History Literature / TheHareAndThePineapple

* UnderdogsNeverLose: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted.]] The animals are sure that the pineapple must win because of this trope. They are wrong.

"The Hare and the Pineapple" is a short story by Creator/DanielPinkwater that had appeared on a New York State English exam for 8th grade students in 2012.

* TalkingAnimal: The first paragraph explains that, in the olden days, all the animals could talk English, just like humans. The Pineapple can talk English, too.

The story involves a hare and a pineapple having a race; the actual details are a lot stranger than that, despite the story only being a few paragraphs long. It would have gone unnoticed like any test story if it weren't for the absurdity, as such, this story stirred up a lot of controversy, due to the bizarre plot and incomprehensible questions that followed. The story was modified from a story within Pinkwater's book ''Literature/{{Borgel}}''; according to Pinkwater it was [[https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/pineapple-idiots-knew-book-world-dumbest-test-question-article-1.1065566 modified to be even more bizarre by the testmakers, to his chagrin.]]

* InanimateCompetitor: The pineapple itself, which just sits at the star line and does nothing, like a real pineapple would.

* InanimateCompetitor: The pineapple itself, which just sits at the line and does nothing, like a real pineapple would.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Despite the pineapple challenging the hare to the race, and all the animals expecting the pineapple to actually race, the pineapple just sits at the finish line, because pineapples can't move on their own.

* SelfFulfillingProphecy: The other animals on betted on the pineapple winning because they didn't want to look foolish, they believed the pineapple must have had a plan if it challenged the hare. When the race starts; the hare not only wins, but the pineapple didn't even move an inch from the starting line because it was immobile. The animals fooled themselves into believing a pineapple could win a race.

* RealityEnsues: Despite the pineapple challenging the hare to the race, and all the animals expecting the pineapple to actually race, the pineapple just sits at the finish line, because pineapples can't move on their own.

Read it [[http://usny.nysed.gov/docs/the-hare-and-the-pineapple.pdf here]].

* AnAesop:
** The written moral is "Pineapples don't have sleeves", [[ItMakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext apparently]].
** The intended morals are:
*** "Don't overestimate people": All the animals except the hare and the owl believed the pineapple wasn't stupid enough to challenge the hare and believed it had a plan to win. In the end, the pineapple ''was'' that stupid and was promptly consumed for losing the race.
*** "Remember your own limitations": The pineapple was too busy bragging to remember it can't move, thereby losing the race and causing the animals to eat it in frustration for making them look foolish for overestimating it.