History Main / ThrowingOutTheScript

* Infamously, at [[UsefulNotes/ElectronicEntertainmentExpo E3]] 1995, Sony Computer Entertainment of America President Steve Race, after being called up to give a brief presentation on the upcoming UsefulNotes/PlayStation, decided to cut it down to one word that would best one-up the then-recent surprise launch of the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn: "$299."

[[caption-width-right:350:Is it still going off script if it's in the script to go off script?]]

* In ''Comicbook/IdentityCrisis'', Ralph Dibny is prepared to eulogize his late wife Sue. He's so heartbroken that he can't stick to his prepared speech. Ralph falls apart emotionally and physically as his friends escort him away.

* ''Music/{{Eminem}} has used this for a couple of jokes.

* ''Series/BetterCallSaul'': Trying to get his law license reinstated, Jimmy goes in front of a committee and begins to read a letter that his diceased brother Chuck had written him. He then pauses, puts away the letter, and says that he had intended for Chuck's eloquent words to sway them, but has instead decided to speak from the heart. He gives an impassioned plea about how much of an inspiration Chuck was and how, if reinstated, he will do everything in his power to uphold the family name. [[spoiler: It's afterward revealed that his "heartfelt" words were actually him saying whatever he thought the committee would want to hear, and he didn't mean any of it.]]

-->-- '''Robert Wakefield''', ''Film/{{Traffic}}''

* In ''Film/{{Traffic}}'', drug czar Robert Wakefield (Creator/MichaelDouglas) interrupts himself in the middle of a carefully prepared, approved speech to make an emotional (though vague) reference to his drug-addicted daughter.

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''[=H2O=]'', Tom [=McLaughlin=] (Paul Gross) establishes himself as a potential successor to his father, the late Prime Minister of Canada, when he throws out the prepared speech and shares an emotional memory at his father's state funeral. [[spoiler: Later it's hinted that his words were actually planned to look like a spontaneous ad lib.]]

** Throughout "Walk On Water", he uses the sound of crumpling up pieces of paper to signify his writer's block.

* In ''Film/HeadOfState'', Mays metaphorically throws out the script by turning off the teleprompter with a prepared speech on it. He then starts asking the crowd how hard their lives currently are ("how many of you have to work two jobs just to make enough money to be broke?"), ending each question with "that ain't right!" The crowd loves it, and Mays ends up making "that ain't right!" into a new campaign slogan.
* In ''Film/{{Traffic}}'', drug czar Robert Wakefield (Creator/MichaelDouglas) interrupts himself in the middle of a carefully prepared, approved speech to make an emotional (though vague) reference to his drug-addicted daughter.
* Creator/MichaelDouglas does this again as the president in ''Film/TheAmericanPresident'', holding an impromptu press conference right before his State of the Union address that both destroys huge parts of the prepared speech. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3NI5sE3KeY Part of it can be seen here.]] In 2012, lines were lifted by an Australian politician.
* In ''Film/{{Bulworth}}'', the title character gets visibly bored of his speech, then gives a very candid answer to an audience question and never stops.
* In ''Film/RealityBites'', Lelaina pretends to do this -- actually, she's lost her notes and is just reciting platitudes.
* In ''Film/IntolerableCruelty'', Miles does this with his keynote speech at the NOMAN divorce lawyer conference.
* Creator/FrankCapra has variations on this in ''Film/MrDeedsGoesToTown'', ''Film/MeetJohnDoe'' and ''Film/MrSmithGoesToWashington''.
* In ''Film/TheManWhoShotLibertyValance'' the pro-rancher candidate claims to do this. However, When the "notes" he so dramatically screwed up and threw away are examined they turn out to be blank paper. The "words from his heart" was the speech he had memorised all along.
* The end of ''Film/IronMan1''. In this case, Tony Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. had earlier come up with a cover story that Tony was supposed to give at the press conference. After a few questions from a skeptical press, Tony decides to just tell the truth: "I am Iron Man."
* ''Film/{{DEBS}}''. Amy is given a speech to read at End Game which tells a false story of how Lucy Diamond kidnapped her and held her hostage. She starts reading it to the crowd, but halfway through she stops reading it and tells the truth: that the time she spent with Lucy were the happiest days of her life and that she's leaving to be with Lucy.

