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"Roger Ebert felt Elvira's appearance was worth mentioning in his review, but I suspect he had a minimum word count to meet before his review went to press, and if you’re going to break out the shovel to up the word count, you might as well talk about the chick with the great rack."

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It could have had great humor, brilliant action sequences and diabolical villains. What everyone remembers, however, is the female lead's Striptease in the Sweeps one year. Or, in an even more extreme case, a penis when it pops up on screen. This trope refers to the actions of characters rather than characterization.

This is the common tendency for Fan Service to overshadow everything else about a work, regardless of the amount that actually occurs in it (sometimes the most remembered bit of Fan Service actually comes from promotional materials, which don't accurately depict what actually happens in the show). At the extreme end, it becomes All There Is to Know About "The Crying Game"... with boobs. This can be so powerful and effective in Hollywood that the Hollywood Hype Machine will go into overdrive and make an actress who bared all (or most) of herself an instant, overnight household name. Don't laugh- Shannon Elizabeth and Denise Richards got years of movie roles because of this trope.

For the more romantic equivalent, see Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls. See also Freud Was Right. When a viewer looks at a work specifically to see the stripper, they're Just Here for Godzilla. See also Fanservice Extra and Dancing Bear. One-Scene Wonder is a similar phenomenon, but mostly unrelated.

Examples of Best Known for the Fanservice include:


Anime & Manga[]

  • Despite Divergence Eve delivering a serious plot, it's only remembered for the female characters' impressive chest.
  • Elfen Lied is probably best known as that manga with huge amounts of nudity and gore, though most of the nudity is in the context of Mind Rape and abuse.
  • Nisemonogatari, the sequel to Bakemonogatari, has several interesting characters with very witty fast cut dialogue, amazing visuals and Akiyuki Shinbo's unique directing style, not to mention the subtext of the meaning of original and imitation regarding everyday life. But you will all fondly recall the moment where you nearly died of laughter or shame when Koyomi brushed Karen's teeth and it was supposed to remind you of something.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha only had one fanservice episode, very early in the series, but it's the reason most commonly cited (right before the Transformation Sequence) by people who don't want to watch it.
  • Mention Mahou Sensei Negima and most people will inevitably think of Fanservice or Clothing Damage. Yes, the manga has a lot of fanservice, but it also has a ton of Character Development, an epic plot, and a ton of awesome fights. Still doesn't keep the fanservice from overshadowing just about everything else in the popular perception of the series, even though the fanservice is just the frosting on the (very awesome) cake.
    • As with the previous example, it doesn't help that the early volumes were more Fan Service-heavy than later ones.
      • It definitely doesn't help that a lot of people's only exposure is the first anime, which is severely lacking in a lot of the more combat oriented storylines. Ironically, the second anime lacks any fanservice what-so-ever.
    • In-universe, Takane D. Goodman is remembered by others for getting naked a lot (although never by her own choice) and little else, except for her co-workers, who try to console her about that.
    • In fact, Takane is so used to it that, When she challenges Negi (and loses in chapter 345, when she ISN'T stripped of her clothes (which is how Negi usually and accidentily wins against her a lot), she's insulted, and DEMANDS that he undress her.
  • In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, we have Yoko, the postergirl for Ms. Fanservice. All she's ever seen wearing [1] is a bikini top, short shorts, pink boots and a BFG. On the male side of things, everyone remembers Kamina being the the king of all hams and, aside from his Cool Shades and Badass Cape, wearing nothing above the waist.
  • Eden of the East is an Ontological Mystery story that revolves around a man who wakes up with eight-billion yen and no memory as he seeks to find out who he is, why he erased his own memory, and just what the secret organization that gave him all that money expects him to do with it. You would probably not know this from talking to its fans, however, because they're all too busy giggling over this.
  • Urotsukidouji consists of Naughty Tentacles and... what else? (It's the Trope Maker and Codifier for a reason.)
  • There's a scene in Darker Than Black where November 11 lounges around Amber's headquarters buck-naked. Naturally, fan tributes kind of fixate on it.
  • Queen's Blade is an anime with a lot sex fetish material in a medieval setting that is basically borderline hentai. It does have a plot, but most people remember it for sex fetish content.
  • Ask the majority of the Ikki Tousen fandom what they remember the most - chances are panty shots, boobs and the yuri (explicit or subtext) will be regular answers over anything remotely to do with The Romance Of The Three Kingdoms.
  • With Simoun, everyone remembers the underaged lesbian powered airplanes.
  • Cannon God Exaxxion is a near-Eva-level deconstruction of Super Robot stories, particularly of the "aliens invade, teenager's scientist grandfather gives him a robot to fight them with" variety and has a lot to say about the nature of heroism and the truth. Ask people about it on the Internet, though, and all you'll hear is talk, often derisive, about certain scenes with Lolicon undertones (and, uh, one with possible overtones, but still).
  • Spice and Wolf prominently features the female lead stark naked in the first episode. (She's not human, but that can lead people to the wrong conclusions easily enough.)
  • Magical Pokaan was a Cute Monster Girl version of Galaxy Angel, but what everyone seems to remember most is Darkskinned Blonde Stripperific wolfgirl Liru, who went on to become a Memetic Sex God Breakout Character.
  • Blatantly exploited in Seikon no Qwaser: even once the quality of animation, illustration and story begins to decline in later episodes, loyal viewers keep watching just for that breast-feeding scene.
  • Witchblade is the story of a woman trying to make a life for herself and her 6 year-old daughter after a massive disaster takes away everything from her, including her memories; all while dodging Child Protective Services and getting caught up in a corporate power struggle. It's also the story of said woman turning into superpowered warrior with a ridiculously Stripperific outfit and getting into fights that are the very definition of Orgasmic Combat. Guess which part people remember more (hell, guess which part is used to market the show?)
  • Street Fighter II the Animated Movie had a prominently large proportion of male viewers watching it only for Chun-Li's Shower Scene. Apparently Fan Service-loving Masami Ohbari noticed and provided respective shower scenes as well on the fighting game spin offs he directed.
  • Strike Witches is ostensibly about an elite flying unit battling an alien invasion with magic, but apparently the only people possessing the right kind of magical powers are pre-teen girls willing to fight aerial battles in their underwear.
  • Parodied in Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei in an episode about how people will easily get distracted by something and completely ignore the more important issue. A straight example is when Chiri battled aliens but nobody remembers her deed as the sole witness was completely fixated on her bizarre underwear. Another straight example that lampshades the entire episode was when Nozomu was lamenting over how the viewer survey answered that they were more interested in the fanservice segment where Komori was flirting with Majiru over the alien invasion plot.

