Captain Obvious / Other Media

All examples that don't belong anywhere else are here!

Comic Strips

• The narration box often labels items in Dick Tracy that don't need to be described. After 90 years it's still informing readers of his watch-phone, and in 2009 it helpfully pointed out that a game of solitaire was indeed solitaire. (The game had nothing to do with the plot, naturally.)
  • MAD Magazine once parodied this with a label labelled "label".
• In The Far Side a man has painted obvious Expo Labels on everything such as "My Shirt", "The House", "The Cat" and is saying "That should clear things up around here!"
• In Non Sequitur a recurring character has an alter ego named "Obviousman", who swoops in dressed like a superhero, complete with cape and a big red circle and slash over the word "DUH!" on his chest. His mission is to point out the (usually snarky) obvious to the oblivious, though given the intelligence of the people he needs to rescue, he is rarely thanked for this.
• Parodied in Rip Haywire where a temporary character says such things as "Sharks!" "It blew up!" and "Why do I keep on shouting the Obvious!"
• Spider-Man: Spider-Man's narration box bangs the reader over the head with the obvious almost as often. See Luckily, My Powers Will Protect Me.

Pinball

• The points scored in the game. Certain shots make the display tell you how many points they are worth,
  • And even on the playfield, too.

Podcasts

• This happens in The Fallen Gods when Flint fails an Arcana check on the magic that's causing the party to shrink, and discovers that, well, it's magic.
• In Interstitial: Actual Play, when Edith asks Larxene if she's in danger, she points out that last time she talked to the party she got shot. So yes.

Radio

• Inverted and parodied in The Bob and Tom Show's recurring "Mr. Obvious" skits. The premise in them is that Mr. Obvious, a the host of a radio call-in show, attempts to help today's caller with what looks to be a difficult problem until the caller reveals enough facts about his problem to make it clear that he has no clue, he can't afford to buy one, and he refuses to rent-to-own, and that the caller would have solved his problem by himself long ago if he weren't so bloody dense.
  • Subverted in the "Sump Pump" episode, where the terrified caller tells Mr. Obvious that there's a bear under his house, and every time it rains he can hear it growling. Mr. Obvious has to explain that this is just the sump pump, pumping water away from the foundation. So the caller crawls under his house to see ... followed by animal roars and screams of pain ... followed by dial tone. "Um ... well, that's all the time we have for today ..."
• Turned into a recurring gag in The Goon Show:
  (Sound FX): Big splash
  Little Jim: He's fallen in the wa-ter!
• Dudley Function on Hello Cheeky would pop in sometimes and give a short lecture about something, never giving more detail than what was instantly obvious.
  Barry: And now, Dudley Function to speak about his new LP.
  Dudley: It's black and round and it's got scratches on both sides!
  Barry: Thank you.
• Often used in the British Paul Temple serials, and although it can be slightly jarring at times, since it's radio.....
  *Whilst in a burning building* "We'd better get out of here!"
  *Gunshot* "He's been shot!"
  *After finding someone face-down in a river* "They're dead!"
• I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again:
  David Hatch: London is home to many people...
  John Cleese: "London is home to many people." Well done, David Hatch, the boy genius.
• In some early episodes of The Unbelievable Truth, an attempted tactic to smuggle truths past was to have one of them be an incredibly obvious fact everyone knew to be true, in the hope that the other panellists would think it was a bluff (an example is Graeme Garden's lecture on Isaac Newton, where one of his facts was that Newton once saw an apple falling from a tree and he wondered about the force acting upon it). The tactic was retired due to its lack of success.
• When the statistic "1% of the world population owns 50% of the world's wealth" started doing the rounds, it was naturally looked into by More or Less, the BBC Radio 4 programme about numbers in the news. They concluded that it was accurate, but their interviewee stressed that while the popular perception was of "the one percent" as a handful of people who probably all knew each other, it actually comprised about 70 million people. The presenter, either genuinely or to help make the point, asked how this number was calculated, and got the reply "You take the world population, and you divide it by a hundred."

