Common Knowledge / Live-Action TV

Click here to go back to the main page.

---

In General

• British Children's TV of the 70s - blimey were they trying to get crap past the radar or not? Drug references in The Magic Roundabout, all those double entendre names such as Roger the Cabin Boy, Seaman Staines and Master Bates in Captain Pugwash (the title itself taken from an Australian term for oral sex) and that infamous episode of Rainbow which features comments about "playing with twangers" and references to female host Jane's "maracas". Basically just a non-stop stream of filth aimed at innocent children, right? Wrong. The clip seen on YouTube of Rainbow containing the double entendres was never a broadcast episode but just filmed as a private joke for an end of shoot party, only intended to be shown to the production staff. The names in Captain Pugwash are all totally made up (the cabin boy is called Tom, there is a Master Mates, no character with the surname "Staines" appears on the show and there is no evidence that Pugwash was ever a slang term for oral sex) and creator John Ryan successfully sued people who said so. Master Bates is a character from Gulliver's Travels. Finally, the reason for the surreal nature of The Magic Roundabout is that it was originally a French series but when the British bought it, the deal didn't include the soundtrack or scripts, only the visuals, so writer and actor Eric Thompson treated it as a Gag Dub, and all his family have confirmed that the strongest drug Eric Thompson ever took was aspirin.

Creators

• There's a theory that Dan Schneider was responsible for the former Nickelodeon studio logo because it resembled a foot◊, and Schneider is infamous for foot-related humor in his shows. That logo is specifically for the animation studio, which Schneider had no part in until 2018, long after the studio's redesign; all of Schneider's live-action fare was filmed at Nickelodeon At Sunset, which never had the foot logo. The foot logo was likely just chosen for Rule of Funny.
• The Monty Python team were all public schoolboys from well-off families, right? Well... while none of them were from families that were exactly destitute and all went to good schools, it certainly wasn't the case that they were all born into luxury. Only three of the team, John Cleese, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin, went to public schools, and while Eric Idle went to a boarding school, this was on a charitable basis as his mother was widowed just after the war.
• A common story pushed following the end of MythBusters is that series co-hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman in fact hated each other, with Adam's happy-go-lucky eccentricity and Jamie's deadpan seriousness causing personal clashes behind the scenes. While their differing personalities did lead to some disagreements in approach, the truth is more along the lines that they simply weren't best friends outside of the show. Both parties claim that they ultimately had an excellent working relationship, getting along as coworkers with respect for each other on a professional level, and at worst, their opinions of each other was neutral indifference.
• It was widely believed that Soupy Sales did a lot of edgy jokes in his live-action show. While he denies making any risqué sexual jokes, there is proof of one incident - Soupy asking his young viewers to "check their mommies' purses and find all the funny-looking pieces of green paper" to send him by mail. It's Common Knowledge that Soupy was being naively greedy, and that it cost him his job. The truth of the matter is, the whole affair was always intended, and understood by all but the nuttiest Moral Guardians to be a joke, albeit in bad taste for the time. He was winking and playing the whole time, and the often-forgotten punchline "I'll send you a postcard from Puerto Rico!" makes it clear that the audience was in on the joke. And he continued hosting the show for two years afterwards, his only reprimand was a slap on the wrist.

Series

• It’s already become memetic that the most dangerous job in showbiz is hosting the Academy Awards because you might get attacked by a wild Will Smith, due to Smith’s slapping of Chris Rock after the latter joked from the stage about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett’s alopecia. Memes include the idea of “safe” jokes to use while hosting the Oscars or some other line implying that Rock was hosting. Rock has hosted the Oscars before, but the incident occurred at the 94th Oscars, when the hosts were Regina Hall, Wanda Sykes and Amy Schumer. Rock was presenting the award for Best Documentary Feature, not hosting.
• The idea that The Addams Family contains BDSM is only partially true. While the Addamses do enjoy things that a normal person would consider torture, such as racks and beds of nails, and Gomez and Morticia do use such things when they're being romantic, it's clearly not usually meant to be sexual. Among other things, characters do such activities with their relations, and the children also do them.
• When the 1973 PBS series An American Family (often called the first American Reality TV show) is brought up, you'll often hear people say that Lance Loud came out as gay during the series. This didn't actually happen; in reality, Lance was already out of the closet before the show was filmed.
• Everybody knows that Tobias Fünke of Arrested Development is a closeted gay man who's hilariously in denial about his sexuality, and he's in a loveless relationship with a straight woman because he's not ready to come out. Except he's not. Mitchell Hurwitz has pretty consistently stated that Tobias is actually straight, and that he's just oblivious to the fact that he often says things that lead people to assume that he's gay. While Tobias and Lindsay do have a deeply unhealthy and loveless marriage, their marital issues have nothing to do with Tobias' sexuality. Season 4 makes this somewhat more explicit: Tobias ends up dating a woman named Debrie Bardeaux after he and Lindsay finally get a divorce, and they have a pretty obvious mutual attraction.
• Barney & Friends:
  • Many people believe that the show has never had episodes dealing with negative emotions and that the characters were always happy. This isn't the truth, as several episodes, as well as some songs on the show, have dealt with negative feelings.
  • Sites like IMDb have spread a rumor that one episode encouraged children to interact with strangers, but there’s no evidence that the episode ever existed.
• Everybody knows that Batman (1966) didn't include Two-Face as a villain since he was considered too grotesque for the light-hearted nature of the show. First off, his absence is perfectly understandable considering that, at the time the show aired, Two-Face was a C-List villain at best who had only appeared 5 times in the 20 years since his introduction. The character only became popular after Denny O'Neil brought him back in the 70s. It is true that Harlan Ellison wrote a treatment for the show which featured Two-Face, but he had a habit of reading every comic book put out by the major publishers every month since he was a kid, so he remembered the character. The reason the episode wasn't produced (it was the only treatment for the first season that was rejected) was due to the head of ABC's Standards and Practices vowing that Harlan Ellison would never again have a script produced at ABC.
• Everybody "knows" that comedy in The Benny Hill Show is just all about the titular hero running from an exponentially growing, angry crowd, with mandatory use of Undercrank and Yakety Sax theme. This is a reason why many people write off the entire series (usually without even watching it) as repetitive and unimaginative. However, it's only partially true. The show's formula does indeed require that every episode should be concluded with a scene where Benny Hill gets on somebody's bad side and runs away — often inadvertently aggravating other people who join the chase — but the rest of the episode consists entirely of multiple sketches that vary wildly in characteristics and thematics. And no, while undercranking is indeed used, it's definitely not a necessity.
• In the lead-up to the short-lived Birds of Prey (2002)'s debut, it was reported that Bruce Thomas would reprise his role from the Batman OnStar Commercials as Batman for the pilot. Thomas himself however rebuked this, saying that it wasn't him.
• Many people believe that The Brady Bunch was a completely idealized portrait of a blended family, with none of the kids having any difficulty adjusting to their new stepparent and step-siblings' presence. Some people will even claim that the family's blended nature was almost completely irrelevant, and "just an excuse" to feature a family with six siblings. In fact, the family's blended nature was central to Sherwood Schwartz's concept of the show – due to rising divorce rates in the 1960s, the number of second marriages and blended families in America were increasing too, and Schwartz decided to create a relevant new sitcom on the subject – and most of the first season's plot lines revolve around the two halves of the family adjusting to each other. Only in the later seasons, after everyone has adjusted, does the focus shift from "two families learning to be one family" to simply "one big family."
• Everyone "knows" that Walter White of Breaking Bad started cooking meth because he was uninsured, and needed money to pay for his cancer treatments; many people like to point this out as a way of taking potshots at the American healthcare system, especially since the Affordable Care Act was first being discussed around the time that the show began^note This meme was later more commonly used to support the idea of Universal Healthcare in America.. Actually, the show never said that Walt was uninsured, and he started his meth business so that he could leave money for his family after his death. He didn't get treatment (at first) because his doctors told him that his cancer was inoperable, and he didn't want to suffer through chemotherapy. When he did start his treatments, he did it because his family insisted, not because he finally had the money.
  • Furthermore, his insurance would have covered some treatment, just not very good treatment. The treatment that he opts for is not covered, and although he has already started cooking by this point, some old friends offer him a job with insurance that would cover the more expensive treatment. He rejects this offer (which would have solved both his medical bill issues as well as vastly improving his financial situation) in favor of cooking meth, because, as the show goes on to repeatedly prove, his Fatal Flaw is his pride. It is true that the plot of the series would likely never have happened had Walt been given adequate coverage from the get-go, but it's also a major part of Walt's character that he isn't cooking meth because he has to, he's doing it because he chooses to. His situation just meant that it was a choice at all.
  • Speaking of, a lot of people prefer to parrot Walt's delusion about said old friends having had cheated him out of his potential fortune. Granted, the scene where he confesses that it was him who'd abandoned his friends when their business was just a small start-up, came very late in the show, but it was a very deliberate admission, it was impossible to miss and should've been impossible to misinterpret.
  • A popular myth surrounding the series is that Jesse was originally supposed to be killed off in the first season, and was only spared due to the 2007-2008 Writer's Guild strike cutting down the episode number. In reality, Vince Gilligan has confirmed that, while Jesse's death was an idea in the show's pre-production phase, it was something done away with well before the strike happened in favour of him being the Deuteragonist, due to Gilligan being so impressed by Aaron Paul's performance.
• Everyone knows that Dateline cancelled their "To Catch a Predator" investigations as a result of the controversy generated by the suicide of Rockwall County, TX, D.A. Louis Conradt during the program’s Murphy, TX investigation. Except... not. After 12 investigations (three of them done after Conradt’s suicide) spanning three years, the staff of Dateline, including Chris Hansen, felt the story had run its course, and it was time to move on to other stories. While it is true that Conradt’s suicide generated considerable controversy for the program, it was not the reason Dateline stopped running "To Catch a Predator".
