Well, This Is Not That Trope

aka: This Is Not That Trope

Greenslade: Into this complex world of crime, of move and counter move, stepped a man of great ingenuity, daring, resource and brains.
Eccles: Ain't me, folks.

— The Goon Show

You know how when someone describes something, they actually tell you about the thing itself?

Well, this is not that trope.

Subversion distilled to its purest essence: you directly build up the audience's expectations with an elaborate description of something, then tell them that you're actually talking about something else — often the exact opposite of everything you've just said.

Closely related to Dissimile, where the simile is broken down by successively removing all the crucial elements.

Most often a Comedy Trope, but can be Played for Drama. Compare Analogy Backfire, Bait-and-Switch Comparison, Distinction Without a Difference.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The JOJOLands, Jodio describes his story of becoming "filthy rich", as apart from receiving loads of money, he insists that his mechanism is a universal constant which would make wealth come to him.
• My Hero Academia contains a specific moment in chapter 405:
  All Might: But everyone knows the old master is meant to die after passing the torch.
  Nighteye: You've read too many comic books, Toshinori Yagi.
• Seraph of the End: Guren and Mahiru fell in love with each other at a young age, yet got violently separated for their unmatching social status — she's from the prestigious Hiiragi family while he's just a member of the branch family Ichinose. Eight years later, they accidentally meet again in the same school, only to have Shinya entered the picture as Mahiru's fiancé, and he does try to earn Mahiru's love, but it's useless because she only loves Guren. You probably expect the guys to fight over her, but well... Mahiru is later on revealed to be involved with the Hyakuya Sect with some rather disturbing actions to harm the world. Guren and Shinya join forces with some others to stop her, and as they do so, Shinya slowly finds himself gradually disliking Mahiru and falling for... Guren. Yeah, he takes interest on the very same guy whom his supposed fiancée loves. As for Guren, although he turns into a Celibate Hero after Mahiru dies and becomes a demon, he doesn't seem too bothered by Shinya's teasing and flirting with him, and in fact, even though he doesn't say it out loud, Shinya is very important to him whether platonic or not.
• Touken Ranbu - Hanamaru starts with an opening monologue about the Touken Danshi, their purpose, and how they need to protect history from demons...until the narrator is interrupted before the narrator can finish, panning over to the peaceful roof of the citadel to establish how Lighter and Softer it is in comparison to the game.

Audio Plays

• The Audio Adaptation of Good Omens:
  Shadwell: Ye can take the field telephone. Ye ken those wee modern smartphones?
  Pulsifer: Yes.
  Shadwell: Well, this isnae one.
  FX: THUMP!
  Pulsifer: Gosh, they knew how to build them in the eighties.

Comedy

• George Carlin ends a "Wonderful WINO" radio show with the following tag:
  We've got the old tunes, the new tunes,
  The show tunes, the blue tunes,
  The greatest music in town...BUT WE NEVER PLAY 'EM!

Comic Books

• Watchmen:
  Moloch: You know the kind of cancer you ultimately get better from? ...That ain't the kind I got.
• In a non-canon story of Ultimate Spider-Man, Brian Michael Bendis comments that occasionally you encounter a story so important, so moving it HAS to be told. THIS... is not one of those stories.
• In Supergirl Vol. 5 issue #22, Supergirl sees the Legion of Super-Heroes again. Lightning Lad asks whether she remembers how she thought they all were a dream before acknowledging they were real. She nods and he tells her this time she is in fact dreaming.
  Lightning Lad: Hey, Kara, remember when you first showed up here, telling us all we were figments of your imagination?
  Supergirl: Yeah. Sorry about that.
  Lightning Lad: Well, now you really are dreaming.
• The one-shot "Power Pachyderms" (no parody of Power Pack, but rather of X-Men) at the beginning has a jaywalking nuke exploding. The exposition first suggests an ACME Radioactive Spider Origin, but then (paraphrasing): "...of course, they were all dead on the spot. This stray wagon with circus elephants somewhat distant from the epicenter, however..."
• In Wonder Woman (Infinite Frontier) #778, Siegfried's narration describes his and Diana's experiences in the Fifth Dimension thus:
  Imagination is not beholden to the boring laws of rationality or pragmatism. It's often a beautiful fugue state of unfettered freedom — a flow many practice to achieve.
  This wasn't that at all.
  This was complete nonsense.
• Sam Spayed: Babes and Bullets in Garfield: His 9 Lives has one paragraph of Spayed's Private Eye Monologue begin "San Francisco is a beautiful city", spend a while describing dawn over the Golden Gate Bridge, then conclude "I wish I lived there."

Comic Strips

• In one Beau Peep strip, Peep asks Lethal Chef Egon what the soup of the day is. Egon replies "Have you ever heard of minestrone? A delicate blend of Italian herbs and spices. But it takes ages, this is turnip water."

Fan Works

• brilliant lights will cease to burn references the opening chapters of My Hero Academia before assuring the reader that none of this happens in this story.
  Midoriya Izuku is born Quirkless. This is a fact that he hates, detests, abhors for the majority of his adolescence. Kacchan certainly doesn't help, and neither do the rest of his classmates. Luckily, Izuku accepts his Quirklessness rather elegantly. He doesn't give up his goal of becoming a hero, mind you, but he does throw himself into his hero research with a newfound vigor.
  
