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Kate: That is... a really interesting painting. White: Thank you. Yeah, that's me, taking the bull by the horns. It's how I handle business. It's a metaphor. Kate: I get it. White: But that actually happened, though.
Alice uses a figure of speech. Bob reiterates the usual metaphorical meaning. Alice says no, she meant it literally.
There's also a variation in which Bob questions the metaphor, and Alice responds sarcastically that she meant it literally. See also Visual Pun for when a play on words is given literal visualization. Related to Not Hyperbole, where what seems like an exaggeration isn't, and Made from Real Girl Scouts, where the literal meaning is true... and you really wish it wasn't.
Compare Double Meaning.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Revolutionary Girl Utena
- Adolescence of Utena: "Utena is the vehicle through which Anthy escapes from Ohtori."
- In the show, Nanami thinks she's (literally) laid an egg and asks her brother how he feels about girls who lay eggs. "Do you know why we've been able to live together so happily? It's because you aren't the type of girl who lays eggs."
- In Rocket Girls, Yukari is offered a job that's "so simple even a monkey could do it" — an astronaut.
- A variation occurs in an episode of Azumanga Daioh, when Chiyo, overwhelmed at the preparations for the Culture Fest, begs someone to turn back the clock before it's too late. Osaka takes this as literal instruction.
- In Neon Genesis Evangelion, the last half of the episode is set to a backdrop of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy". When Kaworu enters Heaven's Door to merge with Adam (and destroy humanity), they sing a part with two of these metaphors:
Freude trinken alle Wesen
An dem Brüsten der Natur
Alle Guten, alle Bösen
Folgen ihrer Rosenspur
Kusse gab sie uns und Reben
Einen Freund geprüft im Tod
Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben
Und der Cherub steht vor Gott
Arts
Card Games
Comic Books
- From Birds Of Prey #93:
Lady Blackhawk: You drive. I call shotgun. Gypsy: But Shiva's already in that seat... Lady Blackhawk: No. I mean — I call shotgun.
- In Scott Pilgrim, Ramona says that her last ex-boyfriend Gideon has a way of getting inside her head. Scott agrees, prompting Ramona to tell him that she means Gideon has a way of literally invading her subconscious.
- A variant, making it part of the mystery, in a Mickey Mouse comics story that casts Mickey as a professional detective: A man accused of destroying evidence against the local mob boss is in a mentally not very stable condition, and some of his ravings include the mention of "the monkey on my back". It turns out this refers to the actual pet monkey of the mob boss, who likes to jump down to the backs of intruders and tear them with his claws.
Comic Strips
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
- Happens in the film My Favorite Year. Alan Swan is drunk, and hanging off a building by a fire hose.
"I think Alan Swan is beneath us!"
"Of course he's beneath us. He's an actor!"
"No! I think Alan Swann is beneath us right now!"
- This is how The Human Torch in the 2005 Fantastic Four film discovers his powers — he is skiing with a friend and he suddenly catches fire.
Nurse: Johnny! You're on fire!
Johnny: Thanks! you're pretty good too!
Nurse: No, you're on fire!
- A Hard Day's Night has another variant:
Paul: He can't just walk out on us like this!
John: Can't he? He's done it, son!
- In Aguirre, the Wrath of God, the expedition is descending the Andes, having already had some difficulties. One character says optimistically, "It can only go up from here!" Another looks at the slope they're on and corrects him literally, "No, down." Actually, the second character is also metaphorically right: things got worse drastically.
- In Village of the Damned (the original version), the protagonist focuses on the words "brick wall" to hide how he plans to kill the psychic children. We see their attempts to break through his Psychic Static as a literal brick wall, which slowly falls to pieces as they force their way in. By the time they finish breaking through, there isn't enough time left to stop the explosives from going off.
- In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Kirk at first assumes Spock is speaking metaphorically when he says that Sybok is his brother.
- A nice example in Keeping The Faith, when Bonnie Rose is boasting about daughter Rose's professional achievements to the hot new Rabbi: "My mum does all my PR," Rose explains. "I know what you mean. Mine too," says the Rabbi. "No, I mean really. My mum's firm does all my PR."
- In Euro Trip, Scotty and Cooper are at the Vatican and have managed to sneak into a room with the Pope's clothes. Cooper puts on the Pope's hat and accidentally sets it on fire but doesn't notice. This little exchange takes place:
Scott: Cooper, the hat! The hat! The hat is on fire!
