History Main / CriticalResearchFailure

* DanBrowned: A work claims it's accurate, but it actually isn't.

!This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1632235603064361300 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.

* CowboyBebopAtHisComputer: Media reportings about works that's factually inaccurate.

[[WMG:[[center:[[AC:This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1632235603064361300 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.]]]]]]

* TheMountainsOfIllinois: A real life location in a work contains geographic features that do not actually exist.

* CowboyBebopAtHisComputer: Information about works that's factually inaccurate.

* HollywoodStyle: An index filled with tropes about works with common, yet crude and inaccurate, assumptions about various subjects.

* HollywoodStyle: An index filled with tropes about works with common, yet crude and inaccurate assumptions about various subjects.

* HollywoodAutism: A crude, inaccurate portrayal of autism by non-autistic writers who clearly did not do their research.

* ArtisticLicense: A factual error regarding certain aspects of the story. It may be included on purpose for the sake of improving a story. However it may also be an example of the creators simply getting things wrong.

** SadlyMythcharacterized: A portrayal of a deity or mythological figure doesn't match up with how they're presented in the original lore or religion.

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* ArtisticLicense: An error. It may be included on purpose for the sake of improving a story. However it may also be an example of the creators simply getting things wrong.

* ArtisticLicense: An error. It may included on purpose for the sake of improving a story. However it may also be an example of the creators simply getting things wrong.

* ArtisticLicense: An intentional error included for the sake of improving a story.

[[WMG:[[center:[[AC:This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1632235603064361300 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.]]]]]]
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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cnn_news_fail.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Hong Kong? [[DontBeRidiculous No, that's clearly Denmark, Africa!]]]]
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->''"The [[UsefulNotes/OlympicGames London 2012]] opening ceremony is going to be called Isles of Wonder, but there can be no wonderment more wonderful than the fact that Olympics organizers wanted [[Music/{{TheWho}} Keith Moon]] to perform.\\
\\
Moon has been dead for 34 years."''
-->-- '''[[http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/us-news-blog/2012/apr/13/keith-moon-london-olympics-organisers The Guardian]]'''
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%% One quote is sufficient. Please place additional entries on the quotes tab.
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[[noreallife]]

This is a particular instance where a story or character features something — a statement, the depiction of something — that is so egregiously off-the-scale in terms of inaccuracy that anyone with a high-school education (or less) and/or a cursory knowledge of the subject realizes the writers made the whole thing up.

Many of these will be {{disaster movie}}s or action movies and will [[JustHereForGodzilla use state-of-the-art computer effects to keep your interest]]. This can be PlayedForLaughs by having a BookDumb character make such an error so that a smarter character can spot and react to it, which is InUniverseFactoidFailure, as a character is in-universe wrong.

Also see DidntThinkThisThrough, which is less about research failure and more about planning failure. Contrast with the MST3KMantra (which tells us not to worry about these little details), AccidentallyCorrectWriting (which is when non-experts think the creators are wrong, but experts know the creators are right [[RightForTheWrongReasons by complete accident]]) and LikeRealityUnlessNoted (where what appears to be a research failure can be written off as the result of an AlternateHistory or AlternateUniverse).

For examples of research errors regarding media, see CowboyBebopAtHisComputer. See also DanBrowned, for situations when an author falsely claims they did the research. For downplayed inaccuracies that require more in-depth knowledge to notice, see ArtisticLicense and its subpages. If it's specifically math that is off, see WritersCannotDoMath. For cases of a ''character'' getting something spectacularly wrong and the work acknowledging it, see InUniverseFactoidFailure. For mistakes about details from within the story itself, instead of mistakes about real-world things, see ContinuitySnarl and SeriesContinuityError.

%%Before adding an example, please consider if RuleOfFunny and RuleOfDrama might be a better explanation for the mistake.%%
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!!Example subpages:

[[index]]
* CriticalResearchFailure/{{Literature}}
[[/index]]

