Do Not Read Under Penalty of Law

"Under penalty of police this tag is not to be removed except by the consumer. "

— Office of the text legally required on all mattresses, pillows and comforters sold in the U.South.

These tags seen on mattresses and pillows are the bailiwick of numerous gags. Nearly commonly they involve a goody two-shoes character who accidentally or intentionally removes i, and then assumes they're in danger of going to jail and ends up on the run. Note that in modern times, that part "except by the consumer" means that information technology doesn't even apply to those who are and so worried virtually it. Even if it did, it wouldn't be nearly and then much of a criminal offence as people say it is. (Even if the authorities didn't take bigger things on their plate, like Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking, how would they know?) However, in the past, this phrasing wasn't there, making the worries slightly more legitimate.

The reason there is such a alarm tag is that the tag lists such information equally the materials used in making the mattress and the country of origin. Especially, that they are "new material only" — because of historical problems of furniture being stuffed with disease-ridden rags. Nowadays, it's a question of whether or not the mattress contains any allergens. Thus, it is illegal for the seller of the mattress to remove the tag, in lodge to protect the consumer. The words "...except past the consumer" have been at that place since at least the 60s, making this a Discredited, Expressionless Horse Trope. Tin also cause bafflement to people from nations where such tags aren't put on mattresses.

Tin can overlap with Poke the Poodle, Felony Misdemeanor, Serious Business concern, and Jaywalking Will Ruin Your Life.

In that location is, however, one bodily downside to tearing off the mattress tag: doing so voids the warranty.

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Examples

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    Advertizing

• Parodied in a television commercial in which a woman in Confession cites this as role of a long list of extremely minor infractions.
• When one of the Serta Mattress sheep tears i of these off, they finish upward in jail, and cover it upwards when asked What Are You in For?: ^note Technically, this is a proper play of the trope, since the sheep did work for the manufacturer.

  Sheep eight: We got caught trigger-happy —
  Sheep i: Trigger-happy a man to pieces!

    Carte Games

• In Illuminati: New World Order, the "Crackdown on Law-breaking" carte has a picture of a SWAT team menacingly training their laser-sights on a man who'due south halfway through tearing off a mattress-tag.

    Comic Books

• Gauge Dredd used this in a not-humorous (well, kinda; no-i was joking but it was even so funny) manner. After they realize their hunch was incorrect and they have raided the wrong house, in order to avert paying compensation, the Judges find an alternate charge and give the householder a caution for "removing the safety tags from his soft furnishings".
• The short-lived Neb & Ted'due south Splendid Adventure comic-volume has their arch-enemy DeNomolos releasing several evildoers (and an crooked accountant) from Hell, including "Alan! Murderer! Arsonist! Pillow tag tearer!"
• A Bonkers comic in Disney Adventures has an especially epic example of this. Afterward a grapheme accidentally tears 1 mattress tag off — which reads "Removing this tag is a federal offence. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200" — and promptly goes off on a offense spree trying to ensure he can become away with this. Hiding it under a truckload of cherries, he crosses paths with Bonkers and Fall-Autonomously Rabbit when Rabbit'southward nose falls off and seemingly gets mixed in with the cherries. Believing they know about the mattress, he drives off with Fall-Autonomously Rabbit, moving up to kidnapping in addition to ripping off the tag and later attempting to burn the evidence.
• In one The Powerpuff Girls comic, the Amoeba Boys find an overturned truck of mattresses and attempt this crime—even though in that location's another overturned truck full of money correct adjacent to information technology. The truck driver doesn't even mind considering he's hauling the mattresses to the dump anyhow.
• In Batman '66 #25, the Harlequin (the setting'due south version of Harley Quinn) is shown doing this every bit role of a montage depicting her one-woman crimewave.
• In the Uglydolls comic "Know Thy Enemy", superhero Babo and supervillain Large Toe merchandise places for a day to understand each other. Babo's idea of evil is to fire a laser from space to slice off a mattress tag...much to the absolute stupor and horror of Wippy, owner of the mattress emporium.
• Richard Dragon's response to Special Agent Ling maxim Soldado is involved in more than simply the international drug trade is a sarcastic; "He tore the tags off his mattress?"
• The 26th and final issue of the Muppet Babies (1984) comic volume by Star Comics/Marvel Comics had a secondary story where Gonzo's blimp chicken Camilla went job-hunting. At one bespeak, she gets a job at a police station and interrogates a criminal suspected to take torn a tag from a mattress.

