Comedy Tropes

Tropes seen primarily in comedies, or which are inherently intended to be funny.

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Tropes

Subcategories and Trope Indexes

Main topics

• Comedy: The whole genre itself.
• Funny Moments: Humorous moments in various works of media.
• Played for Laughs: A trope is used for humor instead of being treated seriously.
• Rule of Funny: Impossible things that are tolerated because they are funny.

Sub-genres/types of comedy

• Armed Farces: Military humor and war comedy.
• Black Comedy: Humor derived from taboo or offensive subjects.
• Bromantic Comedy: Story about male friendships that uses Romantic Comedy tropes.
• Comedy Series: Comedy on television.
  • Sitcom: Situational comedy, driven by scripted plot and characters.
  • Sketch Comedy: A comedy show that consists of multiple unrelated skits put together in one episode.
• Cringe Comedy: Humor derived from embarrassment and humiliation.
• Dramedy: The hybrid genre of comedy and drama.
• Fantastic Comedy: Comedic takes on fantasy and science fiction.
• Horror Comedy: The hybrid genre of comedy and horror.
• Romantic Comedy: The hybrid genre of comedy and romance.
• Satire/Parody/Pastiche: Defining the similarities and differences between the three.
  • Parody: Comedy that makes fun of another work of media.
  • Satire: Comedy that makes fun of contemporary culture, politics, or society.
• Rant Comedy: Humorously trash-talking about something that really annoys you.
• Rapid-Fire Comedy
• Recorded and Stand-Up Comedy: The art of comedians sharing jokes for a live audience.
• Screwball Comedy
• Self-Referential Humor
• Slapstick: Humor derived from people getting physically injured.
• Surreal Humor: Comedy about absurd and bizarre things that make little sense.
• Vulgar Humor: Jokes about gross things, like bodily functions and sexuality.
  • Toilet Humour: Jokes about the excretion of waste from the body.

Other trope categories

• Acceptable Targets: People and subjects that are common targets for jokes and mockery.
• Accidental Index: Things that don't happen the way you intended can be funny.
• Bathos
• Chewing the Scenery: Exaggerated, over-the-top behavior can often be funny.
• Comedic Relief Characters: Stock Characters who are inherently funny.
• Dude, Not Funny!: If you cross the line too far with humor, expect some people to be offended instead of amused.
• Indexing Ensues
• Innuendo Tropes: Jokes alluding to sex or other risqué behavior.
• Memetic Mutation: Humorous cultural references and other jokes that become popular enough to be widely shared and spread, especially over the Internet.
• Mistaken for Index: When people make incorrect guesses or wrong assumptions about someone or something else, it can lead to a very humorously awkward situation.
• Narm: Something that tries (and fails) to take itself seriously turns into unintended comedy instead.
• Nothing Is Funnier
• Oh Great, a Snark Index: Jokes derived from sarcasm and sardonicism.
• Parody Tropes: Tropes about anything that can be parodied.
• Practical Jokes: Tropes about pranks.
• Room Shuffle
• Sitcom Tropes: Tropes commonly found in sitcoms, obviously enough.
• Stock Jokes: Common gags you've seen many times before.
  • Stock Parodies: Common spoofs of specific works.
    • Stock Parody Jokes: Specific gags that are often used when spoofing something.
• Stupidity Tropes: People making fools of themselves are usually funny.
• Subverted Innocence: A joke about something that's often thought of as being harmless and inoffensive, turning out to be anything but.
• This Index Is a Joke

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Tropes – A

• Abhorrent Admirer: Someone is constantly pursued by an ugly or otherwise unpleasant person who is attracted to them.
• Abnormal Allergy: A character having an oddball allergy, most of the time not even existing in real life.
• Absent-Minded Professor: A spaced-out scientist.
• Absurd Phobia: Someone has a ludicrous fear of something that isn't particularly known to be scary.
• Absurdly Bright Light
• Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: Someone tries to barricade a door, but the material used has no chance of properly preventing someone from going through the door.
• Absurdly Long Wait
• Accidental Art
• Accidental Athlete
• Accidental Bid
• Accidental Dance Craze: Someone is mistaken for dancing and the "dance" catches on.
• Accidental Discovery
• Accidental Hug
• Accidental Marriage: You may now kiss the bride! But wait, how the hell did this happen?
• Accidental Pervert: Someone accidentally says or does things that make them look like a perverted creep.
• Accidental Proposal: Someone mistakes someone else for having proposed to them.
• Accidental Truth: A character was only making up a lie when they said something, but it later turns out that what they said is actually true.
• Accidental Unfortunate Gesture: Someone accidentally makes an offensive gesture.
• Acid Reflux Nightmare: Eating before bed causes a person to have nightmares.
• Acme Products
• Acquainted with Emergency Services
• Acquired Error at the Printer
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: Whenever a person becomes popular for some reason, they let their fame go to their head when usually they're not shown to be self-absorbed and pompous.
• Acronym Confusion
• Acting Unnatural: Characters try to behave naturally, but behave weirdly.
• Action Insurance Gag
• Actor/Role Confusion: The actor who plays a character is mistaken for the fictional character they play.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Someone objects to a joke someone else makes at another person's expense, but ends up agreeing that the joke is hilarious.
• Actually, That's My Assistant: The boss's assistant is mistaken for the one in charge.
• Adam Westing: A celebrity plays a parody of themselves.
• Addictive Foreign Soap Opera
• Admiring the Abomination: A character makes complimentary statements about someone or something they should be angry at or afraid of.
• Adolf Hitlarious: Adolf Hitler is depicted as a joke.
• Adults Are Useless: Adults are portrayed as too stupid, oblivious or apathetic to do anything helpful when their children are in trouble.
• Aerosol Spray Backfire
• Agitated Item Stomping
• The Ahnold: A parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
• Air Hugging
• Alien Lunch: Gags about alien food.
• Aliens Steal Cattle: Aliens abduct cows.
• All Balloons Have Helium: All balloons can fly even if someone just blew them up by mouth.
• All-Cheering All the Time
• All Cloth Unravels: Pulling on a loose thread unravels a person's clothes, leaving them nude.
• The Alleged Car: Someone has a car that's a complete mess and is barely able to function.
• The Alleged Computer
• The Alleged Steed
• All Guys Want Sorority Women
• All Jews Are Cheapskates
• The All-Solving Hammer
• Alternative Joke Interpretation: When a joke could be interpreted two or more ways.
• Always a Live Transmission
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Parents who can't help but embarrass their children all the time.
• Ambiguous Criminal History: A character is implied to have done illegal things in the past and served jailtime for it, but it isn't explained exactly what they did.
• Ambulance Cut
• Am I Right?
• Amusing Alien: Aliens are played for comedy.
• Amusingly Short List
• Anal Probing: Aliens probe people's butts.
• And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt
• And a Diet Coke: Someone orders a diet coke to go with the tons of unhealthy food they just ordered.
• ...And That Would Be Wrong: Immediately after an immoral suggestion is made, it's pointed out by the characters that said action isn't the right thing to do.
• And the Rest
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: Someone dies and everyone's glad the person has kicked the bucket.
• Angrish: Someone gets so infuriated that they lose the ability to speak rationally and resort to hollering gibberish and/or incomplete sentences.
• Animal Reaction Shot
• Animal Sweet on Object: An animal falls for an object.
• Animated Outtakes
• Annoying Background Event
• Annoying Laugh
• Anorgasmia
• Answers to the Name of God
• Antenna Adjusting
• Anti-Climactic Parent
• Anti Climax Cut
• Anti-Humor
• Antiquated Linguistics
• Anti-Sneeze Finger: Putting a finger to one's own or somebody else's nose to prevent them from sneezing.
• Anyone Remember Pogs?
• Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better
• Apathetic Clerk
• Appeal to Obscurity
• Appliance Defenestration
• Are We There Yet?
• Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?
• The Aristocrats: A joke where a family goes to a talent agent and does a very obscene act, which they call 'The Aristocrats'.
• Armor-Piercing Slap
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Ending a list with the weakest example.
• Ashes to Crashes
• Ash Face
• Asian Cleaver Fever: Characters preparing Asian food wield knives as though they're fighting or performing.
• Asian Speekee Engrish
• Aside Comment
• Aside Glance: A character reacts to something by turning to face the audience.
• Asinine Alternate Activity
• Ass Shove: Someone gets an object shoved up their ass.
• Assembly Line Fast-Forward: Characters work at an assembly line and end up making a mess when the conveyer belt's speed is drastically increased.
• Assumed Win: Someone assumes they've won before learning that they didn't.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: Someone is shocked or surprised by something while they're talking and the word they suddenly shout could very well be what they were about to say or at least makes sense as part of the interrupted sentence. Alternatively, someone interrupts someone else and it finishes the sentence.
• Astronomical Exchange Rate
• Asymmetric Dilemma: Mentioning two problems, the first insignificant and given in unnecessary detail while the second is more serious but mentioned as if it was less important than the other problem.
• At Arm's Length
• Ate It All
• Ate the Spoon: A substance is shown to be highly corrosive by having a spoon dissolve the instant one tries to use it on the substance.
• Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!
• Attack of the Political Ad
• Attack the Tail
• Awful British Sex Comedy
• Awkward Father-Son Bonding Activity

