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"This is wrong on more levels than I can count. And they're both really basic levels, too."
—Fighter, Eight Bit Theater
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A Stock Phrase to describe a situation that is, well, wrong in various ways all at once. There is no hard and fast minimum of exactly how many "levels" it needs to be wrong. It just needs to be hard to describe just how wrong the situation is.
Can be used in both comedy and drama. In comedy, if anyone ever asks for the speaker to elaborate, they'll do an Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking progression, ending with "... and that pink ball gag is just tacky."
Also doesn't need to be the word "wrong", or "levels", as long as the format sticks. People of a geeky persuasion can also allude to the concept as being "fractally wrong": no matter the level you look at it, it's always wrong — resembling a Mandelbrot curve, which has similar features at every scale.[1]
A specific variant phrase is "Sick and Wrong", which usually involves something that would require Brain Bleach. Occasionally paired with Head-Tiltingly Kinky.
Anime/Manga[]
- Used at least twice in Mahou Sensei Negima. Once by Chamo, in a bath scene with naked, adult form Evangeline sucking blood from the protesting, 10 year-old Negi's arm. Once by Sayo after witnessing Kazumi's reaction to finding out what winding feels like to Chachamaru.
- Rein rather memorably utters this exact phrase in the English dub of Best Student Council.
- In Koe de Oshigoto! several characters point out to Yayoi that making her underage sister Kanna work as an eroge seiyuu is sick and wrong, to which she responds there is no law against it.
Comics[]
- Southpaw expresses this feeling when she and She Hulk learn that they're under constant surveillance by The Watcher.
- In Peter David's Supergirl Jason Blood probably summed the situation up best, when the demon Etrigan broke off a brawl with Supergirl to drop to his knees and ask for her hand in marriage.
Etrigan: Marry me. Do not say maybe./Take me as your demon lover; bear my demon baby. (kisses her hand) |
- And then she said yes.
- Damian Wayne's opinion of schizophrenic mutilation enthusiast Professor Pyg?
"You redefine wrong." |
Film[]
- Teacher's Pet:
Ivan Krank: Oh, haven't you heard, my good man? Nature is dead! Science is king! |
Janessa: Oh, this sucks on so many levels! |
- Must Love Dogs, after the heroine realises she answered her own father's personal ad:
Sarah: This is disturbing on many levels. |
Guy: (watching Laliari sprout tentacles as she makes out with Fred on the floor) Ohhhh, that's not right! |
Harry: This is every shade of wrong. |
- According to Shenzi the hyena of The Lion King (more specifically, 1 1/2), implied Hot Skitty-On-Wailord Action "violates so many laws of nature".
- Bolt:
Bolt: If I stare at the lock really hard, it'll burst into flames and melt. |
Live Action TV[]
- In Off Centre, some people are changing at a gym. While they are naked, some guys get into a fight, dragging the main characters into it. One of them says the phrase.
- In Rome, Octavia says this when she and Jocasta see that Atia is having the slave Duro, who tried to poison Atia on Servillia's orders tortured.
- The team's well deserved reaction to the following exchange.
Booth: You know what? You're a horse's ass! |
- In the second episode of Dead Like Me, George is impaled with a clip on a stick, due to being too close to one of her 'customers' dying (being a Reaper, she got better). Later that night, she has a coughing fit...and spits up the clip. We pretty much agree with her when she says 'Oh that's not right, that's not right!'.
- Grey's Anatomy episode "Owner of a Lonely Heart":
Dr. George O'Malley: Oh, that was wrong on so many levels. |
- Grey's Anatomy episode "A Hard Day's Night":
Dr. Meredith Grey: [grabs her bra from him] Humiliating, on so many levels. You have to go. |
- Stargate SG-1 episode "Paradise Lost":
[Maybourne tosses an explosive in the lake to 'catch' some fish] |
- Andromeda episode "Pride Before the Fall":
Beka Valentine: If you do this and you kill me... |
- The West Wing pilot: after Sam recounts the day's bad events and, among other things, admits to sleeping with a prostitute and that he's trying to impress his boss's daughter... to his boss's daughter:
Sam Seaborn: Well, this is bad on so many levels. |
- I Love Money episode "Only the Weak Survive":
Nibblz: [after losing to Mr. Boston on "The Bed Battle"] This sucks on so many levels. Not only did I lose, I lost to Mr. Boston. Do you know how bad that is going to look for me back in Brooklyn? |
- On Mystery Science Theater 3000, this was practically one of Joel's catchphrases.
Joel: Oh, come on, this is so offensive on so many levels... |
- Arrested Development, of course:
Michael (played by Jason Bateman, to Nellie, a prostitute he believes to be his sister, played by Justine Bateman, Jason's real sister)! "Marry me!... that's wrong on so many levels." |
- On Whose Line Is It Anyway, Wayne Brady said this at the end of one game that... well, see for yourself.
- Scrubs had Elliot describing something Jordan said as "disturbing in, like, eight different ways." The new Main Character Lucy also recently had so much to do, that she "had to do my dad phone call, while having sex with my boyfriend. So many things wrong with that, not the least of which is that it was the most turned on I've ever been".
- On Wings, when Joe learned Roy was ordering a mail-order bride: "This is wrong on so many levels, it's hard to describe without charts."
- Dollhouse episode "Omega":
Caroline!Wendy: The wrongness of this is so large. |
- Variation in Angel:
Lilah: Mind if I join you? |
- Castle says this after Alexis tells him that her Egg Sitting partner has 'killed' the egg to get back at her.
- On Project Runway, judge Michael Kors once told a designer who offered a truly awful "1970s-inspired" outfit: "Those plaid pants would be against every fashion law of nature in any decade."
