"I started to walk down the street when I heard a voice saying: 'Good evening, Mr. Dowd.' I turned, and there was this big white rabbit leaning against a lamp-post. Well, I thought nothing of that, because when you've lived in a town as long as I've lived in this one, you get used to the fact that everybody knows your name."
— Elwood P. Dowd, Harvey
A character completely misses a really obvious point for comic effect. The point is the sort of thing that any reasonable or informed person will spot and understand given a few seconds or enough information. However, the center of this trope is a person who, despite having all the time in the world and all the information, comes to a conclusion so wrong it's hard to be even further from correct. Occasionally, a character will even do it deliberately to be a smartass. Commonly elicits a response along the lines of "that's not what's wrong here". Visual gags are often involved.
A Sister Trope to Dramatically Missing the Point.
Compare Alternative Joke Interpretation, Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?, Bad News in a Good Way, Bait-and-Switch Comment, Cloudcuckoolander, The Ditz, Failed a Spot Check, Insane Troll Logic (logic that consists of comically missing the point), I Take Offense to That Last One, Mistaken for Profound, Need a Hand, or a Handjob?, Not Actually the Ultimate Question, Proportional Article Importance, Right for the Wrong Reasons, Sidetracked by the Analogy, and Skewed Priorities.
No Real Life Examples, Please! It would cost too much money to make another subpage.note
We've got example subpages...:
- Anime & Manga
- Comic Books
- Comic Strips
- Fan Works
- Films – Animation
- Films — Live-Action
- Jokes
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Video Games
- Webcomics
- Web Original
- Western Animation
Hahaha. Other examples! That's a funny one... wait, are there really examples?:
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Advertising
- In a 2010 T-Mobile commercial, the NBA's Dwyane Wade, then of the Miami Heat, finds himself locked in his hotel bathroom. He then issues a video call for help: "Get me outta here!" When the video goes viral on the internet, the public misinterprets it as a plea for a trade. Wade is eventually helped out by a maid who tells him he's on the news. He responds with a "huh?" look.
- A commercial for Heineken Light Beer
has Neil Patrick Harris try to drink the bottle of beer during the commercial. They explain to him that he is not allowed to drink the beer during the commercial. He keeps up trying to come up with ways to get around the restrictions, all of which are comically missing the point that no one is allowed to drink any sort of alcoholic beverages during American commercials.
- An Israeli commercial for a sale offered to the holders of a local credit card in a hotel chain featured a family preparing to move in permanently to a hotel room. In the commercial Stinger, the father is shown nailing a sign to the door. A hotel employee stops and looks in astonishment at what he’s doing, and the father asks, ‘Is it crooked?’
- A 1985 spot for GMAC financing shows a couple at a car dealer requesting financing for a Pontiac Fiero. This sparks a swarm of miscues as the head of financing (and the Christmas Club, which he covers with a financing sign as the couple enters) thinks they are asking about an Italian car. The would-be customers then clarify it was a Pontiac, then reference the other brands General Motors produced at the time — only for a second guy to mention that those were "not Italian cars". After all this (and the announcer spiel), the first guy now thinks the couple is buying a large number of cars and adds that they need to know what they were intending to do with all those cars.
- In the Mercedes commercial "Beauty Is Nothing Without Brains", a woman asks for a burger, fries and a shake. When she is informed that she is in a library, all she does is ask the same question quieter. Then again, she's blonde.
- The Chase credit card company runs a series of commercials in which couples relay outrageous travel tales to their friends, e.g., "We became fast friends with Chevy Chase", "our son discovered a dinosaur", etc. The friends are stunned...because the couple was able to use their frequent flier miles on a whim, over a holiday and to a desirable destination.
- A series of GEICO ads has somebody remarking "That's amazing!" after seeing something unusual and amazing happening on screen to which someone else inquires about that same strange occurrence only to be told that the person was talking about how it's amazing how much money they saved switching to GEICO.
- In this commercial for Faygo Sugar-Free Redpop, football legend Alex Karras is seen eating a platter of pizza. An off-screen voice comments that he thought Alex was on a diet. Alex then tells him that he was on a diet, proceeding to shill the Sugar-Free Redpop. It leads to this bit of dialogue afterwards.
Off-screen voice: Yeah, but Alex...what about the pizza?
Alex: (looks at pizza, then smiles at the camera) Faygo doesn't make pizza. - Yellow is prone to moments like this in the M&M's advertisements. In one instance, he, Red, and several people are held up at a convenience store and their captor threatens to eat one of his hostages. Yellow automatically assumes he's intending to eat one of the humans. There's also the following exchange, which also doubles as an Actor Allusion considering that Yellow is voiced by Law & Order semi-regular J. K. Simmons.