Cooper: We don't need no water let the motha..."
Scott: I'm not kidding! Look!
Cooper: Oh, holy shit!
- This happens in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Searching in a crypt under a library (which was an old converted church), Indiana Jones says, "Rats." Dr. Schneider asks what's wrong, and he repeats his statement, pointing out hundreds of rats moving around in the tunnel.
- In Hocus Pocus, the witches sing "I Put a Spell on You" to a crowd of party-goers. It puts them into a trance.
- Happens in Mrs. Doubtfire.
Miranda: How did your husband die?
Mrs. Doubtfire: He was quite fond of the drink. It was the drink that killed him.
Miranda: How awful, he was an alcoholic?
Mrs. Doubtfire: No, he was hit by a Guinness truck, so it was quite literally the drink that killed him.
- Occurs in Bugsy Malone. One of Fat Sams workers says he can't stop Dandy Dan's gang because "he's all tied up" (he's actually tied up). Fat Sam replies "I don't care how busy you are."
- In Time, with its premise of using the time of your life as currency, regularly features phrases such as "spending time", "out of time", and "give me a minute" used in a literal sense.
- Airplane!
- As a visual gag, when someone is warned about the shit hitting the fan. Cut to a view of the fan.
- There's also the lead character's "Drinking Problem"... cue him clumsily spilling his drink all over his face.
- In the sequel, one character is told, "Don't come apart on me!" His limbs promptly begin to fall off. In a later scene, he literally turns to jelly. The series is fond of this trope in general.
- In the first The Naked Gun, Jane is standing up on a ladder at a bookcase, with Lt. Drebin on the ground, the impression that he's looking up her skirt. Drebin cracks "Nice beaver!", after which Jane comes down with a stuffed mounted beaver ("Thanks, I just had it stuffed.").
- In one scene of DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story, we learn that the film's villain, sleazy fitness mogul White Goodman, has a painting of himself riding a wild bull hanging in his office. He helpfully states that it's a metaphor for how he runs his business ("Taking the bull by the horns,"). Then he adds that, even though it's a metaphor, the scene in the painting actually happened to him.
- In Being There, Chance the gardener's comments about plants are mistaken for profound metaphorical statements about the economy.
Chance: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden. ... In the garden, growth has its seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again. ...
Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we're upset by the seasons of our economy. ...
The President: Well, Mr. Gardner, I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I've heard in a very, very long time. ... I admire your good, solid sense. That's precisely what we lack on Capitol Hill.
- As Harpo Marx proves in Horse Feathers, you can indeed burn a candle at both ends.
- Early in Trainspotting, the heroin-addicted protagonist goes to a friend in hopes of scoring one last hit before he goes clean, but finds that said friend only has opium anal suppositories. Disappointed, but realizing that they're the closest thing to heroin that he's going to get, he takes the suppositories, inserts them into his anus, and remarks "For all the good they've done me, I might as well have stuck 'em up my arse!"
- In Mission: Impossible II, when Ethan and Luther meet again, Luther ends up stepping in sheep droppings. This conversation takes place:
Luther Stickell: Shit.
Ethan Hunt: Yes it is.
- In Addams Family Values, Gomez says that baby Pupert has his grandfather's eyes.
Morticia: Gomez, take those out of his mouth.
Jokes
- What did the Sphinx say when Oedipus answered his riddle? "Motherfucker!"
- I wondered why the Frisbee was getting bigger, and then it hit me.
- Vampires suck. Werewolves bite.
- A man walks into a bar. He says "ouch".
- A man walks into a baa. The sheep says "ouch!"
- Two men walk into a bar, you'd think the second one would have noticed.
- What's the capital of Thailand? Bangkok!
Literature
- In the book Anansi Boys, Tiger is trapped in a cave with the thoroughly annoying Grahame Coats. Tiger warns him to not be irritating or he will bite Coats's head off.
Grahame Coats: You keep using the phrase "bite my head off." Now when you say "bite my head off," I take it I can assume that it is actually some kind of metaphorical statement, implying that you'll shout at me, perhaps rather angrily?
Tiger: Bite your head off. Then crunch it. Then swallow it.
- Discworld
- The Truth, about the Discworld's first newspaper, begins with someone yelling "Stop the presses!"... because the cart carrying the printing press in question has come loose and is careening down the street.
