"No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby."
A common belief among TV executives is that everyone who watches TV has the intellect of Beavis and Butt-Head.
This belief is a root cause of Executive Meddling, especially common among shows intended for children. Kids can legitimately be said to be less knowledgeable than adults, though we all probably know a depressingly large number of exceptions.
Of course, there is a "moron" demographic out there, and it has its members (though no-one is sure how big it is), but executives seem to believe that every person who watches TV belongs in it. This may be due to something known as the "80-20" rule in business — in this case that market-research shows 80% of money spent on television-advertised products comes from the lowest 20% in terms of education and intelligence, so show-content is naturally geared towards them.
On top of that, not only are viewers stupid, they are also intolerant of people and things unlike themselves, ignorant, hate change, need to be instantly satisfied, and have the attention span of a goldfish.
Leads to:
Cynical appeals to True Art reactions (i.e., Show X had little effort put into it, but instead was made to superficially appear artsy in hopes that moronic viewers would watch it not for enjoyment, but rather to feel smart).
Interestingly enough, though, this meta-trope sounds worse than it is, at least currently; actually comparing and contrasting the entertainment of today with the entertainment of the past will show that overall, shows demand more of your mind than they used to, probably because we'd be bored if it didn't and partly because things like recorders or the Internet now make it possible to examine shows in more depth more easily than in the past (read Stephen Johnson's book Everything Bad Is Good For You for an eloquent explanation beyond the scope of this article).
Of course, all that means is that the bar for entertainment is raised even higher, and that viewers will get annoyed more and more easily if things like Infodump happen a few times too many. Additionally, the caveat about this being what executives believe about viewers was, at least at one point, not particularly untrue. In the era of the "Big Three" networks (NBC, ABC and CBS), before VCRs and the like, shows really weredesigned to be simple and supposedly "unobjectionable" narratives, for fear of making that one third of the entire TV viewing audience tune out and tune in to one of the competitors. This is why television quickly gained the nicknames Boob Tube and Idiot Box from intellectuals who found television pandering and simple.
Note that this viewpoint is not particular to network executives. Question some point of continuity for a children's show with a sizable adult Periphery Demographic, and you are pretty much guaranteed one of the periphery adult fans will insist that it's "because it's a kid's show and they don't expect kids to notice." Ironically, kids are often far more aware of such mistakes, not because kids are per se "smarter" than we expect, but because not having things like a job, spouse, or "real life" to distract them, they tend to watch their favorites much more obsessively and with more of their minds fully devoted to analysis. (Which makes themsimilar to othersyou may befamiliar with.) Consequently, children can put even the strictest editors to shame with their awkward questions.
Lastly, this trope is not necessarily bad. Business administrators and anyone else whose job it is to explain things to others (like a coach or a presenter) know the "KISS" method ("Keep It Simple Stupid") because of the fear that if something is too complex then no one will understand it, which is certainly true of TV plots. Thus, it's not a bad idea for a writer to assume that their audience are not geniuses and write accordingly, since no one will be entertained if they can't follow along the story. Of course, great care needs to be taken, since if a writer makes their story too simple they also risk alienating the audience who will angrily invoke this trope.
Compare Lowest Common Denominator. For when the viewers really are morons, see Fan Dumb and Hate Dumb.
For the less common polar-opposite, see Viewers Are Geniuses. When this trope and the latter trope conflicts however, you can wind up with an Unpleasable Fanbase.
Not to be confused with Humans Are Morons.
Examples
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Meta-Examples
In any work of fiction where a thunderstorm occurs, lightning and thunder will almost always be handled in one of the following two ways (both ways assume the viewers are morons):
Lightning and thunder are perceived simultaneously. (In real life they are not.)
The lightning is seen, then a few moments later, the thunder is heard (as in real life), then, one of the characters will explain how lighting and thunder works. As if this were something the viewers would not understand unless it was explained to them.
All troper-created puns will be pointed out, no matter how obvious they are.
Examples on trope pages will often link to the very same page the examples are already on. Or, a perfectly fine example will have a second bullet point explaining everything that has already been explained a second time.
Tropes will be renamed and page images removed if so much as one person does not understand its relevance to the trope's description, sometimes with accusations of Fan Myopia thrown about no matter if that's actually the case.
See Fan Dumb and Hate Dumb for when tropers occasionally fall into this.
Advertising
Ads for Song Poems, lyrics set to music for a fee, frequently avoided using the term "lyrics" because it was assumed that most of the audience wouldn't know what it meant.
A kitchen appliance repair company has a radio ad that says "you wouldn't perform your own root canal, and you wouldn't change the brakes on your car, so why even try to repair your kitchen appliances? Call the pros at [...]" The italicized portion sounds like it's being said sarcastically, but nope, they're being sincere.
Also, many people change the brakes on their cars.
An ad for for a trail of a new cosmetic product says the first 100 callers will get a free sample, it then shows in the bottom left corner a counter with "callers" and a progressively rising number. Do they honestly believe viewers think there is a dynamic, connected system for displaying that information, better yet that the number returns to zero every time the commercial airs again?
Similarly, a commercial being shown recently will display the 800 number to call, and the announcer will say "If the number is blinking, it means that lines are open."
A series of radio PSAs featuring an inept superhero (the ads note that unlike saving the world, saving a life, by giving blood, is easy). The hero chucks a meteor into space and accidentally destroys the moon. A horrified witness notes "that means no more tides" then feels the need to have them clarify "tides are created by the moon" after it. (But then again, the Sun creates tides too.)
Video-game themed ads for Collin's College. "Can you believe we get paid to do this?" No, I can't believe you get paid to sit there mashing on a controller and misrepresenting the hours and hours of mind-numbing work that go into making the simplest games, and the marketer who put you up to it should be fired!
A Finnish commercial for a tax-free shop with "Tax free, without VAT".
That one's necessary for those older people who don't speak English. The words 'Tax Free' are written in English, while the rest of the advertisement is in Finnish. 'Tax Free' just sounds more trendy than the direct Finnish translation.
Defrosting trays are advertised as using "space-age technology" to magically thaw your food. In reality, conducting heat is a fundamental property of metal that we've known about since prehistory. The trays are made of a cheap aluminum alloy that simply does a good job of it. There's nothing "space-age" about it, except maybe the price.
For a while several ads promised you a better deal if you saw something on the screen. One was for a watch with LCD "hands" and they made a big deal about "did you see the hands disappear", which the small print at the bottom of the screen told you that it all happens too fast for the human eye to see.
G.I. Joe was not allowed to advertise their action figures during the show, because the FTC determined that kids couldn't tell the ads were not part of the program. This is the case with all American children's programming on broadcast television; many television stations had to take an FCC fine because one mention during an ad on Pokémon that Pikachu-shaped Eggo waffles were available meant that the FCC classified it as the equivalent of an Infomercial and was an offense that threatened their license to broadcast. However they look the other way for cable because of a lack of regulatory authority of non-broadcast television, though usually Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, along with the advertisers have the good sense to regulate themselves to avoid the angry mom crowd.
Head On is a placebo/homeopathic remedy, so they can't say it will relieve pain. But they can say apply to forehead, since that makes no claims about the product other than how to use it. They are not allowed to claim to cure specific medical conditions without FDA approval, but they are however allowed to make structure-function claims. Popular claims relate to boosting the immune system, removing nondescript toxins, or just whatever made-up babble seems to lead to the desired effect.
"Head On! Apply directly to the forehead! Head On! Apply directly to the forehead! Head On! Apply directly to the forehead!"
An advert for Heinz (estd. 1869) pointed out that "nobody knows what 'estd.' means".
In American advertising regulations, it is required that hands be shown in toy ads operating toys. In Japan, Merchandise Driven series based on giant robots or Tokusatsu heroes can have ads with the toys folding and merging via CG or stop-motion. This was allowed in America until the early 1990's, when consumer advocates insisted that such ads made children believe the toys could drive, fly, or transform on their own. Now American ads have to show hands manipulating the toys.
In some Japanese toy CMs, they do show sometimes show the kids doing the thing manually. An example being for the CM for Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger's DX GoJyuJin, before the CM ends, they show a kid doing it. Another was an ad for Ultra-Act Ultraman Tiga, showing the actor of the show he represents playing with the figure.
Similarly, in Brazil, there was some hatred towards the Barbie rip-off Susi, which had commercials animated via stop-motion. At first a little caption saying "Susi can't move on her own" appeared on the bottom. After more complaints, a long, huge, voice-acted screen reading "SUSI CAN'T MOVE ON HER OWN. SHE NEEDS YOUR IMAGINATION!" aired before each and every one of the commercials.
