Literal Money Metaphor

King Salazar: I know, I'll wish for a million bucks. No, make that two-million! [cue deer stampede that tramples him]
Yakko: Just be glad it's not mating season.

— Wakko's Wish

When a character asks for a million bucks, what they usually mean is a million dollars. Pesos. Dough. Lettuce. Glorious Green. However, when they win a million bucks, either through inheritance, a contest, a game show, or a Literal Genie, they will instead end up finding themselves on the receiving end of a Literal Metaphor.

A person is told that they are to inherit or acquire a million bucks; "bucks" in this case refers to a herd of deer that has been waiting just offscreen to trample the greedy contestant. A person says they want bills (meaning bank-notes) and instead of money, they find that their house has been stuffed full of ill-tempered geese (or water/electricity or other overdue bills). They ask a magic witch for a spell that gives them "a ton of dough" and that witch tries to bake them into a pie.

Stories that apply this are either light-hearted cartoons chock full of violence cushioned with Toon Physics or horror stories that punish the avaricious, the story's moral being about the two-faced nature of Greed. This causes some questions on why they didn't just ask for literal money instead.

Sub-Trope of Exact Words, Literal Metaphor and Visual Pun. Compare Duck!. Not to be confused with Currency Conspiracy.

---

Examples:

Advertising

• In a 2014 GEICO commercial (seen here), a man finds a genie in a lamp and wishes for a million bucks. He fills his garage and the entire street full of deer. While the deer don't stampede and trample on him, the trope is still fulfilled in-spirit.
• Halo 5: Guardians for 60 Bucks — Edward Buck that is.

Comic Books

• Disney Ducks Comic Universe:
  • In "Wishing Stone Island" by Carl Barks, the nephews trick Donald into travelling to the South Seas in search of a magical wishing stone. Throughout the story, Donald keeps getting in trouble for using slang terms for dollars (coconuts, bananas, simoleons, etc.). When he finds what he thinks is the stone, he wishes for "a million coconuts". The natives, who are stuck with a glut of coconuts, immediately pelt him with a million coconuts. The chief then tells him he has until sunset to get them off the island. When Donald asks what will happen if he doesn't, the chief says they will gather them up and throw them at him again.
  • Another comic was based on Scrooge being forced to pay Donald "a thousand thanks". Initially Donald wanted it as money, but when it was brought to court, it was ultimately ruled that Scrooge had to thank Donald a thousand times.
• In a one-shot story from the The Simpsons comic, after Bart forges some deportation orders for the teachers of Springfield Elementary School, Lisa and Martin are forced to teach their classmates because they're the smartest kids in their respective classes. After several attempts at teaching them only resulted in getting beaten up, Martin tells his class that getting an education can result in them earning good money later on. They all settle down and start paying attention, only because they thought that Martin said he would pay them to learn.
• A Silver Age Superman comic had him "forced" to work for a criminal after seemingly illegally digging on land he owns. The guy quickly tries to get Superman to steal money for him and Superman follows his orders. To the letter. So when he asks for "dough" (cash), Superman bakes him a huge birthday cake with said dough. When he asks for ice (jewels), Superman brings him a iceberg. When he asks for a big diamond, Superman brings him a baseball diamond. When he asks for a ton of gold, Superman brings him a block of gold that literally weighs a ton... and "accidentally" lets it fall into quicksand.
• In the Wacky Races story "The Scavenger Scramble," a big purse (in sports terms usually means a substantial cash award) is up for grabs. Dick Dastardly wins and gets the prize...a big, flowery ladies' purse.

Films - Animation

• In the Animaniacs film Wakko's Wish, Yakko explains to King Salazar that the wishing star acts as a Literal Genie that will grant his wish in any random way unless he words it carefully. One of the hypothetical wishes on his list is "a million bucks." He then gets trampled by a deer herd. He also wishes for all the dough in the world and ends up getting pelted with pastry dough.
• In The Princess and the Frog, Dr. Facilier tells Naveen he needs "the green" to continue living the easy life. When Naveen accepts, he gets turned into a frog (who is green).

