The Joy of X

• Main
• All Subpages
• Create New

...or 'Tis Pity She's an X.

Some works have titles that are just really easy to have fun with. All you have to do is replace a word or two, and there you go—instant funny title!

With other works... Well, substitute "well-known" for "easy to have fun with", and "memorable" for "funny". After all, what better way could there be to make people remember the title of your new work than making it a Shout-Out to a Shakespeare title?

In other words, this is about the phenomenon of the title of a work being used as a template for other titles. The key feature is that the structure of the title is distinctive enough that even when replacing one or more words, it's still obvious what the reference is.

More generally, popular phrases with a variable element used in this manner as templates are termed "snowclones". See The Other Wiki.

See also Stock Shout-Outs, Memetic Mutation. If your title is a Shout-Out to something other than another title, it's a Literary Allusion Title. If it's an episode title referring to another episode title of the same series, they're Cross Referenced Titles. For trope title examples see This Trope Is X or pretty much any Title Tropes of your choice.

Some of these are bound to be Parallel Porn Titles.

If you're looking for repeated patterns in the names of tropes or other pages here on the wiki, see Everything's Worse With Snowclones.

When adding new patterns, please list them by the medium of the work from which the pattern derives -- for example, the Trope Namer is The Joy of Sex, which was a book -- so "The Joy of X" and all its examples go under "Literature". If no one seems to know what the original was, we have a section called "Origin Work Unknown or Uncertain" at the bottom of the page where you can put it.

Please list lots of actual examples of title variations, rather than just the template—it's more fun that way!

Examples according to original work

Comic Books

• Countdown to X: Since many comics tell ongoing stories with regular installments and no end in sight, they can build up to a big event in the future by having a countdown.
  • Countdown to Final Crisis Final Crisis
  • "Countdown to Unicron" (Marvel Comics Transformers Generation 1)
  • "Countdown to Necropolis" (Judge Dredd)
  • "Countdown to Destruction" (Power Rangers in Space; franchise Series Fauxnale)

Film

• The X, The Y, His Z and Her A, spawned from The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, which went through tons of Memetic Mutation when it was first out.
  • Chapter 4 of The Curse of Monkey Island is "The Bartender, The Thieves, His Aunt, And Her Lover".
  • "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer" -- three guesses.
  • Slightly more subtle was the series of missions in a Grand Theft Auto game called "The Crook," "The Thieves," "The Wife," and "The Lover."
  • A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop is probably one these- this is the international film for a movie titled A Simple Noodle Story in reference to the film it adapts.
  • Unbuilt Trope: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice predates The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover by two decades. Note the lack of the "The"s in the title.

• Miracle On X (34th Street)
  • Miracle on Evergreen Terrace (The Simpsons)
  • The winter 1980 Olympics where the US Men's hockey team beat the Soviet squad in the semifinal round was dubbed the "Miracle on Ice."
  • Recess Christmas: Miracle on Third Street

• Attack of the Killer/50-foot X
  • Attack of the 50 Foot Woman
  • Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
  • "Attack of the 50-Foot Sister" (Phineas and Ferb)
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores (The Simpsons)
  • The comedy short Attack of the Killer Refrigerator.
  • The Science Fiction short Attack of the Killer Metal Man from the Dimensions of the Unknown.
  • The documentary Attack of the 50 Foot Monster Mania.
  • The 1995 film Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds.
  • "Attack of the Killer Garage Sale", an episode of Danny Phantom
  • "Attack of the Killer App" (Futurama)
  • "Attack of the 5½ Foot Geek" (My Life as a Teenage Robot)

• The X That Ate Y (Not based on any particular film, but a common title for B-movies parodies)
  • A whole series of children's books, that are of the format The (Holiday Decoration) that ate my (Relative).
  • The novelty song "The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati" by Rose and the Arrangement about a fictional horror movie.
  • Likewise, "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago" by Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band.
  • And the song "The Pizza That Ate Chicago" by Tom Paxton. Chicago must be tasty.
  • The Cars That Ate Paris
  • A Happy Days Expanded Universe novel gave us "The Cow that Ate Salt Lake City" and its sequel "The Cow That Got So Thirsty Eating Salt Lake City, It Had to go Drink Lake Erie"
  • There's another series of children's books titled The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks.
  • "The Tower That Ate People", a song by Peter Gabriel.
  • The 2008 documentary The Cars That Ate China.
  • The short documentary The Hair That Ate Hollywood.
  • The 1906 silent short The Horse That Ate the Baby.
  • The Science Fiction short film The Zucchini That Ate New York vs. Tomatozilla.
  • Bill Cosby had a standup bit involving The Chicken Heart that Ate Up New York City.
  • The Blob That Ate Everyone (Goosebumps)
  • Food Critic Jeffrey Steingarten's book The Man Who Ate Everything
  • The Monster That Devoured Cleveland was always running at the Central City Bijou theater in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and was a perennial favorite of Dobie's sidekick, Maynard G. Krebs. In one episode he invites Dobie to join him at a double-feature of the film and its Sequel, Son of the Monster that Devoured Cleveland.
  • As a result of more than twenty-five years of continuous expansion and construction (which as of 2023 shows no sign of stopping), Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ has gained the nickname "The Hospital that Ate New Brunswick".
  • The Creature That Ate Sheboygan, a tabletop game by Greg Costikyan that has its own page on The Other Wiki.

• Crouching X, Hidden Y
  • Started by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass
  • Crouching Support, Hidden Batshit
  • "Crouching Jimmy, Hidden Sheen" (The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron)
  • "We'll return you to 'Crouching Tiger, Screaming Siegfried and Roy' in just a second..."

