Digging Yourself Deeper

You should stop now.
While you still can.

"Ah! You can read... I mean, you are reading. Sorry. It's nice to see people reading. Not a lot of people read these days. People prefer to... hear. But all this 'hearing' is just reading for lazy people. Kids today should be prepared to pick up a book, and not just go around the whole time with all these modern... ears. Sometimes I just wanna rip people's ears off and say 'Read a book, for God's sake!'... Well, actually I'd probably say 'Read a book' first and then rip their ears off, otherwise they wouldn't hear me, hehehe... Actually, I probably wouldn't rip their ears off at all, I'm not a violent person. I like ears! Especially women ears, they're my favorite. I don't mean I collect them or anything! I don't have a big bucket of women ears hidden away somewhere. No, No, No, I'm not after your ears really. Not that there's anything wrong with your ears! You know if I was some kind of mad ear person, your ears would be the pride of my... ear bucket." —Jeff, Coupling — "The Girl with Two Breasts"

In a Sitcom, often a character will say something that's just meant to be a friendly little remark, and it will come out wrong, possibly sounding crazy or offensive; they'll try and clarify it (whether they really need to or not), but just make things worse, and dig themselves deeper and deeper into the crazy/offensive pit. Exceptionally deep and/or frequent excavations are commonplace in Cringe Comedies.

May eventually lead to Shutting Up Now.

See also That Came Out Wrong, Freudian Slippery Slope, Did I Just Say That Out Loud?. Compare Verbal Backpedaling.

Contrast Change the Uncomfortable Subject.

Not to be confused with Dug in Deeper where someone pursues something because they're told they're great at it, even though they're not, or Dug Too Deep, which is about physical digging.

Examples of Digging Yourself Deeper include:

Anime & Manga

• Kaorin has this one in Azumanga Daioh: Supplementary Materials:

Kaorin: (Sigh) Sakaki is so cool... Osaka: Kaorin, are you gay? Kaorin: The correct term is lesbian! Uh, not that I'm a lesbian!! (next strip) It's just, you know, a teenage thing. That's all. Anyway, that's not what I meant when I said she was cool. Just to prove it, I wouldn't mind if she was a guy! (Beat) Osaka: Huh?

