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Overly Narrow Superlative
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This trope covers situations where something seems to be highly praised, but the praise is only relative to an extremely small — or intrinsically awful — group (often a group of one), rendering it meaningless. Sometimes the intent is for the praise to be taken seriously (in which case it becomes a version of the Sharpshooter Fallacy), but the more frequent implication is that there isn't any larger category relative to which it can apply, making it a Stealth Insult of sorts. Sometimes the joke is that, even in such an incredibly narrow category, the thing being discussed still isn't first.
This is commonly used for humorous Self-Deprecation; it can also be a way to imply that a work, while bad, at least has a unique premise—it's better than any other because there is no other. Sometimes it derives additional humor from the recipient taking it as a genuine compliment, either because they're dumb or because we the audience know something they do not.
The stock piece of dialogue that fits this trope goes something like:
Alice: Bob, you've always been my favorite son.
Bob: I'm your only son.
Contrast Mathematician's Answer, which is equally meaningless but for the opposite reason. Compare Trivially Obvious and Medal of Dishonor, which may be given out in cases like these. Compare Damned by Faint Praise.
Examples:
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Advertising
- A Fox Sports Detroit commercial heard one year in May: "Winner of more Emmys than any mid-Michigan sports network this year".
- Used all the time in commercials promoting TV shows. They seem to try to find some way to refer to the show as #1 somehow. They'll mention usually the genre (#1 new comedy), time (#1 new show of the year), location (#1 show on cable), and any combination of these getting more and more specific as you go.
- Used in an advert for ITV Digital. Monkey tells Johny Vegas that he's 'the funniest person sitting in that chair'.
- A TV ad for a game based on Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer proclaimed the game to be "Probably the greatest action game based on a movie based on a superhero comic of the year." Seriously.
- Tentacle Grape
 : The most delicious hentai soda on the market!
- Calling it a "unique glass collector's bottle" in this case is probably another example of this trope.
- As an aside, cracked.com has named tentacle grape the 4th most horrifying soda in the world. A claim they proudly proclaim on their about page.
- A Fall 2011 commercial for the X-Men film series on Time Warner On Demand advertised the "Top 5 X-Men Movies." At the time, there were only five X-Men movies (unless you count Generation X).
- Played for laughs with the iOS version of You Don't Know Jack, which Jellyvision flaunts as "the #1 game in the world that contains both fart noises and trivia about Shakespeare."
- Advertising for Dexter frequently cites the title character as "America's Favourite Serial Killer".
Anime and Manga
Comic Books
- Lampshaded in Y The Last Man: Hero compares "the highest ranking woman in the Catholic church" to being "the leggiest guy in the Rockettes".
- Golden Lad issue No.1: Golden Lad's Most Astounding Adventure!
- Detective Chimp sometimes refers to himself as the world's greatest chimp detective.
- He's also called Batman the world's second greatest detective.
Fan Works
Film — Animated
Film — Live Action
- The DVD cover of Happy Gilmore has a quote referring to it as "the best golf comedy since Caddyshack!" So that means it's better than Caddyshack II, I suppose.
- In Mr Baseball, Tom Selleck's baseball has-been, Jack Eliot, resorts to one of these to try to avoid being traded.
Jack Eliot: I'm a World Series MVP!
Skip: That was four years ago, Jack. Last season, you hit .235.
Jack Eliot: Last season, I led this team in ninth-inning doubles in the month of August!
- "[Not-very-good movie] is the Citizen Kane of [tiny or inherently bad genre]" has become something of a snowclone.
- The Boston Globe memorably described Shakes the Clown as "the Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies."
- There's a Netflix user review of Lifeforce that calls it "by default, the Citizen Kane of naked space zombie vampire movies".
- In Brokeback Mountain, Jack's wife Lureen makes the following comment:
- The Norwegian nazi-zombie movie Dead Snow has been called "The best Norwegian nazi-zombie movie ever made".
- The tagline of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is "He's the best there is! (Actually, he's the only one there is.)".
- On MST3K, Mike Nelson once described Road House as "The finest American movie ever made by Rowdy Harrington."
- Though he would later avert this by referring to Road House as "the single finest American film" in Mike Nelson's Mega Moviecheese
- James Cameron is known for describing his directorial debut Piranha 2: The Spawning as "the finest flying piranha movie ever made".
- One tagline for Wasabi is "Quite possibly the greatest French-language, English-subtitled, Japanese action-comedy of all time."
- One May 2010 review described Saturday Night Live movie MacGruber as "the funniest SNL movie since Wayne's World". Most SNL movies range in quality; calling a movie the funniest since Wayne's World isn't saying much.
- Scott Pilgrim vs. The World does this a few times.
- Ramona tells Scott that he's the nicest guy she's dated yet. Considering that her dating history consists of the Seven Evil Exes...
- Earlier in the movie, Knives Chau gushes over Scott, telling him she's never dated anyone so talented. Scott correctly surmises that she hasn't dated that many people in general.
- Saved opens with the protagonist's mother being named "the number one Christian interior decorator for the entire region."
- In Travis Betz's Lo the waiter assures the protagonist that he is the best bartender in that room. Said room currently contains them and a demon rat.
- Eight Legged Freaks was advertised as "the biggest, nastiest mutant spider movie of all time".
