Opportunistic Vendors

"Several sellers of hot meat pies and sausages in a bun had appeared from nowhere and were doing a brisk trade. [Footnote: They always do, everywhere. No-one sees them arrive. The logical explanation is that the franchise includes the stall, the paper hat and a small gas-powered time machine.]"

— Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

When something big and dramatic happens in public, a big crowd of people will appear, curious to see the spectacle. And in Fictionland, with that crowd inevitably comes vendors looking to take advantage of the event, with carts and hastily-erected stalls and tents full of merchandise. Said merchandise often happens to be conveniently themed around the event, complete with themed T-shirts, even if it just happened a few minutes ago and there's no way they could have obtained those things so quickly. (Of course, they could just as easily turn up with shoddily made goods that fall apart at the slightest touch.)

The scenario is more plausible if the vendor is selling food and pushing a wheeled cart, implying they already had their wares prepared before the commotion happened. But if that happens, expect there to be a chase scene where the cart gets hit by something and flips over, sending food flying everywhere—especially if it's a Fruit Cart.

Opportunistic Vendors have a tendency to be portrayed in a rather negative light, especially if the event is something tragic or involves someone being punished or humiliated in public. In that case, they'll be portrayed as greedy jerks trying to make a quick buck off of someone else's misery. Even if they're not doing that, they can be extremely annoying when trying to advertise their wares, by means of having No Indoor Voice while shouting to draw in customers or putting up large, obnoxious advertisements that take up a great deal of space.

Common variations and gags:

• The most common variation involves a vendor hawking stereotypical movie theatre/sports game food like popcorn, hot dogs, and sodas.
• If the event involves a public shaming of some sort or even an execution, expect at least one vendor to turn up with a cart full of rotten eggs and vegetables for throwing at the unfortunate person on their way to the pillory, stake, or gallows.
• The vendor is selling Torches and Pitchforks to an angry mob, maybe even supplies for making protest signs. May overlap with the previous example.
• Two parties are being pitted against each other and a vendor starts Playing Both Sides by selling merchandise aimed at fans of both parties.
• Alice becomes famous for something and her friend Bob starts selling merchandise themed after her, trying to profit off her new fame. He might justify this as trying to make her even more famous.
• The vendor hastily alters their merchandise based on the opinion of the crowd — for example, using a Sharpie to turn "Alice Rules" shirts into "Alice Drools" shirts.
• Instead of just one vendor, an entire carnival with many vendors is rapidly constructed around the event in a very short span of time.
• Something dangerous is happening, but a large crowd is standing around and watching while treating it like a spectator sport, including vendors selling food. When everyone runs away, the vendors will run away too while pulling their food carts with them as fast as they can, or simply be forced to abandon them.

Needless to say, this trope ignores the massive amounts of work and preparation that go into selling anything at an event in real life: signing up with the organizers, paying to reserve a spot, obtaining any required permits (especially if they are selling food), buying the necessary equipment (table, chair, booth, tent, money box, business cards, storage boxes, etc.), calculating material costs and net profits, making the goods by hand or ordering them from a supplier, advertising themselves in person and/or on social media, and it all has to be done weeks if not months in advance. Fictional vendors can show up at any event they want and pull out large amounts of conveniently themed merchandise from nowhere, due to the Rule of Funny.

Related to Pass the Popcorn, Come to Gawk, Festival Episode, and The Freelance Shame Squad, and frequently involves Ridiculously Fast Construction of stalls and tents. The vendor is probably running an Honest John's Dealership and may be a Snake Oil Salesman. A close cousin of this trope is the Shady Scalper. Compare the equally opportunistic and morally dubious Ambulance Chaser.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Pokémon: The Series: As part of their numerous money-making schemes, Team Rocket often tries to make quick cash by selling various products to the people of whatever city or town they're in at the moment, with varying degrees of success.
  • In "Sleepless in Pre-Battle!", the people of Canalave City are suffering from terrible nightmares caused by Darkrai, which can only be cured by Cresselia's feathers, called Lunar Wings. Team Rocket takes advantage of the crisis and starts selling "Lunar Wings" that turn out to be painted Pidgey feathers.
  • During the Sinnoh Grand Festival arc, they sell photographs of the Coordinators who are competing in the Grand Festival. While they sell a lot of them, Jessie isn't happy because nobody is buying the photographs of her Coordinator persona, Jessilina.
• Ranma ½: Downplayed. One Running Gag for Ukyo Kuonji and the Nekohanten crew is that wherever they go they try to peddle their food to the locals. However, it is not that they are exploiting the chaos so much as they are the cause of the chaos.

