History Main / FifteenMinutesOfFame

* The movie Hero (1992) is about a man who rescues people from a crashed aircraft and gets 15 minutes of fame, only he doesn't want it. Through a case of ''Mistaken Identity'' another passenger is identified as the rescuer and claims credit and the media spotlight that the real Hero has shunned.

* Sugar Ray referenced the phrase by naming their post-breakthrough album ''14:59''.

-->--'''Music/MarilynManson'''

* Volume #11 of ''SchoolRumble''. Lala Gonzales accidentally adopts a new, very distinctive temporary look, then displays her fighting ability in Shibuya.She becomes "Queen of Shibuya", with girls aping her odd style, and for a week becomes a poster girl for cosmetics and the like. But when her CD single flops, Lala returns to her normal exchange student life.

* The aptly-named ''15 Minutes'' (a RobertDeniro movie) had this as the motivation for one of the murderers.

* In ''TheSecretWorldOfAlexMack'', Alex and one of her friends runs across a kid trapped under a giant pipe. Her friend tries to lift it and Alex uses her powers to make it seem like he does in order to save the kid. The kid turns out to be the governor's son- which promptly puts the spotlight (and, consequently, suspicion from the main villain) on this kid who somehow manages to lift a pipe that weighs hundreds of kilograms.

* {{Kraftwerk}} has a song named exactly this

* A common plot device on ''TheSimpsons''. To wit:

** Bart accidentally destroys a set while on the Krusty the Klown show, and reflexively says "I didn't do it" to the audience. They find it incredibly amusing, and he gets promoted from being Krusty's off-screen "gofer" to having an entire sketch on the show dedicated to him. He loves it, then gets sick of the repetition, then accepts it again - only for it to become a DiscreditedMeme in-universe.
* ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlack'': Agent X called for a tv crew from his home planet so they'd make him the star of their show. Being unable to get rid of them, Zed punished X by offering a chance to have K instead of X as the star, which they quickly accepted. As J pointed out, fame was so fickle X didn't even had fifteen minutes of it.

->''In the future, everyone will be [[TropeNamer world-famous for 15 minutes]].''
-->--'''Andy Warhol''', predicting Website/YouTube with a surprising degree of accuracy.

-->--'''MarilynManson'''

* This happens to Sally on ''[[ThirdRockFromTheSun 3rd Rock From The Sun]]'' after she punches out [[StarWars Mark Hamill]] in a restaurant. When Mary tells a jealous Dick that this is Sally's "fifteen minutes of fame", he interprets it literally and is maddened by her "fifteen minutes" lasting considerably longer than that. It ends after a few days, however, causing Sally to start acting like a WhiteDwarfStarlet.

* ''MarriedWithChildren'': Jefferson made a commercial and his wife didn't like the attention he got from that, his friends tried to assure her it'd be just his fifteen minutes of fame.

* Natalie on ''{{Monk}}'' gets a ridiculous amount of fame from a brief stint as a lottery girl.
* The crew in ''{{Leverage}}'' does this to their mark deliberately in the aptly named episode "The Fifteen Minutes Job".

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* Sugar Ray referenced the phrase by naming their second album ''14:59''.

->''In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.''

-->--'''Andy Warhol''', predicting YouTube with a surprising degree of accuracy.

So, it looks like it's just going to be another one of those normal regular old days when, all of a sudden, something exciting happens! One character does something unusual enough that there's a sudden media spotlight on them- there's all this attention headed their way and they can't get enough of it!

* In ''Theatre/AnyoneCanWhistle'', the mayoress of a town and her cronies set up a "miracle" to attract pilgrims and boost the town's economy. Their plan works at first, but is complicated by a number of things. The mayoress gets it straightened out just in time to see all the pilgrims (and a couple of her cronies) rushing off to the next town over, where a new "miracle" has occurred.

** Bart accidentally destroys a set while on the Krusty the Klown show, and reflexively says "I didn't do it" to the audience. They find it incredibly amusing, and he gets promoted from being Krusty's off-screen "gofer" to having an entire sketch on the show dedicated to him. He loves it, then gets sick of the repetition, then accepts it again - only for it to become a DiscreditedMeme in-universe.

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** Bart accidentally destroys a set while on the Krusty the Klown show, and reflexively says "I didn't do it" to the audience. They find it incredibly amusing, and it turns into a CatchPhrase.
*** Not to mention he got promoted from being Krusty's off-screen "gofer" to having an entire sketch on the show dedicated to him.

* In ''AnyoneCanWhistle'', the mayoress of a town and her cronies set up a "miracle" to attract pilgrims and boost the town's economy. Their plan works at first, but is complicated by a number of things. The mayoress gets it straightened out just in time to see all the pilgrims (and a couple of her cronies) rushing off to the next town over, where a new "miracle" has occurred.