• Happens in an extra episode of Durarara, when some poor sod attempts to talk down Shizuo with flattery and compares him to a really popular Bishonen actor, Yuuhei Hanejima. Unfortunately for him, said actor is actually Shizuo's little brother, whom Shizuo is very protective of, and he instinctively interprets the namedrop as an attempt to invade Yuuhei's privacy through him. Of course, since the poor sod doesn't know this, he just thinks Shizuo's suddenly angry because he hates Yuuhei—so he rescinds his previous statement and calls Yuuhei an asshole. The only thing surprising about what happens next is that the poor sod actually survived.
• Early in AIR, Yukito's explanation about why he was hugging Kano is like this, and leads to Hijiri getting angry and charging him with scalpels. Luckily, Misuzu's intervention means that Hijiri's reaction is Played for Laughs.
• In The World God Only Knows, Keima has an accidental pervert moment with Haqua with a predictable result despite him not even really caring. A bit later, he reassures her by saying he has no memory of her naked body anyway. This might help normally, only Haqua is already bothered by the way he never shows attraction to anyone or anything outside of his games. Cue getting hit again.
• A dramatic example occurs in Happy Yarou Wedding, when a drunken makeout session is suddenly halted by Yuuhi and Todou fears he's made him uncomfortable and lies that he mistook him for his dead wife. Since Yuuhi had stopped because he was shocked to realize he was in love with Todou, this crushes him and he decides to never return. Todou then persistently texts him with messages like "I have no interest in men" and "sorry for making you feel bad" in attempt to get him to come back, but of course this just makes Yuuhi even more upset.
• In FLCL, Mamimi confronts Naota and accuses him of having a crush on Haruko, to which Naota replies, "How can you like someone who's insane?" The problem is that Mamimi is a pyromaniac arsonist, and Naota knows this.
• In The Death Mage Doesn't Want a Fourt Time, Heinz, the lead antagonist, just can't help but make his relationship with the primary protagonist, Vandalieu, worse, at every possible opportunity, despite his stated desire to atone for taking a quest, based on little more than a noble's hand-delivered note, that had his party, attack 5-1, capture, and turn over Darcia, Vandalieu's mother, for cash, to a foaming at the mouth fanatic, to be publicly tortured day and night over three solid days, and then set on fire when the torture failed to get the poor woman to turn over her infant son for straight up murder, during which Heinz, at most, argued with his fellow party member Riley, doing nothing else, and then fleeing the area in the middle of the night when the town lord Bestero sent him an engraved invite to his estate to celebrate "burning the evil witch." Against all odds, infant Vandalieu survived being orphaned and hunted for 10 long and hard years, being adopted by an unusually friendly tribe of Ghouls.
  • When they meet 10 or so years later in Nakiri, it's because Heinz, without even asking if he's needed or welcome, butted into his business at the adventurer's guild after Van was turned away due to an arbitrary rules change. That is when Vandalieu learned Heinz had white-washed his history, claiming to be a helpless witness to the atrocity, not one of the most active participants and then flaunts Selen, the dhampir girl he rescued from a band of mercenaries who were paid by another corrupt noble to kill her parents and then kill her to collect her eyes for the noble's sick collection. This makes Vandalieu so enraged that if it wasn't for the fact that he couldn't attack Heinz and party without dying in the process, would have killed Heinz on the spot, but instead flees the area in an incoherent fury, blacks out, and unconsciously creates a dungeon that launches monsters all bent on killing Heinz at all costs. It's only because Heinz and crew had Nakiri's militia backing them that this failed. Heinz lets his party sway him with the notion that this couldn't possibly have been the same kid he sentenced to death by starvation, at best, because there's no way an infant could survive being orphaned and left with no options.
  • Heinz then gets the "brilliant" idea that if he can become Bellwood's disciple, he can [Guide] Alda away from his genocidal mindset, at least in part, and that will be the perfect atonement. So he seeks out the Trial of Zakarat, a dungeon seeking the one who would become the disciple of Zarkarat, Bellwood's rival, believing that defeating the trial means being one who defeated Zakarat, becoming Bellwood's disciple in the process. When Van beats him to the punch, Alda, Heinz's patron god, immediately dumps his own dungeon in the area, the Trial of Bellwood. Without giving any thought to the logical inconsistency of the matter, Heinz immediately goes and challenges the dungeon. Over the next few years, Heinz and party willingly subject themselves to Alda's demonizing propaganda where Curatos, the god of records, keeps sending meat puppets that mimic every man, woman, and child Van calls "friends and family," including Van himself at Heinz and party, "to prove they're irredeemably evil and can't be reasoned with" and forcing Heinz and party to fight them to the death over and over again, and has them act in ways he thinks they would act, rather than how they actually would, trying to groom Heinz into attacking them without thought. The problem is, the copy of Van's body resonates with Van's soul, and drags the poor boy into the meat-puppet, forcing Van to see Heinz hack his people down, over and over again, helpless to stop it. This moves Van from wanting to kill Heinz to avenge the murder of his mother to needing to kill Heinz to stop the self-righteous "hero" from launching a genocidal invasion of his new home country and then patting himself on the back "for having served Justice and vanquished evil."
  • When Van eventually manages to hijack control of the meat-puppet to call Heinz and party out on letting themselves be led around by the nose and falling lockstep into a narrative that is, at best, extremely skewed, Heinz interrupts him, shouting that the meat-puppets are at fault for not wanting to talk things out. Van lets that slide, but makes it clear that the party's actions already merit the death penalty and he intends to carry it out as soon as he's ready, but in the meantime, he's willing to have a nice "private" chat with Heinz. Heinz tries to defend his actions with a bunch of platitudes, logical fallacies, and hypocrisy, though he does make some salient points, most notably whining that Van rescuing the Titans that were enslaved and abused in the one and only mine in the Hartner duchy resulted in raising his taxes, caring not a whit that the duchy had been breaking its own laws for centuries and there was no other method for rescue nor redress of the duchy's wrongs. What's worse, when Van points out that Ghouls are not "weird undead that can somehow reproduce sexually," a lie that the Church of Alda propagates through the adventurer's guild, but are in fact a race of Vida, which Heinz claims to champion, his response is not shock or shame but along the lines of "I thought so, but since the adventurer's guild puts out quests to hunt them down and turn in body-parts as proof, I went and killed them wherever I could find them anyway." Heinz has the gall to then be shocked that Van makes good on his promise to try and wipe the party out. Both sides are shocked at the fact that Van has a soul that looks like an eldritch horror, but nobody should have been shocked that Van would respond very badly to someone happily admitting to hunting down the people who took him in as an infant and raised him with kindness like wild beasts, for money.
  • During the fight, Heinz pointedly ignores any and every opportunity to stand down, surrender, retreat, or withdraw that he's given, utterly insistent that he can take Vandalieu down, even when Curatos himself points out that he's been living in a propaganda machine for years and if pressed, Curatos will intervene in whatever way he sees fit, no matter how much Heinz or anyone else criticizes him later. Cue Heinz and Van launching attacks with lethal intent at each other and Curatos summons a copy of Darcia between them. This causes Van to hesitate for a split second, but Heinz can't stop his attack in time. This results in Heinz killing Darcia again, right in front of Van. When Van points to the act as hard evidence that all of Heinz's talk of "atonement" is nothing but self-serving hogwash, Heinz tries to protest his innocence, but Van wants to hear none of it, and tries to not only consume Heinz's soul, but utterly annihilate the entire dungeon of propaganda. This fails because the familiar spirit Joshua sacrifices himself in Heinz's place, and Curatos lets himself be consumed to protect what remains of the dungeon's lowest levels. This draws the attention and ire of not only Darcia, his first on-screen victim, but of goddess Vida herself. Darcia proceeds to blast him, Delizah, and the grievously wounded soul of Edgar to kingdom come "to vent her anger a bit" and Vida slaps him with the title "Vida's mortal enemy."
  • He beats himself up a bit while in the care of Mills, goddess of sleep, as she's trying to put him back together, but when he's fully recovered, and he hears that Van's an even better hero than himself, comes up with the ridiculous excuse, which even he admits is nothing more than an excuse, that someone has to rein Van in now because if the world waits until he "suddenly wakes up arrogant one day" it will be too late, and seeks out Bellwood himself, to use as a power-up, so can seek out an audience with Van without being immediately stamped flat when the two meet again. Bellwood himself, to his credit, tells him this is a terrible idea, as Bellwood is not only responsible for [Guiding] Alda into a genocidal madness to begin with, but happily spearheaded wanton mass-murder of any and all of Vida's races he came across, just because he personally thought they looked ugly. Plus, Belwood loved to harp about how everything will work out if people would only have a civilized discussion, but whenever anyone tried, he would interrupt, talk over, or shout down whoever disagreed with him until they gave up and/or went away, calling himself the winner of the "debate," and just gave blanket forgiveness to any despicable acts done in his name, because it made him feel "magnanimous" for 50,000 years, until the Evil God of Sinful Chains hit him with the Lambda equivalent of Ghost Rider's "Penance Stare" and Bellwood was forced to realize his actions were actually completely despicable. Heinz talks him into it anyway. This pisses off every last god or goddess who isn't in Alda's camp, and even a few who are, under threat of Stake of Law, which makes everything worse for Heinz and party.
  • When he hears about an Orbaume traitor, who rounded up a bunch of demon king body-parts, to herald the arrival of "a god from another world" who is a reincarnator that's an enemy of Vandalieu, he thinks it would be a grand idea to shove himself into the fight with said enemy, even though both Van and Alda told him to stay the hell out of it. By deluding himself that if he goes into the fight with Van against a common enemy, it would go a long way to settle their grudges. It doesn't help that while Van was giving him the message via DK familiar, the rest of Heinz's party, including Selen, just one-sidedly demanded Van should forgive his grudge. And what's worse, when Selen tries to justify herself by pointing out Heinz is her adopted father who saved her life, Van acknowledges her but then calls out Heinz for not atoning in the slightest by pointing out that he repeated his mistakes in Evbejia, where Darcia was killed, by going off of nothing more than a hand-delivered note from yet another corrupt noble to attack and slaughter a village of merfolk in a temple of Tristan, one of the most respected of Lambda's native gods, and Heinz, rather than hear "I've been repeating my mistakes" instead heard "I made Van's grudges worse by attacking his people." Dramatically Missing the Point.
  • Shoving himself into the fight where he knows he's not welcome, not only turned the fight from one Van had well-handled into a dangerous three-way battle, because Van would try to shoot through him at every opportunity, but it ends with his party member Edgar being assimilated into Dark Avalon, and Demon King Guduranis coming out to play.
  • Then, he offers his own head if Van would spare his allies, and Van agrees, but he sabotages his own final gambit by drawing his sword on Van and insisting he can't trust the latter because Van has defeated Guduranis by eating him. And Van can't trust Heinz to leave his people alone if he lets Heinz kill him to keep Guduranis from rising again. Heinz would have died on the spot if not for Nine-road yanking him away back to Amid, where he goes and signs up with the new emperor to be Alda's champion, and very nearly makes the already ongoing cold war Amid sparked with Van by trying to forcefully "recruit" him, trying to use hostages to force him to work for the previous emperor Marshukzarl, and then trying to murder him and said hostages when that clearly didn't work, go hot by attacking the spell Van's daughter was using to scry on him...

