Epic Fail: Difference between revisions
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[[Epic Fail]]: when normal, run-of-the-mill failure [[Beyond the Impossible|just isn't enough]].
This is about something that should be fairly straightforward and typical for a character but then [[Gone Horribly Wrong|goes horribly,
At its best the trope can give the viewer a much needed jolt out of a sense of boredom, it can produce a laugh out of something you wouldn't think could, it can inspire a temporary sense of fate or dramatic justice. At its worst, it can become a [[Deus Ex Machina]], rescuing the writers from the fortress of logic they have enclosed themselves within with a [[Hand Wave]] of "luck".
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Nichijou]]'': [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbDfRzS1I04 Jumping Rope].
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1mx-VIUp2o Yukko kicks off her shoe] similarly to [[Azumanga Daioh|Osaka]], below, and loses it the exact same way. Then she chases the car and trips and loses her other shoe.
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* Ciel's non-demon servants in ''[[Black Butler]]'' are prone to shocking feats of incompetence, and Finnian the gardener may have reached the highest peak of spectacular failure of them all. He starts out confusing fertilizer and weed killer... and then a little bit later on the same day the formerly-lush garden has somehow become a bleak, empty wasteland where even the trees are dead. ''Then he repeats the feat a few days later.'' The only reason Ciel has a garden at all is because his demon can use magic to make plants grow quickly.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* The final chapter of ''[[Batman]]: A Death In The Family'' has [[The Joker]] appointed ambassador to the United Nations by the Iranian government; the Iranians, who are [[Exclusively Evil]] in this story, plot to have the Clown Prince of Crime kill the entire U.N. General Assembly by gassing them right after making a speech. But [[Superman]] thwarts Joker's plan, causing the villain to [[Villain Exit Stage Left|flee the chamber with Batman in hot pursuit]]. The Joker hitches a ride on a helicopter with his gun-toting Iranian cronies, but Batman grabs hold of the aircraft just as it takes off and fights his way in to confront the cowering Joker. One of the Iranian gunmen panics and opens fire with his assault rifle. The result? It's bad enough that the gunman succeeds only in [[Only a Flesh Wound|"harmlessly" nicking Batman's arm]], but he also "manages" to deal a fatal wound to every person on board ''but'' Batman - including the pilot himself, whom he shoots in the back of the head! We are told that "[[Oh Crap|the gunman immediately realizes his mistake]]," but he doesn't have long to regret it: Batman punches him out, knocking him unconscious and then diving into New York Harbor, leaving everyone in the chopper to die when it crashes into a nearby dock. (Well, except [[Joker Immunity|The Joker]], of course.)
* Non-comedic example: In ''[[Secret Six]]'', Black Alice admits that she tried to use [[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Raven's]] powers to remove her father's asthma. She gave him cancer instead.
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* ''[[W.I.T.C.H.]]'' gives us Orube's attempt at learning how to cook: she somehow ''set the water of the pasta on fire''!
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[The Host (2006 film)|The Host]]'' is full of this. Probably the best example occurs when the monster is covered in gasoline, Nam-Il is about to throw a Molotov cocktail at it... {{spoiler|and he drops it.}} Played for [[Tear Jerker|extreme tragedy]] in an earlier scene, when a [[One Bullet Left|simple counting error]] {{spoiler|gets the dad killed}}.
* [[The Other Guys]] with the "[http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=4YqoI84-9vA Aim For The Bushes]" scene.
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** Made slightly more epic by the fact that the grappling hook launcher was part of a Swiss Army Knife. You know, the thing ''with a blade on it! For cutting!''
