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Trope, Absurdity Ascendant, Madness Tropes,
Comedy Tropes
Gambit Index
Older Than Dirt
Combat Tropes
Suspiciously Convenient Index
Crazy Prepared
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Random Cop #1: Someone call the Avengers or somethin'--
Random Cop #2: -- And tell 'em what? A polite robot just walked into the U.N.?
Random Cop #3: (into radio) -- got a 4-3-7- at the U.N. --
—Uncanny X-Men #366 (The Marvel Universe: sooner or later, you get used to it.)
Simply put, a character is prepared for a highly unlikely scenario. Nobody else thought it would happen. Only it does happen, and said character was prepared for it. He may even remind his friend[s] that I Warned You.
Usually done in comedic works to humorous effect, but can also illustrate the foresight of a character in more serious works. Done poorly, it's an Ass Pull by the writer.
If you always have on hand what it takes to MacGyver your way out of a tight spot, or have your large, impressive gun rack all sorted by varmint size, this trope is for you.
See also: Properly Paranoid, Suddenly Always Knew That, You Never Asked, Unspoken Plan Guarantee, Batman Gambit, Hidden Supplies, Survivalist Stash, Seen It All and Crazy Survivalist. Contrast Forgot to Feed the Monster. Trust Password is a subtrope. When programmers try to anticipate everything the user might do, then The Dev Team Thinks of Everything.
Examples of Crazy Prepared include:
Sent up in an ad campaign for Smirnoff Ice, in which the host has a very conspicuous preparation for (with the exception of one drunk driving device) extremely unlikely events, such as a giant tennis ball catapult in case of giant dogs and a surprisingly dinky trident in case a kraken surfaces from the swimming pool.
One of Mastercard's "Priceless" commercials featuring MacGyver (yes, starring Richard Dean Anderson) shows him buying all the little things he uses well ahead of time.
A few Toshiba ads suggest that their products have certain features specifically to avert extremely unlikely circumstances. For example: shock absorbers in a laptop to prevent a person from blowing out power for all of America by plugging in a damaged computer, leading to a Zombie Apocalypse by way of spoiled milk. Or putting wi-fi into televisions to prevent malfunctioning GPS satellites that lead absentminded drivers to drive off cliffs.
In this Vodafone Omnitel commercial, the main character must smuggle the title product across some kind of checkpoint. Ducking into a car-wash, she changes clothes and removes a very lifelike mask to reveal a completely different look. Qualifies because the mask is a duplicate of her normal appearance, and the curly-haired blonde underneath it is a disguise-by-makeover.
This woman could easily be part of the Batfamily. Everything the public servant tries, she's ready...
Fist of the North Star has the sacred martial art, Hokuto Shinken, which apparently comes with a specific technique for violently countering any attack as well as inducing Karmic Death in any manner of villain (for example, if you garrotte people to death because you're evil, the right combination of pressure points will cause you to decapitate yourself with it). In an interesting example of characterization involving this trope, the later volumes see the main character relying less on cute special techniques to kill random Mooks and being content to merely punch them into pudding (unleashing your hidden brute strength is another of the style's techniques...)
Mazinger Z: In one episode, an enemy was unceasingly shooting missiles at the Hover Pilder to preventing Kouji from docking with Mazinger. Kouji pressed a button, and his vehicle let go a trail of smoke to make the enemy believing he had been shot down and having him stopping to shoot as he docked.
Juzo Kabuto from Shin Mazinger is a very well-prepared Mad Scientist. In addition to building escape routes all over the city, he also created a secret Shinto command center inside a shrine, complete with 100 armed Bodhisattva statues projecting images from their eyes and operating dozens of levers and switches at once. The shrine functioned as a remote control for the series title Humongous Mecha, in case his grandson found himself unable to pilot. Tsubasa even more so, with enough firepower at her inn to let four Badass Abnormal men and one woman hold off legions of robots single-handedly.
Urusei Yatsura: Lum nearly always carries around some kid of weird alien device is useful to the situation at hand (and usually it makes the trouble one hundred times worse). It is also lampshaded: during one Christmas party in Shutaro's manor, Ryoko -Shutaro's little sister- has planted several dozen of bombs around the place (in revenge for not getting invited to the party by her brother). Lum says she has an explosive detector, and Ataru asks if she always carries one around.
In Elfen Lied, Bando spends every day picking up trash from the beach so it can't be used as a weapon against him.
We are told that Hayate the Combat Butler keeps multiple flavors of jam packets in his pockets. Nagi also mentions that when a master asks for gum, any properly trained butler will have EVERY possible flavor on hand... just in case.
Yuuko the Dimension Witch of xxxHolic and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle sees all that is to be and has the proper equipment for it...if you can meet her price.
In an episode of Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z, Miss Keane has a counter on hand for any bizarre excuse the girls come up with to leave class, thinking they're trying to cut class. These excuses include a hip ulcer, having to go into space, and attending a wedding of mole people. She also calls the President of the USA, and is nearly able to charm Mojo out of a rampage.
Mayuri Kurotsuchi of Bleach invoked this trope in his fight with Szayel Aporo Granz, revealing a crazy number of preparations. To whit, he:
Planted bacteria on Ishida during their previous fight so he could monitor him.
Made it so his Bankai could self-destruct if it was ever used against him.
Replaced all of his organs with fake ones to render himself immune to Szayel's voodoo-style powers.
Planted poison in his vice-captain Nemu's body in case she was subject to Body Horror.
All of the preparations he made prior to arriving wound up getting used, even the ones that Mayuri couldn't have planned for based on what he had seen of Szayel's abilities thus far (like his ability to infect and control other beings, or his squicky method of resurrection). This led to jokes in the fandom about how Mayuri had reached "Batman levels" of planning. Going even further, in one of The Movies it's revealed that he keeps a backup brain with a copy of all his memories.
Ichigo explodes out of the garganta and swings his sword at the back of Aizen's neck. He gets blocked, not because Aizen saw him coming, but because he has a shield on the back of his neck.
In the Houshin Engi manga, before the battle between the Yin and Zhou, Taikoubou gives the commander of the Zhou army a manual containing every possible move the Yin army could make and how to counter it. He made it the previous day.
Shikamaru Nara, Naruto's version of Batman, has been shown in the anime thinking of plans and strategies to use against various Akatsuki members if he were to fight them. Later he preplanned a fight against two supposedly immortal Akatsuki. Guess who came out on top? Subverted when he fought Temari and thought of over 200 plans in his head--none of which would have worked because of his own physical lacking. He's since largely surpassed these limitations.
It's been theorized that Kishimoto added Ino, Rock Lee, and Hinata to the storyline so that he could potentially resolve the Naruto/Sakura/Sasuke love triangle however he wanted without anyone getting hurt. Sasuke's Face Heel Turn and the opinions of the fandom may have complicated things, however.
The Fourth Hokage deserves an honorable mention here as well after the events of issue 439, where it is revealed he built a fail safe into Naruto's seal so he would appear if Naruto ever lost control in order to restore order.
In Chapter 370, it's indicated that he may have sealed the Nine-Tailed Fox into Naruto as some sort of preparation against Madara Uchiha, and sealed the Yang half of the fox's chakra into Naruto in order to have him one day complete a jutsu that would enable him to control the fox's power.
Chapter 498 it is revealed he also put Kushina into the seal, to appear to help Naruto gain control of the Kyuubi. Later on it is also revealed he put his own personal teleportation seal into Kushina's seal, so that he could go to her whenever he wanted.
Itachi Uchiha also deserves honorable mention for having two contingency plans set up to ultimately protect Sasuke, the first one has failed, but the second one lies in the hands of Naruto. The second plan has, while not failed, went in a direction Itachi was not expecting thanks to Kabuto forcing him to fight Naruto and use his Mangekyo Sharingan.
In his final battle, Kisame demonstrated this trait. After preparing a scroll containing vital intel, he was found out by enemies and attempted to flee. Knowing he couldn't escape, he summoned a shark to carry the message, only to be intercepted. So he summoned a few hundred spares to distract the enemy before personally launching a massive attack. When all of that failed and he was captured, he had his own summons kill him, ending the threat... until his intel scroll turned out to be a trap that held his enemies still while a new shark summon made a run for it with the intel!
For her final battle with Madara Konan prepared six hundred billion exploding tags.
Movie villain Dotō Kazahana has a train equipped with kunai gatling guns, a blimp and a suit of armour that has functioning wings, which says a lot about him considering the level of military technology in the rest of the world.
Light Yagami of Death Note. One of the most astounding examples is his decision to hide a miniature TV within a packet of potato chips (a flavor the rest of his family hates) in case of surveillance cameras being placed in his house, so that he can use the TV to gain information on criminals without it showing up on camera.
He also schedules killing of criminals in advance, so that in case he falls sick and lands up in hospital for weeks, he would not be suspected of being Kira.
The TV was only a tactic devised as a result of an even more Crazy Prepared plan he had to test if anyone went in his room without him knowing; 1) tilting the door handle down slightly in the closed position; if people return it to the normal closed position after leaving the room, he will notice that they went in 2) lodging a piece of paper in the door that would fall out if it was opened and 3) having expected and intended the people who wanted to sneak into his room to find and replace the paper, putting pencil lead that would break if the door was opened onto the door hinge. There's also his creating the hidden compartment in his desk drawer with the igniting gasoline trap to prevent anyone from finding the Death Note itself.
In a subversion of Chekhov's Gun, the hidden compartment is never triggered. It's just to establish that Light is, in fact, Crazy Prepared.
He also keeps a Porn Stash for the sole purpose of convincing possible spies that he hasn't detected their surveillance devices. The crazy part isn't that he takes these measures to protect the Death Note. It's that he routinely used all the tactics to tell him if someone entered his room before he found the Death Note, despite apparently keeping no possessions of any real value to him in there and knowing of no reason for anyone to want to go in. Although, he does seem to be a very private (read secretive) person. (Though the pre-Death Note "protect the room" measures aren't that crazy when you remember that he has a younger sibling).
L, under 3 different aliases, has made sure he's the top 3 detectives in the world in case somebody wants to learn his identity. This is just a small example, because to try and list every single Crazy Prepared thing he's done would just be impossible.
What takes the cake for L being Crazy Prepared comes from the live-action film series, in which he writes his own name in the Death Note just in case Kira decided to do it, setting his date of death at a certain time in the future and couldn't be altered. While this might seem more "crazy" than "prepared" this is what lets him catch Light, which is something his anime and manga counterparts failed at.
In hindsight, thinking about L having set up not one, not two, but a freaking mansion full of successors in the case of his death was not only looking very far into the future, but it doubled as a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
One seriously overlooked item in the End of Evangelion is when the Geofront rises out of the ground. Apparently, in addition to their Everything Sensor, Nerv has an altimeter on a stationary geological feature. Not only do they know and say what their altitude is, but it's in BOLD in a corner as if it's been there all along.
Yu-Gi-Oh!! and all of the card playing characters use this trope to the extreme, with characters countering, counter-countering and counter-counter-countering each other regularly and with ease.
Lampshaded in the the Abridged Series quite a lot. "I play this card, which would be completely useless in any other situation!"
Happens in the real life version of the game much more than one would expect; or maybe not, seeing how counters and traps and effects that work against each other are the whole point of the game. For example, there's a counter trap called "Counter Counter" which specifically counters the use of any other counter trap, which are only used in response to something else, up to and including trap activation. So, theoretically, you could use this to counter your enemy's attempt to counter your counter to a spell of theirs.
Yu-Gi-Oh! GX has Daichi Misawa. His opponent throws his Deck in the ocean before their match. No problem! He keeps six Decks on his person at all times and uses a different one based on the opponent. Too bad we only ever get to see two of them.
Inori Yamabuki. Whoever brings an umbrella to the amusement park to protect from splashing water caused by log flume?
In Baccano!, it's shown that the Daily Days newspaper company has seen to it that every single employee in their headquarters keeps a loaded gun in or under their desk, which they're instructed to take out at the slightest suspicion. It's taken even further in the novels, where desks and supplies are carefully arranged so that, should a firefight break out, all employees have access to cover while intruders are wide-open and thoroughly screwed.
Nicholas: My apologies. You can't be too careful in our trade.
Sagara Sōsuke from Full Metal Panic. He has, at hand, any and every kind of weapon you can possibly find. And he can pull any of them out at any time from... somewhere. In one episode he's shown to even have a biochemical suit handy, which he promptly puts on. He received by error a biochemical weapon, so he must have "somehow" prepared it in advance.
Kiritsugu Emiya from Fate/Zero. Having been bound to a contract not to perform an actual murder, his associate barges into the hostage situation with a machine gun.
Kayneth el-Melloi Archibald's magus' fortress with a bounded field and summoned monsters proves to be highly useless against C-4 applied to the supports which is then detonated.
Kirei Kotomine with his bulletproof priest's robes.
In Mahou Sensei Negima, Negi's ability to be Crazy Prepared is pointed out as his greatest strength. This is seen most clearly in his fight with Jack Rakan. The kid essentially learned an anti-army spell, completed several techniques that his master had given up on after hundreds of years of work (which he combined with said anti-army spell), and created his own uberspell from scratch...to use as a distraction, so he could set up his real plan. Upon that failing, he reveals that he was still delaying one high level spell "Just in case".
Mana has shades of this as well.
Yue takes the cake, having embedded a time-delayed anti-paralysis spell into herself as a guard against one her "sixteen predictions". She was right.
As does Chao Lingshen.
In Combattler V, an episode involves the villain kidnapping the team's super scientist. He then exploits Professor Yotsuya's drinking problem to make him drink some wine with truth serum in it. Luckily, the professor had a capsule with an antidote hidden in his teeth.
In an episode of Outlaw Star set on a space station where conventional firearms are forbidden due to safety concerns, Gene Starwind for some reason has paintball bullets for his gun which he uses to disable the visual sensors of a Powered Armor Mini-Mecha.
Fridge Brilliance! That tactic would work pretty well on damn near anyone, making them a sensible alternative. He probably replaced all his ammo the instant he learned about that policy - the instant you take guns off the table, you're catnip to the next psycho with an axe who will know for certain that you're not armed, let alone over-funded pirates with Mini Mecha.
Ah Blue from Pokémon Special. When exactly did she think to stuff her shirt with Pokeballs and pretend her Ditto is her arm before her actual battles? She screwed her opponents good. She also always takes careful notes on everything she does, which backfires on her when Silver steals them to figure out where the final battle would take place despite the fact she didn't want him anywhere near it.
Giovanni also shows shades of this as he always brings a Mewtwo Restraining Bolt on him just in case the Pokemon unexpectedly shows up to try to kill him.
The Team Rocket trio in the Best Wishes arc of the Pokémon anime. As a result of them taking a level in Badass, rather than being blasted off again by Ash and Co. (especially Pikachu), they now blast themselves off with jetpacks before the heroes can even deliver the finishing blow on them.
Armbrust from Kiddy Grade never traveled without his metal case. The case (called the Black Box) has extradimensional powers and can shapeshift, enabling him to transport things, people, anything the situation may demand, and he always seems to show up just when he's needed. The case is also bulletproof, and can repair damage at the press of a button.
When Reiko, one of the Gate Keepers whose power of illusion is activated through her piano playing, ran away with the Gate Robot, Invaders suddenly attack! It's a good thing the Gate Keepers' secret agency A.E.G.I.S. just so happened to have a secret weapon for the Gate Robot: GR 05 V, which was essentially a giant piano.
Crocodile in One Piece.
He was prepared for every possible setback against the Straw Hats. After imprisoning the Straw Hats, he tosses the key into the mouth of a crocodile in a whole pack of crocodiles (making it difficult to figure out which one ate the key) and explodes his underground base, so that the Straw Hats would drown. When it looked like the Straw Hats found the right crocodile, Crocodile reveals that key was a fake and he had the right one on him the whole time. In fact, if it wasn't for him not knowing about Sanji and Chopper and Mr 3 managing to survive inside a crocodile, the Straw Hats would have been died.
There was also his plan with the bomb in Alabasta. He engineered it so that even if the cannoneers are defeated, the bomb was rigged with a timer. And when forced to fight with his hook, he has a poisoned backup hook underneath that hook. And if that hook is broken, he can eject a knife in its place.
How does one defeat a phoenix, a being who's immortal, in High School DxD? Simple; have a Longinus that doubles your power every 10 seconds, have a cross and holy water in handy, a skill that enhances the effects of anything you desire, and sacrifice your arm to turn it into a dragon just so you don't get burned by the effects of the cross and the holy water. Oh and as a backup, have two bottles of holy water in handy. This is what Issei did to finish off Raiser.
Batman/Batfamily
Batman apparently spends most of his time devising contingency plans to use in the event that he has to fight a given individual, to the point that it's widely said that Batman can beat anyone or anything "if he's prepared". For example, he carries a chunk of Kryptonite on his utility belt at all times, "just in case". He also prepares himself to an almost unhealthy extent, regularly injecting himself with antitoxins in the off chance a poison wielding villain might attack him, and training most of his day. There are some thing you just can't ever see coming, like zombie Abraham Lincoln armed with an assault rifle. Such are his preparation skills that he's earned a place amongst the Trope Pantheons, specifically, in the House of Mentalism.
Dick Grayson (Nightwing/the first Robin) is also highly prepared. In the first volume of the threepart series 'Trinity' a villain by the name of Swashbuckler steals Nightwings mask. Which Grayson promptly has destroyed via an explosive charge set for voice activation. The command phrase was only "Autodestruct."
Batman has attempted to be prepared in case of the inevitable superhero Face Heel Turn, most notably in two infamous incidents. In the "Tower of Babel" arc of the Justice League comic, it was mainly confined to the League. The second was shortly after Identity Crisis where Batman decided to secretly tab every superhero/metahuman on Earth he could, so he built the Brother Eye program to monitor them. Both blew up in his face horribly (Ra's found and used the files and Brother Eye was hijacked by Max Lord and, later, Alexander Luthor).
That being said, while they did indeed blow up in his face, they did so by incapacitating every member of the league, who all needed to be saved by the backup plans to THE BACKUP PLANS! Yes, indeed; Batman is so prepared, he even prepared for his contingency plans to get stolen.
In JLA: Year One, Martian Manhunter also had files on every superhero he knew of, including weaknesses and secret identities. They were again swiped and used by the bad guys.
Tim Drake, Robin III, is similarly prepared. In his own comic, while fighting another vigilante, they fall through the roof into a bowling alley, with Tim landing on an enormous display bowling ball. He stands up, and uses his feet to start rolling it toward his opponent, thinking, "Believe it or not, I actually trained for this. I told Bruce it was stupid at the time. We'll have a good laugh when I get back home."
Tim recently defeated Lady Shiva. Lady Shiva who's like the best Assassin in the world, and aside from Bronze Tiger and Richard Dragon, probably the best martial artist in the world. You wanna know how? He had poisoned some complimentary chocolates from the hotel she was staying at, before she wrote the letter challenging him. The poison was a paralytic triggered by an increased heart rate. Like in a fight. Against Robin.
In one issue of Young Justice, the new team goes on a camping trip to get to know each other better. Around the campfire they start a game of "truth or dare," and Superboy promptly dares Robin to remove his domino mask. He does.... revealing another domino mask underneath. He admits that he had put the extra mask on before they left, figuring that this game would come up.
Arrowette: You were toilet trained at six months, weren't you...
In an issue of Gotham Adventures, a criminal "artist" named Kim escapes from Arkham and begins leaving clues at crime scenes in a manner reminiscent of the Riddler. Riddler is furious that someone is stealing his gimmick and tracks Kim down himself. As they fight, Riddler asks what all the "clues" were supposed to mean. Kim reveals that they were actually references to an art film by a foreign director, and he was merely making an artistic statement. Riddler rants about how that is completely pointless, as nobody will ever understand such a reference, and the point of leaving clues is to give your opponent a fighting chance. Whereupon Batman shows up and reveals that he understood the clues just fine. When asked why he would watch random films and memorize the biographical information of their directors, Batman replied "In case I had to."
