Overused Plots in Movies and TV

[Gelfling Girl]

How about this one?

A shy, smart girl falls for the popular boy, gets her heart broken, and then over the course of the movie (usually through several song numbers) they finally are together again.

Yep, Grease did it, High School Musical (otherwise known by one of the working titles as Grease 3. Yes, seriously) did it, etc.

 

[RedPiggy]

There's a girl - a strong female figure - who is incredibly smart, witty, usually good looking, and has had a bad experience with men in the past. Then there's a guy who falls in love with her, has to break down the walls she has built up from being hurt, and in the end she gives in to it realizing she wants the relationship, he's going to be different than what she remembers and they start their happy life together.
Blechh, yuck.

It's been done a million times. Sometimes it has worked into a heatwarming story, many times it just makes you queasy, but it's always an over-done plot.

Well, I guess my life is cliche ... the problem is, no one's qualified for that happy ending yet, LOL.

 

[D'Snowth]

How about this one?

A shy, smart girl falls for the popular boy, gets her heart broken, and then over the course of the movie (usually through several song numbers) they finally are together again.

A similar plot was used over and over and over and over and over again in Chipmunk fanfics for the longest time - Jeanette falls for Simon, Simon seems to fall for someone else, Jeanette's heartbroken, someone else helps her with her confidences, they end up together. It got old after a while.

Which reminds of yet ANOTHER overused plot, and even though this gave us a good ep of the cartoon, it's still overused - a beauty pageant is held, a bet is made that someone can turn anyone else into beauty pageant material, the girl chosen is usually the nerdy/dorky type who doesn't really want to go through with this (so in this case, Alvin chooses Jeanette), that someone goes to work not only to change the girl's outer appearance, but her personality and her talents as well, the girl fails miserably, and right when she's about to go through with the memorized "I wish for peace and happiness" speech, she reveals that she isn't as she appears on stage, and in the end, she wins anyway simply for being herself.

Matter of fact, I remember Recess doing a similar episode in which Vince (****) tries to transform Spinelli into beauty pageant material to beat this Ashleys.

 

[Drtooth]

Heehee - memories of Moonlighting's attempts to cover Cybil Shephard's pregnancy - have her suffer major depression and film the majority of her scenes lieing down with a pillow over her belly!

At least they "cleverly" tried to hide it. The Daphne thing was downright atrocious.

"I just thought of something! It took 3 Cranes to pick you up."

And of course...

"I bought a box of pecan clusters. They're Jumbos."
"I thought so"

Blehhhhhhh!

 

[dwmckim]

Ohmygosh - the Moonlighting memories are flooding back now (i haven't watched the show since it originally aired) - not only did they do the whole, pillows over the belly, shots-from-chest-up, have her frequently blocked behind desks, couches, and furniture bit with Cybil Shephard - but AT THE SAME TIME, Alyce Beasley (Ms. Dipesto, the wacky secretary) was also pregnant and they took the OPPOSITE approach, just ignoring it! I remember one of her first scenes that season after the summer hiatus, she comes bounding in the room, coming through the door, obviously pregnant saying "I have some wonderful news" and you're just waiting for her or someone else to say she's pregnant but it never happens! It was hilarious seeing the two extremes the show took with the two actresses! Then there was the episode where Maddie (Cybil) appeared as a Claymation figure (animated by the California Raisins team)! The show had a history of the backstage drama affecting what happened onscreen, but the dual pregnancies was the height of it!

 

[Drtooth]

Overused parodies:

1. Wizrad of Oz
2. Star Wars
3. Indiana Jones (1980's cartoons specifically)
4. Alice in Wonderland
5. James Bond (especially the dialogue)
6. A Christmas Carol

I'm dying for a kid's show to try a Rocky Horror parody.

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm dying for a kid's show to try a Rocky Horror parody.

That'd be a little hard to do, wouldn't it? A kid's show paroding a movie that's so kid-unfriendly?

 

[dwmckim]

Not that it can't be done though...remember The Count's date with Susan Sarandon?

 

[Drtooth]

That'd be a little hard to do, wouldn't it? A kid's show paroding a movie that's so kid-unfriendly?

ANYthing can be parodied. You just have to change things up a lot.

Heck, Ghostbusters was made into a cartoon series... and we all know what that was about. As was the Not rated, but very violent cult movie series Toxic Avenger.

 

[Super Scooter]

That'd be a little hard to do, wouldn't it? A kid's show paroding a movie that's so kid-unfriendly?

As was mentioned, Sesame Street has parodied numerous "kid-unfriendly" films. Pirates of the Caribbean certainly wasn't a kids movie (though not as bad as Rocky Horror), but it became the Pirates of the Care-to-be-Readin'.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was R-rated, but became a Sesame Street skit. Taxi Driver was also parodied on Sesame Street... And on Elmo's World!

It really wouldn't be that hard. Just have to be clever about it.