Comic Books

• Asterix: In Asterix and Cleopatra, Asterix and Obelix manage to get away undetected after Obelix breaks off the Sphinx's nose. The souvenir vendors all around start chiseling the nose off their souvenir statuettes in response.
• Judge Dredd: The story "Crash Diner" has a more justified example than most, seeing as the Vendor in question, Accident Eddy, is a precog that can see the disaster unfolding well in advance. By the time the cars start piling up, he's already there selling hot dogs. Eventually he has the Judges following him around, trying their best to prevent the accidents before they happen, but more often than not needing to be content with at least having the emergency services on the scene early.

Comic Strips

• The Far Side: A vendor selling "I kicked Santa Ana's butt at the Alamo" T-shirts during the battle starts deeply discounting them as the Alamo's defenders are driven back.

Fan Works

• BURN THE WITCH (Miraculous Ladybug): When Witch Hunter is about to burn Lila at the stake for her many crimes, an entire festival is rapidly constructed around the event with stalls selling food and merchandise so people can enjoy the spectacle.
• Defied in The Negotiationsverse. When Princess Luna is killed in battle during the Conversion War, some businessponies try to profit off of the tragedy but are immediately shunned for their tasteless and insensitive actions.

Films — Animation

• Lucky Luke: Ballad of the Daltons: Inverted. A Running Gag throughout the book is the Daltons keeping on encountering a traveling salesman named Tobias Willis, who always has a thing they need (such as shovels and guns) every time they have a need for it. And every time, they take the thing at gunpoint.

Films — Live-Action

• Ace in the Hole (1951): A man trapped in a cave-in is made into a media circus, with a literal carnival built around the entrance to the cave. This explains the movie's other title, The Big Carnival.
• In the film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: when the tasks for the Triwizard Tournament are taking place, Fred and George circulate, inviting the spectators to take bets.
• In Kaamelott: Premier Volet, the site where King Arthur has put Excalibur back in the stone has attracted souvenir vendors and vendors of dubious medicine.
• Machete: Parodied when the Mexican Network launch a raid on Torrez's base at the climax. After they bust the main gate open with their lowriders and storm the compound, a lone fellow pushing an ice cream cart follows along, firing an Uzi in the air.
• Nope: After the arrival of the UFO, Jupe capitalizes off of the anomaly, creating and selling costumes and toys based on what he thinks the aliens look like, as part of his "Star Lasso Experience", sacrificing horses and profiting off of the extraterrestrial. Needless to say, things don't go exactly according to plan.
• Quick Change: During Grimm's bank robbery at the beginning, crowds gather to watch and cheer as NYPD quickly surrounds the bank; several hot dog vendors can be seen pushing their carts fast, jockeying to take advantage of the sudden business.

