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Zack: Say what?
All the heroes are gearing up for the big sock-hop at the discotheque, but one character wants to stay behind. "What?" cry his friends. "You can't refuse to go! It's the big dance! It's the event of the season! It's being thrown in your honor!"
The reluctant character then grudgingly admits his Terrible Secret: He doesn't know how to dance! No worries, though; a single scene practicing his two-step and he'll be tripping the light fantastic in no time.
Watch the wording here: If a character says he doesn't dance, that usually means he can but he never told you. If he says he won't dance, that means his heart won't let his feet do things that they should do.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- In Soul Eater, Maka usually says she can't dance. When she dances with Soul or her father, she lets them lead.
Comic Books
- Happens in an Archie Comics story; Dilton doesn't know how to dance, so he builds a pair of shoes that dance for him, making him a sensation at the school dance. Then lightning strikes, the shoes go whack, and things don't end well.
Film
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
- The Genesis song I Can't Dance
 :
I can't dance! I can't talk,
The only thing about me is the way that I walk.
- Bonus points for the fact the name of the album from which it came was We Can't Dance.
- "Your Mama Don't Dance" by Loggins & Messina.
- My Chemical Romance: "You can't swim, you can't dance, and you don't know karate. Face it, you're never gonna make it."
- LL Cool J's "You Can't Dance" is a hilarious Take That, making a good case that some people just shouldn't try.
- Kate Miller Heidke gave us Can't Shake It.
Tried movin' my body to the latest hit,
Someone called the nurse, thought I was havin' a fit,
I execute the moonwalk like I stepped in shit, I can't take it!
- Frank Zappa's send up of 70s pickup/disco culture "Dancing Fool"
Theatre
Video Games
- Squall in Final Fantasy VIII protests that he can't dance. So he gets forcibly dragged onto the dance floor, and trips all over himself a lot until Rinoa finally gets him to loosen up, after which he makes a liar of himself. Later on, Squall admits to Rinoa that he was lying; SeeDs are apparently trained in a number of social skills to help with subterfuge, and one of them is dancing because one may need to approach a target or contact at a formal party.
- Commander Shepard may be an epic badass, but he/she just sucks at dancing. Watch.
- One of the prompts to dance in a club is "Dance?" as if the game itself is iffy on calling the flailing Shepard does on the floor "dancing."
- Both Jack and Garrus will poke fun at Shepard's dancing in Mass Effect 3.
- In the Citadel DLC of the third game, Female Shepard can get roped into a dance with Garrus if he's her LI. While hesitant at first, she manages to pull it off.
- In the same DLC, you can try to goad Joker into dancing with EDI by saying that, if he doesn't you will. He proceeds to laugh uncontrollably at Shepard. For half a minute.
- Ashley also claims Shepard's dancing is related to drunkenness. Shepard takes it as a particularly low blow.
Webcomics
Web Original
Western Animation
- In one episode of Tiny Toon Adventures, the prom is coming up and Buster doesn't know how to dance, so he watches some Bugs Bunny cartoons to learn how.
- An episode of ChalkZone revolves around the fact that Rudy can't dance and he's going to be dancing with Penny the next night at the school dance. So he takes lessons in Chalkzone. When he finaly learns, he finds out that Penny has trouble herself!
- In one episode of The Flintstones, Fred and Barney decided to take ballroom dance lessons so that they could surprise Wilma and Betty by taking them dancing. In order to keep their wives from finding out, they join the Bedrock Volunteer Fire Department(which is a scam run by the men of Bedrock to allow them to get away from their wives; since all buildings in Bedrock are made of stone, they can't catch fire).
- In the Veggie Tales Silly Songs with Larry segment "Barbara Manatee", Barbara's boyfriend Bill reveals this after she asks him to take her to the ball. As this is a Soap Opera parody (emphasis on the "opera" part), this is taken as a huge shock and she plans to leave him over it.
- A topic of a classic 50's Goofy Cartoon.
- The Simpsons had this happen to Lisa when she tried taking tap dancing lessons and turned out to be absolutely terrible (though not through any fault of her own: her lessons consist solely of the words "tappa tappa tappa" which all of the other students manage to turn into instant dancing ability). Knowing that Homer and Marge are hoping to see her in the big recital, Lisa puts on a pair of self-tapping dancing shoes that Professor Frink invented. She does pretty well to start, but when her teacher goes into the big solo, Lisa's shoes force her to follow suit. Then the crowd began applauding, as Lisa's shoes began to go completely haywire and she couldn't stop. Homer finally saves the day by tripping Lisa and knocking her off her feet.
- This was the plot of the pilot episode for Doug, where Roger goes up to Doug before a costume dance the same day and tells him that he (Doug) can't dance.
- In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Twilight Sparkle is a hilariously terrible dancer as seen in "Sweet and Elite".
- Though oddly, she's a perfectly capable dancer during the Musical Numbers.
- In "Franklin and the Firefly Festival" from Franklin and Friends, Bear didn't want to be a part of the firefly festival because he didn't think he could dance and said as much, but his love his food causes him to do a Happy Dance on his own.
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