Hypocritical Humor - Television Tropes & Idioms

Mayuri Kurotsuchi deliberately invokes this in chapter 303 of the Bleach manga by calling Ishida a reprobate after revealing that he had been violating his privacy for quite some time.
Much of the humor in The Tyrant Falls In Love comes from Souichi loudly proclaiming that he would love nothing more than to see all homosexuals drop dead and definitely isn't one of those homos himself...to Morinaga, his gay kohai who's openly smitten with him. The real hypocrisy in all this? Souichi has let Morinaga have sex with him multiple times, despite ample evidence that he could easily leave Morinaga a bloody heap on the ground before getting that far with him. The very fact that Souichi, a violent homophobe, hasn't killed, run away from, or even tried to straighten out Morinaga speaks volumes by itself, and that's before you consider his open declaration that he can tolerate sex only with Morinaga...
Early on in Cromartie High School we are introduced to Mechazawa, who claims to have no experience with machines and computers and whatnot despite the fact that he's a freaking robot and is often mistaken for/turned into other appliances.
- Y'know, being a robot doesn't necessarily come with the ability to use a computer. You're made out of flesh; does that make you an expert surgeon? (Or butcher?)
In Death Note, Light's sister, Sayu, catches him reading a dirty magazine (it's a long story...) and Sayu says, "Hey, isn't that a dirty book?" Then, she picks it up and begins reading it, while smiling.
In chapter 347 of Naruto, Konohamaru performs a variation of the Sexy Jutsu with two naked girls holding each other suggestively. Sakura punches Konohamaru for being a pervert and after Naruto tries to explain that it would serve as a distraction, she says "You're the only idiots who'd fall for a jutsu like that!". Konohamaru then decides to try the same jutsu again, but this time with shadow clones of Sai and Sasuke. Guess Sakura's reaction.
In the second chapter of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Guren Gakuenhen, Yoko goes ballistic on Simon because Nia is in his room "...wearing such exposing clothes..." (a long sleeved shirt). Yoko is wearing her usual attire.
In an early One Piece episode, Buggy the Clown shows that his Devil Fruit power makes him a "Splitting Man". Luffy says that Buggy is a freak...and then an arrow points to him that says "Rubber Man".
- Also, when Garp reprimands Luffy for falling asleep during a lecture…right after falling asleep during his own lecture.
- Zolo has done this several times with the running gag of commenting how his crewmates have gotten lost, when he himself has the worst sense of direction.
Many manga-hosting websites say they'll take down their scanalations of a given series once it's licensed. Several of them, once the series actually is licensed, simply put up a notice recommending that the people reading the website buy the series from the US publisher to support the author. They rarely, if ever, actually take the scans down. Similarly, websites that host torrents for anime tend to do the same thing, except they don't even bother with the notice.
While watching a news report on a rogue Anaconda, Nagi Sanzenin remarks, "I don't know why people keep such large and dangerous animals as pets"...while petting her large and dangerous pet tiger.
- In her defence she think it's a house cat.
In G Gundam, George starts lecturing Chibodee about the irresponsibility of keeping a bottle of whisky in the cockpit of his Gundam, all the while George is holding a champagne bottle.
Chrono Crusade has a scene in which Father Remington makes a comment that members of the mob should "behave themselves"—while looking over his shoulder to flirt with some smitten teenage nuns. Sister Kate immediately calls him out on it by saying "You should, too!"

Close Anime/Manga

The first Uncle Scrooge comic had Uncle Scrooge lecturing Donald on how he'd be more secure if he had wealth. While making sure a mouse didn't eat his dollar bills.
- One comic by Don Rosa has Scrooge lecturing Gyro Gearloose on the dangers of overvaluing his first invention: "What sentimental rubbish is that?! You can't base your whole career on such a small achievement! You won't get far in life with such a warped sense of proportions!" … all while carefully restoring his Number One Dime to its pedestal.
In an early issue of Young Justice, Impulse, who acts without forethought or afterthought 100% of the time, said "Boy, don't you hate it when people go off and do whatever they feel like?" after Superboy headed out to confront a villain alone.
In an early issue of Justice League International, in a discussion of Guy Gardner:
Blue Beetle: ...You think maybe it's too late to petition for a new Green Lantern? Hey Bats — maybe you could wear the ring...
Batman: It would only get in my way.
Blue Beetle: ...Yeah... besides, who'd ever buy a Super-Hero called the "Green Batman"? I mean, that's as bad as—
Batman: The Blue Beetle?
Blue Beetle: Well... um... ah...
Early on in Watchmen Rorschach, shown as the biggest wingnut of the lot, laments the sad mental condition of the his former retired superhero colleagues. Later on, Benny the newsman claims that he had "always suspected" Rorschach's Secret Identity. Except that he hadn't. He had just retroactively convinced himself that he had.
One Calvin And Hobbes Sunday comic has the titular characters discussing Calvin's Saturday morning habits. Then Hobbes ask to Calvin if he doesn't fear that so much violence (in TV) desensitizes him to which Calvin replies something like "Nah, I'd kill the idiots who think this stuff affects me".
One Les Pretend strip in The Beano had Les's dad discussing the daft things Les pretended to be with his friends, and them all laughing about it. It was at the end of this strip that we first learnt Les's dad and his friends are all Elvis Impersonators.

