# Things that are extremely common in TV shows/movies that you've rarely seen in real life **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 29, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-extremely-common-in-tv-shows-movies-that-youve-rarely-seen-in-real-life/508161 "2009-08-29T16:20:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 27
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-extremely-common-in-tv-shows-movies-that-youve-rarely-seen-in-real-life/508161/523 "2009-09-16T17:29:09Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > People have “Very Special Friends” who only show up once to have a crisis and then fade back into the woodwork. I can understand that if they die, but if a VSF is alive, they could show up once in a while. Yeah. Like in Family Ties when Alex’s “best friend” gets killed off. Though I guess they couldn’t very well kill off Skippy. Oh, though in Family Ties, there was an episode where Skippy dealt with an issue! He found out he was adopted. They handled that one pretty well. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-extremely-common-in-tv-shows-movies-that-youve-rarely-seen-in-real-life/508161/524 "2009-09-16T22:46:50Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I thought that Alice had a room next to the kitchen (opposite the family room). I’m pretty sure her “bedroom” was really the laundry room. ---
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-extremely-common-in-tv-shows-movies-that-youve-rarely-seen-in-real-life/508161/525 "2009-09-17T00:44:00Z")
Not a big deal, but…on TV any time a main character has a cousin visiting or is talking about a relative, that relative always has the same last name as the main character. It’s like all TV writers have never heard of maternal relatives, let alone people who change their last name. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-extremely-common-in-tv-shows-movies-that-youve-rarely-seen-in-real-life/508161/526 "2009-09-17T00:50:12Z")
> [@](#): > > People have “Very Special Friends” who only show up once to have a crisis and then fade back into the woodwork. I can understand that if they die, but if a VSF is alive, they could show up once in a while. It’s sort of like one I noticed in a couple episodes of _Battlestar Galactica_, where they needed a crewmember to be doing nefarious things (but get caught by the end of the episode), and in both cases the culprits were folks who never showed up in any episode before, but who were suddenly inexplicably in positions of importance where you’d think you’d have noticed them earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-extremely-common-in-tv-shows-movies-that-youve-rarely-seen-in-real-life/508161/527 "2009-09-17T09:48:22Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Don’t if this has been said yet or not (I’m only on page 3): > > Software that doesnt require loading or processing time. Everytime somebody’s typing away or clicking on a computer, the information instantly pops up. There’s no loading time or waiting for the software to load, its like all of the windows are just layered on top of each other. And for some reason, nobody’s computer has a screen saver even though they’re always on For that matter, in TV and movieland, the internet has only 10 sites on it, and you immediately get the exact page you were looking for by typing a single vague word in a search engine. I think the most laughably egregious example of this was in _Gothika_, where the police investigator finds the identity of a rapist/killer by looking on the internet for devil tattoos. Cause those are like, rare and unusual, man. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-extremely-common-in-tv-shows-movies-that-youve-rarely-seen-in-real-life/508161/528 "2009-09-17T12:08:12Z")
> [@Jerseyman](#): > > And of course whenever a driver has a gun pulled on him he never calls the bluff by putting his foot down “OK mate you shoot me and just think what’s going to happen to this car with you in it at this speed” And the way car chases never run into any other traffic and while they manage to hit everything else in sight and bounce off walls, this never does the car any harm - nor do the cops have a radio capable of calling for a block up ahead. This actually happened to me. Well, not the gun part. I was making a left hand turn on a 2 lane road and a stranger just got in the passenger seat. I floored the gas, psychotically staring at him the entire time as I aimed for a telephone pole at the end of the block. My line of thinking was “I need to wreck this car and wreck his shit up before he can get his seat belt on or we’re all dead”. Luckily he started bawling and crying that he thought I’d stopped to give him a ride and begged to be let out. Did I mention I was dropping my kids’ off at the babysitters? Fun times. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-extremely-common-in-tv-shows-movies-that-youve-rarely-seen-in-real-life/508161/529 "2009-09-22T06:27:45Z")
So last friday I was slightly involved in a case where there was a pedestrian hit by a car. Today, I was driving along, and an ad came on the radio, so I hit the scan button. Here’s roughly what happened: _szckkckcss…and the pedestrian John Doe, who was hit by a car on friday on main street remains in hospital. The driver of the car, Richard Roe was questioned by police at the scene, and police request addtional witnesses to come forward…_ So I guess this sort of thing can happen, at least once in a while. Would have been better if it had any real relevance, that is, if I were a key witness, or the real driver or something. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-extremely-common-in-tv-shows-movies-that-youve-rarely-seen-in-real-life/508161.md?page=26)