Comicbooks

• A stunningly awkward moment for Nurse Annie in issue #421 of Uncanny X-Men, doubling as a bit of a Freudian Slippery Slope.
• Chad from 'Patty's Perps' in Knights of the Dinner Table is a master of this.

Chad: Awwwwh, c'mon Patty! When I said girl gamers were lame I wasn't referring to you! You're just like one of the guys. Patty: Like one of the guys? Your character suddenly hears a rustling in the underbrush. Roll for initiative. Tank: Careful, Chad. You're digging that hole deeper and deeper.

• The third Blue Beetle stumbles into this when he teams up with Batman in The Brave and the Bold (revived series issue #3).

Beetle: My armor should be able to track the watchamatrix's energy sig, but the tracking's all kaflooey. Probability-alteration factor, maybe?...I'm sorry! I'm not making excuses. I swear! I know you hate excuses! I'm trying, I promise! I just- Batman: Jaime... Relax. Beetle: ...Ohmygodyou'renotreallyBatman... OhgodIsaidthatoutloud... Batman: Jaime... Beetle: What? Don't kill me.

• Rocky (from the Swedish furry comic, not the boxer) once gets into this when meeting his current girlfriend's father (I think it was...). He wants to compliment him on his house, but makes a Freudian Slip and substitutes "dick" for "house", and then it gets worse. The girlfriend's father shuts him up with the wonderful comeback: "Kid, if you've put your foot in your mouth, at least have the sense to stand still!"
• Used as a visual metaphor in the furry comic ISO, when Cody has to swiftly make up lies about his supposed girlfriend to keep his parents from finding out about Doug, as well as the fact he's on the outs with Todd and has a roommate he can't stand.
• The tie-in comic for Star Trek Elite Force involves Beissman responding enthusiastically to the assignment of watching Seven's back. She handles it in her usual manner.

Seven: That hole you're digging is getting deeper.

Film

• Done in Severence with a great jab at the end:

Richard: Hi Maggie. Not eating? Maggie: Why are you all so obsessed with what I eat? I am not too skinny. Richard: No, no, no, no. I don't mean... Just that you'll need your energy for the team games. I mean, you're perfect just the way you are. And when I say perfect, I obviously don't mean that in a sexual way. I mean perfect in a neutral way. As if I were another woman saying that you were perfect, you know? Just one woman to another. Not that I'm implying anything like that. Or that there's anything wrong with that... sort of thing. Or... anything. Steve: 'Keep digging, we can still see you.

• Jim Carrey's character in Liar Liar, cursed so that he Can Not Tell a Lie, boards an elevator with a well-endowed woman. The first words out of his mouth are about her breasts. As he tries to cover himself, more and more lines about her rack spill out... Gilligan Cut to him leaving the elevator, having gotten well-slapped.

Woman: Everyone in the building has been so nice to me. Jim: Well, that's because you've got big jugs! I mean, your boobs are huge. I mean, I want to squeeze them. I mean...

• Done rather drolly in The Great New Wonderful. Pastry chef Emme, along with her assistants, is presenting a line of birthday cakes to a wealthy Park Avenue girl. The girl expresses interest in one cake, commenting on how beautiful it is. One of Emme's assistants, Justin, then chimes in with "And it's easy on the hips." Another assistant hastily bails him out by explaining that the cake is a low-density one that doesn't require a lot of processed sugar to hold it up. When he's done, Justin says "That just basically means it's less fattening."
• Happens to Cady repeatedly in Mean Girls. She refers to the phenomenon as 'word vomit'.
• Shark Tale: Oscar has a habit of getting himself into bad situations due to not thinking before acting. So it's very appropriate that when he fails to pay his debt to his boss Sykes (and to add insult to injury, had the means to pay off the money but bet it on seahorse racing instead, which failed), Sykes has Ernie and Bernie find a pit, dig it deeper, and place him inside of it.

Literature

• In the chick-lit/mystery novels Bad Kitty and Kitty Kitty, the main character Jasmine Callihan has this problem a lot. She blames it all on the monkeys that live in her head. For instance, when she is trying to leave a message on her boyfriend's cell phone, while she is convinced he is cheating on her, Hilarity Ensues:

"Hi, Jack, it's me. Jas. Jasmine. I'm sorry I missed you on IM yesterday but I got arrested for murder. I mean, I didn't do it, but I accidentally told the police I did, so it was confusing. Now we're going for dinner at The House That Kills, but that is only a nickname because a lot of people have died there, but it's completely safe. Anyway, I hope you're having a very nice morning and not melting in anyone's mouth or hands - Sorry, I meant molting. On anyone. Ha ha. Because molting is bad. Unless you're a wee creature of the forest, but - um, never mind, I've got to go, bye."

