Orbot: Eh, sarcastic remark.
Eggman: [sigh] Annoyed sigh.
Reference to Describe Trope Here.
Definition of the trope, explaining that the trope occurs when specific lines of dialogue are replaced by general and generic descriptions, giving the appearance of a template.
Explanation that the trope is often used in parody and Deconstruction to highlight patterns and clichés.
Origin of Trope Name. References to other, relevant tropes. Justification of reason trope was split from older, less well-written trope.
See also related tropes. Compare some similar tropes. Contrast conflicting tropes.
Mild warning that this trope is not to be confused with similarly-named non-trope page or similarly-titled and easily confused page.
A list of things that demonstrate the use of this trope:
- Carlton Draught's Big Ad. It's a big ad. Very big ad. This ad better sell some bloody beer.
- There's an Anti-Drug ad by the Partnership for a Drug Free America that depicts an argument between a mother and daughter that is entirely made of this trope.
- During the Dr Pepper 10 commercial: "CATCH PHRASE!"
- There's an official Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf backpack that reads, "Product Name - Product Description"◊.
- FoxTrot
- The comic has a collection named Some Clever Title, which along with the rest of its cover is done as a Stylistic Suck placeholder that never got replaced with a final version.
- Bizarro's March 8, 2015 strip parodies the sameness of sports news using a template.
- In How the Tantabus Parses Sleep, Discord frequently appears for a sentence and makes some quip if he's mentioned. During one particular instance, he says, "Obligatory running gag interjection!"
- Unikitty in The LEGO Movie is a Cloudcuckoolander from Cloud Cuckoo Land.
- The VeggieTales Jonah movie contains the memorable Song Which Goes Under The Credits
This is the song that goes under the credits
These are the credits, so this is where it goes
Has nothing to do with the movie, so we'll say
Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey!
- The Condensation of All Game Fiction published on rpg.net.
- "This Is the Title of This Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself" by David Moser.
- Not strictly self-referential, but Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart contains a "recipe" for an entertainment awards show, with lines like "Expression of gratitude to Supreme Being and to members of honoree's blood lineage".
- This Is a Book by Demetri Martin, by Demetri Martin. Also his album, These Are Jokes.
- Discworld:
- In The Last Continent, Ponder Stibbons sums up the Nostalgia Filter with one of these:
"You don't get proper fill-in-nouns these days—remember old 'nickname' ancient-wizard-who-died-fifty-years-ago-who-Ponder-wouldn't-possibly-be-able-to-remember? Now there was a chap who knew his fill-in-nouns."
- In the City Watch series, it's a Running Gag that the watchman's oath of office is always given this way. We hear the full thing in Night Watch.
"I comma square bracket recruit's name square bracket comma do solemnly swear by square bracket recruit's deity of choice square bracket to uphold the Laws and Ordinances of the city of Ankh-Morpork comma serve the public trust comma and defend the subjects of His stroke Her bracket delete whichever is inappropriate bracket Majesty bracket name of reigning monarch bracket without fear comma favour comma or thought of personal safety semi-colon to pursue evildoers and protect the innocent comma laying down my life if necessary in the cause of said duty comma so help me bracket aforesaid deity bracket full stop Gods Save the King stroke Queen bracket delete whichever is inappropriate bracket full stop."
- In The Last Continent, Ponder Stibbons sums up the Nostalgia Filter with one of these:
- Steven Soderbergh's Schizopolis contains a scene with a conversation between husband and wife that consists solely of this. "Generic greeting!" The movie plays with language a lot, including a character that speaks entirely in seemingly random phrases (like "nose army"). The conversation in genericspeak is repeated later from the woman's point of view, where the man's dialogue is dubbed in Japanese, which contrasts with her lover's dialogue, which is in Italian.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) had a trailer like this beginning with the iconical "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about...".
- Dude from Free Guy was a quickly developed character intended to be a sequel to protagonist Guy. When he is placed in the game he was so quickly thrown together his Catchphrase was "Catchphrase!" Antwan noted it was absurd but felt like keeping it.
