Self-Deprecation: Difference between revisions

Note that this isn't about whether other people are allowed to make fun of you. Those would be different tropes (related to [[N-Word Privileges]]). Nor is it [[Heroic Self-Deprecation]], which is actually putting yourself down for real.

 

 

A [[Super-Trope]] to [[Our Product Sucks]].

 

{{examples}}

* The original ads for the Volkswagen Beetle constantly mocked the car for its small size. Allegedly this violated one of the unwritten rules of advertising, "Don't mock the product." The ad campaign was a smash success.

** This was the famous "[[wikipedia:Think Small|Think Small]]" ad campaign of 1959. This, and its successor of 1960 ("Lemon") started the so-called "Creative Revolution" in advertising: put the creative guys in charge of selling the ad. This ad series gets a [[Shout-Out]] in ''[[Mad Men]]'': in Season 1, set in 1960, which Don Draper does not approve (talking derisively about its creator, [[wikipedia:Julian Koenig|Julian Koenig]]). By Season 4 (starting in November 1964), his ads are more or less in the same vein.

** They may have taken inspiration from Marmite's famous "[[Love It or Hate It]]" campaign.

* Some years ago, a Dutch brand of condiments had a special offer where their products would come with free napkin-rings with funny limericks written on them. In the commercial, a lady was shown reading the napkin-ring with an increasingly obvious lack of interest, then ''throwing it in the trash.''

* [[Stan Freberg]] created a memorable series of ads for the Sunsweet prune company, emphasizing what people dislike most about the dried fruit: the wrinkles and the pits. They boasted that they'd gotten rid of the pits; the wrinkles were another matter.

* Vince Offer, previous commercial pitchman for the Sham Wow!, also made commercials for a product called the Schticky. At one point in the commercial, he said, "Use it during moments you'd like to forget!" as a mugshot is taken of him, referencing his earlier arrest for assaulting a prostitute.

* Former Chicago Bears fullback William "the Refrigerator" Perry (who got got his nickname because he was ''huge'', standing 6'2" (188 cm) and weighing over 300lbs through most of his career) would often mock his own weight, as he did in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLagFBUKzmI this commercial] for McDonalds in 1985. Emphasized, in fact, as it premiered on December 2nd during a game between the Bears and Miami Dolphins.

 

* Edvard Munch's 1893 painting ''[[media:Edvard Munch, 1893, The Scream, oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard, 91 x 73 cm, National Gallery of Norway.jpg|The Scream]]'' has an inscription literally pencilled onto the corner of the image: "can only have been painted by a madman". [https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/munch-scream-madman-1.5922732 It has been confirmed that the note is in Edvard Munch's own handwriting.]

 

* Done often in ''[[Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei]]'' - for example, listing "great failures in a man's life", which was a short biography of the author, the last point being "Creating the ''[[Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei]]'' anime".

** The second OVA for season 3 is a never ending string of jokes at [[Studio Shaft]] poking fun at themselves and their own series. Such as thanking viewers who "came across the opening and didn't change the channel".

** During the Yusei dueled three men, and rather than use the catchphrase he usually uses in the dub (that would be, "Let's rev it up!), he used Judai Yukai's catchphrase ("Get your game on") from [[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX| the previous series in the franchise]], a very common target of a [[Take That]] from fans. Or, possibly, it may have been intended to lighten the [[Darker and Edgier]] nature of the Crashtown arc, which is considered unusually dark even for that series, which was itself rather dark when compared to the others in the franchise.

** This exchange between Amon and Manjoume during their duel in Season Three of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.

 

== Audiobooks ==

* In the audiobook version of [[Jon Stewart]]'s ''[[America (The Book)]]'', there are these gems: "[[Stephen Colbert]] is the Arthur Schlesinger Professor of American Studies at Harvard University. He is personally unpleasant." and "Stephen Colbert has received the Werner Heisenberg Prize for Excellence in Theoretical Mathematics seven consecutive years, yet can barely feed himself." Guess who narrates these parts.

