History Main / EvenTheSubtitlerIsStumped

* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' when [[spoiler:Caliborn]] purposefully screws up the narrative [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall by cramming magic dust into the "game" cartridge for the story]], the resulting artifacts that occur in the actual story cause this when the text boxes the characters speak in [[InterfaceScrew get clogged and]] [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/6282 become illegible.]] Even the characters can't decipher whatever's being said.

* This is also used for several commercials that involve the memetically [[TheUnintelligible unintelligible]] Music/OzzyOsbourne.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Duckman}}'' episode "Psyche", Duckman is reduced to gibberish when playing mini-golf with some beautiful women looking for advice to not be seen as sex objects. Most of his lines are translated as proper English conveying what he really means, but his last gibberish line is simply transcripted phonetically rather than translated.

* Music/WeirdAlYankovic's [[Music/OffTheDeepEnd "Smells Like Nirvana"]], which is all about how nobody can suss out what Music/KurtCobain is singing in Music/{{Nirvana}}'s [[Music/{{Nevermind}} "Smells Like Teen Spirit"]], has this line in the second verse: "It's hard to bargle nawdle zouss???[=/=]with all these marbles in my mouth." What makes the joke even funnier is that these ''are'' the official lyrics, question marks included.

[[quoteright:320:[[Music/WeirdAlYankovic https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/weirdal_subtitlerisstumped_6149.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:320:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FklUAoZ6KxY ...with all these marbles in my mouth.]]]]

* Ventriloquist Creator/JeffDunham has a bit in one of his routines in which his puppet Peanut claims to have deliberately rattled off a string of nonsense words, and then ''pretended'' to talk without actually saying anything, in order to confuse a group of deaf people watching the show with the help of a sign language interpreter. (Peanut's rationale was that taking deaf people to a ventriloquist act was ComicallyMissingThePoint, much like a blind person going to a David Copperfield show.)

* In one episode of ''Series/{{Supernanny}}'', a child's unintelligible speech is rendered as "(what?)" in the subtitles.

[/folder]]

* ''WebAnimation/IfTheEmperorHadATextToSpeechDevice'': Part of the FunWithSubtitles style is giving various interpretations to anything that isn't vocalized, from laughter to {{Angrish}}. Notably, however, the subtitles for Tzeentch's non-verbal noises are about as indecisive as Tzeentch himself, with the subtitles often stating things like [Presumable Discontent], [A barely contained giggle or something] and [Perhaps a snide old lady], when they aren't being terrified.
* This [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6VtC-nEMoQ Youtube Poop]] has subtitles, which at one point are reduced to a string of letters when Clinton is speaking gibberish and later says "???" when Holt is talking backwards.
* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ4sp_OZ_nM this]] episode of the {{WebVideo/Jimquisition}}, Jim is dressed up in a gimp mask for the intro and only able to speak through [[ItMakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext a built-in kazoo,]] supposedly as 'punishment' for 'bollocksing up [his] biggest show of the year'. The skit is accompanied by captions translating his unintelligible kazoo speak, but at one point:
--> ???
--> Seriously I forgot what I said.
--> I feel sexy(?)
* PlentaKill's "I'm A Volibear", a ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends''-themed parody of Music/WakaFlockaFlame's "I Don't Really Care", opens with the singer shouting some unintelligible gibberish, which the official subtitles helpfully translate as a row of question marks.
* Music/BadLipReading's "NFL 2020" has a bunch of the player introductions. [[https://youtu.be/Y2vS8dPMR2U?t=6m6s Not all of them intelligible.]]
* In [[https://youtu.be/BiPgl3z36k4&t=29 episode 4]] of WebVideo/TheSevenDeadlySchmucks, one captioner makes their feelings on the intelligibility of Elizabeth's speech abundantly clear. The following comes from the English Canada CC (the default placeholder for joke captions in abridged works before [=YouTube=] ended community contributions):
-->'''ELIZABETH (I think):''' What about finding the other seven friendly mittens to help Matthew eschew the martrydom with the tranny of the late moley whites?\\
'''[=DMACATTACK93=]:''' No seriously, what were you expecting? She sounds like a cat being strangled with a rubber chicken while simultaneously getting fucked by a full-grown cactus. I listened to this shit for an hour trying to figure out what she was saying and I still can't understand a single goddamn word.\\
An hour. A fucking hour of my life I will never get back, wasted on this fucking scene, and it's only seven seconds long. I would rather cut my penis off, feed it into a dry blender, mix it with skunk rectum discharge and bath salts, then chug the entire mixture altogether than listen to this bullshit one more goddamn time.\\
Fuck you for making me translate this. If I could put an emoji of a middle finger in these subtitles, I would.\\
Somewhere, there is a fat, anime-worshiping, neckbeard living in his mother's basement jerking himself off to sleep while thinking about having sex with little [=Miss CuntFace McGee=] right here. Seriously. Think about that for a second.\\
Now go fuck yourself.
* The Will [=McDaniel=] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1eg7kBPtMQ "Space Prison"]] video subtitles [[spoiler:the agonized groaning of a [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext popped balloon-headed person]]]] with "God in Heaven I can't caption this".
* WebVideo/BrandonFarris: Brandon's editor tends to render subtitles in eye dialect. So, when Brandon and, occasionally, Cameron become incomprehensible in the course of inflicting pain or discomfort on themselves or each other, the subtitles will at least be ''phonetically'' accurate but still will not convey what either is trying to say.
* In Creator/TheTechnicalDifficulties' video "Gary makes a very loud noise", Gary interviews Brian Johnson, the lighthouse engineer who restored and operates Britain's last working foghorn. The sequence where Brian fires up the 70-year-old diesel engines that power the foghorn has open captions for everything he says, due to the background noise, but at one point he calls over something that's inaudible over the engine noise, and the subtitle just says "[inaudible over engine noise]".

