History Main / NeverWorkWithChildrenOrAnimals

* ''Film/EmpireStrikesBack'': During one take of a scene where Luke pulls a snake out of the engine of his X-Wing the snake bit Creator/MarkHamill on the finger. When footage of this was posted on Twitter, Hamill commented that the snake was blind and just defending itself because it didn't know what was happening.

* Music/BritneySpears famously danced with a snake during her performance of "I'm a Slave 4 U" at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards, and while she has stated in her memoir that this was one of her favorite moments in her career, she also admitted that the snake terrified her. However, she was impressed that the snake's handler was a petite young woman, and this gave Britney just enough courage to go through with it. Britney only holds the snake for about a minute during the number, but it was a very ''tense'' minute as the snake was getting hissy near the end.

Sometimes, those little monkeys just don't behave the way that you were hoping for. [[BaitAndSwitchComparison The same applies to animals]]. Sometimes HilarityEnsues. (Or HilarityInZoos.) In fact,

* In the airport X-ray scene in ''Film/TotalRecall'', one of the passengers passing through the X-ray scanner is a blind man with a seeing-eye dog. During what was considered the best take, the dog chose that very moment to relieve itself. Thankfully, since the X-ray imagery on the scanner was going to be computer-generated anyway, the incident could be easily excised. The director in fact considered [[ThrowItIn animating the dog peeing behind the scanner]] for a comedic effect, but ultimately decided it'd be too distracting.[[labelnote:source]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61eEJ2QYa7g "TOTAL RECALL - Models and Skeletons, The Special Effects of Total Recall - Documentary"]], timestamp 14:30[[/labelnote]]

* Creator/MamoruOshii's crew just couldn't get the performance they wanted out of the child actress who played the ghost in ''Film/{{Avalon}}''. They ended up faking it by morphing several of her performances together.

* During the production of ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'', the crew was having difficulty getting Boo's toddler voice actress to sit still in a booth and read her lines. They ended up just following her around the studio with a boom mike [[ThrowItIn and working with what they got]].

* It's not always a bad thing. While filming one scene of the ''Series/BreakingBad'' episode "[[Recap/BreakingBadS5E14Ozymandias Ozymandias]]", the baby who was playing Walt's daughter Holly started crying for her mother (who was standing just off-camera). In context -- [[spoiler:Walt had gone on the run after a vicious fight with Skyler and had kidnapped the baby as he left, and the script called for him to spend a few moments with her before deciding to give her back]] -- it worked ''[[TearJerker brilliantly]]'', and a bit of reactive improvisation from Creator/BryanCranston allowed them to ThrowItIn.

-->''"Why do you like fire!? You're supposed to hate fire! '''You are ruining my movie!'''"''

Sometimes, those little monkeys just don't behave the way that you were hoping for. [[BaitAndSwitchComparison The same applies to animals]]. Sometimes HilarityEnsues. (Or HilarityInZoos.)

A common type of HilariousOuttakes. If you're really, ''really'' lucky, can become ThrowItIn. The unpredictability of real life wild animals is one reason the TerrifyingPetStoreRat trope exists, since a tamed and socialized animal is less likely to cause this.[[note]]In fact, trained animals have the ''opposite'' problem, such as a dog happily wagging its tail and trying to be petted when it's supposed to be menacing.[[/note]] This doesn't just apply to live-action either; see ChildrenVoicingChildren for one situation where this is common.

* This trope is exploited in-universe on ''Series/QuantumLeap''. Al was supposed to appear in the form of a hologram that only Sam could see and hear, but since animal and child actors couldn't just be asked to ignore him, they actually made it a plot point that [[InvisibleToAdults they had special neurological features that made Al visible and audible to them]]. Al even made use of this trope to save lives, such as when he warns a black children's choir in the 1960s that Klansmen were approaching to burn down the church and to get the adults to leave with them.

* ''Series/RuPaulsDragRace'': In the Season 10 finale, finalists Asia O'Hara and Kameron Michaels were in a lipsynch battle, and Asia intended to dramatically release live butterflies from her outfit. However, the air-conditioning in the theater made them sluggish. [[FailedAttemptAtDrama When they didn't take flight, she tried shaking them out, which only made them fall on the floor]] and at least one got stepped on. The embarrassing blunder got her eliminated and fans have dubbed her "[[IronicNickname The Butterfly Queen]]" (which she has since had fun with).

* In-Universe, the TV show "Pet Search" in ''[[WesternAnimation/GarfieldSpecials Garfield Goes Hollywood]]'', which is a talent show competition for people's pets, suffers from this problem. Most of the animals Garfield is competing against either can't or won't perform: the talking parrot refuses to talk, the tap-dancing pigeons simply fly away when the curtain goes up, the roller-skating bear panics and flees the studio, etc. Garfield and Odie basically win their local contest by default because they're the only ones to successfully finish their act. Averted with the national competition, where all of the animals are far, far better trained.

** In the execrable Kennel from Hell match (from the 1999 ''Unforgiven'' pay-per-view), the gimmick was that it was a cage match with two cages (a normal cage around the ring, and the larger, roofed Hell in a Cell cage), but that there would be several ferocious rottweilers in the area between them. The problem was that the dogs weren't remotely ferocious. They urinated and defecated at ringside, mated, tried to get petted by the fans, and generally acted like overgrown puppies. The rare occasions in which the dogs barked or acted aggressively were directed towards each other instead of the wrestlers, which defeated the entire point of the match. The main reason why this happened was because the company didn't bother trying to find trained attack dogs (Wrestling/VinceRusso has claimed that the company tried to borrow dogs from the local police department, but the request was denied.) and they instead just contacted random rottweiler owners they found through the nearby veterinarian clinic, and only one of the dogs had any sort of obedience training.