!!Other examples
[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Advertising]]
* A commercial for Oscar Mayer Franks has a father come home and see his three kids on those electronic gizmos kids use these days. Wanting to spend quality family time, he trips the circuit breaker of his house, knocking the power out and shutting off the older brother's computer, the younger brother's game console, and the sister's '''cell phone'''.
* Mitsubishi once ran an ad for the Eclipse, discussing mankind's desire to harness the awesome power of an eclipse, and showed a literal one, suggesting the ad agency had no idea that an eclipse was just the moon briefly blocking direct view of the sun.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* In ''Manga/AssassinationClassroom'', it's sometimes stated that Korosensei's SuperSpeed lets him move at Mach 20, or "twice the speed of sound". As most readers probably know, Mach 1 ''is'' the speed of sound, twice the speed of sound would be Mach 2, and Mach 20 is twenty times faster than sound.
* ''Anime/CodeGeass'' loves its chess metaphors and concepts. [[TheChessmaster Lelouch is also an avid chess player]] throughout the series, which he displays in his strategies. However, he always plays by moving his king first, because he believes the king should lead by example. In chess, it is impossible to move the king on the first turn; a king may only move one space at a time, and on the first turn it is [[HoistByHisOwnPetard blocked by its own pieces]]. It's also an extremely risky way to play chess in general. Also in the second season, Schneizel (who is supposed to be an [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter even more awesome]] chess player than Lelouch), stalemates Lelouch by moving his own king into check. Such a move is, of course, entirely illegal.
* A ''Anime/LupinIII'' episode had a sign marking the Kansas[=/=]UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC border. Was it that hard for the writers to get a map of the United States?
* One story arc of ''Manga/MagicKaito'' revolves around a priceless ruby named Red Tear despite the fact that the gemstone is blue. This is meant to serve as a clue that [[spoiler:the jewel needs to be held near fire to uncover its secret.]] The problem is, there's no such thing as a blue ruby. Ruby is the name specifically given for ''red'' coloured corundum, and any differently-coloured variety would be called ''sapphire''.
* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'': Brock once claimed that Water-types are weak against Fire-types.
* ''Literature/AWindNamedAmnesia'': In the film, Little John is seen with an LAPD Sheriff badge. However, the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) has no Sheriff, they have a Chief of Police. The Sheriff is part of the LA'''S'''D (Los Angeles County '''Sheriff's''' Department).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/{{Marville}}'':
** It begins [[AuthorTract its descent into utter madness]][[note]]or utter silliness, if you consider that the whole series' satire, such as it is, went from blatant to subtle[[/note]] starting in the third issue that includes, among many, MANY other offenses, the protagonists scooping up some water with microbes in it to use as a "biological clock" for their time machine, under the logic that ''they'll know to stop when the microbes evolve into a dinosaur''. It just gets worse from there.
** It also contains the popular misconception that shows up a few times below that [[ApeShallNeverKillApe humans are the only creatures who kill members of their own species]]. Nearly all species do it, however humans are (so far) the only species that are known to feel good or bad about it.
* ''ComicBook/ADeathInTheFamily'': A large portion of the mid-section of the story's plot takes place in Lebanon. The locals are glossed in editor's notes to be speaking Farsi. The average Lebanese would be speaking Arabic or French at the time. Ironically enough, later, one of The Joker's Iranian henchmen is described by Franchise/{{Batman}} as an Arab. Iranians are ethnically Persian and not Arab.
* One ''ComicBook/ArchieComics'' miniseries centered around the gang going to Canada and doing its best to avert CanadaEh and actually [[UsefulNotes/{{Canada}} give an accurate portrayal of the country]] along with some AndNowYouKnow segments between stories. While overall well-done, they make a ''glaring'' mistake when Archie attempts to order a hot dog in Quebec and the Francophone server corrects him and says it is called a "chien-chaud" there. While chien-chaud is indeed the direct translation, as anyone from Eastern or Central Canada can attest you will ''never'' hear it referred to as anything other than "hot dog" -- if you ''did'' say "chien-chaud" you'd likely be mocked for being a clueless Anglophone tourist, like when tourists say "je suis chaud" in hot weather[[note]]In French you say "j'ai chaud", literally "I have heat" when hot. "Je suis chaud" means "I am drunk" in Quebec, which even Google Translate fails to note[[/note]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* According to ''Fanfic/PartiallyKissedHero'', one can mail-order napalm from a furniture store.
* ''Fanfic/{{Turtles}}''
** Koume finds it rather odd that Anzu, Momo and Yuzu's parents all named them after fruit(apricot, peach and citrus, respectively). Koume's name means "little plum" in Japanese, and she never acknowledges that her own parents also named her after a fruit. [[https://culturetour.net/japanese-names/fruit-themed-baby-names As listed here]], it's [[RealityIsUnrealistic actually pretty common]] in Japan for girls to have some sort of a fruit-themed name, just like the Student Council members and Koume do.
** Koume notices that Maho is a rather AloofBigSister to Miho, by virtue of the fact that she doesn't hug, kiss or talk softly to Miho in public. Her conclusion isn't entirely baseless, but the Japanese refrain from public displays of affection, so it wouldn't be too unusual for Maho to avoid being openly affectionate to Miho, at least where other people could see her. In fact, that was the very reason why Anime!Miho was shocked/startled when Kay went up and hugged her after the Saunders match. Hugging someone is not something expected in Japanese social interaction.
** The fic has Koume recall a time in her and Miho's second year of middle school, "when they were about eleven." The second year of Japanese middle school is eighth grade, so Miho and Koume would be 13 or 14.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/SharkTale'' has Lenny the shark pretend to be a dolphin so that he can live his life as a vegetarian, and be accepted by the fish. Dolphins eat fish as well.
* ''WesternAnimation/LeoTheLion'': The titular character is a vegetarian lion (although he looks painfully thin for the entire movie). Additionally, his love interest is an elephant who has conjoined twin babies... that are connected at the tail.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheEmojiMovie'': {{Troll}}s aren't malware like viruses or Trojan Horses. They're actual people.
* In ''WesternAnimation/CloudyWithAChanceOfMeatballs'', Flint, a scientist, invents a machine that turns water into food. He claims this works by mutating the water's genetic code, despite any high schooler knowing that DNA is only present in living creatures.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* Near the end of ''Film/AlvinAndTheChipmunks Road Chip'', [[TheSmartGuy Simon]] claims that there's no such thing as 1000%. As any child whose passed ''5th grade math'' could tell you, percentage is a numerator built on relative quantity. Claiming that 1000% doesn't exist is roughly equivalent to saying the number ten doesn't exist. It was a clumsy way of stating something that ''is'' true; there cannot be more than 100% of something where 100% is defined as the ''limit'' of that thing. For example, you cannot give more than 100% of your time. But you could give someone more than 100% of the amount of money that is in your wallet, by using a credit card.
* ''Film/TheAmazingColossalMan'' features ''a scientist'' who claims that "the heart is made up of a single cell." While blatantly wrong, the heart really is a syncytial muscle, meaning that it's composed by multiple cell nuclei that share the same membrane, and sometimes syncytia are referred to as single "multinucleate cells". As such, the line could be interpreted as "the heart is made up of a single MULTINUCLEATE cell".
* In ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'', it's a huge plot point that Ultron is prevented from hacking into the "Nexus Internet Hub" in Norway and gaining access to nuclear codes. There are two major problems here:
