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| 11 | [[quoteright:330:[[Music/WeirdAlYankovic https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/weirdal_subtitlerisstumped.png]]]] |
| 12 | [[caption-width-right:330:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FklUAoZ6KxY ...with all these marbles in my mouth.]]]] |
| 13 | |
| 14 | ->''"A PERSONAL NOTE FROM THE CAPTION WRITER: If you have any idea what the Swedish Chef is saying, then you are waaaaay ahead of me."'' |
| 15 | -->-- ''WebVideo/MuppetViralVideos'', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7UmUX68KtE "Pöpcørn"]] |
| 16 | |
| 17 | A common gag about TheUnintelligible or people SpeakingSimlish (or foreign languages ''presented'' as such) is that eventually even the guy writing the subtitles/closed captions gives up and types "???" or something similar. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | In RealLife, closed captions of live television do occasionally result in typos or glitched text, but if the typist can't catch up they tend to just stop and pick up at the next sentence. More rarely, if the subtitler really doesn't understand, or it's obvious that character isn't ''meant'' to be understood, they'll type something along the lines of [UNINTELLIGIBLE], [CROSSTALK] or [PH] (for 'phonetic'). A GagSub or FanSub, though, tends to be a bit less formal about this kind of thing. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | A SubTrope of FunWithSubtitles. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | Before you start your 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''. |
| 24 | ---- |
| 25 | !!Examples: |
| 26 | |
| 27 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 28 | |
| 29 | [[folder:Advertising]] |
| 30 | * This gag pops up in several commercials that involve the memetically [[TheUnintelligible unintelligible]] Music/OzzyOsbourne. |
| 31 | * 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. |
| 32 | --> '''Terry Crews (translated)''': Old Spice is the deodorant of men [[DepartmentofRedundancyDepartment men]] forty [[TheCapitalOfBrazilIsBuenosAires y ocho]] hours of [[AccentDepundent prote-dog]] [[SelfDemonstratingArticle ????]] and amazing scents! |
| 33 | * An ad for the PSP version of ''VideoGame/RockBand'', translating British slang for American viewers, which ends with "????". |
| 34 | [[/folder]] |
| 35 | |
| 36 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 37 | * 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. |
| 38 | * In the second episode of the anime for ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Orihime]] is seen speaking nervously, with her speech eventually being subbed as ???????? as she begins to walk away. |
| 39 | * 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: |
| 40 | --> Make up your own chant here, this makes no sense. |
| 41 | ** Made more hilarious by someone managing to translate said chant just three or four hours later. |
| 42 | * At least one FanSub of ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' does this when Shion is getting bullied by a gang of bikers: after they finish talking in their extremely vulgar accents, she meekly replies she has no idea what they just said. |
| 43 | ** ''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 ;_;)". |
| 44 | * In Chapter 380 of ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', ValleyGirl superheroine Camie pulls a BigDamnHeroes while delivering a heroic speech... entirely in 2020s internet lingo. The official manga translation includes various notes around the panel that attempt to explain what that slang means, but the phrase "no cap" stumps even that. |
| 45 | --> 5: No cap: A distinct lack of a hat? Who knows honestly. |
| 46 | * 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. |
| 47 | * When Sanji first saw his horribly drawn bounty poster in ''Franchise/OnePiece'', one fansub had his completely unintelligible mumbling subbed with one of the symbol fonts in Microsoft Word. This is probably a reference to the fact that in the manga version of the scene, Sanji's speech bubble is filled with geometrical symbols. |
| 48 | * 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. |
| 49 | * 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.]]" |
| 50 | * 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. |
| 51 | * ''Manga/SgtFrog'': |
| 52 | ** 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.") |
| 53 | ** 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]]." |
| 54 | ** 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!" |
