# What is extremely common in TV or movies but almost never happens in real life? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 6, 2021, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311 "2021-02-06T04:16:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 57
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1121 "2021-04-03T00:08:25Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Every time you touch it, it makes a rattling noise, as loud as a gong in a Hollywod movie Just remembered: in the olden days, in live theater and radio, when you needed to simulate the sound of thunder, you would take a sheet of tin or aluminum, and shake it a bit. This would create a booming sound that could be heard throughout the theater. If someone is crawling through a duct, it will do that every time they put weight on a hand or a knee. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1122 "2021-04-03T00:19:18Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > …every time they put weight on a hand or a knee. And “every time they put weight on a hand or a knee”… …it’ll fall to the floor. Air ducts are not meant to take over a hundred pounds of weight suddenly crawling into one section of it. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1123 "2021-04-03T00:40:35Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I’ve complained about this one before. Most air ducts narrow down to an opening too small to admit people. And they’re not built to take the weight of people. In the same _ **Five-O** _ episode, Danno tried crawiling through an air duct to get to the office and take out the bomber. For once the duct got too small for him to make it all the way and he had to come back. I laughed when he climbed into the duct facing one way and suddenly faced the other once he was in. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1124 "2021-04-03T00:42:10Z")
Putting a magnet on a drive would require opening the computer to get access to the drive. Modern desktop computers are designed to be pretty easy to open but most still require unscrewing a few screws (so you’d better have a screwdriver in your pocket). Back in the 20th century, it could take 15 minutes or more to open up a computer case sufficiently to access a drive. And sticking something like an ordinary refrigerator magnet on the outside of a sealed drive isn’t likely to do anything to the data on the drive, let alone wipe it. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1125 "2021-04-03T10:07:20Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Just remembered: in the olden days, in live theater and radio, when you needed to simulate the sound of thunder, you would take a sheet of tin or aluminum, and shake it a bit. This would create a booming sound that could be heard throughout the theater. If someone is crawling through a duct, it will do that every time they put weight on a hand or a knee. Verified on _Mythbusters_ (as if verification was needed): [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LovGVrrIuk) I liked Adam’s comment on the noise: “Thor, the god of thunder, is trying to enter my building!” ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1126 "2021-04-03T10:21:29Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > I admit I don’t recall any “wall of clippings” scene from _John Carter_ , but I only saw the movie the one time and it didn’t really make a very deep impression on me. (And sure enough, [TV Tropes has an entry for that movie for that trope](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StringTheory).) I was surprised to see that TVTropes actually cites a _real-life_ example of someone creating a “crazy wall”—[Australian serial killer John Bunting](https://www.theage.com.au/national/gruesome-trail-of-killing-20030909-gdwb7y.html). 😮 ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1127 "2021-04-03T10:32:25Z")
this annoys me to no end when a kid is playing a video game hell be playing a x box with a sega genesis controller and the sounds from the never shown game is the atari 2600 version of pacman they will do this even if its a game thats played on a pc … another one is when an older actress or actor is playing a game and they absolutely don’t know anything about it …case in point is the 2 or 3rd episode of murder she wrote there was an episode about people getting run over with a remote control van but the subplot was Jessica and her handyman learning how to play an arcade game called spy hunter … which the actors and the writers had no clue about…like they didn’t know that for the first 3 minutes or so you have unlimited lives …personally i think it was product placement … ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1128 "2021-04-03T10:37:18Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > There’s that thing on TV where somebody says something, and somebody else partly overhears it, and then gets upset because it’s out of context. I mean, I’ve never once been talking about newspapers, and then suddenly everybody is worried about a duck. I think that was the plot of four five episodes of _Three’s Company_ . Many years ago…one of the magazines about model railroading published a letter from a teen subscriber. He wanted to get a few things for his model layout and wrote a shopping list “One hi-cube (a type of boxcar), two packages of grass (sawdust dyed green to simulate grassy areas)”. Then his parents found the list and interpreted the hi-cube as a “cube to get high on”. The misinterpretation of grass needs no explanation. The poor teen was almost grounded for life plus ten years. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1129 "2021-04-03T10:37:55Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > when a kid is playing a video game hell be playing a x box with a sega genesis controller and the sounds from the never shown game is the atari 2600 version of pacman > > they will do this even if its a game thats played on a pc … If I were a filmmaker, I would be tempted to do this deliberately. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1130 "2021-04-03T10:40:31Z")
