Not This One, That One

Somebody points the hero to the car he'll get to drive, the airplane he's going to ride in, the hotel he's going to sleep in, the girl he's going on a date with, or whatever, and it meets every one of his expectations.

But... wait, it wasn't this one. It was that one, the crappy one right next to it.

See also Real Vehicle Reveal.

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Examples:

Advertising

• A UK advert for Volkswagen (with the slogan "You get what you pay for") in which a father leads his son past a sleek shark cage stall to a rundown Budget Shark Cage stall whose owner assures them "We're as good as the others, more or less" as the boy watches the lock fall off the cage door and then the door swings open.

Anime and Manga

• Ai Yori Aoshi: When moving to the Sakuraba family's country estate, Kaoru initially believes he'll get to live in the house itself. No such luck: he's directed to a small shed in the back yard.
• Inuyashiki: In the first chapter, Ichiro moves his skeptical family from an apartment to a house (which, this being in the middle of Tokyo, is a pretty expensive thing to buy regardless of size). He pulls up to what looks like a surprisingly big abode complete with a garage, which initially impresses his wife and kids. But then a man drives a fancy sports car out of the garage. Turns out that's their new neighbor, and their actual new house is a much dinkier-looking building down an alley behind the neighbor's house.
• Pokémon: The Original Series: Inverted with the episode "Holy Matrimony", which reveals James' background as a former rich boy. The cast initially sees a mansion which they think is his house. It's the dog house. The actual mansion is even bigger, right next to it.
• In One Piece, when Luffy, Usopp, and Sanji are about to go to the island where the Big Bad has taken the rest of the crew in the Skypiea Arc, local girl Conis offers to help them. She takes them to a dock and we see a giant, truly badass vessel that Luffy geeks out over- whereupon Conis shows him that their ship is next to said badass vessel, which is very puny.
• Episode 9 of Uma Musume has Team Spica get excited about the nice place they're staying...only for the bus to move and reveal the crappy place where they're really staying.

Comic Books

• Inverted in a story in one Beano annual. The characters have hired a boat to go to Australia and when they go to see it, they are shown a rather small battered wooden boat parked next to an ocean liner. They then use the small boat as a ladder to get the liner while the man giving them the boat shouts at them that it's the small one they're getting (he is ignored).
• Happens a lot in Disney Ducks Comic Universe stories where Scrooge McDuck takes his nephew(s) on a trip - mostly with ships for a reason.
• One of the most common running gags in Mortadelo y Filemón. For example, when the duo needs, for example, a plane for a mission, it will appear at first that they're going to get something like an F-22, only to realize that what they're going to get instead is an old, beaten up plane from World War I. Or worse.

Fanfiction

• Played with in It All Started With a Visit to Gringotts when Snape leads Harry to a rented Bentley and then jokingly claims that a beat-up VW Beetle parked behind it is their "real" ride.
• Inverted in Harry Potter and the Golden Ring when Karen asks if the plane Harry bought is behind the 747 they're driving toward.
• An Apple Comes Out of the Cellar ends on Applejack on the receiving end of this trope; Berry Punch tells her to go flirt with a mare drinking red wine. Applejack does only to have the mare throw wine in her face and walk off muttering about "damn fillyfoolers"; as Berry points to the mare she meant, said mare comes over to flirt with Applejack.
• In Leaving Home Seamus and Neville jokingly claim that they rented a tank for Harry's stag night before pointing out the stretch limo parked behind it.