| 55 | ** Once, Mr. Caption just gave up and said, [[MathematiciansAnswer "This says stuff in Japanese"]]. |
| 56 | * Whenever the foreign soldiers of Plumumb in ''Anime/{{Simoun}}'' speak, the subtitles on the Media Blasters release only reads ''Foreign''. Their dialogue, however, is Japanese played backwards. |
| 57 | * 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!" |
| 58 | * 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.)" |
| 59 | * The main character in ''Anime/YuGiOhZEXAL'' uses the catchphrase "Kattobingu!", a made up word mashing Japanese term for "to flare up" with the English word "bing". Each fansubbing team translates it differently (one fan sub actually left it as "I'll do kattobingu!" adding "(We have no idea how to translate this. Sorry.)"), and the official subtitles just give up and leave it as "I'm kattobing!". |
| 60 | ** The manga translates it as "I'm gonna jet!", incidentally. |
| 61 | [[/folder]] |
| 62 | |
| 63 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 64 | * ''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: |
| 65 | -->''Note from the Author: No idea what they're talking about!'' |
| 66 | * ''ComicBook/ScottPilgrim'' often has expository subtitles for characters, but not even the subtitles know Ramona's age, or much else about her or about other mysterious characters. On one occasion when random background characters are talking, one girl is given a name and the other is labeled, "I don't know this girl". This might indicate that the subtitles are from Scott's point of view. |
| 67 | ** And then again, Scott learns that Knives Chau had turned 18 ''from'' the subtitles. |
| 68 | * ''ComicBook/TheSimpsons:'' On a plane fight to Scotland, the Simpsons watch a movie featuring subtitles to help with the actor's thick Scottish accents (mixed with TactfulTranslation). By the final line, the subtitles just turn into a string of question marks. |
| 69 | [[/folder]] |
| 70 | |
| 71 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 72 | * ''WebVideo/TheBuggerAnthology'': |
| 73 | ** The subtitles for "The Stink of Humanity" transcribe what the choir in the (non-diegetic) background music is singing, but renders it as a keysmash. |
| 74 | ** Parodied when the Doctor gives a speech after he gets a new regeneration cycle in "The Time of the Daleks". While he's perfectly understandable until the Dalek Supreme starts talking over him, the Doctor's words are subtitled with a FunetikAksent that quickly deteriorates into words that only vaguely sound like what he's saying, and eventually a sentence just ends with "blah blah blah". |
| 75 | --->'''Eleventh Doctor:''' Did you menshan... THA ROOLS? Now, lizard. Vitamin vice. Sell me the troop, if you BlahBlahBlah...[[note]]"Did you mention... THE RULES? Now, listen. Bit of advice. Tell me the truth, if you think you..."[[/note]] |
| 76 | ** "Groundhogmanay of the Daleks" just gives Dan "Dan noises" whenever he speaks. |
| 77 | * 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. |
| 78 | --> '''Narrator''': THE CONTRYSIDES WERE NICE AND THE PLANTS WERE SINGING AND THE BIRDS AND THE SUN WAS ALMOST DOWN FROM THE TOP OF THE SKY ??? |
| 79 | * In ''WebAnimation/TurnaboutStorm'', the local mailmare of [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Ponyville]] constantly changes her name between [[IHaveManyNames Derpy Hooves, Ditzy Doo and Bright Eyes]], berating Twilight every time she "gets it wrong". The dialogue box continuously switches the names around and tries to keep up, but by the end of the conversation it's so confused that it simply resorts to [[MyNameIsQuestionMarks ???]]. |
| 80 | [[/folder]] |
| 81 | |
| 82 | [[folder:Film — Animated]] |
| 83 | * 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?]]]] |
| 84 | * In ''WesternAnimation/{{Brave}}'', whenever [[TheUnintelligible Young Macguffin]] talks, the subtitles simply read "Speaks in thick accent." |
| 85 | * Used as an in-universe gag in ''WesternAnimation/HortonHearsAWho2008''. 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. |
| 86 | * ''WesternAnimation/RalphBreaksTheInternet'' has a repeat of the Brave gag listed above, with Merida speaking Scottish English that is similarly subtitled. |
| 87 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Storks}}'': During his ImagineSpot, Toady's rendition of "How You Like Me Now" eventually devolves into random vowel noises as the subtitles desperately try to keep up. |
| 88 | [[/folder]] |
| 89 | |
| 90 | [[folder:Film — Live-Action]] |
| 91 | * 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. |
