A conversation, usually between parent and child, about sex. May be occasioned by the question, "Where do babies come from?"
Generally occurs in two types.
Type 1: A serious conversation that runs the gamut from mildly awkward to horribly painful, with the elder speaking nervously and the younger reaching for the Brain Bleach. The sexual acts and organs themselves are always described circumspectly. One frequent subversion is that the kid was asking for completely innocuous information, like what to put on the "Sex" line of a form.
Type 2: A humorous conversation in which the child proves to be far more versed in the subject than his/her parent, having already learned the Facts of Life from school, friends, and media. May end with the fascinated parents taking notes or interjecting "You can do that?" This subversion is common enough that it has become a trope in itself (which makes this a Dead Horse Trope).
Most often found in teen dramas but also Played for Laughs in comedies.
Sometimes comic effect is added by the parent using toys (e.g. a G.I. Joe and a Barbie doll) as visual aids. (Please ignore the flaw in that arrangement...)
Compare This and That. No relation to the all-female Talk Show of same name.
Examples of Type 1
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Advertising
There was a Swedish ice cream manufacturer (whose trick was the fact that they drove up to your driveway, selling ice cream to the whole neighborhood) whose commercial showed a young boy showing a condom to his father and asking what it was and the father trying to figure out what to tell his son, only to be interrupted by the insane, yet addictive jingle that tells us that the ice cream truck is about, and then distracting the kid by offering him ice cream. Cut to the kid eating ice cream in front of the ice cream truck and showing the condom to another kid who also had a condom.
There is McDonald's commercial where a young kid asks his father what sex is. They go to eat and you see him making gestures but don't hear what he says. After he's done the child says "all that goes here?" and shows a sign up sheet for soccer that was asking what his gender was.
McDonald's are obviously fond of this trope - they also had an ad in the UK where a man finally succeeds in deflecting his daughter's questions about where babies come from by suggesting a trip to McDonald's.
Not quite succeeds. The daughter then says that he can tell her all about it when they get there.
They've done it again. A recent British ad showed a young boy getting into a car with his dad and asking 'where did I come from?' Once again the dad gives a description, though we only see his motions, including running a hand over the dashboard, vigorous thrusting, and then fountains and fireworks. At the end the boy replies 'that's so cool, Danny only comes from Essex.' Once again, it doesn't seem like the father was holding anything back.
A PSA had a thirteen-year-old boy come home from school, only to find that his dad had set up a diagram to talk about sex. Dad gives the kid a choice: talk about drugs, or talk about sex. They decide to talk about drugs.
There is a really funny car ad in New Zealand, where a boy asks his father where he came from. The father then proceeds to explain to the son (with music playing on top of his words) while driving, with the help of visual innuendo and gestures. At the end... well, see for yourself. Completely safe for work, we promise!
A Nando's ad from Australia has a kid asking his father where came from. the responds with a golfing analogy, talking about how he sometimes gets a 'hole in one' (just as his wife returns to the table). the kid then says that he thought they came from England.
What makes it hilarious is the Relax-o-Vision (and music) accompanying the scene, and then, when Nyamo is sober again the next morning, Chiyo asks some questions. Watch the whole scene here.
In Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, Kaname gives a sort of similar talk to Sousuke (though it was more explaining what "flirting" and "picking up women" was). No dialogue is heard, and his reaction is to turn deathly pale and break out into cold sweat, stammering that he "can't do that." Lord knows what his reaction would be should anyone ever give him The Talk about explicit sex.
"Listen up! Flirting is... (fast forward mode)When a guy talks to a girl he doesn't know in the city or a store to invite them to hang around with them. The trick is to smile often, and show that you are a cheerful guy. If the girl agrees to come along, you can take her to a cafe or anywhere else you want. Entertain her plenty, smile constantly, and bring up conversations that modern girls would enjoy talking about. And be sure to include some moderate amount of compliments in between. And you have to pay the bill. In short, just act like Kurz-kun." At which point Sousuke realizes he's in waaay over his head... (The dialogue has been Transcribed by intensive use of freeze-frame on a subtitled version of that episode.)
Surprisingly enough, a similar phenomenon comes up in, of all things, the Street Fighter Alpha movie. Shun has spent the first parts of the movie talking about how his mother sent him to find Ryu, but Ken notices something.
Ken: Hey, yeah! What about daddy? You can't have a baby without daddy! It's easy! You just have to— (Ryu covers his mouth.)
Yes, Harry Potter Fanfics have this so much they get their own section.
An old Harry PotterFan Fiction entitled Plugs and Outlets featured Arthur Weasley explaining the facts of life to Ron in terms of the titular Muggle technology. The mostly hilarious sequel Quills and Ink Bottles is the same principle applied to Molly Weasley telling Ginny about the facts of life, and the trilogy is completed with Quidditch Anyone? in which Sirius Black tells Harry that there are several kinds of girls—represented by the different Quidditch balls.
There is a Harry PotterFanFiction in which Ginny, caught by her parents in a somewhat suggestive position, is then given The Talk by Arthur, using the metaphor of Plugs and Sockets, while short circuits represent pregnancy and childbirth.
There are several good HP ones of Snape having to teach Sex Ed to Hogwarts students. Example.
There's one where Ron and Hermione are caught snogging by Ron's entire family, and all of the older Weasley men attempt to have The Talk with Ron, most hilariously the twins, who are armed with Muggle porn.
Sirius: Do it before you're sixteen and I'll kick your ass.
Harry: Oh, okay.
There is a hilarious Harry Potter fanfic in which Sirius was asked to give Harry a talk (about a certain Quidditch stunt, but he thought was THE talk), and the Twins - sensing how nervous Sirius was - started off with a crack about "When a Man Loves a Chipmunk", the whole thing went down hill fast, and Harry is Traumatized.
The Harry Potter fanfic The Shoebox Project had a chapter that touched on this in which each of the Marauders is given The Talk by each of their parents and, in Sirius' case, James' parents. While James' dad hems and haws his way through it all, James' mother plays it painfully straight:
"I'm never going to have sex," James says. "Life no longer has any meaning. Neither do breasts. I'm becoming a nun. Do you want to help me research nunneries?"
"I am going to become a castrato," Sirius replies in a dead voice, "and sing at the opera. Why, Prongs? Why, why, why?"
"It's your fault," James hisses, "you and your French poodle."
"I am full of misery," Sirius says. "The end is nigh."
"I blame you," James insists, without any vigor to the accusation. "You and your uncontrolled urges."
Sirius' head thunks as it hits the tiled wall. "My pamphlets are illustrated."
"My mum is a madwoman."
"Your dad tried to tell me about the facts of life."
