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Some of the ways this trope is played:
 
* [[Bothering Byby the Book]] and [[Exact Words]], where somebody deliberately uses a literal interpretation in order to gain an advantage or make a point, perhaps using [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]. Often used in [[Loophole Abuse]].
* [[Literal Genie]], who does this maliciously.
* [[Mathematician's Answer]]
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== Anime & Manga ==
* Nia from ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (Anime)|Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]''.
* Sumomo/Plum from ''[[Chobits (Manga)|Chobits]]'' can only take questions literally, according to Shinbo, due to her lack of processing power as a "laptop" Persocom.
* Sōsuke Sagara from ''[[Full Metal Panic]]''. His literal-mindedness provides a lot of humor in quite a few serious situations (as well as not serious situations). One particular [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] in the novels comes during the Behemoth arc. Sōsuke defeated Takuma, which is supposed to result in a [[Tear Jerker]] moment, where the dying Takuma moans, "I lost, sister. Why'd I lose?..." Sōsuke proceeds to take the question ''literally'', and tactlessly attempts to explain to Takuma why he failed so miserably in an "I-told-you-so, but did you listen?" sort of way. Needless to say, Kaname tells him to shut up, and Tessa tries to repair the dramatic atmosphere.
* One ''[[Astro Boy (Mangamanga)|Astro Boy]]'' story has Astro succumb to this when Ochanomizu says he'll find the authorities who sent Astro to be scrapped and "grease their palms". He then uses a rapid-fire sequence of these to make a computer [[Logic Bomb|implode]].
* One ''[[Azumanga Daioh (Manga)|Azumanga Daioh]]'' episode had the main characters planning for an event and running behind schedule. Chiyo comments that she wishes they could turn back the clock. Cue [[Cloudcuckoolander|Osaka]] standing on a chair trying to wind the clock backwards.
* Tetsuma from ''[[Eyeshield 21]]'' always follows directions. Exactly. When his coach warned him not to overeat before a game, he didn't eat for three days. And at one point, The Kid tells Joe "wake me up in about three hours". Exactly three hours later, and despite the fact that Kid is nowhere nearby, Joe ''[[Super Window Jump|leaps out the window]] of a moving bus'' just to go find Kid and wake him up.
** On another occasion, Kid asks Tetsuma to get him up at eight AM. So Tetsuma actually counts down the seconds until 8 AM IN HIS SLEEP.
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== Fan Works ==
* Inverted in [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3946501/8/Thousand_Shinji Chapter 8] of ''[[Thousand Shinji (Fanfic)|Thousand Shinji]]'', Rei is asked by Asuka, "Aren't you hot wearing all that??" To which Rei replied, "Yes. Very. Thank you." It took Asuka couple seconds to figure out what Rei had said, then she became more specific.
* In ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero (Fanfic)|Kyon Big Damn Hero]]'', Kyon starts chatting with Sasaki, who brings up that most of his events were most probably organized by someone else. His PDA, being able to learn and adapt, brings up his event planner immediately. He then tries to avoid meetings with her with lame excuses that Skynet (his PDA) obligingly fills his schedule with as it doesn't understand Kyon is lying.
 
 
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* ''[[Freddy Got Fingered]]'': "You must get inside the animal."
* ''[[Zoolander]]'': "The files are ''[[Too Dumb to Live|inside the computer]]''..."
* Inside ''[[Spaceballs (Film)|Spaceballs]]'', [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Colonel Sandurz]] and [[Captain Ersatz|Dark Helmet]] are ordered to comb the desert, searching for the protagonists. Guess what happens.
** Of course this is [[Played for Laughs]], but only for the audience... From the non-reaction Sandurz and Helmet give after hearing the troop's report and their giant combs, we can only assume that they really wanted them to comb through the desert like they did!