Transformers commercials of the last couple years now have a line at the bottom stating "ACTUAL CHANGE TIME MAY VARY" ...which really seems like a given since the commercials are only 15 to 30 seconds long, doesn't it?
Italian commercials for Barbie and Monster High dolls have a caption on the bottom saying "The dolls can't move or stand up of their own". When the hands holding the dolls are in plain sight.
One of the truisms of advertising is that young men 15-25 are the most likely of any group to be swayed by advertising. This is partly because older people's buying choices are usually already set in stone and women tend to buy what their mothers or friends buy, but numerous studies also show that young men are actually more likely to believe an advertiser's pitch, especially if the advertiser appeals to their masculinity or ego. This leads to fiftysomething advertising executives trying to use tropes of which they have no understanding in a desperate attempt to attract that desirable target market, and treating viewers like morons in the process. Cue marketing fiascoes like the McDonald's "I'd Hit It" bus ads.
Pick an infomercial. Any informercial. They always start off with a segment showing just how hard life is without their product, always assuming their viewers are Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket.
Ads for the Russian military: There is a series of commercials featuring all of Russia fawning over a hauntingly beautiful recruit named Vasily which implies that if you join the Russian army, you'll earn the respect of your family and neighborhood, be reunited with your childhood friends, date gorgeous blonds, make ridiculous amounts of money and meet Santa. The commercials also really love to beat you over the head with how much cash Vasily has to throw around (did he just buy his father a Rolex?) which seems especially cynical and predatory considering how poor many Russians are. If you were/knew people who were involved in Chechnya, it will make you distinctly uncomfortable.
The infamous ads for the U.S. military: A couple for the Air Force will be about piloting UAV's or engineering aircraft, but the rest will make service look like a summer camp that teaches you to twirl a rifle and then sends you off to college for free. There were even ads for the U.S. Marine Corps (now discontinued) featuring a marine battling various mythological monsters.
Averted in a marvelous triple-barrelled-trope example from an advert for Citroën. It's against EU law to promote a car at high speed in an ad. In practice that means actually showing a figure in km/h or MPH. So they pull a Loophole Abuse, saying that if we quote a distance and a time we can leave it for the viewer to figure out the speed. It is presented in the form of yet another trope — namely: Conviction by Contradiction. The scene is a courtroom and the defendant's alibi is that he has a witness putting him 50km away in under twenty minutes! As the representative for the defense remarked "Fifty kilometres in nineteen minutes in a normal saloon [sedan] — impossible." Then the Conviction by Contradiction is subverted when the defendant is cleared and he and his representative step outside to his car (the product) and she says "I thought you said it was a normal saloon?"
Parodied in a series of Disaronno Amaretto commercials in which the viewer is taught the oh-so-secret recipes for such obscurely named mixed drinks as "Disaronno on the rocks with lemon" (You pour Disaronno in a glass with ice, then add lemon.), "Disaronno with milk" (You pour Disaronno & milk into the same glass.), and even just "Disaronno on the rocks." (You guessed it.)
The author's notes for Eerie Queerie can become almost insulting by pointing out things that have already been explained numerous times over. A particular example is when Mitsuo is drawing a picture of a ghost (that only he can see) so Hasunuma can "see" what she looks like. There's an arrow pointing to Hasunuma that says "he can't see her".
Every episode of the InuYasha dub has ridiculous amounts of exposition, to the point of flashing back to things in the same episode more than once and having the characters explain the simplest occurrences (such as a character returning from having left on a mission earlier in the episode) repeatedly to each other while it's happening. It's almost like they're all practicing to be sports announcers or something.
When you can recite Kikyo's last lines word for word, you're flashing back too much. And there's the dialogue:
"Sango was possessed by a salamander egg!'" "Sango was possessed by a salamander egg?"
There's also the Japanese version of the anime, which shows the name of every secondary character at the bottom of the screen...every. Single. Episode, whether the character is newly introduced or not (though that only happened in the broadcast version).
In the manga Kyoukai No Rinne, small notes at the side tell us the purpose of whatever supernatural object is being used. Even if said object has already been used (and noted) several times in the past.
Naruto tends to do this quite often too...even in the manga. It once flashed back to an event that had occurred just minutes earlier, multiple times within the very same episode!
It gets even worse in Shippuden when they sometimes have entire episodes where the action is broken up by flashbacks to derail any sense of pacing. And no, they aren't flashbacks of new things or flashbacks with new animation, no, they're showing past episodes for no reason. During Naruto, Bee, and Itachi vs Nagato, for example for a particularly bad flashback cut? For no reason, we flash back unexpectedly to (seeing the far superior animation of the Sasuke vs Itachi arc) of Orochimaru being consumed by the Totsuka Blade...so Itachi can tell us what's happening after the jarring flashback ends.
The Pokémon anime feels the need to have the characters (usually Brock) comment on almost every Pokémon, type, or move used in a battle. For some uncommon weaknesses, like maybe Bug types over Dark types, it's OK, but not when it's over types that any fan who has played the games could guess. Every single battle has a discussion like this:
Brock: "(Insert Pokémon here) is a (Insert Pokémon's type here) type." Whoever: "That means it should be good/bad against (Insert opponent's Pokémon here), right?" Brock: "Right. But who knows what will happen."note Hint: Ash will manage to win, regardless of the types. Unless it's against his rival of the region, or he needs to learn a lesson in humility for the fifth time.
The anime doesn't really talk about more advanced concepts that more experienced players of the game use either. To be fair though Pokémon battles in the anime work on a completely different level than they do in games. Though it doesn't excuse why everyone uses the most basic moves, strategies, and type match-ups. Sometimes, the characters tend to forget or simply not know how dual-type Pokémon work in terms of weakness and resistance.
The series based on the original, main series Generation V games was called Best Wishes! in Japan. Apparently, they didn't think anyone would get it, and the name was changed to Black and White internationally.
"Who's That Pokemon?" segments, especially in the (English) 1st season and all "Black and White" seasons. 99% of the time, the silhouetted Pokemon will be the main focus of the episode, meaning you'd absolutely have to not be paying attention to get it wrong.
This was the primary reason for the 7-Zark-7 sequences which Sandy Frank added to Science Ninja Team Gatchaman when it was brought over to the US (as Battle of the Planets, of course). While these scenes were partly to paper over scenes that were edited out for content (mostly violence) that might upset the parents of the kids watching the show, there was also a certain assumption that American kids wouldn't understand the plot unless it was constantly explained and re-explained to them.
In Spirited Away, the English version has Chihiro saying early on that she saw Haku as a dragon, when in the Japanese version she just stays silent and realizes later on (through The Power of Love) that Dragon=Haku.
In the second season of Yu-Gi-Oh!, in the finals of the Battle City Tournament, the villain Marik Ishtar repeats his evil scheme and that he hides behind a decoy at least five times per episode, for about 10 episodes, saying something like "These fools don't realise that I am Marik!"
Yu-Gi-Oh! in general is like this. Not only do the characters constantly tell you what their cards do, but apparently no one in the show has ever actually played the game before and must periodically binge drink in order to forget everything they learn in an episode. The first season with duel monsters is excusable because there were no actual cards until later. It gets a little grating when they constantly tell you how skilled someone is but their big strategy consists of...summoning a monster with higher attack power...I'm sure that's effective at killing that one other monster, but it's not really much of a strategy.
4Kids also had the habit of making perfectly clear when a character was being brainwashed (which happens all the time in the Battle City season). They were also very creative - they would alternately add a golden border around the character, give him red or golden pupils, add an echo effect to the character's voice and went as far as to superimpose the image of the brainwasher on screen, just to make clear that said character is definitely being brainwashed. In the original Japanese version, they just got the usual Mind-Control Eyes.
In the 4Kids dub of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, there's a little segment that happens during the duel sometimes when someone plays a card. This is meant to give info on the card just played. Sometimes if it's a monster, the segment will give you information on the card's attribute, level, attack and defense points. Something you can learn by looking at the card. Thanks, 4Kids.
Made even worse when that little segment gets the attribute WRONG like in episode 66...
Comic Books
The Action Files was created to help schoolchildren become interested in comic books. The first page informs readers that word balloons contain dialogue, and they must read panels from left to right. The last page defines words the publishers thought readers might not know, such as "accident" and "future." Apparently, 4th-8th graders can't understand the concept of a word balloon, and have not learned those words in grade school.
The first issue of the comic Marville decides to explain some things to help you understand jokes, including the backstories for Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man. This comic was made in 2002, where those three heroes counted as mainstream. Then it flips around and the first few pages expect you to know who Ron Perelman is and be aware of controversy around the Atlanta Braves.
