History Main / BusmansHoliday

** In ''Time-Flight'', the Fifth Doctor tries to take Tegan and Nyssa to the Great Exhibition of 1851 to help them get over the recent death of Adric. Instead, they end up at Heathrow Airport in Tegan's time and, from there, discover that Concordes have been vanishing in mid-flight.

* The third story arc of ''Manga/{{FAKE}}'', and the OVA based on it, takes place during Ryo and Dee's English vacation, during which they almost immediately discover a dead body. They actually do their best to try to subvert the trope - when Berkeley Rose, playing it straight, asks them to help him investigate, Ryo refuses and tells him that police work is NotAGame - but ultimately they're [[AloneWithThePsycho not given much choice in the matter.]]

** Turnabout Prophecy has this happen not only for Phoenix, but also for Franziska, who filled in at the "thong" fortune tellings because one of her father's friends asked her, and ends up as prosecutor for the trial of Russi Clover.

* Happens everytime in the ''PrettyCure franchise''. The main characters are ''always'' attacked by the villains.

* ''Film/RushHour 2'' has Carter and Lee on vaction in Hong Kong following their exploits in the last film. Turns out Lee is secretly on assignment to investigate a bombing of a U.S Embassy and it doesn't take long before the two are swapping blows with the Chinese mafia.

*** In "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding", the murder scene ''is'' a prank, laid on in Poirot's honour by some youngsters holidaying in the same spot -- or is it?
** Literature/MissMarple had this in ''A Caribbean Mystery''.

** At least half the stories about professional problem-solver Parker Pyne involve him trying to take a holiday only to wind up having to solve the problems of his fellow-travellers. (These were originally serialised in ''Pall Mall Magazine'' under the banner of "The Arabian Nights of Parker Pyne".) Note that all these stories take place in the course of ''a single holiday'' -- Parker Pyne gets quite tetchy about it toward the end of the sequence, and in the final story his desire to avoid getting dragged into any more mysteries is central to the plot.

* OlderThanTelevision: In a couple of the ''Franchise/SherlockHolmes'' stories (''The Adventure of the Reigate Puzzle'' (1893) and ''The Devil's Foot'' (1910)), Holmes has worked himself almost to the point of a nervous breakdown, prompting Watson to drag him off on a vacation. Of course they immediately run into a mystery that needs solving -- much to Holmes' delight, and Watson's annoyance.

*** It's implied that in ''{{Discworld/Snuff}}'' at least, Vetinari purposely had Sybil Vimes force Commander Vimes to take a holiday, knowing full well what wheels would be set in motion.
** This trope is {{Lampshaded}} in ''Discworld/TheTruth'', in which William and Sacharissa eventually become so used to being reporters that, when they try to slip away for an afternoon, a traffic accident immediately causes both to revert to journalist mode. William suspected the ever-hungry printing press would derail their desire for a quiet break from work -- not even a vacation, just a half-day -- and (given Discworld's high narrative-causality quotient) he [[SelfFulfillingProphecy was right]].

* In the ''Literature/FinneganzWake'' novels, Finn's mystery-writer uncle is followed wherever he goes -- LatinLand, {{Qurac}}, the LandDownUnder -- by ''real'' murders.

** And then there was ''Shore Leave'', where the crew transports down to a nice green planet for some R&R. Said planet turns out to be a place that makes its guests' thoughts reality. ''Any'' thoughts, [[GoneHorriblyRight blindly assuming that the thoughts would always be of pleasant things.]]

** "Citadel", the last piece of story DLC for ''VideoGame/MassEffect3''. Admiral Hackett puts Shepard's team on mandatory shore leave to cool off, with Anderson offering up his old apartment on the Citadel. No sooner has Shepard sat down in a nice restaurant than they're engulfed in a conspiracy personally targeting them. Thankfully, they get some actual downtime once the mission's over.

* The equivalent expression in DianeDuane's ''Literature/YoungWizards'' books is "Wizard's Holiday", which became the title of the seventh book.

* BlackCanary goes on a vacation in ''ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey'' #50 and is promptly abducted into her next case. The name of the issue? "Busman's Holiday", of course.

** In Discworld/MakingMoney, Mr. Bent is such a banker at heart that his vacation consisted of taking a tour of the banks of Quirm. By which I mean he stayed put and they sent him ledgers, allowing him to "tour" their finances.

* In the ''[[Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse Doctor Who]]'' adventure game ''TARDIS'', Amy [[LampshadeHanging Lampshades]] that a lot of the Doctor's holidays always go wrong. The Doctor is upset by this, trying to prove Amy wrong by heading to 23rd century London, only to lead into the cliffhanger for the next game, involving alien sharks and flesh-eating shadows.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Castle}}'' invoked this when Castle goes to spend a relaxing weekend in the Hamptons but a murder victim stumbles into his backyard and dies in his pool. He mentions that it feels like he is Jessica Fletcher in an episode of ''MurderSheWrote''. The episode was even titled "Murder He Wrote".

** HerculePoirot had this happen to him several times, most notably in ''Murder on the Orient Express'' (1934) and ''Death on the Nile'' (1937), but also in ''Murder in Mesopotamia'' (1936) and ''Appointment with Death'' (1938).

** MissMarple had this in ''A Caribbean Mystery''.

* After finishing the principal photography on ''Film/TheAvengers'', JossWhedon had about two weeks or so to rest before overseeing post-production. So what did he do? He invited a few friends over to his house for twelve days...and made a movie(specifically, a low-budget production of [[WilliamShakespeare Shakespeare's]] ''MuchAdoAboutNothing'').

* And also to ''Series/PerryMason''. Interestingly, it ''also'' happened once to D.A. Hamilton Burger, [[EnemyMine who called Perry into the matter]] because [[GenreSavvy he suspected]] that his friend would be the defendant. Though in the latter case, the actual trial took place in the standard city courtroom as opposed to a podunk meeting hall where Perry often had to defend when ''he'' was on vacation.

* In DorothyLSayers' ''Busman's Honeymoon'', super-sleuth LordPeterWimsey goes on his honeymoon with his detective novelist wife, only to run slap bang into a locked room murder mystery. Also in lampshading the trope, ''Busman's Honeymoon'' is pretty much the trope namer, but the trope also occurs in ''The Nine Tailors'' (murder following Peter on vacation) and ''Have his Carcase'' (murder following Harriet, Peter's future wife, while she is on vacation).

* The {{Runaways}} got sucked into the middle of the SecretInvasion while trying to take a day off to let their newest member Klara get acclimated to the 21st century.

* Scully on ''Series/{{The X-Files}}'', in the episode "Chinga". Which is replete with irony; the very concept of an "X-File" within the FBI was created specifically ''because'' the show's creators wanted to avoid a Busman's Holiday every week.