Tabletop Games

• Canonically, this is the result of a Critical Failure on your diagnostics check in BattleTech, particularly in the RPG version called Mechwarrior. If your Tech flubs their roll when asked to assess damage, the best estimates they manage to make are blindingly obvious statements that are immediately apparent to anyone with functional eyes.
  Uh, well, the head is blown off.
• CthulhuTech's description for having a low "Support Weapons" skill: "Support Weapons make bigger explosions than other weapons and you think that's cool."
  • Which is actually a very useful description showing that low skill in a given area may include not only lack of aptitude but also limited, short-incomplete or even false perceptions. In the case quoted, the skill of providing tactical support is limited to knowledge of Gatling Good and More Dakka tropes.
• The 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual has an example where it requires a DC20 Knowledge (nature) check to learn that bears attack with their claws. This became subject to Memetic Mutation among players.
• Magic: The Gathering
  • The card Duh from the joke set Unhinged invokes this trope. (Reminder text is any italicized text in parentheses that explains rules you already know.)
  • The card Fat Ass, which gained additional Power if you were eating, had reminder text that defined eating. ("Food is in your mouth and you are biting, chewing, licking or swallowing it.")
• The Star Wreck RPG has "State the Obvious" as a special ability. Most of the time it isn't very helpful but if the rest of the group Failed a Spot Check it provides a huge bonus.
• An old roleplaying story from a Vampire: The Masquerade game has the players trying to put together a plan to defend against an impending attack by the violent Sabbat. One player, pleased with his insight, says, "If I know the Sabbat, when they come, they'll come at night." Everyone just stares at him until somebody breaks character and replies "Of course they'll come at night. They're vampires."
• In The Fantasy Trip the rules helpfully inform us that "a dead figure can take no action of any kind."

Theatre

All examples of Captain Obvious found in plays are here!

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• Cyrano de Bergerac:
  • At Act I Scene VI, Roxane sends his Duenna to talk with a very nervous Cyrano:
    The Duenna: [a sweeping curtsey] Monsieur . . . A message for you:
    From our good cousin we desire to know
    When and where we may see him privately.
    Cyrano (Amazed): To see me?
    The Duenna: [an elaborate reverence] To see you. We have certain things
    To tell you.
    Cyrano: Certain
    The Duenna Things.
  • Act II Scene VI: After rejecting to serve as a poet with De Guiche, Cyrano considers the posibility to take his play "Agripine" to Cardinal Richelieu:
    De Guiche: He is a critic skilled:
    He may correct a line or two, at most.
    Cyrano: (whose face stiffens at once): Impossible! My blood congeals to think
    That other hand should change a comma's dot.
    De Guiche: But when a verse approves itself to him
    He pays it dear, good friend.
    Cyrano: He pays less dear
    Than I myself; when a verse pleases me
    I pay myself, and sing it to myself!
    De Guiche: You are proud.
    Cyrano: Really? You have noticed that?
  • At Act I Scene VII, just before Cyrano will fight against one hundred men, he combines this trope with a Badass Boast:
    Cyrano: ... And, shortly, you shall see what you shall see!
• Penny Pingleton of Hairspray has moments of this, suggesting at one point that the group should write things on the signs they're planning to make and later noting that the armed guards at the Miss Teenage Hairspray pageant will be armed.
• During the recorded live gig at the Hollywood Bowl, Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame sang this charming little ditty:
  I've got two legs from my hips to the ground
  And when I move them they walk around
  And when I lift them they climb the stairs
  And when I shave them they ain't got hairs!
• In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Act 3 opens (in darkness) with the sound of waves, creaking timbers, people shouting things like "Hard a-port!" and possibly a sea shanty. "When the point has been well made and more so", as the stage directions put it, Rosencrantz observes "We're on a boat." He then follows that up with "Dark, isn't it?", at which point Guildenstern surprisingly claims the title of Captain Obvious from him by countering "Not for night. Dark for day." (They have no idea what time it is.)
• William Shakespeare's characters sometimes don the captain's braid, but often it's because of the limitations of the Elizabethan stage. To paraphrase another page on this wiki, if your actors are in the middle of a sword fight but they're only pretending to be using swords, it's probably helpful if the victim grabs at his chest and cries "O, I am slain!" so the audience knows what happened. Also, if your only set decoration is a big sign that says "Castle of Elsinore", the characters are going to have to provide a description of the castle in their dialogue if you want the audience to visualize it. Plus, at the time only the playwrights themselves kept copies of the entire play; the actors were only given their own lines and the cues that came before them. Shakespeare was also rather stingy with stage directions, so the actors themselves needed the lines to know when their characters had died.
• In Urinetown, this is rather common, with examples including constant reminders that the Fax/Copy Girl's job involves faxing AND copying, and the secret hideout bearing a large, lit sign reading "SECRET HIDEOUT" - With the police pointing to the sign as evidence of how hard it is to find. But the all time winner has to be this twist:
  Penelope: Hope is my daughter!
  Crowd: *small gasp*
  Penelope: AND I AM HER MOTHER!
  Crowd: *HUGE gasp*
• A Very Potter Musical: "You think killing people might make them like you but it doesn't. It just makes people dead."
• The Musical version of The Wedding Singer actually contains the lyric "People called him the wedding singer. He sang at weddings and so the name was apt."
• In Wicked, Glinda says about Elphaba, after asking if she was born wicked, "She had a father, and she had a mother, as so many do." Less obvious if you take it to mean that she was raised by both parents rather than orphaned, and more interesting once you find out she's a Heroic Bastard; the governor isn't her real father, the Wizard is, but the "as so many do" just takes it into this territory.

