Sandbox / My Wicks And Zoidberg

A wick check for My Friends... and Zoidberg.

The issue: The trope is a dialog trope, yet it's a pothole and shoehorn magnet. This is to see if this trope can be made In-Universe Examples Only.

[Tabs: Needs at least a big clean up effort to rid blatant misuse and unnecessary joke explaining via pothole]

Checked: 66/66

Correct use (15.5/ 66 = 23.5%)

1. Characters.Animorphs Animorphs: All of the blurbs on the back cover described the adventures of "X (the main character of that particular installment), the Animorphs, and Ax," with the subtle implication that, being an alien with prior loyalties, Ax didn't count as a true Animorph. This remained a constant up through The Answer, the book in which Ax finally committed to the Animorphs once and for all, but fans often ignore this character arc and insist that he's the real sixth Animorph. (Plus, Covers Always Lie)
2. Characters.Game Of Thrones Westeros
   • By the end of the series, Westeros has officially become the Six Kingdoms and the North with a new system of monarchy that makes it far less powerful than before with a more decentralized government.
3. Characters.My Craft: Was once subject to this during the trip to Daymonte.
   Wynn: Alright, soldiers… and Cobb.
4. Film.Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2014
   • The film's tagline is: "The Leader. The Brains. The Attitude. And Mikey."
5. GameOfThrones.Tropes A (1/2): Bran prays for the safety of his family and friends, "And Theon, too, I suppose."
6. The Worm Ouroboros
   • My Friends... and Zoidberg: Played With when Juss swears the Witchland ambassador will not be harmed, and that his oath "hath never been forsworn, to Witch or other barbarian."
7. Recap.Arrow S 6 E 8 Crisis On Earth X Part 2: "Well, it's a good thing we have a metric ton of smart people in this building...and Rory."
8. Recap.League Of Legends The Boys And Bombolini
   • My Friends... and Zoidberg: Bombolini always got third billing back when they were all partners — if they mentioned him at all. Even the title of this story makes him sound like an afterthought.
9. SFDebris.Tropes M To R
   • My Friends... and Zoidberg: Exaggerated in the second part of the opening two-parter of Beast Wars, when Chuck realizes that the Maximals at that particular point in time has more "Zoidbergs" than not.
     Chuck: Our heroes... and Dinobot... and Rattrap... and Cheetor... um, the five of them...
10. Series.Hells Kitchen: Season 9 finale: "All the past contestants! And Tommy's ass."
11. Series.The Tribe
    • My Friends... and Zoidberg: Jack jokingly invokes this.
    Sasha "Gentlemen."
    Jack "And KC."
12. ThisBites.Tropes M To P
    • My Friends... and Zoidberg: During the Supernova meeting at Skelter Bite, a little bit after his Ladies and Germs moment, Cross follows up with this trope — "But! Fret not, my friends! And Kid." Again, Kid takes offense.
13. WebVideo.Bleach S Abridged: After the sixth spot in the Espada line-up is switched out for Luppi, no one will let Grimmjow forget it, continuously referring to the ensuing party as "the Espada... and Grimmjow". Uttered repeatedly in quick succession with variations by Groban(Aizen) in a single scene, just to rub it in the poor guy's face.
14. WebVideo.Mandalore Gaming
    • He and Shammy appeared as a secret boss duo in ULTRAKILL as the "Mysterious Druid Knight (and Owl)".
15. WebVideo.Mothers Basement: During his advertisement segment on KonoSuba Fantastic Days!, Geoff explains that the game contains "lovable characters, old and new, who are sure to be useful additions to your party! ...And Aqua."
16. YMMV.Mystery Science Theater 3000 S 08 E 13 Jack Frost
    • The opening host segment:
      Crow: Ladies and... Gypsy! Michael Nelson IS... LORD OF THE DANCE!

Not in-universe (9/ 66 = 13.6%)

Would've been correct if it was in-universe, but it's not.