| 92 | * The "English English" sequence between Austin Powers and his father during ''Film/AustinPowersInGoldmember'', which starts off as (subtitled) cockney but devolves into gibberish, with the subs devolving into "(?????????????) [[SomethingSomethingLeonardBernstein ...tea-kettle]]" before by ending on "...she shat [[OrphanedPunchline on a turtle!]]". |
| 93 | * In the Soviet movie ''Film/TheDiamondArm'', the foreign smugglers speak nonsensical gibberish dubbed into Russian in the background. Eventually they get into a heated debate, obviously starting to call each other names, and the translator says in a deadpan voice, "What follows is untranslatable wordplay using local idiomatic expressions." |
| 94 | * PlayedWith in ''Film/MissionImpossibleGhostProtocol''. When Ethan wakes up in a Russian hospital, he tries to listen to a local news report on television. The subtitles show up... in Cyrillic. They slowly shift to English as Ethan regains his faculties. |
| 95 | * On Spanish-dubbed television airings of ''Film/{{Selena}}'', any time Selena or Abraham sing in English (left undubbed from the original English version), the closed captioning displays "[Canta en ingles]" (meaning "[sings in English]"). Inversely, on English television airings and home media, the various Spanish song lyrics featured throughout the film are accurately displayed. |
| 96 | * On some television airings of ''[[Film/SisterAct Sister Act 2]]'', during the scene where the kids are freestyle rapping on the basketball court (most of which was improvised by Lauryn Hill), all of the rapping is captioned as "[INDISTINCT RAPPING]", and a few seconds later, "[INDISTINCT RAPPING CONTINUES]". Other TV airings use the same captions as home media and streaming, which do show the rapped lyrics. |
| 97 | * 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.]] |
| 98 | [[/folder]] |
| 99 | |
| 100 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 101 | * ''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." |
| 102 | * Even a ''book'' did this! ''Series/TheDailyShow'''s ''Literature/AmericaTheBook'' gave us a frustrated translator trying to tell us what all of the Australian slang in ''Waltzing Matilda'' meant, ending with "English-speaking country, my ass". |
| 103 | * 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. |
| 104 | * 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. |
| 105 | ** 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." |
| 106 | * ''Literature/GoodOmens'': |
| 107 | ** The only translator's note in the French edition of ''Good Omens'' occurs on page 401 out of 466. It reads "Ici, le traducteur rend les armes et se borne à signaler qu'en argot américain, le mot ''faggot'' désigne un homosexuel", or "Here, the translator surrenders and will merely point out that ''faggot'' is an American slang word for homosexual". This is the scene where the American soldier misunderstands Newt's demand for faggots, as in bundles of wood, to burn [[note]]though most ''Brits'' would ''also'' be confused by this request, as this is quite archaic usage and the word is more familiar as the name for a type of meatball made from offal... which is rather tastier than the description might suggest[[/note]]. |
| 108 | ** 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 successfully with all the puns.) |
| 109 | * 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]]Actually a computer-''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]] |
| 110 | * In ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves'', the subtitles on ''The Navidson Record'' represent "Holloway's garbled patter" as "incomprehensible onomatopoeia or just question marks". |
| 111 | * In E.E. Smith's ''Literature/{{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. |
| 112 | [[/folder]] |
| 113 | |
| 114 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 115 | * 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 "@^$^#%". |
| 116 | * There's a twist on this in an episode of ''Series/ThirtyRock'' where Liz is speaking German to some Germans (with normal subtitles) and then the Germans speak too fast for her to understand. The subs say "Return Germany... tell the... time ... ... ... ... ... hubcap?" |
| 117 | ** There was also the episode where Jack demonstrated how handsome people think they can speak French, but actually can't. He says something in French which gets translated to random letters in the subtitles. It's just [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign French-sounding gibberish]]. |
