Narm/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions

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Come on, admit it...when you saw these scenes on TV, you wanted to laugh out loud, even if you [[Narm|weren't supposed to]].
 
 
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== Series with their own lists: ==
 
* [[Doctor Who/Narm|Doctor Who]]
 
 
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== Others: ==
 
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* The [[Short Runners|short-lived]] ''[[Law & Order: LA|Law and Order LA]]'' had at least one. The detectives are questioning the victim's parents and ask if she has been behaving oddly. The mother, who is sobbing in a non-narmful way, opens her mouth to say...."She deleted me on Facebook". Cue hysterical laughter from everyone in the room.
* The ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'' episode "Authority", guest starring [[Robin Williams]] was a brilliant episode, but it had its Narm moments. They exploited Robin's ability to do voices and used it as a plot point. Or {{spoiler|the pillow fight scene}}; then again, maybe that was supposed to be funny in a disturbing way.
** "[[ThisPunctuated! IsFor! SpartaEmphasis!|PUSH! THE! BUTTON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]]" [[Narm Charm|dances on the line]] between scary and Narm.
** "Happy Burger"? That's the most generic name for a fictional fast food restaurant ever. You'd think the writers for this show could come up with something clever.
** "Ripped": Eliot finally sits down with a shrink and talks about the source of his scary, scary rage. And one of the early incidents was... when his dad, himself a rageaholic, smashed young Eliot's diorama. Note to writers: few dramatic revelations are successful when centered around words like "diorama."
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** "Sweet mother of God... ''it's the carjack rapist!''" This comes from a [[Cold Opening]] and the extremely nonplussed way the operator says it in doesn't help.
** Then there's the pedophile who claimed "our numbers str growing and yours are shrinking!"
** Nononononononono. Nothing can possibly beat [https://web.archive.org/web/20090917132646/http://videogum.com/archives/animals-on-film/the-monkey-is-in-the-basketbal_037431.html "The monkey is in the basketball!"] Made even worse because ''a sexual crimes division is dealing with animal smuggling''. Just watch it. The narm is underlined when they open the basketball and the monkey climbs out ''and hugs Captain Cragen''.
*** One description for that episode: "When a dead woman is found with an exotic bird..." It make you wonder if SVU got involved, then where the ''fuck'' was she storing that bird?
*** Fans of the show have adopted that as a general phrase of disbelief in relation to the show, i.e., "oh, that episode was good, but I'm calling some monkey basketball on [this ludicrous plot point]..."
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*** He was out-Narmed by a lowly ''Ensign'' in "[http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/The_Corbomite_Maneuver_%28episode%29 The Corbomite Maneuver]":
{{quote|What, are you all out of your minds?! End of watch? It's the end of everything! ''WHAT ARE YOU, ROBOTS?!'' Wound up, toy soldiers?! Don't you know when you're dying?! Watch and regulations and orders? What do they mean?"}}
** A special mention to the lovely ladies from the episode "[[Star Trek: The Original Series/Recap/S3/E01 Spock's Brain|Spock's Brain]]":
{{quote|"Brain and brain! WHAT IS BRAIN?!!!"}}
** Spock's rather out-of-character moment near the end of "The Cage"
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* There's a [[Lifetime Movie of the Week]] entitled ''My Stepson, My Lover''. It ended with the stepson/lover completely paralyzed in a wheelchair.
** Lifetime movies are MADE of this trope. Of course, for some, [[So Bad It's Good|that is]] [[Narm Charm|the appeal.]]
* The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4Ak4B-Wjqw second season finale] of ''[[The OC]]'', in which an [[Soundtrack Dissonance|incongruous vocal track]] (the refrain from Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek") starts playing the instant Marissa {{spoiler|shoots Trey in the back}} and continues playing as {{spoiler|he slowwwwwly registers that he's bleeding,}} turns around, looks at her in shock, and then keels over. It started out shocking, but the music was stretched out too long. ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' parodied the hell out of this scene in a sketch nicknamed [https://web.archive.org/web/20131010120529/http://www.idkwtf.com/videos/latest-videos/dear-sister-snl-digital-short ''Dear Sister''], and it then became a [[Memetic Mutation|meme]] multiplying and mutating all over Youtube. ''None'' of the parodies are as hilarious as the original.
