Lame Excuse: Difference between revisions

 

So Alice needs Bob to do some yardwork. Bob would rather continue being lazy. So what does Bob do?

 

The injury or disease may or may not be largely inhibiting or even real. The 'faker' may have to [[Maintain the Lie]] in order to truly get away with his/her scheme. Said liar may also be subject to [[Laser-Guided Karma]].

* Arfur Daley in ''[[Minder]]'' always says his back hurts in order to get Terry to do all the hard work.

* Mr Lucas of ''[[Are You Being Served?|Are You Being Served]]'' tries to fake being sick so he can go watch a movie. Among other things, he tries the trick of sticking soap in his mouth. It was supposed to go under his tongue, but he swallowed it instead. He persuades Captain Peacock to send for the medical staff, as bubbles from his hiccups float by, prompting Captain Peacock to add:

* Basil Fawlty, the lead character of ''[[Fawlty Towers]]'', often uses the excuse of "the old leg wound playing up" to get out of dealing with difficult customers.

* ''[[Father Ted]]'', after Ted's offensive "Chinaman" impersonation is witnessed by a Chinese family:

'''Ted''': ''(waving at the car)'' I hope you wouldn't think it'd be anything of a racial nature! Thanks for being so understanding, see you again, bye! }}

* Subverted in ''[[Castle]]'': After having a big fight the night before, Beckett gives Castle a frosty reception when he shows up at her desk the next day. Castle claims he's just looking for his sunglasses. Beckett sneers that that has to be the lamest excuse she's ever... she doesn't get to finish, because Castle icily lifts his sunglasses off her desk and shows them to her, leaving her with some egg on face.

** Played with in another episode, after Beckett's apartment has been blown up and Castle has invited her in to stay the night; Castle's mother Martha encounters Beckett cooking breakfast in her pajamas, and in order to forestall [[UST|the obvious alternative explanation]], Beckett blurts out that she's there "on orders from the FBI." It's the truth, sort of, but it certainly ''sounds'' like a [[Lame Excuse]]:

* The Dead Parrot sketch from ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' is a good example that a bizarrely large segment of the audience misses. <s> Graham Chapman</s> Michael Palin knows the parrot is dead, so virtually everything he says is a [[Lame Excuse]].

** This is the whole point of the sketch; the shopkeeper's providing [[Lame Excuse|Lame Excuses]], the customer ''knows'' the shopkeeper's providing [[Lame Excuse|Lame Excuses]], the shopkeeper ''knows'' that the customer knows, and so on.

* The play ''Sheik, Rattle and Roll'' has a pair of cowardly guards as characters. At one point when ordered to attack someone, one of them yells, "Oh! My gammy leg!" and clutches his leg. A second later, the other shouts, "Oh! My dandruff!" and clutches his head.

* In the musical, ''[[Next to Normal]]'', Natalie gives a series of these during the song "Gonna be Good" so that her father will not have her boyfriend Henry stay for dinner.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* In ''[[The Sims]]'', if you try to call over a person you're not very close to, they'll often give one of these by way of rejection. Unless they just outright say 'no', anyway.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* ''[[Guttersnipe]]'' features [http://www.guttersnipecomic.com/?p=128 this rather impressive case]:

"Uh ... [[Crowning Moment of Funny|Why, because this water is highly pornographic]]!" }}

 

== [[Web Animation]] ==

* ''[[The Leet World]]'''s Chet as he tries to avoid "black hole where fun goes to die" Asher:

'''Chet:''' "Uuhh, as awesome as that sounds, I have, like, this condition where blood shoots out of my eyes if I learn too much or someting, so... I gotta blaze!" }}

 

* [[Scooby Doo]] often pretended to be injured, hoping to get out of helping to solve the mystery at hand.

** Referenced in the [[Theme Song]]:

* The ''[[Horrible Histories]]'' animated program featured a smart-mouth jerk attempting to get out of Grecian-style wrestling by claiming to have sprained his ''oesophagus''.

* On ''[[Family Guy]]'', Peter Griffin constantly takes this [[Up to Eleven]]:

* [[Doug]] tried to pull one of these at Beebe's pool party because he was embarrassed about how he looked in a swimsuit, only to find out everyone else was doing the exact same thing. The lamest excuse being "It's way too hot for a swim." And Beebe, [[Spoiled Sweet|a true hostess]], wasn't going to go in the pool until everyone else did. Finally, it was up to Doug to snap everyone out of it.