Red: Coming up next, the new Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon of everyone's favorite celebrities!
Yellow: Oh boy! A Law & Order balloon?!
Red: (beat, annoyed) I was talking about us.
Yellow: (beat) We're gonna be on Law & Order? - The Aldi low-budget supermarket chain has a series of advertisements where a character will buy another character a delicious meal in preparation for telling them some devastating news (e.g. a man telling his wife he is cheating on her), only for the other person to be more interested in the fact that they were able to buy the entire meal at Aldi.
- During the late 90's, soft drink 7-Up had a series of commercials where actor Orlando Jones was trying to boost 7-Up's sales through various ways. Unfortunantely, they never worked out right at all and he's oblivious to it all. Among those:
- He makes a t-shirt with the phrase "Make 7-Up Yours", but the font is too big with the front saying "Make 7" and the back "Up Yours", offending people.
- He puts a 7-Up vending machine in a "high traffic area": a middle of an interstate, cars swerving out of the way.
- He puts up a contest called "Show Me Your Cans". In a hilarious inversion, all he gets are people showing their rear ends.
- A radio advertisement for IKEA's launch in New Zealand has the ad-reader announce there would soon be "Klippan couches in Kaikōura, Råskog trolleys in Rotorua, and Trofast storage systems in Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu". They then proceed to question if they pronounced the Swedish product names correctly.
Asian Animation
- BoBoiBoy: In "The Haunted House", to explain what a ghost is to Adu Du, Computer shows him a "find the differences between two pictures" test before jump scaring him with a picture of a ghost. A terrified Adu Du instead thinks that "ghost" refers to the technology used for the jump scare.
- Happy Friends:
- In episode 3, the microwave monster defeats Happy S. while he's in his mecha. Happy S. and Sweet S. then mention how dangerous the monster really is, to which Smart S. replies "I don't believe it! ...look at this, he totally messed up my hair!"
- In episode 13, Big M. is watching where the heroes are through a little robot fly camera. He notices the magic beans they've found and says that he thinks the heroes may have found something good. Little M.'s response is "Yeah, I've never seen so much ice cream before!", referring to a bowl of ice cream located right next to the beans.
Comedy
- Rowan Atkinson pulled this off in Fatal Beatings, when he called in a student's father to his office to discuss his son's currently poor 'attitude' to school life. See it here.
- The basis of one of Dave Chappelle's jokes, from Killing Them Softly, about a racist waiter.
Dave: I said, "I would like to have..." and before I could even finish my sentence, he says, "...the chicken!" I said, "What the fuck?" I could not believe it! Could not believe that shit. [beat] This man was absolutely right! How did he know that I was gonna get some chicken?!
- George Carlin had the following as part of a newsreading bit from his HBO special, Carlin At Carnegie:
"A man shot six people on the downtown bus today, then asked for a transfer and shot six people on the crosstown bus. To prevent this from happening in the future, authorities are discontinuing the transfer system".
- Jimmy Carr, after his delayed reaction to the audience after this joke:
"People like to smoke a cigarette after sex, but you can't buy cigarettes until you're sixteen, so I have to buy them for both of us. [To audience] You think it's wrong I'm buying a 15 year old cigarettes? [Realizing] You think it's wrong I'm fucking her?"
- On the soundtrack album to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, John Cleese plays a logician commenting on the 'witch burning' segment, citing the same logical lapses that his wife commits:
Given the premise "All fish live underwater", and "All mackerel are fish", she will conclude not that all mackerel live underwater, but that if she buys kippers it will not rain, or that trout live in trees, or even that I do not love her anymore.
- In his Live at The Comedy Store special, Louis C.K. tells a story about a friend of his who was deeply offended to hear his brother complaining about his job where "A nigger fell asleep at the forklift!" Everyone Louis relates the story to is far more shocked to hear that someone fell asleep on a forklift than they are to hear the guy described with a nasty racial epithet— including several of Louis' black co-writers.
- Jeff Foxworthy describes how, growing up, the mailbox outside his family's house had the letters "male" painted on the side of it. It wasn't until he was in the eleventh grade that Jeff realized, "That ain't right. [Beat] That M's s'posed to be capitalized, innit?"
- On his first album, Shame Based Man, Bruce McCulloch had a recurring bit with a radio call-in show. The last of these is some happy idiot calling to say all the lonely people should "pair up". The host then gives her a list of reasons this is a dumb idea, all of which are lost on her.
- John Mulaney recounts a movie date he went on to see Ray, where afterwards his date complained at how unnecessarily dark it was, saying "I didn't need the whole 'little brother dying' thing."
Mulaney: "...Neither did Ray Charles. But it happened just the same. He could've totally done without that!"