Close Comic Books

A classic and genuinely humorous version (that may deserve its own trope) would be Chief Inspector Renault's "I am shocked, SHOCKED! to find gambling going on in this establishment!!" before pocketing his roulette winnings in Casablanca; in this case the juxtaposition is used to illustrate how flimsy a justification there is for shutting down Rick's.
On a darker tone, in Crash, Ludacris' character Anthony expresses chaff at the sight of a white woman clinging to her husband's arm as she passes him and his friend. Anthony then proceeds to go on a brief rant about how they're surrounded by over-caffeinated white people and triggerhappy LAPD, who will impulsively think the worst of them even though they don't appear the slight bit intimidating. He then questions why anyone would find them scary. Peter replies that it could be because they have guns. Anthony agrees, and the two proceed to carjack the couple.
- Crash consists mostly of a series of inversions, subversions and straight versions of the trope. Most memorably, there's the rookie cop who reports his partner's racist attitude towards a black woman and then shoots a black hitchhiker, falsely assuming he's trying to draw a gun.
  - The whole movie is full of hilarious bits of hypocritical humor and sometimes over-the-top depictions of what the filmmakers apparently think is realistic racism. All played straight. Humor is lost upon the knowledge that this won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
  - The above troper is obviously a racist.
In a deleted scene from the first Harry Potter film, available on the DVD, this is achieved in a somewhat roundabout fashion:
Hermione: And what, may I ask, do you plan to do if this comes up on the final exam?
Ron: Copy off you!
Hermione: No you won't! Besides, according to Professor McGonagall, we're to be given special quills bewitched with an anti-cheating spell.
Ron: That's insulting! It's as if they don't trust us!
- A straighter example from Azkaban which actually made it into the film:
  Trelawney: In this room, you shall explore the noble art of Divination. In this room, you shall discover if you possess the Sight. [bumps into desk]
Austin Powers in Goldmember. The titular villain is the Dutchman Johann "Goldmember" Van Der Smut.
Nigel Powers: There are two kinds of people that I can't stand: People who are intolerant of other peoples' cultures... and the Dutch.
- Also, in the first film when Austin is collecting some of his things from a clerk, the clerk gives him a penis enlarger. Austin denies it is his and claims he would never need such a thing. The clerk then proceeds to hand him things like his receipt of purchase and a photograph of him endorsing the enlarger. Not to mention his writing the book on the subject: Swedish-Made Penis Enlarger Pumps and Me: This Sort of Thing Is My Bag, Baby, By Austin Powers.
Similarly done in Star Wars where Obi-Wan Kenobi tells Anakin 'only the Sith deal in absolutes' proving that even a great Jedi master can miss the point. Might not have been intentional, as the Jedi are intended to be seen as Always Right About Everything.
- Or were they?
- Also, considering it was meant as an answer to Anakin's "if you are not with me you are against me" rant, it was probably not intended to be taken completely literal and more like "not all people who disagree with you want you dead".
  - Which only make it more funny, albeit unintended.
In Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, the frequently-adulterous Delysia and another equally adulterous friend are complaining about the friend's fiancee breaking it off after only suspecting her of having an affair:
Delysia: Men are so untrusting. I can't think why.
This Troper recalls a film version of Oliver Twist in which the Work House's owners are stuffing their faces full of rich food while whining about how the poor people are so greedy, with their talk of wanting more than one bowl of porridge and a bit of dry bread! How dare they!
- Similar scenes (with varying degrees of subtlety) can be found in most media dealing with the rich-vs-poor dynamic.
The Boondock Saints: "Cuddle? What a fag."
In Hitchcock's Rear Window, Thelma Ritter spends most of the film helping Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly prove that neighbor Raymond Burr, who they've been snooping on from afar, has murdered his wife. In the film's penultimate scene, after a cop asks Ritter if she'll help them dig up the body, she replies: "No thanks, I don't want any part of it!" (This might also be a double entendre, since the implication is that the body has been dismembered and possibly decapitated.)
The President's Analyst: A self-described "liberal" character mentions that his next-door neighbors are "real right-wingers, American flag up every day. Real fascists. Ought to be gassed!"
Death Race: The warden of the prison (Joan Allen) has a guard beat Jason Statham's character for saying the word "ass." She does this because, for her, "language is an issue." Later in the film, she says the phrase, "Okay cocksucker. Fuck with me, and we'll see who shits on the sidewalk."
Rather subtly used in The Incredibles. In the opening interview segments, each of the supers voiced opinions that they went on to contradict in the film itself:
- Mr Incredible expresses annoyance that "No matter how many times you save the world, it always manages to get back in jeopardy again," and says that he'd like to settle down and start a family. But when the Super Registration Act is passed, Bob Parr has a harder time than anyone adjusting to civilian life, and is constantly itching to jump back into action.
- Elastigirl says that she's at the top of her game, and has no intention of settling down. Fifteen years and three children later, Helen Parr is quite content with life as a suburban housewife. She's accepted that the glory days are over and she tries to convince her husband Bob likewise.
- Frozone talks about dating "super-ladies" and says he's much more interested in their super-identities than in their civilian secret identities. Fifteen years later, he's married to a non-super.^*
  ^{If Honey were a super, she would have been at her husband's side during the fight with the Omnidroid. And the prospect of Frozone "running off and doing [some] derring-do" wouldn't have elicited such a strong reaction from her.}
Duck Soup. After rattling off jokes to Mrs. Teasdale:
Groucho: You know you haven't stopped talking since I came here? You must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle."
One of the few good jokes in Cat In The Hat is Sally's to-do list:
1. make a to-do list;
2. Practice colouring;
3. inspect new pencils.
4. be spontaneous...
Yellowbeard. Tommy Chong does his best scenery chewing as "El Nebuloso", then says:
El Nebuloso: Anyone caught overacting, I will personally scare to death!
But they complain and complain and complain...

