Overused Plots in Movies and TV

[RedPiggy]

Gah, you beat me to the Dinosaurs' Sir David Tushingham!

Anyway, I think my favorite of all time was season 7 Buffy's The Storyteller, where Andrew made up such God-awful "recollections" he kept telling people.

 

[Super Scooter]

The Dinosaurs clip shows are pretty funny, some of the only clip shows that are. Very cleverly presented.

 

[Gelfling Girl]

Climbing the rope in gym class-At the moment, I can only think of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody doing this and a similar episode of That's So Raven with a rock wall, but I can also remember a few characters of other shows saying something about that as being an embarrassing moment in their past.

A girl sees her crush with somebody else and thinks they're dating, when the other person turns out to be his sister, cousin, etc. (And in at least one twist on this plot, it was a guy with long hair.)

The whole Midsummer's Night-ish plots.

A person falls for somebody who is later revealed to be their best friend.

 

[Gelfling Girl]

Duh! How could I forget this one? The one where a character would have a lucky charm, and, in most cases, loses it. And then, in the end, they usually find out that they didn't even need it after all.

 

[D'Snowth]

Duh! How could I forget this one? The one where a character would have a lucky charm, and, in most cases, loses it. And then, in the end, they usually find out that they didn't even need it after all.

You don't see that onequite as much, but agreed, that one has been played a bit as well.

That, and the twist version where the character lends their lucky charm to a friend, and the friend loses it, and spend the rest of the episode either trying to retrieve it, or avoid the character altogether for fear of how they'd react to it.

 

[D'Snowth]

Here's a couple more I've thought of...

1. A kid wins the opportunity to spend the evening with their favorite popstar, and is really excited about it because not only is the popstar really talented, but really dreamy as well... or so they think, then when they spend the evening with said popstar, they learn that they don't even do their own singing/vocals/talent, and that they're pretty much egomaniacs who don't even care about who their guest of the evening is, thus losing a fan in the process.

2. The age-old (going all the way back to Lucy) one half is sick of the other half's filthy lifestyle, thus prompting the entire residence to have a line taped right down the middle of everything and "There, you stay on your half, and I'll stay on mine", resulting in some minor inconveniences, as some of the things they need are on the other's half, and as a way of gloating, refuse to give the up.

 

[PurpleHonker]

That, and the twist version where the character lends their lucky charm to a friend, and the friend loses it, and spend the rest of the episode either trying to retrieve it, or avoid the character altogether for fear of how they'd react to it.

Steming from that is the version where someone gives their pet to a friend to watch for a bit. That pet always gets lost in addition to causing mayhem. The worst part is when they try to "replace" the animal with a bad imposter that somtimes involves painting fur to look the same. The original pet always miraculously shows up in the end so we can all sleep a little easier.

 

[D'Snowth]

Here's another frequently used plot device, and two biggest examples I can think of is the old Rocky and Bullwinkle show, and a Donald Duck comic book...

There's a giant tower clock in a metropolitan town that apparently everyone in town regulate their lives by the time of that clock, and when something goes haywire with the clock, people start trying to readjust their watches, alarm clocks, etc, without even stopping to realize "Hey, maybe the tower clock has gone haywire".

 

[ZeppoAndFriends]

In case anyone hasn't already said it:

There's one plotline I've seen in quite a few shows: One of the main characters gets the lead in Romeo and Juilet, playing opposite someone they have a crush on. Then, they spend most of the episode getting worried sick about the big kissing scene and wind up screwing something up because of it.

Anyone else know what I'm talking about?

 

[D'Snowth]

Eh, I'm familiar with a similar scenario from an episode of Hey Arnold!...

Arnold landed the role of Romeo, and there were like four other girls from class who were in line to play Juliet, and Helga managed to convince them to bow out of the play for one reason or another (like scaring Rhonda with purposely hedious wardrobe, or making another girl sick at the mention of the bloodiness in the play, etc), so that she would end up playing Juliet so she could kiss Arnold.

That was probably the longest kiss on a children's cartoon show... I remember Mr. Simmons was even checking his watch.