History Main / PhlebotinumAnalogy

''[Turn to Gen. Hammond and repeat the question]'\\

* In ''Film/TheFly1958'', Andre Delambre takes it one step further. Not only does he use the way televisions transmit pictures through the air as an analogy for how his [[TeleportersAndTransporters teleporter]] transmits matter, he insists that since a television isn't all that fantastic or impressive ''a teleporter isn't either''.

** In ''Discworld/MakingMoney'', Adora Belle Dearheart calls the Cabinet of Curiosities "like a sliding puzzle, but with lots more directions to slide." Ponder Stibbons responds "[[LiesToChildren That is a very graphic analogy which aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way]]."
** In ''Discworld/ThiefOfTime'', [[spoiler: Lobsang]] explains how he's putting time back by comparing it to a jigsaw (in which the peices are scattered across the universe, moving, and mixed up with other jigsaws), before adding "Everything I have just said is nonsense. It bears no resemblence to the truth of the matter in any way at all." Sir Pterry, who co-created the phrase "LiesToChildren", is fond of this gag.

* Parodied in the Literature/{{Discworld}} book ''Discworld/NightWatch'', where Lu Tze's explanation of why it's easier to get Vimes back to the present than it was to make sure the time loop that has been formed by Carcer killing his mentor before he met him was stabilized, (It's like climbing up, and then jumping off, a mountain) is satisfactory to Vimes. Then Qu starts to point out that that's [[LiesToChildren not how it works at all]] and Lu Tze tells him to shut up because it'll prevent too many further questions.
** There's also the scene in ''Discworld/MakingMoney'' in which Adora Belle Dearheart calls the Cabinet of Curiosities "like a sliding puzzle, but with lots more directions to slide." Ponder Stibbons responds "[[LiesToChildren That is a very graphic analogy which aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way]]."
** And in ''Discworld/ThiefOfTime'', [[spoiler: Lobsang]] explains how he's putting time back by comparing it to a jigsaw (in which the peices are scattered across the universe, moving, and mixed up with other jigsaws), before adding "Everything I have just said is nonsense. It bears no resemblence to the truth of the matter in any way at all." Sir Pterry, who co-created the phrase "LiesToChildren", is fond of this gag.

--> '''Rosemary:''' So the only place the distance between those two points has been changed is...within the tunnel?

* There was such an analogy in ''Film/{{Apollo 13}}'', spoken in Mission Control. In this case what it referred to wasn't totally made up. (That part of the script was written by John Sayles, to raise money for his own projects.)

** Also in ''Stargate Atlantis'', a scientist back at SGC explains his intent to relay a transmission with an analogy to ''101 Dalmatians'' (specifically the "twilight bark" scene), as his kids love that movie. The audience completely fails to understand, so he falls back to the GondorCallsForAid sequence of ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' instead. Whereby they all visibly understand.

** Also in ''Stargate Atlantis'', a scientist back at SGC explains his intent to relay a transmission with an analogy to ''101 Dalmatians'' (specifically the "twilight bark" scene), as his kids love that movie. The audience completely fails to understand, so he falls back to the GondorCallsForAid sequence of ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' instead.
*** Whereby they all [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments visibly understand]].

'''Fry:''' Like a balloon and...[[BuffySpeak something bad happens!]]

** This is subverted in [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride "The Runaway Bride"]], in which the explainee resolutely fails to understand what the Doctor's talking about ("I'm a pencil inside a mug?"), and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink "Blink"]], where the Doctor's [[BuffySpeak inability to explain the way time works]] led to the TropeNamer example for TimeyWimeyBall.

** Also in ''Stargate Atlantis'', a scientist back at SGC explains his intent to relay a transmission with an analogy to ''101 Dalmatians'' (specifically the "twilight bark" scene), as his kids love that movie. The audience completely fails to understand, so he falls back to the GondorCallsForAid sequence of ''TheLordOfTheRings'' instead.

* ''Series/{{Chernobyl}}'' During a government meeting, Legasov explains how radiation affects people by comparing the particles to miniature bullets.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', "Where No Fan Has Gone Before":
-->'''Fry:''' Usually on Franchise/StarTrek, they came up with a complicated plan and explained it with a simple analogy.\\

** In another episode, Nibbler explains that Fry is resistant to psychic attacks because he lacks the "Delta Wave", and so his brain had to adapt to function without it.
-->'''Leela:''' Like a prom dress made out of carpet remnants!
-->'''Nibbler:''' [[HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood Yes, like your prom dress.]]

** There's also the scene in ''Discworld/MakingMoney'' in which Adora Belle Dearheart calls the Cabinet of Curiosities "like a sliding puzzle, but with lots more directions to slide." Ponder Stibbons responds "[[AnalogyBackfire That is a very graphic analogy which aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way]]."

[[folder:Film]]

** This was subverted in [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride "The Runaway Bride"]], in which the explainee resolutely fails to understand what the Doctor's talking about ("I'm a pencil inside a mug?"), and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink "Blink"]], where the Doctor's [[BuffySpeak inability to explain the way time works]] led to the TropeNamer example for TimeyWimeyBall.

