# Summarize something (tv, movie, book) you like to make it sound stupid **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 19, 2008, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499 "2008-06-19T18:45:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/1 "2008-06-19T18:45:24Z")
I’ve noticed over the years that it’s very common on this board for people to give a quick summary of a movie they saw, book they read, etc. that makes it sound totally inane. It’s generally amusing. It’s also generally something that the person writing the summary actually didn’t like and thinks badly of. It occurs to me, however, that you could summarize just about _any_ book or movie or tv series/show to make it sound just as stupid. So let’s try it! Take a movie you really like or a book you really respect or whatever, and summarize it in a way that it sounds totally lame. I’d start but I don’t think I’m witty enough. I’d like to challenge those on the board who are, however. Give it a shot! it could be funny 🙂 ---
**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:** [June 19, 2008, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/2 "2008-06-19T18:52:29Z")
_House_–The adventures of a pill popping pain-in-the-ass American (played by a Brit, no less) doctor who cannot get a diagnosis right the first time. Or the second. Or the third, fourth, fifth. And he works in a teaching hospital? What type of doctors would such a person turn out? ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/3 "2008-06-19T18:54:07Z")
This isn’t mine, but: “A young girl is transported to a surreal landscape where she kills the first person she meets, then teams up with 3 others to kill yet again.” (The Wizard of Oz) ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/4 "2008-06-19T18:58:22Z")
**Cloverfield:** A giant monster and a doofus with a camera keep running into each other in New York. Disembowelment occurs. **Buffy the Vampire Slayer:** Three of the most beautiful people ever are high school outcasts because they fight vampires at night. Except no one knows they fight vampires. **King of the Hill:** An uptight man and his bitchy wife raise a future metrosexual in Texas. How’s that? ---
**Author:** ![Eutychus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/5 "2008-06-19T19:00:04Z")
**Gray’s Anatomy** - a show about the hospital from coincidence city, where the person you don’t want to see the most will always be waiting for the elevator when you get off; where every rare and esoteric malady, no matter how obscure, will eventually rear it’s head, and where half of the staff won’t react appropriately to the other half because they’ve had sex with either them, their best friend, their wife, their ex-wife or, I suspect, their dog. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/6 "2008-06-19T19:01:31Z")
**Moby Dick** – a cripple goes whale hunting. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/7 "2008-06-19T19:03:18Z")
Oooh these are good, and only 15 minutes into the thread! So far I think **Eutychus** has done it best. That’s dead-on! Ha! And I watch that show and love it 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/8 "2008-06-19T19:37:52Z")
Idiot overweened twit marries some old guy and is surprised when he turns out to be an asshole. Meanwhile some stupid clothshosre marries the guy she should have. Then she gives up her fortune to marry some feckless jerk. Middlemarch. One of my favorite books of all time. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2008, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/9 "2008-06-19T19:43:55Z")
_Carrie_–Religions nut’s daughter proves getting her cycle really can be a bloody curse. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/10 "2008-06-19T19:55:05Z")
A couple of little guys go far out of their way to return a long-lost piece of jewelry to where it was made. **Lord of the Rings** ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/11 "2008-06-19T19:58:05Z")
An old woman roams the country, secretly murdering people and framing others for the crime. - Murder She Wrote ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/12 "2008-06-19T20:04:41Z")
\*Jesus was single because no wife would ever buy the resurrection. She sees him on Friday and he leaves with twelve guys. He doesn’t come back till Monday. ‘And where have you been, Mr. Wine-Maker?’ ‘Not that it matters…but I was dead!’\* (Words to that effect…Sam Kinison) ---
**Author:** ![JeffB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeffb/32/188_2.png) [@JeffB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JeffB)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/13 "2008-06-19T20:06:48Z")
While not exactly what the OP asked for, check out the [Book-A-Minute](http://rinkworks.com/bookaminute/) site. The ultra-condensed version of _Othello_: > [@](#): > > Iago: Your wife’s cheating on you. > Othello : She is? (kills wife) Damn, she wasn’t really. > > THE END ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/14 "2008-06-19T20:08:12Z")
