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Captain Obvious Aesop (view source)

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== General ==
* Many bumper stickers, website signatures, etc. As an example, there are a lot of variations on the theme of "I support a cure for cancer", or "I'm against child abuse". There aren't many people who want cancer to continue unabated, and being opposed to child abuse is the norm. Also, stickers against racism. Seriously, people, saying that you're "against racism" hasn't been revolutionary throughout most of the Western world since ''at least'' the late 1940s1970s.
* A regular Aesop that's presented highly [[Anvilicious]], with the entire opponent side being represented by [[War On Straw|strawmen]] can look like this. Since what the opponents want is [[For the Evulz|pure undiluted evil]], taking a stance against it isn't very controversial anymore.
* Can also happen often with kids shows, mainly because what is obvious to a 25 year old isn't obvious to a 5 year old.
 
 
== Advertising ==
* Most of the Guinness "Brilliant!" ads were like this:
{{quote| "Don't drink six beers at the same time? Brilliant!"}}
 
 
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* Morgan Spurlock's experiment in ''[[Super Size Me]]'' demonstrates that excessive fast food isn't good for your health. The film itself admits that everyone already knows this, but shows that the health effects are beyond what you might expect. The experiment is also just the cap of a greater argument that fast food and poor eating habits have become too engrained in our culture. The fact that fast food is ''that'' bad for you just shows why we should care.
* ''[[The Room]]''
{{quote| '''Johnny:''' If a lot of people love each other, the world would be a better place to live.}}
* ''[[Equilibrium]]'' argues that even if human emotion causes problems, it's still worth it. So if you were planning on turning all of humanity into emotionless automotons, think again!
 
 
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* Spoofed in the [[Tanya Huff]] novel ''[[Confederation of Valor|The Better Part of Valor]]'' when the main character explains how she wound up with a terrible assignment and says the lesson to be learned is, "never call your commanding officer a bastard to his face."
* [[Discussed Trope|Discussed]] by George Orwell in his essay ''Looking Back on the [[Spanish Civil War|Spanish War]]'':
{{quote| We have become too civilized to grasp the obvious. For the truth is very simple. To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. [[War Is Hell|War is evil]], and it is often the lesser evil. [[The Bible (Literature)|Those who take the sword perish by the sword]], and those who don't take the sword perish by smelly diseases. The fact that such a [[Captain Obvious Aesop|platitude]] is worth writing down shows what the years of ''rentier'' capitalism have done to us. }}
 
== Live Action TV ==
* [[Lampshaded]] on ''[[Community (TV)|Community]]'' at one point when Britta and Annie are staging a demonstration to raise awareness about the environmental effects of the oil spill in the gulf. Britta is angry and yelling about how horrible it is to people passing by when someone mockingly points out that she doesn't need to yell at them, nobody is on the other side of this issue.
* Referred to in an introduction to the ''[[Father Ted]]'' scripts by Graham Lineham. Commenting on the [[Mistaken for Racist]] episode 'Are You Right There Ted?', Linehan says that it seems to be the only story that has a moral...but if it does it's only 'Don't be racist' which he sarcastically says is 'pretty strong stuff'
* ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'' can be prone to this sometimes.
** The [[Star Trek: theThe Original Series (TV)|original series]] had the Nazi planet episode, which involved a well-intentioned Starfleet officer converting an alien planet into a recreation of Nazi Germany because, from what he knew of history, it seemed to him like a good way to introduce order to the people. [[Kirk Summation|Kirk has to explain to him]] the Aesop of "What Hitler did was wrong. Don't do that."
* It happens quite often in ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'', as well. One of the more obvious examples is the 2008 episode "[[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S4 E3S30/E03 Planet of the Ood|Planet of the Ood]]" which appears to have the message "Slavery is a bad thing." How many of the audience didn't already know that is unclear.
* Happens on ''[[Dr. Phil]]'' often. Usually he ends up telling people something that they should already know, like that it's not okay to cheat on your wife, or it's bad to abuse your family, or that child molestation is horrible. But the people on the show will act like he's telling them something radical that they've never considered and will be belligerent to the end.
* Joked with occasionally on [[Myth BustersMythBusters]], when they warn against an obviously dangerous act due to a lesser-known risk associated with it that they had spent the episode proving was possible:
** "Don't leave loaded guns in exploding rooms" - The myth was about a certain make of gun reputed to fire on its own if vibrated in a certain way. The original myth was about this happening via a car stereo system, but they had to eventually set off an explosion near the gun to make it happen.
** "Don't stand near a car fire" - Because it's possible for the fire to make the car's bumper launch off at dangerous speeds. The Mythbusters couldn't make this happen themselves, but proved it was possible by finding a firewoman who had her legs broken as a result of this happening.
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== Music ==
* [[Tom Lehrer]]'s song "The Folk Song Army" and its introduction (see [[Captain Obvious Aesop/Quotes|quotes page]]):
{{quote| ''We are the folk song army<br />
Everyone of us cares<br />
We all hate poverty, war and injustice<br />
Unlike [[Take That|the rest]] [[You Suck|of you squares]]'' }}
 