Tropes – B

• The B Grade: Someone gets upset over receiving a grade that is slightly less than perfect.
• Bachelor Auction
• Backing Away Slowly: Slowly moving away from someone who just said or did something awkward or crazy.
• The Backstage Sketch
• Back to School
• Backwards-Firing Gun
• Badge Gag: Issues when a character tries to display their badge or ID.
• Bad Humor Truck: An ice cream truck is driven by a bad person.
• Bad Impressionists
• Bad Job, Worse Uniform
• Bad Liar: Someone is very bad at telling a convincing lie.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: The babysitter gets hurt while trying to keep the child they're watching over from danger.
• Bad News in a Good Way
• Bad News, Irrelevant News: In a "good news, bad news" situation, the good news is weak and/or irrelevant.
• Bad Omen Anecdote
• Bait-and-Switch: Surprising the audience after making it look like something else is going to happen.
  • Bait-and-Switch Accusation
  • Bait-and-Switch Comparison: Saying that one person is like the other and the other thing is the other (e.g. "The difference between the mayor and a mosquito is that one is a bloodsucking pest and the other is an insect").
  • Bait-and-Switch Comment
  • Bait-and-Switch Sentiment: Someone seems to be being sentimental, but they aren't.
• Balloonacy: Someone floats with one or more balloons.
• Balloon Belly: Overeating causes a person to have a huge round belly.
• Balloon-Bursting Bird: A balloon pops after a bird pecks at it with its beak.
• "Balls" Gag: A joke on the fact that the word "balls" can be slang for testicles.
• Banana In The Tail Pipe: Lodging something in the tailpipe of a car.
• Banana Peel: Someone slips on a banana peel and gets hurt.
• "Bang!" Flag Gun: A novelty gun that has a flag reading "BANG!" come out of the barrel when the trigger is pulled rather than bullets.
• Banister Slide
• Bank Toaster
• Barely Missed Cushion
• Bar Slide
• Barbershop Quartets Are Funny
• Batty Lip Burbling
• Beach Bury
• Bear Trap
• Beauty Mark
• Becoming Part of the Image
• Bedmate Reveal: A character wakes up and finds a stranger sharing their bed.
• Bedroom Adultery Scene
• Beef Bandage: Someone treats their injury by putting a steak on it.
• Behind a Stick: Someone somehow manages to hide behind something much thinner than they are.
• Belly Flop Crushing
• "Be Quiet!" Nudge: Hitting someone to gesture that they should shut up right now.
• Bested at Bowling
• Best Out of Infinity
• Big Eater: A person with an appetite big enough that they're constantly eating large amounts of food.
• Big "SHUT UP!": Yelling at a person to "shut up".
• Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: A character resorts to using childish insults.
• Bird-Poop Gag: A form of Toilet Humour where the joke revolves around a bird pooping on something or someone.
• Birthday Suit Surprise Party: Someone stumbles upon a surprise party while naked.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: A work makes a joke at the expense of the company that made or helped make production or distribution of the work possible.
• Bits of Me Keep Passing Out: Someone's body parts fall asleep at random times.
• Bizarre and Improbable Golf Game
• Bizarre Taste in Food: A character does weird things with their own food.
• Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: Animal violence and mistreatment of animals is played for dark laughs.
• Black Comedy Burst: A comedy that usually uses lighthearted jokes suddenly uses Black Comedy.
• Black Comedy Cannibalism: Jokes about cannibals and eating people.
• Black Comedy Rape: Playing sexual assault and rape for laughs.
• Blanket Fort
• Blanket Tug O' War
• Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: A hot sauce that is extremely hot, causing whoever consumes it to try and cool off the burning taste in their mouth.
• The Blind Leading the Blind
• Blind Mistake: A blind person ends up making silly mistakes because of their lack of sight.
• Blind Shoulder Toss
• Blind Without 'Em: A character who wears glasses can't see a thing without them on.
• Blood on the Debate Floor
• Bloody Hilarious: Dark humor revolving around explicit and bloody violence.
• A Bloody Mess: An innocent, red-colored substance is mistaken for blood.
• Blunt Metaphors Trauma: A foreigner gets unfamiliar figures of speech and idioms wrong.
• Boggles the Mind: Words made in Scrabble or Boggle that relate to the player's thoughts.
• Boogie Knights
• Book and Switch: Someone hides the book they're actually reading behind a book they're tricking other people into thinking they're reading.
• Boomerang Bigot: Someone is prejudiced toward a group they actually belong to.
• Boomerang Comeback
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Instances where a character says another character's catchphrase tend to be funny.
• Borscht Belt
• Bottom of the Barrel Joke: A rude joke is made because the writers got lazy.
• Bowel-Breaking Bricks: A character appears to have pooped themselves in fear, but it isn't poop.
• Box-and-Stick Trap: Someone sets up a trap where the target is intended to have a box fall onto them by knocking over the stick holding the box up.
• The Boxing Episode
• Brain Freeze: Someone suffers a migraine from consuming frozen desserts too fast.
• Brake Angrily: Someone suddenly stops the car they're driving in response to hearing a remark that upsets them.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: A list of three or more things ends with a combination of the previously listed items.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: A mundane list ends with something gross or disturbing.
• Break the Motivational Speaker
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: A meta-joke in which a character displays awareness of the fact that they're in a work of fiction, often leading to self-referential commentary about the real-life nature of the work itself.
  • No Fourth Wall: The fourth wall is broken so frequently that it may as well not even exist.
• Breathe on the Fan
• Breathless Non Sequitur: A character makes an abrupt, nonsensical statement without skipping a beat.
• Brick Joke: Something mentioned briefly gets a humorous callback later.
• Briefs Boasting: A man brags because he wears small underwear.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Someone soils themselves in response to getting scared.
• British Humour
• British Royal Guards
• British Stuffiness
• Broken Echo
• Broken Record
• Brought Home the Wrong Kid
• Brutal Honesty: Telling the truth bluntly.
• Bubblegum Popping
• Bucket Booby-Trap
• Bumbling Dad: A father who is a complete moron.
• Bunny Ears Picture Prank: When two or more people have their picture taken, one person uses their index and middle fingers to make "bunny ears" behind another person's head.
• Burger Fool: Someone has to work at a fast food restaurant.
• Burning Bag of Poop: A gross Practical Joke where someone leaves a burning bag of fecal matter at someone's door and tricks the person into stamping out the fire.
• Burping Contest: Seeing who can belch the loudest or longest.
• Butt Biter: Someone gets bitten on their behind.
• Butt-Monkey: A character whose primary purpose is to constantly face misfortune.
  • Born Unlucky
  • The Chew Toy
• Butter Face: A woman with a beautiful body, but an ugly face.
• By "No", I Mean "Yes"
• By Wall That Is Holey

Tropes – C

• Calling Me a Logarithm: Someone hears an unfamiliar word and assumes that it is an insult directed at them.
• Calling Your Nausea: A character says he's about to vomit.
• Calvinball: A game that has no fixed rules.
• Camp
• Cannot Keep a Secret
• Cannot Tell a Joke
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': A character will always get in trouble every time they try to do something bad.
• Can't Get in Trouble for Nuthin': A character keeps doing bad things because they want to get in trouble, but for some reason or another they are never punished.
• Can't You Read the Sign?: Someone comes across a sign with a rule that they will promptly violate or had just violated before noticing the sign.
• Caption Humor
• Cardboard Pal
• Car Meets House
• Car Radio Dispute
• Carrying a Cake: Shenanigans ensue when a character has to carry food.
• Cartoon Conductor
• Cartoonland Time
• Caught on the Jumbotron
• Caught with Your Pants Down: Someone gets caught while they're masturbating.
• "Cavemen vs. Astronauts" Debate
• Ceiling Banger
• Celeb Crush: A person has a crush on a celebrity.
• Censored for Comedy: Scenes with innocent dialogue have words randomly bleeped out to give the appearance of swearing.
• Centipede's Dilemma: Someone loses the ability to do something once they are made to think about how it is possible for them to do it.
• Chain Letter
• Chain of Corrections
• Chained to a Bed
• The Chain of Harm (this is usually Played for Drama, or added to horror films. But a slapstick version does exist)
• Chance Meeting Between Antagonists
• Chaos While They're Not Looking
• Charlie Chaplin Shout-Out
• Chased Off into the Sunset
• Check, Please!
• Cheek Copy: Someone photocopies their butt.
• Chekhov's Gag
• Cheshire Cat Grin
• Chew-Out Fake-Out: A person looks like they're going to reprimand another person for something they did, but they instead give praise for their actions.
• Chic And Awe
• Chicken Joke: The old joke about why the chicken crossed the road and variations.
• Childish Pillow Fight
• Chirping Crickets: Cricket chirps are heard to emphasize the dead silence in response to a character telling a bad joke or saying something that would warrant shocked stares.
• Christmas Light Chaos: Christmas light mishaps. Usually played for laughs.
• Chronically Crashed Car
• Church of Happyology: A pastiche of a certain religion founded by a science fiction writer that is used to make fun of the religion in question without facing lawsuits.
• Chucking Chalk
• Citizenship Marriage
• City of Everywhere
• Clockwork Prediction: Characters manage to predict what another character is going to do in the next few minutes. Usually with disastrously comical results on the latter characters part.
• Clapper Gag
• Class Clown
• Cliff Stack
• Clingy Aquatic Life: When you step out of water, there's a chance that a sea creature will attach itself to you.
  • Instant Leech: Just Fall in Water!: Someone gets leeches stuck to them as soon as they enter water.
• Closet Shuffle
• Cloudcuckooland
• Cloudcuckoolander: An eccentric (if not outright insane) character who regularly displays bizarre thoughts and behavior.
• Clown Car
• Clown Car Base
• Clucking Funny: Humor involving chickens.
• Clutching Hand Trap
• Coconut Meets Cranium
• Coincidental Accidental Disguise: A character accidentally ends up looking like a scary person or creature and scares someone else.
• Coincidental Dodge
• Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: Someone wants to do something they can't for some reason and are unable to go anywhere without seeing reminders of the activity they're unable to do.
• Color Failure
• Collective Groan
• Comeback Tomorrow: A character is insulted and thinks of a comeback much later.
• Comedic Relief Characters
• Comedic Sociopathy
• Comedic Spanking: Someone gets spanked as a joke.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: Someone loses their pants, revealing funny-looking undies.
• Comedy as a Weapon
• Comedy Ghetto: Audiences lose interest in a work because of the focus on comedy.
• Comically Inept Healing
• Comically Invincible Hero
• Comically Lopsided Rivalry
• Comically Missing the Point: Someone misses the point of what's being explained to them in a humorous manner.
• The Comically Serious: A character who provides comedy by being stern and emotionless regardless of the present situation.
• Comically Small Bribe: Someone attempts to bribe someone with a laughably small amount of money.
• Comically Small Demand
• Comical Nap Drool
• Comical Overreacting: Someone reacts to an insignificant disappointment by going into a hilarious meltdown.
• Comic Role Play
• Comic Sutra: Mention is made of a sex act with an unusual name, but it is never explained how the sex act is actually performed.
• Coming-of-Age Story
• Competition Coupon Madness: Someone tries to save box tops from a cereal they're eating so they can have enough to exchange for an advertised prize that they want really badly.
• Complaining About Things You Haven't Paid For
• Completely Off-Topic Report: A student writes a report that somehow covers a subject that has nothing to do with the topic that was assigned.
• Confession Deferred
• Confucian Confusion
• Confusing Multiple Negatives: A character causes confusion on what they meant because they used multiple negatives.
• Congruent Memory
• Construction Zone Calamity
• Contractual Gag
• Contrived Clumsiness
• Convenience Store Gift Shopping
• Convenient Slow Dance: Whenever a couple gets together at a prom, disco, etc, a slow dance is called.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: A chef who is good at making food, but has a habit of preparing unappetizing combinations.
• Correlation/Causation Gag
• Cosmetic Horror
• The Couch
• Could Say It, But...
• Counter Zany
• Counting to Potato: Someone shows an odd way of counting by listing numbers out of order and/or substituting numbers with random words.
• Covered in Gunge: A gag involving a character getting covered in a goopy substance.
• Covered in Mud: A character gets, well, covered in mud.
• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: Concerned parents cover up their children's eyes and ears when something inappropriate for children comes up.
• Cover-up Purchase
• *Crack!* "Oh, My Back!": Someone injures their back.
• Craggy Island Fun Fair
• Crashing Through the Harem
• Crash-Into Hello
• Crazy Cultural Comparison
• Crazy Jealous Guy: A husband or boyfriend gets enraged when they see another man flirt with their girl.
• Crazy-Prepared: Someone has what is needed to deal with the present situation regardless of how unexpected or unlikely the circumstances would usually be.
• Creator Career Self-Deprecation
• Credit Card Plot
• Creepy Family: A family consisting of monsters or bizarrely sinister people.
• Crosses the Line Twice: A joke that's considered funny because of how blatantly offensive it is.
• Crossover Punchline
• Crotch-Grab Sex Check: Groping a person's groin to determine their sex.
• Crotch-Glance Sex Check: Checking an animal's groin to determine their sex.
• Crowded Cast Shot
• Crush Filter
• Crush Parade
• Cry Laughing
• Crying After Sex: People cry after having had sex.
• Crying a River: Someone cries enough to fill anywhere between a bathtub and an ocean.
• Cuckoolander Commentator
• Cue Card Pause
• Cue O'Clock
• Cue the Falling Object
• Cue the Flying Pigs: Someone comments that something will only happen if something improbable happens. Not long after, the improbable thing ends up happening.
• Curse Cut Short: A character is interrupted or deliberately stops talking when they're about to swear.
• Cut a Slice, Take the Rest: Someone takes a small piece of cake, pizza, or another food that can be cut into slices, then leaves that while taking the rest to eat.
• Cutaway Gag: Someone makes a remark about an unseen past event or a hypothetical situation, followed by a clip explaining what the character was talking about.
• Cute, but Cacophonic
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: A very bizarre threat that is played for laughs.

