History Main / FunWithSubtitles

* Streamer [[https://www.youtube.com/@JollyWangcore Jolly Wangcore]] has a different kind of fun with his captions when he edits his clips into YouTube videos. Every single line of dialog from [=NPCs=] in the games and mods he plays is rendered in AugmentedReality-style text over their heads, perfectly motion-tracking them as they walk around and even turning when they do (even if it means flipping around backwards). In at least one video, characters getting crushed by falling scenery have their captions shatter into pieces.

* Following the tradition of the comic book ''Film/ScottPilgrimVsTheWorld'' plays with subtitles all over the movie, including introducing characters, giving backstory,and even PaintingTheMedium.

* ''Disasterpiece Theatre,'' an early 1980s show on San Diego TV station XETV (then independent, now Hispanic), was a precursor to ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' in that it made fun of bad movies. In this case, key scenes of the running movie were mocked through the use of snarky subtitles planted on the bottom of the screen.

* In an unintentional example, when episode 30 of '' Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind'' was simulcasted on Website/{{Crunchyroll}}, it was accidentally put up with the subtitle track for episode 7 of '' Manga/FruitsBasket'', which had debuted during the same week. It stayed like that for a whole day before it was fixed.

** The Website/YouTube versions indulge in it at times. One fight earns the caption "Blunt force trauma", while more often than not [[BowChickaWowWow lines that can be considered innuendo are followed with "Bow Chicka Bow Wow".]]

* Website/YouTube's "Transcribe Audio" feature, based on a Google translator, can produce some hilariously inaccurate subtitles, whether because they don't recognise which language is being spoken, or they manage to get the language right and ''still'' get things wrong:

* ''Film/TrueLies'': Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger's character Harry asks a guard where the bathroom is because he has to take a major leak, which the subtitle helpfully informs us is "in perfect Arabic". ([[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign Ahnuld's Arabic is obviously awful.]])

* The ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' imageboard [[http://derpiboo.ru/ Derpibooru]] has an [[http://derpiboo.ru/tags/youtube+caption entire category]] for hilariously miscaptioned screencaps generated by Youtube's imprecise captioning function. This became enough of a sensation that one early example, featuring the flamboyant sea serpent from season 1 episode 2 and the caption "Steven Magnet", ended up becoming his official name by season 5, and even on the toy line.

* ''Film/{{Crank}}'': two men having a conversation where one was subtitled. When the camera cut to the other's perspective, the subtitles could be seen floating in the air back to front. Hard to explain. Just watch it.

* In ''Film/DeathRace'', the character 14K speaks the majority of his lines in Mandarin Chinese, with English subtitles to translate. The one line he says in English is given an appropriate subtitle in Mandarin.
** The line is [[spoiler:[[ProfaneLastWords "Fuck me!"]]]].

* ''Anime/Gundam00AWakeningOfTheTrailblazer'' features an [[ShowWithinAShow in-universe movie]] that dramatizes [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Celestial Being's battle against the A-LAWS]]...as an utterly ridiculous SuperRobot show. Some fansubbers had a field day with this sequence, foregoing their usual high-quality work and using [[StylisticSuck deliberately terrible subs]] in a parody of a few infamously bad sub groups. This includes subs written with awkward and hard-to-read UsefulNotes/{{Fonts}}, karaoke subs at one point, several terms left untranslated (and even a few terms and proper names that were already in English were "de-translated" into bad Japanese), and the use of gratuitous, screen-filling translator's notes.

* ''Anime/MarvelDiskWarsTheAvengers'': In the episode featuring ComicBook/{{Deadpool}}, all of Deadpool's traslated subtitles are yellow instead of white, as a nod to his yellow text boxes in the comics.

* ''WesternAnimation/Grojband'': Near the end of "All You Need is Cake", while the band is eating Barnina Barnley's wedding cake, the mouthfuls of cake cause their voices to become muffled with subtitles to translate what their saying, while you can easily know what they're saying, the subtitles just read "om nom".

