Hold Your Hippogriffs

"Gabe: This jackass just said that something can go "through a ferrocrete bunker like a neutrino through plasma." I get it, man. It says Star Wars on the cover. I know I'm reading about Star Wars. It's like, do they not have butter in space? Or hot knives to cut it with?

Tycho: Listen, don't get your mynocks in a... sarlacc."

- Penny Arcade, 2008-7-23

The author uses a popular and/or modern phrase in a work of Speculative Fiction, and adjusts it to the setting by replacing certain concepts with their more-or-less appropriate counterparts. Works as a sort of Shout-Out to make the reader/viewer more at home in the world, while at the same time highlighting the difference; it can also be used to disguise swears. Can backfire if the adjustment comes off as too arbitrary (e.g., if the proverb refers to concepts that should exist in the speculative setting as well).

At times these are specific to an exact scene, too. The replacement concepts can be tailored to characters and current action, rather than being a common phrase of its own. A cop with an antagonistic relationship to his Imperial liaison can sardonically say the liaison's investigation team got past security like X-Wings go through a Death Star. In this way it can overlap with Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?, though it can refer to past moments anywhere on the spectrum of awesome and suck.

Related to Call a Rabbit A Smeerp and Future Slang inasmuch as they're all about creating immersion through language use. The difference is that Hold Your Hippogriffs is, for one, not about words but phrases; for another, Hold Your Hippogriffs doesn't always create new words, although it can. It's also related to Flintstone Theming, but with fewer puns.

Supertrope of Oh My Gods. Not related to Call a Pegasus A Hippogriff. The inverse of this, when a word is replaced due to never having the chance to exist, is Orphaned Etymology.

Multiple Media

 * The Transformers:
 * "You can stuff it up your "
 * "Do you ever think you could be for something bigger?"
 * " over matter."
 * "Megatron?! The cruel and vicious Decepticon leader who eats Autobot for breakfast?!"
 * "I've got one in the ."
 * "Human! It's the Matrix or your "
 * "You'll have to pry it from my cold, "
 * "I'll tear out your "
 * Also used for Unusual Euphemism to get crap past the radar:
 * "What, is my hanging out or something?"
 * "Don't just stand there with your in your
 * "Kiss my "
 * "Whoa! What crawled up your "
 * "Go stuff it up your "
 * "Brilliant my "
 * "Blow it out your "
 * "Tell him to blow it out his "
 * That restaurant where the waitresses go around without
 * Bionicle:
 * "Hold your I'm coming!"
 * "All my friends went to Po-Koro, and all I got was this lousy "
 * "Like opening presents on "
 * "It's a load of "
 * "I have a feeling we're not in any more!
 * "He clapped his hands over his "
 * "Kill two with one stone."
 * "The on the other foot now!" (This one was Lampshaded, as another character tells the speaker that what he just said makes no sense.)
 * "The on the other foot now!" (This one was Lampshaded, as another character tells the speaker that what he just said makes no sense.)

Anime & Manga

 * Pokémon: "Hold your !"
 * "I'm so hungry I could eat a !"
 * "Maybe if you weren't such a big fat, we'd get to the boat on time!"
 * "When the fly."
 * Justified in that horses and pigs may not exist in the world of Pokémon, though "Hold your Ponyta/Rapidash!" would have made more sense. Plus Horsea is a really small Pokémon, so eating one wouldn't be all that satisfying either.

Comics

 * This is especially ridiculous in the Marvel Apes comics; "a uncle" is an idiomatic phrase, except there are no humans in the Marvel Apes universe. Literally none. A few characters are mutated into human-like forms, but humanity is by and large nonexistent.
 * René Goscinny liked using this trope in his comics:
 * In Asterix, typical French curses involving God are transformed into those which involve Roman and Gaulish deities.
 * Lucky Luke's intellectual horse says, when crossing a river, "And the told me not to bathe immediately after "

Fan Works
""FOR THE LOVE OF ""
 * In Pokémon fanfics, "Hold your !"
 * The fandom in general loves to swear to Arceus. Also an example of Oh My Gods.