- On his show, Conan O'Brien said, "After being drafted by the St. Louis Rams, Michael Sam celebrated by kissing his boyfriend. This is historic because it's the first time anyone has celebrated being drafted by the St. Louis Rams."
- Comedian Mike Williams bases a comedy routine around McDonalds drive-throughs having a sign saying that they have Braille menus (for people who can't see) and picture menus (for people who can't read). To repeat, this is in the DRIVE-THRU. He claims to go up to the window in dark shades to ask for a Braille menu, to be told, "Sorry, we're out of Braille menus; would you like a picture menu?"
- German comedian Otto Waalkes once made this joke: "In the 16th century, Nostradamus predicted: 'And in the year of 1985, a red-haired young man from Leimen named Boris will win the final in Wimbledon' - which is complete nonsense: First, my name is Erwinnote , not Boris; second, I'm blond, not red-haired; third, I'm not from Leimen, but from Emden; and fourth, if I had won the 1985 Wimbledon, I'd definitely remember that."
- A skit goes with a person walking into a restaurant and ordering a drink and a sweet roll. The waiter informs them that they are out of sweet rolls. The person thinks that apparently ordering different combinations of "sweetroll + drink" will eventually get them one, and they continue to order a sweet roll despite the waiter's increasingly angry responses that they don't have any. Eventually, the waiter gives up and walks off. The person then says "I wonder how long it'll take my sweet roll to get here."
Manhua
- Old Master Q does this fairly often as a Running Gag, sometimes involving the titular character, and sometimes from others. For instance, there's one strip where Master Q and Big Potato, both jobless and sitting under a tree, ponders on their future. Master Q remarks they "can't just sit here doing nothing and waiting for time to pass"... so Potato instead recommends, "Lets sit over there instead!"
Music
- The radio-play censors appear to have succumbed to this in airplay versions of Aerosmith's "Janie's Got A Gun": In a song about Parental Incest, the one line they feel obliged to alter is "put a bullet in his brain". Right, that's the one thing about the song that makes its subject matter mature...
- The Beatles did this deliberately in many of their interviews.
Press: Does it bother you that you can't hear what you sing during concerts?
John Lennon: No, we don't mind. We've got the records at home. - In "Uneasy Rider" by The Charlie Daniels Band, the singer accuses a hostile redneck threatening to beat him up of everything from being an undercover FBI agent to having a Commie flag tacked up on the wall of his garage, so as to turn the redneck's equally conservative friends against him and slip away in the resulting chaos. The redneck's rebuts most of Daniels' charges in kind, but his rebuttal to the last charge is to just note that he doesn't have a garage, not that he doesn't own any kind of Communist material.
- Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir: As John Rhys-Davies as the Ghost of Christmas Present takes Charles Dickens over the city to let him see things as they truly are, he looks and sees houses, hundreds of houses, filled with people...buying books!
Ghost of Christmas Present: No, it's not about books!
- Daniel Amos:
- The album ¡Alarma! has a short story in the liner notes. In one scene, a woman sees a starving child and goes to help. She hands the kid a piece of paper that says "I love you", then walks away.
- "Autographs for the Sick" (from Doppelganger) is about a huge, televangelist-hosted revival that winds up giving everyone exactly what they don't need:
Phonographs for the deaf, they can't hear you
Gloves for the amputees, they can't cheer you
Down at the stadium they're waiting for the end of the age
You're praying for the healthy while the lame never get to the stage
- Flight of the Conchords has several songs about Comically Missing the Point, most notably "Think About It", a goldmine of Missed Points — one verse laments the use of slave labor to produce sneakers... because it hasn't lowered the cost of sneakers enough. Later in the same song, there's this:
A man is lying on the street
Some punk's chopped off his head
And I'm the only one who stops to see if he's dead
Turns out he's dead - Jaron and the Long Road to Love gives us this gem in "Pray for You":
Haven't been to church since I don't remember when
Things were goin' great, 'til they fell apart again
I listened to the preacher as he told me what to do
He said you can't go hating others who have done wrong to you
Sometimes we get angry but we must not condemn
Let the good Lord do his job and you just pray for them
[beat]
I pray your brakes go out running down a hill... - Comes up at the end of The Lonely Island's "Threw It On the Ground". The singer is an over-the-top Jerkass who keeps throwing things people give him on the ground because of his Hair-Trigger Temper leading him to proclaim that he's "not part of your system!" When his behavior pisses off a pair of actors who proceed to tase him for it, he concludes, "the moral of this story is... you can't trust the system, man!" One of the verses also gives us this little gem:
At the Farmer's Market with my so-called girlfriend
She hands me her cellphone, says it's my dad
Man, this ain't my dad, this is a cellphone - In Lukas Graham's song "Strip No More", the narrator reveals that he has fallen in love with a stripper called Destiny, who was friendly with him and sexually initiated him. When he returns to the club, her co-workers greet him cordially and explain that Destiny just graduated from university. He can't understand why that means she's quit her job. It never occurs to the young idiot that she was stripping to fund her education, that her real name wasn't Destiny, and that she's an entirely different person from the "girl I knew". It was all glamour and he doesn't even realize it.