* During the production of ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'', the crew was having difficulty getting Boo's toddler voice actress to sit still in a booth and read her lines. They ended up just following her around the studio with a boom mike [[ThrowItIn and working with what they got.]]

* In ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'', there was supposed to be a scene where Sulu meets a child who turns out to be his ancestor. But the child actor's mother, whom William Shatner described in ''Star Trek Movie Memories'' as being the worst StageMom he had ever seen, got the poor kid so worked up that he couldn't do the scene, resulting in it being dropped.

** [[https://youtu.be/lYIRO97dhII One early segment]] on was supposed to involve Kermit the Frog and a young girl named Joey singing the Alphabet Song, but when Joey starts singing, she keeps shouting "Cookie Monster" at random parts and laughing. Jim Henson stays in character, and [[ThrowItIn decides to run with it by having Kermit react and try to correct her.]] The result ends up being very funny and adorable at the same time.

* Professional wrestlers have been taking on animals in the ring since the 1930s. In North America, the animal was traditionally a {{bear|sarebadnews}}, whom would used to sell a "bear handler gimmick" of a wrestler who would sometimes get his opponents to wrestle the animal in his place. Ginger was one of the first bears, "Terrible" Ted was the most famous, and Smokey was the most dangerous. In Asia, the animal was usually a [[NeverSmileAtACrocodile crocodile]], where two wrestlers would have a match and the loser would then have to wrestle the animal, as Big Japan Pro Wrestling continued to do well after everyone else started phasing this {{gimmick match|es}} out. No one actually liked doing this for anything other than the pay check. Either the animal was borderline diseased and hard to get anything out of, like "Terrible Ted", or it wasn't and thus was extremely dangerous like Smokey, who actually managed to maul someone to death. A bear can at least be pinned for three seconds, even if a more docile one doesn't realize a match is going on, or that the match is over in the more hostile specimens. It's never ''easy'' but pinning a crocodile is a lot trickier (and you'd be hard pressed to find a "docile" crocodile)

* Cartoonist BudGrace, creator of the comic strip ''Ernie/Piranha Club'', had a photoshoot for the jacket of his second paperback collection that depicted him with a dozen monkeys in various clothes, which was a reference to one of the storylines collected in the book. Problem was, the monkey they used for the shoot wasnt too keen on cooperating, and not only made it almost impossible to take the pictures, but also bit his trainer, the photographer, and Grace himself.

** Similarly, the child actor playing Rudy's friend Peter froze up when he first appeared on camera. Cosby played it off as the kid being TheSilentBob, which ended up becoming a trait of the character

** LetsPlay/{{Markiplier}} has two puppies of his own. Mind you, those puppies are big labradors or golden retrievers. Whenever he ends up filming since getting them, there is a real chance that he will pause at some point to tell Chica that she's not supposed to be stealing his socks, licking his legs or messing with his chair.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Bluey}}'': An in universe example in "Bumpy and The Wise Old Wolfhound" with Muffin and Socks, during the Heelers' rather [[StylisticSuck amateurish]] home movie:

* ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' generally averted this with Moose, the dog that played Eddie, who by almost all accounts was ''very'' well trained. That said, according to Creator/KelseyGrammer, it did not get along with Creator/JohnMahoney and would repeatedly snap at and try to bite him. There's also a blooper reel where Creator/DavidHydePierce keeps interrupted reading a line ("Do you remember the year...") only to be constantly interrupted by Moose whimping and growling.

** Cole Sprouse was quite a difficult child on set when doing the episode where Ben learns pranks from Rachel. As he was [[HeadTurningBeauty so in awe of Jennifer Aniston's beauty]] he was often left speechless. %%They had to just going for retakes until he spoke in their scenes.

** Cole Sprouse was quite a difficult child on set when doing the episode where Ben learns pranks from Rachel. As he was [[HeadTurningBeauty so in awe of Jennifer Aniston's beauty]] he was often left speechless. They had to just going for retakes until he spoke in their scenes.

* Professional wrestlers have been taking on animals in the ring since the 1930s. In North America, the animal was traditionally a {{bear|sarebadnews}}, whom would used to sell a "bear handler gimmick" of a wrestler who would sometimes get his opponents to wrestle the animal in his place. Ginger was one of the first bears, "Terrible" Ted was the most famous, and Smokey was the most dangerous. In Asia, the animal was usually a [[NeverSmileAtACrocodile crocodile]], where two wrestlers would have a match and the loser would then have to wrestle the animal, as Big Japan Pro Wrestling continued to do well after everyone else started phasing this {{gimmick match|es}} out. No one actually liked doing this for anything other than the pay check. Either the animal was borderline diseased and hard to get anything out of, like "Terrible Ted", or it wasn't and thus was extremely dangerous like Smokey, who actually managed to maul someone to death. A bear can at least be pinned for three seconds, even if a more docile one doesn't realize a match is going on, or that the match is over in the more hostile specimens. It's never ''easy'' but pinning a crocodile is a lot trickier(and you'd be hard pressed to find a "docile" crocodile)