History Main / NonSequitur

* ''Webcomic/SandraOnTheRocks'' featured a scene in which Senna and Sandra were arguing about whether the day should be devoted to "high culture" or "geek culture". Caught in the middle, Gary cried "To Belgium!"
** Actually, he was [[AvertedTrope being quite logical]]; he was proposing a visit to a museum of comics art in Brussels. Still, the effect on the women was adequately confusing.

* Website/NobodyHere: The first thing that comes to Jogchem's mind upon stubbing his toe against the table in "[[https://nobodyhere.com/justme/ouch.here Ouch]]"? "A pen, a pen, quickly!"

* [[Creator/MarxBrothers Groucho]], at times:

A Non Sequitur (Latin for "it does not follow") in fiction is an event or line of dialogue which comes out of nowhere and- [[SelfDemonstratingArticle PUPPIES!]] Ahem... and bears no relevance to the subject at hand. It is a staple of surrealism and humor, and often establishes a character as TheDitz or a {{Cloudcuckoolander}}. [[SelfDemonstratingArticle I like bananas anyways.]]

* [[SelfDemonstratingArticle Tomato paper,]] [[RuleOfThree firework.]]

* The ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' episode ''The Sign of Three'' has Sherlock delivering a speech [[spoiler: at John's wedding]]. While he's talking, he realises that someone in the room is about to murdered, and goes on a deductive rampage [[ImagineSpot in his mind]] trying to figure out who it is and who's going to murder them while also trying to keep his speech going and not arouse too much suspicion from his audience. The result is a semi-coherent speech to a crowd of confused people that keeps dipping into non sequiturs before Sherlock manages [[IMeantToDoThat to shakily work whatever he just blurted out]] [[LastSecondWordSwap from his train of thought into the speech]].
* An episode of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' is actually titled "Non Sequitur" and features an extreme example; Harry Kim is sucked through a NegativeSpaceWedgie and wakes up in an alternate universe. Not only is he 70,000 light years from where he was, but so much time has passed since he (in his reality) disappeared with ''Voyager'' that he doesn't even know what this version of himself is supposed to be doing.

* Subverted and {{Lampshaded}} in ''Series/{{Scrubs}}''. J.D. always appears to the other characters to be saying these, because he constantly [[ImagineSpot imagines something related to the issue at hand]] and then makes a comment about his fantasy that winds up sounding totally nonsensical to the other characters. Generally, the longer and more elaborate the fantasy, the more removed his comment will be from the situation that triggered the fantasy in the first place.

* ''Series/NightAndDay'' was full of them - a symptom both of the show's attempts at surrealism, and of the condensed night-time omnibuses, which cut many contextualising scenes. Since the daytime episodes were axed fairly early in the UK run (though still produced in full and distributed to foreign markets), sometimes events that had occurred in axed scenes were alluded to in the omnibus or pre-titles recap, leading to confusion for viewers. Other events were simply unexplained altogether for stylistic reasons, leaving viewers to ponder on the ambiguities for themselves. These two factors combined to create an unsettling, disruptive effect which arguably added to the show's sense of mystery and atmosphere. For example:

** In another episode, Natalie's assertion to Roxanne that she believes Danny - a character who has been absent for 18 years - to have killed Jane, and that he wants to 'destroy us all', seems to come entirely from nowhere.

* In the final [[Creator/{{Syfy}} Sci-Fi Channel]] episode of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', Pearl pours some Mountain Dew into Observer's brain pan off screen, which causes him to spout these after every sentence. It also prevents him from stopping the Satellite of Love from coming down to Earth.

* There are several in ''Film/TheRoom''. The most infamous being this (which, depending on how much credit you give to the screenwriter, might qualify as a deliberate example of HypocriticalHumour):

* One chapter of ''Manga/KaguyaSamaLoveIsWar'' has Kaguya, Shirogane, and Ishigami turn into shojo parodies of themselves after they all binge read a romance manga and start acting out an ImaginaryLoveTriange, only for Fujiwara to come bursting into the room and start talking about a sumo match she recently watched. [[spoiler:Fujiwara's final focus chapter at the end of the series would retroactively turn this into a subversion when it's revealed that she dreams of one day marrying a sumo wrestler, meaning that her seemingly random comment was actually on topic the whole time.]]