 

* In Marc Guggenheim's ''[[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]]: Choosing Sides'', Mac Gargan is discussing selling his life story. He wants Guggenheim to do the movie, then says "No, the other Guggenheim, the one who wrote that hockey movie", simultaneously putting down Marc himself, and giving a [[Shout-Out]] to his brother Eric.

* [[Kurt Busiek]] and Erik Larsen's early-2000's resurrection of ''[[The Defenders]]''. In addition to portraying its principal characters as supreme [[Jerkass|Jerk Asses]] who eventually decide to take over the world so it won't ''need'' to be defended (and, more importantly, so they won't have to deal with one another), the series invoked [[Stylistic Suck]] via references to Marvel's incredibly goofy [[Silver Age]] giant monster comics, and one of its covers proudly boasted a Wizard Magazine quote proclaiming ''The Defenders'' to be "the worst comic ever produced."

{{quote|'''Nighthawk:''' I don't get it! Clearly you guys are [[The Defenders]], but you're calling yourselves [[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]]??? I mean, is it me? Am I the crazy one?}}

* [[Ben Templeton]] appears in the ''[[Wormwood Gentleman Corpse]]'' issue "Segue to Destruction" at the Dead Alley, where Wormwood describes him as "my biographer". ''None'' of the cast have any respect for him at all, and mock his defensively citing his three Eisner nominations: "No idea what those are, but he seems obsessed with them."

 

* [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] enjoys making fun of himself.

** ''[[Last Action Hero]]'' can be seen as one very protracted example.

* The [[BBC]] documentary ''Knuckle: Bare Fist Fighting'' shows Irish Travelers using self deprecation to insult each other. Each prospective boxer loudly insists that he's "no good" at boxing... but he'll ''still'' beat the tar out of the rival clan's champion.

* The 2005 [[So Bad It's Good]] remake of ''[[House of Wax]]'' was practically marketed as "slasher flick where [[Paris Hilton]] plays a ditzy airheaded bimbo who is brutally murdered", and it clearly delivered on that. Still, Hilton did read the script before she took the role, so...

 

* [[Jasper Fforde]]'s ''[[Nursery Crime|The Fourth Bear]]'' introduces the setup early in the book for a ridiculous tongue-twisting punchline much later. One character [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|comments on]] what an elaborate setup that was for such a lame joke and the other sadly agrees, "I don't know how he gets away with it.", which was a line from ''[[The Goon Show]]''.

* Fforde has nothing on [[Far Fetched Fiction|Robert Rankin]], who constantly [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|breaks the fourth wall]] to self-complain about [[Plot Hole]]s, stupid [[Running Gag]]s, and absolutely ridiculous plot devices (Elvis with a time-travelling sprout in his head has to kill the Antichrist! Yeah!). At one point he actually inserted himself, writing the novel in a bar, in the novel itself.

* Robert Goldsborough wrote a number of ''[[Nero Wolfe]]'' novels after [[Author Existence Failure|series creator Rex Stout's death]]. The final one features a victim who had [[Continuation|been writing another author's character]]. At one point, Archie Goodwin slams the victim's writing. {{spoiler|The motive for the murder is that said victim plagiarised his last novel.}}

* ''I Am A Cat'', Natsume Soseki's social satire of late Meiji-era Japan, not only features a major character bearing more than a passing resemblance to the author who comes off about as well as any other character in the book (i.e. not at all), but has a passage in which this character and several others directly bash Soseki's other work. (Since none of these characters are at all likable, it may be that we're supposed to disagree with them, which would make this either a [[Take That]] at critics or a roundabout form of self-praise. It's hard to tell.)

* [[Edward Lear]] engages in a few pot-shots directed at himself in his nonsense-filled poetry. At least one of his poems is a spot of Self-Deprecation.