• A scene in Robert Asprin's Myth-ing Persons has Guido doing this to himself with his employer Skeeve; he only belatedly informs Skeeve that they're being followed, and then tries to defend himself by saying that the follower is so obvious that any idiot could tell they were there. Fellow employee Massha cheerfully invokes this trope.
• In the Gaunts Ghosts novel Blood Pact, Gaunt tricks Ayatani Zweil into going for his medical by making the latter condemn the person who hadn't gone for medicals until he realises that he's talking about himself.
• Ravirn: Ravirn has a tendency towards this, which Melchior lampshades in WebMage:

Melchior: Judging from past experience and what little I've heard, I'm thinking you're following the pattern where you start out in a lot of trouble, and then through a series of brilliantly chosen words, make it infinitely worse.

• In the Belgariad/Malloreon by David Eddings, several characters fall for this, usually cut short by another character suggesting "Why don't you just stop talking now." or "What a fascinating observation, why don't we pursue that line of thought." or similar.

Live-Action TV

• Was made into something of an art by Coupling, in which attempted conversation-starters, usually by the hapless Jeff, devolved into such subjects as amputation, and collecting human ears in a bucket. In fact, this page used to be called "Bucket Of Ears".

Jeff: You have the eyes of ten women. ...I don't mean, like, in a jar. I wasn't accusing you.

• • A non-Jeff example is when Steve talks to Jane's psychiatrist Jill. She thinks that he's nervous because sometimes what she does makes people nervous in a social context. Believing her to be Jane's girlfriend, he tells her that "you girls" have got "the best of both worlds." When pushed to explain what he's talking about, he uses a metaphor Jeff brought up earlier in the episode:

Steve: Well erm, you've got four breasts... Jill: I'm sorry? Steve: No, no hang on. Jill: This blouse isn't particularly flattering actually... Steve: No, no. Jill: If nothing else. Steve: I'm not saying you've got four at the moment, just when you're... Jill: What? Steve: Excited. Jill: You think I develop extra breasts when I'm excited? Steve: Not so much develop as, you know... acquire. Jill: What in the name of God are you talking about? Steve: Sorry, sorry I've been totally sidetracked by the irrelevance of your breasts. Not that you have irrelevant breasts! You've only got two, that's for sure. Unless you were some sort of cow. No! No, an attractive cow! Or a prize winning cow! But you're not a cow. You're a person. But I'm sure that you'd be a prize winning person if they had a sort of cattle market for women! A women market! Which, thinking about it would be a bad thing in many ways.

• • Steve gets a lot of these, usually digging a lot faster than Jeff. During his run-in with his celebrity crush Mariella Frostrup, she apologises for spilling her drink on his pants. He replies "Don't worry about it, I was about to go to the toilet anyway. Not that I was intending to wet my trousers, obviously. Although I am pleased to meet you." At this point he has a hilarious "What the hell I am I saying?" look on his face.
  • Oliver carries on the tradition well on several occasions, such as his conversation with Jane about the large number of toilet rolls he's buying.
• Seen in the Friends episode "The One Where Ross Can't Flirt," in which Ross's attempts to flirt with a pizza delivery girl degenerate into a lecture on the smell of gas and an intended compliment which makes Ross sound like a pedophile.
  • There was another one where he ended up talking about sewage.
  • And Chandler brought up another occassion, when Ross talked about the Irish Potato Famine.
  • Chandler also did this once, while attempting to suck up to Monica's parents.
• In an episode of Scrubs, Elliot meets a guy named Sean, but her attempts to strike a conversation up with him end with them talking about poo. "At one point I tried changing the subject to art. But we went from art to artists, to alcohol, to coffee...and that just led right back to poo!"
  • When she first tried talking to Jake, her boyfriend for twenty minutes in season 4, the only thing she could think of was to compliment him on what a perfectly square head he has.
  • There was that one very early episode with Elliot and Carla feuding over Elliot tattling on Carla for not doing something. When Elliot apologizes and then doubles back to elaborate on her reasoning, the scene shifts to a visual gag of her standing in a grave literally "digging herself deeper"; as Carla and the other nurses look on in like the Mafia.
• Digging Yourself Deeper is pretty much the basis of every episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry David makes an innocuous statement which is taken badly, or misheard, and the ensuing consequences lead to hilarious further exchanges and climax.
• Any sitcom involving Ricky Gervais.
• One House episode had Cameron trying to explain to a TV crew that when she said it was exciting being around him, she didn't mean it that way. It failed in a spectacular way. Because, you know, she kinda actually felt that way in the first place.
• Xander (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame) was very prone to this.

Y'know, Buffy, Spring Fling just isn't any dance. It's a time for students to choose, um... a mate and then we can... observe their... mating rituals and tag them before they migrate just kill me.

• • The kicker is that he's not even talking to Buffy, just practicing with Willow.
    • Which rather neatly demonstrates the wisdom of doing so, yes?
  • Buffy and Xander also get another good one in "Doppelgangland":

Buffy: See? I told you, Old Reliable. Willow: Oh, thanks. Buffy: What? Willow: Old Reliable? Yeah, great, there's a sexy nickname. Buffy: Well, I-I didn't mean it as... Willow: No, it's fine. I'm Old Reliable. Xander: She just means, you know, the geyser. You're like a geyser of fun that goes off at intervals. Willow: That's Old Faithful. Xander: Isn't that the dog that that guy had to shoot...? Willow: That's Old Yeller! Buffy: Xander, I beg you not to help me.

• In Doctor Who, the Doctor does this quite a lot, especially in his fourth and tenth versions. However, this is quite often a highly calculated move on his part, as a way of distracting the person he is talking to.
  • Though not always:

The Doctor: What are you doing that for? Mickey(holding down a button): Because you told me to. The Doctor: When was that? Mickey: About half an hour ago. The Doctor: Um... you can let go now. Mickey: Well, how long has it been since I could've stopped? The Doctor: Ten minutes? Twenty? Twenty-nine?

