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Bags of Letters

122 statements
22 feature instances
11 referencing feature instances

Bags of Letters	type	FeatureClass
Bags of Letters	label	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters	page	BagsOfLetters
Bags of Letters	comment	The protagonist is at a crucial turning point in their life and things are generally looking pretty grim. Rather suddenly, the character is surrounded with bags and bags of letters. While the letters are written by people who aren't even in the story, the sheer quantity of envelopes implies that they accurately represent public opinion, constitute valid legal arguments, or create some other opportunity for the character they are addressed to. Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })Bags of Letters can be a Smoking Gun. If a few letters are read aloud, the bag will often turn out to be full of Strongly Worded Letters. But the important thing is quantity. Sometimes, for instance in Miracle on 34th Street, the letters aren't even read or opened. Other times, for instance in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington a character will read a few aloud and the audience is left to assume that all the letters sound like that. The mass of letters often appear on camera in literal bags although many movies use the trope to refer to letters offscreen or just show a pile of letters which were presumably in a bag at some earlier point. This trope is a form of Deus ex Machina since most of the letters are written by characters who aren't even in the story. The effect is usually positive, but the letters can occasionally have a negative effect on the protagonist. Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })Variations due to advancing technology include having someone rush into the room saying "The Switchboard is Lighting Up" where it's been established that the character is on live radio or television and is about to be kicked off the air when suddenly hundreds of people start calling in, as well as (briefly in the '90s and early '00s) a rapidly filling email inbox or In-Universe real-time reaction via social media such as Facebook, Twitter, or the equivalent.
Bags of Letters	fetched	2021-08-14T19:53:50Z
Bags of Letters	parsed	2021-08-14T19:53:50Z
Bags of Letters	processingComment	Dropped link to BuccaneerBroadcaster: Not an Item - FEATURE
Bags of Letters	processingComment	Dropped link to CorruptCorporateExecutive: Not an Item - FEATURE
Bags of Letters	processingComment	Dropped link to SwingVote: Not an Item - UNKNOWN
Bags of Letters	processingComment	Dropped link to ThePolice: Not an Item - IGNORE
Bags of Letters	processingUnknown	Swing Vote
Bags of Letters	isPartOf	DBTropes
Bags of Letters / int_10417c77	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_10417c77	comment	In Barbara Slate's Angel Love, Angel's roommate Wendy Thornball puts out a personal ad in the newspaper looking for a date. Angel comes into her apartment building to check her mail slot, and dozens of letters come pouring out of it for Wendy. Angel takes it all upstairs to her apartment and dumps them right on top of Wendy.
Bags of Letters / int_10417c77	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_10417c77	featureConfidence	1.0
Angel Love (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_10417c77
Bags of Letters / int_10861ce9	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_10861ce9	comment	In The Smurfs special "Smurfily Ever After", Clumsy is given a ton of invites to deliver to the guests of Woody and Laconia's wedding, which are all dumped on top of him by Handy's crane. Clumsy gets the help of the Pussywillow Pixies to deliver the rest of the letters since they could fly.
Bags of Letters / int_10861ce9	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_10861ce9	featureConfidence	1.0
The Smurfs	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_10861ce9
Bags of Letters / int_15c6ea92	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_15c6ea92	comment	Wonder Woman (1987): Cassie gets bags full of fan mail for being Wonder Girl that her friend Georgia helps her sort through.
Bags of Letters / int_15c6ea92	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_15c6ea92	featureConfidence	1.0
Wonder Woman (1987) (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_15c6ea92
Bags of Letters / int_261c8d3f	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_261c8d3f	comment	The Simpsons: When they own a racehorse, as he's being put out to stud, the horse gets Bags of Letters from prospective broodmares. When Homer files a lawsuit against a seafood restaurant whose definition of "all you can eat" differed from his, the defendant asked for a display of how much Homer ate that night. At that point parodying the film Miracle on 34th Street, a huge convoy of people carrying large sacks enter the court, but it turns out that they just contain letters for an adjacent courtroom (People of Springfield vs Santa Claus). In "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge", Marge protests against The Itchy & Scratchy Show and launches a mass letter-writing campaign to the studio. Pretty soon, Roger Meyers, Jr. has his desk completely covered in angry letters, with a line of mail trucks arriving at the gates and stretching into the horizon, which makes him reluctantly admit defeat.
Bags of Letters / int_261c8d3f	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_261c8d3f	featureConfidence	1.0
The Simpsons	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_261c8d3f
Bags of Letters / int_4c44acb7	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_4c44acb7	comment	Frequently parodied in I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, with lines like "I see from the small mountain in our in-tray that someone's sent us a scale model of Kilimanjaro" or (in August) "I see from the vast pile of envelopes in front of me that Christmas delivery is as good as ever", leading to the announcement that they've only received one letter, from a Mrs Trellis of North Wales.
Bags of Letters / int_4c44acb7	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_4c44acb7	featureConfidence	1.0
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (Radio)	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_4c44acb7
Bags of Letters / int_57e3ab58	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_57e3ab58	comment	On The Dick Van Dyke Show when Sally said on national TV that she was looking for a man Bags Of Letters arrived overnight.
Bags of Letters / int_57e3ab58	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_57e3ab58	featureConfidence	1.0
The Dick Van Dyke Show	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_57e3ab58
Bags of Letters / int_5a0093	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_5a0093	comment	Variation: The original Bill Cullen edition of The Price Is Right utilized randomly selected postcards in five rotating drums for their home viewer sweepstakes. Whoever had the exact price first out of five selected cards (or the first closest to the price without going over) was the winner.
Bags of Letters / int_5a0093	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_5a0093	featureConfidence	1.0
The Price Is Right	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_5a0093
Bags of Letters / int_603c0392	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_603c0392	comment	RealityCheck's Nyxverse: Partway through Nyx's Family, a would-be assassin attacks Nyx and her grandparents (fortunately, his explosive device turns out to be a dud). Once the story hits the newspapers, there's a massive outpouring of support, and a huge pile of letters and packages for Nyx is delivered to the royal palace of the Crystal Empire. And that's just one day's worth, with even more arriving in the days afterward.
Bags of Letters / int_603c0392	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_603c0392	featureConfidence	1.0
RealityCheck's Nyxverse / Fan Fic	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_603c0392
Bags of Letters / int_64c61455	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_64c61455	comment	When Homer files a lawsuit against a seafood restaurant whose definition of "all you can eat" differed from his, the defendant asked for a display of how much Homer ate that night. At that point parodying the film Miracle on 34th Street, a huge convoy of people carrying large sacks enter the court, but it turns out that they just contain letters for an adjacent courtroom (People of Springfield vs Santa Claus).
Bags of Letters / int_64c61455	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_64c61455	featureConfidence	1.0
Miracle on 34th Street	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_64c61455
Bags of Letters / int_6db69657	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_6db69657	comment	The title of the movie Letters from Iwo Jima refers to a bag of letters from Japanese soldiers on the island that were never delivered to their families. Their discovery by modern day archeologists starts off the story.
Bags of Letters / int_6db69657	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_6db69657	featureConfidence	1.0
Letters from Iwo Jima	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_6db69657
Bags of Letters / int_7459fa66	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_7459fa66	comment	In It Could Happen to You, after a journalist (who masqueraded as a homeless man, to see how they would react: despite the fact they were penniless, they helped him out) runs the story about this poor couple, thousands of people send in contributions and raise $600,000 for the couple to live happily ever after.
Bags of Letters / int_7459fa66	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_7459fa66	featureConfidence	1.0
It Could Happen to You	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_7459fa66
Bags of Letters / int_7d1c83da	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_7d1c83da	comment	Better Call Saul: In "Coushatta," Kim's idea as to how to pressure DDA Ericsen into agreeing to a plea deal for Huell Babineaux, who's been arrested for assaulting a police officer with a bag of sandwiches. Jimmy takes a bus to Huell's hometown of Coushatta, Louisiana, getting other passengers on the bus to write letters of support for Huell from a predesignated script that paints Huell as a pillar of his community. Once Jimmy gets to Coushatta, he takes the letters to a post office to mail them to Judge Munsinger in the Albuquerque courthouse. Judge Munsinger is overwhelmed by the flood of letters and tells Ericsen and Kim to work out some plea deal so they don't have to deal with the (nonexistent) threat of a media circus coming into town.
Bags of Letters / int_7d1c83da	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_7d1c83da	featureConfidence	1.0
Better Call Saul	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_7d1c83da
Bags of Letters / int_7d1eede5	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_7d1eede5	comment	In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Mr. Smith expects his filibuster to sway public opinion in his favor, but he is presented with bags of letters that reveal public opinion has turned against him. The mass of letters almost makes Smith lose hope.
Bags of Letters / int_7d1eede5	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_7d1eede5	featureConfidence	1.0
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_7d1eede5
Bags of Letters / int_8cb3a247	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_8cb3a247	comment	In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, people Rita Skeeter attacks in her Daily Prophet articles, such as Hagrid, Hermione and Harry himself, tend to receive large amounts of hate mail. Although it's not shown, Dumbledore claims that he was also sent a lot of letters vouching for Hagrid (from people who knew him from their school days). This is reversed in the fifth book when Skeeter is blackmailed into conducting an unbiased interview with Harry (also an aversion of this trope, since the resulting letters vary from "You're a hero!" to "Seek professional help").
