- The Judge asks this in case 1 of Brendan Namron: Ace Attorney just before pressing the power switch of the flashlight — and getting hit by its light.
- The Bugger Anthology: In "The Dalek Invasion of Funk", the Doctor finds a button labeled "Health & Safety Violation Alarm", wonders what the button does, and presses it. It activates an alarm, prompting all the nightclub guests to flee.
- In Harry Potter and the Invincible TechnoMage (a fanfiction in which Harry Potter is adopted by Tony Stark) the Dursleys and Harry go to a Stark International factory. Dudley decides to start pressing buttons and switches, and his father not only doesn't do a thing to stop his son but prevents some people from stopping the kid. The result? The Dursleys die, another family that was there dies, a technician dies, and the only survivor is Harry thanks to his magical powers.
- In The Portal, Thomas Smith pushes a strange button which causes him to fall into the basement where he finds the portal to the Dragon Realms.
- Defied by Hermione in The Problem With Purity when she notices dormant wards that, if her calculations are correct, would probably separate the tables in the Great Hall from each other if they were activated. She's tempted to activate the wards just to see them working, but has enough sense to restrain herself.
- In this Titanfall 2 fansong, "Wait, what's this button for?" "Eject eject, that's the nuclear core"
Films — Animation
- In Billy & Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure, after Skarr manages to escape Grim in a submarine, he notices a flashing button and decides to press it. It shoots out a laser that goes through Skarr's body, who laments having forgotten the button does that.
- In the climactic battle of The Incredibles, the Parrs have to figure out the Omnidroid's remote controls by trial and error.
- In Penguins of Madagascar, Private can't stop pushing the buttons on Dave's submarine, each one sending them deeper into the ship. Later he presses another one to save the North Wind from Dave's death trap.
- At the start of Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars, Johnny Rico is commanding a squad of rookie soldiers. The Ensign Newbie tries to activate his infrared and shoots off a backpack nuclear missile instead, blowing them all up. Fortunately it's a Danger Room Cold Open.
- Titan A.E.: Played with, in a way that suggests that the crew's Genius Ditz weapon specialist is savvier than he might at first appear. We never do find out what it does.
Gune: Does this look familiar? Do you know what it is? Neither do I. I made it last night in my sleep. Apparently, I used Gindrogac. Highly unstable. I put at button on it. Yes. I wish to press it, but I'm not sure what will happen if I do.
- Rex in Toy Story asks this while pointing to a big red button on Buzz Lightyear's armor. Subverted in that it just plays a voice recording. In the same scene, Slinky Dog activates Buzz's laser, though without the line.
- The VeggieTales movie Larry-Boy and the Fib from Outer Space plays this straight within the Larrymobile. There's a panel of multicolored buttons that Alfred didn't take the time to label, and he tells Larry this while he's driving towards the city's water tower. Larry's trying to find the button for the 'Mobile's flight system, but Alfred can't remember which one it is until the last second.
- Yellow Submarine:
- Ringo and Fred are wandering around the Beatles' house looking for the rest of the band and they find a giant Frankenstein's monster with a lever next to it. Fred warns Ringo to leave it alone, but Ringo pulls the lever anyway, insisting "Can't help it, I'm a born lever-puller"note Pronounced "Liverpooler", although the proper term for someone from Liverpool is "Liverpudlian". The monster wakes up, but fortunately, it then drinks a potion and transforms into John.
- Ringo presses another button just after he's told not to do so. It is a panic button/ejector seat that puts him in the Sea of Monsters... (Ringo Starr himself said children all over the world asked him "why did you push the button?")
- In Wreck-It Ralph, as Ralph is trying to figure out how Vanellope's racecar works, Vanellope asks, "What does this joystick do?", pulls it, and reverses, smacking Ralph in the face. She does this two more times.
Films — Live-Action
- In The Fifth Element, the Big Bad promises his Swiss Army Weapons to the alien mercenaries in exchange for the MacGuffin he seeks. The container turns out to be empty; he gives them one weapon crate anyway for trying, but one discovers a little red button on the gun whose purpose Zorg didn't explain. That was his insurance in case he got ripped off. The alien presses it, which causes the gun to self-destruct, killing (almost) all of them.