* In one of the 1960s ''ComicStrip/{{Popeye}}'' cartoons, Popeye goes to rescue Olive from a pyramid, encounters the natives, who speak absolute gibberish (even by his standards), and proclaims, "What this conversation needs is some subtitles." Said subtitles then promptly appear, but Popeye must read them out loud to understand them.
* In ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitchTheSeries'', the closed captioning misspells Mertle Edmonds' first name as "Myrtle" in almost every episode, even when it is shown on screen with the correct spelling on the show itself. In at least one episode, it is misspelled as "Mirtle".
* A ''WesternAnimation/{{MAD}}'' short did a parody of ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3''. At one point, Buzz realizes he can speak Spanish and the subtitles change from English subtitles for when he speaks Spanish and Spanish subtitles for when he speaks English. Then he says "I can haz Spanish" and the subtitles are pretty much rendered as "?????".
* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' has a subtitle-free variant in an episode in which Ferb translates his grandfather's bizarre British slang. After a particularly odd statement, he simply says, "I have no idea."

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Duckman}}'' episode "Psyche", Duckman is reduced to gibberish when playing mini-golf with some beautiful women looking for advice to not be seen as sex objects. Most of his lines are translated as proper English conveying what he really means, but his last gibberish line is simply transcripted phonetically rather than translated.
* The subtitler for ''WesternAnimation/HarleyQuinn2019'' must have been a Creator/DCComics fan; in the episode “There’s No Ivy in Team”, Nightwing has a HeroicBSOD and starts rambling about how much of a FailureHero he is. As he does, he mentions that he failed to prevent Blockbuster from dying; he clearly says “Vigilante” did it, but the subtitler wrote “Tarantula”, the one who did so in Nightwing’s solo comic.

* Music/WeirdAlYankovic's [[Music/OffTheDeepEnd "Smells Like Nirvana"]], which is all about how nobody can suss out what Music/KurtCobain is singing in Music/{{Nirvana}}'s [[Music/{{Nevermind}} "Smells Like Teen Spirit"]], has this line in the second verse: "It's hard to bargle nawdle zouss???[=/=]with all these marbles in my mouth." What makes the joke even funnier is that these ''are'' the official lyrics, question marks included.
* In the video for TheDGeneration's "Five in a Row", they ran sign language translation for a parody of James Reyne that featured the translator giving up and signing, "I can't understand him either". Also a GeniusBonus as you can only notice this joke if you understand Auslan (Australian Sign Language) and bother watching the signed translation.
* During Music/KanyeWest's performance at Glastonbury 2015, Creator/{{BBC}}'s subtitlers were ''trying'' to sanitize his, ahem, "[[ClusterFBomb colorful]]" lyrics, resulting in such gems as [[GoshDangItToHeck "motherducker"]] and [[NWordPrivileges "ligger"]] coming up. They eventually [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3142225/He-raps-BBC-subtitlers-throw-towel-trying-cover-Kanye-West-s-expletive-ridden-Glastonbury-performance.html threw in the towel]] and subtitled the rest as "He raps"

* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsaeNKrL8nE Little V Mills' cover]] of the ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'' song "Subhuman", at a couple of points the subtitles add (?) to show where Little V wasn't confident in his transliteration of the lyrics.
* Music/{{Gorillaz}}: In the official lyrics video for [[https://youtu.be/TTSFR6tVrPk Simplicity,]] during the first part of 2-D's section, no lyrics appear at all. Later followed by "CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHAT 2-D IS SAYING".

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7oFUa32FdQ This video]] from Wrestling/OlegTheUsurper's Website/YouTube channel shows him chopping a guy and yelling something with a caption reading "Untranslatable."

* Michael [=McIntyre=] once claimed to have seen a nature documentary in which Creator/DavidAttenborough found and named a new species of fish. The problem was that, since it was a late-night repeat, the show was being translated into sign language by an interpreter, who apparently hadn't been prepared for this. When the newly-discovered fish was revealed and dubbed, the guy in the corner panicked, and resorted to ''miming the fish''.

* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny'''s fansubbing of the body-switching skit, the trope was invoked in the middle of the skit when everybody started to talk at the same time.
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'', a skit occurs when having Tear cook post-battle for the party. It ends up with at least four people talking all at once and the Japanese version's subtitles merely use random symbols -- like stars, musical notes and pound keys -- to denote that talking is occurring. [[note]]Funnily enough, the English translated version keeps everyone's lines intact - as the English version had no voice acting for the skits[[/note]]
* In ''VideoGame/FortuneStreet'' (the one released internationally) Donkey and Diddy Kong speak in monkey noises translated in parentheses. Except their "promotion song", which is a long string of monkey noises, is translated as the same string of monkey noises.