- In Demolition Man, upon learning he's eating a rat hamburger, John Spartan shrugs and states this is the best hamburger he had in years. Considering the current society is vegetarian, and he spent a few decades as a Human Popsicle...
- On the other hand, Spartan's tone comes off as being genuinely impressed by the burger, so this could count as a subversion where the Overly Narrow Superlative is still meant to be complimentary.
- The protagonist of Mel Brooks' remake of To Be or Not to Be is frequently described as "World famous in Poland."
- Destroy All Movies describes Love Bites as "The best shot-on-video gay vampire comedy of 1988."
- Apogee of Fear has been called "the best science fiction film ever made in space".
- From Down with Love: "Oh, Vikki! You're the best friend a girl from Maine who wrote a book and came to New York could ever have!" Subverted, as Barbara actually does think that Vikki is a good friend.
- Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close was described by a Television Without Pity commentator as only the second-best key-focussed children's film released in 2011.
Literature
- The New Yorker reviewed Jeff Lindsay's Dexter novels by saying "Dexter Morgan is one of the most likable vigilante serial killers in recent literature." This is weird on many levels. First, "in recent literature," as if that statement would be any less valid if they just said "in literature" given how few characters fit that crazily specific criteria. Then they complicate things even further by saying he's just "one of" the most likable, as if to cover their tracks in case there are other characters that fit his exact description who are more likable. This description is kind of like saying "George W. Bush is the best president whose father was also president and also likes Dr. Pepper."
- In When You Are Engulfed in Flames, David Sedaris ponders how sometimes the sins we haven't committed can be all we have to cling to, and some people really need to reach to find sins they haven't committed: At least I never killed anyone with a hammer.
- In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lucy tries to cheer up a guilt ridden Tumnus by saying he's "the nicest faun I've ever met." She kindly neglects to mention that he's the only faun she's ever met. He even suspects she hasn't met many.
- Inverted in the blurb on the back of The Lump of Coal by Lemony Snicket: "Is there a more charming holiday tale to behold? Probably, but Lemony Snicket has not written one."
- A Series of Unfortunate Events has Esmé Squalor, the city's sixth most important financial advisor.
- From one of two reviews of the novel KKXG: KING KONG VS GIGANTOSAURUS-
Anyone who'd like a good, suspenseful adventure novel about a giant lizard and a big gorilla who fight at the end will get enjoyment from it.
- As Ephraim Kishon wrote, because a state Israel didn't exist for 2000 years, they had for some time the first anything in Israel for 2000 years. The first driving school, the first broom factory, and he himself wrote the first collection of humorist short stories for 2000 years.
- From P. G. Wodehouse's first Jeeves and Wooster story, "Extricating Young Gussie":
Take him for all in all, dear old Uncle Cuthbert was as willing a spender as ever called the family lawyer a bloodsucking vampire because he wouldn't let Uncle Cuthbert cut down the timber to raise another thousand.
- Atticus Finch is the sharpest shooter in all of Maycomb County.
- Given the fact it's a deeps-south county in the 1930s, that actually is probably saying something.
- Cory Doctorow on his book Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom: "The book has outsold every first sf novel publishing in 2003 for which I have figures"
- British SFX Magazine's review of Feet of Clay descibed the book as "the best Terry Pratchett book of the year", then argued that this is a greater compliment than it sounds like, considering how fast Pratchett puts new books out. Okay, he did publish three other books that year (1996) - Hogfather, Johnny And The Bomb and The Pratchett Portfolio - but still...
Live Action TV
- In Brothers and Sisters, the following exchange happens:
Saul: Why are you so obsessed with my social life?
Nora: Not obsessed. You're my favorite brother.
Saul: Only brother.
Nora: In this family, you never know.
- In Castle (episode "Heartbreak Hotel"), from a disgruntled Esposito: "Worst impromptu bachelor party while on case ever."
- Home Improvement during a special episode of Tool Time, Tim thanked the audience for making it "Michigan's fourth-highest-rated cable tool show".
- Web Soup includes a segment called The Greatest Web Video Ever ...This Week.
- In That '70s Show, after losing her virginity to Eric, Donna says that the sex was "the best I've ever had."
- In the Wonderful Life episode, Eric "brags" to Donna about how he's the assistant manager of the second-largest mattress retailer in the tri-county area.
- On Scrubs:
- The Janitor tries this and fails.
Janitor: We're the best hospital employee a capella band around.
The Worthless Peons: Oh really?
- Alan Partridge frequently boasts of hosting "the fourth-highest-rated show on Radio Norwich"
- Perhaps lampshading the station's creaky financial status, one of WKRP in Cincinnati's more prominent advertisers is recognizable by their spots' catchy slogan, "Red Wigglers: the Cadillac of Worms."
- The Office:
Jim: Dwight was the top salesman of the year at our company. He wins a little prize money and gets honored at some convention. It is literally the highest possible honor that a northeastern-Pennsylvania-based mid-size paper company regional salesman can attain.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Kendra: That's me favorite shirt! That's me only shirt!
- The Mighty Boosh's Howard Moon is Britain's leading cream poet.
- This trope is also a running gag in the audio commentary. "This is one of the top five dwarf-based arctic sick jokes" and "He's one of the great London tent-shakers."