Close Film

Good Omens: Right after the demon Crowley's internal monologue on how angels and demons don't have free will like humans do (i.e. have to be unswervingly good or evil depending on their nature), he calls up the angel Aziraphale to have a talk about what to do with the Antichrist destined to bring about The End Of The World As We Know It. Think about that for a moment: Would a demon, with no choice but to be evil, naturally hang out with an angel and openly discuss Hell's latest plan with him, like best friends? Or, for that matter, talk the angel into stopping Armageddon, which is supposed to be Hell's ultimate goal?
- I disagree that this is an example of hypocritical humor. First, the relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale is already well-explained by the book (they built up a mutual respect by being the only peers each had to talk to). Second, while Hell and Heaven might want Armageddon to occur, it doesn't mean Crowley himself (or Aziraphale) is personally in favor of the idea.
  Of course, he [Crowley] was all in favor of Armageddon in general terms.
- "Being a demon, of course, was supposed to mean you had no free will. But you couldn't hang around humans for very long without learning a thing or two."
- To be fair, he didn't so much fall as "saunter vaguely downwards."
- It's really not so much hypocritical humor, since the book takes quite a bit of time to explore the idea of role reversals, with Crowley doing something "evil" that ultimately turns out to have been possibly beneficial, and Aziraphale having done something "good" that might've actually been the wrong choice.
The book of Layer Cake combines this with the Unreliable Narrator idea when the protagonist, a London drug dealer, expresses self-consciousness that himself and his Affably Evil (and Ax Crazy) associates are perceived by outsiders as dangerous criminals (he thinks of himself as a businessman). Of particular note is a scene Oop North, where he derides the hostess at a fleabag hotel for her mistrustful attitude towards himself and these associates, yet has just described spending the previous night on a drug and alcohol-fueled binge in which they hired an underage prostitute for him as a practical joke.
- The narrator's friends spent the night on a binge. The narrator spent the night having dinner with a fellow drug dealer and then, for reasons too convoluted to go into now, ended up being dumped at a service station by the aforementioned dealer. And there's no suggestion that the prostitute was underage.
Used for a quick in-joke in the Little House series, written by Laura Ingalls Wilder (paraphrased slightly):
Mary: "I am planning to write a book someday. But I also planned to teach school, and you're doing it for me! Perhaps you will write the book!"
Laura: "I, write a book? I'm going to be an old maid schoolteacher! Write your own book!"
One of the Running Gags of James Herriot's semi-autobiographical series of memoirs was his boss Siegfried Farnon's habit of advising James (and others) to take a certain course of action — only to turn around and advise them against it a short time later, or do the exact opposite himself. Sometimes in the same scene. At one point he notes that James has been dillydallying about courting Helen, and basically bullies James into proposing; after Helen accepts, Farnon promptly berates James for rushing into marriage. The kicker is that when confronted, Siegfried feigns complete amnesia re: the previous conversations, then gently, maddeningly, chides the other for getting so upset. On more than one occasion Herriot describes wanting to hit him when this "saintly look" comes over his face.
Mocked in one of Scott (Dilbert) Adams' parody textbooks, when he points out that someone in a book he read used twelve words, two languages, and two brackets to say "don't be wordy". He goes on to point out that it does sound quite smart, even though someone who spoke that language probably believed you could cure leprosy by eating mud.
Dave Barry Slept Here:
In fact, the book you are now reading was written on a personal computer, which is why it is devoid of the "typos" that were so common in the days of old-fashioned wersp oidop gfegkog pl;gpp$R$%!%.
Sergeant Jackrum from Monstrous Regiment is in the habit of saying "Upon my oath, I am not a (adjective) man!" and immediately proving it untrue - e.g., "Upon my oath, I am not a violent man!" followed by him punching someone. As it turns out, it's not actually hypocrisy, only misdirection - Sergeant Jackrum is indeed not a violent... man.
- It's almost not hypocritical anyway — the way he uses the line implies, "...but now you've forced me to do this."
In American Psycho, Patrick Bateman and some other guys are appalled that the only thing their dates can seem to talk about is clothes (furs, specifically), when they talk about much more important things... like business suits.
There is a poem in Russian called The Chatterer, about a girl complaining that someone made it up that she was one, and the truth is, she has no time at all to chatter... over forty lines follow of her explaining why.