Tropes – D

• Damned by Faint Praise: Politely insulting someone or something by only praising a minor aspect.
• Dance Off
• Danger with a Deadline: The enemy is very dangerous...but their deadline expires at a particularly embarrassing or inopportune moment.
• Date Peepers
• Dating Service Disaster
• Dead Man's Chest
• Dead TV Remote Gag: The remote control to the TV not working is Serious Business.
• Deadline News: A news anchor dies on the air.
• Deadpan Snarker: A character who tends to make sarcastic remarks.
• Death as Comedy: A character's death is played for laughs.
• Deconstructive Parody
• Deep-Immersion Gaming
• Defeat by Modesty: An opponent is forced to forfeit the fight once they lose their clothes.
• Defenestrate and Berate
• Delayed "Oh, Crap!"
• Delayed Reaction: A character takes a while to realise the implications of something.
• Delegation Relay
• Department of Redundancy Department: Repetition played as a joke.
• Depraved Dentist
• Description Cut
• Did the Earth Move for You, Too?
• Did They or Didn't They?: It's left ambiguous whether or not a couple have consummated their relationship.
• Did You Get a New Haircut?
• Didn't Think This Through: Someone comes up with a plan to do something, but the plan ends up failing because of a crucial detail that the planner failed to realize before it was too late to do anything.
• Different for Girls
• Digging to China: Someone tries to go to China by simply digging into the Earth.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: An attempt to save face only results in making yourself look even worse.
• Ding-Dong-Ditch Distraction: A prank where you ring someone's doorbell and run away before the door is answered.
• Dinner and a Show
• The Dinnermobile: There's something funny about a food-shaped car.
• Dinner Order Flub
• Dinner with the Boss
• Dinosaur Doggie Bone
• Directionless Driver
• Disaster Dominoes
• Discriminate and Switch: It looks like a person is prejudiced towards someone for one reason, but it then turns out their resentment is for a different reason.
• Dish Dash
• Dismotivation
• Disgusting Public Toilet
• Disorganized Outline Speech
• Disproportionate Restitution: Someone tries to make up for their misdeeds, but their good deed doesn't even come close to making amends for what they did before.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Someone reacts to a slight with retaliation that comes off as harsh in comparison to how bad the offense truly was.
• Dissimile
• Distant Reaction Shot
• Distinction Without a Difference: A character insists that they're not X, they're just Y. It so happens that Y essentially means the same thing as X.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Someone gets distracted by an attractive person coming their way.
• Distracting Disambiguation
• D.I.Y. Disaster
• Dodgeball Is Hell
• Dodgy Toupee: Someone covers their baldness with a very obvious wig.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Comedic symbolism.
• Dog Walks You: A character gets pulled along by a dog.
• Dogs Love Fire Hydrants: Dogs are depicted as being obsessed with fire hydrants.
• Do-It-Yourself Plumbing Project: Someone tries to fix their plumbing themselves with hilarious results.
• Domestic Appliance Disaster
• Don't Be Ridiculous: Someone makes a ridiculous statement. Another person corrects the other person's observation or belief before giving a statement that's just as (or even more) ridiculous.
• Don't Explain the Joke
• Don't You Like It?
• Doomed Autographed Item: Someone's prized autographed possession gets lost or damaged, often with comedic results.
• Doomed Supermarket Display: Supermarket displays always get knocked over.
• Doom It Yourself
• Door Focus
• Door Judo
• Door Roulette
• The Door Slams You: A character gets hit by a door.
• Dope Slap: Slapping someone for saying or doing something stupid.
• Doppelgänger Dating
• Double Entendre: A statement that has a hidden and often risque meaning.
• Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male: A man raping another man isn't treated as being as bad as a man raping a woman.
• Double Take
• "Down Here!" Shot
• Do Wrong, Right: Someone admonishes someone not for doing something bad, but for doing something bad the wrong way.
• Dragged by the Collar
• Dragged into Drag
• Dramatic Drop
• Dramatic Sit-Down
• Drawing Straws
• The Dreaded Pretend Tea Party: Someone hates playing tea party with a kid.
• Dreadful Musician: A musician who is terrible at playing music.
• Dresses the Same
• Dripping Disturbance
• Drive-Thru Antics
• Drives Like Crazy: Someone is very poor at driving.
• Driving Stick
• Drool Deluge
• Drop-In Character
• Drop-In Landlord: A Drop-In Character whose excuse for being around the main cast is that he's their landlord.
• Dropped Glasses: A character drops their glasses, then someone else steps on them.
• Drop the Cow
• Drop the Washtub
• Drunk with Power
• Duck!: A command to duck (as in, lower yourself to get out of harm's way) is mistaken for pointing out a duck (as in, waterfowl).
• Duck Season, Rabbit Season: An Argument of Contradictions ends with one person suddenly saying the other person's opinion or choice to trick them into changing sides of the argument.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: A male is mistaken for a female.
  • Lady Looks Like a Dude: A female is mistaken for a male.
• Dude, Where's Our Car?
• Dumbass DJ: Disc jockeys who are rude, obnoxious and prone to talking about vulgar subjects.
• Dumb Muscle: A strong character who doesn't have any brains to go with their brawn.
• Dynamite Candle

Tropes – E

• Earpiece Conversation
• Ear Trumpet
• Ear Worm: A song that's annoying due to its catchiness.
• Easy Come, Easy Go
• Easily Impressed
• Easily Overheard Conversation
• Eating Pet Food: A character accidentally eats pet food.
• Eating Shoes
• Eat the Bomb
• Edible Treasure
• Education Through Pyrotechnics
• Eek, a Mouse!!
• Egocentric Team Naming
• Either "World Domination", or Something About Bananas: A character translates something as either something serious or something silly.
• Elder Employee
• "El Niño" Is Spanish for "The Niño"
• Electric Joybuzzer
• Elephant in the Living Room
• Elvish Presley: Jokes about Elvis Presley and elves.
• Embarrassing Cover Up: Turning away eavesdroppers and people trying to stop you by using an embarrassing excuse.
• Embarrassing Damp Sheets: Bedwetting and similar incidents.
• Embarrassing Nickname: A character is embarrassed by their nickname.
• Embarrassing Old Photo: Someone has a humiliating photo of themselves when they were younger.
• Embarrassing Relative Teacher: When a kid's Amazingly Embarrassing Parent is also their teacher.
• Embarrassing Ringtone
• Embarrassing Slide: A slideshow somehow has an embarrassing picture of the presenter included among the other slides.
• Embarrassing Tattoo: Someone has a tattoo that's undignified, whether due to the location of the tattoo or what the tattoo depicts.
• Embarrassingly Painful Sunburn
• Emotionally Tongue-Tied
• Empty Swimming Pool Dive
• Endangered Soufflé: Souffles always collapse.
• Epic Fail: Someone manages to fail at something in a way that just isn't possible.
• Escalating Punchline
• Escalating War
• Escaped Animal Rampage
• Eskimos Aren't Real: Someone believes that something real doesn't exist.
• Especially Zoidberg: Someone tells someone not to tell anyone else a secret, then, when asked if a character who it shouldn't apply to is an exception, the other person says to especially not tell that character.
• Even Beggars Won't Choose It
• Even Nerds Have Standards: Someone's a nerd, but not a big enough nerd for this thing.
• Even the Dog Is Ashamed: Everybody is ashamed at someone, even their pet.
• Even the Rats Won't Touch It: A food is so gross, even vermin don't want it.
• Everybody Laughs Ending: The episode ends with everyone laughing.
• Everyone Chasing You
• Everything's Better with Monkeys
• Everything's Better with Penguins
• Everything Is an Instrument
• Evil Elevator
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor
• Evil Is Hammy
• Evil Is Petty
• Evil Lawyer Joke: Jokes on how lawyers are considered to be bad people.
• Equal-Opportunity Offender
• Exact Words
• Exiled to the Couch: Someone makes their spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend sleep on the couch because they're angry.
• The Exit Is That Way
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Someone talks about something before being horrified once the implications of what they're discussing dawns on them.
• Explaining the Soap
• Exploding Closet
• Explosive Cigar
• Exposition Already Covered
• Exposition Diagram
• Expospeak Gag: Using big words to describe things usually spoken in layman's terms.
• Express Lane Limit
• Extended Greetings
• Extendo Boxing Glove
• Extreme Close-Up
• Extreme Omnivore: A character eats something that is usually inedible.
• Eyepiece Prank
• Eye Take

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Tropes – F

• Face Doodling
• Face Fault
• Face Palm: Reacting to other people doing stupid or embarrassing things by pressing the palm of your hand against your face.
• Face Plant
• Facial Composite Failure
• Failed a Spot Check
• Failed Attempt at Drama
• Failed Dramatic Exit: A character attempts to leave dramatically, but the mood is ruined because they accidentally hurt themselves in the process or end up having to return for a reason unrelated to their intended departure.
• Failing a Taxi
• Failures on Ice: Someone is a terrible skater.
• Fake High: A character acts drunk or high because they think they are.
• Fake Rabies: A character, usually a dog, is mistaken for rabid.
• Fake–Real Turn
• Fall of the House of Cards
• False Teeth Tomfoolery: Someone is revealed to be wearing false teeth.
• The Family for the Whole Family
• Fanservice Extra: A minor character who exists solely to provide fanservice.
• Fantastic Anthropologist
• Fantasy Twist
• "Far Side" Island
• Fast-Forward Gag
• Fat Comic Relief: An overweight character whose purpose is to provide humor.
• Faux Horrific: Pretending that something is scary as a joke.
• Faux-To Guide
• "Fawlty Towers" Plot: A lie held up by more lies that eventually implodes.
• Feedback Rule
• Fee Fi Faux Pas
• Feghoot
• Feng Schwing
• Fight for the Last Bite: Characters squabble over the last piece of food.
• Fighting in the Playground
• Le Film Artistique: The typical student film that's angsty and hard to understand.
• Filth
• Finagle's Law
• Finding a Bra in Your Car
• Fine, You Can Just Wait Here Alone
• Finger Extinguisher: When Played for Laughs, the trope is used when I character tries to put out a flame with their bare hand to show how cool they are, only to fail hilariously.
• Finish Dialogue in Unison
• Fish out of Temporal Water: A character ends up stuck in the past or future and is forced to adjust to living outside of their proper time.
• Fishing for Sole: A character catches an object instead of a fish while fishing.
• Five-Aces Cheater
• Flashback Cut
• Flash In The Pan Fad
• Flat Joy: A character expresses joy stoically or ironically.
• Flat Scare
• Flintstone Theming
• Flipping the Table: Someone flips the table over after being angered by something.
• Flirtatious Smack on the Ass: Hitting on someone by smacking their butt.
• Flock of Wolves
• Flush the Evidence
• Flushing Toilet, Screaming Shower: Flushing the toilet while someone is showering causes them to scream at the sudden change in water temperature.
• Fly Crazy
• Fly in the Soup: Jokes about flies in soup.
• F--: Someone does so badly in school that the grade they recieve goes even lower than what the education system would allow in real life.
• Follow the Chaos
• Food and Animal Attraction
• Food-Based Superpowers: Bizarre and/or whimsical superpowers centering around food in some way.
• Food Coma
• Food Fight: Characters throw food at each other.
• Fool's Map
• Forcibly Formed Physique: Sheer force causes a toon's body to change shape.
• Forgettable Character
• Forgot I Couldn't Swim
• Forgot to Feed the Monster: A character has a being sealed away and intends to set the being free, but finds out that the being has starved to death and decayed due to the time being neglected and sealed away.
• Forgot to Mind Their Head
• For Inconvenience, Press "1"
• Format-Specific Joke
• Formula for the Unformulable
• Four-Man Band
• Fowl-Mouthed Parrot: A parrot copies a person cussing.
• Frank's 2000-Inch TV
• Frantic Object Concealment
• The Freelance Shame Squad: A bunch of people show up just to point and laugh at someone's embarrassment.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Something shown extremely briefly that the audience will most likely catch if they pause the video at the right moment.
• Freudian Slip
• Freudian Slippery Slope
• Friendly Tickle Torture
• Frivolous Lawsuit: A character makes a lawsuit over something petty or trivial.
• From the Mouths of Babes
• Fruit of the Loon
• Fully Automatic Clip Show: A scene where we're shown a montage of clips from previous episodes where a character uses their Catchphrase.
• Funbag Airbag: Someone accidentally crashes their face into a woman's breasts.
• The "Fun" in "Funeral": Wacky antics happen at a funeral.
• Fun With Blenders
• Fun with Flushing: Flushing stuff other than waste down the toilet.
• Funny Answering Machine
• Funny Background Event: A funny event happening in the background.
• Funny Foreigner: A character from another country who provides humor through their bizarre customs and obliviousness of how things are in the country they currently live in.
• Funny Robot: A robot with humorous quirks.
• Fun with Foreign Languages
• Fur Is Clothing: Situations where an animal's fur is treated like a removable garment tend to be played for comedy, especially if the animal for some reason has underwear on beneath their fur and/or is embarrassed about being "nude".
• The Future Is Shocking

