I Am Not Shazam/Live-Action TV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Not to be confused with I Am Not Spock, of course.

  • You'd be amazed by how many people think (or thought, during the year or two when the show was somewhere near the public consciousness) Zev is named Lexx.
    • At least it is the name of the ship, or perhaps more accurately, the MacGuffin everyone in the film version is after, unlike the above example.
  • Technically, the car itself doesn't have a name, but the name of the AI inside Michael Knight's black Trans Am is KITT, not "Knight Rider". The title Knight Rider doesn't refer to the car at all, but rather, to the man. Note that this is made pretty obvious in the Opening Narration.
    • This mistake occurs in the Futurama episode "The Honking":

Calculon:[...] the windshield wipers from that car that played Knight Rider.
Fry: Knight Rider wasn't evil!
Calculon: His windshield wipers were. It didn't come up much in the show.

    • Additionally, the hero's name wasn't Knight Rider, it was Michael Long. His operative name, Michael Knight, is taken from the company that hired him, Knight Industries.
  • The main character of Doctor Who is "The Doctor", not "Doctor Who". Note, however, that there were two non-canon, Non Serial Movies in an Alternate Universe starring a human being who was named "Doctor Who" or "Dr Who". However, the character has been credited as "Doctor Who" for much of the series, including for the first new season. It was changed back to "The Doctor" when David Tennant -- himself a fan of the series -- came on board, at his insistence.
    • Specifically, Tennant's favorite Doctor was Peter Davison, who was the first one to be credited as "The Doctor." Not hard to see why he wanted it changed.
    • At one point, an intelligent super computer refers to the Doctor as "Doctor Who". How it came to that conclusion, we have no idea, though it did have telepathic powers and could work out what TARDIS stood for without being told.
    • The Doctor himself also plays with it sometimes, going by aliases such as "Doctor von Wer" ("wer" being German for "who"), using WHO on his car's registration plates, and signing his name as a question mark. It might not be his name, but he seems to like making allusions to it.
      • In "The Underwater Menace", the Doctor writes a note and signs it Dr W.
      • The Daleks might have alluded to it too. In season one of the new series, they used the code word "Bad Wolf", which they said was from a nursery rhyme. That rhyme, of course, is "WHO's afraid of the big Bad Wolf".
    • The Doctor was actually referred to as "Doctor Who" in the text of several early novelisations of the series.
    • It is a Running Gag, though, that whenever someone hears about the Doctor for the first time, their response is "Doctor who?"
    • A common joke is that, since the Doctor's name is never revealed, it could turn out to be "Who" for all we know, although the Doctor's reaction to the name on a few occasions when it is used probably Josses this.
    • Even the closed captioning on the Syfy refers to the character as "Doctor Who".
      • Even worse, the episode descriptions on Netflix Instant Play refer to the Doctor as "Doctor Who" with aggravating regularity.
    • To add to the fun, there's a serial called "Doctor Who and the Silurians" and an episode called "The Death of Doctor Who". Even the episode titlers get confused...
    • Often parodied in the new series, without ever asking "Doctor who?" with examples such as "I had time to think about what I want, about WHO I want..." and The Doctor himself triumphantly shouting "Who da man!"
    • And now, in the finale of season 6 of the new series, the Big Bad of the season is shown to be out to kill the Doctor to stop him asking "the question that must never be answered", which appears, or is strongly hinted, to be "Doctor Who?" Of course, in the same episode, he appears to tell River the answer -- his name, which she was shown to know in her first appearance two seasons earlier -- but doesn't. How and when he does tell her remains to be seen.
  • Highlander refers to Connor (and later Duncan) MacLeod's origins as a Scottish Highlander, not to the race of Immortals that he turns out to be belong to.
  • Farscape is the name of the program that gave birth to Crichton's experimental shuttle (the FarScape One), not the living ship that becomes his home (Moya).
  • In one episode of Just Shoot Me, a character is berated for thinking that Die Hard is the name of Bruce Willis's character, John McClane. A nearly identical gag was used in Brother's Keeper.
    • In The Simpsons, Bart makes the same exact mistake during the scene where "Die Hard" jumps barefoot through a window.
      • Also in the scene where "Wall Street" gets arrested.
  • The '80s British police drama Juliet Bravo was about a police station under the leadership of a female inspector. Many viewers thought that the lead character was named Juliet Bravo, but in fact that was her radio call sign. The first three seasons starred Stephanie Turner playing Inspector Jean Darblay; seasons 4-6 starred Anna Carteret as Inspector Kate Longton.
  • "SG-1" in Stargate SG-1 refers to the team, to distinguish it from other SG teams (from SG-2 to at least SG-25), and not to the Stargate (which is referred to as just that: "the Stargate").