  In another universe, Izuku begins his collection of hero notebooks, running to whatever villain fight he can. In another universe, Izuku stands on the sidelines and lives his life, quietly nursing his ambition. In another universe, Izuku unknowingly sets himself on the path that crosses with All Might's.
  
  In this universe, that's not exactly how it goes.
• Fledglings, or: Everything's Better With Penguins: The story opens with a description of how quiet it is in Response Center 8 and how that would usually mean the console would be loudly beeping at the agents to go on a mission. Then the narration states that said scenario is unlikely to happen for the time being due to the console somehow teleporting itself away and the agents being in no hurry to get a replacement.
• From chapter 8 of Rob Haynie's Ranma ½ fic, Girl Days:
  The walk back was uneventful.
  No, sorry, that was a different walk back. THIS walk back was something other than uneventful.
• Miraculous: Tales of Honeybee and Red Fox, uses this trope as the Establishing Character Moment of Felicite, a very self-deprecating person. The fic opens by describing the Hidden Depths of Emma Agreste, Broken Ace and Paris' golden girl. Then the narrator explains that she is Felicite, Emma's best friend, and that this story is actually about both of them.

Films — Animation

• The Amazing Maurice starts with a Story Book Opening and a story being read, but that story is Mr Bunnsy Has an Adventure, and after a couple of pages Malicia, narrating, slams it shut and explains this is not that story.
• Hercules opens with Charlton Heston narrating the story in a very grim manner, only for the Muses to appear and tell him to lighten up, that this is not, in fact, "some Greek tragedy." They tell him that they'll take it from there and he agrees, "You go, girls."
• Igor: The eponymous and The Igor hunchback/wannabe Mad Scientist introduces one of his inventions, a not-so-bright Brain in a Jar. "Legend has it that when the smartest man in the world died, they put his brain in a jar; this is not that brain."
• The Incredibles uses this trope seriously:
  Helen: Remember the bad guys, on those shows you used to watch on Saturday mornings? Well, these guys are not like those guys. They won't exercise restraint because you're children. They. Will. Kill you if they get the chance. Do NOT give them that chance.
• Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie's "Credits Song", a meta-song about how credits songs should fit with the movie beforehand, nearly says the trope name word-for-word.
  There once was a song that ran under the credits / That went with the movie, but this is not that song
  Has nothing to do with the movie, so we'll say / Hey hey hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey
• In Turning Red, in the intro, Mei delivers An Aesop only to claim it doesn't apply to her.

Films — Live-Action

• A Series of Unfortunate Events opens in a Sugar Bowl (not that one) with a Sickeningly Sweet musical number and an adorable dancing elf. It's cut off by the narrator.
  Narrator: I'm sorry to say that this is not the movie you will be watching.
• One of the trailers for The Muppets (2011) sets it up to look like a generic Rom Com — until the Muppets show up halfway through. The characters look as surprised as we are. This bookended with the final trailer, which inverts the previous joke by advertising the Muppet movie... then having the Muppets be surprised that there are humans in the movie too.
• The Lord of the Rings: "A day may come when the courage of men fails, but it is not this day!"
• The trailer for Monty Python and the Holy Grail starts by talking about how there are some movies that change the film industry forever, like Seven Samurai and Ivan the Terrible. Then it mentions that there are also more run of the mill movies, like Herbie Rides Again and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. After going on about how the movie is rather silly instead of serious fare, it then segues into a commercial for a Chinese restaurant for no particular reason.
  • The movie contains a scene introducing the knights and includes "Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film".
• In the teaser for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the narrator tells the audience they'll likely want to see a feel-good film that reinforces the value of helping others. "If that's the kind of movie you and your family will be looking for this Christmas, then you won't want to see (scream) '''Dirty Rotten Scoundrels'."
• The trailer for Pulp Fiction starts off with sad music and a ponderous announcer talking about how it won the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or... before the screen promptly gets riddled with bullets and the real trailer starts.
  • Although Pulp Fiction really did win the Palme d'Or at Cannes.
• A deleted scene from We Were Soldiers has a group of soldiers chatting about their new Sergeant Major, a mean fellow by the name of Basil Plumley. One of them used to be stationed with Plumley, and tells the others a story related to him: A brand new lieutenant orders all of his men to put all of their ribbons and medals on their uniforms, so he can see what kind of men he is leading. One of his senior NCOs comes out without having done so, and the lieutenant chews him out, without the sergeant visibly reacting. The sergeant goes back to the barracks, and comes out buck naked, save for a pair of boots, his ribbons and medals pinned directly to his chest, and a Medal of Honor. That guy worked for Sergeant Major Plumley, and was scared shitless of him.
• Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi irritated the government of his country, and was placed under house arrest and banned from making films for twenty years. In response, he pointed a camera at his day-to-day life and made This Is Not A Film, which is most certainly not a film, just a collection of documentary sounds and images.
• The documentary Sicko starts by introducing people with large healthcare bills who didn't have insurance, then explains the movie's not about them, but rather people who did have insurance and still have such bills.
• Noted in Kingsman: The Secret Service alongside This Is Reality when Valentine shoots Harry in the head instead of explaining his plan and putting Harry in a deathtrap. And echoed later when Eggsy shoots Valentine, after the latter dreads the idea of hearing a bad pun as a Pre-Mortem One-Liner.
  Valentine: This ain't that kind of movie.
• Essentially a key factor in Brightburn; while basic descriptions of it would suggest that it is simply a variation on Superman's origin, as an human-looking alien boy comes to Earth in a spaceship and is taken in by a childless couple on a farm, this is swiftly subverted as it becomes clear that the child is either genetically predisposed or being externally programmed to lack any kind of compassion or ability to truly care for humans, lashing out with minimal provocation and brutally murdering even his own parents when they turn against him.
• RRRrrr!!! opens like a war story, on a black screen with a narrator introducing the heroic last stand of an american platoon in vietnam:
  "On May 9th 1969, Two miles off the northern border of Laos, the 101st infantry division of the US Army moves towards hill 937. For them, it's a simple recon mission. For the Viet-cong, Hill 937 is a crucial checkpoint. The dozen recruits of the 101, barely trained for combat, should have completed this routine mission in less than two hours. They will hold on heroically for nine days. This movie does not tell their story.
• In The Chronicles of Narnia, Tumnus asks Lucy Pevensie if she's familiar with any Narnian lullabies.
  Lucy: Sorry, no.
  Tumnus: Well, that's good. Because this... probably won't sound anything like one.
• The Trailer for La Cité de la peur contains a subversion of the typical movie comparisons routine:
  Voice-over: If you liked Jurassic Park, The Piano, The Fugitive... well, we liked those movies too.
• The trailer for Army of Darkness starts off seeming like a serious fantasy epic, until:
  Narrator: In an age of darkness...at a time of evil...when the world needed a hero...what it got...was him.
  Ash Williams: Groovy.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: The crew come to an uncrossable chasm. Blackbeard decides to make Jack go ahead by jumping off the cliff.
  Jack: You know that feeling you get sometimes when you're standing in a high place... a sudden urge to jump? I don't have it.