* The loser protagonist of [[A Confederacy of Dunces]] is, when you know his life story, very very clearly based on the author, John Kennedy Toole.

* As first-person narrator of ''[[Jeeves and Wooster]]'', Bertie often cheerfully [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] his [[Upper Class Twit]] status. He may be stupid, but at least he's self-aware.

 

* Played with in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' when Faith (in Buffy's body) attacks Buffy (who is in Faith's body) - Faith has issues, but here she is literally beating ''herself'' crying out that she is sick and disgusting.

** Oz is modest to a fault about his musical talent - Xander asks if it's hard to play the guitar, he shrugs "Not the way I play it." When bandmate Devon suggests they need roadies since other bands have them, Oz replies "Other bands know more than three chords."

{{Quote|'''Kirk''': You have to be either an obsessive crackpot who's escaped from his keeper or Samuel T. Cogley, attorney-at-law.

'''Cogley''' (cheerfully): Right on both counts.}}

 

* Ska band [[Reel Big Fish]] used to sell T-Shirts proclaiming "I Hate Reel Big Fish." And their most popular track was called [[It's Popular, Now It Sucks|"Sell Out"]].

** They also titled an EP ''Keep Your Receipt''.

** One of the more visible/notable examples of this is when the members of [[Pearl Jam]] appeared in the 1994 movie ''Singles'' as the other members of Matt Dillon's character's band. Their appearance was nothing but one giant pisstake at their (Pearl Jam's) expense.

* Bloc Party's vocalist has said that he wrote "Helicopter" as a jab at himself. He's not nearly as much of a [[Small Name, Big Ego]] as the song makes him sound.

* The inner fold of [[Deep Purple]]'s ''Who Do We Think We Are'' LP consisted of a collection of print reviews from around the world, panning the band. [[Uriah Heep]] also did this, in the gatefold of their double-live album. In the early 1970s, most critics' attitudes toward any [[Heavy Metal]] band not named [[Blue Öyster Cult]] ranged from indifference to contempt, so the two bands probably couldn't have scraped together enough positive press between them to fill an album cover.

* [[Steely Dan]] frequently poke fun at themselves through written material posted on [https://web.archive.org/web/20130509131626/http://www.steelydan.com/inprint.html their website].

* An advertising campaign for 1980s San Francisco New Wave band Flipper: "Flipper suffered for their music. Now it's your turn".

* 10cc wrote "The Worst Band in the World", although it could be argued that it's written from the point of view of another, fictional band.

* The song "Redneck" by [[Lamb of God]] was written about their lead singer Randy Blythe. It's one long [["The Reason You Suck" Speech|Reason He Sucks Speech]].

* The Spinto Band promoted their shows at the SXSW festival with a take-off on the "Shit (insert group of people here) Say" [[YouTube]] meme called [http://youtu.be/SKDBpul1FhA "Shit People At SXSW DON'T Say"] - one such line is "Man, the line for the Spinto Band showcase is four blocks long!".

 

* ''[[Bloom County]]'', given the characters' [[Medium Awareness]], [[No Fourth Wall]], and [[Interactive Narrator]], does this a lot:

** In one strip, minor character Yaz Pistachio asks Opus to give her just one name worse than her own.

** A later arc was built around the premise that the comic strip was so offensive that the American Government ordered the comic to be transformed into something akin to ''[[Family Circus]]''. Stephan Pastis ''fails'' and gets put on trial, ''with Rat as his lawyer''. {{spoiler|Rat actively sabotages Stephen's case.}}

 

 

* ''[[The Funday Pawpet Show]]'' used filmed opening segments of people saying "Hi, I'm ________, and you're wasting your time watching the Funday Pawpet Show!".

* ''[[The Muppet Show]]'' often engaged in this. For example in one ''Veterinarian's Hospital'' sketch, when discussing the things that might happen to herald the end of the world, such as "Dr Bob actually curing a patient", Nurse Piggy suggests "One honest laugh". And then there's [[Statler and Waldorf]].

