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Exactly What It Says On The Tin
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alt title(s): REALLY Self Explanatory; Aptly Named; What It Says On The Tin 
"Moviegoers who knowingly buy a ticket for “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” are going to get exactly what they expect: There is a mummy, a tomb, a dragon and an emperor. And the movie about them is all that it could be. If you think "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" sounds like a waste of time, don't waste yours.
I, as it happens, have time to waste..." - Roger Ebert's review
A title should tell you what a movie, show, or episode of a show is about. Sometimes, though, the premise or plot of the story is all right there in the title. That's when you can say that the story is Exactly What It Says On The Tin. Thus, this trope.
The names of action shows designed for children tend to have this as a distinguishing feature, as do most pornographic films, but it certainly doesn't stop there.
Also shows up in naming; an object or organization that does more or less what its name suggests falls into this trope through sheer power of doing Exactly What It Says In Its Name.
Direct opposite of (but not mutually exclusive with) Word Salad Title. Direct opposite of and mutually exclusive with Nonindicative Name.
See also In Which A Trope Is Described, a Victorian version of this trope. Character Title and The Place are subtropes of this. Excited Episode Titles usually feature this.
The title comes from the long-running "Does Exactly What It Says On The Tin" TV advertising campaign for Ronseal Quick Drying Woodstain, a British product for staining wood, which is known to dry quickly (and other Ronseal products, but the woodstain was first). More on which may be found at That Other Wiki.
When adding examples to this page, please note that just because it may be obvious to you doesn't mean it's obvious to everyone. That next door neighbor you never talk to? Tell her the title and see if she can give a one sentence description of the plot. If not, the title is not Exactly What It Says On The Tin.
Also, don't put trope names here. Those go in the Index Of Exact Trope Titles.
Sometimes, the discovery that something is Exactly What It Says On The Tin can be a horror in itself, particularly when it is Made From Real Girl Scouts.
Contrast In Name Only.
Examples:
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Advertising
Anime and Manga
- Samurai Pizza Cats involves Samurai Cats who deliver Pizza. That's it, really. Of course, the "Samurai" are, in the Japanese version at least, really ninja, and the original name of the series is Cat Ninden Teyande.
- No; they're samurai, which is evident from the fact that they wear colorful armor, not light, black cloaks. "Ninden" means "industrious" in Japanese.
- The Slayers is fairly infamous for this - one of the early episodes is named Flash! When All Seems Lost, the Sure Kill Sword Appears! and similar tact and care to avoid spoilers is taken throughout the franchise.
- Slayers manages to subvert this quite a few times though. One episode of Slayers Next is called "The death of the Demon Dragon King" and that's exactly what happens in there, although not in the way the viewer expects it.
- Some episodes of the Duel Masters dub use this as a joke. Like the one where Shobu duels Hakuo, which is entitled "The One Where Shobu Duels Hakuo".
- Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure is about a guy named Jojo who has adventures, and those adventures are quite bizarre.
- Several guys named Jojo, actually. And a girl.
- As well, the chapter titles (at least in the cases of parts 3 through 5; haven't yet read later parts) are mostly named after whatever character (or his Stand) that is being introduced. Others play the trope straight in terms of describing the main event, and a few are more vague.
- Dragon Ball Z tends to drop rather large spoilers in the episode titles. Guess what happens in "The End Of Vegeta", for example. (In the original Japanese, it's even worse.)
- Somewhat forgivable in Japan because most of the viewers would have been familiar with the manga and would have known what was coming.
- "Who is this mysterious new warrior? Find out in the next episode! - "His Name Is Cell"
- After thirtysomething episodes of everyone fighting Frieza, Vegeta fighting Frieza, Goku fighting Frieza, Super Saiyan Goku fighting Frieza, and the planet about to blow up, it was kind of a spoiler to see the next episode titled "Fall of a Tyrant." Apparently, the Japanese version was even worse, by adding "Frieza defeated! A tyrant falls!" Thanks for the spoilers.
- Baccano! does this as well with its episode titles, usually revealing the plot of each in one sentence. "Ladd Russo Enjoys Talking a Lot and Slaughtering a Lot" indeed.
- Okusama Wa Joshikosei. Translation: My Wife Is A High School Girl. In the same vein, Okusama wa Mahou Shoujo, My Wife Is A Magical Girl. Note the series are, in fact, two separate shows.
- Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru, the English title being Otoboku: Maidens are falling in love with me!. It's an H-game. Furthermore, the furigana over the male pronoun "boku" reads "oneesama", hinting that the main character is a Wholesome Crossdresser and the haremettes are Sweet On Polly Oliver.
- Gakk? no Kaidan (School Ghost Stories, released in English as Ghost Stories) is a story about a school building haunted by ghosts.
- In the spanish dub there was the infamous episode in Sailor Moon named "Neprite dies for Molly(Naru)", guess what happened.
- Used in G Gundam Abridged:
Domon: "Why's it called the Dark Gundam?"
Kouji: "Because when the lights are off this room is really dark. Hence the name 'Dark Gundam'."
Domon: "Makes sense I guess."
- Also frequently seen in Sailor Moon. Similar to Dragonball Z, the anime of Sailor Moon was produced under the assumption that the core viewing audience would already have read the manga (nevermind that the anime changed a LOT of events around). Both series were produced by Toei Animation, which has a long, storied history of this particular trope. (And continues to this day in long-running series such as One Piece.
- Used straight with the manga Sweet Ninja Girl Azuki. She's sweet, she's a ninja, she's a girl and her name is Azuki.
- The dub title to Ninja Senshi Tobikage is Ninja Robots. It's about Ninja that are Robots.
- The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. This movie is about a girl. She leaps. Through time. So yeah.
- To emphasize: she literally travels through time by jumping.
- Mahou Sensei Negima has Jack Rakan, who has many names. Two of which are "The Thousand Blades" and "That Damn Guy You Can Stab With Swords All You Like And It Won't Do A Thing, Damnit." These two names really tell you all you need to know about his fighting style.
- I dare you to guess what happens in the Fushigi Yuugi episodes "To Die for the Star of Suzaku" and "Nuriko, Eternal Farewell". Go on, guess.
- One Piece tends to have extremely desciptive episode titles that give away plot twists.
- Though I'm not sure about the original titles, the dub titles for Yu Yu Hakusho were often as obvious as Dragonball Z's. For example, for a set of episodes, a trio of supposed "villains" were actually part of a test for the main heroes, and the preview for the next episode mentioned that the person who organized the plan would be revealed. The title of the next episode? Genkai's Ruse.
- Kamen No Maid Guy (literally "Masked Maid Guy") is about a masked maid guy. With superpowers.
- Speed Racer. The guy's legal name is first name: Speed, last name: Racer. He races cars.
- Code Geass contains an example that seems to have slipped under the radar: Zero Requiem, which is a requiem (the mass for a dead person) for Zero (Lelouch).
- End of Evangelion is the ending to the Evangelion series. Until the remakes that is...
- Debateably Ranma 1/2. It's about a guy named Ranma who is half-boy and half-girl. He also encounters a lot of other characters who are half-human and half-something else.
- Witch Hunder Robin is about a girl named Robin that hunts witches.
Comic Books
- Johnny The Homicidal Maniac
- Parodied in Evan Dorkin's Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventures comic: When Bill and Ted take Death to see Planet Of The Apes, he asks "What's this movie about?" "Dude," answers Ted, "it's about a planet of apes!"
- "No way!" "Yes way, dude!" "That's totally heinous!".
- The Elsewords story The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe. Guess what happens in it.
- Quite a few superheroes have this: Superman is a man who is pretty neat, Wonder Woman is well above average, Speedy is quick on the draw, et cetera.
- That being said, though Martian Manhunter is indeed a Martian, he doesn't hunt men any more or less than any other member of the Justice League, Cyclops has two eyes, and The Flash is merely a very quick fella, you perverts.
- Speed from Marvel's Young Avengers:
Patriot: I'm sorry: "Speed"?
Speed: Nice fit, don't you think?
Hawkeye: What's wrong with "Speed"? It tells you everything you need to know in one syllable.
- Marvel again,
- Giant-Man: can make himself bigger.
- Bullseye: Has really good aim
- Iceman: controls ice
- Spider Man: Does whatever a spider can
- Invisible Woman: becomes invisible
- Flatman: has the amazing power of being two dimensional
- Tigra: looks like a tiger
- Sandman: made of sand
- Two-Gun Kid: carries two guns
- Storm: controls weather
- Toad: has toad related powers
- Dead Girl: is female and undead
- Gorilla-Man: man who became a gorilla
- Gravity: Controls gravity
- Magneto: uses magnetism
- Speed: is fast
- Armor (Hisako Ichiki): creates a suit of armor around herself
- In the Astonishing X-Men #20 comic when she names herself, Wolverine and Armor have a conversation about this exact note:
Wolverine: "'Armor'. Hunh."
