"Why do you keep saying that?" I said. "Bears repeated repetition." — The Subject Steve
When listing things, a character will repeat an item. Might end with "Did I mention X already?" when making a list. Common ways for it to show up are a list going "A, B, C, B, D, B, E... and did I mention B?" and "You said X twice." "IlikeX." These occur frequently, especially when listing things. This might also cause another character to remark "But of course!" in a French accent (in a play on the French expression mais bien sűr).
With some websites and occasionally in Real Life, the Department of Redundancy Department is referred to as an actual organization run by Captain Obvious with a side branch called the Branch of Awkward Wording (or, for bonus points, the Branch Of Awkward Wording Branch).
The venerable Firesign Theatre gets credit for naming this trope on their classic 1970 album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers", the album where the trope name comes from.
Compare Shaped Like Itself, Broken Record, Repetitive Name, Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs, Captain Obvious.
Disclaimer: The DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment does not share the opinion of anything written on this page, including overly long gags, overuse of Homestar Runner quotes, pot holes, overly long gags, and use of redlinks.
Examples and various cases that are exemplifying the trope
Advertisements using TV to promote products to you on television
Almost any asthma medication HAS to use the phrase "like an inhaled corticosteroid" at least 5 times within the commercial. Sheesh, we GET IT!
Nationwide Insurance's new mascot: The World's Greatest Spokesperson In The World!
The Monkees' Kool-Aid commercial from 1970, in which Micky Dolenz exclaims, "Hey, let's make some new sugar-sweetened Kool-Aid with the sugar already in it!"
DOMESTOS: KILLS ALL KNOWN GERMS DEAD
Likewise, on the other side of the pond, "Raid: Kills Bugs Dead".
There's a school in south Florida called CBT College. The "C" stood for "College". The College of Business and Technology College. Way to ruin your credibility before the commercial even starts...
See also UMUC - the University of Maryland University College.
See also the University of California system where the college name is usually an acronym (like UCI or UCSD). You will see on the campus website statements like UCI University (university of California university) or "California's UCI"
The label on this product◊, a polish for acrylic, reads FINE SCRATCH REMOVER: Removes Fine Scratches. You know, in case it wasn't absolutely clear.
Taco Bell once touted a new menu item in a TV commercial as a "grilled carne asada steak". Since "carne asada" translates as "grilled steak", they essentially were advertising a "grilled grilled steak steak". Delicious.
Ronseal Quick-Drying Woodstain protects and is rain-proof in about thirty minutes. Which means in about thirty minutes, your wood's rain-proof and protected. So if you've got wood to stain, and you want it to dry quickly, use Ronseal Quick-Drying Woodstain.
A commercial for Boston Pizza has a man suffering from "turkey brain" after eating too many Christmas leftovers. He describes his symptoms as "the confusion, the sluggishness, the excessive napping, the confusion..."
An ad campaign that began in 2011 encourages you to "Take a Cheetos break With Cheetos".
A Vevo banner ad on Youtube advertising Lady Gaga's performance on "Saturday's SNL".
"If you don't have an iPhone, well... you don't have an iPhone."
"In Mexico we speak Spanish, mostly because it's the language we speak."
A Target commercial showed a music teacher singing about all the clothes his students will need for the new school year. Denim was on it 4 times.
A 1980s print ad for Elephant brand floppy disks promoted the need to make backups by explicitly referring to the Department of Redundancy Department, "and what goes on when it goes on!"
A magazine advertisement for a Duel Masters card-pack series (specifically, "Survivors of the Megapocalypse") states "Attack with the Billion-Degree Dragon and watch your opponent run like someone who is under attack and is frightened by that attack!"
Anime Cartoons from Japan and Manga Comics from Japan
In Pani Poni Dash!, Akane Serizawa, in her "Roboko" disguise, claims to have been created by the United States Defense Department of Defense.
Gintama: "It takes a space captain to be a space captain."
The Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon.
In Strike Witches, Barkhorn tries to get Hartmann out of bed in one episode. The gist of her speech is that for a soldier of Karlsland, discipline comes first. And second. And third. She gets up to ninth, at which point Hartmann sleepily asks, "What's tenth?"
Axis Powers Hetalia: America goes around the world, asking everyone how they lose weight. Germany replies, "First is exercise! Second is exercise! Third is beer. And fourth and fifth are exercise!"
Italy describes his preparations for becoming Germany's ally, which involves a suitcase full of "pasta, ingredients for pasta, wine, pasta, fruits, and then, pasta!"
