Overused Plots in Movies and TV

[Vincent L]

I never actually watched any movies with that plot, but just listening to you describe it makes me want to smack the heads of the main characters with a saucepan.

 

[D'Snowth]

One plot device that I can tolerate is the classic "three version story". What usually happens is two main characters will get into a fight about something that happened in the past. One character tells a totally exaggerated story that makes the other character look bad. The other character does the same, and while their story is just as exaggerated as character 1, it's also completely different. In the end, a third character shows up and tells the audience what really happened.

I like this plot device because (a) it's not used quite as often as some of the devices already mentioned and (b) from a comedy standpoint, it always brings out the best in the characters. Plus, the exaggerated stories are usually pretty funny.

There was a rather interesting twist on that plot device once on Alvin and The Chipmunks, when they try to explain to Dave just how his piano fell down the stairs: there was no truthful answer, each of them exaggerated their story to make themselves out to be the victim of the other's boredom, so Dave had to (fairly) punish each of them, based solely on the only consistencies that came up in each of their stories.

Of course, Alvin's story was the least believable and the most exaggerated, but what killed it was later during a flashback/clipshow, Alvin actually admits that he didn't tell the truth when he told Dave his story: again, already we couldn't believe his story anyway, but the fact that he admits that he stretched the truth kills it.

 

[Hubert]

I'm not sure if this one has been said before (I think it may have been), but another one would be that a character begins recieving notes from a secret admirer, and then spends the rest of the episode trying to figure out who it is...

 

[D'Snowth]

Yeah, and half the time, those notes from a secret admirer turn out to be part of a cruel and twisted prank.

 

[Sgt Floyd]

Or the person writing the letters was mistaken about who's locker or whatever they were putting them in

 

[Hubert]

Or the person gives up and is convinced by a friend to shrug the whole thing off...

 

[D'Snowth]

World records are another one... and there's usually two ways it happens:

1. One character will spend the episode trying to beat any world record that they feel they can break, only to fail in doing so each time... up until the point it turns out they broke the world record for number of times of trying to break a world record.
2. One character tries to break a record that seems like they'll fail at, so all the other characters rally in support to help him/her break... which he/she doesn't, but in the process, all the others ended up breaking some other kind of world record in their attempts to help their friend break his/her record.

 

[Hubert]

And then (and this was probably already mentioned too), the ones where a character rips their pants, and then spend the rest of the episode facing that humiliation...

 

[D'Snowth]

I think Recess and Arthur are the two biggest offenders of that one. In the former, Mikey rips his pants, so his pals try desperately to come up with some form of a "patch" to hide his now-revealing underwear, all the while, bloodhound Miss Finster is on their trail; in the latter, Binky rips his pants, everyone makes fun of him for it, but at the same time, it seeps into Arthur's subconscience, and he becomes absolutely paranoid about his underwear as well, until it actually happens to him.

 

[Mo Frackle]

And let's not forget the overused basis for an average Disney Channel sitcom. Okay, I have noticed that this particular idea isn't used in a lot of recent Disney sitcoms, but there was a period where pretty much all of the sitcoms looked the same.

The idea is this: there's this girl who isn't very popular, but sort of is. She's pretty, smart, talented, well-liked, yet complains about not being liked by the 'cool kids'. You got the usual stereotypes to go along with her life. The dopey best friend, and the weird guy best friend (who secretly has a crush on her), the annoying younger brother, the dorky parents, the stuck-up that the girl has a crush on, and the snob of a cheerleader who used to be her best friend. Overused so many times, and really, Disney isn't the only network to push that idea out.

Oh, and let's not forget the ever-popluar excuse that the show's creators use in order to distinguish it from other shows. "Wait wait, this one is different! The girl is secretly a wizard!", or "the girl is secretly a pop singer!", or "the girl is secretly involved with the Mafia" (okay, I made up that last one, but you get the idea).