1. Vice City: Gotham City, mostly since Batman, now. Except the GCPD is full of honest, hard-working people (and Harvey Bullock), and organized crime isn't nearly so big as chaotic, supervillain crime.
2. Anime.Darling In The Franxx
   • Animal Motifs: There are roughly three examples, the Birds and the Bees... and the Bears.
3. BizarroEpisode.Comic Books
   • Doom Patrol is essentially this for The DCU in general, and considering it exists in the same universe as aliens, gods, sorcerers, and Ambush Bug, that's really saying something.
4. ComicBook.Siege: The Cavalry: Osborn's party is interrupted by the good Avengers, and Patriot.
5. FairyTail.Tropes F To I: "Freaky Friday" Flip: Episode 19, involving all the True Companions... and Loke.
6. GrowingTheBeard.Anime And Manga
   • With the introduction of [[spoiler:Sailor Venus' entry into the story as a wiser, more serious counterpoint to Usagi, she completed the team, the girls and Mamoru fully awakening memories of their past lives
7. Manhwa.Area D
   • Stripperiffic: Most adult women and Jin tend towards the bare minimum for clothing coverage in the story.
8. Music.Lionel Richie
   • Genre Shift: Tuskegee consisted of Richie collaborations with current country artists. And Jimmy Buffett.
9. Recap.Kamen Rider Zero One Ep 40 Towards Mine And My Dream
   • Darkest Hour: In the first simulation, Ark initiated a full-scale attack towards humanity and killed all of the heroes… and Gai.

Misuse, fits another trope (17.5/ 66 = 26.5%)

1. Blog.Things Mr Welch Is No Longer Allowed To Do In An RPG: 219. In formal introductions to royalty, I must not introduce my companions as just "The Other Guys".
2. Characters.Hades Other Characters: Hate Sink: Less in the sense that he's genuinely vile and more in the sense that his pompousness and idiocy become incredibly grating over time. Outside of Asterius, no one seems to hold that high of an opinion of Theseus. Zagreus, who tends to be rather chummy with all of his other would-be captors gets progressively exasperated with each new encounter with Theseus, until he'll eventually started referring to the duo as "Asterius and the other guy." His only real saving grace is that he has basically no dignity whatsoever.
3. Characters.Paradise Police Department
   • My Friends... and Zoidberg: Usually gets snubbed and shat on for being the weakest and most expendable member of the group.
4. Characters.Rune Scape: The TzHaar live in the Karamja volcano, where their society is built on a sort of caste system, including craftsmen, leaders, soldiers, and hunters. And a playwright.
5. Characters.Tales Of Arise: One camp skit between her and Alphen has the two talk about their group as though they were a family. With that in mind, Rinwell proceeds to describe how Alphen is like the dad/big brother, Shionne the big sister, Kisara the mom, Dohalim the uncle, Hootle the little brother, and Law as the pet dog.
6. Characters.The Kings Avatar Professional Teams I To Z
   • My Friends... and Zoidberg: Every Best Rookie award winner (Wang Jiexi, Zhang Xinjie, Zhou Zekai, Yu Feng, Sun Xiang) before him have developed into megastars. By Season 10, there are no signs of him ever joining that group when he is overtaken in popularity and reception by Gao Yingjie^note A potential candidate for the title during Season 8, had Tiny Herb given him more opportunities and Season 9 & 10 Best Rookies, Lu Hanwen and Tang Rou^note Had she not earned the ire of fans due to her infamous 1 vs. 3 incident.
7. DarthWiki.Swatch Dream (description): It stars a main character whose name often starts with the letter "R" and has a star-like symbol on their clothing. Each of them are on a different planet, which are inhabited by strange beings whom many have the power to use GC (Game Cards) and gain the aid of Menagerites. There's also stand-in versions of humans, Mannequins, who...don't exactly give the main characters a particularly good time.
8. Fanfic.Ipseity: From a certain pov. Bucky is American, Axel is German, Yasha is Soviet/Russian, and... the asset has no nationality.
9. GameOfThrones.Tropes A (1/2): The Starks discover five direwolf pups for the five trueborn children... and an albino direwolf pup for Jon Snow, Ned Stark's illegitimate son.
10. Manga.Slam Dunk

    "Hanamichi Sakuragi... Yohei Mito... And the others."

