Faux Life: Things That Happen On TV But Not In Reality

[Raja]

Only on TV would a school fire alarm cause students to run out in the hallway as if their was actually a fire in their room.

[DeLurker]

According to fiction, when French people have trouble with English, they always say, " 'ow you say" before using the right word anyway. I work with a French woman, she's a pretty fast talker, but I've never heard her say that.

The day after I read this (and chuckled in agreement), I was watching the World News on PBS.  They were interviewing an Italian scientist about the olive tree blight and he did say "how you say"in the middle of his response to something (he was being interviewed in English).  And I laughed out loud as a result.

[shang yiet]

Or there's the alternative where they simply spit out an unlikely malapropism.  Unlikely usually because it's usually a "hilarious" double-entendre or outright sexual term.

You know. Like saying "I have to get the cock" instead of "I have to get the cook".

I just watched an episode of 'Welcome to Sweden' and they did this same old joke - its a dinner scene and Swedish guy goes 'Before I go to wash the dishes, I want to thank the cock.'

[BatmanBeatles]

I wish they would retire the trope where is someone explains something scientifically in big words, someone else says, "Could you say that in English?"

[CoderLady]

I wish they would retire the trope where is someone explains something scientifically in big words, someone else says, "Could you say that in English?"

 

And this is one of the reasons why I can't watch Rizzoli and Isles. I don't know of another TV character besides Rizzoli being so freaking fond of being intellectually incurious that she has to bust out a variation of this line every time her buddy says something technical.

Edited December 16, 2015 by CoderLady

[ganesh]

I wish they would retire the trope where is someone explains something scientifically in big words, someone else says, "Could you say that in English?"

 

Or, I'd wish the scientist would just be able to explain it plainly on the first try. Since that's a really important part of the job.

 

I thank the cock every day. And I'm not even Swedish! (I'll show myself out.)

[Cobalt Stargazer]

I wish they would retire the trope where is someone explains something scientifically in big words, someone else says, "Could you say that in English?"

 

They do this on Criminal Minds a lot. Reid will rattle off a bunch of statistics or whatever, and whatever other character is there will look at him like he just descended from the rings of Saturn. So annoying.

 

 

I thank the cock every day. And I'm not even Swedish! (I'll show myself out.)

 

Ah, but do you respect the cock?

 

Wait for me, I'm right behind you.

[ilovethedark]

Only on TV would a school fire alarm cause students to run out in the hallway as if their was actually a fire in their room.

When I was a sophomore I was at a band competition and the fire alarm went off during one of the performances. Everyone started looking (adults included) and began giggling as the band continued to perform as the alarm buzzed. Until someone ran into the gym screaming to get out of the building since there was a fire. Everyone left in an orderly fashion, no shoving or violence. People can be rational for time to time.

One thing that still annoys me is only on tv does the marching band wear their uniforms, including their hat at all times. Those monstrosities cost several arms and legs. The only time those came out of the garment bag was for football games, parades, and competitions. Even then we waited until the last minute to put the full uniform on. Also hair had to be hidden under your hat. Girls couldn't have the cute pigtails or long flowing blonde curls running down your back.

[ganesh]

Us too. Everyone packed up the uniforms and hats and changed on the bus. 

[NutMeg]

Thanks all of you guys for the fun you've provided me since I started reading this thread a few days ago.

 

I thought my only "only on TV" peeve was women keeping their bra on during sex, but you've reminded me of so many tropes, especially on cops show.

 

And whoever posted these artsy shopping bags from various shows, you have my undying gratitude. 

[topanga]

Thanks all of you guys for the fun you've provided me since I started reading this thread a few days ago.

 

I thought my only "only on TV" peeve was women keeping their bra on during sex, but you've reminded me of so many tropes, especially on cops show.

 

And whoever posted these artsy shopping bags from various shows, you have my undying gratitude. 

And I'd like to give one move shout out to the loaf of French bread and the fresh carrots sticking out the top of the bag.

[proserpina65]

Is it Fisher-Price?

lol

 

Nope, Samsung, but I did once have a blue and white Mickey Mouse record player.

Perusing this thread, I am curious, do you folks actually want to see people on TV searching for their remote, going through their ipod library, or actually have to read the text of the bills the character reads (that doesn't have nice, easily readable "Final Notice" red stamp on them?) There are certainly tons of things that tend to happen in movies and TV that don't happen the same way as real life, but that's because it's a visual medium that has to communicate ideas to an audience efficiently and effectively.... especially on TV where often times every episode needs to be the exact same length. I actually wish real life were more like that!

