Talkative Loon: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"My name's Millions and I'm a son of a chipwich!"''|'''Homsar''' (the [[Patron Saint]] of Talkative Loons), ''[[Homestar Runner]]''}}

When a TV character is meant to be completely, irretrievably unhinged, and it's inconvenient (as it would be in 95% of television scenes) to have them exhibit typical deranged behavior such as detached wandering, violent outbursts or obsessive drawing/crocheting/self-mutilation/etc, the general method for conveying their insanity is to have them constantly spout rambling incoherent phrases, e.g. "The avenue is clear and we must use it to convert the extra limbs - not yet though, not until the pastor has been distracted, or do they have the right parts? White fish elephant man which was lettuce matrix!"

Talkative Loons can sometimes actually be misunderstood [[Waif Prophet|Waif Prophets]]s; it can be hard to tell the difference between the two. If the talkative loon happens to be a beautiful young woman, she may also be [[The Ophelia]]. Occasionally some [[Infallible Babble]] might slip out of them, but [[Sturgeon's Law]] applies to the remaining ninety percent, and there's no way to tell which is which.

Note that this sort of behavior is [[Truth in Television|a real symptom of certain real mental illnesses,]] particularly schizophrenia (psychiatrists call this kind of talk from a schizophrenic patient "Word Salad") but it is far from universal, even in schizophrenics. In the real world, the insane do not, as a general rule, identify themselves quite so easily and conveniently. Of course, they might not be crazy. Just brain damaged and might be suffering from aphasia.

* Graham Spectre from ''[[Baccano!]]'', who combines this with [[Warrior Poet]]. Damned if we know what the hell he was talking about half the time.

* A story arc in [[Tintin]] ''(Cigars of the Pharaoh/The Blue Lotus)'' had the bad guys shooting people with poisoned darts to make them go mad; pretty much all the victims became this.

== [[FanficFan Works]] ==

* The [[Stealth Parody]] ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' fanfic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4307278/1/Lexaeus_Loves_Hot_Topic "Lexaeus Loves Hot Topic"]'' consists of nothing but random gibberish.

* ''[[30 "H"s|Thirty Hs]]'' takes this [[Up to Eleven]].

* Mocked in the Demyx chapter of the ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]''-based parody fic ''[[Those Lacking Spines]]'' as a crutch which many authors rely on for "random" humor.

* The Weavers in [[China Mieville]]'s ''[[Bas-Lag Cycle]]'', in addition to being gigantic spidery [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]]s with a thought process no human can truly understand, talk like this all the time.

* ''[[Finnegans Wake]].'' The entire book is one long [[Talkative Loon]] rambling.

== [[Live -Action TV]] ==

** And a lot of babbling was actually just him talking to the First, who nobody else could see or hear but him.

* River on ''[[Firefly]]'' ''seems'' like a Talkative Loon, but her [[Waif Prophet]] nature means that the seemingly-random statements are actually prophetic -- sheprophetic—she just has trouble rendering her insights into something comprehensible to everyone else. (Of course, sometimes she really ''is'' just being crazy.) Also interesting in that River tends to wander around, act compulsively, and suffer violent outbursts, in addition to her rambling.

* Sometimes the Hybrids on [[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|the new ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'']] just babble: "Mists of dreams drip along the nascent echo and love no more. End of line."

** Or she was just bored while Octavian had sex with her. And there is something sordid about eggs. You do know where they come from, right?

* In the [[Ashes to Ashes]] finale, {{spoiler|Jim Keats flirts very closely with [[Talkative Loon|Talkative Loonacity]]. He suddenly gets incredibly chatty and incredibly baffling.}} Likewise, in episode 6 of series 3, {{spoiler|Thordie comes across as either a chatty, deranged Sam Tyler, or a very clever man. Although, you'll have to wait until the finale to find out which.}}

* Though one could arguably describe Hawkeye of ''[[MASHM*A*S*H (television)|M*A*S*H]]'' of being this all along, {{spoiler|he became this, in spades, for the first few parts of the series' finale. At one point, B.J. realizes Hawkeye's past talking to once he starts rambling about kids' booties}}.

* The Xaositects, or Chaosmen, one of the factions in the ''[[Planescape]]'' setting for ''[[Dungeons and& Dragons]]'', talk in "Scramblespeak", where all the words are mixed up. Except when they don't - if they ''always'' did something, that wouldn't be [[Chaotic Neutral|chaotic]].

* Subverted and played straight in "''[[King Lear]]."'' Edgar protects himself from a mistakenly vengeful father by pretending to be a mad-man and raving about "the foul fiend!" Lear begins to babble as his daughter's abuse drives him farther into madness. The Fool is the "[[Only Sane Man]]" except perhaps Edmund.

