Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking/Live-Action TV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking in Live-Action TV include:

  • The Batman TV series features a classic example in the form of List of Transgressions in the episode The Joke’s on Catwoman, part 2. At Joker and Catwoman’s court trial Batman lists their crimes as: “Robbery, attempted murder, assault and battery, mayhem, and overtime parking.”
    • King Tut makes one with "My Queen is disloyal,my maiden is a traitor, and everyone is being mean to me!(starts sobbing)" A royal breakdown indeed.
  • When the character Q appeared on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, he bemoaned the fact that Earth had been much more "interesting" in the past. "Crusades...Inquisitions...Watergate..."
  • Q appears again in a variation of this from the last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Picard: Are you saying that it worked? We collapsed the anomaly?
Q: Well, you're here, aren't you? You're talking to me, aren't you?
Picard: What about my crew?
Q: "The anomaly...my ship...my crew..." I suppose you're worried about your fish, too. Well, if it puts your mind at ease, you've saved humanity...once again.

"You know, Homer was blind. And Milton. Bach. Monet. Wonder..."

  • During a holodeck-related episode of Star Trek: Voyager, light-based aliens assume the Flash-Gordon-esque "Captain Proton" game is real and declare war on the fictional villain. The Doctor, acting as the President, has to get them to trust Paris / Proton and rattles off a list of his character's heroic accomplishments, ending with "and a competent medic, but don't tell him I said so."
  • "You're a traitor from a race of traitors, disloyal to the core, rotten like the rest of your subhuman race - and you've got the GALL to make love to that girl!"[context?]
  • During an episode of the first season of the original Get Smart series, a variation occurs between Max and a KAOS agent. Max: "Harvey Satan? Wasn't he convicted of arson, insurrection, treason and mass murder?" KAOS agent: "He got time off for good behavior."
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Principal Snyder states that there are things he won't tolerate in his school - students on the grounds after dark; horrible murders with hearts ripped out; and also smoking.
    • Snyder also cites the things juvenile delinquents get up to on Halloween - "Tossing eggs, keying cars, bobbing for apples..."
    • While enumerating ex-boyfriends, Faith has had "Ronny, deadbeat; Steve, klepto; Kenny... drummer."
    • When Anya laments her lost demon powers, she complains to D'Hoffryn: "And now I'm stuck at Sunnydale High. Mortal. A child. And I'm flunking math." (Though given her apparent facility with numbers in later episodes, this could be a real blow to her pride.)
      • Given that part of her demon powers seems to have included altering the universe so that the persona she'd assumed had always been part of it (no one questions her presence as a student, and she is able to do things that would require a social security number, driver's license, birth certificate, etc.), and considering that the alias she gets stuck in was one designed to move in Sunnydale High's Alpha Bitch clique, it's possible that she's failing math not because she herself is bad at it, but because it's something the person she was pretending to be would fail.
    • During "The Prom" Jonathan discusses the weird things that have occurred at Sunnydale High. The other students mention "Zombies!", Hyena People!", "Snyder!"
    • The show pokes fun at the concept in "I Robot, You Jane", when a demon is unleashed on the internet, the group surmises on the type of damage he can inflict:

Xander: He's in a computer! What can he do?
Buffy: You mean besides convince a perfectly nice kid to try and kill me? I don't know. How 'bout mess up all the medical equipment in the world?
Giles: Randomize traffic signals.
Buffy: Access launch codes for our nuclear missiles.
Giles: Destroy the world's economy.
Buffy: I think I pretty much capped it with that nuclear missile thing.
Giles: Right, yours was best.