* In ''[[Temple Grandin (Film)|Temple Grandin]]'' we see the autistic Temple's interpretation of idioms (Temple's Aunt: "We wake up with the chickens around here!" Temple: (after imagining her relatives perched on a fence in their PJ's) *laughing* "That's ridiculous!"). This gets her in a bit of trouble when she builds a hugbox and a psychiatrist asks her if she gets a release from it and she says yes (because if there wasn't a release lever she couldn't get out). Unfortunately she doesn't clarify that part and her hugbox gets taken away.
* In a Swedish movie called ''In Space, There Are No Emotions'', the (autistic) main character, Simon, states during a monologue that he dislikes people who speak in sayings and metaphor.
{{quote| '''His Boss:''' Come on, get to work now, Simon! Time is money!<br />
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* Peter in ''[[Finding Neverland]]''. At the very least, he can't (or won't) imagine that a dog is a bear, for instance.
* [[The Film of the Book]] of ''[[Ella Enchanted]]'' features a scene from her childhood where a Jerkass other girl is shown saying "Bite me" and having her hand bitten by Ella standing up for a young Areida. In later scenes, Ella is ordered to "Freeze!" by a policeman as she jumped over some barrels and does just that. Mid-air. And stays there until the cop issued her a new order. There's also the "Shake, shake shake, shake your booty".
* This memorable dialogue from ''[[Star Trek IV: theThe Voyage Home (Film)|Star Trek IV the Voyage Home]]'':
{{quote| Interrogator: Ok, let's take it from the top.<br />
Pavel Chekov: The top of what?<br />
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* In ''[[What About Bob]]'', Bill Murray's character literally walks in small steps when presented with Richard Dreyfus' psychiatrist character's published "Baby Steps" approach to life, and seems to think it's helping.
* Hall Pass: "She's having trouble breathing."
* In ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]'', Eddie visits the Ink and Paint Club and orders a Scotch on the rocks, and one of the penguin waiters returns to him with a glass of Scotch...filled with rocks.
 
 
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** Except for that one time that she made a date cake by ''cutting dates out of a calendar.''
** And a sponge cake with an ''actual cut up sponge.''
** On the other hand, her "tea cake" ([[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|a cake made with brewed tea mixed into the batter]]) turned out to be quite a success at her boss lady's luncheon.
* Some of [[Isaac Asimov]]'s stories have a robot interpreting insufficiently-precise orders in inconvenient ways as a major part of the plot. For example, in ''Little Lost Robot'', an exasperated researcher tells a potentially-dangerous experimental robot, "Go lose yourself!" The robot immediately hides among a consignment of identical-looking, but harmless, robots that are due to be shipped elsewhere, then starts to go insane from the stress of maintaining the deception.
** It's worth noting that the robot was going crazy more because his First Law protections were deliberately, but incorrectly, weakened. He was angry at the guy who'd yelled at him and was proving his superiority by staying lost. Later stories have more intelligent robots intentionally becoming [[Literal Minded]] when it served their purposes (in greater serving humanity).
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*** It's equally possible [[Alternative Character Interpretation|Vimes purposely gave him orders]] that Carrot would likely misunderstand.
** Similarly, never tell Cohen the Barbarian that you would "rather die than betray my emperor". He will be all too happy to oblige. Ankh-Morpork citizens are known for a certain amount of this, if not so much as the dwarfish race in general is.
*** ''[[Discworld (Literature)/The Light Fantastic|The Light Fantastic]]'' mentions former Patrician of Ankh-Morpork Olaf Quimby II, who tried to legally enforce accuracy in idioms, like figuring out how bad a poke in the eye with a blunt stick could be, or establishing a standard recipe for the pie to which something "as nice as pie" is compared. He was killed in a duel with a disgruntled poet while testing "The pen is mightier than the sword".
** And Golems tend to follow all instructions literally. In some cases, it's because they don't think the way living people do. In other cases, it might be because they're rebelling against their owners.