One of my biggest objections to 24 was the Kiefer Sutherland never spent an episode stuck in traffic despite being in Washington or LA, both notorious for hellacious traffic jams.  So yeah, once in a while I WOULD like to see some of that, depending on the type of show.  Hell, one could build an entire episode of a comedy show around something like hunting for the remote.

[ganesh]

Turn. Off. Your. Car RADIO!

[Kromm]

lol

 

Nope, Samsung, but I did once have a blue and white Mickey Mouse record player.

One of my biggest objections to 24 was the Kiefer Sutherland never spent an episode stuck in traffic despite being in Washington or LA, both notorious for hellacious traffic jams.

Maybe not Kiefer himself, but I could swear we've seen OTHER characters stuck in traffic on that show. When it was convenient for the plot and it would magically dissolve when it wasn't.

Also there's another Only On TV aspect not specific to 24 but tons of shows. Someone getting stuck in traffic, and then having something that motivates them (especially if they were in a Cab--but it can even happen if they're driving their own car and there's a crisis) where they get out and start running in "parked" traffic. That doesn't happen in real life, no matter what perceived emergency, I'd bet, but it's a constant in TV and movies.

[ABay]

Turn. Off. Your. Car RADIO!

MAKE me!

[Moose135]

Turn. Off. Your. Car RADIO!

 

I'd have to find the fuse that controls the Radio/Nav/Climate Control head unit...not going to do that.

[merylinkid]

With regards to stuck in traffic jams -- two real life examples:

 

1.   The DC snipers did not kill more people because they figured out the DC traffic would making getting away as fast as they planned too difficult.   So there's the one and only positive to DC traffic.

 

2.   In a Maryland County adjacent to DC, a father was racing home because he found out his house was on fire and his kids were home alone.   He crashed the car at the end of the his block.   He got out of the car and RAN to the house.   To happily see the kids standing out on the lawn perfectly safe.   He had to be transported for his injuries.   

 

Besides band uniforms, cheerleaders wear their uniforms 24/7 so you konw they are cheerleaders.   At my school they could only wear them on Fridays.   The rest of the time they were stuck with the same dress code as the rest of us.   And they were fine with that.   

[topanga]

Besides band uniforms, cheerleaders wear their uniforms 24/7 so you konw they are cheerleaders.   At my school they could only wear them on Fridays.   The rest of the time they were stuck with the same dress code as the rest of us.   And they were fine with that.   

Heh. During the first season of Glee, I kept wondering if Quinn had any other clothes besides her cheerleading uniform. 

[DittyDotDot]

Turn. Off. Your. Car RADIO!

 

Why?? Plus, I don't want to, so there! ;)

[meep.meep]

Turn. Off. Your. Car RADIO!

 

But on TV they never turn them on.  They don't need a radio because there's always lots of lovely music just playing in the background.

[DeLurker]

OMG! I don't have a theme song!

Nor laugh track!

[ABay]

DittyDotDot, Ganesh first posted about his obsession with car radios, specifically the turning off of them, way back in this thread and sparked a long, long conversation. It might have come up once or twice since then...

 

Delurker, I have often thought about how cool it would be to have a WWE-like entrance when I go to the reference desk. Music, lasers, a video on a jumbotron, the whole package.

Edited December 17, 2015 by ABay

[shapeshifter]

I'm pretty sure that Only On TV do people never have to sit at a traffic light for more than one change from red to green. Traffic jams seem to exist only between stop lights, not at them.

[BatmanBeatles]

Heh. During the first season of Glee, I kept wondering if Quinn had any other clothes besides her cheerleading uniform. 

Same thing with Claire Bennett in Heroes.

[DittyDotDot]

OMG! I don't have a theme song!

Nor laugh track!

 

Does it count if my theme song and laugh track are only audible to me? 

[Cobalt Stargazer]

OMG! I don't have a theme song!

Nor laugh track!

 

Do you at least have a montage?

[Sandman87]

OMG! I don't have a theme song!

Nor laugh track!

Would you really want a theme song? I suspect that I'd end up with comedic tuba music.

[DeLurker]

Do you at least have a montage?

Sadly yes.  One of my brother's takes great joy in fishing out old pictures of me to scan and circulate much to the amusement of the collective gene pool.  I am spared the public shaming of facebook and the like because I've asked my friends and family to keep all mention or pictures of me (and my kids) off social media as I have had a stalker problem in the past.

[proserpina65]

I thought of all y'all when I was leaving the grocery store yesterday, baguette proudly sticking up out of my shopping bag.  No carrots with leafy greens though.  (No carrots at all, actually.)

