Let’s give the author of the original sci-fi story (Harlan Ellison) the credit!
And the guy in the Taxi.
I’d say Johnny English was the classic example of doing it wrong. Every joke was telegraphed.
Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards was basically one big set up for the punchline.
An old Brit movie"Funeral in Berlin",set during the sixties about a Russian agent who has infiltrated British Intelligence .
The Brits get information that there is a mole in their midst and set him and a yobbo type agent to try and find out who he is.
While still in the U.K. he panics and seeks out another undercover soviet for advice who tells him to get the hell away from him.
As he walks down the street he sees the agent bustled into a car from the Russian embassy ,no doubt as a result of his irrational act.
He and the yobbo go to Berlin,he has many close shaves ,several times you think hes going to be found out (and you’re actually rooting like mad for him) but finally hes got away with it.
As hes waiting to board the plane home he phones the KGB to let them know hes off the hook and as an after thought says to his controller "but you nearly gave the game away when you picked up Ivan (the agent in England ,cant think of his name ).
Theres a long pause from the other end and then the voice says “but we didnt pick Ivan up” and then hangs up.
Laurence Harvey goes white as he realises that all the time the Brits have been playing him along and resignedly walks out towards the plane and the Brits murder him before he reaches it.
Another film “The Long Good Friday”,Bob Hoskins as the gangster boss climbs into his Rolls Royce and wonders why his wife isnt there .
He looks round and sees HIS RR with his wife in it behind him and realises that he has climbed into an I.R.A. decoy car and will be dead very soon.
Unable to do anything about it he smiles wryly as a tribute to a good sting.
In the background you see his wife frantically watching as his car pulls away.