Comic Books[]


Film A-M[]

  • 10. Bo Derek runs in slow motion on the beach.
  • 1 Million Years BC is mostly remembered for the poster showing Raquel Welch in a Fur Bikini.
  • Sigourney Weaver's earlier thriller movie, Half Moon Street (about an academic who takes to escort work to pay for her PHD) is generally remembered for the fact she spends a great deal of it in the nude. One scene of a topless Sigourney on an exercise bike, tends to lodge in the mind.
  • The Alphabet Killer: Pretty much a movie about Eliza Dushku's breasts.
  • Angel Heart was a twisted horror-noir movie staring Robert De Niro, Mickey Rourke, and directed by the guy who did Pink Floyd's The Wall. Not ringing any bells? How about the sex scene involving the daughter from The Cosby Show? Ok, now you remember.
  • Basic Instinct: Interrogation scene. Sharon Stone's leg moves. Basically that brief flash of flesh is the only thing most people remember from this film. There's a reason it's described as the film that ruined a million VCRs.
  • Black Swan: If the early hype was to be believed, it was about Mila Kunis having lesbian sex with Natalie Portman[2]... and something about ballet?
  • Blame it on Rio: Demi Moore was topless in it (yawn) and then Michelle Johnson . . . GOOD LORD SHE WAS FIFTEEN!!!
  • Blood On Satan's Claw is an extremely well-made and chilling British horror film from 1971. It is mostly remembered for two scenes, featuring future and past Doctor Who actors respectively.
  • Blown Away is an obscure thriller from 1992 only two groups of people will remember: Fans of "The Two Coreys" and fans of Nicole Eggert (who is naked for at least 20% of the movie).
  • The Blue Lagoon - though far less actual naughty bits were shown than people remember, thanks to judicious use of camera angles and Godiva Hair.
  • Bound, from the way some people talk about it, you'd think it was an hour and forty minutes of lesbian sex.
  • Brokeback Mountain was all about Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal having anal sex in a tent! And possibly some sheep.
    • Don't forget Anne Hathaway's boobies! (Which by the way was predated by a few years with a similar scene (also with Hathaway) in Havoc.)
  • The Brown Bunny probably had a plot, but mainly remembered as the film where Chloe Sevigny performs un-simulated fellatio on the writer/director/star.
  • Catwoman is remembered for being terrible and having Halle Berry in a really sexy leather costume. In that order.
  • Closer; Natalie Portman works in a strip club. That's pretty much all most people can remember.
  • Coraline was apparently 100 minutes of a fat woman's breasts. Can you people just get over it already?
  • It's difficult to think that ANYONE would have heard of Cruel Intentions 2 had it not been for the shower scene... but even that is pushing it, as those few people are very few and far between. The original Cruel Intentions is remembered for the lesbian kiss scene between Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair... which, interestingly enough, was in the novel the movie was based on. A novel written in the Eighteenth Century.
  • Dangerous Liaisons: Uma Thurman is 18 and topless.
  • Jacqueline Bisset. The Deep. Wet T-shirt.
    • That scene made "wet T-shirt" a household phrase, even among people who never saw the movie.
  • Don't Look Now might be a partial aversion. Its unusually long sex scene between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie is memorable for being one of the most definitive in a mainstream movie. Even then, it doesn't quite match the impact of the conclusion.
  • The biggest selling point of Entrapment is the scene where Classy Cat Burglar Catherine Zeta-Jones squirms her ass under a laser tripwire.
  • Fast Times at Ridgemont High? That's the movie where the chick from Gremlins gets naked, right?
    • During the VHS era, many video rental stores reported tracking issues during Phoebe Cates' topless scene because people would rewind it and watch it over and over again.
  • Fanboys: Kristen Bell in the Leia costume. To save you ten minutes of searching right now; she wears it at the END of the movie while they're standing in line at the cinema.
  • From Dusk till Dawn: Salma Hayek as the stripper. You don't care about anything else in that movie, do you?
  • Although the sequels are known for a high degree of chainsaws and ass-kicking, the original The Evil Dead is best known for the bit where Ash's sister gets raped by a tree.
    • Including director Sam Raimi, who still regrets leaving that scene in the final cut.
  • Fight Club. Known by diehard fans as a funny, compelling and provocative dramedy about psychology, technology and consumerism. Remembered by most viewers for the fight scenes: male viewers for the thrill of guys beating the crap out of each other, female viewers for the sight of a shirtless, sweating Brad Pitt.
  • While Forgetting Sarah Marshall is still memorable for a variety of merits, it's rare for someone to have a conversation about it without mentioning Jason Segel's penis.
  • The only thing anyone seems to remember about the Friday the 13 th remake was the rather gratuitous sex scene halfway through.
  • Full Metal Jacket. The prostitute to the tune of These Boots Are Made For Walkin'.
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 Hooker: Got a girlfriend? Me love you, long time.

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    • This movie also has the Bathroom shooting scene with Vincent D'Onofrio. Most people remember nothing beyond that scene and the one mentioned above.
      • Well, nothing beyond those two scenes and R. Lee Ermey's Drill Sergeant Nasty routine at the beginning of the film...
  • The Gift is all about a young Katie Holmes baring her breasts and yelling the F-word at some guy.
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 Goldstein: We're gonna watch The Gift on HBO. Supposedly Katie Holmes shows her titties in this movie!