* {{spoiler|Dr. Higgenbotham}} is one of these in [[Little Big PlanetLittleBigPlanet]] 2.

** Worth pointing out that Sheogorath is the daedric Prince (Read: God) of madness. Many of the residents of the Shivering Isles (his realm) are [[Talkative Loon|Talkative Loons]]. In fact, check the entire [[Madness Tropes]] section, theres likely someone embodying it in the Isles. The Talkative Loon of the Isles, in this case, would be the beggar Bolwing. ("I'll kalikrak the findoo, I will. You terratet it! Gal bursten it...Raney Roo! Raney Roo!") Unless you get Big Head's fork or {{spoiler|become Sheogorath}}, in which case he becomes comprehensible, and indeed, [[Eloquent in My Native Tongue|quite eloquent]].

* The [[Big Bad]] of ''[[EarthboundEarthBound]]'' turns out to be a Talkative Loon, having [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|literally gone mad with power]] by the time of the endgame. And he's still is an imposing villain, they actually made this trope [[Nightmare Fuel|creepy]] instead of [[Narm|funny]].

* Liz and Ard from ''[[Wild ArmsARMs 2]]'', although arguably this is due to an abysmal translation rather than the characters actually being crazy. This is particularly the case for Liz; his(?) dialogue was a stylistic choice created by translating his dialogue ''literally'' from Japanese. The result is nonsensical and even confuses the main characters.

* The [[Enemy Chatter]] of the unhinged, ADAM-addled Splicers in ''[[BioshockBioShock (series)]]'' ranges from [[Crowning Moment of Funny|hilarious]] to [[Nightmare Fuel|disturbing]].

* Tom Redwood a.k.a. [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"|"Red"]] from the ''[[Penumbra (video game series)|Penumbra]]'' series.

* In ''[[Odium]]'', this happens to {{spoiler|Medusa}} when he goes insane. The beginning of his rant is actually a quote from "The End" by [[The Doors]].

* On ''[[Homestar Runner]]'', in the Strong Bad Email "[http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail91.html caffeine]", Strong Sad becomes a hyperactive Talkative Loon after Strong Bad slips coffee into his orange juice, saying things like "I don't even watch football! I can't remember my legs!" and rambling about "wood-davers".

* An essential part of many [[Dada Comics]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20090101164329/http://cad-comic.com/comic.php?d=20061014 Chef Brian] from ''[[Ctrl+Alt+Del]]'', for example.

** Also, {{spoiler|Dave}} was briefly a [[Talkative Loon]] after {{spoiler|his [[Science-Related Memetic Disorder]] finally caught up with him. It did not last very long, however. And [[In Mysterious Ways|he still remembered to fill the pool]]. [[It Makes Sense in Context]].}}

* [[Megatokyo|Largo]] comes off as this quite a lot, between his l33t sp34k, technobabble, and constant paranoid beliefs that zombies will be taking over the area (which later turns out to be more or less true). All of this coupled with the fact that he doesn't speak any Japanese usually leads to him being arrested by the police (it was also implied to have [[Noodle Incident|have something to do with being handcuffed by mounties and deported from Canada]]).

* Lok of [[Juathuur]] tend to talk and whine a lot to whoever visits him in his realm. This happens rarely.

* In ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'', The Joker inadvertently creates the [[Diniverse]] version of [[The Creeper]], a [[Superhero]] who's yellow, super-strong, agile, and crazy enough to scare even the Joker.

* Blitzwing's [[Multiple Personalities|Random face]] in ''[[Transformers Animated]]''. The rest of him's more coherent.

** In a previous show (''Cartoon Planet''), Brak is also infamous for his bizarre songs, like "I'm driving down highway 40 in my pick-up truck" - which is just this line, repeated over and over in various ways - and naturally, a song dedicated to beans of all kinds.

* A few old [[Looney Tunes]] cartoons employed this trope, particularly the ones featuring [[Daffy Duck]]. He sometimes was more of a musical loon, either singing something completely out of nowhere ("Oh I'm jutht wild about Ha-rry, and Harryth wild about meeee!") or making up his own lyrics to songs ("Oh when they say I'm nutsy, it sure givth me a pain, puh-leath path the ketchup, I think it'th going to rain!")

** We later see him singing and dancing in another flashback.

* [[Jon TronJonTron]] ''[http://normalboots.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=35&Itemid=11\]'', a recent emergence in the game reviews community, often throws in completely incoherent ramblings in a pseudo-Bill Cosby fashion to the reviews. Even going so far as to rate Donkey Kong Country Returns six golden bananas plus out of Shigeru Miyamoto. And this is meant to be an accurate description of what is 'Like the best game for the Nintendo Wii like ever'.

[[Category:TalkativeWord LoonSalad Tropes]]