Basic Trope: A significant amount of time passes between the setup of a joke and the payoff.
- Straight: Before leaving for their trip to London, Bob tells Alice about his friend Charlie who lives there, mentioning his distinctive appearance and greeting. An hour of screen time later, Bob's latest escapade knocks down a wall, revealing someone matching Charlie's description who gives his distinctive greeting.
- Exaggerated: Bob talks about his friend Charlie who lives in London and his distinctive appearance and greeting. Five minutes later, Alice mentions her friend David who also lives in London and has an unusual Catchphrase. Alice and Bob talk about things in London every five minutes after that before they leave. An hour later, Charlie, David, and everything else they mentioned comes into play in the space of a minute, playing off each other hilariously.
- Downplayed: While Alice and Bob prepare for their trip to London, Bob mentions his friend Charlie. An hour later, someone matching Charlie's description appears, exchanges greetings with Bob, and is never seen again.
- Justified: It's unrealistic for a punchline to always follow a setup immediately, so the payoff is allowed to come some time later.
- Inverted: Charlie appears early on and gives his standard greeting, possibly in a way you'll only notice if you already know about it. An hour later, Bob mentions him and his usual greeting.
- Subverted: Twenty seconds after Bob mentions Charlie and describes him, someone matching his description appears and gives his usual greeting...
- Double Subverted: ...but it's actually David and he's only making a joke about Charlie. Charlie himself appears an hour later.
- Parodied: Charlie appears an hour after Bob mentions him. After the normal joke plays out, Bob pulls Charlie aside and asks him where he's been. Charlie recaps the events of the film since he was mentioned and explains all the ways he was unable to appear. They get increasingly convoluted as he goes on.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob mentions Charlie and his distinctive appearance and greeting and someone matching that description appears a minute later. However, that's actually David pretending to be Charlie. Half an hour later, Bob falls into a pile of garbage and gets helped out of it by someone matching Charlie's description. However, it's David again. An hour after that, Bob accidentally blows up the front of a house. Someone matching Charlie's description walks out and gives his distinctive greeting. Except it's David again. Ultimately, the end credits roll without Charlie ever appearing. Then someone matching Charlie's description appears in The Stinger and gives his greeting. This time, it actually is Charlie and Bob is surprised to discover it's not David.
- Averted: Charlie is mentioned but never appears.
- Enforced:
- After writing the scene with the setup, the writer realizes he forgot to include the punchline. Rather than rewrite the scene, he decides to put the punchline in a later one.
- When writing the scene with the setup, the writer can't work in the punchline without disrupting the flow of the dialogue. So, he puts the punchline into a later scene where it works better.
- Lampshaded: "Charlie, we were just talking about you...like quite some time ago."
- Invoked: After Bob talks about Charlie, he calls him up and asks him to appear.
- Exploited: Bob mentions Charlie to get him to appear because Charlie owes him money.
- Defied: After Bob talks about Charlie, Alice calls him up and does everything in her power (even threatening his life) to keep him from showing up.
- Discussed: Some time after Bob mentions Charlie, he and Alice talk about if he's going to appear with Alice comparing his mention to the setup of a joke that doesn't pay off for a while.
- Conversed: Alice and Bob watch a number of movies where brick jokes occur and discuss how to properly set one up, how long to wait for the payoff, and how to deliver the payoff.
- Deconstructed: Charlie appears so long after he was first mentioned that Alice has completely forgotten about him. Charlie feels insulted that his appearance was wasted as such.
- Reconstructed: But then Alice realizes that she might have forgotten something else important if she forgot about Charlie, so she works on her memory so that she can remember every detail of her conversation with Bob.
- Played for Horror: Alice and Bob arrive in London as demons start to appear and possess humans in a bid to conquer the Earth. One possessed human matches Charlie's description and gives a sinister version of his standard greeting.
- Implied: At some time during the movie, a construction montage takes place. A couple hours later, Charlie shows up, and Alice says "Bob told me about you a couple hours ago".
Back to Brick Joke. Wait, wouldn't an Inversion make Charlie's appearance be the setup and him being mentioned the payoff?