• • or:

The Doctor: Lovely to meet you, Mrs Jones. Heard a lot about you. Francine: Have you? What have you heard then? The Doctor: Oh, you know; that you're Martha's mother, and...um...no, actually, that's - that's about it. We haven't had much time to chat, you know, we've been...busy. Francine: "Busy"? Doing what, exactly? The Doctor: Oh, you know...stuff...

• • Also well done in the episode The Unicorn & The Wasp:

The Doctor: Agatha Christie! I was just talking about you the other day. I said, "I bet she's brilliant." I'm the Doctor; this is Donna. Oh, I love your stuff. What a mind! You fool me every time. Well, almost every time. Well, once or twice. Well, once, but it was a good once!

• • And when the Doctor was inviting Donna to travel with him, but wanted to clear up the fact that he wasn't looking for a relationship:

The Doctor: But the last time, with Martha, like I said, it got complicated. and it was all my fault. I mean... (sighs) I just want a mate. Donna: You just want TO MATE??! The Doctor: I just want A mate! Donna: You're not mating with me, sunshine! The Doctor: A mate, I want, a! Mate!

• • Used yet again when the Doctor goes to talk to Amy's fiancé...and opts to show up by jumping out of a stripper's cake (at his bachelor party):

Doctor: Rory! What a relief! I'd thought I'd burst out of the wrong cake. Again. That reminds me, there's a girl sitting outside in a bikini, could someone let her inside and give her a jumper? Lucy? Lovely girl. Diabetic. Now then, Rory. We need to talk about your fiancé. She tried to kiss me. Tell you what though, you're a lucky man, she's a great kisser. (pause as everyone stares at him in amazement) Doctor (uncomfortably): Funny how you can say something in your head and it sounds fine...

• Thank God You're Here tries to actively induce this in contestants. The master of it is Frank Woodley, who can go somewhere horribly, horribly wrong with whatever they throw at him.
• Jayne Cobb from Firefly manages to turn an observation that dead people make him restless into defensively insisting that he isn't a necrophiliac. He was just giving examples of things he does when he's restless. Nothing corpse-specific in there.
  • Jayne's good at this, but Simon is the undisputed master. Especially if Kaylee's in the room.
    • Heck, the fact that Simon does this is pretty much the reason he and Kaylee don't get together until the movie. They'll be flirting and getting close and just as it looks like they'll kiss, he says something that she thinks is offensive and she storms off.
• Done in Frasier by Niles when talking to Daphne about her possible dismissal.

Niles:Yes, and even if by some small chance that were to happen, Daphne, I could always use you. ...I, I would know of a position you could take. ...Services that you could perform. ...I would know of an opening. ...This is on me.]

• • Speaking of Frasier, this is the formula for a lot of episodes; a conflict arises, and each attempt at a resolution digs the characters deeper. Some (if most) episodes even end without any resolution at all and show the characters wallowing in self pity in their inability to come to a resolution.
• Stargate Atlantis has Mckay pulling one off in the episode Trio. When Samanta Carter finally stops him, Keller has a nice little comment:

"Aw, I bet if you hadn't stopped him he would have gone on like that forever!"

• • This exchange from 5.15 'Remnants', as Richard Woolsey sees that a women he's been flirting with found his balcony hang-out spot:

Woolsey: You’ve approached my private spot! Woman: ...What? Woolsey: I mean you’ve entered my little personal area. [[[Beat]]] Woolsey: ...This is where I come... to be alone with my thoughts.

• Robert did this at least once on Everybody Loves Raymond. Amy invites Stefania over to a singles party because she thought Peter might like her, but Robert is not happy with her arrival.

But she's my Stefania! ...I mean, she's my ex-Stefania. ...I mean, you're my Stefania now... baby.

• • Probably the most blatant example is the entire premise of "Faux Pas", where Ray makes a joke about his son's new best friend's dad, tells it to the man himself, and keeps trying to apologize, only making it worse. His family coming in doesn't help, either.
• In an episode of The IT Crowd, Moss dates a woman that looks exactly like Roy's mother. She's also a psychiatrist, which leads to an... interesting conversation:

Roy: I'm sorry, it's just that you look exactly like my mother. Not - not that my mother's ugly or anything, she's a very sexy woman. Not that I want to have sex with her, because I know how you psychiatrists think, and my mother would never stand for anything like that. I can see her now... "what you are you doing, Roy? What are you doing?!"

• In Cheers, Diane begins by yelling at a prospective employer, "I will not sleep with you!". It actually manages to go downhill from there.
  • When Norm finds his dream job as a beer taste tester and is only an interview with the president away from getting it, Rebecca advises him not to do something stupid like mention his pants. Of course, the first thing he does is say "Nice pants!", not so bad in itself, but he retracts himself immediately, then retracts the retraction and digs his way down to a song and dance number about him not being such a grumpy puss. Camera cut back to the bar and Norm mourning his lost opportunity.
• Half the fun in The Thick of It and by extension, In the Loop.
• On Get Smart, a married Max is on a mission dating a KAOS femme fatale; a very pregnant and emotional 99 isn't taking it well. She sniffs "You've stopped loving me just because I've grown fat and unattractive!" He soothingly replies "That's ridiculous - just because you've grown fat and unattractive doesn't mean I don't love you anymore!"
• Brilliantly done in an episode The Office (American flavor) wherein a) Michael manages to accidentally imply to a superior that the office runs better when he is absent, b) tries to cover that up by saying that it runs much better when he is around after earlier stating that he is frequently away during work hours and c) trying to cover that up by then implying that he his presence or absence has absolutely no meaningful effect on business at all.
• A minor one from the NCISepisode "UnSEALed":

Tony: Do you sleep with a gun under your pillow every night? Kate: That depends. Tony: On what? Kate: On who I'm sleeping with... (she turns around and runs into Gibbs) Oh uhh, I didn't mean that the way it sounded. Tony just asked me what I would do if a man came into my bedroom and I said it depends. I mean it doesn't depend on the man... Tony could you help me out here please? Tony: She sleeps with a gun boss. Gibbs: That true? Kate: Sorta... sometimes... yes. Gibbs: Good girl!