Bags of Letters / int_8cb3a247	featureApplicability	-1.0
Bags of Letters / int_8cb3a247	featureConfidence	1.0
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_8cb3a247
Bags of Letters / int_9a45848c	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_9a45848c	comment	In Julius Caesar, Cassius forges letters, pretending to be Roman citizens, to persuade Brutus to take action against Caesar for the good of Rome. Achieves the same effect as honestly written letters.
Bags of Letters / int_9a45848c	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_9a45848c	featureConfidence	1.0
Julius Caesar (Theatre)	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_9a45848c
Bags of Letters / int_9a7088bc	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_9a7088bc	comment	While she was working on Star Trek: The Original Series, Nichelle Nichols was told by a couple of studio mailmen that she was receiving bags of fan mail, but that they were being dumped — apparently for racial reasons. It got her so miffed that she wanted to leave the show and only Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was able to talk her out of it.
Bags of Letters / int_9a7088bc	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_9a7088bc	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek: The Original Series	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_9a7088bc
Bags of Letters / int_b07ab1cd	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_b07ab1cd	comment	In Sleepless in Seattle, after announcing how hard it is dealing with the death of his wife, the protagonist receives thousands of letters from around the country and one of them is from the girl who he will eventually fall in love with.
Bags of Letters / int_b07ab1cd	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_b07ab1cd	featureConfidence	1.0
Sleepless in Seattle	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_b07ab1cd
Bags of Letters / int_b0fc9724	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_b0fc9724	comment	In a sketch on Saturday Night Live the two biggest stars of South American music release a joint album while at the same time taking potshots at each other through song. In a duet to the tune of "Guantanamera" one singer claims he gets one ton of fan mail. The other singer counters with the fact that he gets two tons of fanmail. The first comes back by alleging that he gets four tons of fanmail. It then devolves into claims of eye jobs and trouser stuffing.
Bags of Letters / int_b0fc9724	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_b0fc9724	featureConfidence	1.0
Saturday Night Live	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_b0fc9724
Bags of Letters / int_b41d6d10	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_b41d6d10	comment	At the end of Both Your Houses a corrupt congressman's office is getting swamped with telegrams opposing a pork- and graft-laden appropriations bill.
Bags of Letters / int_b41d6d10	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_b41d6d10	featureConfidence	1.0
Both Your Houses	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_b41d6d10
Bags of Letters / int_c4282b71	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_c4282b71	comment	My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In the second half of the season 2 opener, Twilight's fallen under Discord's influence and is badly depressed. Princess Celestia promptly sends her back all the Friendship Reports she'd sent in over the course of the first season, and reading the pile of mail helps restore her resolve and true self, allowing her to go out and help her friends so they can beat Discord.
Bags of Letters / int_c4282b71	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_c4282b71	featureConfidence	1.0
MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_c4282b71
Bags of Letters / int_dd4235a8	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_dd4235a8	comment	In the Hancock's Half Hour episode "The Bowmans" Hancock finds himself bombarded by mail the day after his radio Soap Opera character is killed off.
Bags of Letters / int_dd4235a8	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_dd4235a8	featureConfidence	1.0
Hancocks Half Hour	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_dd4235a8
Bags of Letters / int_ef076a36	type	Bags of Letters
Bags of Letters / int_ef076a36	comment	Future tech example: In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Virtuoso", Voyager's computer systems are all clogged with fan mail for The Doctor from the Qomar, a people to whom music was introduced for the first time by The Doctor with his performance on Voyager.
Bags of Letters / int_ef076a36	featureApplicability	1.0
Bags of Letters / int_ef076a36	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek: Voyager	hasFeature	Bags of Letters / int_ef076a36

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Bags of Letters	processingCategory2	Mail and Delivery Tropes
Bags of Letters	processingCategory2	Narrative Devices
Angel Love (Comic Book) / int_6f352846	type	Bags of Letters
Miracle on 34th Street / int_6f352846	type	Bags of Letters
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington / int_6f352846	type	Bags of Letters
Swing Vote / int_6f352846	type	Bags of Letters
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire / int_6f352846	type	Bags of Letters
This Week In Virology (Podcast) / int_6f352846	type	Bags of Letters
Hancock's Half Hour (Radio) / int_6f352846	type	Bags of Letters
Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story / int_6f352846	type	Bags of Letters
The Dick Van Dyke Show / int_6f352846	type	Bags of Letters

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