Title Confusion: Difference between revisions

[[Viewers are Morons|Casual viewers]] just can't be bothered to pay the kind of attention it takes to interpret the meaning of a show's title, even if this effort is small. This can lead to some unusual and mistaken notions about key facets of the show.

 

* [[I Am Not Shazam]]: The work's title is mistaken for the protagonist's name.

* [[Iconic Character Forgotten Title]]: The protagonist's name is mistaken for the work's title.

* The webcomic ''[[Dinosaur Comics]]'' is still occasionally referred to as ''Daily Dinosaur Comics''. [http://web.archive.org/web/20030220043058/http://www.qwantz.com/ This] is where "Daily" came from. Note the top of the page "Welcome to qwantz.com", then immediately on the next line "daily dinosaur comics". Since "qwantz.com" isn't a suitable title for the comic, the descriptive text was likely mistaken for the title back in the day, and it stuck.

* [[The Movie]] of ''[[The X Files|The X-Files]]'' is simply called "The X-Files"; the phrase "Fight the Future" was just its tagline. Confusing these two is rather like saying that every other episode of the show was called "The Truth is Out There". The second movie, however, is titiled ''The X-Files: I Want to Believe''.

** The poster's not the half of it—"Fight the Future" appears on the ''spine'' of the DVD case.

*** And that poster has another, more obvious tagline already!

*** There was a bad British dub of the early episodes (cropped into widescreen) called ''Lum the Invader Girl''.

* The obscure 1970s movie ''[[Death Bed the Bed That Eats]]'' is ofter referred to as ''Death Bed: The Bed That Eats '''People''' '' due to Patton Oswalt's infamous rant about the movie where he consistently and incorrectly refers to the movie by that title.

** In fairness, he's referred to as "Doctor Who" in at least three episodes of the original series, and various comic strips published about his adventures during its run by people who ''should'' have been familiar with it also referred to him that way.

* Even though the most popular character is named Strong Bad, and the feature he hosts is called Strong Bad E-mails, the [[Web Animation]] series as a whole is called ''[[Homestar Runner]]''. People get this wrong even though the website is called ''homestarrunner.com''.

* When Hal Roach began his series of child-centered comedy shorts in the 1920s, his titles included ''Roach's Rascals'' and ''The Terrible Ten''. But because the first short was titled ''Our Gang'', the public started referring to them as "Our Gang comedies". By the time MGM took over production in 1938, ''Our Gang'' had become the official title. The series' [[Syndication Title]], ''[[The Little Rascals]]'', wasn't popular until the mid-1960s, when King World sold the shorts to TV stations.

* ''[[Star Trek Enterprise]]'' was originally titled simply ''Enterprise'', to the confusion of fans.

* In [[Movies]], the ''[[Indiana Jones (Franchise)|Indiana Jones]]'' and ''[[Star Wars (Franchise)|Star Wars]]'' franchises had sufficient inconsistencies in their naming conventions that their first installments have been retroactively retitled.

** The first ''Star Wars'' film was originally titled "Star Wars". It was not titled "Star Wars: Episode IV: [[A New Hope (Film)|A New Hope]]" until its second rerelease 3 years later. George Lucas claims this was because the [[Executive Meddling|execs]] thought nobody would get why this was Episode ''IV'' ... instead of which, nobody got why the ''second'' film was Episode ''V''. By then, of course, he had enough [[Protection From Editors]] to get away with it.

* After the success of ''[[Star Wars Clone Wars|Star Wars: Clone Wars]]'', the animated series set between episode II and III, Lucasfilm decided to create a new animated series set in the same time period called ''[[Star Wars the Clone Wars|Star Wars:]]'' '''''[[Star Wars the Clone Wars|The]]''''' ''[[Star Wars the Clone Wars|Clone Wars]]''. Enough said.

** Similarly, there was a "Star Wars: Clone Wars" comic series long before the production of either television series. It was then followed up with "Clone Wars Adventures" then simply "Star Wars: The Clone Wars", in turn followed up by "Star Wars The Clone Wars" graphic novel series. [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Clone_Wars_%28disambiguation%29 Throw in a book series and several video games using only the words "Clone Wars" as their titles] and you'd think someone would be able to think to at least subtitle them. Some people even mistakenly refer to ''[[Attack of the Clones]]'' as "The Clone Wars".

* ''[[Modern Warfare]] 2'' originally didn't include the series name, [[Call of Duty]]; the original ''Modern Warfare'' was ''[[Call of Duty]] 4: [[Modern Warfare]].'' When it was discovered that the absence of the series name led to fans being less aware of ''Modern Warfare 2,'' it was added back on. The special editions of the game still omit it on their box art.

* The "Doom/Quake with a crossbow" series: ''[[Heretic]]''; ''[[Hexen]]''; ''Hexen II''; ''Heretic II''.

 

=== Titles which are very similar, but not the same. ===

* Some people assume that [[The Beatles]]' "Revolution 9" is the song that has the lyrics "You say you want a revolution..."; they're actually thinking of "Revolution 1" (or "Revolution," the B-side to "Hey Jude"). "Revolution 9" is the weird sound collage with the voice repeating, "Number nine... Number nine... Number nine..." (which notoriously sounds like "Turn me on, dead man" when played backwards).

* ''[[3rd Rock From the Sun]]'' and ''[[30 Rock (TV)|Thirty Rock]]'', made all the more confusing by the fact that the former's title is commonly shortened to "''3rd Rock''". ''3rd Rock'' is about [[Alien Among Us|aliens living on Earth]], i.e. the third planet (rock) from the sun. ''30 Rock'' is a [[Work Com]] set at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, otherwise known as "30 Rock". Amusingly, they're both [[NBC]] [[Sit Com|Sit Coms]].

[[Category:Title Tropes]]

[[Category:Title Confusion]]