Films — Animated

• In Rio, a group of poachers plan to smuggle exotic birds out of the country by hiding them in float for Carnival. The lead poacher leaves the float-making up to his two underlings, and when the appointed time arrives, he's pleased to spot a very well-made, bird-themed float. However, as it passes, he hears the voices of his underlings calling from the float just behind it, a very shoddy chicken-themed float.
• In Brave, Lord Dingwall presents his only son as a suitor for Merida, the princess. The man she, her parents, and the audience all see is a huge, muscular guy who looks like quite the catch. Then, while Lord Dingwall is describing his son's heroic accomplishments, he pauses, reaches behind the big guy, and drags his real son out into view, a short and skinny kid who is clearly an incompetent doofus.
• In Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, this is done to the audience - after everyone leaves Hotel Transylvania for the vacation, we are shown a sleek aircraft labeled "Modern Airlines" in the sky, but then pan to a bright green aircraft labeled "Gremlin Airlines" which is literally falling apart around the passengers as they fly.

Films — Live-Action

• Transformers: Sam's dad plays this deliberately. When taking him to get his new car, he drives Sam through the parking lot of a Porsche dealer, waiting until Sam says in disbelief and excitement, "You are not getting me a Porsche!" to which Dad replies, "You're right. You're not getting a Porsche," and drives into a used car lot.
• Men in Black. Agents J and K go to the armory to get J a weapon. On YouTube around 2:00.
  Agent K: [shows J a LARGE pistol] Series 4 De-atomizer.
  Agent J: That's what I'm talking about!
  Agent K: [shows J a tiny pistol] Noisy Cricket. [hands it to him]
  Agent J: Kay, no, no, come on, man. You get a Series 4 De-atomizer, and I get a little midget Cricket? [snip] Feel like I'm gonna break this damn thing!
  • This one is actually a subversion of the usual gag, as the weapon J gets really IS the better one; it just doesn't look like it. J is later surprised when the weapon causes massive explosions akin to grenades. (While hurling him backward due to recoil.)
• Played straight in the first Major League movie, when the team is about to board the plane after the Cleveland Indians' Rich Bitch owner seeks to make them finish dead last.
• The introduction of Never Been Kissed pans over a crowd of people, while Josie's voice states that "six months ago you wouldn't have picked me out of a crowd." The camera then focuses on an attractive woman walking along, before the narrative jumps back in, "Told you! I'm over there." The camera then jumps over to Josie herself.
• In The Movie of A Series of Unfortunate Events, the kids find themselves not in the house they liked, with the friendly judge, but in the grim-looking house across the street, with Count Olaf.
• A notable inversion/subversion at the end of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: The crew arrives at Space Dock to take charge of their new ship. The crew argues about which ship they will get. Dr. McCoy trusts the bureaucrats to give them a freighter, while Mr. Sulu opines he would like the Excelsior. Scotty of course scoffs at Mr. Sulu, asking why he would want that "bucket of bolts". Their shuttle starts its approach on the shiny new Excelsior... then flies over it to reveal the smaller ship hiding behind it: the Enterprise-A.
  Kirk: My friends...we've come home.
• The Eddie Murphy Dr. Dolittle has this:
  Dr. Dolittle: Lisa, the more money you have, the more time you can spend with your family. That's the way it boils down. that's true. And in the meantime, you're just gonna have to make do and be happy with this beautiful, fancy sports car you always wanted. Right here, beautiful.
  Lisa Dolittle: Oh, my God, John, you didn't!
  Dr. Dolittle: No, I didn't. The van's around the corner. But I saw how fluttered you got, so don't tell me you don't care about money. (starts mocking) "Oh, John, you didn't. You didn't."
• The Waterboy: While looking through Mama Boucher's scrapbook, Bobby Boucher sees a picture of a young Mama with a hunky guy. When he asks if he was his father, Mama explains he was a guy she dated prior to meeting his father, "That was lust, not love." She then turns to a picture of a dopey-looking man, saying "That's your daddy."
• The Replacements (2000): "You see the yacht with the satellite dish?...Mine's the houseboat covered in pigeon shit next to it".
• An inversion of this happens in The Green Hornet, when Kato shows Britt their Cool Car. Britt sees an ordinary car, but then Kato shows the actual car: the Black Beauty.
• Why Him?: When Ned and Laird go to a Christmas Tree shop, Ned looks at what he believes to be the christmas tree Laird chooses and likes it. However, the tree Laird chose is serving as a decoration at a nearby building.
• Wonder Woman (2017): When Diana notes that "at least Charlie is good with his fists", Steve tells her Charlie is the one being beaten.
• Played with in For Your Eyes Only. 007 and Bond Girl Melina are escaping from the henchmen of the just-killed Hector Gonzales, and Bond tries to bring her back to his Lotus Esprit, but finds the car surrounded by said henchmen, one of whom even triggers the self destruct device. The pair immediately run off to Melina's car... a Citroen 2CV.
• In Muppets Most Wanted, Kermit stands in front of a large, streamlined, electric railway engine as he tells the gang he hired a train for their world tour. He then realises it's there and clarifies "Not that train, this train!" as it moves away to reveal a small, garishly-painted steam engine pulling delapidated carriages. And then the smokestack falls off.