Note that ''what'' activity, exactly, causes the FifteenMinutesOfFame differs depending on the portrayal. More dramatic works will use a somewhat plausible act of heroism to get the point across- say, rescuing someone from a fire, or from drowning. This will be done to get a point across via CharacterDevelopment. In comedy, the act will be something unusual but ultimately ridiculous. Like eating a thousand scoops of ice cream, or shaking the hand of a celebrity. Here, the point will often be to make jokes at the expense of the MediaCircus.

* In ''TheSecretWorldOfAlexMack'', Alex and one of her friends runs across a kid trapped under a giant pipe. Her friend tries to lift it and Alex uses her powers to make it seem like he does in order to save the kid. The kid turns out to be the governor's son- which promptly puts the spotlight (and, consequently, suspicion from the main villain) on this kid who somehow manages to lift a pipe that weighs hundreds of kliograms.

[[folder:Unsorted Examples]]
* Volume #11 of ''SchoolRumble''. Lala Gonzales accidentally adopts a new, very distinctive temporary look, then displays her fighting ability in Shibuya.She becomes "Queen of Shibuya", with girls aping her odd style, and for a week becomes a poster girl for cosmetics and the like. But when her CD single flops, Lala returns to her normal exchange student life.
* In ''AnyoneCanWhistle'', the mayoress of a town and her cronies set up a "miracle" to attract pilgrims and boost the town's economy. Their plan works at first, but is complicated by a number of things. The mayoress gets it straightened out just in time to see all the pilgrims (and a couple of her cronies) rushing off to the next town over, where a new "miracle" has occurred.
** Also used in how quickly the people in the town turn from Hapgood, whose praises they were literally singing, once they heard that he was responsible for the "miracle" running dry.

[[/folder]]

See ADayInTheLimelight for this trope in the meta-sense. Often leads to AcquiredSituationalNarcissism. Compare AFoolAndHisNewMoneyAreSoonParted, where it is money rather than npopularity that comes and goes.

* A common plot device on ''TheSimpsons''. To wit:
** Homer bowls a perfect game. The excitement the townspeople have over this is {{lampshade|Hanging}}d when Brockman notes how pathetic the town must be for him to be covering a story like this.
** Apu and Manjula have octuplets, which briefly results in them getting copious baby supplies from well-wishes, but leaves them in a dreadful situation once the reporters move on to a story about a couple who has ''non''uplets. ([[HypocriticalHumor "Nine babies? That's barbaric!"]])
** Bart accidentally destroys a set while on the Krusty the Klown show, and reflexively says "I didn't do it" to the audience. They find it incredibly amusing, and it turns into a CatchPhrase.
*** Not to mention he got promoted from being Krusty's off-screen "gofer" to having an entire sketch on the show dedicated to him.
* Volume #11 of ''SchoolRumble''. Lala Gonzales accidentally adopts a new, very distinctive temporary look, then displays her fighting ability in Shibuya.She becomes "Queen of Shibuya", with girls aping her odd style, and for a week becomes a poster girl for cosmetics and the like. But when her CD single flops, Lala returns to her normal exchange student life.

* In ''AnyoneCanWhistle'', the mayoress of a town and her cronies set up a "miracle" to attract pilgrims and boost the town's economy. Their plan works at first, but is complicated by a number of things. The mayoress gets it straightened out just in time to see all the pilgrims (and a couple of her cronies) rushing off to the next town over, where a new "miracle" has occurred.
** Also used in how quickly the people in the town turn from Hapgood, whose praises they were literally singing, once they heard that he was responsible for the "miracle" running dry.
* Sugar Ray referenced the phrase by naming their second album ''14:59''.

** Homer bowls a perfect game. The excitement the townspeople have over this is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when Brockman notes how pathetic the town must be for him to be covering a story like this.
** Apu and Mejula have octoplets, which briefly results in them getting copious baby supplies from well-wishes, but leaves them in a dreadful situation once the reporters move on to a story about a couple who has ''nine'' simultaneous births. ([[HypocriticalHumor "Nine babies? That's barbaric!"]])

* Natalie on {{Monk}} gets a ridiculous amount of fame from a brief stint as a lottery girl.
* In TheMusical ''Anyone Can Whistle'', the mayoress of a town and her cronies set up a "miracle" to attract pilgrims and boost the town's economy. Their plan works at first, but is complicated by a number of things. The mayoress gets it straightened out just in time to see all the pilgrims (and a couple of her cronies) rushing off to the next town over, where a new "miracle" has occurred.