Ignore the Disability

"''"Suppose you're carefully warned not to mention Bill Fields' nose."

You keep repeating that to yourself 'Don't mention the nose.' The words, eventually, fail to make sense. If you met Fields, you'd probably say, quite unconsciously, 'Hello, Mr. Nose.' See?" "-- Professor Rutherford, [[Henry Kuttner Nothing but
 * undefined"

Gingerbread Left]]''

The cast is about to meet an important person with a peculiarity or disability, such as a wooden leg or an extraordinarily large nose. One of the cast who is in a position of authority exhorts the others not to comment on the guest's unusual feature, lest the guest [[Berserk Button take it as an insult.]]

When the guest arrives, some member or members of the cast -- usually children or ditzes -- come close to commenting, but to the relief of the exhorting character they say nothing. But as soon as they are out of sight the character then turns to the guest and blurts a Freudian Slip that delivers the very insult he was afraid the others would give.

This is merely the television version of a much older joke; Louis Untermeyer's 1946 humor anthology A Treasury of Laughter includes a version dating to the 1930s (if not earlier) casting 19th-century financier J.P. Morgan (and his prominent nose) as the guest, a young Anne Morrow (the future Mrs. Charles Lindbergh) as the exhorted child, and Morrow's mother as the authority figure who embarrasses herself.

Compare Freudian Slippery Slope.

Advertisements
towards a door, the wife turns to her husband "...And furthermore, Aunt Whatever is rather sensitive about her mole". Cut shot to doorbell, and the door opening. "Husband: Hi Aunt Mole! [cue Oh Crap face]"
 * Done in a Southwest Airlines commercial. A couple is seen heading

Film
Mismatched Eyes, and struggle to avoid mentioning it ("Yes sir, I'll remember to cross the T's and and dot the... uh... lower-case J's."). mole in Austin Powers in Goldmember. Eventually, Number Three encourages Austin to just get it out of his system. is used. "Number Three: By the way, I realize that I have a large mole"
 * In Waynes World 2, Wayne and Garth encounter a man with
 * Sticking with Mike Myers movies, the whole thing with Number Three's
 * The lampshade hanging happens right away, the very first time the gag

on my face... "Austin: ...where?

Number Three: I also realize the"

Irony that I am myself a mole. "Austin: No one... would make that connection."

View from the Top. His character, John Whitney, has a lazy eye and when one of the flight attendants is being interviewed by him, she has a hard time not mentioning the eye at all. Finally, she slips up at the end and as a result does not get the job. "Whitney: Does anything frighten you?
 * To continue with Mike Myers films, there's another good example in

Preston: Oh, you mean the eye?"

goes to see the principal of his niece's school, who has a large mole. At first, he merely flubs what he's trying to say, such as introducing himself as "Buck Melanoma." But when the principal makes the mistake of insulting his niece, he drops all pretense of ignoring her mole: "Take this quarter, go downtown, and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face. Good day to you, madam." "Would you like a little wine with your nose?" Logan not to mention Dukes' extreme weight gain, as he is sensitive about it. The very first thing that Logan says is "Hey, [[Freudian Slip Fat- uh, Fred]]!" It's clearly accidental, but as Dukes doesn't seem to care, Logan continues doing it on purpose, calling him "Slim" and the like. Logan doesn't hit the Berserk Button until he uses the word Bub, which Dukes mishears as Blob. [[Continuity Nod The joke here is that Fred Dukes is a long-standing Marvel Comics villain, who uses the identity "The Blob".]] the family Nick and Nora are serving dinner (for a Summation Gathering) are all a little... eccentric. Nora says one of the funniest lines in film: "Waiter, will you please serve the nuts? I mean, will you please serve the guests the nuts?"
 * Happens in Uncle Buck, where John Candy, playing the titular uncle,
 * Happens in Steve Martin's Cyrano De Bergerac remake Roxanne:
 * Used in X Men Origins Wolverine, with a twist. Wraith warns
 * In the first The Thin Man, it becomes increasingly obvious that

Literature
"Wigan (n.) \\"
 * From The Meaning of Liff:

If, when talking to someone you know has only one leg, you're trying to treat them perfectly casually and normally, but find to your horror that your conversation is liberally studded with references to (a) Long John Silver, (b) Hopalong Cassidy, (c) The Hokey Pokey, (d) 'putting your foot in it', (e) 'the last leg of the UEFA competition', you are said to have committed a wigan. newsreader with a Dodgy Toupee, who kept getting stories about the town of Wigan or the politician Lord Wigg. A Song of Ice and Fire where if you are a bastard (born out of wedlock), everyone mentions it. If you are crippled, it won't be spoken about with sugar; and resident dwarf Tyrion mentions being short more than anyone else, especially to prove a point about being thin-skinned to said Heroic Bastard. Of course, this is what you might expect from a Crapsack World. Sedaris mentions how his older sister started wearing baggier clothes after her father-in-law, noticing her scooting away from the fireplace, asked, "What's the matter, Lisa? Getting too fat? I mean, hot! Getting too hot?" Johnson filled?" Gorbachev's forehead. Knot]] mentions "sights" in front of a blind mutant, then quickly apologizes. Flas isn't bothered by the comment at all. a cabbage as a hat. Other characters slip and slide about the matter, until one woman straightforwardly observes to his face that it's mad.
 * The UK edition claims that the word has its origins in an ITV
 * Completely ignored, Subverted and Lampshaded in
 * In an essay from Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David
 * Emily from Emily of New Moon: "Hello, Mr. Cup. Would you like your
 * Dave Barry did a version of this joke involving the mark on Mikhail
 * At the beginning of Piers Anthony's Mute, [[It Is Pronounced Tro PAY
 * In GK Chesterton's Tales of the Long Bow, a character wears

Live-Action TV
turns out to be a little person. Blanche and Dorothy are both extremely uncomfortable about this, but decide to conceal that fact out of friendship. Blanche comes out of the kitchen and offers Rose's date a plate of hors d'oeuvres by saying "Shrimp?" then turns tail and walks rapidly right back into the kitchen. very reluctantly -- that she is serving "short ribs" for dinner. introduces himself. Upon hearing his last name, Blanche brightens up and exclaims, "Dorothy, Rose is going to be all right! Her doctor is a Jew!" Dorothy rebukes Blanche for the comment, and then immediately asks, "How is she, Dr. Jew?" Fawlty Towers, Basil exhorts his staff not to "mention the war" (i.e. World War II) to a group of German guests, [[Justified Trope and as the stress of the plot (and a concussion suffered earlier in the episode) gets to him]], eventually finds it impossible to talk about anything else, climaxing in [[Crowning Moment of Funny a memorable Hitler impression]]. This is so well-known that "Don't mention the war!" is a common phrase in the UK and Australia. "German Guest: Will you stop talking about the war?\\"
 * On an episode of The Golden Girls, Rose brings her date home and he
 * It doesn't stop there: Shortly thereafter Dorothy announces --
 * "Can I take your height- HAT?"
 * In another episode, when Rose needs to be hospitalized, the doctor
 * It doesn't always have to be a physical defect. In an episode of

Basil: Me? You started it!\\ German Guest: We did not start it!\\ Basil: Yes, you did! You invaded Poland! Sean Lock fell afoul of it five times (including a trick question meant to invoke the forfeit), Alan Davies once, and Jo Brand once (while trying to call out Stephen for the same; she got the war wrong in this case). about whom Basil and Sybil had to struggle to avoid referencing the height of. "Sybil: What would you like to drink, Mrs. Small? Hall!\\"
 * Naturally, it was a forfeit in the Germany episode of QI.
 * There was also a notably short lady in the episode "Gourmet Night,"

Basil: Yes, a tall or a...not..quite...so tall? Basil to introduce Mr. Twitchen. Mr. Twitchen: It's pronounced Twy-chin, actually. Star Trek the Next Generation, Captain Picard orders the crew to stop referring to the unpopular Lieutenant Barclay as "Broccoli," and further orders Chief Engineer Geordi LaForge to work with Barclay and help raise his self-esteem. Later, after Barclay makes a breakthrough in determining the cause of various shipboard malfunctions, Picard is pleased with his progress and tells him, "I'll look forward to your report, Mr. Broccoli." as Riker does one of his trademark grins, but the look on Patrick Stewart's face is classic. I can't really describe it; [Atf 9 JLXY]&feature=related you have to see it for yourself.]] it was a simple pronunciation transposition error- "Barc":"Brac"- and for once realizes it wasn't helping at all and that it might be a good time to find a control panel to be unusually interesting. Everyone decides not to talk about it, but Mrs. Howell then says she'll have a "hard bald egg". neighbour Susannah's lithp. I mean, lisp. embarrassingly contagious... Dougal]] not to call the Bishop by his first name or mention his (illegitimate) son. What does Dougal say on meeting His Grace? "Hello Len, how's the son?" Croque, not to comment on Napoleon's height. The audience is led to believe that it will lead to this trope, but Jack's tell-it-like-it-is nature turns it, and he comes right out and calls Napoleon shorty. "Interviewer: From the world of the theatre we turn to the world"
 * Also, her husband Colonel Hall has a facial twitch making it hard for
 * In the "Hollow Pursuits" episode of
 * In this scene: After Picard realizes what he's said, Jonathan Frakes
 * He makes a D: face.
 * Then Data tries to help by pointing out
 * On Gilligans Island, Gilligan becomes bald for one episode.
 * Happens in one episode of The Adventures of Lano and Woodley, with
 * Truth in Television - Thpeech Impedimentth can be extremely and
 * Done gloriously blatantly in Father Ted when Ted tells [[The Ditz
 * Spoofed in Jack of All Trades, Jack is warned urgently by
 * A Monty Python's Flying Circus example, from episode 24.

