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openCall-Back vs. Continuity Nod Live Action TV
I came very often upon examples of Call-Back that don't fit for not being plot-significant, and move them to Continuity Nod. As the description of the trope specifies:
- [A Call-Back is m]ore or less a Shout-Out to itself — but if that's all that it's doing, then it's a Continuity Nod; a Call-Back brings back an element that is actually relevant again.
However, on Andor S2E10 "Make It Stop", one such move of mine was reverted by palm529sw, despite the two concerned examples being pure flavor with no relevance at all to the episode. I did PM this editor, but got no response yet.
I'd like to have confirmation that my interpretation of Call-Back is correct, and that I can move the two examples back to Continuity Nod without being accused of edit warring.
Edited by StFanopenAgenda-based editing Live Action TV
A large portion of regularmordecai’s
edits here center around the Stranger Things scene where Eleven hits Angela with a skate for bullying her (most of them are on the show’s YMMV page) and it definitely seems agenda-based as they keep pushing the message that fans shouldn’t have enjoyed that scene and exaggerating Eleven’s actions (such as calling her a school shooter despite the fact that she didn’t kill anyone). This has been going on for about ten months now and on several occasions I tried making these entries more neutral but they promptly edited them again to add additional complaints, often using weasel words to make it sound like much of the fandom agrees with them when it’s likely just their personal opinion. They recently added an entry
under the Nightmare Fuel page bashing real-life fans for thinking Angela had it coming and calling them “foolhardy”
for allegedly saying they wished they could have done the same to their bullies (and the entry is improper at any rate since the page is about the show itself, not real-life events).
openPedro Pascal Roles Live Action TV
A while back, someone greatly expanded the filmography section of Creator.Pedro Pascal, with roles previously unmentioned and/or lacking their own pages. Some of these include instances of him playing himself in something nonfictional, or narrating a documentary. Do these usually go on actors' pages?
Today I removed a credit for him hosting SNL, because I noticed pages for actors who've hosted more than once don't mention it in the filmography.
openAbby Cadabby Live Action TV
From PeripheryHatedom.Live Action TV:
- Showing that history can indeed repeat itself, Abby is currently getting the same treatment as Elmo, mainly from the generation of young adults and teens that grew up watching and fell in love with Elmo. Abby's popularity with the older fanbase is a Broken Base—some find her a refreshing change from the two decades of Elmo (although how long this will last before they start getting annoyed by her remains a question), while others still don't care and still want the focus to be back on Big Bird and the Muppets (and human characters) of their time. The root cause of the hatedom here is The Generation Gap combined with a Nostalgia Filter, combined with a heaping dose of They Changed It, Now It Sucks!.
openSpeculation? Live Action TV
I found this on Fridge.Ghosts US:
- Many of the ghosts have a power related to who they were as a Living or how they died.
- (Multiple valid entries)
- Hetty's ghost power, if it matches the matriarch of the original, would be the ability to appear in photographs (but not electronic media). This would be in line with her responsibility in life, having to maintain the proper appearance for all the excesses she and Elias (mostly Elias) did during their lives.
As of the end of season three, Hetty's ghost power has not yet been revealed (unless you count being able to use the telephone cord she used to strangle herself as a rope as a power). The entry even mentions that this hasn't yet been confirmed. Would it be okay to delete the entry on Hetty on the grounds of speculative troping?
openSomething in Muppets (2015) That Never Actually Happened? Live Action TV
So I recall something in the page for The Muppets (2015) that's been there for a while now.
- Big Eater:
- Piggy gorges herself on a basket of cheeses after Fozzie manages to break through her emotional barriers by accident.
- Kermit is revealed to be a stress eater. He even asks for more food after eating so much that he can't move.
While I can confirm it's true Kermit is a stress eater, I can't find anywhere else that brings up a part where "He even asks for more food after eating so much that he can't move." and I've looked through the episodes and it doesn't seem to happen. Did I miss something, or did somebody put up misinfo for the sake of troping with one hand? (considering what 'eating so much they can't move' usually means.)
Edited by RedBerryBlueCherryopenQuestionable edit. Live Action TV
These two entries were recently posted on YMMV.Young Sheldon by user "marshenwhale".