Really, Kim won this argument - Batman had memorized the pertinent info, but had never seen the film. The final panel is him having learned a life lesson to stop and smell the roses, sitting in the Batcave watching what amounts to a Kurosawa film on the Batcomputer.
In one issue of JLA, the Martian Manhunter has shifted into a Japanese woman using the name Hino Rei. Batman recognises J'onn instantly, and mentions that "the name is a giveaway". Yes, Batman knows enough about Sailor Moon to spot the name of Sailor Mars. Amusingly, this is because the author got pranked; he asked a friend for a Japanese woman's name that would translate out to 'Poet of Mars', thus establishing Batman's linguistics genius; instead his friend deliberately gave him the secret ID of Sailor Mars, and so the author inadvertently established Batman's otaku cred.
Batman's crazy preparation is shown to an extreme in the Batman: RIP storyline, in which we find that in case of psychological attack, he has created a backup personality known as "The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh". Said personality might actually be crazy, making this a literal example. This is not, however, not the first time he's done something like this. In a Gotham Knights story, Bruce uses a contingency plan that involves hypnotizing himself to essentially strip the Batman part of his identity and leave only the Bruce Wayne part, in case someone found out and he needed to take extra measures to convince them (and others) otherwise.
In Batman #666, it was shown that in a possible Bad Future, Damian Wayne would become Batman. However, since he knows he's not as skilled as his predecessors, he makes up for it by booby-trapping every major building in Gotham in case he has to fight there.
Rather infamously in JLA 59 Batman engineered the defeat of Polaris to end with the JLA victorious, Superman's healing accelerated by the hole in the ozone layer and himself standing on a teleportation disk he had hidden in the arctic for just such an occasion. Appropriately he ends the comic with the words "always plan ahead".
In an issue of Superman/Batman, it is revealed that Batman carries around a lead-lined mirror just in case Superman ever turns evil and Batman can't avoid his heat vision. Because, you know, that situation comes up so often. (although, considering the rate at which it happens in Superman/Batman, it may actually come up quite a lot...)
During the Hush arc of Batman, it is revealed that if he is ever knocked unconscious, his helmet will release tear gas on anyone brave enough to reach for his mask, as well as his suit tasering anyone stupid enough to touch him. The taser shows up in The Dark Knight.
Lampshaded by Jaime Reyes, the Blue Beetle, in one of his teamups with Batman. An enemy has just ambushed them by essentially spawning an arctic blizzard ramped Up to Eleven above them, causing them to get buried in a few meters of snow. After Beetle breaks out and stops the blizzard by scaring off their attacker...
Blue Beetle: Batman! Hold on! I'll find you and get you out! Can you break out the Bat-Snowblower or something?
(minor explosion)
(Batman digs his way out of the hole caused by the explosion)
Blue Beetle: (in awe) Please don't tell me you actually have a Bat-Snowblower...
Batman: Heating flare capable of melting through ice in a hurry. You'd be surprised what you pack after going up against Mr. Freeze enough times.
Further demonstrated in a recent issue of Superman/Batman where the world is under the control of Gorilla Grodd except for Batman. Batman's arm is robotic and Superman is gone in space because the atmosphere has Kryptonite in it. By the end of some long convoluted that proves enough how Crazy Prepared Batman is, it turns out that it was just a simulation of that potential scenario just in case and Batman reveals to Alfred that he does these all the time.
There was an Elseworlds comic called JSA: The Liberty Files which had an alternate reality version of Batman, Hour Man, and Mid-Nite on a train in their civilian identities. They were simply eating dinner when they were suddenly attacked by a villain. Batman, as Bruce Wayne, opens his jacket and throws two grenades. One of the heroes remarks, "You brought grenades to dinner?" to which Bruce replied, "I needed them, didn't I?".
In The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Batman is well prepared for Superman coming to pay him a visit. He has The Atom place small charges all over Supes, after which Green Arrow shoots him with a Kryptonite arrow, all before Batman then hands his ass to him with Green K gloves. And then for the Crowning Moment of Awesome, Superman tells the Bat he only came to talk, to which Batman replies, 'We're done talking. Get out of my cave.'
In one issue of Gotham Adventures, Harley Quinn writes a trashy romance novel that controls the mind of whoever reads it. Tim and Barbara were controlled while Bruce wasn't. Why? He wore leather gloves while reading it.
Batman Does Not Like Guns, but he still takes his proteges to the firing range. When asked why, Batman explained that it's useful to know as much about guns as possible even if he doesn't use them.
In one Brave and the Bold comic, Batman reveals that he keeps a one-way one-shot handheld teleporter preset to the vicinity of a black hole in his utility belt. Just in case.
Live Action:
This was done to ridiculous extents in the '60s Adam West Batman, where, instead of being simply prepared, Batman had an inane gadget for every situation. This came to a ridiculous head in Batman: The Movie, where Batman is attacked by a shark while hanging from a helicopter, but thankfully, the helicopter has a canister of shark repellent bat-spray. The shot of the cabin reveals the helicopter also has barracuda, whale and manta ray repellent sprays.
Music Meister: Even without shark repellent/ he's tougher than he seems...
In an episode where Batman and Robin are saved by a seal, using a live fish Batman had in his utility belt. Robin asks "Where did you get a live fish?" Batman says " The true crimefighter always carries everything he needs in his utility belt, Robin"
Alphabet Soup Bat Container.
To survive an attack by Mr. Freeze, in one episode he and Robin have on their Bat Thermal Underwear!
To counter the situation of Bruce Wayne Held Hostage, he carries around dehydrated Batsuit tablets, so that he can turn into Batman given a glass of water.
When The Joker tried to hypnotize the Dynamic Duo using his hypnosis box, it doesn't work. Robin informs the Joker they had taken their Bat-Anti-Hypnosis Pills from the Bat-Pill Dispenser on their Bat-Utility Belts!
Parodied in a DC/Wildstorm crossover miniseries here. The members of Planetary are fighting various Alternate Universe incarnations of Batman, and at one point the Adam West version uses a can of "BAT-FEMALE-VILLAIN-REPELLENT" on Jakita Wagner.
This was parodied in an episode of The Simpsons where Krusty was a guest-villain in an old rerun of Batman. Krusty's plan was to spin Batman and Robin on a carousel so rapidly that they would apparently "blush themselves to death". Fortunately, Batman happened to have a can of Carousel Reversal Spray with him.
Krusty: Uh, what don't you have in that belt?!
Batman: Patience! For harlequin hoodlums like yourself!
In one episode where bars of a window high above the ground needed to be welded, Batman told not to throw away the door due to pedestrian safety. He then uses a bat-hanger to hang those bars.
He also had all-purpose bat-swatter in case of an insect attack.
In the otherwise forgettable Batman and Robin movie, Batman and Robin run into Mr Freeze for the first time and slip on his ice. They then reveal that they had ice skates hidden in their boots despite there being no possible reason for them to ever install/use them before Mr Freeze who they didn't know about before he showed up.
In The Dark Knight, The Joker was often even better prepared than Batman himself. It helps that he's both a Magnificent Bastard and an unapologetic Complete Monster.
Young Justice - Robin is crazy prepared and this is lampshaded by Kid Flash when Robin has his utility belt while wearing civilian garb.
Kid Flash: You have your utility belt?!
Robin: Never leave home without it! First thing Batman taught me.
Kid Flash: Yeah, right after never go to the bathroom without it.
The series finale of The Batman has a rather odd case where this comes in handy. Aliens have stolen the powers of Justice League of America members, and the methods to defeat them are used by the superheroes they were originally planned for.
Before that, The Batman episode "Seconds" starred someone-totally-not-the-Clock-King-or-Chronos who could rewind time and relive a battle every time he loses, correcting any mistakes -- the equivalent of emulator-Save Scumming. This power allowed him to fight Batman to a draw.
Despite Batman having his own category on this page, a lot of his preparations in the comics and various adaptations are not "crazy" preparations, but are reasonable and logical precautions inspired by events that have already occured. However, in the episode This Little Piggy of season one of Justice League Unlimited he and Zatanna go the Greek Underworld to interrogate Medusa about the current whereabouts of Circe. In the DVD audio commentary the producers explained that they felt it was perfectly natural for Batman to carry exactly two pennies in his utility belt, just in case he had to cross the River Styx.
Taken to Crazy Awesome levels while lampshaded in the Batman Beyond episode "Black Out". When the shapeshifter Inque hitches a ride to the Batcave incognito by blending in with the paint, the computers detect the weight imbalance of a lone shapeshifter on a vehicle which has to weigh many tons. She shows herself, so Bruce quickly dons a large hat and sunglasses to hide himself (a Continuity Nod; it was the original Gray Ghost uniform). Inque is eager to find out where she is exactly, so she tries to escape through the access tunnel. The following ensues:
Terry: She's trying to escape! (Bruce pushes a button, steel doors close over the tunnel.)
Bruce: It pays to be prepared.
Inque: Somebody's got a secret. (She tries to pull the door off.)
Terry: She's getting through! (Bruce pushes another button, door becomes electrified.) Man. You really are prepared.
Bruce: (Cue Inque slithering up to the ceiling.) She won't get through that way either, there's a foot of solid steel up there.
Batman the Brave And The Bold gives us this conversation:
Jaime: OK OK, here's one. Poison Ivy has used her Mind Control spores on Superman to pit him against Batman. Oh, and Batman has no kryptonite. Who wins?
Paco: Easy: Superman.
Jaime: Wrong, Batman, by using his kryptonite.
Paco: You just said he had no kryptonite.
Jaime: Trick question. Batman always has kryptonite.
This is also a Shout-Out -- the very situation actually came up in The Batman. He didn't have kryptonite at the time, but started keeping it after this incident, with Supes' blessing. Also, this exact scenario came up the one time he didn't have kryptonite he did have a back up plan: he tricks Superman into punching into the power cables for all of metropolis. And then snaps him out of mind control by dropping Lois Lane out a window, so that his subconcious desire to protect her will break through Ivy-spores.
You can stun Superman. It just takes a lot of electricity.
This is also a Shout-Out the Hush story arc, when Poison Ivy does just that to Supes in an elaborate Xanatos Gambit of Hush's to corner Bruce into trusting him.
There's a fantastic example in the first season finale, where it appears that he has planned for the specific situation of "forced to team up with the Joker and use back-up vehicle" by including a Big Red Button in that vehicle that would spray knock-out gas into the passenger seat, knowing that Joker wouldn't be able to resist pushing it. Thinking about that for a second makes you realize this is one of a very, very few scenarios in which that would come in handy.
...There are a LOT of TV normals who would start pushing buttons the second they're in the Bat-Mobile. Given that Batman saves random idiots, not a bad idea to weed out the biggest idiots.
Joker himself shows tendencies of this. When Batman put him in handcuffs, he revealed that he was wearing fake, detachable hands (as well as having a number of other objects up his sleeve).
Some episodes of The Superfriends carry the versatility of Batman's utility belt to ridiculous extremes. If every episode is to be believed, his utility belt holds a Bat Glue Ray, a Bat Invisibility Ray, and a Bat-Belt Mouse Compartment.
Video Games:
Batman does it again in the new game, Batman: Arkham Asylum:
It is revealed early-ish in the game that Batman has secretly built a second Batcave on Arkham Island just in case, after he found an extensive cave as a side effect of saving a convict from committing suicide. This is in canon with the comics. He has several smaller "satellite" Batcaves all throughout Gotham City, including a sub-basement underneath the Wayne Foundation building, an abandoned underground subway station, and the aforementioned.
Batman decided that just in case he would be hanging people from random points in Arkham, he should bring in a large amount of rope to do so.
He also has an apparently infinite supply of Batarangs at his disposal as well.
He does it again just before trekking into Killer Croc's lair. Just before he enters it proper, he takes the time to spray some explosive gel on a seemingly random spot on the sewer floor for no apparent reason. It turns out to be how Batman defeats Killer Croc by blowing up the floor and sending Croc into a deep pit.
After taking down Bane, Bats and Gordon walk outside and start talking about the events going on at Arkham while Bats fiddles with his arm computer for a moment on something we don't see. In the middle of the conversation, Bane explodes out and grabs Bats and lifts him up to have this exchange:
Bane: I will break you Batman!
Batman: No, Bane. This time, I break you. *the Batmobile drives through and takes Bane with it into the water*
The Riddler also shows signs of Crazy Prepared: He spread out not only his own personal trophies around Arkham, but he also spray painted hard to find question marks that can only be seen by Batman's cowl, he set interview tapes around Arkham, and he made riddles for every area in Arkham. He did all that just on the off chance that Batman might have to spend a lot of time at Arkham (though he might have been privy to the Joker's plan, which would indicate extreme resourcefulness on relatively short notice).
With Arkham City, Batman (and a few other characters even) gets to continue showing off how prepared he is for any and every situation under the sun. The best part? The game is designed so the player themselves gets to instigate most of the preparations this time around!
Right off the get go, Bruce Wayne is captured by Arkham City guards and incarcerated, Bruce convinces a guard to attack him and snaps his radio off and quickly steals the SD chip before getting processed into the prison. When he changes to Batman, he slips the SD chip into his Sequencer and taps into the guards radio transmissions, ensuring he'll know about their movements ahead of time well into the rest of the game.
Riddler again gets to show he's even more crazy prepared then Batman, by hiding trophies and riddles in places he shouldn't even have access too, or know exist!
The Riddler also had the foresight to plan ahead for Catwoman teaming up with Bats, strewing trophies and riddles around Arkham City for her as well.
In a Swedish comic book series for children called "Bamse", there is an character who's a turtle called "Skalman" which translates to "Shellman", he can fit anything except for a few exceptions into his shell. Think "deus ex machina armory".
Grant Morrison, during his run on JLA, introduced Prometheus, a deliberately designed anti-Batman who decided to destroy "the forces of justice" after watching a cop gun down his bank-robber parents. In addition to possessing a helmet that allows him to hardwire his brain to duplicate everything another person knows, including how they move and speak, allowing him to defeat Batman in hand-to-hand combat, he also has plans worked out to disable every single member of the JLA, including the ones who just joined in the previous issue. He is only vanquished when he fails to predict that Catwoman would have snuck onboard the Watchtower to rob the trophy room. Since he didn't plan for her, she takes him out with a surprise whip crack to the soft bits. He has since undergone varying levels of Badass Decay in later appearances.
Professor X had at one point plans to be put into play in the event that any given X-Man executed a Face Heel Turn. For example, the plan for dealing with Wolverine -- immolating his body, severing his head with a laser and sealing it in an adamantium safe.
A word of caution before using this procedure: it will just make him angry.
He's even Genre Savvy enough to know that he isn't immune to being used by villains whose Mind Fu Is Stronger -- the first entry in the "Xavier Protocols" is how to take him down. His Genre Savvy-ness also extended to include specific people be required to activate each protocol, so that no-one person could access it. Unfortunately, the computer itself went evil...
Grant Morrison has suggested that as part of that protocol Xavier is armed at all times with a high caliber handgun just so he can shoot himself in the head should he ever lose control of his mind.
As revealed in the newest Wolverine issue, Cyclops apparently has own set of such protocols. Apparently he has multiple plans for each member, although the only one shown so far are the ones for Wolverine.
Knights of the Dinner Table, a comic about Tabletop Games players / characters, features an extremely cunning player, Brian: When the party is kidnapped and stripped of possessions, he reveals that his character had had "spellbooks" tattooed on the other characters' backs. Not only that, every morning he swallowed a ring of teleportation and every evening he "recovered" it. "It's all there on the character sheet!" Although most of his preparations were on a signed, dated and notarized sheet inside a sealed envelope, so the GM couldn't accuse him of making it up on the fly.
In case he gets his hands on a Wish Spell, Brian also has a pages-long carefully written run-on sentence in his briefcase which is designed to grant his character true immortality. He has even had the document reviewed by an actual paralegal. BA and his fellow Gamemasters cannot find a flaw in the wish, but Brian's PC becoming immortal means that a previously restrained god has the right to destroy him. EVEN THEN this only triggers a clause that undoes the effects of the wish and gives Brian 25,000 gp.
Brian's mage at one point had a custom-made magic helmet that was enchanted to be invisible and designed to project a constant illusion on the inner visor of what the wearer would normally be seeing if not for the helmet being in place. Aside from acting like a magic VR heads-up display, this means that the character is immune to all gaze attacks because he is not technically making eye contact with the attacker. This came up when the party was ambushed by a medusa and seemed to work until B.A. thought to ask how Brian's character could see the illusionary image if the helmet were invisible. Cue Flipping the Table.
Brian also plays characters that are relatives of each other, and Brian has concocted a carefully documented series of contingencies to insure that each succeeding character gets the carefully detailed journals of all his predecessors. The result? Brian's current character always knows everything all of his previous characters knew.
The party attempted to be Crazy Prepared when they discovered a Bag of Holding and a dragon's treasure horde. They systematically go through and purchase enough supplies, food, and weapons to be prepared for any possible contingency. They also take to keeping a troupe of henchmen inside the bag to "keep inventory" and for ease of transportation. It wasn't until the party was lost in a desert that they needed the supplies within, but by that point they had neglected the bag for several months. When they opened it to retrieve their survival gear, they found their small army of henchmen had been living on their food, armed themselves with their weapons, built a fortress from their building supplies, and were ready to declare war!
In The Incredible Hulk #375, Rick Jones is caught on an exploding Skrull spaceship. He manages to escape because he has on a parachute, which -- as he explains to a boggled Bruce Banner -- he carries around just in case he's ever on an exploding Skrull spaceship. It could have been a Shout-Out to Golden Age Captain America, who happened to have a parachute every time it was convenient, with little or no explanation.
Word of God is that Peter David wrote himself into a corner...
The best part is that Rick Jones was later further developed to be a Genre Savvy Crazy Prepared Ascended Fanboy, largely due to this mishap.
Flaming Carrot always wears flippers, in case he has to swim.
Norman Osborn of Spider-Man. According to Mac Gargan he has rooms filled with plans and counterplans. Interestingly enough, Peter Parker himself mentions in one installment that he's pre-planned any fight with any superhero, just in case they go rogue, and also claims that they all do it. Apparently, it didn't work too well when fighting Captain America. That's because Captain America's even more crazy prepared.
In one issue of Impulse, the title character attempted to become Crazy Prepared by obsessively writing up plans for every conceivable scenario. Despite carrying around reams of paper and Max trying to tell him that he can't possibly plan for every contingency, the plans do wind up saving him when he's attacked by a helicopter -- by clogging up its intakes while he furiously searched for his plan on defending himself from a helicopter. This is incredibly funny when you realize that not only did Impulse almost never plan ahead... neither did the writers of the book. Their method of writing the Impulse comic was "we'll make it up as we go along"... and it worked. And is probably the only sane way to write Impulse.
In JLA-Avengers, Hawkeye effortlessly takes out human hydrogen bomb Captain Atom with... well, just listen:
Iron Man: Well, that was easy. I didn't even know you still had your lead foil containment arrow.
Hawkeye: Never know when you're gonna run into Radioactive Man, Shellhead.
Black Panther had Galactus protocols under Priest's pen. Hudlin showed he also had Skrull Invasion protocols which.. Oh shit, forgot about that.
In Watchmen, Nite Owl has at least three different suits including an underwater owl suit, a radioactive suit, and a snow suit. He also had a couple of spare identities just in case something happens to him for several years.
On the villainy side of things, Lex Luthor does plenty of work to keep himself safe from Superman, but these tend to come back and bite him. He at one point carried a kryptonite ring around on his person at all times just in case Superman would attack, but the radiation from the ring wound up giving him cancer. Another protection he had set up was lining all his buildings in lead to keep Superman from looking into any with his X-Ray vision. When one of the buildings collapsed while he was trapped inside, Superman couldn't find him to bring medical aid.
Mr E, one of the Trenchcoat Brigade from The Books of Magic, as John Constantine discovers during the following conversation. Emphasis on the crazy.
Constantine: I heard a joke about you once, E.