Misako: "Is it taken?"
Wolverine: "I don't think so. It'll work for a name. Kinda on the nose..."
Misako: "Well it gets to the point."
Wolverine: "Yeah, it's very direct —I'm thinking of calling myself 'Claws'."
- Transmetropolitan features a device called a Bowel Disruptor. Guess what it does. Hint: Brown Note
- Legion of Super-Heroes
Fan Fic
Film
- Snakes On A Plane. It was originally only a working title. They eventually decided on 'Pacific Air Flight 121.' But Samuel L Jackson famously announced the only reason he signed on was because of the title, and he threatened to quit when it was temporarily changed.
- What do you suppose the movie Fighting is about?
- Can you guess the twist in Eating Raoul?
- Young People Fucking. Not porn though.
- The film The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? describes the plot, more or less, but it's not actually the campy, comedy-horror that the wording suggests.
- The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is something of a subversion. The film depicts the central action of the title and portrays Ford's following reputation as a coward, but the film itself does not share the bias implied in the title.
- Very popular among B Movies, like Night Of The Living Dead
- Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. The UK-release title for the first film, "Harold & Kumar Get The Munchies"'', also qualifies.
- Parodied in Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End in which Jack points out the lack of imagination in calling a pirate stronghold "Shipwreck Cove". On "Shipwreck Island". Where they meet in the town of "Shipwreck".
- To his credit, the town WAS made up entirely of dozens of wrecked ships piled together.
- And also with the nine pieces of eight, which aren't actually pieces of eight at all but rather pieces of whatever junk the skint broke pirate lords happened to have in their pockets at the time. But, as Gibbs notes, that doesn't sound very piratey.
- The franchise name also qualifies, even though undead pirates and international pirates also appear.
- Last Of The Mohicans. Moreso than the book. Guess which character survives?
- Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Harvey Weinstein reportedly greenlighted it just by its title.
- Love Story. That it is.
- Picnic At Hanging Rock. There's a picnic, and it happens at Hanging Rock. Yup.
- Hobo With A Shotgun. A fake trailer in the Grindhouse double feature (although seemingly limited to Canadian theatrical releases, for some illogical reason), you get exactly that. And about two minutes of sheer awesome ensues.
- Pop-culture auteur Andy Warhol was notorious for making films which nothing more than pointing a camera at the title subject for several minutes or even hours, including one of the most famous Take That moments in film, a 70 minute magnum opus named Taylor Mead's Ass. Others including Blow Job (35 minutes watching the facial expressions of a man receiving oral sex), Sleep (five hours of watching John Giorno sleeping), and Empire (a 8-hour view of the Empire State Building).
- My Dinner With Andre He goes to dinner. With Andre. That's all that happens.
- Originally, the film The Longest Most Meaningless Movie in the World was an example of this: it's 48 hours of random stock footage. However, since then, even longer movies were made.
- The Japanese porn "Lolita Confinement Lesbian" was Exactly What It Says On The Tin; woe befell the viewer who didn't read said tin.
- The following conversation from Snatch shows that sometimes a nickname can be exactly what they say on the tin.
Tony: Boris?!! As in Boris the Blade? As in Boris the Bullet Dodger?
Avi: Why do they call him the Bullet Dodger?
Tony: (Pauses, gives Avi a look) Because he dodges bullets, Avi.
- That movie also has Bullet-Tooth Tony (who has false teeth made from bullets) and Franky Four Fingers (who can only count to nine).
- Used similarly (and humorously)in Lucky Number Slevin: "Why do they call him the boss?" "Why do they call you the Rabbi?" "Why do they call him The Fairy?"
- Nine Dead Gay Guys, to the point where the action pauses for "Dead Gay Guy #X" captions.
- Godzilla'' films are generally titled with Godzilla's name and who he is fighting.
- Godzilla vs. King Kong
- Mothra vs. Godzilla
- Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster
- Godzilla vs. Hedorah (released in America as Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster)
- Godzilla vs. Gigan
- Godzilla vs. Megalon
- Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
- Godzilla vs. Biollante
- Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah
- Godzilla vs. Mothra (Not the same movie as Mothra vs. Godzilla)
- Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II
- Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla
- Godzilla vs. Destoroyah
- Godzilla vs. Megaguirus
- Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, because they were running out of titles
- And who can forget Bambi Meets Godzilla
- Freddy vs. Jason, in which Messrs. Krueger and Voorhees fight.
- Its comic book sequel took things even further: Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash
- 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag.
- Shoot Em Up.
- Monsters Vs Aliens.
- Alien Vs Predator.
- Mirror Mask, while itself a borderline example (it revolves around a mirrored mask), features a Fictional Document called The Really Useful Book. It comes in handy several times throughout the film, and even gives a Heroic Sacrifice.
- Drag Me To Hell
- Flight of the Living Dead. Like Snakes On A Plane, but with zombies. It's a masterpiece.
- Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter. It's Jesus Christ. He hunts vampires.
- Tim Burton is very fond of these. Examples: Edward Scissorhands (about a man named Edward who has scissors for hands), Corpse Bride (about a bride who is a corpse), Mars Attacks! (about Mars attacking), Pee-wee's Big Adventure (about Pee-wee Herman who has a big adventure), and Batman. He once said he'd have preferred calling the second film "Batman" as well because it would be less confusing that way.
- Watch The K Foundation Burn a Million Quid: A documentary of the guys from The KLF, also known as the K Foundation, which documents them burning a million pounds in banknotes.
- In Bruges is indeed set In Bruges.
- Subverted in So I Married an Axe Murderer. With a twist: it turns out he married an axe murderer's sister.
- The French movie Rien sur Robert, the title meaning "Nothing About Robert", has no character named Robert.
- The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain.
- The direct-to-video release Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.
- Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life included The Very Big Corporation of America. (The official-looking logo in their boardroom, on top of a wall-sized plaque listing their subsidiaries, made it funnier.)
- Saving Private Ryan was a World War II movie about a squad saving a private named Ryan.
- Teenage Hooker Became A Killing Machine - it's about an adolescent prostitute who is turned into a robot to cause the death of the teacher who murdered her and her unborn baby.
- Subversion: The Spanish Prisoner does indeed involve the confidence scheme of the same name, but it's only a decoy for the real con.
- Penn & Teller Get Killed. Penn Jillette lampshades this in some beyond-the-grave narration at the end of the film.
- Hot Tub Time Machine
- Home Alone - young child finds himself at home, alone.
- Home Alone 2: Lost in New York - same child finds himself lost in New York (the subtitle contradicting the title; he is not at home).
- Speed Racer again. See the entry in the anime section.
- The very first copyrighted film 'Fred Ott's Sneeze' is, indeed, a five second shot of Fred Ott's sneeze.
- The Star Wars series is known for its rather direct titles describing the gist of the plot. The series as a whole is about war among the stars. Most of the subtitles feature a subject and an action being taken, which represents the primary focus of that film's plot. In Attack of the Clones, clones resolve the film by attacking. In Revenge of the Sith, the Sith gets revenge. In The Empire Strikes Back, the Empire launches a counter offensive. In Return of the Jedi, Luke not only personally returns after his injury, but breathes new life into the Jedi order. The first film in each trilogy do not describe an action being taken, and are therefore a bit more nebulous.
- Ninja Assassin. It hasn't come out yet, but who wants to guess what it will be about?
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail introduces "the aptly-named Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film". Later on, they run into a man whom they'd encountered before (in scene 24), and exclaim "Look! There's the old man from scene 24!".
- NightmareOnElmStreet is about kids who live on the Elm Street (well, in the first one, at least) and they have the most nightmarish nightmares possible.
- Back To The Future is about a kid who must return from the past back to the future.
Geography
- New Zealand is made up of two islands, called North Island and South Island. Guess which one is further north.
- To be precise, it's the North Island, etc. Names? More like references. Also features the place name Taumata-whaka-tangi-hanga-koauau-0tamatea-turi-pukaka-piki-maunga-horonuku-pokai-whenua-kitanatahu, which roughly means “the summit where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as land-eater, played his flute to his loved one.”
- Australia does this, too. "Northern Territory" and "South Australia"?
- New South Wales, which the first explorers compared to Wales in the UK, but a new one and further south. In fact, all Australian states and territories are like this except Victoria and Tasmania. (Western Australia is the Western part of Australia. The Australian Capital Territory is where the Australian capital city is. Queensland is -or at least was before Federation - the Queen's Land)
- Likewise Michigan's Upper Peninsula and Lower Peninsula. Guess which is which.
- On top of that, the Lower Peninsula is colloquially known as "The Mitten". People from the Upper Peninsula even give residents of the Lower Peninsula the nickname "trolls" since they, well, live "under the [Mackinac] Bridge" that connects the two peninsulas.