1) Under Unintentionally Sympathetic:
- Sheldon throughout the entire show could be considered this, since he clearly is on the spectrum but the show never directly acknowledges this or delves into it, all of the times where he acts stuck up or talks down to his family for his intelligence, they treat him like a kid who is just being bratty, but since he is neurodivergent, it means his parents never handle his behavior correctly. This is probably at it's worst in "An Entrepreneurialist and a Swat on the Bottom" where Sheldon is portrayed as being completely in the wrong for calling Meemaw selfish and trying to run away to see a lecture when nobody will take him, but the fact is that Sheldon literally does not understand why what he is doing is wrong considering he doesn't read social cues properly, and is shown to not understand when he is hurting people's feelings because from his perspective, he's just stating facts. So Meemaw spanking him and him later getting grounded makes all of the adults in his life look like morons since they have clearly seen by this point that Sheldon doesn't think in a typical way and just choose to ignore it.
2)Under Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
- Going off the point above in Unintentionally Sympathetic, basically the entire family in most of their conflicts with Sheldon since they all fail to recognize that he isn't neurotypical. This doesn't apply to Georgie since he rarely fights with Sheldon, but it does make George, Mary, and Meemaw all look really dumb. You could argue that this is a result of Mary being very religious and therefore not being very educated on what the spectrum is, but considering the show takes place over multiple years you'd think at some point one of the adults in Sheldon's life would wonder if it applied to him. Worst of all, this even makes Missy look really bad, because as a child growing up in the 80s and 90s, she most definitely would have learned what someone being neurodivergent was at some point but never even brings it up, which causes all of her dislike towards Sheldon to make her look like a total jerk instead of just a child lashing out at being the The Un-Favourite, which is clearly what the writers were going for.
I have some issues with this. For one, while hinted at in both The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon, Sheldon has never been confirmed to be neurodivergent, not even by Word of God, who blatantly refuse to answer definitively. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say he is, but there's no official confirmation.
Also, the post reads like the poster has a bit of a bias. Neurodivergent or not, some of the shit Sheldon pulls is uncalled for and would reasonably make most people angry. When I watched "An Entrepreneurialist and a Swat on the Bottom", I was under the impression that Sheldon knew what he was doing was wrong but did it anyway because his needs are more important to him than everyone else and he acts like that quite often in both shows.
Should this stay or not? Or should it be re-written? I'll let the tropers decide since this is YMMV and I am not the biggest Sheldon Cooper fan so I'm likely biased in My own way.
openHow to word this Live Action TV
Having just seen the show, I've started editing the page of Ripley (staring Andrew Scott as the titular Tom Ripley).
In it, there is an Actor Allusion as John Malkovich plays a character (and in the trailer even says he like Ripley's name, though the context is different in the show itself), having played the role of Tom Ripley in Ripley's Game (2002). This has already been added.
However, on top of this, it's revealed he plays the character of Reeves Minot, a character with a major role in the plot of Ripley's Game. Would this be playing the actor allusion trope straight further, exaggerating it, or something else?
openQuick question on the WhatHappenedToTheMouse entry on the PRTF character page Live Action TV
Back in June 2023, I removed the What Happened to the Mouse? entry from Gluto's section in the Characters.Power Rangers Time Force page (history is here
). V-Nerd re-added it nearly a month ago here
.
In many stories, some characters enter the story, serve their role, and move on without any fanfare. If they have served their purpose and exit the story, then it's not a What Happened to the Mouse? situation just because there isn't some final "where are they now" information given. The trope is for cases where a character simply disappears without reason or acknowledgment by the rest of the cast. Plus, it's also a plot point. In this instance, Gluto slipping away during the final battle between Frax and the Rangers by freezing himself is a reasonable explanation for him leaving the story.
Rather than get involved in an Edit War, I'm bringing this up here. That said, any thoughts on what should be done?
Edited by gjjonesopenWhat do you do with a page mostly plagiarized? Live Action TV
I’m doing a plagiarism clean-up of Doctor Who’s trivia pages. I got tipped off a while ago that almost every page of the first Three doctors’ pages has examples (mostly under What Could Have Been) that have been plagiarized from either the show’s wiki or this comprehensive website
(which the wiki itself has cribbed from).
For example, several trivia examples from the episode “An Unearthly Child” (the very 1st episode of the series) had been plagiarized from it’s wiki article’s story notes.
- The first school scene was re-written to reduce the tension between Barbara and Ian. In the original script, Ian says, "When I've had a bad day, I come in here [the staff room], and I want to smash all the windows". Barbara retorts, "It hasn't been a bad day", and Ian remarks, "You're just naturally like that?" Barbara replies, "I hope not. I've had another kind of day. A very puzzling kind of day".
- Ian and Barbara's relationship was much more romantic in the original script.