Web Animation

• The red and blue unicorn from Charlie the Unicorn:
  Blue Unicorn: Charliiee. Chaaaarliiieee. Chaaahrliiee. Chaaar....
  Charlie: I'm right here, what do you want?!
  Blue Unicorn: We're on a bridge, Charlie!!
• Homestar Runner:
  • Teeg Dougland from the short-lived Limozeen cartoon:
    Singer: You know those guys from that band, Limozeen? Well they turned their tour bus into a space machine! They're still Limozeen...
    Larry: We're still Limozeeeen!
    Singer: But they're in space!
    Larry: But we're in space!?
    Teeg Dougland: (walks in) I'm afraid I've got some bad news, boys. You're in space.
  • "I am Homestar, and This is a Website!"
• Invention Pioneers of Note points out that if Alexander Graham Bell were still alive, he'd be older than everyone else.
• From Red vs. Blue after Donut has been caught in an explosion:

  Simmons: Sarge! We really need to get Donut airlifted out of here!
  Sarge: Would you put that in a memo and entitle it "Shit I already know"?

  • Also:
    Tucker: Hey dude, the jeep blew up!
    Church: (two feet away from said jeep when it blew up) No kidding. Thanks for the update, Tucker.
  • Again:
    (as Tex is beating an Omega-controlled Simmons)
    Tucker: Hey, Church! I think Tex is over here!
    Church: Thanks for the update!
  • From Revelations, Tex is beating the absolute shit out of the Reds and Tucker. At one point, they drop a large container on her which she is able to hold up and throw back at the Reds. F.I.L.S.S. gives us this bit of wisdom.
    F.I.L.S.S.: I knew that would not work. Agent Tex is a bit of a badass.
• In Ultra Fast Pony, Twilight Sparkle dips into this occasionally.
  • In the very first episode:
    Twilight: According to this book I'm reading, the world is going to end soon! I think that might be bad.
  • In "Shameless Self Reference":
    (Rarity falls from Cloudsdale towards the ground)
    Twilight: I'm not sure, but I think that might end badly.
  • In "Derp and Destruction":
  Twilight: Well guys, in our attempt to run away from Derpy, we've made it here, into the desert!
  Rainbow Dash: Thanks for the update, Captain Obvious.
  Twilight: Hey, there's nothing wrong with a little recap.
  Fluttershy: It hasn't even been five minutes yet!
• Taken rather literally in this Lego animation.

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