Close Literature

Extremely common in Scrubs episodes.
Done subtly and hilariously in one episode of Spin City. Having invited a gangsta rapper to the mayor's office over the matter of his lyrics, Carter says, "And remember, no gangsta stereotypes!" The rapper arrives and reaches into his coat for a business card... and Carter screams "GUN!" and dives behind a desk. Later on, when the rapper reaches into his pocket for something else, Carter does it again.
Frasier also uses this a lot. Here's one of this troper's favorite examples:
Roz: Frasier's a good guy, he's smart, he's sweet, and way too good for you. Why don't you just leave, nobody here likes you anyway.
Julia: Frasier seems to.
Roz: Well he's an idiot.
- In the Frasier episode where the Cheers regulars show up, the lazy bar-fly Norm hits it off with Marty. When time comes for them to part company, Marty invites Norm to catch up if ever Norm's in Seattle:
  Marty: It's only six hours flying time from Boston to Seattle.
  Norm: Six hours...you know sittin' there in one place, never movin'. That's, that's just not me, you know?
- And a beautifully subtle psychiatry-themed example featuring the notoriously germaphobic Niles:
  Patient: So, you don't think I have a phobia, doctor?
  Niles: Not at all; simply a healthy understanding of personal hygiene. [Gives the patient a business card] Now, here is the number of the man who cleans my telephone.
- There's also a bit where it looks like Frasier is going to be compelled to tell the truth about Niles' feelings for Daphne at Niles' divorce deposition, thus ruining his chance of getting anything in the settlement and exposing his feelings for Daphne. Martin urges him to just lie, but Frasier feels his ethics forbid this. After the resulting argument, Frasier storms out, and Martin sneers about how Frasier buckles under pressure, and how "some of us [i.e. him] can deal with a tough situation head on, and others just need an escape'... whilst he's pouring himself a stiff drink and Niles has retreated to his 'safe place' under the piano.
On Corner Gas, in which the following exchange occurs:
Brent: That might be a bit of an overstatement.
Oscar: What? I've never overstated anything in the entire history of creation!
- Of course, this was part of a larger joke on how Oscar over-reacts to everything. (He once called a butterfly a "Sonofabitch" and told it to get out of his garden)
This was half of Maya's repertoire in Just Shoot Me, aside from shrill activism. Oddly enough, there were other times where they didn't seem to be playing it as a gag, she just was... hypocritical. (For instance, deriding Elliot for his nerdy looks back in high school.) In fact there were times where this seemed to be a Family Unfriendly Aesop, implying that others were being unreasonable in asking her to stop berating someone over their looks or social status, or for her to apologize for doing so.
- Jack was also prone to it, especially where Maya is concerned. He tries to make her break up with a much older boyfriend in one episode, despite being married to one of Maya's high school friends.
On The George Lopez Show, after Benny and George have argued with a racist:
Benny: That's just like white people, taking one group and saying they're all the same!
Angel: City Of.
Doyle: It's not all about fighting and gadgets and such. It's about reaching out to people, showing them that there's love and hope still left in the world....
Homeless Woman: (interrupting) Hey, spare change?
Doyle: Get a job, you lazy sow!
In an episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert briefly shared a story about how he once found one of his teenage staff members out back smoking with his friends while wearing an anti-smoking T-shirt. When questioned, he replied that he "thought it was funny."
- In another episode, Stephen, distraught over the loss of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, looks up the Five Stages Of Grief. "Stage One... Denial. I've never had that."
Kathy Griffin, describing how disappointed her Catholic mother was with her Emmy award speech: "Kathryn, why'd ya have ta tell Jesus to suck it, gawddamnit? I can't even show my face at church, fer Christ's sake! Damn, Kathryn, don't be so rude!"
The West Wing sometimes played for laughs the fact that much of the US population engages in this. At one point they quoted two opinion polls that demonstrated at least 14% of Americans think contributions to the UN are too high, and at the same time think it shouldn't be cut.
- Then there are the several that imply a large number of Americans who call themselves atheists still believe in God.
  - And vice-versa.
Strangers With Candy: "There's only one thing I hate more than racists, and that's spics!"
Sally on Drop the Dead Donkey is often guilty of this, to the point where her colleagues made a montage of her saying "I'm not one to complain, but..."
- And she responded to this by turning to George and saying...
As the late, great, George Carlin put it, "So I say live and let live. That's my motto: Live and let live. Anyone who can't go along with that, take 'em outside and shoot the motherfucker. It's a simple philosophy, but it's always worked in our family."
Possibly unintentional example: In an episode of Star Trek The Original Series, Kirk is told "Your old titles mean nothing here, Captain."
From Slings And Arrows:
Anna: I was asking about pot. You know, marijuana.
Maria: I know what pot is. So, you assume I'm a pothead, as well as a lesbian? Because all stage managers are pot-smoking lesbians, right?
Anna: No!
Maria: Well, I'm sorry to disappoint 'cha, but... I'm all out. This process has been hard on my stash, and my guy's out of town 'till Tuesday. Sorry.
"I! WOULD PUT A TAX! ON ALL PEOPLE! WHO'D STAND! IN WATER! WOAH!"
In a recurring In Living Color skit, Kim Wayans played an inner city woman named Miss Benita Buttrel, who would often decry the gossip surrounding several figures in her neighborhood...and then proceed to bury them under rumor and slander in the ugliest way possible. Nearly every time she was finished talking about someone, she would then add on, "But I ain't one to gossip, so you didn't hear that from me."
More like humor based off of hypocrisy, but in Red Dwarf, Rimmer finds out Lister is using illegal learning drugs to study for his Chef's Exam. Rimmer demands names, places, and dates. "Arnold Rimmer, his locker, this morning."
M*A*S*H, particularly in the first couple of seasons, would often show Majors Burns and Houlihan spying on and expressing disgust at the sexual dalliances of the other characters... which would get the Majors so horny they'd immediately start fooling around themselves.
Kate in NCIS complained about Tony's porn obsession but looked at porn sites herself off-work and moaned about sexual objectification of women just before finding a bunch of shirtless men being photographed highly attractive. We'll put the Wet T-Shirt contest in her college days as something that occurred when drunk.
On the 1970's-90's country music/comedy series Hee Haw, the recurring Gossip Girls sketch started with the actresses claiming that they never spread gossip in the following lyrics: "Now, we're not ones to go 'round spreadin' rumors, Why, really we're just not the gossipy kind, No, you'll never hear one of us repeating gossip, So you'd better be sure and listen close the first time!"
This bit from The Muppet Show. Rather than watch the show, Statler and Waldorf opt to watch television through a set installed in the box, and upon flipping through the channels, find...
Statler: What is THAT?!
Waldorf: Looks like two ancient old guys sitting in a theatre box watching television!
Statler: That's crazy! No one would watch junk like that!
In Star Trek Deep Space Nine, the Cardassians led a brutal occupation of Bajor, and are later themselves occupied by the Dominion. It leads to this exchange between Damar (a Cardassian) and Kira (a Bajoran):
Damar: To kill her and my son... the casual brutality of it... the waste of life. What kind of state tolerates the murder of innocent women and children? What kind of people give those orders?
Kira: Yeah, Damar, what kind of people give those orders?
The basic concept of Michelle in Grownups; a nutritionist who constantly eats junk food.
Played straight in the Only Fools and Horses episode "Little Problems". Del is asked to make a contribution for his younger brother's wedding, and doesn't want to pay out too much money. Once he realizes that the bride's father only means a contribution of ideas and opinions, he attempts to get out of his earlier suggestion of using the old pub for the reception and back to a country club. When Alan anxiously asks, "But surely you don't like all that type of thing, do you?", Del replies, "Oh, I hate it. I hate it, Alan. I mean, those sorts of people only do things for effect," as he is served a massive cocktail, complete with fruit and umbrellas.
One episode of Will And Grace has Jack develop an addiction to coffee while dating someone from a coffeehouse, and then ends up trying to squeeze coffee out of the used filters from a coffee-maker after said boyfriend quits. Karen then proceeds to lecture him about dealing with the problem... while washing down a pill with a martini.
Karen: Ok, ok, it's over. Now, listen to me. (gets out a pill) The first thing you have to do is admit that you have a problem. (swirls the pill in her martini) Because if you can't even recognize the signs... (drops the wet pill into her mouth) Then you are really in sorry shape. (washes down the pill)Oh, mmm! (to the martini glass) Why are you so good to me?
From The Thick Of It:
Malcolm: Oh, and that's an incredibly homophobic headline you're running with, you massive poof.
The Ferguson Theory (a BBC Scotland sketch show starring Craig Ferguson before he moved to the US) had a sketch in which a character criticised recent evidence of racism in the British government, before concluding "But what do you expect from the bloody English?"

Close Live Action TV

On Tom Lehrer's That Was The Year That Was, before the "National Brotherhood Week" song:
Lehrer: I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another, and I know there are people in the world who do not love their fellow human beings and I hate people like that!
- His inflections do make it clear that he's Lampshading the trope, though.
- For that matter, the whole joke of the song is based around the idea that a country with all the racial problems of America would set aside a week for brotherhood and tolerance — as the song says, "Be grateful that it doesn't last all year!"
Stan Freberg did the same joke in "Take An Indian To Lunch" from The United States of America, Part 1:
Let's give in and all do the brotherhood bit
Just make sure we don't make a habit of it
Take an Indian to dine this week
Show him we don't drawn the line this week
We know ev'ryone can't be
As American as we
(After all, we came over on the Mayflower!)

