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Nearly every Robot Chicken episode has at least one instance of a cartoon's characters coming face to face with a problem that would be faced by ordinary people, and having no idea of what to do.


  • Super Mario Bros. sketches:
    • One sketch is about is about Mario and Luigi heading to Vice City (due to a closed bridge) and getting a pimped-out ride. They do several SMB things that don't work out the way you see them: Mario painfully hits his head trying to get coins from a supposed question block; Luigi accidentally stomps a kid's pet turtle to death thinking it's a Koopa, so a cop tries to arrest them; Mario and Luigi pick up some random woman (implied to be a hooker) thinking she's "Princess [Peach]", so her partner (implied to be a pimp) fires at Mario; when Luigi inquires about mushrooms to heal Mario, the "princess" takes them to a shady drug dealer who gives Mario a very different kind of mushroom, which makes Mario run over several people since he's now seeing humans as coins. Both of them end up being gunned down by the cops. Meanwhile, Yoshi takes a different detour and ends up in Raccoon City; he's immediately swarmed and devoured by zombies.
    • Another Mario sketch has a twofer. Mario and Luigi collect so many coins that they are able to buy a mansion, and are able to use the coins to bribe Birdo and even bribe Bowser out of Peach. Eventually, the coins run out, the mansion is foreclosed, and Mario, Luigi, and Peach are reduced to poverty (Peach initially attempts to reunite with Bowser, but by then he's moved on).
    • Yet another skit had Mario finally meeting Princess Peach's parents. While they're expected to be snobbish about their daughter marrying a commoner, Mario's own behavior- smelling like a sewer due to traveling through pipes, stealing a coin he found in their couch, talking about disgusting things while at dinner and his firepower transformation accidentally destroying their castle—would turn anybody off, no matter how much in love their daughter is with him.
  • G.I. Joe sketches:
    • G.I. Joe is recruited by the US government to train forces in Afghanistan in counter-terrorism tactics. It turns out that their cartoonish anti-Cobra tactics (intentionally using A-Team Firing, only for a suicide bomber to be completely undeterred and blow them up, and attempts to pull Dressing as the Enemy gets them slaughtered by their own side) are completely useless in real-world combat and all of the Joes are quickly massacred. On the other hand, a group of SEALs, using their real-world training, is successfully able to defeat Cobra with just bullets.
    • Similarly, this sketch has a real-world sniper join the Joes, only to defect to Cobra after they constantly make fun of him for slipping in a puddle of soda, even giving him the Embarrassing Nickname "Fumbles". Needless to say, when your enemy is a West Point-trained sniper and not an ineffectual Stormtrooper, you get an unholy massacre that leaves even Cobra Commander speechless.
    • In a third sketch, Snow Job wants to come on a mission but is denied as his snow gear is a) all white which in climates that aren’t related to snow makes him stick out like a sore thumb, b) would cause him to overheat since said gear is designed for the cold and c) he’s left stuck at the base as there aren't many missions he can come on because they're not restricted to cold weather spots. The two missions he does get to go on? One turns out the be a practical joke and the other is him shoveling the area around the base once the snow hits.
    • In a fourth sketch, turns out bringing your pets along on missions is a bad idea as the wide variety of animals cause chaos when trying to sneak up on Cobra.
    • In sketch number five, the president cuts the defense budget. When General Hawk is told this, he’s given the option of having the more efficient drone program cut or the GI Joes, who as pointed out cause millions of dollars in damages to stop one terrorist group. Upon realizing it, General Hawk sees himself out and the GI Joe’s are disbanded in favor of the drones, which take out Cobra effortlessly.
    • And finally in sketch number six, Junkyard the dog dies after eating a solid chocolate statue of Roadblock since chocolate is very toxic to dogs.
  • In one sketch, a woman wants her husband to ravish her like Captain Jack Sparrow. She asks him to be realistic... and he proceeds to, in his smarmiest Jack Sparrow voice, "romantically" talk about the disgustingly bad hygiene practices that pirates in the time of the Black Pearl would commit. Needless to say, the wife finds herself extremely turned off soon after.
    "Captain Jack": I've been brushing me teeth with rum and brine for close to 20 years, my little siren. Pay it no mind.