Tropes – G

• Gag Echo
• Gag Words
• Gallows Humor
• Game Show Goofballs: Game show contestants or panelists who are rock stupid.
• Garden-Hose Squirt Surprise
• Gargle Blaster: A concoction of alcoholic beverages that isn't remotely safe to drink.
• Garrulous Growth
• Gasp!
• Gasshole: A character who tends to burp and/or fart deliberately.
• Gassy Scare: A character thinks they're sick/dying but actually just have gas or need the bathroom.
• The Genie Knows Jack Nicholson
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man
• Getting the Boot
• Ghost in the Machine
• Ghosts Abhor a Vacuum
• Giant Eye of Doom
• Gibberish of Love: A person who is in love is so overwhelmed by their feelings that they can only utter gibberish in front of the person they're in love with.
• Gift-Giving Gaffe
• Gift Shake
• Gigantic Gulp: A character drinks from a ludicrously huge container.
• Gilligan Cut: A character insists they won't do something. We cut to the next scene, where they're now doing what they insisted they wouldn't do.
• Girlfriend in Canada: A character lies about having a girlfriend in Canada.
• Girl Scouts Are Evil
• Girl Watching
• Girls Have Cooties: A little boy thinks girls are gross.
• Give Geeks a Chance
• Give Me a Sign
• Giving Up the Ghost: A character almost dies, and their ghost flies out temporarily.
• Glad You Thought of It
• Glasses Curiosity: The more lighthearted instances of a character wanting to wear someone else's glasses.
• Glasses Pull
• Glass Smack and Slide
• Global Ignorance
• Glove Slap
• Gone Behind the Bend
• Gone Swimming, Clothes Stolen: Someone goes swimming in the nude, only to have their clothes stolen.
• Gonna Need More X
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: When faced with a moral decision, a character imagines an angel and a devil appearing on their shoulders to give their two cents on the right decision to make.
• Good News, Bad News: A character has some good news and some bad news and delivers their news comedically.
• A Good, Old-Fashioned Paint Watching
• Goofy Feathered Dinosaur
• Goofy Print Underwear: Someone wears underwear with funny patterns on them.
• Goofy Suit
• Goo Goo Getup: Character dresses up as a baby.
• Got Volunteered
• Go Ye Heroes, Go and Die
• Gratuitous Mariachi Band: Mariachi bands tend to be used for comedy in fiction.
• Grave Humor: Tombstones with humorous inscriptions on them.
• Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress
• Gravity Is a Harsh Seamstress
• Gravity Is Only a Theory
• Greeting Gesture Confusion
• Grilling Pyrotechnics
• Groin Attack: Someone suffers an injury to their crotch.
• Gross-Up Close-Up: A highly detailed close-up of something disgusting or horrifying.
• Grounded Forever: A child or teenager gets grounded for an absurdly long time.
• Groupie Brigade
• Guilt by Association Gag
• Guys Are Slobs: Men are untidy.

Tropes – H

• Had the Silly Thing in Reverse
• HA HA HA—No: A character laughs, but then switches to seriousness and tells someone no.
• Hairstyle Malfunction
• Ham and Deadpan Duo: A dramatic person and a stoic person hanging out together.
• The Ham Squad
• Hammerspace Hair
• Hands Go Down
• Handshake Refusal
• Hanlon's Razor: A character who often causes harm, but doesn't mean any of it deliberately.
• Hard Head
• Harmless Villain: A villain who fails to be an actual threat.
• Harpo Does Something Funny: The script contains instructions for the actors to improvise.
• Hash House Lingo: Fast food services have their own slang for menu items.
• #HashtagForLaughs
• Have I Mentioned I Am Sexually Active Today?
• Haven't You Seen X Before?
• Headdesk
• Head-Tiltingly Kinky
• Helium Speech: Inhaling helium causes a person to speak in a very high voice.
• Hellistics
• "Help! Help! Trapped in Title Factory!"
• He-Man Woman Hater
• Heroes Gone Fishing
• Hideous Hangover Cure
• High-Dive Hijinks
• High-Five Left Hanging
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: A character is shown to have a rough childhood that is funny because of how over-the-top the abuse and misfortune they've endured is.
• Hilarious in Flashback
• Hilarious in Hindsight
• Hilarious Outtakes
• Hilarity in Zoos
• The Hilarity of Hats
• Hilarity Sues
• Hint Dropping
• Historical Character Confusion
• Historical Hilarity
• Historical Longevity Joke: Joking about someone's age by implying they were around during historical times.
• Hit Me, Dammit!: A character wants another to hit them.
• Holding Both Sides of the Conversation
• Hold Up Your Score
• Hollow-Sounding Head
• Hollywood Dateless
• "Home Alone" Antics
• Homemade Inventions
• Home Nudist: Someone goes about naked when alone at home.
• Home Porn Movie: A couple have a homemade video of themselves having sex.
• Homoerotic Subtext
• Horrifying the Horror: Something is so scary that it freaks out a being who is already horrific and terrifying in their own right.
• Hot Guy, Ugly Wife: An attractive man has a hideous wife.
• Hot on His Own Trail
• Hot Potato
• Hot Sauce Drinking
• House Amnesia
• How Did That Get in There?
• How Did You Get It?
• "How Did You Know?" "I Didn't.": Someone is asked how they were aware of something. The person reveals that they didn't actually know and that it was actually a coincidence that their actions solved the problem.
• How Is That Even Possible?: Someone witnesses an impossible event and asks how it can actually happen.
• How Much Did You Hear?
• Huge Rider, Tiny Mount: A big person rides on a small animal.
• Human Doorstop
• Human Knot
• Human Ladder
• Human Mail
• Human Traffic Jam
• Human Snowball
• Human Snowman
• Humans Are Morons
• Humor Dissonance: A joke is funny to the characters but unpopular with audiences.
• Humorless Aliens
• Hurricane of Euphemisms: A long list of euphemisms or synonyms.
• Hurricane of Excuses
• Hurricane of Puns: Several puns are made that revolve around the same theme.
• Hurt Foot Hop: Someone who hurts their foot reacts by jumping up and down while clutching their hurt tootsie.
• Hyde and Seek: Someone tries to escape a monster with another person, unaware that the monster is their associate's alter ego.
• Hyper-Destructive Bouncing Ball
• Hyperventilation Bag: Breathing into a paper bag when afraid.
• Hypocritical Humor: Hypocrisy played for laughs.
• Hypocritical Singing

Tropes – I

• I Ate WHAT?!: Someone eats something unpleasant and is grossed out when they're told what it was that they ate.
• I Banged Your Mom: Getting a rise out of someone by claiming to have slept with their mother.
• I Broke a Nail
• I Call Him "Mister Happy": Someone names their genitals.
• I Can Explain
• I Can't Hear You
• Identical Panel Gag
• Idiot Ball: The plot requires for an otherwise intelligent character to suddenly act very stupid.
• Idiot Hair
• Idiot Hero: The main protagonist is not too bright, and thus prone to causing as many dumb problems as they solve.
• I Fell for Hours
• If It Was Funny the First Time...
• If I Were a Rich Man
• Ignored Raised Hand
• Ignore the Disability
• Ignoring by Singing: A character tries to ignore a statement they don't like or don't want to hear by covering their ears and singing.
• I Have This Friend...: A character tries to get advice on how to deal with their problem, but claim that a non-existent friend has the problem because they don't want to humiliate themselves by revealing they have this problem.
• I Know You Know I Know
• I Like My X Like I Like My Y: Saying that you like something the same way you like something else.
• Ill-Fated Flowerbed
• I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!: Accidentally revealing information while refusing to tell it to the person asking you to reveal it.
• I'll Take Two Beers Too
• Imagine Spot: Someone imagines a brief scene in response to learning about something or anticipating something to happen.
• Imagine the Audience Naked: Someone who is supposed to give a speech tries to ease their nerves by pretending the audience isn't wearing any clothes.
• I Meant to Do That
• I'm Going to Hell for This: A character quips that they'll end up in Hell for enjoying or being amused by something that could be seen as morally objectionable.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction
• Immune to Drugs
• I'm Mr. [Future Pop Culture Reference]: Someone time-travels to the past and uses the name of a character from a future work of fiction as an alias.
• Impact Silhouette: When a person crashes through a wall, they leave a hole shaped exactly like them.
• Impersonation Paradox
• Implausible Deniability: Someone claims they didn't do something even though it's very obvious that they did.
• Impossible Insurance: Insurance agents deny claims filed against very unlikely circumstances.
• Impossible Leavening: Too much yeast means either an explosion or a massive amount of dough.
• Impossible Pickle Jar
• Impossibly Compact Folding
• Improbably Predictable
• Impromptu Campfire Cookout: Characters roast sausages or marshmallows around an accidental fire.
• Improv
• I'm Standing Right Here: Someone insults another person without noticing or caring that the other person is in earshot.
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!
• I'm Thinking It Over!
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog
• I Never Said It Was Poison
• In One Ear, Out the Other
• ...In That Order
• In the Local Tongue
• Incompetent Guard Animal: An animal is meant to guard something but does a bad job at it.
• Incredibly Lame Fun: A character finds enjoyment in doing the most ludicrously mundane of activities.
• Incredibly Long Note
• Indulgent Fantasy Segue
• Inept Talent Show Contestant
• Inflating Body Gag: A character blows up like a balloon.
• Inflationary Dialogue
• Inherently Funny Words: Words that are repeatedly spoken due to them sounding funny.
• Initiation Ceremony
• Inner Monologue Conversation: Characters can hear each other's thoughts without being psychic.
• Inner Thoughts, Outsider Puzzlement
• Innocent Innuendo: A scene that deliberately looks or sounds naughty, but is actually more wholesome than it seems.
• Inopportune Voice Cracking: Puberty causes your voice to sound funny.
• Insane Proprietor
• Insane Troll Logic: Someone uses logical fallacies that are so ridiculous that explaining why they're nonsense would only be a waste of time.
• Insistent Terminology: Someone insists on using a specific word to refer to something.
• The Inspector Is Coming
• Inspector Oblivious
• Instant Fish Kill: Can be comedic if the event that kills large amounts of fish is relatively innocuous.
• Instant Home Delivery
• Instantly Proven Wrong: Someone says something, then something happens to prove them wrong.
• Instant Seiza
• Instant Soprano: A man talks in a high-pitched voice immediately after getting hit in the crotch.
• Instant Turn-Off: A horny character stops being aroused after learning an unpleasant detail about what's turning them on.
• Insult Comic
• Insult Misfire: Someone insults another person and the person misinterprets who the insult is aimed at.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence
• Intentional Engrish for Funny
• Interactive Narrator: The narrator and the characters directly talk to each other.
• The Internet Is for Porn: Pornography is the only thing noteworthy on the Internet.
• Interrupted Intimacy: A couple are walked in on while they're trying to have sex.
• Invincible Classic Car
• Invisible Holes: A character gets invisible holes in their stomach that when they drink, the liquid comes out of.
• I Resemble That Remark!: Objecting to an insult in a way that only proves that it is true.
• Ironic Echo Cut
• Ironic Fear: Someone has a fear of something that is ironic because it deals with something they wouldn't be expected to be afraid of.
• Iron Butt-Monkey
• Irony: The circumstances are the opposite or a reversal of what one would normally expect.
• I Say What I Say
• Island Help Message
• iSophagus: Someone swallows a musical instrument and ends up able to make the instrument's sounds.
• Is That What They're Calling It Now?
• Is This Thing Still On?: Someone being filmed or recorded says something embarrassing or incriminating without realizing that the camera or recorder is still on.
• I Take Offense to That Last One!: Someone hears a bunch of insults directed at them and only gets offended or gets the most upset at the last and/or weakest of the insults.
• It Came from the Fridge: Food that's been left in the fridge becomes disgusting and hideous.
• I Think You Broke Him: Making a person reach their emotional limits is referred to as "breaking" them.
• It Is Pronounced "Tro-PAY"
• It Runs on Nonsensoleum: A logical explanation that doesn't sound logical at all.
• It's a Costume Party, I Swear!: A character lies that the party they're inviting someone to is a costume party.
• It's Been Done
• It's Raining Salesmen
• It's the Best Whatever, Ever!
• It's the Principle of the Thing
• It Tastes Like Feet: Someone eats or drinks something and complains that it tastes like something gross.
• I've Heard of That — What Is It?: Someone mentions something as if they know what it is, then asks what the thing is.
• I Want My Mommy!: Someone in trouble comically pleads for their mother to save them.
• I Was Beaten by a Girl
• I Was Just Joking
• I Will Tear Your Arms Off
• I Would Say If I Could Say: Someone remarks that they'd say a specific phrase were it not for one detail preventing the statement making sense in their context.

