# Things everybody "knows" are cliches, that aren't **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 24, 2009, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129 "2009-02-24T00:14:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**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:** [February 24, 2009, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/1 "2009-02-24T00:14:16Z")
Can you think of any tropes, memes, plot devices, and so forth that everybody “knows” are constantly repeated ina given genre, but which, in fact, are not? Well, this is the thread for you! What brought this to mind for me today was Marvel’s _Civil War_. At its very beginning, the SHIELD agents tasked to bring in un-registered heroes are called ‘cape-killer.’ At the time I thought 'Why, exactly, would ‘cape’ be synonymous with ‘hero’ in this universe? There are far more un-caped super-types than caped. Anyway, that’s just me. Anybody else? ---
**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:** [February 24, 2009, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/2 "2009-02-24T00:44:01Z")
I don’t think this exactly what you’re looking for, but it’s bugged me for a while. I used it as 1/2 of a Teemings column. Jules Verne put Giant Squids in several of his books. You’d certainly think so, from the movies and comic books. There are quite a few of them, even in books not nominally based on **20,000 Leagues** – they show up in two different versions of **Mysterious Island** and **The Fabulous World of Jules Verne** (based on his “For the Flag”), and in every version of **20,000 Leagues**. It’s also in the View Master slide set of the story, and some comic book adaptations (although not the Classics Illustrated version) But, in fact, Verne didn’t use a really huge squid or octopus, even once. Not even in 20,000 Leagues. He did have a number of larger-than normal “polyps” attack the NNautilus at once, and they were driven off by the crew with axes. But that gigantic cephalopod is strictly a creation of the movies. So is another Verne attribute – the balloon in **Around the World in 80 Days**. There isn’t one, in the book. But Mike Todd put it in his movie version, and subsequent versions have retained it, so that it also shows up on the covers of editions of the book. But it’s not in there. Verne DID, of course, write about balloons, even before the first of his Voyages Extraordinaires, which was “Five Weeks in a Balloon”. And in subsequent books, kike “Robur the Conqueror”. But not in AtWi80D. And don’t get me started about Fu Manchu’s moustache. Despite the fact that those long, thin , stringy black moustaches are called “Fu Manchus”, the fact is that not in any of Sax Rohmer’s stories does he have one. He’s clean-shaven. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/3 "2009-02-24T00:47:20Z")
Kirk didn’t bang any green chicks, and the evidence for any of the other dozens of women is pretty slim as well. Only two are certainties while the rest are arguable. [http://allyourtrekarebelongto.us/kirkgirls.htm](http://allyourtrekarebelongto.us/kirkgirls.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/4 "2009-02-24T01:53:36Z")
[The butler did it.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2470/in-whodunits-its-the-butler-did-it-who-did-it-first) ---
**Author:** ![Karen\_Lingel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karen_lingel/32/18649_2.png) [@Karen\_Lingel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karen_Lingel)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/5 "2009-02-24T02:03:56Z")
Did Timmy ever really fall down a well? ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/6 "2009-02-24T02:04:08Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > Kirk didn’t bang any green chicks, and the evidence for any of the other dozens of women is pretty slim as well. > > Only two are certainties while the rest are arguable. > > [http://allyourtrekarebelongto.us/kirkgirls.htm](http://allyourtrekarebelongto.us/kirkgirls.htm) Just wanted to say, that is a freekin’ AWESOME URL. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/7 "2009-02-24T02:15:13Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > Kirk didn’t bang any green chicks, and the evidence for any of the other dozens of women is pretty slim as well. > > Only two are certainties while the rest are arguable. > > [http://allyourtrekarebelongto.us/kirkgirls.htm](http://allyourtrekarebelongto.us/kirkgirls.htm) Whoa! I love this link. Thank you. I had suspected something like this. ---
