I suppose you could. You can also do something “untoward” by having someone’s first and last names, too.
This isn’t exactly rare irl, but why does it seem like 90% of all male children on TV, especially those that will only be around for one episode, are named either Timmy or Tommy? I’ve known exactly one Tommy (an adult) and zero Timmies. A few Tims and one Thomas who has been Thomas since birth and plenty of boys with other diminutive names, but Timmy and Tommy are just not all that common.
Also- how often do hours-long hostage situations really happen? Like, the kind where someone walks into a bank or convenience store with a gun, tells everyone (a variety of civilians) inside to get on the ground and empty their pockets, and holds them there while they try to negotiate something like the release of their brother from prison and an airplane and a million dollars to take them away. They do make for a great TV episode- a tense situation, a varied cast of one-episode characters who aren’t villains or victims, but in the same boat, often one of the non-cop side characters (like someone’s kid or spouse) in harm’s way for added emotional impact, a possibility that the whole thing will end with nobody dying, etc. but it certainly doesn’t seem to be nearly as regular an occurrence irl as it is on TV. Stickups, sure. Terrorist hostage type things, yeah. The kind of thing where someone takes one hostage and keeps them at an unknown location, not necessarily a daily occurrence, but it happens. But the teenage kid, pregnant woman, old man, off-duty cop and her daughter, and douchey businessman (who eventually tries to be a hero and gets injured or killed) trapped inside a Circle K with a desperate, emotionally-fragile gunman with a tragic backstory who doesn’t REALLY want to hurt anyone… not so much.
This is a long thread. Since I did not read most of it, I apologize as many of these have likely been said.
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Turn on TV, only one item in the news on every channel highly relevant to whatever situation is. This rarely happens in real life, but comedian Brian Regan has a funny comedy bit where he turns on the TV (he says it is real) and hears “Will Brian Regan get the electric chair?”. “I guess I should have paid that parking ticket.”
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No one else in store. Solicitous clerk immediately there, offering good advice and actual help.
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No one needs to go to the bathroom, fart, burp, hiccup or sneeze - unless part of a joke or incorporated into plot.
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No one ever pauses to receive change. Waiting in line not generally a thing.
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Background people good looking enough to be a distraction. “In L.A., there’s like four better looking versions of you walking around. If they made a movie of your life, you wouldn’t even be up for the part.”
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No weather ever except sudden ill-timed gust of wind or seasonal snow.
I think it’s partly that the name Timothy used to be significantly more popular (Wikipedia says “In the United States, the name was most popular in the 1960s, ranking 13th among all boy’s names. Popularity for the name has since declined, with its latest rating of 110th in 2009”), and partly because there have been a few prominent examples (e.g. in the “Lassie” TV show) that have been frequently referenced and parodied.
In training to be a Black Rock Ranger, scenarios are played out in the afternoon covering various situations. “Binaries” – trainees with zero or one year’s experience – play the rangers while veterans play the participants they interact with. There are four ‘stations’ with a different scenario at each one and the pairs of binaries make the circuit where the scenario is played out and critique delivered for about ten minutes before everything is reset for the next round.
One of the scenarios is always Lost Child as it’s one of the most important and complicated situations we deal with. One year the scenario’s emphasis was on not releasing the kid to the parents until shift command and LEO arrive to check that everything’s kosher. I played the kid – Timmy of course – and the first time through I waited around the corner until my cue then ran towards them. “Mommy, mommy! Lassie’s fallen down a well and can’t get out!”
End scene for a minute until we could collect ourselves.
Yep. No bank account, nothing like that. Books, some music, calls, texts and my back up email account.
Yes, because kids will hide from searchers too darn often. Not to mention other issues.
Volunteer Ranger here. I helped find one kid in the park as i told everyone to look for good hiding places like hide & seek. I did not find the child, but the kid was only a few hundred feet away, hiding in a hollowed out tree.