Tropes – J

• The Jail Bait Wait: Someone is attracted to an underage person, but has the courtesy to wait until the person is a legal adult before acting on their attraction.
• Jackass Genie: A genie (or another magical being) grants someone's wish, but maliciously twists it into the worst interpretation possible, thus leading to humorous trouble for the wisher.
  • Literal Genie: A genie that doesn't understand the true meaning of someone's wish decides to grant it by the most literal interpretation possible, thus resulting in similar awkwardness for the wisher.
• Japanese Ranguage: The stereotype that Japanese people can't tell the difference between R's and L's.
• Japanese Tourist
• Jar Potty: Someone has to go to the bathroom but can't make it to a toilet in time, so they settle for relieving themselves in the first empty container they can find.
• Jaw Drop: A character reacts to something by having their jaw hang open.
• Jeweler's Eye Loupe
• Jewish Complaining
• The Jinx
• Joke and Receive: A character jokingly suggests something, only to have it happen.
• Joke Exhaustion
• Joke Name Tag
• Juggling Loaded Guns
• Jump, I'll Catch You!
• Jump Rope Antics
• Jury Duty
• "Just Joking" Justification: Someone gives the excuse that they weren't being sincere when they said or did something mean.
• Just Like Making Love
• Just the Introduction to the Opposites
• Juxtaposition Gag

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Tropes – K

• Kafka Comedy: A character's misfortune and misery are played for laughs.
• Kent Brockman News
• Key Confusion
• "Kick Me" Prank: Someone gets a "Kick Me" sign stuck to their back.
• Kids Prefer Boxes: Children are more interested in playing with the cardboard box rather than the toy inside the box.
• Kitchen Sink Included: The phrase "Everything but the kitchen sink" is lampooned by having a kitchen sink included after a mess of other stuff.
• Klatchian Coffee: Coffee so high in caffeine that one cup will make you very hyperactive.
• Kneel, Push, Trip
• Knew It All Along: A character claims to have been aware of something before everyone else found out.
• Knocking on Heathens' Door
• "Knock Knock" Joke: A joke with the format "Knock knock" "Who's there?" "X" "X who?" "[pun about X]".
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Someone claims to be an expert on something, but it's obvious that they know diddly squat about the subject they're boasting their expertise on.
• Know Your Vines
• Kung-Fu Jesus

Tropes – L

• Ladder Tipping
• Lamaze Class
• Lame Comeback: Someone replies to an insult with an attempt at an insult that fails to be as effective as the insult received.
• Lame Pun Reaction: Other characters react negatively to someone making a bad pun.
• Lame Rhyme Dodge: Someone covers up an insult by claiming to have said something that rhymes with the insult.
• Lampshaded Double Entendre: Someone points out the hidden filthy meaning to their statement, often by ending their statement with "if you know what I mean".
• Lampshade Wearing: Someone wears a lampshade on their head to show that they are drunk.
• Landing in Someone's Bathtub
• Large Ham: A character who tends to speak loudly and dramatically a lot.
• Larynx Dissonance
• Laser-Guided Broadcast
• Last Day to Live
• The Last of These Is Not Like the Others: A list ends in something different and crazy.
• Last Place You Look
• Last-Second Word Swap: Changing the word you were going to say at the very last minute.
• The Last Straw
• Late to the Punchline
• Late to the Realization
• Laughably Evil: A villain with humorous tendencies.
• Laugh Track: A comedy has pre-recorded laughter play during moments that are supposed to be funny.
• Laugh with Me!
• Laughing at Your Own Jokes
• The Law Firm of Pun, Pun, and Wordplay
• Law of Disproportionate Response: Reacting to serious matters as if they are not very important and vice versa.
• Laxative Prank: Someone pulls a prank where they trick someone into consuming a laxative.
• Layman's Terms
• Lazy Alias
• Lazily Gender Flipped Name
• Leap Day
• Least Rhymable Word: Someone tries to find a rhyme for a word that has little to no known rhymes.
• Leaving Audience
• Left It In
• Left the Background Music On: The background music turns out to be coming from an in-universe source that is then turned off.
• Less Embarrassing Term: A character finds the word for something embarrassing, so they insist on calling it something else.
• Lethally Stupid: A dumb character whose idiocy causes other people to get killed.
• Let's Mock the Monsters
• Letting the Air Out of the Band
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again
• Life's Work Ruined
• Lightbulb Joke: The old joke of how many (blank)s it takes to change a lightbulb.
• Lightmare Fuel
• Like a Surgeon: The humor comes from characters treating something mundane, such as fixing an appliance, like a serious medical operation.
• Line-of-Sight Alias: Someone makes up an alias on the spot by looking around and forming a fake name based on their surroundings.
• Lint Value
• List of Transgressions
• Literal Ass-Kicking: Literally kicking a person's ass.
• Literal Ass-Kissing: Literally kissing a person's ass.
• Literal Metaphor: Someone uses a metaphor and it turns out to be meant literally.
• Literal Money Metaphor: Someone thinks it's a euphemism for money, but it isn't.
• Literalist Snarking: Mocking a person's choice of words by misinterpreting or pretending to misinterpret their statement as literal.
• Little Girls Kick Shins
• Little Jimmy
• Little Known Facts
• Live-Action Cartoon
• Living Crashpad
• Living in a Furniture Store
• The Loins Sleep Tonight: A man is unable to perform in bed.
• LOL, 69: Innuendos on how the number 69 is also the name of a sex position.
• Long List
• Long Neck
• Long Speech Tea Time
• Loophole Abuse: Someone gets away with breaking a rule by technically still following the rule's exact wording.
• Lopsided Dichotomy
• Lost Food Grievance: Someone gets upset over losing food they wanted to eat.
• Lost Him in a Card Game
• Lost the TV Remote
• Lost Wedding Ring
• Lots of Luggage
• Loud of War
• Low Clearance
• Low Count Gag: A quantity is revealed to be less than the audience might expect.
• Low-Speed Chase

Tropes – M

• Ma'am Shock
• Mad Libs Catch Phrase: A character has a Catchphrase where certain parts are a different word every time the phrase is spoken.
• Made from Real Girl Scouts
• Made in Country X
• Made Myself Sad: Someone laughs about a tragedy before commenting that their own joke has caused them to become depressed.
• Made of Explodium
• The Magazine Rule
• Maintain the Lie
• Major Injury Underreaction: Reacting to a serious injury as if it's just a minor scratch.
• Makeover Torment
• Malfunction Malady
• Mall Santa: A man pretending to be Santa at the mall.
• Manchild: An adult who acts immature.
• Man in a Bikini
• Man-Made House Flood
• Marshmallow Dream: Someone dreams about eating something and wakes up to learn that they ate their pillow in their sleep.
• Marshmallow Hell: A woman smothers someone with her breasts.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!"
• Match In A Bombshack
• Matchlight Danger Revelation
• Matchmaker Failure
• Matryoshka Object
• Mattress Tag Gag: A character thinks they're a criminal for tearing off the matress tag.
• McNinja: A ninja who isn't Japanese.
• M.D. Envy
• Meatgrinder Surgery: A surgery is performed with insufficient equipment and/or techniques and the surgeon is shown to have a questionable regard for their patient's well-being.
• Meat-O-Vision: A desperately hungry person will hallucinate people and objects as being food.
• Medium-Shift Gag
• Men Are Uncultured
• Merit Badges for Everything: Scouts can earn merit badges for any conceivable situation.
• Metaphorgotten
• Metaphoric Metamorphosis
• Mid-Battle Tea Break: A fight momentarily stops so that the opponents can take a break.
• Mic Drop
• Microwave Misuse
• Midnight Snack
• Miming the Cues
• Mind Your Step
• Mining for Cookies
• Minor Injury Overreaction: Crying about getting hurt when the injury isn't really that bad.
• Mirror-Cracking Ugly: An ugly person looks in the mirror and their ugliness causes the mirror to break.
• Mirror Routine: Someone pretends to be another person's reflection.
• Misaimed Stereotyping
• Miserable Massage
• Misleading Package Size
• Mismeasurement
• Misplaced Retribution: Reacting to an offense by punishing the wrong people.
• Misplaced Sorrow: Mourning a person's death for selfish reasons.
• Missed Him by That Much
• Missing Steps Plan: The only parts of a plan that were thought out was how to start the plan and the plan's intended result.
• Missing the Good Stuff
• The Missus and the Ex
• Mistaken Age: Someone makes an incorrect assumption about a person's age.
• Mistaken for Afterlife: Someone thinks they've died and entered the afterlife.
• Mistaken for Clown: Someone thinks another person in a crazy outfit is a clown, usually humiliating the other person.
• Mistaken for Exhibit
• Mistaken for Object of Affection
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Someone is mistaken for being a pedophile.
• Mistaken for Pregnant: A woman is wrongly assumed to be expecting a child. Maybe it's because she just got a little too fat.
• Mistaken for Prostitute: Someone is assumed to be a hooker and may even be propositioned for sex.
• Mistaken for Servant
• Mr. Seahorse: A man gets pregnant.
• Mistook the Dominant Lifeform: Aliens mistake an animal for sapient.
• Mobile Shrubbery: Disguising yourself as a bush.
• Mobile-Suit Human: A human is really a robot controlled by a small creature.
• Mocking Music: A song plays about something the character doesn't want to think about.
• Mocking Sing-Song: A character is mocked to the tune of Ring Around the Rosie.
• MockGuffin
• Mock Hollywood Sign
• Mock Meal
• Mock Surprise Reaction
• Moment Killer
• Monkey Morality Pose
• Monkeys on a Typewriter
• Moonburn: Similar to sunbathing or getting a sunburn, but with the moon.
• Mooning: A character baring their buttocks in public tends to be played for comedy.
• Most Common Card Game
• Most Definitely Not a Villain
• Motionless Makeover
• Motivation on a Stick: Manipulating someone into going the direction you want them to by using a stick to dangle something they want in front of them.
• Motorcycle Dominoes
• Mouse Trap
• Movie-Making Mess
• Multiple Choice Form Letter
• Multitasked Conversation
• Mundane Ghost Story
• Mundane Object Amazement
• Murphy's Bed
• Musicalis Interruptus: A song is interrupted.
• Must Make Her Laugh
• Mutilation Conga: A character keeps enduring injuries and gaining wounds and scars as the injuries pile up.
• My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting
• My Favorite Shirt
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Excluding someone from a group immediately after it's assumed they were among the people referred to in the group (e.g. "We've got the finest team of players this season...and that guy.")
• My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: An attempt at speaking a foreign language results in a character unintentionally angering someone by unknowingly saying an insulting phrase or embarrassing themselves by unknowingly spouting out meaningless nonsense.
• My Little Panzer: A dangerous child's toy.
• My New Gift Is Lame: A character hates their gift.
• My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: An artificial intelligence points out when a person is attracted to someone.
• Mystery Box
• My Verbin' Noun