Mr E: A joke?
Constantine: I think it was a joke. Bloke I met in a bar in Kathmandu. Said you always carried a pocket full of stakes, in case you meet a vampire; and a gun loaded with silver bullets, in case you ever met a werewolf.
(E pulls a stake out of his Badass Longcoat)
Constantine: Blimey.
Comic strip example: When Dilbert's boss uses a ray on him that makes a unicorn horn grow out of his head, the Garbageman offers to fix Dilbert with his cell normalizer and a sample of Dilbert's "pre-unicorn" DNA. When Dilbert asks why the Garbageman has a sample of his DNA, he replies "It's for exactly this kind of situation".
While not at the same level of crazy as Batman, Green Arrow definitely counts. The guy's got a trick arrow for any situation: boxing glove arrows, fire extinguisher arrows, net arrows, geiger counter arrows...
In Gold Digger by Fred Perry, archmage Theodore Diggers faces off against his father, who has become an evil undead abomination. He dodges one of his father's spells by teleporting behind him, where he's most vulnerable. Unfortunately he runs into the invisible time-delayed exploding fireball his father had put there just in case. Then again, if you look carefully, you can see him casting it a few panels before he teleports...Lich King is just Genre Savvy. And knows how Theodore thinks.
Scott Pilgrim:
"Yes! I had a sword built into Envy's dress in case of emergency! THAT'S JUST THE KIND OF GUY I AM!"
Immortal wizard Quinton Zempfester takes this over the top. As in "I planted this tree 100 years ago because I knew I'd probably need it right about now."
In Secret Six Deadshot is speaking to a priest, trying to understand why he has recently felt such strong urges to just kill everybody he sees, and he relates the story of the first time he fought Batman. At the climax he has Batman dead to rights at point-blank range and shoots him the chest, but Batman does not die as planned and then disarms and apprehends Deadshot. The priest then asked how Batman survived the encounter. Did Deadshot miss? Did the bullets bounce off him? No, he explains that the answer is actually scarier than a person who can dodge bullets or withstand gunshots: Batman had foreseen an eventual confrontation between the two of them, gotten to his gear before the fight and replaced his bullets with blanks!
In a reversal, in Batman: Cacophony Deadshot is hired to kill the Joker, when another, new character shows up, and shoots him in the head at point blank range with a Desert Eagle. Once Batman is on the scene, The Commissioner informs him that the only casualty seems to be Deadshot. He mentions that Deadshot's suit has some kind of sealing mechanism they need to figure out how to get off. Cut to the ambulance, where Deadshot is unzipping his bodybag from the inside. Batman then goes to explain how he is extremely impressed with Deadshot's new suit, double plated helmet with blood squibs in case of a head shot, and bite-trigger-activated self sealing mechanism to mask vital signs, all just so he can "play possum" if ever incapacitated.
Remember how Darkseid used the Omega Sanction on Batman? Well, just in case his plan in Final Crisis failed, he would get his final revenge on Earth by sending Batman to the Stone Age and letting him get reincarnated over and over again, building up Omega energy in his body with each cycle. When he finally reaches the present... Earthshattering Kaboom. Fortunately, the heroes figured it out and saved the day.
Quantum of Quantum and Woody embodies this trope, being an Expy of Batman complete with all-purpose Utility Belt. As but one example, he can pull an electronics-disrupting bolo, a portable forensics kit, a grappling hook gun, and a pocket Tibetan dictionary out of his costume without hesitation.
German detective Nick Knatterton wears an artificial back-head in case someone wants to shoot him there, and has a fake beard which also contains a parachute, just in case of.
In the Season Eight Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics, Andrew is very knowledgable about what to do if his giant-sized team mate is in combat with a mechanized version of herself.
Superman: Secret Origin gives us this:
Soldier: I thought we confiscated his camera!
Jimmy Olsen: A good reporter is always prepared! I have a dozen spares! (blinds the soldiers with the camera's flash and escapes)
The Junior Woodchucks of Uncle Scrooge fame have a medal ready for "Speed reading, ancient languages division, subsection Lydian" to award immediately after completing the feat. When asked, they comment that they are ALWAYS prepared.
In All Fall Down, IQ Squared proves to be this, for programming AIQ Squared, an AI version of himself in the event that he ever lost his super-level genius.
The IDSE appears to be this in Kyon: Big Damn Hero, preparing tools for interactions with places that may not exist in case they do and any of the tools, such as a Dimensional Anchor, are necessary.
Shinji and Warhammer 40 K: Emperor Shinji knows what you're planning even before he's met you. He also knows the odds of anything (whatsoever]') occurring that could potentially derail his saving of humanity, and has already prepared at least four different methods, each, to deal with it. In fact, the only thing he doesn't know is... why him?
Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality depicts Harry as (trying to be) one. The brief appearance of Mad-Eye Moody manages to upgrade his canon use of this trope. Apparently that magic eye of his that he has constantly scanning in every direction doesn't actually need to move--it provides perfect 360 degree vision no matter where it's pointed. He moves it around so that people think he needs to.
The protagonist in Dragon Age: The Crown of Thorns managed to get everyone of the main cast out of Ostagar alive, along with the treaties, because he prepared for the possibility of Loghain not charging when he was supposed to. Granted, he'd had a discussion with the man earlier, when they both traded deep observations of one another. And this is just one of the many examples.
In Progress, the Cake family is insured against acts of goddesses. Which comes in handy when Pinkie Pie accidentally freaks out Princess Luna, and she trashes part of the place. They live with Pinkie Pie, getting an extremely comprehensive insurance policy probably seems like a sensible precaution. Of course, 'extremely comprehensive' policies may not cover against 'Acts of Goddesses'...
In Oh God Not Again, when Pettigrew is caught, Luna pulls out a animagus-proof jar that her father had her carry around in case she ever ran across an illegal animagus she wanted to capture. Even Harry is surprised by this.
Played for Laughs in Hunting the Unicorn, where the Warblers are frequently unfazed by various situations, and instead focus more on recording Kurt and Blaine because they have a huge betting pool on those two. David's habit of writing everything down lets him figure out that Blaine has a stalker, at which the Warblers promptly tell the staff and set up a Hero Secret Service. In the nineteenth chapter, said secret service possibly keeps Blaine alive when the stalker tries to kidnap him, as Wes and David force him to kidnap THEM as well if he doesn't want them to call 911. Meanwhile, one of their many tracking devices ends up recording it.
This little gem from The First Guardian:
Ichigo snorted, "I have a silver cross and several rolls of duct tape under my bed, a box in a location only I know about in case an Ichigo Kurosaki from the future deems sending me a message necessary, I carry picklocks in all of my shoes, I secretly own a car I keep parked on the other side of town, I had Kisuke make fake European passports for the both of us, I own a condo in Tokyo that I bought while disguised as a foreign woman by the name of 'Falsa', I bought the warehouse my sister's bodyguards use as base so that I could legally build a separate room large enough to fit a Gundam, just in case I do get a Gundam."
In A Tale of Two Rustbuckets, the Colonial Fleet is stated to have contingency plans for numerous situations, including such things as the return of the Lords of Kobol, or a revolt by the Junior Pyramid League. Adama implements their first contact plan when he encounters Destiny.
Films -- Animation
Rourke from the Disney film Atlantis: The Lost Empire is described as "never being surprised". This would include having folding fighter planes to use against the heroes. Atlantians who manage to improbably restart ancient flying machines to create an aerial fighting force to pursue the plunderers are also featured. Fighter planes on an underground mission, no less. Fighter planes on an underground, underwater mission. That prepared-ness can be attributed to Whitmore, the Atlantis expedition's eccentric financer, who provided said expedition with: one truly titanic submarine (equipped with torpedo turrets, fighter subpods, and four escape subs), an enormous drill-on-wheels, the above folding fighter planes, an inflate-in-a-moment escape balloon, etc etc.
General W.R. Monger from Monsters vs. Aliens.
Monger (After their plane got blasted down by a huge alien fireball): This is why I always wear a parachute, lieutenant.
Films -- Live Action
Jigsaw is getting close to being the personification of this trope, to the point where if there is another film, he's going to make the goddamned Batman look like a rank amateur. Despite the slight handicap of suffering from being in the final stages of an inoperable brain tumor in the first three films and the slightly more serious affliction of being dead in the following ones, he is STILL able to mastermind the abductions of dozens of people, the creation of ridiculously elaborate traps, training of real and fake apprentices and apparently being able to predict every single action and consequence of all these machinations nearly flawlessly.
In Kick-Ass, the introductory scene for Big Daddy and Hit Girl shows us just how Crazy Prepared the two of them are. The scene was just Crazy Awesome enough to be made into one of the trailers, by itself.
Burt Gummer from the Tremors movie series maintains an enormous collection of firearms and survival gear for any contingency, even before giant, subterranean killer worms invade his town. One exchange in Tremors 3 sums up his existence well:
Jodi: Uh, but do we have a lighter?
Jack: Burt does.
Burt: How do you know?
Jack: Well, 'cause you're... Burt.
Burt: (presenting lighter) Damn right I am.
Marion from Undead is a 'by the book' example of this trope. His preparedness is explained by his previous experience of alien abduction and contact with zombie fish (?). Everyone thinks that he's crazy, until one day...
Mary Poppins' bottomless bag contains apparently everything... and more. (Under)played for laughs, but this behavior would still fit the trope.
Spy Kids: The watch does everything... except tell time.
Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson) from the movie Conspiracy Theory. It's his Crazy Preparedness that actually saves him and the girl when the "Them" really come to his apartment to get him.
Her earlier experiences made Sarah Connor vigilant and just a little paranoid. Terminator II also shows that it made her crazy prepared. She pulls into a friend's place on the Mexican border and tells him she needs her "things". This turns out to be a years-buried cache of weapons including a freaking minigun. It's even alluded to that she spent John's childhood arming him with Chekhov's skills.
In Terminator 3, the "supposed" resting place of Sarah Connor is yet another small weapons cache, complete with bullet-proof coffin.
In The Sarah Connor Chronicles, it is revealed that when she and John move into a new house, every single time that they move, she has every piece of furniture lined with kevlar and the walls are hollowed out and stack with guns, in addition to cases of guns under ever bed.
The Goonies. Data with all his Homemade Inventions is Crazy Prepared for the circumstances of the story's adventure. Trapped in the darkness? Super-bright flashlights on his belt. Bad guy getting too close? Pneumatic boxing glove hiding in his jacket. Bad guys in hot pursuit? His shoes produce Oil Slicks. Falling down a hole? His "Pinchers of Peril" keep him from going splat. Plus more. Now only if they all worked flawlessly...
The Men in Black have not only a gadget and weapon for everything (rocket car, neuralizer, injection that turns you into a fishman, fishing pole that is actually a gun, etc.) but multiple caches of them hidden throughout New York in random apartments and businesses. Several buildings are actually spaceships, which are a result of a cover-up or placed intentionally, but are nonetheless useful. This trope was played with more in the animated series than the films. In the second film, Agent K neuralized himself to protect the MacGuffin of the film (before retiring and being neuralized again), but left clues in case he needed to find it.
In Harlem Nights, Quick prepares for an evening with a rival club owner's girlfriend by stashing a gun under both pillows of her bed. In doing so, he finds the pistol she's already hidden there. When she pulls it on him afterwards, she finds that he took out the bullets, just in case.
Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) in Law Abiding Citizen. Granted he had ten years in which to plan and set everything up, but constructing a secret entrance into every solitary confinement cell in a prison displays a crazy amount of preparedness.
Back to The Future Part II: Doc has prepared for monetary needs in any year with an attache case containing money from several time periods.
From The Transporter, you have the transporter. When he breaks the rules and looks in the package, the bad guys blow up his house. That turned out to not be the problem you might think, because he and the devoid-of-personality love interest end up in a tunnel under his house with access to the ocean. Can't get back out of the tunnel? No problem, because he happens to have scuba gear down there. For two people. Even though he's been a loner for years.
Casshern had a slightly amusing sequence in which the Shinzo Ningen (mutants) rise up from the body parts in a pool that was being used to create a new medical miracle in an "unexpected" turn of events. The amusing part comes in when soldiers burst through the door to gun them down and shout something like "Code 27!" Apparently, government forces of the future already have a code specifically designated for zombie/mutants rising up from medical experiments gone wrong, and it's as early as 27 in the code book.
To a degree, The Man in Black from The Princess Bride. Besides being a skilled swordsman, wrestler, and strategic thinker, he just "happens" to have spent the last few years building up an immunity to a particular poison, a vial of which he just "happens" to carry around with him should the occasion arise when he must engage in a battle of wits...
The title character from Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon spends most of the movie showing how he has prepared for his one night of slaughtering horny teenagers.
Jason from Mystery Team who manages to create the following disguises: Hobo; Newspaper Reporter; Gentleman; Mexican Plumber; Varsity Athlete; and Lumberjack from things he finds in his backpack.
It's partly due to his... inventiveness in using them, but many of James Bond's gadgets arguably fall under this trope.
Getting chased by a helicopter on a road next to a lake? Good thing your car (a) converts into a submarine, and (b) has a surface-to-air missile that can fire underwater!
Need to make a quick getaway, but bad guys are surrounding your car? Good thing your car can be operated by remote control!
Are the bad guys now chasing you in their own cars? Just push the button to drop dozens of caltrops in their path!
They're stringing a cable across your path now? Good thing Q put a cable-cutter under the Beemer logo!
Have to drive back through the caltrops you dropped earlier? No worries - your tires are self-inflating!
Mr. Brooks' secret cache of passports and disguises are a whole extra level of Crazy Preparedness on top of his already intimidatingly meticulous methods.
Gamebooks
The Grail Quest series of gamebooks would give players the option to acquire seemingly ridiculous items, such as mechanical aardvarks and devices for communicating with crickets (not insects in general, you understand, but solely crickets). In any given book, most of these items would be useless but one or two would increase your chances of success significantly. The trick was figuring out which.
Darkly parodied in Tom Clancy's Executive Orders: After the U.S. is attacked by a Japanese terrorist, President Ryan happens upon the contingency plan to attack Japan. He orders it destroyed. The narration notes they're just going to file it away.
The Dresden Files: Harry Dresden's continued existence is down to being the luckiest man alive (except when it comes to money, women, or buildings) and being Crazy Prepared or capable of being Crazy Prepared with two hours notice and access to a Wal-Mart.
He has quoted Foghorn Leghorn on one occasion when he pulled something similar out of thin air, as he's wont to do. Much like Foghorn, it's not so much a case of being Crazy Prepared as it is of being Genre Savvy and always keeping a little something in reserve.
Crazy Prepared, and also Properly Paranoid. He really does have a whole lot of powerful, ruthless enemies. He almost never leaves home without a bulletproof leather jacket and magic rings that can release enough force to flip a car.
Harry: Paranoid? Maybe. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon out there waiting to eat your face.
He carries water balloons filled with holy water in a box under the driver's seat of his car just in case he gets jumped by vampires while parked. He also carries an enchanted chain with an electrical plug designed to be flung at an enemy and then connected to an outlet as a magical taser in case he gets attacked indoors, which he can smoothly and effortlessly draw thanks to practicing the draw thousands of times. He even built what amounts to a voodoo doll of the city of Chicago to use as a focus to track down bad guys running around in his town.
The Survivalist, hero of the 1980's action novel series by Jerry Ahern. Ex-CIA agent John Rouke has a well-stocked underground retreat enabling him to survive not only World War Three, the collapse of society and Soviet occupation, but later the extinction of all life on Earth!
Jarlaxle, from R. A. Salvatore's books, has a hat containing a portable hole, a feather on the hat that summons a giant bird, an infinite supply of knives, a belt that can turn into a snake or extend into a rope, an eyepatch that can see through walls and also protects him from mental intrusion, boots that can silence his footsteps, a ring that can hurl fireballs, a cloak that makes him immune to projectile attacks, several magic wands, a maul hidden in his hat, a ring that detects lies, and a ring that protects from fire or ice. Do not underestimate Jarlaxle.
World War Z. White South African Paul Redeker had been hired by the government to come up with contingency plans in case of a large-scale revolt of the native African population (called Plan Orange). When the Zombie Apocalypse occurred, Redeker went to his mountain retreat and, on his own initiative, adapted Plan Orange into a national zombie survival plan. Most governments in the world implemented his plan and eventually survived the war. Not forgetting the first book, The Zombie Survival Guide, which taught the average Joe how to survive a zombie attack, with advice about forming groups of people, securing secluded land and, naturally, hoarding food, materials and weapons. It's noted in WWZ that it's useful mostly for Americans. Since the "interviewer" is Brooks himself, this is Self Depreciation.
Ironically, however, the US Military somehow contrived to have both covert zombie-fighting operations and to be completely stupid when the Battle of Yonkers rolled around. The people responsible for the covert ops were planning to be prepared, but ran out of time.
The level of Crazy Prepared going on in The Zombie Survival Guide is hard to imagine for anyone who hasn't read the book. It can probably be safely said that Max Brooks thought of everything when compiling that book. He has strategies and tips for fighting zombies in every conceivable type of terrain (including watching out for zombies who had been frozen under snow or ice during the winter and are now starting to thaw). And, in the chapter on the pros and cons of various vehicles, he even includes tips regarding the use of Lighter-Than-Air vehicles, like blimps and hot air balloons.
Mouse, the central character of The Eighteenth Emergency by Betsy Byars, spends his spare time working out plans for dealing with various emergencies, such as being bitten by a tarantula or attacked by a tiger. He is a 12 year old who living in suburbia. The premise of the book is that there's an 18th emergency he hasn't prepared for; being beat up by a bully. If you must know, he gets his head handed to him.
In Through the Looking Glass, Alice meets the White Knight, who is crazy prepared (emphasis on crazy!). He has a mouse-trap on his horse's saddle and his horse wears anklets to prevent shark attacks. He keeps the empty plum-cake plate Alice is holding, just in case they find any plum-cake.
Etjole Ehomba, central character of Journeys Of The Catechist by Alan Dean Foster, carries any number of magical and alchemical gifts in his backpack. Most of these are intended for use in other applications, but prove effective in whatever crazy-ass situation he's currently facing as well. In addition, his "sky-metal sword" usually has a hidden ability perfect for whatever foe he's fighting.
In Good Omens by Messrs. Gaiman and Pratchett, the International Maritime Codes include an eight-letter code (XXXV QVVX, if you're really curious) for "Have found Lost Continent of Atlantis. High Priest has just won quoits contest."
Crowley, a demon, keeps a flask of Holy Water on hand, just in case.
Truth in Television (or literature in this case): an essay in the 28 July 1934 issue of The New Yorker was entitled "Melancholy Notes on a Cablegram Code Book" and it mentions a bunch of these sorts of code groups in a commercial (non-secret) code. Such as LYADI, meaning "Arrived here with decks swept, boats and funnels carried away, cargo shifted, having encountered a hurricane." Or EWIXI, "Very few cases of cholera are now reported". As the essay's author mentions, some of them are just a little too disturbingly detailed.
The protagonist of H.P. Lovecraft's The Shunned House suspects that he has discovered a vampire, but knows better than to rely on a wooden stake and hammer, instead bringing a pair of flamethrowers and a Crookes tube, "in case it proved intangible and opposable only by vigorously destructive ether radiations". This being a Lovecraft story, it turns out neither of these are appropriate weapons for what's actually going on.
Terry Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. Due to Malicia's awareness of the Theory of Narrative Causality, she carries an adventuring bag with such items as a grapnel, a rope ladder, laxative for surviving on a coconut diet on a deserted island, and cotton-wool for blocking the vents of a giant underwater mechanical squid. She lives several hundred miles inland. These come in handy repeatedly, though not for their intended purposes.
That's because Malicia is Wrong Genre Savvy.
Vorbis, antagonist of Small Gods, had a very weird form of planning which was described as such: "You had to have a mind like Vorbis's to plan your retaliation before your attack." In other words, he planned an assault on Ephebe (with resultant tragic losses) only after starting an even more elaborate means to get back at them first.