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  • Grim Prairie Tales. Nobody remembers anything about it at all except for the unbirthing.
  • Goths and hippies may love Gypsy 83 for it's story and characters, but most everyone else just remembers Sara Rue's giant rack.
  • Hours after the film of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows was released, all anyone talked about was the ghost images of Harry and Hermione getting naked and making out.
  • The Hidden with Claudia Christian as a stripper. Who somehow screws a guy to death.
  • Anyone remember The Darjeeling Limited? Heard of the short tie-in film Hotel Chevalier? No? It's the one where Natalie Portman gets naked onscreen for the first time. Now do you remember?
  • Hounddog consists solely of Dakota Fanning getting raped.
  • In Howling II, Sybil Danning rips her bodice open to expose her breasts, and this shot is shown repeatedly in the end credits montage. Roger Ebert's review nominated the repetitions of the shot as the movie's second and third interesting moments, though other viewers have counted more (repetitions, that is).
  • Hustlers given that this is a movie about strippers and featuring Jennifer Lopez as one of the leads it's to be expeted.
  • Irreversible likewise consists solely of a face being smashed in with a fire hydrant and a ten minute rape scene.
  • Even among those who haven't seen it, the horror film Jack Frost 1997 is known for the scene where the evil snowman rapes Shannon Elizabeth with his carrot-nose.
  • James Bond films are naturally prone to this:
    • Dr. No - Honey's bikini scene
    • Die Another Day - Halle Berry comes out of the water, which was a direct homage to the scene in Dr. No.
    • And Goldeneye's Femme Fatale that killed people with her thighs.
    • Barbara Carrera as Fatima Blush in Never Say Never Again..."Sign it!"
    • Casino Royale, adversely, may be best remembered for a scene of Daniel Craig in swim trunks. That man has no neck.
      • Probably because his creator only had a limited amount of inches of muscle and skin. So he put them to good use elsewhere.
      • And the torture scene. "Now the whole world's gonna know that you died scratching my balls!"
      • Love Is The Devil was about Daniel Craig without those trunks... and some painter.
    • Goldfinger, naked woman covered in gold Body Paint. This scene, as well as the interviews / directors cuts / pictures of the actress getting painted / etc etc single-handedly spawned an entire genre of porn.
    • And every credit sequence in the entire series. Hmm, what's that you say? The Supervising Art Director for Goldeneye was—HOLY CRAP A TWO-HEADED WOMAN WITH A GUN COMING OUT OF HER MOUTH! BOOBS AND EXPLOSIONS—oops, credit's gone. Darn.
  • Jennifer's Body: That's the movie where Megan Fox makes out with a Meganekko}} cute, nerdy]] chick, right? And... bites people?
  • A somewhat literal behind-the-scenes example with Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody. What detail about her never fails to get brought up by interviewers?
  • The Kentucky Fried Movie is that movie with "Catholic High School Girls in Trouble" and that sketch where the guys on the news watch a couple having sex (which starts when her bra comes off). There may've been other things too.
  • Labyrinth? That's the movie about David Bowie's crotch, right?
  • The Last Picture Show was acclaimed by critics upon release. Today, it's remembered mainly for Cybill Shepherd's nude scenes.
  • Lifeforce: The naked space-vampire movie. (Oh, and Patrick Stewart is in it briefly.)
  • Lost Highway: If you can't get past the labyrinthine plot, you'll probably only remember Patricia Arquette's controversial forced-striptease scene at Mr. Eddy's house.
  • Lad magazines say that it's worth watching the angsty and depressing Melancholia just to see Kirsten Dunst naked.
  • The scene in Mischief where Kelly Preston goes full frontal to the strains of The Platters' "My Prayer". We dare anyone to come up with anything else about this movie (without Googling).
  • Moscow on the Hudson is "that movie where Maria Conchita Alonso is naked in the bathtub. Oh, and Robin Williams is there too.
  • Mulholland Drive apparently consists entirely of random weird stuff surrounding a hot lesbian make-out between Naomi Watts and Laura Harring. Except that really is all that happened.
  • "The Betsy" has a wonderful scene where Kathleen Beller slips off her clothes and takes a nude swim. I think there was a car in the movie but who remembers, or cares.


Film N-Z[]

