One, Two, Skip a Few

Miss Flamiel: Yakko, can you count to 100?
Yakko: One, two, skip a few, 99, 100!
Miss Flamiel: No, give me all the numbers!
Yakko: Hey, it's only a six-minute cartoon.

— Animaniacs, "Chalkboard Bungle"

A person is counting something - be it exercise reps, money, items, etc. At first their counting is honest, but then said person intentionally jumps their count.

This can happen for several reasons: The person is tired of counting or doing something repeatedly (especially for exercise reps), or he/she is trying to impress someone nearby, or conversely, he/she is trying to deceive his friend/higher-up (especially with money count). Or perhaps they're just being silly.

Compare Counting to Potato.

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Examples:

Comic Strips

• There's a MAD magazine comic featuring two guys at the gym, one of whom is counting "..105, 106, 107..". The other says "You must have awesome strength to do that many reps." "It's mind over matter. Whenever a pretty girl walks by, I start counting at 100".
• Used twice in Calvin and Hobbes. In one strip he's doing push-ups and his counting is well in the hundreds, because he claims exercise is more rewarding if you count what it feels like. In another he's jump-roping, and is counting in the millions because higher numbers give him more time to jump over the rope.
• In one Peanuts strip, Lucy is skipping rope saying "Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen..." When she passes by Charlie Brown and Linus she loudly says "Ten billion and one, ten billion and two, ten billion and three, ten billion and four..." Once they're out of sight she returns to "Twenty one, twenty two, twenty three..."

Films — Animated

• Monsters vs. Aliens: The Missing Link is lifting weights when Susan walks by. "Seven, eight, nine hundred ninety-nine, one thousand. Can't believe I did ten sets."
• Atlantis: The Lost Empire: Commander Rourke threatens to shoot the Atlantean King on the count of ten if he doesn't divulge the whereabouts of the Heart of Atlantis. The countdown goes "one, two, nine, te..." It's only when Rourke notices the symbol in the pool in front of the throne that turns out to be the portal to the Heart that he puts the gun down.
• The Jungle Book (1967): he doesn't exactly skip a few numbers, but the effect is the same when Shere Khan decides to toy with Mowgli before killing him by closing his eyes and counting to ten. "One...two...three...four...you're trying my patience. Fivesixseveneight, nine, ten!"

Films — Live-Action

• A variant from the Sgt Bilko movie, during a surprise inspection by Major Thorn, the title character has to tell one of his out-of-shape men to "drop and give me twenty". While the Major is distracted by something else, Bilko mercifully says "And 20", even though the private only managed about one and a half pushups.
• Reversed in Spaceballs during the self-destruct countdown.
  Computer: Nine. Eight. Six.
  Skroob: Six?! W-what happened to seven?
  Computer: Just kidding!
• And who can forget King Arthur from Monty Python and the Holy Grail:
  King Arthur: One, two, Five!
  His servant what'shisname: Three, sir!
  King Arthur: Three!
• In Home Alone, Kevin watches a gangster movie called "Angels with Filthy Souls" (a reference to Angels with Dirty Faces) which features a scene where Johnny, the main character, sees off a fellow gangster:
  Johnny: Hey. I tell ya what I'm gonna give you, Snakes.
  [Johnny pulls out his tommygun]
  Johnny: I'm gonna give you to the count of ten to get your ugly, yella, no-good keister off my property, before I pump your guts fulla lead!
  Snakes: All right, Johnny, I'm sorry! I'm going!
  Johnny: One... two... ten!
  [Snakes gets thoroughly ventilated as Johnny laughs maniacally]
  Johnny: Keep the change, ya filthy animal!

Live-Action TV

• A variant in an episode of Red Dwarf, when Rimmer is trying to dictate an essay for a practice astronomy exam question, "What does the red spectrum tell us about quasars?" - although it's clear that he has no idea what a red spectrum or a quasar is. Lister enters the room and Rimmer immediately skips to "...in conclusion, this comprehensively answers the question of what the red spectrum tells us about quasars."
• Don Draper does this by the book in a Season 1 episode of Mad Men. He's doing push-ups in his bedroom, counting under his breath, and when his wife enters the room he abruptly goes from single digits to somewhere in the nineties.
• In The Suite Life of Zack & Cody episode "Who's the Boss?", Arwin is testing out his letter-sorting machine, where it scans the recipient's name and shoots it into its proper cubby, but the test results are the same as his other inventions. He counts down before starting it up:
  Arwin: [about to activate the machine] Ten, nine, eight...
  Moseby: Arwin!
  Arwin: Three, two, one.
• In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Thirty Days" Tom Paris is doing push-ups in his brig cell (long story). He starts honest with "One, two, three", but then Neelix comes in with a meal. After a slight pause he jumps to "Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred."

Music

• As another example, the song Heroes by Sunday Driver has this directly in the lyrics: "Now I better stay home, counting brain cells. One, two, skip a few. Put them up for resale."

Puppet Shows

• In "Music to My Ears" from Bear in the Big Blue House, Ojo as the bandleader introduces the "Hey, We Can Play" song with "Okay! A-one and a-two and an eight, ten, twelve!"