- One of the possible results of dark-light photography is that the resulting photo will show a metaphor as if it were literal. For instance, someone whose father looms high in their life is pictured with their father standing behind them and looking down over their shoulder.
- In Going Postal, Moist's reaction to seeing the once-proud Post Office is "Oh, shit!" Mr Pump reproves him for his language, but he explains it was a statement of fact: the place is filled with pigeon droppings. Then he finds out they're actually piles of letters.
- The Dresden Files. Inverted in Death Masks: Dresden tells Molly she's sounding all grown up, and Molly snarks that "the breast fairy came to visit and everything". Quoth Dresden, to the reader, "Some might find it significant that it took me a second to realize she wasn't being literal about the faerie. Sometimes I hate my life".
- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency had Eskimo Words For Snow gag running into this:
The word "impossible" is not in my dictionary. In fact, everything between "herring" and "marmalade" appears to be missing.
- A Brick Joke; earlier, when his secretary had tried to put the dictionary in a desk drawer it was too thick, so she ripped a handful of pages out.
- In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Tom Riddle tells Wormtail he will get to "perform a task most [his] followers would give their right hand to perform" — little does Wormtail know that to perform the task you literally have to sacrifice your right hand as a flesh offering for Dark Magic.
Live-Action TV
- Frasier has this on several occasions, being a World of Snark:
Frasier: Niles, is there a lightbulb over my head?
Niles: You have an idea?
Frasier: No, I'm literally asking if there's a lightbulb over my head! Of course I have an idea!
- This is a regular gag for Sophia on The Golden Girls:
Sophia: Then it happened, what every runner dreads. I hit the wall.
Dorothy: Aww, you ran out of steam.
Sophia: No, I actually hit a wall!
- Spoofed on Robot Chicken when she describes her encounter with a high school basketball team: They run a (model) train on her and she gets their (basket)balls in her face.
- Used in the Wings episode "Plane Nine From Nantucket":
Joe: Who won the arm-wrestling match?
Helen: Fay licked me.
Joe: She beat you, huh?
Helen: No, she licked me. She literally licked my hand. I was so startled, she caught me off-guard, pinned me to the table.
- A recurring element on Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
- Scrubs put an interesting spin on this one:
J.D.: We could have sex again.
Elliot: Bite me.
J.D.: Oh, come on, I was kidding! It's a joke!
Elliot: No, I mean it. Like you did last night. (takes off her shirt and throws it at him) Come bite me.
- Babylon 5: Lord Kiro mentions that his aunt once told him he would be "killed by shadows". He doesn't think it makes any sense. Pity no one told him about that ancient alien race who call themselves The Shadows...
- Pushing Daisies
Emerson: Your book was a bomb.
Napoleon: Who are you to criticize my life's work?!
Emerson: (deadpan) Your book. Was a bomb. It exploded.
Emerson: That's bat crap.
Olive: It's a frickin' convent. Show some respect.
Emerson: (pointing at the white-streaked wall of the bell tower) I'm showing you bat crap.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Buffy: [My mom] saw these scores, and her head spun around and exploded.
Giles: I've been living on the hellmouth too long... that was metaphorical, wasn't it?
- A somewhat different kind of inversion occurs in "A New Man", after Giles has been turned into a demon:
Spike: Hey, picked up a tail...
Giles: Yes, just a little, uh... Hurts when I sit.
Spike I mean someone's following us.
- Played straight by the Mayor:
- Part of the modus operandi of Vengeance Demons.
Rachel: I wish you could all feel what's it like to have your hearts ripped out.
Anyanka: Wish granted.
- Angel
- One of the prophecies that has Wolfram & Hart so het up regarding a pregnant vampire states that on the foretold night, there will be no birth, only death. They do relax somewhat at that, concluding that the offspring will either be miscarried or stillborn or killed before it can be born. It turns out that this is actually a literal statement: The vampire is undead, her body isn't designed to give birth and magic protecting the baby from harm means a C-section cannot be performed either. Her solution is to stake herself. Her body disintegrates into dust, leaving the (very alive) baby lying on the ground where her body used to be.
- Arrested Development
- One doctor does this a few times, saying that "we lost him" when a patient escaped, "it looks like he's dead" to refer to a patient covered in blue paint, and "he's going to be all right" after Buster loses his left hand.
- In another episode, Michael repeatedly asked his imprisoned father about finances, only to be told "There's money in the banana stand." Michael assumes that just meant that the sales from the banana stand would always be there but really the banana stand is lined with $250,000 in unmarked bills but Michael doesn't learn about it until after the stand burns to the ground.