** The novel ''The Pirate Loop'' includes a great one of these (paraphrased):
--->'''Martha:''' So, it's like a stone skipping across the surface of a lake?\\
'''The Doctor:''' Good analogy! I wish I'd said it. Can we just pretend I did?

'''The Doctor:''' Yeah...No! But if it helps, yes.
** A good one is from the ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' audio adventure "The Shadow of the Scourge":
--->"I'm inside the Scourge, which is inside of my consciousness, which is inside of the Scourge, so if we detonate one it's like two Russian dolls eating each other!"

* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' does this on occasion, hindered (sometimes hilariously) by mutual cross-cultural ignorance.

''[[[{{Beat}} *Teal'c stares blankly at him*]]]''\\

When Zelenka does come up with an analogy, Sheppard proudly says "I understand that" only to be told that the analogy isn't at all an accurate depiction of what he's doing.

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[[folder:WesternAnimation]]

*** Whereby they all [[CrowningMomentofFunny visibly understand]].

->'''Egon''': I'm worried. It's getting crowded in there and all my data points to something big on the horizon.\\
'''Winston''' What do you mean, big?\\
'''Egon''': Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning's sample, it would be a Twinkie... thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.\\
'''Winston''': That's a big Twinkie.

[[folder:LiveActionTV]]
* One of the times it fit in ''Franchise/StarTrek'' was in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E16GalaxysChild Galaxy's Child]]", where a [[SpaceWhale larva space creature]] is feeding on the Enterprise, both because the ship's energy is compatible, and because it thinks the Enterprise is its mother. So they change the form of the energy to something incompatible, which they call "souring the milk".
** Later, in "Relics", [[CallBack when LaForge is retelling this incident to Scotty]], Scotty uses that exact phrase, despite [=LaForge=] (presumably) using only TechnoBabble in his explanation.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'' is also riddled with this trope. A fine example occurs when the Fourth Doctor attempts to explain the transdimensional TARDIS to Leela by showing her two boxes and explaining that if the bigger box (which has been placed farther away and looks smaller than the actual smaller box) could be kept where it was and yet located where the small box is, it would fit inside the small box.
** This was subverted in the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episodes "The Runaway Bride", in which the explainee resolutely fails to understand what The Doctor's talking about ("I'm a pencil inside a mug?"), and "Blink", where The Doctor's [[BuffySpeak inability to explain the way time works]] led to the TropeNamer example for TimeyWimeyBall.
** The Doctor uses a strangely appropriate analogy to describe the way a PerceptionFilter works.
-->'''The Doctor:''' It's like, [[ObliviousToLove when you fancy someone and they don't even know you exist!]]\\

--> '''Martha:''' So, it's like a stone skipping across the surface of a lake?
--> '''The Doctor:''' Good analogy! I wish I'd said it. Can we just pretend I did?
** In recent years, especially, the Doctor has developed a tendency of telling his companions that their attempts at this trope are, in fact, completely inaccurate, but that they should keep up that line of thinking if it's what helps them understand.
--> '''Amy:''' Wait, so we're in a tiny bubble universe sticking to the side of the bigger bubble universe?
--> '''The Doctor:''' Yeah...No! But if it helps, yes.
** A good one is from the Doctor Who audio adventure "The Shadow of the Scourge"
--> "I'm inside the Scourge, which is inside of my consciousness, which is inside of the Scourge, so if we detonate one it's like two Russian dolls eating each other!"

---> '''Daniel excitedly turns to Teal'c:''' What do you get when you dial your own phone number?
---> [[{{Beat}} *Teal'c stares blankly at him*]]
---> '''Daniel:''' Wrong person to ask.
---> *Turn to Gen. Hammond and repeat the question*
---> '''Gen. Hammond:''' You get a busy signal.