Close Music

A standard comic strip tactic, as it makes for a quick and neat four-panel gag:
- In an old Dilbert comic:
Pointy Haired Boss: (handing back a paper to Alice) Thanks, hun.
Alice: Hon!? YOU SEXIST #@$! I SHALL BURN DOWN YOUR VILLAGE AND MAKE SLAVES OF YOUR CHILDREN!
PHB: It's short for 'Attila the Hun'. Everyone calls you that.
Alice: That seems a bit harsh.
- About 2/3rds of the punchlines in For Better Or For Worse use this, by way of demonstrating how (theoretically) adorably flawed the characters are. Happens a lot to Cathy, too.
- Played with in a famous Peanuts strip, where Linus declaims "I love mankind! It's people I can't stand!"
- Occurs a number of times in Calvin And Hobbes. In one example, Calvin rants for three panels about people who complain too much. Hobbes replies "Maybe they're not very self-aware", to which Calvin replies "Boy, that's another thing that gets on my nerves!".

Close Newspaper Comics

Digger, a caller on the Australian football radio show The Coodabeen Champions, had the Catch Phrase "I never complain about umpires, but...", before immediately launching into a rant about how the umpires had "crucified" his team.

Close Radio

In Gilbert And Sullivan's Trial By Jury, the Usher instructs the Jury on the "stern judicial frame of mind" necessary for conducting an impartial trial:
Oh, listen to the plaintiff's case:
Observe the features of her face -
The broken-hearted bride.
Condole with her distress of mind:
From bias free of every kind
This trial must be tried!
...
And when amid the plaintiff's shrieks
The ruffianly defendant speaks
Upon the other side;
What he may say you needn't mind-
From bias free of every kind
This trial must be tried!
- Or more famously from The Pirates of Penzance is the titular pirates' deafening proclamation of stealth:
NO SOUND AT ALL! WE NEVER SPEAK A WORD! A FLY'S FOOTFALL WOULD BE DISTINCTLY HEARD!
The bigoted Sen. Rawkins in Finian's Rainbow:
"An immigrant! Damn! My whole family's been havin' trouble with immigrants ever since we came to this country!"
Korn's "Y'All Want A Single" is a Take That against the music industry. The music video is filled with protesting captions ("One Corporation Owns The 5 Major Video Channels In The U.S./ Is That OK?"; "Hit Songs On TOP 40 Are Often REPEATED Over 100 Times A Week", )... two of which resemble the song itself("90% Of All Songs Get To "The Hook" Within 20 Seconds./ 98% Of All #1 Singles Are Less Than 3 Minutes and 30 Seconds Long."- the song is 3:17, and hits the hook at 0:17...), and the following one makes an... appropriate comment ("Does This Seem Like A Formula To You?"). Whether it's serious or humorous, it's up to you.
In Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo offers the Nurse money for being a go-between, her line is "Nay, sir; not a penny." Many stagings have her take the proffered money as she says this.
Speaking of Shakespeare, the tragedy Hamlet gives us the famous line "Brevity is the soul of wit" which is spoken by Polonius... as he rambles on and on and on just to hear himself talk.
- In fact, Polonius's entire speech is an example of this trope, with virtually every bit of fatherly advice being something he himself fails at. Hamlet, of course, calls him on this multiple times in his bizarre doubletalk.

Close Theatre

Strong Bad of Homestar Runner is a Grammar Nazi... which doesn't stop the fact that his grammar and spelling isn't perfect either. He has also said that he "doesn't wear underwear"... which has been proven wrong numerous times.
- Also, in 8-Bit is Enough, Strong Bad says that licensed games suck, despite the fact that 8-Bit is Enough and the whole SBCG 4 AP series are licensed games.

Close Web Animation

Tales Of MU uses this, both to underscore the Unreliable Narrator (who denies any interest in her classmates' chests and then mentions being so shocked that she looks up and meets their eyes) and to poke fun at the informal writing style, as when Mackenzie mentions her campaign letter containing barely any ellipses.
Dr. Horrible does this in Sarcasm Mode (used as an example on the trope's page): "Wow. Sarcasm. That's original!"
The Angry Video Game Nerd, on his Super Mecha Death Christ: "FUCKEEEERRRSS!!! FUCKEEERRRSSS!!! WATCH YOUR FUCKING LANGUAGE!!!!"
- In his reviews of the Friday the 13th films, he comments on Corey Feldman's introduction with "Who wears a costume to play video games?" Cut to a clip from his review of Batman games dressed as Batman.
- Seems it may become a regular thing: while taking us on a tour of his game collection, he's outraged at the condition of some of the used games he's picked up, saying that he always takes care of his games. Cut to him drilling a hole through one in the Dick Tracy review.
- The Angry Video Game Nerd's reason for not using Game Genie on Castlevania 3:
  AVGN: ...because I'm going to do this legit. Now where's that extra lives code? (pulls out Nintendo Power's Top Secret Player's Guide)
The Guild has a more subtle example. Bladezz's sister asks if any of his internet friends are pervs, and Zaboo, who takes Stalker With A Crush to it's creepiest/most hilarious extreme, immediately replies "No, no one's a perv." with a completely straight face.
The Spoony Experiment: Noah insults the people who cried at Aerith's death in Final Fantasy VII, and we cut to him weeping at the opera scene from Final Fantasy VI.
Forms the basis of a lot of the humor in Pete the Puppet.
Women and children board first. I catch a young man trying to board by way of a lifeboat. Unseemly. I throw him off and take his place..
Mr Deity: "Who uses "an" with a H-word? That's an horrendous idea."
In the Nostalgia Critic review of Captain N he makes a joke about the creators leaving out a background in a few scenes, saying "I mean seriously, what moron would just have a Plain. White. Background. The whole entire time?[beat], he'd be a fucking idiot." No points for guessing what the background of his show is.
Yahtzee did this at the end of his review of Silent Hill: Homecoming. His rant was even copied and used after the credits of his videos for quite a while as advertising.
Fans are clingy complaining dipshits who will never ever be grateful for any concession you make. The moment you shut out their shrill tremulous voices the happier you'll be. Incidently, why not buy a Zero Punctuation T-shirt?
- Another example of his blatant hypocrisy: In his review of Duke Nukem Forever, he calls out companies who "get paid to do a job [they] didn't do," and says that they deserve to get sued. As he is going through this rant, he shows that his contract with the Escapist is to "Review Actual Games That Exist," and he himself is breaking that contract.
- Yahtzee uses this throughout his entire series, such as calling out "self-important bearded tosser who read too much into things" and then admitting that he's the biggest one of them all. It's an important part of his series that keeps him from crossing the line into becoming a vindictive, holier-than-thou Jerk Ass.

