Oh, Hi There.
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Dr. McNinja: [Stares at fourth wall, surprised] Did... did something happen? Why are you here? |
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Stock Phrase used when introducing a scene which is meant as an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at something. Typically, the setup of the scene has the camera pan over to an actor in a dressing room or on a soundstage, either out of costume or in some other way indicating that they are currently out of character. The actor will look momentarily surprised, then say something like "Oh, hi there. As you can see, I'm on the set, getting ready to film the next big scene in Avatar and The Airbending Fellowship of Vampire Slayers. We work really hard here to make sure that all the Wire Fu you see here looks absolutely convincing. Hey, why don't I show you around the set and you can see for yourself just how we do some of those amazing scenes."
The setup is intended to give the sense that the viewer has caught the actor unprepared, and therefore this excusive look into his world is going to be entirely candid and not fiction in the slightest. Because this camera crew just showed up uninvited and the actor in question did not notice them coming.
This setup was sometimes used for commercials for unrelated products, here to give the impression that, while you know that the celebrity endorsing the product is an actor, in the profession of telling you things convincingly even when they are fictional, right now, you're hearing him when he's off-duty and is therefore telling you the real truth. While it is still used, even used straight, it is often with at least a bit of a wink and a nod if not outright Lampshade Hanging (such as the actor delivering the line in a way that implies he is reading it from a cue card).
At one point, it was a sign that Viewers are Morons, but any instances nowadays are mere parodies. Also common in kids' Edutainment Shows, where it's perhaps a bit more understandable. Unrelated to The Room, despite the phrase's pervasion.
Commercials
- Used particularly awkwardly in an TV ad for Colonial Penn life insurance, with said camera crew approaching an elderly woman as she's exiting a car with her family. She talks to this random camera crew about how she wishes life worked like the parking meter she was feeding. "I could keep putting quarters in, and live forever", even as a child calls out "C'mon, grandma!" And this is all played completely straight.
- Chuck Norris talking to an off-screen "friend" in mock surprise at the end of a Total Gym ad. Because a multi-title holding karate champion with tons of sponsors and access to thousand-dollar equipment would give a shit about a hundred dollar weight bench, let alone interrupt a shoot to tell his friends about it.
Film
- This Is Spinal Tap starts this way.
Live-Action TV
- Used by numerous DVD bonus features on the Stargate SG-1 box set. They're so brilliantly cheesy it's hard to tell if it's deliberate or not.
- Stephen Colbert often uses the line on The Colbert Report on returning from a commercial, especially when he's delivering The Tag from his fireside set. For example, "Oh, Hi there. I was just standing here pretending not to notice you."
- This is a carryover from his segments on The Daily Show. One of them, "So You're Living in a Police State," began with a grainy, greenish image of a bathroom from the ceiling. He came in and stood at a urinal peeing, then suddenly looked straight into the camera and said, "Oh, hi! I didn't see you there in the sprinkler head!"
- And sometimes the camera starts rolling before he 'notices' and we see him rehearsing different deliveries of his "Oh, hi there!" line.
- Another example, from his Christmas Special: "Oh hi! I didn't see you through the wall of my log cabin!" (Said wall is, of course, non-existent)
- The Mitchell and Webb Situation had a sketch parodying this, where the man being featured on a Reality Show is bewildered by the whole charade. The sketch starts with the host ringing his doorbell and greeting him as if it's the first time they've met. "What do you mean? You've been here over an hour. You've only just gone outside again. I'm miked up!" "So where's the kitchen?" "It's where you set up all those lights."
- Josh Groban does this in the faux commercial for "Josh Groban Sings the Tweets of Kanye West".
- This is the regular format of the "Betty White in her home" segments on the NBC prank show Betty White's Off Their Rockers, sometimes with the actual phrase used by White herself.
Theatre
- "Well, hello there, and welcome to Urinetown. (Not the place, of course--the musical.)"
Webcomic
- Subverted in The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, when he's surprised by his And Knowing Is Half the Battle segment at the end of a story he had no part in.
Web Original
- Each episode of Ask That Guy begins with this greeting in a different language:
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"Hello in a language you won't bother to look up, didn't hear you come in." |
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- There's a hilarious video on YouTube of Gary Busey angrily instructing the interviewer for a Hunter S. Thomson documentary how to conduct it. Busey tells him to call his name as he's looking out into the ocean drinking a cup of coffee so Busey can turn around and be surprised to see someone there to ask him questions.
- Every episode of Yacht Rock (to some degree) was introduced by Steve Huey this way. Ranging from the innocuous "You've caught me lounging in my music nook" (while doing just that) to beating a gimp while wearing bloody underwear: "You've caught me making love."
- Will from Tested.com uses (abuses?) this trope in a video showcasing the site's new office.
- Parodied in a few Homestar Runner cartoons, such as A Death-Defying Decemberween.
- James van der Beek introduces his Vandermemes this way.
- Numerous infomercial parody videos by the Loading Ready Run comedy group starts with the "Oh hi, I didn't see you there" line, to the point where it is a Running Gag.
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Tim: (entering through the front door) Oh hi, you didn't see me there. |
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- Phelous loves making fun of this trope in his videos. "Oh, hi there! I didn't see you come in, and I didn't see that I left my camera on the tripod there and left it recording and edited it into my video."
- The Let's Player Super Skarmory starts his videos by saying this trope name verbatim.
Western Animation
- Seth McFarlane used this opening for a commercial advertising Family Guy on Adult Swim. On the show proper, Stewie uses it at the start of his one-man show, before being heckled off by a drunken Elroy Jetson.
- Parodied on The Simpsons with the Mr Sparkle commercial, the actor in was in a hot tub and basically said "Don't believe me, watch this commercial".
- Also, when Marge sets up a pretzels outlet, the introductory tape she received from the franchiser shows him hastily setting up the camera, before rushing back to his desk, pretending to look through some papers there, and looking over to the camera to deliver the line.