• Dawson's Creek is so well known for having adults well into their 20s playing teenagers that it's the Trope Namer for Dawson Casting. However, the show itself actually averts this trope, with the core cast, anyway. James Van Der Beek, Michelle Williams, Katie Holmes, and Joshua Jackson were all actual teenagers playing 15-year-olds when the show began. The trope didn't come into play with the show itself until the later seasons when you had actors well beyond their teens playing high school students, such as nearly 30 year old Meredith Monroe playing a high school student.
  • Beverly Hills, 90210 plays with this trope, however. While a lot of the actors were well beyond their teens, there were some actual teen actors such as Jennie Garth (who was 18 when the show began) playing high school students.
• Beverly Hills, 90210 is cited a lot as the first teen drama or the first teen series to tackle serious issues. It was not. The Canadian television series Degrassi Junior High (and sequel Degrassi High, which was still current when 90210 began) had already tackled a lot of controversial subjects with a decidedly more down-to-earth approach AND with age-appropriate casting, and the UK had Grange Hill going back to 1978. What 90210 did achieve was being the first teen drama series to become a mainstream worldwide cultural phenomenon and spark the wave of big-budget, 30-playing-15 American productions that the 'teen drama' label is associated with, but it was definitely not the first of its kind.
  • For that matter, it's become common knowledge that "all" the teen characters from the series were played by actors in their mid-30's, as stated above. The actual fact is that none of the first season's actors had cracked 30, though Ian Zeiring was 26 and Gabrielle Carteris was 29. They were outliers, though, not the norm. Most of them were in their mid-teens or early 20's, with Brian Austin Greene the youngest at 17, playing 14. The rest, however, were not playing freshmen, as is often believed; Most of the cast were starting their junior year, and thus were 18-23 playing 16-17. A gap, for sure, but hardly 30 playing 15.
• Doctor Who:
  • Everyone "knows" that the main character's name is not, in fact, Doctor Who. It's just "the Doctor". Well, that's debatable:
    First, he was credited as "Dr Who", "Dr. Who", or "Doctor Who" in many early episodes, as well as Series 1 of the revived series, and contemporary Expanded Universe material unambiguously refers to him by that name, including the first ever original Doctor Who novel, "Doctor Who and the Invasion from Space" (first published 1966). Later EU works that operated around Genre Throwback would sometimes use the name as well, and that’s not even getting into the many, many non-TV works that used the "Doctor Who" name in the title, of which the aforementioned "Doctor Who and the Invasion from Space" is only one, and not even the first one (that would be 1964’s "Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks", a Novelization of the first Dalek serial).
    Even if you don't count the meta-stuff and only consider what happens in the show, the Doctor seems to have an affinity for the word "who", using it on their car's licence plates, and occasionally using a non-English translation as a pseudonym. Some characters have actually called the Doctor "Doctor Who", such as WOTAN (as well as his Brainwashed and Crazy human servants) and Missy, with the latter claiming it's his original pseudonym but he shortened it to "Doctor" because "Doctor Who" was too egotistical. (The Doctor denies this, but that doesn't prove anything.)
    Thus, while the main character goes by "the Doctor" more often, "Doctor Who" is a valid alias both in and out of universe, albeit not their real name, which is still unknown.
    And of course Doctor Who is the real name of Peter Cushing's version of the character in the '60s Dalek films, though that's non-canon to the TV series.
  • The TARDIS has the shape of a Police Box, not a phone booth (though it does have a [usually] non-functioning phone on the outside, and the Ninth and Eleventh Doctors have been shown operating a working phone attached to the TARDIS console).
  • Daleks:
    • Non-fans know the Daleks are "The evil robots from Doctor Who". Although the show has often flip-flopped on continuity, it's always been clear from their very first appearance that the Daleks are actually alien mutants with mechanical exoskeletons, and thus cyborgs, not robots. Even the Oxford English Dictionary defines "dalek" as "A type of robot appearing in "Doctor Who", a B.B.C. Television science-fiction programme". This is likely due to their completely robotic-sounding voices, as well as all their organic parts being internal, making them easy to mistake for robots by those with only a passing familiarity with the show. There's even a serial — credited to Dalek creator Terry Nation himself — which refers to them as robots: in "Destiny of the Daleks" the Doctor calls the Daleks and Movellans "two races of robots engaged in a stalemated war" — although the director claims that it was mostly written by script editor Douglas Adams. Furthermore, the serial shows the Doctor finding a Dalek mutant and has Romana say the Daleks were once humanoid, aligning with the origin stories given in "The Daleks" and "Genesis of the Daleks" (both written predominantly by Nation). The Doctor is probably implying that Daleks think exactly like robots in terms of their military strategy, so for the purpose of that discussion he was correct.
    • Everybody knows that Daleks were always foiled by stairs until they were given the ability to hover in 2005. Daleks have been shown to hover up stairs in 1988's "Remembrance of the Daleks", shown flying since 1985's "Revelation of the Daleks", implied to be able to hover as far back as 1965's "The Chase", and have been implied to be able to move up and down stairs anyway even further back in 1964's "The Dalek Invasion of Earth".
  • There are a couple of ones involving Gallifrey Mean Time. Although it is never stated, it's more or less assumed that whenever the Doctor visits Gallifrey, the year is the year of the Doctor's birth plus the Doctor's age. This is never contradicted, since the writers like to refer to previous Gallifrey stories in the current one. However during the interregnum in the 1990s, it almost became fanon that Gallifrey Mean Time is in the Earth's distant past when there's really no evidence to support this. In fact, in show there's probably more in the original series to indicate that it's "present day". Both Omega stories, "The Three Doctors" and "Arc of Infinity", have events affecting Gallifrey and Earth at the "same time".
  • Much of the things which people think came in with the New Series in 2005 are actually Older Than They Think. For example, it is thought the Doctor never showed romantic feelings to anyone before Rose. The First Doctor had romantic feelings towards Cameca, an elderly Aztec woman in "The Aztecs", the 6th story. His proposal to her is accidental, but he does appear genuinely sad at leaving her and keeps the brooch she gives him. And, of course, his first-ever companion was his granddaughter, hinting at a romantic/sexual past for the character (although the Expanded Universe is vaguer on that particular matter — it's a long story). Much of this comes from Tom Baker's more asexual (or more probably apathetic to romance) characterization as the Fourth Doctor, and to the rather strict rules imposed on writers and cast for the Fifth Doctor's era regarding his interactions with Nyssa, Tegan and Peri ^note partly due to the public fiasco that was Baker and Lalla Ward's Real Life relationship and marriage, and due to the almost non-existent age difference between Davison, Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton, and Nicola Bryant making the specter of "hanky-panky in the TARDIS" more plausible, John Nathan-Turner imposed an edict that essentially stated that the Fifth Doctor could not lay his hands on the female companions under nearly any circumstances. Even putting all that aside, the 1996 TV Movie showcases his romantic side significantly before the revival series did.
  • There is a perception that the revival was more popular and had higher ratings than the original. While the former is hard to quantify, the latter is not the case. While the Davies era's best ratings came close, both the second season of Hartnell's era and the Holmes/Hinchcliffe era had better consistent ratings (and the difference widens when you consider percentage of sets tuned in and audience appreciation figures). This is of course throwing out the outlier ratings at the beginning of Season 17 which were due to a strike at ITV which got the highest ratings in the series history, but which plummeted once it was over.^note  Lawrence Miles noted in one of the volumes of About Time that the "Please Stand By" title card on ITV during that time got better ratings than most shows on today's BBC 1. The catch is that the comparison isn't one-to-one, as the British TV landscape has changed massively over the decades of the show's existence - more channels, the rise of catch-up viewing, the overall decline of viewing figures, etc. - such that the sort of ratings that (nominally) got the original cancelled saw the revival in the weekly top 30, and renewed for years ahead.
  • The idea that companions are A.) All female, B.) The Doctor's lovers, and C.) Incompetent damsels in distress. Actually, while most of them are women, there have been a few male companions such as Ian Chesterton, Jamie McCrimmon, and Rory Williams, and very few companions are depicted as incapable of looking after themselves. In fact, the only Doctors without male on-screen companions were the Third, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Doctors (discounting Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who was a close ally of the Doctor but didn't travel with them). While the Doctor has had romantic storylines with some companions (notably Rose and Clara) and others such as Martha and Yaz have had seemingly unrequited crushes, the vast majority of companions are platonic friends with the Doctor.
• No footage of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1964 is known to exist. Everybody knows that it's because of a fire in a Danish warehouse in the 1970s to the extent that it's even mentioned on the website as the reason for its unavailability. The real reason is because, as was normal practice for DR at the time, they didn't record the event, and none of the other broadcasters are known to have a copy (possibly due to the tapes being wiped and used again, a common practice at the time due to the cost of new tapes).
• It's "well-known" that Father Ted ended due to the sudden death of lead actor Dermot Morgan. But in reality, the show was already over by the time he died, and it was just a coincidence. Nor was it the reason the last episode's ending omitted Ted committing suicide. Truth is, it was changed because the writers didn't think it was funny enough.
• Fraggle Rock: Some people think that Gorgs' ability to hold Fraggles in their hands means that Fraggles are tiny. Actually, Gorgs are just very big; Fraggles are about waist-high to an average human.
• There's a rather common misconception that Carlton's dancing on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is endearingly bad. While Carlton's dancing is certainly dorky — at least for the most part — that doesn't make it bad. To the contrary, it's actually very good. Doing "the Carlton" both properly and in time takes quite a bit of skill and coordination — whenever Will tries doing it, he looks even more ridiculous than his cousin.
