Shaggy Dog Story: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

A Shaggy Dog Story is a plot with a high level of build-up and complicating action, only to be resolved with an anti-climax or ironic reversal, usually one that makes the entire story meaningless. The term comes from a type of joke (called "gildersome" in ''[[The Meaning of Liff]]'') that worked the same way -- a basic premise, a long amount of buildup, and a deliberately underwhelming punchline.<ref>A form of anti-humor</ref>

* ''[[Burn After Reading]]'' ends with the CIA director and Palmer sitting in an office contemplating what the heck happened. The only thing they learned, they muse, is to not do it again, if only they knew what, if anything, they did to cause the whole thing in the first place.

* The [[Britney Spears]] roadtrip movie ''[[Crossroads (2002 film)|Crossroads 2002]]'' has this times three, with three childhood wishes: Britney wants to reunite with her [[Missing Mom]], [[Pirates of the Caribbean|"Anna-Marie"]] wants to get married, and "Boomkat" wants to be a singer. Near the end of their journey Britney learns her mom wants nothing to do with her ([[Sex and the City|"Samantha"]] doesn't want any reminders of her slutty past(!)); Anna-Marie discovers her boyfriend is a cheater, and Boomkat is just not as good at singing as Britney.

* ''Two Lane Blacktop'': The film centers on a cross-country race between a mysterious man and a pair of street racers. Along the way, a girl gets mixed up between the two parties, but she eventually just leaves. We never find out the mysterious man's backstory, and both parties forget about the race before anyone wins.

* A very unusual example is ''[[The Usual Suspects]]''; the ending reveals that the entire movie was {{spoiler|one great big pack of [[Blatant Lies|unbelievably audacious lies]] having almost nothing to do with reality}}, but this revelation actually sheds a fascinating new light on what has been happening.

* The ending of the seven year long webcomic ''[[Bob and George]]'' shows that {{spoiler|pretty much the whole comic was a plot by the title characters' mother to make George willing to kill Bob (his super villain brother) if necessary and for Bob to be aware of it. In a subversion or at least avoidance of [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]], however, a comment during the finale prevented the deaths of just about everyone in the Cataclysm}}.

* In ''[[Gastrophobia]]'', almost all the chapters end with the plot getting humorously undermined.

** Not quite. There are indeed a number of Shaggy Dog Stories in 8-Bit Theater, such as the Chocobo Breeding arc and the random town arc from right before the Orb of Air quest, but most of the story arcs don't fit the definition. They tend to end in anticlimaxes, but the anticlimaxes themselves do further the plot.

** Turns out the entire plot is one of these; {{spoiler|while the Light Warriors are arguing with each other yet again, the [[Big Bad]] is killed by a minor character using a strategy Black Mage had scoffed at in one of the series' first comics. After nine years and 1200 comics, the main characters end up basically where they started off without really accomplishing anything outside of causing problems wherever they went}}. According to the author, this was his plan from the very beginning.