Fan Fic
Admiral Tigerclaw manages to do this with references, bizarrely enough. Whenever one is made, he will do everything he can to drive the fact that he made a Shout Out into your apparently thick skull, including at one point having the characters themselves comment on something being a reference in-story. None of them have really been anything remotely obscure, so it's pretty silly.
Partially Kissed Hero and indeed, most of Perfect Lionheart's fics are filled to the brim with the characters explaining everything going on as though the readers were idiots, and multiple author filibusters wherein the author waxes long and repetitively about everything going on to the point that there is little actual action to be found. With most of it barely even related to the story itself...
Film - Animated
The American dub of Astérix and the Big Fight added a narrator to explain every single plot point.
In The Emperor's New Groove and Kronk's New Groove, this is the way Kuzco treats the viewers when he's narrating.
In the 1978 animated version of The Lord of the Rings, Executive Meddling had Saruman's name changed to Aruman, for fear that viewers would have trouble differentiating between his name and that of Sauron. This was apparently only decided after about half the dialogue was recorded, however, leading to the ironic situation that the character is referred to as Saruman and Aruman interchangably in the film.
Film - Live-Action
The Historical DramaAgora obviously assumed no one knows what the difference between a Socratic philosopher and an engineer is. And it's probably right, sadly.
In the trailers for Angels and Demons, we see the word "Illuminati". Then, it spins upside down, and turns out to be an ambigram, so it still says "Illuminati". Then, Nick Cage or somebody says "It's the Illuminati!". Inspired.
In Back to the Future Part II, Doc Brown has to go to the board to explain to the audience the principle of parallel realities attached to time travel. In fact this is a time where the audience is taken for a moronic bunch of popcorn eaters.
A good example of this trope causing Executive Meddling can be seen in the climax of Batman Begins. Batman exposits to Gordon that if the train carrying the MacGuffin reaches Wayne Tower, the whole city will be covered in fear toxin. Executives were convinced that audiences needed to have this information repeated to them every two minutes during the train chase, and so the action climax repeatedly cut away to water technicians repeating this information over and over.
This is the MacGuffin that emits magic microwave radiation which only affects liquid water. The viewer is expected not to figure out that people are mostly water and should sizzle like reheated meat when it goes off nearby. How's that for Fridge Logic?
Black Hawk Down: SPC John Grimes is based on a desk clerk who was sent into action as a last minute replacement - and fought very well. However, Pentagon requested his name be changed, because the guy was dishonorably discharged from the military and was sentenced to 30 years in prison for raping his underage daughter. So far, so good. However, the filmmakers obviously thought that the audience are idiots - every time Grimes appears on screen, someone calls him "Grimes" (whether it makes sense or not), the guy uses the name "Grimes" referring to himself, or is seen writing his name on his helmet, letter-by-letter - G-R-I-M-E-S.
This conversation from Bowfinger: "That's too much for the audience to have to think about. They have to know that the guy's name is Cliff, they have to know that he's on a cliff. That the Cliff and the cliff is the same. It's too cerebral! We're trying to make a movie here, not a film!"
Parodied in Dragnet movie, when the PAGAN cult's full name is shown for the first time.
Joe:(reading): People Against Goodness And Normalcy...P-A-G-A-N...PAGAN!
Pat:(sarcastically): Good, Joe.
Enemy Mine was apparently forced to include subplot about their enemies operating a mine. On the basis that people wouldn't understand the title could be rephrased as "My Enemy", and would want to know where the mine was. Maybe they could have had someone step on one too.
The Evil Dead was originally to be called Book of the Dead, until producer Irvin Shapiro argued that the title was too "literary": as he famously said to them, "Nobody wants to watch a movie about a book!" While that's a pretty bizarre claim (the book in question is a Tome of Eldritch Lore), series creators Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell have both agreed since that the "The Evil Dead" really has worked better.
Halle Berry's character in The Flintstones was supposed to be named Rosetta Stone, but the studio executives thought that no one would get the joke. She was renamed Sharon Stone (with the actress' permission).
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: When the Doctor says "We eliminated all self-preservation in them." Destro's response is "English, doctor?"
In keeping with how the original novel was handled (see Literature, below), the American version of the first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone, was retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. This required every scene in which the term "Philosopher's Stone" was mentioned to be shot twice, with the actors changing the words to "Sorcerer's Stone". Viewers in Canada and the UK can see examples of these alternate scenes in the making-up featurettes on the DVD/Blu-ray release.
The first Hellboy has this problem. The film's story was dumbed-down to the point that a lot of stuff that would have been explained no longer makes sense, and it has an annoying habit of giving us location tags even when it's obvious where the characters are. Do we really need a tag telling us they're in an abandoned subway area when we saw the same area ten minutes ago? And its location was also tagged? At one point in the movie, a character is given a vision of the Apocalypse, which the villains are trying to bring about. We see a destroyed world with hellish creatures flying about, and no trace of human life anywhere. Just in case the viewers are too thick to get the message, we also see a handy newspaper with the headline "APOCALYPSE!" on it.
The American edition of the Highlander film had the scenes at the beginning cut out because executives thought the cuts between Present Connor at and Past Connor would be too confusing. Naturally, the European and Japanese versions retained the scenes.
Jennifer's Body stars Amanda Seyfried as a plain Jane. In case the constant dialogue that about her appearance wasn't enough for the viewers to figure out that she's unattractive, the character is named Needy. Later, Needy breaks out of the insane asylum and plots to kill Low Shoulder, the Satan-worshiping band that sacrificed Jennifer to Satan. When she explains while hitchhiking that she needs to get to a concert because it's going to be the band's last show, the camera pans over to a road sign reading "Low Shoulder," just in case you didn't get it. To be fair on the first point, again, it's Amanda Seyfried as a plain Jane. If they didn't mention it at every chance they get, people would probably assume that she was supposed to be hot.
The American remake of Let The Right One In, Let Me In, goes out of its way to explain everything that was left subtle in the Swedish film. One of the most ridiculous examples: in the Swedish film a character leaves a letter quoting Romeo and Juliet, the American remake adds a scene right after of the character reading the play just so the viewer knows exactly where it comes from. Then there is the case where the subtitle translator is a moron and doesn't know it's a Romeo and Juliet quote, therefore mis-phrased the whole quote and lost the audiences.
There's a drinking game where every time Orlando Bloom as Legolas says something unnecessary, you have a shot.
"So, it's a drinking game?"
"So, Orlando Bloom's contract specified he get a lot of dialog?"
The Madness Of King George is an adaptation of the play The Madness Of George III. Nigel Hawthorne stated (possibly as a joke) that the change was to prevent people from thinking the film was the third in a series, but the author and the director insist that it was to make George's royalty more prominent in the advertising, especially in areas where George III isn't instantly known by that name. In America, George III of the United Kingdom is commonly known as simply "King George," since the first two don't figure anywhere near as prominently in American history.
Complaints from higher ups that no one would understand the original purpose of The Matrix (a computer that uses the brain and nerve cells of its inhabitants) meant they had to change it to a blatantly impossible idea that they are an energy source.
Executives also had Neo's ending speech changed, as they figured not everyone would understand the word "chrysalis." This makes you wonder how the Architect's talk of "systemic anomalies" got through.
By the time a movie series gets to its third release, its usually successful enough that the writers/directors have more leverage to fight executive meddling....alternatively, it's such a failure that the budget has been reduced to whatever the film-crew has in their pockets and the executives just don't care anymore. Obviously the second one doesn't apply here, but it does happen, from time to time.
And in the third film, the Oracle was recast because of the previous actress dying. The in-universe reason for the change in her appearance was explained in a dialogue in her first scene. And then the explanation was repeated every single time she appeared after that in case the audience was too thick to wrap its heads around it.
The main plot of Men In Black was toned down to something not very logical because the original plot was about two alien species about to enter war, and the bug (a 3rd race) was there to provoke it. The audience will obviously be confused about THREE alien races.
The 1997 live-action film of Mr. Magoo ended with the disclaimer: "The preceding film is not intended as an accurate portrayal of blindness or poor eyesight. Blindness or poor eyesight does not imply an impairment of one's ability to be employed in a wide range of jobs, raise a family, perform important civic duties or engage in a well-rounded life. All people with disabilities deserve a fair chance to live and work without being impeded by prejudice." Presumably in case viewers thought it was a documentary.
In The Patriot, Tavington's light dragoon regiment was based on that of Banestre Tarleton, a real life british commander, and are even referred to in dialogue as "Green Dragoons" in reference to the green coats worn by the 1st Dragoon Guards. However, someone in charge of the film decided that viewers would have been confused if the British did not all wear primarily red, and to that end the uniform was changed to a green waistcoat under a red frock coat.
