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A classic gag. Alice tells Bob some news, which he interprets in a wrong (and hilarious) way. She tries to explain and correct his mistake, but he applies his misinterpretation to the explanation as well. Bob is usually portrayed to be somewhat dim-witted, but a variant of this trope has him invoke it on purpose, just to screw with Alice.
There was an ad for Best Foods salad dressing where a woman is trying to explain to her relatives that the salad dressing she's serving isn't homemade. At the end, she says "Best Foods made the dressing!" at which point the relatives say "You sold your recipe to Best Foods? We're gonna be rich!"
There was an ad for Kraft shredded cheese where the husband was being a Jerkass about the word "finely," purposely misinterpreting it as "finally."
Her: Wow, Kraft finely shredded cheese!
Him: You mean they didn't before?
Comic Books[]
Played for drama over a fifteen year period in Quantum and Woody. Eric Henderson believes his best friend Woody abruptly left because of simmering racism, surfacing only once to leave him a rude note demanding a phone call. In reality, Woody left because he and his mother ran away from an abusive relationship and soon fell into poverty; the note was intended for Woody's father to finally call his long-abandoned son.
On ANT Farm, Lexi is unaware of a fellow cheerleader's birthday since she never received her invitation. When she stopped trying to find out why. Her Dumb Blonde friend Paisley says she has to deliver an invitation to someone named " iX37" and assume its a robot. When Lexi sees the name, she realizes that Paisley had the envelope which says LEXI turned upside-down. When she tells Paisley its addressed to herself, Paisley replies, "I didn't know my best friend was a robot!"
Lister: Nah, Kill Crazy's probably right. That's why houses under the flightpath are always so cheap.
Rimmer: Cos of all the flushing planes?
Lister: Yeah, well, think about it: you can't sunbathe, you can't have a barbecue, and every time you go out you've got to wear a washable hat and leg it to your car.
Rimmer: It's the noise. That's why houses under the flightpath are so cheap; because of the noise.
Lister: The noise?
Rimmer: Yeah.
Lister: They're half a mile up. You'd never be able to hear people on the loo from that distance. Not unless they were like my Uncle Dan.
Scrubs had one moment where The Janitor accuses J.D. of taking 'it' after J.D. asked if he had lost something. As J.D. continues to deny taking anything, The Janitor tells him he'll leave his cart unattended and if 'it' should reappear on the cart, no further questions will be asked. J.D. tells him he doesn't even know what 'it' is, to which The Janitor replies, "Then why take it?"
Lorelai: And a relative. That's so cool. I'm gonna totally ask for favors.
Richard: Make her stop.
Rory: Oh, that I could.
The opening skit of the 2006 Emmys found host Conan O'Brien wandering into several TV shows. Towards the end, he walked into an empty house, only to find himself in the middle of an episode of "To Catch A Predator", with every (truthful) explanation that he gives only serving to make him look more guilty:
Chris Hansen: I'm Chris Hansen with "Dateline NBC".
Conan O'Brien: Oh, God. Okay, it's not what you think. I'm looking for the Emmys. I'm hosting.
Chris Hansen: Hosting? That's what you call this?
Conan O'Brien: Yes, it's my second time. (Conan had previously hosted the Emmys in 2002)
Chris Hansen: So you've done this before?
Conan O'Brien: Yeah, I did it one time and I liked it and I thought maybe I should do it again.
Chris Hansen: Of all the predators I've meet, you are by far the creepiest.
Conan O'Brien: Look, this is very easy to explain.
The entire plot of the Japanese drama Anna-san no Omame (a.k.a. The Best Friend of Beautiful Anna) is based on this trope.
Newspaper Comics[]
In one Pearls Before Swine anthology, Stephan Pastis wrote that Pig "is rather easy to write for. He just needs to misunderstand everything said to him, and then when it's explained to him, he needs to misunderstand that too." And indeed, it's one of Pig's most common gags. The strip he referenced had this exchange:
Pig: If this player can win a World Series, he'll finally get the donkey off his back.
Rat: Monkey.
Pig: Get the donkey off his monkey... that's one strong monkey.
Questionable Content: Hannelore and Marigold discuss their lack of sex lives; Hannelore because she's rather squicked out by those fluids, while Marigold is a shut-in: