"Your brother's in the trunk of a car, Carl. He's eatin' on 10 bucks a day. That's a bag of chips, a sandwich, and a Coke. Tomorrow he eats on five, and we'll be down to soup and sugar packets by Friday."
— Nate, Burn Notice, "Old Friends"
When a kidnapper and their hostage(s) are running from the cops, their food options are naturally limited. They don't have a whole lot of money (especially if they're holding someone for ransom), they probably can't buy anything that needs to be cooked, and purchasing enough food for two or more people over several days might look suspicious, especially if their face is on a news bulletin. So the easy thing to do is pop into a fast-food restaurant, convenience store, or similar place for a few minutes and grab some cheap but filling food. Nothing suspicious about picking up some burgers and fries for dinner, right? If the hostage is a child, fast food is also likely one of the things they'll eat without complaint, even if they're picky. Variations of this trope might include an exasperated kidnapper buying an annoying kid junk food to keep them quiet, or a sympathetic kidnapper buying a hostage their favorite food.
Story-wise, a warm meal is the perfect opportunity for the kidnapper and their hostage to sit down and have a civil conversation. The kidnapper might explain their motives or promise the hostage that they'll be home as soon as so-and-so pays the ransom. This trope can be used to humanize the kidnapper a bit by having them show a little bit of care for their victim, even if it's only out of necessity, or make them even worse by having them go in the opposite direction and deny their victim food.
The classier version of this trope is No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine, when a villain personally prepares a meal for a captured hero.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Nintendo Power Promo Videos: In the Star Fox 64 video, Sony and Sega order some pizza for their hostage Peter and use the empty box as a trap for his boss, Bob.
Films — Live-Action
- I Not Stupid has protagonist Terry and his friend Boon Hock getting abducted by a kidnapper who turns out to be a discharged ex-employee of Terry's father. While in their custody, Terry, being a meek, spoiled kid from a rich family, whines that he only wants Pink Dolphin Calcium (a Singapore-based healthy beverage that the film has a Product Placement deal with) for breakfast, with which the kidnapper complies. The TV series remake plays this trope straight by having the kidnappers buying KFC instead.
- In National Treasure, Ben, Riley, and Abigail briefly hide out at the home of Patrick Gates, Ben's father, after stealing the Declaration of Independence. Patrick agrees to help them escape by pretending that they tied him up to take his car, and the group invokes this trope by leaving his hands close enough to a pizza box (and his lips near a cup of soda) to at least eat while waiting for the police to arrive.
- A Perfect World: On the lam after escaping prison, Butch takes young Philip hostage during the getaway. At one point he stops to get them burgers at a diner, then tells Philip to wait in the car so Butch can have a tryst with a waitress. It's a sign of Philip's growing attachment to Butch that he makes no effort to escape.
- The Transporter: Once he figures out his "package" is human cargo, Frank buys her an Orangina at a highway convenience store halfway to his destination.
Literature
- Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job: While Darcy and her babysitting charges are being held hostage by the Hazens, they get McDonald's for dinner. The food becomes a Chekhov's Gun when the kids use some of it to tame the guard dogs as part of their escape plan.
- Dr. Greta Helsing: In Dreadful Company, Greta is abducted by a band of arrogant young vampires in Paris, whose leader hopes to get back at Lord Ruthven for chasing him out of London years ago. During her captivity, they keep feeding her nothing but confectionary croissants, apparently because 1) it's easy to pick them up at street cafes, and 2) the underling tasked with minding Greta vaguely recalls having liked them when he could still eat solid food.
- Living Dead Girl: Ray eats fried chicken (presumably a Writing Around Trademarks friendly version of KFC) while in the car with the starving Alice as they're waiting to kidnap Lucy.
- Modern Faerie Tales: In Ironside, Kaye takes Ethine hostage so that she and her companions can leave Faerie safely. They stop at a diner to get a bite to eat, which also serves as an opportunity to assess their situation and discuss their next move. Ethine, being unfamiliar with human food, looks at the menu a while before just ordering blueberry pie. She later declares it "barely edible."
The waitress came and poured coffee into their cups. Corny raised his in one yellow-gloved hand. "Here's to us." He looked at Ethine. "Brought to this table by friendship or fate—or because you're a prisoner—and here's to the sweet balm of coffee, by the grace of which we shall accomplish the task before us and ken what we need to ken. Okay?"
- A Song of Ice and Fire:
- In A Storm of Swords, Sandor Clegane is always sharing his food with his hostage Arya Stark in scenes where they threaten and insult each other.
- In A Dance with Dragons, Jorah Mormont finds Tyrion Lannister wandering as a fugitive in Essos and kidnaps him so he can deliver him to Daenerys and hopefully earn back his place in her court. While traveling through Volantis, they share a quick meal of roast duck and ale at the Merchant's House. Tyrion sarcastically thinks to himself that he should fling the empty tankard at Mormont's head when he's done drinking, because if he's lucky, it'll crack his skull, and if he's really lucky, he'll miss and Mormont will beat him to death.
