Wild Card Excuse: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''"Uhhh... internet."''|'''Timmy Turner''' to everyone who asks where he got his stuff from, ''[[The Fairly OddParents]]''}}

In a game of cards, a wild card can be played in any situation. The wild card excuse is the same way. Late for class? You hit your head. Acting strange? You hit your head. You were seen lighting things on fire with your mind? You hit your... Okay, you get the point. What matters is that the same excuse is always used, no matter the situation, no matter how implausible it is, and it is always believed.

 

 

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[The World God Only Knows]]'' is the [[Trope Namer]], where Elsee frequently tries to excuse Keima's weird behavior by saying he's been playing too many video games, and a caption in chapter 83 calls this the "wild-card excuse".

* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'': The Mages [[Hand Wave]] things like people flying, shooting fireballs, or giant demon mecha with "It's CGI."

* ''[[School Rumble]]'': "... cause this is the Tea club, after all."

* In ''[[Detective Conan]]'', Conan often blurts out smart observations in a crime scene in front of the grownups. His excuse of knowing this? [[I Know Mortal Kombat|He watches a lot of television]] hiding the fact he's a 17-year-old [[Teen Genius]] inside a 7-year-old body.

 

== [[Fan Works]] ==

{{quote|'''Harry:''' My psychic scar told me.}}

 

* In ''[[Everworld]]'' the characters often pretend to be traveling minstrels as a cover for the fact that they're from an alternate dimension

* [[Terry Pratchett]] [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this one in the [[Johnny Maxwell Trilogy]].

{{quote|[[It's for a Book|A project]]. If Saddam Hussein had said he was doing a project on Kuwait, the Gulf War might never have happened.}}

* In the first book of the ''[[Tortall Universe|Song of the Lioness]]'' series, Alanna always uses "I fell down" to explain her black eyes, and broken bones, and other conspicuous injuries obviously gotten from fighting. This is Justified in that this is the traditional response for brawling pages.

 

* In ''[[Sliders]]'', whenever the team lands on a new world and has to explain why they don't know what's going on, they use the excuse "We're from Canada." We've hardly ever seen it fail. Although one time they had to pretend to be illegal immigrants from Canada the entire episode, who had snuck south into Mexico for work. (Thanks to the non-existence of America in the middle, and Mexico ending up with California.)

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' mostly averted this, our heroes generally coming up with new, individualized (if implausible) excuses each time. On the other hand, Sunnydale's police department (when not suffering from [[Sunnydale Syndrome]]) usually covered up monster attacks by explaining that it was "gangs on PCP."

* A variation in ''[[Doctor Who]]'', the question being "Who are you?" and the answer being "I'm the Doctor.", rarely yielding any further questions.

** There are sometimes further questions, but very rarely answers, at least none that are directly relevant.

* Kelly Kapoor in the American version of ''[[The Office]]'' has a melodramatic wild card up her sleeve:

{{quote|'''Michael:''' You cannot say "[[Rape Is the New Dead Parents|I was raped]]" and expect all your problems to go away Kelly, not again. Don't keep doing that.}}

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* Near the beginning of ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'', Tidus is advised to say [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|"I got too close to Sin's toxin"]] to cover up his ignorance of life in Spira.

 

* In ''[[Princess Waltz]]'', Liliana uses "[[Foreigner Excuse|I lived abroad]]" to explain how [[Super Strength|she was able to jump out of a second-story window with a friend on her back without injury]].

{{quote|'''Suzuku:''' Ah, that explains it.

'''Nishimoto:''' That's someone who lived abroad for you. }}

 

* ''[[xkcd]]'' has "[https://xkcd.com/303/ my code's compiling]" (see also [[Alt Text]]).

 

 

* ''[[The Fairly OddParents]]'': A [[Running Gag]] response earlier on happens every time Timmy is asked where he got his wished-for stuff from. Namely the quick response "Internet". See also the page quote.

** One episode subverts this Trope:

* In the "Knifin' Around" episode of ''[[Space Ghost Coast to Coast]]'' featuring Thom Yorke from Radiohead, Space Ghost takes a break from the interview to discretely reveal to his director, Moltar, the fact that he has illegally copied Radiohead CDs. When Yorke appears to be listening in, Space Ghost covers by saying, "Don't look at me... we're talking about dragons!"

 

* Weather balloons have bit of notoriety amongst UFO enthusiasts as it's probably the most often used explanation ever for UFO sightings even against testimony of people who have claimed to flew next to it.

** And it doesn't help that during the Cold War there really was an Air Force project focused on what were basically highly secret weather balloons (it involved detecting hidden nuclear testing), and that the Air Force took a while getting the hang of covering up the project's existence. While the convenient public perception that they were really covering up alien contacts evidently came about by incompetence rather than planning, the result worked... and the connection stuck around.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Dialogue]]

[[Category:Truth and Lies]]