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"The truth is like sunlight. People used to think it was good for you."
Since everybody in TV land spends all day desperately lying their way out of situations, one of the more reliable gags is to create a situation where you'd imagine the characters would lie, and have them be perfectly honest and straightforward instead.
A common twist on this is when the characters are brutally honest, but then their honesty is not believed. Sometimes, this is used deliberately.
A form of Bait And Switch.
Unsurprisingly, often Truth In Television.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
Film
- The Big Bad in WaterWorld likes children when he's asking for someone's opinion, since they tell the truth rather than what they think you want to hear.
- In Spaceballs, Lone Starr pulls this repeatedly when he's sneaking aboard Spaceball One to destroy it. He grabs one guard by the neck and when the guard asks him what he's doing, he replies, "The Vulcan neck pinch." The guard then shows him the proper way to do it. Next he grabs a can of shaving cream from another guard and when he asks what Lone Starr's doing with it, Lone Starr replies, "This!", sprays the shaving cream in the guard's mouth and eyes, possibly drowning him.
- Used in Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. When Sam asks Flint if he can keep a secret, he immediately answers, "No."
- The Invention Of Lying features a world (or at least a town) based around this.
- Ladyhawke gives us this example:
Soldier #1: Where is Navarre?
Phillipe: Navarre? Navarre? Ah, yes. Big man, black horse. I thought I saw him ride south, toward Aquila.
Soldier #2: Ha, then we ride north.
Phillipe: It isn't polite to assume that someone is a liar when you've only just met them.
Soldier #1: And yet you knew we would. We ride south.
Phillipe: [talking to God] I told the truth, Lord. How can I learn any moral lessons when you keep confusing me this way?
Literature
- Sandor Clegane and Ser Davos Seaworth from A Song Of Ice And Fire.
- Ax of Animorphs once met a small girl in a hospital. She asked him if he was a fairy and what his name was. He answered her correctly and politely.
- Wallace Wallace of No More Dead Dogs practices this due to the fact that his father told him a bunch of Vietnam stories despite the fact that his father was about 14 when it happened. His incredibly harsh book report on "Old Shep, My Pal" leads to his English teacher (who's directing the school play of the book) to believe that he never read it.
Live Action TV
- In Mad About You Paul is defending his decision to invest a large sum of money in a virtual reality device. He's trying to tell Jamie how amazing the device is, she asks him what he used it for, and since the audience saw him use it to be very intimate with a virtual Christie Brinkley, we see how this is an awkward question...but then he immediately says, "I gave Christie Brinkley a massage," and goes on to describe in detail how much he enjoyed it.
- In the Friends episode The One With The Butt, everyone says non-committal positive-ish things about Joey's terrible play, except Chandler, who says "Awful play man, woah!". He's too excited about the beautiful girl who just agreed to go out with him to care about lying.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer got caught going through a blood bank's records, and when asked "What are you doing?" she says, "Breaking in and looking through your records".
Cordelia: I think it, I say it. It's my way.
- A double subversion: In Star Trek Deep Space Nine, while trying to obtain a rare baseball card, Jake and Nog are captured and interrogated by Weyoun, who believes that they are plotting against him. At first they tell the truth, but their story is not believed. Then they make up a story about secret agents and time travel: "The entire future of the galaxy may depend on our tracking down Willie Mays... and stopping him." Weyoun doesn't believe this either, but the tale is so ridiculous he realizes that their first story is true.
- Pretty much the point of House MD.
- Teal'c of Stargate SG-1 epitomizes this trope. Up to and including describing just exactly how he got that emblem on his head to a bunch of inner city punks.
Teal'c: Remove yourself from my path.
Punk: Listen to this guy. I'll remove myself when you tell me how they tattoo like that in Chulak.
Teal'c: The skin is cut with an Orak knife and pure molten gold is poured into the wound.
Punk: Ow, man, don't that hurt when they do that?
Teal'c: Tremendously.
- Lie To Me contains a character named Loker (sp?) who goes out of his way to tell the absolute truth at all times. For whatever reason this also means that he says anything that comes to mind from moment to moment. It did get him a date with the female lead, though, so hey, whatever works.
- It is well documented that radical honesty robs one of impulse control. Just observe anyone fond of the phrase "Just keeping it real".
- In the How I Met Your Mother episode Stuff, Lily takes part in an long, dull play and everyone tells her it was wonderful while Barney is the only one to be completely honest and tell her it sucked. Because he believes friends should be honest with each other. Barney.
- He does this a lot, actually. The other characters will be giving the gentle, not-hurting-your-feelings answer and he'll be saying the brutal truth every time.
Newspaper Comics
- Calvin is caught by his visiting uncle while going through his luggage, and responds to the incredulous resultant question with "[I'm] going through your luggage. What's it look like?"
- Similarly, when his mother catches him pounding nails into the coffee table in the living room with a "What on earth are you doing?!", there's a beat panel before he says, "...Is this a trick question?"
Video Games
- SuikodenRhapsodia has Wendel, who asks Kyril why he didn't help out during the last war. When he tells her why (Heroic BSOD lasting three years), she calls him weak, then adds that at least he's strong now.
Webcomics
Web Original
- Tinkerballa in The Guild. Emphasis on the brutal.
Western Animation
Real Life
- People practicing radical honesty
 apparently not only strive to always tell the truth, but also refrain from keeping their thoughts to themselves.
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