• • Another from NCIS, after the Director has suggested that Gibbs has "really pissed somebody off":

Tony: That's not a short list! (Death Glare from Gibbs) ...of people that - that you've angered just because you have rock-solid principles, and so it's easy for people to misunderstand that, and misconstrue, because, you know, people don't -- Director: Why don't you quit while you're behind, DiNozzo? Tony: I'm trying!

• Josh of Drake and Josh, on a date with a model:

I got you a diet soda, 'cause I figured you're probably watching your figure. ...Not that you need to watch your figure, you have a great body! ...Not that I was looking at your body!

• Gwen did this often, sometimes once an episode during season one of Merlin.
• In the Hawtho R Ne episode "Final Curtain", the titular nurse keeps doing this with a doctor (or nurse, it wasn't really specified). She tries to get him to talk Arabic to a patient's husband, but (1) the husband is speaking Dari (as we find out from the Army vet nurse Sullivan) and is thus Afghani, & (2) the guy in the turban is Sikh, not any kind of Muslim (and from Chicago).

Guy: You're a racist! (stalks off) Hawthorne: (ashamed) Yeah...

• • She manages to keep digging later, by thanking him with a namaste gesture, which is not generally used that way when you're not Hindu.
• In an episode of Star Trek TOS McCoy is trying to convince a woman (Eleen) to want the child she is going to give birth to:

McCoy: Say to yourself: "the child is mine. The child is mine. It is mine". Eleen: Yes. It's yours. McCoy: No... no, you've got it all wrong. Eleen: Yes... McCoy... it's yours. McCoy: No. Say to yourself "the child is mine. It is mine. It is--" (Beat) Uh-oh.

• Fawlty Towers - a psychiatrist guest is talking about vacations, and asks Basil, who hadn't heard most of what he'd said, "How often do you and your wife manage it?" Basil thinks he's talking about sex ("that's what it's all about to them!") and gets all indignant and defensive. When he hears from his wife what the psychiatrist was in fact asking about, he rushes out with a plastered-on grin and starts babbling about how he thought he was talking about walks, not sex! NO, vacations! and coming off much worse than he started.
  • Basil digs himself even deeper that night, while bidding the psychiatrist and his wife good night

Basil: Well then, I'll leave you to it. I mean, to go to bed! To *sleep*! To sleep, perchance to dream.

• Whose Line Is It Anyway, Greatest Hits, "Songs of the Motorcycle."

Ryan: "Hi. How are you? We don't know what you're watching, so we're not gonna tell you when we're gonna return you to it." Colin: "Oh, w-- We're watching animal porn!" [[[Beat]]] *double Face Palm* Ryan: *snickering* Colin: "Mary Had A Little Lamb, we'll be right back in just a second. But you..." (Drew frantically buzzes) Ryan: *laughing out loud*

• Glee: Santana tells Karofsky that she has figured out that he is gay.

Karofsky: Who told you that? Santana: No one had to tell me. First of all, I saw you checking out Sam's ass the other day. You really need to be more careful with your leering. Karofsky: I didn't. I was just... seeing what jeans he was wearing. Santana: ...Like that is any less gay.

• True Blood gave us this priceless exchange between best friends Jason and Hoyt:

Jason: Hoyt, I had sex with Jessica. Hoyt: (obviously hurt) How? Jason: Well, first we did it missionary, then doggystyle, then... Hoyt: (clocks him square in the face) I MEANT HOW COULD YOU?!

• On The Muppet Show, Miss Piggy tells Danny Kaye how thrilled she is to meet him. Danny says that they've actually met before, which she might not remember because it was a long, long time ago. Then he realizes women don't like to be reminded of their ages, and says it was back when she was thin. The punchline comes during their subsequent musical number: "I'm sorry I said I knew you when you were thin. I never knew you when you were thin."
• Frequently, this is what people do on Survivor when the jury really doesn't like them and is just picking between the lesser of two-three evils.

Music

• The Jason Robert Brown song, "I Could Be In Love With Someone Like You" starts out like this, although the singer recovers admirably by the end of the song:

My first crush on an Irish girl... I was ten years old, and her name was Elaine. Little red-haired girl; Well, she looked like you, But if you were ten, Which you're clearly not. Not that you look old, but you get my-- I'll just stop now.

New Media

• Overheard semi-example: The first quote here.
• A bit of transcript from bash.org nicely illustrates this

<massacre> Rosti, can I ask you something as a close friend? <Rosti_LFC> you could ask me something as a complete stranger, but go ahead <massacre> Do you reckon Emma would go out with me if I asked her? <Rosti_LFC> errr.... <Rosti_LFC> ask her yourself? <massacre> no fucking way until I get a second opinion <Daz> dude she's in the channel <massacre> no she isn't <Rosti_LFC> yeah she is mate, look up <Rosti_LFC> she got op'd yesterday <massacre> fuck <massacre> PLAN B <massacre> spam the channel <massacre> with text <massacre> so it goes <Audia> hi <massacre> off her scrollback <Rosti_LFC> ahaha <massacre> FUCK massacre has quit (PLAN C!!!) <Audia> I'm going to go install Windows 7 right now <Audia> so I'll be offline for a bit <Audia> if he gets the balls to come back in here in the meantime tell him the answer is yes <Rosti_LFC> rofl Audia has quit (QUIT) <Rosti_LFC> that was some hardcore nerd courtship ritual right there <Daz> Oh man, I wish I could fuck up asking a girl out that badly and still succeed

Radio

• Alan Partridge often backtracked with "Not literally; that would be hideous."

Theater

• Cyrano De Bergerac: Act IV, Scene IV gives us this gem: After De Guiche informs the cadets the Last Stand, Cyrano offers Christian the goodbye letter he has prepared for Roxane, whom Cyrano has implied he does not love. Christian sees a spot in the letter and asks Cyrano why he has wept a tear on the letter:

Cyrano: Oh!. . .death itself is hardly terrible,. . . —But, ne'er to see her more! That is death's sting! —For... I shall never... (Christian looks at him): We shall... (Quickly): I mean, you... Christian (snatching the letter from him): Give me that letter!

