History Literature / CallahansCrosstimeSaloon

* SiblingFusion: The MacDonald brothers end up doing a mental version of this in their debut story ''Two Heads are Better than One'', they're essentially one personality in two separate bodies but they didn't start that way. Interestingly they're just telepathic brothers, not twins.

* UnconventionalFoodUsage: In "Just Dessert", [[ThePrankster a practical joker]] uses vegetable soup in a rubber hot water bottle to fake throwing up on Callahan's bar. He and his buddies then pull out spoons and scoff down the soup to gross out Mike and his patrons. They get their comeuppance, however, as Doc [[LaxativePrank doses the soup with a powerful emetic]] while they are eating it.

* UncoventionalFoodUsage: In "Just Dessert", [[ThePrankster a practical joker]] uses vegetable soup in a rubber hot water bottle to fake throwing up on Callahan's bar. He and his buddies then pull out spoons and scoff down the soup to gross out Mike and his patrons. They get their comeuppance, however, as Doc [[LaxativePrank doses the soup with a powerful emetic]] while they are eating it.

* DidYouJustScamCthulhu: [[spoiler: How Jake saves the day at the end of the PC game. The corporate gods who run the universe have found no worthwhile reason to keep it running, until it turns out it's the only universe they've ever seeded to develop humor. One of them allocates a bit of humor to another universe he's created, and Jake uses his stolen password to access the corporate mainframe to allocate it back to Earth's universe to allocate it back. This convinces the CelestialBureaucracy to turn the universe back on, as there's only one universe with this curious quantity they'd like to preserve and study.]]

* DesignatedDriver: Pyotr is a designated driver for any patron who requires one at Callahan's Place. He is also an ethical vampire who siphons off nutrients and toxins from their blood in exchange. This has the beneficial side-effect of his 'clients' waking up without a hangover.

* CityOfWeirdos: Callahan tells the story of waking up after an epic week-long bender naked in Central Park, fleeing on a stolen police horse. He gets all the way to Brooklyn by wrapping himself in a plaid horse blanket and yelling "Attack of the Literature/{{Horseclans}}! Coming soon from United Artists" as necessary.

##They watch for him tailing their cab? [[spoiler:He just went to that particular cab company and hurt people until they tell him where the cab went]].

##They go back to the Professor's place to grab some tools for a con, believing no-one would expect that a man on the run would return to his home? [[Donuts is there waiting for him because he's got nothing better to do with his time]].

* TooDumbToFool: The thug Tony Donuts in "Callahan's Lady" is pure muscle, including the brain. Unfortunately, this often means he blows right through the sophisticated con games of Maureen and the Professor, since he doesn't understand them enough to be tricked. Their efforts to keep him from tailing them when fail miserably because [[spoiler:instead of following their taxi, he just writes down the cab number, goes over to the company offices and beats people up until they tell him where the cab went]]. Then he realizes that they're trying to give him real money in lieu of his forged $10 bills because [[spoiler:all of Tony's forged bills have ''the same serial number'' -- when he decided to start counterfeiting, he simply beat people up until they named the best counterfeiter they knew of, then killed the counterfeiter and took his equipment. He couldn't figure out how to randomly number the bills, but since he never planned to spend more than one bill at a time(this took place in TheSeventies, when the dollar was ''five times'' more valuable than in TheNewTens), he didn't really care]].

* TooDumbToFool: The thug Tony Donuts in "Callahan's Lady" is pure muscle, including the brain. Unfortunately, this often means he blows right through the sophisticated con games of Maureen and the Professor, since he doesn't understand them enough to be tricked. In particular, he quickly spots an attempt to subtly replace his suitcase of forged $10 bills with actual cash because [[spoiler:all of Tony's forged bills have ''the same serial number'' -- when he decided to start counterfeiting, he simply beat people up until they named the best counterfeiter they knew of, then killed the counterfeiter and took his equipment. He couldn't figure out how to randomly number the bills, but since he never planned to spend more than one bill at a time(and this took place in TheSeventies, when ten bucks was the equivalent of ''fifty'' dollars in TheNewTens), he didn't bother]].

* DumbMuscle: "Callahan's Lady" introduces Anthony "Tony Donuts" Donnazio, a thug of enormous physical prowess who is so dumb that he's almost impossible to con.

* LovableRogue: In ''Callahan's Lady'', this is how The Professor sees himself, conning only marks who deserve it. The trouble is, his standards have slipped over time, to the point where he bamboozles people simply because they annoy him or seem stupid. [[spoiler: He eventually hangs up the con game and goes to work for Lady Sally instead, deciding it's more honest.]]

* DumbMuscle: Tony Donuts, in "Callahan's Lady," a thug of enormous physical prowess who is so dumb that he's almost impossible to con.

* TooDumbToFool: The thug Tony Donuts in "Callahan's Lady" is pure muscle, including the brain. Unfortunately, this often means he blows right through the sophisticated con games of Maureen and the Professor, since he doesn't understand them enough to be tricked. In particular, he quickly spots an attempt to subtly replace his suitcase of forged $10 bills with actual cash because [[spoiler:all of Tony's forged bills have ''the same serial number'' -- when he decided to start counterfeiting, he simply beat people up until they named the best counterfeiter they knew of, then killed the counterfeiter and took his equipment. And once he had it, he couldn't figure out how to randomly number the bills, but since he never planned to spend more than one bill at a time(and as this takes place in TheSeventies, when ten bucks was the equivalent of ''fifty'' 2017 dollars), he didn't bother]].

* TooDumbToFool: The thug Tony Donuts in "Callahan's Lady" is pure muscle, including the brain. Unfortunately, this often means he blows right through the sophisticated con games of Maureen and the Professor, since he doesn't understand them enough to be tricked. In particular, he quickly spots an attempt to subtly replace his suitcase of forged $10 bills with actual cash because [[spoiler:all of Tony's forged bills have ''the same serial number'' -- when he decided to start counterfeiting, he simply beat people up until they named the best counterfeiter they knew of, then killed him and took his equipment. And once he had it, he couldn't figure out how to randomly number the bills, but since he never planned to spend more than one bill at a time(and as this takes place in TheSeventies, when ten bucks was the equivalent of ''fifty'' 2017 dollars), he didn't bother]].

* WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer: Mass-telepathy in some of the later works.
** And even lampshaded in ''Callahan's Key'': Jake says something to the effect of 'it's our only trick, so we might as well try it'.