Not in Front of the Parrot

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Probably he shouldn't have shown the bird to Jughead.
All my work, and all my money wasted!
—Raven in ancient Rome (in this story)

One of the surest and swiftest ways to reveal something that you really didn't want to is to say it in front of a parrot or other talking bird. Especially a parrot that you've been trying and failing to teach some clever phrase. Birds have an innate sense of timing and can, when properly motivated by the prospect of humiliating the humans around them, learn a long and complicated phrase after only hearing it once. Yep, they're as sick as a parrot.

And don't let the fact that you've never spoken aloud about the issue in question reassure you. Any innocuous phrase that you might have said since the start of the episode can and will be used against you by the bird's selective memory taking it out of context.

Not to be confused with Parrot Exposition. See also Polly Wants a Microphone.

Examples of Not in Front of the Parrot include:


Anime and Manga

  • In Rumiko Takahashi's short story In Lieu Of Thanks a newcomer to a condo complex finds that the manager gets nervous when another tenant's pet myna cries out "crab shabu!" It turns out that the manager had eaten a crab that the tenant was planning to eat (as it was still alive and escaped, landing on the manager's porch), and the myna picked up the phrase from the tenant lamenting the crab's disappearance. Though the tenant didn't know what happened, the manager felt the bird was accusing her.


Comic Books

  • One Batman foe, Cap'n Fear, had a robot parrot that was designed to randomly record and repeat phrases said around it. Capturing the parrot and accessing its memory provided Robin with information to allow him to track down the pirate's hideout.
  • One Uncle Scrooge comic book involves a parrot repeating the combination of Scrooge's safe to a couple of burglars. This same story also contains an inversion of the trope: Scrooge had been using the parrot to help him remember the combination, which leads to difficulties when the bird flies away...
  • One Archie comic has Archie planning to give Veronica a mynah bird he's trained to say his phone number whenever she picks up the receiver. However, he shows and tells this plan to Jughead, who spends the entire time getting increasingly upset and loudly voicing his hate for girls. Naturally, by the time Archie gets the bird to Veronica, all it says is what Jughead had been saying.
  • In one of Ralf König's comics, there's a parrot whose previous owner had spent all his free time watching porn films. Consequently, it was very hard to find an owner who could tolerate the parrot's utterances...
  • In one Superman story, Clark Kent is given a mynah bird as a gift. When the mynah starts spouting "Clark Kent is Superman", Clark thinks he must have been talking in his sleep and the bird has picked up the phrase. He goes to elaborate lengths to scare the bird out of repeating this phrase only to learn that the person who had given him the bird (Lana Lang, IIRC) had taught it to say "Clark Kent is Superman" as a joke. The story ends with him attempting to cajole the bird into saying it again.
  • In one Golden Age Batman story, the Penguin sells a millionaire a parrot that has been trained to remember the combination to a safe and repeat it to the Penguin.
  • Tintin and the Broken Ear had a parrot as the sole witness to his owner's murder.


Film


Jokes

  • There's an old joke about a woman purchasing a parrot which formerly lived in a whorehouse. The parrot, of course, thought his new home was another whorehouse and that the woman and her daughters were the whores, to their annoyance. Then the woman's husband came home and the parrot greeted him with "New whorehouse, new whores, but still the same old customers. Hello, Larry!"
  • Or the one about the old woman who was a member of La Résistance against German occupation during WWII. Several resistance meetings were hold in her cottage. Naturally her parrot learnt some unsuitable phrases. After a while, the Germans started suspecting the old woman, and a squad was sent to investigate. They didn't find anything definite enough to arrest her, but while they were there, the parrot kept saying "Death to the Germans!" The squad leader promised to be back in a week, and if the parrot was still saying "Death to the Germans!", he would personally wring its neck. Now, the old woman was very fond of her parrot, and didn't want it killed. But how could she make it unlearn that phrase in just one week? At a loss for what to do, she consulted the priest of the nearest village, because he too had a similar parrot. The priest offered to switch parrots for a week. The old woman gratefully accepted. So, the week passed, and the squad of German soldiers returned to her cottage. The priest's parrot sat quietly in a corner. The squad leader, being in a bad mood and really wanting to hurt the woman somehow, went over to the parrot, bent down and whispered to it: "Death to the Germans!" The parrot solemnly replied: "May God hear your prayer, my son."
  • A woman bought a female parrot from a pet store but it had an issue. It would always say "I'm a slut, wanna screw?" She spoke to her priest about it and he said "You're in luck, I happen to have a very holy parrot, and he bows his head in prayer every day. Maybe he can help your parrot." So the priest brought his parrot over, and put it in the cage with the woman's parrot. The female parrot immediately said "I'm a slut, wanna screw?" and the priests parrot bowed its head and said "I thank thee, Lord, for answering my prayers..."
  • A man was walking through a pet store when a parrot called for his attention. "Buy me, I'm a very interesting parrot!" The man stopped and asked "What's so interesting about you?" "I have no legs," said the parrot. "Well how do you stay on the perch?" the man asked. The parrot replied "I have a very long penis and wrap it around the perch!". The man did think this was an interesting parrot and bought it. One day the man came home from work and the parrot said "Your friend Harry was over today!" The man said "Really?" "He was hugging your wife!" The man asked for more information. "They were kissing!" The man asked for more info. "They took their clothes off!" Infuriated, the man demanded what happened next. The parrot responded "I dunno, I got a woody and fell off the perch!"