- The theme to It's Garry Shandling's Show:
This is the theme to Garry's Show
The theme to Garry's show
Garry called me up and asked if I would write his theme song
I'm almost halfway finished
How do you like it so far?
How do you like the theme to Garry's Show?
This is the theme to Garry's Show
The opening theme to Garry's show
This is the music that you hear as you watch the credits
We're almost to the part
Of where I start to whistle
Then we'll watch "It's Garry Shandling's Show"
(whistles)
This was the theme to Garry Shandling's show! - The Power Rangers S.P.D. once shouted "Battle Cry!"
- In How I Met Your Mother, Robin has to report a Super Bowl news story without knowing which team won.
The mayor of the losing team's city had to pay up, sending the mayor of the winning team's city fifteen pounds of a delicacy his or her city is famous for. Better fire up whatever type of grill, steamer, or fryer one might use to cook that delicacy, winning team's mayor!
- On 30 Rock when Jack tells Liz that she's getting a talk show based around a book she wrote, she says "Spit Take! Are you serious?"
- Person of Interest: In "If-Then-Else," as the Machine simulates one possible plan of action for Team Machine, it replaces the team's dialogue with generic descriptions of what they are saying to save resources.
Reese: Coolly delivered sadistic warning.
Fusco: Self-deprecating inquiry into the time necessary to infiltrate system.
Root: Funny yet insightful retort.
Finch: Mildly agitated declaration of mission completion. - Community:
- In "Communication Studies", Jeff and Abed once stayed up all night drinking. The following morning, Abed is too hungover to think clearly and is unable to make the movie references he's known for. At one point, he responds to a comment from Jeff with simply "Movie reference."
- In "Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television", the first pitch for a seventh season is Abed's in which the characters are so self-aware that they talk in abstracts.
Jeff: Abusively cynical one liner dismissing everything you just said.
Britta: Absurd reaction.
- This fragment of Polish morning show Dzień Dobry TVN done by Filip Chajzer parodying news reports about natural gas.
- "Title of the Song," by Da Vinci's Notebook, which is all about cramming in as many love song cliches in as possible into one song, in a parody of 90's Boy Bands.
Title of the song
Naive expression of love
Reluctance to accept that you are gone
Request to turn back time
And rectify my wrongs
Repetition of... the title of the song. - "Songwriting Workshop" by Tom Smith is a self-referential song about writing a song.
This is the verse that sets up the premise
Of why you have written a song.
Say what you want, it's your song after all,
But do try not to make each individual lyric line too long.
Because it might not scan.
Properly. - Morris Minor and the Majors: "This Is The Chorus".
And this is the chorus,
This is the chorus.
It goes around and around and gets into your brain.
This is the chorus,
Our fabulous chorus,
And thirty seconds from now you're going to hear it again. - "Hook" by Blues Traveler is a song about generic songs. Read just the first verse:
It doesn't matter what I say
So long as I sing with inflection
That makes you feel that I'll convey
Some inner truth of vast reflection
But I've said nothing so far
And I can keep it up for as long as it takes
And it don't matter who you are
If I'm doing my job then its your resolve that breaks - The Heeby Jeebies, parodying The Beatles:
''And now we come to the second verse.
Which I'm singing right now.
I dont know what I'll say in it.
Ah well it's over anyhow. - The cover◊ art of Flipper's Album - Generic Flipper.
- "(This Song's Just) Six Words Long" by "Weird Al" Yankovic.
Couldn't think of any lyrics
No, I never wrote the lyrics
So I'll just sing any old lyrics
That come to mind, child - And similarly, King Crimson's "Happy with What You Have to Be Happy With."
