History Main / IceCreamKoan

* Godot in ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney: Trials and Tribulations'' is prone to coffee-flavoured versions of this. Everyone keeps asking him to start making sense, but he ignores them. Phoenix refers to them as part of his Coffeenese.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'': "Present Tense" (Cartoon Network Block Party #36, October 2007) has Grim fearing his demise is eminent, so he goes to the Otherworld to seek advice from Nostradamus.

Something that looks like a {{Koan}} (a Chinese Buddhist riddle meant to encourage contemplation), walks like a koan, quacks like a koan, but lacks… [[FauxSymbolism substance]]. [[CrypticConversation It sounds meaningful at first]], but [[FridgeLogic after you think a moment]], instead of getting some rush of insight, you realize that it is nothing more than nonsense, or just a joke dressed up in profundity's hand-me-downs. Like ice cream itself, it looks good and tastes good, but is ultimately just empty calories.

If done savvily enough, is indeed a form of TruthInTelevision--the point of a Zen koan (literally "Public Case", a story), is to show that contradiction is actually a delusion, and help the student let go of the mental habit of arranging things into dichotomies (because both extremes, despite their apparent contradiction, are actually ''one thing''). The {{Trope Namer|s}} above is one such example, despite containing an incredibly obvious pun.[[note]]Both cases are the same, wherein I give you ice cream: in the second case, I take away your lack of ice cream by giving you ice cream.[[/note]]

* The Martian leader's speech in ''Film/MarsAttacks'' is one of these. "All grren of skin... 800 centuries ago... Their bodily fluids include the birth of half breeds... For the fundamental understanding of the cosmos... For dark is the suede that mows like a harvest." Neatly {{lampshade|Hanging}}d by Creator/RodSteiger's [[GeneralRipper character]]: "What the HELL does that mean?!" Note that the humans need a (human-made) translating machine to understand the Martians. It's never outright stated, but there are a few hints (like the above) that [[BlindIdiotTranslation the machine is not working correctly]].
* ''Film/MesaOfLostWomen'' has Wu, who pretty much does nothing but speak in Ice Cream Koans such as "A hungry animal knows no fear". He makes Charlie Chan look subtle.

* Tito from ''WesternAnimation/RocketPower'' often gave profound "Ancient Hawaiian" koans which mostly were actually pretty meaningful and were often relevant to the plot and/or moral of their respective episodes. The Ice Cream Koan comes from Sammy making fun of this in a video game based on his friends with the in-game Tito {{expy}} saying "Never drink milk from a coconut you find in the dark." Tito himself is baffled by this and argues that the ancient Hawaiians have never said that.

* Whereas the street vendors from ''VideoGame/SleepingDogs'' just make up their own:

* A common practice amongst real-life TricksterMentor teachers is to toss a few Ice Cream Koans in among the genuine Koans. This both tests the student to see whether he or she was really paying attention and forces the student to learn to differentiate real wisdom from what merely pretends to be wise.

* ''Mesa of Lost Women'' has Wu, who pretty much does nothing but speak in Ice Cream Koans such as "A hungry animal knows no fear". He makes Charlie Chan look subtle.

* The ArcWords from ''Film/BatmanBegins'': "Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up."

* Ty Webb from ''Caddyshack'' is fond of these:-

--> '''Ty''': "The Zen philosopher, Basho, once wrote, 'A flute with no holes, is not a flute. A donut with no hole, is a Danish. ' He was a funny guy."
--> '''Ty''': The shortest distance between two points is a straight line in the complete and opposite direction.