** Death and the Auditors are frequently prone to this trope, having only a limited grasp of human quirks and psychology.
** Stanley Howler from ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Going Postal|Going Postal]]'' is highly susceptible to this trope, particularly when following official Post Office procedures. While trapped in a burning building, he took the safety-manual instruction to "Remain calm" literally and hence, wasn't frightened.
** The GURPS Discworld RPG book explains this from the dwarves point of view, to help players with dwarf PCs. Dwarves find the human tendency to speak in metaphor to be both confusing and annoying. You ask a human how long until the explosion, and instead of a useful answer you get a little meditation about the beauty of flames and the fragility of life.
* Bubba in ''[[The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries]]''.
* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[The Golden Oecumene (Literature)|The Golden Transcedence]]'', a character coming to with amnesia is told he consented to forgot what, exactly, he had consented to. He asks how he can know this is true, and the computer answers that in fact, he doesn't know it.
* In the [[Mortal Instruments]] trilogy, Jace once told Clary "If there were such a thing as terminal literalism, you would have died at birth."
* Shows up several times in ''[[The Phantom Tollbooth]]''. When Officer Shrift (who is also the judge and the jailer of Dictionopolis) is asked if he can give Milo a short sentence for causing a mess in the Word Market, Shrift replies "How about 'I am'? That's the shortest sentence I know."
* Lenny in [[Of Mice and Men]]. [[The Woobie|Poor guy...]]
* Torvig Bu-kar-nguv from [[Star Trek Titan]]. His experiments to determine the truth about "gut feelings" in one of the novels consisted of introducing nanites into his crewmates' food, so as to monitor their intestines.
* ''[[Animorphs (Literature)|Animorphs]]'' Ax had this from time to time, mostly because he didn't understand human humor.
 
 
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** One frequently cited example occured on the June 1, 2011, episode, where a contestant playing the Race Game – where the objective is to match four price tags with their correct prizes in a 45-second time frame, and correct any mistakes if time allows –&nbsp;was told by Carey to "throw" the tags in front of the prizes she thought they matched. Carey meant, "place them quickly on the podiums, because you have just a short amount of time to play this game," but the contestant literally interpreted the instructions and threw the price tags on the floor in front of the prizes. When confusion reigned, it was ultimately decided that the contestant should be given the benefit of the doubt and was given all four prizes.
* ''[[Small Wonder]]'': Vicki the robot/child. Much of the show's humor comes from her literal interpretation of simple instructions.
* In the early years, Commander Data on ''[[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation (TV)|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' (though he was generally wise enough to question the idiom before actually implementing such an order).
** Spock from ''TOS'', also, of course.
** Also, the computer from Next Generation. It was a small running gag for Geordi in particular to have difficulty with the computer, given the casual way he would address it. Then there was that time Geordi accidentally created a super-powered artifical intelligence by asking the computer to create an opponent worthy of Data's skills...
* Mork of ''[[Mork and Mindy]]'' did this a lot, especially in the first season.
* The aliens of ''[[3rd Rock Fromfrom the Sun|3rd Rock From The Sun]]'' were sometimes like this, especially in the earlier episodes:
{{quote| '''Mary:''' Are you seeing anybody?<br />
'''Sally:''' I'm looking at you, aren't I? }}
* Hymie the robot from ''[[Get Smart (TV)|Get Smart]]''. It was unwise to tell him "Kill the light".
* Waldo Faldo from ''[[Family Matters]]'' was like this at times. For example, when Carl mentioned he knew a celebrity and Eddie said "get out of here!" in surprise, Waldo said "You can stay, Mr. Winslow."
* Kyle from ''[[All the Small Things (TV)|All the Small Things]]''; it's one of the autism-like symptoms he displays.
* Teal'c of ''[[Stargate SG -1 (TV)|Stargate SG 1]]''. Take an episode where the team encounters a society who can create energy via heavy water and want it to wage war.