Then I'm gonna have to write a chorus
We're gonna need to have a chorus
And this seems to be just as good as any other place to sing it 'til I'm blue in the face - "Coin Operated Boy" by The Dresden Dolls
- "The Grunge Song" by Radio Free Vestibule (NOT Weezer)
"This is the part of the song that's really quiet
we play very soft, it sounds like a ballad
AND THIS IS PART WHERE WE PLAY REAL HARD
IT'S MUCH LOUDER THAN AT THE BEGINNING
and we go back to the quiet part. Again." - "Punk Rock 101" by Bowling for Soup
"Don't forget the delay...lay...lay
On the very last word...word...word..." - From "Arica" by Tv's Kyle:
Arica, this is totally the bridge
To this musical pep-talk
It really sounds romantic and self-important.... - Brandon Muller's Linkin Park Parody is a mix of this and very pointed satire.
- Psychostick's #1 Radio $ingle.
"Well this is the part of the song where I talk about emotions
And this is the part of the song where I sing about how I feel so cold inside.
And this is where my producer told me to say "yeah."" - Jon Lajoie's parody of typical pop songs, called "Pop Song":
"And now the token rap verse
That doesn't make any sense
But helps to get a small percentage of the urban music market"- Many of his works include elements of this.
- Orange Goblin's Tosh Lines:
This is the first line of my song
Second line didn't take me all that long
Third line and I'm about to lose control
Fourth line is a lesson in rock and roll
Fifth line is very much like the third
Line six is the best you've ever heard
Seventh line and we're getting near the end
Eight line and that's your lot, my friend - This is an album by The Black Keys. The name of this album is Brothers.
- The Swirling Eddies: "This is the Title"
- An awful lot of Mitch Benn songs use this as a form of satire, mixed with Hypocritical Humour.
- deadmau5' albums Random Album Title, and possibly invoked with For Lack of a Better Name (the first album released after Random Album Title) and its title track, "Lack of a Better Name". From "This is the Hook":
This is the hook. It's catchy. You like it.
- MC Lars' "Generic Crunk Rap":
Phrase about my car, rhyme about my crew (Volvo!)
Rap about how much more crunk I am than you
Rhyme about my rims, rhyme about my bling
Chorus where I scream cause I don't know how to sing! - Von Dooley's "Shitty Pop Song":
And now the next verse, you might think it's shit
so I'll throw in a harmony to change it up a bit.
This took me an hour and a half to make
and honestly that's even pushing it a bit (pointless whisper) - Filter's Title of Record.
- "Your State's Name Here", by Lou and Peter Berryman, is a song meant to be about any state in the US. Lou sings the regular parts of the song, while Peter sings the blanks Mad Libs Dialogue-style — without actually filling them in.
Oh [Your state's name here], oh [Again], what a state.I have not been back since [A reasonable date].Where the asphalt grows soft in July every year.In the warm summer mornings of [Your state's name here].
- Meghan Trainor's breakthrough album was titled Title.
- Joan Jett had an album of mostly cover songs titled Album.
- Blonde Redhead's official music video for "Silently" is just a series of text cards describing the events of a music video. (For extra weirdness, it's describing the plot of Madonna's "Like a Prayer" music video, rather than anything to do with the song itself.)
- "Tosi Tarttuva Täytebiisi" ("Really Catchy Filler Song") by the Finnish band Allekirjoittanut.
- When the Scottish newspaper The National wasn't allowed into Theresa May's press event during her November 2018 visit to Scotland, their front page had a blacked out silhouette of May overprinted with an explanation that they were therefore not going to cover the story at all. Below it was the headline "HEADLINE IN HERE HEADLINE IN HERE" and three subheaders saying "This is a subheading in here".
- "The Song That Goes Like This," from Spamalot.
Once in every show
There comes a song like this
It starts off soft and low
And ends up with a kiss
Oh where is the song that goes like this? - [title of show] follows the spirit, if not the letter, of the trope. It's a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical.
- In musicals, an eleven o'clock song is a show-stopping number which comes late in the second act, shortly before the show's finale. Ankles Aweigh has one titled "An Eleven O'Clock Song."
