Freudian Slippery Slope

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Good evening. I'd like to talk to you tonight about the place of the nude in my bed. Um -- in the history of my bed -- of art, of art, I'm sorry. The place of the nude in the history of tart -- call-girl -- I'm sorry, I'll start again. (Beat) Bum -- oh, what a giveaway!
—Fart Art Critic, Monty Python's Flying Circus -- "Full-Frontal Nudity"

Sometimes a character in a boob... sorry, book or shi-... show has a lot on their behind... mind. On their mind. And try their breast—best, sorry, best—they just cun... can't stop spurting—blurting, dammit—it out in a Freudian slit... slip, at balls—at ALL, dammit, at ALL. And of course that gave our schlong-- That Came Out Wrong—and any attempt to stop the blow—flow—just results in even whore... more vulv—vulgarities. Yiff—IF they're trying to undress—I mean impress—someone, they're just out of fu-... luck. Of course, those with a Hair-Trigger Temper will all gay—ALWAYS interpret the error as in bed—intentional. If you're discussing mammaries—MATTERS with a stranger, you'll be ass-shaken—sorry, mistaken for a pervert.

Similar to Dicking... sorry, Digging Yourself Deeper and Sammy's Ass Eye... I mean Sammy's Glass Eye, which it tends to be used in conjuga-er, conjunction with. However, in Sammy's Slash—er, Glass Eye, the humor comes from an upright member... uptight member of society inadvertently mentioning an embastarding—embarrassing or nude... rude peculiarity they had taken penis -- pains, sorry—to avoid. In this case, tit -- it, even—cum... comes from a character accidentally exposing their genitals. Their thoughts, their thoughts!

Plain English version

Sometimes a character in a book or show has a lot on their mind. And try their best, they just can't stop blurting it out in a Freudian Slip, at all. And of course That Came Out Wrong and any attempt to stop the flow just results in more vulgarities. If they're trying to impress someone, they're just out of luck. Of course, those with a Hair-Trigger Temper will always interpret the error as intentional. If you're discussing matters with a stranger, you'll be mistaken for a pervert.

Similar to Digging Yourself Deeper and Sammys Glass Eye, which it tends to be used in conjunction with. However, in Sammy's Glass Eye, the humor comes from an uptight member of society inadvertently mentioning an embarrassing or rude peculiarity they had taken pains to avoid. In this case, it comes from a character accidentally exposing their thoughts.


Compare Accidental Innuendo, when a person has control over what they say, but doesn't realize any Double Entendres that they just spouted.

Lampshades may be well hung... may well be hung, I mean. So fap—I mean clop—dang it! clap--your hands if you believe!

Lusting--LISTING! Here's a fisting, er, LISTING of s-s-Examples! Yes...


Fan Wan - sorry, Fan WORks

Matsuda: It was so horrible. I- I feel like I've violated Misa-Misa just by listening to those lies being told to her... I don't want to have sex with two men and Misa-Misa at the same time... (*everyone stares*) No, no, I'm not with this guy, he's just my friend who has sex with my other male friend. I really like women a lot and any women who want to be with me, I'll respect them incredibly hard and skillfully with all the right respectful lines that I'm going to learn.
Light: I don't think you should return to this bar anytime soon.

 Matsuda (wearing an ugly suit): Hey, Light-kun.
Light: What is it?
Matsuda: Uhh, you're good with girls, right?
Light: (thinking: Hell yeah, I have!) Well, I have had quite a few girlfriends over the years. So, I guess you could say that.
Matsuda: Well, you see... I'm going on a date with someone in an hour, and, uh, I was sort of wondering if you could give me some advice...
Light: (thinking: Well, that explains the ugly suit.) Oh, sure. Do you want to learn how to make her like you, or how to make her want to knock you over and fuck you into a mattress? Because I'm fairly good at both.
The reality that he had quite possibly just said the most awkward thing in his life hit Light when the sound of chairs scraping against the floor reverberated all through the room as everyone in the task force turned to stare at him.

 Light: I'll demonstrate with Ryuzaki. As absurd and seemingly impossible it is to imagine, just pretend that he's some nice, beautiful young girl, and you want to date her.

Dild - err... Film

  • Wild Wild West (1999). Jim West and Artemus Gordon are discussing Rita Escobar.