Films - Live-Action

• Inverted in The Muppets (2011), where Tex Richman is so rich he uses money in place of things that are a metaphor for money:
  I make the baker bake my bread out of dough,
  No, no, don't eat it though, it'll make you ill,
  There ain't no flour in a hundred dollar bill.

Live-Action TV

• Better Call Saul: Subverted in the episode "Alpine Shepherd Boy." Jimmy meets with eccentric landowner Ricky Sipes, who wants Jimmy's legal help to secede his land from the United States. He offers a flat $1,000,000 fee and does indeed deliver... and we see Jimmy's glum reaction when Ricky proudly presents him a million dollars of his self-printed currency (with Ricky's own face in place of the President's). Needless to say, Jimmy doesn't accept the job.
• In the The Suite Life on Deck episode "London's Apprentice," when Kirby Morris shows Mr. Moseby a bag (he thinks is) containing a million dollars, Moseby's first instinct is to invoke this trope:
  Mr. Moseby: Wow! That's a lot of cheese!
  Kirby: Well it is a million dollars.
  Mr. Moseby: No, I meant [dumps bag onto the table] actual cheese!
• A Whammy from Press Your Luck:
  All I hear is "big bucks, big bucks"...I got your "big buck"! (brings in a male deer on a leash)

Literature

• In 1632, of all the people sent back in time, the only one with any knowledge of chemistry is a New-Age Retro Hippie who ends up running a mint by virtue of being able to to create waterproof dyes for bills. He doesn't take the job that seriously, so Grantville's new paper money depicts a male deer on the one-dollar note, fivers have a pair of hands kneading dough and tens have a loaf of bread. Twenties have an actual portrait. Of Johnny Cash.

Print Media

• Nickelodeon Comics: A The Fairly OddParents! comic puzzle featured Timmy making various wishes to win Trixie's heart; they backfire because of his Literal Genie fairy godparents. One wish was "I wish I had a million bucks," with the subsequent panel showing Timmy getting trampled by a bunch of deer.

Radio

• Opie & Anthony had an infamous radio contest in which they would give a caller "a Hundred Grand", the actual prize being a Hundred Grand-brand candy bar rather than $100,000; in 2005, a radio station in Kentucky that did a similar giveaway was sued.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons. A cartoon in a 1970s Advanced D&D 1st Edition product has a man herding reindeer. He's saying to another man that he wished for a million bucks.

Video Games

• In the Convenience Store level of Job Simulator, at one point, Bandit Bot invades your store and demands you "hand over the cheddar". Opening the safe reveals cheddar cheese wedges inside.

Web Animation

• In Strong Bad Email #15, "the basics", Strong Bad says that one of his tricks is to bet somebody a hundred "bucks", and if they win, you give them a hundred kicks in the butt, and you call that a "buck". He admits this one is "a little amateur".

Web Original

• The What If? entry "All the Money" does this with "If I had all the money in the world ...". The answer is that acquiring all financial money would be useless because everyone else would immediately recognise the state of affairs as illegitimate, and acquiring all physical money would cause a catastrophic landslide.
  As it collapses, the pile spreads outward, a wave of money carrying a staggering amount of momentum. The pennies, quarters, loonies, and euros scour the landscape in an expanding ring. Within seconds, the wave of coins engulfs you and you die.

Web Videos

• Discussed in one Kurtis Conner video when Kurtis visits a Bass Pro Shop for some country-style clothes and comments on how stereotypically redneck everything and everyone is there.
  Kurtis: If they tell me my items are fifty bucks, do they mean fifty dollars or fifty deer carcasses? I guess we'll find out. It's a good thing I killed fifty deer last night, just to be safe.

