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Comedy trope: Alice says something. Then Bob says something or something happens that makes it clear that what she just said doesn't make sense. Alice quickly revises her statement and repeats it. On Second Thought is a more specific case of this, as are some forms of Inflationary Dialogue.
Alternatively, Alice attempts an compliment or insult. However, Bob responds with information contradicting what they thought, which could include Compliment Backfire or Insult Backfire. So, Alice tries again with a new insult or compliment, directly opposed to what they had just said. Could be compounded by a Hair-Trigger Temper.
Students of rhetoric may describe this as "epanorthosis". If Alice has to retract a practical idea that uses bad methods, it's a case of And That Would Be Wrong. If she has to retract a controversial opinion, it's a case of Not That There's Anything Wrong with That. If she's retracting an insult to someone she hadn't meant to insult, it's because of Insult Friendly Fire.
Anime and Manga[]
- In Morita-san wa Mukuchi, Mayu's trying to thank Ritsuki for fetching a book for her earlier when:
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Ritsuki: I find it very sexy when you stare at me like that. |
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Fan Works[]
- In Kyon: Big Damn Hero, after Kyon receives a longcoat as a gift from Mikuru.
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Kyon: I won't be able to get much use out of this until next winter, but I know once I do, I will greatly appreciate this! Asahina-san, I don't know what I've done to deserve such a fine present, but I am very grateful. |
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- and then there is also one in Time Braid after Sakura decimates Pein
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Sakura: Hell, yeah! 'Not a front-line combatant' my ass, Sasuke! I am the champion of ass-kicking, you arrogant nutjob. |
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- An absolutely hilarious one occurs in Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality. Quirrell suggests to Dumbledore that Harry take Occlumency lessons, with the as-of-yet undetermined teacher to have his memory wiped after every training session and an unbreakable vow to not reveal anything.
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Dumbledore: Such services are extremely expensive, as you well know, and I cannot help but wonder why you deem them necessary. |
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Video Games[]
- Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars: During a random encounter, Huang meets a real estate agent who previously asked Huang to drive him around.
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Huang: You still don't have a car? |
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- Muv-Luv: When Takeru calls Sumika a slug, combined with Insult to Rocks:
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Sumika: Gaaaaah!!! Apologize to slugs! |
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Films[]
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Principal: I will keep you all night if I have to. |
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- On the DVD Commentary the creators note that he has a pattern of trying to sound authoritative and then immediately backing off from whatever he said.
- History of the World, Part I:
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Moses: The Lord Jehovah has given unto you these fifteen... |
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- Back to The Future Part III:
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Buford: Let's finish it, right now! |
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Cardinal Richelieu: Do you know your accuser? Who brought you here? |
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- The Naked Gun 33 1/3 (1994)
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Rocko Dillon: [firing gun over audience's heads] Freeze, and nobody gets hurt! |
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Donkey: Wow. Who would want to live in a dump like that? |
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- From Fierce Creatures, Rollo loses it and gives his zoo's employees a scathing critique of their new corporate owner:
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Rollo: I think the whole Octopus philosophy is poison. The only aim of any and every McCain business is to downsize and halve the quality, to make enough money to acquire another business to downsize and halve the quality, to make enough money to acquire another business to downsize, etc., etc., without ever running a single one of them really well. And if anyone ever raises the question of quality, they're immediately attacked as an elitist, because at Octopus it's considered morally offensive to talk about anything but money. All so that Mr. Rod McCain can feel a little more powerful every day. That's why, instead of running this wonderful zoo properly, we've got to spoil it in order to finance his next mindless acquisition. |
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Inigo: Give us the gate key. |
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Wonka: So much time and so little to do-- Wait. Strike that. Reverse it. |
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- From Underworld Evolution
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Marcus: Viktor fashioned two keys. What do you know of them? |
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- In Hot Fuzz, Danny and Nick are discussing Nicolas' role model.