| 118 | * An episode of ''Series/TheAmazingRace'' put up "???????" while showing one-time ''Series/BigBrother'' winner Jordan Lloyd talking while eating a baguette. |
| 119 | * ''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?...". |
| 120 | * 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?"). |
| 121 | * 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. |
| 122 | * Present on ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' [=DVDs=] due to the mangled Mandarin swearing. The subtitler didn’t recognize it and just put [Speaks Galactic Language]. |
| 123 | * TV-Nihon’s sub of ''Series/GoGoSentaiBoukenger'' has [[BigBad Gaja’s]] [[BlackSpeech magical chants]] written as “mystical gibberish”. |
| 124 | * ''Series/HorribleHistories'': "The News in Tudor Criminal Slang" begins with a translator accurately translating the slang, gradually getting confused, and finally giving up. |
| 125 | * In ''Series/MadTV1995'''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". |
| 126 | * 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. |
| 127 | * Creator/DisneyPlus prints of ''Series/TheMuppetShow'' often caption the Swedish Chef's Mock-Swedish as "(SPEAKING GIBBERISH)", while the coherent English words are subtitled properly. For example, the wedding cake sketch from Marisa Berenson's episode includes subtitles that read "(SPEAKING IN GIBBERISH) ...the cake and the onions." |
| 128 | * ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': One line of the GagSub for the ''Jet Jaguar [[Franchise/{{Godzilla}} Song]]'' is written as YAHMMMAAHOAAHOAAAUGH! |
| 129 | * The "Steam Machinegun" episode of ''Series/MythBusters'' had Adam talking with an exaggerated French accent and accompanying subtitles. Eventually, the subtitles state "...I think I'm losing my marbles" and start flashing "?????". |
| 130 | * At least a few times on ''Series/TheOsbournes'', the closed caption would simply say "Ozzy mumbling". |
| 131 | * ''Series/NoelsHouseParty'': One episode of House Party had motormouth Irish comedian Jimmy Cricket on doing some schtick, and the show ran a bumper urging viewers to turn on teletext subtitles in order to get a "translation". When you turned on the subtitles, all it said was "sorry, we can't understand Jimmy either". |
| 132 | * Whenever PBS aired ''Series/TheNoddyShop'', Stein's "Ja" was rendered as "Yeah". |
| 133 | * The closed captioning the Pluto TV channel "''Series/ThePriceIsRight'': The Barker Era" frequently displays [indistinct] or [unintelligible] whenever host Bob Barker is drowned out by the audience cheering. |
| 134 | * 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. |
| 135 | * 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. |
| 136 | ** 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. |
| 137 | * 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!" |
| 138 | * ''Series/ShaunMicallefsMadAsHell'': |
| 139 | ** Season 11 of introduces the show's Pauline Hanson Translator whose job it is to translate Pauline's [[StrangeSyntaxSpeaker idiosyncratic syntax]] and {{Metaphorgotten}} tendencies into something comprehensible for the average viewer. She does quite well for most of the show until, following particularly convoluted utterance from Pauline, Shaun looks at her expectantly, only to be told "I have no idea what she is talking about". |
| 140 | ** In the 2020 Pagan Holiday Special, Emily's rendition of Music/OdeToJoy is mostly subtitled accurately (despite "Heiligtum" being mangled into "Heidi Klum"), but the line "Was die Mode streng geteilt" is repeatedly subtitled as "All that (indecipherable)". |
| 141 | * ''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. |
| 142 | * 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 "???" |
| 143 | * In one episode of ''Series/{{Supernanny}}'', a child's unintelligible speech is rendered as "(what?)" in the subtitles.[[note]] For context, this was when Meghan Cooke threw a tantrum for not being able to take a bath from Dad.[[/note]] |
| 144 | * 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. |
| 145 | -->'''Subtitler:''' If you’re deaf, you’re in luck. |
| 146 | * Sometimes present with the closed captioning for ''Series/{{Teletubbies}}''. When Po sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", the caption read "Continues singing nonsense syllables". On the third time, the interpretation was "Continues as before". |
| 147 | * 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". |
| 148 | * ''Series/VivaLaBam'' - Whenever Don Vito freaks out he talks too fast, making subtitles which often degenerate into question marks necessary. |