Jokes

• Announcement supposedly heard at the beginning of a flight (insert name of airline of your choice):
  We're pleased to have some of the best flight attendants in the industry. Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight!

Literature

• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Dumbledore's brief speech before the welcoming feast.
  "To our newcomers, welcome! To our old hands — welcome back! There is a time for speech making, but this is not it. Tuck in!"
• Done twice in Piers Anthony's book Under a Velvet Cloak. First he describes the story of King Arthur and follows it up with "This is not that story." Then he describes the story of a girl who would be an ancestor to many Incarnations and says "This is not that story either."
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  • From the first book:
    And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place...
    
    This is not her story.
  • Subverted a few books later, in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. It opens up the same way as Hitchhiker's Guide, then says, "This is her story." Although the readers never do learn what she figured out, which was presumably the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.
  • There's also a sequence where Arthur asks Ford about how the universe was born, and Ford goes off on a tangent about buying a bathtub, filling it with sand, then watching all the sand drain down while filming it, and then playing the film back in reverse. Which, he adds, is nothing like how the universe was born.
  • The introduction to Don't Panic, Neil Gaiman's biography of Douglas Adams, riffs on the opening of the first book, starting with the description of the Guide itself from later in that passage, and then saying that this is the story of a different book called The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
• "Maybe once in a lifetime, there comes a book with such extraordinary characters, thrilling plot twists, and uncanny insight, that it comes to embody its time. Atlanta Nights is a book." — Adam-Troy Castro
• The winner of the 2007 Lyttle Lytton Contest freeform challenge:
  "Scaling Everest was, by far, the most amazing and transformative experience of my life. Unfortunately, this is a thesis on context-free grammars."
• The Adventures of Pinocchio opens with one: "Centuries ago, there lived... 'a king!' my little readers will say immediately. No, children, you are mistaken. Once Upon a Time there was a piece of wood."
• Used at the start of Stephen Leacock's short story Gertrude the Governess:
  It was a wild and stormy night on the West Coast of Scotland. This, however, is immaterial to the present story, as the scene is not laid in the West of Scotland. For the matter of that the weather was just as bad on the East Coast of Ireland.
  But the scene of this narrative is laid in the South of England...
• Played for Drama in the final stanza of Casey at the Bat:
  Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
  The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
  And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
  But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.
• Discworld: In Sourcery, when Carding is bitten by the sourcerer's staff and Spelter asks him what it felt like.
  Carding: Have you ever been bitten by a viper?
  Spelter: No.
  Carding: In that case you'll understand exactly what it felt like.
  Spelter: Hmmm?
  Carding: It wasn't like a snake bite at all.
• The opening paragraphs of Terra says that some couples get along perfectly and are always in agreement, but the Bradburys weren't like that. It then says that there are also couples who argue, and make up, and it ultimately brings them closer together, and even when they're arguing you know they love each other beneath it. And the Bradburys aren't like that either.
• Older Than Steam: The opening of The Canterbury Tales is so well-known today that it's easy to miss its use of this trope. The first eleven lines describe the start of spring in faintly erotically-charged terms, with flowers being "engendered" and the west wind blowing with its "sweet breath" and little birds being "pricked" to "make melody" all night, before upending the reader's expectations with "Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages."
• In Relativity, when Ravenswood is telling Melody the story about how he met Michael, he starts with a lengthy description of the accounting class he took in college. Then he reveals that the class has nothing to do with the story, as he met Michael several years later.
• I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue spin-off books:
  • In Stovold's Mornington Crescent Almanac, Humphrey Lyttelton recalls visiting New Orleans when he was young, and meeting a variety of musicians with Parody Names before concluding:
    It seems so long ago and far away, but that night jazz was born. And just three streets away from where we were.
  • The Little Book of Mornington Crescent, in its section on the Offside Rule, opens by saying the rule is easily misunderstood but is quite simple, then has half a page of dense, jargon-filled Crescentbabble, then concludes that the above should not be confused with the Offside Rule.
• Just So Stories: "The Butterfly That Stamped" opens with "There are three hundred and fifty-five stories about Suleiman-bin-Daoud; but this is not one of them."
• In The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages, Tai Li asks Crawlings if he's really going to drink the serum, knowing that Mr. Benedict needs a dose of it to cure himself. Crawlings gazes at him, seeing his eyes wide with innocent disbelief.
  There are times when even the worst of men—the most selfish, the most vindictive, the cruelest of men—need only to be confronted with the wisdom of small children to be reminded of the children they once were themselves; to be reminded, in short, of what is to imagine a world of magic and kindness rather than a world of wickedness and violence. This was not one of those times. Crawlings winked at Tai and drank the beaker down.
• The back cover blurb to The Sleeping Dragon by Jonny Nexus:
  On a fantasy world Tolkienesque to the point of cliché, the five greatest adventurers of the age discover that in five hundred years, the Sleeping Dragon will awake and destroy civilisation.
  But prologue aside, this is not their story.
• The Hollow Boy opens In Medias Res in the middle of a case, with Lucy talking about a moment when she glimpsed Lockwood and Co. working together perfectly the first time. She then backs things up a bit to the beginning of the case. As things progress, it comes to a tense moment, where she is tossing a water bottle to Lockwood and George is tossing her his rapier. Lucy reminds the reader of how she talked about a moment of sweet precision, when they gelled together perfectly as a team.
  Lucy: Remember I said there was that moment of sweet precision, when we jelled perfectly as a team? Yeah, well, this wasn't it. The rapier shot past, missing me by miles. It skidded halfway across the floor. The bottle struck Lockwood right in the center of his forehead, knocking him out the window. There was a moment's pause. "Is he dead?" the skull's voice said. "Yay! Oh. No, he's hanging on to the shutters. Shame. Still, this is definitely the funniest thing I've ever seen. You three really are incompetence on a stick."