  • One skit shows the aftermath of Thelma & Louise. Their car crashes down into the canyon and by some miracle they survive but badly injured. They then complain that in retrospect they’d have been better off going to prison and through the trial as it could have taken years. As they wait for the cops to rescue them, the coyotes show up and finish them off.
  • In a Revenge of the Nerds sketch, the Nerds get hit with this trope TWICE. First, they're sent to prison for their antics, which include spying on the Pi Delta Pis with hidden cameras (illegal surveillance and invasion of privacy), pouring liquid heat in the Alpha Betas' jockstraps (apparently assault), and Lewis stealing Stan's costume to have sex with Betty (identity theft and rape). Gilbert seemingly reaches out to some of the other inmates and teaches them that learning is fun... and that turns out to be a fantasy Gilbert has to cope with the harsh reality for all of ten seconds before the Nerds all get their asses kicked anyway since they're in a prison filled with dozens of other, more violent criminals, with one inmate tearing Lewis's head off with his bare hands.
  • A skit parodying Back at the Barnyard lampshades the oddities of the farm animals (i.e. Bessie pointing out that male cows don't have udders and Otis telling Abby that cows don't have blonde hair). When Otis points out that a cow cannot walk on two legs because their knees would explode from the weight, all of the cows' legs promptly break and they cry out in pain.
    Otis: Fantasy looks pretty good now, huh, you judgmental bitches?!
  • This sketch parodying Doc McStuffins, shows the main character Dottie the realities of working in an actual doctor's office as opposed to stuffed animals. At first, she's merely treating a patient with a cold. The reality part comes in when the victim of a car accident comes in and Dottie's mother has to perform an emergency tracheotomy and then massage the patient's heart to keep her alive, and shows how bloody and stressful it is despite Dottie trying to sing a pick me up song to make the patient feel better.note  After the victim is stabilized, Dottie immediately tells her mother she wants to be an accountant instead. note 
  • Robin Hood sketches:
    • One sketch starts out with the ending of Disney's Robin Hood (1973) and Skippy, the little bunny, demands to know what happened after Robin and Marian wed. Allen-a-Dale, the rooster, quickly rattled off the historical afterfacts, such as King Richard leaving John back in charge so he could continue to fight in wars, specifically his war against Philip the Second of France, where he was shot by a young soldier, the wound turning gangrenous, pardoning said shooter only for the archer to then be flayed and strung up after Richard succumbed to the then-fatal infection, then John himself dying later due to dysentery.
    • In another Robin Hood-based sketch, it shows us the archery contest and, as it goes, Robin Hood splits the Sheriff's arrow in twain. The sheriff naturally protests the win saying he simply went second but when Friar Tuck, rather carelessly, declares Robin Hood the winner, Robin is immediately captured and hung on the spot.
  • In one episode, the nerd has a dream and starts entering various shows on The CW.
    • When he's on Arrow, he attempts to non-fatally wound a couple of mooks. He accidentally kills the first two by shooting them in the eye while trying to shoot them in the leg because he's never used a bow and arrow before, and finally succeeds in hitting the third in the leg... and severs the guy's femoral artery, causing him to go into shock and die from blood loss very quickly. Turns out that in real life arrows don't have pinpoint accuracy, and that Only a Flesh Wound is usually a load of crap. The trope is also lampshaded and called out in the conversation he has with Green Arrow before trying to shoot the mooks.
      Green Arrow: We need to take out those guards if we're going to rescue Felicity!
      Nerd: Cool! So is this season 1 where you kill every motherfucker with a pulse, or season 2 or 3 where you just give people crippling injuries that will make every day of the rest of their lives a Hell on Earth?
    • Another segment of the same sketch also has the nerd take the place of The Flash in the 2014 series, where he responds to a robbery in progress at a bank. He ends up taking a wrong turn, then only getting there after the robbers have killed everyone and left, since even though he has super speed, he has no idea how to navigate through the fictional Central City.
  • One episode subverts Joker Immunity by having the trope namer, The Joker, actually get executed for his numerous murders.
  • The Smurfs:
    • One short has Gargamel put on trial for attempted genocide.
    • Another has him finally capturing the Smurfs and eating them. However, since he didn't take into account how sentient beings would taste and (in all likelihood) ate them raw—or, at the very least, undercooked. He's turned off by just one bite and, after dumping what he made into the garbage, orders some Chinese takeout.