""Eh... I'm sorry, I guess I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. (Should have I said "pony" there I wonder...)""
 * The Legend of Zelda Fanfiction and Fancomics tend to substitute the words "God" or "Jesus" with either "Nayru", "Din" or "Farore", depending on which one is the most "fitting". Especially striking in the fan-flash series Unknown Origin, where Original Character "Biggs" would often shout "For Farore's sake!!" or "Oh my Din!!" whenever something weird happens to Link.
 * A Very Potter Musical has "Oh my " and "Oh my "
 * A Hero, a crossover between Doctor Who and Puella Magi Madoka magica has Dalek Sec, who gives us "SON-OF-A- !"
 * In Turnabout Storm, while being stuck in Equestria, where they do this a whole lot, Phoenix actually wonders if he should start doing it himself.


 * Also used there for euphemism. Applejack, when referring to Trixie, calls her an "Attention Horse"

Films -- Animation

 * Balto:
 * "That's 'cause you're looking at the half empty"
 * "It's not exactly a one- show, Dixie."
 * "I'm sticking here until I'm sure you can stand on own feet.
 * "Balto, I was so scared, I got bumps!
 * A lot of Disney's humor is based on this trope.
 * Aladdin:
 * "Don't stand until the has come to a complete stop."
 * "Wake up and smell the " (which is ironic since coffee as we know it hails from Arabia)
 * "Mr. Doubting "
 * "That two-faced son of a "
 * "Hold onto your kid!"
 * "It never fails, you get in the bath, and there's a at the "
 * The Aladdin series also does this, with lines like "In a minute!"
 * Hercules
 * "Holy "
 * "Is this an audience or "
 * "Wanna buy a "
 * "The honest-to- truth."
 * Thebes is called the "Big "
 * "Keep your on, pal!"
 * "Someone call "
 * "That's it, I'm moving to "
 * "He's just another ambulance chaser."
 * "...but I could see through that in a minute."
 * The Little Mermaid:
 * "You're not getting cold now, are you?"
 * "You are such a "
 * "You give them an inch, they'll all over you."
 * "The is always greener / In somebody else's "
 * "Someone needs to nail that girl's to the floor."
 * "It's time Ursula took matters into her own "
 * The Lion King
 * "This child is getting wildly out of "
 * "I'm so hungry I could eat a "
 * Pocahontas
 * "It's enough to make your boil." (said by Grandmother Willow)
 * Mulan
 * "You don't meet a girl like that every "
 * "Who in her "
 * Dumbo
 * "Girls, girls, listen. Have I got a full of dirt."
 * Osmosis Jones: "You're pulling my "
 * "You saved my back there."
 * "I should be out in the fighting "
 * Happy Feet: "Can you speak plain please?" and "I'm speaking plain "
 * Toy Story has "Son of a " and "Save your "
 * Toy Story 2: "If the fits."
 * A Bugs Life: "Ladies and gentle of all  your together for the world's greatest bug circus!"
 * Cars:
 * "Ladies and gentle ..."
 * "His is showing."
 * "Float like a, sting like a ."
 * tipping.
 * RustEze Medicated Ointment.
 * "The loser will be stripped of all modifications and become... ... "

Films -- Live-Action

 * Planet of the Apes:
 * " see, do."
 * Considering that the whole franchise was a commentary about racism, you can't forget a line like "The only good is a DEAD "
 * Alexander manages to naturally do this, replacing phrases like "By God!" with "By Zeus!" or "In the name of the Gods!" instead of the singular, and other such things using ancient Greek-era things in place of more modern phrases and outbursts. A few times, it tends to get too clunky and usual, with things like "By Athena's Justice, this girl has spirit" that tend to be less artificial and more sticking out like a sore thumb.
 * Star Trek VI the Undiscovered Country had one of the military men threaten that if the Klingons declared war, "we'd clean their "
 * At the climax of Oh God You Devil, when the Devil (George Burns) loses his nerve in a poker showdown with God (also George Burns), God comments, "I put the fear of into you."
 * Star Trek V the Final Frontier Had Kirk mentioning "Moon over Rigel-7" as a potential campfire sing-along. When this movie was later riffed, Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy mocked the use of this trope with such song titles as I Left My Heart On Tau Ceti Five and I Have Thirteen Eyes For You.
 * Lord of the Rings "As the Nazgûl flies."
 * Justified, since they are actually talking about Nazgûl flying there.

