History Main / FunForSome

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Weather_Station_1810.jpg
[[caption-width:300:''{{Lost}}'' will never beat watching humdrum thunderstorms moving across the northern Iowa River Valley.]]

** Numbers stations are to the shipping forecast as [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel collecting serial killer memorabilia is to collecting stamps.]] More overtly entertaining ''in that it's absolutely terrifying.''

** The [[ExospeakGag boring, humorless prose]] [[AntiHumor can be quite amusing]] when the article you're reading is about a humorous topic such as a famous joke, or something everyone should already know about, such as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humans humans]]

* Similarly, there's I Love Toy Trains, which has quite a cult following, and earns regular mention on American-TV lampoon show ''TheSoup''.

* Argentine cable news network CrónicaTV. Sensationalist news is presented as bold white letters on red backgrounds, read aloud in a LargeHam voice, with Stars and Stripes Forever as background music. The news stories themselves include stuff like like "Drunk driver almost provokes a tragedy: Batman only witness", and "Man returns home for a pair of galoshes, finds another man on top of wife, and impales him with an umbrella. Victim agonizes." [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FVDvDPtimc&feature=related This is just a small sample of their "news".]]

* Prime Minister's Question Time in the British parliament is a popular show... in the Netherlands. (The attraction seems to be the rather surreal nature of the whole performance, with its leaping to the feet to catch the speaker's eye, referring to opponents as "the honorable gentleman" followed by some form of insult, and of course the ritual of asking about the prime minister's calendar for the week before asking a completely unrelated question on some random topic.)

* Come to think of it, hardcore ultra-realistic flight simulators of the sort that practically qualify you to take a real aircraft out for a spin [[hottip:*:literally in the case of MicrosoftFlightSimulator, which some flying schools are using as a teaching aid]] aren't everyone's cup of tea either.

* TrainzRailroadSimulator and other railway silmulators.

* Screen savers. Sure, they're meant to protect your monitor from something something, but look at those colored tubes go! Oooh. Shiny.
** [[CompletelyMissingThePoint Some types of screens -- most relevantly, [=CRT=]s, especially the monochrome kind, but plasma screens as well -- are vulnerable to "burn-in", where a single image displayed for long enough becomes permanently visible (even when the screen's turned off if it's bad enough). It's basically because the pixels get worn out;]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_burn-in The Other Wiki explains]].

* Argentine cable news network CrónicaTV. [[UnderStatement Sensationalist]] news is presented as bold white letters on red backgrounds, read aloud in a LargeHam voice, with Stars and Stripes Forever as background music. The news stories themselves include stuff like like "Drunk driver almost provokes a tragedy: Batman only witness", and "Man returns home for a pair of galoshes, finds another man on top of wife, and impales him with an umbrella. Victim agonizes." [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FVDvDPtimc&feature=related This is just a small sample of their "news".]]

** Also done in ''StargateSG1'' when the original JonasQuinn, who's from a slightly less advanced civilisation on another world, finds the Weather Channel fascinating and can watch it for hours.

* Bubble wrap. It's meant to keep items safe during shipping, but whenever anyone talks about it, it's in reference to popping the bubbles.

* DiscoveryChannel's ''[[HowItsMade How It's Made]]''. There's just something hypnotic about automated machinery doing their thing...

** Some types of screens -- most relevantly, [=CRT=]s, especially the monochrome kind, but plasma screens as well -- are vulnerable to "burn-in", where a single image displayed for long enough becomes permanently visible (even when the screen's turned off if it's bad enough). It's basically because the pixels get worn out; [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_burn-in The Other Wiki explains]].

* Just about every form of transport ever invented. Ships, trains, planes, automobiles, hovercraft, funicular - you name it, there are people who'll travel around the world just to take photos of it. Even the infrastructure has fans - roadsigns, lighthouses, signal boxes and even roundabouts all have loyal followings.

** ''MaybeItsMe'' also parodied the phenomenon by having the mother get hooked on the Weather Channel during the brief period they had a pirated cable hookup. This troper, and no doubt the writers, had no idea that was TruthInTelevision until just now.

** In RoaldDahl's ''The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar'', Sugar uses a burning candle as a meditation aid: he sits and stares into the flame for hours. This troper doesn't know if this technique is used by anyone in real life, but wouldn't be surprised.
*** You're kidding, right? This is actually a very common way of achieving meditative focus, especially for followers of Neopagan religions.
*** So ''that's'' what this troper's been doing. (It is also, to this troper's later alarm, incorporated in one of the games on [=WiiFit=]. )

** And this troper hates it when a human hand appears and a manual labor segment starts. It just... ruins the magic.

** Some types of screens -- most relevantly, [=CRT=]s, especially the monochrome kind, but plasma screens as well -- are vulnerable to "burn-in", where a single image displayed for long enough becomes permanently visible (even when the screen's turned off if it's bad enough). It's basically because the pixels get worn out, which sounds ridiculous but [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_burn-in that's what The Other Wiki says]].
*** Confirmed. Seen it happen.

** PennyArcade plays with this, when Tycho convinces Gabe that [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/12/20/ the Weather Channel on the Wii is actually a game]].

* Argentine cable news network CrónicaTV. [[UnderStatement Sensationalist]] news is presented as bold white letters on red backgrounds, read aloud in a LargeHam voice, with Stars and Stripes Forever as background music. The news stories themselves include stuff like like "Drunk driver almost provokes a tragedy: Batman only witness", and "Man returns home for a pair of galoshes, finds another man on top of wife, and impales him with an umbrella. Victim agonizes." [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FVDvDPtimc&feature=related This is just a small sample of their "news".

** Some types of screens -- most relevantly, CRTs, especially the monochrome kind, but plasma screens as well -- are vulnerable to "burn-in", where a single image displayed for long enough becomes permanently visible (even when the screen's turned off if it's bad enough). It's basically because the pixels get worn out, which sounds ridiculous but [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_burn-in that's what The Other Wiki says]].

* A lot of old filmstrips (usually from TheFifties) were meant to be educational, but are now considered hilarious. ''Duck and Cover'' is the most famous of these. GaiaOnline, a forum site that makes no pretense of being educational, has a special part in its cinema gallery for filmstrips like ''Duck and Cover'', so people can laugh at them.

* At one time, the Weather Channel in the United States continuously broadcast local weather conditions and forecasts, and many people tuned for long periods of time. At some point it switched to having the local conditions/forecast "on the eights"; i.e., at eight, 18, 28, etc. minutes past the hour.