- The Ig Nobel Prize ceremonies have the traditional "Welcome, Welcome" and "Goodbye, Goodbye" speeches. Each is two words long.
- Duty Calls, a parody FPS game, also an elaborate advertisement for Bulletstorm, uses these for pretty much every line of dialogue.
- Turning on Arachnophobia Mode in Lethal Company replaces the model for the Bunker Spider with a red piece of text that reads "SPIDER".
- Sentinel in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 does this.
- In the updated Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, taunting as Deadpool results in him saying "TAUNT BUTTON!" In the original, he says "This is my taunt!"
- The Rubikon from Planescape: Torment uses this trope to deconstruct the concept of a dungeon.
- Sam & Max Save the World: Episode Six: Bright Side Of The Moon:
Sam: Random, but innocuous, comment.
Max: Irreverent reply hinting at mental instability!
Sam: You crack me up, little buddy. - The Facebook version of You Don't Know Jack has a Parody Commercial for "Glug Light Beer", which features Trivially Obvious statements like "Glug Light is a beer that you can buy and that you can also drink" mixed with a list of generic "things that guys do".
- One of Salvador's catchphrases when Gunzerkering in Borderlands 2 is just "ONE-LINER!"
- One of the guards that you kill in Asha's rescue mission in Saints Row IV shouts "Famous movie quote!" as he's dying.
- In City of Heroes you wind up fighting a robot clone of local wise cracking Trick Arrow expert Manticore. The robot's text files are incomplete, so he winds up throwing error messages during his taunts.
Oh yeah? Aren't you the MISSING FILE BELITTING_INSULT.TXT
(after defeating someone) That sure was MISSING FILE ONE_LINER.TXT - On the third installment of WipEout, The Designers Republic decided to go all out with their brand minimalistic approach (think of their cover art for Tri Repetae but with text), which is why a lot of menu screens contain tons of "explanatory info" despite being fairly simplistic in their design. It has gotten so out of hand that the title screen literally says "WIPEOUT THREE TITLE SCREEN".
- And if you wait a bit on it, you will see the obligatory DR credits, preceded by "WIPEOUT THREE LOGO" and "TEXT READS LEFT TO RIGHT".
- SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium has "Victory pose!" as a subtitle to Yuri Sakazaki's... duh.
- In Overwatch, one of Reinhardt's taunts is "Catchphrase!"
- Pokémon Clover includes a ???-type Legendary Pokémon called Adesign found on An Island. It's a white square with "A DESIGN :^)" written on it, its cry is a guy saying "a noise", its Pokédex entry reads, "This is a design," and the only attack it knows naturally is "An Attack".
- Splatoon 2: The Deep Metro's Telephone's "contemporary speech mode" is seemingly incomplete and as such, some of its vocabulary is instead spoken as [SLANG_NOT_FOUND] and or simply [ERROR].
- Homestar Runner:
- The Show's ending chant from this short: "Chant! Words! Together!"
- In "Marzipan's Answering Machine 4", Homestar's tries to tell a "TV joke" he heard.
Homestar: Okay, okay. So I was watching TV, right? And there was this show with this guy and he was on TV, right? Okay. And so he makes this TV joke, and it, and it was so hilarious. Okay, it was like... okay, I can't remember what it was like, but it was a TV joke, and you know how those are.
- In the Strong Bad Email "dullard", at one point Homestar tries to talk about an episode of "Popular Reality Show".
- The "prank call" Strong Bad leaves in the SBEmail "personal favorites" is just him shouting "PRANK CALL!"
- To a lesser extent, the SBEmail "the process," a Faux-To Guide for answering emails "like a true Strong Bad."
- During the "Biz Cas Fri" segment in the SBEmail "other days," Homestar brags about his frag count in "Online Gaming".
- In "Marzipan's Answering Machine 11.2", Strong Bad prank calls Marzipan posing as Bob Statesman, who's running for "Elected Official".
- Homestar's grocery list in "love poems."
"Amazing thing, amazing thing, amazing thing, amazing thing!"