"My mum used the phrase sexual intercourse."
"He said the word certainly at least ten times in one sentence."
"She spoke about her and my dad and — you know."
"Oh God." Sirius peeks out from behind the curtain. "You win."
There's a fic where each Weasley brother plays a prank on Harry as initiation into the family (he started dating Ginny). One of the pranks was convincing McGonagall to give Harry The Talk - with animated diagrams. Afterwards, Harry is coming to his dorms... and meets Ginny who has the same look he does - her mother talked to her, too.
There's a Harry/Luna fanfic Harry Potter And the Awkward Date where as soon as everyone hears that Harry asked Luna to go see a movie, they each try to give Harry what he calls The Lecture. Almost none of them help.
There's a hilarious one quite simply called The Talk where because of his orphan status, various parental figures in Harry's life decide to give him The Talk. Independently. He ends up going through it six times.
There's a Star Trek XI fic here, written for that fandom's Kink Meme where for family reasons Chekov had never been given the Talk, and the bridge team decides to rectify this. Unfortunately, rather than selecting one person to do this, almost all of them decide to chime in on it independently. Spock uses diagrams. Bones uses the Scare 'Em Straight method.
There was a hilarious one in which Spock is mailed a pamphlet called "Pon Farr and you."
A particularly funny Naruto fanfic had Naruto going around and asking all the adults in the village what sex is and keeping a journal of the info he gets as they all either brush him off or give him lewd advice. "NEVER GO INTO ANKO'S HOUSE! She has a bunch of weird equipment and she's hard to get away from when she gets her clothes off."
Fetish? What's A Fetish?, a hilarious story about Naruto and Sasuke (Not like that, pervs) finding out all about sex and fetishes. And I do mean all, Sqee and Squick included. It's funny, but can also be serious when the author feels the need.
The Mating Frenzy has Tsunade order Kakashi, Asuma, Gai and Kurenai to "go wherever and explain to [their respective teams] the facts of life". Hilarity Ensues:
Kakashi's way: Using Icha Icha Paradise.
Gai's way: Using "euphemism-filled poetry and interpretive dancing".
Asuma's way: "Here's a porno video. There's the TV. I'll be back in an hour¦"
Kurenai's way: Kiba using Akamaru's "special friend" to "demonstrate".
There's a very funny fan fic called The Talk. Batman, Nightwing, and Superman joined together to give the talk to Robin (Tim). They gave a special type of superhero talk that involves body armor.
A fanfic for Tales Of Symphonia where the group is in Tethe'alla. Colette asks the OC about something that Zelos did that involved a girl. Said OC completely freaks out and tells Colette to ask Regal, who in turn gets flustered and doesn't say anything. The next day Colette says that she found the Wonder Chef, who, when asked about sex, proceeded to tell it all to Colette. In detail. Including information about fetishes and erectile dysfunction. She blushes in the presence of Zelos and can't even hear the word 'wood' without freaking out.
Nuts And Bolts featured Tony Stark giving the talk to his son. He was reluctant at first since he really didn't see the reason why.
Pepper: Now, are you going to talk to him?
Tony: Nope.
Pepper: To-ny! Why not? How did you find out about all this?
A few Tangled fanfics have sprung up which involve Rapunzel learning the finer points of romance and sex, including What You Don't Know.
Litany has two examples. First, there is Batman calling Robin once he hears he dates Star. At the end of the chapter (we never actually hear the dialogue):
Robin buried his face in his hands, embarrassed beyond belief.
"I still do not understand, man of bats. Please, tell me once more about these 'birds' and 'bees,' and why they are of such vital importance to Robin and myself." Starfire somehow managed to procure a pen and pad of paper. "Perhaps I should take notes, this time."
The end of the fic is Mento calling Beast Boy, seeing him and Raven kissing, and saying "You see, when a, um… half-demon… uh, tolerates a, uh… changeling… very much…"
In The Legend of Spyro: A New Dawn, Sparx reveals his dad had The Talk with him before he left home. He promptly changes the subject because he doesn't want to talk about it. Volteer and Cyril give a rather tame one to Cynder as well. Volteer was about to give a much more...detailed version by Cyril cut him off.
In Kitsune On Campus, Naruto is forced to give one to class 3-A as a punishment for painting entire campus orange. He is less than pleased.
The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic The Birds and the Bees has the Cutie Mark Crusaders getting into hilarious shenanigans as they try to figure out where foals come from, and repeatedly get the wrong idea from asking the Mane Six.
For Axis Powers Hetalia, Sealand gets an incredibly awkward and incomplete version of the talk from Sweden and Finland after accidentally walking in on them in 'Why Is Mama Moaning?'.
In VIVIO'S QUEST FOR UNDERSTANDING!Nanoha gives her daughter advice on sexual orientation, reproduction, and gender roles— all specifically tailored to Vivio's unique situation.
The kinkier side of Pokemon fandom has a lot of fun speculating about whether feral child N has learned the facts of life, and from whom. The guesses (and resulting fics) range from "clueless virgin" to "self-taught" to "well-versed in the ways of Skitty and Wailord".
This happens between Kamina and Simon in the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann fanfic The Talk. Somewhat unique in that Kamina, the parental figure, completely lacks embarrassment while discussing this topic and doesn't actually know anything about pregnancy.
Kamina: If you're lucky when you get to the vagina, the sperm shoots right through the egg like a bullet. No babies.
In Beethoven's 2nd, a brother and a sister desperately need to distract their parents from their scheme... so the six-year-old sister goes to their father and asks where babies come from. It works wonderfully.
The Daniel Stern movie Bushwhacked features Stern's character as a fake Scout Leader delivering "the talk" to the boys in his scout group vividly, with help from action figures.
In National Lampoon Vegas Vacation, Clark Griswold observes his son Rusty checking out the babes by the pool at their Las Vegas resort hotel. He then launches into a filibuster that sounds more like a horticulture lecture than a sex talk. Rusty interjects, ending the scene with the following exchange.
Rusty: Dad, if this is about sex, I already know.
Clark: Oh... glad we talked, Russ.
Averted in Critters, when the father gets concerned about his daughter's dating, and asks the mother if she's "talked to her about the way things are". Mom's reply ("Years ago") stuns him, but also lets him off the hook for undertaking this trope.
Now And Then Chrissy gets the talk from her mother (Bonnie Hunt), who is portrayed as either a sexophobe or just overly concerned about her daughter growing up. She starts by explaining that "every woman has a garden, and it needs a hose to water it." The narrator, Sam (Demi Moore) explains that as a result of this conversation, Chrissy will develop a lifetime obesession with gardening.