Baz Luhrmann's Romeo+Juliet has a habit of doing this. For example, the Capulet Party is given a location subtitle, even though those who don't understand the dialect could likely deduce the 'where' and 'what' from the scene itself. No viewer has ever been forced to study Romeo and Juliet before, or been presented with an adaptation, or is just familiar with the story through Pop Cultural Osmosis.
In Stardust, Michelle Pfeiffer and another witch are both hunting the same girl, Yvaine. When they meet, Michelle gets mad and puts a curse on the other woman, saying, among other things, that she will not be able to see/hear/touch the girl, and that she will not perceive her even if she's right there. Later on the witch puts a spell on Yvaine's companion, which angers her and she starts trying to hit and kick the witch. However, this does not work, and there is almost a force-field type thing around the witch. Cue the voice-over of the curse, just in case we forgot about it and were utterly confused as to why Yvaine couldn't touch her.
The repeated use of location tags was parodied in Start the Revolution Without Me, a farce set during the days before the French Revolution. Several times during the first fifteen minutes, we are reminded by a stentorian narrator that the story takes place in 1789. Later the location tags run with it; "Paris, 1789", "A small country inn, 1789", "Later that same day, 1789"
After a few test screenings the producers decided that the story of Super Mario Bros. wasn't "tracking" too well, namely the concept of a parallel world. Numerous subplots and expanded scenes were then cut out to focus more on the story at-hand while important concepts were conveyed through exposition added by later ADR-looping every time a character was offscreen or facing the other way. Most atrociously, the animated intro was added to the beginning of the movie to explicitly explain the parallel world and its evolved dinosaurs, which otherwise would have been a surprise second act.
In the otherwise excellent Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, the deaf character's girlfriend is often shown spouting anarchist slogans and handing out pamphlets. When the factory owner kidnaps her, she tries to threaten him with claims that she's part of an anarchno-terrorist underground that will find and kill him if he messes with her. It sounds completely hollow, and he kills her anyway. At the very end, when it looks like the factory owner has come out on top of the cycle of vengeance, he's suddenly confronted by a mysterious group of toughs, who promptly murder him. In a perfectly unnecessary bit of audience hand-holding, the film repeats the girl's threats in voice-over, completely spoiling the moment.
In an example similar to Batman Begins above, the makers of There Will Be Blood apparently assumed that viewers would not remember that Daniel Plainview's plan was to cut a deal with Union Oil and lay a pipeline to the coast so that he would no longer have to pay rail-tanker fees to Standard Oil unless this fairly simple plan were explained again and again every five minutes or so for the entire length of the film.
At the end of The Three Stooges movie adaptation, the Farrely Brothers have to blatantly explain to the audience that all of the slapstick and violence was faked, most notably to the kids (even though it wasn't even targeted toward children, it was targeted toward the adults that grew up on the original B&W shorts). And the sad part? They seemed dead serious about it.
In Michael Bay's Transformers, the first thing Megatron does upon being revived is to loudly announce "I am MEGATRON!!!" Just in case we hadn't figured that out. Justified in-story...almost everyone at the facility had been calling him either "Mega-Man," "Ice-Man," or "N.B.E.-1" for YEARS. So he was probably trying to get it into the thick skulls of the Sector Seven staff, and not the thick skulls of the audience.
Something of a lampshaded subversion occurs in 24 Hour Party People, which begins with Tony Wilson crashing a hang-glider. He turns to the camera and tells us that was symbolic of what will happen to him. "I'll just say one word: 'Icarus'. If you get it, great. If you don't, that's fine too. But you should probably read more." The movie expects that most people will get the (not particularly novel or obscure) reference, but also feels the need to be really proud of the fact that it doesn't explain itself.
It's more of a reference to how Tony Wilson really acted, as can be seen throughout the film.
The marketing for the sequels to Twilight is a bit like this. Despite the fact that all three sequels use the main characters on the posters, and the title is in the same font, it uses the handle 'The Twilight Saga' which never appears onscreen in the credit sequences.
The advertising for West Is West goes out of its way to tell viewers that it's a sequel to East is East. Because that wasn't obvious from the name.
Clearly the belief of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer; their movies only contain references to movies made in the past year, presumably in the belief that no one has memories past a year, and wouldn't know the reference of, say, The Smurfs.
And if there's a reference, you can bet somebody will immediately mention what the reference is to.
Lest, with all these examples, one believes that this trope is nothing but a viewer myth perpetrated in the wrong belief that Executive Meddling is often caused by this, and people in Hollywood don't really think we're idiots, one blog writer told this (allegedly) true story on the /Film podcast: When director Paul Thomas Anderson was making his 2002 film Punch Drunk Love, the man from the studio marketing department charged with making the film's trailer showed the finished product to Paul before release. Anderson was displeased with it, to say the very least, because the trailer was very generic and did not showcase the fact that the movie is ''anything'' but your typical romantic comedy/Adam Sandler vehicle.The marketer's response? To very condescendingly tell Paul, "Paul, Paul, you have to understand, the people watching your movies aren't very bright, so we have to tell them what to think and what to feel or they won't know what to do with the movie." Anderson demanded the marketer be removed from the project, and to this day, he has a large hand in what the trailers/marketing look like for his films. But, allegedly, the guy he fired still has a job in his field. Lovely.
There are a number of 1950s sci-fi B movies that go so far as to put definitions of words used in their exposition in the exposition. The classic example is when a scientist describes a monster growing at "an accelerated, or speeded-up, rate." This is justified (a little) by the assumption on the filmmakers' part that their primary audience would be young boys. Films that illustrate this abound on the Mystery Science Index 3000, including The Amazing Colossal Man and It Conquered the World.
Literature
A Series of Unfortunate Events constantly spoofs this trope by having an adult character say a word, then assume that the orphans wouldn't know what the word means and try to define it for them, to which one orphan or another (usually Klaus) almost always interrupts "We know what it means." The author also often uses various words and phrases in the actual narration, then explains them in a humorous way as they apply to the situation at hand, such as describing "takes the cake" as "a phrase which here means that more horrible things had happened to them than just about anybody" in The Reptile Room. The Baudelaires are generally shown as being far more intelligent than anyone gives them credit for, and the adults of the series routinely underestimate them and never put much stock in anything they say, something which usually results in more unfortunate events.
Invoked in the Frederik Pohl short story "Day Million", as an omniscient narrator who's describing life in the 28th century grows increasingly angry with what he assumes to be the present day reader's ignorant disbelief.
The book The Design of Everyday Things was originally titled The Psychology of Everyday Things. The author, Donald A. Norman, even liked the acronym, POET. However, while the academic community liked the title, the business community did not. Bookstores placed the book in their psychology section, apparently oblivious to its contents.
The American edition of Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone was renamed to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Apparently this is because the US publisher thought American kids would reject a book that sounded as though it was about philosophy, and demanded a title that was less "misleading". This despite the fact that the Philosopher's Stone is an actual (theoretical) alchemical artifact, and is explicitly explained in the book, and that there's just no such thing as a Sorcerer's Stone at all.
Which makes the internet firestorms surrounding what to call the book*
If you are being polite, the accepted abbreviation is PS/SS
especially bizarre. Surely US readers should reject a title that was chosen essentially because a publisher thought they were all idiots?
In French the title has been changed to mean "Harry Potter at the Wizards School".
There are a number of scenes in the books where Hermione has to break down and explain rather simple concepts to Harry and Ron so they can understand it. She's not doing it because Harry and Ron are idiots, but more because the writer was afraid the kids reading might not be able to follow along without help.
A certain best-selling British novelist was invited to write a short story for a magazine. In the story, the author wrote that the main character and a friend meet in a coffee shop and drink lattes. The editor insisted that latte be changed to cappuccino, because he thought that the readership, who were mainly from the lower/working class, wouldn't know what a latte was.
Maeby: I know what the shape of a banana reminds you of, and I know when I say nuts it makes you giggle
College Kid: * giggles*
Maeby: But, do you have any other response to "here's a banana with nuts?"
College Kid: Whooooohohoho! * giggles*
Maeby: Why are we even going after this idiot demographic?
Used in Bones, when called upon at a trial as an expert witness, Brennan goes on about the skeletal remains as though she was talking to fellow scientists, using technical jargon and hardly stopping to take a breath. The prosecution was furious with her behavior, but she refused to talk down to the jury, believing that they could follow her. She later had a talk with her superior on the matter, who rationally explained to her that most of the world is unfamiliar with the very field she is a master of and that presenting things in a simplified manner will allow her expertise to help the case.
