Trope Idea Sounding Board

The Cat Piano is not quite in the same time range (cat narrating in 1950's Beatnik-style), but is it close enough?

Edited by Miss_Desperado on Nov 5th 2020 at 2:49:23 AM

For Rust Beard: It may not count, but on The Brady Bunch, Alice is a maid that lives with the Bradys.

Seems like there's some support for my trope idea. I'll create a draft this weekend.

I just noticed that M.C. Escher's page has an entire section for references to Relativity. With how large the section is, would it be worth moving all of that to its own Stock Shout-Out trope?

Edited by jandn2014 on Nov 6th 2020 at 11:25:17 AM

It was recommended I ask here.

The trope I'm proposing is Small Bully, Large Target, where a smaller kid picks on a bigger one. Or, a group of smaller kids gangs up on a bigger one.

The important part is that this is truly a bullying situation, not a retaliation. The bigger kid did nothing to bully them first. They're doing it because they know they can get away with it. The target has no real recourse because Fighting Back Is Wrong. The slightest act of assertiveness or self-defense will lead the adults to the wrong conclusion, and they'll pelt the target with lectures of "pick on somebody your own size." Trying to tell somebody who's actually picking on who will result in a Cassandra Truth. The little putzes may even pull a Wounded Gazelle Gambit to gain adult sympathy.

It's Truth in Television for any obese or early-maturing kid who ever went to school. While it was depressingly true in my Real Life, I'd need help coming up with more examples besides Laura Danker of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.. As the tallest and most developed child in the sixth grade, she was ostracized, picked on, and had rumors made up about her.

Is this tropeable, and are there other noteworthy examples?

The answer to your first question depends on the answer to the second — this sounds like a trope, but only if it actually appears in media.

I did think of another example. It's the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he has to fill in for the Easter Bunny. At the last house, he gets tortured and tormented by a little toddler one third his size. When he takes the toddler by the arm to reprimand him, the little pipsqueak starts in with the hollering and wailing. "Waaaah! He bwoke my widdle arm!" And out come all these guns aimed at Bugs. Perfect example of the trope, if it is indeed a trope. But two examples do not a trope make. I'll be watching for more.

Oh, even as I write I thought of a third. Someone mentioned Young Sheldon, and how he gets picked on by a girl younger than he is. What was her name?

In iCarly, Spencer, an adult man, is terrorized in several episodes by a tween boy named Chuck. Chuck has done things such as tackle and hit Spencer, fill his motorcycle helmet with slime, and locking him in his basement storage unit for two days.

A lot of these examples could cross over with Enfant Terrible. I also think of Phineas and Ferb where Candace gets tormented by Jeremy's four-year-old sister Suzy.

We have 4 wicks for TheFavorite (child), for the opposite of The Un-Favourite.

I guess the concept of being the favourite is covered by Parental Favoritism?

Or, should The Favourite be TLP, as it sounds like a character trope, where Parental Favouritism sounds like the situation itself?

Although, I am going to The Favourite into a disambig...

Edited by Malady on Nov 8th 2020 at 6:36:44 AM

Just cut the wicks or change them to Parental Favoritism. I don't think a distinction is necessary.

(copypasted from my Trope Finder query)

Is there a variant of "I Thought Everyone Could Do That" for when somebody knows average citizens can't do X but overestimates how well someone was trained to do X? E.g. expecting every pilot to be an Ace Pilot or expecting every lifeguard to have enough stamina to do a gazillion chest compressions (instead of just a few more than normal) on a drowned person.

Original description: The average most-likely-out-of-shape civilian trying to do CPR can only do so many chest compressions before they get tired. Lifeguards, probably in somewhat decent shape, can do some more chest compressions than the average civilian. A Jumped at the Call hero with self-inflicted Training from Hell outperforms both the civilians and the lifeguards at chest compressions, doesn't expect the civilians to be able to do as many chest compressions, but berates the lifeguards with "What do you mean, you can't keep up with me? You call yourselves lifeguards? Disgraceful!"

How does this scenario relate to "I Thought Everyone Could Do That"? Is it some manner of playing with that trope? If so, how is it played with? If not, could it be its own trope?

I think it's an acceptable variant.

- Agreed. "Everyone (of X profession)", doesn't seem like an important distinction.

Genre Index for Storytime Animators (Like TheOdd1sOut and JaidenAnimations)?

I'm not super-familiar with them, only watched a handful of them, but I do know there's quite a few of them, and that they're fairly popular.

