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One character wants to talk to a second character about something private, but a third character is in the room. The first character suggests that the third character step out and take a coffee break. Often, the third character doesn't get that he's being asked to leave for privacy reasons, no matter how obvious it might be.
CompareTalk About That Thing, where the two characters make up an excuse to leave the room together, andGo Look At the Distraction, where the third character is tricked into leaving the pair alone.Hide and No Seek is a specific form of this where adults try to get the children out of the way using a game.
Not to be confused withthe awesome song from the Dave Brubeck Quartet.
Examples of Take Five include:
Film
- FromA Few Good Men:
 | Capt. West: Commander Galloway, why don't you get yourself a cup of coffee? |  |
- This is probablythe bestLampshade Hanging for this trope.
- Bad Boys:
| Marcus Burnett: Mike. Go downstairs and have a Coke and smile. | |
- In the remake ofThe Italian Job, Skinny Pete tells his girl "Go relax, babe." when he wants to have a private meeting with someone.
- FromKelly's Heroes: Crapgame tells his assistant to get a haircut when Kelly wants to talk business in private.
- InMr. and Mrs. Smith, when Jane recognizes John on the security footage of her last botched hit, she gets her assistants to leave by saying, "Why don't you go make some coffee?"
- FromThe Green Mile
| Paul Edgecombe: Percy... they're moving house in the infirmary. Why don't you go see if they could use some help? | |
Live Action TV
- Used expertly in the 'South Atlantic Raiders episode ofThe Comic Strip, in which the hero, Stan, would like his somewhat dim-witted mate Billy to leave the room so that he can get acquainted with the woman he thinks is his long-distance girlfriend:
| Stan: Billy, can you take a hint? | |
- In a recentCSI: Miami episode, Eric wants to talk to Calleigh about a possible corrupt cop, but some low-level techie is in the room with them.
| Eric: "Hey, why don't you go get a cup of coffee?" | |
- In theBuffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Prophecy Girl", Xander wants to get Buffy alone so he can ask her out:
| Xander: Willow, don't you have a thing? | |
- In theBabylon 5 episode "Voices of Authority", Sheridan wants to have a frank conversation with thePolitical Officer Earthside wants to saddle him with:
| Sheridan: Zack! | |
- Earlier in the show, a security guard offered to do this so Sheridan could havea private conversation with the prisoner,[1] and Sheridandeclined.
- Used inThe George Lopez Show where George and Angie have to talk about their finances and Ernie just opens a can of orange soda during the discussion. He doesn't want to leave since "he just opened this can," and George gives him a rather nasty look.
- The following exchange fromMerlin:
| Arthur: Go get some more firewood, would you, Merlin? | |
This also happens to be aCrowning Moment of Funny and can only really be appreciated bywatching it.
- InThe West Wing, the phrase is, "Everyone, can we have the room for a minute?" And since it's the president asking, everyone leaves...
- Similar to theWest Wing example, in an early episode ofBones, Agent Seely tells the Jeffersonian technicians that he needs the room for a few minutes, to a room full of blank faces. Hodgins ends up explaining to them that Seely wanted them to leave so he could talk with Bones in private.
- InStargate SG-1 the phrase "Give us the room" is used fairly frequently, although characters can only do that to people they outrank. General Hammond especially liked this one (the other generals didn't use it as often).
- Due South: When Detective Vecchio wanted to talk withDon Zucco in private after Zucco hadConstable Fraserbeaten to a pulp, Zucco told his men to go get him and Ray some coffee. Not too long after they left them alone, Ray proceeded tobeat Zucco senseless.
- The Big Bang Theory: Inverted by Sheldon who, after Penny asks if she can talk to him privately, turns to Raj and tells him to leave his apartment.
Opera
- There's a ridiculously extreme example in Rossini'sThe Barber of Seville:Count Almaviva,Rosina,Figaro, andBartolo all team up to convinceDon Basilio that he's dying of some illness. After a while,Basilio believes them.
Western Animation
- Done inThe Weekenders in the final episode. Tino's mother wants to talk with her ex-husband by telling Tino do his homework. Tino replies that he did it all on Friday. She then tells him to do that thing in his room upstairs. Tino gets the idea, hinting at its lack of subtlety.
- ↑The prisoner hadrecently shotMr. GaribaldiIn the Back. The other guards were understandablyunsympathetic to his well-being.
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