  • The Name of the Rose: James Bond is a crime-solving monk, and all everyone remembers is the hot peasant girl and the novice getting it on (it is, admittedly, a well-done sex scene).
  • The brutal and almost legendary death scene of Christina 'Tina' Grey from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street.
  • Not Another Teen Movie? Isn't that the movie where some dude comes out wearing only whipped cream, two cherries and a banana? No that's the one with the constantly naked foreign exchange student whose actress happened to be the same who played a Yellow Power Ranger.
  • Original Sin had a steamy sex scene between Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas near the beginning of the movie. Nobody really cares about what happened after that.
  • Paradise is a 1982 movie/shameless ripoff of The Blue Lagoon. There are only two reasons anyone remembers it: For the minority - its Phoebe Cates' film debut (predating Fast Times at Ridgemont High by four months). For the vast majority - Phoebe Cates is naked at damn near every opportunity.
  • Perdita Durango is a barely-remembered 1997 film about a criminal couple who kidnap two people in an attempt to sacrifice them before they go on a mission. The only thing memorable about the film is a sequence where female supporting character Estelle (Aimee Graham) is tied up and raped by Romeo (Javier Bardem), and whether or not she enjoyed the experience.
  • The Piano is about Harvey Keitel showing off his hairy naughty parts. And Holly Hunter playing the piano on a beach.
  • When Piranha 3D was released in 2010 the underwater nude ballet scene quickly became the most famous thing about the movie, with the only competition from Jerry O'Connell's character getting his penis bitten off.
  • Powder Blue featured Jessica Biel's first nude scene. And, well, other stuff.
  • Push: Fourteen year old Dakota Fanning doing the Zettai Ryouiki thing.
  • And for more evidence that the I Am Sam girl has grown up, watch The Runaways, which is basically about Fanning making out with Kristen Stewart.
  • The Seven Year Itch is remembered more for the publicity shot of Marilyn Monroe having her skirt lifted by a subway vent than any actual scene from the movie (or the play, for that matter).
  • Sherrybaby: Maggie Gyllenhaal spends a good portion of the movie naked (as opposed to Secretary, where she's only naked at the end), including one scene where she's just out of the shower. Anyone remember the plot to this thing?
  • Shock Corridor: Constance Towers's extended striptease isn't the only thing that sticks in your head, but it certainly is unforgettable.
  • Sirens. Full frontal nudity from many famous ladies (Elle MacPherson and Portia de Rossi, to name two). The dream scene in the lake is the one most folks remember.
  • S.O.B.: This satire on the nature of Hollywood should be remembered as William Holden's final movie. Instead most people remember it as the movie in which Julie Andrews appeared topless.
    • And Roseanna Arquette takes off her top.
  • Species was a pretty forgettable sci-fi horror film. The only reason anybody still remembers it is because the hot blonde in it spent a lot of time walking around naked.
  • Anybody remember anything about Splash that didn't involve Daryl Hannah naked?
  • The 2009 Star Trek movie was praised for re-creating a forty-year-old franchise. Most people will forget the imploding planets and tattooed Romulans in favor of the Good Looking Privates. Who cares about alternate timelines when Kirk's making nigh-constant injury look sexy?
  • Everyone remembers Straw Dogs for three reasons:
  • Swordfish is the movie where Halle Berry showed her breasts for the first time. There was also something about a hacker...
    • To the point that a good deal of marketing focused on how much extra (reputedly $500,000) she was paid specifically for agreeing to flash her breasts for no particularly good reason in a single scene.
    • Her film Monsters Ball is largely remembered the same way because of her steamy sex scene, but it was good enough on its own merits to win her an Oscar.
  • The Terminator 's Action Film Quiet Drama Scene: Linda Hamilton having hot sex with Michael Biehn, to a lovely piano version of the Terminator theme.
    • Terminator Salvation homaged this with Moon Bloogood showing her boobs. Scene was cut from Theatrical release to qualify for a PG-13 rating, but was re-inserted into the special extended Blu-ray edition. Watch the movie with this scene included, and Sam Worthington, Christian Bale, Anton Yelchin and everybody else being all angsty doesn't matter anymore.
    • Terminator? Oh yeah! That's the film series where, in the third one, there's a hot female who has no clothes on at the start of the movie, then gets into tight leathers for the rest, and can INFLATE HER OWN BOOBS.
  • Titanic has a number of scenes and lines that endure in the popular memory, but none moreso than Kate Winslet's taking off her clothes for a nude portrait (which, mind you, is very impressive). Equaled by the (literally) steamy in-car sex between Jack and Rose. Impressive, considering all you really see is a hand pressed against a window.
  • The common consensus is that the best scene from the Tomb Raider movie is when Lara is showering, then gets out of shower and briefly uses a Modesty Towel before casting it aside for a Toplessness From the Back shot and side boob.
  • What makes Total Recall different from all the other Arnold Schwarzenegger movies? Two—no, in this movie it's three things.
  • The Tourist showcases a rather odd case of this happening to a movie before it even began filming! The press went kind of like this: Spy thriller set in Italy directed by Alfonso Cuaron and starring Sam Worthington and Charlize Theron? Not exciting enough. Cuaron replaced with Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck and the stars replaced with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp? A little more interesting. A script leak revealing a steamy shower sex scene between Jolie and Depp? OH MY GOD GET THE PHOTOGRAPHERS TO ITALY ASAP!!!
    • And then the shower scene was cut during filming, allegedly upon request of Johnny Depp's girlfriend. Serves us all right.
  • Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies. Screw the Harrier chases, the many, many explosions or Arnie at his Large Ham best. Everyone remembers Curtis' shadowy striptease first and foremost.
  • The Unborn is all about Odette Yustman's ass. So much that her butt is the main focus on the poster.
  • Under Siege is that movie where Erika Eleniak jumps out of a cake topless.
    • Or more accurately, the movie where Erika Eleniak jumps out of a cake topless then later on Tommy Lee Jones gets a knife stuck in his head.
  • Varsity Blues? Isn't that the movie where some chick comes out in a whipped cream bikini?
    • Of course, not. It was also the movie where high school students discover their teacher is secretly a stripper.
  • Vase De Noces, that is the film's official title and not The Pig Fucking Movie.
  • Never mind Tim Roth doing a Money, Dear Boy role, Virgin Territory is all about Hayden Christensen making whoopee with naughty nuns-and Mischa Barton baring her boobs.
    • Then people are remembering things that didn't even happen—Barton's done some nudity, but not in that movie.
  • From what is said on the message boards on the IMDB you'd think that Watchmen consisted of 160 minutes of a blue penis.
  • Whiteout had a scene where Kate Beckinsale was taking off her clothes before taking a shower even though "Hollywood showers" are not allowed at the South Pole due to water restrictions.. What's the plot of the movie? Nobody seems to remember.
  • The most memorable things about The Warrior and the Sorceress, aside from the fact that it stars a sword-wielding David Carradine, are the fact that the titular (heh...) Sorceress is topless the entire time, and a woman with four breasts who has an erotic dance scene and then tries to kill Carradine with a tentacle that comes out of her vagina. She's even on the poster for the movie (unless it's meant to be some other chick with four boobs), with the Sorceress nowhere to be seen.
  • Who Framed Roger Rabbit? might as well have been named Jessica Rabbit Makes It Okay To Think An Animated Character Is Hot. (For those of you who haven't seen it: She got her last name by marriage. Also, she's not bad - she's just drawn that way.)
  • The Whole Nine Yards. There was the toplessness of Amanda Peet, and something about money...
  • The original version of The Wicker Man, in which:
  • Wild Things is actually a pretty good "whodunit?" that has twists and turns... and Denise Richards' champagne-covered breast implants. Mention Wild Things to a male and ask them to name a scene from it; it'll either be that or the part where she makes out with Neve Campbell.[4]
    • Or Kevin Bacon's junk.
  • The Wings Of The Dove, a lengthy involved plot about some people in olde timey days trying to get rich, and then right at the end several glorious minutes of Helena Bonham Carter speechifying in the buff.
  • Women In Love. The 1969 adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's novel included Glenda Jackson's Academy Award winning performance, but today, the film is largely remembered for the sweaty naked wrestling scene with Alan Bates and Oliver Reed, and having one of the first depictions of male frontal nudity in a major studio film.
  • "Trading Places" - Jamie Lee Curtis taking off her top. Also something to do with the commodities market?


Literature[]

  • There's a very graphic and deeply disturbing female-on-male rape scene early in the first book of Orcs. It seems that a lot of people stopped reading there.
  • D.H. Lawrence is widely known for Lady Chatterley's Lover, and that book is remembered for one specific scene. It could even be argued that the entire book is this trope; it's hardly the author's best work, but it's still the most recognized Lawrence title. Why? The entire book is about sex. In the UK, it's arguably for the fact that it being about sex resulted in an obscenity trial. The jury found the experience to be rather stimulating.
  • How Not to Write A Novel offers three examples for the 'list of ingredients' method of descriptions gone wrong: the living room, the zoo, and the porn studio. Which one does everyone remember? The porn studio.
  • Stephen King's IT Yeah, that one scene in the sewer, which wasn't in the TV miniseries for obvious reasons.
    • And that other similar scene which also wasn't included in the TV miniseries for even more obvious reasons.
  • Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels tend to avoid or skirt over sex or erotica. However, Thud has a scene which smacks of genuine contrivance, maybe as a Take That! to fanfic writers who insist on pairing off the most unlikely characters in contrived scenes where they inevitably get off with each other. Sally and Angua end up knee-deep in mud, naked, and squaring off for what could either end up as a cat-fight or something else; Sally subverts either result with a joke about how people might so much want to see this that they'd pay good money for it.
  • In the Sword of Truth, there are a few examples that stand out above all the others, though there's enough material that most of them don't even stand out.
    • The "spirit house" becomes a running gag between Richard and Kahlan.
    • Kahlan, leading the D'Harans against the Order, wearing only bodypaint.
    • Nicci, riding out against an army with her dress pulled down so nobody would notice her face.
    • Nicci, abusing the Maternity spell she cast on Kahlan.
    • Denna. But we wish we could forget.


