So Long, Suckers!

"If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner."

— Rule #58 of the Evil Overlord List

This time it sure looks like it's over: the heroes have been captured by the Big Bad, who is gloating and enumerating the ways he's going to kill them. But wait! Someone (or something) suddenly shows up, a defector reveals himself or the heroes put their plan into action, giving them the chance they need to escape and leaving the foe staring at them as they run off while delivering a final taunt: "So long, suckers!"

Subversions may or may not ensue, depending on whether the character performing the So Long Suckers is a hero or a villain (it's way more likely in the latter case).

For when this trope backfires, see Crossing the Burnt Bridge. For the opposite, in which a character runs away from another, but for the opposite reason, see Screw This, I'm Outta Here.

Compare We Will Meet Again. High-Dive Escape is a sub-trope.

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Examples:

Advertising

• In a Geico commercial, Skeletor bids Masters of the Universe He-Man, She-Ra and Man-At-Arms "Catch you on the flip, suckers!" while the villain makes his getaway after distracting the heroes with the product's pitch.

Anime & Manga

• Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water: As Nadia, Jean, and the Quirky Miniboss Squad are escaping from the Tower of Babel.
• Lupin III: Almost all stories end with Lupin taunting Zenigata.

Comic Books

• The cover of Marvel Comics' "What The?!?" #26, where Peter Porker, Spectacular Spider-Ham, says "Sayonara, suckers!" (He jubilates too early, as the cover hints.)
• In Supergirl story The Condemned Legionnaires, as grappling with the villain, Kara tries to melt her mask to find out her identity. However, Satan Girl slips out of her grip easily and flies off as taunting Supergirl about being unable to catch her.
• The Tick: After losing a fight, some ninja actually reads from a paper labeled "Parting Threat"... then Tick throws a chimney at them.

Fan Works

• In the Enterprise Parody Fic "Farce Contact", linguist Hoshi Sato causes a diplomatic incident when she translates "I grip your tentacle in farewell" as "So long suckers".
• ALIEN!!! The Emergency Homophobic Hologram gives this trope as he orders the ship's computer to download him electronically into the Escape Pod, leaving the crew trapped on board the Nostromo which is about to self-destruct. The computer, in a Heroic BSoD because it's going to be blown up with the ship, flat-out refuses to comply.

Films — Animation

• Done almost word-for-word in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. As the townspeople prepare to evacuate, the Mayor rides up and declares "I have an important announcement... see y'ah, suckers!" and jumps onto the first boat... which he proceeds to eat.
• Turned into an Overly Long Gag in Despicable Me, when Gru's Minion successfully snags the shrink-ray but repeatedly fails to get out the way he came, thanks to this trope.
• Subverted in The Incredibles. After being defeated, Syndrome gets to his airborne jet and gloats about how he is sure to escape and will return to claim Mr. Incredible's son someday. Mr. Incredible takes this opportunity to throw a car at him, which results in his death.
• Bing Bong says this in Inside Out when trying to run from Joy who was chasing him after throwing a green memory sphere as a diversion. It fails because he bumps into a cart of memories.
• When Lotso leaves Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and the rest of Andy's toys to die in the incinerator at the end of Toy Story 3, he tells them, "Where's your kid now, Sheriff?", in this tone of voice.
• In Yellow Submarine, as the submarine travels through the Sea of Monsters, at one point, it narrowly escapes being swallowed by a vacuum monster, after which George says this phrase to the monster.

Films — Live-Action

• Pre-teen juvenile delinquent Audrey (played by Jodie Foster) says this word-for-word after being liberated from jail in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.
• In Bananas, Woody Allen's character Fielding Mellish says this and gets knocked out a moment later.
• Some years earlier, in Casino Royale (1967), he (Woody Allen, that is, playing Jimmy Bomd) is at a Latin American firing squad — his last cigarette is a concussion bomb he throws at the shooters. He climbs the wall chuckling "So long, suckers!" — and lands on the other side in another country, in front of a firing squad for another guy.
• Troy, one of the minor antagonists in The Goonies, uses this phrase when he sends Brand flying off the road at high speed.
• Narmful example in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, as Scorpion teleports out with a cry of "Suuckeers!"
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl: "Gentlemen, this is the day you will always remember as the day you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow." Hilariously, the only time he's allowed to say the whole thing, he gets caught.
• A textbook example occurs at the end of The Rocketeer, complete with one-liner and swift ironic death. "I'll miss Hollywood."
• In the second Scooby Doo movie, a prisoner is shown in flashback delivering this line as he escapes from jail... only to fall to his death from the roof. Only he's Not Quite Dead...
  Prisoner: So long, suckers! [escape-wings begin to fail] HELP ME, SUCKEEEEEEEEEEERS!!!
• The last lines of Problem Child 3: Junior in Love by Junior.
• Subverted in This Is the End. When James Franco is being ascended into Heaven, he gloats to Danny McBride and his gang of cannibals of his departure. However, this naturally backfires on Franco as he is both rejected from Heaven and eaten alive by McBride.
  Franco: Go to hell, McBride! Fuck you! Ha, ha! Suck my dick! (the beam that was dragging him up to Heaven disappears and he falls to the ground) What happened? What did I do? Take me back!
  McBride: I'll tell you what happened, Franco. You don't get to get sucked up into heaven because you were being petty; Tom Petty. You may not have invited me to your party, but you're the guest of honor at mine. (chews up Franco's face along with the other cannibals)

