Little-Known Facts: Difference between revisions

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* Takashi Yamazaki (or Zachary, if you prefer) in ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]'' was notorious for this.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

"Wasn't all bad, then, was he?"

"History's a wonderful thing, see? We learn from it." }}

 

== [[Film]] ==

* Otto apparently did this a lot in ''[[A Fish Called Wanda]]''.

{{quote|'''Wanda Gershwitz''': Let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not "every man for himself". The London Underground is not a political movement. Those are mistakes. I looked 'em up.}}

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* The misconception that [[John F. Kennedy]]'s famous proclamation "Ich bin ein Berliner" translated as "I am a jelly donut" may have been started in [[Len Deighton]]'s 1983 spy novel ''[[Bernard Samson Series|Berlin Game]]'', in which the main character makes that claim, and a review of the book in ''The New York Times'' referred to it as a reference to a real fact rather than something the character made up.

 

* RE the 'taking advantage of gullibility' thing: on ''[[Seinfeld]]'', Jerry told Elaine that the original title for Tolstoy's "War and Peace" was "War: What Is It Good For?".

* ''[[Look Around You]]'' was entirely made of this.

* In ''[[Community]]'' episode "[[Community/Recap/S1/E07 Introduction to Statistics|Introduction to Statistics]]", Jeff's first pick up line aimed at Slater consists of an intentionally erroneous one of these.

* ''[[The Daily Show]]'' and ''[[The Colbert Report]]'' have used these on [[Twitter]] to make fun of dubious statements by political figures. After Senator Jon Kyl said his claim that abortions constitutes well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does was "not intended to be a factual statement," [[Stephen Colbert]] created the hashtag #[[Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement]] for this trope. After [[Sarah Palin]] got Paul Revere's story wrong, ''[[The Daily Show]]'' created the hashtag #[[According To Palin]] for intentionally erroneous historical facts. After Herman Cain said "I don’t have facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration." ''[[The Daily Show]]'' created the hashtag #idonthavefactstobackthisup for this trope.

 

== [[Music]] ==

* ''[[Les Luthiers]]'' on La Gallina Que Dijo Eureka Routine: "To the children we must always tell the truth; of course, in terms they can't understand."

 

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

** Linus believes in the Great Pumpkin even though he made it up himself.

* Bucky from ''[[Get Fuzzy]]'', usually to Satchel.

 

== [[Radio]] ==

* Likewise, [http://drscience.com/wordpress/ "Dr. Science"] from [[Ducks Breath Mystery Theatre]] and [[NPR]], although he tends to be more interactive, with listeners writing in with questions designed to prompt a spew of twisted factoids.

 

* [[George Carlin]] regularly sprinkled supposed "truefax" lists in his comedy routines. One of the more memorable ones is the "It's No Bullshit" segment on ''Carlin On Campus'', parodying [[Ripley's Believe It or Not!]].

* One stand-up lamented how some accents lend themselves to this; someone with a thick British accent could convince you that cocoa comes from a coconut just be being insistent enough, and conversely nuclear technicians with certain Southern accents...

 

== [[Theater]] ==

* The trope name is a number from the musical ''[[Peanuts|You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown]]'', in which Lucy explains to Linus that fir trees give fur, bugs make the grass grow, and snow comes up out of the ground.

* The Reduced Shakespeare Company's ''[[The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)|The Complete Works of William Shakespeare]]'' starts out by mixing up the biography of Shakespeare's life with that of [[Adolf Hitler]]. They also mix up Eva Braun and Evita Peron, for added giggles.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

*** Then there are "facts" made up solely to be against the other personality spheres, Wheatley, and even Chell herself.

* The "Red Freak Facts" on some screens in the Flash horror platformer [[The Bright in The Screen]].

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* [http://undeniablefacts.com/ undeniablefacts.com]

* [http://fakescience.tumblr.com/ fakescience] [[Tumblr]] blog, with such gems as the [http://fakescience.tumblr.com/post/16922595159/understand-groundhog-day Groundhog Day Chart].

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* In ''[[Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends]]'', Bloo makes up a lot of stuff and believes all of it. Just one example is [[As Long as It Sounds Foreign|his idea of what "the European language" is]].

* In one episode of ''[[Cow and Chicken]]'', Chicken comes out with a bunch of these when he's convinced that he's a genius just because he put on glasses.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

** And I can totally lick my elbow.

** Hey, licking '''isn't''' kissing. Six ex-girlfriends told me that.

*** Or adding adjectives. Of course the Inuits have a language that's sentences are basically really long words, so technically you can have near-infinite numbers of "words" for snow, the same way you can have near-infinite number of sentences about snow in English, but the same applies to any given concept in existence.

*** [[Portal 2|They do, however, have 234 words for fudge.]]

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]