 Artemus: She's a breath of fresh ass.
Jim: Pardon me?
Artemus: What?
Jim: You said "ass."
Artemus: No, I didn't. I said, "It's nice having her on board, she's a breast of fresh air."
Jim: Let's just get some shut ass.

    • Though note that Jim's is implied to be intentional.
  • American Graffiti (courtesy Wikiquote):

 Debbie: Is that tuck and roll?
Terry: Yeah!
Debbie: Bitchin! I just love the feel of tuck and roll upholstery.
Terry: Yeah? Well, get in and I'll let you feel it... I mean, you know, you can touch it... uh... I'll let you feel the upholstery.

  • Broken out in the interrogation scene in Austin Powers: Goldmember, where the spy is accused of being obsessed with daddy issues.

 "Nothing could be my father from the truth."
"No I dadn't!"

  • Used frequently in Liar Liar, the slips being so direct that they barely even count as slips anymore.
    • Well, they're not really Freudian Slips, they're more things he's forced to say due to not being able to lie. Accidentally revealing your real thoughts is different to being FORCED to reveal your real thoughts.
      • Debatable. If he knew exactly what he was going to say before he said it, he'd probably keep his mouth shut more. It seems like he's trying to say one thing and something entirely different slips out.
    • "Liar" itself was a Freudian Slip for "lawyer."
  • A Bugs Life, after Flik discovers the "warrior bugs" are circus performers:

 Flik: Your highness! The warriors have called a secret meeting to make plans for circus - circumventing the oncoming horde, so that we can trapeze - trap them with ease!

  • In Fierce Creatures, John Cleese has a brilliant monologue about lemurs wherein he is unable to go five words without mentioning Jamie Lee Curtis' breasts. After thoroughly making a fool of himself, he apologizes for his "Freudian slit... er, slut... slot!".
  • In Baseketball, upon encountering the apparently very well-endowed heroes naked in a gym shower, the hero's (rather sexually repressed and simultaneously sexually frustrated) girlfriend finds herself struggling to remain on topic with the furious rant she has prepared for them. After managing to almost avoid any kind of innuendo or Freudian Slip admirably, she ends up blurting out "Huge cock!" out of nowhere right at the end.
    • That's not entirely true. Her rant at them goes something (but probably not exactly, since I'm writing this from memory) like this:

 Jenna: You're just two selfish men with huge ... egos arguing over which of you is the bigger penis! I mean, child. (pauses for composure) Long wanger. (another pause) Throbbing cock! Oh God, I don't even know what I'm saying anymore!

  • In National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Clark Griswold is shopping at a department store and tries to make small talk with a buxom female sales clerk at the lingerie counter. The trope is duly employed.

 "I was just smelling...smiling! I was just blouse...browsing!"
"It wouldn't be the Christmas shopping season if the stores were any less hooter than...hotter than they are!"
"It's a bit nipply out...I mean nippy out! HA, HA, HA! What did I say, nipple?"
"There are plenty of shopping days until adultery...adulthood. Which is to say, Christmas. As in, Yule. Yule Log. Not a log, I don't have a log, I mean, you know...If I had a log. Not in the sense that you think I said I did."

  • In In and Out, Howard attempts to introduce Peter (who has just passionately kissed him) to his parents: "This is my Peter - uh, my *friend* Peter. We just met at the, uh, intersexual... homosection... INTERSECTION!"
  • The play within a movie, Noises Off , has the actors perform in a comedy/sex farce. A lawyer with his office girl attempts to explain to the housekeeper what he's doing at the otherwise empty house owned by his firm:

 "I've come to go into a few things....er, to check some of the measurements...uhm, do one or two odd jobs!"

  • Dr. Doppler has a habit of this, switching "adorable" for "deploragble" "Fellow" for "Felon", and, most amusingly, astronomically for "anatomically" when talking to the lovely Captain Amelia.
  • Bruce Almighty when Jennifer Aniston's character notices her breasts are bigger.

 Bruce: Listen I uh have to go. This has been the breast break... breast... thank you.

Live In Bed Action TV... err... I mean, without the In Bed part...

  • In the MST3K episode "Cave Dwellers", when the hero is standing there captured and shirtless...

 Crow: "Well, tit's all over -- I mean, IT'S all over for you, Ator! I know we've been breast -- BEST friends..."

