Fridge Brilliance



""[T]hey kept on losing me. They would bring out a new album and for a few listenings it would leave me cold and confused. Then, gradually it would begin to unravel itself in my mind. I would realise that the reason I was confused was that I was listening to Something that was simply unlike anything that anybody had done before.""

- Douglas Adams on The Beatles, The Salmon Of Doubt

You will someday realize the meaning of this sentence.

First impressions are really important; they build opinions and form relationships. If you screw up a first impression, it can be disastrous. You wish you could do it all over again, and once an opinion is set, it is very hard to change it.

But every once in a while, it could be years later or the next day, you may gain a new respect for what you used to hate. It could be upon receiving additional information, or just that you have grown up a little.

Fridge Brilliance is this very idea. You watch a movie and something about it just seems off, you don't like it. One night, as you get up for a midnight snack, you open the refrigerator door and the light dawns on you, "This is the real purpose behind this plot!"

Because you had that epiphany, what once was a hated moment has become one of your favorites.

This is a personal moment for the viewer, so every example is signed by the contributor. If you start off with "This Troper", really, you have no excuse. We're going to hit you on the head.

This revelation can come from anywhere, even from this very page.

Also, this page is of a generally positive nature, and a Fridge Brilliance does not have to be Word of God. In fact, it usually isn't, and the viewer might be putting more thought into it than the creator ever did. This is not a place for personal commentary on another's remark or arguing without adding a Fridge Brilliance comment of your own.

Compare Hilarious in Hindsight, Heartwarming in Hindsight. See also Ascended Fridge Horror for writers applying prior Fridge Horror in a way analogous to Fridge Brilliance.

Warning: High chance of unmarked spoilers

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Advertising

 * This Sour Skittles commercial is funny to some, gross to many, and was apparently banned. But as tasteless as many may find it, it is actually quite clever if you think about what it is probably referencing. There was a Nick Toon called Rocko's Modern Life, which could be seen as the original Spongebob SquarePants but way more intelligent, in an episode from the first season(a season that was more like a milder Ren and Stimpy than a smarter Spongebob) Rocko and his friend Heffer who is a steer go to a cattle ranch, after a night in the barn Heffer wakes up to a farmer milking him with a machine, this scene was eventually banned(contrary to popular belief it wasn't banned for a few years). The characters in this show are all humanoid animals, and in the Skittles commercial a man is milking a creepy old guy for unknown reasons!
 * In the Old Spice "I'm A Man" commercial just recently released, the man your man could smell like goes through two different setting changes and a costume change onscreen. Normally I wouldn't give that two seconds' worth of notice. HOWEVER. This particular commercial uses its dialogue to distract you from the obviousness. Until the end of the commercial, by which time the very charismatic man has jumped from being wrapped in a towel after a shower, to being shirtless in khakis with a sweater draped over his shoulders appearing to be on a cruise ship, to sitting majestically astride a horse. At which point he says, "I'm on a horse." Not only is this a fantabulous Captain Obvious moment, it's an absolutely brilliant lampshade of the entire commercial by way of drawing your attention back at the end to the way everything changed so fast. Not to mention it makes the commercial really memorable. FRIDGE BRILLIANCE, I SAY.
 * There is an 11-year old who recreated this commercial for his mom, and at first you think, "Aw, cute, the boy your man could smell like"...until the clouds and shirt drop down from above and the awesomeness quotient is taken up to eleven.
 * In the other Old Spice "I'm a man" commercial, they use similar scene changing tactics with a man who goes from skiing to sitting in his chair reading to pumping iron to driving golf balls. At one point later in the commercial we see the man saying, "But I don't use [Old Spice]..." he then pulls off a latex mask of the mans face Mission Impossible style, revealing himself to be a sexy blonde, "...because im a woman." the man approaches from behind, "just kidding! Im not a woman..." and it goes on. A bit of thought reveals a pseudo-subliminal message. If you do not use Old Spice, you are a woman.
 * The true purpose of both of the Old Spice ads, which have all kinds of random scene changes that come out of nowhere, is to tell you that Old Spice makes no scents.
 * In the M&M commercials, the smart guy is the plain red M&M, and the dumb one is the peanut yellow M&M. Get it? The yellow one is a peanut-brain!
 * Uhh...
 * There's an ad for Mac, with "Choose A Vista". PC spins the wheel, and lands on Lose A Turn. Mac retorts with "Didn't you make this?". Most people would see this as a What an Idiot! moment, but in reality, PC loses his turn, so it's now Mac's turn to Choose A Vista.
 * Of course, this could still fall under What an Idiot!, since Mac has no reason to choose a Vista.
 * But he can.
 * Heineken's "The Tiger" ad ostensibly seems to have Unfortunate Implications, what with the woman being the "prey". Unless you consider the possibility that the "prey" is the attractive woman's interest, not the woman herself. Even if he's asking the older woman for a dance just to get the younger woman interested, all three people (mum, woman and man) probably know that. And he's just demonstrated a willingness to make more than the usual effort at getting the woman's attention.
 * This TMNT action figure commercial. Initially, one might not understand why it opened with Donatello saying "Wowie! Recycling works!" However, that clip of animation was used in this earlier TMNT action figure commercial. Apparently, recycling really DOES work!
 * SBS's latest slogan is "Six Billion Stories and Counting": it's not just talking about describing the diversity of humanity, but it's also their initials.
 * On the "USA Prime Credit" Capital One Commercials, the name of the operator possibly isn't "Peggy", it's "Пэги" (Pegi)!

