# Outdated Dramatic Cliches **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 14, 2010, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765 "2010-09-14T19:57:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/61 "2010-09-19T11:16:08Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > I don’t remember the jokes involving pedophilia in 4WaaF. Were they actually about pedophilia or was it more along the lines of ‘robbing the cradle’? It was only one joke - a very posh guy is talking about going to school with someone, and how he was a good chap or something, then followed up with “buggered me senseless…” The Alan Bennett one was a schoolmaster telling a boy that his private parts are called private because they are his and his alone - then saying “doesn’t apply to me, boy, doesn’t apply to me.” ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/62 "2010-09-19T13:30:46Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > > [@panache45](#): > > > > And people don’t slap someone’s face, to stop them from being emotional. > > : pushes up glasses: > > “I…had to stop her from…screaming!” _removes his glasses in shock_ How DARE you! Oh. No one does that anymore either. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/63 "2010-09-19T13:33:58Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Pedophilia as humor seems to have died out recently. Q.v. jokes in Alan Bennett’s _Forty Years On_ and _Four Weddings and a Funeral_. There are probably many others, especially from the 1960s and 70s. “Do you like movies about gladiators?” ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/64 "2010-09-19T14:02:15Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > > [@RealityChuck](#): > > > > Do people get knocked unconscious any more? I mean to put them out of action for a few minutes, but they’re good as new as soon as they wake up. > > Unfortunately this is still happening all the time. > > This had me LOL except I don’t quite get it. If anything, Janeway was prone to _over_moralizing to the detriment of getting home. Janeway’s a freaking murderer. And I mean that in the bad sense. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/65 "2010-09-19T14:46:29Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Janeway’s a freaking murderer. And I mean that in the bad sense. Poor Tuvix. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/66 "2010-09-19T22:38:56Z")
Gone: Plot information suddenly reveled by purchasing a newspaper from a paperboy running around crying “Extra” Going: Plot information reveled by any sort of dead-tree newspapers. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2010, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/67 "2010-09-20T04:24:30Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > > > Janeway’s a freaking murderer. And I mean that in the bad sense. > > Poor Tuvix. ☹ Is that what Skald was referring to? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2010, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/68 "2010-09-20T13:40:19Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > > [@Lemur866](#): > > > > Poor Tuvix. ☹ > > Is that what Skald was referring to? Yep. Flat-out, no-two-ways-about-it murder. Bitch belongs in prison, not an admiral’s chair. ---
**Author:** ![It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/it_s_not_rocket_surgery/32/312_2.png) [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2010, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/69 "2010-09-20T13:48:28Z")
It’s been so long that I don’t know if it was ever used as a dramatic device, but someone being hit by a falling piano dropped by movers is surely a cliche. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2010, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/70 "2010-09-20T14:11:07Z")
But this [Glad Bag falling piano commercial](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1n5rurPRH8) is still hilarious ---
**Author:** ![It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/it_s_not_rocket_surgery/32/312_2.png) [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/71 "2010-09-20T14:52:03Z")
> [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](#): > > I **t’s been so long** that I don’t know if it was ever used as a dramatic device,] but someone being hit by a falling piano dropped by movers is surely a cliche. This should say “It’s been around so long”. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2010, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/72 "2010-09-20T15:05:50Z")
> [@whitetho](#): > > Gone: Plot information suddenly reveled by purchasing a newspaper from a paperboy running around crying “Extra” > Going: Plot information reveled by any sort of dead-tree newspapers. Maybe when newspapers are as rare as Edison cylinders this will be the case but it seems to me that a character picking up and reading a newspaper conveys a more clear meaning to a viewer and is also more visually interesting than them logging on to their computer/phone/whutever. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2010, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/73 "2010-09-20T15:06:26Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > [@jjimm](#): > > > > Pedophilia as humor seems to have died out recently. Q.v. jokes in Alan Bennett’s _Forty Years On_ and _Four Weddings and a Funeral_. There are probably many others, especially from the 1960s and 70s. > > “Do you like movies about gladiators?” “I haven’t been f\*\*\*ed like that since grade school.” –Fight Club, 1999 ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/74 "2010-09-20T15:16:52Z")
Tough guy hero gets shot in the left shoulder but carrys on more or less unaffected. Hero and heroine running (usually through woods) away from the bad guys, heroine stumbles and twists her ankle. Gangster gets fatally shot and either keeps pulling the trigger on his submachine gun but can’t raise it to the horizontal, or if in a car falls forward onto the horn button and sounds it continuously but accidently,though dying. Bad guy starts saying “You son of a …” to the hero but is knocked out by the hero before he can say bitch.(Which stops the movie makers falling foul of the censors) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765.md?page=3)