Bicentennial Man: Andrew is given one by his master, and expresses sorrow over the millions of deaths of unfertilized sperm.
There were two attempts by the older witches in the Lancre Coven to explain it to Magrat (who's almost a Chaste Heroine). In Wyrd Sisters, Granny Weatherwax quickly decides (as she did with Esk in Equal Rites) that she's not up to the task, being a Celibate Heroine herself. In Lords and Ladies, the decidedly non-celibate Nanny Ogg makes a more spirited attempt which is completely misunderstood ("After the wedding, is what I'm hinting about." "Oh, that. No, most of that's being done by a caterer."), although it later transpires that Magrat was deliberately winding her up (and instead has sent away for a book on the subject, which turns out to be on martial arts, not marital arts). Verrence instead gets his information from Casanunda and an interesting song sung by Nanny Ogg. They eventually also manage to get a proper book on marital arts; Nanny finds it one day while snooping around in the Royal bedroom. She spends a few productive minutes drawing mustaches on the pictures, which leads to Verence asking where he could buy some false mustaches. They apparently figure it out eventually, as Carpe Jugulum starts with the birth of their daughter.
In The Last Continent, a group of wizards have to try to explain to the God of Evolution what sex is. It leads to a very, very amusing conversation, and gets even more awkward for the wizards when the normally straitlaced housekeeper, Mrs. Whitlow, volunteers to explain "the facts of life" to the God (and prompts the wizards to wonder, out of morbid curiouity, what Mr. Whitlow's life was like).
At another point in the book, when the wizards are facing down the notion that they are the only men and Mrs. Whitlow the only woman who are likely to come along for some time (like thousands of years), they speculate that there must have been a Mr. Whitlow at some point, because she's, well, Mrs. Whitlow. A different book references a "Hepzibah Whitlow" in passing, who may be related, and, if the actual wizard rules on marriage (frowned upon, but never actually forbidden, as such) are anything to go by, may even be the man we're looking for.
Subverted in Mort when the ancient Arch-Wizard Albert tells the titular character that ".. there's some things a lad ought to be tole before he's sixteen." Mort is about to explain that he already knows about The Talk, but then Albert clarifies he wasn't talking about that.
Call Back in Soul Music, when Albert has a very similar conversation with Mort's daughter, Susan.
Whenever the subject comes up, Tiffany Aching comments that she knows about this already because of her numerous older sisters. She also witnessed her brother's birth, since nobody bothered to send her away.
Don't forget she was born on a sheep farm. She knows about the... red bags of chalk tied to the rams.
In I Shall Wear Midnight, Tiffany finds herself having to give the talk to Letitia, who doesn't believe her.
Averted in the case of Carrot Ironfounderson, whose adoptive dwarf parents had intended to give him The Talk at dwarf adolescence, i.e. age 50. Carrot's girlfriend Angua opts for demonstration over explanation.
The parody "To The Batpole!" in the anthology Batman Unauthorized imagines how this conversation might have gone between a teenaged Bruce Wayne and Alfred.
In the novel The Duke And I, Violet Bridgerton has had 8 children, and yet still can't get up the nerve to give the talk to her oldest daughter Daphne the night before her wedding. This leads to a reverse Miss Conception situation, where Daphne (who wants kids) has no idea that what her husband's doing with her will actively prevent them. The other Bridgerton sisters make sure to get The Talk from a maid instead after that.
In Memoirs of a Geisha, Mameha was explaining to a young Sayuri what happens when a man's eel wants to go into a woman's cave.
In A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Francie, curious about sex but with no books to read about it, gets her mother to explain it to her. The narration glosses it over, but Katie tells what she knows as best she can, using blunt words where she didn't know other ones.
The Monk: Strangely enough for an 18th-century novel, and for a church scene, Antonia almost gets one of these in the first chapter from her busybody Maiden Aunt. Luckily for the reader and for Antonia, Ambrosio's entrance interrupts.
There's an exceptionally awkward one between Charlie & Bella Swan Eclipse. In the novel it just comes across as fairly uncomfortable, but in the movie Billy Burke and Kristen Stewart's reactions make it hilarious.
Live Action TV
Sandy and Seth Cohen's exchange in episode 1.19 of The OC.
An odd example of this is in the live-action version of The Tick, where Janet and Batmanuel try to explain sex to The Tick.
On Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in the episode "Hysteria," Elliot tries to give daughter Kathleen The Talk by speaking entirely in soccer metaphors, after which Kathleen reassures her father she's a virgin.
There's a similar scene in Life Goes On. After accidentally spending the night at her boyfriend's house (they fell asleep watching TV), Drew tries to give Becca the talk as she prepares for her driving test. "You don't want to merge unless you're absolutely sure". An irritated Becca snaps that cars have nothing to do with sex.
Nicely subverted in Malcolm in the Middle "Cheerleader." Hal sits Reese, Malcolm, and Dewey down for "the talk" (because he doesn't want to have to have a separate talk for each one), complete with an action figure and something that resembles a Barbie. Beginning with "I wanna tell you about what happens when a boy really likes a girl," shortly into the talk he follows with "...and if they love each other, and take the proper precautions, they have sex. But I've told you about that already." This talk turns out to be about how the men in the family do everything possible to screw up relationships.
Double-subverted in a later episode. Lois finds out that Malcolm and his girlfriend are getting serious and, since she's leaving soon and won't have time to give him all the lessons he needs, drags poor Malcolm around in an endless car-trip where she tells him in graphic detail everything she thinks he'll ever need to know about sex. Subverted in that Malcolm already knows all of this and doesn't want to hear it from his mom... and then double-subverted when he actually learns an extremely important lesson from her towards the end. After all, doesn't every teenager think they know it all?
Played painfully straight repeatedly in multiple episodes of 7th Heaven.
In Roseanne, a reluctant Dan has to give this talk to DJ after he catches him masturbating.
An earlier episode plays with this by having Roseanne and Dan preparing to give this to Becky, then discovering that Darlene actually needs it more.
The Andy Griffith Show: Andy literally tells Opie, "Sometimes, when a man and a woman love each other very much..." and the show dissolves away.
Opie tells a friend afterward that he knew all about it already, but didn't say anything since Andy was so eager to tell him.
It even turns up on, of all things, Mystery Science Theater 3000, as Joel sometimes has to field "what are they doing?" (in the movie) questions from the 'Bots. ("They're sharing secrets" is his usual reply). However, Crow and Servo's Ping Pong Naďveté on the topic may be a sign they're just making Joel feel awkward for the fun of it.
One episode ends with Pearl giving "the talk" to Bobo.
In "Parts: The Clonus Horror", Pearl, Bobo and Brain Guy try to give "the talk" to some Space Children.