{{quote| '''Daniel:''' Their planet is on fire and we're offering them oil.<br />
'''Teal'c:''' We are in fact offering them water, Daniel Jackson.<br />
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'''Tony:''' He means you're with me.<br />
'''Ziva:''' Oh! }}
* Anya from ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' is very much like this.
{{quote| "That's so very humorous. Make fun of the ex-demon! I can just hear you in private. 'I dislike that Anya. She's newly human and strangely literal.'"}}
* The Literal Doctor (a.k.a Dr. Wordsmith) from ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]''
{{quote| '''The Doctor:''' It looks like he's dead.<br />
'''Lucille:''' Oh my God!<br />
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'''Richie:''' No, quite the opposite, actually.<br />
'''Eddie:''' What? You sucked water ''in'' through your eyeballs? }}
* Frequently, Mr. Rumbold from ''[[Are You Being Served? (TV)|Are You Being Served]]''.
* Subverted in an episode of ''[[I CarlyICarly]]'': Carly, Sam and Freddie knows a dead man had hidden a recipe inside his computer, but fail to find it. Turns out it was ''literally'' inside the computer, so the kids had failed to follow the literal logic of the owner.
* ''[[Keeping Up Appearances]]'' episode "Iron Age Remains" had this dialogue (though Onslow was only pretending to not understand):
{{quote| '''Rose:''' I'm at the crossroads!<br />
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'''Rose:''' (to Daisy) Your Onslow is such a pleb. }}
* The [[Blank Slate|dolls]] in ''[[Dollhouse]]'' are often like this. For example, Alpha's Handler suggests he watch his step when he gets caught coming onto Echo. Alpha does exactly that: he walks away by staring at his feet.
* [[The Terminator (Filmfranchise)|The Terminator]] is naturally ripe for this joke. In ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' a terminator is searching the schools for John Connor by posing as an FBI agent carrying out a drugs investigation. The school administrator asks him "Look me in the eye and tell me you've never smoked a little marijuana." The terminator does just that (it is, after all, true!)
* [[El Chavo Del Ocho|El Chavo]] does this when Don Ramon is explaining him how to play [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3bXH6Befu0&feature=related bowling] (starting at approximately 2:23)
* K-9 did this once in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode, "The Pirate Planet";
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{{quote| '''Nate and Sophie:''' (discussing their current con)[[Violin Scam|The Fiddle Game]].<br />
'''Parker:''' I don't know how to play the fiddle. }}
* At the end of an episode of ''[[Grace Under Fire]]'', the titular character laments to Nadine on how her ex-husband is behind on his rent payments. She explains that they agreed on the exact amount to be paid "under the table"...then suddenly says "Oh no. [[Who Would Be Stupid Enough...?|He couldn't be THAT stupid.]]" She then reaches under the table they are sitting at and finds an envelope full of money.
{{quote| '''Grace''': Maybe next time I should say it's "on the house" just to see what happens.}}
* Gary Bell from ''[[Alphas]]'' tends toward this, [[Justified Trope|as a result]] of having Autism. He gets the ''concept'' of metaphors and sarcasm, but he doesn't always recognize them... or understand them when they're used.
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My heart is in my hand. <br />
Ewww. }}
* [["Weird Al" Yankovic]]'s 'Albuquerque':
{{quote| So I see this guy Marty trying to carry this big ol' sofa up the stairs all by himself, and I say "Hey, y'want me t'help you with that?"<br />
And Marty, he just [[Sarcasm Mode|rolls his eyes]] and goes [[Be Careful What You Wish For|"Noooo, I want you to cut off my arms and legs with a chainsaw!"]]<br />
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Maaaan, this ain't my dad. This is a cell phone!<br />
[[Hair-Trigger Temper|I threw it on the GROOOOOOOOOOOUND!!!]] }}
* [[Knorkator (Music)|Knorkator]]'s ''Wie weit ist es bis zum Horizont'' (how far is it to the horizon): Turns out the solution to this problem is the Pythagorean theorem, which results in an average distance of 4650m for a person whose eye level is 1,70m above the ground.