== [[Literature]] ==
* In [[Isaac Asimov]]'s ''[[The Caves of Steel]]'', Elijah Baley is investigating a murder and has a robot partner that appears physically identical to the murder victim. He goes to the people who reported the murder, announces his theory that the robot is, in fact, the murder victim, and gives an extended justification. The entire "murder" was a scheme, it was the ''robot'' that had been destroyed to produce the "body," and here are the point-by-point reasons why all the supposedly "robotic" actions of his partner actually match perfectly with a human impersonating a robot. All the while, his boss is watching via a teleconference. After the completion of the detailed and rational accusation, said alleged non-robot opens up his sleeve and then calmly ''opens his arm as well.'' Elijah faints.
** Although at the end, Elijah hints that this is [[Obfuscating Stupidity]].
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** In all fairness, his inventions usually work quite well, just at something entirely unrelated. Such as mechanical nail clippers which make a very handy automatic potato peeler.
* The short story ''Wolfie'' by Theodore Cogswell is supernatural thriller meets caper gone wrong. A man in New York City goes to a sorcerer for help in murdering his rich cousin. His idea is to take the form of a wolf and rip his cousin's throat out. {{spoiler|There is a slip-up at the veterinary hospital he has tricked a wolf blood sample out of; they give him a sample from an old, toothless, mangy poodle named Wolfie by mistake. To make failure even more certain, as a precaution to protect the witch doctor from [[You Have Failed Me...]] at the hands of his familiar should our [[Villain Protagonist]] get cold feet or a [[Heel Realization]], he [the would-be murderer] cannot change back until he has tasted his cousin's arterial blood. In the end, he is put down by the Animal Rescue League.}}
* Uh, [[Mother Goose|Jack and Jill]]; how hard could it be to get water from a well? Is that even really a two-person job?<ref>Not taking into account the [[Rule of Symbolism]] common to nursery rhymes, of course.</ref>
== [[Live
* ''[[Storage Wars]]'': "NES-001, guys. I want you to look at this very carefully. This is the first Nintendo DS built. The last one that sold with five games in the internet for [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4FV512vPHQ $13,000.]"<ref>That was the model number, not the serial number. It was worth maybe ten bucks.</ref>
** In another episode, Dave Hester finds a beat-up violin in storage which he immediately convinces himself is one of the original Stradivari worth millions. He brings it to a violin expert who values it at possibly 300-400 dollars at ''most'', if Dave invested 100-200 dollars to restore it to good condition. Up to that point, Dave had blabbed to the camera nonstop about how he'd found the holy grail of storage scavenging and would be retiring any day now.
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** Such as week 10 in series 11, where both teams received zero orders for their 'healthy snacks'. This meant both team leaders had to bring one member of their team with them back into the boardroom.
** As well as week 2 in series 12, where both advertising campaigns were terrible and both teams were told they failed the task. Again, both team had to bring people into the boardroom, and the prize was cancelled.
* ''[[The Muppet Show]]'':
** A lot of the Great Gonzo's stunts turn out not-so-great. For instance, in the Edgar Bergen episode, he wrestles a brick blindfolded...and loses.
** In the Nancy Walker episode, Kermit is home sick, and unwisely puts Fozzie is in charge. Fozzie proceeds to nearly blow up the theater, then delays the next act until the audience - almost - leaves, and then messes up the introductions in a way that somehow causes "At the Dance" and "Veterinarian's Hospital" to ''go on at the same time''. Then comes [[From Bad to Worse| ''the first'' commercial break...]]
** [[Mad Scientist|Professor Bunsen Honeydew]] has Epic Fails all the time, much to the regret of his [[Beleaguered Assistant|hapless assistant Beaker]]. In one episode, his fireproof paper proved even more flammable than regular paper, but even worse, his invention of flammable water ([[Now You Tell Me|used by Beaker when he tried to put it out]]) worked [[Gone Horribly Right|perfectly.]]
** Possibly the most epic fail of all was the one where the cast turned the show into a [[The Hero's Birthday|celebration of Kermit's birthday]]. Not only was it ''not'' Kermit's birthday, it was about ''six months later''. Hard to get a date worse than ''that''.