    Comic Strips

    Films — Alive-Action

• Pee-wee'southward Big Adventure: When Pee-wee asks escaped convict Mickey what he did to land in prison, Mickey starts describing how he got really mad and grabbed a knife. But afterwards seeing Pee-wee cringe in fearfulness, Mickey changes his story to say that he used the pocketknife to cut the tag off a mattress. A relieved Pee-wee commiserates with him on what a dumb police that is.
• In horror picture show parody Shriek If You lot Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th, the characters are shown to have thrown a man hitting by their machine into the ocean, merely interpret threatening notes about information technology every bit being for other pocket-size misdeeds. This ends with a girl accidentally pulling off a mattress tag in the heart of sex. With the local priest.
• Fletch: When Fletch gets caught searching a bedroom, he tries a few bluffs, including, "I'yard with the mattress police. There are no tags on these mattresses."

    Literature

• Greek Myths: Western Style by Barbara McBride-Smith inserts this joke into the myth of Pandora'due south Box.
• Bart Simpson's Guide to Life recommends the use of these tags equally a last-minute Show And Tell.
• The story "Higher up the Law, Below the Box Springs", in Woody Allen's volume Mere Anarchy.
• The Alert Label Book by Joey Green, Tony Dierckins, and Tim Nyberg claims that the tags are there to cover up damage the retailer may have accidentally done to the mattress.
• L. Neil Smith'south The Wardove includes the lyrics for a song, Exercise Not Remove This Tag, sung professionally by one of the characters. The song'south narrator removes the tag equally a statement of her rights, only is then haunted by a feeling of having done incorrect.
• In Portnoy's Complaint, Alex says that he's always cruelly punished by the universe for pocket-size transgressions, and imagines that if he'due south remove a mattress tag, he'd get the electric chair.

  "This is the law speaking. Yous're surrounded, Portnoy. Y'all better come on out and pay your debt to society." "Upward order's ass, Copper!" "Three to come up out with those hands of yours up in the air. Mad Dog, or else we come in after you lot, guns blazing. I." "Blaze, you bastard cop, what practice I requite a shit? I tore the tag off my mattress-" "Two." "-But at least while I lived, I lived big!"

    Alive-Activity Television receiver

• In the show Everybody Hates Chris, Chris meets a man who went to prison for many years for this, and his life was ruined all because of that tag.
• An old episode of NBC's Bloopers and Practical Jokes ready Doug Henning upward with this very trope. Using his married woman as a way-more than-than-willing ally, they got Doug into a furniture store that was just an empty store NBC borrowed and filled upwardly with piece of furniture. Mrs. Henning went bouncing around like a four year onetime on a saccharide rush looking at all the neat piece of furniture AND trigger-happy those tags off! The "managing director" came up to Doug and explained that he was going to have to pay for each piece of furniture his wife tore the tag off of which amounted to several THOUSAND dollars in charges! They explained the joke earlier he used his uncanny magic to make anyone (like his married woman) disappear.
• The trope was used in the Mama's Family unit episode "Harper Versus Harper", except that the tag was from a rug instead of a mattress. When Thelma Harper takes her daughter-in-law in Naomi to court to sue for damages to her living room rug, her sister Fran takes the opportunity to "throw herself on the mercy of the court" and tearfully confesses to removing the forbidden tag two years agone.
• M*A*South*H pulls this one once, with the tag being from Henry's trousers rather than a mattress (episode "The General Croaky At Dawn").
• A sketch on SCTV shows that if you remove a mattress tag, you EXPLODE.
• On Wings, Brian complains virtually what a goody 2-shoes his brother is.