* In ''Film/X2XMenUnited'', the President discusses his speech as he walks down a hall with some staffers, then his speech is in the teleprompter, and he's going live when Professor X and the rest of the X-Men pay him a visit and provide him with documents from Col. Stryker's office. The X-Men leave, time resumes for the staffers, and the President touches the file on his desk and begins to improvise...
* In ''Film/TheMajestic'', Peter has a prepared statement for the House of Unamerican Activities committee that was prepared by his lawyer and specifically tailored to get him off the Hollywood blacklist. However, when he starts to read it his throat goes dry and he realizes how wrong all of this is. He proceeds to chew out the committee and tell them what America is truly founded on.
* ''Film/HeadOffice'': Jack Issel goes off script while doing PR for [[MegaCorp I.N.C.]] in order to impress a girl. While initially fired for saying the company is only after profit and doesn't care about people, he ends up promoted after it goes down well with the press.
* Matthew Kidman appears to do this in ''Film/{{The Girl Next Door|2004}}'', but it's a subversion. While it appears this way to the audience (who think he's incredibly sweet), he actually has nothing written down. He'd been too busy slacking off (and, in fairness, falling in love and learning life lessons) to write the speech.

* At the end of ''Film/KateAndLeopold'', Kate [[CareerVersusMan declines to follow]] her time-travelling boyfriend Leopold back to the 19th century, and begins a speech accepting a promotion at her stressful and amoral ([[OnlyInItForTheMoney but well-paying]]) advertising agency. She eventually loses her train of thought, begins rambling about going after what one wants, and then runs away to pursue Leopold. This was less a moral revelation, more because during her speech she saw a photograph proving that she'd ''already'' gone back to pursue him.
* Before Katniss and Peeta arrive at their first stop of the Victory Tour in ''Film/TheHungerGamesCatchingFire'', Effie hands them the speeches she has written for them. Peeta stops looking at his after reading the first sentence.
-->'''Effie:''' ''[Gasp!]'' He put down the cards. Why do I bother?
** In a demonstration of why you should stick to the script a Fascist government hands you, the Peacekeepers kill an old man who supports them. From that moment on, they read the lines Effie gives them.
* ''Film/ATimeToKill'': When it comes time for Jake Brigance (played by Creator/MatthewMcConaughey) to give his closing argument, he decides to throw out his well-reasoned points of law and instead appeal directly to the humanity of the jurors will an emotional, tearful speech. It works.

* ''Film/AngelsInTheOutfield'': George Knox is being forced to make a statement to the press denying the involvement of real, heaven-sent angels in his team's recent winning streak... but when Roger, J.P. and Maggie come into the room, he abandons his planned speech and instead reaffirms his belief that angels are helping the team win.
* In the [[Literature/AmericanGirlsCollection American Girl]] movie ''Samantha: An American Girl Holiday'', Samantha does this when making a speech about factories as a symbol of American progress. Her original speech is largely approving and portrays factories in a positive light, but after she sees what really goes on behind the scenes, she realizes her version was sanitized and not based in reality, and throws out her original speech in favor of one that exposes the horrible truth she's learned.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's "Literature/IgnitionPoint!": The [[TheManBehindTheMan handlers]] supporting a political campaign have developed a technique of writing content-free speeches that will get audiences fired up. In the first test, the politician they're supporting stops in the middle, throws away the speech, and starts improvising -- the speech worked on him, too.
* From Creator/TomClancy's ''[[Literature/JackRyan Executive Orders]]'':
** Towards the beginning of the novel, President Ryan is giving a speech at a presidential funeral. Instead of reading the speech written for him, he speaks off the cuff to the children of the deceased president. At a later press conference, Ryan jokes to the members of the press that he ''will'' be sticking to the script this time.
** For his last time on the air before retiring from television, a news anchor stops reading what's on the teleprompter and starts saying what he believes needs to be said instead. (It's not exactly off-the-cuff: he has his alternate speech memorized, but didn't hand it in to be put on the teleprompter because he knew he wouldn't be allowed to say it. It ''is'' from the heart.)