- Central African Republic, a country which happens to be a republic located in central Africa. It used to be called the Central African Empire, back when it was ruled by an emperor.
- That was only for three years (1976-1979), when it was ruled by Jean-Bedel Bokassa, an egotistical maniac not content to be a mere "President for life". Bokassa's "coronation" costed millions and bankrupted the country (one of the poorest in Africa), and his army eventually got sick of his antics and launched a coup. It was the "Central African Republic" before him, and reverted to that name after he was gone.
- Also, South Africa is the southernmost country in Africa.
- Subversion: Upper Egypt is actually in the SOUTH, while Lower Egypt is in the North. The Ancient Egyptians named them this way because the Nile River flows North, so Northern Egypt was lower down (or up, whatever) the direction the river flows.
- Upper and Lower always refer to river flow, which tends to go from high places (hence Upper) to low places (hence Lower), not to how things are drawn on a map. Upper/Lower Silesia/Lusatia/Bavaria/Franconia and pretty much every such geographic pair. (in all cases mentioned Upper is South or East to the Lower).
- The United States of America consists of a number of states, united under one government, on the continent of America.
- We tend to like descriptive names. The Confederate States of America was a number of states on the continent of America who decided to form a confederacy. The Republic of Texas was a republic in the area known for over a century as Texas. The Republic of the Rio Grande was a republic of three states formed along the Rio Grande river along Texas, and so on.
- The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a union of soviet (a technical term describing the way they were run) socialist republics.
- The Russian Federation is a federation. A Russian one.
- Mexico is also officially a United States. It's los Estados Unidos de Mexico (United States of Mexico). They call people from Canada and the USA "North Americans."
- The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, presumably shortened from The United Kingdom Of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, And Several Surrounding Islands.
- Actually it was shortened from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. A united kingdom composed of the two islands. Since the Irish Republicans decided to secede, only Northern Ireland remains a part of the United Kingdom. Now if Scotland also decides to leave the union...that will be some tricky nomenclature right there. The United Kingdom of Southern Britain and Northern Ireland perhaps?
- Great Britain sometimes refers collectively to England, Scotland and Wales (therefore including Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides, part of Scotland, and the Isles of Scilly, part of England) and sometimes just to the main island. "Mainland Great Britain" is used when clarification is necessary, such as by the post office. Though referred to (sometimes jokingly, sometimes disparagingly) as a small island, Great Britain itself is one of the largest islands in the world.
- Canada is fairly thoroughly riddled with names like this. Tsawwassen, the major ferry terminal on the BC mainland, is Coast Salish for "where the land meets the sea"; less poetically, on Vancouver Island there's a town called Metchosin, which means "place of stinking fish". Quebec means in Native American language "Where the river narrows", the point where the city is located.
- Furthermore, The Netherlands are "nether", as in below. Half of the country is below sea level.
- And half of the place names in The Netherlands are pretty literal too. Amsterdam, Rotterdam etc. are all dams in the respective rivers. The suffixes -tricht, -trecht and -drecht refer to a shallow place used to cross a river, as in Maastricht, Utrecht, Dordrecht... I could go on (note that in some cases the actual river either doesn't exist anymore or changed names).
- Quite a few of these in England as well, where the English equivalent of -tricht etc. is -ford; for instance, the county town of Oxfordshire was built around a ford across the River Ox. Deptford in what is now a part of London is so-named because the ford was a deep one as fords go. Then of course there's -bridge; Oxford's famous rival was built around a bridge across the River Cam.
- Greenland and Iceland are a famous inversion of this trope, with Iceland being far greener and Greenland being far more icy. There is debate whether Greenland's climate was milder during the Medieval age or whether Eric the Red deliberately misnamed the island to attract colonists. Eric the Red's son Leif also discovered Vineland - aka Newfoundland, two straight examples.
- Subversion: The Holy Roman Empire is commonly said to have been neither holy nor Roman, though opinions are divided on whether or not it was an empire. Voltaire said it wasn't. Perhaps "Secular German Confederation" wouldn't fit on the letterhead.
- Between the town centre of Lincoln, England and Lincoln Cathedral lies a steep hill, called... you guessed it... Steep Hill. They're not daft, those Lincoln folk. The name is unlikely to cause any confusion in Lincolnshire, where hills (steep or otherwise) are uncommon.
- Halfway up Steep Hill, before you reach the Uphill area of Lincoln (also known as the Upper Hill) you will come across Brown's Pie Shop. It's a good place for lunch as long as you like pie. Pie from a shop run by the Brown family.
- Torpenhow Hill in England gets its name from the Cornish "tor" for "hill", the Brythonic "pen" for "hill", the Anglo-Saxon "how" for "hill", and the English "hill" for "hill", making the properly translated name of the place "Hill Hill Hill Hill".
- Oh, and it's pronounced "Trepenna", just in case it wasn't already ludicrous enough.
- La Brea means "The Tar" in Spanish. So those famous dinosaur death traps out in Los Angeles are actually called The The Tar Tar Pits. A rare case of Exactly What It Says On The Tin and Department Of Redundancy Department rolled into one.
- The Great Salt Lake in Utah is a big lake with a large amount of salt in it. Really.
- And guess which body of water Salt Lake City, Utah is near?
- Lets not forget The Dead Sea, whose name in Hebrew means The Sea of Salt.
- For that matter, the English name "Dead Sea" qualifies also; that particular body of water is totally devoid of any life more complex than algae.
- And if we want to go biblical in that area, the "Red Sea" mentioned in the King Jame's Bible in Exodus is actually a mis-spelling: It was supposed to be the Reed Sea, which was, you guessed it, a sea with a lot of reeds near the edge of Egypt.
- Mesopotamia, the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers means, "The Land Between the Two Rivers", in Greek.
- Surfers Paradise. But that's cheating, it used to be called 'Elston'.
- When the Spanish built The Presidio in San Francisco, they cut most of the wood from the banks of a creek in what is now Marin County. The name of the creek: Arroyo Corte Madera del Presidio ("the creek where they cut wood for The Presidio.")
- High Point, North Carolina, was apparently called after a note scribbled on a map by a railroad planner.
- An important fort in South Carolina during the American Revolution was known as Ninety-Six, because it was 96 miles from Charleston.
- And while we're at it. North Carolina is north of South Carolina. And North Dakota is north of South Dakota. And West Virginia is west of
East Virginia (well, most of it, anyway).
- Some street names fall into this category, too. For example, Columbus, Ohio has Rustic Bridge Road, which consists of...a rustic bridge.
- A bunch of Chinese place names are Exactly What It Says On The Tin. For starters, there's Beijing (Northern Capital) and Nanjing (Southern Capital). There's also the provinces of Shanxi (West Mountain) and Shandong (East Mountain), Hebei (North River) and Henan (South River), and the autonomous region of Xinjiang (New Frontier).
- Hong Kong means "fragrant harbor." While Victoria Harbour certainly is fragrant (as a result of being heavily polluted), its current smell is probably not the one responsible for the name.
- Far Eastern place-names in general tend to do this. Even Korean and Vietnamese place-names will often have appropriate, literal meanings when written with Chinese characters.
- Lots of British place names used to follow this trope. The village of Thorney, literally "Thorn island", used to be surrounded by marsh in what is now the fens and used to be overgrown with brambles. A few miles into Lincolnshire is the village of "Four Gotes", literally Four Drains. There are man-made drainage ditches in the surrounding countryside, you get the idea.
- Following on from this, the names of most pre-19th century towns and villages in Wales are a basic description of the place in Welsh (a more modern example is the infamously long-named town of "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch", or "St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave", which was renamed such as a publicity stunt). Even Cymru (the Welsh name for Wales) derives from Old Welsh and means "Land of Friends".
- This competed with Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukaka pikimaunga horonukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu from New Zealand for the longest place name in the world. It translates as "The place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed, and swallowed mountains, known as land eater, played his flute to his loved one". They were both beaten by the official (but archiac) name of Bangkok, Thailand.
- In a similar vein, a few Japanese place names follow this as well. Kyoto (Capital City) was Japan's capital for long time. Edo was renamed Tokyo (Eastern Capital). Hiroshima (Wide Island) is located on a delta, so it sort of fits.
- Not to mention Kyuushuu (Nine Provinces). No points for guessing how many provinces it has (had, technically; now there are only seven). There's also a city called Kitakyuushuu (Northern Kyuushuu), which is indeed located in the northern part of the island of Kyuushuu. (And is the birthplace of Mai Nakahara, for the interested.)
- Long Island, New York state, is a very long island.
- New York City is the largest city in the state of New York. Even better, "New York City" is actually a nickname. The official name is...the City of New York.
- East Fishkill, New York is a town east of Fishkill, New York.
- Fishkill is named after a kill with fish in it.
