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Film — Animated
Alice: That was a very sad story.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Eh, and there's a moral to it.
Alice: Oh, yes, a very good moral! If you happen to be an oyster.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Eh, and there's a moral to it.
Alice: Oh, yes, a very good moral! If you happen to be an oyster.
— Alice in Wonderland, responding to "The Walrus and the Carpenter"
Live-Action TV
Michael: I want the guy with the one arm and the fake blood. J. Walter Weatherman. How do I get ahold of him?
George, Sr.: Oh, he's, uh, dead. You killed him when you left the door open with the air conditioner running.
George, Sr.: Oh, he's, uh, dead. You killed him when you left the door open with the air conditioner running.
"Their burgers will kill you! They're full of wasps!"
— April, Parks and Recreation, "Two Parties"
"I think I learned a valuable lesson. Always take down your Christmas decorations after New Year's or you get filleted by a hooker from God."
— Dean, Supernatural, "Houses of the Holy"
Video Games
"A wise dragon once told me, 'Aim high in life, but watch out for flying boxes.'"
— Revilo, Spyro the Dragon (1998)
Webcomics
"Well, Mario, did we learn some kind of horribly unlikely to occur lesson today?"
— Luigi, Mario Adventures
Bob: Hmmm, there's a lesson in all this.
Eglamore: Okay, let's hear it.
Bob: Never let sixty angry kids use a herd of Laser Cows to take over your house.
Eglamore: Okay, let's hear it.
Bob: Never let sixty angry kids use a herd of Laser Cows to take over your house.
Aphrodite: The mortal has learned his lesson, release him.
Zeus: What lesson? He's fucking a rock.
Aphrodite: That's a great lesson if you're attracted to rocks.
Zeus: What lesson? He's fucking a rock.
Aphrodite: That's a great lesson if you're attracted to rocks.
— Oglaf, "Sisyphus"
Web Originals
If You Give the Federal Government Too Much Power, Ghosts!
This is a hard subject to tackle, because technically I should not be dismissing the show for having the courage to make a statement at all about such inflammatory subjects, but by the very nature of the show they can only make vague allusions.
"Cool kids don't desecrate burial sites for starship fuel. Knowing is half the battle. I'm Chakotay, thanks for watching."
And now, they actually have the gall to frame this stupidity as a Tom Paris self-discovery character moment. We actually return to that theme of Paris wanting to prove himself, like anybody could possibly be taking this seriously after seeing giant human salamanders.
BUCKLE UP: It's The Law And Also Two-Face Will Kill You.
— Andy Khouri on The Dark Knight
David: It was prime time network television, and it featured Deathstroke the Terminator waterboarding Green Arrow. I just want to point this out to our readers: This happened.
Chris: It's like dunking pilgrim ladies to see if they're witches.
Chris: It's like dunking pilgrim ladies to see if they're witches.
The underlying message of 'the stuff in cigarettes will turn you into an unfeeling monster and you’ll end up fighting yourself in a junkyard' is basically a thousand times better than anything those 'Truth' ads ever came up with."
— Chris Sims, David Uzumeri, and Matt Wilson on
Superman III
Superman IIIBatman decides to smack Silver around a bit... but it's okay, because she understands that he did it because he loves her and thinks she might be a robot. Oh well. At least he apologizes. This is all done, I swear to God, so that Batman can learn that not everyone is a robot. He has to learn to TRUST.
— Chris Sims, "Worst of the Worst: 'Batman: The Widening Gyre' #6"
The lesson being taught to children here really was that you should never shrink anyone. And more importantly, you should never get a job writing cartoons when your main hobbies are recreational drugs and head injuries.
Remember, kids, grand acts of wondrous science and space flight like Voyager will only ever attract evil, murderous aliens! Be cool and don't study at school!
— TFWiki.net caption for Beast Wars Megatron's cartoon continuity page
Let this be a cautious lesson for bullies everywhere: Don't pick on kids who deserve it because you might get murdered by a sorceress's enchanted gelatin.
THE BUS OPENED ITS BLACK EVIL DOOR AND A GIANT GORILLA ON FIRE STEPPED OUT OF IT. HE WAS PUNCHING ALL THE COOL GUYS WITH HIS BIG GORILLA FISTS THAT WERE ON FIRE AT THE SAME TIME. THE COOL GUYS GOT PUNCHED AND BURNED REAL BAD BUT THE DIFFERENT GUY WAS OK. LET THIS BE A LESSON TO EVERYONE WHO THINKS THEY ARE TOO COOL TO EVEN BE CAREFUL!
—GHASTLY MACARONI!!!, "THE GIANT GORILLA ON FIRE"
Web Videos
"It's like a collision between a Gloria Steinem treatise and a Mad-Libs."
"This is what could only be expressed by going to space? This message was so profound that they had to make Mewtwo suck just to deliver it?"