Literature
"Wedge: [after a very agreeable breakup, and having said that he hopes she'll still consider him a friend] "Meaning you can still call on me. Send me messages. Send me presents.""
 * From Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy: "Wouldn't stand a chance in " Much to Arther Dent's confusion.
 * In The Integral Trees by Larry Niven, several characters use the expression "feed the tree," which means, "The words you are saying are a commonly used form of natural fertilizer."
 * The Trope Namer is Harry Potter; several of this expressions we hear from Mrs. Figg after she's revealed to be a Squib:
 * "Hold your "
 * "What's got your in a "
 * "No use crying over spilt "
 * "The cat's among the now."
 * "Wasn't enough room to swing a "
 * "Might as well be hanged for a as "
 * "Fell off the back of a "
 * "Son of a
 * This also doesn't make sense, as in-universe, this is basically "Son of a football".
 * Bludger has also been used in other contexts as a generic curse. Since the purpose of Bludgers in Quidditch is basically to impede and harm the players, it makes a bit more sense used that way than "football" would.
 * "God rest ye, merry " being sung by Sirius at Christmas in Order of the Phoenix. (This may very well have been Sirius messing with the words for his own sake, since he was attending on Buckbeak at the time.)
 * "Just yanking your "
 * "Get off his high "
 * "Which came first, the or the "
 * "You look like you've lost a and found a ."
 * In fact, in the Film, the band in one movie does a song pretty much entirely of this trope.
 * They also tend to refer to Merlin instead of God. Which makes sense, one supposes.
 * Rita Skeeter also once makes reference to a "bring and sale".
 * In the Discworld books, most of the examples of this trope are simply their setting-appropriate equivalents. E.G.:
 * "...guaranteed to have fallen off the back of " (Guards Guards)
 * "He's going to go totally " (The Fifth Elephant and The Truth)
 * "...as the said to the " (Witches Abroad)
 * "Crysophrase, he not give a about that stuff" (Men At Arms) and "I'm in deep right?" (Thud). (Trolls are living rock, and a coprolith is fossilised animal dung.)
 * "Been there, done that, bought the " (The Fifth Elephant)
 * Men At Arms has "...some Watchman blundering around upsetting things, like a loose ... a loose "; "...up without a paddle"; "Does a in the woods?" (although the original version is also in use); and "Like a fish needs a ..., sir."
 * "When the hits the " (Thief of Time and The Fifth Elephant)
 * "How many trolls does it take to change a " (Sourcery)
 * A weird one that started out as a Nanny Ogg malapropism in Carpe Jugulum, and then somehow became the accepted version of the phrase in later books is: "The leopard does not change his shorts." In Unseen Academicals, this phrase's complete meaninglessness gets lampshaded.
 * Another common mangled saying is "the worm is on the other boot", a mash-up of "the worm has turned" and "the boot is on the other foot".
 * The tendency of Honest Johns in UK media to call everyone "squire" (CMOT Dibbler does this) gets extended to other Discworld cultures, with a camel merchant who calls Teppic "emir" in Pyramids, and Disembowel-Meself-Honorably calling Rincewind "shogun" in Interesting Times.
 * Klatch's role as the "generically foreign" country to Morporkians means we get "Excuse my " and "That isn't mist, lad" (both by Ridcully in Soul Music).
 * A few aversions are lampshaded early on, when he notes that the use of the phrase "gypsies" is anomalous, given that there is no such thing as Egypt, but some words of place-name origin need to be kept for coherency's sake, so he's not calling them Djelibabes, as technically apropriate as that would be.
 * "This is a hell of a way to spend " (Hogfather)
 * "Now we're cooking with " (Interesting Times and others)
 * Trolls refer to "legends from the of time." Either because they're nocturnal (according to The Light Fantastic), or because they think we go through time backwards (according to Thud, based on a line in Reaper Man).
 * "Evil Emperor. Evil Empire. It did what it said on the .(Unseen Academicals)
 * "Couldn't expect to get away free" (Snuff)
 * There's more than one way of choking a than stuffing it with ." (Thief of Time)
 * The vampire culture in The Saga of Darren Shan: "In this and age"
 * The Star Wars Expanded Universe books:
 * "Out of the and into the "
 * Playing Advocate. Started in the X Wing Series, but other novels picked it up later.
 * Better the you know than
 * He was as green as on Lomiin-ale.
 * The Star Wars Holiday Special is largely cringed over and ignored, but a few things have worked their way into canon. Boba Fett, Chewbacca's family, and Life Day.