* ''Film/RamboIV''' has a dramatic take on the trope (combined with FiveSecondForeshadowing) when Rambo and the missionaries are cornered by Burmese pirates. Rambo tries working as the translator, and English subtitles pops up onscreen... until the pirates noticed Sarah, the sole female member of the missionaries, and demands they hand ''her'' over as payment. The subtitles promptly dissappears, even though the pirates are still shouting in Burmese, because Rambo ''isn't'' listening anymore - he's about to kill everybody.

--->'''Zombie 1:''' Rwwrwr. Rawr ura rawru.
--->'''Subtitles:''' Commander, we have a situation.
--->'''Zombie 2:''' Rehr rwuck.
--->'''Subtitles:''' t3h suck. Just when everything was going so well.

---> PLEASE MAKE THIS GIRL STOP CURSING - I feel like I'm playing Diablo with the censor button

--->'''Stabs:''' Hey, Mimic, at least it's dry around here, right? (Can we talk?)
--->'''Mimic:''' ...Yeah, I guess i' is? (I don't speak Cant.)

* An episode of ''Anime/LostUniverse'' involved a political figure from some foreign country and a rebel leader (in a chicken costume) arguing in complete gibberish. One fansubber decided to subtitle their conversation anyway, having them arguing over [[HypocriticalHumor the ethics of releasing fansubs.]]

* The Metropolitan Opera, rather than projected surtitles, has individual translation screens for each seat so that patrons can read the libretto in the language of their choice. When they staged ''{{Theatre/Rigoletto}}'' in 2013, they changed the setting to 1960s Las Vegas. For the English subtitles, rather than a straight translation, they reinterpreted the text into Creator/RatPack-style song lyrics.

* In ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryIV'' there is a group of inn patrons whose voice actors improv much of their dialogue, despite what the text reads. At one point, the written dialogue says "No one goes out at night", and the voiceover adds "except my girlfriend, but she's working."
** Or on Elephants, one of the men claimed that his wife was one of the elephants that ran away

* Following the tradition of the comic books, ''[[VideoGame/ScottPilgrim Scott Pilgrim vs. The World]]'' has information on every boss fought. And they have fun with it, the farther you go in the game.

* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'' [[WesternAnimation/{{Cinderella}} Jaq]]'s lines are subtitled into perfect English, which amusingly results in lines like "Gotta flurry, Ven-ven!" becoming "We have to hurry, Ven!"

* In the Japanese scripts of the ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky'', examining a treasure chest you've already opened simply gives a "the chest is empty" message. When localizing the games, the translators noticed that, instead of being a generic code the game runs, this line was stored separately for ''every individual chest in the game''. Since it's completely outside the main story, they decided to write unique messages for checking every single chest in the game, often silly jokes or puns. This also made a WhamEpisode in the third game more effective, as the translators pulled a meta ShooOutTheClowns and had all chests in that dungeon revert to "the chest is empty."
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsFromZeroAndTrailsToAzure'' not only kept the tradition, but also applied it to fishing spots. With the Japanese voices on you can tell Lloyd says "It looks like I can fish here" for all of them, but the translation subtitles it differently in every location, such as "If fishing at a hospital is wrong, I don't want to be right."

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* ''WebVideo/AnimeCrimesDivision'' references many anime across its two seasons, but there are no references to ''Anime/JojosBizarreAdventure.'' Unless you happen to be watching episode 6 of season 2, in which a scene where a character yells, "Joe! Joe," is subtitled as "Jojo! ('s Bizarre Adventure there you happy now?)."

* cscoop subtitles the ''WebVideo/{{Highcraft}}'' videos himself, and likes to do silly things with them, such as putting people yelling in fire gif text, adding tidbits like [lying voice], replacing swear words with sound-alikes ("dickhead" is "deckhand"), and more.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fan animation ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqVVtaWd8Pw Smile HD]]'' (warning: NSFW), Pinkie Pie at one point uses the subtitles to bludgeon one her friends. They keep on going, and she keeps up the beating...

* ''WebAnimation/{{Smile}}'' has Pinkie Pie using the song's subtitle as a weapon.