[meep.meep]

We are so proud of you!  Tell us what your theme song is and we will all hum along.

 

The other thing about those shopping bags with the baguettes is that only on TV are they not carried like bags with handles, but are always clutched at the chest so that the baguette is kind of whacking away at the person's face.

[Sandman87]

I thought of all y'all when I was leaving the grocery store yesterday, baguette proudly sticking up out of my shopping bag.  No carrots with leafy greens though.  (No carrots at all, actually.)

 

Adding some international flavor to this, since I've watched waaaayyy too much anime: In Japan you must have a leek (or optionally, a radish) sticking out of the bag. The leek can take the place of the carrots, the baguette, or both.

[lucindabelle]

Only on TV do people always have their ringer on so hear a text right away and always answer. Phone is never in purse or another room. People wake up to send texts on TV.

[shapeshifter]

Only on TV do people always have their ringer on so hear a text right away and always answer. Phone is never in purse or another room. People wake up to send texts on TV.

And if it goes straight to voice mail, it's never because of an innocent mistake like accidentally putting it in airplane mode while swiping down to close that part that sometimes gets swiped up. Instead, it usually means the owner of the phone has met with a violent end or robbed a bank.

[ChromaKelly]

On TV, traffic jams always have a bunch of honking and people shouting out the windows.

School carpool lines are not the clusterfuck they are in real life. On TV, people can pull up right in front of the school, have a conversation with their kid, and then pull away.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

School carpool lines are not the clusterfuck they are in real life. On TV, people can pull up right in front of the school, have a conversation with their kid, and then pull away.

 

They once showed the opposite of this on Modern Family. Claire was dropping Haley and Alex off at school and was talking to them in the drop-off lane, and a school security officer came over and told her to move it along. Later, when Claire was having to come to the school because Haley got caught copying the answer's on Alex's work, she was in the lane again talking to the principal on her cellphone when the officer came over again. Clare had a semi-tantrum and ripped up the ticket the other woman gave her, and when the girls finally exited the building she had her hands behind her back because the officer had put her in flex-cuffs. Hee.

[Kel Varnsen]

Only on TV do people always have their ringer on so hear a text right away and always answer. Phone is never in purse or another room. People wake up to send texts on TV.

Although the ringer thing should't matter since even if you have your phone set to vibrate on TV the noise of the vibration is always super loud. 

[lucindabelle]

They once showed the opposite of this on Modern Family. Claire was dropping Haley and Alex off at school and was talking to them in the drop-off lane, and a school security officer came over and told her to move it along. Later, when Claire was having to come to the school because Haley got caught copying the answer's on Alex's work, she was in the lane again talking to the principal on her cellphone when the officer came over again. Clare had a semi-tantrum and ripped up the ticket the other woman gave her, and when the girls finally exited the building she had her hands behind her back because the officer had put her in flex-cuffs. Hee.

Oh god that was hilarious. That was the first episode I ever saw of the show and it hooked me in.

[topanga]

Only on TV do characters open a book and almost immediately find the passage they were looking for. (I'm talking to you, Ichabod Crane). Characters might flip through a few pages, but there's no, "Damn. I know I saw that line in this book." 

[Kromm]

Only on TV do characters open a book and almost immediately find the passage they were looking for. (I'm talking to you, Ichabod Crane). Characters might flip through a few pages, but there's no, "Damn. I know I saw that line in this book." 

Heck, it's almost getting to a point where only on TV do people even HAVE paper books anymore!

[shapeshifter]

Heck, it's almost getting to a point where only on TV do people even HAVE paper books anymore!

Eventually they will likely have them using ebooks on TV too, since it's more realistic to do a search for a word than flip to it--unless the person doing the flipping is well acquainted with that particular volume. But right now showing them flipping to spot in an unfamiliar book is probably still more universally understood by viewers, regardless of the unlikelihood of it happening without a lot of flipping back and forth and muttering--which I do with books I'm familiar with, and I'm a degree-holding librarian--who can't afford to retire.

[lucindabelle]

Actually according to ne york times book review podcast paper books are still selling an ebooks have leveled off.

Partly because ebooks can now cost more than paperbacks.

They are not going away. There are still loads of places in the world where there is no wifi including in the air in tunnels in the catskills. For reference books in particular hey are better.

For novels you're going to read once, def ebooks. I am on my fourth kindle. But when its something like a bio with a Big cast of characters the book book is better so I can flip around easily.