From Remote Island Syndrome, Kyon asks Haruhi what they will be doing on their field trip and Haruhi answers by saying that they will have a field trip. Kyon's reaction: "What? Going on a field trip for the purpose of experiencing a field trip?"
This is an artefact of translation, as Japanese has different words for "festival" and "school festival."
Yu-Gi-Oh! GX had a card called "Entry Forbidden, No Entry!!" The English dub went with "No Entry!!", which is a lot better.
This became common practice, with cards like "Mirai Yuugou - Future Fusion" or "Tamashii no Kyouyuu - Common Soul" (which is a bit better: Soul Share - Common Soul).
It makes a lot more sense in Japanese since one line is Japanese and the other is English/romaji. Why even bother putting the English line? Apparently, in Japan, randomly throwing in English words makes it seem cool and exotic?.
The Singaporian English dub of Yu-Gi-Oh!! had a line where Marik talks to Yugi through a mind controlled Pandora/Arcana, and says: "I control their mind and senses, and see and hear what they see and hear. I can see and hear you from here."
The English dub of the show uses the same few phrases numerous times, and LittleKuriboh makes fun of that in a video.
One of the most recent Synchro monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds has the Japanese name of "Chaos Goddess - Goddess of Chaos." The English card simply calls it "Chaos Goddess."
Justified, as the Japanese name has the first Chaos Goddess written in Gratuitous English.
Not really gratuitous if you consider that it is impossible to leave out the -u sound at the end of "Choasu" and "Goddessu" using the Japanese alphabet. "Chaos Goddess" itself is a perfectly grammatically correct English term.
Dragon Ball's Master Roshi somewhat falls under this trope. Roshi can be translated as "Venerable Master", meaning a stricter translation of his name yields "Master Venerable Master".
The same goes for the technique "Kamehameha". Its English translation is "Turtle Destruction Wave". In FUNimation's first English dub of Dragon Ball Z, it is sometimes referred to as the "Kamehameha Wave". So the characters are saying "Turtle Destruction Wave Wave".
Yes, the "small but not so tiny" mini skirts. With the main difference being the amount of female butt you can see.
Episode 17 of Initial D: First Stage is titled "Sudden-Death Death Match".
In an early episode of the Fist of the North Star anime, Mad Sarge tells his troops that "God's Army is the army of God." This is because in the Japanese version, the "God's Army" part was said in English and therefore needed an explaination in Japanese.
Some fansubs translate on-screen text with their own superimposed text, and if a character is reading the text, they also subtitle it, even if that means writing (and reading) the exact same thing twice. Episode titles and "Turn your lights on and watch us from afar" disclaimers are particularly prone to this.
Similarly, Martian Successor Nadesico had a scene in which characters were speaking English and had subtitles translating their words into Japanese. The English release of the series translated the subtitles.
The 80s dub of Captain Harlock gave us this gem, "Their tissues are made of paper, that's why they burn...like paper."
From the Pokémon dub: "We are a band of Diglett thieves known as the band of Diglett thieves."
Miura: I will try my hardest so they will not be in vain! Miura: I will try my hardest? Zafira: You don't have to say it twice. Just do your best.
The Funimation (uncut) dub of One Piece has this gem:
Tony Tony Chopper (about Dr. Kureha): She really loves alcohol, but the best way to describe her is a woman, who's like a pirate, who's also a doctor. Did I mention she really loves alcohol?
The English title for Ichiban Ushiro No Dai Maou is Demon King Daimao or in other words "Demon King Great Demon King."
Sky High from Tiger & Bunny is quite fond of redundant statements. Word Of God says it's because he wants to make sure he's understood.
"It's over for you, and you are through!" "I was standing by the whole time. Alone in a dark alley... It was lonely." "Good job, Ivan! And a job well done!" "Thank you! And thank you again!"
In an issue of Legion Of Super-Heroes, Apparition is waiting for Ultra Boy. The narration reads:
Apparition:(she counts off his crimes to the tick of the clock) One. He's late. Two. He already has a girlfriend. Three. He gives bad gifts — a cactus, of all things. Four. He's late. Five. He already has a girlfriend. Six... Ultra Boy: I'm late.
The Oracle in the Azrael Annual #2 (a Legends of the Dead Earth Elseworld):
Oracle: Shut your mouth and open your ears. We oracles never repeat ourselves and I mean that most sincerely. Never, never repeat ourselves, understand?
DC Comics. "DC" stands for Detective Comics, ergo their name is Detective Comics Comics.
They also publish a series called Detective Comics. Which means it's Detective Comics Comics' Detective Comics.