In an episode of Monk, the title character gives this to Natalie's daughter; he is particularly ill-suited for it.
Stargate SG-1 subverted this memorably in an episode centering around Rya'c getting married in a traditional Jaffa ceremony:
Teal'c: Before your departure, there is a matter that bears discussion.
Rya'c: Father, I am aware of the ways between a man and a woman.
Teal'c: Good. Then you are prepared for the Rite of Or'nok.
Rya'c: Surely it is not still expected?
Teal'c: On the first eve of shim'owa. My advice is that the knife be as sharp as possible.
Rya'c : Perhaps Kar'yn is right. Not all of the old traditions are worth holding on to.
The audience knows it's going in a different direction, but Daniel's conversation with Reece (a young, female android) in "Menace" initially sounds like it's heading into The Talk territory. Instead, he's trying to tell her that she's a machine, not a human.
Daniel: But despite the fact that you and I look very much the same, we're very different.
Reece: That's obvious.
Daniel: I mean on the inside.
Reece: How?
In Blackadder, Edmund attempts to explain to Baldrick how chickens are made ("A mummy bird, and a daddy bird, who love each other very much, get certain urges...") before Baldrick interrupts with a cunning plan.
In another episode, when Baldrick asks for permission to ask a question, Blackadder replies "Granted, as long as it's not the one about where babies come from."
In Mortified, Taylor spends an entire episode fleeing from her parents who she thinks are trying to give her The Talk. Finally cornered, she discovers that they actually want to talk to her about doing her share of the household chores now that she is older. Relieved, she immediately agrees and starts doing the dishes with her mother. However, her mother then takes advantage of having a captive audience to actually give her The Talk.
An episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman played the trope semi-straight for a different kind of comedy. After her son was spotted when he tried to spy on some skinny-dipping girls, his mother decides he's old enough for The Talk... and, being a medical doctor, proceeds to read from a textbook on the subject. For hours, apparently. He's bored stiff (NOT THAT WAY) and more confused than ever by the end.
Ironically, Dr. Quinn ends up needing a version of The Talk herself, with her only knowledge of sex coming from her medical books. Despite being a 30-something woman, she's still a virgin and nervous about her impending wedding night. Luckily, her friend Dorothy is there to offer her advice.
A sketch from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's show Not Only But Also has an upper-class British gent trying to explain the facts of life with his naive 18 year old son, who doesn't want to believe the "filthy things they say at school". After much stalling ("In order for you to be brought about... it was necessary for your mother and I... to do something.") he makes wild claims that his son's conception was through his mother sitting in the same chair that he had been in and "was still warm... from my body". The conversation eventually escalates into them discussing Uncle Bertie ("Dirty Uncle Bertie they call him at school." "And they're right, Roger! Uncle Bertie is a dirty, dirty man"). The sketch can be viewed here.
Subverted by a A Bit of Fry and Laurie sketch in which Fry asks Laurie (playing his son) if he knows where babies come from. Laurie replies "I always sort of assumed that you put your penis into mummy's vagina and then intercourse occured". Fry responds that this is indeed what they told him but that it is a bit more complicated than that, going on to say that somehow carpets are involved in the process. (The whole sketch turns into a spoof plug for the show's supposed sponsor's "Tideyman's Carpets').
Even better in another Fry and Laurie sketch when a father (Laurie) brings his son to the headmaster (Fry) complaining about the "vulgar lies" his son had been taught in his biology class. "Sexual intercourse sometimes leads to pregnancy in the adult female." Apparently the man believed that children came out of nowhere after a man and woman had gotten married and bought a house.
Buffy and her mom have a different kind of talk after Angelus tells Joyce that he and Buffy had sex. It is played not for laughs, but for angst, as it brings up the emotional agony Buffy is suffering as a result of Angel losing his soul.
MASH: Colonel Blake gives a lecture on the dangers of getting STD from the local prostitutes which creates much amusement in those listening, as he acts like an embarrassed father giving The Talk.
There's also Charlie X, in which Kirk and McCoy debate hotly who has to give the titular Charlie "The Talk". Turns out Kirk's absolute rubbish at it. Trips over himself the whole way and ends up telling Charlie almost nothing.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show episode "The Birds...and...um...Bees" has Mary getting roped into giving The Talk to Phyllis's daughter, Bess.
The Dick Van Dyke Show had an episode involving Robert telling his son about the birds and the bees.
Spoofed in an episode of Alexi Sayles Stuff, in the middle of a recreation of the police show Juliet Bravo: One (grown-up) police officer apparently doesn't understand what "women" are, so his female superior calls in another couple of officers to explain 'the birds and the bees'. This consist of the two officers, wearing bird and bee costumes over their uniforms, performing the following dialogue, woodenly, reading from their notebooks:
Bee Officer: Buzz buzz buzz. I really like that bird.
Bird Officer: Flutter flutter flutter. And I really like that bee.
Both: [together] We'll both have to get married.
*beat*
Ignorant Officer: ...Is it something to do with receiving stolen goods?
All in the Family: In the flashback episode dealing with Mike and Gloria's Wedding Day, a very flustered Edith attempts to give one of these to Gloria...who gently and discreetly lets her mother know she already understands what she needs to. It's actually one of the show's Crowning Moments of Heartwarming.
Happens in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in one episode revolving around this trope involving Ashley's curiousness about sex.
Coach: Well... your, uh, man and your... your male and female... they have these certain parts that are, uh... how do you call, uh... complementary to each other. [awkward pause] These parts come into play. [awkward pause] And that's how we all were born.
Tommy: I'm sorry, but can we get someone who's actually had sex to teach this class?
Lampshaded in Lois and Clark, where Superman comes to a scientist after he married Lois and stated that he needs to talk since he has a girl now. The scientist thinks at first Superman needs The Talk, but turns out it was about genetic compatibility.
Glee managed a surprisingly touching and noteworthy scene between a father, Burt, and his gay son, Kurt. It was awkward, but not as much as it could have been - rather than getting into the mechanics of it, Burt (who's pretty clueless about gay sex anyway) gives Kurt pamphlets to read, and proceeds to talk to him about the emotional impact that sex can have on a man.
"Believe me, I want to do this even less than you do. This is gonna suck for both of us. But we will get through it together, and we will both be better men because of it."
"Don't throw yourself around like you don't matter. Because you matter, Kurt."
Made even worse by the fact that Kurt had actually asked his dad to do some research so that they could have this kind of talk. In the episode right before this. Continuity? What continuity?
One episode of Kate And Allie had Allie giving The Talk to her son. It ended with him in a state of acute embarrassment, wailing "My mom said 'condom'!"