    • Tom Servo, in a later episode: "Ma'am, may I pour you a buttock? -- I mean nip? -- DRINK?"
  • This happens a lot in Coupling:
    • Jane comes out with a beauty when trying to explain an earlier Freudian Slip. Suffice it to say, she ends up saying penis a lot.

  Jane: I do not say "penis" when I mean penis! I mean, penis! Penis, car, penis, car...

    • Patrick does one in an earlier episode

  Have a look at my penis, it just won't start. (followed by) You're the one who started talking about traitors in the first place. Penises. not traitors, penises.

    • Jeff has an irrational fear of this (although, since he's Jeff, his fear may not be so irrational) while preparing for a job interview. His friends' efforts to help him only make things worse.

 Jeff: I'm going to be sitting there trying to convince them I'm a safe choice for senior accountant, and suddenly I'm a naked man saying "vulva".

  • Frasier. Martin is reading a sex ad paper.

 Martin: Martin: would you stop moping, it'll all work ass.

    • And later, still reading the paper:

 Martin: Listen, your job's to give him the party he wants. Everything else is between them. It's absolutely none of your boobs!

  • The Star Trek: Enterprise episode "A Night in Sickbay" had Archer doing this in front of T'Pol, since it was implied he had feelings for her (but he only seemed to feel that feel those have those feelings in that episode, not before or after).
    • Really? I must have misinterpreted that Marshmallow Hell scene in "Shadows of P'Jem", among others.
  • One Kids in The Hall skit, involving a businessman asking his secretary to write a letter for him, takes this to the point of complete incoherence. He is unable to speak five words without mentioning breasts in some way, and eventually forms a sentence made almost entirely of words for breasts.
  • Peep Show has an interesting example of this when Mark is in therapy. During the game of word association, what Mark really thinks of is said in voiceover before he speaks.

 Therapist: Just say the first thing that comes to mind. Money.
Mark: (Everything.) ...not everything.
Therapist: Children.
Mark: (Blind.) Uh, short.
Therapist: Father.
Mark: (Führer.) Football.
Therapist: Mother
Mark: (Sophie.) Fuck! - No, not fuck!

  • Pretty much the entire shtick of Hugh Dennis' Tongue Twister Minister from The Imaginitively Titled Punt And Dennis Show.
  • The Fawlty Towers episode "The Germans" combines this with IgnoreTheDisability: Basil implores Polly not to "mention the war" to a group of German guests, then proceeds to invoke the trope while talking with them himself.

 Basil: Do you wish to eat now? Or would you like to have a drink before the war...-NING! That trespassers will be tied up with piano wire- Sorry, Sorry!

 Interviewer: From the world of the theatre we turn to the world of dental hygiene. No, no, no, no. From the world of the theatre we turn to the silver screen. We honour one of the silver screen's outstanding writer-dentists... writer-directors, Martin Curry who is visiting London to have a tooth out, for the pre-molar, er... premiere of his filling, film next Toothday--Tuesday, at the Dental Theatre... Film Theatre. Martin Curry talking to Matthew Palate--Padget!

    • From "Full Frontal Nudity":

 Art Critic: Good evening. I'd like to talk to you tonight about the place of the nude in my bed ... um ... in the history of my bed ... of art, of art, I'm sorry. The place of the nude in the history of tart... call-girl... I'm sorry. I'll start again... Bum ... oh what a giveaway. The place of the nude in art.

  • In the Two and A Half Men episode "Principal Gallagher's Lesbian Lover", Jake gets suspended from school after drawing an offensive picture of Barbara, a girl in his class that has large breasts. When his father, Alan goes to speak to the principal, he meets a busty woman, and says: "Oh, you must be Boober's mom! I mean, Barbara's mams. Hi!"
  • On an episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun Dick seems to notice his office assistant is attractive for the first time. It causes him to drop a potted plant.

 Dick: I'm sorry, I dropped your firm buttocks. Uh, fern buttocks. FERN! ... ... buttocks.

Wank - I mean, Web - Org- ORIGINAL!! Original.