Live Action TV[]

  • Merlin has shirtless Arthur. Starting with season 2, that happens on average at least once an episode. Oh, and also, Leon, Gwaine, and Percival. Gwen's cleavage and harem-girl outfit. And Morgana's black lace dress. Not to mention shirtless Lancelot in Lancelot du Lac coming dripping wet out of the middle of the Lake.
  • Oz: That's the show where Christopher Meloni and his co-mates get naked and show off their penises before raping other naked guys in the shower, right? Was there also great dialogue, realistic characters, great acting, and amazing storylines, or was that just a rumor?
  • Doctor Who has a lot of cases:
    • The Mind Robber is a surreal story set in a world of fairy tales, mythology, classical literature...and a newspaper comic serial from the year 2000 and what's the first image that comes to mind? Zoe's bum.
    • City of Death has sparkling Douglas Adams wit, a man aging to death and the villain being defeated by a punch. Main popular memory - Lalla Ward in a Sexy Schoolwoman outfit.
    • Terminus has a leprosy-like disease, a man going back in time and creating the universe, and Turlough with the Black Guardian. What does everyone remember? Nyssa taking off her skirt.
    • The Caves of Androzani features the regeneration from Fifth to Sixth and actually has the Fifth Doctor being Badass. The memory? Peri's cleavage while she's holding the regenerating Doctor.
    • The Curse of Fenric completes the epic storyline of the struggle against the dark gods and cosmic forces the Doctor has been playing The Chessmaster against. The memory? Half a second of Sophie Aldred's knickers.
    • Pretty much the entirety of Louise Jameson's (Leela) time as companion to the 4th Doctor. Tight leather minidresses split to the hip, prominent cleavage, and plenty of poses emphasizing both.
    • "Bad Wolf", where everybody is fighting for their lives in gameshows that try to kill you, and what does everyone remember? Jack Harkness, naked in front of millions of viewers. Their viewing figures just went up.
    • Planet of Fire" has two examples of this trope, one for the boys and one for the girls. What do the boys remember? Peri in a Bikini. What do The girls remember? Turlough taking off his tight short shorts.
    • The End of Time, part 1 features the return of the Master and Donna's father Wilf and the Doctor coming to terms with his impending regeneration, as well as the return of the Time Lords themselves while the Master turns almost every human into clones of himself. What do people remember? The Master a) emerging naked from a swirl of blue energy b) tied up to a chair with several straps, with his legs spread c) the Master wearing a red leather collar with a leash d) the Master in a straitjacket and finally, e) the Master in a pink dress.
    • In Eleven's very first episode, we have a gambit involving a computer virus that draws the authorities to the Monster of the Week, as well as an undertone of abandonment as Amy Pond waits for 14 years for her Doctor. What do people recall? The Doctor of stripping down in front of his companion Amy and her friend Rory. Naturally, Rory looks away, but Amy doesn't — and neither do the fangirls. Of course, what any guy who watched the episode will remember is Amy in the police uniform.
  • Remember the episode where Mork and Mindy first kissed? No? Remember the one where Mork befriended a caterpillar and then thought it died when really it was just becoming a butterfly? No? Remember the one where Mork was captured by the sexy Nectrotons, whose leader was played by Raquel Welch?
  • Chuck. Yvonne Strahovski regularly strapping weaponry on whilst wearing underwear. Also, the constant presence of the Cat Fight.
  • The Dukes of Hazzard is primarily remembered for a pair of short shorts. They are even commonly called "Daisy Dukes" after the character that wears them.
  • The promo for the shocking, heartbreaking, Emmy-winning House episode "House's Head" featured its scene of Cuddy doing a strip tease for House. (The episode itself did, too, for a wonder.)
  • In the Firefly episode "Trash" the crew stole something and then there was Mal, in the desert, naked.
  • Brookside, the soap opera set in Liverpool where Anna Friel kissed another girl. One of the first acknowledgements on British TV that lesbians existed, and avant-garde for its time.
  • Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at the 2004 Super Bowl Halftime Show caused a shitstorm of controversy which is still occasionally joked about, and the NFL has only brought in "safe" classic rock bands ever since. Now do you remember who was actually playing in the championship game that year? Which is sad, because it was one of the most exciting Super Bowls ever.
    • To be fair, a sizable portion of people watching the Super Bowl weren't watching it for the game.
    • Even more so because most people do not actually remember the scene as it happened, since it was over far too quickly to notice unless you were paying complete attention. Most people know the event only from its media coverage.
    • This was also subverted in the same Super Bowl. Everybody remembers Janet Jackson. Decidedly fewer remember the guy dancing in the end zone with a football over his wedding tackle.
  • Successfully done in Xena and Hercules, less so in Sheena and The Beast Master, each for the guys and girls respectively. Then came the to a lesser extent for both Andromeda.
  • Most people only remember the series Xena: Warrior Princess as Xena: Lesbian Princess because no one can remember anything else other than Gabrielle and Xena kissing and bathing together. The writters admitted to keeping the UST all along.
  • The Star Trek episode "The Menagerie" is often remembered for being "The One With... the green chick." SF Debris puts it best:
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 "The late Susan Oliver. She's a talented actress, author, director, a pioneer of women's aviation... and if you go to her Wikipedia page, this is the image of her they put up: her dancing as the green woman!"

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  • Lois Lane of Smallville is Superman's future wife and star journalist of the Daily Planet. In the opening credits, her background scene is still her stepping out of the water in a bikini.
  • Top Gear, Series 13—few people remember where the presenters went to do a classic rally (Majorca), but everyone remembers James May's co-driver: buxom glamor model Madison Welch.
  • Dollhouse features lots of beautiful constantly naked people frolicking and Eliza Dushku in dominatrix outfits.
  • The Avengers episode "A Touch of Brimstone" is the one where Mrs. Peel wears the leather bustier.
  • Friends has many, many memorable moments: but arguably none more memorable than Jennifer Aniston in the Slave Leia outfit.
  • True Blood is that show where Anna Paquin gets naked. A lot.
    • And has lots of sex with her vampire boyfriend who has a weird way of pronouncing her name.
    • And a tall, blonde vampire having sex at warp speed with a hot Estonian dancer... who also has sex with Pam.
  • The makers of Californication know that everyone remembers the stripper, and consequently there are a lot of babes getting naked throughout the course of the show.
  • Audiences can't seem to agree what they like more about Dexter: the sex, or the violence.
    • Or the creepy intro.
  • Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is mostly about Summer Glau in her underwear and various other abbreviated outfits. The marketing people played this up with the famous promotional image of Summer Glau's partially-disassembled robot character, wearing nothing but Godiva Hair. The show is notable in that two groups of people will remember it for different things: the first for Summer Glau, and the second for Lena Headey.
  • The Daily Show had a bit of fun when George Takei got married and out of all the Star Trek stills available, the news put up a picture of Sulu fencing shirtless. "Oh my" indeed.
  • Arrested Development keeps it off camera, but has an amusing in universe example in the season one episode "Missing Kitty".
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 Cop: Well, we have a restaurant full of people saying that you threatened Kitty the last time she was seen.