 

* [[Howard Stern]] lives this trope on the show. While he savages other celebrities, rival radio hosts and his own crew, he also spends a lot of time making fun of his small penis (though later he found out he's actually fairly normal, he's just really tall and it looks small on him), his big nose, his neuroses, etc.

* ''[[I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue]]'' lived and breathed this trope, with the late Chairman Humph being baffled that anyone was listening to this rubbish. Chairman Jack continues this tradition.

{{quote|'''Director-General of the BBC''': ''I'm Sorry I Haven't A Script'', that was you lot, wasn't it? Call that a [[Panel Game]]? Don't make me laugh.

'''Bill Oddie''': We didn't. }}

{{quote|'''Tim:''' Well, that'd be three geriatrics called ''[[Actor Allusion|The Goodies]]'' attempting to sing.

''(the clip is played again, slightly longer this time, with audience cheers in the background)''

* The radio show ''Hello Cheeky'' starred performers Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer and John Junkin, who also wrote the scripts. Thus, the leads wrote jokes against themselves. It's frequently mentioned that the show only has one listener ("Hello, Eric"), and episodes with guest stars generally focus on the guest star trying to comprehend the rubbish they get away with.

{{quote|'''John:''' ''(reading a letter)'' Dear John Junkin -- quit comedy and stick to straight acting. Yours, ''Tim Brooke-Taylor and Barry Cryer?!'' Here, fellas, I want a word with you!}}

{{quote|''Dear Hello Cheeky, I was wondering if you could help me. On second thought, if I'm writing to you, I must be beyond help.''}}

 

* It's tradition in game rulebooks to include a page or so showing how the game is played. In the "Obligatory Example of Play" (yep, that's what they called it) in [[Hero System|''Lucha Libre Hero'']], one of the players, "Steve", is clearly not getting the point of the game. His character, ''El Heraldo de Justicia'', is described as a "dark-clad avenger of the night", and "Steve" spends most of his actions trying to get his hands on a gun despite the fact that a ''luchador'' can do more damage in this game with his wrestling moves. Steve Long, part-owner of Hero Games, and incidentally the guy who edited ''Lucha Libre Hero'', got his start as a game designer with the book ''Dark Champions'', which focused on gritty Punisher-style vigilante action. The flagship character for ''Dark Champions'' and Steve's very own player character is the Harbinger of Justice. (The section wraps up with "Editor's Note: I do ''so'' have a gun.")

* The ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' supplement ''Pentex: Subsidiaries'' describes some of the companies under the umbrella of the titular evil [[Mega Corp]]. The last one listed is "Black Dog Game Factory", a fictionalized version of the real Black Dog Game Factory—an actual subsidiary of ''Werewolf''{{'}}s own publisher [[White Wolf]] (which published their mature-themed game books). The company's fictional games all feature White Wolf's signature traits ([[Darker and Edgier]] settings, etc.) taken [[Up to Eleven]], and the employees are all unflattering parodies of real White Wolf writers, including the writers of the supplement itself.

* When the ''[[Shadowrun]]'' Verse's metaplot called for a nuke to be set off to destroy a massive bug-spirit infestation, then-publishers FASA situated both the spirit-hive and ground zero for the nuclear blast in their own Chicago office.

 

* In ''[[The Pirates of Penzance]]'', [[Gilbert and Sullivan]] deprecated their previous hit by having the Major-General boast in his [[List Song]] that he can "whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense ''Pinafore''."

** For very good reason -- ''HMS Pinafore'' was a satire of the British upper crust, which Queen Victoria is said to have particularly disliked. ''Penzance'' was an attempt to get back on the Queen's good side by mocking their earlier work, and by sucking up shamelessly at the end. (The pirates immediately surrender when ordered in the name of Queen Victoria, because they're good English boys despite being pirates and all.)