As the deleted scenes show, the Chappelle's Showskit "Black Bush" was edited to not refer to John Ashcroft and Jeb Bush by name, and instead referred to their black counterparts in the edited skit as "Black Head of the CIA" and "Some Black Dude" respectively, to remind you of their jobs. Ashcroft and "Black Dick Cheney"'s roles were likewise almost entirely cut from the skit.
All theCSI: Crime Scene Investigation shows consistently insist their viewers are morons by using special effects to illustrate the events implied by the evidence. Even something as simple as a car making a turn requires a demonstration of how it happened.
The shows also seem to think the viewers are too idiotic to notice over-used plot points. The now almost mandatory "twist" that the twin did it has been done half to death, but not only has the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation franchise used it at least once every season, they always draw it out like it's a huge twist. "The DNA matches!" "But the fingerprints don't/someone saw them somewhere else!" "How is this possible?" Typically after a commercial break, one of the characters will state matter-of-factly that it's twins, as though this is an obscure enough twist that viewers won't know what's going on and will hang around an entire commercial break for the dramatic reveal.
One episode had them explain why a dog would be drawn to someone who had rubbed their hands with bacon.
Like TOS above, Firefly's pilot "Serenity" was deemed too cerebral by Fox executives, who told Whedon and Minear to write a more action-oriented first episode, which became "The Train Job". That was the start of a long and satisfying relationship.
In Flash Forward, the audience was never trusted to remember even one of the characters' flashforwards. So every single time something happened that had to do with one, we were once again shown that flashforward, usually in its entirety.
This is probably more about allowing new viewers to drop into the show, than questioning the viewers' intelligence.
An unfortunate amount of this sort of thing is probably due to exactly that effect: not assuming that your existing viewers are stupid, but that any NEW viewers will be hopelessly lost if the entire situation isn't explained to them every episode. It's one of the reasons that networks are so reluctant to greenlight very arc-heavy shows.
A brief moment in Fringe, specifically the episode "August" has Astrid analyzing an Observer's notebook. She points out that there are thousands of symbols and not a single one repeats even once. Peter, who is supposed to have an IQ of 190, by the way, asks what that means, and Astrid has to explain that language is based on a limited number of repeating symbols. Thanks J.J. We'll figure out all this time travel/interdimensional/genetic engineering/mind melding nonsense ourselves, but please explain to us how the alphabet works.
Grant Morrison claims that a planned Invisibles TV series was cancelled because an executive thought no one could understand the concept of telepathy.
Heroes does this quite often, especially when the dubiously highly intelligent character Mohinder is involved. Complete with set-ups of characters asking questions to prompt the explanation.
Played with when Harry Hill appeared on Light Lunch as the presenter reluctantly gave the details to contact for a copy of the recipe Harry was cooking, which was Chops and Mash.
The scenes of LOST in which Daniel Faraday (or almost any character) explains time travel are slow-paced and overly pronounced with a head tilt and dramatic music ("we just don't know where we are - dum dum dum - in time!" for the millionth-time-over "explanation"). In a show where audiences are expected to believe an oft-parodied amount of wacky situations and plot lines, time travel must be thoroughly explained, lest the skeptics start wars on the internets. There's also the conversation between Miles and Hurley where Hurley seems unable to grasp that, despite the Stable Time Loop, since this isn't their past, they can still die.
The conversation was meant to parody the sort of arguments that often occur between Lost fans, and was not intended to be an explanation at all. Notably, both Hurley and Miles wind up being wrong, but in different ways.
Also, Nestor Carbonell (Richard Alpert) got a role in Cane, on opposing network CBS. They said he wouldn't be allowed for guest spots in Lost because viewers would be confused by him being in two shows. (Cane got the axe in just one season because of the writer's strike; Carbonell returned to Lost, and in season 6 was promoted to the main cast).
There's also the unnatural way that some characters talk when a long forgotten plot point or character is brought back as though the writers forgot that the first four seasons take place in an Extremely Short Timespan. For instance, in season 4 Michael returns and this is mentioned by Ben. Sawyer immediately says "the same Michael that killed two women and betrayed us?", when it's only been a couple of weeks in the show's timeline.
Viewers of “The McLaughlin Group” are advised of the next topic of discussion by a full-screen title card with accompanying music. Then there is a cutaway to a close-up of John McLaughlin, now with the topic super-imposed at the bottom. Then John, just to be sure we’re all on the same page, sonorously announces the topic that his panel will now discuss.
Monty Python's Flying Circus has a sketch all about this, where a TV executive suggests showing the last five miles of a highway; the show gets ridiculously high ratings. In the same sketch, the aforementioned executives decide to change the titles on old TV series to make them seem new (e.g. "I Married Lucy").
Played straight and subverted multiple times in NCIS. McGee, Ducky, or Abby will sometimes go off into technobabble while explaining what they have just found. Gibbs will either cut them off and demand the bottom line, or ask for a translation. Sometimes, they will cut themselves off.
Abby: The hair's missing a protein called — You know what, it doesn't matter what it's called, the important thing is it's not there.
It was called Navy NCIS(Navy Naval Criminal Investigative Service) in its first season because execs were worried that viewers would think it was part of the CSI franchise. Never mind that you'd have to assume that the "CIS" part stands for "Crime Investigation Scene". Never mind that the different number and order of the letters would actually be an easy way to indicate to someone who is only semi-literate that they aren't the same show. This was lampshaded by Tony early on when someone asked him if NCIS is like CSI - "only if you're dyslexic" - but even that's a stretch. More like "only if you don't know the alphabet and can't count to four".
An episode of NewsRadio involved the use of a polygraph. The executives didn't think the average person would know what a polygraph was, so they made the writers put something in that explained it. The writers got even though, because whenever someone mentions the polygraph, Dave chimes in that a polygraph is a lie detector. Whoever he was talking to always responds, "Dave, I'm not an idiot."
Although perhaps not considered such at the time, a tedious explanation of DNA and forensic science can be found in some episodes of Quincy.
Those damn locational tags in Robin Hood. Presumably, the show spent a lot of money on the software that had a shooting arrow flit across the screen and display a subtitle such as "Locksley" or "Sherwood" every time there was a change of scenery, because they use them all the time. Especially irritating is when they stated the obvious, such as "Nottingham Castle" swishing across whenever there's an establishing shot of the castle; or when Kate tells Robin that Isabella wants to meet him in the meadow: cut straight to the meadow which is helpfully subtitled: "The Meadow." Thanks, show.
In an episode of Seinfeld called "The Butter Shave", the same NBC executives who had previously offered Jerry a pilot now offered bad comedian Kenny Banya a chance at his own pilot since he does jokes (the viewers) don't have to think about too much.
This trope was also used in "The Comeback" when George explains to Elaine and Jerry that he will not dumb his joke down "For some boneheaded audience", which cues everyone in the diner to look at him.
Probably should be invoked by Smallville, if the message boards are any indication...
Fan 1: How did the Fortress get repaired? Brainiac infected it!
Fan 1: ...They should just say that instead of making the fans assume that.
Simultaneously used and subverted in Stargate SG-1. Super-scientist Carter would often pause to lecture in technobabble to O'Neill, the leader and least eggheaded member of the team, about fairly basic real-world scientific principles. Not only did this make sure that less-knowledgeable audience members wouldn't be completely lost, it also provided some amusement for sci-fi fans who are already familiar with this stuff, when O'Neill would cut off Carter and have her get to the point. To paraphrase a typical example:
Carter: First, sir, we dial the Stargate out to the world orbiting the black hole, then launch it towards the star from a minimum safe distance. When it comes close enough to the star's surface, it will begin siphoning off matter from the photosphere, imbalancing... O'Neill: Yes, yes, it'll suck away the sun's gas. Which will do what, exactly? Carter: Make the star go boom. O'Neill: Cool. That's what I needed to know.
Another example:
Carter: That might just excite the phase particles enough to bring them into our visible light spectrum. O'Neill: Carter? Carter: Sir, the invisibility field must operate- O'Neill: Are you about to tell me that you can make the invisible guy visi- Carter: Yes, sir. O'Neill: That's all I need.
This trope was also reverse lampshaded in the comedy episode 200, in which Marty proposes several ridiculous ideas for a Stargate movie that rip off other science-fiction shows. Mitchell tells him off:
Mitchell: Never underestimate your audience. They're generally sensitive, intelligent people who respond positively to quality entertainment. [beat]
Richard Dean Anderson (O'Neill) told us what he thought of this trope in one of the DVD featurettes:
"I remember hearing that you have to dumb down material to meet the audience, which I thought was one of the more offensive things I ever heard. That's ludicrous. I mean, give us all the benefit of the doubt, if nothing else, but certainly give us some credit for being intelligent beings."