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* ''[[Beetle Bailey]]'': Cookie manages to make soup that is too tough to cut with a knife... and steak that is too tough to cut with a machine gun and grenades. In one strip, he lists the ingredients for his meatballs, and realizes he forgot to use ground beef. He also manages to fail to ''not'' [[Kitchen Sink Included|include the kitchen sink]]—in food. In one Sunday strip Beetle has to chew a bite of his mashed potatoes for five panels before he can swallow it. No wonder he [[Beyond the Impossible|graduated 50th out of a class of twenty-five]].
* ''[[Peanuts]]'':
** Charlie Brown's failures tend to skirt the bounds of belief. For instance, his kite flying. In addition to the all-too-familiar situation where he winds up dangling upside-down in a tree with the kite, he's been known to lose his kite in a mailbox or down a sewer grate. In one strip, it [[How Is That Even Possible?| exploded in mid-air.]]
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** Also [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in [[The Movie]] ''A Boy Named Charlie Brown'', when the girls mock Charlie by singing the song "Failure Face." They quip that, if trying to fail were like running a race, Charlie Brown [[Logic Bomb|would actually]] ''[[Logic Bomb|win]]''.
** There is a line of Epic Fail t-shirts displaying his greatest failure moments.
* ''[[FoxTrot]]'':
**
{{quote|'''Jason:''' Why can't my successes ever be as spectacular as my failures?}}
* In one strip of ''[[The Far Side]]'' a man [[Crowning Moment of Funny|lost a quick draw to a sloth]]. One bystander mentions that the newly deceased wasn't exactly what you would call a "quick draw".
==
* Anytime a [[Heel]] character is trounced in a way that instantly enters the record books. One instance that was truly for the ages occurred at the 2009 Royal Rumble Match to Santino Marella. He entered the contest, climbed over the ropes - and was ''instantaneously'' knocked back over the ropes by [[Kane (wrestling)|Kane]], resulting in the shortest ever Royal Rumble time of one measly second. Predictably, Marella suffered a [[Villainous Breakdown]] as a result and screamed "I WASN'T READY!"▼
* Sometimes, if the dice are with you and the DM has a sense of humor, it's possible to bring an Epic Fail right back around to an [http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v388/technobubblegum/macrotastics/killyouwithmybrain.jpg Epic Win.] [http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Sameo Indeed].
* Something not limited to any game, but especially in RPGs and war-games, would be the [[Total Party Kill|"wipe" or "total party kill"]] [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|in which some way somehow you manage to lose every member of the squad all at once.]]
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* Most [[Chess]] players have been [[Curb Stomp Battle|curb-stomped]] at least once. Some have even lost [[wikipedia:Scholar's mate|in four moves]] at least once. It takes a major dose of the [[Idiot Ball]], however, to ''[[wikipedia:Fool's mate|lose in two]]''.
==
▲* Anytime a [[Heel]] character is trounced in a way that instantly enters the record books. One instance that was truly for the ages occurred at the 2009 Royal Rumble Match to Santino Marella. He entered the contest, climbed over the ropes - and was ''instantaneously'' knocked back over the ropes by [[Kane (wrestling)|Kane]], resulting in the shortest ever Royal Rumble time of one measly second. Predictably, Marella suffered a [[Villainous Breakdown]] as a result and screamed "I WASN'T READY!"
▲== Video Games ==
* Arguable, but many people consider the term/[[Memetic Mutation|meme]] "Fail" (and by extension, "Epic Fail") to have been popularized by the game ''[[Blazing Star]]''. If you failed to beat a boss in time, the [[Engrish]] words "You fail it! Your skill is not enough, see you next time, bye-bye!" appeared on screen, showing you how much you sucked at fighting the boss.
* The infamous ''[[Super Smash Bros.]] Brawl'' video wherein Fox jumps up in the air, then comes down in a Landmaster, which promptly [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UbvVe4YHCA falls through the tiny hole in the center of the Yoshi's Island (Melee) stage].