* In ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'', Jimbo Hodunk, if spoken to, will just mumble incoherent things, which is subtitled [Coot rambling]. His son Tector understands him just fine, though, and will translate if Jimbo's actually saying something important.
** Also, the Bane SMG screams [Annoying sounds], though it seems more like a continuous shout of "YEAHYEAHEYEAH..." or "RATATATATATATA.....".
* In ''VideoGame/MaxPayne3'', which is set in Brazil, whenever anyone speaks Portuguese, the subtitles simply show the untranslated Portuguese text. This is done deliberately so that the player shares Max's confusion of being in a foreign land and not knowing the language. Portuguese-speaking players get to enjoy Max's reactions instead.
-->'''Thug''': [in Brazilian Portuguese] Hey, American! What are you doing over there?\\
'''Max Payne''': No comprende!
* In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' and its sequel, several aliens speak in unintelligible alien languages but with comprehensible subtitles, with the explicit statement that your character is multi-lingual and can understand them. The exception is the service droid T3-N4, who communicates with beeps and whistles... and his subtitles spell out the beeps and whistles without translating. You can usually deduce what the droid said based on your available responses, and sometimes it will be translated by a different character.
** ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' abandons this for translated droid beeping and whistling, but the translations tend to use fairly odd syntax.
* ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'':
** ED-E the eyebot communicates through beeping, particularly in the ''Lonesome Road'' DLC where he plays an important part. The subtitles often add context to his noise, such as "sneaky beeping" or "sad whine". The Courier is able to understand this perfectly, somehow.
** ED-E's ending narration is also in beeping, and subtitled the same -- but only if you have the subtitles on, otherwise you'll have no idea what he's saying.
** During one quest, you can use skill checks on a cook to diagnose latent trauma from family troubles. He goes into a rant so bizarre that even the game can't tell if you succeeded in the check, so instead of the usual [SUCCEEDED] or [FAILED], it merely offers a [?] until he finally breaks down.
* ''VideoGame/{{Ico}}'': Both Ico and Yorda speak in some sort of ConLang, but only Ico's dialogue has proper subtitles. Yorda's speech is rendered into what looks like hieroglyphs to emphasize that whatever language she's speaking, it's completely alien to Ico. (In non-NTSC versions of the game, Yorda's speech is rendered in English subtitles in NewGamePlus.)
* In ''VideoGame/SlyCooperThievesInTime'', when the game introduces Caveman Cooper, he tries to introduce himself only for his real name to come up in complete gibberish in the subtitles, even though the rest of his speech is translated perfectly fine.
* In ''VideoGame/RhythmHeaven Fever'', one of the minigames, ''Donk-Donk'', was so weird that the English releases didn't bother to explain what was going on, instead opting to tell the player to do "that thing we do". [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOPIQWSkYrE And can you really blame them?]]
* With the subtitles turned on in ''VideoGame/OctoDad'', the eponymous character's [[TheUnintelligible "speech"]] is rendered as things like "concerned blurbling".
* ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheStickOfTruth'': The subtitles make absolutely zero attempt to decipher [[TheUnintelligible Kenny's]] muffled speech, they simply put it as "Mmmmphphmm" or something similar.
* The trick descriptor in ''[[VideoGame/{{SSX}} SSX Tricky]]'' can come off as this: pull too many rotations in a single jump, and the tag just gives up and lists the entire thing as "???" like it gave up trying to interpret the trick you just did.
* ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'' given the names of most boss enemies in strange runes. Since every facets of the game menus is a DiegeticInterface, the implication is 2B's IFF couldn't make sense of the enemy designator and just recorded the garbage data verbatim. This is backed up by [[spoiler:the second playthrough; 9S, being a Scanner designed to extract information from enemy machines, displays the translated enemy names.]]
* ''VideoGame/MiddleEarthShadowOfWar'': Sometimes an Inscrutable Orc Nemesis will talk so fast, the subtitles just say (?????) instead of trying to guess slang words spoken at a rate of ''~360 WPM'' -- ''and'' in a thick Irish accent to boot.
* ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'': When Nightwolf is inciting a spell [[spoiler:against Sindel]], the subtitles doesn't appear to spell it.
* In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'', [[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Kraid]] appears as a master of one of the many dojos in the Spirits adventure mode. His "speech" is mostly roars and grunts, which the game does its best to translate, but sometimes it's not even sure of what Kraid is saying.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' has a DLC set during a hunt for a wyvern. Since the creatures are elusive, clues about what might attract them are needed to be gathered: The more used, the bigger the wyvern. Using all of the clues requires the GuestStarPartyMember to mimic the call of a rabbit-like creature that serve as wyvern prey, while also making a mating call to attract an amorous one. She makes the noises at the same time, and the subtitles simply call it an "ungodly cacophany".
* NPC dialog subtitles in ''VideoGame/NoMansSky'' represent the words your character understands, not their actual words; any foreign word your character doesn't understand, is rendered as-is and untranslated, while the words you have learned from talking to other [=NPCs=] and checking Knowledge Stones are translated into English. Therefore, if you want to understand most [=NPCs=], you're going to have to explore the universe and meet people until your vocabulary grows large enough to understand most of their words. Storyline-relevant [=NPCs=], however, are nice enough to talk to you in CommonTongue, which is rendered as curly braces around an English sentence.
* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedValhalla:'' Late in the game, Eivor runs into a Welsh woman called Brigid. Eivor can't speak or understand a word of Welsh, so their total confusion at what Brigid's saying is represented in the subtitles saying "[Unintelligible]" every time Brigid opens her mouth.

* ''WebAnimation/KizunaAi'': in the English subtitles, whenever Kizuna starts mumbling or making nonsense sounds the subtitler just puts "[Ai-chan noises]" in place of subtitles.
* The debut of ''{{WebAnimation/Hololive}}'' Gen 6 member Koyori Hakui saw her speak [[MotorMouth so fast and with so few pauses]] that the live translators (fans translating in the live chat for the benefit of viewers) in the chat had all but given up trying to keep up with her. Even clippers adding subtitles after the stream noted that they had to slow down the audio just to make out what she was saying.