This exchange from a "Webelos Woody" strip in Boys' Life
Restaurant Patron: I'll have toasted toast on toast with a side order of toast. Waiter: Would you like toast with that? Restaurant Patron:No!
In the Strontium Dog arc "Bitch", a senile and completely clueless Ronald Reagan has been kidnapped by extra-terrestrial aliens from another planet and addresses the following people when reading the ransom note from the aliens who kidnapped a senile and completely clueless Ronald Reagan and are now holding him for ransom.
Ronald Reagan: I'd like to assure Nancy and Larry and George and Larry and George and Larry and all the people this great country of ours that I'm okay.
Superboy Prime: I'll kill you! I'll kill you to DEATH!
Deathstroke the Terminator. Yes thank you, we gathered that you kill people from the first bit. Unless you're also responsible for laying off employees, "the Terminator" is not needed.
The name actually came about by an error in his introductory issue, where he was referred to first as Deathstroke, then as the Terminator, so they decided to combine them.
In the superhero comic series Runaways, the titular heroes' secret headquarters is situated under The La Brea Tar Sands, which, as a guard pointed out, means "The The Tar Tar Sands."
In the Lucky Luke book "The Oklahoma Run", Luke encounters a traveling salesman who can sell him fresh water, whisky, fruit, whisky, (insert a lot more here) and whisky.
The title of The Dandy Special issue 7: Desperate Dan in Dan in Japan. So Dan's in himself then? [1]◊
The Kindle version of the third Simon's Cat book is titled both on the website and the download itself as "Simon's Cat: In Kitten Chaos: In Kitten Chaos (Simons Cat 3)"
Fan Fiction written by Fans of Fiction which is Fictional
Parodied in thisAvatar: The Last Airbender fanfic called Bring me All Your Elderly. It makes fun of the movie The Last Airbender 's extreme redundancy using a disease that makes Sokka, Suki, and Katara talk redundantly, like they do in the movie.
Katara: This bad movie film was ruined long before we got here and entered it! And I have no regretful feelings of remorse at all for making fun of you in a mocking way! You were supposed to portray my own character, and you did not portray me with any accuracy at all! You cry and weep and sob and cry and pout and whimper and cry all the time, every scene, non-stop! You can't fight or engage in any combat! And you're mostly just useless in a non-useful way!
In one of the Freddy the Pig stories, the title character makes a list of people he does not want to run into at that moment. The same name (Mr. Curry?) occupies the first three places.
In an MST of The Girl Who Lived (the link can be found on this site on the main page of TGWL) we get this wonderfully snarky line:
feeling slightly relieved somewhat. Paging the Department of Redundancy Department.
Enoby has "ebony black" hair and "pale white" skin.
There's also a line where she says this little gem: "Then all of a suddenly, an horrible man with red eyes and no nose and everything started flying towards me on a broomstick! He didn’t have a nose (like Voldemort in the movie) and he was wearing all black but it was obvious he wasn’t gothic. It was…… Voldemort!" Enoby might dethrone Captain Obvious.
He didn’t want nothing to happen to Henry Freeman because Henry Freeman was John Freeman saw Combines start to run like monsters to humens and Henry Freeman and saw Henry Freeman and humens run like brave to Combines.
The Big Room That Is Big Makes up about 90% of the entire story. If the title itself weren't enough, it has quotes such as "And then Johnny woke up and it was the morning and Johnny is a morning person and he likes to wake up in the morning it is great, singing birds are singing!"
Forbiden Fruit The Tempation Of Edward Cullen: " I cryed and cryed but he didn’t stop for hours and when he finally stopped he left me on the floor and spat in my face and left me there. I pulled on my clothes and cryed madly and ran off into the seething darkness of the midnight street. I ran and ran un till I came to some woods and then I fell down in the woods and cryed."
At one point in soulless shell, Thrnos bows to Leif twice in a single run-on sentence.
While rescuing the eponymous Mary Sue during legolas by laura, Legolas explains to Laura that the orcs "bet you up and they raped you also the dark lord gave you some posion", even though Laura was there. When she wakes from her illness in Rivendell, he explains it to her again.
Deserving does this a lot, often giving the same piece of exposition three or four times (sometimes in the same scene) or tagging dialogue with a Said Bookism that reiterates what the dialogue has already made clear.
It's common for those in the Warrior Cats fandom to use "star" as a name prefix for their O Cs. This is never done in the actual series, because it would create the inevitable Fridge Logic of the character being called "Starstar" if he or she ever became Clan leader.
Kurt: You cook. In a kitchen, with an apron and a spatula and cooking.