• A common misconception from Friends is that Chandler was originally going to be gay. Granted, Chandler has had his share of moments where he's Mistaken for Gay, but he has never shown any hints of being gay himself.
• Game of Thrones:
  • The show can hardly be mentioned in an article or review without someone mentioning the insane amounts of sex and nudity on the show. Clearly it has more than any other series on television, right? Its reputation is that it's basically The Lord of the Rings but with boobs in every scene. There is nudity, and yes, it can be fairly pervasive at times, but the show actually has far less nudity and sex than many other premium cable series like Rome, True Blood, The Tudors and Spartacus. It's just that most people don't expect sexuality from fantasy, since it's usually perceived as a kid-friendly genre. Some of this reputation is also the result of the show "spicing up" scenes of exposition with sex or nudity in its early episodes - even that is somewhat overplayed, though.
  • The primary setting of the show is not "The Kingdom of Westeros", it's "The Seven Kingdoms" — a confederation of seven previously independent kingdoms that lie on the continent of Westeros. The continent Westeros also encompasses the uncivilized lands beyond the Wall (therefore it's incorrect to say things like "the wildlings went south into Westeros", when they've been in Westeros all along). Westeros also isn't just a stand-in for Medieval Britain; while it does include several realms that are analogous to regions of Britain^note  e.g. the North is Scotland, the Crownlands and the Westerlands are England, King's Landing is London, the Blackwater is the Thames, the Wall is Hadrian's Wall, the Stark-Lannister conflict is the York-Lancaster conflict, etc., several of its realms are also analogous to parts of continental Europe.^note  e.g. Dorne is Spain, the Riverlands are the Netherlands, the Vale is the Alps, the Iron Islands are (partly) Scandinavia, etc. It's just that the British elements are generally the most central to the plot. The confusion might also stem from the fact that most of the cast are Britons or use British accents.
  • It's starting to become common knowledge that poor Robb Stark is murdered at his own wedding, along with his bride and unborn child, in an event known as the Red Wedding. The murdering part is true (unfortunately, for all three, at least in the series), but it is emphatically not Robb's own wedding that becomes the infamous Red Wedding. He and his wife Talisa (Jeyne in the novels) had already gotten married in a small, private ceremony, an act which broke Robb's vow to Walder Frey that he would marry one of his daughters. In fact, the reason they're murdered in Frey's hall is due to this broken vow, so it would make no sense that Robb himself would be married at House Frey. It's Robb's uncle, Edmure Tully, who is getting married that night, to make amends for Robb's breach of contract. Chris Martin of Coldplay got this one wrong by writing a song about the Red Wedding which calls it "the wedding of Robby Stark", and even sang it surrounded by Game of Thrones cast members and no one caught it!
  • Thinking that referring to oneself as "a man", "a girl", etc. is the way the Faceless Men talk. It's actually the way highborn Lorathi talk, which is what one Faceless Man's false guise of "Jaqen H'ghar" was supposed to be, so it's specific to that identity.
  • Everyone knows that Daenerys spends more or less the entire second season constantly asking "Where are my dragons?!" She only says that once in the entire season. Fans and critics didn't particularly enjoy her storyline in that season, which was certainly a fair enough opinion, but the "where are my dragons" meme kind of became the quick and easy way of expressing that dissatisfaction.
  • A very common criticism of the last season, which was received venomously by critics and fans, was that Jon's parentage proved to be completely irrelevant. This is flatly false — the reveal that Jon was the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen ruptured his relationship with Daenerys, led to Sansa's scheming, and contributed significantly to the sense of alienation and isolation Daenerys dealt with in the run-up to her brutal assault on King's Landing. Without that reveal, Jon and Dany don't split, and she almost certainly doesn't destroy King's Landing. Whether all of this was done well or adequately paid off seven seasons worth of build-up related to Jon's parentage is an entirely different and entirely subjective question.
• Get Smart:
  • Siegfried is the leader of KAOS; this has been mentioned in numerous TV show books, referenced by Ted Lange when he & Bernie Kopell guest starred on Boy Meets World and was the case in the movie. However, several episodes, specifically "Cutbacks at CONTROL" and "How to Succeed in the Spy Business Without Really Trying" explicitly mention him having superiors. ^note  The former episode even ends with him being forced to sell ice cream to make a living as a punishment for falling for Max's Fake Defector act. If he was KAOS's leader, then why would he punish himself? In fact, unlike CONTROL and their Chief, KAOS didn't have a regular leader, instead having several over the course of the series, beginning with Mr. Big ^note  Played by the late little person actor Michael Dunn in the pilot.
  • Some TV trivia books give Agent 99's real name as "Susan Hilton", actually that was an alias she used in her work as a spy.
• Not every Gilligan's Island episode involves the castaways trying to escape the island, only about a third of them. Many episodes deal with them trying to avoid being killed by tropical storms or some other threat, while a surprisingly large number are about things like having a costume party or a beauty pageant.
  • Also, everyone knows that all potential rescues/escapes fail because of Gilligan's screw-ups, and the castaways should have just eaten Gilligan, right? Actually, in the 37 episodes that involve some chance of getting off the island, Gilligan is only legitimately "at fault" for the failure 17 times. Screwing up 17 rescues probably would make you unpopular, granted, but there are also a large number of episodes where Gilligan saves the castaways from disaster, or headhunters, or some other deadly peril. There are also several instances where the escape plan is fatally flawed, but the flaw isn't noticed until Gilligan "screws it up," inadvertently saving their lives. Also several rescue attempts are only possible because of Gilligan.
  • There's also the common joke "How come the Professor could build a nuclear reactor out of coconuts, but he couldn't fix the hole in the boat?" In the first place, the Professor never built a nuclear reactor, and in the second place, the boat was completely destroyed in episode 8.
    • Others who are aware the boat is destroyed want to know why he can't, in the words of "Weird Al" Yankovic, "build a lousy raft." In fact, he does so in at least one episode... and Gilligan sank it.
• Parodies or depictions of the infamous Happy Days scene featuring the Fonz Jumping the Shark frequently depict the shark jumping at whoever is performing the stunt. In the actual scene, the shark stays in the water the entire time, making the scene less exciting than you were led to believe. Some people also think that Fonzie jumped his motorcycle over a shark, but that's wrong — he may have been a biker, but what he actually did was water-ski over the shark.
• Hogan's Heroes: A bit less than it used to be, but still every so often you'll hear people who insist that the show is set in a Nazi concentration camp, instead of a POW camp. It's easily debunked when you give some thought to the fact that Robert Clary ^note imprisoned at Buchenwald, and who still bears his prisoner tattoo was a victim of the concentration camp system, and would likely have flat-out refused to be in a show that proposed to make light of that aspect of Nazi atrocities.
• Opening a children’s book reading with “Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.” does not come from Jackanory but from an earlier series entitled Listen With Mother which was broadcast on the radio, not television.
• Judge Judy: Judge Judy has never used a gavel in over 5000 episodes. Despite this, numerous people claim to remember her using a gavel frequently. However, not a single clip of her doing show has ever been found. In fact, the only "evidence" appears to be single picture in Google Image Search which shows her with a gavel, but it is likely from an ad or promo and not a still from a real episode.
• It's often claimed by Kamen Rider fans that it is a tradition for a character to be killed off in the Christmas Episode of every series. Except this has happened literally only once in the franchise's entire history, with the death of Kiriya Kujo/Kamen Rider Lazer in Episode 12 of Kamen Rider Ex-Aid. While the Story Arc-based series starting with Kamen Rider Gaim do often have a major character death around that point to delineate a major narrative turning point, they have almost always been either before or after the Christmas season, and have never involved Christmas directly in the story. The reason for the misconception is largely due to the aforementioned Ex-Aid episode being incredibly infamous in the fanbase for its sudden and brutal case of Mood Whiplash.
• The Land of the Lost (1974) is not Earth in the distant past. It's a Lost World in a pocket universe.
• In 588 episodes of Lassie, Timmy never actually fell down a well. To be fair, a quick visit to that trope's page indicates that he did manage to get himself into pretty much every other dangerous situation a small child conceivably could.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
  • Criticism of Galadriel's role as an Action Girl clad in armor and fighting with a sword tends to assert her as being a powerful magic-user who didn't need them, as shown by Cate Blanchett's portrayal, especially due to the Adaptation Expansion in the Hobbit movies where she fights with magic as part of the White Council. Within the book The Lord of the Rings itself, she takes down the dark fortress of Dol Guldur with magic. In contrast, some versions of her past in other writings describe her as Amazonian in some way and do involve her fighting in a conventional manner. Further lore suggests that Elf women in general were trained in self-defense. But at the same time, Tolkien only wrote about her explicitly fighting in one battle like this and considered having Galadriel stay out of the subsequent war, and the Amazon comparison is limited to athletics and such in the context of it being akin to a phase in her "youth". And much later in LOTR, Dol Guldur is first captured by an army led by her husband Celeborn before she destroys it, though it's not said if she was present for the battle or not. It's not helped by the fact that according to many materials Galadriel already was married to Celeborn, had a daughter (Elrond's future wife Celebrian), and ruled Lórien as a queen during the Second Age, when the show takes place, while the show doesn't mention them at all.
  • The predominance of Elves with short hair leads to unfavorable comparisons with the movie trilogy, where literally all Elves had long hair. In contrast, it is pointed out that Tolkien never outright gave a blanket statement that "all" Elves had long hair. But at the same time, he did give such blanket statements for major Elven groups (Noldor and Teleri) and strongly gave the impression that it was the norm for Elves in general, tending to describe their hair as being long, though he never specified exact lengths, and wrote that they had beautiful hair which naturally favors longer interpretations.