    • Yet a third one, in a parody of the Hunger Games, starts with an apparent gypsy moth infestation, which destroys every smurfberry in a 50-mile radius. As pointed out by Farmer Smurf, the village is a medieval farming community with no access to any form of pesticide and who made the choice to subsist on a single staple food crop instead of diversifying their crops and for whatever reason not turning a portion of the crop into preserves to ride out any shortage, as Sassette points out after the Smurfs win the Hunger Games.
    • The fourth one has Brainy is diagnosed with CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) as a result of being tossed on his head too many times.
  • In a Sailor Moon sketch, the Monster of the Week gets a Raging Stiffie after Serena transforms into her Fanservice-y outfit. He's embarrassed when he notices and tells Serena he doesn't feel like fighting anymore before retreating.
  • One Speed Racer sketch shows what would really happen to Spritle and Chim Chim as a result of stowing away in the Mach 5: when the trunk is opened, it's shown that they were turned to mush after another racer repeatedly rammed the back of the car.
  • In The A-Team parody "The B Team", The B Team is locked in a garage and attempt an A-Team Montage with power tools to construct a vehicle to escape. They all die of carbon monoxide poisoning due to the confined space.
  • In the Dexter's Laboratory skit "Dexter Goes to College":
    • Dexter tries applying to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (more commonly called "MIT" for short) but is denied due to not having any extracurricular activities. As it turns out, with or without a genius-level IQ, colleges do care about more than just grades and test scores—they want to know about any potential extracurriculars because they'd like to know how social you are. Ironically, the original series touched on this too. The episode "Sports a Poppin'" involves Dexter's dad trying to get him into sports for this exact reasoning.
    • The trope also comes into play when after being rejected, Dexter takes revenge on MIT by shrinking the campus and putting it into a bottle. It's not a good idea to piss off an actual supergenius.
  • One sketch features Vic Mackey accidentally swapping universes with The Thing and teaming up with the rest of the Fantastic Four, who just assume he's Ben after being cured of his condition.
    • When they head out to fight Dr. Doom, Mr. Fantastic apprehends him and Vic just shoots Doom in the head while he's monologuing because he was resisting arrest. We also have a realistic approach to Invisible Woman's namesake power: much like Sandy Cheeks as Miss Appear, she's hit by a car immediately upon turning invisible, only she instantly dies from the collision and the driver unknowingly drags her still-invisible corpse when he pulls out.
    • Meanwhile, in the universe of The Shield, Ben takes Vic's place and the mundane crooks of that universe are no match for him, with the ending gag of the sketch being Ben smashing their heads together into bloody pulps with his Super-Strength.
  • Another Fantastic Four sketch has them participate in Wife Swap. While Sue deals with the mundane culture clash of a husband who doesn't do any housework, the woman she switched with joins the boys in going against Dr. Doom. She's killed almost instantly, and everyone, including Dr. Doom himself, chews them out for letting a normal woman go toe-to-toe with a supervillain without any sort of precautions, which Reed defends as "the concept of the show".
  • Alvin and the Chipmunks:
    • In one sketch, Alvin seemingly collapses and dies on stage, only to be fine for the next show. It turns out Dave has several boxes worth of spare chipmunks in the back of his truck. When confronted about this during a press conference, Dave points out that they're chipmunks meaning that they only live a few years under the best of circumstances and have no human rights such as having death certificates or getting autopsies. He also admits that his car smells awful due to keeping so many chipmunks in there for the run of the act, and that at least one of the "Simon" chipmunks died because Dave didn't see them behind the car and he ran it over.
    • Another skit has fledgling musician Dave initially contemplating dumping the trio due to their "regular", average-pitched voices being mediocre, until helium is pumped into their recording booth, which gives them their signature sound but then kills them due to there being too much without any fresh air left to breathe.
    • A third sketch has the chipmunks at the Coachella festival where in Alvin decides to indulge in every rockstar’s fantasy of, as he puts it, tearing through a metric ton of freaky music festival trim, only to be told by the festival doctor that he has contracted three kinds of gonorrhea, which is fatal to chipmunks.
  • A CatDog sketch has a veterinarian declaring that Dog must be put down after developing arthritis. When Cat objects, the vet states that Cat should've expected this since dogs have comparably shorter lifespans than cats.