Michael: How does anybody even remember this?

Cop: She showed her knobs in a Steakhouse, sir.

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  • The BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice is remembered by many female viewers for the part in which Colin Firth dives into a pond.
  • It appears the Discovery Channel website attempted to invoke this one on those who browsed the Myth Busters photo galleries, inviting us to see the "Bathtub Test" album by saying "See production stills — including pictures of a half-naked Adam — from episode 19".
  • For some reason, Game of Thrones has the rather bad habit of laying down important exposition while sex is happening in the scene. Episode 7 had Petyr Baelish delivering a rather important, character-defining monologue in the midst of making two whores "play" with each other.
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 Television Without Pity Recap: I really can't emphasize enough how distracting it is that he's delivering this monologue while two naked ladies are theatrically pleasuring each other.

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  • Sherlock's A Scandal in Belgravia... That's the one where both Irene Adler and the great detective himself are naked at some point, right?
  • Stargate SG 1 has the episode where everyone is infected with an anti-Goa'uld device, but that's sort of secondary to Dr. Fraiser opening up her shirt (and revealing her bra) because she's infected and hot.
    • The pilot episode "Children of the Gods", had full-frontal nudity in its original airing on Showtime. It was edited out in later airings on regular cable (replaced by a couple long closeups of Teal'c's face), but is retained in the DVD release.
  • The 2005 series of UK Big Brother. Kinga, on her first night found a novel place to put an empty wine bottle. Anyone remember who won the competition?
  • A later season of Survivor had two female competitors strip naked and forfeit an immunity challenge in exchange for a plate of Oreos.
  • It's actually surprisingly hard to find Legend of the Seeker clips that don't contain Cara or Kahlan, though mostly Cara. Why does this count as this trope? Tight red leather. Low neckline. Tabrett Bethell. On second thought, this might not be such a bad thing.
    • Bath house scene.
    • Everyone remembers that Richard's first scene was shirtless.
    • Pretty much the only main character who hasn't had this treatment is Zedd.
  • Say Torchwood, and The reaction is most likely to be "gay sex". While it's true that the show mentioned gay sex at least once an episode, and the straight main character was briefly turned gay in only the second episode, and there was at least one episode mostly focused on a character having gay sex with an alien, it barely ever actually showed the sex.
  • That Kamen Rider series where the main character is constantly seen in nothing but his boxers.
  • Francois Arnaud of The Borgias mentioned in an interview that everyone wants to talk about his character's leather pants and extremely close relationship with his sister. Admittedly, the incest thing is kind of a big part of the Borgia legend.


Music[]

  • All anyone remembers about house music producer and DJ L'il Louis? That track with the woman having a 'Lady Chatterley crisis' over it.
  • Nine Inch Nails? They're the 'fuck you like an animal' guys, right? And the guys where Bob Flanagan gets nude and gets tortured and killed by a machine whilst he basks in masochistic pleasure?
  • Shakira's most famous lyric is surely the one about having "small and humble" breasts. Oh yeah, and her hips don't lie either.
  • Neo-Soul singer D'angelo, got this hard after his "Untitled" music video....
  • There's also the Benny Benassi videos.
  • The Dandy Warhols gained a lot of notoriety for keyboardist Zia McCabe playing topless. The number of guys showing up just for that caused her to pretty much stop. And their most famous song? "Bohemian Like You," due to the video with a few seconds each of full frontal nudity from a Wrench Wench and a waiter.
  • MTV Brazil has stated that in their country, before Dave Grohl recorded an album with Queens of the Stone Age, they were just the band of that guy who played naked during Rock in Rio.
  • Inverted in Lady Gaga's "Telephone". The video is so full of Fan Service and Fetish Fuel that Everybody Remembers the Sandwich.
  • Not quite fanservice, but the videoclip for Latin band Miranda's song "Ritmo & Decepción" is only remembered by some due to the brief Restart cameo.
  • Rapper Petey Pablo had a video called freek-a-leek. But the only thing people remember from it is the model Esther Baxter aka "Ms. freek-a-leek".
  • Christina Millian had quite a few music video's early in her career. But the only video people seem to remember is "Dip It Low".
  • R&B group H-Town is mostly known for being that trio who danced like raunchy shirtless male strippers and sung Knockin The Boots.
  • Everybody remembers the music video for "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake because it features 1980s hottie Tawny Kitaen writhing around sensuously on the hood of a car. The video became even more famous when viewers discovered that there's a nipple slip that the censors missed (the video was quickly edited to remove the split-second of nudity).
  • David Lee Roth once did a cover of the Beach Boys classic "California Girls". The only reason anybody still remembers Roth's version is because the music video featured more girls in bikinis than Cancun during Spring Break.


Religion and Mythology[]


Tabletop Games[]


Theater[]


Video Games[]