** Not only does the Nexus Internet Hub not exist in real life, but the entire point of the Internet is '''not''' relying on a central hub. It was originally created by the US government wanting to connect its defense systems in such a way that the network would still function if one or more points were destroyed. Even after the Internet went public and international in the 90s, it retains this fundamental aspect.
** No country keeps its nuclear codes online. In the United States, the codes are printed on hard copy and have to be spoken by the president over a secured phone line. The system has more or less stayed the same since the 1940s to avoid the exact problems this movie spells out (keeping the codes from falling into the hands of a malicious hacker).
* ''Film/BigglesAdventuresInTime'': The {{tagline}} of the film is "Meet Jim Ferguson. He lived a daring double-life with one foot in the 20th century and the other in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI." World War I happened in the 20th century.
* ''Film/TheDeadlyMantis'': "Every known species of animal has a bony skeleton." What?! Then someone asks him "Every animal?" and he replies "Even birds have bony skeletons". Apparently in this universe people think only humans have bones.
** Note that, per conventional 1950s usage, "animal" only extended to cover vertebrates (which by definition almost always have bony skeletons).
* ''Film/DieHard2'':
** If you have even a cursory knowledge of airports, the entire plot will fall flat on its face. It relies on the whole cast not knowing that all of those airliners flying around without a working runway can just fly to another airport. The movie tries to explain this by saying that the nearest other airport is shut down because of the snowstorm, but if those airliners are carrying enough fuel to circle the sky for ''two hours'', they can just fly to an airport farther away. For reference, the film takes place in Washington, D.C., which has two nearby airports that are actually mentioned in the film: Dulles International (the target of the terrorist plot) and Reagan National (the one that's shut down). With the Mid-Atlantic United States being the most densely-populated region in the country, there are at least a ''dozen'' major airports within 300 miles of DC that an airplane can reach in two hours with fuel to spare (Baltimore International, for instance, which isn't that much farther away from Dulles than Reagan), not counting the various military bases that would receive commercial airliners in the event of an emergency.
** It also features a scene where the hero claims that the criminals were carrying "Glock 7" handguns that are invisible to airport scanners because they are made of porcelain rather than metal. Even accepting this ludicrous premise (a real Glock is about 87% steel in reality and cannot get through an X-ray or metal detector, and the action of firing a bullet creates too much pressure for the barrel or chamber, even of a handgun, to be made of anything ''but'' metal), anyone would know that bullets are ''also'' made of metals such as lead (there's a reason the phrase "Eat lead!" refers to bullets), and would thus set off metal detectors regardless of what the gun carrying them is made of. This is also ignoring that airport scanners don't ''just'' look for metal, but ''shape'' as well. A non-metallic gun will still show up, and though it won't be as bright as a metallic one, anything gun-shaped will raise eyebrows.
* ''Film/EverAfter'': After the robbers are chased off, Leonardo da Vinci reaches into a saddle bag and ''unrolls'' the Mona Lisa. It takes about ten seconds to check the real painting was painted on wood, and can't be rolled.
* ''Literature/FiveChildrenAndIt'': A teacher says that 3,486,522 is a prime number. Even numbers other than 2 can't be prime numbers. 3,486,521 and 3,486,523, however, are both prime.
* ''Film/FantasticFour2015'': Victor's rant about how it's not "fair" that Planet Zero will be first explored by astronauts instead of the people who built the teleporters has a lot of this. He complains that maybe they're going to send in the CIA. The CIA, being an intelligence agency, would have ''absolutely nothing'' to do with the exploration of new planets. Their purview is more about already-established countries.
* ''Flight Of The Living Dead'' has an ''amazing'' one for anyone with even a faint knowledge of medicine, by having a mutated Malaria Virus be the cause of the outbreak. That must be one hell of a mutation to turn a parasitic protozoan into a virus.
* ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'': For all the good things we can say about the [[Film/{{Godzilla1954}} Japanese cut]] of the first ''Godzilla'', it's still got a pretty glaring one of these when Prof. Yamane says that dinosaurs lived 2 million years ago, when any child could tell you that they went extinct 66 million years ago.
* ''Film/TheKissingBooth2'': While Elle is visiting Noah in Boston, they both order alcohol at a bar. Elle is asked for ID, though strangely Noah is not asked. Even with her ID though, Elle shouldn't legally be allowed to buy alcohol because the drinking age in Massachusetts is 21, and both Elle and Noah are around 18.
* ''Film/TheLawnmowerMan'': The infamous line "Yesterday he absorbed Latin in two hours. It took me one year just to learn the Latin alphabet". Latin alphabet is the same as the modern English alphabet, minus a few letters (such as J, U and W) that were added later.
* ''Film/TheMatrix'':
** Morpheus's exposition that people are kept in suspended animation because they were needed as batteries for the machines is such an egregious violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics that it makes everyone with just a cursory knowledge of physics groan. The original treatment had the brains of humans used as sub-processors, which is at least defensible, but thought to be [[ViewersAreMorons too complicated]] for moviegoers.
** Agent Smith mentions his contempt for humans, claiming that humans are the only creatures that don't instinctively seek an equilibrium to stop population growth, saying they are more like viruses than mammals. In reality, all animals will reproduce out of control if given the opportunity (i.e. enough food and a lack of predators). Humanity has witnessed (and caused) this to happen in a wide range of species when something happens to the population of their predators or when introduced to a new environment (rabbits in Australia for example). There is no natural instinct against it-rather, a species will continue doing this until they wreck their environment and go extinct, or are culled by predators (assuming they are prey animals).
* ''Film/PatchAdams'': The title character is ranting at God after [[spoiler:love interest Carin dies]][[note]]in real life Carin was a man and he and Patch Adams were not romantically involved.[[/note]]. At one point, he laments that of all the creatures on Earth, humans are the only ones who kill their own kind. Ever watched the Creator/DiscoveryChannel, Patch? It'd be more accurate to say that humans are the only ones who bother to feel bad about it.
* According to ''Film/PumaMan'' Stonehenge is apparently an Aztec artifact. Even if you only have passing knowledge of the [[{{Mayincatec}} Aztecs]] and Myth/AztecMythology, you'd probably know Stonehenge is in Europe while the Aztecs were in Central America.
* ''Film/Scream2'': Randy states that ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' can't be considered [[SurprisinglyImprovedSequel a case of a movie sequel being better than the original]] because it was part of a planned trilogy, and thus is not a true sequel. Even accepting this dubious premise, anyone who knows even the first thing about the creative development of the original ''Franchise/StarWars'' trilogy knows that about the only planned thing about sequels to the first film was that there would be sequels; ''Literature/SplinterOfTheMindsEye'' was written to be a low-budget sequel to ''Film/ANewHope'' in case it was a flop, and [[WhatCouldHaveBeen ESB went through several major rewrites before it became the classic it is.]]
* ''Film/TheSuckers'': Characters who should know better InUniverse (they all connected to big-game hunting) talk about orangutans in Africa and snow leopards in South America. Apparently the writer thinks that all apes are found in Africa, and that there is no distinction between a leopard and a jaguar.
* In the NoBudget film ''Film/{{Tartarus}}'', a man buys "Bolivian rock" but is given a bag of white powder, which he starts snorting. The filmmaker apparently didn't know the difference between powder cocaine and rock cocaine. Then, the dealer reveals that he's a cop and demands to know who the man's supplier is. The man's supplier would be the undercover cop himself, who just gave him the drugs. The filmmaker apparently didn't understand basic aspects of the drug trade.
* ''Film/ThisIslandEarth'' has this line: "It's only Neutron. We call him that because he's so positive." Neutrons of course have no charge.