  • A sketch for Voltron has its vehicular counterpart undergo a lengthy sequence with its 15 individual vehicles. Unlike the anime, the cast doesn't have the Transformation Is a Free Action trope while a Robeast attacks a nearby space station. By the time they finish, especially after messing up and starting again twice, the team arrives at the station too late. On an unrelated note, the leader of the station is Driven to Suicide after seeing that it's not even the original Voltron.
  • A sketch for Up has Carl lift off in his house... only for the house's weight to cause the balloon strings to almost immediately break and fall back to earth, crushing and killing several construction workers.
  • The "Cheese League" skit has an intro for a super-spy team of mice apparently at war with a faction of evil mice, G.I. Joe-style, only for the whole team to be promptly massacred by a small (and entirely mundane) cat.
  • In one sketch, Garfield is revealed to have Type 2 diabetes from years of eating large amounts of Italian food. Liz even calls Jon out for being so incredibly irresponsible as to enable Garfield's eating habits, and when she says they have to amputate all of Garfield's feet, Jon refuses to pay the exorbitant cost for the procedure, saying it's almost as much as a used car and that he isn't going to spend that much money on a cat as old as Garfield. So Jon has Garfield put to sleep. There's also the implication that Jon might have lost his mind, since he buys another cat, names it Garfield 2, and after giving it a choice between plain cat food or spaghetti, he gives the cat the spaghetti even after it starts obviously eyeing the cat food.
  • The A Bug's Life sketch is about Flik's sleep being interrupted by the life of a mayfly and his wife. For three hours. After both mayflies die, Flik has a sigh of relief until a mayfly egg hatches.
  • In a Dora the Explorer sketch, Papi points out that while monkeys are cute as babies, they become a huge problem as adults, which is why Boots had to be killed for what he did to Abuela.
    Dora's dad: Monkeys are cute when they're little, but Boots...got big.
  • The Clifford the Big Red Dog sketch has Clifford destroy a house and power lines and kill people due to his huge size; when he has to be neutered, no regular vet can do the job, and it requires the help of a construction worker.
  • In the Cheerios sketch, Buzz the Bee accidentally stinging the boy results in his death, similar to how a real-life honeybee will die if it stings something.
  • A Bob the Builder sketch shows that Bob's methods of sentient equipment are not something a trade union would like.
  • The Handy Manny sketch, where Handy Manny is caught to be deported, shows Bob the Builder's iconic "Can we fix it?" catchphrase doesn't always guarantee the usual "Yes we can" answer, especially when it comes to political issues like illegal immigration. Subverted somewhat with the implication that Bob is racist and got Manny wrongly deported so he'll have less competition, given that his team is building a holding center for illegal immigrants and their half-hearted replies.
  • The Muppet Babies sketch has Kermit fall into a glass table and bleed to death in a game of King Kong. Being a small kid will make you more likely to die of injuries an adult is more likely to survive.
  • The last line in the Dinosaur Train sketch sums it up: "Maybe dinos built a railroad across this land, but there's no way they could steer with those tiny hands!"
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
    • A sketch has Shredder's face burn from a pizza launched at him and he suffers a quick death because metal (which his armor and mask are made of) is a heat and electricity conductor.
    • In another TMNT sketch, Splinter gives Turtles The Talk, and the Turtles decide to call dibs on April's "cloaca". Splinter's response:
      Splinter: You are turtles! April is human! Your genitalia are not compatible!
  • One sketch involves a couple of kids playing a video game. One says he's thirsty, so the other shouts "Hey! Kool-Aid!"
    Kid 1: ...Give it a second.
    Kid 2: Yeah... Your imagination is a piss-poor solution to my thirst, and the kitchen is literally ten feet away. So... [gets up and goes to the kitchen]
    Kid 1: You're just like my dad, Kool-Aid! You never show up!
  • The DC Comics Specials enjoy invoking this:
    • In one of the first special's sketches, a quartet of ice-based villains each make a Dynamic Entry by breaking through the walls of the museum they seek to rob. After the fourth one pulls this off, the entire museum collapses, since there are no longer any load-bearing walls intact.