* [[They Might Be Giants (Musicband)|They Might Be Giants]], "Hey Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had a Deal":
{{quote| I could never sleep my way to the top<br />
'Cause my alarm clock always wakes me right up }}
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** This is a [[Woolseyism]] -- in the original Japanese, {{spoiler|the order is something along the lines of "Give Misty Fey magnificent burial rites" -- in kanji. Pearl can't read kanji very well, because she's only eight, so she reads "magnificent" as "curry" (they're pronounced the same) and covers the picture in it.}}
* ''[[Eternal Sonata]]'': Polka, judging by the first two cutscenes with her in it. Good job, Solfege.
* ''[[Kingdom Hearts II (Video Game)|Kingdom Hearts II]]'': Auron (in the Underworld of the Colosseum), final plot-mandated interaction.
* In ''[[LEGOLego Island]]'', when Mama Brikolini is asked what it was that brought her to the island, she replies "The boat, silly."
* ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]'': Estellise.
* ''[[Arc Rise Fantasia]]'': Ryfia.
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* In ''Edmund Finney's Quest to Find the Meaning of Life'', we have [http://eqcomics.com/comics/literal-lord-werriam/ Literal Lord Werriam].
* In [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0348.html this] strip of [[The Order of the Stick]], Belkar purposely chooses be literal-minded, because it provides him with entertainment.
* The Sphynx from ''[[Subnormality (Webcomic)|Subnormality]]'' also seems to [http://www.viruscomix.com/page535.html suffer from this]. But let's be fair, who wouldn't go looking for the Fire Department when they want to heat their house?
* ''[[Cyanide and Happiness]]'' does it all the time. [http://www.explosm.net/comics/1878/ Also], furries.
* Criminy in ''[[Sinfest]]'' has something like bullet-proof glass wall between him and [http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3204 any], even [[Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?|the most corny]] innuendo. He [http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=956 doesn't even notice] anything is amiss when they fall by scores. Including his own [[Accidental Innuendo]].
** God can be one [http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3189 too.]
* In ''[[Girl Genius (Webcomic)|Girl Genius]]'', Gil is revealed to have invented a robot for picking up girls. [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20120314 As in grabs them and lifts them up into the air].
{{quote| '''Gil''': Well, when I was a kid, we heard some of the older guys talking, but we were kind of... um... unclear on the concept, and, well...<br />
'''DuPree''': That is so just like you... soooo pathetic. }}
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== Web Original ==
* Egoraptor's short [http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/529003 Mr. Literal] is about this type of character.
* [[Atop the Fourth Wall (Web Video)|Linkara]] has an... interesting definition of "alcohol abuse". Cue thirty seconds of insulting a beer bottle.
* [[Tobuscus]] has an entire series on [[YouTube]] about adding lyrics to trailers. The lyrics themselves are just about what's happening in the trailer.
* [[The Angry Video Game Nerd (Web Video)|The Angry Video Game Nerd]] in the ''Bible Games 3'' episode, when he decides to "give his heart to Jesus". You can guess what happens.
 
 
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''(Warmonga catches Shego and throws her, blowing [[There Was a Door|a hole in the door]])''<br />
'''Drakken:''' Yes, well... I didn't mean literally through the actual door, but... }}
* Happens more often than not to Starfire of ''[[Teen Titans (Animationanimation)|Teen Titans]]''.
* ''[[Bobby's World]]''. Granted, he's like 3 years old.
* The title character of ''[[Ka Blam!|Life with Loopy]]''. When told to go make a new friend, she "makes" a [[Robot Buddy]] out of old electronics.
* Brian's human girlfriend Jillian from ''[[Family Guy]]'' is like this.
