History Main / CaughtUpInARobbery

* WesternAnimation/BozoTheWorldsMostFamousClown is in Hollywood looking to be a movie star. He mistakes an actual bank robbery as a movie scene and he winds up driving the getaway car.

* ''WesternAnimation/WoodyWoodpecker'': In "Convict Concert", after robbing a nearby bank, a crook named Mugsy enters a music shop where Woody is working as a piano tuner to hide from the officer hot on his trail. He forces Woody at gunpoint to keep playing while he hides inside the piano and waits for his associates to get him. Though the officer does enter Woody's shop to search for Mugsy, he fails to notice the bag of stolen money and Woody's not-so-subtle indications about the bandit in the piano. Woody is eventually kidnapped with the piano and Mugsy inside of it, but during the police chase the instrument slides out of the truck and off a cliff, right into a penitentiary, leading to Mugsy's arrest while [[HeroicBSOD Woody goes crazy from the experience]].

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': In "[[Recap/CastleS4E7CopsAndRobbers Cops & Robbers]]", Castle and Martha are at a bank negotiating for a loan for Martha's acting school. He takes a break to call Beckett and is on the phone with her when a gang of bank robbers storms in.

* ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'': In "[[Recap/BeavisAndButtheadS7E12CitizensArrest Citizen's Arrest]]", the duo get robbed at Burger World but are too stupid to realize the severity of the situation. Butt-Head was perfectly willing to give the robber the money when asked.

[[folder:Web Videos]]
* ''WebVideo/{{QSMP}}'': Tazercraft attempt to rob Ironmouse the first time they meet, which she is greatly distressed by as she has no items for them. Oddly enough, this ends with the pair ''giving'' her items.
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* ''WebVideo/SMPLive'': Wilbur is [[spoiler:convinced by Schlatt and Connor to rob the police station at spawn]].

Sitcoms and comedies are likely to have our main characters try a series of [[HilarityEnsues increasingly ridiculous and hilarious]] attempts to address the robber and get out relatively unscathed. Often, in doing so, they might get [[MistakenForThief confused for the robber]] (or an accomplice) and end up as a reluctant or oblivious negotiator between them and the police. They're likely to eventually [[AccidentalHero blunder their way into saving the day]], especially if the robbers are StupidCrooks. In more dramatic works, the protagonists might morph into {{Action Survivor}}s and try to find ways to work with others caught up in the situation to varying degrees of success and unintentional death.

Set-up is fairly simple: the protagonists are engaging in their daily routines and it has brought them to a public place like a bank, a store, or a mall. Then with little preamble other than maybe the loud announcement that "This is a hold up!", the place is being robbed and our protagonists are now InnocentBystanders.

* ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'': In "[[Recap/BeavisAndButtheadS7E12CitizensArrest Citizen's Arrest]]", the duo get robbed at Burger World, but they are too stupid to realize the severity of the situation. Butt-Head was perfectly willing to give the robber the money when asked.

* ''Film/EveOfDestruction'': EVE, a prototype combat android and her handler are out on a field mission when they get caught in the middle of a bank robbery. The robbers kill EVE's handler and damage EVE herself, causing her to go into permanent combat mode, setting off the rest of the film's events as the government now needs to find a way to stop her.

* ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'': In "[[Recap/GhostInTheShellSACS1Episode17 SA: The True Reason For The Unfinished Love Affair – ANGELS' SHARE]]", Chief Aramaki is visiting an old friend in London to discuss a {{Mafia}} money-laundering scheme involving a wine bank, when two thieves break in to rob the bank and take them hostage. To further complicate matters, [[spoiler:Aramaki realizes the responding armed police unit is in league with the Mafia and plans to [[HeKnowsTooMuch kill them all to cover up the scheme]]. Aramaki ends up helping the robbers hide with him while Major Kusanagi works to exfiltrate them all.]]

** Played for laughs in the convenience store scene. The Asian store owners are [[{{Profiling}} laser-focused]] on watching Ashtray and Loc Dog to make sure they don't steal. Meanwhile, a white customer in the store cleans the place out, completely ignored by the owners. He even manages to grab the money from the register without the owners batting an eye. On the way out he kills the owners and tosses his gun to Ashtray before he leaves to frame Ashtray for the crime. It is heavily implied by this guy crossing Ashtray's name off of a list of prominent yet controversy-laden black celebrities like Music/MichaelJackson and Creator/OJSimpson that he is "The Man" [[TheManIsKeepingUsDown hellbent on keeping otherwise innocent black men down]].

* In ''Animation/KikoRiki. Team Invincible'', after ending up alone in the city he's never been in before, Chiko finds himself a temporary home at the museum with the guard Pin until his friends can find him. Next night, he meets two robbers trying to steal valuable items and is lead to assume they work at the museum as cleaners, dim-wittingly assisting them in the robbery. After they drive away, the police arrives, [[MistakenForThief mistakes Chiko and Pin for thieves]], and arrests them. The rest of the movie revolves around the rest of the [=KikoRiki=] gang [[GreatEscape breaking the two out of jail]].

* ''Karen Sisco'', the short-lived spin-off from ''Film/OutOfSight'', had an episode where Karen and her father are at a bank when robbers show up, and they have to outwit the robbers.

* In ''Animation/KikoRiki Team Invincible'', after finding himself alone in the city he's never been in before, Chiko finds himself a temporary home at the museum with the guard Pin until his friends can find him. Next night, he meets two robbers trying to steal valuable items and is lead to assume they work at the museum as cleaners, dim-wittingly assisting them in the robbery. After they drive away, the police arrives, [[MistakenForThief mistakes Chiko and Pin for thieves]], and arrests them. The rest of the movie revolves around the rest of the [=KikoRiki=] gang [[GreatEscape breaking the two out of jail]].

* ''Series/AdamTwelve'' has Reed end up wounded and taken hostage when he gets wrapped up in a bank robbery while doing his own business at the bank.

* ''Series/FatherBrown'': In "[[Recap/FatherBrownS7E1 The Great Train Robbery]]," on Lady Felicia and Mrs. McCarthy are on their way back to Kembleford when two StupidCrooks stage a train robbery and hold them hostage.

* ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'': In "[[Recap/GhostInTheShellSACS1Episode17 SA: The True Reason For The Unfinished Love Affair – ANGELS' SHARE]]", Chief Aramaki is visiting an old friend in London to discuss a {{Mafia}} money-laundering scheme involving a wine bank, when two thieves break in to rob the bank and take them hostage. To further complicate matters, [[spoiler:Aramaki realizes the responding armed police unit is in league with the Mafia and plans to [[KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade kill them all to cover up the scheme]]. Aramaki ends up helping the robbers hide with him while Major Kusanagi works to exfiltrate them all.]]

* The ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' module "Food Fight", which has been a classic of the RPG since early editions and is often one of two ways a new shadowrunning team gets introduced to the game (the other being the team being assembled by a Fixer or Johnson). The players have all independently stopped by a Stuffer Shack convenience store to get some food. While they're there, a thrill-gang called the Chiller Thrillers tries to rob the place, and it's up to the shadowrunners to stop them. A series of {{NPC}}s are part of the scenario and are designed to provide plot hooks that sends the team into their next adventure, should the game master choose to use them.

* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' adventure "Food Fight", a team of shadowrunners stops by a Stuffer Shack convenience store to get some food. While they're there, a thrill-gang called the Chiller Thrillers tries to rob the place, and it's up to the shadowrunners to stop them.