How many well-known story time animators are there besides James and Jaiden? Enough to fill a whole index?

Off the top of my head I can think of Let Me Explain Studios and SomethingelseYT. Though I don’t know if they have pages.

Edit: Let Me Explain Studios, and no page for somethingelse. But there’s also Tabbes, Tim Tom, and Domics.

Edited by audgetrouble on Nov 9th 2020 at 5:40:19 AM

There's also It's Alex Clark and Papa Fear Raiser (who we don't have a page for yet).

Yeah, I'd say there's plenty enough for an index.

I can't remember if I've brought this up before, but seeing this ATT query has reminded me of it again: I've felt for years that there's a very obvious missing supertrope to both Vile Villain, Saccharine Show and Knight of Cerebus that is simply "villain who is significantly darker than the rest of the work." In particular it'd help a lot with the "villain in a comedy is the only thing played seriously" examples that VVSS keeps attracting despite the fact that the works in question are anything but 'saccharine.'

Thoughts?

Villains who fit the bill would be any of the darker characters in a Black-and-White Morality, Black-and-Gray Morality, or Gray And White Morality conflict (and a Morality Kitchen Sink situation). I agree that a supertrope is needed.

Worth a draft at least.

Two trope ideas that I can't find but have to exist:

• From here: Whenever a character's grandma or aunt comes to visit, they'll be forced to get a kiss on the cheek (or worse, right on the lips) and it'll be depicted as the most disgusting kiss in the world. The Amazing World of Gumball S1E16 "The Kiss" comes to mind, but I know there's other examples too.

• A theater trope: when a spot in a script is deliberately left open for improv depending on the performance. Related to Evolving Music but not always musical. Examples:
  • Ever since the end of the Bush presidency, Avenue Q always replaces his name in the line "George Bush is only for now" in "For Now" with some other contemporary reference. Examples include "Ebola is only for now" and "This show is only for now."
  • The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee: The words given to the audience spellers can change per production (though some words are scripted to be easy or hard in order to get the audience members out by certain plot points), and the actor playing Panch is encouraged to come up with original and bizarre ways to use them in a sentence. Rona Lisa Peretti's description of each audience members is also improvised. Logainne's political rant in Act 2 also changes subject every production, with past subjects on Broadway including the Bush administration and Lance Bass coming out of the closet.
  • Theatre/Spamalot: The Knights Who So Recently Said "Ni" are always renamed "The Knights Who Say [X]," but the thing they say can vary from production to production, and is often a Shout-Out. This can range from brief phrases to entire song verses or condensed versions of real-life political speeches.
  • The Book of Mormon: Arnold's Accidental Misnaming of Nabalungi varies every performance. A comprehensive list can be seen here.

The former happens in Mickey's Once Upon A Christmas, the segment with Huey, Dewey, and Louie specifically. Their Aunt Gertie kisses them on the forehead when she arrives for the Christmas celebration. They try to avoid it once the "Groundhog Day" Loop kicks in. Also the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Grandma's Kisses" where Spongebob actually likes getting kisses from his grandma but gets made fun of for it? Kind of an inversion or invoked trope? We used to have Kissgusting but that got cut for being People Sit on Chairs (even though I don't think it's chairs)

The latter is sort of like Harpo Does Something Funny? That might be it but I'm not sure since theater is repeated performances.

Edited by raspberryred99 on Nov 9th 2020 at 8:26:12 AM

I think if we explicitly focus on the association between elderly (usually female) relatives and gross kisses, that might be seen as less chairsy.

Hmm. Could my second suggestion fit Harpo Does Something Funny? Some of these examples (like the Avenue Q one) don't necessarily change every night but are simply updated as time goes by, and sometimes remain consistent in the script for a period of time. They aren't always written by the cast either. The only one that seems explicitly Harpo Does Something Funny is Spelling Bee because the script (while providing example lines) does explicitly encourage Panch's actor to improvise.

The nature of live theater makes improvising during a stage show much different than improvising during a recorded performance, as there's no guarantee the show will be the same. And some shows only go off-book for one or two performances - Beetlejuice once replaced their Take That! at Brigadoon with one at The Music Man for some Biting-the-Hand Humor at their parent theater company, which was evicting them to make room for that musical.

Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 9th 2020 at 8:33:52 AM

If it doesn't fit Harpo Does Something Funny then you've at least got a trope to compare it to if you made a TLP draft!

I also think that since the pattern of the "gross wet kiss" trope tends to be with old ladies, especially relatives, that making it specific is a better idea.