Widget Series: Difference between revisions

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* WOK ('''W'''eird '''O'''ccurrence from '''K'''orea)
 
If it doesn't make sense in ''its own'' culture, it's most likely a case of [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?]]. This trope may sometimes (but not always) overlap with [[Cliché Storm]]. Not to be confused with the 1990s animated series ''[[Widget, the World Watcher]]'', which despite the name isn't ''quite'' weird enough to be a Widget Series. Also not to be confused with the [[Metasyntactic Variable]] "Widget" that is commonly used in economics.
 
{{examples}}
 
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' seems like your avarage [[Gotta Catch Em All]] [[To Be a Master]] show, right? A closer look reveals that this show can be ridiculously bizarre: [[Psychic Powers|Sabrina]] turning people into dolls, [[Draco in Leather Pants|Meowth's thoughts about the boss, which often become overtly sexual]], and Team Rocket. Especially James' repeated crossdressing.
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* ''[[Mawaru Penguindrum]]'': Two brothers must find a mystery object known as the 'Penguindrum' for an entity residing in a penguin-shaped hat that is possessing and keeping alive their [[Ill Girl]] sister, in company with small cartoonish [[Everything's Better with Penguins|penguins]] that only they can see. And ''then'' the copious amounts of [[Mind Screw]] start.
* ''[[Haiyore! Nyaruko-san|Nyarko San]]'': The formless crawling chaos of Nyarlathotep takes the form of a cute [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl|hyperactive schoolgirl]], along with Cthugha and Atlach-Nacha as other [[Moe]] girls.
 
 
== [[Comic Books]] ==
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* ''[[Black Sheep (2006 film)|Black Sheep]]'' is a black comedy STANZA about [[Killer Rabbit|Killer Sheep]].
* ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' and ''all'' adaptations is a Weird American Thing that emphasizes the "weird" part.
* [[Troma]] (creator of such WHATs as [[The Toxic Avenger]] and ''[[Killer Condom]]) is an entire studio that specializes in this sort of thing.
 
== Literature ==
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* [[Bizarro Fiction]], as a genre, is comprised hugely of WATs, wabbits, wickets, and STANZAs as of this writing. However, multi-language examples are slowly rising.
 
== Live -Action TV ==
 
== Live Action TV ==
* Combine a [[Game Show]] and [[Cooking Show]] format in ''[[Iron Chef]]''. ''[[wikipedia:Iron Chef America|Iron Chef America]]'' is a more "normal" but more fast-paced version of the original.
** Some have said that the problem with Iron Chef USA (the one with Shatner) was that the creators assumed the original was only popular for laughing at wacky foreigners, so they didn't take it seriously. ICA occasionally pokes fun at the [[Kayfabe]] of the show (According to Alton, there are several Kitchen Stadiums, at least one of which is in space), but otherwise takes it seriously as a competition between culinary masters.
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* From the creators of ''[[Italian Spiderman]]'' comes ''[[Danger 5]]''. Danger 5 are an international team of spies charged with fighting against the Nazis and, ultimately, assassinating [[Stupid Jetpack Hitler|Hitler]]. This is a difficult task, as the Nazis are armed with dinosaurs, diamond women soldiers, and various other useful weapons. It's also set in an [[Alternate History|alternate 1960s]], despite being about [[World War II]].
* Any of [[Conan O'Brien]]'s late night shows would count as a WHAT. Yes, even his tenure on [[The Tonight Show]].
 
 
== Music ==
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* Watch the music video for Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's Ponponpon. Weird Japanese Thing times one hundred. Also, [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?]]
* Much of the humour of the STANZA [[Flight of the Conchords]] (and their TV show, where New Zealand is a [[Cloudcuckooland]]) comes from exploiting this trope.
 
 
== New Media ==
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* The ''[[Asdfmovie]]'' series is a rather odd series of sketches not tied together at all that involves potatos with guns, throwing cheese at aliens and "doing an internet".
* The ''[[Italian Spiderman]]'' series on [[YouTube]] is a STANZA. It is filmed in English, dubbed into Italian and then subtitled back into English. As well as being a parody, its' plot is fairly nonsensical, and it features various wonders such as surf-offs derailed by attacking penguins, and detachable exploding boomerang moustaches.
 
 
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* ''The Knight Life'', a [[Life Embellished]] webcomic with a tendency towards parody, is very much a WHAT. Such characters as a housewife who puts on an armless costume and fights crime as "The Masked Maggot," or a lowlife who works as a human rug and can identify shoes by how they press into his back, make sense if and only if one's familiar with the parts of American culture they're mocking.
 
 
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
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* ''[[Maid the RPG]]''. Original flavour Japanese weirdness in RPG form.
* ''[[Ho L]]: Human Occupied Landfill''. Hand-written in several late-night sessions in an IHOP, and originally offered no character creation since "everyone just makes the same types of characters over and over again". When character creation was included in the expansion, stat rolling included several strange and useless abilities, such as an "Almond Joy" stat. ("Roll 1-3: Sometimes you feel like a nut. Roll 4-6: Sometimes you don't.")
 
 
== Video Games ==
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* The ''[[Edna and Harvey The Breakout|Edna & Harvey]]'' [[Edna and Harvey Harveys New Eyes|franchise]] are a rare example of a PEGS, since both games are [[Point and Click Game|point-and-click adventure games]] in which you play insane female protagonists.
* ''[[Maple Story]]'', WOK online game and [[Affectionate Parody]] of the typical MMORPG.
* ''[[American McGee's Alice]]'' is a [[Grimmification]] WHAT of what is quite possibly [[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland| the oldest Wabbit.]]
 
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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* ''[[Princess Pi]]'' tends to rely on nonsensical logic.
* ''[[Dolan]]'' is the epitome of a Weird Finnish Thing.
 
 
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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* ''[[Fat Dog Mendoza]]'': The adventures of [[A Boy and His X|a boy in a superhero costume and his dog (which looks more like a giant cat's head with legs and a tail)]]. They're best firends with a girl who has [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair|purple hair]], their teacher has two heads [[Punny Name|(one named Polly, the other Esther)]], the villains include a guy with feet for hands and another with a giant green head... and that's just the ''premise.''
* ''[[The Buzz on Maggie]]'' basically subverts this, due to the fact that it is a [[Gross-Out Show]] that takes place in a [[Scavenger World]] that is populated by anthropomorphic insects that many of (especially Maggie herself) are weirdly attractive-looking...while also being a generic school sitcom that is ''ridiculously'' cliched (even by [[Disney Channel|Disney]] standards). Naturally enough, the extremely vague and clashing relationship between the show's setting and its actual subject matter ended up becoming one of the main reasons for its downfall.
* ''[[DC Comics]]'' animation has ''[[DC Super Hero Girls]]'' and ''[[Harley Quinn (TV series)|Harley Quinn]]'', both overlapping with [[Self-Parody]].
 
== Other Media ==
* Most small Toyotas since about 2000 have this to some extent or another. Matter of fact, on the international front, ridiculous little dinky cars and hatchbacks from all around the world are perceived this way by Americans.
** The ultimate example would probably be the autorickshaw, a demented little car-thing built around a ''motorcycle''.
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* There are also the Japanese vending machines which dispense things like live crabs/lobsters and ''used panties''.
 
 
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Absurdity Ascendant]]
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[[Category:Japanese Media Tropes]]
[[Category:Show Genres]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Esoteric Trope Names]]