Someone has just come back from holiday with photographs of their trip abroad. They decide to show them as a slideshow to their family and friends, thinking that they will enjoy it.
So why aren't they?
They're looking away. They're yawning. They're even trying to make excuses to leave the presentation. All of this is a result of a Boring Vacation Slideshow.
This trope is usually used in comedic works, due to the comedy inherent in someone sitting down, making an awful slideshow, and then forcing other people to watch that awful slideshow. It is generally used to show that the character is such a boring person that it makes their holidays boring as well. May also be used to show that the person has had Incredibly Lame Fun. The presenter will usually say "And this is..." at the beginning of each slide to make the presentation extra boring. On very rare occasions, the participant's interest may be piqued by an Embarrassing Slide that has accidentally gotten into the slideshow. If the person is aware of how boring the presentation is, they may utilize it as a form of Cool and Unusual Punishment.
An alternate variant is when a person simply shows someone their vacation photos, which can be just as boring as a slideshow.
Compare Museum of Boredom and A Good, Old-Fashioned Paint Watching for similar incredibly boring things that a person may be forced to go through. Sub-Trope to Reel Torture.
Examples:
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Advertising
- In a television ad
for the Progressive Insurance Company, an employee named Jamie is showing his co-workers slides of his trip abroad. A bored young woman asks if he has any "interesting" slides for them. Jamie quickly runs through several intriguing pictures (calling them "boring") before stopping to discuss his Swedish client Steve and the point of the advertisement.
Comic Books
- Le Chat: In one strip, The Cat says heaven is full of old people telling each other about their time on Earth. In hell, it's the same, except everyone has slideshows.
- One Bash Street Kids strip in The Beano has the entire class and their teacher relocate to a Haunted House rather than stick around for their Headmaster's boring slideshow of his time in Australia. Unfortunately for them, said Headmaster had taken that into account and had them all captured so that he can show his slides to them uninterrupted. Fortunately for them, the Janitor shows up dressed as a Bedsheet Ghost and scares the Head away before he can start the slideshow.
Films — Animation
- Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation: After Plucky and Hamton make it back to Acme Acres near the end of the film, when Plucky attempts to head home, Hamton's father drags Plucky to watch the slideshow of their trip. The slideshow lasts several days, and going by what we hear, it includes the likes of a hotel room, a parking lot, and a crazy guy with a chainsaw. As soon as the last slide is shown, Plucky immediately makes a break for it, revealing that he only watched because he was handcuffed to the projector, which gets dragged along with him.
Films — Live-Action
- Mom and Dad Save the World: At the end of the film, Marge and Dick manage to create a boring slideshow of their vacation even though the vacation featured them being kidnapped by aliens and taken to another world. They treat the slide with a close-up of Saturn like a picture of the Grand Canyon.
Literature
- One of the punishments in Astfgl's new Hell (where the souls of the damned are tormented with boredom instead of pain) is shown to be this in Eric:
In the next pit several chained and groaning people were being shown a series of paintings. A demon in front of them was reading from a script.
"—this is when we were in the Fifth Circle, only you can't see where we stayed, it was just off to the left there, and this is that funny couple we met, you'd never believe it, they lived on the Icy Plains of Doom just next door to—"
Live-Action TV
- The Big Bang Theory: After Sheldon gets back from his post-breakup train ride he shows a clearly exasperated Leonard and Penny the photos he took on their smart TV. Even though his phone was stolen, they were unfortunately uploaded to iCloud.
- A Bit of Fry and Laurie: One sketch had a man (played by Stephen Fry) be forced to listen as another man (played by Hugh Laurie) shows him extremely boring photos of a holiday as punishment for sleeping with his daughter. The father warns him if he does it again, there'll be a slideshow.
- Family Matters: In one episode, Carl refuses to tell Steve where Laura is. Steve decides to "entertain" Carl by showing him a photo reel of his trip to the Wisconsin Cheese Festival. Carl finds the reel so frustratingly boring that he tells Steve where Laura is.
- In one episode of Last of the Summer Wine, Foggy is about to put on a slideshow note , leading Compo to complain if he was going to show his holiday snaps again.
Foggy: What's the matter with my holiday snaps?
- Night Gallery: A hippie finds he's gone to Hell, which for him is spending eternity with an old couple. Part of said punishment is watching their nonstop vacation slide show.
- On Queer as Folk (US), Michael subjects his family and friends to one of these when returning from a Paris vacation with David. Ted naps on Emmett's shoulder. Debbie, Vic, and Melanie strain to pay attention. Brian and Justin make out on the couch. Lindsay is somehow riveted.