  • Final Fantasy:
    • Final Fantasy X 2. The plot? The Guide Dang It Hundred-Percent Completion? The triumphant return of the Final Fantasy Job System last seen in Final Fantasy Tactics? It's all overshadowed by the girls' Stripperific dresspheres.
    • Even in the original Final Fantasy X you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who can remember the Corrupt Church plot, but can easily remember the fact that Lulu bends over during her Victory Pose and Rikku's first appearance as a proper party member consists of her stripping out of a wetsuit.
    • Final Fantasy VII - Have fun trying to remind a fanboy that Tifa was one of the most emotionally complex and morally interesting members of the main cast, or pointing out the surprisingly subtle foreshadowing of The Reveal concerning her past with Cloud - or, hell, that Aeris and Yuffie were also in the game. Despite her mountains of careful character development or her constant skirting with suffering a breakdown herself, her interesting relationships, or her ability to keep a leg up on most situations, there's just two facts you need to keep abreast of where Tifa's concerned.
    • In Final Fantasy XIII, the 33 cm shoe is on the other foot. Good luck explaining to a fangirl that Snow Villiers isn't the game's main character. Why is that? The length of time spent developing his personality doesn't seem to be a big part of it.
    • And moving beyond XIII, even though we don't know much about Final Fantasy Versus XIII yet, most of the talk about it is fangirls swooning over Noctis. Even the Guys Want Him, though... Others saw the trailer and remember it as that one trailer that tries way, way too hard to be cool.
    • Final Fantasy XII had bunny girl Fran, and some other people. And Princess Redbutt.
    • And take it all the way to 1988 and Final Fantasy II. Firion gets seduced by a lamia queen disguised as the princess. Prior to Dissidia, if you remembered just one thing about II, it was that. Considering that Square Enix themselves play it up, though, you can't really be blamed for it.
    • Final Fantasy XIII-2 has a rather memorable scene of Lightning getting magically stripped nude of her regular outfit and then having it replaced by her new, more fanservicey armor.
  • Why should you play Snatcher? You get to flirt with all the women! It even caters to all the ephebophiles out there! And there's nudity! And something about Communist robots taking over the world with Replicant Snatching, probably.
  • The way some people talk about Mass Effect, you'd think the game is nothing but full-on alien lesbian sex...that never actually happens. As a meta-example, it seems like the only thing the die-hard fans care about is the romances.
  • There are some people who have never even played Star Fox Adventures, yet almost everyone knows about Krystal.
  • Tomb Raider: Lara Croft is best remembered for the programmer goof that gave her a larger bust than she should have had and that's all most remember about her. The fact her series has a plot that revolves around tomb raiding isn't mentioned nearly as much.
  • Grand Theft Auto IV the Lost And Damned: Congressman Stubbs' penis. That's it.
  • Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. Shahdee is a minor character who gets dispatched not far into the game, yet thanks to her outfit and introduction sequence, many remember her like she was the focus of the game.
  • Darkstalkers is about a busty, drool-inducing, barely-clothed succubus who is sexier than sex, wanders the earth looking for a good time, and appears in most of Capcom's crossover titles, right?
  • Dragon Quest IV was the first Dragon Quest game to have multiple party members with distinctive personalities, rather than use a predetermined party or a team of Player Mooks. Of all the characters, Ms. Fanservice Maya's artwork is leaps and bounds more voluminous than any other character in the series.
    • Jessica of Dragon Quest VIII, appearing as the only one who can change outfits on maps and puff-puff the enemies into various confusion with her sex appeal abilities.
  • In FEAR 2, Alma rapes you. That's right, YOU! Oh yeah and some other stuff happens.
  • The King of Fighters is that fighting game featuring Mai's Gainaxing boobs and ... oh, the rest of the fighters. It's about fighting.
  • In Silent Hill 2, Pyramid Head rapes things. Some say that other things happen.
  • Look up the soundtrack to House of the Dead: OVERKILL sometime. Apparently, the only noteworthy song in the game is the lyrical version of the "Carny" chapter's theme, the focus of which is a guy making love to a decomposing mutant as it's trying to kill him.
  • Ask a Pokémon fan to think of a female character from Pokémon Black and White, and chances are they'll think of Skyla or Elesa first due to their skimpy outfits.
    • Dawn is quite recalled for her short skirt however Leaf's is barely longer.
    • Leaf actually has the same size chest as May, but she's often ignored because she has yet to have a canon appearance within the games and has no anime appearances.
  • Summon Night is most well-known in the west for its Gay Option's and its other fanservices, mostly in the Swordscraft Story series though. It doesn't help that the box of one of the games displays a screen of Pratty saying she kisses girls all the time.
  • Vanillaware's latest title Dragon's Crown seems to be heading this way. Fans are less concerned about the quality of the title (which, granted, is nothing to worry about since Vanillaware's releases are consistently good) and more concerned about how much Fetish Fuel the Sorceress and Amazonian Beauty provide.
  • Dragon Age is that game where you can have a foursome, and there's something about licking a lamppost in winter.
    • Ditto for Jade Empire where you can have a threesome. Oh, and something about a big guy with two axes.
  • Ask most people about Guilty Gear and they'll say "Yeah, I know that game. Isn't it that fighting game with the boy who dresses up as a girl?" Yep. Guilty Gear is a game with intense fast-paced combat, an interesting Animesque setting and a ridiculously awesome soundtrack, yet it is doomed to be forever remembered as "The Game That Gave Us Bridget".
  • Touhou is about a world of (seemingly-underaged) super-powered magical action girls. Who have interesting relationships with each others. Which gives way to tons of cute fanarts and awesome music. "Shoot em ups"? What's a "shoot em ups"? [5]
  • Fire Emblem Fates. Putting aside the divisiveness of the story and character personalities and archetypes, many people remember this game for the eye-poppingly sexy designs of Camilla, Charlotte, Kagero, Orochi, Odin, and Niles, as well as the hot springs mechanic and ability to strip characters down to their underwear in the accessory shop or with the right weapons during battle.
    • Awakening, too, thanks to the Summer Scramble DLC featuring sexy swimsuit CGs for Chrom, Gaius, Cordelia, and Tharja. The last one's was so risque the localization slapped a cape over her lower half...only for that to end up making it look like she wasn't wearing the bottom part of her suit at all. Tharja herself and the Dark Mage costume were also quite revealing, as was Olivia's dancer outfit.

Web Comics[]

  • The eighth issue of Sonichu, the most sexually explicit one, is also the most infamous.
  • In the Ciem Webcomic Series, Candi's clothes tend to get torn off / burned off / fall off quite a bit. Before becoming Ciem properly, it seems she's always either dreaming about sex or about to have sex or narrowly avoiding being raped. In fact, much of the plot in part 1 revolves around why she Can't Have Sex Ever. To the point that it's pretty easy to overlook that it's about her journey to becoming a hero, or that there are aliens taking over Indiana with the aid of a cult of personality. Or that a man dressed as a shrew is committing seemingly random murders. Or that she marries a doctor.
    • This resulted in some backlash, where Candi in Sodality was developed as having more well-defined goals besides wanting to get married. And her legal troubles help to draw some attention away from her frustrating sex life.

Web Original[]

  • A YouTube video on a channel known as Vlogvetica featured a naked guy walking in the background, for maybe one second, and was never pointed out in the actual video. Guess what every single comment was about.
  • The trope "But You Screw One Goat!", is the punchline of a joke that owes its humor as much if not more to the trope under discussion here than the one that actually bears its name.
  • From This Wiki on the Body Paint page:
Cquote1

 Troper: I saw an Israeli war movie (forget the name, sorry) that began and ended with a scene showing the protagonist and his girlfriend rubbing paint all over each other while making love. Not sure what this had to do with the rest of the movie.

Other troper: Who cares?