Live-Action TV

• Brooklyn Nine-Nine begins with Jake Peralta doing a serious monologue on the struggles of being a cop. It then zooms out to show he's just goofing off on the crime scene.
• On Malcolm in the Middle, Lois tells Reese, "Some people have book smarts; some people have street smarts. You have neither."
• When Mike ends his deal with somebody in Breaking Bad, he says, "You know how they say 'it's been a pleasure'? It hasn't."
• Monty Python's Flying Circus:
  • One of the sketches featured a narrator who would introduce various on-screen characters in detail, only to remark that they were not going to be the protagonist and move on to someone else they run into. This happens several times.
  • Subversion: The "Science Fiction Sketch" begins by introducing Mr. and Mrs. Brainsample as a "perfectly ordinary couple" and promptly disregards them as being too ordinary to be of interest. Then they reappear at the sketch's climax to help resolve the plot.
  • "Mount Everest. Aloof, terrifying, the highest mountain in the world. (Camera pulls away from a poster of Everest to show a travel agency's office) No, we don't fly there."
  • "In 1943 a group of British Army officers, working deep inside enemy lines, carried off one of the most dangerous and heroic raids in the history of warfare. [Beat] But that's as may be. And now..." (segue to the Army Protection Racket sketch)
  • "...And he's come into the studio tonight to talk about Tchaikovsky, which is a bit of a pity as this is 'Farming Club'." (Subverted in that they end up doing a sketch about Tchaikovsky anyway)
  • "Mr. Bent is in our Durham studios, which is rather unfortunate as we're all down here in London."
• In the Charmed episode "The Wedding from Hell":
  Prue: Have you ever seen that television show where there's the woman who's an angel and she helps strangers every week?
  Allison Michaels: I love that show.
  Prue: Don't get too excited, I'm nothing like that.
• On Roseanne: "Mark, remember all those times you screwed up? This ain't one of them!"
• In one episode of Hogan's Heroes, an American prisoner is brought to camp, and Hogan notices he's got a black thimble lens. When he looks into it, Klink asks him what he's seeing:
  Hogan: You know that famous picture of George Washington crossing the Delaware?
  Klink: Yes, I'm familiar with it.
  Hogan: [grinning] This ain't it.
• Doctor Who: The Doctor (especially the 11th) does this a few times, using an analogy then saying immediately after (or after a convoluted explanation that goes nowhere) that the analogy is actually completely wrong.
  River: A needle in a haystack.
  Doctor: A needle that looks like hay. A haylike needle of death. A haylike needle of death in a haystack of... statues. No, yours is fine.
• My Name Is Earl:
  • Used in the pilot.
    "And if you took the time to really get to know me, find out what kind of person I really am instead of just stereotyping me because of the way I look... well, you'd be wasting your time. 'Cause I'm exactly who you think I am. Hell, I'll pretty much steal anything that's not nailed down."
  • Once again used in "Buried Treasure", in the last intro sequence with the librarian.
    "You know the kind of girl who looks like a simple librarian, but when she pulls the pencil out of her hair it all falls down and she looks all wild and sexy? (sighs) I wish that was me."
• An episode of The Mary Whitehouse Experience had the following Radio Times listing:
  Each winter the bald-headed eagle comes to roost in the Highlands of Scotland. Tony Soper^note Founder of the BBC National History Unit is there with his binoculars. Unfortunately he hasn't got a television series. We have. Sorry, Tony.
• A Running Gag in the final episode of Blackadder II was Master of Disguise Prince Ludwig describing a friend or associate of a character in great detail, and when they said "You mean...?" replying "Yes! I was [someone else who was there at the same time]!"
• In This Is Us, Randall hopes that his sheer desire to impress his children at Career Day would make him an Instant Expert at singing and playing piano. Unfortunately for all, he comes up embarrassingly short.
  Randall: You know how in movies, somebody's bad at something but they don't wanna be. And so they set their mind to it. And then we see this montage where they are practicing and practicing. And then comes the big moment, and they're amazing, and everybody cheers.
  William: I think I've seen a few movies like that, yeah.
  Randall: I think I skipped the montage.
• In Season 3 of Legends of Tomorrow, after Rip Hunter forms the Time Bureau, his version of the Couch Gag opening monologue goes like this:
  Rip: When a terrible time paradox put all of history in peril, an elite team was formed. Their job, to protect history and repair these so-called anachronisms. Unfortunately, this is not that elite team...