Western Animation

• The Flintstones: Since the show takes place in the Stone Age, Bedrock's currency is literal clams.
• In the Mickey Mouse short "Mickey's April Fools" from House of Mouse, Mickey wins a sweepstakes that affords him "one million bucks". However, the lawyer (secretly Mortimer Mouse in disguise) is unconvinced that Mickey is who he says he is because he was declared dead (as a part of an April Fool's prank on Mortimer himself). Mortimer then tries convincing the real lawyer that he is Mickey so that he can get the prize. The lawyer gives him his bucks — a herd of a million stampeding deer. After this knocks him unconscious, the lawyer reveals himself to be Minnie.
  • In "The Phone Company", the phone company's automated assistant asks Donald "You'd like to pay your bill?" and when he confirms, it pops his beak off.
• Looney Tunes:
  • In the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Bowery Bugs", Steve Brody goes to a psychic (Bugs) to have his luck changed. When Brody says he wants to get his hands on some dough, Bugs gives him an address. It turns out to be for a bakery, where the baker (Bugs again) drops a big mass of dough on Brody, then pushes him into the oven and bakes him into a pie.
  • Bugs pulled a similar gag in "Racketeer Rabbit" when gangster Rocky (the Edward G. Robinson avatar, not the pint-sized thug) orders Bugs to give him the dough he took. Bugs shoves a mixing bowl of unbaked bread dough in Rocky's face.
  • In "The Ducksters", Porky Pig is on a game show hosted by Daffy Duck. At one point, Porky wins the jackpot, only for Daffy to give him a cooking pot.
    Daffy: Oh, well. Fair's fair. Here's your pot, Jack.
    Porky: But m-my name isn't Jack.
    Daffy: It's not? Oh, I'm sorry. This pot is for Jack. Jack pot, get it? Your name isn't Jack, so you must pay the penalty.
  • In "Million Hare", Bugs and Daffy compete for a box that contains a "million bucks". When Daffy wins, he finds out that inside the box is a million small boxes. He passes the prize over to Bugs, and that's when it's revealed that inside each of those boxes is a one-dollar bill.
  • In the Toon Marooned web series (as seen on the DVD release Looney Tunes: Reality Check), contestants are promised a grand prize of $100. Two deleted scenes feature gags where Bugs announces the prize of 100 "greenbacks" (frogs) and "Francs" (hot dogs).
  • "A Day At the Zoo" has a scene displaying two cages, the first with four deer and the second with two skunks. It is described as four bucks and two scents.
• The Patrick Star Show: In "Patrick's Prison Pals", one of the prisoners makes lots of "bread" from betting on Patrick. Not money, but actual loaves of bread.
• In the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) episode "The Gauntlet", an anthropomorphic rock pigeon named Pigeon Pete offers to take the main characters to where they need to go, at the cost of "bread" — sourdough to be exact. Leonardo nervously invokes this when asking Pete to clarify.
• In the Tiny Toon Adventures Spring Break Special, when the Tiny Toons stay at the Spring Breaker's motel, the manager charges them a hundred bucks per night. Gogo Dodo then brings in 100 male deer and asks the manager where he wants them.
  Manager: Oh, I hate Spring Break.
• Woody Woodpecker is playing a piano at the gunpoint of a robber hiding in the piano in "Convict Concerto". As Woody attempts to tell a policeman the money is within reach, whispering "The dough...the dough...", the thug puts the gun to Woody and he starts ad libbing " do de do de do" to the music (Lizst's Second Rhapsody).

Real Life

• As covered by Snopes, Silo (a chain of home electronics stores) ran a commercial offering home stereo systems for "299 bananas". In context, they clearly meant 299 US dollars, but several customers came in bearing bushels of fruit. While they probably had a legal case to refuse the alternative payment, they instead decided it'd be better PR to make good on their unwitting offer and accept the bananas.
• One schoolyard prank involves asking someone if they want X amount of bucks. If they say yes, reply "Okay, sit on my back." When they do, you buck like a horse. Only recommended if you are larger than the person you are pranking.

---