Mr Teatime, an assassin in Hogfather, made a hobby of working out ways to kill anthropomorphic personifications, such as the Hogfather, the Tooth Fairy or even Death. This came in very handy in his next contract.
Vetinari, the Dangerously Genre Savvy Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, knows that when a ruler is overthrown the overthrowers tend to lock the ruler away in the deepest, dankest cell of his palace's dungeons. Hence, Vetinari ensured that while the deepest, dankest cell's door has a heavy-duty lock on the outside, all of the deadbolts and bars are on the inside. He also has the key hidden behind a brick in the cell wall so escape can be performed at leisure. Training the local sentient rats to run errands didn't hurt either. Yes, the Patrician arranged for his jail cell to have room service.
The Lancrastian Army Knife contains everything a soldier in the field could need. The trope is played with, as it's explained that if it had contained absolutely everything a soldier might need, it would have been too big and heavy to carry around, so most of the suggested items (such as a "small tool for winning ontological arguments") had to be left out.
Commander Vimes has liberally booby-trapped his home and all non-direct entrances to his office, knowing that various individuals would be contacting the Assassin's Guild about removing him from office. The effectiveness of these precautions )and his increasing importance in Ankh-Morpork's political landscape) has resulted in the Guild refusing to take any more contracts out on him. These days, the Guild uses him as a training objective for know-it-all students: all the trainee needs to do is get a glimpse of him without getting caught by a trap. So far, nobody has succeeded.
The Tucker family in the online serial novel The Saga of Tuck: Preparations for yearly extended camping trips included vaccinations for several diseases never known to occur in the area they would be hiking through and annual Red Cross first aid re-certification. They carried in their packs: morphine ampules, radios with solar-powered chargers, night vision gear, and enough food and water for more than twice as long as their intended trip. They also trained in unarmed combat, knife fighting (the lead character, Tuck, was known to carry several especially when dressed as his female alter ego Valerie, and firearm training that included several types of pistol and rifle and 'spin tests' to ensure they could shoot accurately while disoriented. From comments made elsewhere, this is apparently a fair reflection of how author Ellen Hayes and her family really are. Word of God from the author, Ellen Hayes:
Nightvision gear was too expensive to justify so they don't have any, they only carry two days extra of food on a seven day trip, I found solar battery chargers on the 'Net before I wrote that, and the immunizations were during the "every year before school" visit most of us had (taken, of course, to the survivalist extreme that the family does). As for me being that way... "Shut up." (A local trope, meaning "You are right but for lame ego-saving purposes I don't wish to admit this out loud.")
Doc Savage has a spyhole and control panel within his private elevator that can start a film projection of him getting killed in a selected way (machine gun, acid, explosion etc.) onto the lobby door of the elevator before it opens to fool anyone who would ever try to personally attack him in the lobby of the Empire State Building. It is only used once in 16 years.
In fact, many, if not most, books in the series contain examples of this trope.
Hermione, from Harry Potter, but she's only Crazy Prepared in comparison to Ron and Harry, who barely pay attention even in self-defense classes (imagine how they would be if math were actually required of them) and the pureblood wizarding world in general, which she says doesn't have "an ounce of logic".
A more straight version of this is Mad Eye Moody who hauls around a trunk primarily full of highly situational gear for fighting Dark Wizards, all this from a man who can see through walls (and the back of his own head). The fact that he still got jumped by a Death Eater in the fourth novel shows that in the wizarding world, being over-prepared is a necessity.
Aladavan, a sidhe wizard in Cerberon, always has something up his sleeve to get himself out of just about any situation, and he can quickly improvise a solution with whatever he happens to have on hand. Aladavan's wagon is packed full of useful things, including a folding table, a collection of magic wands, treasure chests, a library, and a spare wagon with a trunk full of emergency supplies. He stocks his satchel with any number of items that he anticipates might be handy at a moment's notice, including an enchanted sword, a bottle of wine, and a flaming timber.
Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. "We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers.... Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls..."
A character in one of Lawrence Block's "Ehrengraf" short stories places title character Martin Ehrengraf on retainer to defend him on the charge of murder. For a murder he intends to commit. Ehrengraf quips, "I wish all of my clients had as much foresight as you."
The Moomin series, by Finnish author Tove Jansson: Moomin's mother never parts from her handbag. When another character asks her what she is carrying that is so important, she replies: "Oh, stomach medicine and clean socks and steel wire and other things that might be useful". Also, her handbag frequently contains exactly the thing the family needs.
Clan Korval from the Liaden Universe. Due to a contractual oversight, they're legally still in charge of the planet of Liad should an enemy try to harm the citizens. The clan has been designed to be able to financially, mentally, and physically able to fight at any given moment. Complete with Time for Plan B emergency planning.
This is the whole basis of Neil Strauss new book 'emergency' in which he details how he learned to start worrying and become crazy prepared.
In A Deepness in The Sky by Vernor Vinge, Pham Nuwen is crazy prepared. He's been preparing for hundreds if not thousands of years, collecting the most advanced technology from all over the galaxy and disguising it as innocuous materiel. He's learned and created countless secret programs and backdoors on the computers. All of Pham Nuwen's toys are standard equipment on Queng Ho ships, yet nobody else knows about them. Everybody is, although not to the same extent. In A Fire Upon the Deep, a children's toy computer, explained as being outdated but hung onto for sentimental purposes (it was shaped like a stuffed rabbit) includes as a standard feature 'uplift protocols' to allow any tech level short of flint and bone knapping stone age to raise the technology to build a subspare radio capable of reaching civilization to call for rescue.
Nakor in The Riftwar Cycle is crazy prepared, he can access a table full of useful items he has already assembled in a sealed cave through a rift in his seemingly empty rucksack including a royal Keshian falcon, long thought extinct, and a near endless supply of oranges through a separate rift to a fruit merchant's shop! Nakor is a fragment of a god, so a little foreknowledge probably helps
In Dale Brown novels, Sky Masters aircraft come with the equipment and code necessary to mount Russian weapons just in case their crews ever need to use them, as noted in Wings of Fire.
In the Redwall book Rakkety Tam, just before the fight with Gulo, Tam sharpens the edge of his shield. During the fight, the shield is torn from his arm and embeds itself edge-on in the ground. Later on, Gulo is thrown into the air, and lands just right for the protruding shield-edge to decapitate him.
Rufo, from Robert Heinlein's "Glory Road", carries a TARDIS-like backpack that, once removed from Rufo's back and unfolded (a process requiring several minutes of time and square meters of space) contains anything and everything that the protagonists might need on their mission. However, as his boss, Star, explains to Oscar (the first-person-narrator and protagonist), while the backpack damps out apparent weight enough to allow the wearer to lift it, its still got enormous mass and is thus very expensive to maintain and transport. Further, it has to be completely unfolded before they can get at anything they might need, making the thing less useful in the heat of battle or the cramped confines of a cave than Oscar might have liked.
This is parodied in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with the towel. If you have your towel with you, everyone automatically assumes you are prepared for anything and will thus be happy to lend you anything you may have misplaced (food, money, spacesuits, etc).
Cookie from Nation, with his floating coffin containing everything a sailor lost at sea might need to survive.
Madame Ahnzhelyk from the Safehold series is remarked as planning ahead with a vengeance when it comes to her efforts to reform (and later subvert) the Church of God Awaiting. This is brought int full prominence in the fourth book A Mighty Fortress where plans she set up years ago (even before the current antagonist ever came into power) are used to evacuate as many victims of an upcoming Inquisition purge as humanly possible. Her efforts secure the escape of about a tenth of the intended victims, which include the families of prominent vicars and an archbishop.
The Church of God Awaiting's creators could be seen as this. As noted in A Mighty Fortress, because the Church was started as a Path of Inspiration to enforce Medieval Stasis, but Safehold was still a terraformed planet not originally meant for humans, the "Archangels" had to come up with divine or miraculous explanations for every possible known phenomenon known to man so people wouldn't go and ask "Why does X happen?" They managed it for close to a millennium before it started coming apart.
Taken to a serious level in David Eddings' Malloreon series. Although not properly revealed until the final book, The Dark (and its agents) showed an unreal amount of advance planning for its conflict with the series' protagonists: always possessing a fallback plan whenever something didn't work. It is eventually revealed to be part of its fundamental mentality: the idea of a predetermined perfection.
The Light is no slouch either...it has a tendency to place knowledge in people's minds or has them do something so that they'll remember about it hundreds of years later when they need it. Also, twice in Belgarath The Sorcerer, it altered weather patterns in order to give favorable odds to the Child of Light, the more extreme example being making it rain near-continually for twenty-five years...all to create a storm in a specific place that buried an unfriendly army under several feet of snow.
Jack West Jr. and his team in his series written by Matthew Reilly. Their farm in Australia gets attacked by paratroopers equipped with jeeps. They escape by driving through a bridge booby trapped with wheel puncturing spikes, into a river over a concealed concrete ford, into a 747 JUMBO JET hidden in the hillside and release a giant anti-aircraft bouncing bomb to take out 2 fighter jets. Crazy Prepared just doesn't come close.
Some of the acolytes and Travelers in The Pendragon Adventure, which certainly comes in handy down the road.
In Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series, the Race arrives to Earth expecting a Curb Stomp Battle against a bunch of Medieval knights. While what they find is definitely shocks them (they arrive in the middle of World War Two), they still give humans a hard time, as their military technology is decades (in our understanding) beyond what humans have. It could be understood that they brought tanks, jet fighters, helicopters, and machineguns to quickly subdue the local population with a display of awesome weaponry. However, there is no justification for them bringing dozens of nukes to fight a bunch of primitives, especially since they are doing everything they can to preserve the planet for colonization. Unusually for this trope, the nukes they bring don't do much to help the lizards, as humans haven't advanced yet to the point where EMP is harmful to their technology (the pulse only fries integrated circuits not vacuum tubes). Their nuking of Berlin and Washington only serves to piss off the locals. In fact, the lizard nukes end up helping humans, as they manage to obtain some radioactive material from the lizards and interrogate several of them in order to finish their own atomic bombs ahead of schedule.
In Nick Pollotta's That Darn Squid God, Prof. Felix Einstein brings up a small bag of dirt. What for? It helps him to get off The Flying Dutchman. By redeeming the damned ship and its crew.
La Résistance Leader "Doom" in the Deltora Quest series.
Toni Ware's shoplifting techniques in The Pale King.
Master Miller was shown to be this in the Novelization for Metal Gear Solid before he got offed. Although he had a main arsenal within the house, he also kept various weapons in each and every room in case someone managed to somehow infiltrate his house. However, it didn't save him from the gas.
In his book 'The Bad Book Club', Robin Ince talks about 'The Correct Guide to Letter Writing', which contains over 500 different letter templates. They start off sane enough with 'From a commercial traveller, suggesting special terms' but gradually get more crazily specific ('Accepting an invitation from a Gentlemen to Lunch at a Restaurant' is different from 'Accepting an invitation from a Gentleman to a Dinner and Theatre Party' apparently).
In an episode of Blackadder, Captain Blackadder is in prison, having been sentenced to death for disobeying orders. Baldrick smuggles in an escape kit so that Captain can use them to break out. Rather than a chisel and a hammer which would be needed to commit the break out, Baldrick packs a wooden duck (as a disguise in case of being caught near a lake), a pencil (to drop Baldrick a postcard), a small trumpet (in case he has to win the favor of a small child) and a Robin Hood costume (in case he arrives at a French peasant village having a costume party).
The Impossible Mission Force team had a plan, a backup plan, a backup plan for the backup plan, and sometimes one more backup plan for good measure. Even when a mission went wrong, it went right.
During a Halloween dream episode of Silver Spoons, Ricky, Alphonse, and some nerdy kid they hung around with were in a haunted house. They get locked in a room and the only door has no doorknob. The nerd walks up to the door, reaches in his backpack and pulls out a spare one, remarking, "And you guys always make fun of me for carrying around a spare doorknob!"
During the third season of Alias, Jack Bristow is a model of preparedness in the episode, "Breaking Point." As part of a rescue attempt, he accesses a secret personal storage facility containing firearms, medical supplies, money, flak jackets, and other things typical of a well-stocked arsenal. While not out of character, it is the first time this resource has been revealed, and it increases the viewer's understanding of just how exceptionally cautious Jack can be. Michael Vaughn comments, "The fact that you're letting me see this place means... it's not your only one, is it?" Jack responds dryly, "You're smarter than you look."
Battlestar Galactica: A somewhat mild case, but one wonders why exactly Admiral Bill Adama stores the interrogation drug from hell on the Galactica and seems quite familiar with its use... you know, just in case you recapture and need to intimidate and torture Gaius Baltar in the most imaginative and surreal way possible. Similarly, the survival of the people who would eventually form Sam Anders' resistance on post-nuclear Caprica was hand-waved by stating that the resistance was largely Sam's team mates- athletes conducting high altitude training in the mountains- plus a bunch of survivalist types, whom you'd expect to be Crazy Prepared.
Given the timing of the Baltar interrogation episode, the interrogation drug could have been obtained from the supplies onboard the Pegasus before the latter ship was lost. Admiral Cain is just the sort of psycho to keep some of that crap around.
His last mission was intelligence / spying and all very hush, hush.
Merton of Big Wolf on Campus demonstrates this when, after his run-in with Medusa, it becomes clear he has produced an indexed videotape with instructions of how to ameliorate almost any supernatural disaster that could befall him. The (not unjustified) implication is that if he were around, he'd be able to fix it. Also, it helps to have a convenient rope in the "lair" to drop a squirt-gun filled with holy water, and to have a way of removing evil spirits from a dog.
In Black Books, Bernard Black is forced to take shelter in an adult video store after being locked out of his shop at night. In order to stay warm and dry as long as he can, he resorts to inventing a series of increasingly unlikely fetishes. "Nurses. But, ah, in administration, y'know ... actually I should have said, sorry, Senior Administrative Nurses -- that's the only thing I'm interested in." The shop owner is able to fulfil this request instantly. In the final episode, Fran is trying to convince Bernard that his old girlfriend faked her death and is still living in London. She pulls out her phone and shows the entry, then a photo of her last birthday, her dental records, and her birth certificate along with a photo of her reading today's newspaper and wearing a t-shirt that says "I love life"
In Cheers, Cloudcuckoolander Woody loses a dollar bill. Cliff finds it, but balks at returning it. Instead, he demands that Woody prove that the bill in question is actually the one that he lost, by identifying the serial number on the bill. Without missing a beat, Woody recites the serial number. After Cliff, visibly shaken, returns the bill, Woody is asked how he did that. He replies that he memorizes the serial numbers on all his currency. When asked why, he says "for just this sort of situation".
Parodied in Corner Gas, in the episode where Hank can't find his debit card and, instead of getting a wallet, decides to wear large cargo pants with a ton of pockets. He is seemingly able to have anything in them, and when asked for pliers, asks "regular or needlenose?" By the end of the episode, he's so encumbered by all of the stuff in his pants he gets rid of them.
Marcie in Dark Season rarely uses the plans, but in a twist we see her prepared for an awful lot. She always carries a paddle ("you never know when you might be up the creek") and measures pathways with a tape measure because it helps to know these things.
In an episode of Dharma and Greg, Greg's grandmother dies before giving the family heirloom ring to Kitty. Dharma and Jane had to get it off the body, but it got stuck, and Jane pulled out the WD-40 in her purse, which she said she had for "a situation like this". Dharma's next line Lampshaded it with "Besides this, what's a situation like this?"
In Doctor Who, although the Doctor's iconic Sonic Screwdriver qualifies as a Do-Anything Robot, the Second Doctor's penchant for pulling all sorts of stuff out of his pockets fits the trope.
In "Partners in Crime", Donna Noble has apparently been driving around London with a full set of luggage -- including a hatbox -- in the trunk just in case she should happen to run into the Doctor.
In the episode "The Doctor's Daughter" the doctor uses a clockwork mouse to distract a guard. Or the stethoscope, which he always carries with him.
Parodied in The Creature from the Pit where the Tom Baker Doctor is stuck in a mine shaft. Fortuitously he just happens to have mountaineering equipment and the book Everest in Easy Stages in his pockets. Unfortunately it's in Tibetan... so he produces Teach Yourself Tibetan from his pocket as well.
The Fourth Doctor used this as a delaying mechanism in Genesis of the Daleks.
The Fourth Doctor also once unexpectedly found himself on trial by some alien energy beings. When it was time for him to answer to the charges, he pulled a barrister's wig from his pocket and donned it.
The Eleventh Doctor is seen to pull out of his pockets a pair of specs that can detect body heat (or a lack of, in the cause of the Silurians) and a large UV lamp, as if the chances he'd be dealing with Fish-People masquarading as Vampires happens frequently.
In "Planet of the Dead", Lady Christina is carrying, among other things, a folding shovel. Presumably in case she ever needs to bury her ill-gotten gains on a desert island. Doesn't have bus fare on her, though. Jewelry works just as well.
Captain Jack always has a gun tucked away somewhere, as revealed in the episode "Bad Wolf" when he is stripped naked. Where does he store it? You Don't Want to Know.
UNIT has clearly become this by Battlefield when The Brigadier can demand silver bullets - and get them!
The administration of the city Eureka.
Also Vincent, the resident Supreme Chef. Apparently there is no possible food you can request that he cannot provide. And he welcomes your attempts to try and stump him.
Further proving Eureka's municiple government's crazy preparedness, they have emergency plans of action detailing how to deal with any conceivable situation, including an invasion by a horde of mutate, super-intelligent ferrets and alternate timeline by Time Travel.
The town has a standardized resurrection form. Again, they have prepared a standardized form, for someone returns from the grave.
MacGyver is somehow prepared for anything, be it a nuclear meltdown or a neighbor kid's bike malfunctioning. He always carries a pocketknife, matches, and duct tape (even keeping a pocket-sized roll) with him. He allegedly can fix a computer with a hairpin and a piece of duct tape, though this particular MacGyverism is never demonstrated.
MASH's Col. Flagg is prepared for anything. However his methods are somewhat... unorthodox. In case he is captured by the enemy:
Flagg: No one knows the truth. Even I don't know the truth.
Final episode of the fourth season of Lost, the Ax Crazy mercenary leader sets up a Dead-Man Switch, a bomb on his own ship, set up to go off when his heart stops. He uses this to hold everyone on the ship hostage when at a disadvantage pursuing his quarry. Problems? One, he's a mercenary on a dangerous mission; he could have been killed at any time, without anyone knowing about the doomsday device, and then he's killed everyone and stranded his own team. Two, he had no reason for thinking he'd need any such device. Three, he has no reason to believe his quarry would be deterred -- his quarry has no use for the ship or anyone on it, and has already shown himself to be a total psychopath.
Considering he was going up against season 4 Ben, this was actually a case of not being prepared enough. Nothing short of the supernatural can be prepared for Benjamin Linus. For pete's sake, the man keeps a shotgun in his piano bench.
Actually, as the season 5 finale proved, not even the supernatural is prepared for Benjamin Linus.
Averted in another instance, where Locke thinks Ben used the strange phrase "bring me the man from Tallahase" to alert his underlings to Locke's presence.
Ben: No John, we don't have a code for "there's a man in the closet with a knife to my daughter's throat." Although obviously we should.
On News Radio Mr. James accidentally loses Bill in a poker game. When Bill questions whether he has the legal right to gamble Bill's services, Mr. James tells him to check his contract. Bill immediately takes out his contract from his coat pocket. When Dave asks why he carries his contract with him, Bill answers, brashly: "At a time like this, it doesn't sound so crazy, now does it?"
News Radio was crazy into this trope in general. Another notable example would be the episode "Security Door" where Dave answers questions by showing incredibly well drawn slides. Dave has a hilarious slide for every question, even as the questions themselves get progressively more insane.
Again Bill Mc Neal's funeral service had Matt not believing he was dead. Apparently Bill had a secret message to reveal to Matthew whether or not he had died in case he had to fake his own death!