Cquote2
  • Any sex scene in Survival of the Fittest quite often eclipses the character. Case in point, there's a reason that She Bop (girl on girl rape) is the most infamous thread of V3. So far as characters go, Rosa Fiametta of V4 often gets this treatment, to the point where her characterisation is simplified to just being a sex maniac due to the frequency with which she gets it on.
  • The Game Heroes ad where The Nostalgia Critic gets kidnapped. Fangirls completely failed to notice what they were selling, being distracted by the pretty boy getting manhandled and a gun being put to his head.
    • The Surf Ninjas review is a Dying Dream episode, with lots of clever Sarcasm Mode, a nice scene where The Other Guy and friends are looking after Critic, and Optimus Prime bringing him back to life by dying for his sins. And what do people remember? "GEEEEEEENIUS!"


Western Animation[]

  • The Mask is home to a literal example of his trope on the season two episode, "Flight As A Feather," in which Mayor Tilton's ex-girlfriend (a stripper) crashes an outdoor deal-signing ceremony and threatens to kill herself and the Mayor with two megatons worth of dynamite strapped to her naked body — all because the Mayor dumped her. The Mask then poses as a bartender and strips the dynamite off Cookie's body, leaving her to be ogled by Kellaway and Doyle. Now that you remembered the sex part, do you remember anything else about the episode—like how it's about The Mask losing his lucky feather hours before a karaoke contest?
  • It's possible the only scene most guys remember from the "girly" Disney film The Little Mermaid is when Ariel is first transformed into a human, and is naked for the next 6 minutes of the movie. The rest of us remember the musical at the beginning. So many half-naked beauties in sea shell bikinis...
  • As the show's TV Tropes page (and Laconic description) will tell you, Time Squad is merely (from the Laconic description): "Cartoon Network's 26-episode juggernaut of Ho Yay, Freud Was Right, Getting Crap Past the Radar, and Does This Remind You of Anything? moments. And, oh yes, Time Travel."
  • The existence of short series Fish Police is only remembered because it had lots of quite uncartoonish passionate kissing as well as other content that was considered too risque for children's TV. It was also remembered as one of the early competitors of The Simpsons (along with Family Dog and Capitol Critters—a Simpsons Halloween special even had a sight gag that showed those three shows on tombstones) that got canceled due to all three shows being critical and ratings disasters (though gaining cult followings years after being taken off the air).
  • The most memorable Cow and Chicken episode involves getting in the girls' bathroom.
    • And the banned episode with the lesbian bikers who invite Cow to play softball with them.
  • Disney's The Great Mouse Detective is often remembered by the Big Lipped Alligator Moment in the Bad Guy Bar with the mouse girl singer and her Chorus Girls. See Refuge in Audacity and/or Getting Crap Past the Radar.
  • The film El Arca is mostly remembered for Panthy's dance scene. Wasn't it also based on Noah's Ark?
  • Robotboy? You mean that one show that had Debbie Turnbull and her wide caboose, with that Megaman-like little character that... fights crime and stuff?
  • Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated is either beloved or hated for sexualizing Daphne at certain points (her maid outfit, her Hex Girls costume), much more than she ever was in the other incarnations of the series.

Real Life[]

  • Katrina Darrell was in the auditions of Season 8 of American Idol. This is the infamous "Bikini Girl".
  • That American's Greatest Inventor show? The one with the Naughty Knot Lingerie.
  • And practically every girl/girl group act who was talentless but hawt on shows like America's Got Talent and the like, where their looks swayed the male judges but not the female one(s).
  • Bill Clinton was the President of the United States for eight years (1993-2001). The only thing that many people remember about him was his many sex scandals (Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, and, most infamous of all, Monica Lewinsky).
  • When Brandi Chastain ripped off her Soccer Jersey and displayed her (not particularly immodest) sports bra. Now name the event, year, and opponent. Winning the 1999 Women's World Cup against the Chinese team.
    • Thanks to a combination of this and Small Reference Pools, quite a few people don't remember it was Chastain that actually did this. Quite a few people attribute this to Mia Hamm, since she's the only female soccer player a lot of people can name. They don't even remember the person, just the bra.
  • Any famous nude statue or painting. If someone mentions Michelangelo's David, the first thing that comes to mind for many people is not the fact that it portrays him before the battle with Goliath.
    • Michelangelo broke from the norm with David depicting him about to fight Goliath, instead of after his victory. Thus David is missing the artifacts that would normally give it away to the uninformed viewer, such as the head of Goliath or an empty sling. This is probably what happens when you show generations of people a statue of a nude man with the only explanation "This is David, he's a beautiful work of art." The statue itself is supposed to be meaningful both in its grasp of human determination to fight oppression and in its portrayal of human anatomy, but all anybody remembers is "naked".
  • Any and all "sex tapes" scandals. Whether or not the person is at all notable is irrelevant, as is the fact that it is indistinguishable from amateur porn, famous people having sex is clearly interesting. Most notably, Paris Hilton basically built an entire career using this trope.
    • Similarly, Kim Kardashian became a lot more famous after a sex tape was leaked in which rapper Ray J urinates on her.
  • More than a few studies have found that while sexual content makes an ad memorable it only helps them remember they saw a sexy ad, they're often no better at remembering what it was trying to sell.
  • Elizabeth Hurley was an unknown actress until she showed up with then-boyfriend Hugh Grant at the Los Angeles premier of Four Weddings and a Funeral, wearing a Stripperiffic Versace dress held together with giant safety pins. Hurley was on the cover of every fashion and celebrity publication, which both launched her career and made Versace a household name.
  • Channing Tatum seems to be heading down this road. While a good actor in his own right, once news leaked that he worked as a male stripper for a year before finding success as an actor, it's all anyone wants to talk about, and although he's capitalizing on it with the movie Magic Mike, it tends to bleed over into his promotion of other movies, like The Vow. Not even the episode of Saturday Night Live he hosted was immune to exploiting this: he admitted it in the monologue, was shirtless in a couple of sketches, and even played a male stripper in the final sketch of the night.
  • Montagnard Politician Marat was a major actor in French Revolution, teaming up with Danton and Robespierre to overthrow the Girondin and being at least as responsible, if not more than Robespierre, for the violent mesures taken by Robespierre later. Yet, the only thing that is remembered by everyone about him is that he got assassinated in his bathroom by a woman
  • In the first 2012 Mexican presidential candidate debate, everyone remembered the former Playboy model.
  1. at least in the first arc
  2. Or making out with Portman and going down on her body double
  3. All right, it was Touchstone - the very first Touchstone movie, in fact.
  4. 's body double
  5. Unlike other examples on this page, the creator does lament that it's not best known as a shoot em up. Bummer.