Zorg: Now a real killer, when he picked up the ZF-1, would've immediately asked about the little red button on the bottom of the gun.
- Apollo 13. As the crew begins to prep for its re-entry, we briefly glimpse a piece of paper over a panel in the cockpit, simply marked "NO!". When all three men get back in the cockpit, Jim Lovell asks Jack Swigert about the note; Swigert admits that he was getting "kinda punchy" and didn't want to accidentally jettison the LEM with the other two men still inside. (This happened for real on the actual Apollo 13. The note part, not the jettisoning the LM part.)
Lovell: [deadpan] That's good thinking.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Rocket shows Groot an explosive device (with the yield of a nuke) and gives him specific instructions not to press the Big Red Button, as it would set the nuke off immediately, killing them all. Groot has trouble understanding. Luckily, when Groot has to press the button, the instant explosion one is cracked and possibly broken, meaning the right one is the only choice.
- In Thor: Ragnarok, on finding the spacecraft they stole doesn't have any weapons because it's a pleasure yacht used by the Grandmaster for his orgies, Banner is told not to push any buttons, presumably for fear of activating some kind of Orgasmatron. However, when they're being shot at, Banner in desperation pushes the biggest button he can see. This activates the Grandmaster's birthday celebration fireworks which distract the craft shooting at them, causing it to crash.
- Men in Black: Jay is firmly instructed early in the movie to never, ever touch the red button. In the crisis of the climax scene, Tommy Lee Jones tells him to push it. It activates turbo engines that allow the car to drive on walls and ceilings to get through a traffic-clogged tunnel.
- David curiously touches all the alien-buttons he sees in Prometheus. Heavily overlaps with Don't Touch It, You Idiot!. No, seriously, DON'T!
- In TRON: Legacy, Sam ends up zapping himself onto the Grid by ignorantly repeating the last issued command on the console. Even when faced with the warning message, he makes only a token effort to look for the indicated "aperture" before confirming the command.
- In Undercover Brother, Conspiracy Brother sees a Big Red Button in the control room of The Man's base labelled "Atomic Core". He goes ahead and presses it anyway, starting the self destruct sequence.
- In the 1983 film WarGames, this concept is spoofed, when a tourist at NORAD is tricked by a military tour guide into pushing a big red button that simulates an emergency response, for comedic effect.note Complete with the "Challenging Stage" jingle from Galaga, which coincidentally was the game David was playing earlier in the film on two separate occasions.
- Subverted in the 1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, at the very end, in the Great Glass Wonkavator, Wonka lets him know that he has pushed every button in the compartment besides the one with a red ring around it, which he encourages Charlie to do, claiming he doesn't know what'll happen, eventually revealing he actually knew it would lead them up and out of the factory.
Gamebooks
- Defied with a vengeance in the Give Yourself Goosebumps book, All-Day Nightmare. When you're re-abducted by the aliens who took your memory, you're given a chance to hit a red button on a control panel and try crashing their ship, but if you chose that option it turns out the aliens are Genre Savvy enough to anticipate what you're doing - which is why said button has a safety lock installed. The aliens then decides humans are too untrustworthy to be left alive and decide to launch an invasion to Kill All Humans - and you're Forced to Watch from the sidelines. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero! doesn't even cover your screw-up.
Jokes
Literature
- Roger of 14 (Peter Clines) is confronted with a wall of buttons and switches. He can't resist flipping one, with immediate and dire consequences.
- In Artemis Fowl, The Atlantis Complex, Mulch amuses himself on a long trip in a stolen shuttle by doing this repeatedly, activating the emergency braking system and dumping a load of "waste" on some very surprised fishermen.
Mulch: I should have guessed that one. There's a little picture of a toilet on the button.
- Castle Hangnail: During the introductory tour of the castle, Molly is shown a device of uncertain purpose built by a Mad Scientist who used to occupy the castle; it features a button with a prominent label saying NEVER EVER PRESS THIS BUTTON — and the button has been pressed so hard it's stuck in the "on" position.
