Warning: Be wary of spoilers. On this page, titles alone can (and will) be Walking Spoilers.
Kansas City Shuffles in Western Animation.
- Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog: The trap set against Sonic at the start of "Grounder the Genius" features an obvious doll of Tails placed on a mousetrap. Sonic sees this, laughs at the plan for being so incompetent, then cyclones Scratch and Grounder into the trap. The mousetrap goes off, but the real Scratch and Grounder, who placed the dummies Sonic nabbed, set off a giant beartrap that almost catches Sonic off guard.
- In one episode of American Dad!, Steve pulls an Ocean's Eleven-style heist to rob a rich boy's Bar Mitzvah for revenge for stealing his girlfriend. This trope came into effect when he made the boy think he was going to steal his presents but was actually after his Bar Mitzvah money.
- Angel Wars: One episode has the in-training angels pitted against a demon-occupied city, with their high-priority mission being to deliver a message. Messenger angels have Super-Speed but can't fight, while guardian angels count as Mighty Glaciers in comparison, able to fight but lacking that speed. Knowing that the demons are targeting the message, the guardians taunt the demons to try to get their attention while the messenger runs away; the demons notice the messenger and pursue him, not even bothering to fight the guardians. This is exactly what the angels wanted the demons to do: the guardians were the ones carrying the message, and the messenger was empty-handed, and only ran to act as a diversion and attract the demons away from the message. By the time the demons figure out what's going on, it's too late to stop the message from being delivered.
- Captain Planet and the Planeteers: In "Jailhouse Flock", Greedly sets up the team and Captain Planet. The team counters by having Gi pose as a stranded motorist and grab evidence vindicating them. However, as she tries to bring it into the courtroom, Rigger destroys it. Gi laments that now she can't prove their innocence, leading to Evil Gloating...which is broadcast to the entire courtroom by a hidden microphone.
- The Family Guy episode "Peter-assment" has Peter's boss, Angela, sexually harassing him until Peter snaps at her, pushing her to attempt suicide; after rescuing her, Peter realizes he must have sex with her to stop her from feeling so lonely, which he finds disgusting. Donning a disguise, he then takes her on a date as "Peter's friend," but refuses to have sex with her due to a weak excuse; soon buckling under pressure, he finally agrees to have sex with her, after which Angela confides she knew it was Peter, much to his horror. It turns out Peter counted on her seeing through his disguise and pushing him into sex, as he prepared by paying Mort to hide in the front of his clothes; by thus making Mort have sex with her, Angela's confidence would be repaired, and Peter would be spared the trauma.
- The Futurama episode "Law and Oracle" has one when Fry is told of a future crime he has to solve. An oracle robot called "Pickles" gives Fry the prediction that one of the following will happen: 1. He will shoot Bender, causing him to destroy the Maltese Liquor and die. 2. He won't shoot Bender, but Bender will share the priceless alcohol with Planet Express, killing everyone due to its lethality. Fry attempts to pick neither, but Pickles appears at the crime and reveals it wasn't a prediction, but a set-up. After Fry accidentally shoots Bender, Pickles shoots Fry and drinks the real liquor to kill his human brain, thus removing his psychic abilities (being unable to stand seeing the future), however, it is then revealed that the prediction came true simply because Fry figured out Pickles was the mastermind (due to the inconsistency of Bender sharing) and thus set up Pickles' con, causing Pickles to lose his oracle powers and allowing them to arrest him.
- In an episode of Johnny Test, Johnny's evil side breaks out of his sisters' lab, and is on the loose all over the town. Dukie and the sisters, along with Johnny's good half, sets up a complicated trap that Good Johnny exposes. Which was a banana peel that sets off the complicated Rube Goldberg trap that evil Johnny was supposed to fall into, which he ends up gleefully taking apart thanks to the former. Which caused him to cockily jump over the peel to avoid the whole trap. Only to end up falling into the real trap that Dukie set up to capture him, being a pitfall trap.
- In King of the Hill, Peggy and several other Arlenites get scammed by a con man and work together to craft a counter-con in order to make their money back. They set up a fairly transparent off-track betting scam, but the con man cashes out before he can suffer the inevitable "lose everything" step. Hank shows up and sees Peggy sobbing over her failure and goes to confront the con man in his motel room, prompting him to stash his winnings in his room safe. After Hank leaves, the con man discovers the safe has disappeared. He reports this to the clerk at the front desk, who is just as confused as he is, since this is a cheap motel whose rooms don't have safes. It turns out Peggy anticipated all of this, including Hank's interference, and snuck the money out through a false back wall. Hank asks what she'd have done if things hadn't gone as planned. Peggy responds that the con man also valet parked his car and the motel doesn't have that either.
- In The Loud House episode "Pranks Fore Nothing," after a number of failed pranks in their prank war with Sandtrap U, Lori and her crew at Fairway University convince their rivals that they set booby-traps all over their golf course. The Santrap U crew then spend all night searching for the traps, to no avail.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- The second season premiere has this pulled by Discord. He tells the Mane Six that the Elements of Harmony are hidden "back where it all began". The group assume that he means the hedge maze where his prison statue was kept, setting off a trap that turns the ponies against each other. It's only after five of them have already been "discorded" that Twilight realizes they were really hidden back where the series began — her reference book on the Elements.