- In one episode of The Gruen Transfer, "The Pitch" had two advertising agencies competing to "sell ice to Eskimos".
- In Jonas:
Nick: She got a frog in her throat.
Kevin: There is a bug going around.
Nick: No, she was swimming in the swamp and got an actual frog in her throat. She's at the hospital right now getting a frog-ectomy.
- In one episode of Spaced Mike walks off in the pub saying he has to "point the pink pistol at the porcelain firing range". When he gets back he is carrying an actual pink pistol.
- In Supernatural:
Dean: Where'd you serve?
Guy: Fallujah — two tours. Got back a little over a year ago. Takes one to know one. Where'd you serve?
Dean: Hell.
Guy: No, seriously.
Dean: Seriously. Hell.
- Doctor Who
- In one of the Sontaran episodes of Nu Who, when describing the ATMOS GPS system while driving:
Russ: It drives me round the bend.
- And again in "Flesh and Stone", the Doctor tells Amy to "get a grip"... because the Weeping Angels are about to drain the last of the Byzantium's energy and accidentally deactivate the artificial gravity.
- In "The Girl Who Waited", Amy disarms a Handbot - though it's really more like "dehanding" it (she chops off the hands, since they administer anaesthetics and are how the robot "sees".
- The Handbots literally kill with kindness, as Amy is immune to Chen-7 and the vaccine would kill her.
- In the new Battlestar Galactica, Baltar asks the "imaginary" Head Six what she really is. Her response? An angel of God sent to guide humanity. And it turns out that she was being completely serious.
- In an episode of I Dream Of Jeannie, Major Healey has invited everyone to a party in his completely bare apartment. He tells Major Nelson that new furniture would be installed "in the blink of an eye. Um, where did you say Jeannie was?"
- Stargate SG-1
Maj. Thornberg: What was the weapon you used? Col. O'Neill: (innocently) Weapon? Maj. Thornberg: Our cameras saw some sort of weapon. Col. O'Neill: Oh. Well, it's hard to say. Maj. Thornberg: Some sort of state secret? Col. O'Neill: No, just difficult to pronounce. note It was a Goa'uld Zat'nik'tel, for reference...
- In season 9 episode "Off the Grid", when asked how he managed to have Big Eater Goa'uld Nerus leave the SGC while unknowingly carrying a subspace tracker, General Landry answers that "It was a piece of cake..." (of cupcake, to be precise).
- Smallville
- One is lampshaded in the episode "Icarus". After Hawkman jumps from a window with his wings on fire, General Wilson points out that he had intended the name to be a metaphor for Clark's fall from grace. Or to use the paraphrasing given here:
"Look, when I named this project Icarus, I never expected an actual dude with flaming wings falling from the sky. This is totally awesome. I love life."
- In an earlier episode, when Clark Kent catches a life-threatening fever, a doctor tries to give him a shot:
Pa Kent: You can't do that! (the doctor is outraged) No, I mean you literally can't do that.
(the doctor tells him off and sticks the needle in, which goes in fine because the fever neutralized Clark's invulnerability)
- Being Human: Annie is talking to another ghost, who mentions that her death was "a terrible shock". Annie replies, "Well, I should think it would be!" The other ghost then explains that she meant it literally; she died by electrocution.
- In one Charmed episode, the Seer says she sees nothing. Her master assumes she failed to see the future, but she means, "Nothing. No Life. No World."
- In 30 Rock:
Pete: Tracy's phoning it in.
Liz: So what else is new?
(cut to show a phone where Tracy should be)
Tracy: Line!
- Liz's boyfriend Floyd, upset over being passed up for a promotion, complains that he's sick of the rat race. It turns out his neighbors race rats in his apartment hallway late at night. Sometimes he places bets.
- During a song at the 2006 Oscars, Jack Black bolsters Will Ferrell by telling him they may not win any awards, but they'll win "the ultimate fight".
Jack: And I'm not speaking in a metaphor, I mean literally. I am going to fight the nominees.
- "Gay Witch Hunt", the third-season premiere of the U.S. edition of The Office.
Toby: Oscar's really gay.
Michael: Exactly.
Toby: I mean for real.
Michael: Yeah, I know.
Toby: No, he's attracted to other men.
Michael: Okay, little too far, crossed the line.
