History Main / DerailedTrainOfThought

-->'''Dave:''' You put a dime in him, you gotta let the whole song play out.\\

-->-- ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp''

-->'''Wolkerstorfer:''' You fools are all so smug and superior-treating my like a ''scatterwit!'' Well, I can and will ''destroy you all!'' ...and then I'll return to the king in ''triumph'', and we'll ''see'' who-um.. er... Say, don't you ''hate'' it when you're in the middle of something, and then you ''completely forget'' what you're ''doing?''\\

'''Wolkerstorfer:''' No, no... Give me a minute... now what was I doing... um... Martellus is back... he's the Storm King... The Order's in chaos... like ''always''. [-I developed a better magnet... Lord Whazizname's still mad at me because of that ''cheese'' thing...-] um... Lab destroyed... Was given ultimatum... yadda yadda... Killed that enforcer guy ''with'' my magnet-so ''score''... Solved the ''Collatz Problem''... [-mm... really should write that down...-]

* ''The Etymologicon'' by Mark Forsyth is supposedly based on the author's tendency to do this with words. According to the introduction, if he explains what a word means, then he starts thinking about related words, and thematically similar words, until some poor soul who just idly wondered why a biscuit is called that is having the origins of masochism explained to him. The book is based on the same principle, and it's the hope of his family and friends that writing it will get this out of his system.

Related to WikiWalk,{{Metaphorgotten}} and SidetrackedByTheAnalogy. Compare SeinfeldianConversation in which the conversation is pointless but not necessarily unrelated.

* In ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', Calvin often goes off into these. Watterson, apparently, based Calvin's tangents off of his own wife.

--> ''Pete: Yeah, I think we may have gone on a ''bit'' of a tangent.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/derailed_train_455.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:No doubt the train of thought of every \\
passenger aboard that train was derailed.]]

Characters prone to this include the CloudCuckooLander and TheDitz. The OnlySaneMan (who is often subject to this) can respond with a facepalm, some form of internal monologue expressing his disbelief, or an attempt to remind the invoker of this trope what they were talking about in the first place. Occasionally, the subject material brought up in the DerailedTrainOfThought can result in the recipient receiving TooMuchInformation. Responses may include the SpitTake, and for added humor, the invoker of the DerailedTrainOfThought may remain unaware of the reaction he/she has caused.

In DerailedTrainOfThought:

Related to WikiWalk, Metaphorgotten and SidetrackedByTheAnalogy. Compare SeinfeldianConversation in which the conversation is pointless but not necessarily unrelated.

Related to WikiWalk and SeinfeldianConversation, in which the conversation is pointless but not necessarily unrelated.

[[folder: Film ]]

* Played with in ''Film/LethalWeapon4'', where Chris Rock and Joe Pesci go off on a huge tangent about cell phones, for no apparent reason.

* In ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'', [[MagnificentBastard Colonel Hans Landa]], in the middle of a conversation that will alter the course of history, pauses to ask his native English-speaking captives if he is properly using the expression "Bingo!"
* [[FirstPersonSmartass Harry Lockhart]] does this in ''Film/KissKissBangBang'', to much hilarity.
* In ''Film/CarryOnMatron'', Sid Carter and his partners in crime, Freddy and Ernie, are planning to steal a stockpile of birth control pills from a maternity hospital. As they look over the plans for the hospital and Sid explains where the pills are kept, Ernie asks where the babies are kept. An impatient Sid tells him they're in the wards, of course, but Ernie says it's not quite so obvious - he was born on the top deck of a Number 73 bus in Brixton High Street. Freddy says that's impossible as the Number 73 goes to Putney and Wimbledon, not Brixton, and then Sid says they're both wrong, it goes to Holloway (where he used to visit his wife in the women's prison).

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* According to the man himself, author Creator/PeterDavid is so prone to doing this that he called his column in ''Comics Buyer's Guide'' "But I Digress..." as a [[LampshadeHanging lampshading]] of it.

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[[AC: Advertising]]

[[AC: Anime and Manga]]
* ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh'': Osaka, Cloud Cuckoo Lander extraordinaire, does this at least once, with a discussion on japanese characters that starts with hemorrhoids and goes on to the proper way to write kanji, and then to sea life.

[[AC: Comics]]

[[AC: Film]]

[[AC: Literature]]

[[AC: Live Action TV]]

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[[AC: Real Life]]

[[AC: Western Animation]]

* ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' - Don't even ''try'' to have a coherent conversation with [[CloudCuckoolander Gir]].