- The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew:
Make your choice, adventurous stranger
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder 'till it drives you mad
What would have happened if you had
- In Contraband Rocket, a 1956 sci-fi novel by Lee Correy, rocket geeks restore a scrapped atomic rocket and fly it to the Moon. While landing on autopilot, someone accidentally hits his hand on a switch and goes into a panic, thinking he's just caused a disaster. Instead they land safely.
And Chubb discovered what switch he had accidentally hit. He found himself staring at a luminous light panel on the overhead which said plainly: You have just hit the panic switch, provided by the Electronics Division for your convenience in times of stress.
- Discussed several times in Discworld.
- Wizards will always pull anything marked "Do Not Pull" just to see what all the fuss is about, and if you put a sign saying "End of the World Switch" on a lever in a remote cave somewhere, the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.
- Soul Music: The shop full of magical musical instruments, where the question was "What happens if I pick up this instrument and play it?" One of the scarier ones in the shop was the horn of either Heimdall or Gabriel.
- Hogfather: The wizards find a nailed-shut door in Unseen University, and naturally have Modo the handyman un-nail it. After Ridcully has explored the full capabilities of the B. S. Johnson bathroom behind the door, he has Modo nail it up again; but Modo leaves the nail-heads sticking out a little to make it easier next time the Gentlemen want it opened.
- In The Last Continent, the sign on the pole propping open a dimensional portal window that is the faculty's only way back to UU has a sign saying not to remove it, not even to see what happens. Unfortunately, it doesn't also say "Or if you're Mrs Whitlow and are having trouble fitting the tea tray past it."
- One character in Finder's Stone trilogy thought the best way to learn what unknown magical devices do is to tell them all known stock command words and look what will happen.
"Nonsense," Olive said with a sniff. "There's no danger as long as you know the right way to deal with these things. All you have to do is hold your hand over your head—" the halfling demonstrated, while Akabar stepped backward and Alias rose to her feet "—and command the ring, 'Show your power to me.' If that doesn't work then there are certain keywords you should—"
They never heard the rest of the bard's lecture. Suddenly the ring's power did indeed display itself.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy plays this trope straight, while subverting the Shmuck Bait element and averting the Chekhov's Gun of it: "[Arthur] reached out and pressed an invitingly large button on a nearby panel. The panel lit up with the words 'Please do not press this button again.'" At no point is this button ever mentioned again.
- The Mr. Men story "Adventures with Minibeasts" ends with Little Miss Curious coming across Miss Inventor's Shrinkometer and wondering how it works, presses a button on it and makes Little Miss Tiny grow to the size of a giant. It may also be a Shout-Out to the Trope Namer.
- Alk and Ilke's adventure starts out like this in Phenomena, where Ilke can't help it but grab some handles.
- In the novelisation for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, having forced his way into command of Enterprise, Admiral Kirk finds himself thrown when he realises he doesn't know which button unlocks the restraints on the captain's chair. It's played more seriously later when he worries that his unfamiliarity with the systems might have lead to the deaths from a transporter malfunction because he didn't fix the problem quickly enough.
- The Illustrated Star Wars Universe has an image of an Ewok examining a blaster, with the caption saying that Ewoks are curious about Imperial technology, often to their own detriment.
Live-Action TV
Music & Music Videos
- Kids Praise: Said word-for-word when a little girl named Hanna is checking out a machine Psalty invented that was supposed to stretch time. Turns out the machine travels through time instead; they found this out when she pressed it.
- The Filk Song "Don't Push That Button" describes a few misadventures of someone who never heeds that advice.
- The intro to "Doomsday" by Mephiskapheles has an idiot saying: "Ayayayayayay! Ay, what's this button for?"
- In Genesis' music video for "Land of Confusion" starring Spitting Image dolls, Reagan presses "Nuke" instead of "Nurse". That earns him a slap on the back of the head from Nancy.
- At the end of Laszlo & Gary's "Don't Touch That", a recording engineer begs him not to touch a big red button on the control panel even though he's curious about what it does; he touches the button and the song ends with a loud explosion.
- In the music video for The Young Ones' "Living Doll", Vyvyan says "What does this button do?", pushes a button on the mixing desk, and blows up the studio.