- North East, Dutchess County is in the northeastern part of the county. Southeast, Putnam County is in the southeast section of its county.
- Kansas City, Kansas. Not to be confused with Kansas City, Missouri.
- Well, actually, it is. They're the same city. The Missouri side is more exiting though, as most of the metropolitan area is located on that side.
- Exiting??? Really??? Though I suppose that could be true as most people exit KCMO to the sub-urbs everyday. :)
- In Berkeley, California, University Avenue and College Avenue both have the University of California at one end. (Many other cities probably have streets by those names, for the same reason.)
- Tempe Arizona placed it's college at the intersection of College Avanue and University Drive.
- Storrs, Connecticut, has a Boulevard.
- As does Richmond, Virginia
- Collegeville, Pennsylvania is the home of...a college. (Ursinus College to be exact)
- The Netherlands features a province called North Brabant. Belgium features a province called South Brabant. The Dutch are located above the Belgians. There you go.
- There's also West Flanders, which is (you guessed it!) the western part of Flanders. But subverted with East Flanders, which is not the eastern part of Flanders at all. It's just the province east of West Flanders.
- One part of Israel is called "the Negev". "Negev" means "south". Guess where it is.
- The southernmost point of the Hawaiian Islands (and, indeed, the United States) is called South Point.
- 'Australia' appears to be derived from Terra Australis Incognito, which is Latin for "Unknown Southern Land". Which was what they put on their maps before Captain Cook landed. It's pretty damn southern, it does happen to be land, and before Captain Cook landed, it wasn't marked on the British maps, making it unknown... at least to them. Plus:
- Great Sandy Desert is a desert full of sand.
- Great Barrier Reef is a really, really big barrier reef
- Western Australia is in the west
- South Australia is a southern state
- Nothern Territory is a northern territory (not a state)
- The Blue Mountains and the Snowy Mountains
- The capitol city of Malaysia ("Land of the Malays") is Kuala Lumpur - in Bahasa, this means "Muddy River Junction." Kuala Lumpur is, indeed, at the confluence of two muddy rivers. In a stunning coincidence, the Canadian city of Winnipeg ("Muddy Water" in Cree) has also been verified as being near muddy water.
- The Malaysian state of Negri Sembilan ("State of Nine") ...well, guess how many districts it has.
- Averted in the Malaysian state of Perak ("Silver"), which is known for its large TIN deposits.
- You know that big red spot on Jupiter that's actually a vortex of storm clouds? It has a name, and that name is... the Great Red Spot.
- The tallest mountain in Alabama is known as Mount Cheaha. "Cheaha" mean "high place" in Tsalagi.
- Alabama also features the town of Gulf Shores. It's on the coast of a gulf (it's even on a strip of land oddly shaped enoug that it has multiple shores.
- Red Mountain, also in Alabama, has red soil. It is not to be confused with a significantly less pleasant mountain of the same name.
- The oldest brick house west of the Mississippi River, located in Ste Genevieve, Missouri, bears a sign identifying it as "Old Brick House".
Literature
- An autobiographic book about a famous track athlete Piter Snell is named "No Bugles No Drums". It indeed mentions neither of those and is named this way precisely by that reason. The Authors couldn't think of a proper name and some quickwitted lady offered them this one.
- Many fictional books after the Renaissance and before the 20th century, including, but not limited to: Around the World in 80 Days, Despereaux, Kidnapped, Journey through the Center of the Earth. Can't say they didn't warn you about anything that happens: each chapter's title is a list of the main events of said chapter. Also, Historia Regum Britanniae, although as it was meant to be (but failed miserably at being) history, it could be forgiven.
- In a collection of articles and essays titled Metamagical Themas, Douglas Hofstadter (best known for Gödel, Escher, Bach) printed David Moser's This Is the Title of This Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself. This is an often-cited, though tongue-in-cheek exploration of self-referential writing.
- Moll Flanders. The full title is The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest and died a Penitent, thus making this Older Than Steam.
- Our Dear Moll isn't alone. Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships is the offical name of Gullivers Travels and Robinson Crusoe was originally known as The Life and strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, where-in all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself. That last part was a bit of a lie. In reality it was written by Daniel Defoe who also wrote Moll Flanders. Apparently he had a thing for tin titles.
- At this point in the Eighteenth century, everybody does: title pages were the equivalent of back cover or dust jacket blurbs. Booksellers would pin sample title pages up to attract buyers.
- Kidnapped: Being memoirs of the adventures of DAVID BALFOUR in the year 1751; how he was kidnapped and cast away; his sufferings in a desert isle; his journey in the Wild Highlands; his acquaintance with ALAN BRECK STEWART and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he suffered at the hands of his uncle, EBENEZER BALFOUR OF SHAWS, falsely so-called; written by himself, and now set forth by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. (In reality, this was written in the 19th century by Robert Louis Stevenson, and is the official title of Kidnapped. It is sometimes cataloged under the name of its protagonist David Balfour rather than that of its author.)
- The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. (Later adapted into a film by the same name.)
- The title of An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order by Me, John Hodgman, a Professional Writer, in The Areas Of My Expertise, which Include: Matters Historical; Matters Literary; Matters Cryptozoological; Hobo Matters; Food, Drink, & Cheese (a Kind of Food); Squirrels & Lobsters & Eels; Haircuts; Utopia; What Will Happen in the Future; and Most Other Subjects; Illustrated with a Reasonable Number of Tables and Figures, and Featuring the Best of "Were You Aware of It?", John Hodgman's Long-Running Newspaper Novelty Column of Strange Facts and Oddities of the Bizarre gives you a pretty good idea of what you're in for.
- There's also For your Consideration, The Firms of Dutton Riverhead Books of New York City, Publishers of Ken Follett, Darin Strauss, David Rees, and the RZA, Present in the English Language: A Further Compendium of Complete World Knowledge in "The Areas Of My Expertise" Assembled and Illumined by Me, John Hodgman, A Famous Minor Television Personality*, Offering More Information Than You Require On subjects as Diverse As: The Past (As There Is Always More of it), The Future (As There is Still Some Left), All of the Presidents of the United States, The Secrets of Hollywood, Gambling, The Sport of the Asthmatic Man (Including Hermit-Crab Racing), Strange Encounters with Aliens, How to Buy a Computer, How to Cook an Owl, And Most Other Subjects, Plus: Answers To Your Questions Posed via Electronic Mail, And: 700 Mole-Man Names, Including Their Occupations.
*"Formerly a Former Professional Literary Agent and Professional Writer, AKA "The Deranged Millionaire''".
- That's right, this book has a footnote in the title.
- The City Of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers includes "A very short chapter in which not much is going to happen".
- In a similar vein, there's Conjuring: Being a Definitive Account of the Venerable Arts of Sorcery, Prestidigitation, Wizardry, Deception, & Chicanery and of the Mountebanks & Scoundrels Who Have Perpetrated These Subterfuges on a Bewildered Public, by James Randi Esq., a Contrite Rascal Once Dedicated to these Wicked Practices but Now Almost Totally Reformed.
- On a different kind of arcane subject, Joel on Software: And on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers, Designers, and Managers, and to Those Who, Whether by Good Fortune or Ill Luck, Work with Them in Some Capacity.
- Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space (and the Subsequent Assault of the Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds)
- However, the title inexplicably fails to mention the giant mutant dandelion that shows up towards the end.
- Most of the other Captain Underpants books also qualify. Example: Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants.
- The chapter titles of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series of books are great examples of this. Some of the more interesting examples are "A god buys us cheeseburgers", "Clarisse blows up everything", "Demon Pigeons attack", and "The Underworld sends me a prank call".
- Parodied by Terry Pratchett, who in his Discworld novels mentions a book How To Kille Insects. This is a big and heavy book, used for hitting insects with...
- On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin
- More of a subversion, as the treatise never even attempts to address how new species originate
- Lesbian Vampire Killers is both this and yet slightly misleading. It is not about lesbians who are vampire killers, but the killers of lesbian vampires.
- Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K Jerome. Guess what it's about?
- My Brother Sam Is Dead.
- 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth
- The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, by Henry Darger.
- Young Adult Novel by Daniel Pinkwater.
- Travels through Italy containing new and curious observations on that country; particularly the Grand Duchy of Tuscany; the Ecclesiastical State or the Dominions of the Pope; the Kingdom of Naples; the Republics of Venice and Genoa; and other Italian states. Wherein the present state of those countries is accurately described, as to their different kinds of government, situation, extent, revenue, power, trade, manners, and customs; but more especially their ANTIQUITIES as temples, triumphal arches, pillars, baths, amphitheatres, aqueducts, catacombs, ruins, and public ways; as also their MODERN CURIOSITIES, churches, convents, palaces, villas, castles, forts, bridges and public roads. With the most authentic account yet published of capital pieces in PAINTING, SCULPTURE, & ARCHITECTURE that are to be seen in Italy: Including remarks on the ANCIENT and PRESENT STATE of ITALY, of the ARTS AND SCIENCES which have flourished the re, and of TASTE in PAINTING; with the characters of the principal painters, and other artists. By John Northall, Esq. Captain in his Britannic Majesty's Royal Regiment of Artillery. Illustrated with A Map of Italy, a route of this Tour, and several copperplates, engraved from drawings taken on the spot. (London: S. Hooper and S. Bladon, 1766)
- Unicorns Of Balinor is indeed about unicorns.... Who live in the world of Balinor.