Tropes – N

• Naked Apron: Wearing an apron and nothing else.
• Naked People Are Funny: Nudity is depicted for humorous purposes.
• Naked People Trapped Outside: Someone gets trapped outdoors while naked and has to find clothes or get back inside before someone sees them.
• Namesake Gag
• Narm Charm: Sure, the scene failed to be serious, but that's why it's so hilarious!
• Nausea Dissonance
• Nautical Knockout
• Necktie Leash
• Need a Hand, or a Handjob?: Solicitation is mistaken for an offer to help.
• Neon Sign Hideout
• Nerd Nanny
• Never Trust a Hair Tonic: The hilarious consequences of using a hair tonic incorrectly.
• Never Work with Children or Animals: Kids and animals never behave the way directors want them to.
• New Job Episode
• Newhart Phonecall
• The Nicknamer: A character who nicknames everyone.
• Nightmare Retardant: Something supposed to be scary instead comes off as silly.
• Nobody Here but Us Birds
• Nobody Here but Us Statues: A person tries to hide by pretending to be a sculpture.
• Nobody Touches the Hair: A person has the pet peeve of someone messing up their hair.
• No Can Opener: Someone comes across canned goods and realizes they don't have a can opener.
• The Noisy Straw
• No Longer with Us: A joke where a character uses a common euphemism for death. They either turn out to have meant the phrase literally or are mistaken for speaking literally by a naive listener.
• Nominated As A Prank
• No More for Me: Someone drinking alcohol tosses the bottle away after seeing something weird.
• Non-Natural Number Gag: Holding negative two apples in your hand.
• No One Else Is That Dumb: Confirming that a person really is your dumb friend by confirming their idiocy.
• Non Sequitur Distraction
• Non Sequitur, *Thud*: Someone makes an odd statement lacking context upon falling unconscious.
• Non-Specifically Foreign: A character is established as not being a native inhabitant of the work's setting, but it isn't specified what nationality he is.
• Nonverbal Miscommunication: Someone tries to communicate nonverbally, only for other people to misinterpret their gestures.
• Noodle Implements: Stating to have done something or an intention to do something with unorthodox tools, but not explaining what the tools were used for or what the tools will be used for.
• Noodle Incident: The characters mention an unseen past event, but are extremely vague about it.
• no punctuation is funnier: A statement is funnier without any punctuations than a statement that does.
• No Respect Guy
• No Sense of Humor
• No Snack For You
• Nose Shove
• Not a Date: A person gets to spend time with someone they're attracted to, but cannot grasp that the meeting is purely platonic.
• Not in Front of the Parrot: A parrot copies something embarrassing or important to the detriment of the person who said it in front of the parrot.
• Not Me This Time: The villain is accused of the current crime, but turns out to be innocent for once.
• Not My Lucky Day
• Not Now, We're Too Busy Crying over You: Someone mourns a person's apparent passing and once the person shows up unharmed, is still crying before they register that the person is actually still alive.
• Not on the List
• Not Quite Back to Normal
• Not Quite Forever
• Not Rare Over There
• Not Really a Birth Scene: Something is made to look like someone is giving birth.
• Not So Above It All: The serious and no-nonsense character demonstrates that they can be just as reckless and immature as the other characters.
• Not So Dire
• Not So Great Escape
• The Not-So-Harmless Punishment: A punishment that doesn't sound so bad turns out to be much worse than initially thought.
• Not-So-Innocent Whistle: Someone whistles to try and look innocent.
• Not That There's Anything Wrong with That
• Not This One, That One
• "Not Wearing Pants" Dream: Someone dreams they're in a state of undress.
• Now You Tell Me
• No, You Hang Up First
• Nuclear Family
• Nuns Are Funny

Tropes – O

• Obligatory Joke
• Oblivious Janitor Cut
• Oblivious Mockery: Someone makes a statement while unaware that what they're saying is hurting the feelings of the person they're talking to.
• Oblivious Transformation: Someone doesn't notice that they've transformed.
• Obsessed Are the Listmakers
• Obvious Object Could Be Anything
• Obvious Pregnancy: You can tell this woman is pregnant just by looking at her.
• Of Corpse He's Alive: Moving a corpse around in an attempt to convince people the person is not dead.
• Of Corsets Funny
• Of Course I Smoke
• Office Sports
• Offscreen Crash
• Offscreen Reality Warp: Things abruptly change between scenes when it would be impossible for the change to happen that fast.
• Oh, Crap!: A character makes the sudden realization that they are in big trouble.
• "Oh, Crap!" Fakeout
• Oh, Cisco!
• Oh God, with the Verbing!
• Oh Wait!
• Oh Wait, This Is My Grocery List: Someone mistakes a grocery list for another list.
• On Three: Jokes about a command to do something on the count of three.
• Once More, with Volume!
• Once per Episode: A running gag that happens once in every episode.
• One Crazy Night
• One Scene, Two Monologues
• The One Thing I Don't Hate About You
• One-Two Punchline
• Only One Finds It Fun: Something only pleases one person.
• Only Sane Man: The one character who isn't crazy or stupid.
• On Second Thought
• Open-Fly Gag: A character realizes to their embarrassment that they forgot to zip up the fly in their pants.
• The Operators Must Be Crazy
• Opening The Floodgates
• Orphaned Punchline: Someone tells the punchline of a joke out of context.
• Orphaned Setup
• Our Slogan Is Terrible: A business has a slogan that is awful.
• Out Of Control Popcorn
• Outside Joke: The joke is dependent on the audience not knowing what the joke is talking about.
• Oven Logic: Someone tries to cook food faster by setting the temperature higher than what the recipe recommends, with disastrous results.
• Overcomplicated Menu Order
• Overly Literal Transcription
• Overly Long Airplane Banner Gag
• Overly Long Gag: A joke that involves an action repeating for a long time.
• Overly Long Name: Someone has a ludicrously long name.
• Overly Long Scream
• Overly Narrow Superlative: Something is praised as being the best X ever, but that happens to be a very marginal group, so the compliment doesn't have much merit.
• Overly Nervous Flop Sweat
• Overly Polite Pals
• Overly Preprepared Gag
• Overreacting Airport Security
• Overused Running Gag
• Owls Ask "Who?": An owl saying, "Hoo" is mistaken for asking, "Who?"
• Ow, My Body Part!: A character shouts what body part is hurting.

Tropes – P

• Pacing a Trench
• Packed Hero: Someone ends up inside a small container.
• Padding the Paper: Someone is assigned to write a document and pads it out by adding unnecessary words, larger fonts, pictures, etc.
• Painful Body Waxing
• Pain-Powered Leap: Being poked with something sharp causes a person to jump a great height.
• Panicky Expectant Father: The father-to-be loses his mind when his wife is about to give birth.
• Paper-Bag Popping
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Someone manages to hide their identity with a very obvious disguise.
• Paranoia Gambit
• Parental Hypocrisy: A parent chastises their children for doing things they did themselves.
• Parental Obliviousness
• Parents Walk In at the Worst Time
• Parking Payback
• Parodic Table of the Elements
• Parodied Trope: A trope is lampooned.
• Pass the Popcorn
• Passing Judgment
• People Fall Off Chairs
• Percussive Prevention
• Perfectly Cromulent Word: Using made-up words.
• Personal Raincloud: A sad character has a raincloud above their head.
• Persona Non Grata: A person is forbidden from ever again setting foot in a specific location.
• Pervert Revenge Mode: A woman thinks a man is perving on her, so she angrily chases him.
• Pet Dress-Up: A character dresses their pet.
• Pet the Dog: A villain or a jerk does something nice to prove they're not a completely awful person.
• Pet Heir: A rich person leaves their fortune to their pet rather than someone who could actually be able to spend the money independently.
• Phlebotinum-Induced Stupidity: Something that causes people to become stupid.
• Phoney Call
• Piano Drop: A piano falls on someone.
• Piano Key Wave
• Picture Day: School picture day, played for laughs.
• Pie in the Face: Someone gets hit in the face with a pie.
• Pinball Gag
• Pity the Kidnapper: A kidnapping results with the kidnapper regretting their decision when the person they abducted starts annoying them.
• Plane Awful Flight
• Plank Gag
• Planning with Props
• Playing a Tree: A play has someone play a role that's basically a glorified background prop.
• Playing Games at Work
• Playing Pictionary
• Please Dump Me
• Please Get Off Me
• Plucky Comic Relief
• Plumber's Crack: A plumber has their butt crack visible while they're fixing the plumbing.
• Police Code for Everything: The police have a code for even the most bizarre and unlikely of crimes.
• Politeness Judo
• Polka Dork
• Polka-Dot Paint
• Pooping Food: A creature is able to defecate an edible substance.
• Popcorn on the Cob
• Popping Buttons
• Population: X, and Counting
• Porky Pig Pronunciation: Someone struggles to pronounce a word before settling with using a synonym.
• Porn Stash
• Post Wake Up Realization: Someone who's half-awake is oblivious of the unusual things happening until they fully wake up.
• Potty Dance: A person who has to go to the bathroom moves around frantically while clapping their hands over their crotch.
• Potty Emergency: Someone needs to go to the bathroom really bad and tries to find a way to relieve themselves.
• Potty Failure: Someone soils themselves due to never making it to a bathroom in time.
• Poverty for Comedy
• Powder Gag
• The Power of Apathy
• Powersuit Monkey
• Prank Call
• Prank Date: Asking someone out just to humiliate them.
• Prank Injuries: Faking an injury.
• The Pratfall: Someone falls on their buttocks.
• The Precious, Precious Car
• Preemptive "Shut Up": Telling someone to shut up when they haven't even said anything.
• Premature Aggravation
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy
• Priceless Ming Vase: A valuable object gets broken.
• Primal Scene: A child gets traumatized from walking in on their parents having sex.
• Prince of Pranksters: Someone pulls very elaborate pranks.
• The Problem with Pen Island: When words are strung together in a web address, it looks like a separate, usually dirty, phrase (e.g. "pen island" becomes "penisland").
• Produce Pelting: Throwing food at people.
• Profile View Gag
• Prompting Nudge
• Prone to Sunburn: A character's tendency to sunburn very easily is played for comedy.
• Proportional Article Importance: Newspapers have the articles that are supposed to be important printed in the largest font.
• Pseudolympics
• Publicly Discussing the Secret
• Puff of Logic: A being disappears when it's pointed out to them why they can't exist.
• Pulling the Rug Out
• Pun: Jokes revolving around wordplay.
• Punchline: The last part of a joke that's supposed to be the funny part.
• Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...
• Punch Spin Gape
• Punctuated Pounding: A person emphasizes every word they utter by hitting something.
• Purely Aesthetic Era
• Put Off Their Food: Someone doesn't want their food because it reminds them of something gross.
• Putting the "Medic" in Comedic
• Putting the Pee in Pool: Someone relieves themselves in the pool.

