“’Cowboys meeting aliens seems to be a theme strictly for comic books and blockbuster movies,’ LeMay said. ‘But in reality, there exist many newspaper and magazine accounts from the 1800s telling of strange sightings and encounters from America’s cowboy era.’. 'The 'Cowboys and Aliens' song that I wrote with San Diego musician Justin Werner is going to be the theme song for the upcoming Platinum Studios Cowboys and Aliens animated motion picture,' Scott.
L to R, Dan Goodwin, Patrick Fitzgerald, Julian Swales (1992) | |
| Background information | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Tooting, England |
| Genres | Alternative rock, dream pop, shoegazing, neo-psychedelia, post-punk |
| Years active | 1986–96, 2012–present |
| Labels | One Little Indian, A&M, Fierce Panda, 3 Loop Music |
| Associated acts | Kitchens O.D., Lost Girls, Fruit, Stephen Hero, Oskar's Drum |
| Website | Facebook page |
| Members | Patrick Fitzgerald Julian Swales Dan Goodwin |
Kitchens of Distinction (sometimes shortened colloquially to KOD) are an English three-person alternative rock band formed in Tooting, South London in 1986. They released four studio albums and a handful of singles and EPs before disbanding in 1996. In September 2012, Patrick Fitzgerald announced on his Stephen Hero Facebook page that he, along with original members Julian Swales and Dan Goodwin, were working on new material as Kitchens of Distinction. The reunited trio released their fifth studio album, their first since 1994, in late September 2013.
- 1History
- 3Discography
History[edit]
Beginnings to break-up (1986–1996)[edit]
Dan Goodwin (drums) met Julian Swales (guitar) at college in 1980, and Swales met Patrick Fitzgerald (vocals/bass guitar) at a party in 1985.[1] The trio began rehearsing together that same year, taking their name from a company of the same name that specialised in home decor and kitchen and plumbing fixtures,[2] after Swales spotted one of their advertisements on the side of a bus while riding his bike. The Kitchens' first single, 'The Last Gasp Death Shuffle' (which featured Swales on lead vocals and bass, as well as guitar,[3] was recorded in just one day on an eight-track in a Kennington basement, and was released in December 1987 on the band's own Gold Rush Records. It was named a single of the week in the NME,[4] and led to the band signing with the British indie labelOne Little Indian Records; it was around this time that Fitzgerald, a medical doctor, put his career on hold to devote himself fully to the band.[5] Their first singles for One Little Indian, 1988's 'Prize' and 1989's 'The 3rd Time We Opened the Capsule', made it onto the 'NME Writers' 100 Best Indie Singles Ever' list, published 25 July 1992.
Their first full-length album, Love Is Hell, was released in April 1989. Fitzgerald's impassioned, wordy, often bluntly personal vocals careened over what sounded like a mass of swirling guitars, though the band only had one guitarist. Swales' chiming, effects-laden style of playing drew him comparisons to the guitarists of The Chameleons, Cocteau Twins, and A.R. Kane. KOD's melodic yet abstract sound was a precursor to the shoegazing scene of the late 1980s/early 1990s.[4]
Despite the promising start, the band faced a subdued reception from the mainstream music industry, generally due to their lyrical content. For instance, 'Margaret's Injection', on the 1989 Elephantine EP, was a fantasy about killing then-Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher. Also, Fitzgerald was openly gay, and his lyrics were unapologetic, especially on tracks like 'Prize' and 'Within the Daze of Passion'. Even the more indie-focused television programs like Snub TV and Rapido failed to give them much coverage, although Snub TV played the video for their 1991 single 'Drive That Fast'. Likewise, they were not offered a John Peel radio session, although they eventually did get one after asking Peel personally, following a Glastonbury performance which he appreciated.
Kitchens of Distinction sometimes performed 'secret' gigs under the alter ego Toilets of Destruction.[2][6] An example was at The Bull & Gate in Kentish Town on 6 August 1990, where the band appeared in drag and played ABBA, David Bowie, and Bauhaus covers.
