TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Fact Checking Thread

Go To

This thread is for any factual claim on the site that seems questionable and lacks a proper citation, either due to not having one at all or citing a source that seems unreliable. These could be claims about behind the scenes goings on from Trivia pages, or about historical or scientific facts on Useful Notes pages. If you find a claim that you consider questionable, take it here and we'll try to find a source for it.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Sep 11th 2020 at 3:44:00 PM

Mrph1 he/him from Mercia (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: This is not my beautiful wife!
he/him
#476: Sep 12th 2022 at 12:18:23 PM

[up] Thank you - amended on that basis. I included a link to this thread as part of the edit reason.

fragglelover Since: Jun, 2012
#477: Sep 12th 2022 at 6:23:47 PM

Okay, so...

A lot of pages, including Trivia.Infinity Train and KeepCirculatingTheTapes.Western Animation, claim that the shows removed from HBO Max last month were removed as tax write-offs. The thing is, Owen Dennis, has stated that that isn't the case here.

Besides that, OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes and Uncle Grandpa are both still on Hulu, while Infinity Train, Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart, and quite possibly others are available on Amazon Prime and iTunes. Also, Cartoon Network included the shows in question in their 30th anniversary poster, with a message saying that the shows not on HBO Max were available to buy on Amazon, iTunes, and Vudu.

I'm not sure how much that last part has to do with anything, but I felt like it should be brought up.

mightymewtron Word Up from New New York Since: Oct, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Word Up
#478: Sep 12th 2022 at 7:54:45 PM

The speculation is unnecessary; all that matters is if they're not able to be accessed anymore legally. The ability to buy them off iTunes and the like would make that invalid.

Edited by mightymewtron on Sep 12th 2022 at 10:55:03 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Glowsquid Since: Jul, 2009
#479: Sep 12th 2022 at 8:26:51 PM

~Karxrida on the last page: No Genesis cartridges beside Virtua Racing and an handful of Codemaster games (for built-in controller plugs) had special tech.

AFAIK there was a never "official" reason for Phantasy Star IV retailling for that much but one can guess

  • It had battery back-up (relatively uncommon on the console) and a higher-than-average (though not that big) ROM size.
  • It was a big-budget game with a long development time, and translating such a measty game would've been an additional expense
  • Victor Ireland of Working Designs (in)fame claimed Sega of America didn't want to release it and tried to sabotage the release by pricing it out of the market (though tbh I don't trust anything he says)

Edited by Glowsquid on Sep 12th 2022 at 11:35:55 AM

NitroIndigo ♀ | Small ripples lead to big waves from West Midlands region, England Since: Jun, 2021 Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
♀ | Small ripples lead to big waves
#480: Oct 2nd 2022 at 10:56:47 AM

I want to add Jessica's Ghost onto one of the British Literature indexes, but I'm not sure which one is correct. The most I can find is that Andrew Norriss went to school in England and university in Ireland.

Edited by NitroIndigo on Oct 2nd 2022 at 6:57:08 PM

TheUnsquished Filthy Casual from A youngun between two oldies Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Filthy Casual
#481: Oct 2nd 2022 at 11:17:27 AM

The FAQ on his website says he was born in Scotland. Does that help?

(Annoyed grunt)
NitroIndigo ♀ | Small ripples lead to big waves from West Midlands region, England Since: Jun, 2021 Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
♀ | Small ripples lead to big waves
#482: Oct 2nd 2022 at 11:22:33 AM

[up]Thanks. I didn't look at his site for very long because my browser says it's insecure, and to be frank, it looks dreadful.

DoomTay Since: Oct, 2009
#483: Oct 7th 2022 at 7:39:37 PM

From Trivia.The Lord Of The Rings The Rings Of Power

Stunt Casting: A case of stunt composing. Howard Shore is back... composing the two-minute opening titles and nothing else. The show itself is scored by Bear McCreary. Nevertheless, Shore's name is placed prominently in the title sequence and on the soundtrack album cover.

...is it, though? I can't find any version of the soundtrack album cover where Howard Shore's name is shown at all, and the title sequence doesn't seem to give any special prominence to his credit. I don't even remember any promos bringing up Howard Shore.

