History Main / TheStoolPigeon

[[quoteright:287:[[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stoolpigeon.jpg]]]]

** "WesternAnimation/BuccaneerBunny": One parrot keeps telling Pirate Sam where Bugs is hiding until Bugs himself puts him out of his misery by offering him a cracker...a '''fire'''cracker.
-->'''Parrot''': Me and my big mouth.

[[caption-width-right:287: [[VisualPun "Oh, he did so do it. I saw him with my very own eyes. So there."]]]]

** "A Day at the Zoo": As a spot gag described in the picture above, very Snobby Simon.
** "Don't Axe Me": The Barnyard Dawg squeals on Daffy for Elmer to catch him, which he has been trying to for the whole short.

** "Tom Turk and Daffy": Daffy squeals on the Turk because of his weakness for candied yams.
** The short "Big House Bunny" ends with prison guard Sam getting arrested for freeing convict Bugs when he's pushed to his limit. When he asks who was the stool pigeon who squealed on him, it cuts to Bugs, who [[AsideGlance looks at the camera]] and [[VisualGag starts cooing like a pigeon]].
** In “Rabbit Transit”, after Bugs finally wins, he gloats to Cecil that he did 100 miles an hour easily. Cecil asks him to repeat it louder so the police could hear; Bugs is promptly arrested as a result. Bugs even calls him this as he’s dragged away.

** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] by another story he tells displaying how great the stigma is, where a young man is shot and killed during a basketball tournament with 300 witnesses and ''[[BystanderSyndrome not a single person]]'' called the cops, instead just going home and ''[[CrossesTheLineTwice leaving a note with his fresh corpse]]'' telling the police they saw nothing.

* The ''WesternAnimation/KickButtowski'' episode "Tattler's Tale" has Miss Chicarelli acting as a mix of Snobby Sara and Obnoxious Olivia; she tattles on all the kids in the neighborhood to their parents so she can get them out of her hair for some peace and quiet.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "Banned in Bikini Bottom", after discovering a secret Krusty Krab being run by Mr. Krabs at [=SpongeBob=]'s house because Krabby Patties had been banned in Bikini Bottom, Plankton becomes a Petty Peter when he reports this to the police to get it shut down.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'' episode "Girls Night In", when Robin, Cyborg, and Beast Boy see that Starfire, Raven and a few friends of theirs snuck out of the tower, they suddenly become Obnoxious Oscars who track the girls down to report them to "Mom and Dad", who don't actually exist. This ends up interfering with the girls' fight with Blackfire and results in all of them being captured, but the boys completely fail to realize what's going on and only care about ratting the girls out.

** Frank ''Film/{{Serpico}}'' brought up the deep corruptions within the New York Police Department.

* In an early Blood Elf starting quest in VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft, the player is asked to find a book for two apprentices. When the book is drenched in water, the apprentices tell the player to take the fall for them, since the player won't be punished much. Instead, upon reaching their master, you tell him what they told you to do, and he has you [[BalefulPolymorph hit them with a rod that turns them into animals]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'''s AnnoyingYoungerSibling D.W. has shades of being an Obnoxious Olivia, such as with her infamous WoundedGazelleGambit in "Arthur's Big Hit". In the DistantFinale it's shown that she ended up becoming a police officer to boot.

* [[HonestCorporateExecutive Michael Woodford]] was at one time the CEO of Olympus Corporation. He discovered a massive tobashi scheme (a type of accounting fraud) and tried to [[InternalReformist clean it up from the inside]], but he got fired by the [[CorruptCorporateExecutive board of directors who were committing the fraud]]. He went to the police with the details of the fraud.

** In one episode, when Eddy leads the other kids in breaking the rules, Double-D tells everyone's parents to restore order. Unfortunately, this results in Kevin, Rolf, and Johnny to throw the Eds into a cage.
* Candace from ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' seems to vary between Snobby Sara, Obnoxious Oliva, Concerned Claire or Petty Patty, depending entirely on [[DependingOnTheWriter the writer]].

* A ''WesternAnimation/PrivateSnafu'' short has Snafu bragging about a secret that he knows but won't tell. Unfortunately, he ended up becoming exceptionally drunk, and told the nearest woman in the tavern about his secret (being on a ship and its coordinates), who also turned out to be a Nazi spy, resulting in his death and the implication that he went to hell for it. In other words, he acted as a Drug Doug on ''himself''. This cartoon can also be seen at the International Spy Museum.

