Basic Trope: Pay attention in class, especially science class, because you will need the information later in the episode.
- Straight: Talking mongooses attack the city of Genericville. Fortunately, just this morning Bob had a class about defeating talking mongooses.
- Exaggerated: Galactic Conqueror Emperor Evulz attacks the city of Genericville. Fortunately, just this morning Bob had a class about defeating a Galactic Conqueror.
- Downplayed: Bob attends a class on basic military strategy in the morning, just before the talking mongoose attack. It didn't explain specific tactics for that situation, but was still useful.
- Justified:
- Talking mongooses are really dangerous and attack often, especially in the current season; of course there will be a lecture about defeating them.
- The professors can see the future, and only give lectures about dealing with attacks that will come later that day.
- Inverted: Bob defeats talking mongooses through sheer ingenuity, because there is no book about defeating talking mongooses. The next day he gives a lecture about dealing with those funny and vicious animals.
- Subverted: Bob tries to use the information he learned in the lecture to defeat the talking mongooses, but it doesn't work.
- Double Subverted: ...because Bob didn't pay enough attention in the class. An Aesop!
- Parodied: The professor of Talking Animal Attacks 101 is a complete and total loony, suggesting the use of duct tape engineering to defeat talking mongooses. His methods, and only his methods, work.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob is using the knowledge he learned earlier in class to defeat the talking mongoose. The teacher shows up and tells Bob he is doing it all wrong; he was merely daydreaming in class and thought up a completely different way to defeat the monster which wouldn't work. Fortunately, he's not fighting a real talking mongoose, but rather an evil alien disguised as one, and his daydream was a vision granted by a good alien on how to defeat his current foe. Will Bob make the right decision and trust his daydream over the teacher's word?
- Averted:
- Bob isn't in education in any sense.
- Bob's area of study is unrelated to fighting evil, and none of the information helps him in this regard.
- Enforced: This trope is a somewhat Anvilicious way about delivering the Aesop of listening to your teachers.
- Lampshaded: "Hey look! A vicious talking mongoose! It looks exactly like the one in Professor Clayton's class this morning!"
- Invoked: Bob forces himself to stay awake during Professor Clayton's extremely boring lectures. It can save his life!
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz kills Professor Clayton and burns all his books, leaving Bob and company in the blind.
- Defied: Bob, who didn't listen a bit to the professor's lecture, defeats the talking mongoose with sheer ingenuity.
- Discussed: "A lecture on talking mongooses? Something like this better prove useful. A convenient talking mongoose attack, perhaps?"
- Conversed: "...Does this guy learn anything in class that doesn't help him fight crime later in the episode? I wish my professors would give such useful lectures."
- Deconstructed: Bob becomes dependent on the professors' lecture to defeat the Monster of the Week, and is unable to come up with any solutions of his own.
- Reconstructed:
- Well, if the Monster of the Week somehow wasn't in today's class, there is always the liberal application of good old violence.
- The professors don't teach a specific procedure for neutralising a specific threat; they teach Bob how to think outside the box when he is confronted with something unexpected.
Stay a while and listen before you go back to Chekhov's Classroom. My knowledge can save your life!