  • iCarly: "Made of a super-soft, thick luxurious fabric of some sort, the Sack comes in: rash red, mucus green, pus yellow and blue."
  • Smartly subverted (sort of) by Only Fools and Horses. While on holiday in Spain, Del and Rodney get a call from Grandad that he has been arrested. They visit him in his cell and he tells them that during the Spanish Civil War he was a mercenary who used to smuggle guns for both sides (or in his words 'the ones that paid us the most'). He believes that they are going to put him on trial for these past crimes so Del bribes the guard to turn a blind eye and let them walk out. After taking Del's money, the guard tells Del that the charges have been dropped and Grandad is free to go. Flabbergasted, Del points out Grandad's past to which the guard replies that Grandad was actually arrested for... jaywalking.
  • During the fifth season of Angel ("Underneath"), Illyria recounts all the different worlds she walked through when she was Demon King: she saw worlds of pain and destruction, worlds full of opulent beauty, "...and one world filled with nothing but shrimp. I tired of that one quickly." (This is actually a reference to the many times Anya talked about alternate worlds in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and kept bringing up worlds without shrimp and worlds filled with shrimp.)
    • An episode later ("Origin"), Angel makes Spike figure out what Illyria's powers are. In the middle of the episode, Connor asks if she has any powers, and Spike says, "Glad you asked. So far, I've determined that she can hit like a Mack truck, selectively alter the flow of time...oh, and possibly talk to plants."
    • This becomes the subject of a Brick Joke in a later episode where, after having her power level significantly dropped, she muses to herself, while stroking an office plant, "I can no longer hear the song of the green." (Lorne's pretty sure she's not talking about him.)
    • And is revisited in the Season 8 comics, where the power actually helps her.
  • A number of shows have used this joke where someone will list the crimes and/or atrocities they've committed, and the last one is (to this extent) retransmitting a televised sporting event without expressed written consent of the sports league (opting instead for implied oral consent) -- a Take That on the warning every single major sports league gives during their game broadcast.
  • On Top Gear, presenters Jeremy Clarkson and James May are teasing each other about famous persons who have owned their classic luxury cars. May's Rolls-Royce Corniche has been the car of Elton John and other Camp Gay icons... but Clarkson's MB 600 Grosser has been owned by such notables as Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, "and Elvis Presley."

Hammond: So, uh... all these insects? Where are they?
Clarkson: You're frightened of insects?
Hammond: Yeah, it's like you <points at James> and heights; you're scared of falling off! It's a phobia.
James: <looks at Jeremy> So what's yours?
Clarkson: Phobia? Manual labour, you know that.

  • In Firefly, Shepherd Book warns Mal that taking sexual advantage of his wife via Accidental Marriage will find him a place to a special hell, usually reserved for "child molesters, and people who talk at the theatre."
  • Similarly , Laz in Life On A Stick claims his girlfriend has a hatred for old people, a hatred "most people have only for terrorists, serial killers and Jar-Jar Binks".
  • Chuck:

Emmett Milbarge the Buy More Efficiency Expert: I'd like to report the following violation of Buy More policy: misappropriation of the home theater room, after-hours consumption of alcohol, and lewd use of a musical montage.

  • In QI the last introduction and the last buzzer sound always is for Alan Davies, who accordingly gets insulted and gets a comical buzzer sound.
    • Including three rather hilarious occasions where Alan pressed the buzzer and the "obvious(ly wrong) answer" alarm went off.
  • When Bruce Forsyth introduces the four judges on Strictly Come Dancing (complete with witty descriptions), he usually finishes with Craig Revel-Horwood (known for being the nastiest of the judges) and insults him- recently describing him as "a bitter lemon".
  • Inverted once in an episode of Monk. Randy and Captian Stottlemeyer are discussing why a certain athlete cannot be a suspect and Randy names off one less important reason to remove any motive for the suspect to kill the victim, then says, "Number 2, he's dead," and the third, is that even if he were alive, he had moved to Europe in the late 1980s. The really funny thing about that is, he starts continuing to list them even after that one, but Stottlemeyer stops him.
    • In his defence, it wouldn't be the first time Monk had solved a case with a man believed to be dead. See "Mr. Monk vs. the Cobra," and Sonny Chow, the martial arts guy for that incident.
    • Played straight in the season three episode "Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever", when Natalie lists the consequences of Monk not staying in the car like she told him to: "Now we're in the middle of nowhere, my kid has to stay with my parents and she is missing a whole week of school, you've got some drug lord with a price on your head, plus you broke that guy's antenna!"
    • In Mr. Monk and the Man Who Shot Santa, when doing an inventory on the toys in the bad Santa's bag, Randy rattles off each item, which includes a walkie-talkie. Subverted in that the weak item is the Chekhov's Walkie-Talkie.
  • It doesn't quite fit the pattern, but both the British and American versions of Whose Line Is It Anyway? have the host announcing each of the players, prefacing each of their names with some sort of title, each title being related... until he reaches Ryan Stiles (always last), at which point the title is related but ridiculous.

"I think you're a wonderful person: Wayne Brady! I'm just not that into you: Kathy Greenwood! It's not you, it's me: Colin Mochrie! And GET OUT! JUST GET OUT!: Ryan Stiles!"

Gene: You great, soft, sissy, girly, nancy, French, bender, Man-United-supporting poof!