- Whose Line Is It Anyway? has a few examples:
- In the "I Don't Know" segments of The Red Green Show, Harold will often introduce the guest as his uncle's "best friend in the whole wide room."
- From Monty Python's Flying Circus:
News Announcer: It's been a quiet day over most of the country, as people went back to work after the warmest July weekend in nearly a year.
- In one episode of Due South, Ray Kowalski claims that his current boxing protégé is the best fighter he's ever trained. Francesca forces him to admit that he's the only fighter he's ever trained.
- Television Without Pity does this occasionally.
- They described The Vampire Diaries as "probably the best vampire show on now", though that's not as narrow as it sounds these days..
- They also described Top Chef: Just Desserts as "everyone's favourite competitive pastry reality show".
- From Have I Got News for You:
- In the first 2010 episode of the Ellen DeGeneres Show, Ellen proclaims to her audience, "you are the best audience of the year", and adds "no, you are the best audience of the DECADE!" The audience starts off laughing at the joke, and then cheers for themselves.
- There was a History Channel documentary on the Black Plague where one analyst referred to it as "Surely one of the most important events in European history where over fifty percent of the population died in such a short time." (Yeah, there's probably supposed to be a comma after history...)
- On M*A*S*H:
- In the 11th-season episode "Who Knew?":
Col. Potter: The best damn cartoon strip in the world is 'Li'l Abner.'
Charles Emerson Winchester, III: That is roughly comparable to being the finest ballerina in all of Galveston.
- In the 9th-season episode "The Best of Enemies":
Col. Potter: We're the best mixed-doubles bridge team in the entire Show-Me State.
Charles Emerson Winchester, III: That is roughly the equivalent of being the finest hockey player in all of Ecuador.
- iCarly: The iCarly Awards Show episode includes awards for things like, "The Most Interesting and Yet Frightening Tongue Video" and "Best Milk Squirting from Eye Video"
- In an early episode of Psych, Shawn says the following about Lassiter: "... he is an exemplary public servant, and arguably the finest detective mind in the lower western Santa Barbara county area... over the age of 35."
- In an episode of Reno 911!, Junior honors the Sheriff's memory by calling him the "best Pollack sheriff" they've ever had. He goes on to say that he isn't deprecating the Polish, he just wasn't a particularly good at his job.
- SyFy advertises Ghost Hunters as "Television's #1 Paranormal Reality Series."
- Top Gear:
- Host Jeremy Clarkson usually gives a guest that isn't near the top of the time chart bragging rights by declaring them "The fastest blank to go around our track," with blank replaced with things like Welshman or person with a senior citizen's bus pass.
- Also all the antics of Top Gear Stunt Man. Everything he does is really just a huge failure that everyone had seen coming right from the beginning, but they always try to make it into some type of success. He successfully created a new record for the longest car jump in reverse gear, since nobody ever claimed that title before.
- In Malcolm in the Middle, Lois refers to her favorite baseball player as "the first Polish-American from the tri-county area to play three complete seasons in the majors".
- The pilot episode of Extras has Ben Stiller play up his own career with "I mean, yeah, I make Along Came Polly, it opens to $32 million, one of the biggest Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday holiday opening weekends ever"
- Jeeves and Wooster: When Bertie calls Pauline Stoker "one of the nicest girls I've ever been engaged to", it sure sounds like an example of this trope. Given his tendency to get engaged at the drop of a hat, though...
- In Friends, Rachel claims that Ross is, like, the toughest palaeontologist she knows.
- Inverted in Arrested Development when Lucille calls Michael her "third least favorite child". Though, since she has four children, that's still kind of an insult.
- Fan-tweet read out on America's Test Kitchen: @cpkimball is the sexiest man in a bow-tie with a cooking show on public television."
- NCIS had an under cover set up blown apart by the FBI. Fornell and Gibbs start in on each other about it before heading off to Gibbs' "office". The FBI agents worriedly mentioned to the NCIS team that they hadn't seen Fornell this mad since... (other FBI agent finishes) the last time they saw him.
- On Doc Martin:
PC Penhale: Right now my only ambition is to be the best policeman in Portwenn.
Martin: You're the only policeman in Portwenn.
Penhale: Oh, you're just saying that.
- How I Met Your Mother: A rare case where everyone was being genuinely happy for it.
Robin: [Toasting Ted] To Ted! The youngest architect to design a building taller than 70 stories in New York!... Probably!
The Rest of the Gang: Probably!
- Played for Laughs and Self-Deprecation in season 5 of Ru Pauls Drag Race, where contestant Jinkx Monsoon describes herself as "Seattle's premier narcoleptic Jewish Drag Queen." She actually is the show's first contestant from the Pacific Northwest.
- In the Charmed episode "The Courtship of Wyatt's Father," Paige refers to Chris as "one of my two favorite nephews." At this point in her life, she only knows she has two nephews (and Chris himself hasn't even been conceived yet).
- In the opening sequence for the 2013 MTV Movie Awards, James Franco informs Rebel Wilson, "you'll be the greatest Australian female host in MTV history!"
Music
- When Flight of the Conchords are performing for an audience that's unfamiliar with them, they'll usually bill themselves as some variation of "formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo". The third most popular is a Flight of the Conchords cover band. They play all the same songs, but they're just slightly better.
"And when you're on the street, depending on the street, I bet you are definitely in the top three..."