In 1990, they signed with A&M Records in the US, and went into the studio with producerHugh Jones (Simple Minds, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Undertones). Their second album, Strange Free World, was released in February 1991, and spawned some moderately successful singles in 'Drive that Fast' and 'Quick as Rainbows', both of which were very well received by college radio in the US. The band went back into the studio in 1992, again with Jones at the helm, and their third album The Death of Cool came out in August that year; it was named in honour of the passing of Miles Davis, who had released an influential album titled The Birth of the Cool in 1950.[7] A&M balked at the band's choice of 'Breathing Fear' for the first single, due to its touchy subject matter (gay bashing), so 'Smiling' became the album's initial single in the US. The band toured extensively, including a high-profile slot opening for their US labelmate Suzanne Vega, whose album 99.9F° came out within a few weeks of theirs.
Later in 1993, KOD began work on their fourth album, co-producing it themselves with engineerPete Bartlett. One Little Indian rejected the album twice, and eventually, both label and band agreed to bring in up-and-coming producer Pascal Gabriel to work on a couple of tracks. One of the label's complaints about the album as the band originally submitted it was that they felt it lacked a potential hit single, so Gabriel produced a new song ('Come on Now') that the band had written after the rest of the album had already been recorded; Gabriel also remixed two of the album's other tracks (the opener 'Sand on Fire' and first single 'Now It's Time to Say Goodbye'). The resulting album, Cowboys and Aliens, was released in the UK in October 1994, and although the band admitted that they enjoyed working with Gabriel, the changes did nothing to help the album's dismal sales. When the album saw its US release in early 1995, it was largely ignored by the same alternative rock radio and media that had championed them just a few years before. By the end of 1995, both A&M and OLI had dropped the band.
Shortening their name to Kitchens O.D. and signing to the London-based indie label Fierce Panda Records, they issued a single, 'Feel My Genie' in May 1996,[4] which was named 'Single of the Week' by Melody Maker, but they officially disbanded that summer after a farewell gig at London's Kings Cross.[1]
Post dissolution to reunion (1996–present)[edit]
Fitzgerald continued to record and release music under the name Fruit (not to be confused with the Australianband of the same name), a project that also featured guest vocals from Miki Berenyi of Lush and Isabel Monteiro of Drugstore. He also formed Lost Girls, a project with 4AD recording artist Heidi Berry; one single titled 'Needle's Eye' was released (eventually followed by a full album in 2014).
Since 2000, he has been recording as Stephen Hero, and has put out several releases under that name. The latest is Apparition in the Woods, released in November 2009.
Despite rumours of a collaboration with Terry Bickers (of The House of Love and Levitation),[citation needed] Swales moved into writing scores for film, theatre, and dance.
In September 2012, Fitzgerald announced that he and Swales had recorded and were in the process of editing ten new songs.[8] The reunited trio of Fitzgerald, Swales, and Goodwin released their fifth studio album Folly, their first new album in 19 years, on 30 September 2013.