- Sweet Valley High: In Kidnapped!, Elizabeth's Stalker with a Crush, Carl, buys her fast food and leaves her hands tied so he can feed her by hand.
Live-Action TV
- Exploited in the Burn Notice episode "Old Friends". Michael and Nate take one half of a pair of brothers running a Sex Slavery ring hostage, and tell the other brother they're feeding him the bare minimum convenience store food as incentive for him to turn over their childhood friend's daughter whom they were planning to sell in Dubai.
Nate: Your brother's in the trunk of a car, Carl. He's eatin' on 10 bucks a day. That's a bag of chips, a sandwich, and a Coke. Tomorrow he eats on five, and we'll be down to soup and sugar packets by Friday.
- House of Anubis: While Rufus has Patricia held hostage in an abandoned warehouse, he brings her dinner at one point in the form of a simple, undressed burger in a Styrofoam container, which she refers to as being "better than that moldy old sandwich" she had for breakfast. The burger becomes a Fresh Clue when Nina and Amber arrive looking for her, as the fact that the food was still warm meant that Patricia and Rufus hadn't been gone for long.
- Killing Eve: In the first season finale, Villanelle kidnaps Irina, a Little Miss Snarker who quickly grates on her nerves. At one point, she exasperatedly asks what will make the girl shut up, and Irina replies, "Food!" She acquiesces, and they get some ice cream from a stand in the park.
- The Monk episode "Mr. Monk and the Missing Granny" has the titular old woman snatched from her home and blindfolded. After she's rescued, she remarks that the criminals treated her remarkably well and even bought her pizza so she wouldn't go hungry. Monk uses this information to help locate the kidnappers' hideout by doing a Sherlock Scan for a house with recently discarded pizza boxes in the trash.
- One episode of The Nanny sees Fran and Sylvia at the bank when a bungling burglar attempts to rob the place. When the cops close in, the crook escapes while taking Sylvia as a hostage, prompting Fran to say that she feels just terrible... for him. The police are eventually able to apprehend the robber when Sylvia, a Big Eater extraordinaire, demands that he pull over to purchase her some Mongolian barbecue.
- Person of Interest: In "Dead Reckoning", John Reese is forced to wear a bomb vest under his jacket by Rogue Agent Kara Stanton, who takes him to a fast food restaurant because if he tries anything stupidly heroic, then innocents will die as well. Reese refuses to eat, which Stanton says is his way of keeping a sense of control by refusing to cooperate in small ways. She points out that Reese's fellow captor is eating (he's been Strapped to a Bomb for quite some time now), so Reese will also come to accept the hopelessness of his situation.
Video Games
- In the Nancy Drew title The Final Scene, Nancy's friend Maya is kidnapped just before an old movie theatre is scheduled to be demolished; the kidnapper is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who hopes to prevent the destruction by holding Maya hostage. Nancy realizes that Maya is still alive when she discovers half-filled pizza boxes in a secret room in the basement, suggesting that the criminal is taking care of her during her imprisonment.
Web Videos
- Smosh: In "A Very Hairy Situation w/ Billy Mays", Anthony is kidnapped and is only given food from Burger Boys. Unlike other examples, he doesn't like the food, especially since they ran out of SpongeBob toys.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series: According to Mokuba, when he was kidnapped by Pegasus and Marik, the former took him on a picnic and the latter gave him pizza. When he gets kidnapped by Noah, he's pretty much gotten used to it and instead complains about the lack of food, then is overjoyed at getting donuts.
Western Animation
- American Dad!: In "Surro-Gate", Stan kidnaps Greg and Terry's newborn baby to "save" her from being raised by a gay couple. While on the run, he buys the baby a cheeseburger and thinks something is wrong with her because she doesn't eat it.
- Batman Beyond: In "Zeta", a rogue military robot kidnaps Max so it can take on her appearance and use the school's tech lab. While holding her captive, he brings her a sandwich from her favorite deli, even making sure it has her favorite filling.
- Quack Pack: Dewey is held hostage by a man he's deduced is responsible for the local UFO sightings and the man refuses to let himself be exposed. When the man prepares to get Dewey food, Dewey fights back by placing a colossal order of sweets and donuts, to the man's rage.
Dewey: You're gonna keep me, you're gonna feed me.
Real Life
- In 1977, when 11-year-old Timothy King disappeared during the Oakland County child killings
, his mother made a public plea for the killer to release him, so she could serve him his favorite meal, KFC. After his body was found, the autopsy showed the last thing he ate was fried chicken.
- Inverted In the 1989 case, where a mentally ill man named Kenneth Noid, who thought that Domino's Pizza mascot The Noid was a personal attack against him, entered a Domino's with a gun, took two employees hostage, and demanded $100,000 in compensation from Domino's for "using his name without consent". After five hours, Noid got hungry and asked his hostages to make him two pizzas. The two of them then managed to escape while he was eating.
- Not Always Right: In one story, a kidnap victim managed to get a restaurant employee's attention without alerting the kidnapper by going into the bathroom and explaining the situation there.