Videogames

• Shortly after you meet Liara in Mass Effect, she tells you she finds you fascinating because of your encounter with the Prothean beacon on Eden Prime. You can tease her about how clinical her interest sounds ("Sounds like you want to dissect me in a lab"), prompting her flustered response, "I only meant that you would be an interesting specimen for an in-depth study. No, that's even worse!"
  • Tali gets similarly flustered in the sequel.
• Knights of the Old Republic's Bastila has one or two Freudian slips that result in similar conversations with a male player. One of those conversation paths contains one of the funniest lines of the whole game: when Bastila is trying to clarify what she meant by 'feelings for' the player, a possible response is "You're cute when you're embarassed."
• Defied in Red Dead Redemption. When talking to his wife about Bonnie, who saved his life, John Marston stops digging and starts giving her compliments.

John: When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

• Bioware must love these, because Merrill does this all the time in Dragon Age II, and she knows it.

Merrill: "... and I'm rambling again, aren't I?"

• In Portal 2 Wheatley tells Chell that he hates having to look after all the 'smelly humans' and then blusters about it.
• James Tobin has this happen to him in the game In the 1st Degree. He changes his story of what happened between him and Zack more than once. He admits to shooting himself in the leg because he was afraid no one would believe him when he said that Zack was shot in self-defense. If you play the game right, you get to watch as the prosecutor Granger pins Tobin on the leg-shooting thing. Granger asks if Tobin's first thought was to protect himself as his own business partner was lying there at his feet bleeding to death. Tobin responds by saying no, and that he tried to give Zack CPR. Granger says "You tried giving CPR to a man who was bleeding from the throat?" Tobin then gives a "Yes! I mean...No!" Yep, Tobin is so experiencing this trope.

Webcomics

• Alex does this once in Angel Moxie.

Alex: You tell us everything, and I mean everything. Well, not everything, actually. Just the stuff about you and your friends and things. None of that birds and bees stuff. We already know all that, and besides, it's kind of icky.

• Mort from Gunnerkrigg Court falls into this when speculating on why Antimony can see The Guides:

Mort: Y'know, It's probably because you're so attractive. I noticed that about you when we first met. Antimony: Oh? Mort: Oh! I uh... I don't mean you're attractive... I mean, like a magnet... or a medium... Haha... Yeah. Ah! B... But I don't mean you aren't... I mean you look really... I... Uh... Oh geez... *turns into a tombstone with a picture of a foot going into a mouth*

• An essential part of Hannelore the whole cast from Questionable Content
• Piro of Megatokyo tends to do this a lot. Some times are worse than others.
• Jeremy from Dead Winter, here.
• This Darths and Droids, in which Jim gets mixed up between talking in character and out of character, as well as whether Padme is telling Anakin she loves him, or whether he's telling Annie that he loves her.
• Inherent to Schlock Mercenary. Usually with Tagon, who has done this not only with a compliment to Breya, but his defence in a trial as well.

Tagon: I'm not stopping until this hole goes straight through.

• Mitzi, realizing that Rocky's been saying that she might've offed her husband tried to reassure Wick that's not the case, but ends up making a lot of joking remarks about offing Rocky.

Mitzi: Uh... you stopped rowing.

• Used as a visual metaphor in Flying Suit Reiko, when one character awkwardly confesses his FA/Feederism fetish to his girlfriend. His thought balloons have him digging a hole deeper and deeper. When she finally tells him it's okay and she likes it too, his visual metaphor is raised out of the pit by an oil geyser.
• El Goonish Shive has a character "good" in this—Abraham, who managed to rile Raven more with every phrase as he tried to explain himself. He's absent for now, but Elliot somehow found his Idiot Ball.
  • The Abraham example is interesting because there are no tongue slips - everything he says is completely intentional - he just doesn't realize that he's hitting another one of Raven's Berserk Buttons with every passing sentence.
• Digger has a hilariously cringe-inducing example, split across three pages:

Jhalm: Honored Digger... Almost, I could believe I had misjudged you. Except that this very morning, I received a report from one of the Veiled, that you were seen to be consorting with a hyena creature, not half a mile from this spot. The very same creature that attacked me a few days ago. Digger: (stunned expression) Statue of Ganesh: Is this true, Burrower? Digger: Well-- Yes, but-- It wasn't like that! Jhalm: Do you deny that it was the same creature, then? Digger: No-- Jhalm: Do you deny that it attacked me? Digger: No, but-- Jhalm: Do you deny that you were speaking on friendly terms with it? Digger: No! But that's a recent development! We weren't friends before she attacked you! Digger: (Face Palm) Hang on, that didn't come out right at all... Jhalm: An interesting criterion for friendship, Honored Digger.

• In Everyday Heroes, the local Goth girls refer to Summer's friend as "the Blessed Virgin Carrie". Carrie ignores it, but Summer and Uma try to explain why she should be insulted ... and end up invoking this trope.
• In Homestuck, Doc Scratch, "an immortal entity with a large cue ball for a head, and no biological means of reproduction", explains to Rose that he doesn't like her that way after being Mistaken for Pedophile:

Scratch: There should be no reason for you to feel uncomfortable with this interaction. Try to think of me as one of your kindly human uncle figures. Scratch: In fact, if I were in your presence now, I would offer you candy to prove it.

• Some people, like Larisa in Sandra and Woo, just shouldn’t try to defend themselves...
• Misfile: Rumisiel manages to pull this big time when talking to Dr. Upton about his daughter. The comic provides a nice visual metaphor for what he's doing, pictured on top of this page.

Western Animation

• "The Cave of Two Lovers" episode in Avatar: The Last Airbender had a stunningly awkward pit trap for Aang when he tried to diffuse his embarrassment over a possible kiss with Katara.