- Children's authors seem to be quite fond of this trope: one of my eight-year-old students submitted the following review of The Boy Whose Mother Was A Pirate - 'It's about a boy and his mum and the boy's a boy and the mum's a pirate.'
- David Drake's short story collection "Men Hunting Things" and its sequel "Things Hunting Men"
- Subverted by John Dies at the End by David Wong. John actually does die just as advertised, but he dies in the second chapter. The afterword addresses this, admitting the book is "one big cry for help from a person who is nothing but a big fat liar."
- Loren Estleman's pastiche Sherlock Holmes Versus Dracula.
- War And Peace, obscure as it may sound, is about war and peace.
- Charlie And The Chocolate Factory takes it to a whole new level, to the point that MANY of the parts had a title that basically spoils the entire chapter. "Augustus Gloop goes up a tube" and "Mike Teavee is sent by television" are just examples, and not the worst ones.
- Some of Jules Verne's more famous adventure novels are exactly what it says on the tin: "A Journey to the Center of the Earth," "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," "Around the World in Eighty Days," "Five Weeks in a Balloon"...
- Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson & The Olympians is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin throughout. The series is indeed about Percy Jackson and... the Olympians. The book titles are this too. Lightning Thief? Somebody stole Zeus' lightning. The Sea of Monsters? They go to a sea of monsters. Even the chapters do this. I remember a chapter with a title along the lines of "I get beat up by cheerleaders." The cheerleaders at the school turn into monsters and attack.
- This tin has already been said several entries above.
- Pride And Prejudice And Zombies.
- The Book of Useless Information. It's a book.. which contains useless information.
- Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar. It's about this girl, she is lonely and a werewolf.
- A Serious of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. It's about a bunch of events that are unfortunate.
- Walter the Farting Dog It's about a flatulent dog.
- The Pirates! In An Adventure With Communists, is about a bunch of pirates who have an adventure with Karl Marx, and some communists.
- In-universe example: Ben Elton's Dead Famous had the movie Fuck Orgy Eleven.
- The Whateley Universe novel "Ayla and the Great Shoulder Angel Conspiracy". It's about Ayla. And shoulder angels. People are making lots and lots of shoulder angels, in lots of bizarre ways. Like some kind of conspiracy or something.
- Warriors, or as is more often called Warrior Cats, is about cats... that are warriors.
- Into the Wild - The first book, in which the main character goes... into the wild.
- Forest of Secrets - Well, there is a forest, and there are secrets in it.
- The Darkest Hour - Which is... their Darkest Hour...
- Dark River - Guess what kind of body of water is significant to the plot.
- Eclipse - There is... an eclipse.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain.
- Death Star. A number of Star Wars EU examples exist, and while they usually require a little context - knowing what the Death Star is, for instance - mostly they don't need a lot.
- The illustrated Japanese translation of Twilight was called The Boy Whom I Love Is A Vampire. Or So Ive Heard.
- A book a lot of you may have read in middle school, My Brother Sam Is Dead. Gee, I wonder if Sam's going to make it through this book alive?
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Guess who dies on the first page?
- Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals parodies the trope with the following conversation: <Hix> A lot of really interesting stuff happened under the Evil Emperor. <Glenda> Evil stuff. <Hix> Yes, that was rather the point. Evil Emperor. Evil Empire. It did what it said on the iron maiden.
- The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg. Yes, he was both a major league catcher and a spy—sometimes at the same time.
- J.R.R. Tolkien was famously opposed to his publisher splitting The Lord of the Rings into three books, in particular titling the third volume Return of the King, since it gives away the ending.
Live Action TV
- The British sketch comedy show, "Smack the Pony," had spoof dating videos play in the middle of every episode. In episode 6 of season 1, one of the videos has Roz, 27 years old, a woman with tourettes who, after shouting several things, shouts out "IT DOES EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN!!"
- There was a British show called The Show. It was, in fact, a show.
- Friends basically owns this trope. All but two episodes follow the basic formula of "The One With /Where/In X", eg. The One With the Hypnosis Tape, The One in Vegas, The One Where They're up all night. Even the three that don't are called "The Pilot", "The One Hundreth" and "The Last One" respectively.
- Frasier. Whenever a singular character from Cheers shows up, the episode title is "The Show Where [Lilith/Sam/Diane/Woody] Shows Up". This did not hold true for Cheerful Goodbyes, in which more than one Cheers character appeared.
- Nor for subsequent reappearances of Lilith, who became a semi-recurring character.
- Power Rangers' later seasons tends to have this in spades; to take one interesting example, Power Rangers In Space was set in space. Had it been an Recycled In SPACE installment too, we'd have gotten three in one.
- You know she had to get here sometime: Buffy The Vampire Slayer is about a girl named Buffy who, well...if you don't know, call somebody.
- The French translation is even less ambiguous—it's effectively "Buffy Fights The Vampires".
- Slightly subverted in that she doesn't just slay vampires. Or just slay vampires. If you see what I mean.
- Chased By Dinosaurs, which was like Walking With Dinosaurs except there was a time travelling zoologist who did, indeed, get chased.
- Prison Break. Seriously.
- Well, the first season, anyway.
- Fat Guy Stuck in Internet. When Adult Swim first summarized the show, they said, "Fat Guy Stuck in Internet. This fat guy gets stuck in the Internet."
- An episode of Father Ted was called "Kicking Bishop Brennon up the arse". Ted has to kick Bishop Brennon up the arse.
- Many, many non-fiction programmes, such as those along the lines of When Tropers Attack, or genuine titles The Boy Who Gave Birth To His Brother (no, not Rusty), My Large Breasts and I and The Man Whose Arms Exploded. Yes, really.
- Used to hilarious effect in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia with the episode titles. For example, the cold open will be Frank hatching a dangerous scheme, but claiming that no one will get hurt. Cue the episode title, "Frank Sets Sweet Dee on Fire."
- My Mother The Car. See, this dude's mother is a car...
- Neds Declassified School Survival Guide approaches Word Salad Title length, but it's about this kid named Ned who composes a guide to surviving school, and is willing to divulge the results to anyone who wants to know. So..
- Lampshaded in a Kids in the Hall sketch about an Ex-Girlfriends Relocation Program. "It's complicated, so allow me to explain. The Ex-Girlfriends Relocation Program is a program that relocates ex-girlfriends. ...Gee, I guess it wasn't that complicated."
- That 70s Show. A show, set in the 70's.
- That 80s Show. A show, set in the 80's.
- In the second episode of Arrested Development, Michael discovers a bag in the fridge labeled "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat". After looking in the bag he delivers his classic response: "I don't know what I was expecting."
- Also, Tobias is a "nevernude", and when Michael finds this out, he asks, "Is that exactly what it sounds like?"
- Lampshaded in the Doctor Who episode "Bad Wolf." Captain Jack Harkness asks "What's a defabricator?" before said device vaporizes his clothes. He then says "Okay, Defabricator. Does exactly what it says on the tin."
- In an old Dr Who episode the Doctor asked a Silurian "This Destructor, what exactly is it?" and was told "A Destructor is something with which you destruct something else."
- The first-ever produced episode of I Love Lucy was entitled "Lucy Thinks Ricky is Trying to Murder Her." Bet you can't guess the plot.
- The game show Win Ben Stein's Money. Its eponymous host assures us that if you're fast enough, smart enough, and if you've got the guts, you can win Ben Stein's money!
- Read the legal copy in the credits—it's not actually his money, making this a subversion.
- It is in a sense, though. Stein wasn't actually paying the contestants out of his own pocket, but he did get all of the prize money that the contestant didn't win. So it was his money in the sense that it would go to him if the contestant didn't win it.
- How It's Made.
- How Do They Do It?
- It seems like quite a few Discovery Channel regular shows are like this: Myth Busters (About guys who bust, or prove, myths), Dirty Jobs (About a guy who does dirty jobs, but not that kind), Extreme Loggers (About loggers working in extreme conditions), Time Warp (depicting fast things by "warping time"), Destroyed In Seconds (show cases several objects being destroyed in seconds).
- In the first two seasons of Heroes, every episode showing the characters in a different timeframe, as well the second season premiere, followed this trope due to their rather straightforward titles: "Six Months Ago", "Five Years Gone", "Four Months Later" and "Four Months Ago".
