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And Knowing Is Half the Battle (view source)

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== [[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]]s:
{{quote|'''Random Kid:''' "'Cause now we know!"
'''Random Joe:''' "[[Trope Namer|And Knowing Is Half The Battle]]!"<br />
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== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' -- the—the "Sailor Says" segments which were created solely for the North American dub.
** Some of these took ''extremely'' vague lessons out of the material. As [[That Guy With The Glasses|That Chick With The Goggles]] points out two good examples-- "[[It Makes Sense in Context|Today we saw buses vanish into thin air]]. If only we could make the smog that buses cause vanish into thin air, too! Even though we're just kids, we can carpool and make a difference." ...yeah. Another example given was that one episode had a lesson to believe in yourself and have confidence, because the episode was about an insecure artist who was afraid to draw what she really looked like because she didn't believe she looked good enough. The end of that episode included a reminder that [[Drugs Are Bad]].
*** Because artists take drugs. Right.
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* The "science lessons" in ''[[Gunbuster]]'' and ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'' may have been partly meant to parody such tags in series imported from the US, as they are something rarely if ever seen in [[Anime]] as it is broadcast in Japan.
** Though in [[Gunbuster]], relativistic time dilation also plays a major role in the plot of later episodes, so they had to explain it for the story to make sense.
* An anime which plays this straight is ''[[Mari and Gali]]'', which attempts to teach middle school students about scientific principles. Its makers still throw in a lot of slapstick and general silliness, so the result is [[Widget Series|rather strange]]--to—to say the least.
* ''[[Yakitate!! Japan]]'' ends each episode with a random factoid about bread.
* ''[[Moyashimon]]'' ends each episode with a segment teaching about a microorganism involved in fermentation featuring anthromorphic bacteria.
* ''[[Hikaru no Go]]'' ends episodes with a live-action segment that discusses actual Go strategy.
* ''[[Eyeshield 21]]'' ends each episode with basic safety tips for beginning football players.
* ''[[Harukanaru Toki no Naka de|Harukanaru Toki no Naka de - Hachiyou Shou]]'' has the [[Super-Deformed]] "Kotengu Classic" segments at the end of some episodes, with [[Small Annoying Creature|Ko]][[Sleep Mode Size|tengu]] explaining some facts about something specific mentioned in the episode -- sometimesepisode—sometimes these are quite useful, as the series takes place in the [[Jidai Geki|Heian Period Japan]] ([[Trapped in Another World|sorta]]), and knowing some basic facts about its culture certainly won't hurt.
** ''[[La Corda D Oro|La Corda d'Oro - Primo Passo]]'' does the same with "Lili's One-Point Classic" and music.
* ''[[Nyan Koi]]'' ends each episode with a segment called MewView, where the main character cats recap the episode in a humorous way, and then sign off with an "interesting fact" about cats.
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== Live Action TV ==
* Each major American network has their own version of these. The most well-known and often parodied are NBC's "The More You Know Segments", which featured celebrities of the time in [[Public Service Announcement|Public Service Announcements]]s. Notable parodies include:
** A special feature on ''[[The Office]]'' season 2 DVD, where the show's characters tell you important facts about life. Dwight informs viewers that he could survive on a wolf's diet, Jim tells you that the black jelly beans are bad, and Ryan tells you, if you're hanging out with your friends, and someone tries to sell you a $9 beer, just say no, because $9 is way too much for a beer. ''[[The Office]]'' [[Biting the Hand Humor|airs on NBC.]]
* ''[[The Daily Show]]'' parodies it with 'The Less You Know', a segment about censorship where the rainbow trail on the star logo is blacked out with redaction bars.
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** CBS has "CBS Cares".
*** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fun9s4lsPI8&feature=related Can't find that special holiday gift for the man in your life? Get him a prostate exam!] Not sure if this is [[Squick]], a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] or a [[Funny Aneurysm Moment]], but it's '''something'''.
** Fox has "Pause". ([[Incredibly Lame Pun|Get it?]]) The "Pause" segments are innovative because they are [[And Knowing Is Half the Battle]] clips that somehow [[What Were They Selling Again?|avoid imparting]] [[Lost Aesop|any knowledge at all]] except for the address of the segments' website.
* ''This Is the Life'' and virtually all of the now-disappeared religious anthology dramas that aired from the early 1950s through late 1980s. After the situation at hand reaches its resolution, an off-screen narrator (or sometimes, on-screen host, invariably a clergyman) will review a given situation, offer appropriate commentary and give a brief Scripture reading to recap the [[An Aesop|lesson of the day]].
* Indeed (through at least the early 2000s), many stations would offer a brief, pre-taped message from a clergyman from their broadcast area, usually an inspirational message or some other quick lesson on applying Christian values to daily life.