- Asthmatic Kitty's press release for Sufjan Stevens' 2006 release Songs For Christmas:
"Wow! It's the stocking stuffer of the century! Which isn't saying much, considering the century is still so young!"
- Sammy Davis Jr used to describe himself as "the world's greatest one-eyed, black, Jewish entertainer".
- In one memorable TV interview, Jimi Hendrix responded to being called "one of the best guitarists in the world" by saying he was "one of the best guitarists sitting in this chair."
- In an interview, John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants responded to the fact that TMBG was at the time the most successful independent band in America by saying "Well, that's kind of like being the world's tallest midget."
- The CAKE song "World of Two" has the line "...you are/ two of the most/perfectly/ beautiful/people in your world."
- Billy Hill and the Hillbillies, a music/variety act at Disneyland, often describe one of their members as "the fastest speed fiddler in the entire... Frontierland area".
- The comedy group Pig With The Face Of A Boy describe themselves as "[The] world's best neo-post-post-music hall anti-folk band."
- On This Very Wiki someone defended the group The Lonely Island as being "probably the most successful comedy rap group currently performing".
- Flogging Molly has a song called "The Worst Day Since Yesterday".
- The Housemartins claimed they were only the "fourth best band in Hull" (the three other bands they thought were better than them? Everything But the Girl, The Gargoyles and Red Guitars). This is referenced in the name of their 1986 debut album London 0 Hull 4 (as in Hull has four great bands, as opposed to London's zero).
- The introduction to The Blanks' live show includes referring to the band as something along the lines of "The best a cappella group ever to sing in the halls of a fictional hospital".
- Alice in Chains' MTV Unplugged concert has this exchange between Layne and Jerry:
Layne: I would have to say that this is the best show we've done in 3 years.
Jerry: Layne, it's the only one we've done in 3 years.
Layne: Well, it's still the best.
- Inverted in a John Lennon quip, who, when asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world, replied, "He's not even the best drummer in ''The Beatles!"
- An announcer once described Gorillaz as "the most successful animated band ever."
- Norwegian humour band Salhusvinskvetten brags about "Northern Europe's Widest Low Country Tunnel" (translated) in this song.
- NoFX's greatest hits album is entitled The Greatest Songs Ever Written (By Us!)
- One of Beatnik Turtle's Songs of the Day is titled "This Is The Best Song That I've Written Today."
- Keith Moon once uncharacteristically had a hard time nailing down a drum pattern while the band were working on the album Who Are You. * Finally he shouted, "I am still the best Keith Moon-type drummer in the world!"
Newspaper Comics
- The Boondocks: Caesar brags about being the best freestyle champion in Woodcrest, which Huey points out is not that hard to be.
- In Dilbert, Dogbert is acting as a shady, bribe-collecting movie critic, and a customer wants to know how much the review "Best movie so far this year" will cost for a film released on New Year's Day.
- Inverted in another strip where Dilbert's company manages to claim that their engineers are paid above the median salary for their industry by defining their industry more and more vaguely until the average salary drops below what they're paying their employees. Dilbert's company is officially in the industry of "High technology, textile workers, teenagers and dead people."
- In Garfield, Garfield says: "Jon! My favorite person! In this room... at the moment."
Radio
- Christian radio host Bob Larson often called his audience "America's #1 live radio prayer family." Quick—name another live radio prayer family.
- KCMS, that is Spirit 105.3, which broadcasts in the Seattle area has segments in the evening which can be considered a "live radio prayer family." quick—name a third.
- A running bit on Dan Cole's radio show on KFAN is to state that a given show is "one of the top five shows on the station." There are only 5 shows on the station.
- Just A Minute: "Very good chairman, very good chairman! Best chairman we've got, best chairman we've got!"
- Says You! often closes with the joke "More radios are tuned to this program than any other appliance!"
Stand Up Comedy
- Milton Jones is often introduced as "Britain's funniest Milton".
- Narrowly beating Milton Keynes.
- Tim Minchin's So Live DVD describes him as "without a doubt one of the top 7 pianist-singer-songwriter-comedian-actort-pervert-wannabe-rockstars born in Western Australia in the mid-seventies."
- Drag performer Cashetta calls herself "The world's most fabulous drag magician." And follows with, "And the genius of that is that you've got nothing to compare me to!"
- Marcel Lucont boasts himself as "easily the greatest UK-based French comedian around".
Theater
Video Games
- The radio programs in Grand Theft Auto use these, such as in Vice City where the hosts defends himself by saying his old clown act 'Saul the wheat-free clown' was voted "Best up and comming dietery-restricted comedic act" in Vice City. The slimy politician points out he lost that one to the 'Mary the meat-free mime'.
- In Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, Chobin does this to himself when he describes himself as the local Mad Scientist's best assistant. "Chobin is only assistant, so Chobin must be best assistant."
- On this wiki, Kain Highwind of Final Fantasy IV has been referred to as "the coolest hero ever to have a negative Will save."
- Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep is widely described as "the best Kingdom Hearts game on the PSP" despite being the only PSP Kingdom Hearts title. It's widely considered to be a good game, though.
- Team Fortress 2 is described by its developers as "the world's #1 war-themed hat simulator."
- Speaking of Dead Rising 2, the game contains a group that makes a show called "Tape It Or Die," which is "the number-one duct-tape related zombie-killing survival web-series today."
- Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker was called "The Most Violent Game with Peace in the Title" by Shonen Jump.
- Valkyria Chronicles II was stated by a reviewer as being "(...) as good as any other Turn-Based Strategy game mixed with a third person shooter for the PSP", of which there is only one other (Valkyria Chronicles III).
- A slightly different version: Cirno of Touhou constantly proclaims that she's the strongest fairy in Gensokyo. She probably is, but that's like being the fastest turtle - you're still miles behind everyone else.
- The English site for Hatoful Boyfriend dubs the game "the world's greatest pigeon dating sim."
- In Edna & Harvey: Harvey’s New Eyes one character is described by the narrator as "the most depressed looking man in a bee suit" the main character had ever seen.
- The Spike VGA's have voice acting awards for "Best Performance By A Human Male" and "Best Performance By A Human Female". In 2012, during the pre-show, this caused Jennifer Hale (who was nominated that night for her role as FemShep), to respond, "Well, I tried out for Best Alien Female, but..."
- Kingdom Of Loathing uses this joke a few times, like describing the gummi belemnite as "It's not the best gelatin cephalopod-precursor you've ever eaten, but it's definitely on your top ten list."
- Compared to his other, more impressive, title "the fastest thing alive", it's a little underwhelming for Sonic the Hedgehog to be more commonly referred to as only "The world's fastest hedgehog". Then again, the few other hedgehogs in the series do prove themselves competent speedsters from time to time.
- In Tales of Phantasia after Chester gave his sister Amy an apple she said that he was "the best big brother I've ever had." "Amy, I'm the only big brother you've ever had." "Yes, but I love you anyway!"
Web Comics
Web Original
- Averted when Diamanda Hagan described Zombeak as "the world's worst zombie chicken movie," because another one actually does exist. And it is amazing.
- Cute with Chris often calls his site/show, "The number one cat website on the internet today... With the word "Chris" in the title. So proud."
- Homestar Runner uses this gag a fair few times:
- In the Strong Bad Email "record book", Strong Mad gets into the book for the record "Most Macaronis Nailed To A Paper Towel Tube By Strong Mad", with one piece of macaroni nailed to the tube.
- In "kids' show", Strong Bad describes Homsar as "everyone's favorite blue midget Homestar".
- In 8-Bit Is Enough, Homestar remarks that Strong Bad is the "eleventh best friend a guy can have". Which is a lot less impressive when the series has twelve main characters, and Homestar is presumably not counting himself as one of his friends. Although, with Homestar, one can never be certain.
- The Onion News Network released a clip posing as a North Korean propaganda piece about bringing the Moon down to North Korea as a trophy to put on display for the glory of the nation. What to put it on, though?
Reporter (subtitled): The People's Great and Harmonious Moon Hand of Kim Jong-Il will be the largest moon-hand pedestal ever constructed.
- One horoscope listing also lampshaded this trope: "You're not sure how to react when people refer to you as 'The John Sherwood of Sailor Moon fanfiction'."
- In The Very Secret Diaries, Legolas dangles Pippin over a cliff until he'll admit that Legolas is the prettiest elf in the Fellowship. Pippin diplomatically doesn't point out that he's the only elf in the Fellowship.
- The Nostalgia Chick describes Bratz as "the worst, most racist movie that stars Jon Voight, came out in the summer of 2007 and was based on a line of toys". And she still managed to make it an insult to Michael Bay's Transformers movies.
- Jay Pinkerton had one possible result for the online quiz "Which Sex Pistols studio album are you?", a graphic that read "You are 'Nevermind the Bollocks'. It is the only Sex Pistols studio album."
- Most of the other parody quiz results operated around similar jokes, i.e. "Which sex are you?"
- The Agony Booth's description of Degrassi Junior High:
- ...the most beloved teen drama ever made! ...In Canada. Between the years of 1987 and 1989. Of all time!
- The Rap Critic's show "The Worst Lyrics I've Ever Heard.... This Month." (even more when considering that the March 2012 episode came out on March 2nd...)
- Hi, I'm the Banjo Kid, the greatest banjo playing Anime critic on the net!
- GameCentral give us "what may well be the most in-depth review of Garbage Truck Simulator 2011 you will ever read on the website of a national newspaper."
- The satirical Genius Guide to Jazz has this to say about The Who's Keith Moon:
While no one will ever accuse him of being one of the greatest technicians of the instrument, Moon understood both his strengths and limitations and rightly proclaimed himself "The greatest Keith Moon-style drummer in the world."
- In the Spanish Más respeto, que soy tu madre, one of the characters is the World's champion of a sport invented by himself.
- Dread Central reviewer Scott Foy has repeatedly stated that because of director Ulli Lommel's filmography, Uwe Boll is not only not the worst director in the world, but "he's not even the worst German director whose name begins with the letter 'U'".
- In the MSF High Forum, Lily mentions that May is the 'most interesting half-breed she can remember seeing.' She's amnesiac, and just arrived at school today.
- The Saturday Morning Glory review of Mister T calls the show "the greatest cartoon to star Mr T ever made."
- In the Facebook game "The Smurfs and Co", if you talk to Timber Smurf, he'll call himself the best lumberjack in all of Smurf Village. You'll respond by saying he's the only lumberjack in Smurf Village.