Close Web Original

This Insecticomics strip has the introduction of White Chromia. A bit later, Override muses that she wishes White Chromia would have a little more dignity, just before... well, yeah.
Invoked in a metatextual way in Wicked Powered, when a character decries a certain animation as being shoddily made to sell lasers. In case you don't get it, the full name of the comic is Wicked Lasers presents Wickedpowered.
On this page of Gunnerkrigg Court, Antimony deliberately invokes this to put Ysengrin in his place:
Ysengrin: Taking orders from a little girl, Sir Eglamore?
Antimony: You. You will take me to Coyote now.
Ysengrin: ...
A couple times in Sluggy Freelance it's been pointed out that, while Riff is quick to attack Aylee, Sam, and Gwynn for being possible dangers to humanity, his own Mad Scientist experiments probably have a better chance of annihilating the human race than anything. As shown in this strip:
Riff: I hope Gwynn learned "Gwynn shouldn't mess with powers beyond her control!" (the device in his hands starts beeping) Uh-oh. You guys might want to jump up and run away, there may not be time to get a safe distance from the radioactive ... (the beeping dies down) ... never mind, it fixed itself!
One Schlock Mercenary strip is the punchline to an arc-within-an-arc where Schlock, intending to blackmail the clowns at a circus where he's on security detail to get them to cut him in on their illicit brewery, discovers that his boss has already done so (since Schlock outed them several strips prior). To quote, "I'd fire you for it, but I'm too drunk to pronounce hippo-whatever."
- Also, a conversation with a genetically engineered elephant complaining about not fitting in with humans or elephants falls into this when a character whose main feature is his gigantic nose walks by:
Corporal Chisulo: I get so tired of jeers like 'Hey, fatso' or 'Remember me?' or 'Check out the nose on that guy.'
Aardman: Ahem.
Corporal Chisulo: Whoa! Monkey aardvark!
Happens here in Corner Alley 13.
This Irregular Webcomic strip.
- Another one here.
Sinfest pulls this every so often. One of the earliest (and funniest) examples is this comic.
Life With Lamarr does this with Barney Calhoun.
- "Doc, can you ask that pet of yours to not leave dead crap on my bed? Now I'm having to cook this delicious plump-breasted pigeon."
  —Barney, Life With Lamarr, Episode 5: Expression
- "You've gone and messed up his mind with your delicious but contemptible drugs!"
  —Barney, Life With Lamarr, Episode 31: The Doc gets Leery