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== Radio/Music ==
* This trope is [[Older Than You Think]], as some old-time radio dramas did the same thing. ''[[The Shadow]]'', for one, sometimes offered in-character advice on how to properly operate and maintain a coal-burning furnace after an episode was over. This rather shamelessly combined [[And Knowing Is Half the Battle]] with [[Product Placement]], as the program's sponsor was a coal company.
* The Z-Trip, MURS and Supernatural song "Breakfast Club", being a love letter to Saturday morning cartoons, parodies several of these. "[[America Takes Over the World|Even in cartoons, Americana can't be tackled]], but at least you know now, [[And Knowing Is Half the Battle]]", "let a ho be a ho, and that's one to grow on", and such.
 
 
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* ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers]]'' was very conscious about ''averting'' it (making it a rarity among the [[Animation Age Ghetto]]). This became one of the reasons it attracted an [[Periphery Demographic|older audience]].
* ''[[Superfriends]]'' - safety tips, magic tricks, science projects, you name it. Probably set the tone for all the others.
* ''[[Superman: The Animated Series|Superman the Animated Series]]'' once put this trope to an interesting use for the opening of one of its episodes: it starts with a setup that might have come out of one of these [[PSA|PSAs]]s from an old Silver Age animated series with Superman flying in to rescue a kid whose friends have goaded him into endangering himself and giving the kids a little lecture on not giving in to peer pressure before flying away. Our first hint that something's out of place is that, right after he leaves, one of the less admiring kids mocks him for being such a stiff. Sure enough, {{spoiler|it turns out this is actually the first appearance of Bizarro, an imperfect clone [[Lex Luthor]] made using a bit of Superman's blood. The reason he comes off sounding so pompous is that he thinks he's Superman and is trying too hard to do what he thinks Superman typically does. In case we missed the hint, his next good deed for the day is rescuing Clark Kent and Lois Lane from a car crash, thereby alerting Superman to this odd twist of events as well.}}
* Several PSA segments were prepared for ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'', another Hasbro property produced by Sunbow and Marvel Productions concurrent with G.I. Joe. The segments even used the "and knowing is half the battle" line (and the scripts from the G.I. Joe PSAs almost VERBATIM), but they never aired. These were placed as unlockable bonuses in the [[Transformers Armada|Armada]]-based PS2 game, and are also available on some DVD releases of the show. The most hypocritical one had an anti-sexism message, at a time when there were no female Transformers, and came from Powerglide, who had an episode that season where a human woman fell in love with him (presumably, the PSA would have aired after that episode...).
** Parodied in an episode of ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' where Optimus Prime talks about prostate cancer.
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** Slow and steady wins the race, but it's faster to take a taxi.
** Don't go towards the light. Especially if it's a headlight.
** It's easy to be brave--frombrave—from a safe distance.
** If you can't say something nice, you're probably at the Ice Capades.
** Do not back up. Severe tire damage.
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** In another episode, the wheel landed on [[Wheel of Fortune|Bankrupt]].
** In yet another episode they lampshade the whole purpose of the wheel of morality mandates from the FCC.
*** Of course, at the end of [[The Movie]] ''[[Wakko's Wish|Wakkos Wish]]'', they finally got a real moral out of the wheel -- butwheel—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]].
{{quote|Yakko: Hey kids, playing with giant bugs isn't cool. If someone wants you to play with a giant bug, just say "No thanks!". That's cool!
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* This was used in ''The [[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' cartoon series (but not [[Sonic Sat AM|the one that aired on Saturday mornings]]) with a short '[[Xtreme Kool Letterz|Sonic Sez]]' segment every episode, where Sonic explained some sort of lesson (often safety related) to the viewers. Disturbingly, Sonic once took it upon himself to explain "good touch vs. bad touch" to the kids at home ("There's nothing more cool than being hugged by someone you like. But if someone tries to touch you in a place or in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable, that's no good!"). The Internet being what it is, this has spawned [[Memetic Mutation|various edits and parodies]], such as [http://mchammeradvice.ytmnd.com/ "Sonic Gives MC Hammer Advice",] which is the "touch" speech with parts of "Can't Touch This" edited in.
** listen to the mighty sloth and not take rides in clothes driers!
** And remember kids--ifkids—if you're surrounded by robots, don't call 911--that911—that's for ''real'' emergencies!
** 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".
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** 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]].
** "Kids, always recycle. TO THE EXTREEEEEEEME!"
* Spoofed at the end of the ''[[Kim Possible]]'' "Grande Size Me", where Ron delivers the moral of the episode to the audience at the end -- withend—with Kim and everyone else wondering [[No Fourth Wall|who on earth he is talking to...]]
** The whole episode was essentially a parody of these. The animators were informed that they absolutely '''had''' to do [[Executive Meddling|an Aesop-heavy episode about kids' health,]] so they complied, but tried to make it as deliberately [[Anvilicious]] and thus hilarious as possible.