Toby: Okay, I am telling you Oscar is an actual homosexual.
- In Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, reference to the manure Hercules cleared from the Augean Stables has someone say "Holy—" "Exactly."
- In the pilot of Mr Sunshine, after Crystal dumps Ben for Alonzo, they are just proceeding in opposite directions when the missing elephant turns up.
- Wizards Of Waverly Place:
Alex: You've got to help me!
Crumbs: I wish I could, but my hands are tied.
Alex: You don't believe me either?
Crumbs: No, I mean my hands are tied. (shows Alex he's handcuffed to the table)
- Mark's discussion in Parks and Recreation of why he decided to turn his life around: "I hit rock bottom that night. I mean I literally fell to the bottom of a pit and hit a rock. I remember laying there thinking, there's probably a good reason why I'm down here. And then I remember thinking I need morphine."
- In Blackadder IV, Episode "Captain Cook", Baldrick paints a picture.
Blackadder: What's it called Baldrick? "The Vomiting Cavalier"?
George: That's not supposed to be vomit; it's dabs of light.
Baldrick: No, it's vomit.
- The Viking song from Horrible Histories:
We're tearing down this place tonight... literally!
We're gonna set this sleepy town alight... literally!
- Also, in the Dick Turpin song, Turpin describes his actions as a highwayman as "daylight robbery" - normally meaning an extortionate charge for something, but here meaning literally robbing people in broad daylight.
- In the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment of Space Mutiny, Crow pretends to be excited about watching the climactic battle, at first.
Crow: Wow! I am on the edge of my seat! (beat) I should probably scoot back a little; I'd be more comfortable.
Mike: Yeah, you've got a lot more room back there.
- In "Bringing Up Baby", the fourth-season premiere of Modern Family, sitting on their sofa mulling their failed second adoption, Mitchell tells Cam that they have to talk about the elephant in the room. He agrees, and the camera pulls back to show a large stuffed elephant on one of the chairs, apparently received as a baby gift. For good measure, the gag repeats itself after one of them mentions the 800-pound gorilla.
- Used in a particuarly dark (still funny) instance in Community, about the head of a law firm losing his job.
Lawyer: He got too old. Swam with the sharks and got eaten!
Jeff: He created the firm! You can't loose your job when you're the boss.
Lawyer: Not if you're dead. That shark thing was not a metaphor.
- Married... with Children: Al once made a Deal with the Devil and ended up Dragged Off to Hell. There, he commented it was hot like in hell. He then realized why.
Music
- "At your command, before you here I stand, my heart is in my hand — yeucch!" from Tom Lehrer's "The Masochism Tango".
- Variation in Gorillaz's We Are the Dury:
Murdoc: It can be very distracting when you've got six or seven decomposing zombies stuck up your chimney flue.
2D: We've got a chimney flue?
Murdoc: I'm speaking metaphorically, D. I'm using the analogy of the chimney flue to describe the, um, passageways of our flowing creativity. The zombies, in this case, are used as a metaphor for blockages to the airways, figuratively speaking.
2D: Really?
Murdoc: No. There really are about six undead carcasses stuck up the studio chimney.
2D: Oh. Well, that'd explain the smell.
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Albuquerque" does this in two places. Once, where a guy sarcastically says, "Noooo, I want you to cut off my arms and legs with chainsaws!", and another time, when another guy says "I haven't had a bite in days."
Puppet Shows
- Tons of jokes on The Muppet Show involve Literal Metaphor. In fact, if one were to say that on the show, you would be accurate in predicting that one character would ask if he means that there are a lot of them, only to be shown thousands of pounds of joke books.
- This extends to a number of other Muppet works. The Muppet Movie, for example, features jokes about "starting off with a bang", "drinks on the house", and a "fork in the road".
Radio
- In the Doctor Who audio drama "The Whispering Forest", Turlough and Nyssa are wandering through tunnels, and Turglough says the hairs on the back of his neck are sticking up. Nyssa assumes he means the caves are spooky, but he actually means they're filled with static electricity.
Tabletop Games
Video Games
Web Comics
- In an early episode of Questionable Content, Marten describes his job as being "the office bitch". This is his official job title.
- One patron in Unshelved runs into a problem like this when his girlfriend wants to close the book on their relationship.