Tropes – Q–R

• Quacking Up: Humorous or lighthearted depictions of ducks.
• Quick Draw Decision
• Quirky Ukulele
• Queer People Are Funny: A character being gay is intended by the work to be funny.
• Rage Against the Author: The characters show defiance towards what the creator of the work wants to do.
• Raging Stiffie: A man gets a large, obvious erection.
• Rake Take: Someone hurts themselves by stepping on a rake and causing it to slam against their face.
• Rant-Inducing Slight
• Rapid-Fire Descriptors
• Rapid-Fire Interrupting
• Rapid-Fire Name Guessing
• Rapid-Fire "Shut Up!"
• Reaching Between the Lines
• Reactive Continuous Scream
• Reading Ahead in the Script
• Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud: Someone reading from a script mistakes stage directions for lines.
• Read the Map Upside Down
• Real Dreams Are Weirder
• Real Vehicle Reveal
• Record Needle Scratch
• Red-and-White Comedy Poster
• Red Boxing Gloves
• Redundant Romance Attempt
• Reflexive Response
• Rejection Affection
• Reluctant Gift
• Remembered I Could Fly
• Reminder of Impossibility
• Remonstrating with a Gun
• Removable Steering Wheel
• Repeat After Me: Someone is told to repeat what another person says and takes that to mean that they should repeat everything the person says.
• Repeated Cue, Tardy Response: Someone doesn't respond to their cue until it's been repeated multiple times.
• Replacement Flat Character
• Rescue Reversal
• Retroactive Wish
• Revenge Is a Dish Best Served
• Reverse Telescopic Vision
• Rewind Gag
• Rhyming List
• Ridiculous Exchange Rates
• Ridiculous Future Inflation: Things will be expensive as hell in the future.
• Ridiculous Future Sequelisation: In the future, a film series will still be ongoing and having more sequels made.
• Ridiculously Long Phone Hold
• Ridiculously Long Phone Number
• Ridiculous Procrastinator
• Right Behind Me: Someone insults a person before realizing that person was standing behind them the whole time.
• Right in Front of Me: Someone talks about someone while unaware that the person they're describing is right in front of them.
• Right on Queue
• Right Out of My Clothes: Someone leaps or is knocked upward so high that they leave their clothes behind.
• Right Through the Wall
• Ringer Ploy
• Rip Van Tinkle: Someone who's been asleep or in suspended animation for a long time immediately has to go to the bathroom once they've awoken.
• Rise of Zitboy: A teenager freaks out over having acne.
• Road Apples: Jokes about animal poop.
• Road Runner vs. Coyote
• Roadside Wave
• Road Sign Reversal: Tricking someone into going the wrong way by mixing up the signs.
• Road Trip Across the Street
• The Roast
• Rom Com Job
• Roofless Renovation
• Rubber Face
• Rube Goldberg Device
• Rule-Breaker Rule-Namer: A rule or law is named after the person whose actions made it necessary to enforce the rule or law.
• Rule of Three
• Rules of the Road
• Rummage Fail
• Rump Roast: Someone gets their backside set on fire.
• Running Gag: A joke that repeats throughout the series or throughout a single episode.
• Running Gag Stumbles: It looks like a running gag will happen, but it plays out differently.
• Running into the Window
• Running on the Spot
• Runs with Scissors
• The Runt at the End
• Rushed Inverted Reading
• Russian Humour

Tropes – S

• Sausage String Silliness: Antics involving sausage strings.
• Saved by a Terrible Performance
• Saw "Star Wars" 27 Times: Someone's obsession with a movie is demonstrated by having them claim to have seen it a ridiculously large number of times.
• Scantron Picture: Someone makes a picture by filling in the Scantron dots on a test.
• Scared of What's Behind You
• Scary Flashlight Face
• Scooby-Dooby Doors: A chase sequence where everyone runs through a hallway of doors in improbable ways.
• Scooby Stack: A group of people peek from behind a wall and their heads are somehow in a column.
• Scrabble Babble: Cheating at Scrabble by making up words.
• The Scream
• Screaming at Squick: A character reacts to seeing something really disgusting by screaming their head off.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: A man has a feminine-sounding scream.
• Screeching Stop
• Screwball Serum
• Secret Handshake
• Security Cling
• Seesaw Catapult
• Seinfeldian Conversation
• Self-Deprecation: The work makes fun of itself as a joke.
• Self-Induced Allergic Reaction
• Self-Offense
• Senseless Phagia
• Senior Sleep Cycle: Elderly people who fall asleep at random times.
• Sequel Snark: A movie jokes about the idea of the film getting a sequel.
• Sequential Symptom Syndrome: A character displays symptoms as they're listed.
• Seriously Scruffy
• Seven Minute Lull
• Severely Specialized Store
• Sexual Karma: Your actions affect your sex life (for example, doing a good deed will result in you getting laid with an attractive member of the gender you're attracted to).
• "Shaggy Frog" Story: A character attempts to prove a point by telling a story, only for the story to end up spiraling into incomprehensible nonsense and the intended moral being forgotten.
• Shake Someone, Objects Fall
• Shameful Shrinking: Someone shrinks when they feel ashamed.
• Shaped Like Itself: Describing something as being like itself (e.g. an elephant-shaped elephant, oatmeal that tastes like oatmeal, etc).
• Share the Male Pain: Giving uncomfortable reactions to seeing someone suffer a Groin Attack.
• She Cleans Up Nicely
• Sherlock Can Read
• Shock-and-Switch Ending: It looks like there'll be a Sudden Downer Ending, but everything is fine after all.
• Shoehorned First Letter
• Shopping Cart Antics
• Short Cuts Make Long Delays: Taking the shortcut actually takes longer than going the standard route.
• Shower of Awkward
• The Show Must Go Wrong
• Show Some Leg: A woman provides a distraction by showing off some skin.
• Shrug Take
• Shut Up, Scary Thing
• Shy Bladder: A character is too shy to pee.
• Side Bet
• Signed Up for the Dental: A character's job is terrible, but they accepted it because of the employment benefits.
• Signs of Disrepair: Signs get vandalized so they read something else.
• Silly Prayer: Someone prays in a comedic way.
• Silly Spook: A funny ghost.
• Similar Item Confusion
• Simpleton Voice: A dumb character has a deep, funny voice to underscore their idiocy.
• Singing in the Shower
• Singing Telegram
• Skewed Priorities: A person is very poor at recognizing what's more important to worry about.
• Slapstick Knows No Gender: Situations where being female does not exempt the character from slapstick.
• Sliding Scale of Comedy and Horror: A work can't make up its mind whether it should be funny or scary.
• Slippery Skid
• Slippery Soap
• Slipping into Stink: A character falls over and lands in something disgusting.
• Slow-Loading Internet Image
• Smart Ball: A character suddenly becomes more knowledgeable/intelligent.
• Smart Jerk and Nice Moron: A pairing consisting of an intelligent but mean person and a dim-witted but friendly person.
• Smell Phone
• The Snack Is More Interesting
• Snail Mail
• Snark Ball: A character makes a snide remark when they're not usually snide.
• Sneeze of Doom: A character's sneeze ends up causing destruction or getting them into trouble.
• Snipe Hunt: Someone is sent to find something that doesn't exist.
• Snowball Lie
• Snub by Omission
• Soap Punishment: Punishing someone for using profanity by washing their mouth out with soap.
• So Bad, It's Good: A low-quality work is popular because the shoddiness enables unintentional hilarity.
• Social Services Does Not Exist: Parents are able to get away with stuff that in real life would result in their children being taken away from them.
• Sold His Soul for a Donut: A character sells their soul to the devil in exchange for something ridiculously frivolous.
• Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond: A character is liked by all but one.
• Someone's Touching My Butt
• Something Else Also Rises: A visual gag implying that a character is sexually aroused.
• Something That Begins with "Boring": Playing games like I Spy because one is bored.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Slang or swear words mixed in with fancy talk.
• Sorry Ociffer: A drunk person fails spectacularly at hiding their intoxicated state when confronted by the police.
• Sorry to Interrupt
• Sound Defect
• So Unfunny, It's Funny: The joke's lack of humor is the point of the joke.
• Spanner in the Works: The hero thwarts the villain's plan by accident or because the villain failed to anticipate the hero's involvement.
• Specific Situation Books
• Spit Take: Reacting to something by spitting out whatever food or drink you were consuming at the moment.
• Spoof Aesop: An episode gives An Aesop that deliberately makes no sense or isn't at all what the audience was expecting.
• Springtime for Hitler: A deliberate attempt at failing instead ends in success.
• Standardized Sitcom Housing
• Stand-In Parents
• Start My Own
• The Stateroom Sketch
• Stealing from the Hotel
• Stealth Pun: A subtle play on words.
• Stereo Fibbing
• Stereotype Reaction Gag: A character gets angry at another character assuming that a stereotype about their race is true to them, before the minority character confirms the stereotype themselves.
• Stereotypical South Asian English
• Stewed Alive: Characters get cooked alive in a pot of soup or stew.
• Sticky Situation: Situations where a character gets stuck because of an adhesive substance and struggles to free themselves.
• Stink Bomb
• Stock Punishment
• Stoners Are Funny: A character being stoned off their ass most of the time is played for humor.
• Stop Drowning and Stand Up
• Stop Poking Me!
• Stop Saying That!
• Storm in a Teacup
• Straight Man: A character whose purpose is to be an ordinary person reacting to the funnier characters.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy
• Strangely Specific Horoscope
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Two unlikely people have the same idea.
• Strip Poker
• Stripper/Cop Confusion: Confusing a real police officer for a stripper dressed as one or vice versa.
• Strongly Worded Letter
• Stuck in the Doorway: A character/s, usually of large size, wind up getting stuck in a doorway.
• Stuck on a Ski Lift
• Stupid Crooks: It's pretty funny to see would-be criminals bungle their own attempted crimes because of their idiocy and incompetence.
• Stupid Question Bait
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: A character is straight but with one awkward exception.
• Stylistic Suck: A work of deliberately bad quality.
• Subverted Punchline: Someone tells the setup to an old joke but says a different punchline than the usual one.
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: A poem or song avoids completing a rhyme by substituting the anticipated word at the last minute with a word that doesn't rhyme at all or abrupt silence. In many cases, the rhyming word the audience is misled into expecting is an obscenity.
• Subways Suck
• Such a Phony
• Suddenly Bilingual
• Suddenly Fluent in Gibberish: Someone can understand a gibberish language with no foreshadowing.
• Sue Donym
• Suggestive Collision
• Suicide as Comedy: Jokes about someone killing themselves.
• Suntan Stencil
• Super-Fun Happy Thing of Doom
• Super Zeroes: Superheroes who are ridiculously incompetent and unimpressive.
• Surprise Jump
• Surprise Slide Staircase
• Suspect Is Hatless: Reporting a criminal while giving a description that doesn't really narrow down who could've done the crime.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Denying stuff that the other person hasn't even accused you of.
• Sustained Misunderstanding
• The Swear Jar: Someone puts money in a jar to curb their swearing habit.
• Swivel-Chair Antics

