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Stop Helping Me!/Live-Action TV

< Stop Helping Me!


Examples of Stop Helping Me! in Live-Action TV include:

Cordelia: Put yourself in Buffy's shoes for just a minute, okay? I'm Buffy: Freak of Nature, right? Naturally, I pick a freak for a boyfriend, and then he turns into Mr. Killing Spree, which is pretty much my fault--
Buffy: Cordy! Get out of my shoes!
Cordelia: I'm just trying to help.

    • And later that season, in the episode "Doppelgangland", when Buffy and Xander try to cheer Willow up.

Willow: Old Reliable? Yeah, great, there's a sexy nickname.
Buffy: Well, I-I didn't mean it as...
Willow: No, it's fine. I'm Old Reliable.
Xander: She just means, you know, the geyser. You're like a geyser of fun that goes off at regular intervals.
Willow: That's Old Faithful.
Xander: Isn't that the dog that-that the guy had to shoot...
Willow: That's Old Yeller!
Buffy: Xander, I beg you not to help me.

    • Similarly, Buffy tells Xander "Maybe you shouldn't help" in "Amends", after his hilarious attempt to threaten Willy the Snitch. (Afterwards, Willy deadpans "You did great, by the way. I was very intimidated by you." Xander buys it.)
  • In the early episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Data has a habit of giving out information that's either more detailed than needed (prime example is giving out even the miliseconds of a time span) or not even asked for (like defining a term he heard along with listing related terms and information). He's usually interrupted by the annoyed Picard as sort of a Running Gag. This happens in the later episodes as well, but less often due to Data catching on to the more obvious cases.
    • A specific example from "Up The Long Ladder," regarding the name of a ship:

Data: Mariposa. The Spanish word for "butterfly".
Picard: Thank you, Data.
Data: I thought it might be significant, sir.
Picard: It doesn't appear to be, Data.
Data: No, sir.

    • Picard eventually managed to get Data to shut up, but it took fifteen years (and a dopey wedding).
    • In one instance, the ship's computer cut in while he was talking and said, "Thank you, sir. I comprehend."
    • In the Star Trek: The Next Generation pinball game, you actually get a bonus for cutting off Data when he talks at times.

Data: "Had you projected the ball at the proper velocity, you would have been rewa-" *hit flipper buttons*
Picard: "Thank you, Mr. Data."

  • A tweaking of this has appeared on The Daily Show in the recurring segment "You're not helping!", in which Jon lambastes someone for an idiotic statement or action that counteracts what their expressed purpose is.
  • Gilligan's Island. Gilligan. Enough said.
  • Little House On the Prairie Carrie tries to help Caroline with the laundry, but ends up dropping some linens onto the soil. Needless to say, Caroline tells Carrie to please stop helping.
  • Seems to happen fairly frequently in Arrested Development. Usually they're just out for personal gain but occasionally they're sincerely trying to be useful. One obvious example is with Michael's girlfriend Rita, whom his family ultimately kidnaps, drugs, and beats. And that's when they were trying to be helpful.
    • Another lesser example is when George Michael plans a surprise party for Maebe. This causes her to lose the lucrative profession she'd only barely fallen into in the first place.
    • Anything to do with Lindsay being a stay-at-home mother. George Michael has to perpetually hover over her to keep her from destroying the house.
    • Tobias' brief and clueless stint as "The Mole". He does a pretty poor job and screws everything up for everyone.
    • Any doctor. Any doctor at all.
    • Actually, almost any time a character save for Maebe (who, in this show's rare example of a subversion of this trope, actually helps when she tries to) attempts to be helpful, they fail abysmally.
  • Good Eats: Don't say it! Culinary anthropologist!
  • In Red Dwarf series IV episode "Justice," Rimmer is put on trial for killing the entire crew of the Red Dwarf. Kryten serves as Rimmer's defense attorney. His argument is that Rimmer exaggerated his own importance in the events.

Kryten: 'I simply have to establish that you're a neurotic, under-achieving emotional retard whose ambition far outstrips his miniscule ability, and consequently blames himself for an accident for which he could not possibly have been responsible..
Rimmer: You're going to prove that I was innocent of negligence on the grounds that I'm a half-witted incompetent?

  • Being Human (UK) has Tully giving George advice on how to get a date with Nina. Said advice pretty much boils down to crudely hitting on her (Tully...isn't the most refined person) and George does not realize why that might offend a girl. Nina, being her Deadpan Snarker self, has a few words in return.
    • Later in the season, Annie tries to help Mitchell get a new job by sitting in on his interview and coaching him nonstop. All this does is distract him and make him look insane, since he, as a vampire, can see Annie but the human woman he's interviewing with can't. Annie's next attempt at helping him (forging a letter of recommendation) actually does help him get the job.
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