Hogwarts Exposed would probably be a third as long without all the redundancy. There are entire scenes that establish points of plot and characterisation that had already been established, exposition that tells the reader things they already know and sometimes things they'd already been told earlier in the same scene, and several instances of characters "nodding yes" and "shaking their heads no". Admittedly in some areas, nodding is a no and shaking is a yes, but these characters are supposedly British.
In the MST of My Inner Life, Zelda Queen makes paging the Department of Redundancy Department a Running Gag.
Every now and again, some unsuspecting editor will add an example to a trope page without checking to see if that page contains an example from that series already. If it does (especially if the example itself is repeated), that page becomes an example of this trope, albeit usually only temporarily.
Not just in posts, either: 1: go to the top of this page. 2: Click "go to watchlist" (need to be a known troper) 3:Look at the top. You should see a button that says "recently new."
And then when people find out, instead of removing it, they tend to Natter on about it.
I just move the two examples next to each other. Especially when the later one asks why this example hasn't been mentioned yet.
The inverse also happens. On a page for a show, a trope with multiple names may be listed twice. For example, ever since they started calling it Hilarious in Hindsight, it's often seen on a page that also has Reverse Funny Aneurysm.
Some examples from Overly-Long Gag also definitely qualify. And anything on Broken Record invokes this by default.
Sometimes people Pot Hole a link to the page the link is on, thus. Presumably, they Cut N' Pasted the text from another page, and forgot to edit out the link.
Are we there yet? How many times are you going to ask that, Missy? Are we there yet? How many times are you going to ask that, Missy? Are we there yet? How many times are you going to ask that, Missy? Are we there yet? How many times are you going to ask that, Missy? Are we there yet? How many times are you going to ask that, Missy?...
Yahoo posted a collection of Comic-Con costumes. One picture had the stunning caption: "Comic-Con attendee Brianna Corral attends Comic-Con 2010 held at the San Diego Convention Center on July 22, 2010 in San Diego, California." Thank you Yahoo News.
In The Website Is Down, a woman named Nancy Johnson has married someone who is also called Johnson and asks IT to change her username to reflect her new name of Nancy Johnson-Johnson.
“Please make my new username nancyjohnsonjohnson or nancyjohnson-johnson or nancyjeaninejohnsonjohnson if possible because my mother’s sister died from a blood clot and I took her middle name also so.”
"whom Pokey suspects of intending to steal his Arctic Circle-Candy (which grows in the Arctic)."
Newspaper Comics printed in the Comics section of Newspapers
Garfield, during an arc when he gets lost and meets his mom in the Italian restaurant where he was born: "It's all gone! Where's the pasta? The people? The pasta? The excitement? The pasta?"
From an early Christmas strip: "I love Christmas. The parties and the presents, the caroling, the presents, the food, the presents, the decorations, the presents, the fun and the presents."
Other strips have Jon repeating what he's alreadysaid.
The Newspaper comic Cathy does this in spades. Often the sentences or entire speech balloons will be identical except for the operative noun, and possibly an adjective. This leads to what is, for a newspaper comic, a lot of words.
Dilbert once asked Wally if he wanted to join his project, the TTP project. "What does TTP stand for?" "It stands for The TTP Project." Wally decided he'd rather be Dilbert's arch nemesis.
There's a lot of jokes on how the bureaucratic monstrosity that is Dilbert's company is rife with literal redundant departments of redundancy. This comic sums it up nicely.
One Pearls Before Swine strip had Rat write a list of "Top 5 things I can't stand". (The joke was that #1 on the list was Pearls itself) "Non-alcoholic beer" was both #3 and #2.
Professional Wrestling by Professional Wrestlers Who Wrestle Professionally
Hold #1: Arm Drag. Hold #2: Arm Bar. Hold #3: The Moss Covered Three Handled Family Gredunza. Hold #4: Arm Bar. Hold #5: The Saskatchewan Spinning Nerve Hold. Hold #8: Arm Bar... (much later) Hold #264: Armbaaarrr!
Years later, he started listing all the wrestlers he'd beaten, including a couple of different gimmicks used by the same guys.
And then there's the infamous Promo of Michael McGillicutty at the end of WWE NXT Season 2
McGillicutty: And starting this moment... from now... from this moment on... this will be the moment... starting now... of the Genesis... of McGillicutty.
"Uso", is the equivalent of "bro" or "sis" to two siblings of the same gender. Thus Rikishi's twin sons going by the "Uso Brothers" name in FCW is this. Upon calling them up to the main roster, WWE suddenly averted this trope by calling them simply "the Usos".