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* ''[[Kirby Super Star]]'': When Kirby gets Bomb ability, he immediately pulls one out. Forget to throw it immediately? Boom.
* From ''[[Resident Evil 4]]'', we have...[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NysMwcSG648 this].
* ''[[Rooster Teeth]]'' has a weekly series called ''[http://roosterteeth.com/archive/?sid=fails Fails of the Weak]''{{Dead link}}
** Special mention must go to PR Punk Skater, who was apparently [[Boom! Headshot!|headshot]] by ''God'' in volume 34.
** Similarly, [http://www.youtube.com/user/GameFails GameFails] charts epic fails from all over the gaming world.
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*** The winner was a Soldier who wanted to show off and destroy an enemy dispenser using a taunt kill, but the Engineer moves the dispenser before he can finish the taunt. What makes this an Epic Fail is that said taunt kills the Soldier as well as whoever's standing by, and unfortunately, no one's standing by. You can probably guess what happened.
* ''[[Rune Factory 3]]'': Failing to cook a dish that you have a 90% success rate for will result in a Super Fail. The game plays with the trope in that not only are Super Fails a favored gift for Sofia (one of your [[Dating Sim|potential brides]]) but they're a powerful poison, that can take chunks of life off even bosses.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20141230193730/http://www.the-magicbox.com/1110/game111029b.shtml During] a [[Play Station Vita]] press conference in Taiwan, Sony Computer Entertainment Taiwan's spokeswoman claimed that her favorite [[PlayStation]] game is ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' and proceeded to hold the Vita upside-down. The crowd bursted into amazement at the fiasco unfolding in front of them.
* ''[[StarCraft II]]'': Not with the game itself but for a piece of hardware designed specifically for the game, [[Steel Series]] released a [http://gamingweapons.com/starcraft-2-zboard-keyset/ StarCraft II-themed keyboard], only they misspelt "protoss".
* In the ''[[Gran Turismo]]'' series, failing a licensed test results in the display of the word FAIL in big white letters, sometimes with [[Soundtrack Dissonance]].
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* ''[[Brain Dead 13]]'' has this in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0LPEbjisWI&t=3m52s Vivi's Salon.] During the scene in which Fritz escapes from the spiked coffin, he puts on a spiked arm with a switch, but just as Fritz was charging at Lance, he '''trips over a skull.'''
* The Easy AI in ''[[Mario Party]] 2'' is so stupid that players can win by doing [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6PxRwgjzZw absolutely nothing].
* ''[[Star Wars
==
* In ''[[8-Bit Theater]]'', [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2004/06/17/episode-430-very-long-range/ Black Mage finally gets into a strong position] [[With Friends Like These...|to kill his hated allies]], as he has attempted many times before. To assure his success, he aimed his [[Kamehame Hadoken]] not at them, but at the volcano they're standing on, which he plans would cause it to erupt and kill absolutely everything in the local and not-so-local vicinity. But, as the universe's [[Butt Monkey]], [[Critical Failure|he fails]]. How does he fail? He misses. He misses an ''entire freaking mountain''. He misses anything on the entire planet and ends up '''killing the dinosaurs'''.
{{quote|'''Thief:''' Not that I'm complaining about it, but...''{{color|red| HOW DO YOU '''MISS''' A VOLCANO?!}}''}}
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** Cherman from Season 9 was an epic fail in ''all'' challenges, in spite of being a robot specifically programmed to be the ultimate Survivor bot. {{spoiler|Then it's similarly subverted at the very end when he ''wins'' the entire game.}}
* [[Sequential Art (webcomic)|Art, how can you screw up]] [http://www.collectedcurios.com/sequentialart.php?s=378 pancake flipping SO BAD?]
* In ''[[L's Empire|Ls Empire]]'', [[Butt Monkey|Void]] shows that it's possible to [https://web.archive.org/web/20131227024629/http://l-empire.smackjeeves.com/comics/1296232/games-of-life-pt-13/ miss a shot a point blank range.]