Edited by DoomTay on Oct 8th 2022 at 10:40:50 AM

Mrph1 he/him from Mercia (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: This is not my beautiful wife!
he/him
#484: Oct 8th 2022 at 8:40:02 AM

[up] Agreed on the soundtrack album. Even if there's an international variant out there with his name on, image search and a look at online retailers & streaming services show that the main ones don't mention him at all. I think that bit can go regardless of the final view on credits?

Dramatic Since: Jun, 2012
#485: Oct 14th 2022 at 6:54:15 PM

On the Video Games subpage of Stillborn Franchise is an entry about Brute Force, which reads fine but contains an odd anecdote in the brackets:

  • Brute Force was an original Xbox exclusive which was hyped as doing to third-person shooters what Halo: Combat Evolved did to console first-person shooters, and just like Halo, was promoted with a prequel novel that expended on the backstory (in fact prior to the console's release Microsoft marketing expected Brute Force to be the big Killer App franchise for the Xbox, but launch-title Halo vastly surpassed their expectations.) However, the final version didn't quite live up to the hype and thus Brute Force never became the multimedia juggernaut Halo is. There were rumors of a sequel for the Xbox 360, but Digital Anvil's death in 2006 ensures that it will never happen.

This claim is repeated in more detail on the YMMV page for Brute Force:

  • Misaimed Marketing: Microsoft's marketing department initially expected Brute Force to be the Killer App action shooter franchise for the Xbox, developed entirely in-house specifically for the Xbox. By contrast, they bought out Bungie so they could rush Halo in time for the console launch which would ensure Brute Force had an established market to sell to when it came out. Needless to say, they misjudged the eventual relative popularity of the two franchises badly, and quietly shifted their focus after Brute Force's release to promote more Halo games.

Is there any basis to the idea that Microsoft loved Brute Force so much that they saw Halo as the secondary property whatsoever? Combat Evolved got a massive marketing push, so the idea that it "vastly surpassed their expectations" in the sense that it was apparently an out-of-nowhere sleeper hit seems wrong. Brute Force was promoted around the Xbox's launch too, but it ultimately came out in 2003, a year when Halo 2 famously got a big E3 showing and not one but two Halo novels were released. I'm sure they were hoping Brute Force would be successful because that's a publisher's job, but these examples seem to be taking the comparison to Halo way too far.

Also that's misuse of Misaimed Marketing, but more important things first.

Edited by Dramatic on Oct 14th 2022 at 7:03:56 AM

fragglelover Since: Jun, 2012
#486: Oct 17th 2022 at 5:12:37 PM

This is on Cultural Translation under a section about Disney's dubs of Studio Ghibli films:

Their dub of Kiki's Delivery Service has some dialogue changed to reflect modern teenage trends of the time, like calling coffee hot chocolate, calling rice porridge oatmeal and having Kiki talk about liking boys instead of going to the disco. The Streamline dub, which interestingly enough was used for the Dubtitle script on the Japanese-subbed Disney VHS as well as early DVD and Blu-ray releases, also uses the first change.

The part that I bolded is the part I find questionable. Was that actually a thing teenagers did in the nineties (when the dub was released)? Because I'm pretty sure that those changes were made because A( kids drinking coffee is less accepted in America than in other places and B( oatmeal would be more familiar to American kids than rice porridge.

Edited by fragglelover on Oct 17th 2022 at 5:13:21 AM

ChloeJessica Since: Jun, 2020 Relationship Status: Awaiting my mail-order bride
#487: Oct 17th 2022 at 5:38:48 PM

[up]isn't that still a Cultural Translation? i think the "teenage trends of the time" part is what needs to be replaced, not the details of what was changed.