Lost Girls' long-awaited album was released in October 2014 by 3 Loop Music on vinyl, download and as a 2CD expanded edition (featuring demos and extra tracks).[9]
Members[edit]
- Patrick Fitzgerald (born 7 April 1964, Basel, Switzerland) – vocals, bass guitar
- Julian Swales (born 23 March 1964, Monmouthshire, United Kingdom) – guitar, vocals (occasionally)
- Daniel Goodwin (born 22 July 1964, Salamanca, Spain) – drums, percussion
Discography[edit]
Albums[edit]
| Year | Album details | Peak chart positions | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK | |||||||||||||||
| 1989 | Love Is Hell
| — | |||||||||||||
| 1991 | Strange Free World
| 45 | |||||||||||||
| 1992 | The Death of Cool
| 72 | |||||||||||||
| 1994 | Cowboys and Aliens
| — | |||||||||||||
| 2013 | Folly
| — | |||||||||||||
| '—' denotes a release that did not chart. | |||||||||||||||
Compilations[edit]
| Year | Album details | Peak chart positions | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK | |||||||||||||||
| 2003 | Capsule: The Best of KOD 1988–94
| — | |||||||||||||
| 2017 | Watch Our Planet Circle
| — | |||||||||||||
| '—' denotes a release that did not chart. | |||||||||||||||
Singles and EPs[edit]
| Song | Release date | Release info | Formats | UK Singles Chart[10] | US Modern Rock[11] | Album |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 'The Last Gasp Death Shuffle'/'Escape' | December 1987 | Gold Rush (GRR3) | 7' | — | — | Non-album single |
| 'Prize' | October 1988 | One Little Indian(12TP) | 12' | — | — | Love Is Hell |
| 'The 3rd Time We Opened the Capsule' | May 1989 | One Little Indian (19TP) | 12' | — | — | |
| Elephantine EP | October 1989 | One Little Indian (29TP) | CD, 12' | — | — | Non-album single |
| 'Quick as Rainbows' | March 1990 | One Little Indian (43TP) | CD, 12' | — | 18 | Strange Free World |
| 'Gorgeous Love'1 | December 1990 | A&M | Promo CD, promo 12' | — | — | |
| Drive that Fast EP | January 1991 | One Little Indian (49TP) | CD, 7', 12' | 93 | 12 | |
| 'Breathing Fear' | May 1992 | One Little Indian (59TP) | CD, 7', 12' | — | — | The Death of Cool |
| 'When in Heaven' | August 1992 | One Little Indian (69TP) | CD, 12' | — | — | |
| 'Smiling'1 | September 1992 | A&M | Promo 12' | — | 15 | |
| '4 Men'1 | October 1992 | A&M | Promo CD | — | 28 | |
| 'Now It's Time to Say Goodbye' | September 1994 | One Little Indian (111TP) | CD, 12' | — | — | Cowboys and Aliens |
| 'Cowboys and Aliens'1 | January 1995 | A&M | Promo CD | — | — | |
| 'Feel My Genie'/'To Love a Star'2 | May 1996 | Fierce Panda(NING 19) | CD, 7' | — | — | Non-album single |
| 'Japan to Jupiter'1 | September 2013 | 3 Loop Music | Promo CD | — | — | Folly |
| 'Extravagance' | April 2014 | 3 Loop Music | 10' | — | — | |
| '—' denotes a release that did not chart. | ||||||
Notes:
- 1 Promotional-only releases.
- 2 'Feel My Genie'/'To Love a Star' was released under the name Kitchens O.D.
Non-album tracks[edit]
- 'Pastor Niemöller's Lament (Never Again)' – found on The Disagreement of the People, a compilation album of artists against the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (November 1995, Cooking Vinyl)
Cover songs[edit]
- 'White Horses' (1994; B-side to the UK single 'Now It's Time to Say Goodbye' and the US single 'Cowboys and Aliens') - A cover of the theme song from the 1960s television series The White Horses (originally performed by Jackie Lee; it was a UK top 10 hit during April 1968). Featuring a rare lead vocal by Swales, it was first included on a free cassette given away with a UK music paper before being issued as a B-side.
References[edit]
- ^ ab'One Little Indian | Home'. Indian.co.uk. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
- ^ ab'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 1 December 2009. Retrieved 24 February 2009.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- ^Patrick states in the liner notes for Capsule: The Best of KOD 1988–94 (pg. 4, in the notes for 'Prize') that he was unable to learn the bassline soon enough to record the song, and Julian sang it instead.
- ^ abcStrong, Martin C.:'The Great Alternative & Indie Discography', 1999, Canongate, ISBN0-86241-913-1
- ^'The Death Of Cool - Kitchens of Distinction'. Billcarney.com. 23 March 1964. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
- ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 14 May 2008. Retrieved 27 August 2016.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- ^'The Death Of Cool - Kitchens of Distinction'. Billcarney.com. 23 March 1964. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
- ^'Close | Stephen Hero'. Stephenheroband.wordpress.com. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
- ^'Lost Girls - Lost Girls - TM Stores'. 3loopmusic.tmstor.es. 20 October 2014. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
- ^ abc'Kitchens of Distinction'. Official Charts Company. Retrieved 7 December 2009.