- What's This Button For? A Wiggles song from the Animated film, Space Dancing. The Button in question launches the Zeezap spaceship
Radio
Tabletop Games
- In GURPS, the Curious disadvantage causes your character to do exactly this, with a penalty to your roll if the button is big, red, and has "Do Not Press" written on it.
- Paranoia: We need you to field-test this experimental device that R&D cooked up. Instructions? Sorry, they're above your security clearance, you'd have to be terminated if you saw them. What's left? Trial and error; in other words, repeatedly asking What Does This Button Do?, then pressing it and hoping the answer isn't "kill you horribly" (or worse).
- A rule for Orks in Warhammer 40,000 — that former Leman Russ or Basilisk that da boyz looted? Each turn it has a one in six chance of careening straight ahead at full speed instead of doing anything else, due to its over-enthusiastic crew hitting the wrong pedal.
- In the New World of Darkness's fanmade expansion Genius: The Transgression, this is represented with the Mere Mortal Law (a.k.a. Gilligan's Rule), or, in game-play terms, Havoc: Wonders, the inventions of Geniuses, will almost-certainly go haywire when touched, picked up or interacted with by an ordinary human. This effect is especially bad when an actual scientist does so.
Theme Parks
- Right at the end of The Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios, Krusty asks this when he sees a mysterious button next to him. He pushes it, which makes the ride vehicle vibrate.
Video Games
Visual Novels
- In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations, Maya presses the emergency buzzer at the KB office setting off an alarm. In the trial, Phoenix can claim that this is why the killer sounded the alarm due to curiosity for what the button does, only for Godot to point out the button is clearly labeled as an emergency buzzer.
- At one point in Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma, D-Team encounter a button with a timer and have to decide to press it or not. Sigma opts to press it while Phi saying there's no danger so they shouldn't. Not pressing it is exactly the best option, doing so will obliterate the entire base.
Web Animation
- asdfmovie:
- Parodied in asdfmovie1, with the Pointless Button. The button is pointless.
- Again in asdfmovie9.
Guy: Ooh, I wonder what this one does.
[clicks button]
Guy: Oh, I'm gay now. Huh.
- In another episode, we have this where one character pushes a button and changes the world from black and white and into color, which promptly reveals that the characters are naked. Panic ensues.
- 11 causes a moan.
Countdown Voice: Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
[Button is pressed.]
Female Voice: Ahn~!
- Dayum: In “Cartoons Portrayed by Minecraft # 2”, Isabella asks what a button on Phineas and Ferb’s machine is for, but it kills her.
- In The Demented Cartoon Movie, a Blah Guy comes across a set of three buttons, each with a picture beside it. The first is of a brick wall, the second is of a kamikaze watermelon, and the third is an Earth-Shattering Kaboom. He doesn't speak, but seems to do some thinking before he presses each one — yes, he does press the third one, which has predictable consequences.
- In GEOWeasel, as Jimbob pokes around in the buttons of the flying machine, he accidentally hits the AOL instant messenger button.
- I'm Anton!: Mason, the CEO's son would often play with the machinery, often playing with the buttons which causes the machines to malfunction and hold up production.
- Minilife TV: In "The Man With The Box Sketch", when Chris wonders what a button on his remote does, the platform that he and Ian are on is raised seemingly endlessly when he presses it. Fortunately, he manages to bring it back down by pressing the button again.
- RWBY:
- When Roman Torchwick takes control of a military airship in Volume 3, he invokes this trope while merrily wreaking havoc. It's downplayed, though; while the first button causes an offScreen explosion, ("Oh, fun!") the second button just dumps a squad of robots out, causing no serious harm.
- In Volume 9, the Curious Cat does this when shown Ruby's scroll. They've never seen technology before, and ends up taking multiple selfies while fiddling around with the scroll.
Webcomics
Web Original
- In Chrono Trigger: The Musical, this happens when Frog, Ayla and Robo "defeat" Dalton and reclaim the Epoch:
Ayla: Epoch okay?
Robo: More importantly, how do we control it?
Frog: D-do not look to me!
Ayla: What this big red thing do?
(Cue the Epoch's new laser cannons opening fire on Dalton's airship, destroying it)
Ayla: Uh... oops?
- A very common theme in Freeman's Mind. Freeman will frequently say variations on this as he recklessly presses any unlabeled button that the player would normally press in-game without question or justification.
