Phrase Catcher

"You look very like your father."
"Yeah, I've been told," said Harry.
"Except for your eyes. You've got —"
"My mother's eyes, yeah." Harry had heard it so often he found it a bit wearing.

— Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

It's common enough for a character to have a catchphrase. A Phrase Catcher is the opposite: the character inclines others to say a specific phrase.

Maybe anyone seeing them is immediately given to wonder whether they're a bird, a plane, or something else entirely. Maybe everyone feels compelled to announce that character's presence in a way that's suspiciously similar each time. As long as they keep getting a certain response and don't say it personally, then they are a Phrase Catcher. If someone always gets a certain response, but always from the same person, then it's as much a catchphrase as a Phrase Catcher.

On a subnote, if someone has a Berserk Button, or prefers to be addressed a specific way, or feels keen to correct anyone who calls them a monkey instead of an ape, or needs some other specific feeder line to start off on their own routine, you can rely on that line being fed. However, those examples really belong with their own tropes.

Popular variants include "Shut up, (name)!" and greeting Sitcom Arch-Nemeses by saying their name. If the Phrase Catcher is a holy figure, the phrase in question may be a Reflexive Remark of Reverence.

Compare Strange Minds Think Alike, Got Me Doing It, Never Heard That One Before and One-Liner Echo. Subtrope of Running Gag.

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Examples:

Advertising

• "Silly Rabbit, Trix are for kids!"
• In the 1970s-80s, American Express had commercials with celebrities like Jim Henson, Jim Davis, Rusty Staub, and others. They always began with the phrase, "Do you know me?", and talked about things they have done or created. They also mention how, without the public seeing the things that make them what they are, they sometimes go unrecognized, and "that's why [I] carry an American Express card!". Of course, the commercials always end with the slogan "Don't leave home without it." Parodied in the movie "Major League,", as well as by Daffy Duck. Batman & Robin also had the infamous Bat-Credit card parody with the line "Never leave the Bat-Cave without it."
• The StarKist tuna commercials would have whoever is paired up with Charlie point out his artistic ideas to get StarKist to notice him with "But Charlie, StarKist doesn’t want tuna with good taste. They want tuna that tastes good!".

Anime & Manga

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You:
  • Mei has to be told on multiple occasions "That wasn't an order!"
  • Ahko gets asked "Where?" in response to her catchphrase "That sends me."
• In Attack on Titan, every time Christa Lenz is of any help, you can bet someone will either say she is a goddess or that they want to marry her (Mostly Reiner). Regardless of gender.
• In Berserk, almost anyone who sees Guts' sword, the Dragon Slayer, seems to be compelled to remark that it's "more like a slab of iron than a sword."
• While not a phrase, a lot of villains in Bleach react with an Evil Laugh when they see Ichigo using his Hollow powers. In canon, filler and movies.
• Boarding School Juliet
  • The Black Dog Headmaster has a notorious Elmuh Fudd Syndwome. Every time he gives a speech his listeners are all thinking the same thing: "I have no idea what he's saying."
  • When Julio (Juliet's male alter-ego) shows up at the Black Dogs dorm, almost everyone he runs into say he/she's sorry for him for being Held Back in School ^note Julio has to keep the appearance of a middle schooler lest her cover be blown. In just a single chapter.
  • Another single-chapter example is when Romio was asked of his opinion on a character's image change (from Leon's Important Haircut to Scott and Shuna both crossdressing). "Does it suit me?"
• In just about every Case Closed Non-Serial Movie different a character designed for the film will ask Conan "Just who exactly... are you?" as he's a teenage genius who fell in a Fountain of Youth by way of experimental poison and often ends up forgetting himself and strutting his real intelligence even though he's supposed to be acting like the cute little kid he looks like. He never answers the question properly, unless they're dying.
• Death Note:
  • Matsuda tends to evoke the response "Matsuda, you idiot!" whenever he says or does almost anything, particularly during the first half or so of the series, and it's generally Played for Laughs.
    Light: What was that?
    L: Matsuda was being an idiot again.
    Light: Well, that is his specialty...
  • The phrase gets a Meaningful Echo in the second half from Light that's significantly less funny:
    Light: Matsuda, you idiot! Who the hell do you think you're shooting at?!