* Arguably the [[Most Triumphant Example]] in theater is the title character's monologue in ''[[Cyrano De Bergerac]]''. After a nobleman makes a rather lame attempt to mock Cyrano's large nose, the protagonist launches into a rant of clever - and hilarious - insults he ''could'' have used, going so far as to lampoon the myth of ''[[Pyramus and Thisbe]]''.

 

* The release of a trailer for the MMORPG ''Perfect World'' was criticised for, among other things, having [https://web.archive.org/web/20131121111200/http://kotaku.com/5038379/trashing-trailers too much lens flare]. Their response? [http://kotaku.com/5038870/a-new-perfect-world-international-trailer A new trailer... "Now with more lens flare."]

* ''[[Homestar Runner|Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People]]'': "Say it with me now, The Cheat: [[The Problem with Licensed Games|licensed games are never good!]]" [[Licensed Game|Guess what the game itself is.]] And it's ''good''.

** "Bear put these on vehicle so float. If not enough, vehicle sink, like this game at market." -- Mumbo

** In fact, almost all of the humor in the game is derived from how much the game sucks, gaming has left Rare behind, etc. Is it just a show of typical sardonic Brit humor, or did the company truly have no confidence in their own product whatsoever?

{{quote|'''King Hippo:''' Do you like my new trunks? They are size XXX Large! Ha, ha, ha!}}

* ''[[Ace Attorney|Ace Attorney Investigations]]'' features Miles Edgeworth as protagonist instead of Phoenix Wright. This is used to make fun of some of the weirder things that happened in previous games. For example, upon examining a fire extinguisher Edgeworth muses how silly it would be to get hit on the head with it and lose your memory. {{spoiler|This is the framing device for the first case tutorial of ''Justice For All''.}}

** ''[[Apollo Justice]]: [[Ace Attorney]]'' constantly makes fun of the series cliches. For example, Apollo gets told of off for shouting out "HOLD IT!" to loud in court. Phoenix also reminisces on the times when he used to present evidence to people through the present button and how he would shout out "hold it" for no apparent reason just to scare people.

{{quote|"'''Postal'' has vehicles now!' Thanks a lot, ''assholes.''"}}

* In ''[[Super Smash Bros Ultimate]]'', many characters seem to be mocking Nintendo itself with some of their dialogue. For example, questioning why ''[[Metroid]]'' isn't named after Samus, or why ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' doesn't star Zelda. They also seem to point out how Daisy seems to be a [[Captain Ersatz]] of Peach in all but name.

* An optional area in ''[[Epic Battle Fantasy]] 5'' lets you fight monsters from earlier games in the series as a bonus challenge. As expected, monsters from games that were made years earlier look dated and somewhat primitive in design, and the main characters make scathing comments about them during battle. NoLegs' very simplistic early design, eyeball monsters barely having moving parts at all and the Beholder's infamous tentacle rape attack get the most criticism.

 

* [http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=980203 This] ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' strip joked that a (fictional) wrongful hiring scandal had drastically hurt the strip's viewership. "Two people used to read ''Sluggy Freelance''. Now only one does. In percentage terms, this is devastating for the comic."

* In [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0541.html this strip] of ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'', one of the demon roaches says, "They'll let any old hack write a sourcebook these days" in reference to the strip's acid-breathing shark. The acidborn template, with the specific example of the acidborn shark, appears in the ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' sourcebook ''Dungeonscape'', co-written by OotS author Rich Burlew.

* When [https://web.archive.org/web/20131106203110/http://tangcomic.com/ Tang Ho] needs someone to function as a [[Butt Monkey]], his first choice is generally his own [[Author Avatar]].