    • Ray Carling in the same:

Ray: I'm arresting you for the theft of a motor vehicle, resisting arrest... and driving like a div.

  • Also from Life On Mars (the American one) Ray is talking about the counterculture.

Ray: That's the problem with a politicized youth, they do things like blow up national monuments, burn down induction centers...make their own jewelry out of seashells.

  • Inverted in Monty Python's Flying Circus, starting on a low note and building up while describing a man's hobbies as: "Golf, strangling small animals and masturbating." Sadly, the "masturbating" part was cut by the censors on ABC in the 1970s either by muting out "masturbating" or rearranging the audio so that way the line just names off "Golf and strangling small animals." (Apparently, animal abuse is okay, but A Date with Rosie Palms isn't -- at the time, at least).
    • The sketch "Philosophers' Football," though, plays it straight when the German team contests Socrates's goal: "Hegel is arguing that the reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-naturalistic ethics, Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it exists only in the imagination, and Marx is claiming it was offside."
    • Also, "Blood, Devastation, Death War And Horror":

Host: And later on we'll be talking to a man who actually does gardening.

  • The Seventh Doctor of Doctor Who is fond of these:
    • In "Remembrance of the Daleks" he mocks the Dalek Emperor's rant about what the Daleks will achieve when they have the Hand of Omega: "Become all powerful! Crush the lesser races! Conquer the galaxy! Unimaginable power! Unlimited rice pudding! Et cetera! Et cetera!"
    • The call to adventure (inserted as a voiceover at the end of "Survival", the last Doctor Who story of the original series broadcast): "There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea is asleep and the rivers dream. People made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea is getting cold."
    • Inverted in "Ghostlight" (the last Doctor Who story produced, but broadcast third-to-last) - "I can't stand burnt toast. I loathe bus stations: terrible places, full of lost luggage and lost souls. And then there's unrequited love, and tyranny, and cruelty." From the same episode: "My theories appall you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters and you don't like my tie."
    • Inverted in "The Infinite Quest": the Doctor is guilty of 1400 minor traffic violations, 250 counts of evading library fines, and 18 counts of planetary demolition.
      • He really should've taken back those library books!
    • Another example occurs in the new series 6. Matt Smith has invaded the Oval Office with the TARDIS, and is being held at gunpoint persuading President Nixon and his guards to let him help with the Monster of the Week. They give him five minutes.

The Doctor: I'm going to need a SWAT team, ready to mobilize, street maps covering all of Florida, a pot of coffee, 12 Jammy Dodgers and a fez.

    • And it's not the first time The Eleventh Doctor did that. in Season 5, near the end, When the doctor finds out that he had survived the "Big Bang two" he quickly verifies if he is OK, going through his life priority list, of course. "Legs, yes. Bow tie, cool. *Touches hair* ...I can buy a fez". Although two of the items are silly, we'd already expect the bow tie, so the fez makes pretty much the same effect.
  • In "Kinda" (1982), a mad military scolds young Adric, the Doctor's companion, saying he'll teach him "not to lie. Not to commit treason. And to wash behind the ears."
  • Lampshaded in Torchwood when Jack discusses the rehabs that his old partner John Hart had to attend. To the audience, ending with "murder" as the last rehab sounds fairly serious, but apparently it's a joke to the two Time Agents. Just goes to show that a little perspective goes a long ways.

Jack: So, how was rehab?
John: Rehabs. Plural.
Jack: Drink, drugs, sex and ...?
John: Murder.
Jack: [laughs] You went to murder rehab?
John: I know. Ridiculous. The odd kill, who does it hurt?

    • Rex Matheson in Torchwood: Miracle Day gives us this: "I had a pole through my chest, I was dead, then I wasn't. And then I had to pay for this bridge."
  • During the opening sequence of The Colbert Report, a list of words describing Colbert fly past him ("Courageous", "Exceptional", "Relentless", etc.) but always ends with something like "Grippy", "Lincolnish", "Megamerican", "Purple-Mounted" or "Factose-Intolerant". They even threw in a whole sentence for a while: "President Bush Have A Hotdog With Me". Debuting with the new opening credits animation, his most recent is "Applepious".
    • One episode, in the lead up to the March to Keep Fear Alive, featured a segment about the dangers of robots. This included a montage of dangerous movie robots, including T-600s, |Gort, the ED-209, MechaGodzilla and WALL-E.

Stephen That's the worst kind of robot: the kind that warms your heart. They don't like to eat them cold.