- In the original script, the "PRIVATE" notice at the junkyard was originally supposed to appear significantly newer than the lettering on the gates. The junkyard was also supposed to contain "a broken-down old shed".
And while doing cleanup the trivia page for the episode “The Romans”
and it is seeping with plagiarism, up to and including Wikipedia.
So how should I go forward with this? I’ve been editing previous pages to remove plagiarism, but this particular page is compromised with it.
Edited by CanuckMcDuck1openDropped a Bridge on Him example Live Action TV
A long while ago I added this example to Recap.Doctor Who S 27 E 13 The Parting Of The Ways:
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Not to anywhere near the extent of say, the Sixth Doctor's death-by-falling-over or the Eighth Doctor's regeneration not (at the time) being explained at all, but the fact that Rose was able to store the vortex energy for several minutes and only got a headache as a result, while the Doctor is killed by just storing it for a few seconds raised more than a few eyebrows.
Another troper later added this underneath the entry:
- Considering that Rose was able to bring Jack back to life, the Doctor might have been able to heal Rose, but couldn't heal himself.
This resulted in a third troper deleting the entire example with "Repair, Don't Respond" in the edit reason. However, would I be right in thinking that the second-level bullet point was speculative troping, and that the right course of action would have been to just delete that rather than nuking the whole example?
Looking back on it I'm not very happy with how I worded the example in the first place anyway, but just so I'm not engaging in a (very slow-motion) edit war, would I be okay to put the example back in as this:
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: The Doctor's dying as a result of holding the vortex energy in his body for roughly five seconds before he returns it to the TARDIS was seen by some fans as an abrupt and poorly-explained reason for his having to regenerate, especially since it comes right after Rose kept the same energy in her body for several minutes of screentime, while using it to wipe out the Daleks and resurrect Jack.
openRemoving a page redirect Live Action TV
I'm currently working on reworking the Giant Robo page into mediums (i.e. manga for the manga, series for the Toku show, anime for the OVA) instead of clumping every entry on one page. However, the current page for Giant Robo is a redirect to Giant Robo. I don't know how/if I can remove the redirect by myself. Is there a way I can do this, or is mod interference needed?
open 80s Horror/possession TV (mini?) series/film Live Action TV
Right! A little obscure here. 80's British TV show/mini-series/film about a possessed teenage girl. Set in a pretty normal urban British household. Myself and my sister both remember so I know I didn't dream it 😁. I only really remember one scene, the mother comes into the bedroom and the daughter is twisted into a weird pose with a scissors stuck in her shoulder/chest/clavicle. It's wrecking our heads for years here as all both of us can remember is that scene. I've tried many different Google searches and come up with nothing.
I know it's not: Hammer House of Horror/Mystery, Tales of the Unexpected, Dramarama, Ghostwatch, Moondial, Dead of Night.
Cheers
open B99, s6 ep3. Live Action TV
In 'The Tattler' episode, we meet Mike Joseph, a musician wannabee.
(The rest is my opinion, based on body language.)
Initially, he is friendly with Jake, but when Jake shares how active & fulfilling his life is, Mike seems to become bitter because how his carrier isn't going anywhere.
He quickly shifts tones by insisting on talking about Jake's high-school experience as a rejected classmate & he somehow seems amused about the subject, at Jake's expense.
I've read the TVT page of the episode, but I don't feel like there is the trope I am looking for.
So, my question, after giving the context, is, What Is This Trope?
When someone you'd assume to be your friend, doesn't hesitate to lower your self-esteem by digging up all of your insecurities or flaws, just to feel less small about themselves?
And, even in contexts where their reputation isn't in danger, they just don't hesitate to bring into conversations what their 'friend' isn't comfortable with?
Edited by PassionFloweropenBad one-off edit Live Action TV
Tropers.imajakov's first and so far only edit, from about a month ago, was to add an entry to Series.House for the nonexistent trope "Genius Level Intellect." The entry itself didn't have any grammar issues and did accurately describe the show and title character, but, well... that isn't a real trope. They also wrote it out un-wikiworded as "Genius Level intellect" (complete with capitalization error)
Edited by Dirtyblue929openSapphire and Steel Word of God Invoked Live Action TV
Paul A removed the "[invoked]" from the Distress Ball example where Word of God was mentioned on Sapphire and Steel, mistakenly thinking it was related to Invoked Tropes and not realizing it was to prevent the unsightly marker from appearing on the main page. I sent them a message explaining it, but they haven't responded and may not realize they had to re-add it themself. Can a mod please re-insert it, as if I did it myself I'd be edit warring?