- ^'Kitchens of Distinction – Chart History'. Billboard. Retrieved 7 December 2009.
External links[edit]
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CowboysAndIndians
Go To
'Are you ready? You're the bad guy. And when you're bad, you just run. That's fine, right? Well... Shall we play?'Advertisement:
Bang! Bang! You're dead!
Or 'Cops and Robbers,' 'Spacemen and Aliens,' 'Prosecutor and Defendant' and many other variations.
A game where children play out a battle between two opposing forces, generally considered as a struggle between good and evil. A trope both in fiction about children, and in fiction about adults who sometimes interact with children.
Generally, there will be more competition for the 'good guys' role, while less popular or socially adept children will get stuck with the 'black hats.' True friends will make sure to switch the roles around fairly, and watch out for that one kid who's always eager to play the villain—he'll probably be trouble later on.
Sometimes the children will learn An Aesop about the dangers of war or prejudice, or how cultural perceptions change over time, causing Values Dissonance.
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In stories starring adult characters, the children's pretend battles are generally used as commentary on or echoes of the main plot. For example, if the hero has been doing poorly, he might overhear a child complain about having to take his role in a game. Or hearing his excuses for wrongdoing coming from a child might prick a character's conscience.
A Tabletop Role-Playing Game is essentially this kind of play, but with precise rules, statistics and a referee to make it function properly as a narrative scenario.
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Examples:
- Serial Experiments Lain has an online shooter game somehow getting mixed up with a couple of children playing tag. The result? A dude commits suicide after being tagged by a little girl, which looks to those who play the game as the Big Bad. As a result, she ends up getting killed by another player.
- One of Revy'sPet the Dog moments in Black Lagoon involves playing Cowboys and Indians with a few Japanese children. She later subverts it by bringing a real gun to a second round. Oh, not in that way, but a few of those kids may get traumas later.
- The plan of 'Friend' in 20th Century Boys is directly based upon an elaborate game of 'Good guys vs. League of Evil' Kenji and Otcho made up.
- Rurouni Kenshin: In flashback, Kenshin plays the role of the 'Dreaded Manslayer' with a bunch of kids (who of course have no idea that he is said manslayer).
- In the early Daredevil issue where he battles the Matador, the Spanish villain has managed to create a public image as a Gentleman Thief and made a fool of Matt. So the local kids play Matador and Daredevil, with the former as the preferred role. When ol' DD manages to turn the tables and not just defeat Matador but show him up for the Jerkass he actually is, the children discard their Matador costumes.
- Similarly, at one point in 'What's So Funny 'Bout Truth, Justice, and the American Way?' Superman overhears a child saying he no longer wants to play as him because he can't kill while his opponents can.
- There was an Iron Man story about a group of kids who dressed up as the Avengers; it wasn't exactly 'playing' since they did good deeds like defending their classmates against bullies. But when the real Iron Man leaves the real Avengers, the kids feel compelled to kick their own Iron Man off the team. He's heartbroken, but after a later act of heroism on his part, they urge him to rejoin their team.
- In an early Peanuts strip, Linus and Charlie Brown play 'Liberals and Conservatives'.
- Also straighter examples in the 50s strips, with jokes about Infinite Ammo, the science fiction fad replacing cowboys and Indians with spacemen and monsters overnight, and so on.
- Subverted in this really early strip.
- In Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin and Hobbes play 'Americans and Soviets' with dart guns and both get shot, subsequently deciding 'War's a stupid game, anyway.'
- They also play more traditional Cowboys and Indians in the house, much to Calvin's mother's chagrin. A recurring trope is Calvin's attempts to cheat, zapping Hobbes with his cattle prod when Hobbes declares his gun's out of bullets. Hobbes also cheats from time to time, saying that Calvin missed since he's obviously still there talking to him.