• X, Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Y.
  • Started by Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
  • The Simpsons episode title "$pringfield (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Legalised Gambling)"
  • The Bluetones song "Autophilia (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Car)"
  • According to IMDb, the working title for Soccer Dog: The Movie was Soccer Dog, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love the Pooch.
  • The Nostalgia Chick episode Blonde Girls Now and Then, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ke$ha.
  • The 1964 comedy film The Monster of Camp Sunshine or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nature.
  • The short film The Origin or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the J.O.I.N.T..
  • The 2009 short film Dr Lewis Or; How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Corpse.
  • The 2010 documentary Flush! or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Toilet.
  • The 2005 short documentary The Zeros Post Mortem or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Box Office and Love DVD.
  • Iraq: A Look Baq (Or, How We Learned to Stop Reporting and Love the War), a 2003 television special hosted by Jon Stewart.
  • Wil Wheaton's The Saga of Spongebob Vega$pant$ (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Star Trek)
  • David Willis's Roomies! collection Roomies! Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Beer.
  • The first episode of the Touhou Fanime The Memories of Phantasm had the english title "The Ordinary Magician or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Kotatsu".
  • The Ranma ½ Original Flavour fanfic Girl Days was formally titled Girl Days, or how I learned to stop worrying and love my bra.
  • The Harry Potter fanfic Applied Cultural Anthropology, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cruciatus, by "jacobk".

• From X with Love, after James Bond novel/movie From Russia with Love
  • From Eroica with Love
  • From Paris with Love
  • From Mexico With Love
  • From Rush Hour With Love was a song by Republica.
  • The French title for In Bruges is equivalent to "From Bruges With Love".
  • Artemis Fowl chapter title: "To Russia, With Gloves."
  • The boxart of the NES version of Tetris features the tagline, "From Russia With Fun!"
  • From Beijing with Love is a Bond parody by Stephen Chow.

• The Good, The Bad And The X, from Sergio Leone's The Good the Bad And The Ugly.
  • The Good, The Bad And The Queen
  • "The Good, the Sad and the Drugly" (The Simpsons)
  • The Good, the Bad, and the Undead
  • The Sesame Street movie The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland had the Tagline "The Good, The Bad and The Stinky."
  • The Good, the Bad, the Weird, a Korean recycling of the Leone film (with some nods to the other films in the "Dollars Trilogy")
  • According to the Weird Experiments website, this is the most common snowclone movie title to be used in scientific papers, based on hits on Google Scholar.
  • A Beano "comics library" starting Plug from The Bash Street Kids called The Good, The Bad And Plug Ugly.
  • An episode of Wizards of Waverly Place was titled, "The Good, the Bad, and the Alex".
  • "We'll return you to our Politically-Correct Presentation of 'The Good, The Bad, and the Beauty-Impaired' in just a second..."
  • Bubsy level "The Good, the Bad and the Woolies"
  • "The Good, the Bad and the Wallaby" (Rocko's Modern Life)

• Once Upon a Time in X from Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West
  • Leone himself repeated this title, using it for Once Upon a Time in America and in Once Upon A Time... the Revolution, an alternate title for Duck You Sucker (also alternatively titled A Fistful of Dynamite)
  • Once Upon a Time In Mexico
  • Once Upon a Time in India, a subtitle given to Lagaan
  • Once Upon a Time in China
  • Once Upon a Time in the Midlands
  • Once Upon A Time in Anatolia (2012)
  • ... and more

• I Was a Teenage X (from I Was a Teenage Werewolf)
  • I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, film from the producers of I Was a Teenage Werewolf, released in the same year (1957)
  • I Was a Teen-Age Dwarf, novel by Max Shulman
  • I Was a Teenage T. Rex, book in the Dinoverse series
  • I Was a Teenage Worrier
  • I Was a Teenage Fairy, novel by Francesca Lia Block
  • I Was a Teenage Faust, 2002 TV Movie
  • I Was a Teenage Zombie, 1986 film
  • "I Was a Teenage Taylor", episode of Home Improvement
  • "I Was a Teenage Gary", episode of SpongeBob SquarePants
  • "I Was a Teenage Stimpy", episode of The Ren and Stimpy Show
  • "I Was a Teenage Spy", episode of Boy Meets World
  • "I Was a Teenage Anarchist", song by Against Me!
  • "I Was a Teenage Communist", a Radio 4 documentary on the history of Communist Party of Great Britain presented by Alexei Sayle (who was a teenage Communist).
  • "I Was a Teenage Brain Surgeon", referenced in a Spike Jones routine.
  • "I Was a Teenage Thumb", 1963 Looney Tunes short.
  • I Was a Teenage Dummy Plug, a Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfic by "Foxboy".

• X House on the Y, specific to 1970s exploitation horror and based on The Last House on the Left
  • The Last House on Dead End Street
  • L'Ultimo Treno Della Notte (literally, "Last Train of the Night", English title Late Night Trains or Night Train Murders)
  • House on the Edge of the Park
  • The Last House in the Woods
  • Little House on the Prairie is a more lighthearted example that actually features the same naming structure and debuted earlier -- decades earlier, along with Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Little Town on the Prairie echoed the pattern.
    • And that title was paid homage by Little Mosque on the Prairie.

