Shaggy Frog Story - Television Tropes & Idioms

Its just like the story of the grasshopper and the octopus. All year long the grasshopper kept burying acorns for winter while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. Then the winter came, and the grasshopper died, and the octopus ate all his acorns and also he got a racecar. Is any of this getting through to you?

— Fry, Futurama

Basically, it's when a character tries to give an anecdote or tell a story (usually a well-known real one, or else people might not know that it diverged from the original without help from Mr Exposition). They then go off in absurd and comedic tangents, and the intended moral/ending/what-have-you is lost.

The Cloudcuckoolander is often prone to this.

Compare Metaphorgotten, Ice Cream Koan and Disorganized Outline Speech.

Contrast Shaggy Dog Story, where the story does go somewhere, it's just not impressive once it does.

Examples:

Literature

Discworld's Granny Weatherwax tries to tell the joke about the man who orders an alligator sandwich and says "and make it snappy!" but she can't remember the punchline, so she keeps coming up with things like "And I want it quickly!"

Live Action TV

Stargate SG-1 example:
Col. O'Neill: Haven't you guys heard the story about the dog and the dancing monkeys? It's about getting along and... dancing.
- This a throwback to an earlier exchange between O'Neill and an old man who likes using proverbs and fables. The exchange is peppered with this.
  Old Man: No one can be a friend if you know not whether to trust them.
  Jack: Don't judge a book by its cover.
  Old Man: Enemies' promises were made to be broken.
  Jack: And yet, honesty is the best policy.
  Old Man: He who has too many friends has none.
  Jack: Ahh, but, birds of a feather.
  Old Man: I'm unfamiliar with that story, what lesson does it teach?
  Jack: It has to do with flocking, and togetherness, and to be honest I'm not so familiar with the particulars myself.
Saturday Night Live's Celebrity Jeopardy!:
Sean Connery: Trebek, I've a conundrum for yeh: a riddle, if yeh will.
Alex Trebek: Fine, what is it?
Sean Connery: What's the difference between you and a mallard with a cold? One's a sick duck... I can't remember how it ends, but your mother's a whore.
- This is also an example of a dirty Stealth Pun: If the mallard with a cold is a sick duck, Trebek must then suck dick.
  - Or, Trebek's a sick fuck.
  - I thought the implication was Trebek was conceived via fellatio.
Upright Citizens Brigade' episode "The Story of the Toad."
From almost every episode of Home Improvement: Tim has a problem. Tim receives wise advice from Wilson. Tim tries to share Wilson's wise advice with others, mangling it into incomprehensibility in the process.
In How I Met Your Mother, Barney Stinson will tell a story allegedly to illustrate a point that ends up merely highlighting his sexual prowess.
As with the above example, Will's boss on Will&Grace tells him a story about a passionate sexual encounter on the beach. When Will asks him what his point is, he answers, "No point, I just like telling that story. Now get back to work and stop listening to pointless stories."

Theatre

Ruddigore:
Mad Margaret: You pity me? Then be my mother! The squirrel had a mother, but she drank and the squirrel fled! Hush! They sing a brave song in these parts — it runs somewhat thus: (sings)
'The cat and the dog and the little puppee
Sat down in a — down in a — in a —'
I forget what they sat down in, but so the song goes!

Western Animation

In The Simpsons episode "Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie", Homer tries explaining to Bart why his punishment is for his own good.
Homer: You know, when I was a boy, I really wanted a catcher's mitt, but my dad wouldn't get it for me. So I held my breath until I passed out and banged my head on the coffee table. (Cheerily) The doctor thought I might have brain damage.
Bart: Dad, what's the point of this story?
Homer: I like stories.
- Homer had a few actually, including this one from "Homer the Heretic"
  "Kids, let me tell you about another so-called ``wicked'' guy. He had long hair and some wild ideas. He didn't always do what other people thought was right. And that man's name was... I forget. But the point is... I forget that, too. Marge, you know what I'm talking about. He used to drive that blue car?"
Done hilariously in Freakazoid.
"I saw this once on an after-school special. Mary and Sally, best friends! They did absolutely everything together. Then one day, Mary fell in with the wrong crowd. And Mary didn't have time for Sally anymore. Sally would say, 'Wanna go play a game or pretend we're kitties?' and Mary would say 'Uh-uh, I'm in with the wrong crowd.' Sally was so sad she ran home, climbed up a tree and started eating cookies. A ton of cookies. She got huge, HUGE, HUGE, HUGE!...got any cookies, Mike?"
Happened more than once on Futurama, mostly through the...wisdom of Fry, as the page quote brilliantly demonstrates.

Music

Weird Al Yancovic's Albuquerque and Everything you Know is Wrong.

Film

A good example can be found in the movie Grumpier Old Men, in which an extremely old man brags about his outlasting diet and health experts on a diet of bacon and beer, ending the story with the phrase "just goes to show you." When asked what, exactly, it goes to show, the old man admits he had no point; he just "likes that story."
- Funny, I would've thought it was obvious: He wanted to tell that the doctors aren't always right. Or that God has forgotten to take him.
The climax of Billy Madison has the titular character trying to compare the changes in literature brought on by the Industrial Revolution with a children's story called "The Puppy Who Lost His Way". We never get to hear most of it but what is heard appears to be pretty impressively mangled.

Video Games

The Soldier has a memorable one in Meet The Soldier:
"If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight! Sun Tzu said that, and I'd say he knows a little bit more about fighting than you do, pal, because he invented it, and then he perfected it so that no living man could best him in the ring of honor. Then, he used his fight money to buy two of every animal on earth, and then he herded them onto a boat, and then he beat the crap out of every single one. And from that day forward any time a bunch of animals are together in one place it's called a zoo! (Beat) Unless it's a farm!"

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