* Tom Siddell, the author of ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]''. Not so much in the comic itself (Tom doesn't write himself into the comic and promises that he never will) but in talking with his fans: If you ask him about the art, he'll probably tell you that he thinks it's bad [[Art Evolution|and that it used to be worse]]. If you ask him about the hollow-eyed cartoon self-portraits he uses to represent himself online, he'll tell you that they're more handsome than he is.

{{quote|''Terrible work is still consistent work.''}}

** Strip 1,000 was called "I can’t believe someone was asshole enough to make 1,000 sprite comics." Strip 1,001 was called "I can’t believe someone was asshole enough to make more than 1,000 sprite comics."

* ''[[Questionable Content]]'' creator Jeph Jacques introduced the character of Yelling Bird into the comic, whose sole purpose is to [http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1140 berate him] when he is unable to get the comic up on time for various reasons. Yelling Bird doesn't [http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1456 stop there], though.

* A slightly more subtle version appears in ''[[Spinnerette]]''. Protagonist Super Heroine Heather admits to [http://krakowstudios.com/spinnerette/2011/08/10/08102011/ hating mangna style comics.] Odd considering the [http://krakowstudios.com/spinnerette/2011/03/14/03142011/ general art style of the comic.]

* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', one character reads ''Sinfest''. [https://web.archive.org/web/20140209190245/http://sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4143 Tomey reacts badly.]

* ''[[Penny Arcade]]:'' "Cartoonists are [http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/06/17 society's waste products]."

* David Morgan-Mar, author of ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'', periodically mocks his own drawing skills and penchant for awful, awful puns. He even once convinced Jane Goodall to pretend to slap him for how he portrayed her LEGO alter-ego. (Well, actually, he asked her to pretend to punch him - she convinced him a monkey-slap would be more in-character for her!)

 

* ''[http://www.youtube.com/user/ebolaworld The Ebolaworld Channel]'' on [[YouTube]] love this trope. E.G.:

** "You're watching the Ebolaworld Channel. Why are you doing that?"

** Similarly, [http://www.digg.com Diggers] make similar jokes, since one cannot have sex on the internet.

** The ''[[Something Awful]]'' Forum Goons are pretty fond of this as well, but then again they don't take much seriously in the first place.

* Zero of the [http://testzerosblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Video-Game-Bunker The Video Game Bunker] does this a lot:

** "Anyone can shoot a review show out of their basement. While I personally find this a little bit pathetic..."

** "...covering their face so you can't even recognize them. What kind of a d*****bag dresses like that?"

* ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'': Milo Taylor's handler has [[Word of God|confirmed]] that the character was created to make fun of [[Old Shame|Carson]] [[The Scrappy|Baye]], a character he had previously created, and his old writing style in general.

* In ''[[Journey Quest]]'', at the end of episode 7, Wren the bard is trying to figure out what to name her epic (which is about the series' events). She comes up with "Journey Quest", then discards the title.

* Yahtzee of ''[[Zero Punctuation]]'' repeatedly points out his own hypocrisy during his rant about gaming webcomics, as he himself is in the "insult games for amusement" business, and also describes himself as a social and sexual failure very often.

* ''[[Key of Awesome]]''{{'}}s "Moves Like Jagger" parody illustrates the apparent difficulty of imitating [[Maroon 5|Adam Levine]] by having Mark sing about being too fat to perform the parody, and Todd about being too weak. They end the song by calling themselves "attention whores" who will "do-o-o-o-o-o anything for laughter."

 

* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' takes a few shots at itself in "[[Who Would Want to Watch Us?|The Ember Island Players]]", where the Gaang goes to see play done in tremendous detail about everything that happened to them since Aang's awakening. In an early episode ("The Great Divide"), the group stopped at a canyon and wound up trying to resolve the differences between two feuding clans. Many fans felt it was the worst episode in the series. In the play when the actors playing them spot the canyon they point out its existence... [[Discontinuity Nod|and then decide not to stop and just keep going]]. There's also Sokka saying that {{spoiler|whether or not Jet died wasn't very clear}}.