--->'''Zelenka''': No offense, but the math I'm using is so complicated I don't know if I can dumb it down enough for it to make sense.
--->'''Sheppard''': Try.
---> When Zelenka does come up with an analogy, Sheppard proudly says "I understand that" only to be told that the analogy isn't at all an accurate depiction of what he's doing.
* In ''Series/RedDwarf'' there's a famous example that goes as follows:
-->'''Cat''': What is it?\\
'''Rimmer''': It's a rent in the space-time continuum.\\
'''Cat''': So what is it?\\
'''Lister''': The stasis room freezes time, you know, makes time stand still. So whenever you have a leak, it must preserve whatever it's leaked into, and it's leaked into this room.\\
'''Cat''': So what is it??\\
'''Rimmer''': It's singularity, a point in the universe where the normal laws of time and space don't apply.\\
'''Cat''': So what is it?!?\\
'''Lister''': It's a hole back into the past.\\
'''Cat''': Oh, a magic door! Well why didn't you say?
* ''Series/{{House}}'' plays with the trope; all the other doctors are generally happy to speak to one another in the proper jargon [[AsYouKnow they all understand]], but House himself ''likes'' talking this way: sometimes to [[TheGadfly wind his colleagues up]] or freak patients out, sometimes to stimulate lateral thinking, sometimes purely, as they say, for the lulz. He's been known on occasion to insist that the others speak in analogies, too.
-->'''House''': We think you have a tumour, easily removed surgically. We're going to poke it with a stick.
** This was parodied in ''[[Series.DeadRingers Dead Ringers]]'', in which House asks his [[InsistentTerminology Entourage of Improbably Attractive Sidekicks]] to first describe a medical problem in an impenetrably TechnoBabble way, and then to come out with an overly emotive PhlebotinumAnalogy. "...''His brain is literally eating itself!!''"
* ''Series/BabylonFive'' has fallen back on this one a few times. Not to anywhere near Franchise/StarTrek's level, of course.
* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' does this on occasion, hindered (sometimes hilariously) by mutual cross-cultural ignorance.
* In ''Series/{{Lost}}'', Ben tells Locke that there is a "box on this island that can contain anything you want." And when Locke takes it [[SidetrackedByTheAnalogy a little too literally]], Ben states outright "the box is a metaphor, John." Hilariously, later we do see something that can be described as a magic box. Locke asks Ben "[[CallBack Is that the box]]?" Ben is confused for a moment, but quickly answers "no."
* In ''{{Series/Eureka}}'', the geniuses often use this to explain the Problem of the Week to Carter. The standard format is that one of the regulars gives a TechnoBabble explanation of what's happening, and then use the analogy when Carter admits he's no idea what they're talking about. Carter then proposes a solution based on the metaphor, which Henry or Alison translates ''back'' into TechnoBabble to provide the ''actual'' solution.
* ''Series/TheFlash2014'': In "Paxadox", Jay Garrick explains to Barry Allen that no matter how many times you try to fix things with time travel, the best you'll get is a CloseEnoughTimeline. Jay illustrates this by breaking a coffee cup. No matter how well you try to put it back together, there will always be cracks.

** Fails in the episode that introduced the Tollan. When Daniel takes Omoc outside to send a FTL transmission to the [[TechnicalPacifist Nox]], he asks Omoc to explain how his message can cross interstellar distances in an instant. At first reluctant (due to the Tollan rule about not giving technology to younger races), Omoc takes a branch and bends it, so that the ends touch, explaining that the distances seem to be far away, until you merge the points together (paraphrasing). Daniel assumes he's talking about space folding, causing Omoc to shake his head in disappointment and shut up on the subject.

* ''Film/EventHorizon'' (1997): The eponymous ship features a prototype graviton drive, a kind of [[FasterThanLightTravel jump drive]], which bends space to eliminate the distance between two points anywhere in the universe, thus enabling instant travel from a to b (jumping). Dr. William Weir visualizes this by folding a sheet of paper, creating the synonymous term [[FasterThanLightTravel fold drive]].
** Nearly the same analogy (using the edge of a skirt rather than a sheet of paper) is used to describe tessering in Creator/MadeleineLEngle's ''Literature/AWrinkleInTime''.
*** Another similar example in ''AHappyAccident'', using a leg bending to explain a way that time travel is possible.
*** ''Film/DejaVu'' used the paper-folding analogy to explain it to Creator/DenzelWashington.
*** And [[OlderThanTheyThink lest we forget]] the originator of said analogy, Albert Einstein.
** The analogy was also used by Creator/WilliamShatner on "How Franchise/StarTrek Changed the World", but using pizza dough to illustrate the concept.

* One of the times it fit in ''Franchise/StarTrek'' was in the ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Next Generation]]'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E16GalaxysChild Galaxy's Child]]", where a [[SpaceWhale larva space creature]] is feeding on the Enterprise, both because the ship's energy is compatible, and because it thinks the Enterprise is its mother. So they change the form of the energy to something incompatible, which they call "souring the milk".
** Later, when [=LaForge=] is retelling this incident to Scotty, Scotty uses that exact phrase, despite [=LaForge=] (presumably) using only TechnoBabble in his explanation. [[BrickJoke In a completely different episode]] unrelated to the previous one.

*** ''Film/DejaVu'' used the paper-folding analogy to explain it to DenzelWashington.

*** Later, when [=LaForge=] is retelling this incident to Scotty, Scotty uses that exact phrase, despite [=LaForge=] (presumably) using only TechnoBabble in his explanation. [[BrickJoke In a completely different episode]] unrelated to the previous one.

** This was subverted in the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episodes "The Runaway Bride", in which the explainee resolutely fails to understand what The Doctor's talking about ("I'm a pencil inside a mug?"), and "Blink", where The Doctor's inability to explain the way time works led to the TropeNamer example for TimeyWimeyBall.

-->-- '''Film/{{Ghostbusters 1984}}'''

** Nearly the same analogy (using the edge of a skirt rather than a sheet of paper) is used to describe tessering in MadeleineLEngle's ''AWrinkleInTime''.

** The analogy was also used by WilliamShatner on "How Franchise/StarTrek Changed the World", but using pizza dough to illustrate the concept.

* Happens often enough in ''{{Numb3rs}}'' that in "Brutus", when Charlie explains his analysis of a directed graph then fails to explain, one of the FBI agents listening prompts him by saying "Which is just like..."