    • A Colbert Report list of historical threats to the Jewish people started with Iran, Hitler and King Antiochus, and ended with "Mel Gibson's Dad".
    • Both The Colbert Report and The Daily Show use this trope in their introduction scenes to news segments, showing two or more examples of something serious, then something completely not serious. For example, on Colbert's theoretical doomsday scenario, the intro shows hurricanes, terrorists, atomic bombs and gay couples.
    • There was also the poem read by Sam Waterston at the Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear that listed things to fear, such as anthrax, ebola, tornadoes, and getting a pimple on your face before a date.
    • On The Daily Show, where a list of corruption accusations against Charlie Rangel end with a clip from Fox News stating that he had been "illegally storing his Mercedes-Benz in the House parking lot."
    • Jon Stewart also says that the main rules of Judaism are not to commit murder, not to commit adultery, and not to eat pork.
    • Jon Stewart lists Italian prime minister Berlusconi's ethical violations as tax fraud, embezzlement, cronyism, ties to organized crime, and using olive oil of questionable moral quality.
  • Reversed in The Office when Michael, trying to scare his employees into respecting the idea of prison with the character "Prison Mike":

Jim: What'd you do, Prison Mike?
Prison Mike: I stole...and I robbed...and I kidnapped the President's son...and held him for ransom.
Jim: That is quite a rap sheet, Prison Mike.
Prison Mike: And I never got caught neither.
Jim: Well, you were in prison, but...

    • For the Steve Martin episode, it was "Seven-Inch Gangly Wrench."
  • Lampshaded on The West Wing when CJ's off-again-on-again crush Danny berates her for picking on him in the press briefing room:

Danny: CJ, I'm not staying in the penalty box forever. I have covered the White House for eight years and I've done it with the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time Magazine, and the Dallas Morning News! And I'm telling you you can't mess me around like this!
C.J.: Danny, I just gotta tell you, that was - seriously - that was a turn-on when you said that, though I don't know why you decided to be your most haughty on the Dallas Morning News in that sentence.

    • Also:

Deborah Fiderer: You never called me Deb before.
Leo Mcgarry: No?
Deborah Fiderer: The President does sometimes. I actually kinda hate it.
Leo Mcgarry: I'm sorry.
Deborah Fiderer: It's okay, you didn't know.
Leo Mcgarry: Ever tell the President?
Deborah Fiderer: Hard to work it in. "Sir, the North Koreans just threatened to rain nuclear fire on Japan again, the NASDAQ is tanking, there's a Category IV hurricane making landfall in the Keys, and, oh, don't call me Deb."

  • Black Books does this depending which way you look at it:

Bernard Black: I am cold! I've got chilblains, tinnitus and thrush!

  • On an episode of Night Court, Mel Torme is brought before Judge Harry Stone on a speeding violation and several unpaid parking tickets. Torme has a grudge against Harry for wrecking a concert of his, and eventually finds himself in contempt of court. As he's being carried away by Bull and Roz, he starts ranting at Harry:

Mel Torme: "You're a walking disaster! You're a pox on humanity! And your haircut stinks!"

  • Reversed in severity on The Andy Griffith Show featured Barney, who loves writing jaywalking tickets is doing so for a man who also double parked. Andy comes up and informs him that the man also robbed the bank.
  • From CSI: NY:

Mac: You're under arrest for the murder of Derek James, Lauren Salinas, kidnapping and attempted murder of a crime scene investigator, armed robbery, grand theft auto, assault and battery. But most of all, for pissing me off.

Gus: Some people are just born evil -- the kid from The Omen, The Children of the Corn, Chad Michael Murray.

    • Also, when Shawn tries to convince a dejected and quite thoroughly smashed Lassiter that his life/career is not over:

Shawn: You're a striking man with strong features, eyes that women wanna do cannonballs into, you have great posture and penmanship the likes I've never seen.

    • And from Season 4, episode 12, when Shawn confronts the killer he lists the following:

Shawn: Murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, unlawful carving of a spruce tree.

  • On Friends Ross has asked Rachel to make a list of things that she doesn't like about him (it's a long story). While she's initially reticent, he finally ticks her off enough:

Rachel: OK, you're whiney, you are, you're obsessive, you are insecure, you're, you're gutless, you know, you don't ever, you don't just sort of seize the day, you know. You like me for what, a year, you didn't do anything about it. And, uh, oh, you wear too much of that gel in your hair.