lol you’ll get bonus points if you use a mattel intellivision cartridge that’s 2 sided t taped in the cartridge slot … ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1131 "2021-04-03T12:22:57Z")
Actually, that happened to me once. A friend and I had just seen a movie (don’t remember which one, it was years ago) and then went across the way to get dinner. We were discussing the movie while waiting for a table, and it must have been either a mystery or action picture with character deaths because a woman passing by suddenly lashed out at us in shock and disgust for discussing deaths so blithely. 😳 She was gone before we could say it was a movie. What’s worse is that, by her reaction, I think she thought we were _planning_ crimes rather than discussing ones that had already (fictionally) happened. (In line for a busy downtown restaurant across from the theater! 🙄) We were half-expecting police to arrive during our dinner. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1132 "2021-04-03T14:23:08Z")
Here’s one that used to be very common on TV but (almost?) never happens in real life: the evil doppelgänger. A stock plot device of old sitcoms of the 60s and 70s. Also old dramas— Little Joe on Bonanza had an evil doppelgänger on two separate occasions. I thought that cheesy old trope hadn’t made it to the 21st century, but I’ve been watching reruns of Monk on MeTV, and they just did a doppelganger episode. In this case, a mob hitman who was a dead ringer for Monk walked into traffic and accidentally got himself killed. The FBI recruited Monk to impersonate the hitman so they could bust the mob guys who hired him. Hijinks ensued. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1133 "2021-04-03T14:40:44Z")
_ **F Troop** _ was famous for this. In the course of two seasons only, every major character had a doppelganger. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1134 "2021-04-03T14:54:01Z")
Yeah, that’s right. Larry Storch’s character also had a Russian ‘cousin’ show up a couple times who was Larry in fake facial hair and an awful accent. That show embraced cheesy tropes and ridiculous anachronisms so enthusiastically I’m not sure if it was just really bad or cleverly meta. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1135 "2021-04-03T15:01:07Z")
**Nitpick:** His name was “Storch,” which is German for “stork” (the bird). My favorite one of his doppelgangers was “Lucky Pierre, the Bandit of Banff-ffff” with his outrageous French-Canadian accent. He was on _ **Married … with Children** _ back in the '90s. Is he still alive? ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2021, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1136 "2021-04-03T15:27:39Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > **Nitpick:** His name was “Storch,” which is German for “stork” (the bird). You must have seen my post immediately after I posted, when I saw my iPad helpfully had changed his name to “Starch”. I fixed it. And yes, he is still alive at 98! ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2021, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1137 "2021-04-04T13:08:58Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > in the olden days, in live theater and radio, when you needed to simulate the sound of thunder, you would take a sheet of tin or aluminum, and shake it a bit. I did theater in high school. We had a big sheet of aluminum with a board nailed to it. We called it the “thunder sheet.” Wow did it make impressive noises. > [@solost](#): > > the evil doppelgänger. The writers of _Xena: Warrior Princess_ loved to parody tropes, and gave Xena not one, but **three** doppelgangers. One was a very mannered princess, one was a Hestian Priestess, and one was a woman who ran a tavern and brothel. All the episodes with the doppelgangers were hilarious, and gave Lucy Lawless a good workout, but she was always up to the challenge. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2021, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1138 "2021-04-04T13:52:28Z")
And Joxer, Xena’s doofy friend also had two doppelgangers (they were actually his triplet brothers as I recall). Don’t remember if Gabrielle had dopplegangers (except the alternate universe one). ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2021, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1139 "2021-04-04T14:01:33Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Don’t remember if Gabrielle had dopplegangers Gabrielle had a daughter who, as an adult, looked exactly like her. And she was definitely the evil one-- the daughter, that is. Renee O’Connor didn’t do as well playing dual roles as Lucy Lawless did, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2021, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/1140 "2021-04-04T14:02:09Z")
That’s right - Hope was her name. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311.md?page=56) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311.md?page=58)