- Both within and beyond the Minecraft Multiverse, Grian is infamous for randomly pushing any and all buttons and levers he sees. As a result, this leads to hilarious or disastrous consequences.
- In Season 9 of Hermitcraft, Doc exploits Grian's bad habit by hiding a horde of ghasts inside of the redstone device and make a sign that says "DO NOT PRESS THIS BUTTON!" in order to prank him for Secret Fools Day. The resulting prank is exactly what you'd expect. Several months later, Grian's habit (alongside with Scar tagging along) accidentally destroys Doc's tunnel bore, which leads to an Escalating War of pranks and the redstone robot fight between Grian, Scar, and Mumbo against Doc and Ren.
- On Day 6 of the Limited Life SMP while his faction-mate Jimmy is interrogating Lizzie-as-Pearl (who's in another faction) about his late frog Judge Judy And Executioner (long story), Grian presses the button which triggers Pearl's Pit Trap on which both of them were standing — while Jimmy dies yelling at Grian for being an idiot.note For context about the Pearl situation, Pearl made the trap, but couldn't make it to the Day 6 recording session and had to be subbed in by Lizzie, who had no idea the trap even existed until Grian triggered it.
- A variation in Season 10 of Hermitcraft, where the "button" in question is a bed in the Nether (blows up if anyone tries to sleep in it). Xisuma had set one up to show Grian a technique he and Mumbo had figured out on how to survive its explosion.note By setting up the bed atop a 2-block-high column and standing directly next to said column, the blocks would absorb most of the damage they would take. However, Grian immediately makes it explode before Xisuma can get into position or instruct Grian to do the same, killing them both.
- The red button at a multi-site site, run by Sprint, that says "push now". The old version of the site opened with a USB device plugging into a computer. It does nothing, and nearly 300,000 people have fallen for it. However, now that the site redirects to this new version, over 120,100 people have fallen for the one there.
- In the third episode of Rooster Teeth's Minecraft series, there's a small button innocuously located on the outskirts of Achievement City. When Michael finds and presses it, Geoff and Gavin can be seen quickly backing away from the city square shortly before several hundred blocks of TNT that were hidden under the city detonate, turning the city into a giant crater.
Western Animation
- Sal (a parasite Monster) from Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, hence the line (when he was in Oblina's stomach), "One of these has got to be hunger. Which one?"
- In the Back at the Barnyard episode, "Saving Mrs. Beady", the plot starts off with using the titular neighbor's car for Abby's driving lesson. She starts to play this trope, only to subvert is as she just activates the windshield wipers. Later in the episode she plays it straight when she accidentally crushes Peck in a hospital bed.
- Batman: The Animated Series
- In "A Bullet for Bullock", Harvey Bullock asks this about one of the Batmobile's buttons. Batman half-grins and says, "Passenger ejector seat". Doubles as a Shout-Out to a rather similar event in which Batman duped the Joker with that button.
- In "Harlequinade", Harley Quinn is riding in the Batmobile and pushes what she thinks is the radio switch - deploying a drag chute that nearly causes the car to crash before Batman brakes to a stop.
Harley: Oops.
Batman: Listen and listen good: you don't touch anything, say anything, or do anything, unless I tell you! GOT IT?
Harley: [tiny voice] Yes, sir.
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold:
- Darkwing Duck:
- Dexter's Laboratory:
- Dexter's big sister Dee Dee is the arguable Trope Codifier, having elevated this to an art form and having "What does this button do?" as her catchphrase. It's usually the last thing said before one of Dexter's inventions goes awry. Dee Dee lampshades this on occasion:
Dee Dee: [hesitantly to Dexter, who's trying to sleep] I went into your lab, and I pushed this button!
Dexter: [harshly] Oh, just like the last thousand times?
Dee Dee: I think it's really serious this time!
[cut to a self-destruct device counting down]
- Doing this has sometimes served as the solution to a problem. One episode has Dexter deliberately invoke it when his new supercomputer has turned against him.