Aang: Us...kissing... (looks dreamy) Katara: Heh, us, kissing! What was I thinking? Can you imagine that? Aang (laughs it off): Heh, yeah, I definitely wouldn't want to kiss you. *suddenly realizes what he just said* Katara (offended): Oh. Well, I didn't realize it was such a horrible option. Sorry for suggesting it. Aang: No, no! I mean, if it was a choice between kissing you and dying... Katara: UGH! Aang: What? I'm saying I would rather kiss you than die! That's a compliment! Katara: *storms off* Well, I'm not sure which I would rather do! Aang: What is wrong with me...?

• • Followed by Zuko in the third season revealing that he sent Combustion Man after them when, at the time, all they knew about him was that he was a psycho who wouldn't stop chasing them. This revelation didn't exactly earn Zuko any points with the good guys.
  • In Sequel Series The Legend of Korra's "A Leaf in the Wind", Bolin correctly presumes that Korra is a waterbender due to ethnicity and clothing, but Korra trolls him by saying she's an earthbender (which she is too...). Bolin hastily tries to apologize for Mistaken Nationality.

Bolin: I'm sorry, no, no! I didn't mean to assume! It's that, I was just figuring... with your Water Tribe getup... that you are... a Water Tribe... gal.

• Oh poor Naveen in The Princess and the Frog:

"You have had quite an influence on me, which is amazing because I have dated thousands of women and- *Tiana looks annoyed* uh, no, like, two, three- er, just other woman! And anyway, listen, you could not be more different, you know, you are- you are practically, aheh, one of the guys! *Tiana looks affronted* Nonono, you are not a guy! Let me begin again. Uh-" *stumbles and falls to the floor along with the food* "I... am not myself tonight."

• • And to think, the poor shmuck's trying to propose.
    • Mama Odie did tell him to dig a little deeper...
  • In the end, she did admit that she thought the fumbling around was cute.
• Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman had this one from one:

Bruce: "Working late again?" Roxanne: "Yeah. Fortunately my boyfriend is very understanding. What about yours?" *pause* "Girlfriend, I mean! Of course, girlfriend! I mean, considering your reputation and- NOT that it's bad or anything or even any of my business, because it's not, I was just curious!" *stops suddenly* "How red is my face?" Bruce: (cheerfully) "Crimson."

• Averted by Kevin in Ben 10: Ultimate Alien after he tells Gwen that you need to treat a car like you treat a woman. Gwen asks him to go on, but he wisely drops the idea.
• In the Bump in the Night episode "A Sneeze In Time," Bumpy points out Squishy's mistake by saying, "What a rush! Why'd you turn the wrong valve? Boy, only a doofus would do that!" In an attempt to undo his indirect insult, he travels back in time. He only makes it worse. He tries this repeatedly until Future Squishy shows up and suggests that Bumpy simply apologize.
• In the Family Guy episode "Welcome Back, Carter", when Peter catches his father-in-law with a woman:

Peter: Oh, my God, Mr. Pewterschimdt, you're having an affair? Ew! Eww! Carter: No, no, this is my sister! Peter: Eww! Carter: No, no, no, I'm impotent! Peter: Eww! Carter: I mean, she looked at me, while I did it to myself! Peter: Ewww! Carter: I mean, she's a man! Peter: Ewww!

• • In "Road to the North Pole," this is pretty much invoked on Brian by Quagmire, who by this point in the series is defined by his hatred for Brian as much as he is his perversions. Brian mistook Quagmire's niece, who's bald from chemotherapy, for a boy, and while his attempts at an apology aren't perfect, Quagmire is so nasty it seems like he's saying all the wrong things out of anxiety rather than just ignorance.

• Used in The Looney Tunes Show when Crusher is staring down Daffy:

Daffy: You'll have to pardon my friend. The heat's getting to him. He's not used to this. He's not a hardened criminal like you. I mean, I shouldn't assume that you're a hardened criminal. But in my defense, you do have a Neanderthal-shaped head, which I normally equate with stupidity--uh, not that you're stupid. I just mean that you look stupid. I don't mean that as an insult. I mean, some people think stupid to mean cool, like "That's a stupid car," "You've got a stupid apartment"...I wish I could stop talking. I'm just very nervous right now. I tend to ramble when I'm nervous. You know what the word "ramble" means? You're probably too stupid to know! And here, I mean stupid-stupid, not stupid-cool!

• From Robots

Ratchet: No, wait, please listen to me. You can't do this to me. This job is my life. It means everything to me. You don't know what I've done to get here. The lies I've told! The lives I've ruined! Wait... this isn't helping me!

• In The Simpsons episode "Girls Just Want To Have Sums", while Principal Skinner is publicly speaking to a former student of his, he states that she wasn't that good at math because "hey, you are a girl". This gets him in hot water and he tries to explain himself, but his comments only make him sound like more of a misgynist until finally pleading "Just tell me what to say!".
  • In "Bart-Mangled Banner", the Simpsons are accused of being unpatriotic when Bart accidentally moons the American flag (and a little word-twisting) and are put on a talk show to clear themselved, the host asks "Which part of America do you hate the most?". Marge protests, sarcastically replying that if the government is built on questions like that, then she does hate America. Naturally, this gets the family in a bigger mess. When Springfield is renamed "Libertyville" to fess up to the nation, Lisa announces her views of patriotism and the family ends up in jail as a result.
  • In "Double, Double, Boy in Trouble", a rich boy named Simon Woosterfield traded places with Bart. When Lisa figured out Simon wasn't Bart, she slapped him and pointed out the real Bart would have hit her back. Simon then asked if he would defenestrate her, prompting Lisa to mention the trope.

Real Life

• It is possible to do this to oneself in an argument, especially if you're using straw men in the first place.
• There's an old story about a German mayor who didn't want people let their dogs run unleashed in the local forest, so he had put up a sign stating: "Anyone who'll let his dog run unleashed in the forest will be shot!" When someone remarked that this could be read as if the owners of the dogs were shot, the mayor had it "improved" to: "Anyone who'll let his dog run unleashed in the forest will be shot, the dog!" ("Dog" being a somewhat outdated insult.)