History Main / PlayingPictionary

* In an episode of ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'', [[LethalChef Akane bakes some cookies]] for Ranma in a variety of animal shapes, but the results come out so poorly that Ranma's guesses at identifying them are completely off the mark, with Akane getting increasingly incensed each time she corrects him. (She eventually gives up: "Are you gonna keep guessing or just eat them?!")
** At another time, she sewed a "cute" patch on Happosai's gi (which, unbeknownst to him, contained a "Woman Repellant" scent.) Happosai is delighted at the "cute little piggy," which a flustered Akane claims to be a dog.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' attempts to communicate via drawings in two different episodes ("Bubble Buddies" and "Escapism") when he's able to draw, but not speak, to someone. No one ever understands it. In "Bubble Buddies", Connie just ''writes'' what Steven was trying to convey, which is Steven's ultimate solution in "Escapism" as well. Nephrite/Centipeetle is actually significantly more successful with this method of communicating to Steven when neither speech nor writing works. Steven is able to interpret a ''lot'' from her drawings, which may explain why he tends to resort to it over writing.

* Rukia in ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' is known for loving to draw Chappy the Bunny, being absolutely horrible at drawing, and using her bad drawings to explain concepts with different people being different colors of bunny. Most of the other characters are never really sure what her drawings are supposed to be. The exception is Aizen, she draws him as a bear.
* In ''Literature/KyoKaraMaoh'', nobody ever figures out what Gwendal's knitted animals are supposed to be.

* In ''Manga/EmmaAVictorianRomance'', little Colin Jones draws doodles that look vaguely like some animal or other and gets upset if they're misidentified. Eldest brother William is the best at figuring out what's been drawn, mostly because every other Jones child once drew like that.

* In ''Literature/TheLittlePrince'', the narrator explains how he once drew a picture of a snake that had swallowed an elephant, and all the adults told him it was a very nice hat.

* In ''Literature/JustSoStories'' "[[http://boop.org/jan/justso/letter.htm How The First Letter Was Written]]", written language was invented to avoid this sort of confusion, after a picture intended to convey "Daddy has broken his spear, he needs his spare one, and this man who doesn't speak our language will bring it back" was interpreted as meaning "Daddy is being attacked from all sides by men with spears".

* During ''[[Literature/TheLockedTomb Harrow the Ninth]]'' the Lyctors and God hold a strategy meeting about the impending arrival of a Resurrection Beast. It's completely derailed when every single person present [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvJOuUJNcx8 looks at the squiggle]] the Saint of Joy drew representing the Beast and has their own idea about what she ''really'' drew. A muffin, a cloud with a face, a flower, a snake in a bush...
* When Semi and Miranda are turned into a fish and bird monster respectively in ''Literature/DrFranklinsIsland'', they have great difficulty communicating - they have ElectronicTelepathy but are too paranoid of being overheard to want to use it much. They can express a fair amount with body language but that has distinct limits. Miranda likes to make patterns of objects and really insists that Semi notices one - five seedpods, six flowers, three bits of melon rind, nine sticks, two dead butterflies - and is frustrated when Semi just sees it as art and not an important key code that Miranda had observed.

* Played with in ''Series/StargateSG1''. Daniel and Sam are presented with a thermal image of the symbiote inside of Teal'c, and they play dumb:
-->'''Daniel:''' Oh, that's very good! Did you draw that yourself?
-->'''Sam:''' What is it?
-->'''Daniel:''' That... That's a duck, isn't it?
* ''Series/CriminalMinds'': Morgan looks at a picture drawn by an autistic kid and can't figure out what it is. Hotch makes a glance, says "It's obviously a dog" and keeps on with what he's doing, leaving Morgan absolutely befuddled.
* The game show ''Series/WinLoseOrDraw'' was basically a game show version of ''Pictionary''. Coincidentally, there were also two official game show versions of ''Pictionary'', but neither was as popular.

