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Bumper Sticker - TV Tropes

  • ️Mon Oct 10 2011

A small paper or vinyl rectangle generally attached by an adhesive to the bumper of an automobile, pickup truck, camper, or other privately owned vehicle. Sometimes people put them in the rear window, and sometimes they'll have so many on their vehicle that basically it looks like a Nascar racing car with the usual edge-to-edge covering of ads.

There are many kinds of bumper stickers, these include:

  1. Advertising, such as ones distributed by a restaurant chain
  2. Tourist reminders, so that if you visited some touristy place or Tourist Trap, you bought one so you could say you were there
  3. School advertisements, "I am the parent of a child at Bart Simpson Elementary School," or "My child is an honor student at Springfield School"
  4. Sports Team Supporters
  5. Political Ads, such as ones that carry the candidate's name, and if the President of the United States, their running mate.
  6. Message ads, "If you lost your job, eat your foreign car," and others
  7. Religious reminders, such as mentioning John 3:16 or the entire text, or referencing some different religious work such as the Koran.
  8. Humor, "Caution: Driver carries only $20 in ammunition", "If you can read this you're following too close", "if you can read this, roll me over" (seen on a rockcrawler jeep—in upside down text ), Horn broken, watch for finger!!
  9. Just about anything else someone can think of.

Better (and slightly more expensive) commercially made stickers will be printed on vinyl. Cheaper ones are just printed on paper. This means sometimes you see cars with lots of old bumper stickers, most peeling, or sometimes you see one sticker over all or part of an older one, and possibly on top of a third, a fourth, a fifth...

This peeling effect can be used by the issuer when using them for advertisements. The In-N-Out burger chain of Southern California was known for years for offering $100 if you put their sticker on your car's bumper and a particular radio station announced your license number. But they would warn people to watch out for the "Dreaded In-N-Out Bumper Sticker Stripper" (which is basically the car's owner themselves) because the bumper stickers are in the form

IN-N-OUT

BURGER

And what some people do is cut off the "B" and the "R" in "Burger" to get

IN-N-OUT

URGE

In which case, you don't get the hundred bucks. But you do get known by your neighbors as a pervert.

With a color printer and paper with an adhesive on one side, now anyone can create their own bumper stickers. Many are also magnetic now to preserve the full value of a car because stickers do a number to the paint below.

Examples:

Films — Live-Action

  • Forrest Gump: As Forrest is speaking with someone during his run-across-the-country phase, he steps in a pile of doggie-do and the other man comments on it. Forrest replies, "It happens." The man asks, "What, shit?" Forrest says, "Yeah." A short time later, a pickup truck passes by Forrest and the audience can see a sticker on its back bumper with the now-iconic phrase, "Shit happens.", implying that the man had taken the idea for a money-making scheme.
  • Spaceballs: The Spaceball One has an appropriately sized bumper sticker reading “we brake for no one.”
  • Twisters: Tyler Owens' Dodge Ram has a big sticker that reads "See You in Hail." Considering that he has made himself a reputation as a man crazy enough to drive into tornadoes for the adrenaline and the media views, it fits quite well in all senses of the word.
  • Waterworld: The Smoker boss’s car has a “nuke the whales” bumper sticker.

Literature

  • Our Wives Under the Sea: Juna drives Jelka's car, which has Christian-themed bumper stickers such as "Would You Follow Jesus This Close?" Juna doesn't like them and is hoping to scrape them off.

Live-Action TV

Music

  • 1979: The teens' car has a parody of the "honor student" bumper sticker, reading "Proud parents of a 'D' student."

Video Games

  • Forza: Bumper stickers can be easily created with the game's vinyl editor. Then, you can put them on your vehicle.
  • Injustice 2: Conversed. When faced against Aquaman, Blue Beetle teases him on his ability to talk to fish and, after Aquaman's annoyed "That's a gross oversimplification" retort, Blue Beetle adds that it fits easy on a bumper sticker.

Web Original

Western Animation