In Highlander: The Series most immortals are this to a certain degree, simply because they wouldn't survive for centuries without it. And the longer they live, the more skills they acquire.
Methos, being 5000 years old, just happens to be an exceptional example.
Duncan: Since when are you my attorney?
Methos: Whatever you need. Lawyer, doctor, Indian chief, I've got paperwork to cover it all.
Power Rangers. Specifically the first six seasons, comprised of (In Order): Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo, Power Rangers Turbo, and Power Rangers in Space. Somewhat justified, in that being trapped in a time warp for thousands of years has given Zordon a stupidly spectacular amount of free time in which to prepare extra zords, potential backup power sources, huge Macross-esque transforming spacecraft, whose key component was a space shuttle that would be built by a modern space agency on Earth millennia later called NASADA. It still wasn't enough to save his life but he never really planned anything for that.
The award should probably go to Power Rangers Time Force, which, despite being called "time force", are not actually Time Police, at least not in their organizational mission statement; they're just ordinary police. Ordinary police that happen to have a giant gate capable of warping people through time, with several ships designed for enabling human travel through said gate and giant robots and planes designed to operate and travel through the gate as-needed, and detailed planning and equipment to erase the memories of those who've gone native from too much time travel.
Psych's Police Officers seem to RUN on this trope. Shawn's dad Henry is always a little intense considering he was a very hard core police officer. Upon returning home with Shawn and Gus, they saw someone snooping around their house, and Henry quickly reached into the bird house and pulled out a stun gun. Cue the appropriate reaction from Shawn and Gus. Detective Lassiter survives a home invasion by shooting the attacker with a gun he keeps hidden in a bowl of M&Ms, AFTER the man mentions roughly 6 guns have been discovered and taken by the same person, including hiding spots of: the fridge, in the couch cushions, and in the bowl of pretzels next to said bowl of M&Ms.
Shawn: I thought they took all your guns?
Lassiter: Unlikely. I doubt they'd look in the shower head, for one.
A subtle version of this appears in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, where Sarah and John have just moved into a new house, and are still painting the walls when Cromartie busts down the door. Sarah rips down the wallpaper to reveal a hidden shotgun, and when Cromartie shoots back, she takes cover behind a chair filled with kevlar. Also, slightly less subtle in that the Connors had a storage unit full of extra firearms and explosives. And if T3 is anything to go by, Sarah has no issue putting weapons caches in odd places, like coffins.
Bobby of Supernatural is a Crazy Prepared Cool Old Guy.
Sam: Bobby, is this...
Bobby: Solid iron, completely coated in salt. 100% Ghost-proof.
Sam: You built a panic room?
Bobby: I had a weekend off.
Dean: Bobby, you're awesome.
In "Sex and Violence" we see that running into the "real" FBI, police (whatever) poses no threat, with Bobby and his wall of ID-labelled phones, covering any possible encounter.
In one episode, Bobby adds holy water to Sam's beer, just in case he was possessed. It's heavily implied he does this for anyone who drops by unexpectedly.
In another episode, Bobby is teaming up with his old hunting partner.
Rufus: Bobby, do you have a cranial saw in the car?
Bobby: Of course.
Another one when his house burns down.
Bobby: I guess I have to go collect my library again.
Sam: But I thought you said most of those books were one of a kind?
Bobby: Yeah. That's why I stashed copies of them all over the place.
Threshold involves enacting the pre-prepared plans for aliens invading the world by inflicting people with The Virus. Unfortunately they don't have the facilities (such as a secure facility to stash aliens and artifacts) and are scrambling to pull it all together.
An episode of Will and Grace has Karen pull out a bottle of champagne and glasses from her purse at request. While this is somewhat in-character, she soon after pulls out a video camera.
In The Office (US), we have this quote from Pam, the receptionist:
Pam: Did I expect to be preparing for a bird funeral today?... Around here, you never know what to expect.
Dwight keeping a pepper spray in his desk ever since he started working there. If that's not enough to cement his Crazy Prepared status, the scene where he whips off a letter-perfect statement of the event which called for him to use said spray from memory to a stunned police officer is. He also keeps in said desk, among other things, nunchuks.
In a later episode, it's shown that he stashes weapons all over the office, including a sword in the drop ceiling above his desk, sais behind the water cooler, a knife in a file cabinet (marked Mr. A Knife), and a blow gun inside the toilet tank of the Men's room. Dwight also Lampshades this:
Pam: There are two keys to the office. Dwight has both. When I asked him what would happen if he died, he said; "If I'm dead, you've all been dead for weeks."
When Dwight is convinced Jim has turned into a vampire -- in an episode coincidentally directed by Joss Whedon -- Creed just happens to have the implements to fashion a wooden stake from a broom handle in his desk.
The premise of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide is the title character collecting lots of info on every possible facet of school life. According to some viewers, the tips given actually work in real life. There is also Cookie, who combines this with Do-Anything Robot. There seems to be no end to all the weird (and completely useless) things he's made a helmet or pair of glasses for.
A Finnish "Spede"-made sketch features a sadistic Obstructive Bureaucrat and a long-suffering man out to get his revenge by bringing "all the paperwork." After a bizarre Escalating War, the man proves to have a certificate of not having visited Zanzibar, in duplicate, but lets slip that he's married. The man has a certificate that shows he hasn't been married to any other woman, but the bureaucrat rejects this as too vague and demands proof for each individual woman. The man concedes in fury, but before leaving he makes a start with the ten thousand such certificates he does have...
Lampshaded in an episode of Wings, when the gang is adrift in a lifeboat after making an emergency water landing:
Fay: I think I know what the problem is. We're all getting a little cranky because we're all hungry. Well, I keep something in my purse for just such an occasion.
Brian: Wait. You keep a little something in your purse in case you're stranded at sea in a lifeboat in an evening gown?
Fay: Oh, shut up.
When told we should return to the attitude on the day after 9/11, Stephen Colbert pulled out a big-ass shotgun while wearing a gas mask and an adult diaper (so you don't have to leave your bunker):
Colbert: That's always down there.
In Farscape, Aeryn Sun's Badass but evil mother used her own fingernail to cut open her arm to reveal a knife that she apparently had stashed there, just in case.
Not only does Scorpius wear an impervious gimp suit, but he also has a single-shot pulse weapon hidden alongside the coolant rods in his brain.
Also, before entering into a potentially difficult alliance with Moya's crew, Scorpius pretends to remove his neural clone from Crichton's brain as a gesture of goodwill. In reality, he simply programs it to remain dormant so long as the alliance remains intact; naturally, this pays off when Crichton abandons him on Katratzi.
Scorpius is the definition of Crazy Prepared. How did he escape Scarran imprisonment as a kid? How did he make himself indispensable to the Peace keepers? How did he manipulate John? How did he survive as a Scarran-halfbreed in a race that hates halfbreeds and thrive? How did he survive mutiny and being buried alive?
Scorpius: Foresight... and preparation.
John even calls him on his insane ability to survive.
John: Kryptonite, silver bullet, Buffy? What's it going to take to keep you in the grave.?
During an episode of Friends, half the characters are trapped in Rachel's room for most of the night without any food. A later episode shows that Joey had planted a box of food and games in that room in case it ever happened again. That box also included condoms because, as he put it:
Joey: We don't know how long we're gonna be in here. We may have to repopulate the earth.
Chandler: And condoms are the way to do that...
In another episode where Chandler and Rachel fight over a slice of cheesecake that fell on the floor, Joey suddenly walks in. Seeing both of his friends kneeling over the cheesecake on the floor, he pulls out a fork from his shirt pocket and joins them!
Joey: What're we having?
In Leverage, Nate reveals he had thought of 13 ways for the team to pull their first job, one of which involves Hardison dying. Parker says she spends her free time thinking how to rob stuff, and proves it when she steals a highly guarded statue with common stuff, like an cone made of aluminum foil filled with ice. Hardison has a black light in his bag for times when a black light is needed. And Sophie can speak fluently in a ton of languages, and fake several others. Elliot, on the other hand is more of a well-prepared Genius Bruiser, than Crazy Prepared, as seen by his knowledge of neurosurgery, flight attendant protocol (Flight attendants always have a spare uniform) and the fact that he has a Flight Marshall badge with him at all times. Nate and Sophie have a bunch of fake passports with them at all times. The whole team makes a living through Nate's Xanatos Speed Chess, so they'll have to be Crazy Prepared to pull it off.
One episode reveals that Nate STILL keeps making plan after plan, as the latest required using 'Plan M', having Hardison pointing out he dies in Plan M. "Usually."
In Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Jerry's jacket exists as an example of this trope.
In the infamous Jon Stewart/Jim Cramer interview, Jon Stewart shows this to an impressive level. Not only by having a counter to each of Cramer's arguments, but by having prepared in advance video clips of Jim Cramer fatally undercutting his own arguments.
Jon Stewart's production crew is prepared for pretty much all statements made by public figures. Ten years ago, politicians could generally contradict themselves in public statements, so long as enough time had elapsed between statements that no one would really have remembered their having said the opposite. Now one need only watch what they say and Jon Stewart & co. may (and often do) have a tape of them saying the exact opposite.
Jon: We've had to hide the tapes around the office to make it more sporting.
Robert McCall in The Equalizer was just a guy helping out people in a normal New York apartment, until he and his 20 year old son were threatened. Robert decided that the safest thing to do was to get his son out of town, so he presses a button and the wall folds out exposing a room filled with weapons, cash, etc. He hands his son $20,000 and a passport, drivers license and credit cards, etc, completely filled out with a fake name and a recent picture of the son. The look on the son's face is priceless.
In an episode of The Mentalist, Jane figures out that a man is faking needing a wheelchair because the soles of his shoes are scuffed. Jane remarks that he's been automatically checking the shoes of wheelchair-bound people for years, just in case, and this is the first time it's paid off.
Only problem is that paraplegia is not the only reason one might need a wheelchair. For example, people who are prone to fainting will often make use of a wheelchair despite being able to walk.
In one episode of the brilliant British comedy, The Mighty Boosh, Howard and Vince become stranded on a desert island. Howard then pulls out an array of items from his pockets that are incredibly helpful, albeit incredibly bizarre to have on one's person in any other circumstance. Vince is less than prepared.
Howard: Okay, we've got to pool our resources. [emptying his pockets] Tweezers, matches, twine, geological hammer. What've you got?
Vince: Kings of Leon CD?
In an extremely strange case of out-of-universe Crazy Prepared, J. Michael Straczynski had contingency plans for every single character of all five seasons of Babylon 5 in case the actor in question dropped out or otherwise became unavailable. These "backdoors" were used at least four times:
Once after Tamilyn Tomita (who played Laurel Takashima in the Pilot Movie) left before the first season (transferring her role to Ivanova).
Patricia Tallman (Lyta Alexander) and Johnny Sekka (Dr. Benjamin Kyle) likewise were unable to return to the show after the pilot movie. They were written out by being reassigned to duty back on Earth. As they were the first humans to see what a Vorlon looks like inside his encounter suit, the reassignments were a flimsy excuse to interrogate them.
Once to allow the trasition from Commander Sinclair to Captain Sheridan (after JMS realized that Sinclair's character arc had been played out too fast).
Once to drop Talia Winters after Andrea Thompson quit (using the backdoor originally intended for Takashima) because (1) JAG had offered her a role and (2) she had recently divorced Jerry Doyle, who played Michael Garibaldi. Oops. Winters was replaced by Lyta Alexander (who had been in the pilot movie herself) as Patrica Tallman had become available again.
Once to put Vir's character on the back burner for a while, as Stephen Furst had become involved in other projects. Londo got him assigned as the Centauri Ambassador to Minbar. This gave him an excuse to appear on the show far less than he had before. After the other show he was working on fell through, he came back to B5 full-time.
Sheldon's 'roommate agreement' in the show The Big Bang Theory has subclauses that cover a huge variety of contingencies, including obligations in case one of the roommates turns into a robot.
Also for if Leonard becomes a superhero (Sheldon gets to be his sidekick) or how to deal with a zombie attack ("he's not allowed to kill me, even if I turn"). On a more practical front, when Leonard is invited to tour the Large Hadron Collider, the agreement has a clause for that specific event.
In Due South it is revealed that Fraser keeps the buckle of his mountie-hat strap sharpened in case he has to use it to break out of a sealed padded room. He also has had other essential items conveniently on hand such as a tuning fork, a Bouga toad and a 7-centimeter length of wire.
How I Met Your Mother: In "Last Words", Robin brings a Purse of Holding to Marshall's father's funeral, in which she crammed everything anybody could possibly need at the funeral. It starts out with fairly tame items, such as a flask of booze in response to I Need a Freaking Drink. Then towards the end, Marshall remarks, "I should've rented Crocodile Dundee 3" and Robin responds by pulling out a Crocodile Dundee 3 DVD from her purse.
Barney takes Crazy Prepared to whole new levels, though. First, he spent six months secretly attending a special culinary school to learn the art of Shinjitsu hibachi cooking. Then, for over five years, he made himself sneeze everytime Marshall mentioned eating at the Shinjitsu restaurant, until eventually Marshall's subconscious was conditioned to crave Shinjitsu whenever he heard Barney's sneezes. All so that, if Barney ever wanted something from Marshall, he could use a sneeze to make him go the Shinjitsu restaurant, then goad him into betting that Barney couldn't pull of Shinjitsu cooking tricks.
"You never know when a tank will come in handy."
ICarly: Mrs. Benson probably has bought and possessed a care-for-your-child product for ANY occassion and keeps a first-aid kit the size of a luggage bag.
After confiscating Sam's blowtube, Carly and Spencer are quite taken aback that Sam kept a spare one. Carly then pats down Sam and finds two more mini blowtube guns hidden inside her socks.
Sam: A good assassin always has backup!
Played for laughs in A Bit of Fry and Laurie with Hugh Laurie's greetings card shop selling cards with highly specific messages ("Sorry to hear your teeth fell out near the Arndale centre") including a card describing Stephen Fry's specific situation (His wife is going to have a jealous spasm on her step-daughters birthday).
Notable in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode Civil Defense. The trope seems to have been enforced, showing how Gul Dukat prepared the station's computer for a revolt of the Bajoran workers, even after they have been long gone. If they didn't surrender, the computer would lock the workers in the mines and flood them with deadly gas; in case they found a way to escape the mines, the computer would lock Ops and flood the station with deadly gas; in case the life support system that administers the gas was sabotaged, the computer would start a self-destruct system; in case it was attempted to fool the computer into thinking someone else was Gul Dukat, it would replicate phaser turrets that fire on all non-Cardassians. Ultimately subverted, as Gul Dukat didn't prepare for the event that Legate Kell would be even more Crazy Prepared - in the event that Gul Dukat himself would leave the station, the computer would revoke his access and transmit Kell's message about how cowardly Gul Dukat is, leaving the station after self-destruct is initialised. And for all these outcomes, The Tape Knew You Would Say That.
Suzie in Torchwood planned for the contingency of her death. She hypnotized a man to go ballistic in the event he doesn't hear a certain code word for a given time period, which would cause the Torchwood team to try to resurrect her.
Apparently in Chuck, the BuyMore has a policy against 'lewd use of a musical montage.' Just in case one would need such a policy in your official rules.
Any business that employs Jeff and Lester would indeed need such a policy.
An episode of Polish sitcom Swiat wedlug Kiepskich revolves around the main character having temporary job as a bureaucrat whose sole task is finding excuses to reject every single client. While usually all it takes is absence of some irrelevant document, it finally backfires when one particularly obnoxious client brings along whole luggage full of all kinds of documents (like permission from his grandparents which he got them to sign thirty years earlier while they were still alive), in all possible languages, each in multiple copies (and then gets rejected in the end anyway for not bringing black pen)
Hilarously enough, by the end of the episode when the aforementioned main hero is about to get his long awaited salary for his hard work, a neighbour, who happens to work as a bureaucrat too, brings him money, but pulls the very same tactic the hero was using for the whole episode to make sure he won't get any money at all.
Glee's Kurt Hummel was this for his NYADA audition; he was going to sing "Music of the Night", then changed it to "Not the Boy Next Door" (from The Boy From Oz) after deciding "Music" was too mainstream. Rachel convinced him to change it back to "Music" (and offered to be his Christine), until the audition judge agreed that "Music" was, in fact, too mainstream. Kurt then launched into "Not the Boy Next Door", revealing that not only was his Phantom costume tear-away to reveal a Peter Allen outfit underneath, but that he'd hidden Tina, Brittany, and Mercedes in the wings on the other side of the stage to dance backup. To sum up - Kurt had two audition pieces - which were completely different from each other - ready to go when he walked onto that stage. Now that's showbiz.
Michael in Burn Notice points out that this is what makes a spy seemingly superhuman. If you catch them in a situation they're not prepared for, they die as easily as anyone else. There is also a subversion when Michael finds his boss (who he hates) in his apartment, eating his yogurt.
Michael: Maybe I poisoned all my yogurt, just in case you showed up.
Carla: You're not that good.
Michael: But a little part of you is wondering if I am...
(Carla puts the yogurt down)
Lampshaded later on with Sam, after he just happened to have a tracker handy when they had an unexpected opportunity to mess with Carla's motorcycle.
Michael: You had a tracker with you?
Sam: "Always be prepared." Navy SEAL motto.
Michael: That's Boy Scouts.
One J.R. Mooneyham has a rather eclectic web site, containing things ranging from supposedly autobiographical stories of his supercar racing days, through survivalist essays and advice for living cheap, all the way to a detailed speculative timeline of world history/prehistory/future history and a Science Fiction novel starring the author's alter ego. There are certainly examples of Crazy Prepared, both in the fiction and the non-fiction. For instance, see the insanely detailed description of the extensive security measures of a fictional research lab.
Legendary Usenet poster 'Gharlane of Eddore' (not to be confused with the other Gharlane) once wrote a post detailing his design for "Standard Generic Monster Load", bullets intended to let you be prepared for almost any conceivable supernatural emergency:
Gharlane: Silver bullet; hex-scored jacketed hollow-point filled with a gel made of Holy Water, wolfsbane, garlic, fugutoxin and curare, laced with dimethyl sulfoxide to provide tractor-solvent Spreading Factor. Traditionalists can also cut crosses in the bases of the bullets, and have them blessed by a priest. .44 magnum 240-grain load over the standard Elmer Keith hunting load, 24 grains of IMR 2400. (The manual says 21.8 grains is maximum, so don't use the 24-grain load if you have a cheap revolver.) These work reliably on Vampires, Werewolves, the generic Undead, and Evil Human Minions like Renfield, with sublime indifference.
Jushin Thunder Lyger revealed that he has Sting-like face paint under his mask, which came in handy when The Great Muta pulled his mask off.
Someone has to keep putting all those tables, ladders and other weapons under the ring should they be needed...
John Cena recently proved himself to be this. Facing Batista in a Last Man Standing Match and armed with nothing more than a roll of duct tape? No problemo....
Triple H, in street clothes including a leather jacket, went up to the ring to attack Randy Orton both were armed with sledgehammers. After some confronting each other with the ring ropes between them the two agree to give up their weapons and use Good Old Fisticuffs to handle this. Both drop their weapons and... Triple H had another sledgehammer hidden in his jacket.
An earlier episode mixing the best Wrestling has in Big Lipped Alligator Moment and Brick Joke, we have the forklift incident. During another match (Booker T and The Big Show) we see Triple H driving a forklift in the background, with no explanation at the time. Later on, during Triple H's lumberjack match with Rob Van Dam... it seemed the Lumberjacks couldn't get out of their locker room because someone barricaded the door with a forklift. What an amusing coincidence!
Rey Mysterio, Jr. occasionally wears a second mask to counter being unmasked.
An old Ernie and Bert sketch on Sesame Street has Ernie heading off to take a bath with a flashlight (in case the power goes out), an umbrella (in case it starts to rain in the bathroom), and a bowling ball (in case somebody wanders by and asks to borrow one). Bert, naturally, states that this is the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard...until all that stuff starts happening.