  Brian: I bet you don't even have that stupid tag off your mattress.
  Joe: It says "DO Not REMOVE!"

• The Night Courtroom episode "Russkie Business concern" has recurring graphic symbol Yakov Kovlenko, desperate to return to the Soviet Union to be with his sick female parent, confessing to ripping the tags off all of his piece of furniture thinking it would go him deported.
• An episode of Sanford and Son had Fred Sanford tearing a tag off a chair, reading out loud that information technology says "do not remove under penalty of law." He tears information technology up and quips "Well...power to the people!"
• In an episode of Full House, Becky takes the hospital tags off her newborn twins, Nicky and Alex. When ane of the girls asks if she's allowed to do that, Becky responds "They're not mattress tags."
• The December 6, 1977 episode of The Toll Is Right had a Showcase Showdown skit called "The Last Dial" where Barker's Beauties Janice Pennington and Holly Hallstrom are depicted every bit prisoners serving time for removing a mattress tag.
• Ghosts (US): When Pete talks nearly how much of a bad boy he is, he says he in one case tore the tag off a mattress.

    Music Videos

• This was one of the many rules broken in the music video for Green Day'south song "Warning".

    Print Media

• A classic National Lampoon cover, "The Crime Result," done in the style of an old law-breaking-lurid magazine cover: A shadowy room; in the background is a adult female pressing her dorsum against the wall and cringing in fright; in the foreground is a homo's leather-gloved hands bending up the corner of a mattress and about to rip off the label: "This tag is not to exist removed under penalty of LAW"!
• In 1984, MAD published a special issue entitled Mad 84, featuring previously-unpublished fabric. One slice was "The Mad Reader'due south Sex Survey", past Larry Siegel, illustrated past Bob Clarke. Ane multiple-option question showed an orgy scene from a porno moving-picture show (which can be seen here, sans text, in the lower right corner of the page) and asked the reader for his reaction, with the joke being that the answer choices were all pedantic, detail-oriented observations having zero to do with sexual activity (e.g. "A. Doesn't the man with the whipped cream know it's not kosher to mix dairy with meat?"). One of the answer choices is "That guy in the dress is going to be in big problem if he rips the tag off that mattress."
  • In Mad Magazine's parody of Apocalypse Now, Colonel Kurz has people decapitated for doing this. Information technology's not said where they find mattresses in the jungle.
• Used in an consequence of Cracked for an article titled "You Might exist Gullible If...". One entry was "...you believe those tags that say exercise not remove nether penalty of law" and showed a SWAT team kicking down the door just as man ripped the tag off the mattress.

    Radio

• KFI radio in Los Angeles had a talk show host in The '90s who called himself Mr. KFI (actually Marc Germain, who these days hosts a web-based prove nether his real name). The conceit of the show was that Mr. KFI was in prison house for ripping off mattress tags, and he was hosting the show every bit role of his community service requirements.

    Web Animation

• In Llamas with Hats, "Caaaarl" claims to have caused a nuclear explosion past ripping off the tag of a mattress.

    Web Comics

    Web Original

    Western Blitheness

• Bump in the Nighttime: When Squishington needs a tissue in the "Destructo'due south Flipside" episode, Bumpy is loath to requite up 1 from his collection and instead grabs a mattress tag. Right after Squishington blows his nose, Destructo busts them.

  Destructo: Red warning! Red alert! You'll pay dearly for this heinous criminal offense.

• Duckman: Subsequently Duckman gets an adrenal gland transplant in the "Gland of Opportunity" episode, he gets a huge confidence boost and starts taking all way of risks.

  Duckman: The indicate is I'm ready to attack life with a new abandon. I've got thrills to seek, deaths to defy, mattress tags to tear off.