* ''Film/AViewToAKill'': Creator/RogerEbert pointed out that the villain's evil scheme makes no sense if you have any knowledge of computer manufacturing. Zorin's plan is to corner the market on microchips by destroying Silicon Valley, which would wipe out his competitors. In reality, this would do very little to affect Zorin's market share, since microchips aren't usually manufactured in Silicon Valley. If he wanted to destroy his competitors, he would have had to attack factories overseas somewhere like China. Also, given that many of the tech firms in Silicon Valley produce devices that ''require'' microchips, Zorin would essentially be taking out a huge chunk of his own customers.
* ''Film/{{Waterworld}}''. Even if every single polar ice cap and iceberg on the planet melted, it wouldn't be ''nearly'' enough to flood the entire Earth. Let alone have ''Denver'' be a mile underwater.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/BostonLegal'' frequently makes errors obvious to even non-lawyers. Lawyers routinely meet with judges without the presence of opposing counsel, evidence that has nothing to do with the case is introduced at the last minute, and the same firm occasionally represents ''both'' sides in a case.
* One episode of ''Series/CSICrimeSceneInvestigation'' had Sarah say "Hormones travel the same paths in the body as adrenaline". Any high schooler taking a science class would be able to tell you adrenaline ''is'' a hormone. For a character who's supposedly studied science professionally in order to make a career out of it, this is an inexcusable lack of knowledge.
* In the "killer gamers" episode of ''Series/CSIMiami'', the bad guys are basing their crimes on the plot of [[UltraSuperDeathGoreFestChainsawer3000 a video game]]. [[PacManFever The only way the team can find out what happens next is to play the game]] since the game company executive they talk to refuses to tell them the plot since it's a "trade secret". Even if you have zero knowledge of video games, you've probably heard of Wikipedia, and know that the plots of all media can be found on it, often in excruciating detail. At least Horatio immediately has the executive arrested for obstruction of justice.
* ''Series/DesignatedSurvivor'': Much is made about Tom Kirkman being the first independent president of the United States, except that there have already been [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington two]] [[UsefulNotes/JohnTyler independent]] presidents.
* A major episode of ''Series/DesperateHousewives'' had a tornado hitting the neighborhood. It's shown on newscasts as a major blob of red/yellow coloring slowly coming forward and folks are shown packing up hours in advance to get away. As soon as the episode aired, the viewer reaction forced the writers to admit that they thought a tornado was like a hurricane, which are predicted days in advance. In reality, a tornado is a ''byproduct'' of a powerful storm, and while the storm itself can be tracked, tornadoes are notorious for popping up with little to no warning and are nearly impossible to predict until they're literally happening. The best a meteorologist can tell you is if the conditions are ''right'' for one to appear.
* ''Series/DoctorWho''--being a science-fiction show--can [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief get away with a fair bit]]; but sometimes the only reaction to something has to be "no, it isn't".
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E8TheImpossiblePlanet "The Impossible Planet"]], the Doctor and Rose find themselves on the titular planet, which apparently is so-called because it's in orbit about a black hole. Which is ''perfectly'' possible; a planet can orbit a black hole as easily as it can orbit any other massive body. What would be much more difficult would be to remain ''hovering'' over the hole, while material in the hole's accretion disk (which is in orbit) continually blows over it. That's actually the situation in the story, but somewhere along the way the exposition fell over and sprained an ankle.
** An even more egregious example came in the 2014 episode [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E7KillTheMoon "Kill the Moon"]], which shamelessly breaks the WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief several times over.
*** The Moon's mass increasing tenfold caused "high tide everywhere at once". Quite apart from the question of where the extra water is supposed to come from, anyone who knows anything about lunar tides knows that they bulge out along the line to the moon, not in all directions. Also, the Moon having an Earth-like gravity should have made a tidally-locked binary system.
*** The "giant [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment single celled prokaryotic]] bacteria" have teeth, hair, saliva, and joints, which are features too complex for a prokaryotic organism, and downright impossible to have if the entire thing is just one cell.
*** The entire concept of the Moon being an egg. An egg is a closed system with the same mass from when it's laid to when it hatches, meaning the Moon could not have just suddenly gained extra mass out of nowhere.
*** The egg breaking apart harmlessly, despite logic dictating that the gigantic pieces of shell should now rain down on Earth as fiery meteor chunks (this is especially bad because one of the characters is treated as ''morally deficient'' for pointing out the danger and not expecting the DeusExMachina dissolution). Also, the strange lack of flooded continents, despite tides having been mentioned as a problem.
*** The creature hatching from the egg immediately lays another egg, which becomes Earth's new moon. How did the creature and the new egg ''both'' fit inside the original moon-egg?
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E8TheHauntingOfVillaDiodati "The Haunting of Villa Diodati"]], Mary Shelley comments on Ashad possibly being a "composite of multiple men" in what is clearly meant to imply her inspiration for ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}''. However, the Monster in the novel is not made of parts of other men, but is rather made from "raw materials" which are then imbued with vitality. The idea of Frankenstein's Monster being a patchwork of body parts comes from the later movie adaptions.
* On January 18, 2012, the commercials for ''Series/EntertainmentTonight'' previewed a story about the ''Concordia'' cruise ship capsizing disaster, which they called "The RealLife Film/{{Titanic|1997}}". [[AluminumChristmasTrees One would think the real-life Titanic]] would be, well, the ''[[UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic Titanic]]''.
* ''Series/TheFlash2014'' episode "The Sound and the Fury" is full of chess metaphors, but the actual game between Harrison and Hartley disregards the rules. Harrison, in check, moves his rook in front of Hartley's king, which is illegal because it doesn't remove the threat to his own king. Even if it were legal, it would only put Hartley in check because Hartley could have taken Harrison's rook with his knight.
* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'':
** The son of a professor states that individuals with beneficial mutations have to fight harder than other people to survive. Which not only fails biology, but also inverts the definition of "beneficial".
** And those ever-so-convenient eclipses, which somehow occur all over the planet. Even in Japan and the United States simultaneously, never mind how it'd be ''the middle of the night'' in one when it's mid-day in the other. Season 3 even has a two-parter where an eclipse lasts for several hours (which is... unlikely, to say the least).
* ''Series/TheOReillyFactor'':
** In an example that produced no fewer than two {{meme|ticMutation}}s, O'Reilly claimed that there was no scientific explanation for tides, notoriously claiming "You can't explain that!"[[note]]meme one[[/note]] while the guest he was interviewing, David Silverman, stared at him with a face that just ''screamed'' "you can't be serious"[[note]]meme two[[/note]]. For bonus points, when the mechanics behind tides were later explained to him, he showed his lack of understanding of the scientific method by claiming that tidal forces are "[[GravityIsOnlyATheory just a theory.]]"
** A viewer wrote that the average life expectancy in Canada is higher than in the US. Bill replies that this is only natural... then makes a statement that would fit right in as a "spot the flaw in the logic" problem in an elementary school math class: 'The [=USA=] has ten times as many people as Canada, leading to ten times as many violent crimes and accidents, leading to a lower average life expectancy.'
* ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'': In the "Sweet and Sour Victory" episode, Sabrina enters a martial arts competition and uses her powers to become an instant expert, then feels guilty after defeating the current champion, a man. Like most athletic competitions, martial arts tournaments are strictly divided by gender, and Sabrina, being a girl, would ''only'' be allowed to fight in the women's division.