A Sesame Street parody sketch on Mad TV features Big Bird getting the bird flu and causing the deaths of many Sesame Street residents, which leads the human characters to decide to kill him. One douses him with gasoline and then asks for a lighter. One of the kids suddenly produces his, causing the asker to look quite surprised.
In Mr. Meaty, Josh and Parker are attacked by an alien who's trying to implant them with eggs. When they're cornered by the counter, Josh starts looking for a weapon to fight back with. A glass case mounted on the wall containing a net with the words "IN CASE OF ALIEN ATTACK" written on it causes Josh to remark, "Okay, that's WAY too convenient."
Jon Pinette has a standup routine where he explains that he knows how to say "Feed me I'm starving" in 26 languages. 27 if you count Ancient Hieroglyphs, just in case he gets sent into the past -- he wants his bases covered!
Eddie Izzard lampshades this in regard to James Bond and his ridiculous gadgets from Q; he envisions a situation where Mr. Bond is about to be attacked by sharks and goes to pull out his handy breathing apparatus, but finds he has nothing on hand but a pair of jam trousers. (Strangely enough, the sharks see this and decide to go away.)
Dungeons & Dragons veterans will often remember taking ten-foot-long poles with them, just in case they ran into a trap where the switch is ten feet away. Mean-spirited DMs would make the switch eleven feet away, which would lead to players pointing out that their arm added an extra foot. So the next switch would be twelve feet away, naturally.
Spoofed in game designer Greg Costikyan's novel Another Day Another Dungeon, in which one of the main characters explicitly takes a collapsible eleven-foot pole into dungeons for precisely this reason. One wonders if his world's GM started making twelve-foot traps in response. The sourcebook Dungeonscape adds a 12 ft collapsible pole.
This is almost certainly the reason for the Munchkin card game (and Munchkin d20 books' equipment list) including an eleven-foot pole (aside from sheer one-upmanship on the poor deluded fool who brought a ten-foot one).
Both of the above are "ten-upped" by a D sourcebook which actually contains a 21-ft collapsible pole.
Other items typically carried by adventurers in 3.5th Edition, largely because they're cheap, include rope, chalk, signal whistles, mirrors, fish hooks, and sewing needles. Crowbars, shovels, hammers, pitons, and tarps are slightly less common due to their weight.
A 50-foot length of silk rope, to be specific. Among 3.5 gamers, in fact, the 50 feet of silk rope is the new ten foot pole in terms of iconic adventuring gear. It goes back long before 3.5, though. Rope has been a vital part of every adventurer's kit since the dawn of the game. When Sam Gamgee in The Fellowship of the Ring muttered to himself "You'll want it, if you haven't got it," millions of adventurers nodded in silent sympathy.
The 10-foot pole is referenced in this strip of Order of the Stick. [1]
And also in this Darths and Droids.
Qui-gon: Ten foot laser pole...
One of the adventurers in the Adventurer's Club in Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir goes over a checklist that includes a ten-foot pole.
The Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting includes a prestige class with the ability "Deep Pockets." This ability allows the character to "carry up to 10 pounds of unspecified equipment worth up to 100 gp." This equipment can be any non-magical gear "that can reasonably fit into a backpack."
Dread Fangs of Lolth get an ability that always lets them act in a surprise round. Always. God help you if you try to ambush a Dread Fang of Lolth, as you'll probably discover that he spent the last 10 seconds stabbing you For Massive Damage without you noticing.
Wizards and clerics (and some other classes) also need to be crazy prepared for every situation, because they have to prepare their spells in advance. In most cases suprised (unprepared) wizard = dead wizard.
This is a time-honored tradition in roleplaying games, starting from the first editions of Dungeons & Dragons. Many games have even begun giving explicit Crazy Prepared kits in a character's starting equipment (Chill, GURPS 'personal essentials', HARP, et multiple cetera).
In ANY tabletop RPG, someone has a loadout with blunt, slash, pierce, fire, cold, possibly ice/pure magic/acid, and throwing weapons in case their main loadout doesn't have reach. It's like Medieval More Dakka.
GURPS has an advantage called "Gizmo" that lets you carry one or more useful items, specified at the time you need them.
Spirit of the Century has this in the form of the Universal Gadget stunt. Alternatively, you can take the Rare Artifact stunt if you want something magical and with more features, though this does have a down side.
Toon also has Gizmos, although these are statistically more likely to be anvils or sticks of dynamite than anything else.
In Mage: The Awakening, mages are described as being at their most formidable when they are able to prepare their powers in advance, and are rather more vulnerable than other supernaturals when caught off guard, and there can be quite a diverse number of beasties in the New World of Darkness. Thus, any successful mage will take the idea of being Crazy Prepared to heart (particularly the Adamantine Arrow, whose creed includes the phrase "Adaptability is Strength)". This is especially true in mages' interactions with one another, since it means needing to be Crazy Prepared against dozens of others who are also Crazy Prepared. This is the whole point of Vancian Magic, really. What fighters, rogues and rangers prepare for with equipment, veteran wizards learn and prepare every spell they can fit in that might come in handy, and bring scrolls and wands just in case.
Changeling: The Lost has a similar arrangement. While changelings don't have the universal adaptability of magic that mages do, what they do have are Catches -- specific conditions that allow them to use their magic without having to pay for it. A battle-hardened changeling might bring a torch, a golden chain, a friend with red hair, a fish's eyeball, and the name of a firstborn son with them to a melee just in case they need that special edge.
The DC Heroes Role-playing Game (which became Blood of Heroes after losing the license) had "Omni-gadgets," pieces of equipment bought during character creation whose abilities weren't determined until they were used, to simulate a character who "just happens" to have brought exactly what he needs. Every omni-gadget had a letter code from A through D that determined what abilities it could simulate (e.g., "Type A" gadgets could simulate physical abilities like strength (a crowbar, say) or Body (a bullet-proof vest) while ABCD gadgets could do almost anything). So a character with five ABCD Omni-Gadgets could reach into his utility belt and pull out anything from a flamethrower to a personal teleporter (which he put there for a situation ... just like this!) five times per adventure.
The (W)Hole Delver's Catalog by Task Force Games is a humorous catalog of innovative gear for adventurers who want to be Crazy Prepared. Examples include The Cutting Edge Shield, an Inflata-Demon, a Medusa Cap, the Two-Way Armor, the Droopy Sword, and the Portable Hoist.
Exalted has paranoia combat, which consists of the logic "something arbitrarily bad could happen to me at any time - as soon as I'm in combat I need to use this combo that makes me pretty much immune to harm as long as I have motes, every action until either I run out of Essence and die or my opponent runs out of Essence and dies". The most extreme paranoia combat builds have surprise negators, shaping defences, mental attack resistance, "flurrybreakers" (you attack multiple times, they somersault over your head before your second attack), environmental damage resistance (which after a point can run for free, forever), and two different perfect defences.
Sidereal Exalted possess a power that lets them determine which of multiple options will most effectively fulfill their goals. Among other things, it could be used to know what the best choice of equipment before going on a mission is, even if they don't realise why at the time.
Brian Le Petit (principal clown) in Cirque Du Soleil's Mystere is crazy prepared for pulling any prank you could think to pull on unsuspecting Real Life audience members, such as fake tickets, a blonde lady's wig, confetti, a lacy bra, and several buckets of popcorn. If that does not count, we later find he has quick access to a gun to shoot the Red Bird he's fighting with, a chainsaw to "open" the crate he's lost the key to, and a can of air freshener when he decides to pull Moha-Samedi's extended finger. As a bonus, he's not one of the characters in the story, but a Screwy Squirrel who somehow got into the theater, so there's even less sensible explanation for where he's finding/why he's carrying some of these things.
At the last dungeon of every game, by default, Link is Crazy Prepared for any obstacle it may have due to having spent the journey of each of The Legend of Zelda games collecting various useful items and supplies.
Jagged Alliance 2's extensive panoply of weapons (specifically, in the fan-made v1.13) means you have the ability to outfit your mercs with the tools they need for any battlefield situation (multiple enemies at mid-range, close-range combat, enemies holed up in a building, tanks...). Limited carry weight of your mercs makes this a bit more difficult, but it's easy to compartmentalize.
When Travis Touchdown arrives at the Rank 25 fight in No More Heroes 2, assassin Charlie MacDonald and his cheerleading squad transform into a Humongous Mecha. Travis responds: "I thought something like this might happen." He then summons his own Humongous Mecha and he and Charlie proceed to have a giant mecha fight in the middle of Santa Destroy.
Old Sierra adventure games required you to be insanely prepared for everything at all times, or render the game completely impossible to finish.
The only thing worse than how Crazy Prepared you have to be is how Crazy Prepared Sierra is about expecting you to be Crazy Prepared. In some games, you can take everything that's nailed down along with the nails, only for the nails to kill you of tetanus a few screens later. Just because Sierra knew you would pick them up.
Quite a bit of Nethack's gameplay consists of packratting items that can counter the game's many deathtraps: a lizard corpse to prevent being petrified, greased clothing in case a monster tries to grab you, boots of levitation to avoid pits, and an amulet of self-resurrection if everything else fails. Though the vast majority of them will, in fact, be used in a given successful run -- certainly, you will have to fight Medusa with a mirror and deal with the cloak-grabbing enemies around her, find a castle which you need an instrument to enter, fly, resist fire, have an instant-kill available, dig out quick routes from one set of stairs to another for a fast escape, detect traps or have a stockpile of food (and detecting traps actually requires a detect gold scroll and something that conveys confusion), and I'm just listing things tied to fixed dungeon events, not individual monsters like the cockatrice or golems. A towel is also a very useful item to have.
The Crysis Nanosuit always seemed to be crazy prepared. It can breathe underwater, has thrusters to work in zero gravity, can survive being frozen to -200 degrees and also provides a decent amount of protection against rockets and artillery. Yet it can't seem to survive a single bite from a medium-sized shark...
Any experienced Armored Core players know well enough to venture into an unknown mission not carrying equipment for all kinds of situations. These include radar equipped with bio-sensors so one can target biological threats, weapons that can track even the fastest of opponents such as machineguns or missiles, and weapons that cause a lot of damage to armored enemies. Some very professional players deliberately use overweighted ACs loaded with every weapon for any situations in Arenas, and eject any unnecessary weapons when the fight begins, depending on the enemy.
Some weapons in Baldur's Gate II. Against mages, if they're not protected from magical weapons: Carsomyr (otherwise an unenchanted weapon). Against fire elementals or salamanders: The Wave. Against Air Elementals: Staff of Air. Against Undead: Runehammer. Against trolls or golems: Crom Faeyr. Against anyone that wouldn't die by loss of hitpoints: Chaos. For shopping (yes, for shopping): the Rose Blade. For Warrior/Cleric Multiclasses: Flail of Ages. For Backstabs: Black Blade of Disaster (or the Staff of the Ram). And then you move onto choosing spells for the wizards, clerics, and druids. Never leave home without: Insect Plague (for rendering casters unable to use their spells), Polymorph Self (flind form has a + 3 magic weapon, mustard jelly is 100% magic resistant), Spell Turning, multiple healing/resurrection spells, Polymorph Other (in case your allies are charmed), Glitterdust (for dealing with invisibles), Burning Hands/Acid Arrow (in case of trolls), Chaos (to leave your enemies fighting each other), Drain Resistance (to deal with magic resistant enemies), Fireball (because it's Fireball)...
The Space MMORPG Eve Online features a form of this, with players not only having to haul around different types of ammunition, missiles and drones for engaging targets at different ranges or fighting different types of enemies strong against particular types of damage and capacitor batteries for sustaining fire or damage, but also spare modules, since some may mean the difference between winning a fight and being made utterly useless, which often leads to utterly dead. What's more, in many situations, whether you are flying a large or a small ship, it doesn't matter how high your skills are or expensive your ship and gear; you have to change to different ship. Naturally, in the economy of EvE, with experienced players often having whole stacks of ships in hangars strewn about and the ability to travel light years in an instant, this isn't such a big deal.
Princess Liesel from Visual Novel Princess Waltz is physically weak, but a great blacksmith. As such she is defined by her Hope Spot killing, pulling out device after device to counter any attack her opponent makes. Being a bit of a Chessmaster she normally makes sure her opponents are where, when and how she wants them too.
If you think about it for a moment, the main character of every Adventure Game ever made belongs here. Eaten by a snake? They've got an item that can get them out. Locked in an inescapable labyrinth? Portable hole-in-a-wall. Need to restore the victims of a medusa to flesh and blood? Yeah, there's something in the inventory for that. Unless you missed it.
Neverwinter Nights 2 combines a crafting system with various types of damage resistance. If you're smart, you'll be carrying at least one self-made and -enchanted Silver, Cold Iron and Adamantine version of your favored weapon, if neccessary an additional bludgeoning weapon, and remember to add an alignment-enchanted weapon as well, so that you have the means to effectively hurt all the Werecreatures, devils and demons, Golems, Skeletons, Liches and what have you with the proper weapon of choice. Or just play a monk, where your hands end up being all those things anyway.
In Planescape: Torment, quite a few of The Nameless One's previous incarnations were Crazy Prepared -- and for the most part, you benefit greatly from their contingencies, if you use them without being physically (or morally) offended.
Setsumi in Narcissu has prepared several things in case she escapes, which she never does. This becomes handy after she did escape with the protagonist.
The RTS Total Annihilation has an expansion pack called The Core Contingency, where its about the Core Empire's plan to fucking IMPLODE the galaxy in on itself in case they lost, which they did.
Dr. Light from the Mega Man X series. Before his death, he had set up approximately 53 (or more) capsules containing upgrades all over the world for the main characters, even Zero, which is odd, seeing as Zero isn't even a creation of Light at all. And the hologram that shows up with each capsule falls into the Energy Being Obi Wan category, allowing himself to talk with both of them.
In the case of Zero, the only capsules that he uses (outside of the Xtreme duo on the Game Boy Color) are for semi-game-breaking 'ultimate armors,' the functions of which go unexplained, so the canonicity of Zero's capsules is suspect. Specifically in X5, (the only game where you can use Zero's alternate armor without unlocking it via a button code or other means, like in X8) X's and Zero's Ultimate Armors are found from the same capsule in one of the game's final levels, so you can only get both if you grab it with one character, die, and then come back with the other.
Geoffrey from Disgaea 3 Absence of Justice, whose Catch Phrase is, "I thought this might happen, so I (X)".
Every MMO encourages this by virtue of having so many scenarios possible. The old Ever Quest has a decade of content available for picking up neat toys.
Dr. Bian Zoldark from Super Robot Wars does a good job of being this trope. In the Original Generation series, his plan to unite the world against the alien threat could've suceeded, even if the heroes failed, and in Super Robot Wars Alpha, he's managed to get bloody near every superweapon (such as Mazinger, Getter, Daitarn 3, etc.) maker or user in on his plans and drew up plans to keep Earth from being blown up, and went as far as to leave backup plans (the Earth and Moon Cradle in both continuities), just in case.
In Dwarf Fortress, one of the more extreme "facilities" developed by players is called the "Fuck The World" device, which will lock your fortress up tight and flood the surrounding area with magma. Some fortresses also allow different areas of the fortress to be locked off and flooded. Or set up the main dining hall's roof to collapse, dropping hundreds of tons of rock on everyone inside. Or drop everyone in the trading depot into a room where dragons breath fire on them through a grate. This editor's even seen a concept for a Fortress that monitors foot traffic inside the fortress: If there's abnormal activity indicating a catastrophic population loss or an extended "Tantrum Spiral", the fortress will lock itself and activate the Fuck The World device, taking the world down with it.
Let's give a Shout-Out to the crazy preparedness of Shao Khan, of which took up the third Mortal Kombat game; despite all his blabber about You Have Failed Me to his minions, he knew he might end up failing to win Earthrealm through legal means, so arranged to have his dead wife revived and Brainwashed and Crazy on Earthrealm, allowing him to step through the dimensional borders to claim her, and thus force a merger between Earth and Outworld. First three things he does upon doing so? Lock down his wife with bodyguards, steal the souls of everyone on Earth that isn't The Chosen One, and send a vast army of bloodthirsty, nigh-invulnerable beasts after said Chosen Ones to prevent them from ruining his plans. It didn't work out quite as planned, but you've got to give him credit for trying. He also shows this off in later games; anticipating that his "loyal" minions might one day attempt to overthrow him, he places a decoy in his place during the events of Deadly Alliance, thus surviving his infamous assassination attempt. Then, in Armageddon, he revives Shang Tsung (who had been vaporized by Raiden's attempt to destroy the Dragon King in Deception) and forces fealty on him, revealing that all minions swearing loyalty to him gets hit with a spell that, if Khan dies at any time, causes them to croak, as well...as well as giving him the ability to revive them at will. Damn.
Manfred von Karma is one example of this from Ace Attorney -- he retrains the parrot to get a guilty verdict! The other Crazy Prepared person is Phoenix Wright aka the player. You may not know why you have to "pick up" random pieces of "evidence", but they will come in handy, because you're ready with them.
The OTHER other person is Lana Skye. Maybe not as crazy as von Karma or Phoenix, but she does have people doing work for her while she's in containment. One case is when she kept very conclusive evidence in the back of an Evidence Law book.
A large part of the Pokémon Metagame in competitive battles involves preparing for possible counterattacks and compensating for specific weaknesses in your party that an opponent might take advantage of.
In some of the more recent games, enemy NPCs have been programmed to notice and exploit type advantages and counter tactics, and major enemies can and will train their Pokemon to use attacks only available by TM/HM, tutors, or breeding.
Let's hope your Kingdom of Loathing character remembered to bring a spider web, a barbed-wire fence, a baseball, a firecracker, a blowgun, and a can of hairspray (among others) to the Naughty Sorceress' tower, or you're not getting through. The game involves farming and combining ridiculous items to pass the challenges. Softcore speed runners have to be be Crazy Prepared too. If you want to finish that fast run, you had better have your Ancestral Storage well stocked with everything from ghost pickles to drum machines to hockey sticks of furious angry rage.
In Alpha Protocol, when requesting backup from superspy extrodinaire Steven Heck, during your infiltration into a subway in Taipei, Steven tells you not to worry about the details, he's got you covered. When heavily under fire, you make the call and Steven's backup involves him hurtling by the platform in a stolen subway car and strafing the platform with a minigun he's bolted to the back of it, cackling maniacally all the while. He'd prepared that years ago, just in case.
Mike: [before the mission] Why do I get the feeling you've already planned for this?
Steven: Because I have, Mike!
A mandatory trait for a successful game in STALKER. Going for a routine artifact hunting trip? Don't forget your hunting shotgun, Warsaw Pact-based assault rifle, NATO-based assault rifle, at least one scope and suppressor for both rifles, and a sniper rifle specifically for long range engagements. Along with all of this you'll likely need at least a couple hundred rounds of each type of ammunition for each gun, as many of the three different kinds of medkits you can find, and a veritable pharmacy of drugs in order to help you combat the massive variety of anomalies you can encounter. After all, you never know when your fight with mutated wildlife in the middle of an electrical anomaly field will be interrupted by heavily armed Western Bloc mercenaries and a ghost possessing the power of pyrokinesis...
Only this plethora of stuff will likely put you over the weight limit, meaning you can't run from the pack of mutant dogs, and worse, chasing you down. Not only do you need to know what you may need but how much of it you can afford to carry.
Cynthia Weaver in Alan Wake, with a little more emphasis on the "crazy" part. The enemies in the game are made of darkness, so she always carries around a light of some sort, even in the middle of the day. She left behind supply caches of ammo and light-emitting objects like flares just in case an author got pulled into Cauldron Lake and the Dark Presence forced them to write it free; the caches are even marked with special light-sensitive ink that can only be seen by someone who was touched by the Dark Presence. None of this, however, compares to the Well-Lit Room. The name is actually a bit of an understatement; there are lightbulbs everywhere and absolutely no shadows inside. The room is connected to a decommissioned power plant, so there's no need to find a power source. Cynthia even knows what bulbs need to be changed when, right down their manufacturer and serial number.