- The conclusion of Cleolinda Jones' Twilight recaps : "it was the best series starting with a teenage girl in love with a mysterious boy in her class that ended up with a teenage girl defending her growth-accelerated mutant hybrid baby from an ancient clan of evil vampires with her magical psychic shield that I ever read."
- Tobuscus got invited to livestream a playthrough of the Xbox LIVE Arcade game Bloodforge on its release date. He brought his mom along to the show and invited her to play for a few minutes. Shortly thereafter he called her, "The best mom who ever played Bloodforge in the first hour of its release."
- From CatsTheLookLikeHiter.com: "I think your site is one of the funniest sites about cats that look like Hitler that I've seen this week."
- In the legendary CARD GAMES ON MOTORCYCLES! video by LittleKuriboh, Hokage compliments Sensei on his camcorder-captured completely improvised One Piece Abridged on being "the best One Piece Abridged [he's] ever seen."
- This guy sells personal finance software... for the Apple II. In 2013. In the eBay auction page (which may or may not be available at the time you read this), he boasts:
"I guarantee this is the best personal finance software for the Apple IIe that will be released in 2013!"
Western Animation
- From A Garfield Christmas Special:
Jon: Doc Boy, how's my favorite brother?
Doc Boy: Don't call me Doc Boy. You've probably forgotten I'm your ONLY brother.
- All Grown Up! has Chucky described as "The fastest braces-wearing, red-headed, nearsighted, kid on Earth!"
- In The Simpsons:
- She probably doesn't intend it as an insult, but at one point Lisa says Yertle the Turtle is "possibly the best book ever written on turtle stacking".
- In the same episode, one of the successful female Simpson relatives describes herself as the "regional manager of the third-largest distributor of bunk and trundle beds".
- In the "138th Episode Spectacular", Troy McClure describes the Simpsons as "America's favourite non-prehistoric cartoon family". Although that's not as narrow as the alternative.
- Abe Simpson describes the Flying Hellfish as "the fightingest squad of the fightingest company of the third-fightingest battalion in the army".
- Another episode has Lisa awarded the Student of the Millennium Prize. She admits it's not as big a deal as it sounds, as we're only about a decade into the new millennium... but still, they picked HER!
- When Flanders became coach to Springfield's pee-wee football team, Homer wouldn't even wait for the first game before claiming Flanders was the worst coach the team ever had. As Marge pointed out, Flanders was the only coach that team ever had.
- Futurama:
- One of the DVDs has a list of unused opening captions for episodes as an Easter Egg. These include "The best show you're watching right now".
- One ad campaign run for the show on [adult swim] described it as "The action-comedy-scifi-drama that redefined action-comedy-scifi-dramas."
- Dr. Zoidberg has been known to refer to himself as "the most important doctor at the delivery company where I work".
- In "Bendin' In The Wind": "Bender, that was the best forty-minute washboard solo I've ever heard. The parts where I was awake blew my mind."
- In Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic (unsurprisingly) fails to lift Tails' spirits when he's down in the dumps on one occasion by saying that he's the fastest, coolest two tailed fox he knows.
- Reversed in an episode of Animaniacs. Yakko Warner describes an overly Avant-Garde black and white French film as "The worst French film I've ever seen! It's also the only French film I've ever seen."
- The Tick episode 'Grandpa Wore Tights' includes "Zee largest secret army of atomic robot zombie men... in zhe vorld!" note An unsubstantiated claim. If there was a larger secret army of robot zombie men... in zhe vorld, would he know?
- Jay Sherman of The Critic is described as "New York's third most popular early-morning cable-TV film critic."
- An episode of The Weekenders focuses on yearbook superlatives. The yearbook has a space for "Best Tino" - and main character Tino failed to even get that.
- In an episode of Batman The Brave And The Bold, Kite-man boasts "I'll be the most famous kite-related person in history!" Given that the only other famous kite-related person in history is Ben Franklin, and that Franklin is a household name not just in America, but the world over, that is actually aiming quite high for a third-tier gimmicky villain.
- Reversed in Phineas And Ferb, where a young Doofenshmirtz isn't particularly fond of the song "What Do It Do?", even after putting it in one of these:
Doofenshmirtz: Eh, it's in my top seven, eight favorite songs about reverse engineering.
- On Beavis And Butthead, the boys are watching the Salt N Peppa video "What A Man". Butt-Head responds to the line "He is the cutest brother in here!" with "He's the only brother in here!"
- The KaBlammy for best acting while impersonating an egg went to Loopy from "Life with Loopy" and the award for best supporting monkey went to "Prometheus and Bob."
- In one episode of Scooby-Doo, this is Velma's excuse for stealing a pair of skates.
Velma: I'm the best figure-skater in my country! *trip* ...It's a very small country?
- Subverted in an episode of The Legend of Korra, the Krew is hiding in the sewers with the Beauteous Bush hobo. He gives them gruel which made from food he scavenged from dumpsters. Bolin cheerfully says it's the best street gruel he's ever tasted, which sounds like this...until you remember he was a street rat for a good chunk of his life. That's actually a genuine compliment, coming from him.
- In a Sheep in the Big City sketch, there's "Dinky: The Superiest Turtle in the Universe!". "He's slightly faster then most turtles, but still relatively slow."
