Basic Trope: Bank gives away free toasters to customers who open a new account with them.
- Straight: Alice opens an account at Nth National Bank, and receives a free toaster.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice receives a toaster for opening an account with only a $10 balance.
- Alice the CEO opens up an account for her corporation, and receives an industrial toaster where you place the bread on a conveyor chain and it slides out the other end.
- Alice receives a complimentary tank for opening an account.
- Downplayed:
- Alice receives a cheaper-than-cheap toaster. It can only take one slice of bread at a time, is not UL-approved, only has a 4” extension cord, is notorious for burning toast, and has a faulty spring.
- Alice receives a coupon for a free toaster at Bob's Kitchen Appliances.
- Justified: A large-scale commercial bread bakery just opened in town, so what better way for the bank to convince its new employees to join them; namely, with a device that uses their product.
- Inverted:
- Alice is given a complimentary bank account for buying a toaster.
- Alice receives a toaster from the bank as a parting gift when closing an account.
- The bank actually uses the account sign-up forms to obtain customers' information so they can break into their homes and steal their toasters!
- Subverted: The bank places Alice's deposit in a large furnace at no added cost, and her money is "toasted."
- Double Subverted: Burning Alice's money in the furnace nets her more cash back through a very high savings interest rate.
- Parodied:
- Alice receives a cluster of pointy wooden sticks embossed with the bank’s name. Told they are used for toasting marshmallows.
- When Alice finishes the new-account paperwork and asks for the free toaster, the teller hands her a glass of champagne and says “Here’s to no fee checking and high APRs” (it’s a TOAST)
- A miffed Alice wants to know why she just received a glossy wall photo displaying superhero characters. The teller replies that she got a free poster for opening an account.
- Averted:
- The bank doesn’t give any perks or rewards for opening an account.
- Alice keeps all her money under her mattress.
- Enforced: Black-and-Decker paid the producer well to include their latest Toastest-with-the-Mostest machine.
- Invoked:Alice: So I opened a bank account. Do I get my toaster?
- Lampshaded:Bank: We don't do that anymore, that only happens on TV.
- Exploited: Alice desperately wants to buy Bob a $50 necktie for his rapidly-approaching birthday, but she only has $20 available. Upon learning that the bank gives a free toaster upon opening an account, she opens the account with the $20, gets the toaster, then manages to sell it to some sucker for $50 (at least double what it’s worth) on Greg’s List.
- Defied: The bank president rejects his assistant's idea of offering a toaster.
- Implied: Alice got a new job, and is seen opening a bank account. A later scene shows her leaving for work in the morning with an envelope from the bank in one hand (on which a faint “Welcome to Nth National...” can be deciphered), and a slice of steaming toast in another.
- Deconstructed: Nth National Bank finds themselves losing money on the toaster-promotion deal, since too many people were opening accounts with only a $5 opening deposit, then closing the account a week later, just for the free toaster.
- Reconstructed: Nth National reinstates the free toaster policy, but has a new set of terms-and-conditions, such as a minimum opening deposit of $100, and a cost-of-the-toaster penalty for early withdrawal.
- Played For Laughs:
- Alice examines the “floor model” toaster in the bank lobby, and when releasing the pop-up lever, plastic snakes fly out of the slots. All the tellers and most of the other bank customers laugh hysterically.
- Alice receives a complimentary item that is not a toaster, but rather something much more expensive/outrageous. The joke will also depend on if she opens an account with a deposit so large that it makes sense for such a gift to be given (even if it would make more sense for Alice to purchase it herself) or she opens an account with a $10 initial deposit.
- Alice is given an Undesirable Prize as a gift for opening her account.
- Played For Drama: Alice rushes her 7-year-old son Chuck to the hospital when he burns himself by sticking his hand in the (bank) toaster. A lawyer Alice meets in the ER offers to help sue the bank that gave her the toaster. There's some discussion of the
Unfortunate Implications of being lawsuit-happy and how no one takes responsibility. Then the judge throws out the lawsuit when investigation by the bank reveals that Alice was busy text-messaging in another room, while little Chuck was playing alone in the kitchen and tragically got burned.
The following link will return you to the main Bank Toaster page, but it will not get you a free toaster.
