Basic Trope: Objects which are conspicuously held together with duct tape.
- Straight: Bob seals a leak around a pipe with duct tape.
- Exaggerated:
- Most of the items in Bob's house are held together with duct tape.
- Bob's SPACESHIP is held together with duct tape. And it works.
- Bob's spaceship is made of duct tape.
- Downplayed: Bob seals a cardboard box with duct tape.
- Justified:
- Bob is lazy.
- Bob doesn't have much handyman's skill and the only tool he really has is duct tape.
- The situation needs a temporary quick-fix, as there's no time to do an actual repair—or else, the materials for a more permanent fix aren't readily available.
- Duct tape is very useful, and if it isn't involved with water then duct tape can be a VERY good fix for cracks or broken parts. It may just be better to work over the item with duct tape than to try something else.
- Bob is using military-grade duct tape.
- Inverted:
- Bob patches a strip of duct tape with a pipe.
- Bob never uses duct tape, even when it would be the best solution.
- Subverted:
- Bob notices the leaky pipe and considers using duct tape... but then sets out to fix it properly.
- Bob considers using duct tape... but ends up calling the plumber, who comes over right away.
- Bob tries to use duct tape, but it doesn't hold together.
- Double Subverted:
- Tomorrow. Today, he's much too busy, so he takes 5 seconds and wraps a length of duct tape over it.
- Who then uses duct tape to fix the pipe and charges Bob an arm and a leg.
- Parodied:
- The house, Bob's clothes, in fact pretty much everything in town is held together with (or outright made of) duct tape.
- Bob has amazing duct-tape's superpowers that allow him to repair anything to perfect condition by just using it!
- Duck Tape For Everything.
- Zig Zagged: Duct Tape works wonders sometimes, but other times it fails miserably.
- Averted:
- All repairs are done using something other than duct tape, except where duct tape is appropriate.
- No repairs are shown.
- Enforced: Rule of Funny
- Lampshaded: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it is broke, just put some duct tape on it!"
- Invoked: Alice asks Bob to fix the leaky pipe, but Bob just wants to watch the game on TV. So he wraps tape around the pipe and calls it good.
- Exploited:
- The Big Bad is Genre Savvy, and knows that Bob will use tape, so he sends in a slew of his Mooks who eat duct tape.
- One person has a fear of duct tape, so another person calls Bob to scare him.
- Defied:
- Bob feels that this job is a little too big of a fix for duct tape and does actual repairs.
- Bob calls the plumber.
- Discussed: "Duct tape fixes everything!"
- Conversed: "The duct tape gag? Writers must like that one."
- Implied: Bob is The Ghost, and he is mentioned doing that.
- Deconstructed: Duct tape is meant to be a temporary solution. A few days later, everything falls apart again.
- Reconstructed:
- It's only used for getting it to the shop for proper repairs.
- But somehow, it holds together for hours, days, weeks, months, years, and Bob has more time to do things he wants to do.
- Played for Laughs:
- It's part of a Doom It Yourself project of some sort.
- A hostage is duct taped to a chair.
- Bob calls the plumber, who fixes the leak with duct tape and charges Bob an arm and a leg for the "repair."
"Three hundred dollars?! For a tape job?! I coulda done that myself practically for free!" - Played for Drama: Someone is seriously injured due to the duct tape's misuse.
- Played for Horror: Bob accidentally puts duct tape on a person. He rips the tape off, resulting in Gorn and Squick.
Back to Duct Tape for Everything
