Or how women, no matter how far back in history, have no leg or underarm hair. Even if they’re supposed to be feral savages (Nova). And of course any man can put on women’s clothes and fool everyone.
Any man can also steal an enemy soldier’s uniform and fool everyone. No one ever notices what a common soldier looks like anyway, so no one notices if a completely different person shows up in his clothes.
And the uniform will ALMOST always fit. Almost because “Raiders of the Lost Ark” decided to have fun with this cliche: Indy knocks out the Nazi and then can’t button his jacket.
All the lab talk reminded me: Almost all scientists in movies and TV work alone. At most they have one hapless assistant who probably has the life expectancy of a mayfly. No collaborators, no technicians, no graduate students even if they work at a university, and presumably they wash their own glassware and scrub their own animal cages. Of course if they worked like real scientists (who generally sit in their offices writing grants and papers while other people do the actual experiments), it would be harder to keep their Evil Plans secret.
There’s always a HOT CHICK among the principal cast, whether they be police, “elite military units,” workers at a sewage treatment plant, scientists at an arctic research station, motorcycle mechanics, or whatever.
Speaking of motorcycles, every motorcycle is either a Harley-Davidson or a crotch rocket. There are no standard motorcycles in movies.
Everybody asked for a cigarette or a light will have one.
The default religion for everyone is Catholicism. Whenever there is a wedding, there will be a Catholic priest. Whenever someone is in dire straits, they will go confess at a Catholic church.
If someone gets shot and they’re OK, they’re wearing a bullet proof vest. I can accept that. But you know what? WE GET IT. Must we have the scene where the character opens his shirt to reveal the vest underneath every single goddamn time? What do movie people think our reaction will be if they don’t show us - that he’s a witch?
Corolary to this being, every time a man dresses in drag in a movie, someone will find him attractive, no matter how awful her looks.
This would probably confuse me a little. Dark rye isn’t very popular or common around here. 
Unless it’s a Mel Brooks or Woody Allen movie. 
What I hate is that people with no reason to have such a skill are able to break into other people’s cars and homes and never leave a sign they broke in and never set off the alarm. I’ve seen a character disarm their alarm, get in their car and Joe Schmo pops up in the backseat either to talk to them or kill them.
This one’s from the latest Veronica Mars, although the show is normally good at avoiding cliches:
Woman goes to man’s apartment/hotel room to confess undying love/apologize for prior bitchiness. Man is topless and only opens the door a few inches. Woman continues to talk, completely unaware of obvious implications, until man’s curious lover calls out: “who’s there?”, or worse, shows up at the door to smirk. Woman is suitably shocked/heartbroken and leaves. Man looks appropriately shameful and possibly shouts: “Wait, it’s not what you think!”/“I swear, it didn’t mean anything!”
Inquiring minds want to know: What exactly happened? Were you sent into two weeks of mind-blowing constant menstruation or something?
There are some Protestant ministers as well. All of whom wear collars. Even if they’re Baptist. (One of my biggest “WTF!” moments with religion in TV movies was a show set in some Deep South state in which a Baptist minister was wearing a white collar and baptizing a baby!---- Southern Baptist ministers do no wear collars and they most certainly do not baptize infants.)
On sitcoms it will be mentioned in the fifth season for the first time ever that the family goes to church every Sunday. This is usually when the minister, a former sitcom star, has a guest appearance.
The atheist or agnostic character in a sitcom (who is usually a nonbeliever due to personal bitterness over somebody’s death never before mentioned) will usually give an “I know I haven’t talked to you in a while” prayer when a friend or loved one is sick and sappy music plays. It will usually be interrupted by a voice that startles the praying person, and of course the voice is the doctor announcing their friend is well. God was just f*ckin’ with 'em, wanted to see if He could put the atheist on their knees.
Babysitters are either free or dirt cheap in TV World. Working class parents can accept an invitation to go to dinner or to Aruba without having to worry about paying for both the dinner out and the babysitter (and plane fare or whatever). Of course on soap operas it’s not at all uncommon for an Assistant DA or cop or person with no obvious means of support to drop everything, take a 2 month leave of absence to go to Paris and catch a bad guy, leaving the kids and dogs and house without a second thought and not having to worry about how to pay for the trip.
It occurs that Happy Days probably has more of the cliches in this post than any other, with Little House on the Prairie making a showing as well.