    • In this context, it actually makes sense: she's not going for a dramatic buildup, she's listing them as she thinks of them, and it's reasonable that hair gel might not be the top one on her mind.
      • Hey, 'still funny.
    • In the episode "The One After the Super Bowl", Joey gets his stalker to leave him alone by pretending to be his own Evil Twin (well, actually the Evil Twin of his soap opera character, Drake Ramoray, whom the stalker believes him to be). His friends help him out:

Rachel: He pretended to be Drake to, to sleep with me! (throws her drink in his face)
Monica: And then he told me he would run away with me, and he didn't! (throws her drink in his face)
Chandler: And you left the toilet seat up, you bastard! (throws his drink in his face)

    • Played with in The One With Ross' Sandwich, making it more "Arson, Jaywalking and Murder".

Rachel: He takes naked pictures of us, and then he eats chicken, and then he looks at them!

Mary: Actually, I'm in a really good mood, which is kind of weird, considering where I was 48 hours ago. Then I have a witness off herself, and like that's not bad enough, I gotta play second fiddle to a knucklehead like you.
Marshall: Thanks for lumping me in with kidnapping, attempted rape, and suicide.

  • The Discovery Channel's show Road Rampage once featured a suspect being charged with:

Judge: Three counts of aggravated assault, lying to a police officer, and making an improper left turn.

  • In an episode of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, Greg gives the Chief a melon and Vienna sausage sandwich, topped with peanut butter and mayonnaise, on white bread. The Chief is appalled... that he'd use white bread.
    • The full version of the theme song does this, too. After listing a large number of crimes, including stealing Seoul from South Korea and ransacking Pakistan, the last crime mentioned before the final chorus is "her itinerary's loaded up with moving violations."
  • When The Young Ones found a nuclear bomb in their kitchen, Rik wanted to use it to make the Prime Minister "do something for the kids":

Rik: Point 1: Abolish poverty! Point 2: Abolish capitalism! Point 3: Dexy's Midnight Runners playing free, daily, in the University library!

  • Monty Python's Flying Circus: Well, there's rat cake, rat sorbet, rat pudding, or strawberry tart.
    • Also: Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam; spam spam spam egg and spam; spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam; or Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam.
  • Roxy in Dead Like Me visits Daisy on police business, holding a dossier on her late ex-boyfriend Ray. She says, "Quite an impressive guy you were seeing. Fraud, assault, bad haircut."
  • From Heroes:

Claude: "I spend a lot of time moving around people's homes, their bedrooms. You get to know people if you see them when they think they're alone. You see them for what they truly are: selfish, deceitful, and gassy."

Chris, narrating: My mother had one goal in life for her kids: don't sell drugs. As long as they weren't doin' that, almost everything else was gonna be OK.
Police Officer: (holding Chris in handcuffs at the front door as his mother answers) Ma'am, your son killed the governor, kidnapped his daughter, robbed the President and ran a red light.
Rochelle: He ain't sold no drugs, did he?
Police Officer: No, ma'am.
Rochelle: Boy, get in here!

  • From 'Back to Reality' in season 5 of Red Dwarf.

Rimmer: This is a nightmare! I'm on the run from the fascist police, with a murderer and a mass murderer and a man in a bri-nylon shirt.

  • During an episode of Roseanne's final season, Bev rants about how her ex-husbsand was rude to her children, cheated on her, had horrible table manners...and made her drive an old car with bald tires! The bastard!
    • Since bald tires are more prone to blowouts, which can lead to loss of control and a crash, making her drive a car with bald tires was the one thing that actually threatened her life.
  • On Gossip Girl when talking about the letter Chuck's father left for him along with his will.

Blair: Your dad wrote you a letter? You have to read it!
Nate: Yeah, aren't you curious to know what it says?
Chuck: I think I can guess. "You're a disappointment of a son. I'd die of embarrassment if I wasn't already. Why do you wear so much purple?"

    • Doubles as a lampshade hanging as the fans have often commented on how Chuck wears a whole lot of purple.
  • Scrubs

Janitor: Now I've been called a great many horrible names in my life: Backstabber, Zebra Poacher...Josh."