Classical Mythology

 * Pandora's Box initially portrays the addition of Hope to the world as uplifting and positive. The myth, though, can be painting hope as another evil. Or, since hope is the only thing left in the box, there is no hope. Dark stuff, either way.

Meta

 * After watching another Sunrise series on Youtube, I finally noticed something: When the main Sunrise logo appears, that little green ball (which I had always assumed was just that), spread its little mechanical wings to land on the "i". It's a freaking HARO!!! And what Sunrise Meta-Series gave us the Haro? It's basically transcended the Gundam multiverse to become a symbol of the entire Studio company!
 * In this video, the environments are a little weird, from Twenty Eight Days Later to The Haunted Mansion to a strange forest, thematically, these don't make sense, then, near the end,, it dawns to the players:


 * After playing on Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors, I thought that the subtle addition system the creators used within the game (known as digital root") would be an interesting way to do Lampshade Hanging. But then I noticed something odd after browsing through TV Tropes: Thirteen Is Unlucky -> 13 -> 1 + 3 = 4 -> Four Is Death. Oh Crap, how closely related are these tropes anyway?
 * The roots of rock music can be traced to blues, which got its roots from jazz, which got its roots through African-American gospel...which explains The Power of Rock, especially its potential for fighting evil: because of its roots in God's music!
 * The moon was believed to be a woman by many ancient civilizations. Many would go on a conspiracy trip and point out that it was a divine revelation or something. Then again, how much does the lunar cycle last?
 * St. Valentine's Day is on February 14th. This may be just a simple coincidence, but when you think about it February has only 28 days. What happens in the middle of the menstrual cycle? Women ovulate and are more horny.

Professional Wrestling

 * The Royal Rumble 2010. Triple H was number 8. H is the 8th letter of the alphabet, it was 8 years since the Royal Rumble was held in Atlanta, Georgia, and 8 years ago, Triple H won the Rumble.
 * Remember Sid's infamous promo "Half a man the man that I am and I have half the brain that you do"? Most people thought that Sid actually botched the promo but here's where the Fridge Brilliance comes in. He's talking to both Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. So technically, he does have half the brain that they do.
 * The PG-era in general. Back when first enacted, they'd literally stop the match if someone was bleeding to patch them up and wrestlers would apologize immediately after shows for using words like ass. Now that they've let up on these restrictions in 2011, it's become shocking again when wrestlers say ass or douchebag (see CM Punk) and the few times when wrestlers bleed make huge impacts in storylines (see Cody Rhodes).
 * Some people wonder why Stone Cold Steve Austin turned in the first place in 2001. However, the Shocking Swerve doesn't seem so shocking you realize (A) Austin lost a grueling final battle against Triple H, the man who had him run over by a car and took him out of action for nearly a year and (B) Vince McMahon appointing his then-wife Debra as the manager of his Wrestlemania opponent The Rock against any of their wishes, which resulted in Austin being unable to protect her from an Ankle Lock from Kurt Angle. Austin's line of "I need to win this, Rock" was him crossing the Despair Event Horizon meaning, days away from Wrestlemania and the most important match of his comeback from neck surgery, Austin looked weak. Austin's stare in his locker room shortly before his match taking place was him after making the deal with Vince McMahon.
 * Likewise, this can seen as the ultimate victory for Vince McMahon after being humiliated by Austin in two Wrestlemanias over the past three years. Vince's appointment of Debra as The Rock's manager was a way to weaken Austin and play off his insecurities over not defeating Triple H. Since Vince couldn't beat Austin, he made Austin join him.

Radio

 * The summer-2011 jingle for Quebec radio station Rythme FM was "Ça me fait du bien" ("It does me good")...which can also be heard as "Summer fait du bien".

Sports

 * In NFL football, one of the most bitter rivalries are between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins. It's also amazing if you think about the historical side of respective names of the two teams. Cowboys had always been one of the most iconic representation of the American pioneers and settlers who went to the Wild West. On the other hand, Redskins (or Indians or Native American, take your pick) are the native people of the Americas. Historically, the American pioneers tend to get into conflict with the indigenous people of the land. So the name Cowboys and Redskins are actually fitting names to show the bitter rivalries between the two teams.
 * Consider further that until the Dallas Cowboys came around in 1960, the Redskins were the main NFL team for the South in a league with mainly East Coast and Midwest roots (do note that the public idea of the border between Yankee and Southern culture is has shifted southwards in the past century - until recently Baltimore and Washington were considered Southern cities in culture, and there is a reason the Mason-Dixon Line is the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania). When the Dallas Cowboys came around, they suddenly had competition.
 * Trevor Bayne winning the 2011 Daytona 500 has a few examples of this.
 * NASCAR had put in place a rule where drivers could only compete for one championship (Hoping to limit the number of Sprint Cup drivers competing in the Nationwide Series). Over Speedweeks Sprint Cup drivers won both the Camping World Truck Series (Michael Waltrip) and Nationwide Series (Tony Stewart) races. Bayne, competing as a full-time Nationwide Series driver, wins the Sprint Cup Series biggest race with a part-time team with partial sponsorship.
 * Also this was Bayne's second race, tying the record for fewest starts to a first win with Jamie Mc Murray, who won the same race in 2010.
 * Speaking of NASCAR: that double yellow line that you can't make a pass under at Daytona and Talladega? It's the same double yellow line you can't cross to pass slower traffic on civilian roads!
 * In Chess, when going over a Grand Master's game around move, say 12, a bishop will move to a square that has no reason for immediately. Then at the end, that "misplaced" bishop will be vital where it is.