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Nicholas: It all started with my Uncle Derek. He was a Sergeant in the Met. He bought me a police pedal car when I was five. I rode around in it every second I was awake - arresting kids twice my size for littering and spitting. I got beaten up a lot when I was young, but it didn't stop me. I wanted to be like Uncle Derek. |
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- In Megamind, after Roxanne's report:
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Hal: Wow, okay, the stuff they make you read on air, that's un-freakin'-believable. It's crazy! |
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- In The Road to El Dorado when they first set off to find the treasure.
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Miguel: (dramatically cutting away foliage) The trail that we blaze! (the foliage falls, revealing solid stone behind it) (points to the side) That trail that we blaze! |
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Bruce Banner: I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You can smell crazy on him. |
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Live Action TV[]
- In "The Stinson Missile Crisis" episode of How I Met Your Mother, Barney invokes this several times during his various Bimbo Delivery Systems, two commercials and an autodialer.
- A favored technique on 30 Rock:
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Kenneth: I will buy Mr Donaghy a new pair of pants! |
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Melody: Can you control yourself? |
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Louis: Am I in heaven? |
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Sylar: I'm not a serial killer. |
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Kitty: Red, you can run the raffle. |
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Ximenez: NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our four...no... Amongst our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again. |
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Serena: Look B, I understand why you're reluctant to burst your happy bubble but I'm not giving up. |
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Bartlet: I could fund this initiative out of my pocket! |
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Picard: I look forward to your report, Mr. Broccoli. |
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- The IT Crowd had Douglas do one of these when he talked about deleting incriminating files and then quickly added that he only meant to say "files".
- A Running Gag in Get Smart, with Maxwell Smart's claims simultaneously growing less dramatic and more ridiculous, along the lines of:
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Max: The entire Navy has this island surrounded! Would you believe it? The entire Navy! |
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Stockwell Day: Let's look at the facts surrounding my leadership of our party. Since I took over, our founder, Preston Manning, has announced he's getting out of politics. We've had quite a few members leave the party. The latest poll puts our popularity just below E. coli bacteria. Okay, let's not look at the facts. |
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- Blackadder the Third: Blackadder accidentally lets slip how he really sees the relationship between himself and the prince:
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Blackadder: It's good to be back in the saddle. Did I say saddle? I meant harness. |
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Don: But who's gonna do it? |
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- From Firefly episode Heart Of Gold, when the others were trying to convince Jayne to help with a job that was "strictly speculative":
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Jayne: Don't know these folks, don't much care to. |
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- After Starbug crashes in the Red Dwarf episode "Emohawk: Polymorph II":
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Kryten: At least Mr Lister's guitar survived intact. |
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- Merlin and Arthur are trying to decide what to do with the sleeping Uther to protect him, and Merlin thinks they should disguise him, leading to:
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Arthur: That might just work. |
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Jeremy Clarkson: Still, I'd only lost one thing... |
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- Played for drama in Person of Interest:
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Nathan: Eight people in the world know {{[[[Big Brother Is Watching]] the Machine}}] exists. We need to keep it that way. |
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Puppet Shows[]
- Muppets in Space:
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Kermit: He's one of us. And no matter what happens, no matter what obstacles we face, we never forget one of our own. |
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- Muppets Tonight!, John Goodman is fighting in a war with a bunch of rats:
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John Goodman: Don't worry, I promise to get all of you home back in one piece. |
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Web Comics[]
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Roy: Well, that's gonna change now. Thanks for setting me straight, Dad. I'm gonna pack up my gear and go rescue Elan! |
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- Also, in a different strip:
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Vaarsuvius: But now we must defend ourselves against two highly skilled legal professionals- |
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- In Tweep, regarding embarrassing yearbook pictures:
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Jack: Now, before you do anything, just remember...we've got witnesses. I mean, "company." |
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- An unusually cheerful example appears in 'Schlock Mercenary, toward the end of Book Ten:
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TAG: Success. |
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- Another one here:
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Ebbirnoth: And Lieutenant Pibald here is a genius. |
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Sweetheart: Sorry friend. That could have gone better. Tip doesn't really have the training for field work. Or the shoes. Sometimes I wonder if being our token human has cracked him even more. When you come to, I'll see that you only deal with the other members of our t-- |
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- And again when Tip's reaction to her saying "This is a job for Tip" means it becomes "This is a job for Tip, supervised by me."