Literature

• Inverted in one Jennings book, when Jennings is expecting to be sent a new bike. The delivery man arrives, opens up his van and pulls out a beaten-up old wreck, much to the amusement of Jennings' classmates — then explains that that's his own bike, and produces the one that Jennings was expecting.
• A reversal of sorts in Star Wars Legends backstory for the Millennium Falcon. Han Solo wins a ship from Lando Calrissian in a card game, and Lando tries to get him to take one of the fancy-looking, worthless, all-style-no-substance ships he owns. Han pretty much says, "Not this one, that one," and picks the YT-1300 "junker". Goes to show how Genre Savvy Han Solo is. And smuggling-savvy. Han IS a smuggler, and the YT-1300 is the space equivalent of a beat up cube van—every legit courier business owns em, and nobody asks too many questions if they see one. Lando was trying to get him to take the equivalent of a Ferrari (high maintenance cop-magnet with no cargo space). Didn't want that, neither did he want the space equivalent of a semitrailer (may be a more efficient cargo hauler on a per-trip basis, but you can bet there will be a lot more regulatory agencies that want a piece of you if you own one- just what a smuggler wants to avoid). He wanted a ship he could turn into a medium-duty smuggling machine.

Live-Action TV

• When Father Ted and Dougal go on a caravan holiday, they are terribly excited at the size of the caravan they've borrowed, but discover that it's not theirs, it's just so big it's totally concealing the shed-sized caravan they actually got.
• Happens in Keeping Up Appearances. Hyacinth has rented a boat, and she is delighted with the beautiful yacht she thinks it is; then it turns out to be the floating nutshell next to it. Her solution? Let's move it a bit further, it will look better on its own. Who am I to contradict Hyacinth, but it would have helped if any of them had actually known how to steer the thing?
• Inverted on Arrested Development when we first meet Rita.
  Narrator: And that's when Michael laid eyes on the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.
  [we see an older, heavyset woman]
  Narrator: No, not that one.
  [the older woman gets up to leave]
  Narrator: Wait for it.
  [the older woman walks away and reveals Rita behind her]
  Narrator: There.
• On Top Gear, the presenters (who typically review unobtainable supercars) are going on a caravan holiday. Presenter James May, standing next to a Lotus Exige, explains that they've chosen something very special for their tow car — cut and pan out to the unappealing Kia Cerato parked next to the Lotus.
• Inverted in an episode of Auction Kings. A customer wanted to auction off a vehicle he'd salvaged, and drove up in a beat-up truck. Paul asked if the truck was what he wanted to sell. Nope, the truck was the customer's working vehicle. Cue a very nice (and, as it turned out, very valuable) Mercedes-Benz convertible.
• On All That, two basketball team captains picking their teammates pass over the Butt-Monkey for various "players" you'd expect to be much worse, including inanimate objects. The final choice of "you" first appears to be him, but it's the cameraman.
• The Sooty Show: In the first episode of the Nineties series Sooty and Co., Sooty and Sweep take delivery of their miniature campervan. Matthew is to get his own vehicle, and is overjoyed to find his own full-sized luxurious campervan...only to find it was actually the bicycle behind it.
• An amusing variation in The Dick Van Dyke Show: when Rob and Laura were dating (while Rob was in the Army and she was in the USO), she was the prize in a dating raffle, much to Rob's discomfort. When they pick the winner, a short, funny-looking guy in glasses goes up to claim her. Rob is relieved...until he clarifies that he's just standing in for a friend, whereupon the real winner (a big, handsome soldier) shows up.