• Jokes about Lost often ask why "the fat guy," Hurley, never loses any weight on the island despite having a meager food supply. In actuality, the survivors of the plane crash had a variety of food to choose from, including boar and fish, and a research station full of consumer food was discovered in season 2. A Loose Change parody documentary on the fourth season DVD makes fun of this idea by asking how Hurley and the others retained their weight despite allegedly being stranded on a deserted island with little food.
  • At least one episode shows that Hurley has a horrible food problem; he's eating junk food from the mysterious sources (they got an airdrop once!) left and right. It even gets lampshaded in one episode; Hurley finds a box of crackers and starts wolfing them down, even after Ben tries to stop him by pointing out that they're over 30 years old.
  • And before the group finds the junk food, Hurley specifically (and indignantly) tells Charlie that he has, in fact, shed quite a few pounds while on the island - it's just harder to notice such changes when they're such a small proportion of his total body weight than it would be if he were thinner.
  • Also, the show takes place over a much shorter time than it was aired. Seasons 1-4 takes place over 108 days (this is specifically mentioned as how many days after Oceanic Flight 815's crash the Oceanic Six were rescued.)
  • It's common knowledge the show spends its six seasons introducing "mysteries", and then fails to solve any of them. Actually, even in the beginning, the mysterious happenings often spark heated arguments between the characters about whether a non-denominational higher power is sending them signs and portents, or whether they're just seeing things that aren't there because of the emotional scars they suffered in the flashbacks. In the end, both arguments are right: two higher powers cause the mysteries, in order to play on the characters' emotional baggage and make them pawns in a cosmic con and/or game. While it's arguable if a show about trying to grapple with God's ineffable design can escape from A Wizard Did It territory, in any case, the mysteries are still definitively solved.
  • It's also common knowledge the show never explained why Walt is special. Except they did. He's special because he was born with special powers. They don't reveal the science behind it, but in later seasons it's shown to be something that just happens to some people, like Miles Straume, and also in the numerous works of fiction the show alludes to, like Carrie or Force-sensitives from Star Wars. Numerous people throughout all six seasons are told they're "special" and that they belong on the Island; Walt was simply one more.
  • Some people think the final season features the smoke monster taking over Locke's body. His body is never corrupted in any way. The smoke monster merely takes on his appearance.
  • Since the beginning of the series, one of the most common fan theories was that everyone died in the plane crash and the Island was purgatory. In the finale, it is revealed that the season's flash-sideways, an alternate timeline in which the plane didn't crash, was actually a form of purgatory and Jack's father spells it out that everything which happened to him on the Island was real. However, even over a decade after it aired, people still take this as confirmation that the Island was purgatory, or even one more plot line that didn't make sense.
• M*A*S*H:
  • Hawkeye Pierce from got the Kirk treatment, as so many shows who reference him (when they're not complaining about his liberalism) treat him as a cool snarky womanizer, when his mental health being terrible was a big factor in all eleven seasons. Also a bit of a Popularity Polynomial, as he and Alan Alda were hated in the eighties for being "wimpy", but millennials can relate to an anti-war histrionic mess who flirts with everyone and makes references to classic queer figures.
  • One of the most iconic aspects of the show is Hawkeye and Trapper John coming into The Swamp after a marathon session of surgery and pouring themselves a martini. Except that never happened, what they get from the still is pure gin. (This is in itself a case of Artistic License, since the setup they have couldn't produce gin, but that's a story for another trope page.) This is Lampshaded in an early episode where Hawkeye says he wants a martini, and he mentions that he invented the most dry martini imaginable: he drinks gin while looking at a picture of Antonio Carpano, the man who invented vermouth.
    • This is the visual equivalent of The Coconut Effect: Hawkeye is sometimes shown drinking from a Martini glass, other times, straight from the carafe.
  • Radar O'Reilly's real name is Walter, a name many believe was derived from the novel M*A*S*H: A Novel About Three Army Doctors, but which was, in fact, invented for the series. It was invented for the character after actor Gary Burghoff, who played Radar, asked why his character doesn't seem to have an actual first name.
  • It's common to recall that M*A*S*H had a number of original actors leave, replacing them with very similar characters every time. This is not expressly true. While they did state explicitly that BJ Hunnicutt was Trapper's replacement, and obviously Col. Potter and Major Winchester were the new camp commander and second in command, the idea that they were similar characters bears examination. Henry Blake was a conscript who hated being in the Army as much as Hawkeye and Trapper did, and was fairly lax in his command duties, essentially becoming "one of the guys", liked by them but not exactly respected. Sherman Potter was "regular Army", but this translated into his being A Father to His Men, with the others coming to revere him as a commander and approve of him as a person^note note that while Hawkeye was on a First-Name Basis with Blake, and more often than not would disobey Blake's orders that he disagreed with or found inconvenient, he respected Potter's authority and always addressed him as "Colonel", outside of two occasions of You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious . Trapper John showed a willingness to be dishonest on many occasions, including cheating on his wife with a series of nurses and skirting rules even when it came to medical procedures. BJ, on the other hand, was scrupulously honest, never cheated on his wife (well, once, and he was racked with guilt over it, in an episode most fans would prefer to pretend never happened) and nearly came to blows with Hawkeye when the latter wanted to prescribe an appendectomy on a war-happy colonel who didn't actually need it in order to prevent him from sacrificing his men. While Trapper routinely went along with such ideas, BJ's professionalism as a doctor prevented him from even considering it. Finally, while Charles Winchester was nearly as arrogant as Frank Burns, he was also a brilliant surgeon, an honest and fundamentally decent man, and developed a grudging respect for Hawkeye, which was returned ^note see, for instance, Hawkeye's "will" written during a stint at a Battallion Aid station. He leaves to Winchester his bathrobe. Purely because it's purple, the color of royalty, remarking that while Hawkeye may have succeeded in pricking his ego, he always kept his dignity, a thing Hawkeye greatly respected him for.. Burns, meanwhile, was an utter quack, a hypocritical coward, and saw Hawkeye as nothing but a menace, with Hawkeye seeing Burns as beneath contempt.
  • Final note to the idea of replacements; Radar's replacement when he left was an existing character; rather than invent a new camp clerk, Potter gave the job to Klinger, who had been there since the first season, and was clearly not just "another Radar".
• The Muppet Show
  • The show does not have guest hosts, it has guest stars. Kermit is the permanent host. Not helped by the fact that in the 2011 film, the Muppets do need a celebrity host for the telethon, but though they do get Jack Black as the host (against his will), he serves more as a guest star while Kermit does his usual hosting duty. Then again, this is justified, as Black was only there against his will.
  • Additionally, Rowlf was not a member of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. He was part of the orchestra which included most of the Electric Mayhem, and has occasionally played piano alongside other members, but has rarely performed with all five original members. In part because Rowlf and Dr. Teeth were both performed by Jim Henson, and their instruments are similar (Rowlf plays piano; Dr. Teeth plays keyboard, and has sometimes played piano).
  • The episodes with Vincent Price and Alice Cooper are often referred to as Halloween episodes, yet while the episodes are both horror-themed, neither are Halloween episodes. The holiday isn't even mentioned in those episodes. The Alice Cooper episode did go out the week before Halloween, but the Vincent Price episode was first broadcast in January. The confusion probably stems from the two episodes being released on a 1994 VHS that was explicitly Halloween-themed.
  • The Muppets' own mad scientist, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew was based on the show's backer, Lord Lew Grade. Except, no; Henson himself said in an interview in 1982 that this wasn't the case.
  • On a meta level, it's well known that the word "Muppet" is a combination of "marionette" & "puppet"; actually, Henson just liked the word, and made up the "combination of marionette/puppet" thing because he figured people would understand that better. More info here.
  • Some think that when Jim Henson died, his son Brian started playing Kermit. Actually, the actor who took over after Jim Henson died was named Steve Whitmire; the only character who Brian replaced Jim in playing was the Newsman.
• One commonly-mocked scene on NCIS involved a hacker hacking into Abby's computer. Abby and McGee try and stop the hacker by typing on the same keyboard to code faster. This is supposed to be an example of Hollywood Hacking. Except in context, Abby and McGee are panicking, it doesn't work, and the technophobic Gibbs actually solves the problem; he pulls the plug. Then he gives them the stare equivalent of his Dope Slap, and they look ashamed of themselves.
• Once Upon a Time:
  • People who are only casually aware of the series sometimes claim that it features Elsa from Frozen making a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo. In fact, the character in the show actually is Elsa. While she's a slightly different version of the character from the film, they're very explicitly the same character—and Anna, Kristoff, and Hans are in the series too. Once Upon a Time is produced and distributed by ABC, which is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, so the showrunners have full rights to use licensed Disney characters.
  • It is often claimed that the plot is kicked off by Emma coming to Storybrooke to take her long-lost son Henry away from his adoptive mother Regina and the whole first season is one big custody battle. Except that is not the reason Emma comes to Storybrooke. Henry pays an unexpected visit to his birth mother and convinces her to take him back to Storybrooke in hopes she will break the town's Dark Curse as she is prophesied to do. While Emma's decision to stay in Storybrooke is motivated by concern Regina is an unfit parent, and there is a lot of drama caused by the latter's understandable fear Emma will take her adopted son away, she does not try to regain custody of Henry until near the end of the season, and even that is quickly cut off in a couple episodes and rendered irrelevant in the following seasons.
• Many an Only Fools and Horses fan will say that Tessa Peake-Jones played an extra in the first episode, "Big Brother", before playing Raquel in the later series. However, Peake-Jones herself has confirmed that she wasn't in the episode and doesn't know how the rumour got started.