* In the Literature/LeftBehind book ''Apollyon'', when Chaim Rosenzweig is asked to appear on TV to give his explanation for the sun giving out only one-third of its sunlight due to one of the Trumpet Judgments taking place (though Chaim isn't convinced that it is the hand of God at work), he is given a script by the Global Community that has him parrot the party line's explanation of some scientific cosmic disturbance causing the phenomenon that even [[OmnidisciplinaryScientist Rosenzweig as a botanist]] can see through. He chooses to appear on TV but speaks his own mind instead, almost directing people to Dr. Tsion Ben-Judah's website before being pulled off the air.

* ''Literature/TheEagleTree'': When March goes to speak in front of the city council about why they shouldn't chop down the titular tree, he drops his cards, picks them up in the wrong order, and can't find one card. He's forced to improvise and gives what is later summarized as "several strident statements" that the council doesn't pay much attention to. [[spoiler:He does manage to get to the most important point: that the tree is home to an endangered murrelet.]]

* In ''Series/SexAndTheCity'', Samantha does this at a breast cancer charity dinner.
* In ''Series/ModernFamily'' Season 2 finale, a reversal -- a sincere speech (Alex's mean-spirited valedictorian speech) gets thrown out in favor of a bunch of lies. To be fair, the tone of the scene seems to indicate that she genuinely changed her mind at the last second and didn't want to use the speech as a way to attack her classmates.
* In the TV mini-series/pilot of ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'', Adama ditches his planned speech for ''Galactica'''s decomissioning and instead launches into a speech about how humanity needs to ask itself if it deserves to survive.
* In ''Series/Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip'', the pilot opens with the producer of [[ShowWithinAShow "Studio 60"]] interrupting the broadcast to go on an unscripted rant about the poor quality of the episode and media in general.
* This happens a couple times in ''Series/TheWestWing''. Subverted in one episode, where Toby Ziegler and Will Bailey are writing a speech for President Bartlett to introduce his new Vice President. The speech is supposed to be complimentary of the guy, but Toby and Will dislike him so much that they jokingly dash off an insulting (and well-written) one instead. Afterward they do write a real speech -- and guess what winds up on the [=TelePrompter=] instead while Bartlett is before the cameras? But when he sees that the speech he's reading is turning abusive, he literally doesn't skip a beat -- he ignores the teleprompter and improvises a complimentary introduction for the VP. The VP sees the teleprompter and asks the two for a manuscript of it... [[SubvertedTrope so he can]] [[TranquilFury use it]] [[ManipulativeBastard against them later if he has to]].
* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'': In the GrandFinale, Sheldon [[spoiler:wins the Nobel Prize for physics]]. Just before the ceremony his friends call him out for being selfish and caring more about [[spoiler:not catching Penny's apparent illness when announces she's pregnant]] than about his friends and wife. When he stands up to accept his reward, he sets aside the self-centered speech he wrote and has all his friends in the audience stand up and individually thanks each of them for their role in his life.

* ''Series/{{House}}'': Dr House does this in an early season when asked to give a speech about a new drug the chairman of the hospital wants him to puff up. Played straight, as is usual on ''House'', but he nearly gets fired for it.
* In the first episode of ''Series/CrossingJordan'', Garrett Macy is supposed to do a presentation about coroners at a career day. So he starts off with a fairly dry presentation with no enthusiasm, and then ends up in a rant practically driving people away with the lucid descriptions of his work.

* When Monica and Chandler got married on ''Series/{{Friends}}'', Chandler threw out his pre-prepared vows at the last moment to give a more heartfelt, situation-appropriate (as Joey had just revealed to Monica that Chandler had gotten cold feet and almost ran out on the wedding) speech. Ross looks visibly miffed that his role of handing the vows over is no longer required.
** Similarly, when Joey shows up to be the priest, he admits that he unintentionally left the speech he made in his dressing room.
* Parodied in the second episode of ''Series/{{Stella|US}}'': "You know, I was going to come up here today, read this fancy speech I had written, then I was going to stop in the middle, crumple it up, throw it away, start speaking from the heart. But I'm not going to do that. I'm going to read from my prepared remarks instead."