* [=SonnyBone=]'s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bGErn95VGQ Fun With Ahmed series.]]

* The [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]][=/=][[WebVideo/TheSpoonyExperiment Spoony]] joint-spoofing of the ''ComicBook/{{Warrior}}'' comics gets in on this during the Wrestling/UltimateWarrior's rants (both the real ones and Spoony's impression of him).
* WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows will often only put subtitles of the lyrics of a song he is reviewing to invoke this trope.
* WebVideo/TheRapCritic, whose song reviews always have subtitles below them, will sometimes use this in particularly baffling moments.
* In [[WebVideo/BumReviews Chester A. Bum]]'s silent review of ''Film/TheArtist'', the cations read ''(something about a platypus)'', and later, ''(he literally said nothing during that)''.
* WebVideo/MyWayEntertainment, during their ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' parody. Ichigo's dad says, "Welcome to the world of motherfucking midgets and...''(gibberish)''", while the subtitles simply show a string of question marks.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvIa5T87aQ8 This]] parody of the ''Manga/DeathNote'' opening, near the end. ([=WARNING=]: Contains racially sensitive language!)

* On Saint Patrick's Day 2020, the official ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' social media accounts (namely, their Website/{{You|Tube}}[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQCJea92vF4 Tube]] and Website/{{Twit|ter}}[[https://twitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/1239914616286633984 ter]]) introduced a character named [[{{Oireland}} Irish the Hedgehog]], voiced by LetsPlay/JackSepticEye. Irish speaks in a thick [[MeaningfulName Irish accent]] and frequently speaks so fast and uses phrases and slangs so odd that the text can't keep up with what he's saying. At one point an entire paragraph of subtitles becomes nothing but question marks.
* The ending of episode four of ''WebAnimation/WaterHuman'' features a Skype conversation between the authors and one of the fans. In the English subtitles on Website/YouTube, it's mostly question marks.
* ''[[WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries Yu-Gi-Oh the Other Abridged Series]]'' subtitles the opening and closing themes. It's... interesting.
%%* Speaking of Abridged Series, WebVideo/EvAbridged gives us this in their second installment: [[http://youtu.be/VJnureuZ6Ts?t=8m13s]]

* [[TheUnintelligible Arlo P. Arlo]] from ''WebVideo/WhatTheFuckIsWrongWithYou?'' describes his family's Christmas traditions. Following the first line...
--> '''...'''\\
'''?!?!?!?!?'''\\
'''O.o'''\\
''';u;'''

* Used hilariously [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFHwG8ikZAY here.]]
* In ''WebVideo/TheTourettesGuy'', Danny's son informs him that a bird had gotten into the house, at which point Danny [[HollywoodTourettes starts swearing up a storm as usual]] while running towards the bird's location. The swears are all subtitled, although the last one is indecipherable and is subtitled as "???".

* In a Website/YouTube video of Leslie Uggams losing the lyrics of ''June Is Busting Out All Over'', subtitles go into #&$&# at one point.

* The Misheard Lyrics videos on Website/YouTube are the deliberate version of this trope. Especially hilarious versions of this are the ones made out of songs by SeanPaul, especially for his song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIdcHkMCzQw&list=FL74m4Vk74SdFBaC7DoQHiRg&index=122&feature=plpp_video Temperature,]] where the subtitles never make any sense at all.
* In [[Magazine/NGamer Nintendo Gamer]]'s ''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20120916225755/http://www.nintendo-gamer.net/2012/09/14/iwata-asks-an-internet-fanboy Iwata Asks... an internet fanboy,]]'' after a particularly unintelligible rant we get this:
-->'''IWATA:''' I apologise, but my English is not very good. I am struggling to understand much of what you are saying. Perhaps my translator can help. [Looks at translator]\\
'''TRANSLATOR:''' [Shakes head]
* WebVideo/PeanutButterGamer , during the VideoGame/SkiFree section of his "Top Ten Jerks in Video Games" video, he starts to sing his "I Like to Ski" song, which eventually devolves into unintelligible gibberish right before he's killed.
-->'''PBG:''' (Singing) I like to ski! I like to ski! I can ski free! I can ski free! I am going down the snow! I do not know which way I go. ????????? GO! I like to ski! *yeti'd*
* Happens in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FERTnXyj5XU this Kud video]] called "Mijn elleboog" ("My elbow") about a man trying to touch his chin with his elbow.

* An ad for the PSP version of ''VideoGame/RockBand'', translating British slang for American viewers, which ends with "????".

* In ''Anime/OsomatsuSan'', Ichimatsu's delinquent version in "School Matsu" is such TheUnintelligible, it's obvious the subbers just [[https://imgur.com/a/QpxtU used Wingdings]] (the original fansubbers [[http://imgur.com/a/u2gQj just smashed the keyboard]]) in order to "translate" whatever he says.
* ''Manga/SgtFrog'':
** In the official English release by Creator/{{FUNimation}}, the GagDub features Mr. Caption, the guy who writes the subtitles, as an actual character. He actually ''does'' know Japanese, but sometimes he either flagrantly lies. ("Let's just pretend those are Japanese peace signs.") or doesn't translate for the sake of convenience. ("Look, there's no way you're going to be able to read all this in the short time it's on screen. Besides, Fuyuki's talking, you should be listening to him.")
** Meanwhile, the Narrator at one point in episode 42 attempts to translate the words on Tamama's Jealousy Ball, or Kill Kick. "I don't speak Japanese, but that [[EitherWorldDominationOrSomethingAboutBananas either says something about Tamama or it's directions to an Outback Steakhouse in Yonkers]]."
** In one episode, Keroro tries to get rich by making his own version of popular movies by slightly altering the title. Since the movies in question had titles in Japanese and would be unknown to most English-speaking viewers anyway, the subtitles that normally translate any on-screen text simply said, "We're not going to bother. You won't get the joke anyway." To which the Narrator added, "For once I agree with the subtitles!"
* The two-volume manga ''Manga/QKoChanTheEarthInvaderGirl'' ends with a translator's note that pretty much admits that he or she had no idea what in the hell was going on, and encourages the readers to put some effort into interpreting for themselves. "Why do you think the general said, 'I'm a dead man' in his last appearance? [[MindScrew I have no idea.]]"