* [[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]] features [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=277#comic this] lovely spoon-accident.
* ''[[Xkcd]]'': These [http://xkcd.com/445/ two] [http://xkcd.com/475/ comics]. Failing to throw a boomerang correctly is one thing. But this guy eventually managed to throw it so badly he ''broke the ozone layer''.
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* Kharisma of ''[[Something*Positive]]'' tries to take a geek trivia test. Davan grades it: "Just so you know, [[The Last Unicorn]] was not, in fact, [[Star Wars|Luke's father]]."
== [[Web Original]] ==
* Not many LP'ers die on the first part of a sometimes incredibly easy part of a video game. That's where [[Crazy Commentaries]] comes in, in their first video, one of the members dies by losing health to bob-ombs, rolling balls, and not getting any health. The thing that really cements this into Epic Fail territory, though, was how he died. He jumped directly into a rolling ball, not even trying to get away from it.
** in one [[Let's Play]], someone tried to perform a subdural hematoma operation...and turned the head the wrong way.
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{{quote|Congratulations guys, your enemy AI is less effective than the [[Precision F-Strike|fucking]] UFO in ''[[Asteroids]]''.}}
** In [https://web.archive.org/web/20130810060259/http://spoonyexperiment.com/2011/11/03/counter-monkey-botchamania/ this] video, Spoony describes a ''[[Spycraft]]'' game he ran where the players were trying to get onto a bullet train from a helicopter. By the end, one member of the team was dead and they utterly failed their mission because they kept rolling 1s, Spoony kept giving them the chance to recover, and they'd roll 1s for that too.
* [[Tumblr]] was a microblogging site well known through the 2010s as a friendly home to all manner of communities, among them safe havens for LGBTQ teens and adults, and a small group of user-curated NSFW blogs (which brought in about 25% of Tumblr's traffic). Then Verizon bought its parent company and in 2018 decided
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'':
** In "Homer the Smithers", Homer has to cook breakfast for Mr. Burns at 4:30 in the morning and is out to make sure it's the best damn breakfast he can provide. He starts off with a shish kebab on a burner which he doesn't know how to use and it catches fire; he goes to a simple microwave and smashes the window open and sticks in the kebab and rather unsurprisingly that catches fire. Like a drunken student on a night out in Manchester, he has failed in his kebab quest and settles for a bowl of cereal. [[Rule of Three|See the page image]].
** In "Homer Goes to College," he's put in a truck containing a simulator of his work station and [[Walking Techbane|somehow]] causes an actual meltdown.
{{quote|'''Inspector:''' I'm still not sure how he caused the meltdown. There wasn't any nuclear material in the truck!}}
{{quote|'''Homer''', (screaming in rage): WHY MUST LIFE BE SO HARD? WHY MUST I FAIL AT EVERY ATTEMPT AT MASONRY? }}
▲** In another episode, Homer crudely creates an alternate gas main in order to allow him to do pytotechnics with a tiki idol that he got as a result of rummaging through garbage, resulting in a massive gas leak in the kitchen. While ranting to Marge as the tiki idol, he accidentally drops it, causing it to combust, and it is also implied that the house was going to end up destroyed shortly thereafter.
:* Homer has even been known to cause damage to the plant [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ2-vLC3GSo by ''not'' being there.]
▲** Homer's encounter with the wrecking ball in ''[[The Simpsons Movie]]'' crosses into this by the end, when it resumes swinging for no apparent reason a couple of seconds after seemingly coming to a stop.
{{quote|'''Homer:''' What do you think?
'''Lisa:''' How's the dog supposed to get in?
'''Homer:''' Well, he just goes... ''(realizes that he forgot to add a door to the doghouse)'' Oh...! }}
* [[Looney Tunes|Wile E. Coyote]] was always prone to these. Some of the more memorable ones included a dose of [[Chekhov's Gun|Chekhov's Faulty Booby-Trap]].
