History Main / SatchelSwitcheroo

* French mobster farce ''Theatre/{{Oscar 1967}}'' (with Creator/LouisDeFunes) and its American remake (with Creator/SylvesterStallone) contains a textbook example: 3 black satchels containing cash, jewels, and the former maid's unmentionables. It ultimately saves him when the police show up to arrest him. Toomey concludes that Snaps is using the bankers to launder money, and has his men look for the black bag as proof (not knowing there's more than one.) Fortunately for Snaps, Nora (the owner of the underthings) comes in and takes the more visible bag of jewels, leaving the bag of underwear for the police. Toomey then opens the bag, thinking it's the final nail in Snaps' coffin, and dumps its contents on the table, right in front of the reporters.

* French mobster farce ''Theatre/{{Oscar}}'' (with Creator/LouisDeFunes) and its American remake (with Creator/SylvesterStallone) contains a textbook example: 3 black satchels containing cash, jewels, and the former maid's unmentionables. It ultimately saves him when the police show up to arrest him. Toomey concludes that Snaps is using the bankers to launder money, and has his men look for the black bag as proof (not knowing there's more than one.) Fortunately for Snaps, Nora (the owner of the underthings) comes in and takes the more visible bag of jewels, leaving the bag of underwear for the police. Toomey then opens the bag, thinking it's the final nail in Snaps' coffin, and dumps its contents on the table, right in front of the reporters.

* Sylvester Stallone's mobster farce ''Theatre/{{Oscar}}'' contains a textbook example: 3 black satchels containing cash, jewels, and the former maid's unmentionables. It ultimately saves him when the police show up to arrest him. Toomey concludes that Snaps is using the bankers to launder money, and has his men look for the black bag as proof (not knowing there's more than one.) Fortunately for Snaps, Nora (the owner of the underthings) comes in and takes the more visible bag of jewels, leaving the bag of underwear for the police. Toomey then opens the bag, thinking it's the final nail in Snaps' coffin, and dumps its contents on the table, right in front of the reporters.

* In ''Film/WhatsUpDoc'', there were four cases, having government papers, jewels, rocks for a scientific presentation, and underwear.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* One episode of ''{{Anime/Kochikame}}'' involved one of these, in which one of the bags contained photos of Nakagawa posing shirtless. Ryotsu and Nakagawa then spend the rest of the episode attempting to get that bag back (since, well, their chief has it and all...).

* {{Tintin}} was once framed for drug-running this way. The bad guy stole his real suitcase and replaced it with an identical one full of heroin.

* Over the decades, ''ComicStrip/SpyVsSpy'' has gone through just about every conceivable variation on this trope, often with the decoy satchel having a bomb in it.

[[folder:Film]]

* A dramatic two-suitcase version kicks off the plot of ''Film/FantasticBeastsAndWhereToFindThem''. Newt Scamander, wizarding zoologist, has a BagOfHolding with a zoo of magical creatures inside. [[{{Muggle}} No-Maj]] Jacob Kowalski has a suitcase of pastries for the bakery he hopes to open. Some shenanigans involving a niffler at a bank later, Newt has the pastries and Jacob has the magical creatures. When he opens the suitcase at his apartment, he ends up letting several loose.
** [[spoiler: At the end of the film, Newt also makes use of this to give Jacob some Occamy eggs (which are made of silver) as collateral for his bakery.]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* Done with sausages in ''Series/AlloAllo'' - at one time they had a sausage with a stolen painting, a sausage with a fake painting, a sausage with dynamite for LaResistance and an ordinary sausage for Herr Flick's dinner.
* Used in a more serious vein in ''Series/{{Hustle}}''. The grifters often swap out the case full of money at the last second, save for a few episodes where the switch does not go as it should and they lose a lot of money, giving them an incentive to take on a riskier con to make up the cash.

* Variant in ''Creator/MontyPython'' as a policeman attempts to frame an actor by blatantly tossing a paper bag down in his flat and pointing at it accusingly. When the bag is seen to contain sandwiches, the policeman exclaims "Blimey! What'd I give the wife?"

[[folder: Newspaper Comics]]
* In a classic ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' strip, two scientists have identical unmarked beakers. One of them loudly objects to the replacement of his dysentery culture with lemonade just as [[IDrankWhat the other takes a drink]].
** This strip is often posted as a [[BlackComedy serious safety reminder]] in various academic and professional labs: [[TemptingFate eating or drinking anything in a lab and/or out of labware]] can and has resulted in [[TruthInTelevision numerous, often tragic, variations on this exact scenario]].
* ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'': Jason mixes up his maths text book with Eileen. As a result, Eileen ends up finding an incredibly sappy love poem Jason had intended for his mother, and thinks it is for her.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Role Playing Games]]
* One ''TabletopGame/D20Modern'' adventure ("A Funny Thing Happened At Carousel 14", which happens to be a homage to ''Film/WhatsUpDoc'') features no fewer than four characters with identical (gaudy and "unusual") bags, each with vitally important and for the most part incriminating contents. Compounding matters are two additional characters who plan to intentionally switch their own (again, identical) bags with someone else's. The GameMaster is instructed to treat the adventure as a corporate espionage thriller, so that the players will be surprised when [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity Inevitably Ensues]].