* In season 3 of ''Series/{{Justified}}'' Dickie Bennett is about to be released from prison after making a deal with the Justice Department. None of the good guys are happy about this and the presiding judge is eager to find some justifiable reason why he should throw out the deal. All Raylan has to do is go in front of the judge and testify about Dickie's assault on him and how horrible an impact it had on him. Raylan starts his prepared speech but quickly realizes that he cannot go through with it since he will not pretend to be a victim just to keep Dickie in jail. Instead he talks about Dickie being a stupid criminal who will end up back in prison soon anyway so the judge should just let him go.
* In season 1, episode 8 of ''Series/{{House of Cards|US}}'' Frank Underwood throws out his speech on the occasion of having a library named after himself in favor of a heartfelt thanks to his old friends.

* A {{Downplayed}} example sometimes happens in the ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' "Celebrity Jeopardy" skits, where Alex Trebek throws away a "Final Jeopardy" question that he thinks is too hard for the simple-minded contestants and makes up an easier one, like "Write any number" or "Ask your own question and answer it". Inevitably, they still manage to foul it up.
* ''Series/{{Frasier}}'': Bulldog is receiving a Man of the Year award for his heroism in reacting to an armed robber. Only Frasier saw that his seeming bravery was due to a misunderstanding, and Bulldog was [[DirtyCoward actually trying to use Roz (who was pregnant!) as a human shield,]] accidentally spilling coffee on the gunman in the process. Frasier believes that no man can ignore his conscience forever, and spends the night of the awards ceremony not-so-subtly guilt-tripping Bulldog under the guise of praise. When it's time to receive the award, Bulldog, uncharacteristically humbled, explains that he had a speech prepared, but he can't read it now... [[SubvertedTrope and then yells, "This is awesome! Thanks, everybody!", much to Frasier's horror.]]
* Enforced in a 70's-era TV movie about a minister who was assigned to a new church. When he got there he discovered that due to budget shortfalls, the building was only partly done. He decided to give his first sermon in the unfinished framework of the church, hoping to encourage the congregation to donate. Unfortunately, it rained that Sunday. Some game souls sat in the pews in raincoats and umbrellas, and other watched from their cars, so the pastor decided to stand at the pulpit, in the rain, and give his sermon. But the rain washed the ink off his notes, so he crumbled it up and said:
-->'''Pastor:''' Today's sermon, by necessity, will be short. Do you want a church -- or do you want to ''get wet?''

* In ''Theatre/TheGhostsOfVersailles,'' this becomes a plot point when Figaro chooses to abandon Beaumarchais's libretto.
* In ''Theatre/DearEvanHansen'', Evan has written some notes to give a speech in front of all the school members in memory of Connor. Due to his social anxiety, he stutters, gets nervous and confused and finally his notes slip from his hands and fall everywhere. At that moment, he decides to speak from the heart, leading to the song "You Will Be Found".

* In the "Are You With Us?" trailer for ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'', Winston is recording a message to broadcast to the former agents of [[HeroesRUs Overwatch]] in an effort to rally them together to deal with the problems that have arisen since their dismantlement. After a few false starts, he starts reciting a speech about Overwatch's origins only for him to stumble and then just decide to get to the point: that the world needs heroes once more.

* This happens a couple times in ''Series/TheWestWing''. Subverted in one episode, where Toby Ziegler and Will Bailey are writing a speech for President Bartlett to introduce his new Vice President. The speech is supposed to be complimentary of the guy, but Toby and Will dislike him so much that they jokingly dash off an insulting (and well-written) one instead. Afterward they do write a real speech -- and guess what winds up on the [=TelePrompter=] instead while Bartlett is before the cameras? But when he sees that the speech he's reading is turning abusive, he literally doesn't skip a beat -- he ignores the teleprompter and improvises a complimentary introduction for the VP. The VP sees the teleprompter and [[ActuallyPrettyFunny asks the two for a manuscript of it]]... [[SubvertedTrope so he can]] [[TranquilFury use it]] [[ManipulativeBastard against them later if he has to]].

--->"Somethin', somethin', somethin', somethin', I get weeded -"
--->...my daughter scribbled over this rhyme, I couldn't read it.