I will bet that “stranger danger” had been drilled into the kid. That was a very bad campaign.
I thought you were talking about a role playing game at first. Took a second for the Black Rock name to click.
That’s not the issue. It’s more that we have seven square miles for them to be missing in. The big deal is to close the exit to the city immediately when one is reported, and like I said above, get LEO involved when the family is reunited.
About 95% of the time the kid is found in ten minutes and every other case I’ve heard of – but one – was resolved in less than an hour. The one was a teen who was missing three days and, indeed, did not want to be found.
I know the cool dude walking away from the explosion without looking back has been mentioned before. I’ll just add some personal experience. I spent my final 7 years in the military as a combat engineer. We did quite a lot of demolition training for our type of unit. When we were at the demo range we were blowing shit up from dawn into the night. Dozens of shots some days. Whenever it came time to blow a charge everyone stopped to watch. Every single time. No matter how many years experience they had blowing things up they stopped to watch. Because blowing things up is cool.
The protagonist got into some sort of ridiculously exclusive Ivy League school, law school, med school or scored insanely high on MCAT or LSAT etc…but choose not to go so they could pursue their passion being a bike courier (or insert other common and generally basic job).
If the protagonist has a military background, it is almost always some sort of special forces. Never the guy in the rear with the gear, which is where most who served actually served.
Now there’s a movie I’d pay to see:
“I’ll help you get your daughter from the psycho biker terrorists.”
“Great! So, in the military, you were Special Forces…Navy SEAL…what?”
“Actually, I shoveled shit in Louisiana.”
And whenever the news is tuned in, the story is magically cued up to the crucial part. For instance, Law & Order (apologies if this was mentioned earlier) frequently had a character barge into the police station or D.A.'s office saying “You’ve got to hear this”, whereupon a TV is turned on and the defense attorney/community activist/all-purpose jerk starts declaiming about how much trouble he/she is going to make for the good guys. They always tune in at just the right time.
Many moons ago we made up rules for a Law & Order drinking game, and that was one of those rules.
If mocha chip ice cream exists, I’ve never seen it, but on TV and in movies, it’s the universal ice cream flavor.
I posted a similar question somewhere, possibly here, a few years ago, and several people told me that French Silk is about the closest thing to it.
Two I noticed today:
I know once upon a time, shop windows with televisions in them was a thing. I have no idea if they were generally playing live news (so that the “television always cued up to the right moment” thing could extend to people passing on the street), but I do know I’ve never in my life seen a shop window like that and they’re all over the place on TV and movies, including those that are set in modern times.
And the second one- cat hoarders on TV very frequently have a bunch of purebred cats with extreme features. I may have mentioned this once or twice- I work with animals. I’ve been in plenty of hoarder/cat lady houses. And I’ve never actually seen an Oriental Shorthair in real life. Or a British Shorthair. Or an Abyssinian. Or an ACTUAL Munchkin cat (as opposed to a sort of stubby DSH that the owner insists must be a Munchkin. Sis, your cat is special enough without making up breeds. She was born in a dumpster. I know her mom and siblings and it’s a lot more likely that she’s just more than a little bit inbred. Uh… I digress.) I’m not saying people don’t have purebred cats. But the lady in the housecoat and curlers in the dilapidated trailer with 45 cats is almost certainly going to have plain ol’ domestic longhairs and domestic shorthairs, same as everyone else.
Google it, there are several. But all small, except Ben & Jerries.
I’ve seen television screens showing stock exchange results and the news in one corner in the windows of stock brokerages. I saw the WTC tower collapse as it happened on a television in the window of a brokerage on LaSalle St. in Chicago when I saw a crowd in front of the window as I walked to work.
I have a very particular set of skills…
What kind of dog did you get? We found this breeder that does half cockapoo half poodle, because we prefer the poodle temperment, but don’t really want a full poodle.
How about the cat? Oh, we found him under a car. He’s orange.