Edited by NOYBopenUnintentional Sympathy in Star Trek Picard Live Action TV
The YMMV page for Star Trek: Picard features two examples of Unintentionally Sympathetic:
- The Zhat Vash was right all along! The Admonition is a message to synthetic life that there is other synthetic life willing to invade and destroy all organic life if called upon, in order to save their fellow synthetics. The Soong-type androids start to bring these horrors into the galaxy, and the only reason why nothing more happens is because it takes a while for them to come through the wormhole, allowing a small window to shut down the beacon. It's probable that anyone faced with the evidence would come to the conclusion that artificial life is too big a danger to allow to exist. Especially the Federation, who already ban genetic engineering of organic life because of the risk of starting another Eugenics War. What also helps is that "mad AI goes rogue" is one of the oldest plots in Star Trek history, appearing in no less than 7 episodes of The Original Series and only going up from there. If you lived in the Star Trek universe, there's wall-to-wall evidence that you should never trust a machine that can think for itself lest you want to be killed, enslaved, or both. Even Data wasn't safe from this as he'd become Brainwashed and Crazy and a threat to others a few times himself.
- One could also say the same for Control as in the later half of season 3 the Borg effectively highjacks Starfleet from within and plans to use said new “assimilated” fully organic drones as the seed base of a new even more advanced and dangerous Borg collective to threaten and ultimately rule the entire galaxy with until the end of time. Control would’ve had access to all the Enterprise NX-01’s logs including those of the incident involving the Borg and the knowledge that a “visit” from a very real bio-cybernetic threat easily capable of assimilating others, quickly adaptable defenses, and has access to technology far more advanced than anything Starfleet, the Federation, or even the surrounding powers currently had at their disposal isn’t so much if they show up 200 years from the logs being recorded but when! While that doesn’t excuse nor justifies Control’s actions, Control was originally programmed to help protect the Federation from any and all threats but when it tried to figure out a way the Federation could win against a confirmed future threat that, for all intents and purposes, had no vulnerabilities that could be exploited (at least for long anyway), combined with the limitations of Control’s own programming, preemptively wiping out all life in the universe was the “best” solution he could come up with to stop them and save everyone.
I could be wrong about this but I thought US is about characters that come off as sympathetic, even though the story doesn't want viewers to sympathize with them. Granted, the show kinda shoots itself in the foot by portraying the Higher Synthetics (insert Mass Effect reference here) as genocidal racists, but the entries for US don't do themselves any favors by portraying the Zhat Vash and Control as genocidal racists themselves.
What do you think about this? Is there a cleanup thread for this trope or something?
openRangers Live Action TV
I just signed up and would like to add to this folder. There are several prominant TV shows featuring rangers that are not yet included and I'd like to add them.
The Lone Ranger Walker, Texas Ranger Laredo Trackdown
In movies there is also the Comancheros In Western Animation there is the series Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers.
I'm happy to make the additions myself but don't see a way to do that. Is there a tutorial?
openTroping reality TV shows (e.g. Drag Race) - contestants, presenters and judges Live Action TV
So...
Following on from this post
on the Character Page Cleanup Thread, and this earlier Creator Page Cleanup
discussion, there seems to be a grey area with regard to troping reality TV.
Administrivia.Real Life Troping clearly says:
So, looking at something like RuPaul's Drag Race -
- I can see that the competing drag queens (who have very carefully constructed personas) can potentially be troped as characters in their drag identities.
- ...but do we trope the judges and others (e.g. the 'pit crew' teams, who have no alter ego and are scantily-dressed support staff) - we have character page tropes entries for them all, and things like Age-Gap Romance and Token Minority (for the only straight guy) troped for the real people. That feels like a step too far.
- We also have Characters page examples for things like Older Than They Look (no Real Life) for RuPaul, Berserk Button (referencing her Real Life childhood bullying) for judge Michelle Visage and similar examples from the contestants' real pre-show, offscreen lives. In some cases I'm not sure they've even been directly mentioned in the work itself.
I know an awful lot of effort's gone into some of the pages, and I don't want to make major changes without a consensus (which didn't really happen with the previous forum threads, hence this post) - the one comment on the last post seemed to agree that this crossed into NRLEP, though.
What are people's views?
Edited by Mrph1

I previously made a thread
asking for help organizing the tropes
on Film.Meet The Parents Film Series and had no response. What should I do? Here’s a full list of tropes that don’t mention a specific film for example.