Radio playing Radio Music and Radio News on the Radio
The Bob & Tom Show has as one of its fan favorite prerecorded skits that the fans like very much, the "Jim Johnson Memory Program", which helps you remember where your car keys are, important dates or phrases, where your car keys are, long strings of information, and important dates or phrases. This skit gave us a second in the series skit called the "Joe Johannsen Vocabulary Builder-Upper", which was even more funnier than the one before it, which was about remembering where your car keys were. Both products work, or the creator's name isn't John Jacobs.
Punt and Dennis: It's Been A Bad Week showcases amusing news stories in order to figure out who qualifies for "The Worst Week of the Week Award, Awarded Weekly on a Week-by-Week Basis". One Christmas EpisodeClip Show, showcasing the best stories from the past season, gave us "The Worst Week of the Year Award, Awarded Yearly on an Annual, Yearly ... Thing".
One episode of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour had him listing the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease as "memory loss, confusion, disorientation, memory loss, societal withdrawal, memory loss, and memory loss".
A series of short radio comedy skits called The Adventures of Manman and Boyboy had as a villain in episode 42: Man who is Redundant Man.
Standup Comedy done by Comedians while Standing Up
This trope probably having originated with comedy means it's quite common among stand-up comedy.
The trope is perhaps exemplified best by Shaun Majumder in his stint as the host of the Just For Laughs TV show, where he had a number of recurring segments, including Comedy Dojo. He was already inclined to repetition in a sort of Ice Cream Koan fashion in that recurring segment, and then he did one on the subject of repetition in comedy, where he demonstrated it using the classic "Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side" joke.
I will demonstrate. "Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side." (beat) "To get to the other side." (beat) "To get to the other side!" Hi-yah!
Maria Bamford, as part of a routine on how she dislikes how complicated fancy restaurants make the act of eating, thinks that all that really matters is:
How do we get food into the munching cave? Do you perhaps have a dinner blizzard—a, ablizzard, ofdinner?
Brian Regan's routine about mixing up the expressions "Take care" and "Good luck":
Take...luck! Take luck and care. Take...care of the luck! Good luck taking care of the, the luck that you might have, if you have luck, take it, and care for it. Take-care-of-luck—when you take all care of luck...you just might get it.
Tabletop Games played by Gamers on the Top of a Table
GURPS Illuminati University actually has several Department of Redundancy Departments.
Naturally, Alpha Complex in Paranoia actually has a Department of Redundancy Department.
And many other variations on the theme. "Oh, this is the Complex Supply Bureau. You want the Bureau of Complex Supply."
An actual RPG session incident, when the GM wanted to make a particular detail very clear to the player: A female soldier with a rifle, pointed at you. She's wearing a green-camo uniform, complete with a rifle, which is pointed at you. The rifle appears to be a high-caliber automatic, and is pointed at you. The soldier is guarding this position, and is pointing her rifle at you. From a cursory study, she appears to be hostile — evidenced by the fact that she has a rifle pointed at you. She commands, in an aggressive tone, "Put your hands up! I have a rifle pointed at you!" Also, she has a rifle pointed at you.
It doesn't always work though. In one recorded instance, a Shadowrun party crawling through an oil pipeline was subtly warned four times about all the oil in the oil pipeline, but that didn't stop them from lighting their blowtorch. (One character survived the explosion but was knocked out and drowned in the harbor outside.)
The chant of the chaos marines "Blood for the Blood God" and "Skulls for the Skull throne".
In the fantasy world Glorantha (featured in, among other things, the RPG RuneQuest) the local equivalent of China is bordered by the Shan Shan Mountains. In one Chinese language - I have forgotten which - "shan" means mountain. So they are the Mountain-Mountain Mountains. Did we mention that they are really high and impassable?
Due to some confusion when he first introduced himself, Ravenloft's most infamous lich is referred to as "Azalin Rex" in official court documents of his domain of Darkon. Invokes this trope, as "Azalin" is actually a mangling of his old Oerth title of "Wizard-King", thus making him Darkon's "Wizard-King King".
Theater with Actors played by people on a Stage in a Theater
My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter! Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats! Justice! the law! my ducats, and my daughter! A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats, Of double ducats, stolen from me by my daughter! And jewels, two stones, two rich and precious stones, Stolen by my daughter! Justice! find the girl; She hath the stones upon her, and the ducats.
As a matter of fact, Shylock's whole speech pattern is like this, possibly to enforce the idea that he's nightmarishly persistent (count how many times he says some variant on "I'll have my bond, I will not hear thee speak"). Launcelot Gobbo uses the trope more comedically, especially in his opening monologue.