• Fairy Tail:
  • When a guy strips, mostly Gray, someone usually comments "Why is he stripping?!"
  • Also after Gray unconsciously strips, someone always reminds him:
    "Gray, your clothes."
  • Whenever, Erza does something wacky:
    "That's Erza for you."
• Fist of the North Star : The word "NANI?!" (WHAT?!) tends to be uttered by mooks a lot when Kenshiro is around. Usually after he utters his iconic catch phrase. The people uttering it usually die afterwards, often in explosive fashion.
• In FLCL, whenever someone gets a good look at Amaro's forehead, the usual response is "those eyebrows". Lampshaded when Naota gets in on it: "What about eyebrows?"
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Edward Elric lives in horror of others reacting to meeting him as such: "I thought you'd be taller"... after they've mistaken him for his brother.

• Gals!: Rei Otohata has "You made her (Aya) cry!"
• Gundam:
  • "IT'S A GUNDAAAM!", as said by most mooks before biting it.
  • Domon's brash actions in Mobile Fighter G Gundam tend to cause other characters to yell "YOU FOOL!"

• Upon first meeting Hayate in Hayate the Combat Butler, just about everyone remarks about how he has "poor" written all over him or something similar.
• In Is This A Zombie?, all the recipients of Mystletainn Kick go: "That's not a kick!"
• Kaguya-sama: Love Is War : Shirogane's Suckiness Is Painful moments in often lead others to draw comparisons with sea cucumbers.
• One comic in the manga adaptation of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker involves everyone (including Ganondorf) talking about how Link's clothes look uncomfortably warm.
• In Lucky Star, Hiyori often invokes Yutaka and Minami's "She's so strong" in relation to her The Chew Toy moments.
• Lyrical Nanoha: Nanoha has a close association with the You Monster! trope. Vita calls her a devil in A's, Dieci wonders if she's a human (in StrikerS), Signum calls her a monster a year after that, and Isis calls her (not directly) a demon instructor. It's Played for Drama, when Quattro tells Vivio that Nanoha is a devil who pretends to be the "real Nanoha", so she would fight her.
• From Machine Robo, after one of Rom Stol's speeches, the villain du jour will ask who he is. His response is a defiant "You do not deserve to know my name!"
• Minami-ke: Hosaka gets "Disgusting..." (usually while in the middle of an Imagine Spot. And shirtless.)
• In My Love Story!! Takeo and his father both open any conversation with Takeo's mother with "Is your body all right?" after she becomes pregnant. It often feels silly since she's built like a shorter version of Takeo.
• Pokémon Adventures:
  • In three separate occasions, the utter disbelief of the GSC protagonists when each of them finds out Yellow is "Older than me."
  • Whenever Gold, one of the protagonists in the GSC saga, brags about something, those in the vicinity wouldn't buy it and just call him "Liar." behind his back.

• Rebuild World: Akira gets "What the Hell Are You?" and "You really don’t know how to treat women."

• Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei:
  • Whenever Nami says something, another character is bound to remark "How normal." This prompts her Character Catchphrase "Don't say normal!"
  • The anime adaptation turns this little exchange between Nozomu and Matoi into a Once per Episode event, whenever she first shows up in an episode:
    Nozomu: You've been here?!
    Matoi: Yes. Always.
• Excalibur from Soul Eater: "SO ANNOYING!" There's a particular facial expression◊ that comes with it, too.
• In Steins;Gate, whenever Okabe calls someone out, he receives a "You are the last person I want to hear that from".
• Sweet Blue Flowers: "You're always so quick to cry, Fumi", said towards the aforementioned Shrinking Violet by her childhood friend, Akira, whenever she catches her in that act.

• Motemitsu of To Love Ru exists solely for his friends to say "As expected of Motemitsu-Senpai!" whenever he tries to hit on a girl. He always fails miserably.
• Yotsuba&!: When each member of the Ayase family meets Yotsuba's tall friend Takashi "Jumbo" Takeda, they seem compelled to say "You're huge!"

Comic Books

• Archie Comics:
  • Reggie Mantle is always called out as "somebody who talks about anything but himself."
  • "I thought I smelled wood burning." is a common phrase whenever Little Archie thinks up some Zany Scheme.
• In the Asterix series, Obélix is constantly reminded that he is not allowed to have any magic potion, having fallen into a cauldron full of it when he was a baby.

• Batman:
  • Batman (and later Dick Grayson in his role as Batman) gets "I thought you'd be taller" absurdly often from people who have never met him before. Despite being 6'2". (Perhaps Batman's legendary reputation means people expect him to be ten feet tall. It makes a bit more sense for Dick, who's around 5'10".)
  • Back in The Silver Age of Comic Books, when the Joker was more of a Harmless Villain who primarily pulled pranks or "boners" on people than the psychopathic Monster Clown he is today, when his capers inevitably got foiled, Batman or someone else would inevitably trot out the line "The joke's on you, Joker!"
  • In the 2003 limited series Arkham Asylum: Living Hell, nascent supervillain Warren "The Great White Shark" White provokes remarks of "You're the worst person I've ever met," from almost everybody he meets, including the Joker, demons from Hell, and even Warren himself, to someone impersonating him.
• In the "Jonah" strip in The Beano, when the titular Jinx made his way onto a ship, he would invariably be greeted with "Aargh! It's 'im!"
• Bone has the Rat Creatures, who will - almost without fail - at some point in each appearance be berated with the phrase, "Stupid, STUPID Rat Creatures!"