* A fansub of ''Anime/AkahoriGedouHourLovege'' episode 6 had a scene that had so many reporters (and later Love Pheromone themselves) speaking over one another, that the subtitlers noted at the beginning of said scene that they didn't even bother to attempt translating it.

* Appeared with a ride chant in one episode of ''Anime/CardfightVanguard'', where apparently the subber was unable to decipher just what the hell was being said. Which led to this gem:
--> Make up your own chant here, this makes no sense.
** Made more hilarious by someone managing to translate said chant just three or four hours later.
* In one episode of ''Manga/MythicalDetectiveLokiRagnarok'', Freyr's speech fades out into incoherent mumbling to indicate that Loki isn't actually listening to him. One fan translation of that scene basically had the subtitles being a note that they couldn't make out what he was saying.

* The official release of ''Anime/UruseiYatsura'' always included liner notes to explain various puns or references, but one episode featured a reporter spouting off so many so quickly that the subtitle simply says: "(Completely untranslatable bad puns.)"
* In ''Anime/RurouniKenshin'', Yahiko comes across three young ladies cooing over a Chow-Chow and thinks to himself that they can't possibly be speaking Japanese. (The joke being that "chigau"--"wrong" in Japanese--is often contracted to "chau" in certain dialects.) Instead of trying to translate this pun, the official Chinese translation settles for inserting wingding symbols instead.
* In the ''Anime/SkyGirls'' anime, there's a gag where Elise acts all proud and haughty on her teammates, growing in size and uttering some roaring gibberish. The fansubbers admitted they didn't know what she said, so they chose to sub it as "I'm a Godzilla-sized [[OlderThanTheyLook DFC]]! Conquer Akihabara with me!"

* ''ComicBook/MortadeloYFilemon'': In the story about the 2018 World Cup, the titular agents are flying across space after getting a [[MegatonPunch Megaton Gore]] from a bull, and an astronaut talks to them in Russian from inside a space station. The bottom of the panel features this caption:
-->''Note from the Author: No idea what they're talking about!''

[[folder:Films — Animated]]

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

* Not so much stumped as annoyed, but the sign-language translator for a public-broadcasting show in ''Film/AirplaneIITheSequel'' eventually gets fed-up with what the person on-screen is saying and starts doing the "jerk-off" gesture instead.

** The first Polish edition is full of footnotes reading "Untranslatable wordplay", much to the displeasure of Polish Creator/TerryPratchett fans (since Polish translations of his ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' books are notable for dealing quite succesfully with all the puns.)
* ''Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland'' is such a nightmarish book to translate that in one Spanish edition there is a massive footnote by the translator in the very first page saying something along the lines of "you know, Lewis Carroll wrote an unending roller coaster of linguistic puns and multiple meanings, so whole paragraphs have been made up to make any sense in Spanish."
* In the Literature/CiaphasCain novel ''Duty Calls'', Amberley - who frequently explains odd terms in the footnotes, often snarkily - openly admits that she has no idea what some of her assistant Zemelda's slang means.

* In ''Literature/DaveBarrySleptHere'', a third of the words in Washington's famous presidential addresses are replaced by "[something]" (or, in one case, "[machines? birds?]") due to the fact that microphones didn't exist back then.
** His ''Book of Bad Songs'' includes over a dozen reader-submitted attempts to spell the African chanting in the chorus of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." The next page has about as many attempts to transliterate the bridge of "Good Morning Starshine."

* In E.E. Smith's ''Lensman'' universe, the Lens is the perfect Universal Translator - until it hits an alien concept that is literally incomprehensible to the wearer. It then makes up a nonsense word on the fly, and the nature of the Lens is that all Lenses will default to that word from that point on.

* The Creator/EddieMurphy skit "Buckwheat Sings" - or rather, "Buh-weet Sings" - from ''Series/SaturdayNightLive''. He sings "Three Times a Lady", which the captions identify as "Fee Tines a Mady", then "Lookin' for Love" ("Wookin' pa Nub"). But when he starts singing "Bette Davis Eyes," the caption just says, "?????" because he's so unintelligible.
** In another sketch, a TV translator working live for a Gorbachev speech gets confused, mixed up, and discombobulated, with humorous results. He finally pretends that Gorbachev is saying that he's so ticked at the translator that he's going to switch into unintelligible nonsense. Better yet, the sketch is partly a jab at the then-fledgling Fox network.

