Ginger: You mean you never actually flew the plane?
Fowler: Good heavens, no! I'm a chicken! The Royal Air Force doesn't let chickens behind the controls of complex aircraft!

- Mega Man, Mega Man! Come in! There's these big yellow beams that kill you if you-
- SHUT YOUR MOUTH, I don't need you!

Roll and Egoraptor arguing in Quick Man's Stage on an episode of Sequelitis.

Inspector Lestrade (seeing a midget in Lord Blackwood's coffin): That's not Blackwood!
Holmes: Now we have a firm grasp... of the obvious.

John: Fun? There's a woman lying dead!
Sherlock: Perfectly sound analysis, but I was hoping you'd go deeper.

Don Calfari: But I did not give the orders to wipe out the Spaldoni family. That is an order that I did not give.
Mobster: Okay, Don Calfari. If you didn't give the order, then what does that mean?
Don Calfari: That would mean someone had to give the order. Someone that was not me.

The Middleman, "The Pilot Episode Sanction"

([thousands of Confederacy starfighters stream past Yoda's window])
Mace Windu: The city is under attack!
Yoda: Defend the city we must!

That's a lot of fish!

—The 1998 American Godzilla movie

Magma is not a water source. Dwarves can't drink it or supply it to their wounded.
(later edit)

  • Magma cannot be used to satisfy thirst.
  • Magma mist will not generate happy thoughts, but will instead burn whatever it touches.

(of course, with the Dorfs it's... not always obvious)

I am murdered.

Spencer Perceval on his own assassination.

Joseph was rushed to the hospital where doctors discovered the 19 bullet-holes in his body. The attending physician later testified that Joseph was "probably in severe pain." Dr. Obvious likely went on to say that the red stuff pouring out of Joseph's body was "probably blood."

I knew it! That sword... It's your weapon, isn't it?!

Might Guy, Naruto

Life is very important to Americans.

—Bob Dole

One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear, you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you all right? At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. After a while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical and decided he quite liked human beings after all, but he always remained desperately worried about the terrible number of things they didn't know about.

Hey, the offensive linemen are the biggest guys on the field, they're bigger than everybody else, and that's what makes them the biggest guys on the field.

John Madden

Inspector Clay is dead. Murdered... and somebody is responsible.

Grey Warden: Thanks for stating the completely obvious, by the way.
Alistair: No problem. It's nice to have a purpose.

Toxic waste is poisonous.

Game tutorial tip, Lego Batman

Use your weapons! They are designed to do damage!

All toasters toast toast!

Mario, Hotel Mario[1]

Father Ted: We need something that will keep them away from the house something to distract them...but what?
Father Dougal: A diversion! That's what it's called, a diversion!

Aragorn: Not for ourselves. But we can give Frodo his chance if we keep Sauron's Eye fixed upon us. Keep him blind to all else that moves.
Legolas: (In tones of one having a great revelation) A diversion!

Ron Weasley: You can't break an Unbreakable Vow.
Harry Potter: I'd worked that much out for myself, funnily enough.

It's a trap!

—(many characters in Star Wars, but most famously) Admiral Ackbar, Return of the Jedi

The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad.

—attributed to Salvador Dali

Leela: Ow, fire hot!
Professor Farnsworth: Professy will help! Oh, fire indeed hot!

You see those things that look like time bombs? Oh yeah! Those are time bombs.

—A gem of advice from musclebomber2021 about Super BomberBummerman 2

In the silent movie, there's no talking.

Natasha Bedingfield, 'Silent Movie'

It seems you have to defeat this one to win!

- Sarge, we need to get Donut air-lifted outta here.
- Could you put that in a memo, and entitle it "Shit I already know!"

Sarge and Simmons on Donut, who was just blown up.

Fry: Well, this is the end. There was so many things I wanted to say to you.
Leela: Like what?
Fry: Like this is not the end.

Futurama, Into the Wild Green Yonder

Goon: That's a dead dog.
Anton Chigurh: Yes, it is.

And so he brought forth a carrot. And said; 'Behold this! For it is a carrot.' And all about him knew that it was so. For it was orange. With a green top.

Rowan Atkinson, "Amazing Jesus" sketch

In Economics, everything that is not obvious, is usually bullcrap.

—Mário Henrique Simonsen, Brazilian economist (original: Em Economia, tudo o que não é óbvio, normalmente é besteira. This phrase may extend to other fields.)

And he speaks; 'I don't think those jewels belong to you.' (Beat) I salute you, World's Greatest Detective!

—Catwoman, describing an early encounter with Batman: Cat-Tales

You are huge! That means you have huge guts!

Doom Marine, Doom Comics

Now I'm radioactive! That can't be good!

Doom Marine, Doom Comics

Now I'm in a completely different place!

Doom Marine, you guessed it, Doom Comics

Animal Man: You must be Robot-Man.
Robot-Man: And you must be the guy who states the obvious.

Darth Baras: RAAAAAAGH! I cannot break him!
Sith Apprentice: Is there some problem here?
Darth Baras: Who would ask such a stupid question?! Clearly, there's a problem here!
[...]
Sith Apprentice: I feel your anger, master.
Darth Baras: A blind, deaf, comatose lobotomy patient could feel my anger!

My eye! I'm not supposed to get pudding in it!

Lenny when Homer hits him with pudding.

Hey, he just stopped at that house over there! Hey, I just stated the obvious! Oh look, a chair!

Tom, Eddsworld

Pitying his obvious distress,
Yet with a tinge of bitterness,
She said "The More exceeds the Less."

"A truth of such undoubted weight,"
He urged, "and so extreme in date,
It were superfluous to state."

Roused into sudden passion, she
In tone of cold malignity:
"To others, yea: but not to thee."
[...]
She urged "No cheese is made of chalk":
And ceaseless flowed her dreary talk,
Tuned to the footfall of a walk.

The Three Voices by Lewis Carroll

If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure.

—Attributed to Dan Quayle, quoted in Esquire, August 1992

Back to Captain Obvious
  1. To all of you who just went, "Toasters toast bread!" yes, that is true. They can also re-toast toast.