• All this, and X Y (in which Y rhymes with "too"), from All This And Heaven Too, the famous movie with Bette Davis
  • All this and World War II, a 1976 musical documentary that juxtaposes Beatles songs, performed by a number of musicians, with World War II newsreel footage and 20th Century Fox films from the 1940s.
  • All This and Rabbit Stew, one of the infamous Censored Eleven cartoons, about a black hunter and Bugs Bunny.
  • All This and Puppet Stew, an album by Los Angeles punk rock band The Dickies.
  • All This and Everest Too, an actual newspaper headline printed on the morning of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, referring to the British expedition becoming the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest a few days earlier.
  • "All This, And Robot Stew", the title of chapter two of the fanfic Drunkard's Walk II

• X, Lies and Videotape, or Sex, Lies and X, or Sex, X and Videotape, from Sex, Lies, and Videotape:
  • Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics
  • Less Than Perfect has a final episode titled "Sex, Lies and Office Supplies"
  • X-Men has an episode titled "Weapon X, Lies & Videotape."
  • Boy Meets World has an episode titled "Wake Up, Little Cory" in the episode the name of Cory and Topanga's project is Sex, Lies and Videotape.
  • Goof Troop has an episode titled "Wrecks, Lies & Videotape'."
  • Dexter has an episode titled "Dex, Lies and Videotape."
  • Roswell has an episode titled "Tess, Lies, and Videotape."
  • Family Matters has an episode named "Food, Lies and Videotape."
  • Will and Grace has an episode titled "Sex, Losers, and Videotape."
  • The Simpsons has an episode titled "Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes."
  • Martin has an episode titled "Checks, Lies, and Videotape."
  • Northern Exposure has an episode titled "Sex, Lies and Ed's Tape."
  • South of Nowhere has an episode titled "Love, Child, and Videotape."
  • Murray Torkildsen released an album called Sex, Lies and Videogames.
    • This was also the name of a Game Informer article analyzing BMX XXX and Deed or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball way, way back.
  • Perhaps closest to the original is the new BBC programme Sex, Lice and Videotape.
  • The Ultimates 3 "Sex, Lies, & DVD"
  • Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman has an episode titled "Sex, Lies and Videotape."
  • Dawsons Creek has an episode titled "Text, Lies and Videotape."
  • CSI has an episode titled "Sex, Lies, and Silicone"
  • CSI: NY has an episode titled "Sex, Lies, and Silicone"
  • Tripping the Rift has an episode titled "Six, Lies and Videotape"
  • Sex, Lies and Bacon

• Bring Me the Head of X, from Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, the 1974 crime drama film.
  • Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis, the 1988 Reunion Show for The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
  • Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown, a 1986 Short Film by Jim Reardon which parodies both Peanuts and the work of Sam Peckinpah.
  • "Bring Me the Head of Jerry Garcia", a single released in 1991 by the band Iron Prostate.
  • Bring Me the Head of Light Entertainment, a 1999-2003 British comedy panel game show.
  • "Bring Me the Head of Sam Peckinpah", a retrospective of the director's works held by Lincoln Center in April 2016.
  • Bring Me the Head of Freq Nasty, a 2003 CD by Freq Nasty.
  • "Bring Me The Head of... Oh Wait", a World of Warcraft achievement related to the "Hallow's End" seasonal world event.
  • "Bring Me the Head of The Preacher Man", a song by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
  • "Bring Me The Head Of The Fortune Teller", a song by Swervedriver.
  • "Bring Me the Head of God", a song by Nunslaughter.
  • "Bring Me The Head Of Christ", a song by Paths Of Possession.
  • Bring Me the Head of Mavis Davis, a 2000 film starring Rik Mayall.
  • Bring Me the Head of Alan Shepard: A Halloween Story, a blog post at the website of the National Air and Space Museum about a photo of two men holding a wax replica the astronaut's head.
  • Bring Me the Head of Sergio Garcia, a book Tom Cox about his year trying to compete on the pro golf circuit.

• Enter the X (Dragon) has its own page: Enter Eponymous.

Literature

• The Joy of X, the Trope Namer, is an interesting Zig-Zagging Trope: most titles of this form reference The Joy of Sex, which was itself titled in reference to The Joy of Cooking. Conveniently, it also makes this a Just for Pun trope.
  • In the Discworld book Maskerade, Nanny Ogg writes The Joye of Snackes — as a cookbook where every recipe is either an aphrodisiac, a double entendre, or both, it manages to reference both of this template's originals.
  • "The Joy of Sect" is an episode of The Simpsons.
  • There's a book entitled The Joy of Sox, talking about socks. It's incredibly amusing.
  • The Joy of Sox is also the title of a baseball blog.
  • The Joy of Lexx: Defunct Lexx fan site
  • The Joy of Pokémon (the 92nd Pokémon episode, naturally)
  • "The Joy of Sects" is a title of a class about religions in the novel Love Among the Walnuts (itself a Joy of X title—see below).
  • There is a webcomic entitled "The Joy of Tech".
  • The Joy Of TeX (yes, that formula markup language)
  • The Joy of Painting (Bob Ross art instruction series)
  • Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge has The Joy of Hex as well as several others courtesy of the Phatt Island library catalog:
    • Memoirs of a Woman of Dubious Pleasure
    • A Fistful of Barnacles
    • Breakfast at Meathook's
    • Great Expectorations (By Captain Loogie)
    • My Mother the Cart
    • So You're Going to be Executed...
    • The Little Organ that Could
    • Crochet Eyepatches for Fun and Profit
    • Louse Ranching for Fun and Profit
  • Charles Papazian's The Complete Joy of Homebrewing
  • The Joy of Work, a Dilbert book
  • Leo Rosten's The Joys of Yiddish and its sequel The Joys of Yinglish
  • The Joy of Origami, a book of origami models and instructions for folding them.
  • Sara Lee has a slogan entitled "The Joy of Eating", which is also found on the packaging of their Soft and Smooth breads.
  • "The Joy of Sax", album by the Capitol Steps
  • A BBC documentary about statistics, and how it doesn't have to be boring, is called "The Joy of Stats".
  • "The joy of specs", a 2017 article about glasses in film