**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:** [February 24, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/8 "2009-02-24T02:16:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Did Timmy ever really fall down a well? No. See the link in the second entry from this old thread: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=387414&highlight=Lassie+Timmy](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=387414&highlight=Lassie+Timmy) > [@](#): > > Other television shows are always making jokes about Timmy being trapped in a well. Which episode was that? > > Not to disappoint you—and all the writers who have milked this joke for years—but the answer is “none”! See my note on this joke, as well as the title of Jon Provost’s autobiography, after the entry for “Her Master’s Voice.”) > > Actually, the only main character in the Lassie series who fell down a well was Lassie herself, in Season 17’s “Well of Love.” > **[The Lassie Web: Frequently Asked Questions About Lassie](http://www.lassieweb.org/lassfaq.htm#well)** > > I enjoy all the letters I get from Lassie fans, but some questions by now are "regulars." Hope this provides some up-front answers for those times when I cannot get directly to my e-mail. | A collection of frequent inquiries and answers. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/9 "2009-02-24T03:54:02Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > Kirk didn’t bang any green chicks … All right have it your way\*, but I still say that Dr. McCoy was the universe’s leading authority on interspecies venereal diseases! CMC fnord! \*I think the entry on Drill Thrall Shana summed it up “sex was prevented only by the script, the censors and time slot.” that, more than Kirk’s self control, is why there was no banging of green chicks. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Peste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Doctor\_Peste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Peste)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/10 "2009-02-24T03:55:16Z")
There _was_ that episode of Lassie where Timmy got irradiated, though… … hee. ---
**Author:** ![parthenokinesis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/cc9497/32.png) [@parthenokinesis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/parthenokinesis)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/11 "2009-02-24T04:26:57Z")
So in which episode did Timmy bang that green chick? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/12 "2009-02-24T04:35:32Z")
This one has long since become a common trope, but the notion that sunlight is deadly to vampires does not come from Bram Stoker’s novel _Dracula_, other early vampire fiction, or vampire folklore. It was invented for the movies. In the novel Count Dracula had more power at night and apparently didn’t like to get up before sunset, but there’s one scene in the book where he does go out in the afternoon with a hat on. Similarly, in Sheridan LeFanu’s earlier novella _Carmilla_ the title character sleeps until after noon but does go out in full sunlight. The first vampire to be killed by sunlight was the title character in the 1922 German film _Nosferatu_. Even there it’s not totally clear that sunlight alone is deadly or if it has to be combined with the self-sacrifice of a pure-hearted woman. In the 1931 version of _Dracula_ with Bela Lugosi then Dracula doesn’t seem to like sunlight but is killed with a stake. The movie that seems to have popularized the idea that a vampire could be killed by sunlight and sunlight alone is the 1958 _Dracula_ with Christopher Lee, where Van Helsing dramatically pulls the curtains away and forces Dracula into the sunlight. Since then it’s largely been taken as a given that vampires can’t go out during the day. There are notable exceptions (the novel and movie _The Hunger_ in the '80s, the 1992 _Dracula_ with Gary Oldman, and that awful _Twilight_ series), but “sunlight kills vampires” has become a well-established cliche. I suspect Anne Rice’s decision to make her vampires vulnerable to sunlight also helped to keep this idea going for the past few decades. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Tyger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Silver\_Tyger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Tyger)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/13 "2009-02-24T04:44:46Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Since then it’s largely been taken as a given that vampires can’t go out during the day. There are notable exceptions (the novel and movie _The Hunger_ in the '80s, the 1992 _Dracula_ with Gary Oldman, and that awful _Twilight_ series), but “sunlight kills vampires” has become a well-established cliche. I suspect Anne Rice’s decision to make her vampires vulnerable to sunlight also helped to keep this idea going for the past few decades. Another exception: the Hellsing manga and anime, whose author heavily researched Dracula (and Vlad Tepes). ---
**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:** [February 24, 2009, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/14 "2009-02-24T14:11:13Z")
People being sucked down by quicksand was a big one for awhile. ---