So he's a very old myth, and could even have been the ARCHETYPICAL myth explaining why familicide and cannibalism are Bad and Wrong.
(the reason being, of course, "don't do it or zeus will kick your ass")
(the reason being, of course, "don't do it or zeus will kick your ass")
"I've learned you shouldn't steal Pokémon, because then the police will coerce you into cockfighting and you'll be carpet-bombed by the Yakuza."
— Suede, "Suede's Pokemon Journey, Episode 49: So Near, yet so Farfetch'd."
"If there's one important lesson to take away from this story, it's the need to develop clean, renewable energy. [Beat] You know, to prevent oil monsters that eat people. I guess."
— Brandon regarding Creepshow 2
"I guess that's a lesson all of us can relate to: If you live in a giant mansion and want a picture of your baby in the paper, you better care about your baby too, or else he'll get kidnapped, crawl across a busy street, and a truck'll drive over him."
"With this, Uwe Boll touches on the issue of racial identity, and how it makes us all feel at times that we're half-vampire and half-human, hungry for blood but also worrying about water maybe burning us a bit."
— Jim Sterling on BloodRayne
"Y'know, it's true: Reading really does open up a rainbow of imagination — and also blood, horror and MURDER!"
— Noah Antwiler, Let's Riff Ripper
"Hmmm. You know, there might be an environmental message to this: don't sell your land to mining companies. Or else the Slender Man will get you."
"The moral of this story is: Never think, or else the secret police might catch you and kill you no matter what. If it's good for the kids, it's good for the adults!"
"...Ok, for real, I've seen claymations better than this s***t. I mean, what was the life lesson here? eat a carrot and turn into a damn superhero and beat the crap out of a chicken?"
"If you're going to argue against television watching in and of itself, you'd better have a stronger argument than 'It might come alive and try to adopt your children'."
— Don't Read This To My Kids, in a review for Todds TV
for Todds TV"The Smog Monster is created from pollution, so the moral lesson of the movie is "don't pollute, or else there'll be some weird shit monster that looks like a cross between Oscar the Grouch and the Blob!"
"Snowflame needs to go on adventures all the time, alone. But Snowflame now knows that it's more fun and meaningful when you're taking over a small, central American military complex, if you're taking it over with a friend."
— Snowflame, after discovering My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic during a three-day long boute of insomnia
"And what in God's name is the lesson supposed to be here?! 'Look out when racial tensions happen, because the oppressed minority might just steal the property of a third, unrelated race'?! Well, I guess that is technically a lesson... "
— The Rap Critic on Common's "Chapter 13 (Rich Man VS Poor Man)"
Western Animation
Princess Bubblegum: I hope you grasp the full consequences of breaking promises.
Finn: Heck, yeah! If I break a royal promise, I get to fight zombies, throw slumber parties, awake gumball guardians, and — and—
Princess Bubblegum: Alright, alright!
Finn: —and reverse death itself!!
Finn: Heck, yeah! If I break a royal promise, I get to fight zombies, throw slumber parties, awake gumball guardians, and — and—
Princess Bubblegum: Alright, alright!
Finn: —and reverse death itself!!
"Having to go first all the time only leads to trouble! Like getting burned up by the sun! Now, the consequences are not always so extreme, but good things come to those who wait."
— Jason, 3-2-1 Penguins!, "Trouble on Planet Wait-Your-Turn"
"This is what happens when you don't share!"
— Truffles to Chowder, "Grubble Gum", after all of Marzipan City is trapped in a giant Katamari Damacy-esque gumball
"The next day, Billy's planet was destroyed by aliens. Can you guess the name of that planet? It was Earth! DON'T. DATE. ROBOTS!"
— Futurama
Junior: I just wanted to tell you that I'm going to invite Fernando to my party after all.
Mr. Asparagus: Really? That was quick. What made you change your mind?
Junior: Well, you know, being different can be good. Like maybe if my party is about to be smashed by a giant popcorn bomb meteor, Fernando could eat it! Or maybe if the slime monster shows up and squirts all over from us, Fernando could blast it with his x-ray eyes.
Mr. Asparagus: [dumbfounded] Well, I don't think Fernando could do those kinds of things.
Mr. Asparagus: Really? That was quick. What made you change your mind?
Junior: Well, you know, being different can be good. Like maybe if my party is about to be smashed by a giant popcorn bomb meteor, Fernando could eat it! Or maybe if the slime monster shows up and squirts all over from us, Fernando could blast it with his x-ray eyes.
Mr. Asparagus: [dumbfounded] Well, I don't think Fernando could do those kinds of things.
Real Life
"Those witches did not exist. Communists do. Here, and everywhere in the world. It's a false parallel."
— Elia Kazan on The Crucible, Elia Kazan: A Life
