Waking Non Sequitur - Television Tropes & Idioms

Alice is in a coma, is sleeping or is otherwise unconscious. Upon waking, a non sequitur bursts from her lips.

Compare Talking In Your Sleep and Noodle Implements (when the outburst is implied to relate to a dream). The inverse is Non Sequitur Thud, where a character says something random just before going down for the count.

Can overlap with Un Paused. Not to be confused with a Walking Non Sequitur who just talks like this all the time.

Examples:

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Anime/Manga

In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: The Pyramid of Light, after Yugi wakes up from some kind of magical attack-induced Mushroom Samba, he asks Tea to "read me the story about the bunny".

Comics

When Stephanie Brown, the third Batgirl, is woken up by her mom when she oversleeps her first words are "...Kill you Abraham Lincoln..."

Fanfiction

Subverted in Hogyoku Ex Machina; Unohana thinks this is happening when Ichigo wakes up after a two day coma and, when asked about his previous fight, answers with "Aizen… turned into a butterfly." Zangetsu has to inform her that it actually happened.

Film

In A Goofy Movie, Goofy wakes up and asks Max "How many cups of sugar does it take to get to the moon?" Max answers "Three and a half...?", to which Goofy responds by falling asleep again.
In Star Trek IV, as they're bringing Chekov out of unconsciousness, Bones asks him his name and rank to see if he's all there. Slightly unfocused, he gives them "Pavel Chekov" as his name, then gets a big grin on his face and says, "Rank: Admiral..."
Bananas - as Woody Allen is roused after being knocked out, he's moaning "...no more Polish women!"
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban had this little gem...
Ron: (suddenly sits up awake in bed) Spiders... want me to tap-dance... I don't wanna tap-dance.
Harry: (deadpans) You tell those spiders, Ron.
Ron: Okay. (passes out)
Finding Nemo - After the incident with the sharks, Dory wakes up screaming "Look out! Sharks eat fish!"
- Dory is good with these. She also has "Zzz... the sea monkeys have my money... Mmm... yes, I'm a natural blue..."
Twice Upon a Time - Would-be actress Flora, after being knocked out during her "rescue" by Rod Rescueman, mutters "What's my next line?" as she regains consciousness in Rod's bachelor pad.
In Hot To Trot, when Bobcat Goldthwait is being woken up, he mumbles, "I don't wanna go to school..."
Beans in Rango tends to freeze up at random (it's a survival trait for her species, but "her switch is broken"). When she recovers... no one is sure what was going through her mind while she was frozen, but it was probably interesting.
Bandits has Billy Bob Thornton's character waking up shouting "Beavers and ducks!".

Literature

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has Mundungus Fletcher falling asleep during a meeting. After the meeting is over, he then wakes up, "Nhh... Are we voting? I 'gree with Sirius!"
- The first book has another example: When Hagrid comes to the hut on the rock to pick up Harry, he announces his presence with loud knocks. Dudley is startled awake. "Where's the cannon?"
Word Smart Junior has one scene where Barnaby, waking from a nightmare about his parents forcing him to take ballet lessons, starts muttering incoherently:
"Tights. Tight-fisted fish in a peddle of pickles. I said don't to be glimming my tulip, pilgrim. No and no again! Time to pay the spleen!"
In Going Postal, Moist von Lipwig has a crazy dream about "bottled wizards, all shouting his name", and shouts "Some of them were covered in jam!" as he's awakened by Mr. Pump. It Makes Sense in Context.
Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex has Foaly waking up after Holly knocked him out saying, "Not the stripy ones! They're just little babies." As soon as he realizes he's awake he asks Artemis if he said that out loud.
In the Lord Peter Wimsey novel Clouds of Witness, Parker falls asleep in front of the fireplace while waiting for Wimsey. As Wimsey enters, Parker wakes up and says: "The glass-blower's cat is bompstaple". In the dream that Parker just had, this is the solution to the mystery. Awake, he can't even remember what "bompstaple" meant.
In book 7 of Ranger's Apprentice, Will wakes up after nearly dying of thirst to find Umar bent over him, pouring water down is throat. Struck by the man's physical appearance, all he can say is, "...That's a big nose."

Newspaper Comics

In Peanuts, whenever Peppermint Patty is sleeping in class, she often wakes up shouting something like "I'm awake, I'm awake! The answer's twelve!"