In the Fighting Game Marvel vs. Capcom 3, at least one of Doctor Doom's basic attacks and one of his hyper combos involve attacking the opponent with machinery he previously hid on the battle site. As fights in this game can take place anywhere from an ordinary city street to the X-Men's private training room to the extradimensional home of the Norse Gods, this demonstrates an impressive degree of preparedness on his part.
Rocket Raccoon gives one huge "B*tch, please" to Doom in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Hidden gigantic bear traps, remote-activated sinkholes, swinging log traps, and an air-strike just waiting for him to give the order while a helicopter assures he remains at a safe distance.
Hazama/Terumi Yuuki has proved to us that hundreds and hundreds of time loops, and an Evil Genius without like in its own universe, combined with an undying desire to throw the world into an abyss of despair, simply for the fact that "misery is interesting", can lead up to you taking a lot of precautions just to face him. And it may still not work 100% anyway. Oh Crap.
Mr. House, from Fallout: New Vegas, was not only aware that nuclear Armageddon was on the way but also made extensive preparation for his own and Vegas' survival during and after the fact. Though his projection of the date the war would break out was off - by less than a day - he saved a sizable chunk of Las Vegas from becoming blasted and irradiated wreckage (unlike, for example, Washington DC or Pittsburg in the same setting), and emerged two hundred years later to wall it off and claim it as his own territory from the tribes that had overtaken it in his absence. Without that one setback, it's very likely he would have ruled completely unchallenged for a long, long time. As they say, the House always wins.
Your character in Morrowind and Oblivion can be an example of this, if done right. While nearly all of these examples can be replicated with spells, hoarding potions is a great way to survive. Low on health or magicka? Chug some potions. Diseased? Chug potions. Water breathing? There's a potion for that. Need to be more liked by people? Potion for that. Need help in a fight? Slight twist here: there's a scroll for that. Need someone to start the fight instead of you? Again, scroll. Need to carry more loot? Potions and scrolls can help. And this isn't even bringing enchantments into play...
Darkrai from the second Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game. He had a total of five backup plans to try and kill the heroes. First, he tried to convince the heroes to "disappear". When that didn't work, he tricked a Physical God into trying to kill them. When that failed, he lured them to his lair and finish them. When they arrived, he trapped the hero in a nightmare where their partner joined Darkrai due to crossing the Despair Event Horizon. When they freed themselves, he summons an army of Mooks to help him kill them. When he and his minions are beaten, he reveals he'd already prepared a dimensional portal to escape through! The only thing he wasn't prepared for was the previously mentioned Physical God showing up and blasting the portal as he tried to escape.
Whoever was responsible for the packing list for the expedition in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey was clearly a master of this mindset. There are several cases where the crew encounter something completely unexpected, only for the ship's AI Arthur to say that they've got tech for that. Perhaps most notably, the mental parasites in Sector Delphinus are countered by repurposing a mind control device. Most of the crew consider the fact that they even had this to be Paranoia Fuel.
At the beginning of Sonic Chronicles, Eggman was so prepared for the epic battle that he even anticipated his own defeat. According to what he says, this was the only reason he survived.
The final boss of Portal 2 is a colossal idiot who ends up almost causing the lab to self-destruct through neglect and incompetence. So after the fight, the player probably wouldn't have expected him to rig the stalemate button, which the player would certainly go for next. with explosives in case he lost the fight. Not only that, but he specifically leaves it out of his "Four Part Plan" speech detailing everything he's done to fix every flaw evident in G La DOS' fight from the first game.
Additionally, Aperture Science has automated testing facility announcements in case G La DOS is incapcitated. They have prepared such announcements for any possibility. ANY possibility.
Merveille from Solatorobo. She "let" the intentionally "defective" Red escape with the Dahak - which she created specifically to protect him - seemingly as a backup plan or some form of insurance against Baion.
Daniel Clarke from Call of Duty: Black Ops. Has not one but TWO well-stocked armories, a fully mapped-out rooftop escape route (complete with mattresses stacked in a balcony in the event one would need to jump down), as well as explosives rigged into his laboratory that he detonates when Spetsnaz forces attempt to retrieve his research.
Red vs. Blue: Simmons has a supply of food stored in his attic in case of zombies, he won't tell Grif what he'll do after the food runs out in case Grif becomes a zombie. Grif's plan is run to Alaska in the hope that any pursuing zombies freeze to death. Sarge however has thirty-seven zombie plans. 36 include using Grif to distract zombies. For the 37th plan he willingly becomes a zombie just to kill and eat Grif.
Tex shows herself to be this in Episode 18 and 19 of Revelations.
Sarge also has numerous plans in the event Simmons tries to turn traitor. All of them begin with killing Grif.
Mikayla of Thespiphobia, on several occasions.
Tito: Rats. Rats, Mikayla.
Kay: Rabies booster, left drawer. Tetanus shot's in the cabinet. Disinfectant is in your pocket.
Tito: Your pay is SO docked.
Antihero for Hire's got a few of these. How many weapons does Dechs have on him in any given
Haley from Order of the Stick keeps carts for carrying loot in her Bag of Holding. The justification? "Girl's got to be prepared! Tee hee!" Belkar Bitterleaf one-upped Haley in this strip.
To a lesser degree, Daigo the formerly nameless guard keeps his last name unmentioned until a case of emergency, since he has first-hand experience that being a named character can save lives.
General Tarquin - he got himself taught a propher way to defend himself from many obscure fighting styles in case he had to one day fight somebody who knows one of them.
In Home On The Strange, Tanner tells his girlfriend a few facts about his childhood. When asked why, he says that it's so he can tell her them again if he gets misplaced in time or body switched. The comic takes place in the real world, so this is a bit overprepared.
In Questionable Content, Pintsize shows up in a full set of miniature samurai armor:
Marten: So you've had this for a while then? Just in case some situation arose where you would need full samurai regalia?
Pintsize: Well yeah. What's your point?
Also in Questionable Content, Faye's mother came up with a code phrase for Faye to use in the event that she was being held against her will ("the peaches are ripe").
This was Truth in Television in The Eighties, when parents were encouraged to come up with innocuous-sounding phrases for children to warn them with.
While on a date with Sven, Hannelore leaves her purse somewhere, prompting her to reveal what she keeps inside it:
Hannelore: My cell phone, wallet, keys, mace, taser, multitool, Swiss army knife...OH MY GOD I'M TOTALLY DEFENSELESS!!!
This Penny Arcade! strip:
Tycho: Yes, Mr. President?
President: What do you know about manticores?
Tycho: Goddamn near everything.
The setting of The Adventures of Dr. McNinja is a town with its own zombie defense system. Obviously comes in handy during the Zombie Apocalypse story arc. It makes a certain amount of sense, since the Genre Savvy Dr. McNinja is written by a man whose basic philosophy towards writing is always go forward.
Dr. McNinja also has a barber on speed dial in case of emergencies.
Not quite Crazy Prepared. The Mayor who instituted the zombie defense policy was revealed to be a time traveler who knew it was coming.
Thief from Eight Bit Theater has two clauses in everyone's contracts specifically for winning arguments. The first reads, "Yes, it is," and the second reads, "No, it isn't."
Red Mage, who reveals that he has numerous contingency plans for any unlikely situation. He doesn't use any of these plans, since generally, his allies will just blast or stab everything he doesn't get to first. Though it needs to be said that Red Mage's plans are nearly all undermined by the fact that he doesn't know what he's doing most of the time. He's simply convinced he does.
Mandatory El Goonish Shive example: Mr. Verres instantly produces a full presentation -- complete with pointer, easel, and a poster-sized graph -- to explain why Elliot is the de facto chaperone for Grace's Birthday party. And when Elliot's Half Identical Twin / Opposite Sex Clone Ellen voices an objection he produces another poster-sized graph that shows her to be more impulsive than than her "brother". Given that Ellen had been in existence for less than two weeks at that point one wonders where he got the data.
Victor von Hip, a schoolboy New Age Retro Hippie with self-published pamphlets for every occasion. And in case he didn't cover something yet, there's his pamphlet on his pamphlets, so the people would know they can bring it to his attention, man!
Mandatory Girl Genius example: Zeetha wears special non-textile underclothing to guard against the use of a Wacky Weave Destabilizer. Apparently, these were used quite a bit as practical jokes by the audience before the actresses in traveling shows got wise.
Zola had her brain specifically prepared in case Lucrezia tries to possess her.Not only is she immune, it backfires perfectly.
When the leads of Weregeek are trapped in a house surrounded by zombies, Abbie orders everyone around in the fashion to most effectively avert zombie movie tropes while patching herself up. When the lead asks her how she even knows all this, Dustin says she's watched a lot of zombie movies while Abbie herself declares she's been training for this her whole life.
Sluggy Freelance takes a new path to crazy [1]. Let's not forget, that the path to crazy takes a dangerous detour towards sane.
In the world of Digger, preparedness is practically an instinct to a wombat.
Gill may be only eight, but he knows what's up.
Chopping Block: Butch always carries a spare.
Parodied in Skin Horse, where UNITY has spent a great deal of time planning strategies to fight historical figures. All of them consist of, "Look a (something historically connected to the person in question)! Leg sweep!"
The protagonist of Geist Panik has a display which features: a water gun in case of witches, a stake for vampires/tents, the sonic screwdriver for use against both Daleks and shelves, a crowbar for headcrabs, a fiddle in case of Satan, a nail-gun in case of Jesus, and a huge ass-gun in case of zombies/raptors/misc.
In Casey and Andy strip 649, Quantum Crook is prepared for Quantum Cop despite not knowing he's also in 1886. Quantum Cop is prepared for Quantum Crook being prepared...
NASA in Daisy Owl is running a Space School on the moon to train grown Space Babies for fighting off aliens. They don't know of any aliens existing yet, but better safe than sorry!
Tagon, in this Schlock Mercenary strip:
Prisoner: What kind of person keeps four sets of nanny-cuffs on him?
Tagon: A person with pockets. And what makes you think I've only got four sets?
And later, at Bunny and Theo's wedding, Schlock eats the cake and destroys the replacement under Ennesby's orders.
Ennesby: I know Petey. If he made two, he made more than two.
Petey: Actually, I made eleven in case you managed to do something genuinely unpredictable.
Willys ville verden (Willy's wild world):
"We need stronger firepower to stop this guy. Didja bring the bazooka?"
"Check the glove compartment."
On the next page, the villain diverts the heat seeking missile with a molotov cocktail he happened to be carrying.
Vlademyre Hynner from Mortifer has this in spades, to go along with his genius IQ. Best exemplified on this page, complete with Lampshade Hanging (Warning: Spoilers!).
In Spacetrawler, Growp tries to kill Emily in her sleep, only to find there's a decoy in her bed. Emily had set this decoy up even though she could not have possibly known beforehand that Growp was coming for her.
In Crimson Dark, Sarah, former controller of Espenson Station, is able to quickly take over the station's computer systems when Whisper, the other resident computer genius, disables the anti-wireless jamming in Sarah's cell. It turns out that Sarah leaves back doors in every computer system that she ever works with, because you never know when an employer will try to screw you over.
In Chaos Theory, Kevin's suit contains every explosive device known to man, and is rigged to explode if he so much as twitches in the wrong direction.
All Manner of Bad: Jase and his wife have an end of the world plan. It's a simple plan.
Which is more effective but less fun than Bryan's plan.
In This Basic Instructions strip, silent hero Rocket Hat displays this in regards to the moon emperor stealing his hat.
Moon Emperor: In retrospect I should have guessed that his hat would have a self-distruct mechanism.
Moon Minion: And it was particularly clever of him to set its triggerphrase as "look at me, I'm Rocket Hat," spoken in a girly falsetto
Michael Swaim of Agents of Cracked. In one episode, he explains how he has knives, thousands of them, hidden everywhere. He pulls two knives out of his pockets, another from his slushee cup, and when he asks a government agent to check his pocket, there's a knife there.
Kathleen Martin in Survival of the Fittest v3 has spent years doing everything possible to prepare herself for the game just in case she's thrown in it, leading her to have many advantages in the game including survival techniques, knowledge of hand to hand combat, and skill in firearms. Some say the handler takes it too far and makes her rather overpowered, as her only disadvantages are that she's paranoid and nobody likes her. Though, there are signs indicating that she is a parody of this character type, especially since her handler has already created one such parody (Josh Goodman).
The Former System Administrator from Dave "Fargo" Kosak's Daily Victim is defined by this trope. No matter how outlandish the situation that's come up, he has planned for this contingency well in advance ("You see, you never want to fake a major organ failure to hijack an ambulance to a concert where you falsify medical documents and sneak into the trunk of your friend's car in a Spider-Man costume unless you're PREPARED for the eventuality that someone might get hurt if the car slams into a deer."). He always has a backup plan.
The Evil Shakespeare Overlord List has the following requirement. Anyone who actually fulfills it qualifies.
I will have a contingency plan for outdoor plays in case of disasters other than weather. For instance: search helicopters looking for fugitives in the area. The actors are accomplished clog-dancers, but it's not fair to ask them to do that for the interim.
All the family and (male) friends of the title character in The Saga of Tuck. Up to and including weapons lockers, emergency (rotated) food stores and bicycles modified to carry the wounded when cars are useless.
By definition, the "You might be a Survivalist if..." list has many handy suggestions.
An impromptu musical number in Awkward has Alex garbed in a dress. Apparently it actually belongs to his actor. Why? Well, in case he should ever require a dress. (The fact that Batman is his trademark favourite series is actually not much of a surprise.)
Phase (Ayla Goodkind) in the Whateley Universe. To the point where a running gag is pointing it out.
When the Team Tactics instructors are checking the team in for the holographic simulation system, Phase has so many weapons and gadgets and devises in her utility belt that a Whateley Security officer calls him on it.
The Nostalgia Chick made a video about "Playing God" so everybody could prepare for the inevitable zombie apocalypse.
From Everyman HYBRID we have Evan. Anyone who seriously keeps an emergency machete in a friend's car (without them knowing about it!) ought to qualify for this trope.
Green Arrow has shades of this in later episodes of Justice League Unlimited. In To Another Shore, he gets trapped in ice and we next see him getting out with (Waiiiit for it...) an arrow with a buzz saw on the head.
Green Arrow: And Black Canary said a Buzz-Saw Arrow was self-indulgent...
Makes one wonder what he uses it for when he's not stuck under ice ...
Parodied in The Simpsons episode "Bart Gets An Elephant": when a peanut factory foreman spots the title elephant approaching, he gives the following dramatic announcement:
Foreman: This is the moment we feared, people! Many of you thought it would never happen. But I insisted we spend two hours every morning training for it. You all thought I was mad. Many of you requested to be transferred to another peanut factory. But now we... (the elephant bursts through the door and crushes the foreman)
In an episode that marked the beginning of An Arc in Re Boot, "Nullzilla," Phong just happened to have a plan to deal with an out-of-control Godzilla-sized villain/Null amalgamation-thing running amok. It involved Humongous Mecha and an extended parody of both Sentai and Thunderbirds. This was appropriately lampshaded.
Dot: Well, we know physical force can't hurt nulls. We'll have to try containment.
Phong: Do not worry. I have prepared something for just such an emergency.
Bob: You're prepared for a giant monster made entirely of nulls STOMPING AROUND MAINFRAME?
Phong: That is correct!
Bob: How do you plan for that?
Phong: Ah, lucky guess?
Later in the episode, Phong tells them to finish the monster with a weapon, but realizes that it's still in its glass case. The case reads "IN CASE OF GIANT NULL MONSTER THREATENING CITY -- BREAK GLASS"
In the Kim Possible episode "Rufus versus Commodore Puddles", Drakken attacks Area 51 with his dog, grown to 50 feet in height. The General in charge is perfectly calm and rattles off a plan number to deal with an attack by giant canine; the plan involved Howitzer-sized truck-mounted dog whistles, and stealth bombers loaded with giant milk bones, all of which were apparently pre-loaded in the hangars. Later after Rufus has dosed himself with the same rays (like you didn't see this coming), he rattles off another plan to cooperate with an enormous burrowing rodent.
In an episode of The Fairly Odd Parents, Timmy, Cosmo and Wanda need to be rapidly transported to Texas. As they use a conveniently-located escape pod to Texas in Timmy's bedroom, Cosmo smugly says to Wanda "And you said the escape pod to Texas was a bad idea!" She also said the second escape pod from Texas was a bad idea.
In "Escape from Unwish Island", the villians related to Timmy's previous wishes escape from an island (made specifically due to Timmy's constant unwishing) to kidnap his parents and friends. And how do Timmy and his godparents get there to save them? A conviently wished escape pod TO said island (which also was a "bad idea" in Wanda's eyes). ... however, this was wished up BEFORE Timmy found out about said island...
Foghorn Leghorn after a Non Fatal Explosion: "Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency." He has also been known to carry around "a spare suit" of feathers, that he slips on like a giant onesie.
Jimmy Neutron:
Sheen: Gee, wish I had one of those air-freshener things you hang in a car.
Carl: (holding some up) Lemon? Or strawberry?
Sheen: (taking them) Thanks! Wait... why do you carry those around with you?
Carl: (averting eyes) ... 'Cuz...
Another Jimmy Neutron example:
Cindy: "Quick, Carl, gimme that bag of Jimmy's hair you carry around."
Jimmy's watch, which has every plot-related device you could need squished into something about the size of six computer keys. This includes (but sure isn't limited to) freeze rays, lasers, magno-rays, GPS, tracking devices...you name it, there's probably a gadget for it in there.
Megas XLR:
In one episode, Coop is forced to choose between the "Crush Moth-like Bug" or "Anti Coccoon" buttons, neither of which are situations most people would expect, let alone design commands for. A fair bit of this comes from his Context Sensitive Buttons, actually, but that's just one of the most apparent.
Averted in another episode where Coop is searching for the "Save the World" button. Unaccountably he seems to have failed to finish wiring the button, although he does have "Destroy the World", "Smite the world", and "Destroy the world WORSE"
If it involves widespread destruction, Coop has a button for it. Possibly more than one.
Lampshaded in Hoodwinked where the Mountain Goat constantly brags about how he's prepared for whatever may come. He even sings a song about the importance of it all (Be prepared, be prepared, this lesson must be shared...) Granny counts too, since she carried "a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit haz-mat"...
And then subverted with Japeth the Goat.
Ooooooh, an avalanche is comin', and I do not feel prepared,
It's rumblin' like a mountain lion - I must say that I'm scared,
And if not for the witch's spell, you'd hear just how I scream,
But since I'm only singin',
I'll just yodel 'til we're creamed!
Played for laughs in Word Girl:
WordGirl and Captain Huggyface apparently have a plan for everything, and WordGirl only has to shout "Huggy! Plan ###" and they put it in action... in theory. But, half the time, Huggy can't remember what she wants to do at all (and she has to say something like "You know, the one with the trampoline...?") and often the Narrator will question her about why she felt the need to plan for something so unlikely.
This was subverted in, "A Simple Plan," when she didn't have a formed plan to escape a metal cage. When you look at other plans (like, "Have Huggy eat the statue made of meat") this seems crazy. Instead, she rattled off parts of other plans -- "How about the first part of 344? Or you could do 66 backwards with a little bit of 12 thrown in..."
Wild Kratts: Martin thinks he's this.
Chris: You brought snowshoes to the tropics?
Martin: Hey, you may be more organized, but I'm prepared for anything.
Where the Fenton Works is prepared from head to toe with both offense and defensive weapons and shields to protect/do ungodly harm towards anything ghost-related; either small or a large scale invasion. It's utilized several times and at one point, used against the Guys in White.
Danny and his mother are headed to a mother-son science symposium and she turns out to have camping gear as well as a vast array of ghost-hunting equipment on her (despite wearing a skintight jumpsuit)... but no mobile phone. Lampshaded by Danny: "How can she not have a phone in there?"