  • In the Hugga Bunch Made for TV Movie, Bridget finds out that the MacGuffin she's looking for is in the country of Shrugs, causing the other characters to react with fear. When she asks what's wrong with them, Huggins tells her, "Shrugs is a bad place, and scary, and gruesome, and hard to get to."
  • In Blackadder Goes Forth, Blackadder, after sleeping with someone he suspects of being a spy, asks her whether her boyfriend had been to one of the great universities: Oxford, Cambridge or Hull. (Later, when he points out that "you failed to spot that only two of those are great universities", Melchett remarks: "That's right! Oxford's a complete dump!")
    • Not to mention that Hull University didn't even exist until 1927.
  • Cameron tends to do this in The Sarah Connor Chronicles whenever someone reminds her to act more like a human. In one scene, she grabs a kid by the collar and lifts him up:

Cameron: If you call your mother, that man will use her to find you. Then he'll kill her. He'll kill you.
Sarah: Uh, Cameron.
Cameron: Would you like a bedtime story?

  • In a first season episode of Stargate Atlantis, Rodney is about to receive gene therapy, prompting the following exchange with Dr. Beckett:

Carson Beckett M. D.: [sighs] We believe ATA or Ancient Technology Activation is caused by a single gene that's always on. Instructing various cells in the body to produce a series of proteins and enzymes that interact with the skin, the nervous system and the brain. In this case we're using a mouse retrovirus to deliver the missing gene to your cells.
Dr. Rodney McKay: A mouse retrovirus?
Beckett: It's been deactivated.
McKay: Well, are there any side effects?
Beckett: Dry mouth, headache, the irresistible urge to run in a small wheel...

Frank: "The following episode Mother has all the classic ingredients of a political thriller: a conniving politician, ruthless manipulation of the media, a lobster with a vendetta."

    • For the record, the episode did in fact have all of those.
  • A Belgian TV show called Neveneffecten has a polar bear listing his hobbies as being: farting in igloos, hitting baby seals on the head and watching them die a slow and painful death and crosswords.
  • The Charlie Brooker series Screenwipe did an Acceptable Targets version of this when reading off people who "will be punished" when Charlie takes over:

Charlie: Yes, they're the sort of dribbling unpardonable cretins that use 'party' as a verb. And when I am in charge and establish my Reich, those people are going to be punished. Along with anyone who breaks wind for comic effect, men who wear flat caps, people who consider the Comic Sans typeface acceptable, and Capricorns. I don't know why I'm picking on them, actually; I think I'm just drunk with power.

  • The A-Team: In the Season 2 premiere, "Diamonds 'n Dust," Murdock uses this to insult a South African store owner about how hideously un-English the establishment is when he's pretending to be a English officer ("Col. Lexington") as he and Face try to "confiscate" some dynamite:

Murdock: No kippers, no herring-bone tweed, no Rolls Royce tire caps, no original pressings of "Hey Jude!!!"
Face (mouthing): "Hey Jude?"

    • And then played with in the late Season 3 episode "Beverly Hills Assault," when Murdock is posing as an up-and-coming artist:

Murdock (to the evil art gallery owner): Can you guarantee that in a hundred years, after I'm gone, that the name "Murdock" will be on a par with Rembrandt, Picasso, Van Gogh, Willy Mays--
Face: Uh, uh, Willy Mays?
Murdock: Do you deny that Willy Mays was a great artist in centerfield?!

      • And then a few moments later in the same episode:

Murdock: Murdock does not shake hands. Murdock does not play sports. Murdock does not open canned food. (Beat) Murdock paints.

  • Supernatural: In the Season 5 TV-parody episode "Changing Channels", the commercial for the fictional genital herpes medication, Herpexia, lists the drug's side effects as follows (as recited by Dean):

Dean (voiceover): Side effects of Herpexia include permanent erectile dysfunction, thoughts of suicide, and nausea.

    • In season six's The French Mistake, Sam and Dean are being chewed out by executive producer Bob Singer: "You can't come to work on poppers and smuggle kidneys in from Mexico and make up your own lines as you go! You cannot make up your own lines! Good god, what about your careers?"
  • In The Muppet Show series pilot, Sex And Violence, a subplot includes an upcoming "Seven Deadly Sins Pagent". During the show, hosts Nigel and Sam are asked if another sin can take part...Wearing Funny Pants To A Funeral.

Nigel: There's Envy, Rage, Lust, Vanity, Sloth, Avarice, and Gluttony...
Sam: ...wearing Funny Pants to a Funeral.

  • In the Law and Order episode "Turnstile Justice," Lt. Van Buren orders the detectives to arrest two young girls who have been caught on a store surveillance video buying clothes with a credit card stolen from a murder victim. She tells them to add a charge of "felony bad taste" because the girls are wearing white after Labor Day.
    • In the spin-off series Law and Order Special Victims Unit titled Avatar, the detectives are trying to find something to arrest a man for before he can flee the country. Said man is suspected of kidnapping, rape and murder. At the last possible second, when it seems that the detectives can't get him for anything, the suspect jaywalks at the airport, giving Detective Stabler an excuse to arrest him.
  • In a Saved by the Bell episode when Slater's girlfriend Jessie discovers he is asking for an old girlfriend's number.