* ''Film/InMyCountry'': [spoiler:Anna's sound technician Dumi]] got several people killed by giving their names to the Apartheid cops. [[AmbiguouslyEvil Whether he was forced to do it or was paid to is unclear.]]

* In ''Anime/GuiltyCrown'', [[TheLancer Yahiro]] ends up selling out the protagonist to secure treatment for his [[IllBoy sick little brother.]] Especially jarring since he used to be an admired friend of [[TheHero Shu's]], who was under the impression that they had sucessfully talked over their differences. Even after Yahiro returns to being a permanent member of Shu's group, the tension created by this event remains between them for most of the series, leading to several "Silence, Traitor!" moments.

* The song "Stool Pigeon" by Kid Creole and the Coconuts is about a Betrayer Barry-type mobster who is convinced by the FBI to be [[HiddenWire wiretapped]] and gather information on his former associates in exchange for money and [[StartingANewLife freedom]]. The plan succeeds with flying colors, but the last verse states that the snitch is [[LonelyAtTheTop unable to enjoy his newfound riches with anyone]] as a result:

** Martin Prince is also one when he squealed on Bart in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E2BartTheGenius Bart the Genius]]" and on Milhouse in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E25SummerOf4Ft2 Summer of 4 Ft. 2]]".

Snitches vary from GossipyHens because they're actually telling the truth and usually telling it to a recognised authority, whether it's a parent or the government. This can lead to a lot of MoralDissonance, because no matter how much of a jerk a snitch might be, the characters wouldn't have gotten in trouble if they hadn't done something snitch-worthy in the first place.

** Linda Tripp recorded Monica Lewinsky's phone calls to President Bill Clinton, leading to the infamous scandal and attempted impeachment.

Stool pigeon - ha-cha-cha-cha''

* The song "Stool Pigeon" by Kid Creole and the Coconuts is about a mobster who is convinced by the FBI to be [[HiddenWire wiretapped]] and chat with his old associates about the "good old days" in exchange for money and [[StartingANewLife freedom]]. The plan succeeds with flying colors, but the last verse states that the snitch is [[LonelyAtTheTop unable to enjoy his newfound riches with anyone]] as a result:

* Joseph Valachi was the first [[UsefulNotes/TheMafia mafioso]] to admit in public, on national television that ''Cosa Nostra'' [[NoMereWindmill is real]]. No one knows for sure why he flipped, but it's speculated that Vito Genovese, a fellow inmate and the boss of the Genovese crime family at the time, incorrectly branded him a rat and gave him the kiss of death - a sign that he was to be killed. Fearing for his life, he accidentally murdered a fellow inmate he mistakenly believed had been assigned to kill him, and because of this, he faced the death penalty. Hoping to get a lesser sentence, Valachi decided to rat on national television to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, headed by John [=McClellan=] in late 1963. Although his disclosures never led any mobsters being jailed, Valachi provided a detailed glimpse of the mob's inner workings, aided in the solution of several unsolved murders, and named many members of the major crime families. His testimony proved to be damning for the Mafia, still reeling from the [[CriminalConvention Apalachin fiasco of 1957]], where a curious cop accidentally stumbled upon a major mob meeting. Also, despite a poor start, law enforcement began to crack down on organized crime activities, bolstered by the passage of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act in 1970, which allowed entire criminal gangs and their leaders to be prosecuted for all of their criminal operations instead of just going after low-level grunts, thereby crippling the Mafia's power by the 1990s.

The tattletale. The blabbermouth. The squealer. That no-good snitch! You can't go through life without having the misfortune of coming across someone who's willing to rat you out and get you in trouble.

* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'': Sheldon tends to be this as shown in the episodes "The Apology Insufficientcy" where he tattled on Howard using the Mars Rover for personal use in a previous episode, "The Egg Salad Equivalency" where he tattled on his friends for their previous misconducts while being defensive to the HR director) and in "The Workplace Proximity" where tattled on Howard for stating that he would not want to have to work with his wife Bernadette. However, all of these situations are mostly due to [[InnocentlyInsensitive obliviousness]] more than anything.