• While Deadpool was cursed by Loki to look like Thom Cruz, he got "Say, aren't you Thom Cruz?" from pretty much everybody who saw him unmasked, including aliens.
• Fight-Man, "'cause one shot is all he needs!"

• Howard the Duck: "Y... You're a duck!" The shocked stammer is always included the first time someone meets Howard.

• The writers of Immortal Hulk would like you know that "The night is his time".

• Scott Pilgrim: Gideon Graves, the last and worst of Ramona's Evil Ex-Boyfriends, has his profession described as "Asshole". Almost every major act he does is accompanied by the phrase "What a dick!"
• One of Spider-Gwen's most frequent nemeses is... a rich dude who robs bodegas for fun. That's it. He's more of an annoyance than anything else, with everyone who encounters him saying "Bodega Bandit, you are the worst."
• Sturmtruppen has "Musolesi, what a devil!", uttered by the soldiers whenever Galeazzo Musolesi pulls some shameless yet awesome scheme - such as when he was stuck with a suicide mission and blackmailed Mussolini into getting him out of it.
• Superman:
  • "It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's Superman!" First introduced in The Adventures of Superman.
  • In Superman #411, Superman has no less than three characters remark that "(he) really needs to work on his dialogue!"
  • Bizarro's oldest miniseries gives us... er, does not give us "Start disagreeing with me!".^note "Stop agreeing with me!", said mostly by irritated villains.

• X-Factor: Layla Miller's Character Catchphrase, "I'm Layla Miller. I know stuff.", mutates into:
  Layla: I'm Layla Miller.
  Madrox: She knows stuff.
  Layla: You notice I haven't had to say that in a while? Everybody else keeps saying it for me.
• In Young Justice, Robin would often be put in the role of explaining things for the benefit of his teammates (and the audience.) The exchange "How do you know that?" "Well, I was trained by the world's greatest detective," quickly morphed into someone saying "We can tell you were trained by the world's greatest detective" every time he pointed out something glaringly obvious.

Comic Strips

• Bucky of Get Fuzzy spends a week trying to invent a catch phrase for himself which he expects Satchel to say, but Satchel doesn't quite understand the idea:
  Satchel: Aren't you supposed to say your own catch phrase?
  Bucky: Satchel, when you're übergroovy, other people say it for you.
• Peanuts: Charlie Brown is often referred to as "Good ol' Charlie Brown" if whoever's talking to him is in a good mood. If they're instead blaming him for a screwup, they often throw a "You blockhead, Charlie Brown!" his way. This was conscious on the part of Charles Schulz, as he disliked the title Peanuts — it was forced on him by his syndicate — and he didn't want people to think "Peanuts" was the name of the main character.

Fan Works

• The Tamers Forever Series has "Shut up Chaos!" and the unforgettable "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING GOGGLEHEAD!!".
• In My Immortal, Ebony has "BECAUSE I LOVE HER!".
• Persona 3 FTW has "Shut up, Ken.".
• In The Ballad Of Stoot And Argyle, any time Terrance tries out a new expletive-laden insult, the recipient (usually Phillip or Eric) will invariably say "That's a new one" or something similar.
• Turnabout Storm: Phoenix's inability to tell a decent joke gives him "That wasn't funny...", with varying degrees of punctuation and Death Glare.
• Half Past Adventure: Bulcinella the mobster gets a lot of "Shut up about the universe"s due to his attribution of just about anything to some sort of universal intention, mostly from his long-suffering partner Pugliacci.
• In Symbiosis whenever Ash speaks to Pokémon, the astonished Pokémon will say "Did you just speak properly?".
• The Sanctuary Telepath: "Shut up, Tesla!" (usually from Janine, but John relishes in it when he has the chance)
• In This Bites!, when someone uses the special transceiver's foghorn function, whatever comment they make after (usually something like "I love this thing") is normally followed by everyone within earshot shouting "WE KNOW!"
• Fu from Son of the Sannin has "What the hell do they feed you!?" whenever she shrugs off a major beating as if it was nothing, or shows off her Super-Strength.
• No fewer than three, unrelated characters in I Am Skantarios refer to the mercenary Monster Bombard, a gargantuan siege weapon used to shatter the walls of cities, as "the largest cannon I have ever seen (or heard of)."
• In Harry and the Shipgirls, the antics of one Jacklyn Fox have her family, as well as readers, say "DAMMIT JACKIE!" in response.
• The Raven's Plan:
  • Everyone who knows about what Arya did to the Freys in the old timeline keeps telling her "no pies".
  • People finding out about Jon's Targaryen heritage for the first time all react the same way, namely asking "Who the fuck is Jon Targaryen?"
• In This World And The Next has Fudge drawing the words "might actually vote for the arse" after his Heel–Face Turn when he starts doing his job instead of being a bribe-collecting figurehead.
• In the Once Upon a Time in Kingdom Hearts series, a Time Traveling Emma introduces her son, Henry, as “Sora” (yes, THAT Sora) - from then on in their adventure, every single character and their mother always asks Henry some variation of "Isn't that a girl’s name?"^note It's not; it’s a unisex name