Literature

• In the H.I.V.E. Series, at least some of the protagonists do this at least once per book except in the first and seventh.
• In the Discworld novel Maskerade, Greebo (in his human form) taunts an angry mob from the back of a moving carriage. Unfortunately, since he's too busy taunting to steer, the carriage hits a curb and he ends up falling off.
• James and the Giant Peach: After the peach has been surrounded by sharks while floating in the ocean, one of the party calls out "Goodbye, sharks!" when they succeed in their plan to airlift the peach out of the water with five hundred tethered seagulls.
• Averted in the Animorphs novel Back To Before: while making an otherwise-classic fire-escape exit up a building side, Marco and Rachel realize stopping to taunt their pursuers would be a Bad Idea and keep climbing. (Good thing, too, that's about when the Dracons came out...)
• In The Wheel of Time book Towers of Midnight, when Mat escapes the land of the 'finns using the weapon they had given him. "Looks like the game can be won after all...Tell the foxes I'm mighty pleased with this key they gave me. Also, you can all go rot in a flaming pit of fire and ashes, you unwashed lumps on a pig's backside. Have a grand bloody day."
• In The Programmed Man (1968), The Empire was tracking one of a rebellion's top agents. But when they captured him, although he was supposedly able to teleport across even interplanetary or interstellar distances, they discovered he was actually a brainwashed Imperial agent, specifically, the man they'd thought was coordinating the pursuit. Meaning the real rebel agent was aboard their warship, accessing their most critical secrets. When confronted, he laughed and confirmed his identity — and the Imperials remembered his power ... just as he demonstrated it by getting away.

Live-Action TV

• In Power Rangers: Dino Thunder, Trent pulls off a good one when he introduces the Dino atvs to the team, rigging one that the Black Ranger rides, and then escaping in his own while saying "Later, Suckers!"
• Doctor Who. Given the sucker-waving Arch-Enemy of the Doctor, this was bound to come up some time. At the end of "Asylum of the Daleks" gives a final taunt to the Parliament of the Daleks before ducking into the TARDIS.
  The Doctor: You know, you guys should really have seen this coming. Thing about me and teleports: I've got a really good aim. Pinpoint accurate in fact. Or, to put it another way: Suckers!'
  • Clara pulls this on the Time Lords in "Hell Bent."
  Clara: You really are thick, aren't you? The Doctor is back on Gallifrey. Took him four-and-half-billion years to get here. What do you think he's going to do now? VWORP VWORP Why, he's stealing a TARDIS and running away. Bye!

Music

• Reverend Bizarre used this exact trope name as the title of their final album.

Mythology

• Odysseus and the Cyclops: As Odysseus is escaping the now-blind Polyphemus, he yells that his name is "No one". When the other cyclopses come to help, Polyphemus tells them "No one has blinded me!". So they think he got drunk and put his eye out somehow.

Video Games

• In Final Fantasy X, if you use the Flee command with Tidus to run from a battle, he'll spout a quick one-liner while the party escapes.
• The Final Boss fight in Half-Life 2 is an extended version of this trope. Gordon Freeman must chase the fleeing Wallace Breen as he rides a Dark Energy-fueled teleporter to the top of the Citadel; the final portion features Breen gloating rather extensively while Freeman tears apart the device bit by bit using stray balls of Dark Energy. "When the singularity collapses, I will be far away from here — in another universe, as a matter of fact. You on the other hand will be destroyed in every way it is possible to be destroyed, and even in some, which are essentially impossible!" Boy, is he surprised when you blow his ride apart.
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots has a particularly humorous moment of this where Liquid Ocelot childishly mocks Snake as he flees to his command ship.

• In Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Dr. Nefarious pulls this in the final boss fight. He falls to the ground begging for mercy, and Ratchet falls for it believing he's given up, as Dr. Nefarious quickly escapes shouting "Suckers!", much to Ratchet's irritation.
• At the end of Silent Scope, the Big Bad escapes by boat, but pauses well out to sea to shout some taunts at the hero... unfortunately for him, the hero has One Bullet Left. Of course, a shot like that is one in a million...
• Violent Storm: When Joe, the boss of the second level, gets defeated, Red Freddy taunts the heroes with the trope name as he leaves them behind on the train car he disconnected from the main engine.
• After a while in X-COM: UFO Defense, the aliens do this to your Interceptors with irritating regularity.