"Fia!" says the fiend. "Away!" says the fiend. "For the heavens, rouse up a brave mind", says the fiend, "and run!" *
, he pretty much just said the same sentence twice.]]
Portia gets a moment as well:
I speak too long, but 'tis to pheaze the time, To eke it and to draw it out in length...
Justified in that she's doing exactly what she says she's doing—stalling for time.
Shakespeare uses it again in one of Dogberry's speeches:
Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves. *** Don Pedro replies: "First I ask thee what have they done? Thirdly, what's their offence? Sixth and lastly, why they are committed? and to conclude, what you lay to their charge?"
You are looked for and called for, asked for and sought for in the great chamber.
Don Armado, Holofernes, and Nathaniel from Love's Labour's Lost all speak in this trope.
The Australian spoof of B-Movie sci-fi and horror films, Attack of the Attacking Attackers!. At the end of the play they announce the To Be Continued sequel, Revenge of the Revenging Revengers!
Glinda: There's a kind of a sort of...cost There's a couple of things get...lost There are bridges you cross You didn't know you crossed Until you've crossed.
The Seattle-based ACT Theatre. A Contemporary Theatre Theatre.
Cyrano de Bergerac: This trope is combined with Rule of Three: The gratuitous repetition of a question or a gesture for three or more times are shown in the play:
Played for Laughs: At Act I Montfleury tries to say his lines four times, Cyrano orders him to disappear when Cyrano clap his hands the third time, the bore asks Cyrano three times if he has a protector. Lampshaded by Cyrano when he does not answer a three time:
Cyrano:(irritated) No, I have told you twice! Must I repeat?
Played for Drama: At Act II, Cyrano asks three times Roxana what she would do if Christian is not as eloquent as fair, she answers two times that being fair, he has to be eloquent, and the third time she invokes Driven to Suicide. At Act IV, Cyrano asks Roxane if she would love Christian, even if he would be ugly, three times. She answered yes every time.
"BJD Dolls" or otherwise, "Ball Jointed Dolls Dolls".
Well, think about the name if it was simply called "BJ Dolls." It might sound like something else.
Le-Matoran in BIONICLE often use the term "Toa-Hero", which is redundant as the word "Toa " apparently means "hero" in the Matoran language. At one point, Kongu also points out that "Vezon" is the Matoran word for "copy". This is useful to the reader, however, Kongu and his friends are all speaking the Matoran language, so that statement would have seemed completely useless to the people he was speaking to.
On the back of the packaging for Ratchet's toy from the Transformers Prime series, Ratchet is listed as "Autobot Ratchet (Autobot)◊". This is quite common among a certain class of Transformer names, as those Transformer names cannot be trademarked by the maker of Transformers, Hasbro, so Hasbro adds the faction designation, in this case Autobot or Decepticon, to the name of that Transformer, so it is trademarkable. Examples include Autobot Jazz, Decepticon Brawl, and Autobot Ratchet. If any of those characters show up in Transformers Prime, they will likely have packaging declaring "Autobot Jazz (Autobot)", "Decepticon Brawl (Decepticon)", or "Autobot Ratchet (Autobot)".
Warning Labels That Provide Warnings on their Labels
Any time there's a peanut butter jar or a labelled peanut container that says "Warning: May contain peanuts."
Amusingly, peanuts aren't actually nuts, which puts an interesting spin on the traditional 'may contain nuts' warning.
Because of regulations or lawsuit-related ass covering, in the US a lot of food products that obviously have a product in them (Peanut M&Ms have peanuts!)have this trope in action on their packaging. Like milk or cheese labeled "Contains Dairy product."
Web Animation Moving Pictures Uploaded to the Internet
Strong Bad needs no introduction: "I've been described as cool, awesome, hot, video games, the hottest, and real real hot."
Thy Dungeonman 3 repeats "Upon the table there is a stein."
Yet another Homestar example, from the SBEmail "more armies": "The drive! The power! The motivation! The fortitude! The power again!"
And, from another email: "College radio can pretty much be summed up in 5 words: Dead air, um, dead air."
That wasn't really redundancy, he's just describing what it sounds like. First there's dead air, then the DJ goes "Umm...", then there's dead air again.
Thnikkaman's message on Marzipan's answering machine: "I was just calling up to see if you wanted to join my Thnikkaband. I got instruments, drums, cymbals, drums..."
"Oh! I guess I forgort to port. Oh! I guess I forgrat to prat. Oh! 'GORKA FA PORK!!"
Cat Face, he's got a big cat face. He's got the body of a cat, and the face of a cat. He flies through the air, cause he's got a cat face. Cat Face.