Slater: Jessie's going to rip my eyes out, punch my face in, then break up with me.

    • At the end of an episode of Saved by the Bell: The College Years when asked if she cheated on a test, Alex cracks and wails "I cheated! I cheated and I lied. I cheated and I lied and I left the cap off the toothpaste! I'm a horrible person".
  • A Saturday Night Live episode hosted by Rob Lowe (from the first episode of the 2000-2001 season [season 26]) inverted this in a news report regarding a lawsuit being filed against the Scooby Doo gang (Lowe played Shaggy and voiced the creepy Scooby Doo puppet used in the sketch, who advocated the "Reath Renalty" for numerous criminals). The attorney representing the plaintiffs noted that the gang had been repeatedly charged with numerous criminal acts, all of which were variants on "meddling". And then he got to the final charge, "sodomy". (He then noted that he was mistaken, and that the actual final charge was "meddling".)
    • In a small short advertising what Republicans think what could happen with the mosque at ground zero, they list "free nationalization for Mexican citizens, state-of-the-art pregnancy termination lab, and an espresso bar"
  • When Lane Pryce is fired in Mad Men:

"'St. John'": You're fired. You're fired for insubordination, you're fired for costing this company millions of pounds, you're fired for lacking character!!!

  • In The Big Bang Theory episode "The Apology Insufficiency", Sheldon accidentally mentions Howard's crashing the Mars Rover - inside a rambling list of complaints - to an FBI agent who is investigating Howard's background for a security clearance, making it more of a "Jaywalking, Murder and Shoplifting" moment. For a moment, it seems as though the agent was not even listening anymore... but she was.
  • The "Ditch Day Afternoon" episode of Kenan and Kel had the news covering the boys' bank excursion, saying that the robbers have demanded "a car, a helicopter, $2,000,000 and curiously...some orange soda."
  • Played with in the Big Time Rush episode "Big Time Girlfriends": "I'm Carlos. I like summer breezes, winter snowstroms, and seeing cats get what's coming to them."
    • Also in the episode Big Time Jobs, when Kendall lists off the available jobs: "Bio taste tester, volcano cleaner... dentist".
  • The Victorious episode Beck Falls For Tori had this, when Tori is wondering what special skills to add to her resume:

Andre: Gymnastics...
Beck: Martial arts...
Robbie: Skydiving...
Jade: Flotatious hair flipping?
Tori: Okay, I do not flip my hair flotatiously!

  • Played with in the LazyTown episode Defeeted. As far as Sportacus and the mayor are concerned, the kids not wanting to play outside is just as serious as a natural disaster:

Sportacus: "Mr Mayor, what's the trouble?"
Mayor: "Well..."
Sportacus: "Flood?"
Mayor: "No."
Sportacus: "Fire?"
Mayor: "No."
Sportacus: "Earthquake?"
Mayor: "No."
Sportacus: "Thunderstorm?"
Mayor: "Actually...it's that nobody wants to go outside and play!"
Sportacus: "What?! That is terrible!"

Brian: "When porn takes over your life, you get in trouble at work, um, your spouse, your friends and you even get viruses on your computer."

  • When the MythBusters were testing a myth that a refrigerator could stop bullets and it fails, it's stated that the ballistics gel is riddled with bullets, plastic, and glass...and mustard.
  • Honey I Shrunk the Kids, in the episode where they travel to the Old West, they discover that a wanted outlaw is due to arrive in town the same day. They read the list of fairly serious crimes he's wanted for, and the last one is "cussin' in church."
  • In the Eureka episode "All The Rage", Fargo is attacked by a supposedly non-lethal grenade that traps people in a sticky gel. His reaction:

I almost suffocated! And these were my favorite pants.

    • In another episode, Carter interrupts an experiment, beats up a scientist, and messes up the experiment a little.

Carter: Oh no.
Grant: That's right! And thanks to you I've lost my hat!
Carter: Your hat?!

  • Glee's Puck about not wanting to go back to juvie.