  • Another variation occurs in the episode "It May Look Like a Walnut:" After a horror movie gives them both nightmares, Rob and Laura flip through the channels trying to find a show to calm them down:
  TV Narrator: "Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour in 'The Road to Singapore'!"
  Rob: "Well that can't scare you much."
  TV Narrator: "That's tomorrow night at 2 o'clock. Now back to 'The Werewolf from Outer Space'!"
• In the second episode of the sixteenth season of Hell's Kitchen, Ramsay brings the chefs out to the grand prix and asks them who wants to race. After getting a volunteer, he's all "yeah, right," and reveals that what they will actually be racing is golf carts, which they have to use to deliver their food to Chef Ramsay several times throughout the challenge.
• A variation occurs in the pilot episode of The Orville when Ed Mercer is given command of the titular starship (a mid-level explorer). The admiral giving him the assignment tells him that he could've been given a heavy cruiser if it hadn't been for the recent downturn in his job performance stemming from his less-than-amicable divorce. Mercer doesn't seem to care, though, as he's too excited to be out in space.
• Inverted in the premiere episode of season 12 of Canada's Worst Driver. Host Andrew discusses how the drivers have wrecked pricey sports cars in their past assessment and other challenges. So this year, they're not going to drive one, but instead drive an ugly mobile home, which is nevertheless high-powered and will be good for teaching them, but with the added benefit that nobody will care if it gets wrecked. The mobile home then drives away to reveal a beautiful red Mustang, at which point, he admits I Lied.
• In The Middleman "The Sino-Mexican Revolution", Wendy Watson picks up Sensei Ping at the airport. He disapproves of everything that she does (the ritual greeting, the way she addresses him in general, the way she carries his luggage) but is quite pleased with the luxurious massive black limousine parked right outside. He is less pleased when the limo pulls away from the curb, revealing her Hruck Bugbear AKA "the poor man's Yugo".
• Happens in the The Brittas Empire episode "An Inspector Calls" when Gordon gives his wife Helen what appear to be car keys for her birthday. She goes out, sees what she thinks is the car that Gordon gave her, and tries to unlock it, only for the true owner of it to show up. It's only once he drives away that Helen finds what Gordon actually got her — a (not great) moped.

Newspaper Comics

• Bloom County: Opus was surprised when his blind date was a hot blond chick ("Your photograph doesn't do you justice"), but it turned out it was a double date, and the hot one was Bill the Cat's date.

Radio

• In the Cabin Pressure episode "Newcastle", there is a subversion. A passenger asks the crew whether the plane she is looking at is theirs, in an admiring tone. Since GERTI is parked next to a much better plane, Douglas assumes that she's talking about the better plane and corrects her. She then tells him that she was talking about GERTI.

Tabletop Games

• At least one official mission for Paranoia includes a spiffy pile of equipment that looks like it might actually work and be useful... and is promptly assigned to some other team, after which a much less spiffy pile of equipment is rolled out and assigned to the PCs.

Video Games

• In Mercenaries 2, "The Devastator" has the player sent out to retrieve the titular vehicle from the front lines. At the objective, at first said vehicle appears to be an impressive (at this point of the game) tank◊; it turns out, of course, that it's actually a dainty pink moped, complete with frilly handlebar tassels, hidden behind it◊.
• In Pirate101, after finishing the first few missions, the player is granted their very own ship from Avery's private stock. As such, the private dock the player is directed to has a massive, golden, magnificent Cool Ship. This is, of course, promptly moved aside to reveal the player's raft.