[[folder:Theatre]]

* ''Theatre/TheImportanceOfBeingEarnest'' "A handbag?"

* ''PapersPlease'': At one point the player is given two sets of secret documents, one to give to a friendly agent and one to give to his impostor as they pass through the checkpoint. The folders of them are identical, and you need to keep careful track of which as you shuffle them around your desk until your contacts arrive.

* One TabletopGame/D20Modern adventure features no fewer than four characters with identical (gaudy and "unusual") bags, each with vitally important and for the most part incriminating contents. Compounding matters are two additional characters who plan to intentionally switch their own (again, identical) bags with someone else's. The GameMaster is instructed to treat the adventure as a corporate espionage thriller, so that the players will be surprised when [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity Inevitably Ensues]].

* Variant in ''MontyPython'' as a policeman attempts to frame an actor by blatantly tossing a paper bag down in his flat and pointing at it accusingly. When the bag is seen to contain sandwiches, the policeman exclaims "Blimey! What'd I give the wife?"

* An episode of ''TheBurnsAndAllenShow'' entitled "A Paris Creation" invokes the trope with two briefcases with the initials "G.B": one belonging to George, the other a nuclear scientist.

* Happens with a matchbook in [[Main/SherlockHolmes Sherlock Holmes in Washington]].

* One LordPeterWimsey story has a bag of jewellery accidentally swapped for an identical-looking bag containing an actress's severed head.

There are three or more identical bags. One bag contains jewels or top secret documents, other bags contain other items of a random nature (and in wildly variable values) and one bag ALWAYS contains underwear.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' ChristmasEpisode "The Magic Sack Of Mr. Nicholas", Gargamel captures a bunch of smurfs while Chlorhydris steals Mr. Nicholas's toys. They bump into each other, swapping bags in the process.

* The ultimate conflict in ''PoliceAcademy 5'' comes about because a group of criminals who have smuggled diamonds into the country have placed the package in which the diamonds are concealed in a bag which is externally identical to Commandant Lassard's luggage, who is taking the same flight as the criminals. They end up claiming the wrong bags when they get to Miami, forcing the villains to try to track down Lassard and reclaim the diamonds.

* ''[[HomeAlone Home Alone 3]]'' starts with two identical shopping bags in an airport. One contains a toy car with a microchip stolen from the Army hidden inside it. The other contains French bread.

* ''TheImportanceOfBeingEarnest'' "A handbag?"

* One D20Modern adventure features no fewer than four characters with identical (gaudy and "unusual") bags, each with vitally important and for the most part incriminating contents. Compounding matters are two additional characters who plan to intentionally switch their own (again, identical) bags with someone else's. The GameMaster is instructed to treat the adventure as a corporate espionage thriller, so that the players will be surprised when [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity Inevitably Ensues]].

* An episode of ''Series/WillAndGrace'' used the brown paper bag variation of this: the contents being exchanged included Jack's soup, [[LadyDrunk Karen's]] booze, Rosario's floor polish and Will's sperm sample.

* ''HeyArnold'': Arnold, Gerald, and Sid find a shopping bag full of money, and decide to take it to the police station in the morning to collect a reward. But when Arnold arrives with the bag, it's full of birdseed. He tries to explain, "There was this old woman next to me on the bus, and she had pink hair, a peg leg, and one eyebrow. She had a whole bunch of shopping bags just like mine, and she must have taken my bag by mistake." [[CassandraTruth Nobody believes him]].
* ''TheFlintstones'' episodes had this when Wilma's mother arrives at the Flintstone house carrying the same bag as the old bank robber lady had while she was staying there. The robber leaves to evade the police, taking the wrong bag, while Wilma's mother opened the bag containing stolen money and got arrested by mistake.

* ''Series/BobsBurgers'' - Tina's siblings pull this bit on her classmate Tammy to retrieve her notebook of 'erotic friend fiction' and avoid public humiliation.

* ''BobsBurgers'' - Tina's siblings pull this bit on her classmate Tammy to retrieve her notebook of 'erotic friend fiction' and avoid public humiliation.

* ''GravityFalls' has Dipper and Mabel accidentally switch bags at the end of "Dipper and Mabel vs The Future", [[spoiler:and due to being LockedOutOfTheLoop, the latter gives the disguised BigBad the [[SealedEvilInACan dimensional rift]], jumpstarting the EndOfTheWorld.]]

* ''GravityFalls' has Dipper and Mabel accidentally switch bags at the end of "Dipper and Mabel vs The Future", [[spoiler:and due to being LockedOutOfTheLoop, the latter inadvertently gives the BigBad the [[SealedEvilInACan dimensional rift.]]]]