The Red vs. Blue PSA introducing Grifball features Simmons and Church representing the "American Grifball League of America".
O'Malley: "You foolish fools will never defeat me! You're far too busy being foolish!"
In the first episode of Furious Famicom Faggot, Furious plays Super Mario Bros. 2, and comments on the character selection screen with, "You can be any of these stupid assholes. You can pick Mario, Luigi, Toad, Luigi, or the princess!"
In Baby Cakes Diary #2, Babycakes describes how his father was scared of the moon when it "got all blue, and blue-lookin'."
Charlie The Unicorn. "Candy Mountain! It's a land of sweets and joy... and joyness..."
"I baked you a pie!" "Oh boy! What flavor?" "PIE FLAVOR."
Webcomics made and Uploaded to the Internet by Webcomic Artists
ThisLife on Forbez strip reveals that the ruling alien race, the Omnis, are very redundant about the Stray Particle Detectors used to located stolen components of machinery they designed, which are inside said machinery. If the first is stolen, they use the second, and if that's stolen, they use the third, and so on. It's never revealed just how many there are, just that if one values one's sanity, they shouldn't ask.
Penny Arcade tried to humorously make fun of how Dark the Shadowy parts of the Fel Dark are in Dungeons & Dragonshere only to find out that the Shadow is really Shadowy with lots of Dark in the Fel Shadow and that the Dark in the funny humorous jokes they made about Dark really was part of officially authorized official canon about the Shadow Dark. (With the possible exception of Scarytown.)
Then again, They've done this unironically and in a way that isn't supposed to mock or make fun of any game or anything else in particular that they can make fun of.
Pinter: You can start by putting on a shirt like a god-damned normal, modest, respectable, civilized, sane, normal person! Angora:You said "normal" twice!
Irregular Webcomic! subverted this. Paris has a gun that shoots ionized plasma. When pointed out that plasma is by definition ionized and therefore that statement is redundant, Paris tells her crew mate that it's not that kind of plasma.
Gai-Gin on novelty taiyaki: "It's cakes! Shaped like penises! Man penises!" Then again, Japan is known for the production of Futanari fiction ...
Final Fantasy Sonic had Dr. Eggman talking this way whenever he appeared.
Eggman: Aha! I am free! And I have gotten unstuck! Sonic: GO AWAY! Eggman: You will be squashed! And I will smoosh you! And you will be dead!! Sonic: SHUT UP!!!
It's repetitive, it's riddled with clichés, You could replace the entire cast with puppy dogs and they still wouldn't be likable, it's repetitive, and despite its original ideas, it somehow fails to kill the feeling that you've seen it all before. All in all, it comes across as the sort of thing you'd get from a soulless video game generating machine if you fed an Aliens box set into the slot and asked for something less compelling. And more repetitive.
Yahtzee: Have I mentioned that I wrote a novel and you can pre-order it from Amazon and Amazon.co.uk? Well, I wrote a novel and you can pre-order it from Amazon and Amazon.co.uk.
In her Gag Dub of Harry Potter the German YouTube comedian Coldmirror features the "unsichtbar machenden Unsichtbarkeitsmantel, der unsichtbar macht" (Translation: invisible making invisibility cloak which makes you invisible")
"Yup. Sorry. The Lich King is going to die. Blizzard didn't have any problem killing Kael'thas, Illidan, Kael'thas, Lady Vashj, or even Kael'thas" Said in a post by Boubouille of mmo-champion.com (There is a smallish meme about Kael'thas' death(s) being merely a setback)
Gavin's list of enemies in the KateModern episode "Deal with the Devil" consists of the names "The Watcher, Patricia Neilson, Dave, Tariq, Lee, Kate" repeated three times over, followed by "TERRENCE" ten times.
The title character from The Redundant Man Who Was Redundant is called Steven Stevenson II. He works in the Department Of Redundant Acronyms with his secretary, Dora.
"Author’s Note: Funnily enough, I agonized forever over whether to call this story 'The Redundant Man' or 'The Man Who Was Redundant'…"
Done several times for comic effect in a certain review ofFATAL, with such lines as:
Here, in fact, is where stupid and vicious and offensive and juvenile and brutal and stupid join together like a multiple-robot Transformer and destroy anything in the universe that is even close to being good or nice or true or good.
For added hilarity, this page of the "rebuttal" apparently doesn't recognise the concept of "comic effect".
Cinema Snob: If I want to watch a Terminator II movie, I'll watch real Terminator II movies like Terminator 2, thank you very much. Cinema Snob: I knew The Seventies were... seventies but I didn't realise they were that seventies. Cinema Snob: I would rather date a bipolar manic depressive... again.