Theatre

• Israeli playwright Khanokh Levin once wrote a skit satirising the peace talks between Israel and Egypt, showing the leaders of both sides in an ‘introductory round’, pondering meaningfully before giving a slightly higher number in an apparently meaningless count, making the mediator quickly lose his patience. When both of them have to leave for some time and leave him to continue in their place, he uses their absence to speed up the counting until he ‘reaches’ 2000 and declares the round over.
• In the stage adaptation of 'Allo 'Allo!, a scene begins with Herr Flick doing push-ups; when his love interest Helga enters, he adds a thousand to his count.
• In "The Dinosaur Song" from the stage show Franklin's Class Trip, the Dinosaur tells Franklin that he is 100 million years old.
  Snail: One hundred million? Is that a very big number, Franklin?
  Franklin: I'm not sure. Let me see... one, two, three, four, five, six, seven... one hundred million! Yep, it's big.

Toys

• BIONICLE features this quote:
  Axonn: You have five seconds to put that down and end this battle in one piece, Piraka. One... two... five!

Video Games

• In The Lost Crown, Nancy skips at least half the numbers when she's supposed to be counting to thirty in a game of hide-and-seek.
• One mission of Borderlands 2 has you set up missiles Tiny Tina made to take out a train track. After they're set up she counts down from ten, but launches after nine because she got bored.
• Joking in front of Katarina as Garen in League of Legends causes him to play his animation, a one handed hand stand, and say "999... and 1000! Oh, didn't see you there!"
• One of the flashback sequences in Heavy Rain has you playing as a young Scott Shelby who is playing hide-and-seek with his brother. You can count up to twenty manually or skip ahead a few numbers.

Web Comics

• At one point in Schlock Mercenary, Tagon has mines limpeted to an enemy warship and gives then until the count of ten before he detonates one.
  Tagon: One. Two. Ten. [detonates mine] Oops, I think I skipped seven.
  Kevyn: My mother would argue you also skipped nine-and-a-half.

Western Animation

• The Animaniacs episode "Chalkboard Bungle" provides the page quote. Miss Flamiel asks Yakko to count to 100. Yakko counts to two before skipping to 99. When Miss Flamiel tells him to give her all the numbers, Yakko reminds her the cartoon's only six minutes long, implying that he has the ability to count all the numbers, just not the time to do so.
• Bugs Bunny cartoon "Racketeer Rabbit":
  Hugo (a Peter Lorre expy): Rocky, the money, Rocky.
  Rocky (an Edward G. Robinson expy): Oh yeah, yeah. (counting:) One for you and one for me. Two for you and one, two for me. Three for you and one, two, three for me.
  • Cool Cat, another Looney Tunes character, repeated this version in "3 Ring Wing Ding."
  • Yosemite Sam tries to do a quick count on Bugs during a duel in "Wild and Woolly Hare" ("1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10!") but Bugs was hip to him and walks behind and kisses Sam on the nose when he turns and fires behind him.
  • Subverted in "Hare Trimmed" as Bugs and Sam duel. Bugs counts off but marches in place, extending 9 to fractions until Sam is in the middle of the street and gets run over by a bus.
• The catch phrase of the The Real Ghostbusters, when shooting off their guns. "On, three. Three!" In one episode, the veteran member explicitly instructs the younger members to wait for him to count.
• Danger Mouse will pull the "after three" gambit as well. In "The Good, The Bad and the Motionless" after he figures his evil alter ego created three blue demons from thought alone:
  DM: Demons, you're just a figure of his imagination so after three, vanish. Three. (The demons vanish)
• In Superman: The Animated Series, Lobo is introduced this way:
  Lobo: I'm givin' you geeks ten seconds before I frag everything in sight. Ooooone, TEN!
  [Lobo pulls out a big gun, scene cuts to outside the bar with blasts of light creating holes in its structure from the inside]
• Family Guy: Brian tries to impress a hot girl he has seen coming to a coffee shop after running by putting on a headband, acting like he just got done with a run himself.
  Brian: And, one thousand, whew!
  Girl: One thousand what?
  Brian: Percent, that's what!
• Not quite a straight example, but in the "Not Too Little" song from the Strawberry Shortcake episode "Baby Takes the Cake," Apple Dumplin' sings that she can count to ten.
  Apple: 1, 5, 9, 6, 10!
• Phineas and Ferb: In "Hail Doofania" while Doof is playing hide and seek with Norm, they start the game over again, and when Doof starts to count to three, he skips right to ten.
• In "I'm Really Ever Not So Well" from Charlie and Lola, when Lola gets a cold, Charlie tells her it's because of all of the germs in her mouth. After an extended musical sequence, she comments that there must be thousands and hundreds of germs. He suggests that she count them, so she does so.
  Lola: One, two, three, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, sixty-four, eighty-nine, a thousand three hundred, 64 billion, 500 trillion, twenty-two thousand, twenty-two hundred, twenty-two thousand, one hundred billion and trillion gazillion, million, tillion, quillion, million...

Other

• Microsoft's numbering system for its Windows operating system is rather confusing. To date, as far as primary versions released to consumers, it goes Windows 1.0, Windows 2.0, Windows 3.0, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me (Millennium Edition), Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 and Windows 11. Note in particular the skip between Windows 8 and Windows 10, though if you count up all of the ones leading to Windows 10, it would actually be Windows 11, and that's not even counting all the NT releases including Windows 2000 which were marketed mainly only to businesses.

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