- And you can't deny that the show is about heroes. Admittedly, it's also about some villains...
- Lost is about a bunch of people who are kinda... well, lost.
- After a year and a half of teasing us with what Kate did to become a wanted fugitive, a season 2 Lost episode was titled "What Kate Did."
- It's also a play on What Katy Did, a classic children's novel from the 1870's.
- They seem to be doing this a bit more recently. Meet Kevin Johnson and The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham come to mind.
- Star Trek Voyager as noted above. The trend seeps past Season 3 and slips over into Star Trek Enterprise afterwards.
- A Bit Of Fry And Laurie did indeed contain bits of Stephen Fry and bits of Hugh Laurie.
- Not uncommon among comedy acts. Other British examples include Alexei Sayle's Stuff and The Imaginatively Titled Punt and Dennis Show.
- Batman and Batman The Movie: absolutely everything is labeled, right down to the "Bat-Ladder".
- Leverage - each episode is "The ____ Job" - "The 12-Step Job", "The Wedding Job", "The Juror #6 Job" (featuring cons involving a 12-step program, a wedding, and a trial, respectively). We're still waiting on a "Train Job".
- Space Cops counts about three-quarters—it's about cops on the moon, who solve crimes relating to the moon, Mars, and deep space.
- Doctor Who: the stories "Genesis of the Daleks," "Colony in Space," "Frontier in Space," and especially "Robot." The novelization of the last one is even more self-explanatory: "Doctor Who and the Giant Robot"—the plot indeed revolves around a robot, which grows to giant size.
- Ideal: a sitcom about a drug dealer. "I deal", get it?
- The show also gives us PC, a policeman, Psycho Paul, who stabs people with a screwdriver, and Cartoonhead, who has a cartoon mouse mask glued to his face.
- Hollywood Squares. It's celebs in squares.
- Most of Cartoon Network's "CN Real" block, most notably Destroy Build Destroy.
- Spencer's friend Socko and his family on iCarly. Socko owns a sock company, his brother Tyler owns a tie company, his other brother Taylor is a Taylor, his Uncle Otto sells cars, and his cousin Rob steals stuff.
- Similarly, this happened on The Suite Life on Deck, where there's a harold named Harold, and another taylor named...yes...Taylor. The latter was only mentioned, however.
- Also this happened on Wizards of Waverly Place, where they even outright stated, "In the Wizarding worlds people name their children what they want them to grow up to be." This episode included a tutor named Tutor. It was also stated that this didn't always work, as their father Jerry had a barber named Butcher.
- In Blackadder one hopes for Prince George's sake that Blackadder's play "Thick Jack Clot Sits In The Stocks And Gets Pelted With Rancid Tomatoes" isn't an example of this trope, since Blackadder wants him to play the title role.
- In an episode of Seinfeld, Elaine is at a video store trying to find something to rent and picks one up called "The Pain and the Yearning". She turns it over to read the synopsis on the back: "An old woman experiences pain and yearning."
- Hey! That title doesn't mention the old woman!
- On the show Burn Notice, caption titles usually indicate what the voiceover narration of the lead character, Michael Westen has just stated about another character. For example "David: the Client" or "Jennifer: the Contact".
- Occasionally, Micheal discovers that his initial assesment was wrong; when this happens, the caption briefly reappears, is crossed out, and replaced with a new caption (example:
Body Guard Jackass).
- Not the Nine O'Clock News wasn't in fact, you'll be shocked to know, the nine o'clock news.
- The 90s Nickelodeon musical sketch comedy show Roundhouse titled their last episode "Endings." Also lampshaded: "Either this is a really convoluted episode about endings, or..."
- Name That Tune. It's a game show where the contestants have to name tunes.
- Solitary is a reality show that sticks the contestants in solitary confinement.
Music
- Parodied by Weird Al Yankovic's song, "This Song Is Just Six Words Long"... do the math.
- The song it parodied was "Got My Mind Set on You" by George Harrison, and it repeated the title over and over.
- For accuracy's sake, the title was actually "This Song's Just Six Words Long", though the song itself pronounces the "is" as a seventh word.
- For Weird Al himself, the "Dare To Be Stupid" LP is inscribed with the phrase "More Songs About Television And Food".
- Anal Cunt's "88 Song EP" it's an EP with 88 songs in it. Their "5643 Song EP" it's an EP with tons of songs mixed together.
- The Nail's "88 Lines About 44 Women" is... 88 lines about 44 women.
- The Magnetic Fields' triple album "69 Love Songs". It's... well... yeah.
- No FX: "45 or 46 Songs That Weren't Good Enough to Go on Our Other Records". Fortunately the song Fuck The Kids wasn't meant literally.
- Parodied: An early Saturday Night Live hung a lampshade on this trope by having Frank Sinatra (played by Joe Piscopo) trying to update his image by recording an album with tunes that the young people would enjoy. The title of the album? Frank Sings Tunes The Young People Will Enjoy. (The skit also featured Eddie Murphy's Stevie Wonder impression.)
- The collaborative album Short Songs for Short People. All the tracks are under two minutes long.
- Much of the soundtrack to The Proposition consists of songs with titles like "Sad Violin Thing".
- A few of Tom Lehrer's songs fit this trope.
- Obviously "The Masochism Tango".
- His aptly titled Christmas song "A Christmas Carol".
- "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park"
- "I Hold Your Hand in Mine"
- "The Elements" - every chemical element known at the time, set to the tune of "The Major-General's Song". Speaking of which....
- Dream Theater - a band who had one commercially successful single and then returned to the underground - released a "best of" album called Dream Theater's Greatest Hit and 21 Other Pretty Cool Songs.
- Pink Floyd's "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict" is several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a Pict.
- Pink Floyd once planned to release an album called 'Household Objects' consisting of music played entirely on household objects.
- That One Guy is, naturally, a one-man band.
- Stephen Colbert's "Another Christmas Song", which is very similar in tone to "A Christmas Carol" above.
- Classical music in general loved this trope. Pachelbel's Canon is, in full, Canon and Gigue in D major for three Violins and Basso Continuo. Beethoven's works most commonly called the Eroica Variations (for their use in the Eroica Symphony) were in full Variations and Fugue for Piano in E flat major, Op. 35, while his Opus 20 was Septet for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, and contrabass in E-flat major. It's no wonder many classical works are simply referred to by composer, opus, and number.
- Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs consists of "Layla" and...other assorted love songs.
- Cinematic Sunrise's album comes with a coloring book. It's titled A Coloring Storybook and Long Playing Record.
- Shel Silverstein's "26 Second Song".
- The state song of Maine is titled "State Song of Maine."
- A clever inversion of this trope would be the band name Barenaked Ladies, as they are not ladies and certainly are not bare-naked.
- John Cage's 4:33 is exactly that: Four minutes and thirty-three seconds... of dead silence.
- Public Image Limited once recorded an album that is simply named Album. Depending on the format, the same album is also called Cassette or Compact Disc.
- Almost any album named Greatest Hits, especially if it's "[name of artist]'s Greatest Hits". Played with a bit in cases such as Greatest Hits Plus and Greatest Hits …and Then Some (two albums with this name), which include previously unreleased songs.
- The Kentucky Headhunters released an album of soul music. What did they call it? Soul.
- "Three Minute Positive Not-Too-Country Up-Tempo Love Song" by Alan Jackson.
- The David Frizzell & Shelly West Album. Guess which two artists contributed to it.
- Either subverted or played straight by Chopin's Minute Waltz, depending on which meaning you give to "Minute". (It's shorter, or "smaller", than most waltzes, but it's far longer than 60 seconds.)
- The Band. They're a band.
- Apocalyptica's debut album, Plays Metallica By Four Cellos, which has the band, at the time, a quartet of cellos playing Metallica covers.
- KISS' "Rock and Roll all Nite" is a song about rocking and rolling all night.
- "Eleven Four" by the Dave Brubeck Quartet is in 11/4 time.
- "The Really Terrible Orchestra" in Edinburgh is a no-audition orchestra of really terrible musicians. When one of the player bios says the person is "too able" for the orchestra...
- The Birthday Massacre have an example of this. When they were called Imagica, they had a song called... The Birthday Massacre. Which was, in fact, about a massacre on someone's birthday. (The song's now called Happy Birthday, for the record).
Newspaper Comics
Tabletop Games
- For every Dungeons And Dragons monster with an obscure or entirely nonsensical name, there's another one or two monsters that's exactly what it says on the tin—take a wild guess what Blooddrinker Oozes, Invisible Stalkers, or Flame Snakes do.
- Two words: Gelatinous Cube.
- Two more: Flail Snail.
- Owlbears. They're...bears...with owl heads. You can't get more tinny than that.
- Mind Flayers. They flay minds. Then they eat them.