11. MassEffect3.Tropes A To D: During the mission to rescue "Eve", Wrex tells Shepard and Liara there is no one else he would rather be on a party with. If Garrus is also present he will cough to indicate his presence, and Wrex says that he will find something for him to do.
12. Recap.Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Striker S Sound Stage 04: When Nove tries to reassure Cinque and Dieci, she adds "oh, and Sein" as an afterthought. Sein is not amused.
13. Recap.The Simpsons S 34 E 18 Fanily Feud: "The Meltdown" devotes a verse each to Marge, Bart and Lisa before repeatedly addressing the entire family as "You three and Maggie."
14. Series.NCIS: When the team is broken after Jenny's death at the end of Season 5, McGee is sent to the Code Decryption Unit in the basement. Gibbs goes to visit McGee, who tells Gibbs he misses working with him and Ziva. When Gibbs mentions Tony, McGee replies "Yeah, him too."
15. VideoGame.Seventh Dragon: Pleroma's shelves of stories from the ancient world include titles like King Lear , Emma, I, Claudius and Twilight.
    • This was the joke in the original Japanese as well; the stories were Tales of Watatsumi, Maelstrom, Nobara no Mori and...Twilight.
16. WebVideo.Profound Moments In Left 4 Dead 2: RAMIREEZ!!! Oh, and TicTac too.
17. WebVideo.Vag Magazine: The credits go through most of the main cast, then add 'oh, and also ...' before Meghan's name.
18. Back to the Outback
    • The film follows Maddie, Frank, Zoe, Nigel, and Pretty Boy, a group of various Australian critters

No context/shoehorns (24/ 66 = 36.4%)

Does the person clearly not belong in the previously mentioned group or is there no context?