- Accidental Truth: When the family finds out that Greg got a cat to be a fake Jinx which trashed the family room and lied about it, Pam rhetorically asks him this:
Pam: Now what are you going to tell me next? That you set Kevin's altar on fire? (chuckles nervously. Greg keeps his silence, causing Pam to stop smiling, and realize that what she just guessed was actually true) Oh my god.
- Actor Allusion: Jack mentions to Greg that he spend 9 months in a Vietnamese prison camp.
- Adaptation Expansion: Compared to the 1992 film, the main characters' backstories are much more developed, and Pam gets one additional sibling as well as a specific job as a 2nd grade teacher.
- Adaptation Species Change: Bingo the dog from the 1992 film is replaced by Jinx the cat.
- Adaptational Jerkass:
- 1992's Irv Burns is presented as a typically serious, conservative, cigar-smoking, gun-wielding Midwestern American father. A realistically intimidating father-figure, if you will. Still, he is initially trusting of Greg until his would-be son-in-law's accidents cause the family to collapse. Jack Byrnes, however, is a paranoid, overly accusatory former CIA agent who is immediately suspicious of Greg and goes to comical extremes to confirm his suspicions that he's an unsuitable suitor for his daughter, as he did for all of her past suitors.
- Downplayed with Greg. In the 1992 film, he always apologizes and tells the truth, even if no one believes him. However, in the Hollywood trilogy, he tends to make up lies and excuses when something goes wrong, but he's trying to save, not ruin, his relationships with Pam and her family.
- Adaptational Job Change:
- 1992's Greg (no last name) is an advertising agent. 2000's Greg Focker, on the other hand, is a male nurse.
- Also in the indie flick, patriarch Irv Burns was a gas station owner who eventually sold his business to Japanese investors and retired on the income. Here, Jack Byrnes is a Vietnam War veteran and retired CIA operative whose cover story is that he's a retired florist.
- Adaptational Name Change: Besides Greg being given an embarrassing last name when he originally had none (plus an embarrassing real first name), the Byrnes family last name was originally spelled "Burns" in the 1992 film. Likewise, Jack, Dina, and Debbie were once called Irv, Kay, and Fay.
- Adaptational Nice Girl: Pam's 1992 sister Fay is a creepy, obsessive lunatic who can't stand anyone criticizing her singing, and her interactions with Greg lead to the whole family's downfall. Her 2000 sister Debbie, though, is happily engaged to a man named Bob and isn't given much characterization beyond that, as the bulk of the film focuses on the Greg vs. Jack dynamic.
- All Take and No Give: Jack's Circle of Trust, despite its intentions, is unfortunately this. Jack expects the select few in the circle to be utterly honest, but he cannot keep his suspicions in check.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents:
- The free-spirited Fockers. They Cannot Keep a Secret and have no boundaries whatsoever, especially when it comes to sexuality.
- Jack Byrnes to a slightly lesser degree - it's clear that Pam has grown very tired of his overprotectiveness and the lengths he is willing to go to nitpick any potential suitor of hers. Not to mention, he wears a fake boob for much of the second movie.
- Ashes to Crashes: Greg breaks the urn containing the ashes of Jack's beloved mother trying to open a champagne bottle. To make it much worse, Mr. Jinx mistakes the resulting pile for a litter box.
- Blatant Lies:
- Pam telling Greg that her dad is "the sweetest man in the world". Also, later, when Jack claims to be a very accepting person.
- Greg himself is guilty of a few, especially the one about the time he milked a cat.
- Bourgeois Bohemian: The Fockers. They're portrayed as well-meaning and friendly (certainly much moreso than Jack's family) if a little loopy and too open.
- Butt-Monkey: These films are all about making poor Greg Focker actually, Gaylord as miserable as possible, having everything that could possibly go wrong, go wrong starting with when he's meeting his girlfriend's parents and continuing the trend well after he's managed to marry her and start a family.
- Cannot Keep a Secret: When Pam reveals to Greg that she's pregnant (and the Fockers figure it out on their own), he's afraid Jack will find out because his parents are so open about everything and refuse to keep secrets. Ironically, Greg ends up being the one who spills the beans to Jack, albeit under the influence of truth serum that Jack injected him with.
- Cats Are Mean: Even Mr. Jinx seems to have it in for Greg.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The "bingo bango bongo" guy in the second film who turns out to be the county judge.
