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Sidetracked by the Analogy (view source)

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{{examples}}
== Anime &and Manga ==
* A variation in ''[[Ef a Tale of Memories]]'' has Chihiro explaining a math problem she {{spoiler|supposedly}} read once in school, about how long it would take a sheep tethered x feet from a pole to eat all the grass in the surrounding circle. Chihiro thought of the implied end of the story, about how the sheep would eventually starve to death, rather than the math problem it was setting up.
* Similar to the above, an episode of ''[[SeitokaiStudent noCouncil's IchizonDiscretion]]'' has Minatsu posing a math problem to Kurimu. The problem is fairly typical: "John goes to the store with X dollars. He buys Y units of a certain item at a certain price, and Z units of another item at a different price. How much change should he get?" Kurimu instead thinks about why the character in the story would be buying the certain items, and concludes that his parents are neglectful.
 
 
== Comic Books ==
* Jimmy from ''[[Empire State]]''. At one point, he manages to distract ''himself'' while writing a letter: he's confessing his romantic feelings for a close friend, and he catches himself going off on tangents like describing [[Real Dreams Are Weirder|the sort of things he normally dreams about]], or criticizing the movie ''[[Kate and Leopold]]'' for [[Time Paradox|not resolving the Grandfather Paradox]].
 
 
== Film ==
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'''Audience 3:''' He's having a go at the flowers now.
'''Audience 1:''' Oh, give the flowers a chance. }}
 
 
== Literature ==
* In [[Douglas Adams]]' ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|Hitchhiker's Guide]]'' novel ''[[Life the Universe And Everything]]'', Ford Prefect refuses to help Slartibartfast in a mission, describing their chances as like 'A whelk's chance in a supernova'. Cue a page of dialogue as Arthur Dent wonders why, when nothing can survive in a supernova, Ford chose a whelk in particular.
* [[Discworld|]]: Mustrum Ridcully]], and indeed most of the other wizards, are actually reasonably clever when it comes to magic, even if this is sometimes not readily apparent, Ridcully for instance almost certainly being a user of [[Obfuscating Stupidity]], but they are all genuinely hopeless when it comes to analogies, as Ponder Stibbons, who likes to think of himself as the [[Only Sane Man]] among the wizards, finds out every time he tries to explain something, going off on widely divergent tangents at the drop of a hat.
** In ''[[Discworld/Hogfather|Hogfather]]'', for example, Ponder is explaining how the new mechanical ear on [[Magitek|Hex]] works. He stops himself from describing sound as traveling in waves [[Genre Savvy|on the grounds that Ridcully will assume he's talking about the seaside]], and sheepishly handwaves it as [[A Wizard Did It|"magic"]].
** By ''[[Discworld/Unseen Academicals|Unseen Academicals]]'', Ponder's realized that Ridcully does this on ''purpose,'' his logic being if a problem's not so urgent that it can't be expressed with plain speech, then it's not worth his time.
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Kirk opened his mouth, but couldn't find a response to that. }}
 
== Live -Action TV ==▼
 
▲== Live Action TV ==
* On ''[[Victorious]]'': "Well, take this coconut, for example... brown, spherical, covered with short, fibrous hairs that... What were we talking about?"
* ''[[Scrubs]]'': J.D. wonders why Kelso cares so much about one particular person and asks if he donated a wing to the hospital. Kelso responds, "He donated a wing, a breast, and a thigh... yes, in this analogy, the hospital is a chicken." J.D. outwardly acts offended at the patronizing explanation, but then thinks to himself, "Why would the hospital be a chicken?"
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'''Church:''' Okay, fine, triangle of confusion, rhombus of terror, parabola of mystery, who cares!? Get the goddamn show on the road! }}
 
== Mythology &and Religion ==▼
 
▲== Mythology & Religion ==
* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: We find this in the Gospels of the ''[[The Bible|New Testament]]'' frequently: when [[Main Character|Jesus]] delivers a parable, people will sometimes demonstrate this trope.
{{quote|''Jesus:'' "Beware the yeast of [[Corrupt Church|the Pharisees]]."
''Disciples:'' "[[Comically Missing the Point|He's upset that we didn't bring any bread!]]" }}
 
 
== Newspaper Comics ==
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** This shows up quite frequently in ''[[Dilbert]]'' - Scott Adams has admitted bad analogies are a pet peeve of his.
* Also from Matt Groening, in one ''[[Life in Hell]]'' strip, Binky is reading the news and how depressing it is and comments, "We're like the frog in a pan who is slowly being boiled to death and doesn't realize it!" and his son Bongo sobs, "That poor little frog!"
 
 
== Radio ==
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''([[Collective Groan]] from audience)''
'''Graeme:''' That's right, milk it. }}
 
 
== Video Games ==
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{{quote|'''Tenebrae''': "[[Lampshade Hanging|Does anyone else notice how]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}SmOjrbK6xck&feature{{=}}related the conversation gets waylaid as soon as Colette joins?] [[Straight Man|Or is it just me?]]"}}
 
== Web Comics ==
 
== Webcomics ==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120115183501/http://www.pvponline.com/2010/11/18/hatters-gotta-hat/ This] strip of ''[[PvP]]'', where the characters get sidetracked by the fact that Cole says, "I'm here to apologize, hat in hand," yet doesn't actually have a hat.
* [http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=369 This] [[Questionable Content]] strip.
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'''George''': What...did that have to do with anything?
'''Clara''': They're hollow and you eat them, ''duh''. }}
 
 
== Western Animation ==
* One episode of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' has Marge trying to get the town to move against a burlesque house. Her use of "the house" as figurative language for the burlesque shows causes the townspeople to initially rise up against her as being unfair to the house itself, as in the physical building, which hadn't done anything.
* This trope is a chief source of humor on the cartoon series ''[[Bobby's World]]'', as the very young Bobby Generic literally interprets things, for instance, thinking a traffic jam as an actual jam people put on sandwich bread.
* In ''[[Shrek]]'', after getting a bit of [[Analogy Backfire]] with "ogres are like onions," Donkey spends some time trying to find a more palatable food for the analogy.
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{{quote|'''Buford:''' I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive-verb crackers!}}
** After escaping the maze at the end of the episode, Buford even complains about not getting any "metaphor cheese".
 
 
== Real Life ==
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** [[It Got Worse|Made worse]] in that it's now "common knowledge" that Schrödinger was ''explaining'' quantum physics, not attempting to point out what he saw as a fatal flaw in the interpretation.
* The Turing Machine. An ad-hoc description of precise algorithms to [http://www.thocp.net/biographies/papers/turing_oncomputablenumbers_1936.pdf illustrate a point that had already been rigorously made when Alan Turing got around to publishing it] turned out to be useful in a few other situations.
* There is a popular bit of Spanish slang about wanting one's partner to be "like a train". Big, heavy, made of metal? Hint: It has nothing do with steam, either. {{spoiler|It's supposed to mean "so that they get me to a hundred". As in, heartbeats per minute, not miles per hour.}}
* [[Bill Gaede]] will interpret ''any'' analogy from theoretical physics literally, with unintentionally hilarious results.
 
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[[Category:Stupidity Tropes]]
[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
[[Category:Sidetracked by the Analogy{{PAGENAME}}]]
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