of dental hygiene. No, no, no, no. From the world of the theatre we move to the silver screen. We honour one of the silver screen's outstanding writer-dentists... writer-directors, Martin Curry who is visiting London to have a tooth out, for the pre-molar, er... premiere of his filling, film next Toothday... Tuesday, at the Dental Theatre... Film Theatre. Martin Curry talking to Matthew Palate... Padget. "Interviewer: Martin Curry, welcome. One of the big teeth... big"

points that the American critics made about your latest film, 'The Twelve Caesars', was that it was on so all-embracing a topic. What made you undertake so enormous a tusk... task? "

Interviewer: ...well, let's have a look at a clip in which"

Julius Incisor...Caesar talks to his generals... out that their new neighbors, a man and wife, refer to the man's penis as "Little Winston." The next time they have the couple over for dinner, Jim offers a tray of small sausages and asks if they'd care for -- you guessed it -- a Little Winston. he develops a complex etiquette for his friends for fear they might offend them. However, when the time comes to take the picture he shouts: "Everybody say 'midget'!" Tupperman with a very bad toupee. Although she's distracted by it, she manages to get through the conversation without mentioning it...until the end, when she accidentally calls him "Mr. Toupee-man." example, when Jerry is dating a woman with a very large nose, nobody says anything about it until Kramer walks in and comments on it nonchalantly. "Roz and the Schnoz." Roz is pregnant, and Frasier plays host to the birth father's parents, who, unknown to anyone (including themselves), have extremely large noses. It doesn't help matters that they keep unwittingly setting up nose-related puns: "We have a couple of giant schnauzers." [7 cl Rr O Cs EA]&feature=player_embedded Just go watch it.]] , Dwight uses his notes on his sales clients, which have detailed notes about their families and personal lives on different colored stickers. Dwight tries to chat up a client using something in green ink -- "1 son, gay" -- and turns out that all of Michael's client notes are about the things he shouldn't say to their faces, in an attempt to avoid this trope! "Michael: Green means "go ahead... and shut up about it." Orange"
 * In an episode of According to Jim, Jim and Cheryl accidentally find
 * An episode of Boston Legal had this with a witness who had a glass eye.
 * On The Odd Couple when Felix photographs a family of little people,
 * In one episode of Wings, Fay helps a passenger named
 * Kramer on Seinfeld always manages to avert this trope. For
 * Frasier plays with this spectacularly in the episode
 * The fifth season of The Office brings us a variation: After Michael

means "Orange you glad you didn't bring it up?" Pretty much every color means don't say it. who had been using Michael's stolen client notes. By going after Dwight's biggest client whom he remembered he had some colored notes info and taunting Dwight about it, he was certain Dwight would try and use that information, invoking the trope full force and making him lose the account. completely wrecking her day and thus going to the Witchs' Council to ask them to reverse the time back to the previous one. The leader of the council is Drew, and her aunt, his ex-girlfriend, warns Sabrina not to stare at his mole. It's a literal one. after Rebecca gave him the advice not talk about anything stupid, like his pants, lest he start apologizing about it and eventually end up singing and dancing about it. Inevitably, when he meets the president of the company, the first thing he says is "Nice pants!" It all goes downhill from there. Sammy Davis, Jr.]] on All in The Family has Archie successfully keep Edith from saying something stupid to Davis, then promptly do so himself. "Archie: "Do you take cream or sugar in your eye?""
 * This was a rather sneaky Batman Gambit of Michael to trip up Dwight
 * The first episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch has her
 * Norm's dream job interview in Cheers went exactly like this
 * The first appearance of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Davis_Jr

Kelso gets his coffee splashed onto his face, and, when J. D. runs into him later on, his face is covered in splotches. "J. D.'s internal monologue: Oh, my god. Do not say"
 * During the Cold Open of the Scrubs episode 'My Karma', Dr.

'splotchy'.\\ J. D.: [Good splotchy, Dr. Splotchy.]

Newspaper Comics
was defensive about his height. This led to the following conversation. "Dilbert: Hi, Les.
 * An old Dilbert strip featured a short engineer named Les, who

Les: You say that almost mockingly. The way you say it, my name"

sounds like "less". I've told you a thousand times, my name is French - pronounced "Lez". "Dilbert: You seem a little short-tempered.