* ''Series/StrangerThings'': When Will tells Dr. Owens that his favorite candy is Reese's Pieces, Owens agrees that "chocolate and peanut butter are an unbeatable combination." But there's no chocolate in Reese's Pieces, just peanut butter and a candy coating.
* ''Series/{{Vikings}}'':
** The show's subtitles interchangeably refer to the language spoken by the Franks as "Old French" and "Old Frankish", but the two are very different languages, despite the name. "Old Frankish" was a ''Germanic'' language, as the name suggests it was originally the language of the Franks, which in modern times evolved in Dutch and the dialects spoken in Western and Central Germany (this dialectal continuum is in fact called ''Franconian''). "Old French" is the correct name for the older stage of French, the ''Romance'' language, the one used in the show. When the Franks invaded modern France, they gave their name to the region and its people, but eventually adopted the native romance language already spoken there. Modern French actually doesn't owe much to Old Frankish besides its name, and descends mostly from the language spoken by Romanised Gauls.
** Sinric refers to the Eastern Roman Empire and its inhabitants as "Byzantine". It's basic knowledge for every history buff that the term "Byzantine" was first employed during the Renaissance period and the Eastern Roman Empire was never called that during its existence. Its subjects simply referred to it as "the Roman Empire" as they simply considered it a continuation of the classical Roman Empire (as it legally was). In Western Europe it was more often called "Empire of the Greeks", as they attributed the legacy of the Rome to the Holy Roman Empire founded by Charlemagne instead.
* ''Series/WhiteCollar'': The pilot revolves around the counterfeiting of "Spanish Victory Bonds", some rare 1944 bonds issued by the US government "to support the Spanish underground in their battle against the Axis." But the Axis did not invade Spain during UsefulNotes/{{W|orldWarII}}W2, a neutral (and ''Axis-leaning'') country through the whole war.
* ''Who Dares Wins'' once had the contestants tasked to fill in a list of countries in Asia. During the run-down of answers that weren't given by them, one of the apparent correct answers was United Kingdom, which is nowhere near Asia. Especially embarrassing for a British show.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* Music/NeilYoung has a song called "Cortez the Killer", in which he praises the pacifist and egalitarian... ''Aztecs!?'' Yes, he says "Hate was just a legend, / And war was never known" while he's talking about [[http://www.cracked.com/article_16972_5-most-terrifying-civilizations-in-history-world.html one of the most bloodthirsty civilizations in human history]]. He also says they "lifted many stones" and "built up with their bare hands / What we still can't do today." Suffice to say, 16th century Aztec stone buildings are far surpassed by 1970s technology.[[note]]Probably one of the most memorable songs ever written by a 16-year-old with a stomach ache at 3 a.m. His world history class had been studying the Spanish conquest of South America, and he just took off from there into fantasy.[[/note]]
* Music/SirMixALot's "Jump on It" insinuates that prostitution is legal in UsefulNotes/LasVegas, when it is not. It is legal within other parts of Nevada however - Mix was probably thinking of the infamous "Chicken Ranch" brothel which is about an hour's drive away from the Strip.
* Music/{{BoB}}'s "Flatline", which promotes various conspiracy theories (the Flat Earth Theory among them), has him ask why UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} is part of the Department of Defense. However, as NASA themselves pointed out in an FAQ, they aren't part of the Department of Defense.
* "Peek A Boo" by Lil Yachty infamously contains the line "she blow that dick like a cello", a comparison which falls apart if you know that a cello is a string instrument, rather than a woodwind. After receiving mockery for the mistake, he blamed his record label's A&R division for not catching it.
* "We Work The Black Seam" by {{Music/Sting}} features the repeated line "Deadly for twelve thousand years is carbon fourteen". Carbon 14 is radioactive, but far from deadly - it's estimated that you get approximately 0.01 millisieverts a year from C-14 exposure, a tiny fraction of the 2-3 mSv/year that everyone on Earth (whose jobs don't involve working with radioactive materials or spending a lot of time above 30,000 feet) routinely gets. Also, C-14 has a half-life of approximately 5,730 years, which suggests that Sting believes that after two half-lives a material is no longer radioactive, whereas in reality, a sample would be about 25% as radioactive as it had been to begin with at that point. As the song is written in opposition to Nuclear Power, it might have been helpful to pick on an actual byproduct of that process like Plutonium, but then again, that doesn't rhyme with Seam. Never you mind that "fourteen" doesn't really rhyme either.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Pinball]]
* ''Pinball/{{Earthshaker}}'' is about earthquakes but designed with the assumption that earthquakes are like wind-based natural disasters, like tornadoes or hurricanes: People are encouraged to go into underground "earthquake shelters" when they feel one coming, even though this would be much more dangerous than remaining above ground.[[note]]The safest place to be during an earthquake is in a wide, flat, open area. The danger of an earthquake isn't the quake itself, but falling objects. A wide, flat, open area has the least amount of things that can fall on you, whereas an underground bunker can have something falling on you from anywhere. Not that you get much time to run somewhere safe.[[/note]] In addition, the player character works for the "Earthquake Institute", traveling up and down fault lines in California to gather data--that should be the work of the U.S. Geological Survey.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* In Creator/RoosterTeeth's podcast, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiCmP10zhW0 episode #371]], Burnie goes on a rant about NASA's discovery of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/55_Cancri_e 55 Cancri E]], complaining about how NASA can announce so much detailed information about the surface of an exo-planet over 40 light years away when they are still unable to confirm if there is or isn't a 9th unknown planet in our own solar system. Quite a lot of viewers chimed in to point out that it's easier to see planets in another solar system than in our own because a distant solar system can be observed all at once.[[note]]Comparison: It's easier to read a T-shirt, front and back, that a friend is wearing than one that you're currently wearing.[[/note]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
* Wrestling/{{WCW}} boasted that an album of a group known as Three Count had gone Platinum. Fair enough. Then Evan Karagias claimed an upcoming second album of there would be more successful than that, going not double platinum but ''gold'', to the amusement/bewilderment of anyone who knows anything about album sales.
* Wrestling/VinceMcMahon, pleased with the success of Wrestling/{{Rey Mysterio|Jr}} on Wrestling/SmackDown, decided he wanted another high-flyer ''luchador''. So he hired Wrestling/UltimoDragon and then got upset when he discovered Ultimo Dragon really was not a high-flyer at all, which should've been obvious to anybody within the wrestling business (such as [=McMahon=]) with a knowledge of wrestling outside the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates, as Ultimo Dragon is a Japanese wrestler, and Japanese wrestling, or ''puroresu'', is bound to entirely different dynamics to those of Mexican ''lucha libre''. This is despite the fact Ultimo Dragon had wrestled under the Wrestling/{{WWE}} banner before and won a WWE Championship, suggesting Vince did not even watch ''his own product''.
* Prior to the 2010s, Samoan wrestlers were billed from the "Isle Of Samoa". Website/WrestleCrap points out in their 2019 Induction of Roman Reigns' attacker that Samoa is literally a ''ten island archipelago'' split between an eastern independent government and a western American government.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* A massive one that has influenced literally hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars of later media is ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' usage of "Studded Leather". This was the result of seeing historial drawings of brigandine armor and thinking the metal studs were the actual metal "armor" on the leather. In reality, those metal dots are ''rivets'', as there are sheets of metal between layers of fabric and the rivets keep them in place, essentially creating a suit of metal armor sandwiched by fabric on either side. Said misunderstanding has resulted in representations of studded leather not only in other tabletop roleplaying games, but video games and film/television as well.
