Where? Where?
Dated humor trope. Simply put, a rather innocent member of a usually monstrous species walks into the room. Everyone screams, points, and shouts "Monster!" Said character, not realizing that they are the monster, goes "Where?! Where?!" while looking around for it.
Related to Answers to The Name of God, Tomato in the Mirror, and Duck.
Examples of Where? Where? include:
Anime and Manga
- Brook, the living skeleton in One Piece, does this if he is described as a ghost.
- Done non-humorously by the awakened Ophelia in Claymore.
Comic Books
- In the famous "Laughing Fish" story in Batman #475, Joker (and 3 armed thugs) walk into a patent office. The first reaction of the clerk is "Good Lord!" To which the Joker responds "Where?" and looks behind him. Then he realizes it was a figure of speech and asks the clerk if he said it because he loves him. Word of God says that, in the case of Englehart and Rogers' version of the Joker, he's really that crazy.
Film
- In An American Tail and its sequels, Tiger, the cat who doesn't eat red meat, often was surprised by mice's reaction to him. "Cat!" "Where!?....oh, right."
- Long before Roberto Benigni acted his way to an Oscar in Life Is Beautiful, he was an unwitting rape suspect in Le Monstre, and one scene featured him doing the Where? Where? as people were trying to run away from the rapist.
- The Emperors New Groove: Pacha, upon hearing the transformed Kuzco talk, screams "Demon llama!" Kuzco then goes, "Demon llama?!", turns to a real llama and screams. The real llama then screams back.
- Played with from time to time in The Three Stooges shorts; whenever someone would refer to the three as 'gentlemen' all three of them would turn around and say "Who came in?"
Literature
- The Sesame Street book The Monster at the End of This Book has this as its basic premise.
- Done even less humorously by The Outsider, as part of the Tomato in the Mirror.
- It's said that the wizards of the Discworld series would do this if someone were to mention an orangutan in the library; they'd ask the Librarian (an orangutan) if he'd seen it.
- The main character of Never Never, after walking into a restaurant and freaking out the patrons....starts sniffing his underarms, as if trying to figure out the problem. The tension eases considerably.
Live Action TV
- One of the first episodes in Samurai Jack. A dog standing on his two feet and wearing clothes approaches Jack with a request for help, speaking in a very proper English (RP) accent. The following occurs:
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Jack: "Talking demon dogs!", referring to the dog. |
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- Played with/parodied in Monty Python's Flying Circus:
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Inspector Tiger: Allow me to introduce myself, I am Inspector Tiger. |
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- They then repeat the gag with Inspector Lookout, Chief Constable Fire, and Assistant Chief Constable Theresamanbehindyer. Naturally, Theresamanbehindyer doesn't fall for it.
- From Morecambe and Wise:
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Des O'Connor: Gentlemen... |
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- Sort of: in an episode of ALF, Jake complains about Lynn's driving:
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"'Jake:'" Eyes on the road! Eyes on the road! |
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Newspaper Comics
- Played with in Calvin and Hobbes, where Calvin yells "Look! A tiger!" and Hobbes is startled, crying out, "A tiger? Where? Where?" before realising Hobbes himself is the tiger.
- Another strip has Calvin play a joke on Hobbes by warning him that a big, ugly, fuzzy, caterpillar (Hobbes' tail) is about to chomp on his bottom.
Radio
- In the radio/TV quiz show You Bet Your Life, when the announcer introduced Groucho Marx, Groucho would come out on stage and innocently exclaim, "Oh, that's me!"
Video Games
- Turned on its head in Legacy of Kain: Defiance:
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Vampire Hunter #1: Monster! |
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- Fallout 3 has a rather hilarious example: one of the standard "enemy spotted" responses by NPCs is "Over here!", followed by "Where?!" a few seconds later. If there's no one around, said NPC will respond to him/herself!
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Paladin: Over here!... where? |
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Webcomics
- In The Suburban Jungle Yin (a panda) calls a psychic hotline, and the seer screams at her to get out because there's a tiger in the house. Yin calmly (albeit with aching ears) informs the hysterical woman that Tiffany is her roommate.
- This Wondermark strip, except there's an even worse monster.
Western Animation
- Slimer from The Real Ghostbusters did this quite a few times.
- An episode of Garfield and Friends had the dead ancestors of the cast of "US Acres". Someone shouted, "Ghost!" and Not!Wade did the Where? Where??
- Garfield does this when he's pretending to be a dog and someone refers to him as a cat.
- Occurred in old episodes of Casper the Friendly Ghost.
- Scooby Doo does this a lot in its later incarnations. "Rog? Rere?"
- Adam West, playing himself in The Fairly OddParents runs this joke several times.
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Hollywood visitors: TV's Adam West! |
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Samurai Jack: Talking Demon Dogs! |
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- The Emperors New Groove: Demon Llama! Where?
- The classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode "Cowabunga Shredhead" has Shredder, thinking he's Michelangelo, walk into the Turtles' lair, resulting in this exchange:
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Leonardo: It's Shredder! |
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- This gag happens with Bushroot in the Darkwing Duck Christmas Episode.