 * "These guys went through the estate's defenses easier than ."
 * It's not the work of but it beats bare walls.
 * Less chance than a
 * If one person calls you laugh it off. If two people call you start to wonder. If three people call you (Stackpole invents a lot of these.)
 * You look like something the dragged in.
 * How many Corellians does it take to change a
 * None. If the Light's out you can't see them cheating at
 * Speaking of which, there's no such thing as a "poker face". Instead, you'd have a "Sabacc face".
 * She took to it like a to
 * That one is strange, since they do have ducks. And water.
 * And because not all sarlaccs live in deserts.
 * If
 * This looks like a -run.
 * Also used: a "blue milk-run".
 * Stick the in and
 * The airspeeder dropped like a
 * The same character a few pages later said the same speeder "dropped like a rock", so "freefalling Hutt" was probably just for color.
 * As the smugglers say, we were putting all our in one.
 * Don't.
 * I get the.
 * I'll walk away, shedding my crimes like a sheds its skin.
 * In that case it was deliberate -- a criminal offered to hand over some crucial info in exchange for immunity from prosecution, money, and a way off planet, and was amused when an old enemy was sent to pick him up. He knew she needed the info and was too honorable to go against the deal, so he used this phrase to remind her that he had let the Trandoshan who had murdered a friend walk free.
 * This really came out of the
 * Alternately, it came out of the black, as in deep space.
 * "Like a through "
 * A similar but less arbitrary example from one of the Young Jedi Knights books: Lando says that a certain diamond drill can cut through durasteel just as easily as a laser can cut through Sullustan jam.
 * A particularly egregious one: What time is it when an steps on your Time to get a new
 * Wedge Antilles is said to have ice water in his veins and cold-space lubricants for blood.
 * "And then ask yourself if that doesn't make you look a bit like a ."
 * The Redwall books love these. Some examples include "the calling the " and "I'll bet you an apple to an acorn" (the equivalent of "dollars to donuts").
 * "If wishes were " (Also many creative insults, the best being "If brains were bread you'd have starved to death before you were born!")
 * "There's more than one way of " Weird, you'd think Ferahgo would love to talk about skinning things...
 * From The Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross, we have "Never bring a to ", and the ReMastered philosophy " them all, will know own".
 * The Hollows has several, such as "You look like the "
 * Lots in the Star Trek Novel Verse:
 * Like a out of (Klingon)
 * "If life hands you you've got to make " (Ferengi)
 * "Played me like a " (Trill)
 * "The share", and "like in an alley." (Both Romulan)
 * "The that broke the .(Human colonists on Deneva)
 * "If Ice Bores kill your Ailicorne, make Ailicorne steaks". (Andorian). There are also the Andorian axioms "Absence makes the heart forget" and "What goes around comes around...but with a sharper knife".
 * The Ferengi morality tale of "The Boy Who Cried Audit"
 * "Like Honge on fresh meat" (Cardassian). Also the Cardassian saying "the enemy of my enemy is also my enemy, but may prove useful".
 * "Sap and fog", for when Nasats are being dismissive.
 * "Screw with the Mugato, you're getting the horn".
 * "In a Tribble's eye!" (Which didn't need to be said, because McCoy uses the phrase "In a pig's eye!" in the original series).
 * Dragaera: In the book Issola, Lady Teldra makes a reference to Vlad engaging in "gray humor". This is the equivalent of what we would call "black humor"- the difference is that in the series, black is the color of magic and gray is the color of death.
 * They also have "how many X does it take to sharpen a sword?" instead of Light Bulb Jokes.
 * Warrior Cats does this quite a bit.
 * "When fly!"
 * "Don't be a scaredy- "
 * "Don't get your in a "
 * "That's a load of "
 * "You're "
 * "Cloudtail's is worse than his "
 * "We shall kill two with one as it were."
 * "Who in his ?"
 * "You look as if you've lost a and found a ."
 * A clever and appropriate use in Robert Heinlen's Starship Troopers novel, "...on the bounce." Its meaning ranges from along the lines of 'don't waste time' to 'stay alert', depending on the context it's used in.
 * Rosalie hisses "Over my pile of ashes" in Breaking Dawn.
 * In Insurrection (War of the Spider Queen series) one drow said "putting the cart before the lizard".
 * In Safehold, "kill the that the golden ."
 * Fridge Logic: But why would you kill the wyvern out of greed? Does it puke up the rabbit after fetching it? And they have chickens on Safehold, so why not geese? Why not just use another bird in place of the goose? Arrgh!
 * Also, "between the and the deep blue sea."
 * The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov: "built like a ." (If you're wondering about the practicality of a force-field latrine, note that that's the point of the original metaphor.)
 * The Automatic Detective loves this trope - among others, Mack, as narrator, once says that "Grey had me by the ", and use of "exhaust port" (as per the Transformers example) is a common stand-in for "ass" in all manner of expressions.
 * Guardians of ga Hoole does this a few times. Most common is the use of 'gizzard' in place of things like 'know in my heart' or 'bad feeling in my gut'.
 * "Are you "?
 * "Racdrops" is a common swear, short for 'raccoon droppings'.
 * "Glaux" is used in place of "God" ie "Great Glaux!".
 * H. Beam Piper: one book replaced "hot knife" and "butter" with "fast neutrons" and "toilet paper".