- There's a Mafalda strip where all the kids are much too busy to play their usual game of Cowboys and Indians at the park, so they play Global Thermonuclear War instead—a much shorter game which consists of saying 'boom' and dropping dead in unison. Punchline: 'This modern life demands ever briefer forms of entertainment.'
- In one Bloom County strip, Olivia and Opus are playing Cowboys and Indians until told by the cockroach that it's politically incorrect. They go through a series of other villains ranging from Klingons to communists, each time being told that group is not a suitable villain. They ask the cockroach what he does for a living and he says he's with the media. Cue much cocking of dart guns and evil grins.
- In FoxTrot, Jason and Marcus frequently cast Paige as the villain of their games. She never wants to play, but they don't take no for an answer. Hilarity Ensues.
Aliens And Cowboys Cast
- Kyoshi Rising: during the segments when they are children, Kyoshi's older brother and his friends enjoy playing rounds of 'Earth Kingdom Soldier', breaking off into teams and having the heroic Earth Kingdom defeating the evil Fire King with the assistance of the Avatar (the biggest argument is not over who gets to be on the good team, but who gets to be the Avatar). Kyoshi is often 'kidnapped' to be the Damsel in Distress, at least until she gets more control over her Earthbending and gets everyone to accept her as the Avatar whenever they play.
- Terminator
- In The Terminator, Kyle Reese plays with one of the kids in this mode to show what a swell guy he is. Considering the dire straits the humans are in, you might wonder what they're playing - Humans and Terminators?
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day also has a scene of two children playing with what look like real guns.John Connor:We aren't gonna make it, are we?
T-800:It's in your nature to destroy yourselves. - Later played for irony, in that Sarah expresses hope for humanity in the end due to John's actions, and the T-800 performs a heroic sacrifice.
- In Wagons East, some of the kids are playing a game involving taking the roles of various adults, and one character is dismayed when a kid complains about playing him.
- Spaceballs has a famous Throw It In! scene where Dark Helmet plays with action figures of the cast. Of course, he beats the heroes and gets the girl, too.
- Reign of Fire has a scene in which Christian Bale and Gerard Butler entertain the children by acting out the Luke, I Am Your Father scene from Star Wars.
- In High Noon, kids imitate the battle to be between the Marshal Will Kane and the bandit Frank Miller, with 'Kane' getting shot dead. When the real Will Kane turns up, they quickly disperse.
- Sky High (2005). 'Heroes' and 'Villains' compete to save a mannequin civillain from spinning blades. Big surprise, the guys who consistently play 'Villains' are actual villains.
- A brief part of the 'Once-A-Year Day' dance in The Pajama Game.
- In High and Low, Jun and Shinichi play 'sheriff and outlaw', then switch roles and outfits, leading to a kidnapper grabbing the wrong child.
- Braveheart - some little Scottish boys seem ready to join the war by attacking some full-grown English soldiers — but it's a gag. They're actually throwing rocks at some makeshift toy enemies.
- In the Bill Bergson books the kids play a game they call 'War of the Roses'.
- An early chapter of Ender's Game features one of these, in which Ender's older brother demonstrates his sadism. Since mankind is currently recovering from a war with a race of insect-like aliens, the game has been changed to 'Buggers and Astronauts', with the 'cowboy' character wearing an astronaut helmet and the 'Indian' character wearing an alien mask.
- There's a story in the Thousand and One Nights wherein a sultan is having trouble deciding how to judge a (well publicized) case, and ends up wandering around town for a bit to clear his head. He happens across a group of children who are playing judge and defendant and the like, mimicking the case at hand. They actually have a smart way to solve the case (showing that one of the participants was lying), and the sultan takes the kid who was playing judge back to the palace to do the same thing in real court - although the kid was too smart to pronounce sentence, instead deferring back to the sultan at the end of the case.
- The title character of O. Henry's The Ransom of Red Chief is a boy who is all too enthusiastic about playing the Indian part.