Film

• 7 Zwerge: "I always imagined dwarves as being shorter." "Old misconception."
• Alien: Resurrection: "Ripley! I thought you were dead!"
  Ripley: Yeah, I get a lot of that lately.
  • Referenced word-for-word with Shepard in Mass Effect 2.

• The Big Lebowski:
  • Walter's reflexive response to anything Donny says is "shut the fuck up, Donny".
    Donny: They posted the next round for the tournament.
    Walter: Donny, shut the f— when do we play?
  • "Where's the fucking money, Lebowski?", at first from the rug-pissing goons to the Dude, and then from the Dude to the big Lebowski.
• In the film version of Big Trouble, everyone's first impression of the Suitcase Nuke is that "it looks like a garbage disposal."

• Ralphie from A Christmas Story always hears something to the effect of "You'll shoot your eye out!" whenever he expresses his desire to get a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. It's even written on a C+ paper he gets back from school! He eventually does nearly shoot his eye out when he actually gets one and tries it out.
• Dante Hicks in Clerks gets two, one because of and one despite the "I assure you we're open" sign he has to write on a bedsheet with shoe polish because the shutters were gummed shut. For the rest of the day, people ask him "What smells like shoe polish?". Dante is also the catcher for the phrase "You open?", which almost every customer asks before entering the store...in spite of, again, the big honking sign out front.
• Across Crank and its sequel, High Voltage, everyone seems to pick up "Fuck you, Chelios!" It's so often repeated, there's a montage of the times it's said during High Voltage.

• In Drive Angry, Milton keeps being greeted by old acquaintances with "I thought/heard you were dead!". This continues until he encounters Webster who knows that Milton is dead. As in he was a pallbearer at the funeral.

• Escape from New York: "I thought you were dead."
  • This phrase was used in the same manner ten years earlier in the 1971 John Wayne Western Big Jake; whether the more recent film was alluding to the earlier is not clear.
  • Later, in the sequel Escape from L.A.: "I thought you'd be taller."
  • Similarly, in Ed Wood, everyone says this about Bela Lugosi when Ed mentions Bela's involvement in his next movie. Heartbreakingly subverted later in the film with Bela's death, and Ed having to quietly confirm his friend's passing.

• Fargo: Nearly everyone who ever met Carl Showalter describes him as "kinda funny-lookin'". How so? "Oh, in a general kinda way."
• Forrest Gump: "Are you crazy, or just plain stupid?"
• In Galaxy Quest, both human and alien fans of Alexander Dane greet him with "By Grabthar's hammer!", the catchphrase of his Proud Warrior Race character in the Show Within a Show. He's not amused.
• The infamous Kaiju The Giant Claw is frequently compared to a "flying battleship" or said to be "as big as a battleship".
• In Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) Ghidorah's victims all say "oh, shit" before he obliterates them. His reincarnation Mechagodzilla gets the same reaction in Godzilla vs. Kong

• Paul's grandfather in A Hard Day's Night is very clean, as everybody seems to notice. The reason is an Actor Allusion, since the actor played Albert "You dirty old man!" Steptoe, but to modern audiences lacking that context, it comes across more as Surreal Humor.
• In The Hebrew Hammer people always remind Mordechai that "the fate of Hanukkah is resting on your shoulders", which just stresses him out.
• In Home (2015), this is where Oh's name comes from: he is so disliked that if someone recognizes him they just groan "Oh" in annoyance.
• In the John Wick series, those who get killed by John will have their last words be "Be seein' you, John".
• Miller's Crossing: "Jesus, Tom!"