• There was a spate of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About X (But Were Afraid to Ask) after the success of the sex manual Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex..., beginning with the Woody Allen film of the same name.
  • Charmed featured "Everything You Wanted To Know About Magic Portals (but were afraid to ask)".
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy considers the Guide to be more controversial than a book titled Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Sex but Have Been Forced to Find Out.
    • There is also Everything You Wanted to Know About Guilt but were too ashamed to ask
  • The book Fight by Eugene Robinson has the subtitle Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ass-Kicking but Were Afraid You'd Get Your Ass Kicked for Asking.
  • There was a TV special called Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Jack Benny But Were Afraid to Ask.
  • There is a documentary called Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Computers... But Were Afraid to Ask.
  • There is a Czechoslovakian film called Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Experience.
  • There is a short documentary called Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Swing But Were Afraid to Ask.
  • In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic of all things, Twilight breaks out Slumber 101: All You've Ever Wanted to Know About Slumber Parties (But Were Afraid to Ask).
  • The Sea Lions' nearly eponymous album Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Sea Lions But Were Afraid to Ask
  • James McCawley wrote Everything that Linguists Have Always Wanted to Know About Logic (but were Ashamed to Ask)

• Xing Toward(s) Y (Slouching Towards Bethlehem) started as a Literary Allusion Title, but has arguably morphed into this.
  • Slouching Towards Gomorrah by Robert Bork.
    • Skipping Towards Gomorrah, the rebuttal by Dan Savage
  • Shambling Towards Hiroshima by James Morrow
  • Fumbling Towards Ecstacy, a Sarah McLachlan album.
    • Fumbling Towards Ecstacy, a How I Met Your Mother Fanfic.
  • Slouching Towards Bedlam, an amateur Interactive Fiction

• A Tale of Two X (Cities)
  • A Tale of Two Kitties (The Looney Tunes debut of Tweety), as well as the second Garfield film.
  • A Sale of Two Titties by Darles Chickens, at least according to Monty Python's Flying Circus.
  • A Tale of Two Springfields (The Simpsons)
  • A Tale of Two Sitters (Wishbone)
  • A Tale of Two Sisters - the original title Janghwa, Hongryeon refers to a Korean folk tale.

• Whatever Happened to X? (Baby Jane)
  • Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?
  • "Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?", a season 1 episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures.
  • "Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?", a season 4 episode of Babylon 5.
  • "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?", an iconic pre-Crisis Superman story.
  • "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?", a not-so-iconic post-Crisis Batman story.
  • Whatever Happened to Janie?, a Caroline B. Cooney novel.
  • Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads
  • Whatever Happened To Aunt Alice? (1969 horror film)
  • Whatever Happened to was a series of backups in the comic book DC Comics Presents.
  • The Internet Movie Database lists more than 30 other films and TV shows with this title format.

• X for Dummies (Note that the publisher has actually trademarked the phrase "for Dummies", so actual published works with this formula do not exist outside of the official series.)
  • Witchhunting For Dumb People (Discworld again) doesn't take any chances.
  • Raising the Dead for Dummies, from this Sonic the Hedgehog Fanfic.
  • The Complete Idiot's Guide series, a for-real series modeled after the Dummies books.
  • In one Improv Everywhere prank, Princess Leia rides a subway while reading Galactic Rebellion for Dummies.
  • Data Structures for Assholes (vitriolic parody from Homestuck)

• How To Verb X and Other Verb Y (based on the book How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie)
  • How To Lose Friends and Infuriate People
  • How to Talk Dirty and Influence People
  • How To Lose Friends and Alienate People

• All I Really Need to Know I Learned From X.
  • Erma Bombeck, All I Know About Animal Behavior I Learned in Loemann's Dressing Room.
  • Dave Marinaccio's All I Really Need To Know I Learned From Watching Star Trek
  • The horror short Everything I Needed to Know About Zombies I Learned from the Movies.
  • All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum is probably the original.
  • Where There's a Will There's a Way Or, All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Shakespeare by Laurie E. Maguire.
  • El Paradigma: All I Really Need to Know in Business I Learned at Microsoft by Julie Blick.

• A Are From B, C Are From D. Started by Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.
  • Parodied by our title Men Buy From Mars, Women Buy From Venus
  • Dave Barry Is From Mars And Venus
  • Shrek 2 had one scene where Queen Lillian was seen reading a book named Kings are from Mars, Queens are from Venus.
  • Futurama has "Women are from Omicron Persei 7, men are from Omicron Persei 9", as well as an episode where Amy is reading a book titled Martians are from Mars, Venusians are from Venus.
  • In one episode of Boy Meets World, Shawn claimed to have got his (frankly disturbing) relationship advice from a book called Men Are From Mars, Women Want To Blast Mars Out Of The Sky.
  • The 1997 documentary Men Are from Manhattan... Women Are from Saskatchewan.
  • The Reality TV show Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, But We Have to Live on Earth.
  • The 'Four Year Strong' song Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Hell
  • Imps Are From Imper, Deveels Are From Deva
  • The Dumbing of Age storyline "Men Are From Beck, Women Are From Clark".

• I, X. Like The Joy of X, the generally-parodied template (I, Robot) isn't the original (I, Claudius or maybe something even older). See I, Noun for examples.

• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective X (People)
  • The Dilbert collection, Seven Years of Highly Defective People.
  • The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates, a Fictional Document from Schlock Mercenary
  • The 666 Habits of Highly Effective Demons, a magazine article in Raidou Kuzunoha VS King Abaddon (and probably a Woolseyism)
  • In The Simpsons episode "Brother's Little Helper" Bart is reading "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Pre-teens"

• Sex and the Single X, or Sex and the Y X
  • Sex and the Single Girl, the Trope Maker
  • Sex and the Seasoned Woman
  • Sex and the Single Vampire
  • Sex and the Single Ghost, a romance novel
  • Sex and the City
  • Sex and the Single Gallifreyan, a Doctor Who Magazine article
  • 3rd Rock from the Sun episode "Dick and the Single Girl"

• Fear And Loathing in X
  • The archetype is of course Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas.
  • Fear And Loathing On the Campaign Trail
  • Fear, Loathing and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72
  • Greece and immigration: Fear and loathing in Athens
  • Fear and loathing in Endsville.(The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy)
  • "Fear and Loathing with Bigfoot" (Japanese translation of an episode of, you guessed it, Phineas and Ferb)
  • The working title for Kentucky Straight Bourbon was Fear and Loathing in Kentucky.
  • Fur and Loathing
  • A latter-day Bugs Bunny cartoon, Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas

• Zen and the Art of X
  • Started by Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which itself refers back to Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel. The title of the latter is often quoted with an "and" instead of "in".
  • The BBC miniseries of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy presented an excerpt from "Zen and the Art of Going to the Lavatory".
  • Zen and the Art of Faking It by Jordan Sonnenblik.
  • In the Animated Adaptation of Wyrd Sisters, one of the books on Magrat's shelf is Zen And The Art of Broomstick Maintenance.
  • Gears of War has an achievement called "Zen and the Art of Reloading."
  • And now, "Xen and the art of" various things has over 40K results on Google and counting. Surprisingly, "Xen and the Art of Half-Life" is not one of them. Nor is "Xen and the Art of Bad Level Design".

• The Art of X (War)
  • The Art of Raising Dogs
  • The Art of Small Talk
  • The Art of Manliness
  • The Art of Love
  • The Art of Sex
  • The Art of Shaving
  • The Art of Trolling
  • The Art of Quartet Playing
  • The Bart of War (The Simpsons)
  • Books of production art from a popular movie usually follow the formula "The Art of {movie title}"
  • Interestingly enough there's no "The Art of Art" (there's The Art of Art History though)

• The Tao of X
  • The Tao of Pooh, the book that popularized Taoism in western society by relating it to Winnie the Pooh
    • Unfortunately, few works homage the title of the book's sequel, The Te of Piglet
  • The Tao of Archery, the second issue of the Great Ten miniseries (also a pun; Celestial Archer's real name is Xu Tao).
  • The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh of Homer
  • The Tao of Programming
  • The Tao of Steve

• X Sutra
  • Started by the Hindu Sutras, followed by the Jain Sutras. Most modern examples are in parody of the Kama Sutra
  • Manga Sutra
  • GamaSutra
  • We have Comic Sutra.

• Are You There, God? It's Me, X Of course based on the title of the classic Judy Blume young adult novel, Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret..
  • The Venture Brothers, "Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean"
  • South Park, "Are You There, God? It's Me, Jesus"
  • "Are You There, God? It's Me, Childhood", an article at Salon.com
  • "Are You There, God? It's Me, Madison Avenue", an article on advertising that seems to have multiple homes on the Web.
  • Supernatural, "Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester"
  • Are You There, God? It's Me, Kevin, an autobiographical book by Kevin Keck
  • "Are You There, God? It's Me, Detroit", an article in the Detroit Free Press
  • Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea, by Chelsea Handler
  • "Are You There, Cthulhu? It's Me, Margaret"
  • "Are You There, Margaret? It's Me, God" was probably inevitable, but its best-known use is a song title.

• The Compleat X
  • Started by "The Compleat Angler," by Izaak Walton.
  • The Compleat Al
  • The Compleat Conductor, a book on conducting by Gunther Schuller
  • The Compleat Dying Earth" by Jack Vance
  • The Compleat Beatles, a book of lyrics
  • The Incompleat Folksinger by Pete Seeger
  • In-universe example: The Compleat Atlas in Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series.
  • The Compleat Enchanter, an omnibus edition of L. Sprague de Camp's Harold Shea short stories.

• Love In The Age of X, referencing Gabriel Garcia's Love In The Age of Cholera.
  • Love In The Age of iPods, a book by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.
  • Love in the Age of Fishsticks, a film made in 2008.
  • Love In The Age of Drought, a novel by Fiona Higgins
  • Love in The Age of Silicone, an article about Real Dolls
  • In one episode of The Simpsons, Marge can be seen reading a pirate-themed romance novel called Love in the Time of Scurvy.
  • Love in the Time of LOLcats by Achewood's Ray Smuckles.
  • Love in the Time of Science, an album by Emilíana Torrini.
  • "Love in the Time of Dragons", an episode of Merlin
  • Love In The Time of Goblins, Book One of the Hot Goblin Brotherhood Saga in Skin Horse

• Doing X With Gun And Camera -- The prototypical title for a Great White Hunter-style travelogue. The original, or one of them, appears to be Captain Ralph Bonehill's book Out With Gun and Camera—that, or Hunting Big Game in Africa with Gun and Camera, a film from 1922.
  • By 1930, this title was already being parodied, in the form of George Chappell's Through the Alimentary Canal with Gun and Camera.
  • Through the Uncanny Valley With Gun and Camera—a 2009 blog about James Cameron's Avatar.
  • Whale Hunting with Gun and Camera by Roy Chapman Andrews
  • Another Discworld parody: Ridcully is the author of Along the Ankh with Bow, Rod and Staff with a Knob on the End.
  • Into the Outdoors with Gun and Camera, an adventure included with the second edition of the Paranoia role-playing game.