* The Top Trumps card game has FlavorText that attempts to be informative and educational, but the creators don't seem to have done very much research.
** There's a particularly monstrous error on the "Life" card in the "Wonders of the World" pack:
--->The first known animals to roam the Earth were dinosaurs, over 65 million years ago.
** Particularly infamous is the ''Space Phenomena'' themed deck. Amongst other glaring errors, it states that the ''Moon'' was spotted in '''1651''', Ganymede was discovered before the Sun, and asserts that Halley's Comet has negative mass. Somehow.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theatre]]
* Creator/WilliamShakespeare, as the son of a glove-maker whose schooling mostly included Latin and classic literature (written in Latin), was prone to making these when discussing geography. His plays also include a healthy dose of AnachronismStew--allusions to Christian themes are frequent even in stories that took place before Christ was born, there are references to contemporary English clothing and culture regardless of setting, etc., so how much of those errors are just stylistic choices is debatable.
** In ''Theatre/TheWintersTale'', Shakespeare committed a Critical Research Failure and was called out on it by his contemporary, Ben Jonson. Shakespeare had his characters shipwrecked on the coast of Bohemia (which is now the Czech Republic) "where there is no sea near by one hundred miles." Shakespeare's mistake was likely [[TheArtifact an artifact]] from his original source, which took place in Sicily, not Bohemia.
** In ''Theatre/AntonyAndCleopatra'', Cleopatra suggests playing a game of billiards, a game which wouldn't exist until about 1000 years later.
** In ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar'', Caesar proclaims himself to be "constant as the Northern Star". As was well-known to educated people by Shakespeare's time, the Northern Star isn't a constant (which star it currently is, is affected by the precession of the equinoxes) and there are even long periods when there isn't a Northern Star--such as Caesar's time. Creator/IsaacAsimov called out Shakespeare on this in his essay "Constant as the Northern Star"--partly as evidence that the plays (or at least ''Julius Caesar'') couldn't (as some people suppose) have been written by Francis Bacon, as Bacon was well-educated and would have known this.
** ''Julius Caesar'' also has Brutus report the time with "Caesar, 'tis strucken eight." Striking clocks were not invented until the middle ages. (The same problem arises in ''Theatre/TimonOfAthens''.)
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Scratches}}'' takes place around the 1970s. This setting has led to two mistakes.
** When Michael Arthate keeps calling the bank, the employee on the other hand eventually answers the phone with the words that he will call the police if Michael keeps calling. Given the above setting, the employee's phone would not have any Caller ID, making it impossible for him to know that it's Michael calling, without even saying anything. Of course, it could simply be an ''assumption'' on the part of the bank employee. If you get five calls from the same person in a row, you might reasonably assume that it's the same person after picking up the sixth time. Admittedly, this is probably bad practice for a bank.
** One newspaper article talks about how a large amount of money was stolen, with the currency listed as Euros. The Euro currency was not established until 1999, a good 20 years after this game takes place, and physical Euros weren't available until the end of 2001. There's also the fact that Britain never took on the Euro currency and has retained using Pounds, making this a double-whopper of a mistake.
* Update 1.12 of ''{{VideoGame/Minecraft}}'' introduced parrots, which could be fed chocolate chip cookies. Mojang quickly fixed this with a patch providing an alternate food due to the fact that Chocolate is poisonous to parrots (and other animals in general). The in-game parrots now die if fed cookies.
* The early Creator/{{Sierra}} game ''Time Zone'', an adventure through time and space, was among the earliest by Roberta Williams, who claims in the game's manual that "History books aren't a lot of fun." This would explain why the game believes man discovered fire in 10,000 B.C.
* ''VideoGame/RideToHellRetribution'': The game developers apparently believed a hockey mask would keep a person safe from a bullet, given you can't kill thugs with hockey masks by shooting their heads.
* The ''VideoGame/LEGOJurassicWorld'' video game refers to the people working on Alan Grant's and Ellie Satler's dig as archaeologists. Archaeologists deal solely with ''human'' remains and artifacts; those who work with fossils and dinosaurs are ''palaeontologists'', and the two disciplines require vastly different skill sets and knowledge bases. You'd think a game devoted to ''dinosaurs'' of all things would get this correct.
* In ''EA Sports UFC 2'', Russian martial artist Khabib Nurmagomedov is shown performing the Sign of the Cross in his victory pose. Nurmagomedov is a devout Muslim, hails from a predominantly-Muslim region in Russia, and is one of the most famous Muslim athletes in the world. After he called out EA Sports for such a grievous error, they quickly apologized and changed his victory pose in the next patch update.
* In ''VideoGame/WildArms2'', the Kuiper Belt is [[spoiler:an EldritchAbomination that's best described as a sentient, evil parallel universe]]. This has practically no relation to the real Kuiper belt, which is simply a ring of debris that surrounds our Solar System.
* ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'' has one that reaches horrifying levels of UnfortunateImplications and FridgeHorror: almost ''everything'' it has to say about Fei's Dissociative Identity Disorder and his recovery from it is either (at best) outdated due to the lack of available knowledge of DID at the time of the game's writing, ''extremely'' inaccurate (it's not bipolar and schizophrenia), or straight up InsaneEqualsViolent stigmatizing (Id's entire personality being "KILL KILL KILL"). Plus, fusion is not the end goal or treatment for DID, and a fusion forced under threat from the "good" alter under emergency conditions is likely to actually just be itself a traumatic experience leading to ''more,'' not less, structural dissociation and potential worse issues in the future. Almost the only things it gets correct in a StoppedClock Moment are that it is a traumagenic condition as a result of early childhood abuse/neglect/suffering, and that [[FairForItsDay people with it deserve inclusion and care from their friends]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/CommonSenseSoapbox''[='s=] video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yGpU-nxtIk "The Myth of Scandinavian Socialism"]] describes UsefulNotes/{{Finland}} as a Scandinavian country. Finland's culture is not Scandinavian at all, and is instead [[ShapedLikeItself Finnic]].
* ''WebAnimation/ExtraCredits'':
** In one of their videos, they defend lootboxes as not gambling because you cannot cash out your winnings. Except you can--some provide an interface for doing ''just'' that. There also exist third party websites specifically to let people do this, such as when someone sold a gun skin for $61,000.
** "Stop Normalising Nazis" was panned for many reasons, but one of them was the fact that they said that the Iron Cross is a Nazi symbol, and that it should inspire revulsion amongst the playerbase. UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} still ''uses'' the Iron Cross ''to this day''. In fact the Iron Cross ''[[OlderThanTheyThink predated]]'' the Nazis. They also featured a game called ''VideoGame/BattlefieldV''... which doesn't even ''use'' the Iron Cross as a stand-in for the Swastika. They use the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkenkreuz Balkenkreuz]]''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''Webcomic/ExistentialComics'': Thomas More's Literature/{{Utopia}} is treated as though it were actually More's ideal society and not a satirical work.
* ''Webcomic/VeganArtBook'' has enough of these to warrant [[CriticalResearchFailure/VeganArtbook its own page]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Website/GaiaOnline'' made a terrible mistake whilst describing a new item called Lala the Koala Plushie.
-->"Lala the Koala Plushie pays tribute to the noble koala bear, which is now just returning from hibernation to resume it's [sic] voracious consumption of eucalyptus."