* One line of the GagSub for the ''[[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 Jet Jaguar]] [[Franchise/{{Godzilla}} Song]]'' is written as YAHMMMAAHOAAHOAAAUGH!
* ''Series/VivaLaBam'' - Whenever Don Vito freaks out he talks too fast, making subtitles which often degenerate into question marks necessary.
* In the ''Series/RoyalPains'' episode "TB Or Not TB," Evan tries to interpret for an Italian girl with his rudimentary Berlitz-course Italian. The subtitles for his speech are ungrammatical and in a wobbly [[UsefulNotes/{{Fonts}} font]]; the subtitles for her speech start off legible and then degenerate into "Etc.... Etc.... Etc...." as she speaks too fast for him.
* There's a scene in ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' when Dr. Cox is talking to his young son Jack. He points out that as Jack is getting older, his baby talk is getting more and more comprehensible. Jack then says something subtitled as "I like pizza... ??????... lightning!"

* The reality show ''Series/{{Solitary}}'' used this one. One challenge involved wearing a ball gag for as long as possible. Subtitles were used to translate the mumbling, but at one point, it turned into "???"
* This is played with in ''Series/FatherTed'', where a woman is singing on TV, accompanied by another woman who is ''signing'' the song lyrics. When the singer gets to the line "Women rule the land of Tír na nÓg", the woman signing simply shrugs and gives up.
* An episode of ''Series/TheAmazingRace'' put up "???????" while showing one-time ''Series/BigBrother'' winner Jordan Lloyd talking while eating a baguette.
* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'''s closed captions have "She speaks unintelligibly" when ComicBook/{{Zatanna}} uses her {{Magical Incantation}}s. Which is a shame, because it ''sounds'' like the writers and actress went to a bit of effort to actually do the "backwards speech" thing.

* ''Series/HorribleHistories'': "The News in Tudor Criminal Slang" begins with a translator accurately translating the slang, gradually getting confused, and finally giving up.
* ''Series/TheDGeneration'' did a sketch that parodied the band Australian Crawl and frontman James Reyne's famously unintelligible delivery. Subtitles on the screen translated the lyrics; starting off accurately but eventually degenerating into things like "Something about a rash... Something about leather goods?...".
* In Israel, it is generally customary to correct some grammar mistakes (often found in lower sociolects), stuttering, and the like in closed captions. Israeli satire show ''Eretz Nehederet'' mocked a contestant on the Israeli ''Series/{{Survival}}'' who was very loud and made plenty of mistakes despite being a native speaker of Hebrew: the subtitler near the end of the skit just wrote that he had enough.
-->'''Subtitler:''' If you’re deaf, you’re in luck
* In one scene of ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'' with Jesse Flores (who is Australian) and Derek Reese: as Jesse is leaving the room she says "Hooroo", which is Australian slang for "goodbye". The subtitles simply say, "speaks foreign language".

* In one episode of ''Series/{{Supernanny}}'', a child's unintelligible speech is rendered as "(what?)" in the subtitles.
* On variety programs in South Korea, subtitles for some sentences are shown on TV in Korean, but when someone speaks in another language (usually English) the subtitles just read something like "@^$^#%".

* The captioners of ''Series/WheelOfFortune'' are usually given the contestants' full names by the show so that they can be spelled correctly in the closed captioning. However, there was a period in September-October 2021 where they were apparently not being given the names and had to guess them. Much of the guesswork was ''very'' wrong, as shown by the correct spellings appearing in promotional tweets from the show's Los Angeles affiliate KABC-TV. One woman with the surname "Rainone-Moakley" had it spelled as "Wynonimokli" in the captioning. Another woman named Nicole Ware-Spencer had her name written as "Nicole [ unclear ] Spencer".

* Present on ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' [=DVDs=] due to the mangled Mandarin swearing. The subtitler didn’t recognize it and just put [Speaks Galactic Language].
* An odd example of this happened on the Creator/PBSKids upload of the ''Series/DonkeyHodie'' episode "The Masked Veggies; The Royal Hosts". The only line of Panda's to get subtitled during the "Jingle Bells" scene is "Hmm, it's happening! Help! Quickly!", but as "Oh, it's happening! Help! Quickly!", combining the word Donkey said before the line started with Panda's line. For the rest of the scene, Panda's lines are unsubtitled, despite him saying some dialouge in between his singing of the song ("Oh, hurry!" and "What is it?").
* An episode of ''Series/MatchGame'' had Pat Morita [[https://youtu.be/Do0xtZcDNLg on the panel,]] and he wrote his answer in Japanese. Host Gene Rayburn asked the judge for a ruling on whether or not it was a match; their response was playing both the buzz (it didn't match) and ding (it did match) sound effects at once.
[[/folder]]

* In one scene of ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'' with Jesse Flores and Derek Reese, as Jesse is leaving the room she utters one word to Derek which the subtitles simply read as "speaks foreign language". The word she spoke was "Ooroo".[[note]]An Australian slang word for "good-bye". Jesse's character hails from Australia.[[/note]]

-->-- ''WebVideo/MuppetViralVideos'', "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7UmUX68KtE Pöpcørn]]"

* A Brazillian [[Advertising/TheManYourManCouldSmellLike Old Spice]] ad features [[https://youtu.be/B9ddxiBjSio?t=81 a dubbed Terry Crews realizing he's being dubbed]], declaring he can speak Portuguese just fine on his own, then getting rid of his own VA [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere by screaming so hard the VA just walks away.]] He then proceeds to speak extremely broken Portuguese with subtitles.

** In the official English release by Creator/{{FUNimation}}, the GagDub features Mr. Caption, the guy who writes the subtitles, as an actual character. He actually ''does'' know Japanese, but sometimes he either flagrantly lies ("Let's just pretend those are Japanese peace signs.") or doesn't translate for the sake of convenience ("Look, there's no way you're going to be able to read all this in the short time it's on screen. Besides, Fuyuki's talking, you should be listening to him.")