    • Lex Luthor brags about the "flawless design" of his Powered Armor... only to get hit in his completely unprotected head by a kickball.note 
      Lexxcorp Scientist: Tyler, I told you not to play ball in here! I'm so sorry Mr. Luthor, i-it's my day to watch him.
      Lex Luthor: Just stop talking for one second!
    • The second special shows just how inconvenient it is for the Legion of Doom to have their headquarters located in a swamp. The commute is terrible, and they are forced to trudge through mud and water, not to mention be wary of gator attacks. When Luthor reveals that the headquarters is actually mobile, they are all deeply irritated that it didn't have to be located in a swamp (especially Scarecrow, whose mostly-burlap costume makes going through the swamp especially uncomfortable, as he mentions developing a severe case of Trench Foot because of it).
    • During the battle against Starro, Penguin utilizes a flamethrower umbrella against Starro. Seconds later, a strong breeze pushes the open umbrella in the opposite direction, incinerating Penguin's own teammates Scarecrow and Two-Face, as well as Flash and Reverse Flash.
    • Double Subverted and overlapping with Bait-and-Switch in the third special: during a parody of Crisis on Infinite Earths, the 60s version of Batman battles the Arkhamverse versions of The Joker, Harley Quinn, Killer Croc, and The Penguin. Despite the Darker and Edgier Arkhamverse villains being more dangerous and far less campy than the villains from the 60s series, Batman defeats the first three as easily as he does the villains on his own show, but then Penguin just kills him by spraying him with anthrax.
    • One sketch has the origins of Superman while preparing him to be sent from Krypton to Earth. Even though he was able to be formed into a super strong and intelligent hero, the doomed leaders of Krypton still have no control over his ship's coordination so instead of arriving in America's heartland, he lands square in the middle of the ocean.
  • Scooby-Doo sketches:
    • In one sketch, Shaggy and Scooby are trying to escape from Jason Voorhees. After he kills the former via stabbing him repeatedly through one of the random barrels he was hiding in to play a wild goose chase similarly to a whack-a-mole game, the latter is caught and killed offscreen due to grabbing him by the tail whilst he was doing that goofy scramble hop done in many Hanna-Barbera cartoons before he actually takes off. Both of them failed to realize that instead of their usual run-of-the-mill shyster trying to scare them away, they've encountered a sophisticated Serial Killer who isn't fooled for one second by their usual antics.
    • At the start of another Scooby Doo sketch, the villain realizes that the whole "Scooby-Doo" Hoax gimmick is rather stupid and childish and decides to do the simpler crime of committing insurance fraud by burning down the property he was going to haunt and bilk his partner out of. It's then darkly subverted when this "safer" crime kills all of Mystery Inc but Scooby-Doo since they're investigating the house after the plan switch.
    • A double dose in the Scooby Doo meets The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo sketch. First is Velma, who fell several stories and injured herself enough to require 18 months of physical therapy to recover. Second, Lisbeth Salander, who replaces Velma, easily solves the ghost mystery by simply tracking the suspect's digital information, which shows he had gambling debts, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, bought a one-way ticket out of the country and purchased a common arson accelerant to simply burn down the amusement park and pin it on a ghost.
  • In a parody of Spawn, the titular character challenges Malebolgia to a musical duel and despite playing amazingly, the demons immediately vote for Malebolgia and let him win the challenge despite him being a terrible musician. They vote for Malebolgia for a few reasons: 1) he's their boss, 2) he will torture them if they don't butter up to himnote , and 3) he's the devil, he has no obligation to play by the rules or take defeat gracefully.
  • One skit had a meteor colliding with Earth a la Armageddon (1998) and NASA decided to send Harrison Ford and Aerosmith into space as astronauts to stop it. However, since Ford is an actor and not a pilot like in the Star Wars films and Aerosmith are only musicians who merely contributed to the Armageddon soundtrack, they lack any training or knowledge to actually be effective and their ship crashes into the meteor, killing them all instantly.
  • The Star Wars sketch "Late Night with Zuckuss" parodies Conan O'Brien as the titular alien satirizes both Palpatine and Darth Vader, with the final gag being that, just as the show is ending, the Death Star rises into view in the background and fires its laser directly at the studio, followed by a Technical Difficulties card. Don't really know what Zuckuss was expecting to happen, mocking the tyrannical dictator of the Galactic Empire and his right-hand man, both of whom are perfectly okay with committing genocide, but at least it was a funny final minute or so.