1. The Fat Episode: Where's My Water? Presents: Swampy's Underground Adventures: The mobile game's web series has the episode "Sink or Swim", which details Swampy, Cranky, and Karl devouring a pile of doughnuts, growing fat, and then being forced to exercise and burn it all off by Allie. who is Karl
2. The Permanent Record: When the Inquisitorial Brigade in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix hold down the main characters and Neville, Snape mentions to Crabbe that he should stop choking Neville because if he (Neville) died, he would have to put it on Crabbe's permanent record for future employers. Shoehorn; Neville is a supporting character
3. Two-Faced Aside: American Dad!: In "Finger-Lenting Good", Roger makes a comment about wanting to see everybody's 'ta-tas' during his Mardi Gras party - except Haley's, saying that they're ugly and "90% nips". Jeff (Haley's husband) pulls this trope. Clearly excluded; shoehorn
4. You Meddling Kids: Defeated Eternion says a variant of this line in Adventurers! (He then follows it up with a double My Friends... and Zoidberg) No context
5. Angrish.Western Animation: Played straight and mocked often on Animaniacs. In one example the Warner Brothers (and sister Dot) were driving a wacky director up the walls with their antics, prompting this response to a bit of Offscreen Teleportation: Shoehorn; sister != brother in this sense
6. Animaniacs.Tropes J To R: Dot is one of the few inversions in western animation that willingly introduces herself as this trope on a regular basis. ZCE
7. Anime.Power Stone (description): Along the way, he meets, among other things: a samurai, a family of performing ninjas, a martial artist chef who turns into Goku, a band of evil pirates, a Native American warrior tribe, a belly-dancing Fortune Teller, and Jack.
8. Awesome.Sports Both shoehorns; no groups mentioned that they're excluded from
   • As for Boston, they led the Last-Place Baltimore Orioles 3-2 after 6 and a half innings and about one-and-a-quarter hours of Rain Delay.
   • After seeing their improbable success from that period, the Suns made an all-in move similar to the Toronto Raptors trading for Kawhi Leonard: this time trading fan favorites in Kelly Oubre Jr. and Ricky Rubio (alongside Ty Jerome, Jalen Lecque, and a future first-round pick) to the Oklahoma City Thunder for superstar point guard Chris Paul and Abdel Nader.
9. BadassAdorable.Video Games: Mega Man Battle Network's incarnation of Mega Man is an artificial intelligence designed to look and act like a sweet young boy. He (and his equally young owner) fights terrorists. And gangsters. And cybernetic evil space gods. And Bass. What group is excluding Bass, if any?
10. Characters.Cuphead The Delicious Last Course: Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: The two adults give off this impression. Sgt. O'Fera is more refined and graceful, flies the much bigger and more powerful vehicle, and is also the one to formally salute the Cups (and Hughes) when the battle begins, while the male bulldog is much more rough and tough, flies the smaller plane, and doesn't bother with the niceties, just immediately attacking.
11. Characters.Fire Emblem Awakening Robin: Irony: If the Female Avatar marries Chrom or another one of male Ylissean royalty/the Male Avatar marries Lucina or another of the female Ylissean royalty (or Tiki). They are the vessel of the Fell Dragon Grima, yet fell in love with the Divine Dragon Naga's chosen (or Naga's own daughter). Tiki is not Ylissean royalty, making it a shoehorn
12. Characters.Forgotten Realms Factions: Hoar is the God of Vengeance and not traditionally associated with higher chivalric ideals. ZCE/likely shoehorn
13. Characters.Hero Oh Hero: He's quite annoyed when Jean only notices Sam.ZCE
14. Characters.Kickassia: "And 8-Bit Mickey!" ZCE
15. Characters.Pixie Trix Comix: Straw Character: Aaron initially comes across as rather homophobic (at least when it involves two dudes, two ladies is clearly just fine with him), making him seem quite out of place in the Everyone Is Bi[[note]]Or if they aren't then they're either gay, a Yaoi Fangirl, or Gary.[[/note]] Mà3-verse. However, he soon starts suffering confusing twinges regarding Julian, so the setting norm is maintained.No context re: Gary
16. Characters.Triptych Continuum Spoilers: In the blog describing the Original Bearers, the paragraph describing Starswirl comes dead last and describes him more as The Dragalong than a full-fledged member of the group. A fitting foreshadowing of his ultimate fate.However, this is subverted by Luna in A Mark Of Appeal, who directly states that at the moment when the sisters changed, Star Swirl was "finally and truly" her friend. It's possible that he simply took the most time to fully become part of the group, and it's been established that he was the final pony added to begin with.No dialog context
    • However, this is subverted by Luna in A Mark Of Appeal, who directly states that at the moment when the sisters changed, Star Swirl was "finally and truly" her friend. It's possible that he simply took the most time to fully become part of the group, and it's been established that he was the final pony added to begin with.
17. ExtremeOmnivore.Video Games: League of Legends has Cho'gath, whose level 6 ability allows him to basically eat(or attempt to eat) anything with a health bar[[note]]such as humans, Yordles, robots, humans riding yetis, Yordles riding robots, formerly human robots, elementals, shadows, minotaurs, liches, giant armadillos, anthropomorphic dogs, anthropomorphic crocodiles, werewolves, Vampires, vampire hunters, Yordle mummies, wraiths, gorgons, human ninjas, Yordle ninjas, icy phoenixes, angels, other angels, other Eldritch Abominations, scarecrows, wolves, scary demons, golems, scary humanoid demons, mobile trees, trolls, gargoyles, zombies, Yordle inventors, totally non-dwarves, crystalline scorpions, dragons, METAL suits of armor, Purple Skinned Star Babes, human-raven-things, Yordles, giant lizards, anthropomorphic rats, sea monsters, zombie cyborg crab things, anthropomorphic monkeys, Yordles, himself, and Yordles[[/note]], growing in size and gaining bonus HP if he is successful. His passive, "Carnivore", has him restore health and mana whenever he scores a killing blow on something, implying he eats at least a part of everything he kills. Yordles are already listed multiple times, so that's clear misuse
18. Fanfic.Tales Of The Monkey Queen: Chiaotzu is pretty much treated similarly to the original series with how much attention he gets.ZCE
19. Recap.A Certain Scientific Railgun T Ep 13 SYSTEM: Kuroko wraps up her lengthy, commentary-riddled recap by adding offhandedly that there are two boys (Touma and Gunha) causing some kind of commotion outside.No group mentioned
20. Recap.Avatar The Last Airbender Sokkas Master: Took a Level in Badass: Essentially the whole episode, although Iroh was already badass before his secret exercise routine. Oh, and so did Sokka. there isn't even a group to be excluding him from
21. Series.Kenan And Kel: Unimpressive Progress Reveal: In "Two Heads Are Better Than None", Kenan's family and Kel get stranded in the desert and Kenan volunteers himself and Kel to search for help, we get a time skip of Kel almost passing out of walking while begging for water, and Kenan just turning around asking his family for a water bottle. from redirect; "guy who's not part of family" is not part of family
22. UsefulNotes.English Civil War: The English Civil War, also known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms [[note]]No, not the war retold by Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The three "kingdoms" in question are England, Scotland and Ireland (Wales always gets shafted)[[/note]], raged throughout the British Isles in the 1640s and 1650s, although its origins (and some of the fighting) went back further and the effects were very long-lasting. a list of three irl geopolitical entities logically does not include a fourth
23. Webcomic.VG Cats: Ashley Williams of Mass Effect is specifically mentioned over the other species as stuff Commander Shepard would have sex with (except in her case, not).Partial context
24. WesternAnimation.Foot 2 Rue: Samira got this treatment in Season 2. Even so, Jeremy and Samira were announced as... no explanation required.ZCE