{{quote|''Mmmmm-whatcha-saaaay...''}}
** This could apply to most death scenes in ''[[The OC]]'' that try to be emotionally gripping, since most of them seem to involve [[The Scrappy|Marissa]].
** Especially funny because of Marissa's completely flat and hilariously badly-acted "oh my God, stop, you're killing him" when she first enters the room and sees {{spoiler|Trey and Ryan fighting.}}
* In the ''[[Masters of Horror]]'' episode "Right to Die", there's a tender scene in which a married couple - not hugely wealthy, not in showbiz or anything, just an ordinary married couple - take a bath together. They're gazing into each others' eyes, smiling gently in close-up...and then the camera pulls back to reveal that the wife is sporting the most comically enormous set of fake breasts imaginable. If you didn't know better, you'd think this was a ''[[The Naked Gun]]''-style sight gag. As it is, it destroys any claim the scene might have had to emotional realism. It also lets you know just why this particular actress was hired; the rest of the episode demonstrates it wasn't for her thespian talents).
** This is absolutely true, except the breasts in question [https://web.archive.org/web/20120905153504/http://www.boobpedia.com/boobs/Julia_Anderson are not fake (link NSFW)].
* There is so much narm in ''[[MacGyver]]'' that it could have its own page.
** Almost every [[Very Special Episode]] ends up being so over the top that it almost trivializes the issue in question. Teenage prostitution, poaching, drugs, racism, sexism, corporate corruption, pollution, and much, much more - all were handled in a completely [[Anvilicious]] manner. The show always portrayed the issues in a one-sided, [[Black and White Morality|black and white]] manner, in such a way that they became comedy. When Richard Dean Anderson was giving a speech about poaching at the end of an episode, there was simply no way to react but to laugh at the sheer narminess of it all.
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** [[James Marsters]] talking in his natural accent as Brainiac. Something about his American accent is amusing, which makes every time he has a serious scene with Clark [[Narm]]-tastic.
** Season 8, episode 3, Oliver goes through being poisoned and flashes back to his days on the island where he honed his archery skills. Later, when he's angry that Clark kept knowledge from him, he accuses Clark of never having a trying situation where he had to do something to overcome it, and he shouts, "There were mosquitoes...EATING ME ALIVE!" Probably the height of unintentional hilarity of the series as a whole.
* ''The Earth Day Special'', which aired on [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] in 1990, is full of Narm. It's basically nearly every pop culture icon of [[The Eighties]] delivering a [[Green Aesop]] [[Anvilicious|Anviliciously]] . Think ''[[Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue]],'' except live action and with a more agreeable message. Bonus points for [[Robin Williams]]'s [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pueuvH02APM anguished cry of "MAMA!"]. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ6HKG8R488 The] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pueuvH02APM whole] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmzWd_la6Xw thing] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzmCdT8ajhk is] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK3DERdXUJ8 available] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idyJtHza4F0 on] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SQj2qSxFWY YouTube]. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gfEFeCOI-k Check] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CErH29nurNc it] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7EcWSOrtzI out] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVLbfVmlEZk .]
** How about Robin Williams giving a speech as a [[Strawman Political]] advocating progress for progress' sake at an ''Earth Day event''? And he's ''cheered'' until Mother Earth comes along!
* ''[[Doctor Phil]]'': "What gives you the right to imprison your wife in the basement?!" It doesn't sound all that hilarious; but Phil delivered it rather melodramatically, and the ads for that particular episode ''repeated it endlessly''.
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** Every single episode contains some elements of narm.
* Singapore's early attempts at English-language drama were considerably marred, and even put on hold for nearly a decade, all thanks to one narm-tastic line in the soap-opera-esque series [[Masters Of The Sea]]. The premise holds together well on its own - rival shipping companies with all their dark dealings and hidden secrets make up the plot - but then the dominative matriarch responsible for much of this ill will (making her the [[Big Bad]] by default) relates to her successors her basic strategy:
{{quote|"CRRRRUSH him! CRRRUSH him under your FOOT! [[ThisPunctuated! IsFor! SpartaEmphasis!|LIKE YOU WOULD! A COCKROACH]]!" ([[Punctuated Pounding|Punctuated by a foot-stomp at the end.]])}}
* [[The BBC]] show ''[[Being Human (UK)]]'' has a main character who's a werewolf. We see him change into a werewolf several times, with the occasional flash of his naked body mutating and writhing to the sounds of bloodcurdling screams and crunching bones. At the end of this fantastically gritty transformation... we get a guy in a bad werewolf suit.
* [[Ashlee Simpson]]'s attempt at lip syncing through her ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' performance being ruined when they played the wrong song was funny. That she reacted by doing a "hoedown" and then wandering offstage as the band continued to play? Hilarious.
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* Watching ''[[Harry Potter (film)|Goblet of Fire]]'' on [[ABC Family]] in December. Just try watching the depressing ending and seeing CGI Santa Claus on the bottom of the screen reminding you that it's 25 Days of Christmas.
* Many years ago, [[VH-1]] ran a ''Behind the Music'' episode on the [[Village People]]. At one point, the narrator intoned, in the kind of completely serious voice usually reserved for car crashes or drug overdoses, "Some people began to suspect there were homosexual undercurrents to their songs." [[Sarcasm Mode|WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!]]
* ''[[Sanctuary (TV series)|Sanctuary]]'' in the episode "Kali, Part II" Will attempted to contact a god-like abnormal. It went something like this:
{{quote|I must find her! How can I find her?! ...Dance... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}BnHmoaRB8pg I can DANCE!!!]}}
* ''[[Yo Gabba Gabba!]]'' manages to have this. Normally it would be overlooked because it is a show for preschoolers. But in the episode "Careful," Plex is temporarily shut down because he was hit by a ''snowball'' by Muno. Everyone else proceeds to sing about not throwing things at friends. Was there ice in that snowball, or is ''[[Yo Gabba Gabba!]]'' trying to eliminate snowball fights?
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* A local TV station in Columbus, Ohio once aired a negative review of the film 1941, given by a strait-laced newscaster. She tried to be indignant as she asked, "What is so funny about the inability to make a bowel movement?" but came off as unintentionally hilarious.
* Mentally-ill Selwyn in ''Moses Jones'' explains that some thugs, who he refers to as demons, "Ironed him! With a... [long pause]... iron!" It's probably the accent.
* ''[[Blake's 7|Blakes Seven]]''. Three words. Brian the Spider.
* From ''[[Farscape]]'': when Crichton discovers the reason why Zhaan was an imprisoned convict, he decides to shout the information back at her. Twice. "You '''killed''' the man you were having '''sex''' with!" The line is bad enough, but the way he stresses the words makes it sound as though he considers having sex with someone is just as horrific as killing them afterwards.
** A lot of Ben Browder's line deliveries can count as this.
** Each time a cast member yelled "STARBURST!" to send one of the leviathans into overdrive was rather painful considering Starbursts are a brand of candy. After a while, it's hard not to imagine the characters demanding a lollipop or a gummy fruit whenever they shout the word.
* In the new miniseries of [[Terry Pratchett|Terry Pratchett's]] ''[[Discworld/Going Postal (Discworld)|Going Postal]]'':
** Moist reacts to a vision where he apparently personally drove Adora Belle Dearheart smoking with the same terror as he did from learning that he unintentionally drove people, including her father to suicide. OK, smoking is bad, but the impact is rather wasted after the previous visions. It may go better with the [[Rule of Symbolism]], though, for Adora's smoking is obviously symbolic.
** In contrast to the character's subtle menace in the book, Mr. Gryle the banshee spends most of his screen-time screaming and ranting in the hammiest possible way. It doesn't help that his costume looks like he just fixed some wings to a suit. And then he's blown up by a swarm of burning letters, of all the damn things.
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* [[Once Upon a Time]] is generally well-written and well-acted, but when Grumpy tells Snow not to take the potion that will erase her memories of the Prince, his line of "Pain makes me who I am! It makes me...Grumpy!" was groan-worthy and completely ruined all of the drama in that scene.
 
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