  • The Opinionated Voyager Episode Guide has this to say about a certain scene in the episode "Non Sequitor": "Harry wants Tom to come back to San Francisco with him...wait a minute. Harry knows Tom is good with his hands...shit. Harry wants Tom in the pilot's seat...goddammit! Look, they're not gay, okay?"
  • The end of the Zero Punctuation video on Tomb Raider has Yahtzee, who has promised to make no breast jokes throughout the video, coming up with a series of video game ideas with more and more words being substituted by the word "bosoms". He then breaks down into a Hurricane of Euphemisms for bosoms.
    • STONKING GREAT TITS!
      • The "STONKING GREAT" Ladies T-shirt, now available in stores.
    • Also, in his review of Bayonetta, he maintains that the fetishization going on with the character doesn't affect him at all. A minute later he says "the gameplay is adequate at breast. Best." Then he continues doing them on set intervals during the rest of the review.
      • It reaches its peak when he amends a slip with the exact same word: "...And at some points, the game seems to pull death sequences out of its ass - I mean, ass..."
  • More or less the same tit thing happens to Spoony when he tries to discuss the part of Final Fantasy X where Lulu is introduced.

  Tits jugs Lu - I mean it's just Lulu, the Boob Mage - Black Mage. Sorry I'm just pretty funbags - FLUSTERED!

    • It culminates in a long rant about how physically impossible her figure is.

  She must have learned magic just to deal with lower back pain!

    • And an in-character, non-sexual example as Dr. Harburg in his Phantasmagoria2 LP.

  Oh, gee. Look at the freak-TIME, time, I mean! Uh, I really have a psycho-I mean, I really have to go! I'm uh, maniac another killer for murder-I mean, meeting another client for dinner! Dammit!

  If you date someone and don't wind up marrying that person, it could lead to a lot of pain. You could still secretly be in love with that person, and regret not doing the right thing and marrying Jean. I mean Jean. I mean Jean Engvall. I mean that person. Jean.

  Hello, I'm the Nostalgia Critic! I remember it, so you don't boobies! I mean, boobies, in the boobies boobies...uh...

 Goku: I ran into these really weird guys. The first one was big and muscly, but he went down real easy. Then these two guys double-teamed me. One of them took it really hard in the back, but the other didn't seem that interested, so he brought this really horny guy.
George Takei: Oh my!
King Kai: That's George Takei. Somehow he made this into a three-way.
George Takei: Oh my!
King Kai: Call! Three-way-call!

    • Also from the first episode...

  Krillan: Boobs! I mean, Bulma!

Web cum - dammit - COMICS!

 Brent: Hello, I'm looking for a rack of mine named juggs.

Western ass-motion - ANIMATION! Animation, I mean...

  • In The Simpsons, Homer is trapped in an elevator with his co-worker Mindy: "Looks like we'll be going down together-oop- I mean... getting off togethe-I mean... Il just push the button for the stimulator - I mean elevator!"
    • Also from The Simpsons, when Homer and Marge are playing badminton with Manjula, whose husband has cheated on her:

 Homer: The score is dirty love... I mean, thirty, love! I mean, anyone for penis?!... I'll just get the cock... shuttlecock!

  • Family Guy's version—or one of them, anyway—was an episode were Lois insisted Peter watch some marriage counseling tapes with her. They turned out to be pornos that sent the woman out of the room, did some dirty things, and then demanded the viewer buy the next tape to see what happened next. Each progressive tape was more expensive, though...

 Lois: Peter, $49.95 for a counselin' tape?
Peter: Now Lois, our marriage can't be measured in nipples and dimes. I mean nickels and boobs. ...money.

 Peter: Not a word to your mother about my getting canned.
Lois: What?
Peter: Nothing. Ooh, the lost-my-job smells great!
Lois: Excuse me?
Peter: Uh, Meg, honey, could you please pass the fired-my-ass for negligence?
Lois: Peter, are you feeling okay?
Peter: What are you talking about, Lois? I feel great. I haven't got a job in the world!

  • Subverted in Futurama, "The Deep South": trapped underwater, Hermes seems a little too eager to resort to eating Zoidberg, as he suggests a lunch of "lobster Zoidberg... I mean, Lobster Newberg... I mean, Doctor Zoidberg."
  • Home Movies simply *owns* this trope with a scene around the dinner table (well, between Brendan and his Mom), where Brendan is trying to avoid talking about acting class, which he's been kicked out of, and his mother is trying not to think about the guy in her adult writing class that she's been passionately making out with for no reason. You know what? Watch the first minute of this. Now *that's* a Freudian Slippery Slope.


Pénis. Je veux dire,finis.

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