Live-Action TV

 * Charles Dickens in Doctor Who: "What the "
 * Oddly enough, the phrase "what the dickens" actually appears in Shakespeare's writing and has nothing to do with the author Dickens at all ("the dickens" = "the Devil"), but it would be even odder for Charles Dickens to say "what the dickens".
 * Star Trek Voyager has "I didn't want to be a third " (Ships in Star Trek almost always have an even number of warp nacelles, usually 2)
 * The Star Trek the Original Series episode "Amok Time" has one whose mundane equivalent isn't very common: "He's as tight-lipped as ."
 * Babylon 5 does this when Ivanova says to Sheridan, "What am I, chopped ?" ("Lines of Communication")
 * In The Suite Life On Deck: "Well I guess we're both up without a paddle!

Tabletop Games

 * Common in Vampire: The Requiem, e.g. " the world has changed."
 * And in Vampire: The Masquerade, where the end times are referred to as "The final nights". Or in Hunter: The Reckoning where one vampire prince references the eponymous hunters as The Final Knights.

Theater

 * Wicked: "Wait one ."

Video Games
"Sleazy Guy: Care to buy
 * The Fable series:
 * Just wait a Skorm-damn minute, you!
 * The Discworld game:

Rincewind: Where'd you get those?

Sleazy Guy: Fell off the back of a sir!"

"Kuun-Lan Fleet Command(agitated): Join the !"
 * The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass: Is Linebeck shaking over there?! He's such a !
 * One of the CDi games has "I'm so hungry, I could eat "
 * Wakka instructs Tidus over the course of Final Fantasy X to hold his chocobos. The Chocoboy of Final Fantasy VIII instructed Squall to do the same.
 * Zork: Grand Inquisitor has several characters exclaim "Holy Hungus!" and/or "Sweet Yoruk!"
 * Mass Effect 2 features an advertisement for a movie about "Blasto, the first hanar Spectre", whose trademark phrases are "This one has no time for your solid waste excretions" and "Enkindle THIS!"
 * When you first meet Legion, Tali mentions that a single geth would have no more intelligence than a wild varren. It makes more sense since varren are basically Space Dogs, and 99% of the characters, humans included, probably never saw a real life dog before.
 * Quarians in general use the term "Kee'lah" in place of "God" what the codex says about quarian religion., and "Kee'lah se'lai" is said at the end of certain discussions, including the hearing in front of the admiralty board. Replace it with "God be with you", and it's a perfect fit.
 * Mass Effect 3 reveals it to effectively mean "The homeworld which I shall one day see.", which is similar, given how mythical their homeworld is to the Quarians by this point.
 * Dwarven curses in the Dragon Age setting include "Go take a long breath out of a short shaft," which from context and phrasing probably means "Go die in a hole."
 * It might be a modification of "go take a long walk off a short pier", basically, "shut up" or "go f*ck yourself".
 * They also use "Nug-humping" where a modern person would probably use "Motherfucking."
 * In addition, there's the phrase "by the maker", as well as a few references to Andraste throughout both games.
 * The Megaman Battle Network series has quite a few of these, primarily in the first three games, where the translators were using Woolseyisms:
 * "I was ready!"
 * "You scared me half to "
 * "Prepare to meet your "
 * All over the place in Homeworld: Cataclysm. Some are reasonable, some are quite grating.