- Smash Mouth's 'classic' "All Star" gave us this galaxy-brained exchange:
Somebody once asked, "Could I spare some change for gas?
I need to get myself away from this place"
I said, "Yep, what a concept
I could use a little fuel myself and we could all use a little change" - Jim Steinman's monologue "Love and Death and an American Guitar", released on the Meat Loaf album Back Into Hell as "Wasted Youth", catalogues the adventures of a boy who murders people with his guitar. Finally, he attacks his parents:
"... and just as I was about to bring the guitar crashing down upon the centre of the bed, my father woke up screaming, 'Stop! Wait a minute! Stop it, boy! That's no way to treat an expensive musical instrument!'"
- "Chat Line" by Tony Tammaro is a song entirely built on this trope. The protagonist always equivocates whatever the girl working at the erotic chat line says.
Chat line girl: "Let me hear your eros"
Tammaro: [Sings "Adesso tu" by Eros Ramazzotti] - The Velvet Underground's song "Sister Ray". The narrator's entire reaction to somebody getting shot is, "You shouldn't do that/Don't you know you'll stain the carpet?"
- "Weird Al" Yankovic:
- In "You Don't Love Me Anymore", this is the calm conclusion the narrator reaches after the object of his affection has tried to murder him several times.
- The song "Why Does this Always Happen to Me?" focuses on this trope, as it's about a guy who focuses on trivial inconveniences in the face of much larger events. While watching The Simpsons, the show is interrupted by a news report of a devastating earthquake which kills thousands, and he's more concerned about the fact that he's missing his program while taping it, and will now need to wait for a rerun of the episode. When his friend is killed in a massive traffic accident, he's angry that his friend still owed him $5 before he died, and the resulting traffic jam will cause him to be late for work. And finally, after straight-up stabbing his boss in the face at work, he's more concerned about the fact that his knife got stuck, and he fears that he's dulled his knife to the point where it won't be as sharp as it once was beforehand.
Podcasts
- In episode five of Mystery Show, Starlee asks a friend to approach Jake Gyllenhaal in a restaurant, but another woman approaches before she can. Starlee's concern is that that woman is going after the same information and is going to get it first.
Pro Wrestling
- To show he could do "characters", Scott Hall did an imitation of Scarface (1983). Vince McMahon thought it was an original concept that just needed some tweaking.
- During his Impact Championship Wrestling debut, Yoshihiro Tajiri yelled "Shut The Fuck Up!" at the referee admonishing him for putting then rookie Low Ki in an illegal hold, shocking everyone from the ref, to the commentators to the fans in attendance. Nobody knew Tajiri could speak English!
- Curry Man (not that one) thinking he had gotten a title shot when he pulled a pink slip out of his "feast or fired" briefcase.
- Santino Marella's complaints of "sexual discrimination" for not being allowed to compete in the "Miss Wrestlemania" battle royal; he even went as far as insisting that he was man enough to participate.
- When Natalya proclaimed LayCool's combined IQ was lower than their non existent waist sizes, they took it as a compliment.
- Away from Wrestlicious, Bandita's got a restaurant and it doesn't have any roaches thanks to the rats eating them all.
- CM Punk's reason for not joining the walkout on Triple H on Monday Night Raw was that Punk left the company before because his contract was up, and was tired of trying to change the company, arguing that the 'hippie barbeque' was a pussy move if the participants actually wanted change.
Puppet Shows
- The Big Garage had an episode where Scrap wanted to learn how to make friends, and asked Rusty to pretend to be a stranger so that he can have someone to practice with. Rusty then says "Hello, nice place you've got here!" to which Scrap replies with "Go away, I'm busy!" After Rusty tells Scrap that the key to making friends is to sound nice and friendly, he tries again, and Scrap responds with "Go away, I'm busy!" in a nicer tone.
- Dinosaurs: In "The Greatest Story Ever Sold", the council of elders need easy answers to quell the existential panic sweeping the dinosaurs, so to make sure the ones they come up with are simple enough for everyone to understand, they summon "The biggest boob in all the land"- Earl Sinclair. Earl seems rather pleased as punch to hear he's number one at something.
Earl: (to Baby) Hear that, son? The biggest.