Live Action TV

Alan Partridge usually says something odd when waking up from his...well, just watch the show.
In an early episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow has been sleeping over an open book and suddenly bolts upright, crying, "Don't warn the tadpoles!" When Giles expresses surprise, she sheepishly admits, "I... I have a frog fear."
- Another example: Buffy wakes up Spike and he mutters, "I'm drowning in footwear!"
During the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election, correspondents at The Daily Show were working around the clock to keep up with what was going on. Stephen Colbert, caught napping at the desk: "If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there'd be no work for tinkers!"
Played straight in the second season of Sea Patrol. During the course of her duties, the XO of HMAS Hammersley was surreptitiously dosed with Rohypnol by a fisherman/murderer. After Hammersley saves the day, the Captain came down to her cabin to check on her condition; she didn't wake up when he arrived, and he was greeted with "I don't believe in pre-marital soy sauce!"
A running gag on Mystery Science Theater 3000 featured a riffer shouting "Football practice!" when someone wakes up abruptly.
In an episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon was woken up in the middle of the night and immediately yelled "DANGER! DANGER!" Clip here.
- From another episode:
  Leonard Hofstadter: Sheldon, can I talk to you for a minute?
  Sheldon Cooper: [waking up] I want another cookie, Meemaw.
  Leonard Hofstadter: It's just me.
  Sheldon Cooper: But Meemaw was just making cookies.
In an episode of MASH, Radar tried to wake up Klinger, who muttered, "Ma, I don't wanna go to school today, I've got a headache." Radar identified himself, to which Klinger replied, "Radar, I don't wanna go to school today!"
The Jack Benny Program: Jack asks Rochester a question (while Rochester is driving), and Rochester is startled awake and yells, "Put the coffee on honey!".
For a while, Everybody Loves Raymond had this as a Running Gag, with Raymond being woken and blurting out things like "There's pudding everywhere!" or "It's all squishy!"
Once on White Collar, Mozzie woke up saying, "Let me see your warrant!"
In The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin Uncle Jimmy, who had previously been complaining about the shortcomings of public transport on the island of Malta, is awakened from a doze and shouts: "Well, why don't you have Red Rover tickets*
a ticket allowing unlimited travel on London buses and tubes for a single day
, you Maltese fool?" It was made worse because he was in church at the time. At a funeral service.
In one episode of Boy Meets World, Cory says "No clown! No!" when Shawn wakes him up from a nap. This joke was later reused in another episode several seasons later when Topanga wakes up Shawn.
In Better Off Ted, Dr. Bhamba wakes up and shouts "Crocodiles!" Though we do get an explanation...
"I was having a dream, and all I remember was a curious lack of crocodiles, so I began calling out for them."
In an episode of Criminal Minds, Reid wakes up after being poisoned by anthrax and nearly dying and asks Morgan, "Are you eating jello?"

Video Games

Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando - Clank's being held captive and tortured by the Thief. When Ratchet rescues him Clank's saying "The last digit of Pi is..."

Web Original

On Homestar Runner, in "Halloween Potion-Ma-Jig", Homestar awakens a half-buried, unconscious Strong Sad, who mumbles "mineral water... wha?" as he awakens. Similiarly, whenever Strong Bad is awoken from sleep (usually by Strong Sad), he will mutter the names of video games.
- While not entirely proven to be true, Homsar may have suffered from this permanently. In his first appearance (made by a misspelling of "Homestar"), Strong Bad drops a Heavy Lourde on him. His only line before that is "What is it Strong Bad?", a simple greeting that makes perfect sense in context. When TBC decided to bring him back as a source of comic relief, everything he's said after the Heavy Lourde incident makes little to no sense at all.
Atop the Fourth Wall: After Missingno suicides the now-unpossessed 90s Kid is heard singing the theme song to Care Bears.
- When Linkara revives after being rescued from Lord Vyce, he groggily mutters that he doesn't want to buy Tandy Computer products.

Webcomics

The Order of the Stick: When Redcloak hits Hinjo with Disintegrate, it's enough to knock him out but not kill him. When he's healed, he wakes up mumbling, "I'm sorry, Uncle, I'll never take a drink from your private stash again..."

Western Animation

The waking up version appears in the pilot episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender as the title character's first line: "I need to ask you something...will you go penguin sledding with me?" He gets to do it not long after, but at the time there was no reason to say it.
On The Simpsons, Grandpa is startled out of a nap and exclaims "French toast, please!"
- Bart, in a Treehouse of Horror Episode, shouted "COWA" just before knocking himself into a coma. After a Catapult Wake-up,
  ''BUNGA!
On The Powerpuff Girls, The Mayor is startled awake and shouts, "My life is a lie!"
In an episode of Rugrats, Tommy and Angelica wake up a sleeping old man at a retirement center by throwing water in his face. As he awakens, he shouts "Don't dive yet, admiral, I'm still on deck!" He then takes one look at Tommy and Angelica and adds "Hey, you're not the admiral."
Patrick is fond to this saying things like "FINLAND!" or "Hot Chicken Wings."
Phineas and Ferb: In "The Secret of Success", Candace awakens her friend Stacy, who's nodded off at a leadership seminar, and Stacy says "Guh... it's not my ferret!"
American Dad: "Aah! Seagulls!"
In the Looney Tunes Falling Hare, Bugs gets clobbered by the Gremlin.
Gremlin: What's the matter, bunny rabbit? Speak to me! Why don't you say something?!
Bugs: (childish voice) I'm only thwee and a half years old!

Real Life

Very much Truth in Television. In the time between being asleep and fully awake, the line between dreams and reality can be blurred, causing you to try and continue a conversation with someone present in the dream.
When Mel Blanc was in a coma the doctors tried everything they could to bring him out of it, eventually one of them says "Paging Mr. Bugs Bunny, are you there?" and he responds "I'm right here, doc!" in Bugs' voice.

Wake Up Make Up

Sleep And Wakefulness Tropes

Walk Like an Egyptian