When classic Star Trek was first getting started, its first proposed pilot was rejected by executives for this reason. Said executives seemed convinced that the intelligent writing of the original pilot; "The Cage," would have been impossible for viewers to understand, and that more action was needed to draw modern viewers in. There's no telling how things might have gone, had they not done this. Presumably, Jeffrey Hunter would have been the captain of the Enterprise, as opposed to Shatner.
Heavily lampshaded in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, partially as a Take That from Aaron Sorkin. Whether or not it was truly averted on the show, is somewhat debatable, as characters talk about how viewers aren't morons, but other parts of it consist of Sorkin preaching to the audience.
In Supernatural, "Weekend at Bobby's" uses this to a staggering extent. In the start Bobby threatens a demon that he'll burn a bag containing "hers", which she claims is a myth, but when he does burn it the demon is destroyed. The moderately awake will remember that ghosts can be killed by burning their bones and that demons are actually the spirits of the damned dead (a fact that is also made clear in the episode), so the bag must have contained her bones and the process works on demons. In the end Bobby threatens to burn Crowley's bones. Do you get it now? Well in case you didn't Crowley repeats the claim that it's a myth, while Bobby references the demon he destroyed at the beginning of the episode as evidence that it's not. In case you'd forgotten. Though it does at least make sense for him to bring it up again under the circumstances. But then the show proceeds to have a FLASHBACK to the starting scene, this time showing more clearly that the bag contained bones, and how the demon burned up when he destroyed them. Then Bobby specifically calls demons "ghosts with ego", just to make things absolutely clear. With all that, it's astonishing they didn't feel the need to remind everyone that ghosts can be destroyed by burning their bones. After all, it's only happened on the show about 30 times.
Supernatural generally has a bad case of this trope. As well as explaining the obvious, it isn't internally consistent and the writers seem to work on the assumption that nobody's going to think too hard about any of it. But there are other reasonsfor watching it, so it all works out fine in the end.
The creators of the highly speculativeWalking With Dinosaurs and its follow-ups faced many angry criticisms by people who feared the audience might think that the computer-animated dinosaurs in the program are real, and be "fooled" into believing that everything the Narrator says is a true, scientific fact. They replied that people aren't that dumb — they know that a lot of guesswork is involved. Sadly, many people did fall for everything, though the complementary books (which tried to justify the show's most shakiest of science) sure helped in this.
In an episode of The Weird Al Show, The Hooded Avenger mentions a bunch of impressing-sounding achievements he has, including a PhD. The network demanded that PhD be defined for kids who wouldn't understand the term (although they made no such requests for any of the other obscure/made up information), so Al explains it to Bobby...who replies with "Duh, I'm not an idiot."
In The Wild Wild West episode "The Night of the Golden Cobra," the Big Bad takes Jim, Artie and the daughter of Mr. Singh (Boris Karloff) to the cellar of Mr. S's palace under which is part of the huge expanse of oil that he wants, and in which he ends up drowning and says out loud "We are in the cellar of the palace." It's moments like this that make you understand Wonder Woman always using onscreen captions.
Amazingly averted at NBC during Sylvester L. Weaver, Jr.'s tenure as president there. Weaver believed so deeply that broadcasting should educate as well as entertain that he typically required NBC shows to include at least one sophisticated cultural reference or performance per installment. Unfortunately, this led to disputes with David Sarnoff, chairman of the board of NBC corporate parent RCA, as Sarnoff generally found Weaver's ideas to be either too expensive or too highbrow for company tastes.
Documentary shows often do this, because again, they don't know whether you're a twelve year old who has never taken a physics class before in their lives or a grad student getting their Ph.D in physics. For just one example.
Did you forget what show you're watching despite the fact that every newer cable box or digital TV displays the title and synopsis immediately after changing the channel? Not to worry, for many networks now display the program's name on-screen either coming out of break or for the entire episode. And now with Twitter, said plug is now in "#CamelCase" with a convenient hashtag ready to go for online discussion.
Every American Soap Opera known to man falls under this. Any time there is a mystery, the most obvious answer is nearly always the right one and horribly blatant clues are provided to the audience to spell it out. Despite this, it doesn't stop some hardcore fans from theorizing all sorts of possibilities that make much better sense than what ends up being revealed later on, in an often quite disappointing way. This happens quite often especially on the CBS series The Young And The Restless, and The Bold And The Beautiful.
Many game shows (e.g., Survivor) explain the rules of the game repeatedly to players and viewers alike as if hosts don't know which people have never seen the show before yet are playing regardless or in case someone just randomly tuned in to find the game show on and they've never seen it before.
Justifiable in some games like The Price Is Right or Survivor where they play different challenges each game, especially if it's a new challenge or game that was added to the game.
British MP Ann Widdecombe called the presenter on ITV's The Chase out on this. When the host said he had to explain the rules again for people who'd forgotten them, she did so for him, quickly, simply and precisely so she could get back on with the game.
In Numb3rs, it may be true that there are cases where really sophisticated math are used in the show. "Self Organized Criticality" and "Cake Cutting Algorithm" are some major examples and most people would require analogies to understand them. But the analogies don't stop there. The producers pretty much use analogies for everything that would even be common sense. Even a simple task such as trial and error.
Music
Keith Moon turned down an offer to form a band with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, saying an idea like that would go over like a "lead zeppelin." Page & Plant thought that sounded like A Good Name for a Rock Band, but decided to deliberately misspell it as "Led Zeppelin" because they assumed people would mispronounce it as "Leed" (as in "zeppelin that leads").*
To be fair, many people still make that mistake.
Newspaper Comics
In Calvin And Hobbes, a raccoon was replaced with a rabbit for British readers, who apparently have no knowledge of what a raccoon is, nor the ability to look it up or infer it from context.
Gary Larson, regarding why he changed the caption of a Far Side cartoon from his first idea: "Of course, almost everyone knows that "ungulate" is the collective term for hoofed mammal, but then why risk confusion among a handful of illiterates?"
Larson also reports, in "The Prehistory of the Far Side," that an editor once encouraged him to change a caption reading "Auntie Em! Auntie Em! There's no place like home!" for fear that readers would not recognize the reference to The Wizard of Oz.
Played for laughs in Liberty Meadows, when the genius inventor Ralph tries to explain to the idiot Leslie how his holographic machine works. Leslie asks him "could you dumb that down?" When Ralph tries to explain it in simpler terms, Leslie asks him "could you dumb that down a little more?" Ralph ends by saying "It lets you see things".
Surprisingly averted in the first Golden Sun game, there's a town where everyone has been turned into a tree, you can even walk around and read the tree's minds but there's no cut-scenes nor any dialogue along the lines of "seems like everyone in the town was turned into a tree", you have to go and beat the crap out of an angry tree, after doing so the characters demand him to turn the people back to normal.
In Half-Life 2: Episode Two, we get this piece◊ of developer commentary that basically says Valve had play testers who literally walked in circles for over 30 minutes because they didn't know they were going in circles. Because of it, Valve now makes their games have more broader visuals that cues the player on where they need to go next. This is more apparent in the Left 4 Dead series where there are literally arrows telling you where you need to go, even though Left 4 Dead is a strictly linear game.
The infamous CD-i game Hotel Mario regularly assumes that the people playing the game have no clue about how to play. This includes Breaking the Fourth Wall to tell the player to read the instruction book, or asking them if they "get the hint" when the pre-level cutscenes hint toward the level's gimmick.
The Mega Man X series is notorious for "navigator" characters stopping the action to tell you things you should already know through common sense. Like "spikes are bad for you, don't touch them." The Mega Man Battle Network games get bonus points for their forced tutorials.
A lot of Samus' dialogue in Metroid: Other M is her blatantly describing how she's feeling at the moment, rather than letting the audience infer that for themselves. Granted, Samus being a bit of a blank slate was something the game was meant to change, but this makes her feel less a full character and more a parrot.
Many gamers accuse Nintendo of treating them like idiots due to Nintendo's encouragement of using the Wii Remote Jacket, a silicone shell that cushions the remote from impact. The jacket is Nintendo's protection ever since a handful of people broke their TVs or other items by not wearing the wrist strap and letting go of the controller or swinging so hard that the strap snaps. Some of these people even tried to sue Nintendo. These people are known in the gaming community as "wiitards".
Many people think that this is Nintendo's problem generally, with one journalistic outlet noting their need to spend a total of four hours explaining why the Wii U is revolutionary.
The Ōkami hinting system, not content with considering the players as pre-schoolers and telling you exactly what to do the instant you're faced with a puzzle, will also repeat it a few times while you're "solving" it, interrupting you in the process.