Subverted in the Married... with Children episode "Raingirl", where Peggy gives this speech to Kelly:
Kelly, maybe it's time we had a little talk. You're getting to be a big girl now, and there's something I've been putting off telling you for a while. But time is slipping by quickly, and I don't want you to learn about it on the street. Honey, there is a thing out there that men will want you to do. In fact, they'll expect it. Now, no woman really enjoys it, but we do it, get them to marry us, and then never have to do it again. That horrible thing is called "work".
The Doctor Who episode “A Good Man Goes To War” has one given to, of all people, the Doctor- and not about his own sexual exploits, but that of Rory and Amy. You’d think after nine-hundred-odd years he’d know about it, and he certainly seems to understand the general idea, but it sure takes him a long time to realise what Madame Vastra was telling him about.
Vastra: I am trying to be delicate. I know how you can blush. When did this baby...begin?
The Doctor: Oh, you mean...well, how should I know? That's all human-y private stuff, it just sort of goes on. They don't put up a balloon or anything!
Sabrina: Most girls get it from their mother. I get it from the cat.
Another episode has Mr Pool announce he'll teach the Biology class about human reproduction. It then cuts to the end of the lesson with a class full of wide-eyed teenagers.
Hope And Faith has Hope try to teach a class of teenagers about sex using sock puppets such as "Abby Abstinence", "Peter Peer-Pressure", "Polly Pregnant" and "Donny Dropout".
Deconstructed in The Middle's fourth-season episode "The Hose." Brick tries to opt out of sex-ed class at school because it makes him uncomfortable, making Mike and Frankie realize they've never had "the talk" with him. Before they can, however, he asks his older brother, who gives it all to him in a two-hour session. Brick repeats it when he does finally have sex ed, which results in a parent meeting and ultimately Mike and Frankie talking to Axl.
On Gilmore Girls, Lane Kim's ultra-conservative mother hasn't explained anything to her daughter until the day of her wedding. Her advice is essentially to Lie Back and Think of England. Of course, Lane already knows about sex, but she's too mortified to interrupt.
On One Life to Live, after a young man is wrongly arrested for rape, his little sister comes to their mother and asks what rape means. As it turns out, the girl has already had the "where babies come from/what sex is/inappropriate touching" talks, but her mother now needs to combine all three to find a way to explain rape to a 10 year old.
Lampshaded in Happy Days when Joanie is soon to have her first date. Parents first discuss how to broach the subject with her, and Mrs. C. finally decides, "I'll just tell her what my mother told me." Mr. C. answers, "You do that," and then after Mrs. C. leaves the room, he adds, "That if she kisses a boy, she'll go blind." The focus then shifts to Joanie's bedroom, where Mrs. C. is stumbling awkwardly when you can almost see the light go on over Joanie's head. This exchange happens:
Joanie: Mom! This is my sex talk!
Mrs. C.: YES!!
Music
In the calypso song "Man Piaba," made famous by Harry Belafonte, the narrator is a young man trying to find out about sex; however, all the adults he ask get flustered and end up lapsing into gibberish when they try to answer. The song's end reveals that he lived to be 93 without ever losing his virginity or even learning what sex was.
In thisWondermark, a father tree gives his embarrassed son a talk about pollination. (Or "bee-pokin,'" as you kids would call it.) The strip's even titled "In which a Tree gets the Talk."
Subverted in Calvin And Hobbes in which whenever Calvin asks his dad where babies come from, his dad always messes with him, coming up with ridiculous answers, such as him being dropped down the chimney by a pterodactyl (Calvin thinks that's cool), or a construction kit that was bought on sale. To be fair, Calvin is only six years old.
Worse, his father says that said kits are purchased at Sears, but they got Calvin at a K-Mart, and only because he was "defective" and got a discount. Calvin was...a little shaken up.
An entire Zits story arc involved preparation for a fishing trip for Walt and Jeremy. Finally, they're out on the boat, and it turns out Walt brought Jeremy out there...to have The Talk.
In a Pearls Before Swine strip, Larry the crocodile's wife tells him to give their son the talk about "the birds and the bees". He finds his son and explains to him that birds are tasty and should be eaten, but bees will sting you and should be avoided.
Father: Ah yes... Milton, I think it's time we had a talk about the birds and the bees... As you've probably noticed, they've almost completely surrounded the house now!
[Sound of curtain being drawn back, angry squawking and buzzing is heard]
Subverted by the Belgian humorist Philippe Geluck. The Talk starts with rather naive language, to quickly switch into barely understandable anatomy class.[1]
When a man is very in love with a woman, and the woman is also very in love with the man who is in love with her, they want to stay close to each other [...]the erection come from arterial blood kept under pressure within erectils organs while blocked by veins contraction.
Stand-up Comedy
Bill Cosby did a routine about the time he had to have The Talk with his daughters. They walk in on him while he's urinating, saying, "Ohhhhhh, daddy! Yooo, daddy! You've got a wallie wallie!! Are we gonna get a wallie wallie too??" He shouts back, "No, you're not gettin' nothin'! Now get outta here!" They leave, but he knows he's going to have to have The Talk with them now, "because little five-and-four-year-olds—and they go to school—love to make up songs about things. 'We saw daddy's wallie wallie...'" And before long the teacher would arrive at his doorstep with the police. "Mr. Cosby, would you come along with us, please?" "What for?" "For showing your kids your wallie wallie." So he finds his daughters in their own bathroom trying to make their own wallie wallies come out, urinating all over the floor. His wife comes in and asks what the hell he's teaching the kids.
19 year old comedian Daniel Sloss had a routine where he describes his father giving him The Talk. Subverted in that it was actually a talk about shaving...but poor Daniel thought it was about sex, which brings it into very close to Squick.
Theater
Once Upon a Mattress devotes an entire song, called "Man to Man Talk," to a mute father attempting to explain about the bees and flowers via hand motions to his son the prince. The son wants to know more about the wedding night, but the embarrassed father resorts to miming the old fable about the Delivery Stork (dangling a handkerchief from his mouth while flapping his arms and standing on one leg). Fortunately, the son sees through this.
Spring Awakening opens with Wendla's mother trying to give her the talk, but as a prudish 19th century woman she can't quite bring herself to fully explain it (saying only that when you love your husband a child is created). The effects of this later in the play are quite bad indeed.
Tom Stoppard's Arcadia opens with the question " Septimus, what is carnal embrace?" Septimus, being unwilling to answer this truthfully, replies that "Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one's arms around a side of beef." Of course, this comes back to his great discomfort later, when Thomasina informs her parents that "Septimus taught me all there is to know about Carnal Embrace."