- Happens again in the Season 6 episode "Viva Las Pegasus". Applejack, Fluttershy, Flim, and Flam, who are currently in an Enemy Mine situation, attempt to trick the con-artist owner of a resort into confessing that he sabotages his employees' relationships to keep them under his hoof. He easily dodges the initial attempt and mocks them for their feeble hustle... only to later pull a real Engineered Public Confession when he gets cocky and decides to gloat, Just as Planned.Flam: Oh, brother of mine, I think it's time for a little payback!
Flim: The Canterlot Two-Step?
Flam: Mmm, we don't have the chickens. How about the Baltimare Flair?
Flim: Ah, my flair isn't what it used to be.
Gladmane: [over loudspeaker] Listen here, y'all! If you're a friend of mine, you're entitled to a free night's stay, and everypony is a friend of mine! Thank you. Thank you very much.
Flim: Are you thinking what I am?
Flam: The High Roller Hustle!
Applejack: The what now?
Flam: Trust us. When we're done, there won't be a pony in town who doesn't know the Applejack-iest truth about Gladmane! That is, assuming you two are willing to help.
Flim: [to Fluttershy] What size gown do you wear?
- Ninjago: At the end of "Can of Worms", Lloyd attempts to apologize to Cole for a prank by giving him a can of nuts. Cole declines the can, as he's pretty sure the can has a bunch of fake snakes inside that'll fly out when it's opened (and Lloyd has opened such a can in front of him before). Cole then opens the refrigerator and gets startled by a bunch of fake snakes that fly out.Cole: Don't think I don't see what this is. When I open this, a bunch of snakes are gonna pop out, right? Yeah, no thank you.
- The Simpsons:
- In the episode "The Book Job", Bart and Homer form a gang to make big bucks in the field of YA lit. They con the publisher, who one-ups them by recruiting Lisa. Who actually takes their side. But none of them should have trusted team Butt-Monkey Neil Gaiman. Bart and Homer even refer to a Noodle Incident known only as Kansas City.
- Sideshow Bob does one in Funeral for a Fiend; he sets up a fake restaurant and pretends that that's his plan to kill the Simpsons once and for all. It turns out it's all a fake to get to court again to make everyone think Bart killed him by throwing away his heart medicine.
- Cartman pulls this off in the South Park episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die". Cartman is scammed out of some money by Scott, and after several failed attempts to counter Scott's initial con, Cartman brags to Stan and Kyle about his ultimate plan to train a pony to bite Scott's penis off in front of his favorite band, Radiohead, whom he has invited to a local Chili Cookoff. Cartman actually counts on Stan and Kyle to "sabotage" him by informing Scott of the plan, and counts on Scott to try to get rid of the pony (but not to risk getting his penis bitten off by going himself). Scott tells his parents a pony is being abused and has them try to "rescue" it. However, Cartman has already tipped off the farmer who owns the pony that there are two sickos going around at night killing ponies for kicks, and the farmer resolves to shoot anyone who tries it with his pony. After Scott's parents are shot and killed, Cartman steals their bodies and grinds them into mincemeat, cooks them into chili, and feeds them to Scott. After the plan succeeds, he gloats about it to Scott (who is further humiliated when Radiohead shows up and mock his emotional breakdown without knowing the full story behind it), and the rest of the cast vow not to mess with Cartman in the future.
- In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Plankton's Army," a robot made to look like a customer enters the Krusty Krab right after Mr. Krabs warns his employees that Plankton will probably make another attempt to steal the secret Krabby Patty formula. Mr. Krabs is instantly suspicious and takes the robot's order himself, but much to his surprise, the robot turns down the offer of a Krabby Patty and orders chili coral bits instead, which it pays for with a real dollar. It turns out that Plankton was hiding inside the dollar bill itself, and he quickly jumps out and demands that Krabs hand over the formula. Unfortunately for Plankton, he has no means of actually forcing Krabs to give up the formula, so he gets flushed down the toilet for his trouble.
- The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!: In "Butch Mario & The Luigi Kid", Mario and Luigi are being in hot pursuit of King Koopa's minions whilst riding atop Ostros, until Mario spots a pasta saloon on the side that he and Luigi use to give the goons the slip, whilst also getting their coveted lunch. Unfortunately, said saloon is actually being run by Koopa, who proceeds to throw Mario and Luigi into a jail cell with Mouser acting as the prison guard.
- In an early episode of Xiaolin Showdown, Jack Spicer of all people pulls this off. He sends in a robot clone of Kimiko to thwart the Xiaolin Dragons and steal their Shen Gong Wu. Omi identifies and destroys the clone, but it's too late - while the Dragons were distracted, Jack snuck in and out of the vault with the Wu, leaving them at a sudden and major disadvantage. A rare moment of sheer triumph for Jack.
- Young Justice (2010):
- The Big Bad group "The Light" regularly uses the superheroes' attempts to "stop the evil plan" to further their real machinations. In "Usual Suspects" for instance, The Light stages an attack on the heroes so the good guys will bring dangerous devices the Light's agents are carrying at the time to their secret base to stop the Light from getting to them. The Light promptly uses the devices to take the heroes' secret base over.
- The good guys manage this too in the second season. While all their minor attempts to thwart The Light fail, they've had a mole (and later upped to two moles) on the Light for the whole season who have been recording everything and waiting for the right moment to publicly broadcast that footage while also sowing discord within The Light with the shuffle's only flaw being the members of the team who didn't know about the plan almost causing it to go Off the Rails a few times. It still all finally comes together in "Summit" and it's a thing of beauty.