*** Don't forget the [[Space Whale Aesop]]!
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** Which was a bit odd, given that interstellar space was depicted as containing [[Batman Can Breathe in Space|breatheable air]] and Earth-normal gravity throughout the show proper.
** In fact everything about that universe was divorced from our own laws of physics. This was a world where banging a tuning fork in space created wind and ice.
* ''[[Centurions]]'' -- Same—Same as above, except lecture style. Even [[Big Bad]] Doc Terror got to do two; one about "machines" (episode 14) and other about "computers".
* 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...
{{quote|'''[[Mr. T]]''': "If you believe in yourself, eat all your school, stay in milk, drink your teeth, don't do sleep, and get 8 hours of drugs - you can get work!"}}
* 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 -- aend—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—On a few [[Very Special Episode|Very Special Episodes]]s
* ''[[Mighty Max]]'' had a segment at the end of each episode with Max giving a brief fact related to the subject of the episode. One two-part finale, with Max still out with Virgil and Norman in a hellish setting, had Max's mother remarking on her son's choice of Dante's Inferno as reading material.<ref>When the series was shown in the UK, they were cut from [[The BBC|BBC1]]'s screenings but left intact on [[Nickelodeon]].</ref>
* ''[[Mister T (animation)|Mister T]]'' ([[The Animated Series]] starring [[Mr. T]]) puts both the moral in the action story--andstory—and then reminds the moral of the story in the tag. Not that the show was intended to bore kids to death. Mr. T [http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Mister_T/Mystery_of_the_Golden_Medallion.aspx spins crocodiles over his head]. And [http://mrtshark.ytmnd.com/ punches sharks].
* ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy]]'' parodies this in one episode. Erwin steals Grim's scythe and causes a lot of chaos with it. From their beaten up positions, two characters say to the audience "Remember kids, playing with scythes isn't cool or fun." "It's dangerous!" "So if you see a scythe, don't pick it up! Tell an adult immediately!" ...they then proceed to nod at the camera knowingly.
* In one early morning commercial on [[Nickelodeon]], Katara from ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' gives a lecture about swimming safety, and how you should always have an adult around. This is a ''horribly'' [[Broken Aesop]] considering these are the kids who do everything with the oldest member being fifteen, from world travel, to swimming, to fighting, to [[Refuge in Audacity|completely unpunished]] [[Flopsy|insurance fraud]]. Also [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|Toph farts in the pool]].
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** Interestingly, Season 1 of My Little Pony has the EI rating, while season 2 does not. The production team apparently decided this change of rules ''awesome'', and thus made "Lesson Zero", an episode where Twilight is unable to learn a new lesson about friendship and [[Sanity Slippage|goes a little nuts]]. At the end of the episode, Princess Celestia tells Twilight she only has to write letters when she feels she has learned something and not all the time, effectively freeing this from being mandatory. This hasn't stopped the end-of-episode aesops as they still show up in subsequent episodes afterwards, but interestingly, though, fans and staff liked the idea so much that the writers also utilized the opportunity to allow ''other'' members of the mane cast to occasionally write their own letters to the Princess.
** This is given a hilarious subversion in [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2/E15 The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000|one episode]], where Applejack writes a letter just to brag that she already knew the Aesop.
* Spoofed in a ''[[Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law]]'' episode about heroin--erheroin—er, tanning creme addiction, with Peanut as [[Elton John]] and Reducto as Jennifer Grey.
* Every episode of ''[[Rescue Heroes]]'' would end with the characters recapping the lessons learned earlier in the episode. These typically were reduced to restating the emergency situation of the episode, telling you how it should be dealt with, and ending with the <s>clever</s> annoyingly cheesy phrase, "Think like a Rescue Hero. Think safe."
* Occasionally parodied in the ''[[Sam and Max Freelance Police (animation)|Sam And Max Animated Series]]'', in their "Our Bewildering Universe" shorts. A great example is "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_SEInSqOmM Chock Full O'Guts]", a short as unnecessarily gory as network standards would allow a kid's show to be, in which they claim to be teaching the viewer about the body, but instead play a heart like a bagpipe, throw intestines around and explain that the pancreas's function is to be a paperweight.
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== Real Life ==
* Frequently applied by teachers. Sometimes, the teacher will wrap up the school day by recapping a lesson from the day, or give information that could affect the students the next day (e.g., "Don't forget the permission slips for the field trips. If they're not signed, you don't get to go to the zoo.")
* Many small-town newspapers still have columns where local clergymen -- usuallyclergymen—usually, on a rotating basis -- willbasis—will provide insight on issues affecting Christians, or perhaps the community at large, along with the requisite Scripture.
 
----
''You know, we've had a lot of fun today. But you know what's not fun? [[Red Link|Red Links]]s. G'night!''
 
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