• Pee-wee's Playhouse is often said to have been cancelled due to Paul Reubens being arrested for masturbating in an adult theater in 1991. But in reality, it was Reubens who made the decision to end the show, due to a combination of not wanting it to get stale from being on the air too long and desiring to branch out into other things. The two events were purely coincidental.
• Pipo De Clown: Some viewers blame "political correctness" for why Klukkluk was removed from the 2003 movie. However, director Martin Lagestee himself denied this, stated that Klukkluk didn't appear because he was planned to be in the focus of the sequel movie Pipo & The Secret Of The Barkini Triangle (though development for that film fell through). Klukkluk would later appear in the musical, the 2017 series and various other media, though without the brownface like the 1950s version.
• Power Rangers:
  • The Rangers' favorite hangout in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers is not called "Ernie's Juice Bar." It's the Angel Grove Youth Center, which happens to include a juice bar run by a man named Ernie. Ernie doesn't own the juice bar, as it isn't a private business; it's one of several amenities offered by the local Youth Center, which is (by all appearances) a public recreational facility run by the city of Angel Grove. In fact, in Turbo and In Space, other people are running it. This confusion likely arises because of "Ernest's Juice Saloon" in a season two time travel episode.
    • Actually, it likely stems from the sign on the Youth Center's wall, which reads "Angel Grove Youth Center: Gym & Juice Bar." It is also referred to as such by the radio DJ in "Day of the Dumpster" (it's one of the first things we hear in the entire series, even). "Juice Bar" is likely being used when they are specifically referring to the area where Ernie makes their drinks, as opposed to the gym, studying area, arcade, etc.
  • Also in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Zedd's Putties have a weak point in their chest, which leads people to think they're a downgrade. But their 'Z' has to be struck multiple times with very powerful blows, like flying kicks, or two people delivering a hard punch to the 'Z.' Well, at least until villain decay sets in.
  • "Why don't they just call their Zords and finish the monster when it's small?" One of Zordon's rules is to never escalate a battle unless Rita forces you to. There's a practical reason for that, too; monsters often appear in the city, and calling the Megazord to take it out quickly would do more damage. Also, Zordon makes a few exceptions when the Rangers are on the ropes, like when he tells them to use their Zords to crush Samurai Fan Man while he's still small. Regardless, they wait until he grows large to call their Zords, and every Zord combination except the Ultrazord gets its ass handed to it.
  • Many fans have cited how it makes no sense that the Rangers would drop the powers they obtained in Power Rangers Zeo in favor for those in Power Rangers Turbo, since the Zeo powers grow stronger over time and are easily able to scale to any new threats, as was demonstrated by how Jason struggled to control the Gold Ranger powers because they had grown too strong for him to handle without being accustomed to them before. Except the series never said that - the Zeo Crystal was stated to increase in power over time, but it was never stated that the same would apply to the individual powers of the Rangers empowered by it. For that matter, Jason didn't struggle with the Gold Ranger powers because of their strength, but because he had inherited them from Trey of Triforia, an alien with three bodies, which put three times as much strain on him to maintain them. The Gold Ranger powers didn't even come from the Zeo Crystal at all, which is why the Gold Ranger has a different morphing call and doesn't follow the same naming conventions of the other Zeo Rangers, who are referred to as Zeo Ranger One through Five, rather than by their colors. This myth seems to stem from History of Power Rangers making this assumption in their video on Zeo, and the fandom taking it as fact.
  • Zeo is also where many fans claim that Tommy Oliver was revealed to be Native American. That didn't happen - it was his brother who was adopted by a Native American shaman. The fact that Jason David Frank looked Native American likely contributed to the confusion, but he had no actual Native American heritage and the series gives us no reason to believe his character did too.
• Mark Goodson and Bill Todman did not create The Price Is Right. Bob Stewart developed it in 1954 while overseeing a local New York City show called The Sky's The Limit. He saw an auction house barker conduct a contest where people made bids on items of merchandise. Whoever was closest to the item's price without going over got to buy the item at its winning bid price. Stewart shopped the show around (under the name Auction-Aire) with no success until Monty Hall brokered a meeting for him with Goodson-Todman in 1956.
  • Contrary to what many people seem to think and what the Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows says, the final segment of the CBS show is not the "Showcase Showdown". Since 1972, it has simply been called the "Showcase". In 1975, the "Showcase Showdown" was introduced when the show expanded to an hour to determine who goes to the Showcase via spinning the Big Wheel.
• The 1995 BBC miniseries adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is famous for a scene where Mr. Darcy comes out of the lake in his Sexy Soaked Shirt, so much so that a (rather frightening) statue◊ was made of it years later. Problem being, the scene of him walking out of the lake? Never happened. We see him dive into the lake, swim underwater, and then the next time we see him, he's already out of the water and his shirt is nearly dry.
• Parodies and homages of The Prisoner (1967) will often show the title character wearing a big button on his jacket with simply the number 6 on it. In the actual show, the button he is given has the numeral but also the Village's penny-farthing bicycle logo on it, and he almost immediately discards the button anyway, rejecting his numerical classification.
  • The Prisoner is also often considered by many to be a Sequel Series to Danger Man, as both star Patrick McGoohan as a spy. McGoohan himself was always insistent that they be considered different characters, although this may have simply been because he didn't have the IP rights to the Danger Man character. While The Prisoner certainly could be considered a Spiritual Sequel or unofficial sequel, it has no official connection to Danger Man.
• The panel show QI has debunking things considered Common Knowledge, then explaining the facts, as its central concept. There is even a segment of the show called "General Ignorance," which deals explicitly with this kind of thing. They still mess up on occasion, and at one point retroactively awarded points that contestants should have received in earlier shows (Alan Davies got something like 500 points).
• One of the biggest controversies surrounding Robot Wars was the treatment of the Seventh Wars' runner-up Storm 2, whom the show's producers apparently tried to sabotage at every turn because they hated its Boring, but Practical design. This included introducing a new rule that all contestants must have an "active weapon" specifically to prevent Team Storm from competing unless they rebuilt their robot, tried to have them disqualified for not using said weapon enough when that didn't work, and worst of all, colluded with Team Typhoon, their opponents in the grand final, to lie about how much damage their robot Typhoon 2 had taken so the judges would grant them the win instead. Even on this wiki, you'll find people furiously arguing that Storm 2 was robbed and that Typhoon 2 was an undeserving champion. However, in the wake of the series' brief revival in 2016, this story was put under much greater scrutiny. For one thing, this narrative originated with Team Storm's captain Ed Hoppitt, who was far from an unbiased source and clearly held a grudge, especially considering the multiple reports that he attempted to sabotage former Team Typhoon member Gary Cairns over a decade later in the aforementioned revival by trying to buy up a part that he had no use for, but Cairns desperately needed to repair his new robot PP3D. In terms of the Executive Meddling, it seems unlikely that the producers had it out for Storm 2 as they were not only willing to overlook an actual rule violation Team Storm committed in the Seventh Wars,^note Storm 2 made use of a pair of side-skirts that they could remove when dealing with opponents they would be a liability against, breaking a rule outlawing "interchangeable defensive upgrades", but also used Manipulative Editing to their favour in the Third World Championships,^note In the grand final Storm 2 pinned its opponent, Supernova, against the wall. Supernova managed to free itself and went on to immobilise Storm 2, but the judges ruled in favour of the latter, arguing that Supernova had been stuck for long enough to count as a KO. The second half of the battle was cut from the televised version, suggesting that Hoppitt's allegations against them were heavily exaggerated, if not fabricated entirely.
• Saturday Night Live:
  • It's common knowledge even among people who worked on the show that the original line-up of the "Not Ready for Primetime Players" was Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner. The fact is that the first episode also included George Coe and Michael O'Donoghue (the show's first head writer) among the players, with no distinction that they were special guests or "Featured Players". They were around for the second episode as well but thanks to a title card not being displayed, Coe didn't receive credit for that episode, and after that left the show as a full-time cast member, appearing sporadically after that, usually uncredited. After the third episode, O'Donoghue was never credited among the NRFPT Players again, instead billed as a special guest or uncredited. The brevity of their time on the show is the reason we don't recall them as founding cast members.
  • SNL has a reputation for hiring "young, unknown" comics and making them famous (assuming they have staying power). However, multiple cast members over the years were either already known or had been working steadily in showbiz for a good while before being hired for SNL, including, but not limited to, George Coe, Jim Belushi, Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Martin Short, Anthony Michael Hall, Randy Quaid, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Michael McKean, Chris Elliot, Janeane Garofalo and Kenan Thompson. Not to mention some performers became famous despite their time on SNL, rather than because of it, including Joan Cusack, Robert Downey, Jr. and Sarah Silverman.
    • The definition of "young" is also fluid. While SNL has hired mostly 20- and 30-somethings, several of the players have been in their late 30's, while George Coe and Michael McKean were hired at age 46 and Leslie Jones at the age of 47. Darrell Hammond was hired at 39 but stuck around until he was 53 before leaving.
  • Steve Martin was never a regular cast member; between his first appearance on the show in 1976 to today, he only appeared in 24 episodes. Then again, it's an easy mistake. He hosted the show 2-3 times per season between 1976 and 1980, except for the 1978-1979 season in which he hosted one episode that year. Not to mention, "The Festrunk Brothers" is one of the show's most iconic sketches.
  • Similarly: Jim Carrey was never a cast member (although he has hosted several times, and had a recurring guest role as Joe Biden). He got his start on the sketch comedy series In Living Color!. He's sometimes incorrectly assumed to be an SNL alum, presumably due to being confused with Mike Myers (whose career followed a very similar trajectory to his).