• In 1 Looney Tunes brusque, Daffy Duck accidentally pulls the tag off of a junked mattress, and — believing himself to be a criminal — goes on the run. When he checks into a cabin, he just happens to finish up sharing a room with a wanted depository financial institution robber. Hilarity Ensues when the constabulary shows upwardly...
• The Garfield and Friends episode "Wanted: Wade" is very like to the above Looney Tunes case, except that Wade removes the tag from a sofa ◊, and that he sees a constabulary car virtually Roy's coop, where there is a trouble with the stereo.
• In the Ed, Edd n Eddy episode "Stop, Look, and Ed", Eddy torments Edd by ripping the tag off a mattress. This results in Edd reaching his breaking point, where he feigns compliance with Eddy'southward chaotic romp of defiance to exist set complimentary, then uses the opportunity to snitch on all the neighborhood kids.
• Darkwing Duck:
  • In the episode "Time and Punishment", which is set in a potential time to come where Darkwing has gone mad and imprisoned anyone who committed even the most pocket-sized crimes, while going on about the criminals that information technology'due south important that he lookout man out for, he ends with, "and people who tear the little tags off of pillows, they e'er did become me."
  • In "Adopt-A-Con", Tuskernini mentions that he used to tear tags off mattresses while lying about beingness reformed.
• An episode of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ends with the villain of the moment being thrown in jail for a variety of crimes, catastrophe with mattress-tag ripping.
• Men in Black: The Series: In "The Worm Guy Guy Syndrome", the Kalifadik are an alien race that's downright obsessive almost law and order, consummate with an ultra-barbarous gulag for housing the many, many lawbreakers they round upwards. How strict are they? When they confront a suspect, he asks if information technology'due south because of a mattress tag he'd pulled off, to which the enforcer said "Confession acknowledged." and immediately teleported him into the gulag.
• In the SpongeBob SquarePants, episode "Born to Exist Wild", SpongeBob questions Squidward on how often he's been known to overreact, and one of the iii examples is him coming to Squidward after ripping off his mattress tag.
• An episode of Johnny Bravo features Johnny jokingly trigger-happy off the mattress tag, but to have a helicopter arrive seconds later on and pursue him. However, the helicopter pilot only did that to invite him to the Police Department bake sale.
• In one episode of ChalkZone, Snap pulls the tag off his mattress and gets sent to "label prison". He and the other inmates escape, and the guards finish up in one of the cells... which has no bars and no door, merely has a huge sign higher up the doorway that says "NO EXIT".
• An episode of the Earthworm Jim drawing did it expressionless straight, identifying a sofa as EEEEEVIL because someone had removed the sticker. (The sofa was evil, simply not for that reason...)
• In the movie-parody episode of The Fairly OddParents, Timmy is trying to find out who "kidnapped" Wanda, and going through suspects similar a detective. His dad, who for some reason desperately wants to be seen as a suspect in Timmy's mind, and keeps doing harmless crimes, one of which is ripping off a bunch of mattress tags.
• One of the LarryBoy chapter books had this listed as one of Awful Alvin'south crimes.
• The first episode of the ill-fated Garbage Pail Kids drawing that didn't air in the U.S. had a behemothic mattress with a tag on it that said "Do non remove under penalty of death".
• On The Simpsons episode "Male monarch Leer", Moe becomes a mattress salesman and gets involved in a war with his siblings and their competing mattress stores. One of the acts of sabotage he commits is removing all the tags off the contest's inventory. Unlike most of these examples, this is a non-trivial activeness because the mattresses cannot legally exist sold without that tag.
• In the Dishonest Pack episode "Ducky Dearest", Donald gets the wrong idea after noticing his nephews existence sneaky, condign paranoid that they're doing illegal things backside his back when they're really planning a surprise party for his birthday. He ends upward paying for advice from a con man named Dr. Chuck Homer. At i point, Donald ends upward imagining himself on trial for his nephews' alleged misdeeds, with Dr. Homer as the gauge. Dr. Homer chop-chop lists off the nephews' crimes, one of the misdeeds mentioned being removing the tags from mattresses.
• In the Republic of madagascar: A Little Wild episode "I Love Lucia", Lucia the sloth tears off the tag from her travel pillow. Marty, who takes rules seriously due to wanting to be a park ranger horse, is horrified by that and states that even though he tin't read he knows it says "Do Not Remove" on the tag.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MattressTagGag

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