- In Finders Keepers, Death sends Cailyn Asher a knife after Card asks for her (Death's) help. When Cailyn, Card, and Lady Scarring examine the knife later, Scarring calls it "the cutting edge." Cailyn of course asks what it is the cutting edge of, only to be told that the knife is the Cutting Edge, and it literally cuts theory from reality.
- One strip from Exterminatus Now.
Eastwood: Oh, I assure you I'm pissing myself with fear.
Virus: Well, I wouldn't go that far.
Rogue: I would. Just noticed. Watch your step there.
Virus: Oohh, right, NOT a metaphor.
- Dan And Mabs Furry Adventures can be literal at times:
- Everyday Heroes
- Jane confesses to her neighbor Joan that she used to be a villain. When Joan expresses doubt, Jane assures her it's true; "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt!" And to prove it, she shows Joan the T-shirt. (Also a Shout Out to Narbonic.)
- Also, it's not polite to say "don't get all bent out of shape" to a man with a spinal injury.
- The Order of the Stick
Sabine: It's hard, but sometimes, I need to make a sacrifice in order to maintain our love.
Roy: Like dressing up for him?
Sabine: No, I meant a literal sacrifice. I have a desecrated altar waiting for your corpse in the next room.
Roy: Hu... I always thought the "revolving door afterlife" was just a metaphor...
Bureaucratic Deva: Mr. Greenhilt, we do things "by the book" around here — and it just so happens that the book in question is 100 feet tall and alight with holy fire —
Nale: Oh really? Why don't you chase after him, then?
Sabine: Nale, you know I love you. I didn't—
Nale: No, I mean literally. Go chase after him. He's escaping.
- Sluggy Freelance
Riff: How did your blind date go?
Torg: She got eaten by the alien.
Riff: All right! Way to go man! ...Oh, you meant that literally.
Torg: How the hell did you think I meant it?
Riff: Not sure, didn't really think about it too much, but it sounded dirty!
- A page of the webcomic Real Life Fiction, aptly titled "Too Literal", has a cold medecine that "may cause drow-siness".note For the non-D&D gamers, "drow" being another name for the dark elves.
- Sinfest
- From Hark! A Vagrant: Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war!
- One comic of Skin Horse does it with a metaphor that doesn't even exist.
- This is a commonly used punchline in Penny Arcade.
- In MeatShield, Leonid the pseudo-lich once did a bit of soul-searching. Since at the time he was a disembodied head that had been stuffed inside his Soul Jar, this didn't take very long. (For that matter, the fact that this particular phylactery is indeed a jar may fall into Literal Metaphor too.)
- Gunnerkrigg Court has Coyote and Renard referring to Annie as "fire-headed girl" and telling her "there's a fire in you... fire that belonged to your mother!" — repeatedly. She takes all these mentions as cringe-worthy attempts at being poetic in regards to how much she is like her mother, Surma. It's not the case. This wasn't about her temper or anything, at least not directly. They said what they meant, as straightforward as possible. By her basic nature she is a fire creature, part-human part-fire-elemental, which means her mother's fire/soul was literally passed to her, resulting in Surma's death as Antimony matured.
- In Brawl in the Family, Kingsonnn Dededoo is here to clean your clock.
Web Original
- Atop The Fourth Wall: Where bad comics burn. This is usually a figure of speech referring to the comic being critically roasted, but on three occasions thus far he has literally set the comics on fire once he's finished reviewing them.
- Jesu Otaku often says metaphorical-sounding things in her anime reviews immediately before showing clips of those exact things happening—for instance, that one villain crushes the heroes' lives like marbles, or that another abandons the goals for which his sister sacrificed everything and screws her.
- Transolar Galactica's first episode revolves around Captain Trigger ordering his helmsman to steer to "the second star to the right, straight on 'til morning."
Captain Trigger: Let me tell you something: whether my orders are technical, dangerous or goddamned beautifully metaphorical, you better flogging well do 'em. So when I tell you, Ensign Yasaki, to take the second star to the right and drive straight on till morning, you better flogging well do it. You got that?
Western Animation
- Used in Stroker And Hoop to turn protecting the sword of the fire lotus into a Shaggy Dog Story, when all it did was light up.
Villain: The ancient scrolls said its power shone like a lantern... We always assumed it was a metaphor.
Stroker: Yeah... I guess it must have seemed a lot cooler before they invented flashlights.
- Futurama
- An example from when the crew are floating in space collecting Chronotons:
Leela: All right, cool your jets, hotshot.
