Clean up needed: Exactly What It Says On The Tin

I think this page needs a lot of cleanup. A lot of the examples are less Exactly What It Says on the Tin and more "the title is somewhat related to what goes on in the show."

As Go Forth And Die puts in the discussion: "If it needs description, it doesn't belong."

I can split the current usage in some scenarios:

• Genuine examples. The most garring ones tend to overlap with Spoiler Title
  • "Bart Gets Hit By a Car"
  • "Man Getting Hit By Football"
  • "New Bad Guy Girl Character"
  • "Fat Guy Stuck In Internet": is about a Fat Guy stuck in Internet.
  • Frank Sings Tunes The Young People Will Enjoy
  • 'The Sailor Warriors Die! The Tragic Final Battle'
• Cases were the trope is more "invoked" than played straight. Like a Captain Obvious thing.
  • '''Bin Laden in a Blender''. Well, it delivers what it promises.
  • "He's a ghost, and he writes to us: Ghostwriter."
• The title may sound generic or poetic, yet the thing itself is very literal, like Made from Real Girl Scouts and sometimes mixed with Word Salad Title.
  • The Family Guy episode "Brian and Stewie"
  • The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers
  • The "Orion's Belt" in Menin Black.
  • "They don't call us 'supermodels' for nothing!".
• Uninspired titles. The mayor usage. They only fit if they are way detailed.
  • "Kung Fu Panda"
  • "Two Stupid Dogs"
  • "Speed Racer"
  • "Snakes On A Plane"

edited 27th Jun '11 11:37:17 PM by peroyomas

I agree there is a problem. Entries like

• Phineas And Ferb is about two kids named Phineas and Ferb.

show severe Trope Decay.

Agreed there. This should be cleaned out to only those where the title tells you exactly what to expect. Phineas And Ferb — ok, it's about two guys named Phineas and Ferb. Is it a comedy? a drama? a gay love story? a cooking show? a talk show? The name doesn't tell you. It's not Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

The trope decay seems to be taking it into People Sit On Chairs territory, as every show is going to have a title that tries to describe what the show is about, except for the specific aversions that try to make the title vague.

This should really be when a title tells you almost everything about what is in it.

Nobody's doing anything, so let's kill this thread.

We do need to prune the examples. I'll go through and get rid of some.

But, some of the "uninspired titles" are pretty self-explanatory. "Two Stupid Dogs" may not be "A cartoon about a large dog and a small dog both of whom are stupid", but you kind of expect there to be two stupid dogs in it.

^ But compare what Madruagada said regarding Phineas And Ferb: It's the name of the two main characters, sure, but it conveys absolutely nothing about what actually happens during the show. Whereas if it was Phineas And Ferb Think Up Crazy Stunts To Do During Summer Vacation, While Their Sister Tries To Get Them In Trouble For It, And A Mad Scientist Keeps Trying To Take Over The World But Gets Thwarted Every Time By A Secret Agent Platypus, that would be Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

edited 29th Sep '11 7:52:22 AM by Stratadrake

Bump. Are we still cleaning up or done?

Proposal:

Give this page a full Example Sectionectomy: Yea or Nay?

Thanks
Luc "Electioneering" French

Nope.

Do I understand correctly that to count as a valid entry here, the entry must describe an action, rather than a person or place?

So Sponge Bob Square Pants wouldn't count, because it's just a character name and that's pretty meaningless, whereas Kill Bill does, because it describes what's actually happening?

Are we actually going to DO anything here?

This sort of thing definitely needs a large crew to help. I really REALLY hate seeing inappropriate wicks to this trope all over the place by people who have no idea what it means. Its own page isn't helping at all.

Would applying a rule of 3 help to reduce the noise? I mean part of the problem seems to be titles that only vaguely describe the work in question. Irregular Webcomic may be a webcomic that is irregular, but that's only a small amount of information. Comparing with I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space, I count five facts and tell me you don't know what it's about.

You have a good idea. Though Snakes On A Plane is quite straightforward, and yet the title explains only 2 things.

But some easily understandable rule would help. That and cutting a LOT of questionable or outright wrong entries. I started some trimming, including of the overly wordy and confusing introduction (a problem other tropes have, but that's another story), but I wish the edit box were larger so I could see more easily.

There is massive cleanup needed here, big time.

I edited the description to try to make it more clear what this trope is and isn't, and did a bit of cleanup in the first few categories. This'll take a while. I'd appreciate any help I can get.

I just did tremendous trimming to the video games example. Sonic the Hedgehog is not exactly what it says on the tin. It doesn't tell you how the game plays or what it's about other than the main character and what kind of creature he is. Seriously, how can people be so stupid? Can they read? I added a bolded explanation to the top of the video games section.

If anyone else would like to trim the hedges of this jungle, be my guest.

As to Snakes On A Plane: There are three facts about the movie in the title: 1. Snakes. 2. Plane. 3. "on a" implies the intersection thereof.

Thanks Luc "Subtly Obvious" French

Well, if Snakes on A Plane is not an example, we need to pull an image.

I also feel like we should cut out the Spoiler Title examples, and/or make this a supertrope of that.

edited 19th Dec '11 2:45:35 AM by Kriegsmesser

There's a difference between a Spoiler Title, which states what an episode is about, and a title of a work that tells you literally everything you need to know. I wonder how we make that clear.

Spoiler Title should be a subtrope of Exactly What It Says on the Tin. It's possible to have a title that's Exactly What It Says on the Tin without it being a spoiler.

Maybe we should have a trope like Surprisingly Straightforward Title, for the sake of things like "Snakes on a Plane". A good argument has been made here that it's not really an example of this trope; however, it nonetheless seems tropable. (It's more conventional for action and comedy films to have titles that are vaguer, eg Unstoppable, or more "exotic", eg Tomb of the Dragon Emporer; the bluntness of "Snakes on a Plane" is part of the joke.)

edited 21st Dec '11 1:44:37 PM by Lenoxus

Blunt Title might be more appropriate for things like that. But there will likely be crossover with Exactly What It Says on the Tin.