Literature

  • The Dictionary of the Khazars pseudo-encyclopedia by Milorad Pavic at one point makes reference to the mechanism by which the Khazar language was preserved, despite the civilization's having been extinct for centuries - their language was repeated and passed down through generations of parrots on the shores of the Black Sea.
  • In Anne of Avonlea, Anne befriends an old man even though his parrot repeats his less-than-neighborly comments about her every time she comes around. He tries to rectify it by saying nicer things when he sees her coming, but apparently the parrot likes getting him in trouble.
  • The parrot in Next does this (given it's established level of intelligence, probably specifically for the lulz) at least once.
  • Invoked with the help of Voluntary Shapeshifting at the beginning of Animorphs #15, when Cassie talks the others into helping her shut down a fast food restaurant that uses live parrots as a gimmick.

parrot!Jake: Awk! Try the Jungle Burgers! Made with real cat meat!
parrot!Marco: (to man wearing a toupee) Awk! Nice toupee! Where'd you get it, the carpet store?
parrot!Cassie: Awk! We should be flying free in our native habitats! Awk!

  • Older Than Print: An Arabian Nights story features a husband who suspects his wife is unfaithful and, before he leaves on business, buys a parrot in hopes it will inform him of what's going on.
  • Inverted in The Three Investigators novel The Secret of the Stuttering Parrot. Parrots taught clues to the location of a hidden treasure have been so badly traumatized by their treatment at the hands of criminals that they refuse to talk. Fortunately, a mynah bird in the group (a last-minute replacement for a dead parrot) has memorized all the clues, and can be easily coaxed to repeat them.
  • Uncle Feather the Mynah in Superfudge, while he doesn't pick up actual secrets, learns just enough accidental phrases (and comic timing, apparently) to call his owner's ex-kindergarten teacher "stupid" in front of the entire class.
  • An eerie variation occurs in Robert Smythe Hichen's classic horror story "How Love Came to Professor Guildea". Among other hints of a growing supernatural presence, the professor's parrot begins to twitch and move in increasingly unnatural ways, and babbling in a low, grotesque voice. It turns out that the parrot is mimicking something the human characters can't perceive...
  • Mr. Big from the Garrett P.I. series, aka "The Goddamn Parrot", was specifically trained to invoke this trope by Morley before he gave the bird to Garrett as a prank. Turns out it was pre-loaded with rude phrases and a tendency to cry rape.
  • In the novel All Clear by Connie Willis, Alf and Binnie's parrot repeats the less-than-polite conversation about hiding said parrot from the landlady verbatim within earshot of said landlady, causing Polly, Eileen, Alf, Binnie and the parrot to be evicted from the boardinghouse. This may have been due to the in-story nature of the space-time continuum.


Live Action TV

  • Niles Crane had a talkative cockatoo for several episodes of Frasier. Its crowning moment of glory was to utterly sabotage an important party by repeating the insults Niles had spoken in the kitchen about his guests being drunks and lechers in the hearing of the not amused drunks and lechers.
  • NYPD Blue had the Pointy-Haired Boss bring in an obnoxious parrot that repeated everybody. Sipowicz forces the boss to get rid of it by a simple trick: he plants a tape recording of somebody shouting "Douchebag! Douchebag!" in the parrot's room overnight.
  • Small Wonder: In an early episode, the Lawsons have the Brindles as uninvited house guests after the latter family's house burns down. Naturally, the Brindles' parrot reveals the real cause of the fire.
  • On The Nanny, a parrot exposes that Fran told Val about Cher secretly staying at the Sheffields'.
  • In Season One of Twin Peaks, a search of the cabin where Laura Palmer and Ronette Pulaski were tortured reveals the only potential witness: Waldo the Mynah Bird. Hoping the bird will talk if left alone, Agent Cooper sets his tape recorder by Waldo's cage. Main suspect Leo, afraid of what the bird might say, shoots it -- but not before the bird says his name on tape.
  • A variation is found on Friends. Monica is babysitting her nephew Ben. She accidentally bangs his forehead against a ceiling beam while tossing him up and down. Rachel agrees that they shouldn't tell Ross, but then Ben says "Monica BANG!" Monica is mortified. "He's gonna rat me out!"
  • The Fast Show had one of these, who seemed to have been trained to have a vocabulary amounting to "Wanker" and "Twat". "Oh, bugger..."
  • In a cartoon skit on The Electric Company, a plumber knocks on an apartment door. The parrot inside says, "Who is it?" followed by the plumber explaining, "I've come to fix the sink." This repeats several times before the plumber gets fed up and faints. Later, the parrot's owner comes home and asks, "Who is it?" The parrot says, "It's the plumber. He's come to fix the sink."
  • In Robin Williams' HBO Comedy Special Weapons of Self-Destruction Robin talks about the dangers of keeping a parrot in the bedroom while having sex:

Sooner or later your parrot will go, "Not the ass." Whoa, Petey! Uh, he's been watching porn again... "Fuck me Teddy, fuck me hard!" Ha ha ha...Honey, who's Teddy?

  • Also happens in an episode of Family Matters when Carl's boss Commissioner Geiss leaves his parrot Andre with him for a couple of weeks. During that time, after being irritated by the bird, Carl says his boss is an idiot right in front of it. Fortunately, Carl doesn't get in trouble when he learns that Geiss's wife already taught the bird to say that. However, the Commissioner lands himself in a pickle of his own when he calls his wife a pain in the butt as he and the parrot are leaving.
  • Subverted in one episode of Desperate Housewives, where Orson Hodge's backstory is revealed. His wife mysteriously disappears, and when his neighbor pops by to ask about her, the wife's parrot says "Orson, No! Please! No!" It is later revealed that his wife is in fact alive, and the parrot just recites Orson's wife's pleas to not leaving her and getting a divorce.
  • In “Comrade Harold”, an episode of The Red Green Show, Ed Frid borrows his girlfriend’s parrot for the animal segment. Unfortunately, the bird calls Ed a loser who can’t commit. To make matters worse, the parrot refers to Ed by name.

Newspaper Comics

  • Used somewhat realistically in a The Far Side cartoon, of all places: A group of mobsters are discussing the location of their new hideout in a pet shop full of parrots. "Alright, let's repeat the address a hundred times or so to make sure we all get it."
    • Well, the parrots may have been realistic... this is The Far Side, after all.
    • The Far Side loved this trope. One comic has a pet shop parrot repeating its owner's last words ("Rack! The anaconda is loose! Call Animal Control!"); another has it repeating its thuggish owner's proscription to "Shut up, boid!" between snatches of song; a third shows a parrot standing over a quicksand patch declaring "Let go, Morty, you're pulling me in!".
  • FoxTrot did a plot similar to this, but with a toddler instead of parrot. While Paige was babysitting, she watched a TV show she wasn't allowed to watch (a Brand X version of Jerry Springer) and the kid picked up a swear word from the show. Hilarity Ensued.


Theater

  • In one of the Bottom Live stage shows, Richie is looking after the vicar's parrot, only to discover - shortly before a visit from the Queen - that it has acquired a large vocabulary of bad language from Eddie.

Richie: Eddie! Have you been teaching the vicar's parrot to swear?
Eddie: Er... No.
Parrot: He spunky, wanky, titting well has, you know!


Video Games

  • In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Mario is only able to defeat a certain boss after guessing his name, and he learns it after listening to the bad guy's pet parrot. This being a fantasy world, though, the parrot is much more capable of speech than usual, so Doopliss is slightly off the hook.
  • In the Gold, Silver, and Crystal versions of Pokémon, you obtain a password in Team Rocket's base from a Murkrow - a crow Pokemon. Sure, it's not an actual parrot, but that's because the parrot Pokemon didn't show up until the fourth generation.
  • In Ultima VII: The Black Gate, striking a parrot (any parrot, anywhere in the game world) with a gavel causes it to reveal the map coordinates of a pirate treasure.
    • In Ultima VII Part Two: Seprent Isle, hitting a parrot with a mallet will eventually make it say "That will not work this time!"
  • Double Subversion: In case 4 of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Phoenix calls a witness's pet parrot to the stand in the hopes it'll blab an important piece of evidence, but finds the opposition has thought ahead and managed to re-train the parrot. It still gives enough information to let him go ahead with the trial.
  • In the Adventure Game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, at one point an archeologist required you to answer a question in order to proceed. The solution to the puzzle? Talk to the archeologist's parrot.
  • In the adventure game Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, you have to play a keyboard for a parrot to learn and repeat later. This being Monty Python, you have to play the keyboard incorrectly for the parrot to learn it correctly.
  • In Laura Bow: The Colonel's Bequest, there's a parrot who will provide some pretty helpful information at the right times.
  • Playing a word game with Loulou the parrot is necessary to complete The Curse Of Blackmoor Manor.
  • In Infocom's Sorcerer, the player character's mentor's parrot prowides some important clues by saying things like "Where did I leave my spectacles?", "Now where can I hide this key?" and "You should never have let down your mindshield, you doddering old Enchanter. Squawk!" Then it starts asking for crackers.