- On The X-Files, after Mulder tries giving scientific explanations on a pseudo-vampire's death, the doctor who is checking on the corpse replies "You are really upsetting me. On several levels".
Parody[]
- MegaMan and Pompous Robots has Bass, in one of the hidden easter eggs, telling Dr. Wily one of his creations is "all kinds of wrong".
Webcomics[]
- This Xkcd strip.
- Something Positive: "Oh... Davan, that is so not-good on so many not-good levels."
- 8-Bit Theater, during the Dr'zzl fight
Fighter: That's wrong on more levels than I can count, and both of them are really basic levels. |
Black Mage:, "There's many things wrong with that, and both of them are all of it." |
- "That's just wrong on so many levels I can't even count them!!"
- In Bob and George, the recurring cameo fan-character Ran, a fragile and cheaply built Communist robot who constantly respawns when killed, gives us this gem when Napalm Man disagrees with his admittedly creative methods for stopping a fire.
- El Goonish Shive got this:
Justin: This is messed up on so many levels. I'm guessing you don't visit your cousin and uncle that much? |
- Tavros of Homestuck tries to explain to Vriska that being directly responsible (even if only after the fact) for creating the Big Bad currently making their life hell is not a good thing:
AT: wOW, nO, tHAT'S, |
Web Original[]
- The Nostalgia Critic commented during his review of Milk Money that the film was "a five-star restaurant menu of wrong."
- In Atop the Fourth Wall, Linkara reviewed the Kool-Aid Man comic, and a girl was kissing the Kool-Aid Man, and a caption said the phrase of this trope.
- Seanbaby's take on Custer's Revenge:
Custer: "Gentlemen, today's operation will be a unique one. We will go deep into injun territory with a full entourage of cavalry, establish a tight perimeter, have the infantry remove my pants and underpants, and then I will attempt to force sex on an Indian girl under heavy enemy fire. Are there any objections?" |
- This video warns us: "Don't watch an anime called Boku! Man, this shit is SO wrong in so many motherfucking levels yo..."
Western Animation[]
- Kim Possible: Ron has "Sick and Wrong!" as a Catch Phrase. (Others use it too, but mostly him.) Beyond that is "Wrongsick!", and for a example (not from Ron) in the episode "Bad Boy". Ron becomes evil and Drakken becomes nice:
Shego: This is Sick and Wrong on so many levels! |
- Became a Running Gag in one Danny Phantom episode where the line was uttered whenever someone came in dressed as Sam for their own reasons--respectively Tucker and Grandma Ida. Wrong indeed.
- Phineas and Ferb, episode "Journey to the Center of Candace" where Phineas and Ferb have shrunk themselves and a submarine to get inside Isabella's chihuahua Pinky. But things didn't quite go exactly as planned....
Phineas: Yeah, we're inside Candace's stomach. |
- Candace has this reaction to her brothers attempting to hatch an egg with a robotic platypus butt in "Perry Lays an Egg":
Candace: That's so wrong in so many ways, I don't even know where to start. |
- On The Venture Brothers, this was the Pirate's response to walking in on Sally Impossible while she was naked, with her resulting Freak-Out resulting in her skin turning invisible and the Pirate getting a good full-body glimpse of her muscles and organs.
- Also recently cited by Dr. Mrs. The Monarch with respect to the Monarch's obsession with his new "Butterglider": "...They don't even have a name for what this is!"
- Once uttered by Grim in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, in response to one of Billy's many grievous errors in common sense.
- In the Time Squad episode "The Prime Minster Has No Clothes", this is Buck Tudrussel's response to Larry going swimming with a naked Winston Churchill:
Tudrussel: A three-hundred pound man skinny-dippin' with a robot... that just ain't right. |
- In an episode of Brain POP, Chip the chipmunk appeared selling Tim & Moby's tulips. And then, Tim said this.
- In one episode of Family Guy, Peter makes a long analogy involving Woody Allen with a "Chinaman." Lois gently informs him to "hold that thought, because when we get home I'm going to explain everything that's wrong with it."
Other[]
- I'm sorry sir, but that will fail on so many different levels.
- Not Always Right also has one called Not Always Right on So Many Levels.
- Once upon a time there was a very large office building in a very large city. This building had 40 levels....
- That is wrong on so many levels, I think I had to fight a boss or two
- Mitch Benn:
Well I guess you must put out a track to |
- The last episode of Red vs. Blue The Blood Gulch Chronicles featured this little exchange:
Caboose's Mental Image of Sister/Church: (flatly) Hey, what's up? |
- The Nostalgia Critic refers to part of the Star Wars Holiday Special as "a holocaust of wrong."
- Theodore Gray delights in finding new and interesting uses for the elements, but this is the thing that gave him a "No. Just... No" Reaction.
- I'm uncomfortable with this on so many levels....on this level...and this level.....
- In the Star Wars Customizable Card Game by Decipher, Inc., there's a card showing Luke getting smooched by Leia. The card's name is "This Is Just Wrong." A second kiss in the same vein is "This Is Still Wrong". Conversely, cards involving Leia kissing Han are "This Is More Like It", "This Is Even Better", and "This Is Absolutely Right".
- In the Big Finish Doctor Who Lost Stories Audio Drama "Legend of the Cybermen, a character says "that's just wrong..." after she's heard that the Cybermen have begun to cyberconvert mermaids (It Makes Sense in Context).
- ↑ As a fractal, it can't be many kinds of wrong, only the same kind of wrong no matter how you view it. Associating this expression with fractals is as redundant as the notion of 'levels' in fractals, by design.