To keep Nermal from feeding his guppy refrigerator food, Garfield weaves a tale of giant radioactive mutant guppies in the sewers. Despite the fact that Garfield told it as a lie, he has nevertheless stashed a barrel of tartar sauce in the garage in the event that they should make their way above ground and attack. The fact that he doesn't also have handy about 600 pieces of lemon or enough fries to go with them reduces not the scale of Crazy Prepared-ness one whit.
Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego: After realizing that Carmen Sandiego could tell ACME where their hideout is and that they could be attacked, V.I.L.E Council decides not to that risk and have the Cleaners blow up their island and evacuate themselves along with their students. They then look for another lair.
In the "and Friends" episode, the characters lampshaded this with a resturant that can make anything with a "How to Cook Anything Cookbook". Their customer asks for an elephant sandwhich. However, neither didn't want to harm an elephant they found, so as a joke to make it work it they brought it back:
"So you couldn't find an elephant?"
"No" shocking the guy as he sees the elephant "we just ran out of mustard".
In Storm Hawks, Stork, due to his paranoia, has the Condor armed with a myriad of traps. Although his crew mates complain, these preparations eventually do prove to be useful, allowing him to gloat.
In Animaniacs Wakko has a gagbag which contains anything that the situation calls for including a refrigerator filled with food, a working toilet and an endless supply of weapons.
In an episode of Scooby Doo (as in the original 60s/70s cartoons), Daphne, Velma, and Freddy are captured and locked on a wall chain by ghost pirates. At this time, Freddy just happened to have gum and a bunch of straws to reach a key on the other side of the room/cave.
Megatron, in any of the many Transformers incarnations, where he proves to be a cunning schemer whose steel trap mind conceives and implements plan upon counterplan upon contingency plan. So the original Megatron got trapped in Earth's prehistoric past for millions of years, locked in the perpetually frozen remains of a failed assault on the Autobots? No problems! He had already planted a message on the golden disk of the Earth deep space satellite Voyager, detailing the location of prehistoric Earth so that his future namesake could find Optimus Prime and attempt to murder him to alter the very course of history. Yes, he had planned for that eventuality!
Not exactly. The message was that Megatron knew transwarp tech was being developed that would enable time travel and that if the Decepticon cause failed, any remaining loyal Decepticons should use that tech to change history.
In the Beast Wars episode, "Double Jeopardy," Megatron is deposed by Terrorsaur and locked in a prison cell. Once out of sight of the other Predacons, Megatron simply orders the computer to open the cell door.
"The wise tyrant always ensures his prisons are designed for his personal escape."
In Captain N: The Game Master, Simon Belmont can occasionally seem like this due to his backpack serving as a Bag of Holding.
In Phineas and Ferb, the Fireside Girls are almost always present helping with whatever project the boys are working on that day. This is aided by their handbook, which has entries on almost everything, up to and including Time Travel.
Carl had robot duplicates of the Flynn-Fletcher family on hand "in case of emergency". Even Major Monogram is weirded out by it.
When Perry got a job as a truck driver, his new boss was happy because he had recently written a song about a truck driving platypus.
"Luckily I picked today to wear my bike helmet in the shower."
There was an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants where Spongebob and Patrick are wearing anti-searhinoceres undergarments. Considering they aren't expecting a seabear appearing (which is what sets off searhinocereses) and they were only several feet from their house, they were really prepared.
The Magic School Bus: Ms. Frizzle. First off, she has a bus (magical) that can turn into anything she needs it to, various random ray guns that do... well, whatever she needs a ray gun for (shrinking, growing, etc.), plans for various field trips -- and, hey, if they happen to teach her kids at the same time, there is no problem with that! Her house, and all of her dresses that just happen to have the proper pattern for that day's lesson plan. Well, unless she only has a few dresses that are like a chameleon, and change patterns to whatever she needs it to, but then WHY does she have them?
In an episode of Sabrina the Animated Series, the protagonists are trapped in a castle with a lot of vampires. They make a really loud noise to break all the windows, letting the sunlight in. The head vampire simply presses a button on his throne, and the suits of armor all cover the windows with their shields. Somebody goes, "You've got to be kidding me".
In an episode of Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, Wrench Wench Gadget and another character are trapped in a glass tank. She pulls out a glass cutter bigger than she is and escapes, leading to the classic exchange:
Chip: Do you always carry a glass cutter around with you?
Gadget: No, only when I need to cut glass.
In the 1956 Chip and Dale short Chips Ahoy, Dale showed a rare example of this trope. While trying to escape from Donald he cut his sailboat's sail, drilled holes to his canoe, removed the screws from his row boat and tied his motorboat on the port without Donald noticing.
Fishtronaut: The little fish agent wears a powerful suit with a lot of mystery-solving equipment. He should carry more rebreather on them, though.
In one Warner Brothers cartoon, Daffy tries to bedevil Porky by demanding to know if Porky has a license to do various increasing ridiculous things, such as a license to sell hair tonic. To bald eagles. In Omaha, Nebraska. Porky has the appropriate license. Including a license to use Daffy Duck as a motor, to Daffy's great regret.
King of the Hill: Dale's overkill security system comes in handy when the guys need to protect an incriminating photo from a violent football player.
In one episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Boris Badenov whipped out cardboard cutouts of himself and Natasha.
Natasha: Darling, do you always carry cardboard cutouts with you?
Boris: ...Doesn't everybody?
In the 1972-73 cartoon version of Around the World in Eighty Days, Phineas Fogg has a bag that he fills at the start of each episode with all kinds of things that just happen to come in handy during the episode.
Fred Jones in Scooby Doo Mystery Inc. Not only has he set up traps in his house so it could be controled from his laptop computer, he somehow managed to set up traps at all his friends houses just in case of a ghost attack. He also had bait to trap a Manticore in a fridge in his room for just such an occasion.
This is what Huntor dangerous to Monkey in Dial M for Monkey, he has technology that can counteract his powers. For example, his Negative Ion Blaster nullifies his superdurability, allowing Huntor to shoot him with a gun.
On My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, Pinkie Pie can set up a party seemingly at a moment's notice. In "Sweet and Elite", it's revealed that she owns a "party cannon" that can instantly blast a room full of decorations. According to "It's About Time", she has rubber balls and eyepatches hidden all over Ponyville (including one in Twilight Sparkle's kitchen fireplace) for emergency use. Both items come in handy; Twilight uses a ball to lure Cerberus back to Tartarus, then ends up wearing a patch after she accidentally looks at the sun through her telescope.
Duck Dodgers carries exploding brownies and cheese danishes in his pockets.
In an episode of Superfriends, Lex Luthor and Darkseid team up. They manage to capture Superman, Wonder Woman, Firestorm, and El Dorado, then drain their powers into Luthor. Luthor suddenly declares that since he has all their powers, he's more powerful than Darkseid and will be taking over. Darkseid surrenders and Luthor sits in Darkseid's throne... which promptly sprays him with kryptonite dust, defeating him since he has Superman's powers.
In the G.I. Joe episode "Cold Slither", a guy tries to pull off Cobra Commander's mask, but it electrocutes him.
Zombie Squad is a disaster preparedness organization that uses the Zombie Apocalypse concept as a metaphor for the importance of preparing for a natural disaster, on the precept that if one is prepared for the total collapse of civil order due to an invasion of the living dead, one is prepared for anything. People being prepared for a zombie invasion is completely justified, since no rational human being could scrape together a plan of action while being chased by the ravenous undead, and thought experiments like this can help people think on the fly for when real unplanned trouble starts. Leicester City Council could learn a lot from them.
The Center for Disease Control, a part of the U.S. government, just launched a zombie preparedness campaign.
High school debaters. They have to know their case inside and out, and be ready to deal with anything and everything the opposing team can and will throw at them. The most common flaw in these teams is expecting their opponents to be too clever, which leaves them less prepared to deal with the basics.
Alpha Disaster Contingencies a.k.a: The Rubicon take a more Cozy Catastrophe approach to disaster preparedness. Even the basic guides on the publicly available part of the website are impressive in terms of demonstrating a lifestyle which is reasonably comfortable, yet still viable in the event of a major disaster.
This is sort of Truth in Television: the U.S. government does in fact pay people to come up with plans for any possibility -- global flooding, alien invasion, etc. One of their contingency plans addresses the possibility of an attempted takeover of the United States of America by the Girl Scouts. Seriously... how would you plan to convince an army to start firing on elementary school girls, even ones that are undeniably murderous?
All modern militaries will do this (perhaps not for the most extreme examples, but still). Well into the 20th Century the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom maintained plans for war between Canada and the U.S., the U.K. and the U.S., or the U.K. and Canada against the U.S., even when the actual possibility of anyone actually considering such a war seemed stupid. On the other hand, the Pacific War in World War II largely proceeded in accordance with plans the U.S. had in place since the 1920s for just such a situation. To a large extent, these are the results of training courses in various military command colleges, since the best way to teach officers how to draw up plans is to have them draw up plans. Once you have the plans, well, it doesn't cost anything to hang on to them, and you never know; even if the specific event is ludicrously impossible, there might be aspects to it that turn out to be useful. Also, the plans for the U.S. going to war with Canada most likely weren't done so much because they anticipated it, but to make the more seriously-made plans (those involving Germany and Japan) less controversial.
It is also worth pointing out that the US HAD gone to war with Canada (or, rather, some bits under the rule of the British Empire that would BECOME Canada later on) in 1812, and burnt its capital to the ground. Due mostly to a failure to plan, prepare, and consider who and what was really on the opposite side, the US failed in the invasion, and the US itself was subsequently invaded by British regulars who did surprisingly well (including burning down Washington, D.C. and occupying New Orleans). However, Admiral Sir David Milne wrote to a correspondent in 1817 that should the US declare war again, the British couldn't afford to even try to defend Canada.
While researching for World War Z, Max Brooks consulted with a great number people in various areas of emergency planning, and to his surprise nearly all of them had in mind at least some type of zombie contingency plan (even if not official). More in the "Literature" section above.
As referenced in the Scottish wiki, the plan to invade Canada evolved during a time when Canada was still part of the British Empire. It was feared that a successful conquest of the British Empire would require an occupation of Canada to prevent an invasion by a hostile military force.
There are training exercises involving an assault by ghosts. The purpose is to encourage out-of-the-box thinking and to teach command initiative in a surprise situation where no one has any idea what to do by the book.
One example of the "alien invasion" preparations was shown on a Discovery Channel special. One federally-issued emergency services manual includes directions on how firemen and paramedics should respond to a flying saucer crashing into a kindergarten. The manual also apparently warns about psychic assault, radioactive materials, etc.
However, NASA has not created a plan for dealing with the impact of a large meteor, which even they have admitted is relatively likely (compared to other entries on the list).
Freeman Dyson's son has however been in contact with people in NASA that keep the knowledge on Orion systems around. Turns out a project he was working on compiling interviews and data from the now mostly dead scientists had over 2,000 pages of documents purchased by NASA just in case. Project Orion was a project to use nuclear bombs, several per second, to propel a space craft. In theory, the ideal ship is a hemisphere-and-a-half mile in radius with six feet of solid steel. It's considered our only real hope in taking out a killer meteor or hostile alien spacecraft. Nuclear bombs, plural. Carl Sagan noted it to be the best possible use for our current stockpiles of weapons.
An extended discussion on what to do if you went back in time and had to prove your identity to your past self was held on E2, and the consensus was to, at that very moment, think of a password. Your future self will then tell you it, since he is from the future, and probably remembers that day people from the future showed up. That only works if time travel runs as a Stable Time Loop. Otherwise the appearance of your time traveling future self changes history; any password you think up after he appears is not part of his own past.
The motto of the Boy Scouts of America, as well as several other Scouting organizations (up to and including U.S.S.R. Pioneers), is "Be prepared." -- derived from the original British Organisation's motto. The founder of the Scouting movement, Lord Robert Baden-Powell, was once asked "Be prepared for what?" His reply was "Why, for any old thing." Hence, many troops will occasionally have the odd scout that is prepared for anything. Ran out of lighter fluid for the camp stove? Don't worry, this guy brought another lighter. Did a boy break his arm while playing on the rocks? Don't worry, this guy happens to have splints and gauze in his day pack.
Norway has recently taken this to heart with the construction of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which stores seeds of various plants in the event of a major regional or worldwide catastrophe.
The moon as a backup drive for human civilization.
There's a book out there that details how to deal with a robot uprising, with information from experts in robot technology.
Asimov actually created the three laws of robotics and mandated that they be used in his fictional repertoire to eliminate the possibility of this. Said possibility of robotic uprising is discussed many times in the course of his many books and short stories.
In World War II, the British government had Clan MacLeod prepare to summon a magical army of wish-granting fairies to save the world in the event of amphibious German invasion. Because why not?
"Portable" applications for flash drives seem like a digital version of this trope. While hauling around an anti-virus, computer diagnostic tools, web browser, and IM messaging software is sensible if you use public computers often, the full PortableApps.com app catalogue includes a digital planetarium, web server, and a DVD menu authoring tool "on a stick."
Portable Apps is not Crazy Prepared enough. How about a full operating system with all that plus diagnostic software, password recovery and all other hacking tools? Slax is all you need.
Crazy prepared poster. It assumes that our time traveler stashed some tungsten. If you've got that poster tacked to your TARDIS (or whatever), you're bound to have some tungsten. And all the other little necessary knick-knacks. This is Crazy Prepared, after all.
Explorer Roald Amundsen was famous for his preparations, which tends to make his part of the "race to the pole" seem a little dull. In addition to carrying and stashing far more supplies than he would need (and setting out flags ten miles to either side of his depots), before he ever left Norway he developed a recipe to use "just in case" he had to feed his dog's food to his men. He also had a plan to feed his dogs themselves to his men (and the other dogs); this, unfortunately, was not "just in case," but was his intention all along and he did eventually carry out the plan. Hey, do not think about him like that, dogs are actually a good source of certain vitamins, since they produce them naturally while humans need an external source. By intending all along to eat the dogs, you need to bring along less supplies and also prevent the vitamin C deficiency that brings scurvy, two factors which helped Amundsen succeed where those before him had failed, died, or both. It is also worth noting that most of the expedition was made with what sums up to a stolen ship and a kidnapped crew (he had both on the condition of going to the opposite pole and changed course underway).
Turned on its head in the real life anecdote of King Mithridates. Fearing poisoning, Mithridates began systematically dosing himself with every known poison, a little at a time until he could eat and drink in ease as his would-be assassins looked on. Unfortunately, he was eventually deposed and imprisoned, where he tried to commit suicide by, you guessed it, poisoning. As the poem goes, "Mithridates, he died old."
Many Australian 4WDers are crazy prepared when it comes to fuel and repairs, often making space for a decent chunk of a new engine should the need arise. Justified when you consider that the last vestige of civilisation was last week, and you're still a day from the nearest fuel stop.
Also seen in places in the Canadian and Alaskan Arctic. It's not unusual to see someone heading out of a community for a quick fishing trip to a lake 45 minutes away with their all-terrain vehicle loaded down with a rifle or shotgun, or both (in case of bears), a tent, extra fuel, food, a satellite emergency beacon, change of clothes, GPS... and this is going to a place with no trees and terrain flat enough that you can still see the community from whence you came. Although, in the Northwest Territories you're expected to be at least a little Crazy Prepared. To the point where if you aer stuck without gas a "reasonable" distance from a community, you have to cover the costs of emergency services to save your lazy self. "Reasonable" distance can be a couple of hours drive. Also in these regions, a storm can blow up from nowhere and keep you pinned down for days at a time. You'd BETTER be prepared to tough it out wherever you happen to be.
Catholic priests are trained to be prepared for anything that happens during Mass. There are guidelines on every eventuality, from what to do in case of gunfire to what to do in the event of an insect plopping itself into the Precious Blood. Probably a consequence of Seen It All. Also probably in part because priests are expressly forbidden to pause a Mass once it's progressed past a certain point for any reason until it's over. It makes perfect sense to give them some idea of what to do should case of events like the above occur.
These. Hey, you never know when a couple dozen feet of rope will come in handy!
Most American states now have "shall-issue concealed carry" laws, allowing ordinary people to get a license to carry a concealed handgun. Every day there are thousands of regular folks in the U.S. walking around in grocery stores and shopping malls with loaded guns, just in case.
This guy taught himself how to play his favourite piano piece with only two fingers, should he ever lose any in an accident. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
During Q&A after a book reading, Patrick Rothfuss was asked about his views on circumcision. It just so happened that he had an article he'd written years ago as a university journalist on that very subject handy. He read it and it was epic.
The SAS: In a former SAS trooper's autobiography, he mentions their training to assault a grounded 747. One of the men jokingly suggests they run across the top and rappel into the cockpit. They do it. Just in case they're ever forced to.
Philopoemon, Strategos of the Achaean League, was famous for always being prepared with several diffrent plans in case of war. One legend tells that when he went out with his friends, instead of trying to enjoy their company, he just tried to figure out how to use the forest they visited for terriorial advantage in case of war and then he asked his friends what they thought of his plans. His paranoid behavior came in use when Nabis, King of Sparta, decleared war on the Achaean League and the Roman Republic. Philopoemon fought the Spartans with the help of the Romans and defeated them in less in a year. Niccolo Machiavelli talks in his book The Prince about how the wise ruler should always be prepared for war, and he should take after Philopoemon as a example.
The county of Okeechobee, Florida has the Okeechobee County Zombie Apocalypse Annex.
Why they make Swiss Army Knives and Leatherman Multi-Tools.
The World's First Everything-Proof Underground Luxury Community, a network of underground bunkers "built to withstand a 50-megaton nuclear blast 10 miles away, 450mph winds, a magnitude-10 earthquake, 10 days of 1,250°F surface fires, and three weeks beneath any flood."
John Schneeburger, a previously Canadian-based Zambian dentist, was accused of rape by one of his patients in 1992. DNA tests turned up negative. He was later found to have thrown off the DNA test by inserting a tube full of another person's blood into his arm. The plan fell apart because you can only take this kind of preparedness so far; he couldn't fake his saliva or hair follicles. This was later made into a Law and Order Special Victims Unit episode.
Some people in real life make a hobby of packing like this: hence all the websites and books on how to pack, and the popularity of survival manuals (far beyond the number of people who would ever actually find themselves in such situations).
Two words: Tactical Corsets, because even your underwear should be prepared.
President Dilma Rousseff from Brazil is making plans for the country's airports... for 2041.
Much to the amusement of anime fans, Japan recently unveiled plans to construct a back-up city for Tokyo in case the capital is destroyed.
Japan in general tends to be astonishingly well-prepared for the possibility of a natural disaster. In the 2011 Tohoku earthquake (the 5th largest earthquake ever recorded), not a single Shinkansen passenger bullet train derailed, despite several of them going nearly 300km/h when the earthquake hit. Elevators all over the country were also connected to an earthquake warning system and automatically returned to their ground floors seconds before the earthquake reached them. All these structures were made to deal with such a massive earthquake just in case one hit. (For those wondering, the devastation seen all over the media mainly came from the tsunami, because sadly, there's just not much one can do about cities being suddenly submerged under a 3-story-tall wall of water.) In the aftermath, Stephen Colbert wryly observed that the earthquake caused less chaos in Tokyo than the Lakers winning a game causes in Los Angeles. And evidently, the Japanese are still not complacent with all this, as one company has since unveiled a design that builds a gigantic hovercraft into the foundation so that it can hover safely an inch above the ground during an earthquake.
Much of Alexander Roy and Dave Maher's preparation for their infamous 31 hour drive from New York City to Santa Monica pier involved all kinds of contingency plans as well as their standard kit of police radar and radio scanners. As well as a night vision camera so they could drive without lights, gyro-stabilised binoculars, and a chase plane piloted by friends, they even packed books on tornadoes in the glovebox and a weather radar so they could claim in the event they were pulled over that they were tornado chasers and their BMW M5 with six antennae sticking out of it was a storm chasing vehicle.
↑ Xykon also showed himself to be this trope by having researched "Xykon's Moderately Escapable Force Cage" well in advance, to convince a paladin that she'd escaped on her own.
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