- The Mr. Potato Head Show: Several of the show's jokes use this. For instance, after Mr. Potato Head showed his "masterpiece script" to Queenie, she screamed at the top of her lungs and fell over. As she was on the floor moaning, "the horror...the horror..." Mr. Potato Head asked her, "So...you don't like it?"
- In The Muppets: A Celebration of 30 Years, when Robin asks Kermit what his favourite Muppet sketches are, Kermit says "Well, you know, the Muppets aren't always funny." Robin replies "Well, yeah, but I always thought that was the writers' fault."
- In Dyan Cannon's episode of The Muppet Show, Miss Piggy interrupts the Swedish Chef's sketch to ask him if he's seen her dog Foo-Foo. Upon hearing the word "dog", Chef's mind immediately goes to the hot dogs he's making and tells her the dog is in the pot. Miss Piggy is understandably enraged, and attempts to give him a karate chop, only for Chef to block the shot with the pot lid and then cheerfully offer her (a pig) a hot dog (hot dogs often contain pork).
- Sesame Street often uses this trope for comedic effect to teach simple concepts and moral lessons. One well-remembered example was "Cookie Monster at the Library," where Cookie repeatedly asks the librarian for a box of cookies (after giving the title or subject of a book). Cookie eventually gets it and asks for a book about cookies, but then causes the librarian to faint dead away when he asks for a glass of milk to go with it.
- This is a stock-in-trade trope of Wilbur, a children's series about a group of anthropomorphic barnyard friends who learn lessons from books. The character in question will sometimes miss the point of the story in question, often in a comical manner that at times could almost qualify as a Spoof Aesop. This will force another reading of the story. In the event that the character doesn't miss the point, there'll be some other reason for the story being re-read, such as another character needing to learn the lesson.
Radio
- In one episode of At Home With The Hardys, Jeremy reminisces to his school days and reveals that he actually stole his beloved cricket trophy.
Caroline: Jeremy, that's horrible! You mean you didn't win it?
Jeremy: Winning isn't everything, Caroline. - In the satirical show Bremner's One Question Quiz:
"Statue of Liberty": I heard a voice in my head — well, a tourist — that in a recent "Most Trustworthy Professions" survey, politicians rated just below convicted con-men.
Andy Zaltzman: Well, quite a few of them are convicted con-men.
"Tony Blair": That is completely unfair. Some of them are women. - In Cabin Pressure, Arthur Shappey lives to Comically Miss the Point. For example, in the episode "Ipwich", he misses the point of Mr. Sargent telling him about interesting airplane facts just prior to the exam.
- Giles Wemmbley-Hogg quite often doesn't make that small mental leap. For example, when finding himself in the middle of a hemp plantation in Thailand:
I didn't think there was much of a rope and sacking industry.
- In The Gobetweenies, Joe gives a speech about how he was a drug-addicted artist in New York, who was selling "destroyed art", because he'd set fire to his paintings while high.
Joe: And not long after that, I went to see a movie. All about a dad who was also a fish, with the sea between himself and his lost boy. And then I had my epiphany thought; my own manifesto. Which was that nothing would come good if I didn't wake up in the city where my children sleep. So then I came home.
Lucy: Wow, I didn't know that about him.
Tom: Me neither. I thought his favourite film was Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but it turns out it was Finding Nemo. - Frequently by Hamish in The Doings Of Hamish and Dougal:
- For instance when Mrs Naughtie goes missing.
Dougal: There's only one place she could be. Hamish, tonight we camp out on the moors!
Hamish: Seems a bit callous when we could be searching for Mrs Naughtie, but whatever you say, old friend. - Another one, where evidence is piling up that the Laird is a vampire:
Dougal: Hamish, does that coffin-shaped wardrobe remind you of anything?
Hamish: Of course! A coffin-shaped sideboard!
Dougal: Precisely! - And another, when the lads are trying to trace a letter.
Mrs. Mc Allister: There's no postage stamp on the envelopes!
Hamish: No postage stamp? That means the letters were delivered by... ...magic!
Dougal: ...Yes. ...Or by hand.
- For instance when Mrs Naughtie goes missing.
- Mark in the John Finnemore's Double Acts episode "The Goliath Window" seems to have real trouble following a train of thought to its conclusion, for instance when Luke tells him of how he was given a choice between following his dream of being an artist, or becoming the village parson as his father wished. Mark asks what he decided.
Luke: You're standing here in my parsonage, asking me what I decided?
Mark: Yes, damn it, why won't you tell me? - In The Men from the Ministry, after Mr. Lamb scolds Mildred over the typos on a recent memo, this exchange occurs:
Mildred: It's Mr. Lennox-Brown's dictation, I can't hear him properly through a mouthful of biscuits.Lamb: Well you shouldn't eat biscuits when he's dictating.