Ichabod crane and Abbie always find whatever they need at once. It's just a convention of the show, about as realistic as when they chose to people speaking in old English in America though the great vowel shift happened during the age of Chaucer. There's no way the writers didn't know this because they obviously did research and had the subtitles. So they made a choice for the sake of the story they wanted to tell. You have to just go with it, or not.

Edited December 26, 2015 by lucindabelle

[zxy556575]

Only on TV are doors answered within 3 seconds. Residents apparently linger in their foyers all day just in case someone knocks. This is when the viewpoint is from the outside, typically the police or an investigator of some type.

 

If there's no answer within that 3 seconds, the person knocking with usually decide to break in (or else why waste time on a door-knocking scene).

 

If the viewpoint is from the inside, there will be a long delay while the residents play a round of, "Will someone please get the door?"

[NutMeg]

Only on TV are teenage/young adult kids most of the time not as tall as their parents.

 

IRL, in most cases, daughters tower over their mother and sons over their father.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

Only on TV are doors answered within 3 seconds.

 

That must be why people on TV are always walking right into their neighbor/relative/friend's house. They figure they're going to answer the door right away regardless, so why not just fall through the door?

[zxy556575]

That must be why people on TV are always walking right into their neighbor/relative/friend's house. They figure they're going to answer the door right away regardless, so why not just fall through the door?

 

Otherwise viewers would miss out on the scene where the visitors walk in on something untoward/embarrassing going on!

 

My sister lives across the street and we do walk into each other's houses, but we give a couple of announcement knock and yell out "hello" as we enter. I don't live in a sitcom so there's no need for us to catch each other in our underpants.

Edited December 26, 2015 by lordonia

[shapeshifter]

Only on TV are teenage/young adult kids most of the time not as tall as their parents.

IRL, in most cases, daughters tower over their mother and sons over their father.

My daughters are all 4"-7" taller than I am when they don't wear heels, but their fathers were both 12" taller than I am. Still, whenever I see the opposite on TV, I assume it's because either:

• Someone in casting was told to find actors shorter than the fictional parent so the parent-child relationship would be visually conveyed.

Or:

• In the case of long-running shows in which the child was pre-pubescent in the first season and is now an adult, I assume the casting recommendation was for a shorter child actor so s/he could continue to play a child over several seasons.

Anyway, it only really bugs when both parents are taller than the adult children, like the Dunphy daughters on Modern Family.

Regardless of height differential, when the cute kid grows up to be a disengaged actor, I really wish they would re-cast--which seems kind of inversely proportional to the heights of the fictional Dunphy kids.

Edited December 26, 2015 by shapeshifter

[jaytee1812]

Even when kids are shorter like my brother and I its not by much. He's an inch shorter than my dad and I'm half an inch shorter than my mom.

[ganesh]

It takes at least 30 seconds to a full minute before I answer the door. I usually will yell out "hold on" so they know to wait and check who it is. I typically don't wear anything at home.

[shapeshifter]

Only on TV are doors answered within 3 seconds. Residents apparently linger in their foyers all day just in case someone knocks. This is when the viewpoint is from the outside, typically the police or an investigator of some type.

If there's no answer within that 3 seconds, the person knocking with usually decide to break in (or else why waste time on a door-knocking scene).

If the viewpoint is from the inside, there will be a long delay while the residents play a round of, "Will someone please get the door?"

It can *seem* to take too short of a time for the door to open if you're there to ask a neighbor for a favor or otherwise enter into an awkward confrontation.

But there should be some Seinfeldian fun to be had with that moment that is being lost over worries about running time vis a vis commercials' time.

But it is sort of an Only On TV trope now that law enforcers will wait no more than 3 seconds to break down the door--so much so, that I've seen episodes in which one cop says something jokingly to another about hearing a cry for help after one second so they could get in and search for clues. That's Only On TV...I hope. But maybe not. :>(

Anyway, inside, it can *seem* to take an eternity to pull on the right clothes (working nights does not seem to be a valid excuse to be in a bathrobe at 10am), turn off the TV (or at least switch it to PBS), toss any "laundry" out of sight, etc. before answering the door, but the whole time I'm yelling, "Just a minute!" Unlike OnTV where any vocalization behind the door is conducted in whispers.

Edited December 26, 2015 by shapeshifter

[mansonlamps]

Only on TV are teenage/young adult kids most of the time not as tall as their parents.

IRL, in most cases, daughters tower over their mother and sons over their father.

Haha I thought I was the only one who noticed this. I'm watching Ray Donovan root now and when Liev Schreiber hugs his teenage son it's like the kid is a toddler he's so tiny in comparison.