Fry: C'mon Leela, why won't you go out with me? We both know there's something there!
Leela: No, I mean cool your jets. You're melting Bender's face.
- And another when Zoidberg is trying to do standup:
Zoidberg: Ladies and germs...
(rimshot)
Zoidberg: What? That wasn't a joke! I was addressing Professor Staphylococcus over there!
- Bender's middle name is actually "Bending".
- In "The Bots and the Bees", as Bender drinks at popular club The Hip Joint, he overhears the following from a robot bar patron:
Robot: I need to loosen up, give me a screwdriver.
(bartender lays a flathead screwdriver on the bar in front of her)
- The Flintstones: Done in the episode in which Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone meet Dr. Sinister.
Barney: Hey look, Fred. The volcano's flipping its lid!
- The Simpsons
Lisa: I like him! He's smart, he's sensitive, he's clearly not obsessed with his physical appearance —
Homer: My ears are burning.
Lisa: Uh, I wasn't talking about you, Dad.
Homer: No, my ears are really burning. I wanted to see inside so I lit a Q-Tip.
- Family Guy
Man: Wow, Lois Griffin. Hey, I love your act! Nice melons. Peter: Hey, listen pal! Lois: Peter, I'm holding melons. (she's holding two watermelons) Peter: Oh. Man: And her hooters ain't bad either. Peter: Now hang on a second there! Lois: Peter, I'm holding hooters! (she has two owls perched on her arm) Peter: Oh, sorry. Man: No problem. (beat) Your wife's hot! Peter: All right, that's it!
- In another episode, Peter is trying to organize Stewie's first birthday party but one of the only things he could find was a "big-ass piñata"; pan over to show a large papier-mâché butt. Brian responds "I sure hope candy comes out of that."
- Phineas And Ferb
- Used a couple of times in the episode "Comet Kermillian". While at the park, Candace's screams of "I have Squirrels in My Pants!" are misinterpreted by a couple of performers, who think she's referring to her crazy dance moves. Then the squirrels get out, and one of the guys comments, "We just got served." Later on, when steaks are falling from the sky, the same guy catches one and comments, "We keep getting served."
- Parodied in "Let's Take a Quiz".
Phineas: You're on fire, Candace! Candace: Woo hoo. (beat) I'm not actually on fire, am I? Buford: Nah, you're good.
- In "Brain Drain", Dr. Doofenshmirtz ends up busting a rap about being controlled by Perry the Platypus turning his mind-control device against him. Vanessa's friends all think "There's a Platypus Controlling Me" is a metaphor for "whatever's keeping you down".
Doofensmirtz: I'm not speaking metaphorically, the platypus controlling me is underneath the table!
- In retaliation to people telling him not to make a mountain out of a molehill, Doofenshmirtz tried to do it literally in "At the Car Wash".
- When Doofenshmirtz was told he didn't have a green thumb in "Moon Farm", he took it literally and bought a can of green paint to make himself green. Ironically, because of how he held the can, his thumbs weren't painted. Only later, as he explained his plan to Perry, Doof finally understood the metaphor.
- Archer
- Double Subverted and played straight in the same episode. Charles and Rudy are two gay guys trying to help Archer seduce a gay spy named Ramon:
Rudy: I'd try the Cockfight.
Archer: A cockfight?
Charles: It's the name of a gay bar.
Rudy: But they do have actual cockfights there.
Charles: Latinos... you take the bad with the good.
(later, in The Cockfight)
Archer: Let me buy you a drink.
Ramon: Why don't you buy him one? He could use one.
(pan to huge Hispanic guy crying over a dead rooster)
Archer: Why don't we all have one, and... (notices Ramon is gone)
(still later)
Rudy: Look at slut just getting home!
Charles: Well, I guess our advice worked.
Archer: No! It didn't! Ramon blew me off.
Rudy: Then where were you all night?
Archer: Way the Christ out in the Everglades, burying some Dominican guy's rooster!
Charles: Fun!
(beat)
Archer: Wha...
Charles: Oh, you meant literally.
Archer: Yes!
- In the episode "Lo Scandalo", Kreiger is called in to dispose of a corpse in Malory's apartment.
Malory: And is Krieger... hard at work?
Archer: He literally might be, yes.
- Marvin the Martian's "Earth-shattering kaboom" was a literal metaphor. Then it became metaphorical again — the Trope name for the explosion of a whole planet or moon (or humongous spacecraft), not just the Earth.