- One of Frank Muir's monologues on My Word! has three in a row: Firstly, when Frank is asked to contribute to an art exhibition about Florence Nightingale, he mishears this as "Florence: Night in Gale", and decides to paint the dome of the Cathedral of St Mary of the Flower. Secondly, when he calls the ironmongers to get some painting supplies and tells them he wants to paint a cathedral at night in a gale, they send him massive drums of exterior paint, six-inch brushes, a ladder, oilskins and a torch. And thirdly, he fails to realise there's been a miscommunication here, and attempts to use these anyway.
Frank: It was surprising how short a time it took to paint an oil painting using a six-inch brush.
- In an episode of The Now Show, guest stand-up Alisdair Beckett-King talks about how targeted ads are extremely bad at targeting him, and gives the example of one asking if he's considered freezing his eggs. Clearly, they don't even know he's a vegan.
- In Old Harry's Game, this is Thomas's usual reaction to Scumspawn's attempts to make him a better person. For instance, when it turns out Thomas once sold a baby to a rag-and-bone man.
Scumspawm: But you wouldn't do that now, would you?
Thomas: Of course not! You don't get rag-and-bone men any more.
Tabletop Games
- Sentinels of the Multiverse: Guise, following an (as expected from Guise) goofy sequence of events, learns that the True Meaning of Christmas is about generosity and the rewards of giving...so he turns to several other characters and generously extends them the opportunity to experience said rewards by giving him stuff.
- Warhammer Fantasy has a Chaos God of, among other things, Atheism. He has followers. When dealing with Chaos Cultists, do not expect an overabundance of anything resembling sanity or logic. A god of Atheism is made weaker through worship.
- There is a reason he tries to keep any and all material regarding him hidden from mortal eyes as much as possible.
Theatre
- The Book of Mormon: Halfway through "Turn It Off", McKinley begins advising Price how to "turn off" his gay thoughts, forgetting that Price's problem was his mission placement, not being gay. Price says, "No, I'm not having gay thoughts", and the others cheer, thinking he successfully turned them off.
- This is Older Than Steam. In Sheridan's The Critic, Tilburina, anticipating her lover's peril in the clash of the English and Spanish ships, launches into an "I see..." vision of the coming battle. Whereupon her father objects "The Spanish fleet thou canst not see, because... it is not yet in sight!"
- In Christopher Durang's Beyond Therapy when Bruce makes a reference to horses in the play "Equus" and his blind date (through the personals) Prudence says he should be a vet, Bruce rebukes her for missing the metaphor and says he could never respect anyone who missed a metaphor.
- For those not in the know: The play Equus concerns a young man whose religious/sexual obsession with horses drives him to blind six of them by driving a metal spike into their eyes.
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged): When the king's ghost warns "Let not the royal bed of Denmark become a couch for incest":
Hamlet (horrified): Incest!
Horatio (equally horrified): A couch! - Cyrano de Bergerac: In-Universe: Cyrano (a Broken Ace with an enormous nose) invokes two famous historical romances (Cesar and Cleopatra, Tito and Berenice) and compares himself to the Cesar and Tito to justify why he cannot win the beautiful Roxane’s love. The point is that Cesar and Tito were loved not because they were fair, but they were highly charismatic leaders (like Cyrano himself, as his best friend Le Bret lampshades). Given that Cyrano is a Broken Ace and certainly this point would be obvious to him, this shows us how talking about love he will always deceive himself.
CYRANO (shaking his head): Look I a Caesar to woo Cleopatra?
A Tito to aspire to Berenice?
Le Bret: Your courage and your wit! - The Farndale Avenue plays, which are supposedly incompetent amateur productions, have a Once an Episode running gag where, somewhere around the beginning of the second act, the leader of the amateur dramatic society will remark to another character that she noticed a significant number of people leaving during the intermission. She always comes up with an innocent interpretation and never realises that they're being driven away by the awfulness of the production.
- Harvey: "I started to walk down the street when I heard a voice saying: 'Good evening, Mr. Dowd.' I turned, and there was this big white rabbit leaning against a lamp-post. Well, I thought nothing of that, because when you've lived in a town as long as I've lived in this one, you get used to the fact that everybody knows your name."
- In the musical and Showtime movie of Reefer Madness the main characters sing about how much they are like Romeo and Juliet. They even state that they haven't read the ending, but they're 'sure it turns out real swell.'
- Anne Boleyn thinks that what people will take away from Six: The Musical is that "Jane can't dance". Whether this is a manifestation of her It's All About Me personality or Obfuscating Stupidity is up to the audience.