Real Life
- A standard joke: "You're the best Sunday afternoon audience we've had all week!" (change date and time as appropriate).
- Used often in movie advertisements. Your film didn't open #1 at the box office? No problem. Just say it's the #1 action-adventure/comedy/family comedy/romance/fantasy/etc of the week. The sad part? It's usually said non-ironically. A similar usage is movies in January being billed as "one of the best movies of the year".
- One of the best of these was for Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, which proclaimed in large letters, The #1 Movie in America! then, in small letters, (that's a comedy written by a Canadian who's left-handed). They went even further in the trailer: "If you see one movie this summer, see Star Wars! If you see two movies, see Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me!
- Uwe Boll's Blood Rayne II Deliverance DVD release was promoted boldly as a sequel to the "Best-selling Live-action DVD of 2006!" A claim footnoted with "for films that made less than $5 million at the box office".
- The Lying Ape lists an unintentional example - a man was asked to review a book and completely bashed it, giving it overall an extremely negative review. This being early January, he ended the review ironically with "Best book I've read all year." Guess which single line out of his entire review they put on the back of the novel?
- The same thing happens with TV shows. Almost every show is number one in some way: "#1 New Show, #1 show on cable, #1 new show on cable." It just keeps getting narrower from there.
- Spanish TV channel Telecinco promoted itself for about two years as the "leader of private television", which really meant that public TV channel TVE 1 was the first TV network in Spain and Telecinco was the second one.
- The Bassett Street Hounds, central New York's finestnote and only mixed-sex Border morris dancing team.
- Outside an Australian leagues club, their sign read "Watch the game on the coast's largest 102" television!" One wonders in what important way all the other 102" televisions on the coast are smaller...
- TV Tropes Wiki:
- A common saying: "Isn't this like being the best football (soccer) team in Greenland?"
- Or the best-looking girl in Wales.
- Lisa Lampanelli used something like that in the roast of Jeff Foxworthy. She praised Bill Engvall for being the best-looking comedian on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Then added on the backhanded compliment of saying, "That's not difficult, that's like being the prettiest one on The View."
- The Rosa Parks of Rosa Parks Blogs.
- Amazon.com does this automatically with its best-seller list, narrowing the category until it puts the product whose page you're on in the top 100. "#61 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Comedic Fiction > Talking Animals > Wombats > Southern Hairy-Nosed".
- Often the evasive answer given by parents of multiple children when one of them asks if they're the favorite.
Parent: Well, you're definitely my favorite daughter/second son/older female middle child.
- Technology writer Andy Ihnatko has referred to himself as "America's 42nd most beloved industry-figure and "Possibly not the least-beloved technology pundit in the land!"
- Records and firsts are getting increasingly specific. 'First woman to do X'. 'Fastest 100-yard dash by an Asian.' 'Biggest statue created by a left-handed Norwegian guitarist while on crack...'.
- The standard backhanded compliment "You're the funniest person in that chair".
- Brazilian comedian Geraldo Magela describes himself as the "best blind comedian in Brazil".
- io9's article on Roswell dubs it "the best late 90s alien teen soap opera on The WB EVER".
- Happens in sports all the time. Want to make that middle-tier so-so quarterback look good? Just mention that he's got the highest third-down conversion percentage when facing a defensive line comprised of Penn State alumni.
- The Minnesota Wild have never lost a home opener in franchise history.
- Websites like Fark.com often contain links to items such as "The most amazing picture/video of (extremely specific object or event that you aren't likely to see ever again) you'll see today."
- This review of Waiting for Superman calls it "the second best documentary I've seen this year that ends with low-income families nervously awaiting the outcome [of] a lottery determining whether their child gets a coveted spot in a charter school." (And the reviewer is serious, going on to say that The Cartel is the best, and there's even a third film which would qualify in that category which he has not yet seen.)
- Some of the materials run on the Oddly Specific spinoff of Failblog. Others edge into Suspiciously Specific Denial. This one, for instance.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger is the best gubernatorial candidate in the cast of Predator. Some may disagree on whether he's truly better than Jesse Ventura, but the funny thing is, no matter which of them you prefer, neither of them is the worst. That distinction goes to Sonny Landham.
- Retainer Brite - The World's #1 Daily Orthodontic appliance cleaner
- American computer scientists like telling people that the American ENIAC, finished in 1946, was the first-ever working, fully electronic computer. European computer scientists like to point out that the "fully electronic" part makes this an Overly Narrow Superlative, only necessary so they can avoid mentioning the working electro-mechanical computers that existed in Europe five years prior, most notably the Zuse Z3.
- Another Overly Narrow Superlative is such a big deal that it rather cancels the over-narrowness, though. ENIAC was the first computer known to be Turing Complete during its operational life. (The Z3 was Turing Complete, but this was only demonstrated in 1998, using programming techniques not available in its time.)
- Illinois Senator Roland Burris (known primarily as a short-term replacement after Barack Obama was elected) has a huge gravestone already put in place, with a list of accomplishments carved in marble. He's particularly fond of listing personal "firsts". So his gravestone boasts, apparently seriously, that he was the first African-American to transfer from Southern Illinois University to the University of Hamburg.
- The Guinness Book Of World Records is full of "standard" records, like world's longest beard, but it also has gems like the world record for cycling backwards with a violin.