* ''[[Futurama]]''
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** The sixth season has an episode where Fry is building a machine with Leonardo da Vinci. The blueprints keep rolling back up after being spread out, so Fry gets the idea to tape them to the table. The table snaps in half like a bear trap.
** In "A Pharaoh to Remember", a depressed Bender decided to spray paint a blank building wall with a picture of himself and the phrase "Bender lives large and kicks butt." The building is then demolished, changing the picture to a person's behind and the phrase to "Bender licks butt" ''a la'' a MAD Magazine fold-in joke page.
** In "The Butterjunk Effect", Amy and Leela's first attempt at a "Butterfly Derby" (which is like pro wrestling meets aerial combat, the contenders using butterfly-wingsuits) ends with them being trounced by multiple opponents. They even somehow lose a match where their opponents are their own reflections in a mirror; it happens offscreen, so exactly ''how'' is a mystery.
* In the ''[[Rocko's Modern Life]]'' episode "Gutter Balls", Ed Bighead has a flashback to his final frame on a bowling tournament. With the scores tied, he only needs one pin to win, and he [[Tempting Fate|deliberately wasted his first roll on a gutter ball]]. He throws the second ball, but instead of rolling down the lane, it flies off and ricochets all over the place, demolishing the alley. At the end, the only thing left standing are Ed's pins, completely untouched. He could [[Never Live It Down]].
* So many examples in [[SpongeBob SquarePants]]...
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{{quote|'''Customer 1:'''My sandwich tastes like a fried boot.
'''Customer 2:''' My sandwich ''is'' a fried boot! }}
{{quote|'''Mrs. Puff ''[inflated, with distorted voice]'':''' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}8gfQ0OZtJR8 Oh, SpongeBob...Whyyyyyy?]}}
* In ''[[The Jetsons]]'', George and Jane once left their kids home alone for an extended period of time and Judy tried to serve ice cream. She burned it. She didn't ''melt'' the ice cream, she ''burned it'' without melting it, which is not actually impossible especially since sugar is highly combustible [https://web.archive.org/web/20180812020530/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fried_ice_cream].
* In ''the very first'' ''[[Transformers]]'' episode, [[The Starscream|Starscream]] shoots at the stasis locked Autobots... and revives them. [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain|Oops.]] He goes on to make a long, long career in Epic Fail after that.
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{{quote|'''Rigby:''' How do you score '''''negative''''' points? How is that even ''possible?!''}}
* The four times Francine stated "[[I Told You So]]" to Stan in ''[[American Dad]]'': Stan somehow crashing a British double-decker bus into the garage, Stan accidentally killing two bungee-jumpers by wrapping the cord around their necks, Stan losing a game of chess to a turkey, and Stan ''setting the backyard pool on fire'' -- '''''while there was water in it'''''.
* Charlie Brown has had a lot of Epic Fails, but one of the worst is in the movie ''[[A Boy Named Charlie Brown]]'' where he blows the spelling bee by misspelling "beagle". That's the breed of dog Snoopy is (Snoopy himself in the audience yipping happily as he thinks this his owner could not possibly miss this one), and he misspells it!
* In ''[[Star Trek: Lower Decks]]'', Rutherford not only flunks a advanced command training simulation and somehow manages to get 105% casualties - meaning he caused the deaths of more virtual crewmates than the computer had programmed into it, something Ransom tells him has ''never'' happened before. Rutherford makes up for it later though by passing Shaxs' SmorgasBorg simulation (where he has to single-handedly fight a dozen Borg drones unarmed) with flying colors, even though Shaxs' had designed it with [[Unwinnable Training Simulation|the intent to teach recruits how to handle defeat.]]
==
* Devin Setoguchi [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM2EXx6Ntd0 trying to manage a score] to tie up the game.
* The LSU Tigers manage an undefeated season in 2011, ranked #1 going into the BCS Championship, and then get shut out, 21-0 by #2 Alabama.