Close Web Comics

Butch Hartman and his fellow creators of The Fairly Oddparents set the standard of this trope for kids cartoons. Invariably, it found its way into Danny Phantom.
- Danny Phantom could even be considered a meta-example; signficant amounts of humor come from the use of outdated slang by adults, making the unintended examples of Totally Radical an example of this trope.
- Also, a lot of its humor came from making fun of television cliches... and then they added Poof. Those twits.
- The Fairly Oddparents had a (probably) unintentional example of during the "Channel Chasers" episode in which they had a scene mocking the Simpsons also giving it a not-so subtle Take That with "Is every adult in this show an idiot?". After all we all know how intelligent the adults can be in this show.
- Yin Yang Yo retains crewmembers who worked on both shows, and naturally the trope.
One recent Nicktoon that makes use of it is El Tigre. Quite frankly, finding a cartoon or live-action show on Nickelodeon that doesn't use it on a frequent basis is a challenge in itself.
- Same goes for the preppy, sitcom-saturated Disney Channel.
Fully described and illustrated via live-action footage by Freakazoid.
Used extensively on Drawn Together, in conjunction with its successive amounts of racial jabs. For example, after foiling the Board of Education's evil plan to make black people fail their SAT tests by producing grape-flavored, mentholated pencils (itself a parody of a well-known conspiracy theory), Foxxy proclaims that there is no way anyone would be stupid enough to eat such a thing. However, after taking a whiff, she decides to help herself to a little nibble. Next thing you know, she has her mouth stuffed with a box load of the damn things.
Commonly used (along with every other broad humour trope known to man) in Looney Tunes:
- In the early Bugs Bunny short Elmer's Pet Rabbit, Bugs Bunny says he'll chomp starve before he chomp chomp eats the carrots and chomp lettuce that's chomp chomp chomp been put out for him. "You'll chomp be sorry then!"
- In the short A Fractured Leghorn, Foghorn Leghorn, having been told to shut up by another character, agrees to do so, adding that "I'm not one that has to keep talkin'...some fellas just have to keep their mouths flappin', but not me..." He continues holding forth in this manner, even stopping the picture from irising out in the process.
  - In the short Racketeer Rabbit, Bugs does the same thing as a stalling tactic, prompting Rocky to snap, "Shut up shuttin' up!" (Also used in the Bugs-Yosemite Sam cartoon The Fair-Haired Hare.)
Tex Avery's short Rock-a-Bye Bear has a hibernating bear repeatedly yelling at Spike the dog to be quiet, in the loudest voice imaginable.
The Simpsons and Futurama alike have used this more times that it's possible to keep track. Just expect it to be used thrice per episode on average.
Fry (regarding being called stupid): "No I'm... doesn't."
Lampshaded in The Simpsons episode "Homer The Vigilante": the captured Gentleman Thief makes a charming speech and the townspeople want to release him, however...
Wiggum: Oh, sorry folks. [sarcastic] Gee, I really hate to spoil this little love-in, but Mr. Malloy broke the law. And when you break the law, you gotta go to jail.
Quimby: Uh, that reminds me, er, here's your monthly kickback.
Wiggum: You just — you couldn't have picked a worse time.
- Also, in "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show", Comic Book Guy makes a big deal about not cutting in line, and there is to be only one signed photo per customer. He then pushes his way to the front of the line, and hands over four photos to be signed.
The Boondocks makes frequent use of it, right from the very first episode:
Granddad: Y'all need to start appreciating your granddaddy! I went and spent your inheritance on this beautiful house in this neighborhood! And all I ask you to do is act like you got some class...
Riley: Ay, what's "class"?
Huey: It means don't act like niggas.
Granddad: See! That's what I'm talking about right there! We don't use the n-word in this house!
Huey: Granddad, you said the word nigga 46 times yesterday. I counted.
Granddad: Nigga, hush!
In Metalocalypse, Dethklok, unsatisfied with the sound of their latest song, complain to their producer, saying that, as musicians, they have very sensitive hearing. As they explain this to him, it becomes apparent that they can't quite distinguish each other's voices from one another.
Used and somewhat lampshaded in Pinky And The Brain. The Brain has just discovered Pinky's vast collection of Cher memorabilia...
Brain: Pinky, do you know what "obsession" is?
Pinky: A Calvin Klein marketing scam?
Brain: Well, yes. However, I am referring to an unnatural fixation with a singular goal, something we have no time for in our quest to take over the world!
Pinky: Oh, I love it when you're ironic, Brain!
Mojo Jojo in The Powerpuff Girls episode "Los Dos Mojos": "I do not talk like that! The way I communicate is much different! I do not constantly reiterate, repeat, recite the same thing over and over again! I am clear! Concise! To the point..."
The Avatar The Last Airbender episode "The Ember Island Players" provided the perfect set up for tons upon tons of Hypocritical Humor: "How could you say that?"
- ...Except for Toph. The entire first half of the episode is clearly setting up a Hypocritical Humor moment for her, since she found everyone else's (fairly insulting) portrayals to be spot on and was laughing her ass off at everyone's reactions to the actors' performances- except that when the actor who plays her turns out to be a huge, well-muscled guy, she declares that she couldn't have cast it better herself.
- There's also a scene in the episode "City of Walls and Secrets" where Toph criticizes the rest of the Gaang's lack of proper manners while picking her nose and belching. When called on it, she points out she was taught high class manners and chooses to ignore them.
Transformers Animated: Megatron broadcasts a speech to all Decepticons, talking about unity and freeing themselves from Autobot tyranny — while blasting Starscream repeatedly (admittedly, Starscream was trying to kill him).
- In one instant of the G1 cartoon series, Megatron allies the Decepticons with another villainous group, who decide to betray them later on. Cue Starscream yelling 'TRAITORS!!' Cue immense laughter at the irony.
Subverted in The Mighty B; the first part of a segment is Bessie's dog, Happy, getting treatment from a vet for a skinned knee. After the usual kicking and screaming, they head next door for the doctor to treat Bessie's skinned knee. Turns out that she's just in time for a booster shot. After fighting much worse than her dog did, she finally gets the shot while trying to escape through the sink. After the shot, she launches in the the usual "See Happy, that didn't hurt a — okay, yeah, that hurts..."
You can find Hypocritical Humor right in the opening song of Family Guy. As any longtime viewer of the show knows, it has all of the things they're complaining about ("violence in movies and sex on TV") and none of the things they're praising ("good old-fashioned values on which we used to rely").
In the Justice League Unlimited episode "Flash and Substance", four of flash's Rogues Gallery meet in a Bad Guy Bar and Mirror Master makes a comment about how they are the hardest men in town... At which point their drink orders are revealed as, respectively, an Arnold Palmer, a Cherry Coke, a decaf soy latte, and a glass of milk (Captain Cold's ulcer had been acting up), turning what would otherwise be a good example of Frothy Mugs Of Water into a stellar example of this trope.
The Venture Bros is made of this trope, usually coming from Dr. Venture or Brock Samson. When Brock ("Super Kill Guy") is feeling down about killing a Mook, the solution: more killing.
Dr. Venture (as his sons interrupt as he is talking with his supposed father): Boys, Quiet! I'm trying to have a family moment here!
- Rusty making clones or zombies provokes Hypocritical Humor from necromancer-in-residence Dr. Orpheus. At one point, he spent half an episode trying to bring Hank and Dean Back From The Dead, then freaked out when Rusty did it by activating their clones.
American Dad makes use of this liberally as with most animated shows.
Stan: There are still a few voters who doubt I'd be a trustworthy leader. So let's lock our alien back in that mechanical teat sucker and make more brain washing potato salad!
From the Humbug in the Chuck Jones adapation of The Phantom Tollbooth: "If there's one thing I can't abide, it's a hypocrite!"
In an episode of Johnny Test, Hugh Test is berating his daughters for having having invented something as potentially dangerous as an alchemy machine - While he's gleefully using said machine to turn the cutlery and the contents of his toolbox into gold.

Close Western Animation

From Neverwinter Nights 2:
Khelgar Ironfist: Prejudiced? I'm not prejudiced! By the Nine Hells, I even travel with a back-stabbing tiefling of all things, and you know how her kind are!
- To be fair, tieflings are at least part demon. Demons in D&D have an odd tendency to be utterly Always Chaotic Evil.
  - But any evil outsider is possible, and the one in question is implied to be part Devil (meaning she would specifically not backstab people).
  - Right...do the words tyrannical, Machiavellian, cruel, and deceptive mean anything to you? Chaotic Evil backstabs you for fun with only an eye towards personal profit or cruelty. Lawful Evil...does the same thing with a good rationalization and a willingness to let the authories do their dirty work for them.
  - Wait, you're supporting racism with logic? Isn't that in itself kind of Lawful Evil?
On the Super Smash Bros Brawl website, Sakurai posted how he would not post shots of female characters' underpants. Then on the Japanese screenshots list, there's a picture of Peach's dress falling over her head, her panties in clear view. (of course, that was probably the localizer talking, but it's still funny)
While most likely a developer oversight, when you are captured in Knights Of The Old Republic, you can lie and say you don't care about Carth/Bastila during a torture session but the torturer will claim it is an obvious farce because you traveled half way across the galaxy with them. Considering he was the mentor of one of the people he is torturing...
"Pretentious? Moi?"
An unintentional example comes from Oddworld: Munch's Oddyssy, part of a series where corporations are the ultimate, world-destroying evil... except for delicious, life-restoring Sobe!
- OWI said in the manual that they did a thorough investigation of Sobe's history of human rights and such before "proudly" advertising for them in-game.
When Sony announced they were removing rumble from the PS3 controller, Sony apologist fanboys declared they didn't need it anyway. A year or so later, Sony said they were adding rumble. The same fanboys are nowhere to be found. There's also said Sony fanboys ridiculing the Wii for its "ridiculous" motion-sensing controller, until Sony said the SIXAXIS would also have a tilt sensor. Cue fanboys scrambling to explain how the controller is totally not a ripoff and a fairly good idea.
- Similarly, when Nintendo introduced the Wii, Sony and Microsoft fanboys decried its motion-sensing controller with derisive terms like "gimmicky" and "waggle." Two years later, when Sony and Microsoft announced their own plans for motion-sensing controllers, said same fanboys were enthusiastic about the innovative new games that would soon arise from their new peripherals...
- When the PSP came out, Nintendo fanboys bashed it for having features like being able to go onto an internet browser or it being able to play MP3s. They went onto to say it was unfocused. Cue now, with the Nintendo D Si out, Nintendo fanboys just love the built in browser and the fact that it can play ACC format music!
Kingdom Of Loathing example: In the "South of the Border" zone, one of the encounters is a cock-fight. You can bet on the favorite, bet on the other one, or walk away. If you choose to walk away, you get this text:
This flagrant display of cruelty to living creatures disgusts you. You decide to head back to the Icy Peak and eviscerate some more Yetis.
In Metal Gear Solid 2, Revolver Ocelot had the balls to accuse Fortune of being a Large Ham. If you'll remember how he was throughout the entire series...