** At a [[Renaissance Fair]], a woman hits on Peter by asking if he wants to "take a gander under [my] frock"; confused, he gets a goose and shoves it under her dress.
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** In an early episode, he promises Lois he'll set up an extravagant party for Stewie's first birthday, including (among other things) a "big-ass pinata". Later on, we find out that he did manage to get one, but...well, to quote Brian, "I sure hope ''candy'' comes out of that."
** Peter in general tends to think with a literal mind and acts on it.
* There's that one episode of ''[[Animaniacs (Animation)|Animaniacs]]'', when Yakko is the king. He suggests a polka-dot new flag (among other things, since this was the episode's [[Running Gag]]). Then someone is sure to ask: "Polka-dot?" and cue to the person dancing Polka with Yakko's sister Dot.
** And in one particularly [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|notorious incident]], the Warners are involved in an [[Agatha Christie (Creator)|Agatha Christie]] type investigation, and Yakko tells Dot to dust for prints. She finds [[Prince]]. As in the singer.
{{quote| '''Yakko:''' No, no, no, ''finger''prints!<br />
'''Dot:''' ''[looks at Prince]''<br />
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Mordecai: But that taxi's yellow.<br />
Pops: Yellow? My taxi is no coward; I guarantee you that! }}
* Fenton Craskshell (Gizmo Duck) in ''[[Duck TalesDuckTales]]'' is literal minded. Scrooge wants Fenton to liquidate his assets except that he puts all of Scrooge's money in the lake.
* Fred the squirrel from [[The Penguins of Madagascar]].
{{quote| '''Skipper:''' We need you to take a look at this squirrel artefact.<br />
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* The [[Tex Avery]] cartoon "Symphony in Slang" was about a recently deceased man at the Pearly Gates, explaining his life story with incomprehensible slang terms. The angels interpret the whole thing literally, turning it into a [[Hurricane of Puns]] [[Visual Pun|Visual Puns]].
* In the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "Crippled Summer", Nathan and Mimsy try to sabotage Jimmy's team in an athletic competition, but because Mimsy is Literal Minded, their plans backfire. For instance: {{spoiler|they make a fake map for a scavenger hunt that leads to a hostile Indian reservation, and Nathan tells Mimsy to "switch the map, switch the map". So he switches the maps twice, leaving them with their own fake map}}.
* [[The Ditz|DeeDee]] in the ''[[DextersDexter's Laboratory]]'' episode "[[Fun Withwith Acronyms|G.I.R.L.]] Squad" takes the "lick" part of "lick crime" too literally.
* Inverted in the ''[[SpongebobSpongeBob SquarePants]]'' episode "Dying For Pie". Squidward does whatever Spongebob wants for the day because [[Mistaken for Dying|he thinks Spongebob is going to die from eating an exploding pie]]. When this fails to happen, Squidward angrily tells him "You were supposed to explode!" Spongebob then proceeds to ''metaphorically'' "explode":
{{quote| '''Spongebob:''' '''''Gary!''' You are gonna finish your dessert, and you are gonna '''like''' it!''}}
* Applejack slips into this for a couple of jokes in ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]''. In "Sweet and Elite", she thought a garden party was about actual gardening.
** Pinkie Pie does this a lot. Consider this exchange from "The Last Round-Up":
{{quote| '''Rainbow Dash''': We gotta get her to spill the beans.<br />
'''Pinkie''': What?! She has beans?! Ugh! I ''told'' her I was snacky! }}
* Mr. Herriman in [[FostersFoster's Home for Imaginary Friends]]. In "The Big Cheese", he's told to enter "a random number" as the password to the house's new security system, and ''literally'' punches in a random security code for the new security system. The result: he can't remember the password and everyone, imaginary friends included, is locked out of the house.
* An episode of [[Danger Mouse]] has Penfold deliberately invoking this after DM addresses the situation at hand:
{{quote| '''DM:''' We must act quickly.<br />
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