* In one episode of ''Series/NedsDeclassifiedSchoolSurvivalGuide'', Ned tries to paint abstract art and the entire school thinks it's a naked lady. At the end of the episode, he actually tries to draw a naked lady and people see it as a fire truck.

* One episode of ''Series/TheBillEngvallShow'' has Paul with a sculpture of himself, only for it to be mistaken for one of Don Cheadle.
* In the ''Series/{{Friends}}'' "The One With All the Poker", Phoebe and Rachel good-naturedly mock Monica for the horrifying "Pictionary Incident," wherein she threw a plate in a moment of frustration at one of her buddies' poor drawing. She insists she was just gesticulating forcefully and the plate slipped out of her hand. In TheTag of the episode, they are playing Pictionary again, and no-one can guess that Monica's sketch of a bird is a clue for ''Theatre/ByeByeBirdie'' (instead, Chandler guesses each of the ''Film/{{Airport}}'' films in turn, while Phoebe says, "That's a ''bird''?"). However, when Rachel draws a bean-like shape and starts tapping it with the pencil, this is somehow enough for Joey to guess ''Literature/TheUnbearableLightnessOfBeing''.
* In one episode of ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', Leonard, Sheldon, Amy, and Penny have a Game Night, girls vs. guys. They start out with Pictionary, and Leonard and Sheldon completely fail at it. (Sheldon mistakes 'polish' for 'Polish', so draws Polish sausages and things associated with Marie Curie and Copernicus, who were both Polish. When it's Leonard's turn to draw, Sheldon guesses science things like 'quark-gluon plasma', when it's actually a chocolate chip cookie.)
* German family show ''Die Montagsmaler'' was entirely based on invoking this trope - A had to scribble a pic illustrating some word and B had to identify it. Funny moments ensued when a completely inept contestant should draw a navel - and the guesser refused to solve, thinking it was, uhm, [[AccidentalInnuendo something less innocent]].

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'':
** "Lois Kills Stewie":
-->'''Peter:''' Stewie, uh, how long you been all messed up and evil like this?
-->'''Stewie:''' Oh, so now you're interested in Stewie. Last week when I made that macaroni picture of an owl, you didn't give a damn!
-->'''Peter:''' That was an owl?
** Another episode features Stewie actually playing Pictionary with a family who had moved into the Griffins' house. The husband of the family keeps shouting, "It's a jackal! Jackal! It looks like a jackal! Jackal!", much to Stewie's irritation once time runs out.
-->'''Stewie:''' It wasn't right the first time you said it! Why the hell would it be right the next ten times?!

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''
** In "A Milhouse Divided," the Simpsons host a dinner party with a game of Pictionary. Maude Flanders guesses "cornstarch" from three dots drawn by Ned, while Kirk Van Houten is unable to draw "dignity," though [[TakeOurWordForIt Luanne is]]. Homer thinks that Kirk is also unable to draw "a door".
** In "You Kent Always Say What You Want", Maggie and Marge play some amazing rounds of Pictionary against Selma and Patty, but despite Maggie's drawings being incomprehensible, Marge always knows what they are.