• The X's Tale. The Canterbury Tales is the Trope Namer, but sadly not the Trope Maker. The original is a frame story where X means "told by the", not "about a".
  • A Knight's Tale Including a character supposedly being Chaucer.
  • The Handmaid's Tale
  • "A Rogue's Tale" (X-Men episode)
  • The Bard's Tale

• What Every Young X Ought to Know
  • In Of Thee I Sing, Wintergreen says he's writing the book "What Every Young President Ought to Know."
  • What Every Young Rabbit Should Know, a children's book by Carol Denison
  • What Every Young Wizard Should Know, a 1963 book by Cal Roy
  • "What every young psychologist should know.", a 1968 article in Journal of Social Issues
  • "What Every Young Lover Should Know", a 1961 single by Jack Hammer
  • "What Every Young Man Should Know", a 1966 episode of Bewitched

• (A) Duration in Location
  • The 1840 memoir Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr. is probably the original here.
  • X Years in Hell a very common pattern for book titles:
    • Fifteen Years in Hell: An Autobiography by Luther Benson
    • "Thirty Years In Hell" Or, "From Darkness to Light" by Bernard Fresenborg
    • 34 Years in Hell: My Time Inside America's Toughest Prisons by Jamie Morgan Kane
    • Six Years in Hell: A Returned Vietnam Pow Views Captivity, Country, and the Future by Lt. Colonel Jay R. Jensen
  • A Day at the Races
  • A Night In Casablanca
  • A Night at the Opera
  • One Night at McCool's
  • Weekend at Bernie's
  • The Queen albums A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, named after the Marx Brothers films.
  • Horror video game Five Nights at Freddy's
  • We even have tropes named in this pattern:
    • Ten Minutes in the Closet

• (A/An) X of Y and Z. Also known as "A Bowl of Mac and Cheese", this is a titling convention frequently seen with works of Fantasy.
  • The archetypal example are the books of Sarah J. Maas' Young Adult fantasy series A Court of Thorns and Roses, the cover of the eponymous first volume of which has been found photoshopped into a literal example of the trope.
  • Her Crescent City series is also guilty of this: House of Earth and Blood, House of Sky and Breath
• The AdrianXIsolde series by Scarlett St. Clair includes books entitled King of Battle and Blood and Queen of Myth and Monsters.
• A God of Wrath & Lies by K.M. Moronova
• A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin mostly averts this by only using the pattern in the series name; the individual books are mostly entitled in the form A/An/The X of Y.
• A Court of Honey and Ash by Shannon Mayer
• A Soul of Ash and Blood and A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire by Jennifer L. Armentrout
• A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
• Liv Zander's Pale Court series: King of Flesh and Bone, Queen of Rot and Pain
• The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
• A History of Glitter and Blood by Hannah Moskowitz

Live-Action TV

• The, well, X-Files.
  • The Springfield Files (The Simpsons)
  • The Dresden Files
  • The Radio Times once had a cut-out-and-keep series of fact-files on characters from The Archers called "The Ambridge Files".
  • The Goodies File, the book of the series.
  • The Odessa File and The Ipcress Files, a good two decades before The X Files.

• British media love Have I Got X For You and X Behaving Badly for punning headlines.

Music

• X on a G-String (Air) -- perhaps not so common in the English-speaking world, but oddly popular in Japan (where it takes the form G-Senjou no X).
  • G-Senjou no Neko / Il Gatto Sul G ("Cat on a G-string", a manga)
  • G-Senjou no Maou ("Demon Lord on a G-string", a Hentai game)
  • "Shisenjou no Aria" (an untranslateable pun Image Song from Yu Yu Hakusho)
  • A website for the guitarist Ollie Halsall has a page about his collaborations with Kevin Ayers under the title "Ayers on a G-String".
  • A number of newspaper and magazine articles have used the "X On A G-String" form. Very few of them are talking about music.

• The X formerly known as Y, which of course comes from Prince and has its own page.

Poetry

• Love Among X
  • The model is probably Robert Browning's 1855 poem "Love Among The Ruins".
  • There is also a 1975 George Cukor film called Love Among The Ruins.
  • P.G. Wodehouse's Love Among The Chickens
  • Jean Ferris' novel Love Among The Walnuts
  • Eric Alter's collection of eight one-act plays, Love Among The Squirrels
  • The film Love Among Thieves
  • Starship, the 1980s-vintage successor to Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship, recorded a song entitled "Love Among The Cannibals"...
    • ...which itself is a reference to Wright Morris's 1957 novel Love Among the Cannibals.
  • Ogden Nash's short poem Love Under the Republicans(Or Democrats).

Theater

• Writers seem to have great fun making titles in the form 'Tis Pity She's a(n) X, after the 17th-century play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. Just replace the last word:
  • Terry Pratchett has 'Tis Pity She's a Tree and 'Tis Pity She's an Instructor in Unarmed Combat, both from Discworld novels.
  • Googling the phrase turns up the following variations:
    • 'Tis Pity She's a Neighbor
    • 'Tis Pity She's a Void
    • 'Tis Pity She's a Ho
    • 'Tis Pity She's a Bore
    • 'Tis Pity She's a Carl
    • 'Tis Pity She's a Dog
    • 'Tis Pity She's a Hawes
    • 'Tis Pity She's a Horticulturalist
    • ... and so on.
  • A character in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell suggests a play about the Back from the Dead Lady Pole called 'Tis Pity She's a Corpse.