Theme Parks
Disney's EPCOT Center (you read that right) once had an attraction called The Making of Me, which showed a short film about human reproduction starring Martin Short.
And while waiting in the lines at Autotopia, several looping short films play on the walls. One of them is a father car giving his daughter car a talk about literal birds and bees.
Video Games
In Fallout 3, when the game time-jumps from your 10th to your 16th birthday, you can hear your father telling you in a voiceover: "Boys and Girls have different... parts."
Mentioned briefly in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in the advertisment for Blox. "Now Timmy is clean, safe from things like dyslexia and won't ask any difficult questions about reproduction."
In Dragon Age: Origins, Wynne playfully delivers The Talk to Alistair in a bit of party dialogue if the female Player Character begins a romance with him. Alistair is not amused. Zevran does it too, although his is about technique. Alistair is even less amused. If Zevran is being romanced, Shale tries to give him the talk, which leads to a Crowning Moment of Funny if the PC is also male.
In Mass Effect 2, Mordin gives Shepard a talk, which varies depending on who he/she is romancing. They're all mostly about how to do it safely with biotics or other species, which mixed with Mordin's Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness and Motor Mouth tendencies are all pretty funny to listen to. He actually gives useful info as well, not just comic relief. For example, romancing Garrus causes a warning that ingesting turian...fluids...will probably result in a possibly fatal allergic reaction due to it being made of dextro-amino acids.
In Mass Effect 3, because Shepard has become a Parental Substitute towards her, Shepard is the one to give the talk to EDI after she asks them for advice on how to pursue Joker, now she's got a physical body. Even committed FemShep-players have to give Mark Meer props for this scene. While Jennifer Hale plays FemShep giving the talk with the tone of a slightly embarrassed older sister, Meer makes MaleShep sound utterly mortified about being the Dad forced to explain sex to his teenage daughter. It's hilarious.
Steve's dad gives a hilarious / disturbing view on the subject in Harvester. It involves at least three bolts, a chair, several scalpels, and some barbed wire...
In Knights of the Old Republic 2, Mira will deliver a bounty hunter's version of The Talk to the Handmaiden (if the player character is male) or the player (if the player character is female) if asked how to get a guy's attention.
It's simple. When you want a man, you jab him with a Bothan stunner. Then while he's screaming in pain, slap some stun cuffs on him. Then starve him for two or three days until he becomes open to suggestion. Then double-check his bounty and see if he's worth anything.
In Disgaea Infinite, Jennifer offers to give this to Laharl, since he's "at such a complicated age." He freaks out and refuses, but the prinny can make mind-control him into accepting.
Spoofed in a Cyanide and Happiness comic, where, just after the father tells the son about the birds and the bees, the son replies "Let me get this straight... First there's a momma bird and poppa bird, and now you're telling me they actually have sex with bees? What type of disconnected, interspecies bullsh* t is this?"
Cut short in DMFA after Dan makes the mistake of asking Fa'Lina, who has appeared uninvited in his house, "So where did you come from?"
In fact, there is a Running Gag of someone starting a phrase by "Sometimes a male and female X love each other", to elicit a Too Much Information response.
The webcomic It's Walky! plays this straught with the series of strips starting here. The storyline is even called "The Talk", and has Sal and Jason (the figurative "parents") reluctant and Joyce disgusted. On the other hand, this is probably the first time "The Talk" has been given to a mind-wipe victim with a repression complex who was about the same age as said figurative parents. This is one is sort of hard to categorise.
From the same 'Verse, the Shortpacked! storyline "Daddy Issues" has Ethan and Leslie trying to give The Talk to their boss, who doesn't even recognise genders. (Yes, he has a daughter. Presumably, that will be explained in due course.)
Leslie: C'mon, us gay kids should go teach a daddy how to procreate!
Ethan: Well, when you put it that way, this sounds ridiculous.
As Tales of the Questor demonstrated in one strip, do not attempt this with a magic mirror. The results may be traumatizing for a child.
Punintended has one of the best versions of the talk in their comic Where Do Babies Come From. In this comic a biologist, a chemist and an astronomer all use their scientific field of expertise to tell their kids about the birds and the bees. Quite cute and extremely fantastic.
Subverted (naturally) in Something Positive, where the worldly Mr. Sanderson winds up giving The Talk to Davan's not-quite-son Rory. Rory, who remembers his mother saying Davan might have been his actual father, is only too quick to put two and two together.
Hazel and Clairce from Girls with Slingshots give the talk not only to breast-obsessed child Tyler but also to his mother when they discover neither of them knows where babies come from.
Equestria Chronicles has Wishing Star give Iron Hoof the talk. For context: Iron Hoof's mom was very strict and psychologically abusive, while Wishing Star is very casual talking about sex and has experimented quite a bit...
The Nostalgia Critic's parents telling him about the birds and the bees apparently included God injecting Adam with sperm. No wonder his sex life is fucked up.
Western Animation
Ed Edd N Eddy plays with this in "I Am Curious Ed", where Sarah and Jimmy try to get a straight answer on where babies come from from one of the other kids. Kevin and Nazz are too embarrassed to tell them, Johnny only seems to know how it happens with birds, and Rolf offers to tell them what his father told him when he was their age, which turns out to be "You are children, go away!" When they turn to the Eds, Eddy just plain misleads them, Edd gets hung up on the metaphor of bee reproduction, and it turns out Ed still believes in the stork.
Subverted in South Park, "The Return of the Fellowship of the Rings to the Two Towers", where the parents think the children have watched a wild porn film, and seemingly out of the blue explain groupsex, urine fetishism, etc. to the increasingly aghast children. This is because of an earlier scene where they tried to deliver a more traditional version of "the talk" to Token (who did see the film). When they're done talking about the things a man and a woman do when they're in love, he says, "And when the woman has four penises in her at once, then stands up and pees all over the men... is that love? Five midgets, spanking a man covered in Thousand Island dressing... is that love?"
In an episode from the previous season, the parents in town had voted to include Sex Ed in the school curriculum because they were too uncomfortable giving The Talk to their kids. It turned into a disaster because Mr. Mackey knew next to nothing about sex, Mrs. Choksondik opted for Scare 'Em Straight without actually explaining what sex is and Mr. Garrison (the kindergarten teacher at that time) is a total pervert.
Occurred for full comedic effect between Bart and Homer later seasons of The Simpsons. The Talk ends with Bart running around the neighborhood screaming and going door-to-door to pass the knowledge onto his peers, all of which are equally freaked out. At that point and taking certain of his past comments and actions, one would think Bart was already well aware. Recent episodes illustrate that he somehow doesn't know what it is again... then other times he does.