Artie: I thought you loved it there?
Puck: Yeah? I lied. It's freaking terrifying, dude! On the first day, three gangbangers jumped me, and before the security guards could pull them off they'd already torn out my nipple ring. I thought I was a badass. There's some hard dudes in there. Guys with no families, guys who look at you like you're some kind of dog they can't wait to kick the crap out of... They kept taking my waffles....

Reid: I have terrible headaches, I can't sleep at night, I can't focus on our cases... I only read five books last week.

Michael: Southern Nigeria isn't my favorite place in the world. It's unstable, it's corrupt, and the people there eat a lot of terrible-smelling preserved fish.

Narrator: The driver is arrested and charged with DUI, unsafe lane travel and attempting to flee the scene of an accident.
Brendon Walsh: Not to pile on the charges, but she was also in the carpool lane.

  • During the Halloween Episode of Reba, Barbra Jean discloses the fact that she hired a private investigator to tail her husband during her separation period from said husband: "He followed you everywhere: to your dental office, to the golf course... to that tanning salon you said you don't go to", leaving her husband looking embarrassed.
  • Toward the end of an episode of Yes, Dear, the Hughes family make amends with the Warner family by giving them things the Hugheses had broken -- a laundry machine, a blender, and... the Warners' oldest son.
  • In the Halloween Episode of According to Jim, Jim's three children (Ruby, Gracie, and Kyle) pick up their own Halloween costumes. Ruby goes as a cowgirl, Gracie is Lady Liberty, and Kyle dresses as... Cinderella.
  • They semed almost to REFERENCE this trope in Suburgatory when Tessa, hearing police sirens, wonders if the crime is "Arson? Murder?" but is disappointed when she finds out some dolls were stolen.
  • In Young Blades, Siroc lists off the side effects of his Love Potion:

Siroc: I guarantee there will be no permanent harmful side effects. There might just be a little bit of... nausea. And some headaches. And rashes. And diarrhea. And loss of appetite.
Ramon: Loss of appetite?!
Siroc: Just kidding.

Dave: I was just trying to prove a point.
Principal Simpson: By violating dress code and fighting in the hallways?

  • In the Stargate Universe episode "Hope", when looking at possible consequences of transplants using Ancient technology, one of the characters lists off, "...infection, high blood pressure, erectile dysfunc... tion..." Cue uncontrollable laughter.
  • Community, "Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps": In Shirley's story, the devil arrives and announces the schedule of tortures: "At 10, you'll be buried neck-deep in scorpions, at 11:15, lava enemas, followed by Pilates!" Quickly subverted when the devil adds, "Pilates is a demon that eats your genitals."
  • In one episode of The Red Green Show, Red advises teens to avoid doing crime:

Red: Just say no to assault, break-and-enter, arson, murder, theft, drug trafficking, and... oh yeah, real estate sales.

  • Season 2 of The X-Files has an episode entitled "Humbug," about a series of grisly murders in a community of retired and off-season circus sideshow performers.

Dr Blockhead: No, in the classical sense The Conundrum is a geek.
Mulder: He eats live animals . . .
Dr Blockhead: He eats anything: Live animals, dead animals, rocks, light bulbs, corkscrews, battery cables, cranberries . . .

  • In an episode of Castle, a reality show star discovers that her dog has been bugged, and someone's been watching her more than she thought. Quoth she, "Oh my god. He could have seen me in the shower, he could have seen me and Reggie in bed together... (Beat) He could have seen me without my makeup."
  • In one Lovejoy episode a Scottish forger living in Italy (in the 1980s) gives his reasons for not wanting to return to the UK as : "Strikes, recession, and Partick Thistle[1] never making the grade".
  • Rarely a David Letterman Top Ten List has the top entry as the funniest (the explanation is that the applause/laughter would mute the band).
  • In one episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, where Bulk, Skull, and Kimberly get trapped in a monster cab:

Alpha 5: Aye-yi-yi! Lord Zedd and Rita have created a Crabby Cabbie! And he's charging double the going fare!

  • Power Rangers Turbo was considered by most fans to be nearly a Franchise Killer and "Trouble by the Slice" was considered by most (the cast included) to be the worst episode, but it did have this gem in it, when the Rangers' Turbine Laser fails against Mad Mike:

TJ: Nuts!
Justin: Rats!
Carlos: Drat!
Ashley: Curses!
Cassie: Phooey!
Blue Centurion: Uh...fiddlesticks!

  • This is even funnier if heard in his distinctive robotic voice.
  1. ↑ A Scottish soccer team
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Arson,_Murder,_and_Jaywalking/Live-Action_TV?oldid=1960167"