  Particularly effective because it's a reversal of the Season 1 opening, in which the Legends were that "elite team".

• Life After People speculates on "what would happen if every human being on Earth disappeared" — how long it would take for the power to go out, buildings to collapse, civilizations to disappear, etc. The one thing the series doesn't speculate about is what happened to the human race to cause it all, which is why this might be the only show whose Opening Narration describes what you are not watching: "This isn't the story of how we might vanish — it is the story of what happens to the world we leave behind."
• "Wrong Song," one of the numbers in Nashville, addresses a cheating boyfriend and spends the verses describing the sort of forgiving, reconciliatory song he's probably hoping to hear - and then the refrain comes in and says that he's not getting that song, because this song is about what a complete bastard he is!
• The Wayne and Shuster Spaghetti Western parody a "A Fistful of Fingers" begins with a narration about the hero of the story as typical 1950s matinee cowboy rides across the screen on a White Stallion. The narration then goes "This guy is not the hero". Then camera then does a whip pan to Wayne dressed as a scruffy 'Man with No Name' type, and the narration ends "He is!"
• Fractured Flickers, a 1963 syndicated show that applied new soundtrack dialogue on silent films hosted by Hans Conried, started a show thusly:
  Conried: Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement. For those of you who like programs that are lavish, brilliant and entertaining...this isn't one of them.

Music

• The Tenacious D song "Tribute" tells about the encounter between Tenacious D and a demon, who threatened to take their souls unless they performed the Greatest Song in the World for him. They do so, and the demon is blown away by their awesome rocking... but neither of them can remember how the song went, so you're getting this song instead, which is just a tribute to the Greatest Song in the World and sounds absolutely nothing like it.
  • Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny suggests that the supposed Greatest Song in the World is (the D's half of) "Beelzeboss", played during the rock-off against Satan. However, in reality, Satan thought their performance was lame and declared himself the winner of the rock-off, then was defeated through pure dumb luck. Their inability to remember the song and Self-Serving Memory regarding the outcome of the fight in "Tribute" can both be chalked up the fact that immediately after the fight, they both went home and got really high.
• "It ain't me, babe" by Bob Dylan (and famously recorded by Johnny Cash):
  You say you're lookin' for someone
  Never weak but always strong
  To protect you and defend you
  Whether you are right or wrong
  Someone to open each and every door
  But it ain't me, babe
  No, no, no, it ain't me, babe
  It ain't me you're lookin' for. babe.
• "Fred Astaire" by San Cisco starts off live a typical sappy pop love song, with the singer mentioning how much he misses his girl and has been thinking of her. The rest of the song is devoted to explaining how she'd be better off with... Fred Astaire?
• Red Vox have this to say about their album "Blood Bagel":
  For our next album, we wanted to strive for more depth and experimentation. This is not that album. This is Blood Bagel. Fuck you.

Puppet Shows

• The Joel Grey episode of The Muppet Show has one of these in Kermit's opening monologue.
  Kermit: How would you like to see 4,000 woodpeckers performing an aerial ballet while 87 gorillas and two dozen elephants do the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy"? Well, forget it! Because, instead, we've got Joel Grey as a guest star. Which, in a way, is like having all the excitement of everything I already mentioned without having to clean up afterwards.
• In the Wonder Showzen Season 1 DVD, we have this:
  Know that famous Street where all the sunshiney happy kids go to watch quality TV and learn stuff? THIS AIN'T IT!!!