Bart: What a day, eh, Milhouse? The sun is out, birds are singing, bees are trying to have sex with them - as is my understanding...
American Dad The episode "A Smith in the Hand" had Stan try to give it to Steve (who doesn't know as much as he pretends to). Stan, being an ultra-conservative, and this being the first season before he's lightened up, doesn't give good advice (he said if you have sex before you're married angels will kill you, then shows Steve a 1950s short film about the evils of masturbation). At the end of the episode, he finally decides to play it straight and apparently gets quite explicit...but forgetting to turn the camera off while on a children's television show. (And by that I mean a Show Within a Show the characters were on, and I'm in no way suggesting that American Dad is a children's show).
Carl Squared: Carl's parents decide to give him the talk at the end of "Carl's Techno-Jinx", complete with helpful educational video.
The Venture Brothers: Dr. Venture decides to give Dean "the talk" since he has a girlfriend (kinda). All we get is a muted section with some interesting gestures, a GI Joe humping a lamp, and various other things. Next thing we know the topic has somehow moved to White Snake. Dean ends up staging a small version of "Lady Windermere's Fan" for Triana (his female friend).
On King of the Hill, Bobby's biology class was going to do a sex-ed unit, which Hank and Peggy opposed. Hank said that if their son needed to know anything about sex he would learn it at home. Of course, it turned out that they were both intensely uncomfortable with the idea of talking about sex with their son, so they caved and signed the permission slip. Then Peggy, a substitute teacher, was asked to sub for the biology class, so she had to work to overcome her aversion to The Talk. (The fact that her own mother's version of The Talk amounted to giving her a book filled with pictures of flowers didn't help.)
But then it turns out that none of the other childrens' parents signed the permission slip, so they all leave the classroom and go to the library when it's time to start the lesson. By that time, the only two in the room are Peggy and Bobby.
In one Pinky and the Brain episode, Pinky falls in love with a sea lion and the Brain (who doesn't seem to think much of interspecies relationships) attempts to explain to him that "mice and sea lions don't mix":
Brain: Pinky, do you know where baby mice come from?
Pinky: Mmm-hmm! They come from a magic factory on the moon!
An episode of Rugrats had Angelica asking where babies come from. Drew and Charlotte agree to tell her the truth...but chicken out and tell her she hatched from an egg.
An episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes had Beezy going to Lucius to ask for a pet. Lucius assumes he's asking for this and proceeds to demonstrate it with two dolls before being interrupted.
Life With Louie had Louie's Dad try to give Louie 'The Talk' and ended up comparing it to the Invasion of Normandy. As a result, Louie thought that all babies come from France.
"Now I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure whatever is in that egg, it ain't one of us."
"Oh really, Mr Smarty-Booty? And where do you think JJ will hatch from, if not from an egg?" *sips drink*
"Well, mammals usually come from-" *whisper*
*Spit Take* "Do not gross me out with nonsense, Maurice!"
In The Adventures Of Jimmy Neutron, Jimmy is having trouble with a bully, but his parents think he's talking about a girl, so mom tries to get Hugh to give Jimmy the talk. Hugh struggles with the words, but by the time he gets the nerve to do it the conflict is resolved and Hugh ends up giving the talk to Jimmy's robot dog Goddard.
Occurs in Recess. Miss Grotke gives everyone the talk after Gordy (one of the minor characters) asks her about it. Due to the show's TV-G rating, we only see the discussion ending.
In Gravity Falls,Grunkle Stan decides to give the Talk to Dipper when he finds him trying to get into Mabel's sleepover. Except Dipper and Mabel are actually in the middle of a Freaky Friday Flip, so he's traumatizing her instead. Dipper isn't getting off, though, since he's being forced to listen to a werewolf romance novel.
Parodied in Green Lantern The Animated Series:Razer begins to get very flirtatious with Aya, even though normally he's aloof and Cannot Spit It Out. When Aya mentions this to Hal, he seems slightly flustered before mentioning that organic beings have things called "hormones..." (For the record, Razer's possessed.)
Examples of Type 2:
Comic Books
A Running Gag in the earliest Runaways comics had Cute Bruiser Molly asking about "gross stuff" and "bleeding" happening to her and being constantly brushed off by everyone she asks (Molly: Can I ask you a question about girl stuff? Gertrude: Under no circumstances.) It turns out she was bleeding from her nose, a sign of her emerging Puberty Superpower.
In the second volume of Ultimate Spider-Man, after Mary Jane and Peter have been having a private talk in Peter's room, Aunt May checks to see if Peter needs one of these. He's suitably mortified.
Aunt May: "Do you know about that?"
Peter: "What?"
Close-up of Aunt May's face: "That."
Peter: "Oh god, stop talking!"
Of course, Aunt May knows full well that Peter and Uncle Ben had The Talk. She just wanted Peter to know not to try anything in the house because it would be just as awkward, if not more so.
Fan Fiction
The Lee/Gaara fic Diplomatic Relations has a side chapter in which older brother Kankuro tries to have the talk with Gaara, who has known the specifics of sex since he was a preteen, is already having sex with Lee, and has no idea what tact is. Kankuro is in desperate need of Brain Bleach by the time it's over.
Film
In the original The Parent Trap, the father decides to have the Talk with Sharon (disguised as Susan) on a golf course, assuming that's why she's wanting to know about her mother all of a sudden. After a few minutes of awkward explanation, Sharon tells him she's known about that for ages.
The live-action Casper movie included this brief exchange:
Kat: I want to look... nice, like... like date nice. Dr. Harvey: Really? Uh... Honey, you know, I think maybe it's time that we sat down - Kat: It's a little late for that, Dad. Dr. Harvey: How late? Kat: Oh! Don't worry, not that late.
Orphan: Esthar, the titular orphan and Creepy Child walks in on her adoptive parents having sex in the kitchen. The mother confronts her later and attempts to explain that "When two people love each other very much-" The girl interrupts with "I know. They fuck." Of course, it turns out the "child" has a bad attack of Older Than They Look ...
Literature
In Belgarath the Sorcerer, Belgarath finally bites the bullet and tries to give the Talk to his daughter Polgara, something he was extremely reluctant to do, and he proceeds awkwardly...until halfway through, when he finally figures out that she already knew. She just wanted to watch him stew over it.
Tony's dad tries to give him a talk in Then Again, Maybe I Won't, saying he doesn't really know how to go about it, as he never brought the matter up with his two older son. Tony assures him that he's learned all about it from school and friends, but his dad gives him a book later, just in case.