Web Animation

• Homestar Runner says this word for word after tricking himself into eating a pinecone. It Makes Sense in Context. See the Strong Bad e-mail secret recipes.
  • Homestar also says this to the King of Town after tricking him out of his secret blend of eleven herbs and spices that Homestar needs for Marzipan's Halloween potion. See the Halloween toon Halloween Potion-ma-jig.
• In Episode 4 of Dr. Havoc's Diary, we have Brock Mason shouting "Adios, fuckos!" before leaving Havoc's lair.
• In Dragon Ball Z Abridged, Goku offers to let Vegeta go if he's sorry.
  Vegeta: I'm sorry. Yep. Totally sorry. I just feel terrible. [...] Yes, I'm very, very, very sorry.... [ship door closes] that you're all still alive! [flies away] SUCKERS!! HAHAHAUCH ow ow, it hurts to laugh.

Webcomics

• This The Order of the Stick strip.
• Parodied in this Killroy And Tina.
• When Lance finally encounters Blake in Gold Coin Comics, they duel. After Blake loses, he flees after not explaining anything about his presence there.
• Dr. Shlock in Sluggy Freelance tries to pull an escape after a long storyline of failed escapes, using a smoke bomb to disappear in a literal puff of smoke.
  Dr. Schlock: I hate long goodbyes, so see-you-never you deadweights!

Western Animation

• In the animated series, Carmen Sandiego would do this Once an Episode whenever the protagonists solved her heist and where so very close to catching her. See you next crime!
• Massive subversion in The Simpsons episode "Viva Ned Flanders". Drederick Tatem, several goons, and miscellaneous Vegas types attempt to circle in on Homer and Ned to lay the smack down on them for deserting their Vegas-married wives. Homer and Ned then jump into a convertible, used as a prize at their casino. Homer just has time to say "So long, suck—-" before they all catch up, which results in him and Flanders getting a massive beating from the assorted ensemble. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Said again by Homer in "When You Dish Upon a Star", who follows it with "Eat my dust, suckers!" An annoyed Marge then says "Stop calling everyone suckers!"
  • Similarly subverted in "A Star Is Burns" where Bart trolls a parent-teacher group by showing them a slide of his butt, tries to escape after yelling "so long suckers!"... and is left dangling when the cord breaks.
  • A combination subversion and straight-play happens in The Simpsons Movie when Homer escapes from the mob. He yells "So long, Losers!" and salutes the mob and proceeds to jump into the sand box as he flips them off.
  • In "You Only Move Twice", Homer yells "So long, stinktown!" when driving from Springfield.
  • In "Lisa the Skeptic" Homer yells "So long, suckers!" before driving away with the stolen angel skeleton.
• Happens in every episode of M.A.S.K. — even if the bad guys' team was on the brink of defeat, the Big Bad was always able to transform his helicopter into a jet and escape.
• Futurama:
  • In the episode "Future Stock", "80's Guy" becomes the new CEO of Planet Express. Farnsworth, as he quits, gives him his "business plan". 80's Guy points out that "this isn't a business plan; it's an escape plan!" And before you know it, Farnsworth is making his escape while shouting the trope name verbatim.
  • In "Fear of a Bot Planet", Fry, Leela, and Bender escape from human-hating robots on the winch of the Planet Express ship. Fry shouts the line; the robots stand on each other's shoulders and almost reach the winch. Fry says: "Uh, hello, suckers!
  • Used in another episode where Bender is given a letter telling him he's to attend a will-reading from his rich, dead uncle.
  Bender: Well, I'm rich. (crumples up paper to the floor and begins walking out) Goodbye, losers, whom I've always hated!
• On Family Guy one Cutaway Gag shows Quagmire doing this when he thinks he's the one getting the Spin-Off.
  "See you later, bitches! Have fun with your stupid fucking giant chicken jokes and your Conway Twitty... Hey, why's there a moving truck outside Cleveland's house?"
• In a The Fairly OddParents! episode, "Baby Face"; Timmy meets an adult who was left behind 60 years ago by his parents and since then, he's been trying to escape, saying this phrase word-by-word. He always gets caught until a wall gets broken and he finally escapes.
• In the Bugs Bunny cartoon Hare Lift, bank-robber Yosemite Sam shoots this line to Bugs as he bails out of their crashing plane with his loot and the only remaining parachute. Unfortunately for Sam, he lands right in an open-top police car filled with angry officers.
  • The Lyin' Mouse had a mouse whose tail is in a mousetrap pleading for his life to the cat, so the mouse spins the tale of The Lion And The Mouse. Touched by the story, the cat releases the mouse who gives a very sincere (maybe too sincere) "Thank you!" Just as the mouse is about to run back into his hole, he says "Sucker!" to the cat.
  • From Hand to Mouse takes this trope up heavily, involving a mouse that shouts "Sucker!" every time the dumb lion releases him.
• Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines: In "Vacation Trip Trap," Dastardly has his two-week furlough approved. As he bolts out the door with his grip he bids a caustic farewell to the rest of Vulture Squadron:
  Dastardly: So long, suckers! The pigeon is all yours!
• Totally Spies!: We have Mandy and "Later, losers!".

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