| 149 | * 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". A December 2023 episode captioned all three contestants' last names as "[indistinct]". |
| 150 | [[/folder]] |
| 151 | |
| 152 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 153 | * In the video for Series/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. |
| 154 | * 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". |
| 155 | * 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. |
| 156 | * Russian folk-rockers Music/OtavaYo, as they become more well-known outside Russia, are now presenting their Website/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. |
| 157 | * 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. |
| 158 | * The booklet for Music/{{Radiohead}}'s ''Music/HailToTheThief'' makes no attempt at transcribing a particularly unintelligible part of "2+2=5". |
| 159 | -->I try to sing along\ |
| 160 | I get it all wrong\ |
| 161 | Eezeepeezeeeezepeeze\ |
| 162 | NOT |
| 163 | * 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" |
| 164 | * 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/NevermindAlbum "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. These exact lyrics would appear in the song's music video as subtitles, as seen in the page image above. |
| 165 | [[/folder]] |
| 166 | |
| 167 | [[folder:Professional Wrestling]] |
| 168 | * [[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." |
| 169 | * Wrestling/ScottSteiner has a habit of devolving into hollering nonsense in his energetic, half-insane promos. This has resulted in minor internet memes, like "NO SYMPY" and [[http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/213/130/4d5.gif this]] gif of him yelling into the camera with [UNINTELLIGIBLE] edited onto it. |
| 170 | [[/folder]] |
| 171 | |
| 172 | [[folder:Stand-Up Comedy]] |
| 173 | * Ventriloquist Creator/JeffDunham has a bit in one of his routines in which his puppet [[https://youtu.be/A38YO3f2Bv4?t=185 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.) |
| 174 | ** [[ImGoingToHellForThis "We're going to hell, aren't we?"]] "Yup." [[BrickJoke "Well, here we are!"]] |
| 175 | * 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''. |
| 176 | * The comedian Marcus had a joke about how no one can understand Sylvester Stallone when he breaks down. His best example came from the end of Rambo. The subtitles? "Hell if I know. You're on your own, big guy." |
| 177 | * Creator/PaulTaylor in his first special, #Franglais, either subbed in French when he speaks English, or the inverse, when he talks about the angry customer at the Apple Store in Quebec. |
| 178 | [[/folder]] |
| 179 | |
| 180 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 181 | * In TabletopGame/{{Chess}} annotation, ! and ? symbols mark good and bad moves (sometimes with !! for amazing/game winning moves and ?? for blunders/game losing moves), with ?! specifically meaning "dubious but not completely bad." However, !? has the general meaning of "interesting," which usually means that the annotator can't figure out whether it's good or bad, but it is interesting. One grandmaster joked that it's the mark of a lazy annotator who doesn't want to work out whether the move was good or bad. (It's also sometimes used for CrazyEnoughToWork plans in a losing game, which is not quite this trope.) |
| 182 | [[/folder]] |
| 183 | |
| 184 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 185 | * ''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. |
| 186 | * ''VideoGame/BattleblockTheater'': If you have subtitles turned on, they become downright confused as the lyrics to the "Buckle Your Pants" song that plays at the end of the game DeterioratesIntoGibberish. |
| 187 | * 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. |
| 188 | ** Also, the Bane SMG screams [Annoying sounds], though it seems more like a continuous shout of "YEAHYEAHEYEAH..." or "RATATATATATATA.....". |
| 189 | * ''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". |
| 190 | * ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': |
| 191 | ** 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. |
| 192 | ** 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. |
| 193 | ** 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. |
| 194 | * 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. |
| 195 | * ''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.) |
| 196 | * ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'': When Sora and company run into Tarzan, he uses a gorilla word --"Eh oo, oo-oo ah"--that gets captioned as ''*&&X%''. Apparently, that's gorilla for "heart" and not a shout-out to the song "Witch Doctor". |