- The Fairly OddParents!:
- At the end of the episode "Vicky Loses Her Icky", Cosmo finds the President's Big Red Button, exclaims "I don't know what it does!", and presses it to everyone's horror. Cue Earth-Shattering Kaboom... on Pluto. Cosmo's dialogue afterwards strongly implies that he knew what the button did all along, and merely invoked the trope to mess with Timmy.
- He does it again in "Teacher's Pet," when he presses the button on a time machine (which AJ created out of paper clips and yarn) repeatedly.
- Family Guy:
- Lampshaded in an episode; Peter presses a button clearly marked "Do Not Press This Button". A small Asian man walks up to him, bows then kicks Peter in the head.
- In "Space Cadet", the first thing Stewie does is push a big red button in the space shuttle Chris is giving a tour of, saying, "Ooh, big red button, I don't care what it does!"
- Garfield and Friends
- In an episode, Garfield is trapped in a Haunted House and finds a rope hanging from the ceiling with a sign that says "DO NOT PULL ROPE." Naturally, he pulls on it and is dropped through a trap door. "There's your lesson for today, kids. When it says 'Don't Pull The Rope,' don't pull the rope."
- In a US Acres episode, Roy bought a rocket that could go to Saturn, but as he had to build it himself, it wasn't that well-built. Wade's forgetful cousin, Newton Duck, pressed the button even after Roy told him a hundred times not to press it.
- In the Invader Zim episode "Battle of the Planets", GIR is sent to distract Dib. He goes off and makes it look like he's going to do something evil and actually competent, when all he ends up doing is randomly pushing buttons on Dib's controls, saying, "What's this do? What's that do?" And somehow this manages to fulfill his given assignment regardless.
- Jimmy Two-Shoes: In "Rocket Jimmy", Jimmy is messing around in Dr. Scientist's observatory, and we get this:
Jimmy: Oooh, what's this do? [presses button]
[a missile is launched, blowing up a large laboratory on a nearby hill]
Dr. Scientist: [surprised] Apparently, it destroys my house.
- Justice League: Flash does this in "Starcrossed" (said button is in the cockpit of a Thanagarian gunship)... and blows a giant hole in the wall of Wayne Manor, almost killing Alfred. Batman immediately rounds on him, saying "THAT'S. NOT. HELPING!"
- Kim Possible:
- Ron Stoppable. One major example is in A Sitch in Time whereby foolishly pressing the dangerous button he destroys an evil giant monkey statue.
- Another time Ron got into the control room of a powerful laser beam and proceeds to call it a precision instrument, before repeatedly pushing every button and lever on it, intentionally overloading it.
- While flying to the site of one mission, the Tweebs disconnect a hose to find out what it's for, almost crashing the plane before Kim manages to re-connect it.
- Looney Tunes:
- "Lighter Than Hare" has Bugs Bunny's robot facing off against Yosemite Sam of Outer Space's robot:
[all lines delivered stiltedly robotic]
Bugs' robot: Eh, what's up, doc?
Sam's robot: I'll show you what's up. [pulls ray gun] Come with me, or I'll blast you!
Bugs' robot: I'll go with you on one condition. That you don't press this button. [points to a red button on body frame]
Sam's robot: Oh, yeah? Well, no Earth robot is going to tell me what button I can press. I'm a-pressin'!
[presses button; gets clobbered by forward-plunging mallet]
- Bertie Mouse in the Warner Bros. cartoon "House-Hunting Mice" (the last button he presses causes him and Hubie to be taken to the cleaners by the house's remote-controlled units):
Bertie: [sing-song] I get to push the next button! I get to push the next button!
- In "Design for Leaving", Daffy turns Elmer's house into a "Push-button" home, with each button controlling a different gadget. The entire short is this trope with Daffy and Elmer testing different buttons and comical results therein. At one point, Elmer takes an interest in a Big Red Button that Daffy warns never to touch ("Not the WED ONE! Don't ever push the wed one!"). At the end of the short, curiosity gets the better of Elmer and he pushes the button. It's for a "In Case of Tidal Wave" device, and raises the house hundreds of feet into the air on a piston. Daffy then flies by in a helicopter, offering to install a blue button to get the house down.
- The subject of Megamind: The Button of Doom. Having renounced his villainous ways, Megamind auctions off all his weapons and evil devices. At the end of the day, the only thing left is a Big Red Button. Megamind suggests it probably just opens the garage door. It turns out to activate a Humongous Mecha. Oops!