  • The (generally agreed to be) horrendous 11th Season ended with the firing of all the cast, except Jon Lovitz, right? It's remembered that in the closing sketch at the end of the season, Lovitz was the only one Lorne Michaels "saved" from a studio fire that he had set. The issue isn't as cut and dry as that. Several cast members from that season chose to leave, such as Joan Cusack, Randy Quaid, Terry Sweeney, Danitra Vance and Al Franken (who was a returnee from Season 5, and would return again). Others had been fired, or chose to leave, before the season was over, such as Damon Wayans, Dan Vitale and Don Novello. Ultimately, Nora Dunn, Dennis Miller and A. Whitney Brown not only weren't fired but returned with Lovitz for the next several seasons.
  • When Norm Macdonald passed away, it became memetic to talk about how he was "fired from SNL" because "he wouldn't stop telling OJ jokes". Neither part was expressly true. He was never fired from the show; he was "fired" from the Weekend Update segment by NBC president Don Ohlmeyer, and the official stated reason for this was that Macdonald "was not funny", saying he watched multiple clips during which the audience hardly chuckled at him. Whether this is true or not is up for debate, but the media immediately tied the whole thing to Ohlmeyer's friendship with OJ Simpson, insinuating that Ohlmeyer wanted revenge against Macdonald for his constant jokes about the OJ murder trial. The problem with that theory is that SNL as a whole made sketch upon sketch about the OJ trial and in every one they painted OJ as guilty as sin. Plus, it wasn't like Macdonald could have kept making those jokes without approval; ad-libbing or making a joke that was expressly forbidden is the surest route to losing your job there, and as stated before, Lorne Michaels wanted it clear that Macdonald wasn't being fired, just removed from one part of the show. He stayed on for a few episodes after that, leaving of his own accord later.
    • On top of that, Macdonald's removal from Weekend Update came well after the OJ trial had ended and making continuous jokes about it was seen as passé. Macdonald wasn't making OJ jokes at anywhere near the same rate when the removal occurred.
  • A couple of people are commonly believed to have been banned from the show, but technically aren't:
    • Adrien Brody hosted in Season 28 (2002-03) was supposedly banned for his performance. Some accounts suggest it was for introducing musical guest Sean Paul in a rude-boy Jamaican get-up. Others suggest it was for ad-libbing, as Lorne Michaels utterly hates unscripted performances. It appears that the rumor that he was banned was started by Tina Fey, who apparently hated the idea of his hosting.
    • Elvis Costello was briefly banned after his first appearance in Season 3. He was slated to play "Less than Zero"; instead, he played "Radio Radio", a song critical of the music publishing establishment, which included NBC. But his audacity was celebrated; he returned to the show in 1989, and he later took part in the show's 25th anniversary special by recreating his song switch.
• Seinfeld:
  • Everyone knows that George Costanza is an only child. Except he isn't; he mentions having a brother at least twice. The writer of one of the episodes (The Parking Space) was Larry David, so it can be assumed it isn't a continuity error, and this is never contradicted in any future episode.
  • George is frequently described by fans as a portly, balding loser who can't get women, and yet has more sex partners than the average man. In truth, George rarely complained about not being able to attract women, he just complained about how quickly his relationships seemed to go sour, or in some cases how he seemed unable to get away from a woman who wanted him, but in whom he was not/no longer interested. This was in contrast to Jerry, who would always find some token flaw in his dates and use it as an excuse to stop seeing them.
• Sesame Street:
  • The idea that concerns about childhood obesity meant Cookie Monster learned to eat fewer cookies, or even got renamed the Veggie Monster, with some people even saying he was recolored green. Nope, he's still Cookie Monster, he's still blue, and he doesn't eat fewer cookies. Hoots the owl once told him to (in song), but unsuccessfully, and Cookie Monster has encouraged the viewers to eat traditionally-healthy food... as well as cookies.
  • Many people claim that the nightmare Cookie Monster had while staying over at Ernie's was caused by eating too many cookies. Except it wasn't— he had the nightmare because he was nervous due to mistaking Ernie's blanket for a creature. Complicating things is that he did have another nightmare in one skit about the idea of having too many cookies (he dreamt a talking cookie claimed it was a monster who ate too many cookies), but again, there was nothing to suggest that he had the nightmare from eating cookies.
  • The idea that Ernie and Bert were meant to be a gay couple. They weren't designed with any sexuality in mind, and were put in the show both for comedy and to show that people with different personalities can still be (platonic) friends. One longtime writer for the show was gay, and came up with some of their interactions based on interactions he had with his husband, but he didn't see the characters as a married couple.
  • Some people think that Oscar the Grouch lives in a trash can because he's poor, and that he's meant to represent a homeless person. Actually, he lives in the trash can by choice — he belongs to a species of monsters that all live in places like trash cans, garbage dumps, or tumble-down houses. His purpose on the show is to teach kids that it's normal and okay to be grouchy sometimes.
  • Some viewers have thought that certain characters from The Muppet Show have made appearances on Sesame Street, most often Miss Piggy or Bunsen and Beaker. In actual fact, the only Muppet to ever appear on Sesame Street was Kermit.
  • Some believe that the show was created by Jim Henson, even claiming it jumped the shark after he died. While Jim Henson was part of the show's early development, and he did play a lot of the puppet characters, he was never the showrunner. The series' actual creator was a woman named Joan Ganz Cooney.
• On Starsky & Hutch, the heroes' chief informant Huggy Bear has a lot of different jobs over the course of the show, but pimp is not one of them.
• Star Trek:
  • Vulcans:
    • The only thing everyone knows about them from Star Trek (apart from the pointy ears) is that they have no emotions. They in fact have very strong emotions—often described as more powerful than that of humans, to the point that, when combined with their strength and technology, it led to anarchy that nearly destroyed them. This is why their culture now encourages all Vulcans to suppress emotion and act on logic. Their stoic nature is cultural, not genetic. To see what Vulcans would be like without this cultural aspect, just look to the Romulans, an offshoot of the Vulcans directed their aggression outward and became interstellar conquerors. Some Vulcans do purge their emotions through the discipline of Kohlinar, but this is very rare. In fact, both Spock and Tuvok embarked on this path, and both failed. Also, even when their emotions are suppressed, Vulcans still clearly display emotions all the time, just understated ones - Spock for instance is a smartass in nearly every episode.
    • Among fans, the Vulcans are seen as noble Space Elves who are above such things as prejudice and acting immorally. This interpretation became such a widespread belief that the Vulcans as seen on Star Trek: Enterprise were derided as being "wrong" because they do things like manipulate, be prejudiced against other species, and otherwise act in a manner quite different from being paragons of virtue. The reality is that not every Vulcan is Spock or Tuvok and the species as a whole had never been portrayed as being morally superior to humans at all; the one time the Enterprise visits Vulcan in the original series, Vulcans are shown demonstrating resentment, planning betrayal, plotting murder, and jealousy, all wrapped up in a veneer of being "logical" and that behavior isn't seen as anomalous by the other Vulcans present. Spock even congratulates T'Pring on her conniving.
    • Many know that Vulcans don't use contractions. Except that they do. This likely comes from people misattributing this fact that is actually about Data from The Next Generation, who was shown to be unable to use contractions due to being an android, outside of some Early-Installment Weirdness and O.O.C. Is Serious Business moments.
    • It was a deeply-cherished bit of Fanon for decades that Spock had been the first Vulcan in Starfleet, despite this never being stated onscreen, so that when T'Pol was announced for Star Trek: Enterprise fans were irate (despite T'Pol not even being a Starfleet officer at first). In fact, even within the canon of TOS, there had been a whole ship crewed entirely by Vulcans (the USS Intrepid), which presumably would have included a Captain who was senior to Spock and had probably been in Starfleet for longer than he. In "Journey to Babel" though Sarek is annoyed that Spock chose Starfleet over the Vulcan Science Academy, there's nothing to indicate that he was the first to do so, or that it was scandalous to Vulcan society - just to Sarek specifically. Indeed, "Amok Time" seems to indicate that many Vulcans are impressed by Spock's exploits on the Enterprise. Likewise, Spock was often held as the first Human-Vulcan hybrid and when T'Pol and Trip Tucker bore a (short-lived) child in Enterprise they were furious. But Spock was never said to be the first - only that the other Vulcan children teased him mercilessly for his heritage, and unfortunately children can be very cruel to the peers in pretty much any circumstances. Star Trek: Discovery even has Spock say that hybrid Vulcans are uncommon, but there are others like him.
    • The idea that Vulcans never lie. Vulcans have lied on several occasions; they just prefer not to do so unless it's necessary. They also tend to excuse themselves with euphemisms like "I exaggerated", or skirt the rules by deliberately implying something different while never saying anything technically untrue.
    • Or that they completely lack a sense of humor; Sulu even laughingly dismisses such a notion when someone brought it up once, given his extensive first-person exposure to Spock's constant snarky insults. Even Tuvok got in some zingers.
  • Not only does no character in Star Trek ever actually say the specific line "Beam Me Up, Scotty!", people often forget that chief engineer Montgomery Scott isn't the one who usually has the job of beaming crewmen up. That's a guy named Mr. Kyle that no one remembers. That said, Scotty does do the job on occasion, and Kirk even gives the order “Scotty, beam us up” in at least two episodes.