** Though the last one was more of a [[Take That]] at the execs not letting them actually say that Jet was dead; Combustion Man's death also gets this treatment despite being a bit more clear.

** His cameo in ''The Simpsons Game'' takes it even further with a scene where it is revealed even he doesn't know whether his name is pronounced "Groan-ing" or "Grain-ing" and another where he introduces himself as "animation's greatest luminary" only for Bart and Homer to blurt out [[Family Guy|"Seth McFarlane?"]]

{{quote|'''Troy McClure:''' Yes, the Simpsons have come a long way since an old alcoholic made humans out of his rabbit characters to pay off his gambling debts.}}

{{quote|'''"Groening":''' Get outta mah office! *BANG* *BANG* }}

** Then ''Family Guy'' DID become preachy and up its own ass with messages. Either that's a [[Funny Aneurysm Moment]] or [[Hilarious in Hindsight]].

** In the episode where Stan and Kenny go to Mel Gibson to get their money back for ''[[The Passion of the Christ]]'', Stan says "This is just like when we got our money back for ''[[Baseketball]]''," a film starring Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

** In the episode where Randy is going for the "Biggest Crap" Record along with a few jabs at Bono they would occasionally flash the words "Emmy Award Winning Series" on the bottom of the screen during the moments where the episode was reaching absurd levels of stupidity.

** [[The Movie]] features the kids going to see in-universe TV show Terrence And Philip's own [[The Movie]]. At the end they complain about the film's lame animation, and then have an especially badly-animated walk away from the theater.

* Find a ''[[Drawn Together]]'' episode in seasons 2 and 3 that doesn't do this. Try.

* ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' frequently takes shots at its own writers. In addition to all the examples listed on [[Who Writes This Crap?]], there are the lyrics for the theme song to the ''[[Wonderful Life]]'' Christmas special: "Our writers aren't gifted!/ [[Stock Parodies|The story has been lifted]]..."

* ''[[Animaniacs]]'' is fond of this, and have one in the opening credits:

** The debut episode of ''[[Freakazoid!]]'' has a similar zinger as they do a theme for the show using the ''Animaniacs'' melody:

* ''[[Family Guy]]''

** Quagmire is starting to become this, pointing the flaws and many things disliked by the fans. It reached its peak in an [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|spectacular]] [[Take That, Scrappy!]] at ''[[Author Avatar|Brian]]'', of all people.

'''Rocky:''' I didn't think that was very funny.

'''Bullwinkle:''' (''looking at us'') Neither did they, apparently. }}

 

* [[Halle Berry]], as depicted in the page image, is one of the few actors to have won both an [[Academy Award]] (''[[Monsters Ball]]'') and a [[Golden Raspberry Award]] (''[[Catwoman (film)|Catwoman]]''). For the latter, she donned the dress she wore accepting her Oscar, and went to the Razzies to accept the award personally. She even held both her Oscar and her Razzie up at the same time in her acceptance speech.

* [[Woody Allen]] uses this throughout his work, most often against himself but occasionally against Jews or New Yorkers generally. For instance, from ''[[Annie Hall]]'':

{{quote|'''Alvy:''' Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I ''live'' here. }}

{{quote|'''Stewart:''' I don't watch it, myself. I find it crass. }}

* Irish humour, when it's not about drinking, fighting, or religious conflict; is all about the Irish predilection for drinking, fighting, and religious conflict.

* No episode of ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' goes without it. Usually he's joking about his hair and/or awkward body.

* In Conan O'Brien's opening song when Conan hosted the Primetime Emmys (a parody of "Trouble" from ''[[The Music Man]]''), one of his examples of NBC's [[Biting the Hand Humor|decline in quality]] was that the Emmys were opening with a song-and-dance number "performed by a host with ''limited musical ability!''" (The chorus then shouted, "He can't sing!")

* [[The Marx Brothers|Groucho Marx]] famously stated, "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members."