- In The Return of the Great Brain, the boys play a more formal game called Outlaw and Posse, in which the outlaw is given a head start and the posse has two hours to track him down. In this particular game, the posse ends up rescuing the outlaw from a ledge. The boys promise never to tell their parents, who would never let them play the game again.
- In the Ed McBain87th Precinct novel King's Ransom, a rich man's son and his chauffeur's son play 'sheriff and outlaw', then switch roles and outfits, resulting in a kidnapper grabbing the wrong child.
- In Harry Turtledove's World War series, a Lizard (invading alien) prisoner asks Corporal Sam Yeager what a group of children were doing. Yeager replies that they are probably playing 'Cowboys and Indians', which of course means nothing to the alien. After a few abortive attempts to explain, Yeager simply says 'think of it as Lizards and Americans.'
- In a series of Christian children's stories, a mother sees her young sons playing Cowboys and Indians and has them stop. Furthermore, she then tells the story of William Penn, the founder of the British colony and later American state of Pennsylvania, who made efforts to secure peace between the colonists and the neighboring Native American nations.
- The battle of Rorke's Drift (in that case, Redcoats and Zulus) is recreated in Evil Eye by Michael Slade. Thematically, the battle of good vs. evil resonates in many of the Special X novels.
- In the Just William series, William sometimes plays this kind of game (although more often he's seen playing 'Red Indians' or 'Pirates' - note that despite the former's name, neither of them count as this trope). Of particular note is the 'Lions and Tamers'/'Tigers and Tamers'/'Tamers and Crocerdiles(sic)' series of games he plays in a chapter of the first book (changing to a new name whenever the game is banned under the old name so he can claim he's obeying the ban).
- An incident on the third season of The Wire, where detective Bunk Moreland sees children dressing up as stick-up artist Omar Little and pretending to rob the Barksdale crew. Ironically, the kid pretending to be Omar goes on to kill Omar in the fifth season.
- In early episodes of Stargate Atlantis, some of the Athosian children are shown playing, with one wearing a wraith mask, and the other saying he's playing as then-Major Shepherd.
- One Alfred Hitchcock Presents story follows a boy playing Cowboys and Indians and what happens when he borrows his father's gun for playing.
- New Tricks: A flashback in 'The Rock' had two British boys and their Spanish friend in Gibraltar during The Falklands War playing 'Brits & Argies' in an old fort. The Spanish boy complained because he always had to play the Argentinians.
- Evoked in a cartoon of H. T. Webster's entitled 'The Passing of a Idol', where the children all want to play gangsters instead of cops and are overheard by a passing policeman.
- One of the earliest 'angle'(storyline) tropes, wherein professional wrestling became worked and wrestlers took on gimmicks. According to one history of the sport, this type of angle was common during the 1930s, often using two Americans, the well-tanned half of the feuding tandem being the 'Indian,' who would be asked to engage in a publicity stunt (e.g., pitching an Indian teepee in town and 'refusing to leave' unless granted a match) to draw media attention and interest in the upcoming local event. Through the years, this would used sparingly, as both cowboys and Amerindians were usually portrayed as baby faces.
- Legend has it this trope was once ingeniously invoked to discredit the Ku Klux Klan; a journalist who'd infiltrated them gave details of secret meetings, passwords, titles, etc. to the writers of the Superman radio show to use in a Supes vs. the KKK storyline. Soon enough, there were kids running around neighbourhoods all over America dressed in pillowcases, being beaten up by their friend with the Superman pyjamas.
Cowboys Vs Aliens Theme
- Buffalo Bill toured the world with a The Wild West show that used cowboys and indians and a romanticized version of this era as it major selling point. He did more than anybody else to popularize and engrain the cowboy and Indians era in the public consciousness.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- When Mario first meets Gaz in Super Mario RPG, he is pitting his Mario and Bowser toys against each other. Bowser wins. (Between this and a few later comments, one gets the impression that he doesn't think much of Mario as a hero.)
- ...then again, Gaz may have just been getting Mario out of the way so he could introduce Geno to the plot.
