History Main / MixedMetaphor

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

-->'''Ders''': Guys, come on! I'm like Steve Martin in that John Candy movie.
-->'''Adam''': I thought you wanted to be like Steve Jobs and do a bunch of acid with us.
-->'''Ders''': Steve Jobs, right? Created Apple. Great company. But then he left and created Pixar, which is way better, then he came back to Apple, made that way better. We got iPads, iPhones, all sorts of stuff. Let me go create my Pixar. Then I'll come back and we'll drop iPhones, okay?
-->'''Adam''': I have no idea what any of that stuff meant. Am I Pixar?

* ''Series/{{Life On Mars|2006}}'':

* About the only way to describe [[VideoGame/SlyCooper Dimitri's]] speech habits. Although at times its hard to tell what the original metaphors were, they're so badly mangled. "I'm sure two cats in a bag like us can work something out... What is this with clocks, bro? Have you no vision? Are you hearing what I beam to you? You think you have juice? Don't show me a little mind when talking about such big things. You think you can swing the bat? Show your bling and let me shine you!"

[[folder: Web Comics ]]
* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick''
-->'''Haley Starshine:''' "If you want to pull the strings, you've got to pay the piper!"

[[folder: Web Original ]]

* The WebAnimation/HowItShouldHaveEnded video for ''Film/{{Venom|2018}}'' is full of this, with lines like "Do not beat a dead gift horse in the mouth" and "This is not Rocket Surgery".

[[folder: Western Animation ]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''

-->'''That Guy:''' [[ThereAreTwoKindsOfPeopleInTheWorld There are two kinds of people]] - sheep and sharks.... I am proud to be the shepherd of this herd of sharks.

--> '''Abe:''' It's everything I've been wadding up in the sad chamber of my heart, and now I'm shooting that wad. Thirty-five millimeter.

--> '''Abe:''' You sold us all a bill of goods, and those goods turned out to be bad. Then you sold me up the river.
--> '''Joan:''' That may be, but I sent you up that river with my heart as a paddle!
--> '''Abe:''' But you took that paddle and smacked me in the face, and I wear my heart on my sleeve, so when I wiped my face, I got heart all over it.

-->'''Rudy:''' Don't be such a wet party blanket.
-->'''Penny:''' Do you mean party pooper or wet blanket?
-->'''Rudy:''' Both.

-->'''Haley Starshine''': "If you want to pull the strings, you've got to pay the piper!"
* Webcomic/{{Pibgorn}}: [[http://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/2009/04/09/ But that would be mixing metaphors and Nat Bustard doesn't mix metaphors for anybody.]]
* Webcomic/{{Homestuck}} has many examples, but the most self aware would be the incredible quote: "So many irons in the fire. Such a tangled web. It is a web full of flaming irons and mixed metaphors."
* Webcomic/BasicInstructions: [[http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2012/1/8/how-to-accept-forgiveness.html You're a pig, cause you squealed, like a rat!"]]

* From an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':

* It is becoming common for some to deliberately use the mixed metaphor "Not the sharpest candle in the deck" to describe low intelligence, a combination of three common metaphors with three parts to them. "A few sandwiches short of a jumper" is another example. There's also "it's not rocket surgery," a portmanteau of "rocket science" and "brain surgery."

* It is becoming common for some to deliberately use the mixed metaphor "Not the sharpest candle in the deck" to describe low intelligence, a combination of three other common metaphors. "A few sandwiches short of a jumper" is another example. There's also "it's not rocket surgery," a portmanteau of "rocket science" and "brain surgery."

* About the only way to describe [[Franchise/SlyCooper Dimitri's]] speech habits. Although at times its hard to tell what the original metaphors were, they're so badly mangled. "I'm sure two cats in a bag like us can work something out... What is this with clocks, bro? Have you no vision? Are you hearing what I beam to you? You think you have juice? Don't show me a little mind when talking about such big things. You think you can swing the bat? Show your bling and let me shine you!"

* The WebAnimation/HowItShouldHaveEnded video for ''Film/{{Venom}}'' is full of this, with lines like "Do not beat a dead gift horse in the mouth" and "This is not Rocket Surgery".

* In ''Film/TheBoondockSaints,'' the bartender Doc was always doing this.

* The Dude from ''Film/TheBigLebowski''

* The WebAnimation/HowItShouldHaveEnded video for Film/{{Venom}} is full of this, with lines like "Do not beat a dead gift horse in the mouth" and "This is not Rocket Surgery".

* The WebAnimation/HowItShouldHaveEnded video for Venom2018 is full of this, with lines like "Do not beat a dead gift horse in the mouth" and "This is not Rocket Surgery".

* A line describing Coruscant's defenses, from ''[[Literature/XWingSeries Wedge's Gamble]]'': "the shields make this place a tough nut to crack, but chewing up the meat isn't going to be any easier."

* Kathy Mattea's "Clown in Your Rodeo" completely derails its rodeo metaphors in the second verse:

** Let's just say it's about as funny as a screen door on a battleship.

* Webcomic/{{Homestuck}} has many examples, the most self aware would be: "So many irons in the fire. Such a tangled web. It is a web full of flaming irons and mixed metaphors."

* WesternAnimation/{{Chalkzone}}

--> Combining this trope with DoubleEntendre: ""It's everything I've been wadding up in the sad chamber of my heart, and now I'm shooting that wad. Thirty-five millimeter.""

--> '''Abe:''' But you took that paddle and smacked me in the face, and I wear my heart on my sleeve, so when I wiped my face, I got heart all over it."

-->'''Dan''': [The dentist]'s a long term strategist! He's playing fourth-dimensional chess, and we're his ball of string!\\
'''Chris''': I think you're mixing up games.\\
'''Dan''': Go fish! I'm in horrible pain!

* Rick in WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty does this a lot.

* It is becoming common for some to deliberately use the mixed metaphor "Not the sharpest candle in the deck" to describe low intelligence, a combination of three other common metaphors. "A few sandwiches short of a jumper" is another example.

-->-- Sports columnist '''Jerry Izenberg''' in the ''New Jersey Star Ledger'', as quoted in the Literature/LyttleLyttonContest of 2007

* In Stephen Pinker's book ''The Better Angels of Our Nature'', the author notes that the European colonization-era condemnation of the "savagery" of Native American warfare "looks like a black pot in a glass house casting the first stone".