* Bnet.com's Geoffrey James gives us [http://www.bnet.com/blog/salesmachine/the-10-worst-business-books-of-all-time/11814 The 10 Worst Business Books of All Time]. The #5 entry, ''Success Secrets from Silicon Valley'' [[Old Shame|was written by James himself in 1998]].

* [[Hugh Laurie]] once mentioned that the reason he keeps acting is because he hates himself and doesn't believe he deserves to be happy.

* A big part of Icelandic humor, common factors include bad driving habits, cutting in lines, extremely frequent bodily noises and an Icelandic tourist attempting to speak English but constantly peppering his language with Icelandic-exclusive idioms (Venus pronounced as "weenis" and riding on horseback replaced by "fucking".)

** [[Blizzard Entertainment]]. It seems that successful game companies that can afford to push back release dates for the sake of quality have come to use Soon™ as a way of mocking both themselves ''and'' their fans.

** Used by CRS, creators of [[World War II Online]] to the point where it has become a [[Memetic Mutation]].

** When he hosted ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', joked that he would be endorsing John McCain in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election because every candidate he ever supported lost.

** When promoting the film ''[[Gigli]]'', which by that point, was infamous as one of the biggest flops of the decade, he went on ''The Tonight Show'' and read his "favorite" parts of the movie reviews, namely, the most scathing and brutal quips from film reviewers about how bad the movie and Affleck himself were.

** During the commentary for ''[[Mallrats]]'' where he describes himself as desperate and suicidal during the production of the movie, coming home at night with a bag of sleeping pills and preparing to just end it all. It's funnier than it sounds.

* The British channel E4 is mostly composed of British soap operas, American drama and comedy, and reality shows. Its advertising mocks the melodrama of British soaps and American drama, the ridiculousness of American comedy, the stupidity of reality TV and itself for broadcasting them.

** Highlights the national stereotypes of stubbornness, drunkenness and quietness. For example, two men went camping for a week with several bottles of vodka. The last day one of them raised a glass and said: "Cheers!" The other angrily responded: "Did we come here to drink or talk?"

** There's a whole category of jokes starting "A Swede, a Norwegian and a Finn..." that tend to paint the Finn as hardy, if a bit thick in the head. A pair of illustrative examples:

** "My uncle once dropped ten pence; he bent over to pick it up, and it hit him in the back of the head."

** "You may have heard that nasty rumour floating around that copper wire was invented by two Scotsmen fighting over a penny."

* [[Kevin Smith]] describes his wife as a man-hating feminist, "which explains why she married the guy with the tiniest dick on the planet."

* Brian Regan uses this in a lot of his comedy acts as well, usually to make him look stupid. The best example is his skit "Stupid in School"

* John Oliver does this a lot, most notably in his Comedy Central special.

{{quote|''What I wanted to be, when I was growing up, was an athlete. [...] Really? An athlete, John? And the word athlete means the same in Britain as it does here, does it? [...] What sport was it in Britain that rewards a concave chest?! Did you, perhaps, plan on becoming a sail?''}}

* [[Daniel Radcliffe]] seems to be this way, especially in this conversation about how he needs help getting dressed:

{{quote|'''Interviewer:''' You can't tie your shoelaces?

* [[I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue|Barry Cryer]] tends to engage in this a lot, joking about his lack of talent, inflating his reputation for heavy drinking, and claiming that people who come to see his gigs have confused him with Barry Took. He's stated in several interviews that this can be traced back to [[Oop North|Yorkshire tradition]].

{{quote|I've just sung to you! I don't know why, you've never done anything to me...}}

* Actor [[Victor Mature]] famously said, "I'm not an actor — and I've got 64 films to prove it!" and later, "I never was an actor. Ask anybody, particularly the critics."

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Abridged Series Tropes]]

[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]

[[Category:Insult Tropes]]

[[Category:Self-Referential Humor]]