Literature

• Discworld: Cut-My-Own-Throat Dibbler and his various Inexplicably Identical Individuals across the Disc primarily sell inedible street food, but will also pounce on any opportunity to make money on every new fad.
• Harry Potter:
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: When multiple students are attacked by the monster residing in the Chamber of Secrets, a black market trade in protective magical items starts up at Hogwarts. Neville buys a large green onion that smells really bad, a pointy purple crystal, and a rotting newt tail before the other Gryffindor boys point out that the monster probably won't attack him because he's a pure-blood and it only hates Muggle-borns. He is not convinced.
    Neville: They went for Filch first. And everyone knows I'm almost a Squib!
  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: When the fifth years are about to take their O.W.L.s (which are extremely important exams), some students start selling potions and other goods that claim to improve one's intelligence and memory. Harry and Ron almost buy a bottle of "Baruffio's Brain Elixir" for twelve Galleons, but Hermione confiscates it and pours it down a toilet. When they protest, she shuts them up by revealing that another student was selling "powdered dragon claw" made of dried doxy droppings.
  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: In the wake of Voldemort's return and the resulting panic, some opportunistic wizards start selling artifacts, potions, spells, etc. for protection against Death Eaters and Dark creatures. Among those goods are silver amulets claimed to be effective against werewolves, Dementors, and Inferi, "protective potions" that are just gravy mixed with bubotuber pus, instructions for "defensive jinxes" that make your ears fall off, and "Metamorph-Medals" that supposedly allow you to change your appearance when worn, but actually make you turn orange or sprout tentacles all over your face.
• James and the Giant Peach: When the titular peach suddenly grows to the size of a small house, the fat and greedy Aunt Sponge wants nothing more than to stick a shovel in the peach and eat some immediately, but Aunt Spiker persuades her that there is serious money to be made by charging people to come and see the peach.
• Judy Moody: In Judy Moody Gets Famous!, Judy is trying to get famous because all of her family and friends have been on the news at one time or another. When her family is having a garage sale, she doctors a cherry pit to make it look old, sets up a table with a display claiming it's from George Washington's cherry tree, and charges people 5¢ to look at it. Unfortunately, a young boy mistakes it for an M&M and swallows it whole.
• In the children's book Moon Man, the unexpected visit to Earth by the man in the moon prompts a huge rush of fire engines, army tanks, and other emergency vehicles. Among these is a mobile ice cream stand, with a footnote that the ice cream man hurried to set up his stand for the spectators.
• So I'm a Spider, So What?: After Kumoko saves a noble family from bandits and heals a young boy's cancer, the people of Sariella believe she is the Divine Beast sent by their goddess, build a temple around her and start paying tribute to her. Sellers start making dolls, bags, and cookies in her image.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: In A Dance with Dragons, when Cersei is being forced to walk naked through King's Landing as penitence for her sins, a massive crowd comes to witness the spectacle. Some vendors appear selling street food, including a baker's boy selling meat pies and a man selling roast rats from a cart. One man eating a rat calls out to Cersei, "Want some, Your Grace?" When she looks away in disgust, he throws the skewer at her, splattering grease and blood on her legs.

Live-Action TV

• Black Mirror: In "White Bear", when Victoria is being condemned and punished for helping film the murder of a little girl, she is driven through a furious crowd in the back of a glass van with people screaming at her and calling her a murderer. A stall is selling sponges dipped in red paint to throw at the van for $2 each.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In "Hush", the bad guys steal the voices of everyone in Sunnydale, leading an enterprising individual to set up a booth selling portable whiteboards and dry-erase markers.
• 3rd Rock from the Sun: When Dick and Harry fall into a hole, it becomes a local media frenzy. Tommy starts selling t-shirts to commemorate "this great marketing opportunity / tragedy".
• Veronica Mars: After the bus crash kills several kids, people start selling merchandise themed around it in a matter of weeks, especially a bus with angel wings.

Puppet Shows

• Fraggle Rock: In the episode "The New Trash Heap In Town", after Gobo has his leg thumped by Junior Gorg, the Fraggles are afraid to go through the Gorgs' garden to seek the advice of the Trash Heap. They proclaim Mokey the new Trash Heap—and soon after, Red appears, selling buttons with pictures of Mokey.
  Red: Mokey buttons! Get your Mokey buttons right here! Right here, get your Mokey buttons! Mokey buttons! Get 'em while they're hot! Only one to a customer, unless you want two!

Theatre

• In the Kurt Weill musical The Firebrand of Florence, the opening Public Execution scene includes a vendor hawking "souvenirs of the hanging of Cellini." After the protagonist gets a Last-Minute Reprieve, the same vendor starts selling "souvenirs of the pardon of Cellini."

Video Games

• Final Fantasy X combines this with Adam Smith Hates Your Guts. The two traveling salesmen (Rin and O'aka) are explicitly following the main party to sell them items, partially because they always seem to find a reason to need those items.
• Undertale: Played for Laughs when you choose to sing with Shyren. One of the action descriptions mentions that Sans is selling tickets made of toilet paper to the nearby crowd.

Web Comics

• Team Fortress 2: When Spy and Scout are about to be publicly hanged, multiple vendors can be seen outside the courthouse, selling balloons, bags of popcorn, "Hang-A-Merc" dolls for $1 each, and T-shirts that say "Hanging of the Century" and "Hang the Teufort Nine."