- In the first episode of Megas XLR "Test Drive", when Coop and Jamie get into the titular robot for the first time and are trying to figure out the controls. Jamie asks about a blue button, and Coop presses it. Megas then fires a beam that erases a nearby house. "Okay...now we know what that does."
- Little Miss Whoops from The Mr. Men Show usually has problems with what button to push.
Little Miss Whoops: Which one of these is the brake? Better try them all.
- Phineas and Ferb:
- The classic The Ren & Stimpy Show episode "Space Madness" ends with Commander Hoek, driven mad by... well, by space madness, brings Cadet Stimpy around the bend with him by ordering him to guard the History Eraser Button, with a very strict order not to let anyone touch it. Finding out what that button does is already tantalizing enough before the narrator decides to pile on the excruciating suspense. Narrator:
Oh, how long can trusty Cadet Stimpy hold out? How can he possibly resist the diabolical urge to push the button that could erase his very existence? Will his tortured mind give in to its uncontrollable desires? Can he withstand the temptation to push the button that even now beckons him ever closer? Will he succumb to the maddening urge to eradicate history at the
mere push of a single button
? The
beautiful, shiny button? The jolly, candy-like button?
Will he hold out, folks?
Can
he hold out?!
Stimpy:
NO I CAN'T!
[pushes button]
Narrator:
Tune in next week as—
[erased from history]
- The Simpsons: Bart Simpson on an invisible (read: made with transparent casing) computer. He manages to crash the hard drive to the point that it catches fire.
- Space Goofs: In "Arctic Intelligence", when aliens are just about to leave Earth, Bud presses a button on their spaceship that releases a disco ball and more disastrously, another one that freezes everything, preventing the aliens from going home once again.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003): During their first off-planet adventure, the Turtles end up fleeing from some Triceratons in a flying car, with Mikey in the "sidecar".
Don: Uh, leave the shiney buttons alone, Mikey!
Mikey: But it might be something really good. [his segment starts to detach] Or not.
- An episode of Total Drama World Tour has Izzy in the cockpit, pressing random buttons and asking "Ooh, what does this button do, and this button...", eventually landing the plane in a French canal and ejecting herself.
- Wander of Wander over Yonder does this on Lord Hater's ship in the episode "The Prisoner".
Do you know the button song?
The button song?
The button song?
When you play the button song
You find out what goes wrong!
Real Life
- There's even a T-shirt for this trope.
- The annals of IT horror are rife with tales of clueless bosses/interns/contractors who simply could not resist pressing the big red emergency shutdown button. And that's when you're lucky and they don't bring their kids to work.
- An employee at Robotoki's office pushed a button because he was apparently curious about what it did. It was the studio's panic button; their building was subsequently raided by an LAPD SWAT team.
- Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton was supposed to be given a ride in Google's driverless car. The first thing she did after sitting inside it was to push the "Emergency Stop" button, which deactivated the car.
- A milder, but still embarrassing example are these countless examples of kids in schools and college pushing the button of the fire-alarm that instantly calls the firemen (said buttons are usually red). Which is why most fire alarm buttons are now encased behind glass, which you have to break in order to set off the alarm.
- Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter outlets contain two buttons that are designed to test the outlet's circuit interruption followed by resetting it. Older ones labeled the buttons "Test" and "Reset" but newer ones usually do not. Any curious child could push the "Test" button not knowing what it does and create an electrical outlet that seems totally dead, but a quick and firm push of "Reset" is all it takes to fix it.
- Doctor Who actress Jenna Coleman often tells conventions about a time while filming in a power plant that her co-star, Peter Capaldi, out of curiosity, pushed a button which he found out too late activated an emergency shower. Capaldi claims he thought it was a door-opener.
- Burnie Burns of Rooster Teeth was shocked to find out that there was a "death switch" to the machinima offices in their kitchen — a poor schmoe found the switch and began flipping it, innocently wondering why the kitchen lights weren't turning off. Gus Sorola, Barbara Dunkleman and Gavin Free postulated that, had the switch existed during the early days of the company, Burnie would have flipped and ripped it out Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom style.
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