- This is purposely invoked in the old Vaudeville comedy routine "I'm not Rappaport," which was used as the name for a stage play and film which feature the gag. The joke is a Straight Man and Wise Guy routine in which the wise guy says to the straight man stuff like "Rappaport, you used to be a young guy with a beard. Now you're old with a mustache," to which the straight man replies repeatedly "I'm not Rappaport." The punchline is "And you changed your name too."
Theme Parks
- At Universal Studios:
- At the beginning of The Simpsons Ride:
Sideshow Bob: There's nothing you can do! You're about to die!
Homer: You sound like my doctor! - When Mark/Marty is about to use a knife on a volunteer in Universal's Horror Make-Up Show:
Alex: WAIT! There are kids out there!
Mark/Marty: [beat] You want me to cut a kid?
- At the beginning of The Simpsons Ride:
- In The LEGO Movie: 4D — A New Adventure at LEGOLAND, Wyldstyle takes Emmet on the "Wyldstyle's Super-Cycle Mega-Coaster" to take his mind off how lame his ride at Brick World is. When robot henchmen on another car start shooting at them, Emmet gets jealous about how exciting Wyldstyle's ride is compared to his.
Visual Novels
- The Judge from the Ace Attorney games falls into this trope many, many times. From case 5 of the first game, this is his response to being told that a witness was using another character as his "puppet"...
Judge: Wait, you mean the witness, a man of his stature... plays with puppets?
- Though he sometimes manages to correct himself:
Oh you mean someone who uses someone else, nevermind.
- Wesley Stickler in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney is put in jail due to him stealing panties from Trucy and a mob boss's wife because he wanted to figure out Trucy's magic panties trick. In the ending, he mentions how his peers now call him "Wesley Sicko". He proudly adopts the name because according to him, curiosity is the sickness and he is the cure.
- Though he sometimes manages to correct himself:
- Masayuki occasionally in A Profile, though it's not always played for laughs. But one that is goes like this:
Masayuki: So, you have multiple personalities, huh? Awesome, I can have a threesome this summer!
- C14 Dating: The extent to which it's done on purpose is ambiguous, but Deandre at some point quips about Kyler having a stalactite up his ass. When asked to watch his language, he corrects his statement so it mentions a stalagmite, the latter being the version of the formation that emerges from the ground and hence the one that would be the most likely to enter the orifice involved in his quip.
- In Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, Kazuichi somehow manages to comically miss one of his own points during Trial #4.
Kazuichi: It appears it's just as Miss Sonia said...I'm just a pest...no, I'm not just a pest...I'm a total fucking pig...
Kazuichi: ISN'T THAT RIGHT, MISS SONIA?! IF I'M A FUCKING PIG, YOU CAN SAY SO!
Sonia: No, I believe you gave your all.
Kazuichi: HEY! WHY AREN'T YOU TEASING ME ANYMORE?!
Fuyuhiko: This guy...HE GETS OFF ON THIS! - Miu Iruma from Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony tends to do this, usually in the form of misinterpreting innocuous remarks as something sexual. To name one example from the Ultimate Talent Development Plan bonus mode, Miu plans to remodel Teruteru into a literal cooking machine. Hiyoko, who approves of it so that Teruteru would not get to say anything, suggests that Miu sew her mouth shut too, but Miu has this to say:
Miu: I...I've never tried that kinda kink play before... Maybe just a little...
- For a non-sexual example, Shuichi can suggest that he and Miu burn the gym to the ground in the Love Across the Universe bonus mode. Miu then assumes that he wants to use her "Instaburn" invention, which is, as she describes it, "for burning up social media accounts owned by ugly bitches who take too many selfies". That invention, however, will not cause burning anywhere else.
- In Ever17, You throws a technical magazine at the Kid after he lands in an Accidental Pervert situation, hitting him in the nose and opening on a page with a screw and screwdriver. Kid gets a nosebleed which You takes as a Horny Nosebleed.
Kid: It's because you threw this magazine at me!
You: Don't tell me... you looked at this and... Yuck! You are gross! - Shirou in Fate/stay night has this problem when any of the Deus Sex Machina problems come up, as well as at the end of the Unlimited Blade Works good ending. The reason for this is quite complicated and only elaborated upon in other material. To summarize: magic is performed with od, a type of prana that has high concentrations in a mage's body fluids. This includes both blood (as seen in Tsukihime) and fluids from sexual organs, and the effects keep; as Shirou has never actually associated with any mages other than Kiritsugu, his first question is why the immediate solution is sex.
- In The Great Ace Attorney 2, in Case 2, when Shamspeare regains consciousness, he recites some lines from Shakespeare. When he doesn't remember one line, Gregson calmly reminds him. It's not like the man somehow managed to survive poisoning and everyone thought he died.
- Little Busters!: Common from Masato, when it's not just a case of Insult Backfire.