** ''Higurashi'''s ending is sung in English by a singer who clearly has an accent. Before the official lyrics came out, the three fansubbing groups who took on the show each had a [[http://www.basugasubakuhatsu.com/blog/2006/06/28/anime-fansubber-engrish-showdown-higurashi-no-naku-koro-ni-ed/ different interpretation of what she was saying.]] WIND fansubs took the cake for one unintelligible line, simply putting "(insert line here ;_;)"

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheBookOfLife'', when captions are showing what Chuy is saying as he [[spoiler: gets the pigs to fight]], it switches to Chato yelling as the captions read "???????????". [[spoiler: He's actually yelling [[BigWhat QUEEEEEEEEEE?]]]]

* Brad Pitt's character in ''Film/{{Snatch}}'' is deliberately unintelligible as a response to complaints about hard-to-understand British actors in the director's [[Film/LockStockAndTwoSmokingBarrels previous film]]. Certainly his subtitles have gaps. The DVD commentary reveals that Pitt came up with the gibberish on his own and even he has no idea what he's supposed to be saying. There is an option on the DVD to turn on "Pikey Subtitles," (labeled as "Pikey says what?") which explain what his and other Pikey characters are saying, but at one point even ''they'' are stumped, and resort to the aforementioned "???" Though even then, some tenacious viewers have managed to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySyBMTo-1sc puzzle it out]].

* The Finnish translation of Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/{{Hogfather}}'' adds a footnote where the translator concedes defeat regarding an "anthill inside" [[note]]homophone, at least in English, of the famous "Intel Inside" trademark[[/note]] sticker on a computer [[note]]-''like'' device called HEX, constructed from a convoluted series of glass tubes, gates and paternosters, and filled with a teeming multitude of, naturally, endlessly marching ants[[/note]].

* An episode of ''Series/MatchGame'' had Pat Morita [[https://youtu.be/Do0xtZcDNLg on the panel]], and he wrote his answer in Japanese. Host Gene Rayburn asked the judge for a ruling on whether or not it was a match; their response was playing both the buzz (it didn't match) and ding (it did match) sound effects at once.

* When K-pop singer Music/{{Psy}} appeared on the non-Creator/DickClark New Year's Eve special, the person in charge of the closed captions clearly [[https://notyouroppasandnoonas.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/psycc.jpg didn't understand his language]], and kept putting up "Singing in Korean" as he performed.

* Music/{{Gorillaz}}: In the official lyrics video for [[https://youtu.be/TTSFR6tVrPk Simplicity]], during the first part of 2-D's section, no lyrics appear at all. Later followed by "CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHAT 2-D IS SAYING".

* Played with in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uqwlKyrUaU this video]]. The subtitler first replaces a chunk of the song with "[[BlahBlahBlah words words words words words words words words, more words]]" out of sheer laziness, then gives up completely.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' when [[spoiler: Caliborn]] purposefully screws up the narrative [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall by cramming magic dust into the "game" cartridge for the story]], the resulting artifacts that occur in the actual story cause this when the text boxes the characters speak in [[InterfaceScrew get clogged and]] [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/6282 become illegible.]] Even the characters can't decipher whatever's being said.
* ''Webcomic/LeifAndThorn'': When Katya [[http://leifandthorn.com/comic/watching-over-me-2029/ signs too quickly for Thorn to keep up]], the attached dialogue box is mostly question marks.

* [=SonnyBone=]'s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bGErn95VGQ Fun With Ahmed series]].
* Creator/DougWalker's [[http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/theme-lyrics/9965-colbertreport Colbert Report theme lyrics video]].

* WebVideo/MuppetViralVideos: The Swedish Chef makes [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7UmUX68KtE popcorn shrimp]]. HilarityEnsues. Make sure to turn on the Closed Captions, but even the caption writer admits to not understanding the Swedish Chef.

* At one point in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLpROhIg9eA The Nipple Song]], the "subtitler" gives up because the singer is going too fast.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2uT1MM2Auo Pilipinos Do Hab Souls]]. Presumably, the subtitles are there so viewers can understand the comedian... except the subtitles have the same accent. RuleOfFunny, of course.

* [[http://www.rhettandlink.com Rhett & Link]] have a skit where they act out a scene, have Website/YouTube close-caption it, act out the scene again with Website/YouTube's new dialogue, Have Website/YouTube close-caption it ''again'', and perform the scene a third time with the double-mutated dialogue, which is by now complete and total gibberish. Presenting: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVNrkXM3TTI Caption FAIL]].

* The Misheard Lyrics videos on Website/YouTube are the deliberate version of this trope. Especially hilarious versions of this are the ones made out of songs by SeanPaul, especially for his song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIdcHkMCzQw&list=FL74m4Vk74SdFBaC7DoQHiRg&index=122&feature=plpp_video Temperature]], where the subtitles never make any sense at all.
* In [[Magazine/NGamer Nintendo Gamer]]'s ''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20120916225755/http://www.nintendo-gamer.net/2012/09/14/iwata-asks-an-internet-fanboy/ Iwata Asks... an internet fanboy]]'', after a particularly unintelligible rant we get this:

* ''WebOriginal/TheStarWarGatherings'': In ''[[Film/TheForceAwakens Flies are a Sober Force]]'', the previously-[[TheVoiceless voiceless]] Drag Along (Chewbacca) suddenly gets his [[SuddenlySpeaking first line]] of dialogue: [[spoiler:(Greenwood)]]. The blog commentary has no idea how to react to this development.