- Many demons and devils - especially ones like the chain devil and arrow demon.
- How can we discuss obvious D&D monsters without mentioning the infamous "Brain-In-A-Jar"?
- Same goes for prestige classes: for every Initiate Of The Sevenfold Veil and Green Star Adept, there's a Frost Mage or Exotic Weapon Master.
- Also related to Dungeons And Dragons:
- The standard Ring of Invisibility allowed its wearer to become invisible. The joke Invisible Ring, on the other hand, was itself invisible.
- If you play Dungeons And Dragons, you are rather likely to go into a dungeon and fight a dragon, at some point. Hell, one 1st-to-3rd level adventure for 3.5 involved battling your way through a goblin warren that used to be a dwarf outpost, to kill the black dragon wyrmling who's taken over the tribe. So it's a dungeon...with a dragon in it.
- Hilariously, in my experience, due to how cliche (and outright unfathomable it is at early levels) it is to fight dragons in dungeons (Most dungeons have like 20 foot doors max, most dragons cant even fit in there.), it rarely ever happened with my player groups. Although dungeons were not uncommon they were more likely to be populated by orcs and shit. Dragons are these awesome majestic creatures that can polymorph at will and they're going to be damned if they have to spend their time in some crapsack cave with a bunch of statistically retarded primitive humanoids, cobweb filled catacombs, and ugly looking aberrations. Most dragons actually just polymorph into humanoid hunks and go out porking princesses.
- GURPS stands for "Generic Universal Role-Playing System." This is a system to govern roleplaying games, in any genre, in any setting, and dealing with any subject matter.
- The Planet Killer of Warhammer 40000. Take a wild guess what this ship was built to do.
- Maid RPG. It is an RPG. And you are all maids. Oh, and there's chainsaws. Sometimes.
- Players of Paranoia assume the role of Troubleshooters, who almost invariably end up being more an example of this trope than you might first expect.
- Paranoia is itself an example, because every character from Friend Computer down is...what was it? Plutocratic? Pinheaded? Pratchettian? Oh yeah, paranoid.
- As it is written: Are they really paranoid, since everything is, in fact, out to get them?
- Not quite everything. The floor is perfectly safe when it's within your security clearance and not electrified, for example.
- We can't forget the World Of Darkness games. Vampire is about vampires. Mage is about mages. Werewolf is about werewolves.
- And the New World of Darkness Supplement/Mini-Game Immortals features "Blood Bathers" and "Body Thieves", which are exactly what they sound like.
- In kill puppies for satan you kill puppies for Satan. Well, it doesn't have to be puppies, it can be kittens, goldfish... basically anything that isn't human or vermin. But puppies are a popular choice.
- Bunnies And Burrows
- Dont Rest Your Head While it is ultimately more complicated than that, the first and foremost rule is, "don't rest your head." Bad, bad shit happens then.
- And the Newspaper Boys are... made of newspaper. The Tacks Man has a Tack for a head. The Clockwork Lieutenants are... clockwork lieutenants. Pin Heads have pin heads. Needle Noses have needle noses (well, needle hells to be fair). And guess what the Wax King is made of.
- While we're at it: The Mad City.
- Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot.
- Terra Primate. A nifty RPG that is exactly what it says.
- Plenty of Magic The Gathering cards follow this trope, some of the more notable examples include Counterspell and various creature names (i.e. Elf Warrior).
- The Game
Theatre
- Death Of A Salesman. There is a salesman. He dies.
- Interestingly, can also be viewed as a subversion: The title comes from how the lead character describes the funeral of a fellow salesman, who is dead before the play begins... and whose death is as completely unlike the lead character's as is possible.
- Except the, y'know, dead part.
- Waiting For Godot. That's pretty much it.
- Samuel Beckett pretty much owns this trope. Among his other works are 'Act Without Words I' (an act without any spoken words), 'Act without Words II' (another act without any spoken words), Breath (a play just featuring the sound of someone breathing), 'Play' (a play), and 'Film' (you get the idea).
- The Play About The Baby by Edward Albie. It's a play. About a baby.
- Cats. No prizes for guessing what this is about.
- Les Miserables. Why yes, it is about the miserable!
- Quite a few songs in Spring Awakening fall under this trope, such as:
- "Totally F*cked"
- "Touch Me"
- "Word of Your Body"
- "Don't Do Sadness"
- "My Junk"
Video Games
- Ice Climber. Also, Duck Hunt.
- Pretty much every early first-party game for the Nintendo Entertainment System had simple titles with easily guessable premises, most of them were sports games: Golf, Tennis, Soccer, Pro Wrestling, Volleyball, Baseball, Ice Hockey, Pinball, Kung Fu.
- You Have To Burn The Rope
- Jagex is apparently fond of this trope, given some of the quest and area names in Runescape . The Goblin Village is a village... with goblins. Dragon Slayer is a slaying quest that involves, yep, a dragon. Black Knight Fortress... eh, you get the idea.
- Don't Shoot The Puppy.
- The "Neverending Boss Battle" game on Neopets.
- The parody game Smashing Pumpkins Into Small Piles Of Putrid Debris. Guess what the point of the game is.
- The first House Of The Dead featured agents fighting zombies in a house. Only the first though, the next was set in a city, the third in a building that may have served as a house for one of the characters while the fourth was a city again.
- Cave Story. As this site's own entry on the game puts it: "You wake up in a cave. You shoot your way out of a different cave, so you can get to a village in another cave. Then you have to go to a different cave, followed by... Well, it's aptly named."
- Stalin vs. Martians.
- A lot of early sports games got away with names like "Baseball" and "Ice Hockey".
- Even now, sports games almost invariably have titles in the format of [franchise] [sport] [year]. Pinball games, before their popularity faded, always tended to have fairly uncreative names too.
- Jumpman, the prototype Mario, was a man who could jump.
- Super Robot Wars. Super Robots go to war.
- Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha VS The Soulless Army. Colon Cancer and Exactly What It Says On The Tin, all rolled into one.
- The Football Manager series.
- Portal - While it isn't an example itself—I guess it could be about really impressive doorways—inside the game are things such as the "Aperture Science hand-held portal device", the "Aperture Science unstationary scaffold", and the "Aperture Science Weighted Companion Cube" and "Weighted Storage Cube".
- The 1500 Megawatt Aperture Science Heavy Duty Supercolliding Super Button.
- The Roguelike Shiren The Wanderer has an item called the "Scroll of Explosion". Take a guess what it does when you read it.
- Monster Hunter. You hunt monsters. Duh! (Big ones, too.)
- The IF game Pick Up the Phone Booth and Die. Though there are ways to actually win the game that don't involve doing the action mentioned in the title.
- Crosswords DS is a game for the Nintendo DS where you solve crossword puzzles. It's that simple.
- In Diablo 2 if you click on a shrine labeled exploding shrine, it... explodes... and you get hurt. Same with poison shrines and poisoning you.
- Fire shrines are the ones that hurt you. Exploding shrines and poison shrines hurt any monsters in the vicinity, as well as dropping a bunch of potions.
- The entire game Jetpack Brontosaurus. No, really, it is. It even has a subtitle which continues to be exactly what it says on the tin: "Splendid Jetpack Dreams of the Apatosaurus Named Brontosaurus."
- Upon beating Headkicker II, which is in fact a reasonably detailed beat-'em-up Flash game that only occasionally involves kicking opponents in the head, you get to play the original Headkicker. Along with a drop to Atari-level graphics and sound, it consists of kicking a fallen opponent in the head until their life meter goes down. For three distinct rounds. WINNER.
- Awesome Possum Kicks Dr. Machino's Butt - And the ending is spoiled.
- Dwarf Fortress. You are some dwarves. Build a fortress.
- Sim City simulates a city.
- Sim Tower, Sim Earth, Sim Ant... actually in that one there's more than one ant.
- In Skate, you are required to skate. On a skateboard.
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link — It's the second game in the Zelda series, and it's about a guy named Link who has an adventure.
- Link's Crossbow Training is a crossbow training game starring Link.
- Arguably subverted in Civilization. The game seems to be exactly that, but play a few games and you will realize that "Conquestation", "Decivilization" and "Genocidation" would be far more adequate games titles.
- The PSN game "Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle Cars"...I'll give you two guesses what it's about.
- Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar.
- The British tribes in Rome: Total War can create a unit titled the Head Hurler. So yeah.
- Command And Conquer, you command your units and you conquer your enemies.
- The strategy guide for Tiberium Sun had a large line on the back reading "Command what's yours, Conquer what isn't".
- Sonic The Hedgehog is about a hedgehog named Sonic, who is really fast.
- I Wanna Be The Guy, your character wants to be The Guy.
- The Impossible mode, where you are supposed to complete the game with no savepoints.
- Dead Space involves a collection of people in space, the majority of whom are dead.