Deadpool: The members of the Skrull Throneworld have conquered Earth through murder, torture, intimidation, and murder. Wolverine: You said "Murder" twice" Deadpool: I like Murder
"One": Haha!! You are mine and there is no escaping me!Say Your Prayers Cornelia, for I am going to shoot your robot, and then shoot you! After I shoot your robot, then I'm going to shoot you! After I shoot your robot I am going to shoot you. But first the robot, and then you, in that order. Not the whole thing, just the last part; that's the order that I meant. Because that would mean I would kill yo-yeah you know what? It don't matter.
Theodore Gray created a "Periodic table table", which collects samples of (almost) all known elements in the periodic table in slots in an actual table. It became so popular that he decided to sell printed posters of it and announced their availability on Usenet. Promptly, it was pointed out that if he ever repeated that announcement, he might become a periodic periodic table table poster poster. (This isn't actually an example of redundancy...).
In Living In Oblivion, Nondrick kills a bandit by administering a lethal dose. A lethal dose of death.
A rather classic line from The Tourettes Guy: "Suck my dick... or cock!!"
For some reason, several pages on this very wiki have links to themselves. Occasionally the very first words on a work's page.
There's also an annoying tendency to have a phrase like "Of course, Your Mileage May Vary" added to the end of examples on pages devoted to YMMV examples.
ThisCracked article has a list of DMX's criminal charges:
Assault, Possession of Illegal Substances, Possession of an Illegal Weapon, Animal Cruelty, Driving Without a License, Possession of Illegal Substances, Possession of False Identification, Possession of Illegal Substances, Impersonating a Federal Agent, Hijacking a Car, Possession of Illegal Substances, and finally, Possession of Illegal Substances.
All of the articles on Bulbapedia about Pokémon species have page titles that appear as "(insert Pokémon name here) Pokémon".
Justified as you could be searching for the cards of the same name.
MarzGurl points this out in her Land Before Time XII review after this line: "Many changes had occurred on this Day of Changes."
Happens a lot with The Irate Gamer. His quotes page has multiple examples.
According to Wikipedia, "A leather jacket is a type of clothing, a jacket made of leather."
In episodes 18 and 19 of Warning Readers Advisory, Derek the Bard is stranded in "THE IN-BETWEEN PLACE! THE PLACE THAT IS IN-BETWEEN!" And it is always referred to with those two statements.
A Very Potter Sequel: "Everything I've ever read tells me those urban legends are just old wives' tales."
The original has Draco's rant about "traversing the galaxy for intergalactic travels..."
Go search "recursion" on Google. Right now. This very moment.
In a LP collaboration of Battle Toads by ProtonJon, NintendoCapriSun,SuperJeenius, and PCULL44444, we get this: "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, fuck fuck fuck". *Achievement get: Fuck. Description: Fuck*
The Cocaine Energy Drink website posted a message from the FDA that explained to them, in great detail, why their product is not a dietary supplement or an alternative to the illicit drug. It included the sentence "As explained in greater detail below, dietary supplements are products that e (sic) intended to supplement the diet."
Nerd: They just cut out the logo with cheap paper and they glued it on...with glue.
Western Animation Animated by Westerners and geared towards Western audiences who enjoy Animation
Walker to Danny: "I'm your judge, executioner, jury, executioner, jailer, and if necessary your executioner." When Danny pointed out Walker said "executioner" three times, Walker replied that he loved that part of the job.
In The Fairly Odd Parents episode "That Old Black Magic", Timmy told an Anti-Fairy to "Stop hurting my mom and ruining my day... and hurting my mom!"
Professor Kevin Destructicon, to whom Doofenshmirtz was once apprentice to, intended to set the sun on fire. Even Doof understood the redundancy of this redundant idea.
In Doof Dynasty, there is a Redundant Scribe of Redundantness, who names things redundantly. Those things include, but are not necessarily restrained to the Unclimbable Mountain of Unclimbableness and the Uncrossable River of Uncrossableness.
Also, this exchange from "Isabella and the Temple of Sap".
'Hippy: Its over at the Old Abandoned Old Abandoned Amusement park over on the next hill.
Isabella: Did you just say "Old Abandoned Old Abandoned"?
Hippy: Yes, the Old Abandoned Old Abandoned Amusement Park.
Isabella: Old Abandoned twice?
Hippy: Yes.
Isabella: ....alright.
And then, later;
Isabella: Oh, I get it! It was actually called the "Old Abandoned Amusement Park", and now its old and abandoned.
Mojo Jojo is so repetitive he shows it even when trying to deny it.