  • Beam down to a planet wearing a red shirt and you die, right? Unless you're Scotty or Uhura, of course. Well, even staying on the ship isn't a guarantee of survival for those poor hapless extras, and death does not care about the color of your uniform top. Plenty of "redshirts" are actually wearing command gold and science blue, and not all of them die. In fact, a shocking number of them not only survive but live to appear again. Check for names like Leslie, Riley, Kelowitz, DeSalle, Farrell, et al. This video argues persuasively that red is actually the safest color to wear if you're an extra in a landing party. While it's true more redshirts died than others wearing other colors, the percentage of deaths among them is much lower, because most landing parties had multiple security guards (wearing red) and only a handful of command or science personnel. Episodes like "The Devil in the Dark" featured whole security teams who survived the entire episode. The reason it seems like redshirts are always doomed to die is that we only focus on the ones who died and forget about the ones who lived. We also tend to lump gold and blueshirt deaths in with the "redshirts". In fact, percentage-wise, goldshirts have a much worse track record, with almost half the non-regulars in goldshirts in landing parties not making it back, while nearly two thirds of the redshirts who beamed down to planets made it back in one piece.
  • Kirk is a hot space cowboy who plays by his own rules and seduces gorgeous alien babes, right? What, he doesn't? Well, not as much as people like to remember. In fact, while women do seem to fall for him a good bit, he rarely falls for them and even more rarely does he seduce them. Actually, most of the times when Kirk seduces a woman, it's due to them being the Villain of the Week, and him trying to protect his ship and crew by playing the part of a male Femme Fatale. The times where he genuinely falls for a woman, he never treats it as a random tryst either, but takes the relationship very seriously, though said relationship will inevitably end with Kirk regretfully having to move on because of his devotion to his duty. Also, he's kind of a hardass about breaking the rules, and comes down pretty hard on his crew when they do break them. Of course, in the films he does commit nine violations of Federation law, but this is all in the course of trying to save Spock's life, and he fully expected to be booted from Starfleet as a result. Kirk is emphatically not a space cowboy who plays by his own rules, but by all means a professional officer who is Married to the Job and takes the regulations and responsibilities of his station very seriously, and at most slants somewhat towards the "Good" option whenever he's placed in a situation where he had to choose between To Be Lawful or Good. Some of this misconception is likely due to, or at least reinforced by, the characterization of Kirk in the reboot universe films, as that Kirk does have these qualities.
  • Present in almost every Star Trek game is the concept that phasers and other beam weapons work best against enemy shields and torpedoes work best against the enemy's hull. This idea doesn't appear in any episode or film. In fact, "Tears of the Prophets" had a planet's defense grid open an attack on the combined Alpha Quadrant force with torpedoes and finish off ships with beam weapons, which wouldn't make much sense unless the opposite is true.
  • Bring up the name "Wesley Crusher" in a room full of Star Trek fans and you are certain to be met with groans and eye-rolls, along with accusations that he's "always" the one to save the ship or solve the problem. This actually only happens six times during the course of a 15-year series encompassing 178 episodes and 4 movies (though to some, the fact that he's so young makes even just six incidents excessive); there are actually more instances of Wesley screwing up, lacking confidence or even being the problem than being the one to save everybody. Part of the reason this became infamous is that the show packed several of these episodes fairly close together and early on in the series, giving the impression that it happens a lot more often than it did.
  • There is also no such thing as a "Vulcan death grip". The phrase itself is used by Spock to intimidate someone by claiming that such a thing exists, but he is explicitly lying about it (which also contradicts another thing "everybody knows" about Vulcans; namely that they never lie). The confusion probably stems from the fact that there is a neck pinch that's used several times throughout the franchise by the Vulcans, but this only renders someone unconscious.
    • However, in "Journey to Babel" Sarek mentions an ancient Vulcan execution technique which snaps the neck, called Tal-shaya. The way that Spock grips Kirk's head in "The Enterprise Incident" certainly looks like how one might perform such an execution.
  • In the wake of Star Trek: Discovery producers announcing that they would be "doing away" with the old "Roddenberry Rule" about conflict, Trekkies everywhere began to cry that the series was ruining Roddenberry's vision. Unfortunately, much about that rule is this trope. Gene Roddenberry did indeed have a rule that petty personal conflict between humans (or, as some interpreted it, Starfleet officers) was not to happen; that we would have "risen above" such concerns. However, this only applied to series set in the 24th Century, as he specifically came up with this rule during the creation of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He never thought it would, or should, apply to the original series. Not to mention this "rule" was frequently ignored, or written around, even while Roddenberry was alive, as it sucks potential drama out of almost every situation. Another element of common knowledge surrounding this trope is that it was elevated to mean humans never had any conflict of any sort, which clearly was never the case, but some fans still insist that was a thing at some point.
  • It's been a long-held fan belief that the shapes of the uniform badges on the original series represented the crew members' respective starships, with the Enterprise being the only one to have the well-known delta symbol that would later be used throughout Starfleet. It turns out, however, that this wasn't supposed to be the case. All starships (with the exception of the Exeter, which was an error that was left in) used the delta symbol- the non-delta badges represent other assignments like merchant marine ships, starbases, or deep-space outposts.
    • On the subject of uniforms, a bit of Common Knowledge that essentially became Ascended Fanon was that the Original Series' uniform colors were Red, Blue and Gold. In reality, that gold was actually a lime green that between the stage lights, the velour material used for the shirts and the state of the technology of filming and broadcasting color TV at the time showed up on screen as anywhere from a light ochre to bright gold. The intended color can better be seen when looking at Kirk's wraparound tunic and dress uniform tunic which were both dyed with the same color but made from different materials than the normal tunic. As early as The Animated Series, Roddenberry and everyone else just ran with the misconception (which is why TNG and later series had Red, Blue and Gold as the three branch colors), but misconception it was from the perspective of the '60s series.
  • For some reason, it's become an oft-repeated idea even among long-time fans that Captain Christopher Pike suffers an accident that leaves him paralyzed and unable to speak, and thus his command of the Enterprise comes to an end, allowing Kirk to take over. The idea has become popular since the return of Pike in both Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds with people suggesting that Pike will "have his accident" in this or that episode or season, and Paul Wesley, the new actor for James T. Kirk, is being prepped to take over as the new star. This ignores the fact that Pike's tour as Captain resulted in a promotion, that Kirk's five-year mission begins in the year 2265, and that Pike's accident would not happen until 2267, very shortly before the events of the episode "The Menagerie, Part I". So shortly before it, in fact, that Kirk was not even aware of Pike's condition until he saw him in his chair. Predictions that "this will be when Pike has his accident" began as early as midway through Discovery Season 2, and as soon as it was announced that we'd be seeing Kirk in Strange New Worlds, some fans became certain that the showrunners were planning to get rid of Pike and put Wesley as Kirk in the starring role as early as the second (already Jossed) or third season.
  • The stereotypical Star Trek fan is a fat, obnoxious, basement-dwelling male nerd who speaks Klingon and can breathlessly recite the placement of Deep Space 9's crew quarters. While such people undoubtedly exist, it can be a surprise to learn that the fanbase for far longer was stereotyped as being female-dominated and consumed by shippers (similar to the modern Supernatural fandom, for instance), with most fan efforts up until the TNG era being led by women. Even after male fans became a more dominant force, the female side of the Star Trek community remained a major player; the term "slash" originates from Star Trek fandom, for instance. More generally, the idea of Star Trek as a niche nerd franchise is mostly the result of its cult status in the mid sixties and most of the eighties. From then on the Star Trek was pretty mainstream; The Next Generation averaged over 10 million viewers per episode at the height of its popularity, with Deep Space 9 not that far behind, and both were primarily marketed as family shows. In addition both the Original Series and The Next Generation were nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series. As for the movies, all but one of the 13 movies topped the domestic box office in their opening weekend.
  • Everyone knows Deanna Troi's a useless, whiny individual who crashes the ship and states the obvious all the time, right? Wrong. Deanna Troi doesn't get as many episodes focusing on her as the others, but she's shown to be very competent when she is seen doing her job and in some episodes, such as "Night Terrors", she's been crucial. She is more expressive than the other characters, but she's hardly "whiny", in fact she's nearly as big of an optimist as Geordi. As for crashing the ship in the movie, it was actually the saucer section (the stardrive section had just exploded) which happened to be heavily damaged (because of a recent battle) and out of control (because of a shockwave caused by the aforementioned explosion), meaning that a crash-landing was the best possible outcome. And that was the first time she crashed the Enterprise; the second time (with the next Enterprise) was a ramming attack ordered by Captain Picard against a nearly-unstoppable juggernaut of an enemy starship. "Stating the obvious" is usually due to Viewer Myopia— what she says is obvious to the viewers, but not the characters.
  • Keiko O'Brien is another character who's mistakenly thought of as being overly negative/whiny. In actuality, while she has a bit of a smart mouth, she's seen being affectionate to Miles all the time, and even joking with him.
  • Some people think Ferengi were based off stereotypes of Jews. While this is somewhat understandable, the creators have consistently said they were based off capitalists — in particular, the kind of ruthless corporate raider that rose to prominence in the 1980s.
  • Some people think that Uhura's habit of sitting sideways on her chair is played purely for titillation due to her legs. While Uhura's actress was partially chosen due to her conventional beauty, sitting sideways on the chair wasn't pure fanservice. She mainly did it to look at the viewscreen while remaining at her station, and the only way to do so besides sitting in that pose was to sit on her knees, which would be impractical in a swivel chair.
  • The idea that phasers have only two settings: "stun" and "kill". This is only true of the early phasers, which are shown in Enterprise. All series set after Enterprise have phasers with multiple settings, including "low stun", "maximum stun", "kill", and "vaporise".
  • Some Trekkies think that Nurse Ogawa had a miscarriage in "All Good Things", and it certainly doesn't help that the phrase "lost the baby" was said. What actually happened was that an anomaly was causing things to heal or change back to a past state (Geordi grew new eyes, etc). Since the other changes reverted back to normal once the anomaly was dealt with, it's probable that Ogawa's baby grew back too.