Close Video Games

The old joke of making an (often quite reasonable) claim but doing so in a way that deliberately contradicts it:
- "I've told you a million times don't exaggerate"
- "Thank god I'm an atheist"
- "All generalisations are false"
- "73% of statistics are made up on the spot"
- "Moderation in everything" sounds like an example of this but people tend to mean it.
There's "Don't #$%^&*$ swear", etc.
Jokes that hang lampshades (not straight examples)
- I don't drink, I don't smoke and I don't swear. Oh fucking hell, I left my cigarettes in the pub.
- Betcha $50 I don't gamble.
- As a Capricorn, I don't believe in astrology.
That "Thank God I'm an atheist" bit was originally (or at least first time recorded spoken by) Aleister Crowley, since he loved being as contrarian as possible and still convince people to smile and nod.
Apparently, Jack Thompson said this (In fact, you could pretty much list anything that bilge rat says right here. It's hypocritical, but only humorous depending on your tastes.):
"What the Japanese are doing to our kids is insensitive and racist. The Japanese have for a very long time dumped pornography into this country in a fashion they would not tolerate in their own country. It is another version of Pearl Harbor."
- The fact that someone who's vigorously pro-censorship enjoys nothing better than comparing his opponents to the Nazis also works.
  - Or the fact that he says his opponents are Nazis while also wanting them all to be locked up in prisons for their beliefs.
- My favourite is still: "we've got a bunch of sociopaths in Edinburgh, Scotland (Rockstar North and Rockstar Leeds (different cities), the developers of the Grand Theft Auto series), sitting around in kilts, sipping their single malt whiskey, spreading racial, hurtful stereotypes." They also made the original Lemmings games, So Yeah...
This troper finds hypocrisy is commonly noted in political satire shows, because you know, it's so easy with politics.
"How Gluttons Complain"
"I'm not racist, but..."
- Even better: "I don't want to sound racist, but..."
- Also "My best friend is black!"
- "I am not a racist, some of my best friends are white~"
- "South Africa is an awful country. Half the people are racist bigots, and the other half are niggers."
- "I don't think of you as black!"
- This one was probably intended as a joke, but... "I'm not prejudiced against black people, I think everyone should own a couple."
- "I'm not a racist, because racism is a crime... and crime is for niggers."
- A new variation of this is now "I don't hate gay people, but being gay is wrong." or as recently as a TV interview of a friend of a guy who got arrested for gay bashing. "I don't hate gay people, but beating them is justified."
A fairly common Real Life family example, pointed out by Bill Engvall: "Hey!" *smack* "We do NOT hit!"
Smarmy intellectuals like this troper are fond of responding to a phrase using needlessly complex or highbrow wording with "Eschew Obfuscation" which is a needlessly complex and highbrow way of saying "don't use needlessly complex and highbrow wording"
- See also How to Write Good for more grammatical examples of this phenomenon.
"There Are Two Kinds Of People In The World: those who think the world can be neatly divided into two kinds of people, and those who don't. I'm one of the second kind."
- That seems more like a Paradox than a Hypocrite... well, both, anyway.
Paul Gascoigne, English footballer, is quoted as saying "I never predict anything and I never will do".
Tony Blair came out with this gem during the 1998 Belfast peace talks in Northern Ireland:
Blair: A day like today is not a day for soundbites, we can leave those at home, but I feel the hand of history upon our shoulder with respect to this, I really do.
A few products seen with the phrase "Closed mind: Close your mouth"
The phrase, "Never say never."
People who read and/or write Fanfiction complaining about a bad episode of a show by saying it's like fanfiction. Bonus points if they've written fanfic for the show in question.
Way too common on the Internet; "THESE VIAL ATHEISTS DO NOTHING BUT SPREAD HATE AND SPEW THEIR DISCISTING, HATE-FILLED INSULTS TOWARDS CHRISTIANS WHO THEY OFFENSIVELY INSULT. IT'S HOSTILE, IT'S OFFENSIVE AND IT'S UNACCEPTIBLE."
- Indeed. Fundies Say the Darndest Things gets these kinds of examples all the time. Expect lots of irony meters to be broken in this website.
In Britain in the mid-1990s, at the height of the Paedo Hunt that the media were enthusiastically propagating, Chris Morris' Brass Eye devoted a special to satirising the over-the-top reaction to paedophilia by the media. Naturally, the tabloids that were making a healthy profit from all this were less than amused, and one of them, the Daily Star, published a pious condemnation of the show fretting about what effect it might have on paedophiles... immediately opposite a Page Three Stunna-style article which leeringly gloated over the developing large breasts of an underage young actress◊ of the time.
Very common among females but can be used by males too: "I am generally very nice, but you're just a loser a/o bitch."
Chris Chibnall, the less-than-popular show-runner for Torchwood, wrote an episode of Doctor Who called "42" which was by and large dismissed as being rather bland and formulaic. Not that remarkable by itself, until you consider that in the 1980s Chibnall, active in fan-circles, appeared on a BBC viewer response program along with other fans where he bluntly and loudly called out current Doctor Who to the faces of, amongst others, producer John Nathan-Turner and writers Pip and Jane Baker. Among his criticisms was that the show was becoming too formulaic. And to add to this, the Bakers had written a story in the then-recent series about a spaceship being sucked into a black hole. Chibnall's Doctor Who contribution revolves around a spaceship being sucked into a sun. Oh, the irony.

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