People get on a small general aviation plane like a Cessna. Will that aircraft reach it’s destination? Never! (Sky King might be an exception.)
An investigator is alone in a room with a suspect. No one knows where he’s gone or what he’s doing. He walks the suspect through all aspects of the crime, slowly building up to “You didn’t do it, did you?”
The suspect started sweating long before the question. What will the outcome be?
A nervous denial from the suspect and a command to get out and leave him alone?
A confession?
Or will the suspect grab the nearest blunt object, kill the investigator, and discretely dispose of the body?
- Character A is about to enjoy a tasty snack.
- Character B offhandedly mentions something disgusting.
- Character A sighs and tosses the snack away.
I’m sure this happens from time to time in real life, but is it really as automatic and universal as Hollywood makes it seem?
Along those lines, a big ballyhooed wedding is always interrupted. 
Just like they eat three bites (if that) and leave the restaurant.
What does “ballyhooed” mean? I kinda get a feel for it from the context but I don’t think I have ever seen that word.
Promoted, glorified, advertised with (probably unjustified) exaggeration.
Come on along and listen to
The lullaby of Broadway
The hip hooray and ballyhoo
The lullaby of Broadway
Submitted for the decision of the assembled:
I don’t want to fall into the error of assuming everyone is like me, but: I have NEVER put my keys in the visor, nor do I know anyone who has. Of course I’ve always lived in more-urban areas in which leaving your vehicle unlocked (which this trope requires) is unwise. Possibly things are different in small-town America…?
Anyway, I find this cliché to be annoying and unrealistic. But maybe that’s because I’ve never lived in parts of the country (world?) where this keys-in-visor thing actually happens.
?
I think we covered this before but any series/movie where a bad guy is shot anywhere on their body and it’s instadeath but a main character is shot and is close to death but survives.
Whenever people have to make a phone call, they always know the number.
And always have only exactly enough payphone change to have the call disconnect at exactly the wrong moment
It’s not so much true anymore, but watching older TV shows and movies, whenever a character got shot in the chest who for plot purposes could either live or die, I’d pay attention to which side of their chest they clutched as they fell to the ground.
Since the heart is thought to be on the left side of the chest (actually more left-of-center), being shot on the left side usually equaled death; right side equaled survival.
Character needs to work on an important book/project/presentation/scientific breakthrough that requires total focus, so they retreat to an isolated cabin. Bad things happen.
Soooo many bad things…
- The land line goes dead (if there is a land line)
- There is no cell reception
- The electricity goes out-- no lights or refrigeration
- The Character’s car won’t start
- A storm is brewing-- either rain or tornado in the spring/summer or blizzard in the winter
- A dead animal shows up somewhere-- on front porch, hanging from a fence or tree, caught in a trap
- Gunshots are heard in the forest
Stephen King seems to like this setup. It’s in Secret Window, Secret Garden and the novella “Rat” in If It Bleeds
Neil Simon played it for laughs in the screenplay for Seems Like Old Times
Or they eat nothing! They don’t even get a to-go box!!!
I think I have vague memories of my dad doing this. When the car was parked in our carport. And in the 1950s.
The people I knew in STA that did this just left them in the ignition. If you trust leaving them in the car, why wouldn’t you leave them in the ignition? Then they are always right where they need to be.
I knew families who shared a car and would always leave the keys in one place (under the floor mat, in the glove box, and yes, above the sun visor) so the next person to take the car would always know where to look.
The only reason for ‘visor not ignition’ would be a mistrust of random passers by who’d see the latter, but not see the former. Unless they opened the vehicle door and checked, of course.
Other answers: yes, I concede it’s something that has happened. But surely only in non-urban areas, and more likely in the past than in the present.
So I remain annoyed by contemporary-set stories in which this phenomenon exists in more-populated places.
(And of course that’s aside from the idea that we shouldn’t spare a thought for the person whose vehicle is being ‘borrowed’—often ending up with significant damage, too. If Our Hero (or Heroine) needs it, that’s all that counts!)
“I’m really sorry about what happened back there.” No matter the setting, it’s always “back there.”