Western Animation

• The Band Concert: Subverted—when Mickey and friends are holding a band concert, Donald arrives, selling peanuts and ice cream from a cart. However, he quickly abandons it in favor of playing "Turkey in the Straw" on his flute, which greatly annoys Mickey as he's interrupting the concert.
• Family Guy: In "Pawtucket Pat", a mob of angry white guys show up to protest the removal of the town's Pawtucket Pat statue. While this is happening, a man who owns a store selling only tiki torches and New Balance shoes (both of which were co-opted as symbols of the alt-right movement) changes the sign on the door from "CLOSED FOREVER" to "OPEN FOR ONE MORE DAY".
• Fish Hooks: In one episode, Bea's two friends Shellsea and Clamantha get into a fight, and it eventually gets so bad the rest of the school soon gets involved. When Bea asks what they should do about something like this, Randy Pincherson says "profit" and begins selling Team Shellsea and Team Clamantha shirts.
• Futurama: In "Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?", Zoidberg challenges Fry to a one-on-one "Clawplach" battle. At the arena, Bender tries to make money by taking bets from the spectators and even tries to rig the fight in Zoidberg's favor.
  Bender: Fry, I've never asked you for anything before. But if it's not too much trouble, when it comes to the ninth round, just let him win.
  Fry: But it's a fight to the death!
  Bender: Oh, so suddenly this is all about you!
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "The Best Night Ever", when the Mane Six are attending the Grand Galloping Gala, Applejack sets up a stall to sell her homemade apple treats, hoping she'll make a lot of money for her family. Unfortunately, the rich, snobby ponies attending the event don't want to buy her food because they think it's too low-class for them (and because there's a free buffet inside). Not to be outdone, Applejack bakes a massive, three-tiered apple cake and wheels it into the ballroom on a cart, but Pinkie Pie, who's trying to liven things up, dives into it and sends it flying, starting a chain of Disaster Dominoes that destroys the party.
• Robot Chicken: After almost being dropped into a volcano and having a misadventure in the Schlorps' village, Bitch Pudding makes it home to Pastryville, only to find the villagers celebrating her "death" with a giant festival. Fudge Turnover is selling volcano-fried Bitch Pudding on a stick, and other villagers have set up Toss-A-Bitch and Whack-A-Bitch carnival games and a Bitch Pudding-shaped piñata.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Krusty Gets Busted", Krusty is declared guilty of robbing the Kwik-E-Mart, and the town holds a bonfire of things bearing the clown's image. At the gathering, a vendor is selling Krusty merchandise specifically for people to throw in the fire ("Buy 'em and burn 'em!").
  • In "American History X-cellent", Mr. Burns is arrested and wheeled to jail before an audience of townspeople who despise him. Moe takes advantage by selling produce to throw at Burns.
    Milhouse: How much for a tomato?
    Moe: Fresh is a dollar, rotten's two bucks.
    Kirk: Son, do you really need the rotten? I mean, it's not like you're gonna hit him. (beat) Aw, since it's your birthday...
  • In "The Springfield Files", the town turns out to the forest where Homer had witnessed the "alien." Vendors are present selling T-shirts saying "Homer Was Right." Homer lays this on skeptical Lisa, observing how you don't see anyone selling "Homer Is a Dope" T-shirts, but it turns out the vendors already sold out of those shirts. Marge even bought one herself, because she admired the stitching on the word "Dope."
  • In "Round Springfield", a hot dog vendor appears twice to sell Homer hot dogs, once smack in the middle of a graveyard during Bleeding Gums Murphy's funeral. When Marge points out to the vendor how inappropriate it is that he is here, he tells her that his sales to Homer are putting his kids through college.
  • In "Radio Bart", a carnival complete with an array of vendors is built around the abandoned well where a little boy named Timmy O'Toole (actually Bart using his long-range microphone) is trapped, a Shout-Out to Ace in the Hole (1951).
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In "Culture Shock", one of Mr. Krabs' failed attempts at attracting customers is a free salad bar. Later, when the talent show audience starts pelting Squidward with tomatoes from the bar, Krabs complains he's "losing money on this deal" and begins charging $1 per tomato.
    Fish: It's worth every penny!
  • In "Sing a Song of Patrick", an angry mob marches toward the radio station that's playing Patrick's awful song. Two vendors are shown selling Torches and Pitchforks to them along the way, while a third tries selling them cotton candy. After pausing for a moment, they go past him.
  • In "The Two Faces of Squidward", when SpongeBob accidentally hits Squidward in the face with a door and causes him to become incredibly handsome, Mr. Krabs charges everyone $14.98 for the privilege of touching him and throws in a soft drink for $3. However, Squidward gets hit by a flying shoe and falls onto a pole, which turns his face back to normal. As the crowd leaves, Mr. Krabs frantically starts hitting Squidward with the door and trying to make him handsome again while begging them to come back.
• In the Yogi Bear short "Yogi in the City", as Yogi is about to leap from a window ledge high above the city, a street vendor starts selling plush dolls of Yogi.

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