• The Taming of The X (Shrew)
  • The Taming of the Shoe (Magazine, animated short)
  • The Taming of the Vole (Discworld again).
  • The Taming of the Screw (Dave Barry book)
  • The Taming of the Grue

• The X And I (King)
  • The Thing and I (The Simpsons)
  • The King And Eye, The Residents collection of Elvis covers.
  • The Egg And I, a 1945 book by Betty MacDonald, and the classic screwball comedy movie based on it which introduced Ma and Pa Kettle. The book actually predates The King And I by six years, but it's unlikely that it influenced the titling of the musical.
    • Likewise, "The Egg And I", an episode of Married... with Children.
  • "The Wizard and I", a song from the musical Wicked.

• The Phantom of the X (Opera)
  • The Phantom of the Oprah (One-episode stage-show-within-a-show on Wings)
    • Which has since then become a real show.
  • The Phantom of the Megaplex (A Disney Channel TV movie)
  • The Phantom of the Paradise (A 1974 glam-rock mashup of Phantom of the Opera, Faust and The Picture of Dorian Gray.)
  • KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park
  • The Phantom of the Telethon (American Dad)
  • The Phantom of the Earwax
  • Phantom of the Auditorium, one of the Goosebumps books
  • Phantom Of the Fair, an obscure Golden Age superhero who used the Perisphere at the 1939 Worlds' Fair in New York City as his headquarters.

• A Streetcar Named X (Desire)
  • A Streetcar Named Marge (The Simpsons)
  • There is a short animated film about menopause called Streetcar Named Perspire.
  • There is an animated short featuring Tweety called A Street Cat Named Sylvester.

• Dial X for Y (Dial M for Murder)
  • Dial H for Hero
  • Dial M for Monkey, a superhero short on Dexter's Laboratory probably named after both of the above
  • Dial J for Janitor (The Honeymooners, a contemporary example)
  • Dial B for Virgin (Married... with Children)
  • Dial L for Loser (The Clique)
  • Dial M for Musicology, a blog.
  • Dial N for Nerder (The Simpsons)
  • Dial Z for Zombie (also Simpsons)
  • Dial "M" for Murder or Press "#" to Return to Main Menu (The Simpsons again)
  • Dial Meg for Murder (Family Guy)
  • Dial M for Pizza 1980s BBC Radio 4 comedy show.
  • Dial N for Nelson (Mork and Mindy)
  • "Dial F for Frankenstein" Arthur C. Clarke short story.
  • Dial M for Martin (Frasier)
  • "Dial 'M' for Mother", the Archer Season 1 finale.

• Waiting for X (Godot)
  • The model is absurdist play Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett (no, not that one).
  • Waiting For Lefty by Clifford Odets predates Beckett's work by a dozen years or so and has some similar themes.
  • Waiting for Guffman, a Christopher Guest movie.
  • "Waiting for God" is a Red Dwarf episode.
  • Waiting for God is also the title of a UK sitcom set in a retirement home.
  • "Waiting to Go" is an episode of Arthur, containing several other references to the Beckett play.
  • "Waiting For Cousteau" is an album by French musician Jean-Michel Jarre which is inspired by the underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau.

• Bye Bye X (Birdie)
  • "Bye Bye Nerdie" (The Simpsons)
  • "Bye, Bye, Boss" (The Dukes of Hazzard)
  • "Bye Bye Basement" (That '70s Show)
  • "Fagmalion Part 3: Bye Bye Beardy" (Will and Grace)
  • "Bye, Bye, Balloon" (F Troop)
  • "Bye Bye Billy" and "Bye Bye Baby" (Melrose Place)
  • "Bye Bye Love" (Spin City)
  • "Bye Bye Butterface" and "Bye Bye Psyduck" (Pokémon)
  • "Bye Bye Greasy" (Home Movies)
  • "Bye Bye Ball" (Hannah Montana)
  • "Bye-Bye Kenan" (Kenan and Kel)
  • "Bye Bye Blakey" (On the Buses)
  • "Bye Bye Nerdy" (Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends)
  • "Bye-Bye Birdies" (Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!)
  • "Bye Bye Biki" (Perfect Strangers)
  • "Bye Bye Bernecky" (Murphy Brown)
  • "Bye Bye Binnie" (Just Shoot Me)
  • "Bye Bye Baldwin" (Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew)
  • "Bye Bye Babies" (The Osbournes)
  • "The New Class: Bye-Bye Tony" (Saved by the Bell)
  • "Bye Bye Blackball" (Happy Days)

Web Original/Computing Culture

• X Considered Harmful is a popular naming convention in Computer Science circles. Originating from Edsger Dijkstra's letter Go To Statement Considered Harmful, nowadays it's possible to find Considered Harmful articles concerning almost anything computer-related.

