Basic Trope: A (usually local, occasionally state/provincial or national) government project that serves no apparent practical purpose.
- Straight: The Town of Troperville decides to build a giant statue of Gilligan.
- Exaggerated:
- The Town of Troperville decides to build a large shrine to classic TV in general.
- Troperville is in a horrible condition: the roads are broken, the only school is a Sucky School, the police and fire departments are understaffed, nobody has access to health care, pollution is rampant, and unemployment, homelessness and poverty are through the roof. Instead of doing anything about any of the above, the Mayor Pain decides it's more important to build a giant statue of Gilligan.
- Troperville is at war, and still wastes money on hundreds of pointless Gilligan statues.
- Downplayed: The money that could have gone towards fixing potholes and cracks in Troperville's roads goes to pay for a public pool.
- Justified:
- The Mayor of Troperville just got caught in a scandal and wants to distract the citizens from that scandal, in hopes that it blows over under reduced scrutiny.
- Everything in Troperville is perfect: the roads are newly paved, the schools are great, nobody is homeless or hungry, everybody who needs a job has one, the library is jam-packed with books and other media, the police and fire departments have what they need to do their jobs, the hospitals are state-of-the-art, local farms and factories are productive, every house has electricity and indoor plumbing, nearly all the rest of the town's land is biologically productive green space, and everyone is happy.
- The mayor is hoping to get re-elected by playing to the townspeople's love of classic TV, or by showing his love for classic TV.
- The statue project is a stopgap solution to the unemployment problem; meanwhile, various levels of government are setting up more permanent programs.
- It is more proof of the Mayor being being deaf to his constituents (and enjoying Incredibly Lame Fun in top of that). If it was a statue of Sean Connery (like everybody else in Troperville, Guinness World Record recipient for most James Bond fans in a single city, wanted) the project would have worked like gangbusters.
- Inverted: The town decides to invest the money in its Sucky School to improve it.
- Subverted:
- Troperville invests in a civic project that will bring in money to rebuild the Dying Town.
- The money for the Gilligan statue is coming from the mayor's own pocket, not from taxpayers' money.
- The mayor is Crazy Is Cool. The creepy giant Gilligan statue more than pays for itself in five years as people flock to see its surreal placement.
- Double Subverted:
- It builds a veritable shrine to classic TV, in hopes of attracting tourists Going to See the Elephant.
- Or so he says. He's actually embezzled millions of dollars just to build a giant Gilligan statue.
- However, it is still a terrible investment since the fad was short-lived.
- Parodied: Troperville boasts all kinds of wacky and purposeless structures.
- Zig-Zagged: Troper State's governor builds a giant flood barricade around a city one hundred miles off the coast and built atop a hill to boot. It is widely mocked until a tsunami comes — and it turns out it would have been cheaper to replace the whole town and the investment could have saved more people spent elsewhere. However, the earthquake that spawned the tsunami also resulted in sinking that made it prone to flooding and thus a justified investment over the long term.
- Averted: Troperville is not engaged in any civics project, meaningful or otherwise.
- Enforced: None of the writers likes bureaucrats at all and they all decide to showcase their views on what they believe is corruption, stupidity, and bullying that are standard to anyone and everyone who gets elected or appointed to government on the show by having the Mayor Pain waste fifteen million dollars that are desperately needed to rebuild a neighborhood devastated by a tornado to build a statue of Gilligan, because he just loves Gilligan that much, and then lie about how it will "help with morale".
- Lampshaded: "A giant statue of one of the biggest idiots in TV history. Yes, that's exactly what this town needs."
- Invoked: A sleazy company bribes the corrupt mayor into hiring them to build a giant statue of Gilligan.
- Exploited: The mayor's political rivals hammer him for his wasteful civic projects in attack ads.
- Defied: "We barely have enough money as it is — if you can't give me an idea that will actually benefit the town, then I don't want to hear it."
- Discussed: "Improving our schools? Nah. I bet that Mayor Pain will just find a way to waste our tax dollars."
- Conversed: A viewer asks why the stupid mayor who demanded the giant statue of Gilligan hasn't been voted out.
- Implied: Troperville is full of broken roads, and it has a giant statue of Gilligan that all the town's inhabitants seem to hate.
- Deconstructed: The mayor loses his reelection campaign because the Tropervillans hate his ideas of civic projects.
- Reconstructed:
- The mayor is actually a good leader, and the Gilligan statue is ignored or even forgiven considering his other achievements.
- The other people running for mayor are not even trying to pretend the money they're taking from the city coffers is being invested in the town. The mayor, while head-slappingly misguided, at least tried. He gets re-elected.
- Played for Laughs:
- Every "civic project" has a voice recorder inside it that tells a prerecorded So Unfunny, It's Funny joke.
- People get hurt thanks to the projects — in hilarious fashion.
- The sheer incongruence of a fifty-foot-tall statue of William Gilligan, made of gold and lit with spotlights and torches like the Golden Calf of The Ten Commandments (1956), proudly standing in the middle of Skid Row is Black Comedy at its finest.
- Played for Drama: Troperville is full of Corrupt Politicians who use "civic projects" to enrich themselves and their friends, regardless of what is good for the town. The political system is so corrupt and broken that even though these politicians are widely hated, unseating them is very difficult.
- Played for Horror: The Gilligan statue serves none of the town's everyday needs and is a conduit for an Eldritch Abomination to enter Troperville and, from there, to wreak havoc.
The wiki is full of natter! Why is everyone writing a 200,000-word tribute to Fast Eddie over there?!