Before you start entry pimping, please make sure that your examples actually qualify for this trope. Cases of [[BlindIdiotTranslation accidentally misheard/mistyped words]] don't count -- it has to be done ''on purpose''.

* Brad Pitt's character in ''Film/{{Snatch}}'' is deliberately unintelligible as a response to complaints about hard-to-understand British actors in the director's [[Film/LockStockAndTwoSmokingBarrels previous film]]. Certainly his subtitles have gaps. The DVD commentary reveals that Pitt came up with the gibberish on his own and even he has no idea what he's supposed to be saying. There is an option on the DVD to turn on "Pikey Subtitles," (labeled as "Pikey says what?") which explain what his and other Pikey characters are saying, but at one point even ''they'' are stumped, and resort to the aforementioned "???"

* A WesternAnimation/{{MAD}} short did a parody of ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3''. At one point, Buzz realizes he can speak Spanish and the subtitles change from English subtitles for when he speaks Spanish and Spanish subtitles for when he speaks English. Then he says "I can haz Spanish" and the subtitles are pretty much rendered as "?????".

* Russian folk-rockers Music/OtavaYo, as they become more well-known outside Russia, are now presenting their YouTube videos with English subtitles. However, ''Sumetskaya'' presented difficulties to the translator, who was forced to leave parts of it in the original Russian, as the song is partly in a dialect form of Russian only spoken in the Pskov Oblast, near to St Petersburg, some words of which appeared to leave them floored.

* Used as an in-universe gag in ''WesternAnimation/HortonHearsAWho''. The mayor is embarrassed about what he wants to say to the people in a meeting, and is speaking in mumbles unintelligibly, trying to dodge the point. The secretary taking notes on this meeting transcribes his mumbling as small, illegible gibberish.

* Not so much stumped as annoyed, but the sign-language translator for a public-broadcasting show in ''Film/AirplaneIITheSequel'' eventually gets fed-up with what the person on-screen is saying and starts doing the "[[ADateWithRosiePalms jerk-off]]" gesture instead.

* In the Anime/SkyGirls anime, there's a gag where Elise acts all proud and haughty on her teammates, growing in size and uttering some roaring gibberish. The fansubbers admitted they didn't know what she said, so they chose to sub it as "I'm a Godzilla-sized [[OlderThanTheyLook DFC]]! Conquer Akihabara with me!"

* The narrator does an admirable job translating and animating the mangled English in ''FanFic/HalfLifeFullLifeConsequences'' but even he expresses confusion at the author's attempts to describe the SceneryPorn.

* TV-Nihon’s sub of Series/GoGoSentaiBoukenger has [[BigBad Gaja’s]] [[BlackSpeech magical chants]] written as “mystical gibberish”.

* In ''Series/MadTV'''s parody of "Lady Marmalade" that opens the show's seventh season, roughly half the lyrics are completely misinterpreted in the closed captioning due to the studio audience's laughter and cheers overlapping several lines, as well as two of the four featured recurring characters having thick accents. Lorraine's line "I'm a recurring woman, not a backseat woman" is written as "I'm a really creative woman", with no attempt at guessing the second part of the line. Miss Swan's line "I make such savage cash saying 'He look-a like a man'" (one of her catch phrases) is written as "I'm Mrs. Cabbage Patch and I work for the MAD".

* In ''[[VideoGame/MaxPayne Max Payne 3]]'', which is set in Brazil, whenever anyone speaks Portuguese, the subtitles simply show the untranslated Portuguese text. This is done deliberately so that the player shares Max's confusion of being in a foreign land and not knowing the language. Portuguese-speaking players get to enjoy Max's reactions instead.

* In ''WebComic/{{Homestuck}}'' when [[spoiler: Caliborn]] purposefully screws up the narrative [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall by cramming magic dust into the "game" cartridge for the story]], the resulting artifacts that occur in the actual story cause this when the text boxes the characters speak in [[InterfaceScrew get clogged and]] [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/6282 become illegible.]] Even the characters can't decipher whatever's being said.

* A Brazillian [[Advertising/TheManYourManCouldSmellLike Old Spice]] ad features a dubbed Terry Crews realizing he's being dubbed, declaring he can speak Portuguese just fine on his own, then getting rid of his own VA [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere by screaming so hard the VA just walks away.]] He then proceeds to speak extremely broken Portuguese with subtitles.

* A Brazillian [[Advertising/TheManYourManCouldSmellLike Old Spice]] ad features a dubbed Terry Crews realizing he's being dubbed, declaring he can speak Portuguese just fine on his own, then getting rid of his own VA [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere by screaming so hard the VA just walks away.]] He then proceeds to speak extremely broken Portuguese with subtitles, which eventually devolves into "?????".

* Music/WeirdAlYankovic's [[Music/OffTheDeepEnd "Smells Like Nirvana"]], which is all about how nobody can suss out what Music/KurtCobain is singing in Music/{{Nirvana}}'s [[Music/{{Nevermind}} "Smells Like Teen Spirit", has this line in the second verse: "It's hard to bargle nawdle zouss???[=/=]with all these marbles in my mouth." What makes the joke even funnier is that these ''are'' the official lyrics, question marks included.

* Music/WeirdAlYankovic's "Smells Like Music/{{Nirvana}}", which is all about how nobody can suss out what Kurt Cobain is singing: "It's hard to bargle nawdle zouss???[=/=]with all these marbles in my mouth." What makes the joke even funnier is that these ''are'' the official lyrics, question marks included.