Juuuust a guess, but I would say that being injected (she said it landed “in” her toe) with a hormone that makes the female produce lots of eggs would make her particularly fertile for the next couple of weeks. Much, much higher chance of getting pregnant.
Forgive me if I am wrong… or if I’ve been wooshed. I’m sleepy, cranky, and infertile at the moment. 
If there are teenage males about to enter middle or high school one episode will have a subplot where the school had a mandatory shower policy and he must overcome his shyness. While once universal very few schools today actually require students to shower, many don’t even connect their showers to a water supply and use them for storage. Also every school seems to have a pool.
If a kid has been sneaking away to engage in some forbidden activity, like playing soccer or in a rock band, their parent or parents with slip into a performance, see how great they are at said activity and give them their blessing to continue. Dead Poets Society is the only exception to this I can think of right now.
I’ve been hoping that twickster would take my suggestion in her thread Chatting while behind the wheel and put in a word here about this annoying practice that bugs me at least as much as the thing with the keys.
How often do you take your eyes off the road to make more than fleeting glances at anyone else in the car, much less gaze intently into their eyes or stare at their latest expression?
Every now and then a movie will have that distraction cause a near-hit or almost a wreck, but for the most part the offending driver just manages enough eyes-off-the-road to persuade me the filmmaker(s) have no clue about what driving is all about. Maybe their limo rides or the fact that they never learned to drive has contributed to this oddity, but it’s unsettling to say the least. They need one of those disclaimers at the bottom of the screen like they have in most car commercials: Closed Course: Professional Driver – Do Not Try This At Home.
It’s always pissed me off when someone (especially the protagonist) get’s konked on the head, hard enough for them to lose conciousness, then they arouse maybe a few minutes, half-hour later and of course bolt up and proceed to continue with their adventurea and save the day.
Excuse me, but if you suffered a head inury hard enough for you to lose consciousness, then you have a concussion. Where’s the dizziness, the confusion, the headache and vomiting? If you continue to save the maiden fair then you’ll most likely be going to the ER later for emergency surgery to relieve the pressure from your swelling brain.
I’m just sayin’.
One of my favorite:
Gift boxes always have a ribbon tied around them, and the lid wrapped separately so that it can be whipped off without unwrapping the package.
And envelopes are never sealed.
When was the last time you saw a TV character opening a shrink-wrapped DVD?
… that’s carrying empiricism just a little bit too far …
Things that kill me, as a 21-year-old, about movies and tv shows starring young adults and teenagers:
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Everyone has lots of time between classes to stand around beside their lockers and gossip. At my high school, you had approximately 23 seconds from one ring of the bell to the next to get to your locker, grab your stuff, and make it to your next class. You might say “hi” to a friend in passing, but there was no prolonged chatting.
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Everyone is upper-middle class or higher. Everyone drives nice cars (even sixteen-year-olds), lives in huge McMansions in the suburbs, and wears designer clothes. No one ever shops at Walmart or Goodwill. Even if a character is supposed to be ‘poor’ (c.f. Joey on Dawson’s Creek) s/he still dresses and lives better than 70% of the American population.
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The Prom is the end-all, be-all of your existence. You might as well committ ritual seppukku if you don’t have a date. I forgot about my prom until about 7pm on prom night, threw on a dress, went stag, and had a great time for a couple of hours. I didn’t stress about it for months beforehand, and it’s not the most important night of my life by any means.
As a Southerner, I’m often amused by depictions of my home state. There was A Very Special Episode of E.R. where the black doctor has to go to (gasp!) Mississippi. The way they carried on about it, you’d think he’d parachuted into Khmer Rouge-era Cambodia. Among the dumber moments, he tooled around on a swamp boat, which completely confused me, as Mississippi is largely pine forest, not bayou. Maybe the writers were thinking of southern Louisiana. Also, there is no place in Mississippi more than an hour from a hospital, not even the nonexistant bayous.
Conversely, if he’s shot while not wearing a vest, there are two possibilities: if he’s not a main character, he will die. No one ever lives through a single unprotected gunshot. Unless, of course, you’re a main character, in which case you can get riddled by bullets and still carry on kung-fu fighting until you win. Only after it’s all over and your love interest is supporting you will you give in to the pain and limp slightly.
Speaking of which, I saw Countess Vaughn (from I believe, Moesha fame) on Celebrity Fit Club, she weighs 130 pounds and is always cast in (her words) the role of the ‘fat friend’. If she’s fat, then I’m shamu.