A couple of yuppies die and are forced to haunt their own home, which they do ineptly. A gross dead guy tries to help them. To reggae music. – _Beetlejuice_, one of my all-time faves. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/15 "2008-06-19T20:21:09Z")
Three escaped convicts – two borderline retarded and one who talks entirely too much – zig-zag across the Depression-era depressing landscape of rural Mississippi on a futile quest to recover buried treasure. One unbelievable adventure after another culminates in their being named to the governor’s cabinet. – _O Brother Where Art Thou?_, which I adore and have seen approximately eleventy-hunnert times. (“Damn! We’re in a tight spot!”) ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/16 "2008-06-19T20:23:00Z")
Loser tries to impress troubled co-worker with his gardening skills; gives mobility-challenged alien human meat and the opportunity to decimate the planet.-- Little Shop of Horrors. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/17 "2008-06-19T20:28:23Z")
Eric Berne’s “Martian” interpretation of “Little Red Riding Hood.” > **[Little Red Riding Hood – A Martian Perspective..](https://countlazarus.wordpress.com/2008/04/11/little-red-riding-hood-a-martian-perspective/)** > > .. A deliciously cynical reading by Dr. Eric Berne, author of the wonderful ‘Games People Play’ (1964).. And if you think this is a little caustic, you should see what he makes of Cinde… _One day LRRH’s mother sent her through the woods to bring food to her grandmother, and on the way she met a wolf. What kind of a mother sends a little girl into a forest where there are wolves? Why didn’t her mother do it herself, or go along with LRRH? If grandmother was so helpless, why did mother leave her all by herself in a hut far away? But if LRRH had to go, how come her mother had never warned her never to stop and talk to wolves?_ Conclusion: _…the moral of the story is not that innocent maidens should keep out of forests where there are wolves, but that wolves should keep away from innocent-looking maidens and their grandmothers…_ ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/18 "2008-06-19T20:40:41Z")
A western town gets a new sheriff. (Yeah, heard THAT one before!) [Blazing Saddles](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071230/) A young accountant helps with the books. [The Producers](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063462/) A boy takes a bus trip. [The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curious_Incident_of_the_Dog_in_the_Night-time) From [Shrinklits](http://www.amazon.com/ShrinkLits-Seventy-Worlds-Towering-Classics/dp/0894800795/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213907456&sr=1-1): “Monster Grendel’s tastes are plain-ish. Breakfast? Just a couple Danish!” And **lobotomyboy63** , from [Star Trek Deep Space Nine](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708553/quotes): (after Bashir tells the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf) Garak says that the point of the story is “That you should never tell the same lie twice.” ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/19 "2008-06-19T20:45:36Z")
There’s this girl, okay? And she likes this guy, who’s like, a total pussy but he’s the only guy around she hasn’t really dated yet. Then she finds out he’s going to get married, so she gets pissed off and marries some other guy. He’s a pussy too, but he dies almost right away so it doesn’t matter. Unfortunately the girl was already knocked up. So she has the kid but she doesn’t care about it and her family takes care of it for her. The guy she likes is fighting in a war, so she starts hanging out with his family and his new wife so she can keep up with what he’s doing. At the same time, she’s dating this other guy who’s a pretty shady character and kind of a jerk. But at least he buys her stuff. Um, this is a really long book, and I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone, so in closing I just want to say, you should all go and read Gone With the Wind for yourselves! ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2008, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499/20 "2008-06-19T21:12:45Z")
Hamlet; The ghost of the father of Hamlet asks him to revenge his murder by Hamlet’s uncle. So Hamlet agonises about this a lot, and kills his girlfriend’s father, his girlfriend, two of his own friends, his girlfriend’s brother and (indrectly) his mother, before finally getting round to killing his uncle. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summarize-something-tv-movie-book-you-like-to-make-it-sound-stupid/453499.md?page=2)