- Closer to Earth: Played straight with the Byrneses; Dina is far more sane and rational than Jack. Averted elsewhere, though. Greg, despite being a klutz, is otherwise a fairly level-headed guy and on par with Pam in terms of overall intelligence and sanity. As for Bernie and Roz Focker, they're both pretty loopy.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Greg's parents to a T. Kevin evolves into this by the third film. And Jack, in his own paranoid and overprotective way.
- Conflict Ball: And how! The entire trilogy's biggest conflicts all revolve around Jack thinking Greg is out to do no good when it's all misunderstandings and not waiting until he has all evidence before confronting Greg.
- Control Freak: Jack Byrnes' Fatal Flaw, on top of being Improperly Paranoid, is that he needs to be the leader of the situation and only his opinions matter. The further down the trilogy he goes, the less control he has, the more stress he gets, which culminates with him getting several heart attacks in the third film.
- Cringe Comedy: Any lesser man would have pummeled Jack Byrnes to a pulp (or would have risked serious injury/death trying), hollered his feeling fed-up with the crap he's been through, and gone back home. Which goes to show how determined Greg is to make things right.
- Daddy's Girl: Pam, being Jack's oldest daughter. Debbie to a slightly lesser extent.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: Not just Greg, but most of Pam's exes as well. There's nothing really wrong with the guys, Jack is just that overprotective
- Dead Pet Sketch: With a cat.
- Decomposite Character: 2000 Pam's sister Debbie and brother Denny are two components of 1992 Pam's sister Fay, one being a woman and the other being a secret marijuana user. Neither, however, has inherited Fay's trait of being an obsessive would-be singer who can't take criticism.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: Greg just can't help himself.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": For obvious reasons, Greg Focker does not like using his actual first name: Gaylord.
- Embarrassing First Name: Greg's real first name is Gaylord. His parents also call him "Gay". What sort of parents call their son Gaylord Focker? Hippies, of course. It is also implied with the airport security officer Norm, considering Greg's sarcastic "Bye, Norm." after Jack shows up to interrogate Greg instead.
- Empathy Pet: Jack's beloved Mr. Jinx is equally intelligent, standoffish and mean to Greg. Bernie's dog Moses humps everything that moves.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- While Jack has all but delighted in giving Greg a hard time from the moment they met, he cannot abide by Denny's mean-spirited mockery of Greg's legal name. In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it background moment, you can see Jack soberly gesturing to Denny that his joking isn't appropriate and he needs to stop. Despite being Greg's biggest critic, even Jack's one of the few who doesn't find it amusing.
- In Meet the Fockers, Roz causes Greg much embarrassment when she talks about Greg's circumcision, and shows the Byrneses his saved foreskin. Even Bernie, who's notorious for being TMI and causing embarrassment by it, thinks that Roz is taking things too far.
- Failed a Spot Check: The ultra paranoid and suspicious Jack is unaware that his own son Denny smokes pot.
- Fatal Flaw: Jack's hyper-paranoid humorless Control Freak tendencies and how because of them he's constantly stressed. The fact that this almost becomes a literal fatal flaw is an important plot point of the third film.
- Flanderization: Jack is a domineering Papa Wolf / Knight Templar Parent in the first film and gets even worse in the sequels. Greg/Gaylord, meanwhile, gradually becomes marginally more self-sufficient and assertive and by the third film, is almost Jack's equal in terms of being a hardass.
- Greeting Gesture Confusion: When Greg first meets Dina, she holds out her hand for a handshake while he goes for a hug.
- Happily Married: Bernie and Roz Focker, to the point that the level-headed Dina is secretly jealous that they have such a successful sex life at their advanced age.
- Hippie Parents: Roz and Bernie to Greg.
- Horrible Judge of Character: For someone who claims to be an expert in reading people, Jack is astoundingly bad at it. His laser-focus on Greg makes him completely miss Bob's character flaws and he only realizes it when Bob cheats on Debbie. He also thinks that Kevin, who, while wealthy, is a flighty In Love with Love airhead who believes in "alternative medicine" and is bold enough to make advances on an already-married woman whom he is suggested to have an unhealthy fixation with, is a better match for Pam than Greg, a skilled nurse who rose through the ranks to become department chair and is clearly dedicated to his wife and children. Dina, in fact points out how he treated Kevin similarly to Greg when he and Pam were dating, and only developed this idealized view after they had broken up.