In the game Petz: Catz/Dogz 2, the characters often feel the need to tell you how to get to a place you've been to a billion times already - the very first place you can explore is Dolphin Coast, and yet right before the final boss you'll still get characters telling you "To get to Dolphin Coast, take the path on the right closest to the ocean...."
Especially obvious in the Pokémon games. If you're on Generation III, don't assume players don't know how to battle! Both the original games and Diamond and Pearl have the noticeable issue of being able to catch Pokémon before the catching tutorial.
Also, did you know that it's still hailing? Because I don't think you could guess that, even though the game hasn't told you that it stopped, and you're still taking damage. Fortunately, Pokemon Black And White indicate the weather status on the side of the screen instead of directly pointing it out every turn. Combined with the faster rate at which the HP bar increases and decreases, this makes battles in Generation V less sluggish.
Then there's the Gym advisor and type specialists who constantly like to remind you of their weaknesses. You don't have to talk to the gym advisor, and it's only from Generation IV onward where you can figure out a type's weaknesses and resistances from within the game. And then, you still have to use the Pokédex to figure out what types are what.
As for the Forced Tutorial aspect, your mom in Generation II will ask you if you know how to use the Pokégear and then explain it regardless of how you answer. The Gen IV remakes fixed this.
Joked about in Super Paper Mario, where an NPC in Flipside will, as he put it, "completely blow your mind" with completely basic knowledge like "press this button to jump!" about four or five chapters into the game. On the reverse, his equal in Flopside will tell you somewhat obscure tips about quirks in the controls that you actually may not have realized yet, and then says "Aw but you probably already knew that. I'll just be quiet."
Wii Sports Resort forces the first person to play to sit through a 3 minute unskippable instructional video on how to attach and detach the Wii Motion Plus, and forces you to watch the video again if you haven't played in a while.
That used to be the case; since then, there was a Wii update that removed the need to watch the above video more than once.
Based on some blue posts from the World of Warcraft forums, it seems that the developers think this trope is true. After months of several specs (such as Fire Mages, Beast Mastery/Survival Hunters and Destruction Warlocks) languishing far behind their other specs, Blizzard finally announced some buffs for patch 4.3, which ended up being rather simple number boosts with very little mechanics changes. When asked why it took so long for such simple changes, the devs replied with something along the lines of "if we accidentally make one of the weaker specs too strong, players might feel like they have to switch specs and they'll have to learn new rotations and whatnot and we don't want to confuse them". This outraged players of those specs who felt that that wasn't a valid reason for their favorite specs to be uncompetitive for half of Cataclysm. The "we don't want to add this change because it might confuse players" response has been used several times after that as well, with the same reaction from most players.
Partly justified by the large numbers of posts inquiring (or ranting) about things that veterans regard as common knowledge. This tends to happen for most games with a large enough playerbase.
Zelda is very very concerned over the player having forgotten the sudden plot twist or their next targeted location...about 30 seconds after hearing it. And they repeat it about two or three times, just to make sure you don't forget again. Thanks Navi.
To be fair this can vary. Ocarina of Time gets a lot of bad press for doing this but in reality the game doesn't try to hold your hand as much as you'd think.
Taken even further in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword with Fi. She would beep on EVERYTHING, right down to telling you your health is low and how to replenish it.
Despite the fact that Nintendo have yet to remove the signature beeping that occurs when your health gets too low.
Every video game manual tells you how you should insert the cartridge or disc into the console. Every... single... flippin'... one. Even with T and M-rated games. (you'd think that a teenager or adult would know how to insert a disc or cartridge) Some manuals even tell you that you shouldn't insert heart or star-shaped discs into the console. There are no such thing as heart or star-shaped discs.
One of the more blatant examples coming from Rockman Xover. The main game's mechanic are extremely simple - one button jumps, the other fires your weapon, and there are card-collecting and RPG Elements. That's it. The game still makes you sit through a Forced Tutorial.
Given how game companies are trying their best to kill the used game market, the hypothesis that they would have spent development resources on tutorials in order to satisfy the needs of people who buy used games is extremely dubious.
This was even lampshaded by Testzero in the special edition of the game The Theater in which he found it rather surprising that a tester resorted to Trial and Error to get past an obstacle because he didn't realize that the previous room was giving him a clue. Also lampshaded from the players' point of view was when Yahtzee said that all puzzles in adventure games tend to seem rather illogical if the player is not on the same train of thought of the developers. If you don't want to be listed on the Guide Dang It page, assume your viewers are idiots.
Every Forced Tutorial becomes a Justified Tutorial when you consider the large number of people out there who think manuals are for sissies (or got a copy that did not come with a manual), would skip the tutorial if given the option, would skip all cutscenes if given the option, and then complain that they don't know what's going on, where to go next, or how to play the game.
There are games nowadays that feel they have to explain what auto-saves are and how they work every time the player starts the game. Admittedly, most of these are more along the lines of "You'll probably screw something up if you shut down during an auto-save" rather than "YOU DON'T HAVE TO BEAT THIS GAME IN ONE SITTING! REVOLUTIONARY!"
Often times, while xkcd emphasizes Viewers Are Geniuses, it feels the need to explain the mathematic/scientific/programming joke to the audience, paradoxically creating a scenario where it can be an example of both tropes.
Arguably justified, since XKCD features a lot of jokes which are completely opaque even to very bright people, if they're not an expert in certain fields like higher math. Its creator notably tends to err on the side of fewer explanations.
Luke Mochrie discussed this trope a bit in his Oscar Retrospective, suggesting that this is what the producers behind the Oscars believe, hence the extreme dumbing down and almost schizophrenic nature the Oscars of the past few years have taken.
ThisSurviving the World lesson defends this trope, or at least one very much like it.
Parodied in an episode of Family Guy; Peter rebuts the argument that British men are charming by saying "That's what they said about Benjamin Disraeli." Cut to Disraeli writing at his desk, then looking straight into the camera and saying "You don't even know who I am!"
Parodied in Futurama in which an evil A.I. residing inside a laptop computer and three "execubots" are in charge of a television network, and describe their functions: one rolls the dice on what types of TV shows will be popular, one is programmed to like things he has seen before, and the last is programmed to underestimate Middle America.
In the episode "When Aliens Attack", Fry objects to the plot twist about Single-Female Lawyer (Leela) getting married with this line: "But that's not why people watch TV! Clever things make them feel stupid and unexpected things make them feel scared."
Considering Futurama is by the same crew as The Simpsons, a Lowest Common Denominator example might be involved: during the early seasons of The Simpsons, a network survey on viewers showed they didn't watch the show because of the characters or the clever jokes, but because they liked the bright colors and Homer constantly getting injured.
Disney Channel aired a commercial for the Gravity Falls website during a commercial break of Gravity Falls. At one point in it, a subtitle is shown and it says "Watch Gravity Falls on Disney Channel". Y'know, the same show that is technically on and the exact same network that's showing it.
Most website ads for Disney Channel shows from the past half-decade have the same issue.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "The Return Of Harmony", Discord says out his riddle in that the Mane six were to retrieve the Elements by finding them back where they began. It sounds completely hollow for Twilight Sparkle and she straight out guesses that the Elements were in the maze, which involves what she thought were "twists and turns". By the time the second part of the episode rolls, all of her friends were broken and brainwashed. In a perfectly unnecessary bit of audience hand-holding, especially for those who had remembered watching the pilot episode, this episode repeats Discord's riddle in flashback, completely spoiling the moment.
The Peanuts holiday specials almost didn't have their now-famous jazz themes. Executive Meddling tried to nix them and/or have them recomposed in a different style, on the grounds that "kids don't get jazz".
The Spectacular Spider-Man had Green Goblin mention that he had possession of a "portable flash drive". In fact, this seems to be a common habit of any TV character whenever a flash drive is mentioned, even when they should know the person they're talking to has more than a passing familiarity with computers.
Handy: Even now, he [The Tick] sulks like Achilles in His Tent. (everyone stares blankly at him) Handy: Achilles?...The Iliad?...It's Homer?... (close-up on Handy) Handy: READ A BOOK!
Followed up with a double-subversion in "Grandpa wore Tights"
(The Visual Eye attempts his signature attack "rocket from the sockets", i.e. shooting his eyeballs out into the air, but they simply drop unceremoniously to the floor.) Handy: Well, THAT was an Oedipal moment. (everyone stares warily at him) Handy:Oedipus Rex?...The play by Sophocles?... (everyone continues to stare warily...) Handy: He gets his eyes plucked out at the end?... (everyone gives him a look of mild exasperation) Handy: (indignantly) READ A BOOK!