* Many of SethMacFarlane's works are prone to this. ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheClevelandShow'' employ [[CutawayGag 10-second shorts to provide comedy]], connected only to the dialogue by a "Just Like X" statement made by one of the characters.

* In ''{{Outnumbered}}'', a question to Pete from Ben about wher Friday the 13th beliefs originated ends with Ben describing how someone could end up accidentally crucify themselves.

* The Music/WeirdAlYankovic song "Albuquerque" is a long, rambling screed that starts off with an account of his mom serving him sauerkraut for breakfast that touches on the number of molecules in Creator/LeonardNimoy's butt, moving out of the house, playful shriners, fluffy towels, ukulele-playing lepers, back-shavers, Albanian women with really bad body odor, Doctor Pepper, an airplane crash, an overly stuffed suitcase, eating soup out of ashtrays, air conditioning, those little mints that housekeepers leave on your pillow at high-class hotels, hermaphrodites with that Flock-of-Seagulls haircut, weasels, peaches, [[Characters/TheLegendOfZelda Zelda]], mint-flavored dental floss, working at the Sizzler, excessive ear wax, Torso Boy, and a lucky autographed glow-in-the-dark snorkel, all to end up at the entire point of the song:

* ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' - Don't even ''try'' to have a coherent conversation with [[CloudCuckoolander Gir]].

* In ''Series/Outnumbered'', a question to Pete from Ben about wher Friday the 13th beliefs originated ends with Ben describing how someone could end up accidentally crucify themselves.

* Played with in the 4th ''Film/LethalWeapon'' movie, where Chris Rock and Joe Pesci go off on a huge tangent about cell phones, for no apparent reason.

* The narrator of {{Mark Twain}}'s "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" asks an old man about someone named Leonidas W. Smiley. The old man says he has never heard of anyone named Leonidas W. Smiley, but he ''has'' heard of someone named Jim Smiley. The rest of the story comprises a RamblingOldManMonologue about Jim Smiley and his jumping frog.

* The Music/WeirdAlYankovic song "Albuquerque" is a long, rambling screed that starts off with an account of his mom serving him sauerkraut for breakfast that touches on the number of molecules in Creator/LeonardNimoy's butt, moving out of the house, playful shriners, fluffy towels, ukulele-playing lepers, back-shavers, Albanian women with really bad body odor, Doctor Pepper, an airplane crash, an overly stuffed suitcase, eating soup out of ashtrays, air conditioning, those little mints that housekeepers leave on your pillow at high-class hotels, hermaphrodites with that Flock-of-Seagulls haircut, weasels, peaches, [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Zelda]], mint-flavored dental floss, working at the Sizzler, excessive ear wax, Torso Boy, and a lucky autographed glow-in-the-dark snorkel, all to end up at the entire point of the song:

* The Music/WeirdAlYankovic song "Albuquerque" is a long, rambling screed that starts off with an account of his mom serving him sauerkraut for breakfast that touches on the number of molecules in Creator/LeonardNimoy's butt, moving out of the house, playful shriners, fluffy towels, ukulele-playing lepers, back-shavers, Albanian women with really bad body odor, Doctor Pepper, an airplane crash, an overly stuffed suitcase, eating soup out of ashtrays, air conditioning, those little mints that housekeepers leave on your pillow at high-class hotels, hermaphrodites with that Flock-of-Seagulls haircut, weasels, peaches, [[TheLegendOfZelda Zelda]], mint-flavored dental floss, working at the Sizzler, excessive ear wax, Torso Boy, and a lucky autographed glow-in-the-dark snorkel, all to end up at the entire point of the song:

This is what happens when you try to have a conversation with a CloudCuckooLander. You try to talk to them about the weather, and then they get started on pink unicorns and that website with all those strange literary devices. In essence, the Wiki Talk is when one character becomes so sidetracked by one train of thought that he completely forgets about the original topic.

Characters prone to this include the CloudCuckooLander (as mentioned above) and TheDitz. The OnlySaneMan (who is often subject to this) can respond with a facepalm, some form of internal monologue expressing his disbelief, or an attempt to remind the invoker of this trope what they were talking about in the first place. Occasionally, the subject material brought up in the DerailedTrainOfThought can result in the recipient receiving TooMuchInformation. Responses may include the SpitTake, and for added humor, the invoker of the DerailedTrainOfThought may remain unaware of the reaction he/she has caused.