* The ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode "Society of the Blind Eye" features McGucket with the main cast. Hence, we get this gem:
--> '''McGucket''': We'll have to be stealthy-like. I'll hambone a message in case there's danger. (Slaps himself as subtitles spell out "Coyotes are coming for our sweetbreads").

A Non Sequitur (Latin for "it does not follow") in fiction is an event or line of dialogue which comes out of nowhere [[SelfDemonstratingArticle PUPPIES!]] Ahem... and bears no relevance to the subject at hand. It is a staple of surrealism and humor, and often establishes a character as TheDitz or a {{Cloudcuckoolander}}. [[SelfDemonstratingArticle I like bananas.]]

* NonSequiturThud, which is when this is brought on by a concussive injury.

* WakingNonSequitur

* ''Series/{{Countdown}}'': In many Letters rounds on the ''8 Out of 10 Cats'' edition, whilst the clock is ticking, host Creator/JimmyCarr would take part in a humorous activity, such as blowing up balloons (and then getting lifted up with them), drinking a potion to grow hair quickly or enticing a bird of prey to fly onto his arm. Rachel Riley (the arithmetician) and occasionally Susie Dent (the lexicographer) sometimes take part in these segments.

* Mrs. Davis on ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'' is the source of the occasional non-sequitur. Mrs. Davis is very absentminded and sometimes forgets what she's saying in the middle of a sentence.

* The dialogue of ''Series/TheEricAndreShow'' is made up of about 90% of these. Eric telling Demi Lovato, apropos of nothing, "You are my knight in shining armor...you are the wind beneath my wings...I think you're great...and I'm ready for some football," while eating a plate of spaghetti, is one of the ''least'' inexplicable examples.
* In the final Sci-Fi Channel episode of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', Pearl pours some Mountain Dew into Observer's brain pan off screen, which causes him to spout these after every sentence. It also prevents him from stopping the Satellite of Love from coming down to Earth.

* Though a lot of ''Music/TheyMightBeGiants'' songs could qualify, perhaps none embody this trope better than "Fingertips" from ''Apollo 18''. The song features 21 separate tracks that are mostly only a few seconds long and have no relation to one another. Even better, when the album is listened to on "shuffle", the little snippets of the song get sprinkled throughout the rest of the album, leading to some [[UpToEleven even more surreal moments]] than what TMBG is known for.

* The dialogue of ''Series/TheEricAndreShow'' is made up of about 90% these. Eric telling Demi Lovato, apropos of nothing, "You are my knight in shining armor...you are the wind beneath my wings...I think you're great...and I'm ready for some football," while eating a plate of spaghetti, is one of the ''least'' inexplicable examples.

* The song ''A Merry Life'' by composer Edward Oxenford has an example of this by way of AsLongAsItSoundsForeign. The song was an English language "adaptation" of the song ''Funiculì, Funiculà'', written in 1880, which most people today would recognize as [[VideoGame/SpiderMan2 the Pizza Delivery Mission theme]]. The song was originally written by Luigi Denza in [[StealthParody (possibly mock)]] dedication to the first funicular railway on Mount Vesuvius, got immensely popular in Italy, and was then accidentally plagiarized by German composer Richard Strauss, who didn't speak much Italian and mistook it for a traditional Neapolitan folk tune. Oxenford took it a step further by keeping the famous lyrics "Funiculì, Funiculà", but making the bulk of the lyrics about somebody singing about [[TastesLikeDiabetes how great life is]]. Thus you get a song about the joys of life where the POV character suddenly breaks into a chorus repeating the word "cable car" over and over with no explanation.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]

[[folder:Video Games]]

[[folder:Web Original]]

[[folder:Other]]

[[folder:Podcasts]]