:: While regular bears hibernate, koalas (which are not bears, or even placentals) live in Australia, which even in its temperate zones doesn't get cold enough to necessitate hibernation.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Videos]]
* ''WebVideo/GameTheory'':
** [=MatPat=] called a lawyer, [[Franchise/AceAttorney Phoenix Wright]], a paralegal. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of law knows that paralegals aren't qualified to be lawyers by definition.
** In the "Who Would Win - Samurai, Knight, or Viking? (''VideoGame/ForHonor'')" video, [=MatPat=] says that greaves--leg armor--are worn on forearms.
* ''WebVideo/HalfInTheBag'': In the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1YuvUQFJ0 preview]] for their ''Film/{{Prometheus}}'' review, Mike claim that there were 65 million years of dinosaurs before humans. Unfortunately, he has that backwards: dinosaurs have been ''extinct'' for 65 million years.
* WebVideo/MatthewSantoro:
** In "Catching Up: With Matt! (#1)", Matt says that UsefulNotes/{{Mexico}} is part of UsefulNotes/SouthAmerica, [[ArtisticLicenseGeography but it's actually part of North America]].
** In "10 Famous Paintings with HIDDEN CODES!", Matthew refers to Hades as a "Greek goddess." Hades is male.
* ''WebVideo/TheMysteriousMrEnter'':
** He claims in his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0XawmU9zn4 Animated Atrocities review]] of the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "One Coarse Meal" that whales only eat krill, ignoring that some whales in RealLife actually ''do'' [[http://www.whalefacts.org/what-do-whales-eat/ eat plankton]]. He actually does bring up this point in his "Top 11 Worst Episodes Reviewed" video, admitting he did some research and yes, some whales do eat plankton. In the same video, he mentioned that Pearl was a Sperm Whale, which doesn't eat plankton.
** In his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nudbfEWmX30 Top Ten Worst Cartoons of the 2000s]] special, he states that American kids' first exposure to anime outside of Creator/StudioGhibli was in the 2000s, even though kids had long been exposed to anime, such as ''Manga/SailorMoon'', ''Anime/DragonBallZ'', ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' and ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'', and if we're going earlier, ''Anime/{{Robotech}}'', ''Anime/GoLion''[=/=]''Anime/{{Voltron}}'', and ''Manga/AstroBoy'', and that's before factoring in the numerous other titles that were influential within the US anime community and premiered much earlier, such as ''Manga/GhostInTheShell'', ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' and ''Anime/NinjaScroll''.
* ''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic'': [[https://twitter.com/Linkara19/status/1254759420812124161 So much so that he has done a series of videos listing his mistakes]].
** His review of ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead'' he mocks how the house the survivors are hiding in somehow has a "radio hook up" but the phone lines are down. Has nobody ever told him radios don't have "hook ups" but receive wireless transmissions, and that a radio will function as long as there is power?
** In ''Battle of the Commercials'' he takes a shot at the UsefulNotes/GameBoy by claiming it bombed and that the UsefulNotes/GameGear was a million times better. Anyone who grew up with these consoles or who even has a passing knowledge of video games knows the polar opposite is true, as the Game Boy blew the Game Gear out of the water and outsold it over ten-to-one with a much longer lifespan. Even in terms of technical specs, really the only thing the Game Gear did better were graphics as it had a color screen and twice the video ram than the Game Boy, but even this worked against it as it made it much more expensive and drained batteries much much faster.
* ''[=Thoughty2=]'s'' video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwSvQwuPcR4 The Insidious 'Toxic Masculinity' Myth is Damaging Humanity."]] Where to even begin?
** He says being gay is more socially acceptable now than ever. Homosexuality was widely accepted in many ancient cultures, such as Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire.
** He talks of nature's "doctrine" of "survival of the fittest", and seems to think that [[GoalOrientedEvolution nature and evolution somehow have a will and purpose in mind.]]
* ''Series/GamingInTheClintonYears''
** In his review of the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis ''[[VideoGame/TheLionKing Lion King]]'' game, after the FinalBoss, he states that he can't tell if it's raining or snowing in the Pridelands, even though it was very clearly rain in the film and it never snows in Africa.
** In his review of ''VideoGame/DiddyKongRacing'', he calls the first boss "a gigantic stegosaurus," when, in fact, anyone can tell that Tricky is a triceratops. He also says you have to "topple" the boss, as if to imply that you're fighting him, when you actually have to defeat Tricky in a race.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'': Jimmy in one episode refers to the Cretaceous period as the Cretaceous ''era'' (the era was the Mesozoic), and that it ended 200 million years ago. Any dinosaur-crazed eight-year-old could tell you that it ended 65 million years ago. The Triassic (the first period of the Mesozoic) actually did end 200 million years ago, starting the Jurassic.
* Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse:
** ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'': In "[[Recap/TheAdventuresOfBatmanAndRobinE12TheLionAndTheUnicorn The Lion and the Unicorn]]" Alfred tells Bruce he's in UsefulNotes/{{London}}, in which Bruce asks "London, England?" and Alfred replies "There is only one", though there is a city of London in Ontario, Canada, and at least 8 Londons in the United States, among others.
** ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'': Some Atlanteans attempt to melt the polar ice caps to destroy the surface world. As in all of it would be submerged. There is not enough water on Earth, whether solid, liquid, or gas, to even come close to accomplishing this.
* ''WesternAnimation/DorbeesMakingDecisions'' has a scene where the teacher says that the sides of a triangle add up to 90 degrees. Firstly, the sides of a polygon aren't measured in degrees, the angles are. And secondly, all the angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees.
* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'':
** In the sixth season episode "Bobby Goes Nuts", when trying to punish Bobby for kicking Hank in the groin, Peggy gets kicked in the groin by Bobby and just smirks at him when in reality it should have hurt almost as much despite her lack of testicles. Maybe she ''was'' bluffing...
** More egregiously, John Redcorn identifies as an Anasazi. The Anasazi tribe not only died off before white people came to North America, they also never lived in Texas.
* The ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' episode "A Rockhoof and a Hard Place" has a double example, both with the same character, when ''General'' Seaspray is introduced as the commander of a naval vessel. Firstly, "General" is an army rank, so his rank would be "Admiral" in the navy. Secondly, as commander of a ship he would be addressed as "Captain" regardless of his actual rank.
* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls2016'':
** At the end of "The Power of Four", Bliss leaves Earth in order to [[ItMakesSenseInContext push Saturn back into its original orbit]]. However, Saturn is a gas giant, meaning that ''pushing'' the planet wouldn't be possible.
** Bubbles quotes the [[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/me-gusta "me gusta" meme]] by using [[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/no-rage-face the "NO" meme face]].
** Like ''WesternAnimation/TheEmojiMovie'' example in the Animated Films folder, the episode "Viral Spiral" depicts Internet Trolls as malware rather than real people.
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': At one point, Cartman establishes a plan to ambush one of the girls, Nelly, by kicking her in the balls. This, naturally, fails, as she's a girl and therefore doesn't have balls, something Cartman didn't know. However, what the ''writers'' failed to realize is that, despite lacking testicles, getting kicked in the crotch isn't painless for women.
* ''WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries''
** In one episode, Gambit travels to UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC, which apparently is located in the state of Washington.
** One episode takes place in Tanzania, but the writers had no idea what African country Mt. Kilimanjaro is in, so it is only referred to as "... that part of Africa."
* ''WesternAnimation/TheMagicSchoolBus'': Dorothy claims that the world and everything in it are made of molecules in "The Magic School Bus Makes a Stink". However, the only things made of molecules in real life are known as matter.
[[/folder]]