- Part of Wario's backstory, according to old Nintendo Power comics, was that he played Cops and Robbers (Western variant) with Mario as a kid, but almost never got to play the Sheriff role, and the one time he did, Mario just laughed at him.
- When Mario first meets Gaz in Super Mario RPG, he is pitting his Mario and Bowser toys against each other. Bowser wins. (Between this and a few later comments, one gets the impression that he doesn't think much of Mario as a hero.)
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: Psychopathic Manchild that he is, Majora considers the final boss battle a variant of this. He plays the 'good guy' and Link plays the 'bad guy.' Since both he and Link are throwing around deadly weapons and magic with the fate of the world at stake, this fits the trope only in Majora's mind.
- And as the page quote indicates, Majora expects Link to just run around and let Majora attack him. Instead, the Fierce Deity's Mask gives Link the power to defeat the demon in a few hits. Link is not playing along.
- An unusual variant occurs in Final Fantasy IX when Vivi watches a couple of Lindblum kids playing a war between Lindblum and Alexandria. Rather than see one side as good and the other as evil, Vivi finds himself comparing his fellow black mages to the toys the kids are playing with, thinking that they're Not So Different.
- In The Sims 2, Sim children can play 'cops and robbers'.
- The majority of the main plot of South Park: Phone Destroyer consists of this, with the kids playing large-scale (Collectible Card Game with multiple sets levels of large-scale) games of cowboys vs. indians, aliens vs. robots, and Jews vs. Christians.
- In Wapsi Square, Shelly mentioned that she often found herself playing this as a kid. She took the suction cups off of her toy arrows.
- Samurai Jack: After establishing himself as potent threat to their once all-powerful overlord, kids started to pick up a game where they dressed in robes and beat an unlucky kid with a Aku-ish haircut over the head with sticks.
- Justice League Unlimited, 'Patriot Act': After the second-stringers such as Vigilante, Shining Knight and Green Arrow manage to fend off the Shaggy Man, the kids of Metropolis want to play as them, the Seven Soldiers of Victory.
- The South Park kids, in one of their moments of actually acting like kids, played 'Americans and Bosnians' in an episode made during the Kosovo conflict. On another occasion, they play as stereotypical police action-movie protagonists, and get their investigation taken over by kids playing FBI. Then they get involved in a real drug investigation. Then they go play laundromat, instead.
- There's also 'Fun Times With Weapons', where they play ninjas vs supervillain, then ninjas vs other ninjas.
- In the Merrie Melodies cartoon Robin Hood Makes Good (1939), three... um... well, let's just call them sciuridae for now, are preparing to play Robin Hood. One gets the impression that the largest always gets to be Robin Hood, while the smallest is stuck as the Sheriff. Not much roleplay is involved; the 'sheriff' doesn't even do anything before the two others mount their attack. The two 'heroes' are caught by a predator, but the little one manages to rescue them. They start a new game, the bigger one beginning to assume the role of Robin again, when the small one says: 'Whooooo's gonna be Robin Hoooood?' (The cartoon is by Chuck Jones, who in later years might've considered it an Old Shame along with the Sniffles the Mouse character.)
- In The Simpsons episode 'Springfield Up', young Clancy Wiggum plays cops and robbers with Homer, before getting disturbed by Homer's reaction to being 'shot' ('Oh, I can't take the pain! Please put one in my brain!')
- Another episode had the kids playing Cowboys and Indians. Bart gives Lisa the 'Indian' name of 'Thinks-Too-Much'.
- In the Adventure Time episode 'Davey', Finn is feeling burned out from all the attention he recieves from random strangers, and BMO tries to cheer him up by playing Cops and Robbers with him. The game mostly consists of BMO running around while wearing a mask and an oversized black-and-white striped shirt while yelling Malaproper-filled threats. While Finn does not do much besides sitting in a corner, the scene is so hilarious that it does cheer him up, on top of giving him the idea of disguising himself to avoid attracting attention.
- The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode 'Over A Barrel' had this plot, with the Appleloosa settler ponies and buffalo(bison) respectively filling the roles of cowboys and Indians.
Index