History Main / TinCanTelephone

* One episode of ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' had Cuddles and Lumpy playing with one. This being ''HappyTreeFriends'', it results in Cuddles' eardrums being blown out.

* Shown exactly as the picture above in "Anime/SoundOfTheSky" episode 8. In this universe even a regular phone is very rare, so even the cool soldier in charge of the platoon's hotline is impressed by this device!

* Shown exactly as the picture above in "Anime/SoRaNoWoTo" episode 8. In this universe even a regular phone is very rare, so even the cool soldier in charge of the platoon's hotline is impressed by this device!

* Chapter 61 of ''Manga/GekkanShoujoNozakiKun'' has Nozaki and Sakura communicating via paper-cup phones for ideas for Nozaki's manga. Sakura becomes so attached to hers that her friends comment on how neglected her actual phone has become. Suzuki and Mamiko keep their flip-phones in the end, however the experience affects Nozaki enough that he accidentally draws the two holding and talking into their phones as if they're paper-cups.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' episode "Party of One", Pinkie Pie uses this to eavesdrop on Twilight Sparkle.

* Also used by Progresso Soup [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFmzugixNrE here]], among other examples.

-->--[[SpellMyNameWithAThe The]] WebAnimation/HomestarRunner, [[http://www.homestarrunner.com/answer13.html Marzipan's Answering Machine Version 13.2]]

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Clarence}}'' episode "Goldfish Follies", to keep up with its {{retraux}} theme, has a scene where Clarence and Sumo use cans as ''smartphones''.

* ''Film/ScaryMovie 2'' parodied this. After getting high-tech goggles and weapons, the heroes didn't have enough money for cell phones. So they used Dixie cups. Tin cans that have only about 3 feet of string between them.

* ''Film/ScaryMovie 2'' parodied this. After getting high-tech goggles and weapons, the heroes didn't have enough money for cell phones. So they used tin cans. Tin cans that have only about 3 feet of string between them.

Of course, now that cellular phones are cheap enough that even children have them, this is a sadly disappearing relic.

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Clarwnce}}'' episode "Goldfish Follies", to keep up with its {{retraux}} theme, has a scene where Clarence and Sumo use cans as ''smartphones''.

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Clarance}}'' episode "Goldfish Follies", to keep up with its {{retraux}} theme, has a scene where Clarence and Sumo use cans as ''smartphones''.

* Webcomic/HarkAVagrant shows that [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation Crazy]] [[Literature/NancyDrew Nancy]] [[http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=299 has one.]]

* Used on the ''WesternAnimation/Super Mario World'' cartoon, with coconut halves and vines.

* On ''{{Rugrats}}'', Angelica turns her lemonade stand into a drive-thru service by using one of these as an intercom system.

* Tamako and Mochizou from ''Anime/TamakoMarket'' uses these to communicate from their rooms. In Ep 2 [[TalkingBird Dera]] sabotaged their discussion by standing on the line. [[ArtisticLicense Actually, their line was not taut enough for the vibrations to pass through some of the time.]]

* One of the official ''Franchise/SlyCooper'' tie-in comics shows the gang pulling their first heist as gap-toothed youngsters in the orphanage, the cookie jar caper, using one of these as a communicator. [[spoiler: When Sly is almost sprung, it, seemingly accidentally, doubles as an extraction device, with Sly being pulled to safety before he is spotted when Murray pedals the getaway trike away.]]
* They've probably done this in TheBeano or ComicBook/TheDandy at least a hundred times.
* One DonaldDuck comic had Huey, Dewey, and Louie set one up between Donald and Neighbor Jones after their feuding starts taking its toll on their house. "Have a war of words!" Unfortunately, Jones feeds the business end of a live-wire to his can, giving Donald a nasty shock.

* In Fanfic/RainbowDoubleDashsLunaverse, Trixie and Lyra use this when confronted by Octavia, a pony with remarkable hearing. Knowing that Octavia will hear Lyra if she's anywhere in the room, they go outside and run a tin-can telephone to her. This lets her eavesdrop on the talk between Trixie and Octavia without Octavia sensing her presence.

* Exactly what the boys use to communicate with the girl across the street in ''ThreeNinjas''.
* ''ScaryMovie 2'' parodied this. After getting high-tech goggles and weapons, the heroes didn't have enough money for cell phones. So they used tin cans. Tin cans that have only about 3 feet of string between them.
* Used by the kids in ''MilkMoney''.

* Shaggy and ScoobyDoo do this in ''[[Film/ScoobyDooMonstersUnleashed Monsters Unleashed]]'', except Scooby gets confused and holds the can to his mouth when he should be listening and to his ear when he should be talking.

* In ''Henry and the Paper Route'' (in the same world as the RamonaQuimby books), Henry Huggins is excited when a boy his own age moves into the neighborhood. In his first conversation with the kid, Henry suggests a tin can phone, but he's told that it probably wouldn't work and, at any rate, they both have actual phones in their houses.

* Also appears in ''Alfons Zitterbacke'', a children's book from EastGermany. It doesn't work, probably because they knot the string to places (they're trying to make a really long line, between their respective rooms).
* In [[http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Nancy_Springer Nancy Springer's]] ''They're All Named Wildfire'', the two main characters live in the opposite sides of a duplex. They drill a hole in the wall so that they can pass a string through to use a tin can telephone. (Interestingly, the fact that the string has to be taut rather than slack ''is'' mentioned, as it affects the position of the hole they create.) The tin can telephone becomes thematically important as a symbol of the PowerOfFriendship in opposition to racism.

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* ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' had them at least twice. In a 1980s SundayStrip, Lucy gave Charlie Brown part of a tin can telephone for use during a baseball game. In a 1999 strip, Sally was playing with one when she asked, "How do you get an outside line?"

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[[folder:WebOriginal]]

* One episode of ''HappyTreeFriends'' had Cuddles and Lumpy playing with one. This being ''HappyTreeFriends'', it results in Cuddles' eardrums being blown out.

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]

* Used on the ''[[SuperMarioBrothers Super Mario World]]'' cartoon, with coconut halves and vines.

* This was done a few times in Creator/HannaBarbera's version of ''TheLittleRascals''.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{SpongeBob SquarePants}}'', Squidward used one of these to apologize to [=SpongeBob=] without actually doing so to his face; however, the attempt was foiled because Patrick was [[{{Squick}} using the string as dental floss]].

* ''ThePowerpuffGirls'': In "Impeach Fuzz", when notorious hillbilly Fuzzy Lumpkins is elected mayor, he replaces the Powerpuff Hotline with a tin can.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TennesseeTuxedoAndHisTales'' short "Telephone Terrors", Tennessee and Chumley set up a network of tin can telephones throughout the zoo to tell the other animals about Stanley Livingston's upcoming piano recital. Guess where Chumley got the wires?

* One of the official ''SlyCooper'' tie-in comics shows the gang pulling their first heist as gap-toothed youngsters in the orphanage, the cookie jar caper, using one of these as a communicator. [[spoiler: When Sly is almost sprung, it, seemingly accidentally, doubles as an extraction device, with Sly being pulled to safety before he is spotted when Murray pedals the getaway trike away.]]

* Short appearance in ''WalkTheLine''.

* Used by Adam Sandler and the kids in ''GrownUps''.