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** And then [[It Got Worse]]. The Russian fleet then went on to fight in the Battle of Tsushima, halfway around the world. Where they proceeded to lose over 5000 people, had 21 of their ships sunk and were thoroughly humiliated. The Japanese? Lost just over 100 people and only ''three'' ships in comparison. So not only did the Russian fleet fight a fishing fleet and—arguably—lose, then get sunk by a ''real'' navy, they almost started a war while already losing badly in one.
** It's worth noting that two Russians were killed in the "battle". The fishing boats fighting back? No. Friendly fire between the Russian fleet. They even managed to blow up a ''[[I'm Going to Hell For This|priest]]'' in their friendly fire exchange.
* [http://www.cracked.com/article_19637_the-5-craziest-war-stories-all-happened-same-ship.html The USS William D. Porter], a WWII destroyer, was apparently the center of a screwball comedy. Its failures include destroying a sister ship's deck while pulling out of port, blowing up a base commander's front yard, shooting up another sister ship in battle, nearly assassinating the president...by accident...''twice'', and was finally
* Part of the reason for [[Cleveland Rocks|Cleveland]]'s reputation as a [[Place Worse Than Death]] is because, at one point, the water pollution was so terrible that the nearby [[w:Cuyahoga River|Cuyahoga River]] caught on fire... ''
* Chris Matthews [http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/05/15/Chris-Matthews-Is-Dumb#disqus_thread bombing Jeopardy on May 14, 2012]. Note that this was Celebrity Jeopardy, which is notably easier compared to most Jeopardy levels.
* The B-36 bomber had a pin that would prevent accidental release of the bombs, which would have to be released before takeoff and landing to allow an emergency cargo jettison. This pin was placed over the bombs, requiring one of the crewmen to awkwardly stretch over the warheads to release the pin. On May 22, 1957, while removing the pin during a landing approach at New Mexico's Kirtland Airforce Base, the navigator accidentally snagged the released cord, dropping a 10 megaton H-bomb straight through the bomb bay doors. The explosive charge surrounding the atomic payload exploded on impact, but fortunately it wasn't properly armed, preventing the warhead from going critical. Had it gone off, Albuquerque would have been wiped out due to poor design
* The 2003 Davis Cup. During the
* In November 1970, an eight-ton sperm whale beached itself on a beach near Florence, Oregon. Authority over it fell to the Oregon Highway Division, and they were at a loss as to what to do with it. After a consultation with the U.S Navy, the OHD figured that burying it would be
* On March 30th 2020 a Venezuelan navy ship attempted to detain an unarmed cruise ship in international waters under claims of violating territorial waters. The armed ship lost due to averting [[Ramming Always Works]]. The information on this incident wasn't publicly released for two days, making it difficult to believe.
* When the Government of Canada prohibited private ownership of semi-automatic rifles on May 1, 2020, one of the rifles on the prohibited list was the Black Rifle Company BRC15B, a variant of the AR-15. The Black Rifle ''Coffee'' Company tweeted that they were on the prohibited list. That tweet was picked up by far-right sites in the USA, who claimed that the Government of Canada couldn't tell the difference between a rifle and a cup of coffee. The Epic Fail here, of course, was on the part of the far-right sites who couldn't be bothered to do some simple fact-checking (the actual list was online before they ran their stories) in their haste to set up a [[Strawman Political]].
* In the 1970s, one school district in the US dealt with a demand that the book ''Making It With Mademoiselle'' be removed from the shelves of the high-school library because of its "obvious" sexual content. An assiduous investigation, in the form of actually opening the book, revealed that it was a volume of sewing patterns from the editors of ''Mademoiselle'', a fashion magazine.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Narrative Devices]]
[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]
[[Category:Pothole Magnet]]
[[Category:Index Failure]]
▲[[Category:Epic Fail]]
[[Category:Epic Tropes]]
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