Web Original

  • In this Futility Closet, a parrot helps the police by repeating the burglars' names.
  • (The Customer is) Not Always Right has an example of parrot hilarity here.
  • Keeping a parrot and watching porn in the same room is not the best idea. This video is NSFW, and not because the bird humps someone's hand. Though this does make it funnier.


Webcomics


Western Animation

  • The parrot Helga's dad gets in an episode of Hey Arnold! memorizes one of her love poems to Arnold—including her name in the last line. Fortunately, it's eaten by a giant lizard before it can get that far.
  • In the Dexter's Laboratory episode "The Parrot Trap", Dexter creates a robot-parrot to keep around the lab, largely to hear it mimic his bragging and self-praise ("Dexter is the most brilliant mind in the entire universe!"). It backfires in short order when the parrot begins to mimic Deedee, then escapes the lab and threatens to blab about it to Dexter's parents.

"Dexter's a cookie!"

  • Seen in an episode of Doug. Plus, the parrot was used to parody "The Raven".
  • The Flintstones: "Frantic City! Frantic City!"
  • In one of the flashbacks on Family Guy Peter teaches Joe's new pet parrot to say the word "cripple".
  • Happened to Mike from Mike Lu and Og in the episode "Repeat After Me", with the bird Skipper who took her lines out of context to offend her friends.
  • Stoked!: Lo's plans for ditching work are blabbed by the restaurant's cockatoo.
  • Also happens in an episode of the animated version of Ace Ventura where a parrot over heard everything the episode's villain had said about his plan.
  • Subverted on G.I. Joe, in that the secret overheard by Shipwreck's parrot actually turns out to be the key to defeating a COBRA plot. The bird has the courtesy not to blab the code words to unlock a formula hypnotically-buried in Shipwreck's memory until it can save the day by doing so.


Real Life

  • Though not a parrot, a rumor that the Furby could mimic what was said to them (a misunderstanding of how the pre-programmed Furbish-to-English transition in the toy's speech worked) had several intelligence agencies banning the toy from their offices to prevent the little cretins from repeating top-secret information to unauthorized members of society.
  • This parrot learned to say "I love you Gary". His owner's name was Chris.
  • A crime was solved because of this trope. At a murder the only evidence found was a flute with a defective key that produced a unique sound. A sailor was found in possession of a parrot that would make a sound exactly like the flute. Later evidence proved that the sailor was guilty.
    • On the other hand, in American courts the parrot's "testimony" alone is not proof of guilt. There was one case (Wiki Magic, anyone?) where the suspected murderer was the boyfriend of the victim, but the parrot said the name of the victim's roommate followed by what seemed to be a plea to stop.
  • Because parrots have very long lifespans and often outlive their owners, it's frequently advised to parrot owners to avoid swearing around their parrots so that when the owner dies, the parrot will have an easier time finding a home. (Oddly enough, most prospective pet owners don't want their birds to swear at them.) Suffice it to say: no matter how hard you try, no matter how polite you are around your parrot, the one time you break your toe on the coffee table and slip up with a Cluster F-Bomb, the parrot will remember. Inevitably.
  • Andrew Jackson's parrot had to be forcibly removed from his funeral because it wouldn't stop swearing.
    • In two languages! (It was fluent in English and Spanish)
  • There was an article that made the rounds in 2004 about Winston Churchill's 104-year old parrot that supposedly still was around to exclaim, "F--- the Nazis!" Unfortunately, within a couple of days, historians and Churchill's daughter disavowed the claim.
  • A parrot in Romania was overheard reciting jokes making fun of the eldest son of Nikolai Ceaucescu. The secret police put it under arrest and interrogated it to try and find out who it had learnt them from.
  • Aside from speech, parrots have also been known to imitate ringing phones, doorbells, knocks on the door and so on, well enough to interrupt conversations because the listeners excuse themselves to answer the caller.
  • A fire station had to get rid off its pet parrot because it had learnt to perfectly imitate the alarm bell.
  • There was a story a while back about a couple who kept their African grey in their bedroom; they "got busy" one night, and while guests were over, the African grey repeated the events of the night back to them.
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