Radio

• Often done with the introductions on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. "People come to this theatre from far and wide to watch the greatest performers of the age. Other times, they come to see our teams..."
  • Celebrating the 30th Anniversary Special:
    Humph: For a show such as this to have lasted thirty years might be thought achievement enough in itself. But to have brought joy and laughter to thousands of listeners ... might at least have been worth a try.
  • "It would be a colossal waste to have Phil Jupitus on the show and not have a round that showcases his talents. Still, there you go."
  • After Tim has sung The Goodies theme to the tune of "Feelings":
    Jack: Sometimes when you do that to a song you realise for the first time how good the lyrics are. That wasn't one of those times, but it can happen.
• In a 2008 episode of The Now Show introducing the guest stand-up slot, Steve Punt explained that part of the ethos of the show was providing a place for new, young comedians, before adding that, unfortunately, they all had their own stuff going on.
  Steve: So instead, let me welcome the man who first showed Lord Reith where the photocopier was, Barry Cryer!
• The Unbelievable Truth:
  • The introduction of series 20, episode 2:
    David Mitchell: As for the panel, well, we've never had a Pulitzer Prize winning author on the show before, and that's not going to change tonight.
  • The introduction of series 22, episode 2:
    David: I'd like to introduce four of my favourite comedians. But we can't always get what we want, can we?
• The Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy episode "The Disposable Razor Blade" opens with quotations from King Camp Gillette's The Human Drift, with Tim Harford saying that they came from a man with an idea that revolutionised economics. After some lengthy passages about Gillette's socialist utopia, where there's one publically-owned company that makes everything and people only need to work for five years in their life, Harford admits that it wasn't that one.

Video Games

• Garfield's Nightmare: The prologue of the game has Garfield begin telling a story that happened "once upon a time"... and quickly clarifies that it's not about a "boring" fairy tale, but instead a fateful event that happened to him during an adventure.
• From the beginning of The Several Journeys of Reemus:
  Many moons ago in the Kingdom of Fredericus, there lived a champion dragon slayer. Beloved by the people, feared by outlaws, hated by dragons.
  
  He brought justice and peace to the land, saving villages and maidens wherever he traveled.
  
  This story is about his brother...
• The Flash game Robot Wants Puppy starts with an Opening Scroll, describing a Star Wars-like scenario, before concluding "Meanwhile, in a completely different galaxy, thousands of light years away, robot wants puppy".
• Super Smash Bros.: This is part of the Poison Mushroom's description.
  Becoming giant and looming over your foes is pretty great, yeah? Well, that won't happen if you get this mushroom.
• The protagonist of the first game of The Trapped Trilogy says this when he locks himself in a safe room to escape a gunman, only to realize too late that he left Dialla, the pretty maid that was helping him, behind. He monologues about how in stories the hero saves the girl and lives happily ever after, and that he realizes that he isn't one of those heroes. Hilariously, he says this even as the player can hear Dialla gunned down on the other side of the door. (Yes, later games in the series retconned this, but taken on its own it's still funny.)
• Not for Broadcast: If the Disrupt tape is played during Day 296, you hear a hooded figure with a distorted voice introducing himself as a member of Disrupt.
  Hooded Figure: But why should you trust us? Another faceless organisation. A shadowy figure with a distorted voice. You've seen it so many times in the movies. Well, this... is not a movie. [reveals himself to be Alan James]

Web Animation

• This happens in Chuck Norris' analysis in DEATH BATTLE!:
  Boomstick: In ancient China, there was a legend that one day a child would be born from a dragon and vanquish evil from the land. That man... is NOT Chuck Norris, because Chuck Norris killed that man!

Web Comics

• Roommates:
  • This piece of narration (and current page quote) plays with this trope:
    Somewhere, there is a place where all stories are real and all dreams are truth.
    This is not that place.^{click for the continuation} This is not quite that place, but it's close.
  • Later played straight and for drama:
    Jareth: Do you know how some families fight and shout and curse each other, but at the end of the day they're still your family and you're with them to the end of the world because you love them and they love you? ... My family isn't like that.
• Dungeon Crawl Inc has the original author's description of the comic:
  Once in a great while there comes a story that capture the imagination of all who read it. This is not that story. But we do have lots of violence and scantily clad women!
• Schlock Mercenary:
  • When some alien frat boys decide to engage in some Bullying a Dragon, the narration takes a step into this trope.
    Nick: Are you pickin' a fight wif' me?
    Narrator: Anyone with half a brain would know that this question, asked in this tone of voice, by a man of this size, has exactly one correct answer.
    Enireth Frat Boy G: Yes I am. What are you going to do about it?
    Narrator: That was not it.
  • Nick tends to attract this trope, as evidenced by this hand-to-hand fight with a sentient African elephant on the moon.
    Narrator: There is an order of monks in the ancient hills of Idaho whose creed is "Honor Before Arms." Their forms and katas teach the true student how to kill any creature bare-handed.
    Narrator: To these monks, unarmed combat with an African elephant would be a momentary challenge, for they know the nerves and pressure points.
    Nick: YEEEE-HAH!!!
    Luna Loxodont: You're only making me mad, little man...
    Narrator: Nick never studied with them.
• FreakAngels kicks off with variation of this trope: "23 years ago, twelve strange children were born in England at the exact same moment. Six years ago, the world ended. This is the story of what happened next."