Origin Work Unknown or Uncertain

• The Life (and Times/Adventures/Etc.) of X
  • The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore
  • {Chrestomanci} The Lives Of Christopher Chant
  • The Life of David Gale
  • The Life and Times of Juniper Lee
  • The Life of Nob T. Mouse
  • The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum
  • The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
  • The Life and Times of Tim
  • Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

• Memoirs of a(n) X
  • Memoirs of a Geisha
  • Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
  • Memoirs of an Exorcist
  • The Science Fiction film Memoirs of a Survivor.
  • The 1979 film Memoirs of a French Whore.
  • The German film Memoirs of a Frustrated Hedonist.
  • The 2010 romance film Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac.
  • Memoirs of a Cigarette, a documentary film about the history of smoking.
  • The Brazilian film Memoirs of a Gigolo.
  • The 2009 documentary Memoirs of a Black Latina.
  • The short comedy film Memoirs of a Blogger.
  • The short animated film Memoirs of a Scanner.
  • Memoirs of an Invisible Man

• So You Want to be an X
  • Quest for Glory I: So You Want To Be A Hero.
  • The novel So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane.
  • The series of self-help books by Derek Bacon, from the Mega Crossover Fanfic Undocumented Features.
  • So You Want to Be a Rock And Roll Star by The Byrds.
  • More than likely, every DJ Hero player reading this immediately thought of the mix of Groundhog by Noisia. "So you want to be a DJ... It's going to take an awful lot of practice..."
  • There are several short films with this title format, including So You Want to Be a Detective, So You Want to Be a Baby Sitter, So You Want to Be a Bachelor, So You Want to Be a Cowboy, So You Want to Be a Gambler, and So You Want to Be a Handy Man.
  • "So You Wanna be a Superstar" (Sailor Moon (NA Dub))

• [Insert Unlikely Activity Here] for Fun and Profit
  • Smashing the Stack for Fun and Profit, a hackers' manual for exploiting the memory stack in computers.
  • Telling Lies for Fun & Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block
  • The Sweet Potato Queens' Guide to Raising Children for Fun and Profit‎ by Jill Connor Browne
  • Selling Out for Fun and Profit is the bound compilation of the webcomic Exploitation Now (which is also a snowclone title)
  • We have War for Fun and Profit and Abusing the Kardashev Scale For Fun and Profit.
  • The Big Bad of Those Lacking Spines at one point reads Final Bossing For Fun And Profit, and her Dragon reads Toadying For The Final Boss For Fun And Profit.
  • On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Quark makes a female employee read Oomox For Fun And Profit.

• X "They" Don't Want You To Know About Oddly enough, "They" are rarely easily defined. Amazon gives you the following:
  • Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About by Kevin Trudeau
    • Challenged by Natural scams "he" doesn't want you to know about, an article by Michael Shermer in Scientific American.
  • Debt Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About by Kevin Trudeau
  • The Weight Loss Cure They Don't Want You to Know About by Kevin Trudeau
  • Doctors of Deception: What They Don't Want You to Know About Shock Treatment by Linda Andre
  • The Great Bird Flu Hoax: The Truth They Don't Want You to Know About the "Next Big Pandemic" by Dr. Joseph Mercola
  • The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About -- Because They Helped Cause Them by Iain Murray
  • The 6 Dirty Little Secrets They Don't Want You To Know About Network Marketing by Gavin M-R
  • An Enlightened Vision Of Cyberspace and The Grand Illusion Which Threatens It... (The Secret Business Revolution They Don't Want You To Know About!) by The Core Executive Team—Zephyr Media
  • Natural Secrets Drug Companies Don't Want You to Know About by Mark A. Stevens with Christine Jones
  • What They Don't Want You to Know About Television and Videos by Lawrence Kelemen
  • Prehumous (As opposed to Posthumous): UNPOETIC POEMS about SEX, Violence and Secrets they don't want you to know by Steven Selman
  • The Natural Bird Flu Cure "They" Don't Want You to Know About by David J. Kennedy
  • The Tricks of the Rich: What They Don't Want You to Know About Making Money and Accumulating Wealth by Paul A. Overy and Ken Lee
  • This also shows up as "What they won't tell you about X" or "X they won't tell you about Y"... too lazy to get examples now.

• The X's Daughter
  • The Abortionist's Daughter, by Elisabeth Hyde.
  • The Alchemist's Daughter, by Katharine Mc Mahon.
  • The Apothecary's Daughter, by Julie Klassen.
  • The Blower's Daughter, by Damien Rice.
  • The Bonesetter's Daughter, by Amy Tan.
  • The Calligrapher's Daughter, by Eugenia Kim.
  • Coal Miner's Daughter, by Loretta Lynn.
  • The Devil's Daughter (1991).
  • The Doctor's Daughter
  • Farmer's Daughter, by Rodney Adkins.
  • The Farmer's Daughter (series).
  • The General's Daughter: trope and work
  • The Gravedigger's Daughter, by Joyce Carol Oates.
  • The Hangman's Daughter, by Oliver Pötzsch.
  • The Heretic's Daughter, by Kathleen Kent.
  • The Hummingbird's Daughter, by Luis Alberto Urrea.
  • The Imposter's Daughter, by Laurie Sandell.
  • The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards.
  • The Mistress' Daughter, by A.M. Homes.
  • The Optimist's Daughter, by Eudora Welty.
  • The Partisan's Daughter, by Louis de Bernières.
  • The President's Daughter
  • The Ringmaster's Daughter, by Jostein Gaarder.
  • Sculptor's Daughter (literal translation of Bildhuggarens Dotter) is an autobiographical novel by Tove Jansson.
  • The Shepherd's Daughter.
  • The Smuggler's Daughter.
  • The Squatter's Daughter.

• After you win or retire in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, the game chooses a book title to represent your reign. Most are a parody of a famous book title, and include:
  • "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Organic Superlubricant (But Were Afraid to Ask)".
  • "Zen and the Art of Missile Rover Maintenance"
  • "Are You There, Planet? It's Me, FACTIONLEADER."
  • "All I Ever Wanted To Know I Learned In The Cloning Vats"
  • "Men Are From Chiron, Women Are From Nessus"
  • "The 27 Habits of Highly Effective Talents"
  • "Transcendence For Dummies"