| 197 | * 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. |
| 198 | ** ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' abandons this for translated droid beeping and whistling, but the translations tend to use fairly odd syntax. |
| 199 | * 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. |
| 200 | -->'''Thug''': [in Brazilian Portuguese] Hey, American! What are you doing over there?\ |
| 201 | '''Max Payne''': No comprende! |
| 202 | * In ''VideoGame/MercenariesPlaygroundOfDestruction'', if someone speaks in a language your character doesn't understand, the subtitles appear as "Speaks a foreign language". |
| 203 | ** Interestingly, the game has the relevant subtitles, it's just that it will only play them for the character who speaks that language. Each of the three Mercs has a different second language that allows them to understand the pre-briefing conversations with one of the three non-American contacts. |
| 204 | ** They're also linguistically correct, so a player who speaks Chinese, Korean or Russian [[BilingualBonus might not need them.]] |
| 205 | * ''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. |
| 206 | * ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'': When Nightwolf is inciting a spell [[spoiler:against Sindel]], the subtitles doesn't appear to spell it. |
| 207 | * ''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.]] |
| 208 | * 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. |
| 209 | * With the subtitles turned on in ''VideoGame/{{Octodad}}'', the eponymous character's [[TheUnintelligible "speech"]] is rendered as things like "concerned blurbling". |
| 210 | * 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?]] |
| 211 | * In ''VideoGame/SilentHill4'', if Eileen's injuries get very grave, her mumblings are subtitled as random symbols. |
| 212 | * 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. |
| 213 | * ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheStickOfTruth'': The subtitles make absolutely zero attempt to decipher [[TheUnintelligible Kenny's]] muffled speech, they simply put it as "Mmmmphphmm" or something similar. |
| 214 | * 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. |
| 215 | * In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'', [[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Kraid]] appears as a master of one of the many dojos in the World of Light 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. |
| 216 | * 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. |
| 217 | * 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]] |
| 218 | * In ''VideoGame/Uncharted2AmongThieves'', we have Tenzin, whose dialogue is composed of and subtitled with [speaking Tibetan]. No translation for you because Nate doesn't speak a word of Tibetan - though a player who does [[BilingualBonus will be pleasantly surprised]]. |
| 219 | [[/folder]] |
| 220 | |
| 221 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 222 | * In the ''WebAnimation/BowsersKingdom'' series of Flash cartoons, every character has subtitles (except for the last 3 episodes). When the Inaudible Thwomp speaks, the subtitles will eventually degrade into "???". Here is an example from Episode 7, when he "sings" the National Anthem, after which Paul Hammerbro throws a hammer at him: |
| 223 | -->'''Inaudible Thwomp:''' Alright you better listen up because I'm gonna sing the National Anthem alright you people better listen up alright. Oh say can you see by the dawns early light what so proudly we hail ??? Stars? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? Stripes? Rockets red glare? ??? ??? |
| 224 | * ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'': |
| 225 | ** In the WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail "the bet", a ParodyCommercial for "Butter-Dah" features [[RattlingOffLegal a disclaimer read so fast]] it comes out as gibberish, complete with nonsensical subtitles: |
| 226 | --->'''King of Town:''' [[OurSloganIsTerrible They tell me not to, but I still drinks it!]]\ |
| 227 | '''Announcer:''' Butter-Da is noh hush a bush push leopold. |
| 228 | ** In "secret recipes", a Narrator disclaims that Strong Bad may or may not have a Great Uncle Pawdabber, and later says Homestar ''definitely'' doesn't have a Stupid Uncle Egg. At the end of the email, Strong Bad describes his "Poopaw" calling him inside for dinner, and the accompanying Easter egg causes the Narrator to chime in with "I uh... I don't even know what a Poopaw is." |