Tropes – T

• Tablecloth Yank (specifically when a character can't pull off the trick)
• Tabloid Melodrama
• The Take
• Take a Number
• Take Off Your Clothes: A character asks another to remove their clothes, but the situation isn't sexual.
• Taking It Well
• The Talk: A parent has to explain sex to their child.
• Talking in Bed
• Talking in Your Sleep
• Talking Poo: Sentient fecal matter.
• Talking with Signs
• Tampon Run: A man has to buy tampons for a menstruating woman.
• Tandem Parasite
• Telegraph Gag Stop
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: A person is able to accurately respond to another person's statements even though they're just a recording and aren't really around to hear what the other person is saying.
• Taped-Over Turmoil
• Tar and Feathers
• Tarot Troubles
• Tastes Like Purple: Describing a sensation as something that can't really be experienced with that sense, like saying that something tastes or smells like something that can only be seen.
• Technologically Blind Elders: The older you are, the worse you are at operating modern technology.
• Terrible Interviewees Montage: A montage of interviewing applicants for a job where every applicant proves themselves to be very unqualified for the job.
• Terrible Pick-Up Lines
• Testes Test: A man checks his genitals after going through a transformation to see if they've been affected by the change.
• Testosterone Poisoning: Over-the-top manliness.
• Textbook Humor
• Thanks for the Mammary: Someone accidentally touches a woman's breast.
• That Came Out Wrong: Someone realizes to their mortification that they've made an unintentionally risque statement.
• That Poor Car
• That Poor Cat: A cat yowling is heard from offscreen whenever destruction happens.
• That Poor Plant: A plant withers and dies after someone pours a toxic substance into it.
• That Was Not a Dream: Someone talks about having a dream before being told that it wasn't a dream and that the events described actually happened.
• That Was Objectionable: In court, a lawyer can refute anything simply by hollering "Objection" or "I object".
• That Was the Reward
• Themed Wedding
• There Is No Rule Six
• There Was a Door: Someone bursts through the walls even though they could've just entered through the door.
• Thermometer Gag: Jokes about rectal thermometers.
• They Just Dont Get It: A character doesn't understand a concept no matter how many times it's explained to them.
• They Killed Kenny Again: A character is repeatedly killed off and resurrected to the point of absurdity.
• Thing-O-Meter
• Think Unsexy Thoughts: Someone tries to think of unpleasant things to keep from getting too aroused.
• 30 Minutes, or It's Free!
• This Banana is Armed: What looks like a harmless pretend weapon actually functions like a real weapon.
• This Billboard Needs Some Salt: Giant monsters eat signs after mistaking them for food.
• This Explains So Much: After a stupid or eccentric character has a detail revealed about themselves, another character remarks that this detail explains a lot about why the other person is the way they are.
• This Is Going to Be Huge
• This Is My Side: A tiff between people results in a line being drawn to divide each other's side of the room and their belongings.
• This Is No Time to Panic: A character says, "Don't panic" but then later says, "You can panic now" and everyone does.
• Thought-Aversion Failure: Telling someone not to think about something will inevitably cause them to think about it anyway.
• The Three Certainties in Life
• Three Stooges Shout-Out
• Throw It In!: A joke that wasn't planned, but was left in the final version anyway because the creators thought it was funny.
• Throw the Book at Them
• Throw the Pin
• Thumbtack on the Chair
• Ticket-Line Campout
• Tied-Together-Shoelace Trip
• Tilting Tower of Pisa
• Time-Freeze Trolling Spree: Someone freezes time or takes advantage of time being frozen in order to play pranks on people without the risk of getting caught.
• Tinkle in the Eye: A baby pees on someone.
• To Be Continued... Right Now: The story continues immediately after a fakeout of claiming that the story will be resolved in the next installment.
• Toilet-Drinking Dog Gag: Dogs drinking out of toilets.
• Toll Booth Antics
• To Make a Long Story Short
• Tongue on the Flagpole: Someone gets their tongue stuck to a flagpole because of cold weather.
• Too Fast to Stop
• "Too Young to Die" Lamentation
• Took a Level in Dumbass: A character becomes dumber in later appearances.
• Too Many Halves
• Too Much Information: Someone reveals information that they really should've kept to themselves.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: A monster thinks a character tastes bad.
• Top Ten List
• Torso with a View
• Totem Pole Trench: Two or more people stand on top of one another and wear a large coat to disguise themselves as a tall person.
• Tough Room: No one laughs at a joke.
• Tour Guide Gag
• Trampoline Tummy
• Translation by Volume
• Transparent Closet: A closeted gay person who does a poor job of hiding their sexuality.
• Trash Landing: Falling from the sky into some garbage.
• Trash of the Titans
• Trauma Button Ending
• Tree Buchet
• Trees into Toothpicks
• Trick Dialogue
• Trivially Obvious
• Trojan Gauntlet: A man is embarrassed to buy condoms.
• Trolling Translator: The translator deliberately mistranslates what the other person is saying.
• Tropaholics Anonymous
• The Trope Formerly Known as X
• Troublemaking New Pet
• The Trouble with Tickets
• A Truce While We Gawk
• Trust-Building Blunder
• Truth-Telling Session
• Turn Your Head and Cough
• 20% More Awesome
• Twerp Sweating
• Twin Switch: Twins decide to switch places.
• A Twinkle in the Sky
• Two-Faced Aside: Saying something to one person and revealing the statement to be a lie in an aside to another person.
• Two out of Three Ain't Bad
• Two Rights Make a Wrong

Tropes – U

• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: An unattractive man has a beautiful wife.
• Umbrellas Are Lightning Rods
• Unaffected by Spice: Someone that has a high tolerance for really spicy food; often used as a gag when compared to someone who can't handle the heat or who tries to sabotage a dish by adding hot sauce to it.
• Uncomfortable Elevator Moment
• Uncool Undies: A character's undies are seen as lame.
• Unconventional Smoothie
• Un-Duet
• Undignified Death: Someone dies a ridiculous and embarrassing death.
• Un-Entendre: Interpreting an innocent statement as a double entendre.
• Un Evil Laugh
• Unimpressive Progress Reveal
• Unlikely Spare
• Unnecessary Time Precision
• Un-Paused: When a person is frozen or in suspended animation, unfreezing them has them finish whatever statement was interrupted by their motion ceasing in the first place.
• Unplanned Crossdressing
• Unpronounceable Alias
• Unraveled Entanglement
• Unsatisfiable Customer: A customer who always succeeds in finding something about the service to complain about, no matter what the employees do to avoid that.
• Unscrewed Salt Shaker
• Unsettling Gender Reveal: Someone is disturbed upon learning a person's true gender.
• Unsuspectingly Soused
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: The main character of a comedy is a jerk.
• Unusual Euphemism: Using bizarre words or phrases in lieu of swearing.
• Unwanted Assistance: A character gets annoyed by other people trying to help because the attempts at providing assistance aren't helpful at all.
• The Unwitting Comedian
• Upside-Down Blueprints: A building or invention gets made the wrong way because the blueprints were misread or misinterpreted by the builder.
• Uranus Is Showing: Jokes about how Uranus sounds like "your anus".
• Urine Trouble: A gag where an animal urinates on someone or something.
• Useful Book: A book gets used for something other than reading it.
• Useless Spleen: The spleen is useless.
• Useless Without Cell Phones

Tropes – V

• Vacuum Mouth
• Vandalism Backfire: Destroying someone's property backfires because what was damaged didn't belong to that person.
• Vengeful Vending Machine: A vending machine fails to work properly, which often results in the person trying to use it getting angry and taking out their frustrations on the machine.
• Ventriloquism
• Verbal Backpedaling
• Verbal Backspace
• Vetinari Job Security: A character cannot lose their job because they're the only one qualified.
• Vicious Vac
• Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: A sinister villain has a comedic henchman.
• Villains Out Shopping
• Virtual Assistant Blunder: Your smart device mishears the command given to it.
• Visual Pun: A sight gag involving a play on words.
• Vocal Dissonance: A character's voice doesn't match their physical appearance.
• Vocal Range Exceeded
• Volleying Insults: Two characters repeatedly insult each other.
• Volumetric Mouth
• Vomit Chain Reaction

Tropes – W

• Wacky Cravings: Pregnant women have bizarre tastes in food.
• Wacky Fratboy Hijinx
• Wacky Marriage Proposal: Someone tries to propose marriage to their significant other in an unorthodox way.
• Wacky Racing
• Wacky Waterbed: Waterbeds are bouncy and can leak.
• Waiting Skeleton: Showing a skeleton to demonstrate that waiting at a place can take a ridiculously long time.
• Waking Non Sequitur: Someone makes an odd statement upon waking up.
• Walkie-Talkie Gag, Over
• Walking Out on the Show
• Walk Like an Egyptian: The stereotypical pose of Ancient Egyptian dancing.
• Wallbonking
• Wallet Moths: Someone opens a wallet and moths fly out to indicate lack of money.
• Wallpaper Camouflage
• Washy Watchy
• Wasn't That Fun?: A character (ironically or sincerely) states that a terrifying experience was fun and they want to do it again.
• Wasteful Wishing: Someone wastes a wish on something trivial.
• Watch Out for That Tree!
• Watch Where You're Going!
• Water-Geyser Volley
• Water Hose Rodeo
• Way Past the Expiration Date: Food that's a long time past its expiration date.
• We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties
• We ARE Struggling Together
• Wearing It All Wrong: Wearing a garment on the wrong body part.
• We Have Those, Too
• We Need a Distraction
• We Sell Everything
• We Should Get Another Tape
• Wedgie: A prank where you pull up someone's underwear after grabbing the back of it.
• Weird Crossover: A (parodic) crossover in which humor is derived from the juxtaposition of two vastly different works of fiction.
• Weird Trade Union
• Well-Intentioned Replacement
• Well, This Is Not That Trope
• Wet Cement Gag
• What Are Records?
• What Did I Do Last Night?: A character regains consciousness after a night of heavy drinking or drug usage and panics as they try to figure out what happened while they were drunk or high.
• What Does This Button Do?
• What's a Henway?: A joke where you say a silly word, someone asks what it is, and you respond with a joke (e.g. "Have you seen my pugway?" "What's a pugway?" "About 14 to 18 pounds.")
• What the Fu Are You Doing?
• Wheel of Decisions
• "Where? Where?"
• Where Did We Go Wrong?
• "Which Restroom" Dilemma: Someone has trouble deciding which restroom they should use.
• White Dude, Black Dude
• Who Even Needs a Brain?: Someone is able to live and function without a brain.
• Who Is Driving?: Everyone aboard a vehicle gets into a conversation and then realizes no one's driving.
• Who's on First?
• Who Would Want to Watch Us?: The characters of a television show laugh at the idea of someone making a television show about their exploits.
• Whoopee Cushion
• Why Are We Whispering?
• Why Are You Looking at Me Like That?
• Why, Thank You, X!
• Wildlife Commentary Spoof
• Wild Take: A character reacts to something surprising or shocking them in a comically unrealistic way, such as their eyes bugging out.
• Wilting Odor: A smell so bad that it's actually causing physical damage to its surroundings.
• The Window or the Stairs
• Wiper Start
• With Catlike Tread: A person trying to be stealthy somehow missed the memo that making loud noises will draw attention to them.
• With This Ring
• Witness Protection
• Wondrous Ladies Room: The women's bathroom is really fancy.
• Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: Someone doesn't realize that the response given to their question or request was the response they wanted.
• The World Mocks Your Loss
• Worrying for the Wrong Reason
• Worse with Context
• The Worst Seat in the House
• Worth It: A character suffers serious consequences for doing something, but decides that their suffering doesn't matter because they still got what they wanted.
• Would Rather Suffer: Someone emphasizes their distaste for something by claiming they'd rather do something very unpleasant.
• Writers Suck
• Wrong Insult Offence: A character is mad that someone insulted them wrong (e.g. "I'm not stupid, I'm clueless, big difference!")
• Wrongfully Attributed
• Wrong Parachute Gag
• Wrong Restaurant

Tropes – X–Z

• X Called; They Want Their Y Back
• X Days Since
• Xylophone Gag: A xylophone that has one exploding key.
• Yawn and Reach: While at the movies, a man pretends to yawn and rests their arm around their date.
• Yellow Snow: Jokes about urinating on snow.
• "Yes"/"No" Answer Interpretation: Asking or choosing to interpret whether another person's reply or action is a "yes" or a "no".
• You Can't Miss It
• You, Get Me Coffee
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!
• You Make Me Sic: Being more concerned with grammar and spelling errors than what the person is trying to say.
• You Need a Breath Mint: Making a remark about someone having bad breath.
• You Wanna Get Sued?
• You Won't Feel a Thing
• Your Brain Won't Be Much of a Meal: A creature that eats brains doesn't want to eat the brains of stupid people.
• Your Costume Needs Work: A person is mistaken for a shoddy impersonation.
• Your Mime Makes It Real: Mimes are depicted as dealing with real objects that just happen to be invisible rather than performing acts with imaginary objects.
• Your Mom: Insulting other people's mothers.
• Your Other Left
• Your Television Hates You: Someone tries to forget their troubles by watching TV, but every show and commercial they come across somehow has something to do with their current problem.
• You're Drinking Breast Milk: Someone (usually a man) accidentally drinks breast milk.
• Zany Scheme
• Zany Scheme Chicken

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