  • A sketch parodying the Busytown books shows what happens in such a busy town (no pun intended): A massive car wreck.
  • One ThunderCats (1985) sketch shows how dangerous it can be for a hero to summon their magical weapon to them when it's around other people. Especially if it's a sharp weapon like a sword. It results in Wilykat and Wilykit being impaled by the Sword of Omens and Cheetara, Tygra, and Snarf being crushed by the debris when the Sword smashes through the wall.
  • Peter Pan sketches:
    • A sketch has Michael sprinkle Nana with pixie dust, causing her to fly. Unfortunately, because she was still tied to her leash at the time, she ends up getting choked to death.
    • Another sketch has Peter encouraging the Darling children to fly away with him. In yet another, though unsurprising dark twist, he forgot to tell them to think happy thoughts before they flew. And since all three were running at full speed they all end up dying by running and jumping head first out of the second story window.
  • A sketch spoofing the Five Little Monkeys rhyme ends with the doctor responding to the news that one of the mother monkey's children hurt his head from jumping on the bed not by warning that the monkeys should stop jumping on the bed, but by deciding to call child services, as a responsible mother wouldn't have allowed her children to hurt themselves by jumping on the bed in the first place.
  • Sesame Street sketches:
    • A sketch has Super Grover tackle Doomsday. Since Doomsday is an actual supervillain and Super Grover only dealt with minor situations that don't tackle how dangerous it is to be a superhero, he gets brutally beaten to death.
    • A second Super Grover sketch opens with his dead body. As it turns out he died via a lightning strike because his tin helmet acted as a conductor and lightning rod so he died instantly.
  • In this Micronauts sketch, the micronaut Time Traveller has designed a transportation system using compressed air and tubes as a more effective way of getting around the city. As a bunch of them get in the system, one asks if this new system has brakes and when he says yes, he points out the boxes of brakes he forgot to give the others. At the speed they're traveling, which is six hundred miles an hour, they die immediately upon impacting a wall at the end of the tubing.
  • In this sketch, the lights go out in a family's house. Since the dad didn't get batteries for the flashlight, his daughter offers him her Glo-Worm toy as a source of light. Unfortunately for the dad while Glo-Worm can be seen in the dark, he doesn't produce a very bright light, meaning he can't see where he's going and so ends up running into an end table hitting his knee and while making a crack about hopping down the stairs on one foot, actually does so and painfully falls down the stairs. When he manages to stumble on the fuse box, it turns out that the whole neighborhood suffered a blackout, meaning his attempts to fix the problem was All for Nothing and in a rage, he smashes the Glo-Worm toy to the point it no longer glows.
  • Home Alone sketches:
    • A sketch has Kevin finish setting up his traps, which end up doing him in when he accidentally causes a house fire and triggers several of the traps himself in his state of panic, ultimately ending with him caving his head in with a clothing iron that he hid in the basement ceiling.
    • Another sketch crossing over with Halloween (2018) has Kevin and Laurie swapping adversaries. Laurie traps and ultimately kills Harry and Marv while Michael effortlessly makes it past Kevin's traps and ends the sketch Neck Lifting him.
  • A sketch parodying the tale of Pinocchio shows his life after he became a real boy: he's mistreated at school, goes into shock from eating a sandwich with peanut butter because he wasn't aware that he had a peanut allergy, is required to get a catheter when his urethra is closed off, and due to him not having a fully-developed immune system due to only being real for about a day, he dies of a staph infection despite the doctors' best attempts to save him.
  • 101 Dalmatians sketches:
    • One sketch shows Roger and Anita horrified at having so many puppies because they probably mated with each other and possibly the parents if the vet is to be believed.note  Later on in the sketch, Roger is unhappy with giving up music for a day job and getting hounded by the pups when he comes home and in the end, both he and Anita willingly hand the whole dog family over to Cruella.
    • Another 101 Dalmatians sketch shows Roger and Anita happy with having so many puppies, with Roger singing about starting a Dalmatian plantation and how much fun that would be. One "two weeks later" timecard later, the house is a mess, Anita is leaving Roger and a now drunken Roger is singing about how much he hates dogs.

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