| 229 | * 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. |
| 230 | * ''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. |
| 231 | * The opening to ''WebAnimation/TheLazerCollection Five''. A transcript is below, though it's better you experience it yourself [[https://youtu.be/gKiBaEAUEPk?t=13m4s here]]: |
| 232 | -->'''Singer''': ''In the world of Abrupt Comedy, THERE'S ONLY ONE COLLECTION YOU NEED! It's the greatest collection around, it's got [[TrrrillingRrrs RRRR]](Incomprehensible noises. Subtitles just say: ...um.) It's the thing with the place and the guys in the side (Subtitles add: Wait what) and the things with all of the monsters (Subtitles add: ...?) And the (More incomprehensible noises. Subtitles: Dude, come on. Whatever bro.) I WANNA RIDE IN AN AIRPLANE! |
| 233 | * 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. |
| 234 | [[/folder]] |
| 235 | |
| 236 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 237 | * ''Webcomic/{{Digger}}'' has footnotes explaining the various {{Unsound Effect}}s and why actual onomatopoeia couldn't be used. In one case, the UnsoundEffect is "Sounds of distant ethereal chanting!", and the footnote is, "There ''is'' no feasible onomatopoeia for this." |
| 238 | * In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' when [[spoiler:Caliborn]] purposefully screws up the narrative [[IndecisiveMedium 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. |
| 239 | * ''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. |
| 240 | [[/folder]] |
| 241 | |
| 242 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 243 | * Music/BadLipReading's "NFL 2020" has a bunch of the player introductions. [[https://youtu.be/Y2vS8dPMR2U?t=6m6s Not all of them intelligible.]] |
| 244 | * 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. |
| 245 | * 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)''. |
| 246 | * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvIa5T87aQ8 This]] parody of the ''Manga/DeathNote'' opening, near the end. ([=WARNING=]: Contains racially sensitive language!) |
| 247 | * Creator/DougWalker's [[http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/theme-lyrics/9965-colbertreport Colbert Report theme lyrics video.]] |
| 248 | %%* Speaking of Abridged Series, WebVideo/EvAbridged gives us this in their second installment: [[http://youtu.be/VJnureuZ6Ts?t=8m13s]] |
| 249 | * ''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. |
| 250 | * 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: |
| 251 | --> ??? |
| 252 | --> Seriously I forgot what I said. |
| 253 | --> I feel sexy(?) |
| 254 | * ''WebVideo/JonTron'' often has confused subtitles when Jon says something unintelligible. |
| 255 | ** Notable example, from his video on [[Videogame/StarfoxAdventures Stairfax Temperatures]] during his SanitySlippageSong near the end: |
| 256 | -->'''Jon:''' Where is Falco, he was so awesome and ''[indecipherable]'' 's just a dick and that's why they removed him... |
| 257 | -->'''Subtitles:''' |
| 258 | -->''Where is Falco'' |
| 259 | -->''he was so awesome and is essystem of gvoermyna all sincsisd'' |
| 260 | -->''that's why they removed him'' |
| 261 | * 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. |
| 262 | * 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). |
| 263 | * 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. |
| 264 | * 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. |
| 265 | * 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. |
| 266 | * 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: |
| 267 | -->'''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]\ |
| 268 | '''TRANSLATOR:''' [Shakes head] |
| 269 | * 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. |
| 270 | * 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. |
| 271 | -->'''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* |
| 272 | * [[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. |
| 273 | * 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. |
| 274 | * This trope occurs [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfsFV7VGBzI when a Predator tries to sing.]] |
| 275 | * [[PickACard Pick one of]] LetsPlay/{{Raocow}}'s gameplay videos. [[PickACard ''Any'' of them.]] Prepare for hilarity to ensue. |
| 276 | * WebVideo/TheRapCritic, whose song reviews always have subtitles below them, will sometimes use this in particularly baffling moments. |
| 277 | * [[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.]] |
| 278 | ** Website/YouTube can sometimes even be meta about it where all that would show in some scenes is "uh...". |