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#488: Oct 17th 2022 at 7:29:36 PM

I'm likewise not quite sure there was a trend for teens enjoying hot chocolate and oatmeal? Seems more translation liberties to me

NoUsername she's only programmed to be very nice Since: May, 2012
she's only programmed to be very nice
#489: Oct 17th 2022 at 8:54:09 PM

the YMMV page says changing coffee to hot chocolate was more a Values Dissonance thing of western countries not seeing it as appropriate for kids to drink coffee, which agrees with your point and makes more sense to me. i also agree changing rice porridge to oatmeal is probably just be because it's more familiar to english speakers rather than it being trendy or anything. on the whole it's still Cultural Translation but not really based on teenage trends so much as localizing japan-specific aspects

Edited by NoUsername on Oct 17th 2022 at 8:55:43 AM

bwburke94 I am mad scientist! It's so cool! from 1.048596% (Y2: Electric Boogaloo) Relationship Status: She does the things you do, but she is an IBM
I am mad scientist! It's so cool!
#490: Oct 18th 2022 at 4:49:10 AM

This is the Disney equivalent to 4Kids' jelly donuts. It's definitely an example.

2025: the year it all ends?
Malady (X-Troper)
#491: Oct 21st 2022 at 9:13:57 PM

Creator.Tom Scott:

From Nov 2020:

I am in TV Tropes, and according to the Wikimedia Foundation, it is the second largest English language wiki, with the first, of course, being Wikipedia itself.

Is / was this true? Wikipedia's list of Wikis as of ~Nov 2020, sorting by Entry count doesn't put TV Tropes at #2, but there's multiple Wikimedia and non-English in the list?

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#492: Oct 21st 2022 at 9:15:37 PM

Does it matter if it's true? It's a quote, what matters is that he said it.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Malady (X-Troper)
#493: Oct 21st 2022 at 9:23:16 PM

I'm not sure of that either. I don't remember hearing that in any video I've seen, but I haven't seen them all.

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#494: Oct 21st 2022 at 9:24:07 PM

Well, yeah, that's the question then.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
wingedcatgirl mys. minty from the silly dimension from lurking (Holding A Herring) Relationship Status: Oh my word! I'm gay!
mys. minty from the silly dimension
#495: Oct 21st 2022 at 9:24:25 PM

He did not in fact actually say that; that's a take on a common format he used to use to introduce his videos.note 

Suddenly I'm... still rotating Fallen London in my mind even though I've stopped actively playing it.
good-morning Lord Something, Forgetter of Cool Titles from Brazil Since: Nov, 2021
Lord Something, Forgetter of Cool Titles
#496: Oct 23rd 2022 at 9:08:15 PM

Mainstream Obscurity mentions that Sherlock Holmes was an "asexual cocaine addict". While I have only read one of the books, I'm not really sure of the use of words.

oh hey how are you doing?
Malady (X-Troper)
#497: Oct 23rd 2022 at 9:17:30 PM

Well, the tropes in Characters.Sherlock Holmes say:

  • Abled in the Adaptation: While usually not considered a disability, Sherlock Holmes has a cocaine habit in the original books.
  • Celibate Eccentric Genius: Holmes dismisses love and women as distractions which would interfere with his ability to be a perfect reasoning machine. Sometimes he claims not to notice female attractiveness at all. Then again in The Valley of Fear, Holmes does mention the possibility of seeing himself married one day so it's not as rigorously enforced in his later years.

Edited by Malady on Oct 23rd 2022 at 9:18:11 AM

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
CompletelyNormalGuy Am I a weirdo? from a place where folks put cream cheese on hot dogs (Oldest One in the Book)
Am I a weirdo?
#498: Oct 24th 2022 at 11:28:53 AM

[up][up]Having read every single Sherlock Holmes story written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I can confirm that the statement is accurate.

Bigotry will NEVER be welcome on TV Tropes.
RandomTroper123 She / Her from I'll let you guess... (Not-So-Newbie) Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
She / Her
#499: Oct 24th 2022 at 11:30:13 AM

[up](x3) Maybe reword it then because, as [up] pointed out, it at least is accurate.

Malady (X-Troper)
#500: Oct 26th 2022 at 6:53:40 AM

Resident Evil 4, like the rest of the series, started as a Japanese game, right?

So it shouldn't have a BlindIdiotTranslation.Video Games entry about its Japanese translation, since that's actually the original language?

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576

Total posts: 1,291
Top