Penn & Teller: Bullshit!/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Anvilicious: Although some would argue that Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped.
    • The main flip between this depends on whether they're debunking people who are accidentally (or intentionally) using faulty scientific claims and/or simple Did Not Do the Research, and when they're talking about things that, to a degree, boil down to little more than opinion and cultural values.
  • Broken Aesop: Though Bullshit is a libertarian show, their episode on bottled water argues that private companies are ripping us off because government utilities offer equally good water at a much cheaper price - although they focus on the fact that many of the private companies are using the government water consumers already paid for once with taxes.
  • Family-Unfriendly Aesop: Penn and Teller are often prone to opposing mainstream aesops in their show. Perhaps an especially memorable case is Holier Than Thou, wherein they had some memorably harsh criticisms of such popularly revered figures as Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi and the Dalai Lama, but especially Mother Teresa.
  • Fan Disservice: A man showed his formerly circumcised penis in the "Circumcision" episode (he got its foreskin restored).
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: Gary Coleman's cameo in the "Apocalypse" episode probably wouldn't have qualified, except that he was explaining how he'd destroy the world in December 2012, a month everyone expected him to see.
    • One of the jokes in the PETA episode is about the logistical problems of 'freeing' all the domestic animals in the world and the point that if they have rights they have social responsibilities. Since the episode aired it came to light that PETA actually has a plan to deal with this: utter extermination of domesticated animals.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: In the 2005 episode on government surveillance, they're impressed by the competence of a Kenyan immigrant compared to the other agents they study. "Yep! You gotta go to Kenya for a real American who can follow fucking directions!"[1]
  • Memetic Mutation: (You need...to) SHUT. THE FUCK. UP!
  • Nausea Fuel: The "mucus mask" bit, with the snails that wind up clustered around people's eyes.
  • Seasonal Rot: Seems to have set in after season 5, as they've run out of (or simply avoided) substantive targets, and the series has been reduced to thinly-veiled libertarian soapboxing and Take That Author Tracts against anyone who think otherwise. Your Mileage May Vary.
    • They still do some substantive targets each season even if they are a much smaller percentage than they used to be.
    • In the astrology episode they lampshaded this as simply having run out of big easy targets (except for astrology). They flat-out admitted that the show was preaching to the converted back in the Ghosts episode in the third season.

Back to Penn & Teller: Bullshit!
  1. No, Obama is not Kenyan. It's still funny.