| 279 | * 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): |
| 280 | -->'''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?\ |
| 281 | '''[=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.\ |
| 282 | 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.\ |
| 283 | Fuck you for making me translate this. If I could put an emoji of a middle finger in these subtitles, I would.\ |
| 284 | 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.\ |
| 285 | Now go fuck yourself. |
| 286 | * [=SonnyBone=]'s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bGErn95VGQ Fun With Ahmed series.]] |
| 287 | * On Saint Patrick's Day 2020, the official ''Franchise/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 WebVideo/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. |
| 288 | * ''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. |
| 289 | * 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]". |
| 290 | * WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows will often only put subtitles of the lyrics of a song he is reviewing to invoke this trope. |
| 291 | * 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 "???". |
| 292 | * 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. |
| 293 | * [[TheUnintelligible Arlo P. Arlo]] from ''WebVideo/WhatTheFuckIsWrongWithYou?'' describes his family's Christmas traditions. Following the first line... |
| 294 | --> '''...'''\ |
| 295 | '''?!?!?!?!?'''\ |
| 296 | '''O.o'''\ |
| 297 | ''';u;''' |
| 298 | * 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". |
| 299 | * In a Website/YouTube video of Leslie Uggams losing the lyrics of ''June Is Busting Out All Over'', subtitles go into #&$&# at one point. |
| 300 | * 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. |
| 301 | * ''[[WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries Yu-Gi-Oh the Other Abridged Series]]'' subtitles the opening and closing themes. It's... interesting. |
| 302 | * Used hilariously in this College Humor parody of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFHwG8ikZAY True Grit.]] |
| 303 | [[/folder]] |
| 304 | |
| 305 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 306 | * Even the subtitles are uncertain what the one-lined end credits to ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'' say. Sometimes it's "Dancing is Forbidden" (this is what it's supposed to be - the sole lyric is sampled from Master Shake saying this line in the first episode), other times it is "Dance Finger Puppets". Sometimes it's even "Danzig is morbidity". |
| 307 | * 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 [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gVh-ijrinY his last gibberish line is simply transcripted phonetically rather than translated]]. |
| 308 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' "Peter's Two Dads", Peter and his Irish dad have a DrinkingContest and speak "drunk" to each other. It sounds like incoherent gibberish, but according to the subtitles, they're actually having an uncharacteristically intelligent argument... until the end, when Peter's dad rambles off a couple lines of untranslatable nonsense right before passing out. This final bit is subtitled as simply "????????". |
| 309 | * Another subtitle-free variant occurs in the ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' episode "Suburban Jungle". Garfield brings on a translator for Jon's JiveTurkey niece, turning her TotallyRadical sayings into comprehensible dialogue - for the most part. At one point she says something so over-the-top that all the translator can say is "Your guess is as good as mine." And earlier, he straight up refuses to translate something because he finds the meaning too disgusting. |
| 310 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Grojband}}'': In "All You Need is Cake", when Corey starts to tell the moral of the story like he does at the end of every episode, he starts stuffing his face with cake in the process. Subtitles show up on screen to translate, but quickly just turn all into "[[FunWithSubtitles Omm nom nom nom omm nom nom]]." |
| 311 | * 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 "?????". |
| 312 | * ''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." |
| 313 | * 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. |
| 314 | * In ''WesternAnimation/TheRaccoons'' episode "The Evergreen Grand Prix", the line "The Solar Coaster is in the lead," is closed-captioned as "Their too much (inaudible)." |
| 315 | [[/folder]] |
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