Web Animation

• An inversion in an unproduced Homestar Runner script ("Soap Box Doiby") that was given to the Homestar Runner Wiki. Homestar looks at Pom Pom's racer, which looks like a hideous beat up wreck, and mocks it, saying that it looks like a cow built it. Pom Pom then reminds him that that racer is Homestar's, while Pom Pom's own racer, in Homestar's own words, "looks like several very smart cows built it."

Web Comics

• This strip of Dork Tower.
• Inverted in an episode of Concerned. When Gordon Frohman reaches the rebel base at Shorepoint, he's grown used to their (not unjustified) reluctance to actually give him any aid or materiel, so when the rebels tell him the scout car is reserved for Gordon Freeman, he immediately jumps onto a nearby bicycle while ranting about how he expected nothing else. He rides off... and in the next panel, the rebel is standing next to a lineup of jeeps and sports cars, confused why Frohman didn't ask about any of them.
• In Stand Still, Stay Silent, the small and run-down tank that the main cast ends up using is at the end of a line of much bigger and better-kept ones. Upon seeing the actual vehicle, a character says that it's okay, just a disappointment compared to those that she saw first.

Western Animation

• In American Dad!, Stan brings Steve to a neighborhood for rich people in construction. Stan sees a house of their dreams up in the hill and has Steve look at it, but then, Stan tells him to look at the other house on the other hill...which is exactly the same.
• Inverted in Garfield in Paradise. Stranded in a tribal village, the chief calls for his daughter and her cat to meet his guests [Jon and Garfield]. The first girl and cat they see are rather homely, but then the real daughter and cat emerge, both of them significantly more attractive.
• Kim Possible: In "Car Alarm", Kim's dad opens the garage and announces, "Your new car!" Kim momentarily thinks he's giving her the car he currently drives until he clarifies that he means his old Sloth.
• The Simpsons:
  • In the episode "The Old Man and the C-Student", Bart is ordered to go on community service:
    Bart: What are you gonna do to me?
    Principal Skinner: Bart, not all Community Service is gang warfare and dangerous infection, and to illustrate that point here's where you'll be working.
    [Principal Skinner points in the direction of a storefront]
    Bart: The Fireworks, Candy, and Puppy dog store!?
    Principal Skinner: No, no, no. Next to it.
    [Next to the store is the Springfield Retirement Home, where we see Jasper and the Old Jewish Man sitting. Grampa comes outside]
    Grandpa Simpson: Settle a bet: boil or mole?
    [Bart gapes in horror]
  • In another episode, "King of the Hill", where Homer is convinced to become a mountain climber, has it done twice with the size of the mountain.
  • In "Radioactive Man: The Movie", when Bart reveals that he grew the extra inch they needed for him to be the actor playing Fallout Boy, the director announces, "We've found our new Fallout Boy... and he's right over there!" referring to Milhouse.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In "The Frycook Games", Plankton's entrant makes his way into the arena: what seems to be a massively muscled fish warrior, who actively smashed through the entrance, then turns around to reveal the real participant carried on his back: Patrick.
    Plankton: BEHOLD! This huge guy, who's carrying the real contestant!
  • In "No Weenies Allowed", the bouncer at the Salty Spittoon redirects SpongeBob to the Weenie Hut Jr. ice-cream parlor across the way. When SpongeBob objects, the bouncer corrects himself and points at... Super Weenie Hut Jr.
  • On "New Student Starfish", SpongeBob is showing Patrick around boating school.
    SpongeBob: Behold, Patrick, the Hallway of Learning. And here's the Fountain of Learning. And these are the Lockers of Learning.
    Patrick: And these are the Stairs of Learning, right?
    SpongeBob: No, they're just the stairs. These are the Stairs of Learning.
