I was just checking an online tv listing and saw that TLC is broadcasting When Surgical Tools Get Left Behind - what a great title; it has a Snakes on a Plane directness to it. You tune in to this show and you know exactly what you’re going to get.
Well, didn’t the whole When Nouns Verb thing start with When Animals Attack? That’s pretty descriptive.
The first picture that flashed into my mind was of the surgeon arriving at the hospital to perform an operation and then realising - “Oh no. I’ve left my tools at home”.
Now, if the program were to be titled “When Surgical Tool Get Left Inside”…
See, I was imagining a sticker on the doc’s little black bag along the lines of “In case of Rapture, these tools will not be used” or something.
Discovery Health Channel is great for this 200 pound tumor, 160 pound tumor, etc.
Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t “When Nouns Verb” sound like the perfect title for an instructional video for elementary school English classes?
Agent Foxtrot spotted a classic one time on TLC called Earth: The World’s Most Dangerous Planet.
Just watch: it’ll turn out to be an adaptation of Barrie’s The Admirable Crichton.
There has been a run of programmes on Channels 4 and 5 here in the UK with titles along the lines of “The Boy Who Fell in a Hole”, “The Man Whose Arms Turned to Butter”, “The Girl Who Looked Slightly Too Much like a Horse”, etc…
(Actually, they started off with quite serious, heart-rending stuff like The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off and The Girl Whose Muscles are Turning to Bone, but quickly ran out of ideas, so there were others such as “The Boy Who Lived Before” (reincarnation) and “The Four Year Old who Ran Forty Miles” about… ummm… a young boy who is obsessed with… umm… running)
“Verbing weirds language.” -Calvin
The most absurd was the ol’ “When Good Pets Go Bad”.
The show included clips of giraffes stampeding and tigers mauling people. Sorry, but tigers and giraffes aren’t “good pets”.
Don’t listen to him, Stripey! That’s a good boy.
I like The Man Whose Arms Exploded.
That is fantastic.
Actually, that’s the title of an episode of Maximum Exposure - a bit closer to America’s Funniest Home Videos than a TLC documentary. ![]()
Personally, I always preferred shows of the genre World’s Blankiest Blank.