Web Original

• The Discworld Emporium page for the Fools' Guild Stamp says: "Ankh-Morpork boasts some of the most highly regarded and illustrious guilds on the Discworld. Incidentally, it's also home the Guild of Fools and Joculators and College of Clowns."
• SCP Foundation: SCP-055 is a "self-keeping secret", utterly unobservable and indescribable. The only way to define it in any way is by determining what it is not, e.g. "It is not a sphere."
• The opening of The Tough Pigs review of the Don Knotts episode of The Muppet Show:
  Y'know how there are some episodes of The Muppet Show where it ends and you're just screaming for more? Sometimes it's the sketches and songs that are just hitting on every level, blowing you away with every segment. Or the backstage plot is so well done and the core cast are perfectly encapsulating what you love about the show. Or there are one-off characters that are bringing the world of the Muppets to life. Or it's that the guest star is so amazing and works so well with the Muppets that you want to see them come back next week for more fun.
  
  Well, buckle up because... this is not one of those episodes. Like, at all.
• Semi-inverted in this review for the Japanese N64 game Getter Love!!
  In most dating simulation games, the gameplay involves little more than being in the right places at the right times and being nice only to the girl you want. Sometimes you also need to build up the proper statistics of your character that correspond with the personality of the particular lady you want to end up with. Is this the case in Getter Love? If you're expecting a "no!", well, you're not getting one! It's the right answer, though. Getter Love isn't as shallow as most dating sims.
• From the page of Bleeding Cool, Jude Terror, comic reviewer, in his sig: "A prophecy says that in the comic book industry's darkest days, a hero will come to lead the people through a plague of overpriced floppies, incentive variant covers, #1 issue reboots, and super-mega-crossover events. Scourge of Rich Johnston, maker of puns, and seeker of the Snyder Cut, Jude Terror, sadly, is not the hero comics needs right now... but he's the one the industry deserves."
• From The Muppets' official Twitter feed:
  There are many incredible stars and spectacular performances you can see on #TheMuppetShow on @DisneyPlus. You can also see Marvin Suggs and his Muppaphone.

The Secret Wars (1984) podcast Shelfdust Presents: The War Effort:

• From the opening of episode 3:
  Al Kennedy: ...and I will be joined every week by a couple of esteemed and learned guests. But until they get here, we've got Kelly Kanayama and Claire Napier. [...] See, that was me trying to be super-funny like I was hosting one of those witty panel shows, like I'm Victoria Coren or something.
• From the opening of episode 4:
  Al Kennedy: Now, we are looking at Secret Wars, which, as everybody knows, is that massively acclaimed series from about six years ago that Jonathan Hickman and various other excellent creators were involved in, that met with universal acclaim, and no follow-up worth really talking about. Except, sadly, that's not what we're doing.

Web Videos

• The horror video Agamemnon Counterpart opens with text describing a videocassette that was found on the ruins of a certain blue planet in 2571, before adding that the following video is not the contents of the cassette. It adds to the surrealness of the video.
• The Dragon Ball Abridged parody of "Bardock: The Father of Goku" begins this way:
  Narrator: Long ago, on a planet long forgotten by time, a young hero was born. A righteous Saiyan warrior who would bring peace to the galaxy. This... is NOT his story...
• The introduction of "Worms Armageddon - The Worst Shot Ever 2013" does this.
  There are rumours of legendary players
  who possess ruthless efficiency
  a flawless understanding of worms physics
  uncanny observation skills to find powerups
  and unmatched accuracy.
  This is not their story.
• The first episode of The Runaway Guys' Nintendo Land playthrough opens with this.
  Chuggaaconroy: Once there was a console that everyone loved and innovated the entire gaming industry with its cutting edge technology and wonderful pack-in game that took the entire gaming world by storm! ...That was the Wii, not this console.
• "A History of the Snowbeast Award and Spider-Man PS4", corvid occult's video on Insomniac Games' internal Medal of Dishonor, begins with a monologue on the history of Insomniac's consistent quality before switching gears to the topic at hand.
  corvid occult: Every single person designing or programming or writing tries to implement something of themself into the game. Something enjoyable. Something great. And a lot of times... they succeed.
  [as the Snowbeast Award◊ fades into view and the camera zooms in on it]
  corvid occult: This video... is not about those times. Welcome to a history of the Snowbeast Award.
• Todd in the Shadows: In his "One-Hit Wonderland" episode on Carl Douglas, singer of "Kung-Fu Fighting", Todd opens the section on Douglas's follow-up to his big hit by saying the following:
  Todd: The trouble with only having one hit is that it has the unfortunate effect of giving the public at large a very narrow definition of your work. Oftentimes, people get an entirely wrong impression. If all you know of Devo is "Whip It", for example, you simply don't know their importance and the scope of their influence. If all you know of Warren Zevon is "Werewolves of London", you have an entirely inaccurate understanding of their work. *Beat* Carl Douglas is not that kind of artist.
• A Dose of Buckley: In his "Ten Worst Songs of 2011" video, Buckley says this about "Tonight, Tonight":
  Buckley: Bet you never thought a rock song would appear on one of these lists, right? Well, it still hasn't.
• Episode 71 of Yugioh The Abridged Series has Rafael pull this on Yami:
  Yami: Right, um, time out. What are you doing?
  Rafael: Playing the card game.
  Yami: Yes, but why?
  Rafael: Because we're in a duel?
  Yami: That's not how this works. We usually SAY we're going to play a card game, but then we spend the entire duel making wisecracks and referencing internet videos. Then at the end I win and people laugh and have a good time.
  Rafael: This time... none of those things are going to happen.
  Yami: Why not?
  Rafael: Because we're not doing things your way anymore. And we never will again. Now... I'll say it one more time. It's your move.
  