- Improperly Paranoid: Jack's Fatal Flaw – he would rather believe Greg (and his parents, and everybody else who so much as saw his girls) is actively and maliciously trying to do something (and put him through utter hell to force him to tell the truth) than accept that his son-in-law is just a Butt-Monkey. The "circle of trust" system is also supposed to allow for an open inter-family relationship, but it becomes apparent long before Pam and Dina call B.S. that Jack is the only one allowed to have secrets. Not to mention that he's so focused on Greg that he's caught completely by surprise to learn his other son-in-law, Bob, has been cheating on Debbie, which then indirectly causes him to double down on his paranoia toward Greg over something innocent his granddaughter says.
- Innocent Swearing: Little Jack repeating the word "asshole".
- Insistent Terminology: Jack always says that Greg's job is "male nurse" rather than just "nurse".
- Irony: Even though Jack is one of the best examples of a Knight Templar Parent, his favorite song is the one that exemplifies childlike innocence: "Puff, the Magic Dragon."
- It's All My Fault: After Jack learns that his daughter Deb has broken up with her husband at the start of the third movie, he blames himself for not seeing the signs that Bob was cheating, claiming that he was so focused on Greg that he didn't pay attention to Bob.
- Jerkass:
- Jack. Pam's entire family, in fact, except Dina and Pam herself. Even his cat is a Jerkass.
- The redneck cop in the second movie.
- The Lawful Stupid airline employees that Greg had to put up with in the first film.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While Jack clearly disliked, bullied, and had many unfounded suspicions about Greg, not all of it was unjustified. Greg did unwittingly cause a lot of property damage, and a lot of trouble for the family, and always lied about it, or made excuses, rather then simply fess up, apologize, and try to make amends. Even Dina and Pam couldn't argue with Jack that this was disgraceful, and sided with Jack, when he finally threw Greg out. On the other side of the coin, Jack claimed if Greg had simply been honest about everything, he would've been completely accepting of him. Additionally, while his biases may have led him to assume the worse, quite a few of the things that sour his view of Greg throughout the trilogy are based on Not What It Looks Like examples that Greg is initially unaware of and lacks the opportunity to refute, so a few of his bad impressions are based on not entirely unreasonable deductions.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jack a very restrained type considering the actor that is playing him; he clearly loves his daughter and wants only the best for her, but his extreme Papa Wolf personality makes it difficult for her to have any successful relationships. Though he does push it with how much he tortures and refuses to reason with Greg and his family. The "Circle Of Trust" and control-freak tendencies make it clear he's pretty difficult to live with, which even his own wife and daughters admit. That being said, he does come to respect Greg by the end of each film, even if he slips into Aesop Amnesia in the next film and has to relearn the same lesson all over again.
- Kafka Komedy: All 3 movies revel in being this.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: Jack, who dotes on Jinx like crazy. The "kindhearted" part is extremely debatable to say the least, though.
- Knight Templar Parent: This describes Jack Byrnes to a T.
- Large Hams: The Koshers - er, Fockers, oh damn.
- Let Her Grow Up, Dear: Pam's mom is definitely more supportive of her relationship with Gaylord than Jack ever will be.
- Lighter and Softer: Very much so compared to the 1992 movie, in which most of the main characters die, including Bingo the dog. The worst example we see of animal cruelty in this movie is Greg accidentally losing Jinx and replacing him with a stray, spray-painting his tail.
- Living Lie Detector: Jack places his thumbs on Greg's wrists as an impromptu lie detector in their last major scene.
- Which may border on to research failure as using your thumbs to take a person's pulse is not correct; your thumb has its own pulse and thus may give a false reading.
- Some have speculated that Jack was counting on Greg not knowing that, and getting distracted from hiding other signs that he's lying. Though he'd already learned that Greg aced the MCATs.
- Lovable Sex Maniac: Greg's parents.
- Luke, I Might Be Your Father: See Ethnic Menial Labor above.
- M.D. Envy: Inverted; although Greg scored top marks in medical school, he chose to be a nurse so he could spend more time with patients. Jack and the rest of the Byrnes family (which include several doctors themselves) grill him on why he just didn't become a doctor and even refuse to believe he passed his MCAT with top marks.
- Military Alphabet: Jack uses this when talking to his CIA contacts.
- Nasal Trauma: Greg accidentaly breaks Debbie's nose during the volleyball scene.
- Not Under the Parents' Roof: Greg and his fiancee Pam are staying with her parents, Jack and Dina. After a disastrous first day, they are just about to have sex in her room, only to be interrupted when Jack and Dina knock at the door. They're there to say not to worry about the events of the day... and to inform Greg that he will be sleeping downstairs in the den. As Dina is leaving, Jack casually informs Greg that while he realizes the two of them have probably had "premarital relations", while they're under his roof, it's his way or the Long Island Expressway.
