The Joy of X

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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...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.

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

Comics

Film

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".
  • 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 Mc Cawley 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.
  • A Tale of Two X (Cities)
  • Whatever Happened to X? (Baby Jane)
  • 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.)
  • How To Verb X and Other Verb Y (based on the book How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie)
  • 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.
  • 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)
  • Sex and the Single X, or Sex and the Y X
  • Fear And Loathing in X
  • 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
  • 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 Its 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 Mythos? It's Me, Margaret"
    • "Are You There, Margaret? It's Me, God" was probably inevitable, but its most well-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 recent 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".
  • 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."

Live Action Television

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

Unknown

  • The Life (and Times/Adventures/Etc.) of X
  • 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
  • [Insert Unlikely Activity Here] 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.
    • Coal Miner's Daughter.
    • The Devil's Daughter (1991).
    • The Farmer's Daughter (1947 and 1976).
    • The General's Daughter.
    • The Shepherd's Daughter.
    • The Smuggler's Daughter.
    • The Squatter's Daughter.
    • The Farmer's Daughter (series).
    • The Abortionist's Daughter by Elisabeth Hyde.
    • The Alchemist's Daughter by Katharine Mc Mahon.
    • The Apothecary's Daughter by Julie Klassen.
    • The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan.
    • The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim.
    • Coal Miner's Daughter by Loretta Lynn.
    • The General's Daughter by Nelso De Mille.
    • 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 Ringmaster's Daughter by Jostein Gaarder.
    • Sculptor's Daughter (literal translation of Bildhuggarens Dotter) is an autobiographical novel by Tove Jansson.
    • The Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice.
    • Coal Miner's Daughter by Loretta Lynn.
    • Farmer's Daughter by Rodney Adkins.
    • The Doctor'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"
  • 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.
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