- This list.
- Arfenhouse 2 starts off with a parody of badly-made Flash-animated versions of 8-Bit Theater that flooded Newgrounds at the time of its release:
- Metal Gear Awesome has this.
"Cryptic metaphor!"
- In Dragon Ball Z Abridged, the Kai Abridged episode has Nappa giving a line like this:
Nappa: Hilariously derailing one-liner!
- Several examples from Ultra Fast Pony.
- In "Copywrong", several characters describe what Aesops they learned from the episode. Photo Finish just says "And I learned... lesson."
- In "Pinkie's Day In":
Applejack: Yeah, but that's just a front. I mean, that's just a... Go away! Something about apples!
- In "Faith to Faith", Applejack gives a succinct but scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech to an annoying side character. Which is then followed by:
Pinkie Pie: Yeah, you sound just like—
INSERT OWN JOKE HERE
Caption: I should do that more often. Saves me a lot of time.
- Harry Partridge's Skyrim video has him wearing a blue shirt with the text "POP CULTURE REFERENCE".
- The Story Title arc of Bruno the Bandit.
- The Order of the Stick: Illusionary Belkar insults his jailers by generic comments of what he is supposed to be saying in here and here.
- Here's Penny Arcade's take, where they follow their basic formula using only trope names.
- qxlkbh features multiple instances:
- It's the whole premise of 10: qxlkbh title:
Cueball 1: Clever lampshade hangingCueball 2: Witty answerNarrator: Narrator's opinion
- Another, more brief, example occurs in 30: website:
Baseball Cap: [obligatory forced punchline]
- The alt text of 47: Q&A 4 reads "*description of event instead of onomatopoeic word*"
- In 66: Action Logic #2, there's a sound effect reading "SOUND EFFECT".
- The two-part comic that starts with 71: one... and a half shot gag ends with 72: second part of title even though 71's title is complete.
- It's the whole premise of 10: qxlkbh title:
- This Sluggy Freelance strip has generic political Take That! like "insert name of political group you oppose" inserted in a conversation.
- Gunnerkrigg Court
- At the end of the storyline "Katurday!", Paz has a video game called A Video Game. (The Rant says it's actually an HD remaster of A Video Game.) The bonus page shows a magazine ad from when the original A Video Game was released, advertising such features as "Contains graphics" and "Players allowed".
- The Karnak Hates Everything Show, a sub-comic of Bob and George, had a filler comic lampooning what The Legacy Of Terra (another comic by the same author)'s updates were usually like.
- xkcd: This strip abusing this trope is how he'd hypothetically build a supermarket brand identity.
- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal presents: the core message of most fairy tales.
- Garfield Abridged.
{Garfield lies motionless amidst a pile of food scraps and entrails.}
Jon: CONTEXT
{Jon points at Garfield, angrily.}
Jon: ADMONISHMENT
Garfield: CONTRADICTION
Jon: DIRE IMPLICATIONS
Garfield: WITTY RETORT - In Schlock Mercenary, the ships of the Fleetmind are all given names with the acronym PD. One such ship is called "Polysyllabic Designation".
- The Daily Derp: "DERPY enters, something happens, Derpy Panics."
- The webcomic titled Webcomic Name that's a parody of "relatable" webcomics. Every comic ends with the exact same punchline of "oh no"
- This strip summarizes the comic in true Trope Name fashion.
- This review of the Doom map "Temple" is written this way (it's essentially a normal review, but with phrases like "Side note mentioning that" tacked on the beginning of every sentence).
- TV Tropes:
- This page you're reading right now.
- This.
- And this.
- And this.
- And this.
- Controversial statement.
- All This Trope Name References Itself examples... including itself.
- The template for quoting dialogue in examples in the Trope Entry Template does this for typical three-line banter. (If you don't get the difference between that page and this one by now, I give up.)
- Reddit:
- This thread parodies the common type of comments seen on the site.
- The subreddit r/SUBREDDITNAME is entirely devoted to this.