In one of Dave Barry's columns, he described how as a young man, he worked at a camp for underprivileged children, where he defines "underprivileged" to mean "knew a lot more about sex than I did"
"I would talk to them and give helpful, adult advice such as 'Wow!' and 'Really?' There are times I would have given my eye teeth to be an underprivileged child."
Excellently spoofed in Dream On. Martin steels himself to tell Jeremy The Facts Of Life and is hugely relieved when Jeremy says, "Dad, I know all this. We learned it at school." Martin smiles and relaxes, calmly asking if Jeremy has any questions. "Yeah, what's cunnilingus?" Cut to man falling from a building with a horrified scream.** Followed immediately by a series of equally direct questions, with similar clips as "responses".
Played straight(er) later by Martin talking to Jeremy about a completely different and wrapping up by saying it was "as awkward as bad sex".
Jeremy: (looking stunned) Sex can be bad?!
On Home Improvement Tim has already long given Brad The Talk, being that he is supposed to be about 15, but things are a bit complicated when there is suspicion that Brad is active with his girlfriend. This leads to Tim having to specify concepts of safe-sex and things get even more awkward when Brad asks him about his first time. They have an honest discussion, which finishes with..
Brad: "So, when will I know I'm a man?"
Tim: "Your Mom and I will tell you!"
In the Freaks and Geeks episode "Tests and Breasts", Sam receives one of these from Coach Fredricks, after he watches a porno with Neil and Bill and submits some alarming anonymous questions on his telltale Star Trek notebook paper.
Episode "The Birds...and...um..Bees" of The Mary Tyler Moore Show is devoted to this subject. Mary is goaded into giving her friend's daughter The Talk. When it finally comes down to it, however:
Kid: "Oh, I know all about sex. What I really want to know about is love."
In one Wizards of Waverly Place episode, Alex is going on a date, and her father, Jerry, awkwardly begins the talk, but when Alex states that her friends, and their friends, will all be there, Jerry stops, relieved, and Alex remains oblivious to what he was talking about in the first place.
Music
Song: "Daddy, Where Did I Come From?" by The Nice (2 versions with distinctly different answers to the question).
From Homer and Jethro's version of "Nuttin' for Christmas":
I sat Johnny on my knees (I'm a-gonna tan his hide) Well, I told him about the birds and bees (I'm a-gonna tan his hide) Soon my brain was in a whirl And my hair began to curl 'Cause he told me about boys and girls (I'm a-gonna tan his hide)
FoxTrot did this as a story arc, with Andy deciding to give Paige the talk for a second time, while the male members of the family were out on a Horrible Camping Trip.
Paige: Mom, please, we talked about all this three years ago.
Andy: That was just the basic overview. You're ready for the birds and the bees Lesson #2.
Paige: I do watch network television, you realize.
Andy: ...Good point. We'd better skip to Lesson #40.
Subverted in Bloom County, when Lola Granola's mother tries to give her The Talk...on her wedding day, when she's already an adult. Lola responds that she's known all this stuff for years, making her mother go catatonic.
Subverted in Life In Hell, in an early strip where Binky is trying to answer his son Bongo's questions before tucking him in (dialog paraphrased from memory):
Bongo: Where do babies come from?
Binky: You know what fucking is?
Bongo: Yeah.
Binky: That's where.
Bongo: How interesting.
Zits Being that the strip is about teenage life, it has this topic come up occasionally. In one story arc, Walt takes Jeremy fishing, and decides to have the talk with him while waiting for a catch. After some initial resistance, Jeremy replies, "Fine. What do you want to know?"
So I sat him down and said, "Son, I know you already know a lot of things, so why don't you do this: why don't you tell me what you know, and I'll just fill in the blank spots." About 30 minutes later, I'm sitting there with a pen and a pad of paper, going, "You can DO that?!?"
Theatre
In The Women, Mary gives her daughter a somewhat different kind of talk, the one about what happens when a husband and a wife fall out of love. Little Mary, however, is somewhat familiar with the subject of divorce.
In the webcomic Nip and Tuck, Nip at the very least had a pretty clear idea of what sex was for from an extremely young age-after Tuck and Thelma walk in on Nip & Tuck's parents getting over "Empty Nest Syndrome", the parents reminisce about when the boys were five - cut to five-year-old Nip in a onesie, asking, "Are Tuck and me gonna have a widdle bwuvver?" "No, sweetie..." "Then what was all that for?!" His knowledge is possibly justified given that he's a farm kid and has probably seen the equivalent behaviour in the non-anthro animals.
Doug, In the last episode, Doug's father Phil, after spending the entire season trying to give Doug The Talk, finally works up the courage to tell him, only for Doug to cut him off and say he already knows about sex, and proceeds to explain it to his Dad. It cuts immediately to after the conversation with his dad walking away saying "Thanks son, I think I learned something" in a completely dazed voice. Either his dad did not understand something (despite having three kids), or Doug is into some creepy stuff.
Even after Doug was given The Talk, his parents are completely clueless about Doug's crush on Patti, referring to her as a friend - even inviting her for a sleepover.
Gravity Falls: In the episode "Carpet Diem", which came about as a result of an event where the networkrequired all its shows to come up with some kind of Freaky Friday-style body switching plot, Stan ends up giving one of these to Mabel trapped in Dipper's body, thinking it is actually Dipper. And it doesn't Bowdlerise it to make it suitable for the network, instead it skips over most of it with the implication that it really was quite explicit. Stan gets out a book titled Why am I so Sweaty: Your Body Explained in Horrifyingly Uncomfortable Detail, opens to a page explaining how the pituitary gland has "big plans", then the show switches over to a scene from the B-plot, and then it cuts back to Stan closing the book and saying "... and that's where babies come from." The thoroughly traumatized expression on Mabel-Dipper's face says it all...
Send up in the Looney Tunes short "Walky Talky Hawky" (the first Foghorn Leghorn cartoon). Henery Hawk's father is ready to give him the talk, only it's not about sex but about wanting to eat chickens. Before dad begins, Henery asks him, "Okay, Pop. Whatcha wanna know?"
In the Fairly Odd Parents movie Channel Chasers, Wanda is trying to tell what happens when kids grow up and their fairies leaving, but Cosmo (who's in a toilet after a very hot shower) makes this happen:
Timmy: Older? What happens when I get older?
Cosmo: Ah, Timmy. It's time for a little talk about something we fairies like to call, "The Wands and the Wings." [Cosmo holds out a pink sock puppet, and a green sock puppet and makes the kiss.] You see, when a mommy fairy and a daddy fairy love each other very much...
Wanda: [slams toilet lid on Cosmo.] Cosmo, no! Not that speech!
Cosmo: [Cosmo's puppets peak out of the toilet.] But I already got the puppets out!