• Supernatural has the reputation of disproportionally killing off female characters. A close examination of the bodycount shows that there actually are twice more male victims and women are more likely to survive. While there are those who would say the show deserves criticism for the many deaths of love interests and the use of problematic tropes, recurring male characters don't really fare better. Some love interests like Lisa and Amelia were also allowed to be written off without being killed. The perception is possibly not helped by the breakout characters of Bobby, Castiel and Crowley who all had significantly longer tenure than any female characters.
• Everyone knows that Ted Lasso is a warm-and-fuzzy feel-good comedy about the power of kindness and positive thinking, to the point that The Onion satirically described the show as a series of stock photos of people hugging and numerous thinkpieces have been written about the show's promotion of toxic positivity. Except a central theme of the show is that a positive attitude can't solve everything and can actually be harmful if used as a band-aid solution for real problems. Ted's constant optimism and determination to help everyone around him causes almost as many problems as it solves,^note Among other examples, Ted begins having panic attacks due to his failure to deal with his negative emotions around his divorce and living far away from his son, Nate undergoes a Face–Heel Turn because Ted's mentorship of him feeds into his need for the external validation he never got from his emotionally neglectful father, and Beard calls out Ted's "winning isn't everything" philosophy as incredibly selfish when so many people's careers depend on the team's performance. and is eventually revealed to be a coping mechanism for the trauma of his father's suicide. The series also generally deals with very heavy topics that belie its feel-good reputation, including divorce, physical and emotional abuse, personal trauma, misogyny, toxic masculinity, homophobia, and mental illness.
• Some viewers, mainly those who despise said series, claim that Teletubbies was purely made for entertainment purposes and has no educational value. This is false, as several episodes have covered educational topics like numbers and colors, and some Tummy Tales segments teach about traditions in other cultures.
• Everybody who's seen Tiger King remembers the infamous moment from the second episode where Saff got his arm ripped off by a tiger. He actually didn't, though: he got his arm mauled by a tiger, then opted to have it amputated rather than going through reconstructive surgery. The confusion is understandable, since even Joe apparently thought (initially) that Saff lost his arm that day; in footage of the incident, he can be heard saying "The arm is completely gone!", and later tells a group of zoo guests "A tiger tore her [sic] arm off" when notifying them about what happened.
• The Twilight Zone (1959):
  • Everyone knows that the episode He's Alive was never rerun or shown in syndication because of its controversial subject matter. While it is true that a lot of people who grew up on the reruns probably never saw it, it's not because it was banned, but because it was part of the fourth season which had hour-long episodes, so couldn't be shown in the usual half-hour timeslot. Despite this, the fourth season (He's Alive included) was included in the syndication and cable packages, but was usually shown in a different timeslot (usually late at night) or burned off all at once in a marathon.
  • Everyone knows that The Eye of the Beholder revolves around a woman with a bandaged face waiting to see if her most recent plastic surgery has fixed her hideous deformity, which is actually conventional beauty, while the other people in her world look like twisted-lipped pigs. Except she hasn't had plastic surgery. The doctor explains that her bone structure and other medical factors prevent them from surgically correcting her face, so they've been trying to cure her with medications and shots instead, and are waiting to see if her body responds.
• The Ultra Series suffers very badly from this due to its extreme Mainstream Obscurity.
  • Many people will say that Ultraman is a single long-running series featuring multiple incarnations of the eponymous character...Yeah, except Ultraman only ran for 39 episodes from 1966-1967 and all his "incarnations" are completely different individuals from completely different series that are sometimes not even related at all to the original Ultraman.
  • Many will tell you Ultraman is made on a painfully low budget. In reality, the series was one of the most expensive TV shows of all time when it debuted (although Japanese shows are made on lower budgets compared to US shows), as it used the exact same kinds of special effects tactics used in movies of the period (also a strong case of Once Original, Now Common as many of these were groundbreaking for their time).
  • The Colour Timer was created to protect the budget from going overboard, right? Wrong! The Colour Timer was a last-minute addition made because the series' writers realized Ultraman had no weaknesses, so the Colour Timer was created for the sake of drama. The budget control is completely nonsensical as some episodes feature multiple fights and special effects scenes that go well over three minutes.
  • The Ultras always battle a giant rampaging Monster of the Week at the end of every episode and kill them with a beam to the face, correct? Not quite. While kaiju certainly make up the majority of the foes and the Behemoth Battles are certainly a major attraction, the Ultra heroes have met plenty of non-kaiju as well (mainly aliens; although many of them are able to turn giant-sized or get turned that way). Additionally, some Ultras have fought human-sized foes, thanks to their Sizeshifter abilities; not to mention some of the Monsters of the Week are spared or even protected if they're peaceful or non-malicious. The only Once per Episode of the franchise is that the main character needs to become the series' title hero; fights are only semi-obligatory. And to top it off, some Monsters of the Week are recurring foes of the Ultra heroes every bit as iconic in Japan as the heroes are, not one-shot characters (although many start off that way).
  • Every defense team is a hopeless Failure Hero that constantly needs an Ultraman to save the day, correct? Not really. The Hero Secret Service of every series does often need an Ultra hero's help to defeat the Monster of the Week, but at the same time, the Ultras wouldn't be able to win in the first place without them, as they can kill lesser monsters, whittle the main threat down, and even save the Ultra. Additionally, the defense teams have been able to defeat monsters without help from an Ultra (it just takes longer), and the Ultras utterly emphasize that they don't want humans to become dependent on them, thus will only appear to save the day once human effort has been totally exhausted and nothing else can be done. The defense teams are not there to pad time, but to support the heroes and fight alongside them.
• In VR Troopers the Skugs can only be defeated by touching each other, so one Skug would be invincible, right? Wrong! On multiple occasions, JB and Kaitlin have dispatched individual Skugs with their blasters and JB has even used his laser lance to take out a whole platoon of Skugs at once whenever he felt like There's No Kill like Overkill. Despite this, there have been parodies of VR Troopers where Grimlord sends down a single Skug and it's either damn near indestructible or at least gives them a lot of trouble. In the actual show, a simple blast from a VR laser pistol would have done the job.
• The West Wing is often described as a liberal triumphalist fantasy where the brilliant President and his noble staff win the day through the strength of their indomitable virtue, with the President demolishing all opposition through the power of a really good speech. In reality, while the President is indeed brilliant and the staff really are noble, they lose just as often as they win (if not more often), and there really aren't many moments that can honestly be described as "President gives speech, President wins." The main arc of the first season is actually these honest, dedicated public servants coming to the realization that they're craven do-nothings, and the show's writing team have talked about how they often struggled to put together a compelling list of the President's accomplishments.
  • The above is also paired with the common knowledge that Aaron Sorkin wrote the series as a pure liberal wet dream. In addition to the above points, Aaron Sorkin left the series after the fourth season, and most of the questionably-realistic "wish-fulfilment" moments (the characters "fixing" social security, bringing peace to Israel and Palestine, etc.) were actually written by his successors.
• Some claim Wheel of Fortune donated its original puzzle board to the Smithsonian Institution. In reality, the prop was destroyed, save for a single trilon on display at Sony Pictures Studios.
• Detectives Jimmy McNulty and William "Bunk" Moreland of The Wire are a classic pair of wise-cracking buddy cops who work the BPD's Homicide Unit, right? Well, sort of. Though Bunk and McNulty are very close friends, they're only partners in the first season, and only Bunk consistently works as a homicide detective for the entirety of the show. ^note  McNulty gets reassigned to the Marine Unit at the end of Season 1 for pissing off his superiors, he takes a job with the Major Crimes Unit midway through Season 2, he leaves the MCU to work as a beat cop at the end of Season 3, he returns to the MCU at the end of Season 4, and he's assigned back to Homicide when the MCU is disbanded at the beginning of Season 5. Even in Season 1, the two men spend surprisingly little time investigating crimes together, since McNulty spends the majority of Season 1 heading up the special Barksdale task force.
• The X-Files:
  • The idea that Mulder is a slob. Actually, his apartment is cluttered and he leaves his dishes to drip-dry, but he's otherwise pretty tidy.
  • Some people believe that Mulder is a bumbling doof, at least compared to Scully, and that he has bad aim, is sickly, and is weaker than Scully. In reality, he doesn't have more hospital visits than Scully, has great aim (the "bad aim" myth might've come from him putting his gun on the floor and firing blind, but that's not the same as having bad aim) and is likely a little bit stronger than Scully due to being taller.
  • Mulder's habit of sleeping on the couch has led some people believe he has nightmares or is an insomniac. He's had a few prophetic dreams but not many run-of-the-mill nightmares, and he generally sleeps well despite being on the couch. Likewise, he doesn't phone Scully in the middle of the night as much as people seem to believe.
  • Some people berate Mulder for "ditching" Scully and not getting on with the local law enforcement. He's usually fine with the local law enforcement if a bit impatient, and while he does ditch Scully sometimes, more often Scully walks off of her own accord.
  • The very existence of the Agent Mulder and Agent Scully tropes are steeped in the idea of Mulder as the ultimate believer and Scully as the ultimate skeptic. It's true that they are a believer and a skeptic, but Mulder doesn't believe everything, nor does Scully believe nothing. In fact, one major difference between the two is that they actually took the opposite track with regards to religion; Mulder doesn't believe in God and is instantly skeptical if someone credits strange happenings to their religious beliefs, while Scully is fairly devout and is likely to actually ponder if something implausible is real when spirituality gets involved.
• Zoey 101 ended because Jamie Lynn Spears unexpectedly got pregnant, right? Actually, the decision had already been made to wrap up the show by the time her pregnancy became public knowledge. To be fair, her pregnancy did spark debate about whether it was appropriate to air the (already complete) final season.

---