And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

'''Sora:''' The other half is shooting somebody.|'''''[[Ansem Retort]]''''' #120}}

== [[Trope Namer]] ==

* The name comes from the moral tack-ons from the end of ''GI Joe'' episodes, with their own internal [[Catch Phrase|Catch Phrases]]:

'''Random Joe:''' "[[Trope Namer|And Knowing Is Half The Battle]]!"<br />

'''Chorus:''' "[[Title Drop|G.I. JOOOOOOEEEEEEE!]]" }}

** [[Sigmund Freud]] is spinning in his grave.

** Nintendo Power referenced this. They ran a shot in their preview of the new ''G.I. Joe'' video game of two members of the team getting ready to charge into battle, and underneath, the caption...

** This is actually [[Truth in Television]]: good intel is vital for military operations and, to a lesser extent, life in general.

* The ''GI Joe'' comic packs parodied these, with ads featuring kids in some sort of problematic situation and the Joes showing up to...tell them about their awesome new action figures.

* ''[[G.I. Joe Extreme]]'' also had PSAs, and even used the "Knowing is half the battle" line too.

* ''[[G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra]]'', rather impressively, makes this line a plot point briefly. It's also printed on a wall of the exercise room.

* ''[[G.I. Joe: Renegades]]'' drops this in as a [[Mythology Gag]] in the first episode as Cobra Pharmaceuticals ''corporate motto''.

== Film ==

* Parodied by ''[[Love Actually]]'':

* In ''[[Looney Tunes: Back in Action]]'', after Bugs Bunny explains the art technique of Pointillism, he says: "I think, when you go to the movies, you should learn somethin'."

* Steven Seagal's speech at the end of ''[[On Deadly Ground]]''

** It also parodied it with 'The More You Wish You Didn't Know' on a segment concerning the ACORN scandals.

* One of J.D.'s fantasies in ''[[Scrubs]]'' (also on NBC) parodies this with J.D. telling the audience why it's wrong to smother your kids, in a [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick|horrifyingly casual manner]]:

* The other three "big four" networks have their own answers to NBC's "The More You Know" PSAs. As for TMYK, the logo at the top of the page is no longer used; they use a different one now, still with the star motif.

** ABC had "A Better Community".

* ''[[Double the Fist]]'' gives us Mephisto Knows. Mephisto tells us about something he doesn't like such as Athletes, Vegetarians, and Traffic Signs.

* ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' ends one episode with a special message from Barney:

** The camera then pans away to show that he's not addressing the audience, but a girl in the bar, and the music cuts out as she rejects him. He immediately turns to another girl and begins the speech again.

* In the early seasons, all episodes of ''[[Power Rangers]]'' ended with "a message from the Power Rangers." Though not as frequent as before, Rangers doing a public service announcement or two has made a comeback in recent years (apparently, listening to your parents is as important factor in being a hero as far as the Overdrive Rangers are concerned... even though [[Broken Aesop|their Red Ranger became a Ranger by ignoring his father's prohibitions]] against his putting himself in danger that way).

** Sometimes other characters do this, like [[Francia Raisa]]'s character, Adrian.

* ''[[Kamen Rider Kiva]]'' had this invoked at the beginning of every ep, thanks to Kivat.

* The ''[[Clueless]]'' TV series once had one where the audience was earnestly told that the only safe sex is ''no'' sex.

* An episode of the ''[[Rotten Tomatoes Show]]'' had a Three Word Review that described the movie ''Knowing'' as "Half the battle".

* ''[[Police Camera Action]]'' started doing from 2007 onwards at the end of the show. Even the episode ''Ultimate Pursuits'' had one, although that could be considered as [[The Parody|a parody]] of ''[[Back to the Future (film)|Back to The Future]]'' (with the accompanying theme music). It's rare to see such things on a documentary...

* ''[[30 Rock]]''. At the end of the episode ''Gavin Velure'', Tracy's sex doll made a ''And Now You Know'' segment.

* Spoofed by ''[[The Late Late Show]] with Craig Ferguson'', which ends every episode with a segment named "What Did We Learn on the Show Tonight, Craig?" right before the ending credits. Quite often, the segment contains no lesson whatsoever, and on the occasion it does have one, it's never a serious one. "Lessons" have included a Spanish vocabulary word and "The kitten in the [[What Did We Learn on the Show Tonight, Craig?]] graphic is a computer animation, not a video of a real kitten."

** Craig Ferguson also parodies this trope and combines it with [[Biting the Hand Humor]] by frequently saying "CBS Cares" after giving some unhelpful advice. He sometimes combines this with a [[Spoof Aesop]].

** And parodied again in [http://www.homestarrunner.com/2manyknives.html An Important Rap Song], where Crack Stuntman (voice of Gunhaver on the Cheat Commandos) does a corny rap song about not playing with too many (some are alright, then?) knives (and spring break, [[Totally Radical|for some reason]]).

* In a [[Sonic Shorts]] Collaboration, one of the 'episodes' had this to parody the morals that used to be at the end of [[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]] cartoons, with an Aesop about Internet plagiarism.

'''Chorus:''' G I JOOOOOE! }}

* Parodied in a [[Transformers]] short on [[Newgrounds]] too:

'''Kids:''' YAY! }}

* Given the contents of the website, it seems only fitting that ''Encyclopedia Dramatica'' uses a variant of NBC's TMYK logo for their section, "THE MOAR YOU KNOW."