    • Individual episode titles are prone to such misunderstandings as well. For example, the title of the pilot episode, "Children of the Gods", refers to the Goa'uld (that's what their name literally means in their language).
    • And in Stargate Atlantis, the episode title "The Defiant One" refers to John Sheppard (Wraith: "I will savor the taste of your defiance!"), not the Wraith.
  • In Star Trek: The Original Series, the episode title "The Galileo Seven" is often assumed to be the name of the featured shuttlecraft, when actually it refers to the seven passengers aboard the shuttle Galileo. The title is ambiguous because the shuttle's registry is NCC-1701/7.
    • Even worse, the German translation is "Notlandung auf Galileo VII" - "Emergency landing on Galileo VII".
  • Monty Python is the group, not any individual. Even as the name of the group it's kind of a Sure Why Not example of this; when they originally came up with the title Monty Python's Flying Circus, "Monty Python" was supposed to be the fictional proprietor of the fictional circus, just a funny name designed to sound like a sleazy salesman type; it wasn't like they formed a group called Monty Python and then named the show after that. But inevitably it came to be heard that way and now not only is the group Monty Python, but the members are Pythons.
  • In The Cosby Show, the main character's name is Cliff Huxtable. Some people mistakenly thought Bill Cosby was using The Danza.
    • In fact his first name was "Heathcliff," leading to more confusion.
      • Except in the pilot when he was "Clifford" on the sign to his office.
    • It's not uncommon to hear The Cosby Show called The Bill Cosby Show, but that was actually the title of an earlier (1969-71) sitcom, where Cosby played a character named Chet Kincaid.
      • And later he was in a series called Cosby.
    • Ditto The Dick Van Dyke Show (Rob Petrie) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (Mary Richards).
    • The protagonist of The Andy Griffith Show was named Andy Taylor.
    • Same with The Bob Newhart Show.
    • And Newhart, not to mention Bob.
  • In an opposite effect, Chelsea Handler complains several times on her show that her name is not Chelsea Lately, the name of her show. She has, however, accidentally referred to herself as Chelsea Lately, which doesn't help.
  • The Frankenstein issue was lampshaded in Bones, when Booth calls the monster by the eponymous name and Brennan corrects him, saying it was the creator. Booth's response? "Yeah, cause THAT would make sense." Also, the show itself is kind of an example-Brennan is called Bones by Booth but it's just a nickname...one she doesn't even like at first. A Season 5 episode shows that she grew not only to accept but actually like the nickname.
  • In the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode "Prince of Space," Mike and the 'bots repeatedly refer to the film's villain, Phantom of Krankor, as "Krankor" (the name of his home planet).
    • When Krankor makes a "guest appearance" in a host segment of Invasion of the Neptune Men, they initially call him by his correct name, but then switch back to Krankor (he doesn't seem to mind).
  • The protagonist of the series Kung Fu was named "Kwai Chang Kane," which was both his Chinese and American family-names combined. However his Chinese name was often mistaken as being "Kung Fu." Even worse, however, is that "Kung Fu" is often mistaken solely for the name of his style of martial arts, rather than the entire philosophy by which he lived and found peace in a violent world -- while likewise teaching others through example, with each episode featuring Kane resolving a conflict peacefully (relatively speaking for the Old West) through the wisdom of his Kung Fu masters.
    • This confusion predates the series. Legend has it that early European explorers who first witnessed a martial arts exercise in China asked what it was called, and were told "Kung Fu." Kung fu loosely translates as "excellence" or "mastery," so the explorers were being told they were witnessing masters in action, not that the martial art was called Kung Fu.
  • The ship in Firefly is called "Serenity". It is, however, of the Firefly class.
    • Somewhat averted in the movie, which is aptly titled "Serenity."
    • At least one person on This Very Wiki thought that "Sheppard" was Book's first name. "Shepherd" is his title, akin to "Reverend".
  • Smallville refers to the town in Kansas in which Clark Kent grows up in and lives. Though Lois would call him Smallville sometimes.
  • Jon Stewart of The Daily Show is ocasionally mistakenly called "Jon Daily" and the show's title has been called "The Jon Daily Show". Naturally they've used this several times for laughs on the show itself.
  • Dark Angel is not a name used by its protagonist, Max.
  • In Whose Line Is It Anyway?, a mistake in a skit between Colin and Ryan became a running gag.

Ryan (As one of Charlie's Angels): What will we do now, Charlie?
Colin (As Bosley): I'm Bosley!

    • Also, Africa is a continent, not a country.
  • Human Target: Featuring Chris Chance as the eponymous "Hugh Mantarget"
  • In Community episode "Epidemiology" Troy claims his costume is a "sexy Dracula," and doesn't get why Abed insists he means "sexy vampire."

Troy: I don't need to know which Dracula I am to know I'm a Dracula. Nerd.

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