* Happened in ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' in a episode in which Dracula's pictionary drawing of Abraham Lincoln is mistaken for successively more absurd things.
* A variation in the ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episode "Put That Putter Away". Candace apparently has such poor handwriting that when she writes the word "busted" on a piece of paper, [[StrangeMindsThinkAlike both Stacy and Phineas mistake it for a drawing of dancing weasels]].
* Parodied in the ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'' episode "Cabin Fever". Bev Bighead invites Ed to try hand shadow puppetry with Rocko and Heffer, and despite Ed being able to create the unmistakable shapes of "The Thinker", the Eiffel Tower, and a prancing deer, none of the other three can get anywhere close to the right answers. This raises Ed's temper to the point that he causes the HairTriggerAvalanche driving the remainder of the episode's plot.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'', the Warners play Pictionary with Pablo Picasso. The Warners are unable to decipher his realistic drawings, while their weird-looking doodles leave him flummoxed. When an art dealer arrives and sees the Warner's drawings, he mistakes them for Picasso's and praises his new "Cubist" style.
* O'Farrell's attempt at assembling [[FacialCompositeFailure a sketch of the serial shredder]] in ''WesternAnimation/{{Fillmore}}'':
-->'''Tehama''': Okay. What the heck is that?\\
'''Fillmore''': Uh, no offence, Danny, but that kinda looks like Tiger Woods on a ''very'' bad morning.\\
'''Ingrid''': (squinting) Oh yeah, and that's his elbow...at least, I ''hope'' that's his elbow...
* In the ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'' episode "The Big Date", one of the things Jimmy and Beezy try to do to keep [[RichBitch Jez]] busy while Lucius deals with a problem at his factory is the trope. Hilariously, Jimmy draws an extremely accurate horse representation but [[FatIdiot Beezy]] [[EpicFail constantly identifies it as things like a waffle]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': During a burying-the-hatchet dinner party with two former adversaries, the Plantars end up playing "[[BlandNameProduct Draw-si-Doodle]]". Hop Pop and Grime open with incredibly crude drawings that are correctly identified as a dirtsnake and "Sergeant Campbell Bilgewater and the Horsefly Rebellion of '48". Sasha draws a fairly detailed picture of a tree, which somehow all the Plantars identify as the time they blew up Toad Tower.

* German family show ''Die Montagsmaler'' was entirely based on invoking this trope - A had to scribble a pic illustrating some word and B [[CatchPhrase ("Hund! Katze! Maus!")]] had to identify it. Funny moments ensued when a completely inept contestant should draw a navel - and the guesser refused to solve, thinking it was, uhm, [[AccidentalInnuendo something less innocent]].

[[folder: Anime & Manga ]]
* Rukia in ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' is known for loving to draw Chappy the Bunny, being absolutely horrible at drawing, and using her bad drawings to explain concepts with different people being different colors of bunny. Most of the other characters are never really sure what her drawings are supposed to be.
** The exception is Aizen. She draws him as a bear.
* In ''LightNovel/KyoKaraMaoh'', nobody ever figures out what Gwendal's knitted animals are supposed to be.

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

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

[[folder: Literature]]

* In the Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures novel ''Camera Obscura'', everyone who sees the Doctor's attempted map of a London neighborhood wonders about the round shapes he's drawn. Fitz tries to guess what they might be ("trees", "gardens", or "duck ponds") until Anji gets annoyed and sarcastically suggests they're "gigantic pools of jam". Oddly, Fitz and Sabbath [[StrangeMindsThinkAlike both]] describe them as "puffy". It's never explained what they were actually meant to be.

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* From ''Series/CriminalMinds.'' Morgan looks at a picture drawn by an autistic kid and can't figure out what it is. Hotch makes a glance, says "It's obviously a dog" and keeps on with what he's doing, leaving Morgan absolutely befuddled.

[[folder: Newspaper Comics]]

[[folder: Webcomics ]]
* ''Webcomic/TheChapelChronicles'', in a reversal of the usual trope, Chapel draws an [[http://www.chapelchronicles.com/comic/5 photo-realistic Mona Lisa]], but her opponent Fred can't identify it.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', Jade Harley owns a Pictionary Modus. It misidentifies an advanced bass for a mecha, the Tangle Buddies for a pair of gloves with some coins and the Magic Cue Ball for the Magic 8 Ball.

[[folder: Web Original ]]
* A skit from ''Series/TheWhitestKidsUKnow'' has a child showing a picture he drew to his parents. While it appears to be something rather inappropriate (read: penis), he explains to his parents after they fail to recognize that it is actually an elephant. Subverted moments later, when the child shows them a drawing that looks exactly what it meant to be.

[[folder: Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''

* A variation in the ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episode "Put That Putter Away": Candace apparently has such poor ''handwriting'' that when she writes the word "busted" on a piece of paper, [[StrangeMindsThinkAlike both Stacy and Phineas mistake it for a drawing of dancing weasels]].

* WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse attempts to communicate via drawings in two different episodes ("Bubble Buddies" and "Escapism") when he's able to draw, but not speak, to someone. No one ever understands it. In "Bubble Buddies", Connie just ''writes'' what Steven was trying to convey, which is Steven's ultimate solution in "Escapism" as well.
** Nephrite/Centipeetle is actually significantly more successful with this method of communicating to Steven when neither speech nor writing works. Steven is able to interpret a ''lot'' from her drawings, which may explain why he tends to resort to it over writing.

* ''ComicStrip/PiranhaClub'': On a double date/game night with Doris' insufferable roommate Felicia, Doris completely fails to guess Ernie's drawing ("An omelet! An amoeba! Ecstacy! A SCUD missile!"). Crosses over into TerribleArtist, since nobody else manages to identify it either, even after being told what it is. [[note]]A dog.[[/note]] Meanwhile, Felicia's InsufferableGenius boyfriend Basil produces perfect renditions of the Art/SistineChapel and Rembrandt's Night Guard in under 15 seconds.[[note]]Well, nearly perfect: he ran out of time and had to leave out The Fall of Adam and Eve.[[/note]]

Compare TerribleArtist.

* In the ''Series/{{Friends}}'' "The One With All the Poker", Phoebe and Rachel good-naturedly mock Monica for the horrifying "Pictionary Incident," wherein she threw a plate in a moment of frustration at one of her buddies' poor drawing. She insists she was just gesticulating forcefully and the plate slipped out of her hand. In TheTag of the episode, they are playing Pictionary again, and no-one can guess that Monica's sketch of a bird is a clue for ''Theatre/ByeByeBirdie'' (instead, Chandler guesses each of the ''Film/{{Airport}}'' films in turn, while Phoebe says, "That's a bird??"). However, when Rachel draws a bean-like shape and starts tapping it with the pencil, this is somehow enough for Joey to guess ''Literature/TheUnbearableLightnessOfBeing''.

* The ''Series/{{Friends}}'' good-naturedly mocks Monica for the horrifying "Pictionary Incident," wherein she threw a plate in a moment of frustration at one of her buddies' poor drawing. She insists she was just gesticulating forcefully and the plate slipped out of her hand.

[[folder: Film]]

* One GEICO commercial shows a game of Pictionary, with a sloth as the artist. A straight line is all it can draw before time expires. (The picture is supposed to be a tandem bicycle.)

* In ''Manga/VictorianRomanceEmma'', little Colin Jones draws doodles that look vaguely like some animal or other and gets upset if they're misidentified. Eldest brother William is the best at figuring out what's been drawn, mostly because every other Jones child once drew like that.

* In ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh'', not even Sakaki can identify what species her knitted dolls are.

'''[[BlindWeaponmaster Toph:]]''' It look ''just'' like him to me.\\
'''Sokka:''' Thank you, I worked really- [[{{Troll}} Why do you feel the need to do that?]]

* Pictionary is played in ''Series/{{Community}}'' episode [[Recap/CommunityS1E18BasicGenealogy Basic Genealogy]] and the game devolves into a fist fight when an attempt to draw a windmill looks more like a swastika.

* In an episode of ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'', [[LethalChef Akane bakes some cookies]] for Ranma in a variety of animal shapes, but the results come out so poorly that Ranma's guesses at identifying them are completely off the mark, with Akane getting increasingly incensed each time she corrects him (she eventually gives up: "Are you gonna keep guessing or just eat them?!").

* ''ComicStrip/PiranhaClub'': On a double date/game night with Doris' insufferable roommate Felicia, Doris completely fails to guess Ernie's drawing ("An omelet! An amoeba! Ecstacy! A SCUD missile!"). Crosses over into TerribleArtist, since nobody else manages to identify it either, even after being told what it is. [[note]]A dog.[[/note]] Meanwhile, Felicia's InsufferableGenius boyfriend Basil produces perfect renditions of the SistineChapel and Rembrandt's Night Guard in under 15 seconds.[[note]]Well, nearly perfect: he ran out of time and had to leave out The Fall of Adam and Eve.[[/note]]