  • In "Mr. Krabs Takes a Vacation", Pearl is excited as Mr. Krabs drives up to their surprise vacation, and they go towards the teenage boy museum. Cue museum being demolished and Pearl being heartbroken.
• Happens in the Sofia the First episode "Just One of the Princes," where Sofia is shown the horse she'll ride. She first spots a magnificent black horse, but hers is actually right behind it, a stumpy pony. She's still delighted.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: Billy and Pud'n entered a pie eating contest and Billy ate all the pies he saw at a table. However, those were Pud'n's pies. Pud'n was declared the winner.
• Teen Titans: In "Betrothed", Starfire returned to her home planet for her Arranged Marriage. When her sister announced Starfire's husband-to-be, a beautiful Tamaranean boy showed up and Starfire was actually looking forward the idea of being his wife. The boy then revealed a hideous-looking alien as the actual husband-to-be, much to Starfire's horror.
• In Porky And Teabiscuit (1938), Porky Pig thinks he's won a magnificent racing pony in a county fair auction. Turns out he actually won a broken-down nag.
  • Toyed with in the Daffy Duck cartoon "To Duck Or Not To Duck." Daffy and Elmer are in a boxing match. As they meet to shake hands:
  Daffy: (as Elmer extends his hand) Which hand do ya take?
  Elmer: Mmm, eh...(points to Daffy's right) That one.
  Daffy: (holds out his right hand) Nope. Guess again.
  Elmer: All wight, all wight. (points to Daffy's left) That one.
  Daffy: (to us) Boy, is he a dope! (to Elmer) Ya sure this is the one you want? (Elmer nods yes and laughs) YOU'RE RIGHT!! (produces mallet and bashes Elmer on the head)
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: In "Diaz Family Vacation," Star takes Marco and his parents to Mewni. Shortly after their arrival, Mrs Diaz asks Star if it's where she grew up. Star tells her that she grew up in a castle. She points upwards, and the Diaz family gasp with awe at a fancy castle. Star tells them to look higher, and the camera pulls back to show an even bigger, fancier castle behind that one. Star tells them to look even higher, and her actual castle is shown, towering over the second one.
• On Max and Ruby, in "Max's Rocket Run," Max and Ruby go out sledding. They first observe Rocket Run, which Max is thrilled at the idea of. Then, Ruby shows him "where little bunnies go. You'll love it."
  Ruby: This is Bunny Hill, Max. This is the hill you're going to go down. Won't it be fun, Max?
  Max: (looks annoyed, pulls sled away, points towards Rocket Run) Faster!
• The Beatles appear in cartoon form in the Eek! The Cat episode "Octopussy Cat" where Eek is trying to get a squid (which rests on his head) back to the ocean. Eek crashes into a train berth where the Fab Four are in transit:
  John: Who's that, then?
  Paul: Oh, that's me grandfather. (elderly man sitting next to him)
  Ringo: He's very clean, isn't he?
  John: No, not that. That that. (points; cut to Eek and the squid)
  George: Looks like a cat with a squid on 'is 'ead.
• In "Poppy's Cooking Class!" from Butterbean's Cafe, Poppy opens up a cooking class, claming that she can teach anyone. Ms. Marmalady comes in and makes her a bet on that, saying that if she can't live up to it, then she has to come and work for her. Poppy agrees and then she reveals...
  Ms. Marmalady: Oh, you won't be teaching me, you'll be teaching them. (indicates her monkey assistants)
  Spork and Spatch: Hello!
  Cricket: Spork and Spatch!
• In the Thomas & Friends episode, "Twin Trouble", Donald works with Duck after a falling-out with Douglas. At first, Donald enjoys working with Duck, but after a while, things start to go wrong.
  Donald: Did you shunt those trucks onto the other line?
  Duck: You said you wanted them on the other line!
  Donald: Not that other line, the other other line! Douglas would have known what I meant.

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