* Quoted in ''[[Chad Vader]]'', S2 Ep8 "Bandito Beatdown" :

'''Weird Jimmy''': "Well, knowing ''is'' half the battle. The other half is doing. Well, not half but [mutters]...65 for knowing [mutters] the doing is-is..." }}

* For some reason, ''[[Sonichu]]'' issue 10 has a message not to let your kids play M-rated games.

* Anything by [[Filmation]], including:

** ''[[Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids]]'' would invariably end their episodes with a musical performance by Albert and the gang, that would spell out the lesson of the day. They, along with [[Bill Cosby]]'s narrative asides, tended to make the lessons go down more smoothly than a lot of 70s cartoons did.

** ''The New Adventures of [[Zorro]]'' (the 1981 version) featured the title character giving an epilogue each episode about Spanish-American history (focused on California).

** ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe]]'' plus its [[Spin-Off]] ''[[She-Ra: Princess of Power|She Ra Princess of Power]]''. It was halfway-used in one episode of the 2002 version, where the Masters needed Orko to help lure a colony of dragons to attack monsters under the control of Skeletor. After that task was successful, the episode concludes with Orko admitting to his chagrin that he's still scared of the species, but the heroes reassure him that a proper respect for a fierce and powerful creature is the mark of a wise person. Here, the lesson flows relatively naturally from the plot and the fourth wall is kept intact.

* ''[[Heathcliff and The Catillac Cats]]'' and ''[[Pound Puppies]]'' -- Always about pet care or pet safety.

* ''[[Animaniacs]]'' -- Parodied with reckless abandon as the "Wheel of Morality" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_u05kUx1WQ "Wheel of Morality, turn, turn, turn. Tell us the lesson that we should learn!"]

** "Early to rise/And early to bed/Makes a man healthy/But socially dead."

** Possums have pouches like kangaroos.

*** Of course, at the end of [[The Movie]] ''[[Wakko's Wish|Wakkos Wish]]'', they finally got a real moral out of the wheel -- but given the film's goofy fairytale-ish nature, it was fitting. And also in song.

** This was also spoofed at the end of [[Power Rangers|Super Strong Warner Siblings]].

Yakko, Wakko and Dot: Right! }}

* ''[[Veggie Tales]]'' does this routinely. Sing along if you know it.

And now that our song is done we'll take a look! }}

* ''[[Clerks the Animated Series]]'' parodied this with a number of post-episode shorts, such as having Jay and Silent Bob present a ''[[Mr Wizard]]'' inspired magic-from-science segment. They showed a simple sleight-of-hand trick, with the twist that a key element of the trick required invoking the power of Satan.

** There is also that one PSA that had the bumbling villains Scratch and Grounder [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqVRCUBPc4E swigging booze] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZhM2m_dYBA smoking cigarettes]. But, you know, it was to encourage kids not to. Talk about [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]. "Hurry up, Grounder, I wanna try this booze!"

* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' played with this as early as the first-season episode "Bart the General".

** A later episode, "Bart Starr", had guest star Joe Namath break the fourth wall to deliver an inspiring message.

** A later [[Halloween Special]] provided a message about adult illiteracy.

** And then there was the episode where 'N Sync (of all people) delivered one about how mocking the U.S. Navy was wrong - [[Hypocritical Humor|although the characters had just spent the episode doing exactly that]].

* Spoofed in an ''Ambiguously Gay Duo'' animated short, from ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', in which the Duo present unintentionally [[Double Entendre]]-filled home safety tips. ("Grab the plug firmly by the male end and shove it right in. Don't play with it.")

** As long as we're on the topic of SNL...

* The otherwise obscure ''[[Back to The Future (cartoon)|Back to The Future]] The Animated Series'' was mostly remembered for that funny guy at the end -- a young [[Bill Nye the Science Guy|Bill Nye]] doing a science-related stunt, usually a do-it-yourself, at the end, sometimes related to the episode's events.

* ''[[Static Shock]]'' -- On a few [[Very Special Episode|Very Special Episodes]]

** There were. Amanda Carey (a.k.a. the [[Token Girl]]) is usually the one to explain the episode's lesson (there's at least one lesson for each episode). One notable exception was "Football Fugitives" where it was justified by the fact she wasn't involved in the episode's main plot. Surprisingly enough, she ''did'' explain the moral of an episode where she made no appearance at all other than the [[All Just a Dream]] episode "The Relegator". Napper explained the moral of another episode where it was left ambiguous if he dreamt the whole thing or not.

* The ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode "The Son Also Draws", (featuring an Indian casino) ended with the family acting racist towards a nationality stereotype, then immediately explaining why the stereotype is incorrect, with at "The More You Know" star showing up behind them. Then comes Peter:

** ''[[Family Guy]]'' does this several times. In "North by North Quahog" Chris gets caught drinking in the boy's bathroom and a [[G.I. Joe]] steps outta the stall and gives a lecture about drinking.

*** Specifically, it was Flint. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Voiced by the original actor.]]

* ''[[Liberty's Kids]]'', a public-broadcasting educational series set during the American Revolution, initially included pieces of bogus news, reported by [[Benjamin Franklin]], in the middle of each program. These interludes, intended to teach (very) young viewers about life in the 18th century, were cut from non-PBS broadcasts to make room for commercial breaks.

* Spoofed in the ending of the ''[[Duck Dodgers]]'' episode: "The Fudd":

* ''[[Spliced]]'' parodies this with ''Knowing is Growing''

* Spoofed multiple times in ''[[Yin Yang Yo!|Yin Yang Yo]]''.