Web Original[]
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Nerd: Don't kill me! |
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Kathleen (offering Major Nelson a job at Checkpoint): "We can't technically pay you money, but we do have free soda!" |
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- The Nostalgia Chick's 'Labyrinth review:
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"I think everyone remembers their first boner...Bowie." |
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- The Zero Punctuation review of Bayonetta makes a Running Gag of Freudian slips due to the game's Up to Eleven sexualisation:
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"Get past the the cock-tease presentation and the game is adequate at breast. Best." |
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- I'm a Marvel And I'm a DC: Spider-Man lamenting Marvel losing the licensing to Transformers some twenty years ago:
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Spider-Man: This is the worst decision Marvel has ever ma-- |
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- Todd in the Shadows mishears the lyrics to "I've Got Nerve" by Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus as "I've Got Nerf".
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"Heh, Nerf should use this in their commercials. Nerf should not use this in their commercials, I immediately take that back." |
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- Happens again in his Top 10 Best Pop Songs of 2011.
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"Ah, Usher. The women want him and the men want him. Want to be him. I meant want to be him." |
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- The Joker has one in episode 8 of The Joker Blogs.
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"One or the other. It's the fork in the throat--road, fork in the road. Henry's the one with the, ah, fork in the throat." |
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- In Dragon Ball Abridged, Episode 10:
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Vegeta: "You...you cut through my armor! This was a gift from my father!" |
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Western Animation[]
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Leela: I vow to become the best blernsball player ever. |
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Gloria Allred: We owe it all to me! And these six brave little boys. |
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- Done again in "Tonsil Trouble":
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M.C.: With nothing but each other, and overcoming all odds, these two brave friends... |
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Dr. Weird: Gentlemen! There's a chance this will work! (hoses attached to body, occasional swelling) |
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Girl Who Keeps Changing Her Name: Today my name is Jezebel. |
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- Perhaps the greatest example of all comes from The Simpsons with Moe hooked up to a lie detector:
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Moe: Good, 'cause I've got a hot date tonight. |
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- They did it again in the episode parodying The Departed. After getting a mole into Bart's group, Chalmers gloats that they're going to put Bart away for a long time. Skinner points out that, legally, the most they can give him is a ten-day suspension. "Well, that's long to a kid!"
- Metalocalypse
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Skwisgaar: Well, there are two things to do in a blackout. Get drunk. One thing to do. |
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Phineas: ...we're going to laser our faces into the comet! Then, when it comes back in seventy-three and a half years, we can all show our grandchildren! Oh, yeah - my parents are cooking steaks for everyone. |
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- An instance in Teen Titans serves as a Call Back and Continuity Nod.
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Dr. Light: No one can defeat Doctor Light! No one! *turns to see Raven* |
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- In Family Guy, Lois asks Quagmire for help.
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Quagmire: Sure, Lois. I would do everything to you. |
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Le Fou: That crazy old loon! He needs all the help he can get! |
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Billy: Mandy's gonna take your pants off! |
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Real Life[]
- Online, there are two additional methods to invoke this:
striking out the textwriting the text in a strikethrough font, and writing one thing and then "backspacing" over it with control-H, written ^H. (Each control-H deletes one letter^H^H^H^H^H^H^H character.) This is a reference to 1980s-era Unix systems, where misconfigured terminals would display control codes instead of invoking them. (A more obscure option is control-W, which deletes entire words ^W^W^W deleted one word in the Berkeley UNIX and in the vi text editor, and was therefore used for more succinct Verbal Backspaces.) - Lojban has actual words for this: The words "si", "sa" and "su", to be specific.