Les: Hey! That time you did it on purpose!"

bad luck a friend has been going through. "Sherman: Please pass the hook in the mouth."
 * Shermans Lagoon: Megan tells Sherman not to mention the string of

trying to do things for him. In fact, the whole reason Luis fell for Jenny of all people is that she alone ignored his wheelchair, even forgoing designated parking spaces.
 * In Safe Havens, Luis got annoyed at meddlesome Samantha always

Professional Wrestling
publicist. In her first appearance Melina told M and N that Jillian had a mole on her face and not to mention it. Jillian comes in and we see her only from profile, and we see MNM stare at the mole - but they successfully refrain from saying anything. It is revealed later in the episode that the mole covers most of the left side of her face. Later the Boogyman ate it off her face.
 * Before Jillian Hall become a Hollywood Tone Deaf singer she was MNM's

Stand-Up Comedy
Charles, in which he kept asking Ray why he had all the lights off in his hotel room.
 * Bill Cosby had a routine in his standup about a conversation with Ray

Videogames
"Tali: Commander, this is admiral Koris vas Qwib Qwib. (aside)"
 * Mass Effect 2:

Do not ask about the name. "Commander Shepard: You have a ship called the Qwib Qwib?

Tali: Oh, here we go."

no offense at the name, and even states that though he has thought of requesting a transfer to another ship, he would never leave the Qwib Qwib. link is that, being a daughter of a different admiral, she has probably already heard more than enough about the ship for one lifetime.
 * Though it doesn't turn out as badly as one would think. Koris takes
 * This isn't really Tali not wanting to offend Koris so much as it

Webcomics
[Luna's first impression of him] by mentioning her tusks this way. Pun and pops them off constantly. In this particular case it was just the wrong subject to pick. references to Florence (a sentient wolf), Niomi [promptly sticks her foot solidly in her mouth]. The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob seems to be that Molly the Monster is a deformed human. Ms. Hatbrim even addresses her as, "Hi, Bob's Friendly Deformed Niece!" When it's pointed out that she has "claws, fangs, and a tail," the stock response is a polite, "Well we all try not to stare..." Earth not to comment on his mother's appearence. Turns out she has a moustache (she's a [Sealeo])...spoiler:and Earth ends up exploding from keeping comments about it in his system. this strip (Zoë is wearing a wig, but she hadn't been a few minutes before, when Torg saw her without).
 * In Dominic Deegan, Gregory manages to blow
 * Though really, that's just the fact that Gregory's a master of the
 * In Freefall, just after admonishing Tangent about dog
 * General consensus among the townsfolk in
 * In Star Guys, when Neptune's parents come over to visit, he asks
 * Torg from Sluggy Freelance is famous for this, as exemplified in

Western Animation
say anything about Tom Tucker's son's facial deformity (it's upside down). While they are talking, Brian inadvertently says "This whole thing has really just turned Chris' life upside-down face." even seem to notice. "It's no problem of mine if it's turned his life upside-down face." goes on and on about how his girlfriend with a gimpy leg is visiting, and repeatedly tells Brian not to mention it. It's basically one painfully obvious set up for this joke. Then Quagmire leaves and Stewie shows up. After a minute of conversation between Brian and Stewie, the girl shows up and it's Stewie who says "Oh my God, what happened to your leg?" The girl runs out crying, and Quagmire follows her shouting "Dammit, Brian!" if you like movie trivia, I got one that will stump ya...aaaaah....of course you're probably not into tibia-Trivia!...aaaah...Boy, that global warming, hm? They say we lost a foot of snow last wint-aaaaah...Hey! How about another beer? I bet you like the taste of hops..aaaaah.....You only have one leg, sir." dead fetus]] hanging off the side of her head, is invited to a dinner party at the Brofloskis' where this memorable exchange takes place; "Mr Mackey: (Talking about the school's softball team) I don't"
 * Done in an episode of Family Guy, where Brian warns Stewie not to
 * Subverted when Tom Tucker doesn't take offense at the comment, or
 * Played with in another episode. Brian is staying with Quagmire, who
 * And again when Peter is talking to a man with one leg: "Alright well
 * In South Park the school's Nurse Gollum, who has a [[Dead Baby Comedy

think they have much of a chance, the Denver team always win m'kay. "Gerald: Maybe so but I think our boys might have the dead fetus"

to win-HEART!! "Sheila: *Clobbers him* Gerald, keep your damn mouth shut!!"

Real Life
this article. describes how she was once going to talk to a class of children and she just knew the grownups were going to hush up the kids and insist they not stare at her prosthetic legs or acknowledge them in any way, which would largely defeat the purpose of her coming to talk. So she made the teachers agree to give her ten minutes with the kids completely unadulterated before the adults were even allowed in the room, so the kids could ask all the questions they wanted.
 * Truth in Television, according to
 * Deliberately subverted by Aimee Mullins; at a TED talk she gave, she