Michael: Fin, that means the end
Emmett: Bon, that means good. - The Reba episode "Brock's Got Stones" ends with one such slideshow, featuring Barbra Jean's trip to St. Louis that lasts for five hours (7 to midnight). Reba tries to leave early during the slideshow before Brock thwarts her attempt by exposing it.
Brock: Reba's trying to leave.
Reba: I am not! I was going to the bathroom.
Barbra Jean: There will be plenty of time for bathroom breaks during the first intermission.
Reba: [through gritted teeth] You are so dead, Brock. - Red Dwarf: The episode "Justice" has Rimmer showing off his holiday slides of his trek through the Diesel Decks to Kryten. Kryten is in clear pain throughout the presentation and tries to get a break from it, only for Rimmer to note that they weren't going to get through the presentation if they had a second break.
- Star Trek: Voyager: The Doctor bores the entire crew with a long presentation about one of their away missions.
- In Will & Grace, Part of Will's Cool and Unusual Punishment to Karen due to her throwing a wild party and trashing Will's apartment in one episode is to make her look at Grace's endless honeymoon photos.note
Karen: [to Will] I HATE YOU!
Grace: Roll one — my luggage!
Video Games
- In the ending to Pajama Sam 2: Thunder And Lightning Aren't So Frightening, Mother Nature arrives at World Wide Weather just as Sam is about to fix the fourth and final weather machine. When Mother Nature demands to see the monitors that show the various weather around the world, Lightning tries to stall her with her slides of her visit to Cleveland. An unamused Mother Nature's response is "I'll try to live with the disappointment."
Web Animation
- Homestar Runner: In "Somber Vacation" Strong Sad shows some of the other characters some slides from his trip to the beach (it's the only way he can remain miserable, since summer is generally a happy time and thus his least favorite time of year). Bubs and Strong Bad (who were expecting free casserole and the opportunity to see a dead body, respectively) react with disappointment, while Homestar was the only one there willingly ("You're welcome!"). They react listlessly to many of the pictures he shows, which included burying himself alive in the sand (and winning third place in a sand sculpture contest), making little people out of bits of Styrofoam coolers (who then somehow beat him at beach volleyball), and tripping over couples making out while going for a midnight walk on the beach. They're all rather amused when they learn Strong Sad got a nasty moonburn that makes him look like he was wearing a bikini top.
Strong Sad: Shut up! It's a skin condition! This is just how I tan, I can't help it.
Strong Bad: Bwa ha ha ha ha! Lookin' good, Miss July!
Webcomics
- In Housepets!, Spo subjects Fido, Joey, and Squeak to one of his alleged trip to Europe.
- Weaponized in Jailhouse Blues, a Bob and George fancomic featuring the adventures of Mega Man sharing the same jail as Doctor Wily. At one point, Mega Man X has to stop Mega Man from engaging Doctor Wily too quickly (long story). Rather than fighting Mega Man, X instead elects to creatively combine multiple weapons, far outside their intended purpose:
X: Paparazzi Flash for a projector... Twinkie Defense for some light snacks... and some Hypno Soap to make sure you can't run. And voila, the Vacation Slideshow from Hell Cannon.
Mega Man: You're sick. You know that, right?
Web Videos
- Freeman's Mind: Gordon has apparently dealt with this before; he laments not bringing a camera to document his survival and everything he did through it, especially because he could spring it on any family members trying to show vacation pictures and immediately shut them up.
Gordon Freeman: If I had been taking pictures, I'd be ready when I had to sit through some family member's slideshow. I could whip it out and be like, "Fuck you! Your pictures suck, look at mine! There's me blowing up some bipedal alien the size of a dump truck. Here's me shooting some troops because I'm hardcore. Yeah, I think we're done here. You brought this on yourself."
Western Animation
- In Arthur, one of Francine's embarrassing memories in "Kids are from Earth, Parents are from Pluto" is having her dad stay in class on an open night. When the teacher shows slides of a field trip (mostly pictures of trees, narrated in a boring and slow voice), he falls asleep and snores loudly.
- The Fairly OddParents!: In "Inspection Detection", Timmy is accused of being a shoplifter on the day of his fairy godparents' inspection from Jorgen Von Strangle, as some of the stolen items are the exact same ones needed for the inspection (including a snowmobile and a wax statue of the Crimson Chin). While Timmy sets out to clear his name, Cosmo and Wanda try to stall Jorgen by showing them their vacation slides. Jorgen is not amused.
Cosmo: And this is us on vacation in Egypt.