- Plants Vs Zombies. Spoiler alert: you fight off zombies. With plants.
- Spyro The Dragon is about a dragon named Spyro.
- Burn! Zombie! Burn: You have to burn the zombie.
- Another snarky example: Damnation.
- The Japanese names of the female counterpart Harvest Moon games,is "For Girl". Which is ironic, since most Harvest Moon fans are girls.
- The forthcoming "M.A.G." on PS 3, the full title being "Massive Action Game".
- Shift: a flash game where you must shift into the floor beneath you by using the Shift key.
- Wii Sports, it certainly can't be a sports game on the Wii!
- Age Of Empires is an RTS showcasing the age where empires were built/common.
- Famicom Wars is a war simulation game for the Famicom. Same thing with Game Boy Wars and Super Famicom Wars. The later international versions are bit more subtle, using titles such as Advance Wars and Battalion Wars, that don't directly use the name of their platform (the first Advance Wars game was for the GBA of course, but "Advance" by itself is a real word too).
- Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops is a mission-based Metal Gear game for a portable platform.
- Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions is a series of missions in Virtual Reality.
- Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel is the Metal Gear Solid graphic novel in digital form.
- Makaimura for Wonderswan is a Makaimura game for the Wonderswan.
- Punch-Out!! had an arcade spinoff titled Arm Wrestling. Its not that hard to guess what the game was about (hint: it's not a boxing game).
- The controversial hentai game Rapelay. You get laid. A lot. Because you rape people. A lot.
- The powers from Prototype. Claw gives Alex Wolverine Claws. Hammerfist turns his fists into "hammers" to pummel things with. Whipfist gives him a whip-ish long reach. Blade is a Big Fucking Blade Below The Shoulder. Musclemass boosts the size of his muscles. Shield gives him a Shield. Armour gives him Instant Armor. Disguise allows him to disguise as consumed victims.
- Backyard Sports is sports set in a backyard. Until Hockey.
- Three guesses as to what Gratuitous Space Battles is about.
- Guild Wars has quite a few skills that fall under this trope. Just guess what "Heal Party", "Heal Other", and "'Can't Touch This'" do.
- Knights Of The Old Republic. It's about Jedi Knights taking actions in the times of the Old Republic.
Web Comics
- I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space is a complicated post-feminist statement with shifting grounds of metaphor and symbolism, aiming to deconstruct both the uber-manly hero and the Amazon Brigade. Also, there are lesbian pirates. In outer space. Sometimes they kidnap people, such as the protagonist.
- Subversion: Irregular Webcomic is indeed a webcomic, but one that has become known for consistent, regular updates, failing entirely to fall into Schedule Slip.
- Also a straight example because it's rare (or at least infrequent) that any two consecutive strips are about the same subject, making the content of the strip quite irregular.
- The name The Adventures Of Dr Mc Ninja tells the reader absolutely everything he or she needs to know about the webcomic's premise.
- Of course, nothing else is needed. It's just that awesome.
- In fact, the more you tell people about it, the less likely they are to believe it's a real thing.
- Girl Genius, in a Story Within A Story:
Bill: I never thought I'd have to use this.
Dr. Mongfish (reformed): "Ocean in a bottle"? What's that?
Bill: Truth in packaging.
- Penny Arcade, regarding The Time Machine.
- Interdimensional Transfer Student Erro, a webcomic about a transfer student from Another Dimension who just happens to be named Erro.
- Achewood's Alt texts have a tendency to be matt-of-fact synopses of the comic's plot, for example "The small bear is being difficult because he wants to show off."
- Suicide For Hire. It's about two guys who run a business which involves being hired to help people commit suicide. Under strict legal definitions it should probably be "Murder For Hire", though ...
- There is a moment in Daisy Owl when her teacher meets her father, Mr. Owl.
Teacher: I didn't expect you to be an actual owl...
- Questionable Content's content can indeed be questionable, or at least highly NSFW at times.
- Real Life Comics, sort of.
- Schlock Mercenary is about a mercenary named Schlock.
- The Order Of The Stick compilation "War and X Ps" may sound like just a pun on Tolstoy, but it contains two main stories: one involving a war, and one involving personal growth (defined, in RPG terms, as experience points, or XP).
- For that matter, The Order of the Stick is about an order of adventurers named after a stick.
- How I Killed Your Master is a conversation in flashback format, between a young fighter and the old man who killed his master.
Web Original
Western Animation
- One episode of X-Men animated series was titled "Enters Magneto". Yep, he does.
- While most The Simpsons episode titles are parodies or in-jokes, quite a few (especially before it became clear to the writers that the fans would ever even know the episode titles) are pretty plain and non-funny: "Bart Gets Hit By a Car" (featuring a rare use of an Episode Title Card), "Bart Gets Famous", "Lisa's Substitute", "Lisa the Vegetarian", "Lisa's Sax", "Homer's Barbershop Quarter", "Homer and Apu"...
- "Hans Moleman Productions Presents: Man Getting Hit By Football".
- "Bin Laden in a Blender." It delivers what it promises.
- Indeed, the show itself may qualify, since it's about a family whose surname is "Simpson".
- "Webster's dictionary defines excellence as "the state or condition of being excellent." And now, the winner of the First Annual Montgomery Burns Award..."
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was about, well, Mutant Turtles who are both teenagers and ninja. So, yeah.
- While most South Park episode titles are squarely in the middle ground, one in particular stood out as looking like a parody of Colon Cancer and Word Salad Title while actually being Exactly What It Says On The Tin: "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers". The boys were returning what they thought was a copy of The Lord Of The Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring to a video store called "The Two Towers".
- Also [[Lampshaded]] famously in the Imaginationland trilogy with PROJECT: IMAGINATION DOORWAY.
- There was an episode of Beany And Cecil titled "Invasion of Earth by Robots". There needs to be a movie made under that title if there isn't one already. As in, right now. Invasion of Earth by Robots, definite article and exclamation point optional. Run with it.
- In the Spider Man Compilation Movie Doctor Doom Conquers the World, Doctor Doom... conquers... the world.
- Though a newcomer on the scene, Kung Fu Panda truly embodies this trope.
- One episode of Batman Beyond is called "Terry's Friend Dates A Robot". Guess what it's about?
- On that note, the international title of the series, Batman of the Future is also an example.
- In the Looney Tunes short "Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a Half Century", Dodgers has a disintegrating pistol. He pulls the trigger, and the gun crumbles into powder. "Well, what do you know... it disintegrated."
- Beverly Hills Teens is about teenagers in Beverly Hills.
- The Spanish title of the Powerpuff Girls, Las Chicas Superpoderosas, is an example, meaning "the superpowerful girls".
- In Portuguese, As Meninas Superpoderosas, with the same translation.
- In one episode of Tiny Toon Adventures, a troll challenges Buster to face three trials. In the second trial, the troll says he must fight the "Three Guys who Charge at You With Spears and Fall Off a Cliff". Guess what happens next.
- The entire cast of The Mr. Men Show can be defined by their names: Mr. Happy, Mr. Strong, Miss Helpful, etc.
- 2 Stupid Dogs is a cartoon about two dogs who take the Dogs Are Dumb trope to new levels.
- The Smurfs is a good example of this. Each smurfs name reflects their personality. Grouchy Smurf is grouchy, Handy Smurf is handy, Papa Smurf is their, well papa.
- Care Bears. Not only are they bears that care, but each one has a name based on how they act. Secret Bear whispers secrets and doesn't talk aloud, Grumpy Bear is very grumpy, and Share Bear advocates sharing.
- Transformers Animated. It's about Transformers, and it's animated. (You can tell a lot of thought and caring went into THAT title...)
- The similar to Transformers, but never as popular TV series, the Gobots, had almost their entire cyborg cast suffer from this. For instance;
- Leader-1 was the leader of the good guys.
- Tank turned into a tank.
- Scooter turned into a scooter.
- Coptur turned into a helicopter.
- This particular example was noted in a Robot Chicken skit.
- Scorp turned into a Scorpion.
- What does Tiger Hawk turn into? A walrus?...
- This all gets pretty redundant eventually and with this in mind, it's no wonder Transformers was more popular.
- Sherlock Holmes In The22nd Century is about Sherlock Holmes revived in the 22nd century and doing Holmesian things there. Even the intro is just repeating the title ad nauseum while showing scenes of Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century.
- Avatar the Last Airbender is about the Last Airbender (named Aang) who is also the Avatar. Simple no?
- Toy Story. It's a story about toys. And don't forget Toy Story 2; another story about (the same) toys. No prizes for guessing what Toy Story 3 will be.
- International Rescue. They're world-wide in scope and they rescue people.
- Minoriteam had a villain named "Racist Frankenstein." He dressed like a WASP but is in all other ways exactly what you'd expect.
- Two Stupid Dogs is a cartoon about two not very bright dogs.
Real Life
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