Subverted in an episode of The Transformers, "Autobot Spike", where Spike comments on Autobot X being a "real metal Frankenstein" and is asked by Bumblebee about what Frankenstein is; Spike then goes on to say it would take too long to explain. However, Wheeljack patches Teletraan into a TV station to make Spike feel better, and the first thing Spike sees is an old Frankenstein movie. Plus, Spike refers to Autobot X, and later himself as Autobot Spike, as a Frankenstein monster several times, to the point where it becomes laboured.
Cartoon Network's ill-fated "Tickle U" block of programming for preschoolers featured a ticker at the bottom of the screen with messages targeted at moms, thus simultaneously discounting the idea of anyone in the target audience being able to read and the possibility of stay-at-home fathers.
The vast majority of kids' cartoons have an annoying habit of having a character always read any onscreen text out-loud. Because God forbid kids should have to do any reading.
This was lampshaded on Sheep in the Big City. Since the creators couldn't get Cartoon Network to drop their request for all onscreen text to be read aloud, they introduced a character, a goofy little man known as "the man who likes to read things out loud." Whenever there's a sign or some text, he shows up out of nowhere, reads it out loud, then remarks about how much he enjoys doing that.
This is also played with in an episode of the Saturday morningBeetlejuice series. A group of other characters are attempting to get Beetlejuice to say a particular phrase out loud, one of whom flies a airplane overhead with a banner displaying the phrase. Beetlejuice looks up at the banner for a few seconds, then turns to the viewer and says that fortunately he knows how to read without doing so aloud.
Real Life — Software
Discussed in the computer interaction design book About Face. Developers of software only interact with people who know their software much better than any typical user would. Salespeople selling software only interact with people who are just getting their first look at the software they're selling and so naturally aren't very good with it. This sets up the fundamental conflict in software developing businesses where the developers continuously overestimate the skill of the users, salespeople continuously underestimate it, and no one pays attention to the bulk of software users who have middling proficiency.
The Adobe Software Downloader asks if you are a Novice, Intermediate, or Advanced user when download a program. Choosing any of the options displays a link to an article explaining what the program they are downloading is and what it's for.
The entire Apple UI and design is this, along with Viewers Are Goldfish, and is now starting to creep into most other platforms - the whole "unified look and feel" is just a nice way to say it. As a developer you are essentially told that users are idiots who can't be bothered to find a directory with their stuff in it and aren't capable of changing settings. Even the API itself assumes that you as a programmer don't know what you want/are too stupid to do it right, and instead are only allowed to do it their way.
In the mid-90's, computer makers tried to make everything simple by overlaying the ordinary menus with a 'living room', look such as Packard Bell's "Navigator" and Microsoft's "Bob". Once everyone and realized it was dumb to click on a bunch of 'rooms' to get to the 'stereo room' to listen to a CD when you could just click the 'CD player' icon, it was never used again. Eventually better tutorial guides such as the "...for Dummies" series came out, along with computer classes and kids who used Windows and Mac at school everyday and found it no sweat to use and taught their parents how to use it, and the 'living room' interface died a slow death as it became known as useless "crapware".
You just installed Windows on a new machine and don't have a disc burnt for Firefox or Chrome, so you go through IE to download it. Prepare to get a bunch of bits like "Information you post online may be viewed by others".
Real Life — Sports
The after-championship game interview with the losing team, where they've been lucky so far in 90 years of broadcasting that the manager or coach hasn't answered the always-asked "How do you feel?" question with an FCC-record profane tirade and/or televised murder of said questioner.
Any time an announcer says that "Team X has scored 24 unanswered points against Team Y", when the score is 24-0. It's pretty obvious they haven't answered back with points, folks.
Other times, though, they mean the team has scored 24 points since the other team last scored. For example, Team Y may have scored 12 points to start the game, and Team X scores 24 unanwsered points to make it 24-12.
In the 2010 Winter Olympics coverage on NBC, nearly every distance was stated by the announcers in units of "football field," presuming that the audience wouldn't understand "meter" or even "yard."
Since NFL broadcasters gained the ability to insert graphics into live footage, they superimpose information such as the clock, score, direction of travel, possession, teams playing, and more directly onto the field.
The NFL's need to remind viewers of opening week and holiday games, like we didn't know it was Thanksgiving already.
Scooter the Baseball and Digger the Gopher. They were designed to explain the sport they were promoting (baseball and NASCAR respectively) in a fun animated style to kids. All of the hardcore fans of each sport wanted their various corpses burned at the stake as unneeded gimmicks.
Chris Collinsworth and John Madden bleed this trope. "The team that has more points is in a better position to win the game." No shit, Sherlock.
Real Life — Other
In the early days of Blu-ray, Disney provided collectors with a simple way of telling the discs apart from DVDs: the latter discs were decorated with simply the characters and/or a background, but the Blu-Ray labels also devoted half to a blue pattern. They later became even easier to tell apart when Disney decided to cut costs by giving DVDs simple gray labels. A while after that, Disney decided to help whoever still accidentally put the wrong discs in their players by writing the words "Disney DVD" or "Disney Blu-Ray" in a font larger than that of the main feature's title. Even movies and shows released only in one of those formats get labels like this.
An oft-repeated (though possibly apocryphal) story has Aldai Stevenson being told by a female supporter during one of his 1950s Presidential campaigns that he would "have the vote of every thinking person" in the country. Stevenson's alleged response: "That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!"
News tabloids in the UK will use words like 'Scientists' or 'Boffins' instead of the person's actual profession if they are reporting on some (probably fake) scientific discovery that probably never happened.
On November 9, 2011, the United States performed a test of the entire Emergency Alert System — every radio and TV station at once. However, out of concern that someone might actually think there was a real emergency despite the traditional "this is a test" announcement, the government saw to it that the airwaves were saturated for several days in advance with news stories and Public Service Announcements in an attempt to warn the braindead and the easily-panicked that nothing bad was actually happening. And in order to give them less time to panic, the test was reduced to 30 seconds in length from the three minutes that had been originally planned.
Tech Support personnel often speak to callers as if they don't know a mouse from a speaker. The idea being to provide support for the least technically oriented possible customer. This of course can be exceedingly frustrating for someone who is technically proficient and needs help rather than someone reading down a checklist.
Then again, sometimes it is completely justified. Some may say that this was less audience stupidity and more awesome writing combined with a unlucky case of people coming in halfway through the show. Although there was an outcry over the show causing a panic, the panic itself was a hoax. The later coverage relied on readers believing this trope, added with New Media Are Evil.
This article on local British councils banning of Latin terms. "A Campaign spokesman said the ban might stop people confusing the Latin abbreviation e.g. with the word 'egg'." This is the last line in the article. Just to drive the point home. What's worse, another article on the same topic had someone complaining that elitists only used Latin terms to bolster their own...ego.
This is actually a good thing when writing product instructions. Simplification for the hypothetical 'moron' translates to time savings for the better educated and the geniuses, if the latter don't ignore the instructions altogether because they already know how to use the device.
This is what Murphy's Law was originally about about: if there is a right way and wrong way to do something, someone will do it the wrong way. An ideal product would allow no wrong way of operation.
TV news broadcasts are famous for oversimplifying things. This is especially true on local newscasts and certain cable news channels.
If something happened 58 or 62 years ago, expect to be told that it happened "about 60 years ago." That extra little bit of precision is too much for most of us to handle. Case in point: The Nicean council was held in 325, but a teacher insisted on the term "c. 300" because the actual year was "too difficult to remember" for an average eighteen year old college student...
Have you ever noticed that when TV reporters mention fractions, they rarely mention anything other than halves and quarters? Our brains are just too underdeveloped to understand thirds or eighths.
Fox News Channel takes it to a whole new level. Gretchen Carlson won Miss America '89 by playing a goddamn classical violin solo, graduated from Standford University with honors, and studied at Oxford University ("Not the Mississippi one," says Jon Stewart, "the European one.") and yet, despite all that, she has to google the word "czar". Her expert analysis? "It means king."
Probably why YouTube is "re-introducing" bulletins, which is basically the Recent Activity text box, which originally was a replacement for bulletins. Now there are two places on the same page to send bulletins.
At one point in time, they may have thought that average users (the kind who don't upload any videos and only write comments) didn't realize they had a channel, so they decided that it would be a good idea to make it so that, at some point when you posted a comment, a message would pop up asking you "Did you know you have your own YouTube channel?" along with a brief description. Not only would this have been entirely useless to anyone who doesn't upload videos, but this would show up regardless if you used your channel regularly or not. This meant everyone, from minor users to big-time channels, would get this message at some point when they posted a comment, even if you knew it very well since the site began.