- Not What It Looks Like:
- Many of Greg's problems with Jack come from Jack jumping to erroneous conclusions based on limited information; he assumes Greg is giving Pam fetish clothes when he examined a suitcase that was sent to Greg by mistake, he believes Greg didn't take the MCATs but in reality Jack's contacts didn't find Greg's marks because Greg took the tests under his legal name of Gaylord, etc.
- In the third film, Andi gets drunk and tries to force herself on Greg, but he rejects her. Jack arrives, planning to apologize to Greg for their earlier falling out, but gets the wrong idea when he sees them from afar.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: Different types: the Fockers are of the "so embarrassing to be around that they feel like a plague" type, while the Byrnes are of the "make your life hell via constantly point out any little flaws you have" type, with Jack being the exaggerated version of that, that being "Personal version of Big Brother Is Watching You".
- Old People are Nonsexual: Jack and Dina are implied to be this in the first, while Bernie and Roz are definitely not. By the end of the sequel, Jack and Dina pick up a few tips from the latter and proceed to do it in the RV.
- Only Sane Man: Dina's the only member of Pam's family who is remotely nice to Greg.
- Overly Long Gag - see Punny Name below.
- "Are you prepared to be... the Godfocker?" "The Godfocker." "Yes. The Godfocker." "I'm not sure I like the name 'The Godfocker'".
- Papa Wolf: Jack to a disturbing degree.
- Jack learns to his dismay that Bernie Focker can be one when he finds out that Jack drugged Greg with truth serum.
- Parental Marriage Veto
- Precision F-Strike: "Ass...oooole..."
- Profound by Pop Song: Greg is asked to say grace at dinner. He tries to improvise a prayer, which ends up as the lyrics to "Day by Day" from Godspell.
- Punny Name: Mo Focker, an unseen relative. A conversation between Jack and Greg reveals that's not the extent of it, either:
Greg Focker: You meet some of the... eh... some of the cousins?
Jack Byrnes: I met some, yes. I met some... Dom? Greg Focker: Yeah, Dom Focker, that's my dad's... uh... first cousin. You meet his kids, Randy and Orny?- Put on a Bus: The first scene we see of Bernie Focker is him taking dance classes... in Spain. It seems this will be his only appearance in the film... until he makes a surprise return home in the second half of the movie. Originally, Dustin Hoffman could not agree to work on the film due to disagreements with the production studio on the scope of his role... but this changed, thanks to negotiations that included a bigger paycheck. He ended up being added via reshoots
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
- After spending most of the movie being dumped on by his prospective in-laws, Greg finally loses it and gets thrown off an airplane for giving this to a flight attendant.
- Jack also gets this from Pam and Dina after they realise he's just been looking for excuses to kick Greg out, and from Greg himself when he shows up at the airport. In all cases, he's basically being called out on being an overbearing Control Freak Boyfriend-Blocking Dad.
- Running Gag:
- At the end of each film. At the end of the first two Jack views a video of Greg ragging on him via "hidden" camera. At the end of the third film Jack views a Youtube video of Greg talking about Jack at a seminar and Reiterating the crazy antics Jack pulled in the films.
- People (usually Jack) taking pot shots at Greg for being a male nurse. Even Kevin gets in on it in a backhanded way when he equates nursing with volunteer work.
- Sadist Show: The basis of the humor in the movies is that the universe seems to hate Greg Focker. Also, his new father-in-law is a sadist who refuses to let Greg ever come out of something looking good, and most of his in-laws are sardonic snobs who ridicule Greg at every opportunity. Even the cat seems to delight in making Greg look bad.
- Second Place Is for Losers: The attitude expressed by Jack and (to a lesser extent) Dina after they see the "Wall of Gaylord" put together by Bernie and Roz.
- Shout-Out:
- When Greg and Jack fall into the ballpit, the Jaws theme starts playing. When Greg notices a Worm Sign circling him, a dolly zoom occurs and he starts screaming for the kids to get out of the ball pit.
- Greg and Jack listen to "Puff the Magic Dragon", and Greg brings up the common reading of it as a weed metaphor. Jack is unimpressed.
Greg: Some people think that to "puff the magic dragon" means to smoke a marijuana cigarette.
Jack: Well, Puff's just the name of the boy's magical dragon. Are you a pothead, Focker?