- The Editing Room's scripts are full of characters who bluntly state what their role is in the movie.
- SCP Foundation: SCP-1234-J, a.k.a. "An SCP". It is captured due to displaying anomalous properties, and interactions with researchers have resulted in [DATA EXPUNGED]. It is contained in a containment chamber which is to contain precautions which aid in its containment, and should it breach containment, personnel are to take necessary actions to recontain it. No fewer than a specified number of staff may enter the containment room at any time. The discussion page has many comments in the same way. Including those who complain users are turning it into an Overly Long Gag.
- The Daily WTF has a recurring "Error'd" feature on Fridays with reader-submitted snapshots of computing slip-ups. The "failure to replace placeholder text" is a common one.
- This article from The Hard Times about nerds outraged that their favorite IP is attempting to diversify the cast.
THIS IS A TEMPLATE. DO NOT FORGET TO FILL IN THE BLANKS WHEN THE INEVITABLE NEW STORY COMES OUT. DO NOT DISTRIBUTE. – Editor
- This Kotaku article.
Videogame Article
A minimum of 50 characters to encapsulate the article for SEO purposes
- Every Presentation Ever. Presenter describes a generic presentation as they present.
- This parody of modern "contemporary", praise-band-led church services.
- In the Nostalgia Critic / Angry Video Game Nerd Crossover for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Title Card, which is in the style of the 1987 animated series, reads "Episode-Related Pun".
- Parodied in the Game Grumps April Fools episodes "g", which is nothing but a white screen while a monotone voice describes their usual actions.
Fart. Start. Run. Run. Jump. Die. Start. Jump. Die....
- UrinatingTree spoofs the social awareness advertisements put out by corporations in "A Message From The Company".
- Linus Tech Tips: The Couch Gag in "DIY Ghetto Networking Wall - A renter's solution!" says "Something witty."
- Solid jj: Deadpool enters "The One with Deadpool in it" by saying "catchphrase for the thumbnail!" And that is what's written in the thumbnail of the video.
- American Dad! parodied James Bond movies' tendency to name female villains with Double Entendre by having Francine play Sex Pun in "Tearjerker".
- On one Space Ghost Coast to Coast DVD commentary, the writers mention once trying to get this joke into an episode, but the network didn't get it. It would have gone something like this:
Space Ghost: Grandiose statement!
Zorak: Pithy comment.
Moltar: Exasperated sigh. - Gravity Falls
- In "Fight Fighters", one of the adjectives in Rumble McSkirmish's ultimate combo with a very long name is the word "prefix".
- When Soos is trapped inside a pinball machine during his story in "Bottomless Pit!", he follows up Mabel and Dipper's signs of amazement by literally saying "Hushed exclamation of wonder!"
- The only way Grunkle Stan can think of to get out of a bad date in the episode "Dreamscaperers" is to yell "Non-specific excuse!" and run away. In the same episode, the incantation Gideon uses to summon Bill Cipher is "backwards message" repeated backwards.
- In The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Storm", everyone shames Gumball for breaking up Alan and Carmen, despite agreeing with Gumball that Alan and Carmen's relationship sickens them, calling him things like "home wrecker" and "couple splitter". All Sussie can think to shout it "Names! Names! Names!"
- BoJack Horseman has the Running Gag of "Generic <insert year and genre> song", including '80s New Wave, '90s Grunge, and 2007 auto-tuned, all replete with Funny Background Events of intentionally outdated references.
- In Rick and Morty, after becoming the President of the Citadel, Evil Morty makes a New Era Speech where he says that this is the time to make cold, calculated speech with sinister overtones where he talks about politics, order, brotherhood and power.
- Total Drama: Amy says "loud cough of interruption" in order to make her sister, "Samey," stop talking.
- Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race: Geoff and Brody, in a failed attempt to rescue Sanders and Macarthur from Komodo Dragons, shout "Battle Cry!"
- Generic branding, especially the No Name brand.