Western Animation

• Computer Animation Showcase, a collection of computer-animated shorts, started one of them with this voiceover: "Every once in a great while, a movie comes along that touches everyone's lives. Beat Eh, but not this one."
• Animaniacs: In "Taming Of The Screwy", some very rich investors want to meet all the employees, so Plotz has a big meet-and-greet party organized. After being introduced, and behaving very nicely, the Warner siblings are sent home by Plotz. Dr. Scratch'n'Sniff explains matters and takes them home. As they start climbing back into the water tower and Dr. Scratch'n'Sniff leaves:
  Yakko: Well, I know when we're not wanted. I know when we should just -go home! [beat] Now... is not one of those times.
  [they climb back down]
• From the first episode of Freakazoid!:
  Narrator: Only one hero can track down Cave Guy. Only one hero has the heart to fight this fiend. That hero is... On another network. Thus, we have no choice but to turn to...
  [zip pan to Dexter Douglas]
  Narrator: This fellow.
• In The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy episode, "Be A-Fred, Be Very A-Fred", Grim goes to inquire about his laxative commercial. The very angry executive points to a chart that shows vast improvement in sales, saying, "This has nothing to do with us!" He then points to the one that does, showing the sales taking a downward spiral with a picture of a toilet at the current, lowest sales rating. (Clearly, a laxative commercial with The Grim Reaper in it was not a good idea.)
• Invincible (2021): The first episode might make some think this is just another bright and colorful Saturday morning superhero cartoon. Then Omni-Man attacks the Guardians of the Globe in the episode's closing minutes, and the moment he slowly and graphically crushes Red Rush's skull into bloody paste is the moment you realize it isn't.
• Looney Tunes:
  • In "You Ought to Be in Pictures", when Porky tries driving into Warner Bros. lot and is confronted by a security guard.
    Guard: Who do you think you are, driving through here like that?
    Porky: Why, I'm P-P-P-Porky Pig.
    Guard: Oh, so you're Porky Pig? [Porky nods] And you wanna go in there? [Porky nods] And you want me to be a nice guy and let you go in there? [Porky nods] So I can lose my job? [Porky starts nodding, then shakes his head] Well... I'm not a nice guy! And I'm not gonna let you in! And I'm not gonna lose my job! But I am gonna throw you out!
  • From "Bewitched Bunny":
    Bugs Bunny: This looks like a job for the Masked Avenger! ...But since he's not around, I guess I'll have to take care of it myself.
  • "Bugs Bunny Rides Again": After tricking Yosemite Sam into falling off a cliff, Bugs puts a mattress below and says "Sometimes me conscience kinda bothers me... but not this time!", and pulls the mattress away just before Sam hits the ground.
  • Bugs in "Hair-Raising Hare", packing luggage when he finds out he's to be Gossamer's dinner:
  (to the mad scientist) And don't think it hasn't been a little slice of Heaven...'cause it hasn't!
• In the trailer for the VHS release of Ren & Stimpy: The Stupidest Stories:
  If you enjoy sweeping cinematography, sentimental sagas, and in-depth character studies...you're really gonna hate this!
• Steven Universe: In "The Return", as Greg and Steven are trying to evacuate Beach City as Peridot's hand ship is about to arrive with reinforcements from Homeworld.
  Steven: Maybe, when Peridot gets to Earth, she'll see how nice all the people are and she won't want to hurt anyone.
  Greg: Just like your mother.
  Steven: Yeah?
  Greg: Yeah. But these other Gems aren't like your mother. They're not like Garnet, Amethyst or Pearl. They're not gonna start caring about people now. They didn't the first time they...
• Phineas and Ferb: In "Oil on Candace", Doofenshmirtz gets a visit from his old Evil Science professor Dr. Gevaarjlik, and tries to impress her with how evil he's become. At the end, Doofenshmirtz is left feeling ashamed by the failure of his evil schemes, but Gevaarjlik tells him "Evil doesn't always have to be on a big scale. You can spread evil in the little things you do everyday". Doofenshmirtz is touched by the thought, until she adds "But sadly, you can't even do that! You're a total failure!"

Real Life

• Some schools of philosophy and theology hold that since certain concepts (such as God) are beyond human understanding, the only way one can describe them is by stating what they aren't. (e.g. "immortal", an attribute commonly given to gods, literally means "not mortal".)
• Aristotle uses this trope frequently in the Metaphysics. To introduce new concepts, he will begin with an inaccurate-but-simpler version of whatever concept he wants to discuss, and once that is understood, he moves on to more-accurate-but-harder-to-understand iterations.
  • Chemistry and Physics are often taught that way as well. In the first year you learn a simple concept that works for some applications without actually being correct (e.g. atoms as little round balls). The next year (or unit of lectures) begins with: "Well what we previously taught you is not actually how this works. We will now explain how it actually works" (e.g. introducing the concept of electrons), the next step is pointing out how the real world is not that model either. Rinse, repeat. Justified insofar as many things can satisfactorily be explained by a "wrong" theory - Newtonian physics works just fine for human sized objects moving at highway speeds; it doesn't for atoms at near light speed. And some of the "wrong" theories are actually the basis for understanding the more advanced ones which are closer to reality.

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