Kengo: Why not use that excuse again? A space alien came and burned your homework with a beam of light.
Masato: That won't work a second time... It's definitely unnatural to meet aliens that often.
Web Animation
- 13 Cards: 2 instances in Clones Against The Mafia:
- When everyone is voting for Waru, they raise their hands. Gabriel notices Spade's raised hand and mistakes him for offering a high five.
- When it's declared that Waru has been voted by the majority, Gabriel excitedly Waru asks what he won.
- The Amazing Digital Circus: Jax tries goading Pomni into hitting him with a gun by being callous. She eventually does out of frustration at him not taking anything seriously... but he tells her with genuine confusion that literally chucking the gun at him doesn't count.
- Ask Mario:
- When Mario tries to comfort Luigi and Bowser about AlphaDream's bankruptcy by saying that they can pass on the torch to another company, Bowser asks, "Why are you talking about the Olympics at a time like this, you heartless freak?!"
- The Mario Bros thinking that SMG4 stands for "Super Mario Galaxy 4" in "SMG4 reaction!".
- After DoJayMi quips over the phone that Donkey Kong will "go bananas" over the surprise being planned, the latter confusedly says, "Huh? Bananas not places to go. Bananas food Donkey eat. What weird voice mean?"
- When DK talks about how a "red guy with mustache" came to save Little Mac from him, a confused Mario says, "That's not ringing any bells," before DK explains he was referring to Doc Louis.
- When DoJayMi says that music's in his name, Slick Frame asks, "'DoJayMi' is a musical instrument?"
- Luigi thinking Slick Frame has Taylor Swift's phone number.
- Helluva Boss:
- "Mission: Zero": When Moxxie protests Millie's plan of killing all the witnesses, pointing out that there may be kids among them, Millie remarks that kids are the easiest ones to kill, completely missing his point about not wanting to kill kids.
Moxxie: What about innocents? What about the kids?
Millie: Oh, they're the easiest ones. You barely need any pressure for their necks to—
Moxxie: Millie! - "The Harvest Moon Festival":
- When Millie sulks over being barred from competing in the Pain Games ever again, her mother Lin notes that it’s because she’s too enthusiastic about violence and gently chides her by reminding her that 15 people died the last time she participated. Millie protests that she was not responsible for all of those deaths; only most of them were her fault.
- After Moxxie and Millie lose a fight with Striker (who turns out to be a mercenary who’s been tasked with killing Stolas) and get locked away in a cellar to stay out of his way, Moxxie laments his lack of physical strength and how weak and useless he feels when he’s unable to barge the door open, feeling like his proving his Obnoxious In-Laws’ contempt for him for his lack of ”manliness” correct. Millie, who otherwise could’ve easily broken both of them out but has gotten herself badly injured, tries to encourage him by telling him to not use his hands to free them, but to instead use what he’s actually good at. A confused Moxxie then asks her if she believes that he’s not good with his hands. (The withering Disapproving Look she gives him in response does make him quickly pick up on what she meant)
- "Western Energy":
- Andrealphus tries to counsel his sister Stella that having Stolas assassinated is not a prudent move. When she fails to get the hint, Andrealphus decides to drop the subtlety.
Andrealphus: If your husband dies, it won't turn out well for you.
Stella: He'll be dead! Why wouldn't it?
Andrealphus: Because, my dear sister, you've already produced an heir. When he dies, his duties, his possessions, his legions — it will all pass to Via.
(Stella continues sipping tea, clearly not understanding)
Andrealphus: So, if you kill him, you would, hm...?
Stella: Laugh?
Andrealphus: (facepalms) NO, YOU STUPID COW! YOU'LL GET NOTHING! - When Blitzo explains to the hospital receptionist that his name is spelled with a silent "o", she thinks that Blitzo's last name is "O".
- Andrealphus tries to counsel his sister Stella that having Stolas assassinated is not a prudent move. When she fails to get the hint, Andrealphus decides to drop the subtlety.
- In "Mammon's Magnificent Musical", Fizzarolli is supposed to do a performance at Mammon's contest, but when he does, it's a musical number directed at saying how being exploited by Mammon sucks and he's quitting. Until the very end, Mammon just claps and enjoys the show.
- "Mission: Zero": When Moxxie protests Millie's plan of killing all the witnesses, pointing out that there may be kids among them, Millie remarks that kids are the easiest ones to kill, completely missing his point about not wanting to kill kids.
- In Sufferhymn, part of "Endwaltzer" has Insomnia chastising Nihilyon for getting slow and complacent ever since he came to the Oceania server, saying that he's becoming "a fat meatball made of CostCo hot dogs" instead of keeping up with his training. Nihilyon emphatically interjects, saying that the hot dog deal also comes with a drink.