* ''WebVideo/ForgottenWeapons'' is associated with Headstamp Publishing, which publishes in-depth books about firearms history. In February 2022, they announced their latest book, a memoir by a foreign volunteer who fought in Ukraine in 2014/15. The sales pitch was that it was a book about modern combat that wasn't in the Middle East. Various internet commenters promptly said "Isn't the author a known neo-Nazi who fought with a unit accused of war crimes?," and the project was abruptly cancelled. Cue the video "[[https://youtu.be/Ymu5S6zbIvc Ian's Long Day: A Conclusion]]", in which FW presenter Ian says that it had not occurred to anyone at Headstamp to check the background of their new author.

* Music/NeilYoung has a song called "Cortez the Killer", in which he praises the pacifist and egalitarian... ''Aztecs!?'' Yes, he says "Hate was just a legend, / And war was never known" while he's talking about [[http://www.cracked.com/article_16972_5-most-terrifying-civilizations-in-history-world.html one of the most bloodthirsty civilizations in human history]]. He also says they "lifted many stones" and "built up with their bare hands / What we still can't do today." Suffice to say, 16th century Aztec stone buildings are far surpassed by 1970s technology.

* A massive one that has influenced literally hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars of later media is ''TabletopGames/DungeonsAndDragons'' usage of "Studded Leather". This was the result of seeing historial drawings of brigandine armor and thinking the metal studs were the actual metal "armor" on the leather. In reality, those metal dots are ''rivets'', as there are sheets of metal between layers of fabric and the rivets keep them in place, essentially creating a suit of metal armor sandwiched by fabric on either side. Said misunderstanding has resulted in representations of studded leather not only in other tabletop roleplaying games, but video games and film/television as well.