- They also called Silent Movie the sound film with the least spoken dialogue: A single one-syllable word. "no", spoken by French mime Marcel Marceau.
- Port Washington, Wisconsin is the host of "The world's largest one-day outdoor fish fry." Which suggests that somewhere, there is a town with the world's second largest one-day outdoor fish fry.
- ...or an even larger fish fry that happens to be indoors and/or doesn't last (only) one day...
- Some of the more obscure scholarships out there for students can get maddeningly specific, narrowing the qualifications down to things like, "half-hispanic female student from _____ County, attending _____ University, in the Poultry Science program."
- The bigger New Orleans crawfish festivals distinguish themselves by being both overly narrow and overly superlative — they will call themselves the "best/biggest/wildest (optional qualifier: Cajun) crawfish boil in the world", but there aren't many crawfish boils outside of New Orleans.
- A quote by Dan Quayle (frequently attributed to George W. Bush):
"We're going to have the best-educated American people in the world."
- The (now long defunct) Springfield News of Springfield, Oregon had a handful of regular movie reviewers, one of whom opened every review with a variation on the line "The best {X} movie since the last one".
- Some obscure dog breeds are guaranteed to win a "Best of Breed" ribbon at dog shows, simply because nobody else entered, say, a Peruvian Inca Orchid.
- Mark Kermode's review of Le Quattro Volte called it "the best silent goat-herding movie of the year so far"
- Scripps College boasts the Motley Coffeehouse, the largest all-female-run coffeehouse west of the Mississippi.
- If you are an only child, your dad is required to call you his "favourite daughter/son."
- It also applies if you're the only child of the specified gender. For example, if you come from a family of 4 children but 3 of them, your brothers, are male, you're your dad's "favorite daughter". And the other way around.
- How galling would it be, to know that you're an only child and you're still not your parents favourite child?
- Likewise with siblings. It's not uncommon to hear "And how is my favorite brother/sister in the whole wide world?" responded to with a mock-indignant, "I'm your only brother/sister!"
- Imagine having your father respond to "I'm your only son!" with "That you know of." That will stop you cold, as well as everyone else in the room.
- The Wright Brothers were not the first people to travel by air — they were preceded by hot-air balloons, for example. What Orville and Wilbur are credited with is "the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard." according to the Smithsonian.
- Which sounds narrow, but that's just a detailed way of saying the first practical airplane.
- You probably didn't know there's a meteor crater under Manson, Iowa. It's several miles across, and completely buried under glacial till. In order to maintain its superlative status (it was briefly hoped to be the impact that killed the dinosaurs, before it was found to be too small), it's described as "the largest and best preserved impact crater on the mainland United States". Others that are larger are either deformed or offshore. Never mind that Manson's crater is completely buried. That's why it's so well preserved!
- The Other Wiki describes Billy Ocean as "the most popular British-based R&B singer-songwriter of the early to mid-1980s."
- Likewise, its German-language chapter describes Johannes Heesters (1903-2011) as having been "the second-oldest man living in Germany", narrowing the aspects of rank (only 2nd), sex (only among males), country of residence (only in Germany) and discounting citizenship (he was Dutch, maybe an Austrian too). A much less narrow superlative on the other hand was his nature as the worldwide oldest active and longest-serving artist.
- Nintendo Power once listed to the top-5 best-selling Virtual Boy games, despite there only being 14 games available for the system in North America.
- Digital Rev's YouTube page describes it as "The most subscribed and viewed photography show on the interweb, presented by an Asian dude with British accent."
- Inverted in this joke: a village is home to three witches. One witch puts up a sign in front of her house reading "Here lives the most powerful witch in the world!". A second witch sees the sign and puts up her own, reading "Here lives the most powerful witch in the UNIVERSE!". The third witch sees both signs ands puts up her own sign reading "Here lives the most powerful witch in the village.".
- Teachers will inform your class when asked which class is the favourite, "You're my favourite 6th period class!" though sometimes have no shame in pointing out "you're my favourite disruptive and obnoxious class", which can indeed be true if there's another class more disruptive than yours. Or they flat-out say that you're the best class, but say that to all of the other classes as well.
- As of Jan. 1, 2013, the Wikipedia page for Eureka, CA called it "the largest coastal city north of San Francisco in California". It has a population of 27,000.
- As of May 2013, it also says it is "the westernmost city of more than 25,000 residents in the 48 contiguous states."
- Speaking of January, calling something the best whatever of the year smacks of this trope any time before August or so.
- Michael Jackson fans often bring these up to make his career after The Eighties (when he didn't need help from this trope) look better than it actually was. Examples from Wikipedia:
- Dangerous (1991) "has been listed as the most successful album recorded under the new jack swing genre of all time."
- "HIStory is the second best-selling multiple disc album ever".
- Blood on the Dance Floor is "the best selling remix album ever released". Rolling Stone has noted this as well, but followed that up with "By now, Jackson was breaking records no one cared about."
- Number Ones (2003) "is one of the ten best selling album [sic] of the present century." As of 2013, it can keep that position if nothing bigger than it comes along in the next 87 years or so.
- The Essential Michael Jackson is "the highest selling edition in Sony's The Essential line" (of greatest hits albums).
- The 25th anniversary version of Thriller "is Jackson's highest charting album in Norway."
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