Wanda: Cosmo had food poisoning.
Cosmo: And this is us in Paris.
Wanda: Food poisoning.
Cosmo: Fancy food poisoning! And this is me getting food poisoning in Kidneyland. - Garfield and Friends:
- In "Brain Boy", Jon visits his cousin, Al, who has recently developed 16 rolls of photos from a cheese dip festival. Later in the episode, we see three consecutive slides of Al's wife waving; Jon is not entertained.
- Parodied in "The Longest Doze", where Garfield is trying to set the world record for the longest nap in history. To help him get to bed, he gets Jon to show him slides of his trip to Miami. Garfield warns beforehand that this method is so intense it should not be attempted at home. Odie is asleep by the fifth slide, while even the guy coming over to prove the record can't stay awake for it.
- In "A Vacation From His Senses", Garfield shows the viewers a slideshow of the last vacation Jon took him on, and the many disasters that befell it; Jon getting lost in a tunnel, stopping to see the world's second largest ball of dental floss, staying in a hotel populated by cockroaches (with a giant one as the hotel's manager), and accidentally driving to the South Pole when he tried to drive to Orlando, Florida.
- Madballs: In "Gross Jokes", there is a segment called "A Boring Travelogue", which is about the Madballs doing one of these. However, thanks to the Madballs' humorous antics, it isn't boring at all.
- The Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures finale "Mighty's Tone Poem" has Mighty Mouse delivering a special punishment to four of his foes (The Cow, Petey Pate, Maxie and Oil Can Harry) in lieu of prison: a screening of clips from season one of the show. The villains go all MST3K on it.
- In the Ready Jet Go! episode "The Grandest Canyon", the Petersons get back from their vacation in Arizona and force the Propulsions to watch a slideshow of their trip to the Grand Canyon. It includes an embarrassing photo of Mr. Peterson and Mitchell wearing matching canyon hats, causing Mitchell to pout in the photo. All it does is leave Jet and Carrot perplexed as to what the Grand Canyon is.
- One episode of Rugrats (1991) revolved around Stu doing this with their group of friends after the family's awful vacation to the Grand Canyon, which had happened over the course of one episode earlier in the show's run. The audience is predictably bored though various issues prevent him from continuing and at the end of the episode, by the time he's fixed the issues, everyone else is engrossed in the crayon art that the kids have drawn, including, eventually, Stu himself.
- The Simpsons does this a few times:
- In "Krusty Gets Busted", Homer is not looking forward to seeing Patty and Selma's vacation slides of their trip to Mexico. He stops on the Kwik-E-Mart on his way home, leading to him seeing Krusty (actually Sideshow Bob) robbing the store. Bart and Lisa do end up watching the slideshow and don't enjoy it.
- In "Flaming Moe's", Homer has a boring night watching Patty and Selma's vacation pictures, so he goes to find a drink in the kitchen; they're out of beer, leading to him creating the Flaming Homer that sets up the plot of the episode.
- In "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore", Patty and Selma kidnap Richard Dean Anderson (known for playing the titular character in MacGyver, their favorite show). However, he starts getting too interested in escaping from their house and annoys them nonstop. To get him away for good they show him pictures of their vacation; he's begging to be let go by the end of it.
- In "Puffless", Patty and Selma once again propose showing slides, and Homer sighs in relief when it turns out it's only a small box... which unfortunately turns out to be a 5 TB USB stick with over 50,000 slide carousels.
- "Funeral for a Fiend" has an example that doesn't involve Patty and Selma; when he has the Simpsons in his clutches, Sideshow Bob shows slides of what Bart refers to as "all the boring things you did since the last time you didn't kill us", and sure enough, the pictures mostly consist of Bob and his family finding their way back to America from Italy. He even says to call him "Slideshow Bob".
- South Park: In the episode "Cartman's Incredible Gift", Cartman is captured by the Left Hand Killer, who decides to show him his vacation slides before he murders him. Cartman gets bored by this and asks for somebody to help him.
- The SpongeBob SquarePants episode, "A SquarePants Family Vacation" has a Framing Device of SpongeBob inviting his friends to something they'd all enjoy, only for it to turn out to be his vacation slides. They're all disappointed and want to leave, but he manages to keep them in for long enough to show them.
- Played with in the Veggietales Silly Song "Song of the Cebu". Larry eventually gets to show his audience his trip to Spain with Bob, but outside of one noticeably off-screen photo, nobody seems to be interested in it. This is less because it's boring, and more because the photos are right in the middle of his presentation about the Cebu song.