 * Tales of Monkey Island has got LOADS of them, though a few examples are:
 * "Davey J. Nipperkin doesn't go handing over his secret sources to every Tom, Dick, and that washes ashore!"
 * "Anyone up for a quick game of Five Card Follow the Hold 'Em?"
 * "The Club has a strict 'No No Service' clause."
 * "Talk to the hand, sicko, 'cause the ain't listenin'!"
 * "Accidentally, my "
 * "Does someone have a to your head?"
 * "...but that guy is -happy!"
 * "Just my two sir."
 * " to Betsy, could it be?"
 * "Hold onto your "
 * "Your honor, of the "
 * "...he seemed to think I could make a pretty off of your untimely execution..."
 * "Time is Captain."
 * " is in the eye of the beholder, Guybrush Threepwood."
 * "Tore through here like a outta hell, off into the jungle."
 * "Mo' money, mo "
 * "That witch is nothing but trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with and that stands for "
 * Hatoful Boyfriend has repeated uses of "every ".
 * In Star Wars the Old Republic, a Hutt remarks, "You say, I say ."
 * When playing Sim Ant, if the "Funny" captions are turned on, ants will often share gems such as "I've worked my ."

Web Comics

 * Footloose: "You've got about as much chance as "
 * The webcomic Skin Deep has at least one: "What's got your " (oddly enough, said to someone who doesn't have feathers.)
 * Vexxarr gives us this version.
 * "I'm such a plague-head!" from My Milk Toof.
 * Digger
 * "Hold your I'm coming."
 * "Never laid on one before."
 * "I don't give a "
 * "Don't the messenger."
 * " I'll make him regret the day he
 * Our Little Adventure has a few:
 * "For the love of the gods" replacing "For the love of God"
 * "For Stellina's sake!" replacing "For Christ's sake!"
 * "What in the three hells" replacing "What the hell"
 * "What on Manjulias" replacing "What on Earth" (at least when the creator remembers to change it.)
 * Homestuck plays this for laughs with the trolls, as part of the Expospeak Gag that is their biology and culture:
 * "You can glub ."
 * Karkat explaining a troll romance novel "THEIR DYNAMIC IS THE OF THE OVERALL ARC."

Web Original

 * Red Dawn Plus 20: Chebrikov Ate Sugar.

Western Animation
"Triton: What is going on?!"
 * In the The Little Mermaid animated series, disobedient children get.
 * Also:


 * The Jetsons: "That's the way the "
 * "Jumping "
 * The Flintstones: "That's the way the "
 * "Just a pickin' minute.
 * Pacman, the Animated Series: "Over my body!''
 * The Super Mario Bros. Super Show: "That's the way the "
 * Futurama has "You sound like a broken "
 * Beast Wars does this a lot, replacing certain lines in stock phrases with robotic related terms. Most famously replacing various expletives with "slag".
 * Transformers in general does this a lot.
 * My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: "Get your out of those books."
 * "You little "
 * "What the "
 * "Every/Any/Some/No " on many occasions.
 * "Old tale."
 * "Goody -shoes."
 * "Well, well, well, it seems we have some in the audience!"
 * "It's time to up and confront Zecora!"
 * Somewhat hilariously, "pony up" is genuine slang for "pay up," which changes the line's meaning a bit.
 * "Nopony else gives a flying !"
 * "Who in the is that?"
 * The UK trailers have "lend a helping ".
 * "You... get down here... this instant... young... "
 * The fandom also tends to use "flank" in place of "ass" or "butt", like "flank-hurt", "dat flank", or "badflank".
 * "Buck" is also commonly used instead of the similar sounding four-letter word, though at least one comic has noted the problems with that.
 * Maryoku Yummy: " the word."
 * Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers: Upon having to fight their way out of a Earth-government facility, running from the Space Navy, and learning they're headed for Tortuna. "Out of the and into the "
 * In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "The 's Always Greener": "A rolling stone gathers no "
 * A number of phrases on Miss Spiders Sunny Patch Friends (which focuses on the adventures of sentient insects and other bugs), but most particularly "hold your horseflies!"
 * The main character in Widget the World Watcher likes to replace words of common sayings by something space-based.
 * The Buzz On Maggie: Oh,.
 * Adventure Time: "Oh, my !"
 * "What the ?"
 * South Park has these in the "Go God Go" episodes, in the atheistic future, things like "Oh my !" and "What in name?".
 * ReBoot used computer jargon to get crap past the radar:
 * "Me and good old Frisket just kicked Megabyte's !"
 * "If you ask me, they're just covering their ."
 * "If you ask me, they're just covering their ."

Real Life

 * There was a story in Reader's Digest about a student of medieval history who explained she was far too busy to do something by saying "I've just got too much on my ."