- In The Cleveland Show, Mr. Waterman is trying to find the rest of his Santa costume:
Mr. Waterman: Where's my beard? Mrs. Waterman: Right here. (beat, then holds up a Santa beard)
- Justice League Unlimited
Brainiac 5: Shoot.
Green Arrow: I know. I was hoping they'd be out looking for us.
Brainiac 5: No, shoot!
- Also, when the Leaguers were looking for New Genesis, they met someone who told them the Gods were above them.
- Adventure Time
- From "It Came from the Nightosphere", just after Finn and Marceline have started going after her dad, Finn asks how he can kill her father.
Marceline: Finn! You can't kill my dad!
Finn: Oh, right, I'm sorry—
Marceline: No, literally. You can't kill my dad. He's deathless.
- In "His Hero", when Finn and Jake convince Billy that fighting evil with violence isn't so pointless, Billy tells them "It's as if your words are filling a hole in my very being... Wanna watch?" He then parts his beard to show that a literal hole in his chest is being filled in again.
- In American Dad:
Steve: We don't have an instrument for Jeff.
Bob: He could play the skin flute!
Steve: (bursts out laughing)
Bob: (holds up a flute bound with animal skins)
- On one occasion, Francine is completely fed-up with Roger's jerkishness, and screams at him "Would it kill you to be nice for a change?!" As it turns out, members of Roger's species have to let out their innate "bitchiness", or it will fester in their bodies, poisoning and eventually killing them. So, yes, it would kill him to be nice.
- From Avatar The Last Airbender, "The Waterbending Scroll":
Uncle Iroh: (stops Zuko and a pirate captain from fighting) Are you so busy fighting you cannot see your own ship has set sail?
Prince Zuko: We have no time for your proverbs, Uncle!
Uncle Iroh: It's no proverb!
(cut to pirate ship being hijacked)
- Later, Zuko's ship gets hijacked. "Maybe it SHOULD be a proverb..."
- In the Lite Sprites special, the sprites are lost in a cave, and Meadow begins to glow. The other girls try to tell her this, but she takes it as a compliment instead.
- Used to the point of a Hurricane of Puns in the Tex Avery short Symphony in Slang, where Noah Webster and St. Peter try to interpret the slang-filled life story of a new arrival at the Pearly Gates.
- Ski-Nose, the Bob Hope caricature in the Bakshi Mighty Mouse episode "Bat With a Golden Tongue," greets the audience at an awards ceremony as "ladies and germs," and sure enough, the tables are populated by ladies and germs.
- In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Call of the Cutie", when Apple Bloom is upset, Rainbow Dash sees her and comments that she has a dark cloud hanging over her head. Fortunately, Rainbow Dash is a weatherpony, and can move the actual dark cloud elsewhere.
- Kim Possible: Drakken and Shego go "shopping":
(salesman describes the features of a weather machine they're looking at) Drakken: We'll take it! Salesman: Great! Hey, why don't we step into the office. Drakken: No, I mean we'll take it. Shego! (they steal the weather machine)
- Dexters Laboratory: Dexter once held a garage sale. Like what happened in the Kim Possible example, two aliens showed up saying they wanted his light converters. Once he said how much he was charging for each pair, they repeated they wanted the light converters and he understood.
- In The Pink Panther series where Pink isn't silent, there was one episode where a bad guy was illegally drilling for oil in an Alaskian village. A villager told Pink he was threading on thin ice. After Pink told the villager he agreed with the metaphor, the villager explained he meant it literally.
- Jackie Chan Adventures: Jade once used the Snake Talisman to sneak in during one of Jackie's missions. After he's complimented for defeating some bad guys "alone", she complained by asking if she was invisible. Duh, as she said once she realized she was indeed invisible because of the talisman's power.
- Batman The Brave And The Bold got a creepy example in "Deep Cover for Batman". While Batman is in a Mirror Universe where heroes are villains, the alternate version of Blue Beetle, Scarlet Scarab, comments that he has the heart of a hero. An eavesdropping Batman wonders if he's a possible ally...only for Scarab to add that he keeps it in a jar in his closet.
- Done a fair number of times on the Beetlejuice cartoon, with its love of visual puns. In one episode, Beetlejuice is hosting a Show Within a Show and excuses himself for "a few words from our sponsors"... the words turn out to be "BUY!", "NEW!" and "FREE!"
Real Life
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