**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:** [February 24, 2009, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/15 "2009-02-24T15:33:42Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > People being sucked down by quicksand was a big one for awhile. I think you may have misread the OP. It’s not “things shown in the movies that have no factual basis.” The Timmy-down-the-well thing and Kirk-was-always-banging-green-chicks thing are exactly the short of thing I meant. ---
**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:** [February 24, 2009, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/16 "2009-02-24T15:35:07Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I don’t think this exactly what you’re looking for, but it’s bugged me for a while. I used it as 1/2 of a Teemings column. > > Jules Verne put Giant Squids in several of his books. You’d certainly think so, from the movies and comic books. There are quite a few of them, even in books not nominally based on **20,000 Leagues** – they show up in two different versions of **Mysterious Island** and **The Fabulous World of Jules Verne** (based on his “For the Flag”), and in every version of **20,000 Leagues**. It’s also in the View Master slide set of the story, and some comic book adaptations (although not the Classics Illustrated version) > But, in fact, Verne didn’t use a really huge squid or octopus, even once. Not even in 20,000 Leagues. He did have a number of larger-than normal “polyps” attack the NNautilus at once, and they were driven off by the crew with axes. But that gigantic cephalopod is strictly a creation of the movies. > > So is another Verne attribute – the balloon in **Around the World in 80 Days**. There isn’t one, in the book. But Mike Todd put it in his movie version, and subsequent versions have retained it, so that it also shows up on the covers of editions of the book. But it’s not in there. Verne DID, of course, write about balloons, even before the first of his Voyages Extraordinaires, which was “Five Weeks in a Balloon”. And in subsequent books, kike “Robur the Conqueror”. But not in AtWi80D. > > And don’t get me started about Fu Manchu’s moustache. Despite the fact that those long, thin , stringy black moustaches are called “Fu Manchus”, the fact is that not in any of Sax Rohmer’s stories does he have one. He’s clean-shaven. Sorry, **Cal** , but you’re wrong. The things you listed are EXACTLY the sort of items I was looking for. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/17 "2009-02-24T15:39:09Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > And in subsequent books, \*\*kike \*\*“Robur the Conqueror”. Funny, he doesn’t look… nevermind. Even I have standards. ---
**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:** [February 24, 2009, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/18 "2009-02-24T15:46:28Z")
> [@](#): > > The movie that seems to have popularized the idea that a vampire could be killed by sunlight and sunlight alone is the 1958 Dracula with Christopher Lee, where Van Helsing dramatically pulls the curtains away and forces Dracula into the sunlight. Good analysis, up to the end, where I disagree. The movies that popularized the “vampires dissolving in sunlight” were the Universal films of the 1940s – they used it in \*\* Son of Dracula\*\*, where Lon Cheney, Jr. as Count Alucard gets it that way, and again in **House of Dracula** , where John Carradine as Drac dissolves. I’ve often wondered if the folks at Universal saw **Nosferatu** , or came up with the idea on their own. Certainly vampires were killed in flicks (and stories) after Nosferatu were made, but not by sunlight ( **Vampye, Dracula’s Daughter, Mark of the Vampire, London After Midnight** – sorta, for those last two – and others). If it were up to that silent film to start the meme, it wouldn’t have been able to do it – it was poorly distributed, and Stoker’s widow’s legal actions to have all copies destroyed didn’t help. I suspect that they were motivated by the same logic as “death rays” and “disintegrators” in the movies – if you dissoilve in sunlight you leave a minimum of bloddy scraps to annoy the Hays office. Comic books and printed fiction picked up the meme from the movies But by the time Christopher Lee dissolved in **Horror of Dracula** it was pretty well established. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/19 "2009-02-24T16:22:37Z")
How about “Sherlock Holmes wearing a deerstalker hat”? If you look at the illustrations of the original Doyle stories, Holmes RARELY wore a deerstalker, and only when he was out in the countryside. In London, he NEVER wore such a hat. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/20 "2009-02-24T16:26:16Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > But, in fact, Verne didn’t use a really huge squid or octopus, even once. Not even in 20,000 Leagues. He did have a number of larger-than normal “polyps” attack the NNautilus at once, and they were driven off by the crew with axes. But that gigantic cephalopod is strictly a creation of the movies. I guess it depends on what you mean by really huge. As I recall, those “poulps” weren’t large enough to grab the submarine, as you often see depicted, but I seem to recall from the book that they were large enough to grab a man with a single tentacle and pull him off the deck. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129.md?page=2)