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== New Media ==
* The ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20110907161633/http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2008/10/false-witnesses-2.html Slacktivist]'' refers to this as the "Anti Kitten-Burning Coalition".
{{quote| ...the weird part: Most of the commenters and letter-writers didn't seem to ''notice'' that they were expressing a unanimous and noncontroversial sentiment. Their comments and letters were contentious and sort of aggressively defensive. Or maybe defensively aggressive.}}
* If you are on Facebook, you've seen your "friends" asking everyone to put in their status that they support things like "Don't abuse animals". Really kind of annoying.
** What makes it worse is that they do it under the pretense of [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped]]. Sadly, [[Tropes Are Not Good|it doesn't always work that way]]; that can actually be a pretty hard bull's eye to hit.
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== Professional Wrestling ==
* This trope tends to come up as an unspoken premise whenever there's a feud between [[The Cape (trope)]] and an [[Anti-Villain]]. The babyface wrestler will always do the right thing and will be showered with praise for it, even though he/she is so full of [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness]] that he/she was never at risk of doing the ''wrong'' thing, so [[Hard Work Hardly Works|his/her efforts are meaningless]]. Prime example: the [[Kane (Wrestlingwrestling)|Kane]] vs. [[John Cena]] "Embrace the Hate" feud.
 
 
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Captain Planet]]'': Everyone knows that [[Green Aesop|dumping an oil tanker in the ocean is a bad idea,]] yet everyone keeps going on about it. The writers reportedly did this on purpose, since more nuanced villains might have been too close to home--ihome—i.e., companies their young viewers' parents worked for, or they might fall squarely into [[Straw Man Has a Point]] if they allowed a realistic protrayal of an oil executive being upset at what his employees were doing.
* [[Redakai]]'s pilot had the aesop "Slavery is bad." Really, there weren't enough plot points or other threads for the moral to be anything else. The "Taunting someone for a skin-blemish" potential moral is never closed. Nope. Slavery is bad.
* Parodied on ''[[Family Guy]]'' when Congressman finally realize smoking is bad.
{{quote| '''Congressman:''' Smoking is a horrible vice! It shortens life expectancy and pollutes our air. And according to recent polls, air is good!}}
* Parodied in ''[[Futurama]]'':
{{quote| '''Jack Johnson''': It's time that someone had the courage to stand up and say: "I'm against those things that everybody hates!"<br />
'''John Jackson''': I respect my opponent. He's a good man. But frankly, I agree with everything he just said! }}
* Parodied [[Up to Eleven]] on a famous episode of ''[[South Park]]'':
{{quote| '''Mr. Mackey''': Drugs are bad. [[Shaped Like Itself|Because doing drugs is a bad thing to do.]] If you do drugs, you are a bad person. So don't do drugs. [[Catch Phrase|Mmkay?]]"}}
* Parodied in [[Donkey Kong Country (Animationanimation)|Donkey Kong Country]]. Often, when King K. Rool conjures up a plan to steal something(Usually the [[MacGuffin|Crystal Coconut]]), [[The Brute|loveable ol' Krusha]] says something like "Stealing is baaaaaaad".
{{quote| '''K. Rool''': "Of ''course'' it's bad! ''[[Card-Carrying Villain|We're bad!]]''}}
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:ChildrensChildren's Show Tropes]]
[[Category:An Aesop]]
[[Category:Bad Writing Index]]
[[Category:Unexpected Reactions to This Index]]
[[Category:Captain Obvious Aesop{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
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