• Office Space:
  • To Peter: "Did you get the memo?" as well as anything involving TPS reports.
  • To Michael Bolton: "Is that your real name?"
• The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure has one that is supposed to be spoken by the audience: "Goofie Toofie! Pick up your pants!"

• Philadelphia: Everyone Joe Miller hands a card to: "You're the TV guy!"
• Pirates of the Caribbean: "Sea Turtles".
• All the main Predator films have the titular creature being called "one ugly motherfucker" when seen without the mask. In the second, Harrigan stops midway but the Predator completes the sentence. In Predators, it's said in Russian The Predator subverts it by having him described as "one beautiful motherfucker"; Prey (2022) averts it, with Smeghead's vlog on the movie noting the absence with "I don't know if there's a Comanche word for 'motherfucker'"). Mortal Kombat X follows suit, both by Bo'Rai'Cho in one of the intro dialogues and Erron Black's bullet for the Predator reading "Ugly Mofo". Even DEATH BATTLE! gets in on it when its opponent Boba Fett insults it with said line during the fight.
• In Prince Caspian, The Film of the Book, Reepicheep is often informed that "You are a mouse!" by those he is about to kill. This annoys him to no end ("You people have no imagination!")

• Ratatouille: "Anyone can cook." Starts off as the title of Gusteau's cookbook, and other characters repeat those three words later on, as well.
• In Road House (1989), for some reason, everyone feels a need to tell Dalton, "I thought you'd be taller."

• In Shaun of the Dead, everybody calls David (the jerk constantly trying to steal Shaun's girlfriend even in the middle of a freaking Zombie Apocalypse) "a twat".
• Snatch.: "I fucking hate pikeys!"
• Star Wars:
  • The Millenium Falcon is routinely called 'a piece of junk',
  • The Force Awakens: After he defects, Finn is repeatedly called a "TRAITOR!" by First Order members, including one Stormtrooper known only for that line, Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma.
• Strange Magic: Dawn's boutonniere. Both Marianne and The Bog King perform the same hand wriggling that says "I'm-struggling-to-come-up-with-a-suitable-compliment" and settle on lovely.
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie: Mario is one for "You just don't know when to quit!" Mario's nature as both a Determinator and an Iron Butt Monkey is commented on several times by various characters. Mario initially sees this as a bad thing, since his family (save Luigi) mocks him for it, and their father remarks that Luigi is being dragged down with Mario. He eventually changes his mind after Peach tells him that it's a great trait to have, and during the final confrontation with Bowser, Mario responds to his rant that he's been told that quite a bit.

• Tall Tale: "The Code of the East/North/South/West"
  "Respect the land! Defend the defenseless! And don't ever spit in front of women or children!" *Spit*
• The last things an (evil) Terminator will hear will usually be "You're terminated!", just before the coup de grâce.
• Toy Story 2: "Ride like the wind, Bullseye!"
• Weaponized in Undercover Brother. When Mr Feather kidnaps James Brown, Feather can't stop himself from saying, "I'm black and I'm proud!" As Feather is The Dragon in a Government Conspiracy to keep the Black Man down, this doesn't look good for him.
• Weekend at Bernie's: Most inhabitants think the titular character is still alive despite being dead, typical response is "Hi Bernie!" between the two movies, his name is spoken so often in varying degree of reaction that speaking his name alone fulfills the trope. Oddly enough, when proven dead, some people will insist he's still alive "He's Alive I tell you, I tried to kill. But he's still alive. SEE?!"

Literature

• The Manchurian Candidate: Whenever anyone who served with Raymond Shaw hears his name, their response is "Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life." They've been mentally conditioned to say it, and Shaw is in fact a self-absorbed coward with severe mommy issues.
• Harry Potter:
  • A lot of people tell Harry that "You look like your father, but you've got Lily's eyes". In the sixth book, he replies "Yeah. I've been told."
  • There is also the fact that whenever he says Snape's name in front of an adult without the honorific, the adult will quickly correct him with "Professor Snape".
  • Dumbledore is always described as "the only one Voldemort ever feared."
• Steven Brust's Dragaera: "Shut up, Loiosh." So common a phrase, Vlad doesn't always wait for Loiosh to say something before using it.
• "Beep-beep, Richie" in Stephen King's IT. Justified, as it's the gang's way of telling Richie to shut up, and well, Richie never shuts up.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • "Yub yub, Commander" from the X-Wing Series. Started as a fairly funny joke, but eventually became the phrase said whenever someone did something that annoyed or surprised Commander Wedge Antilles.
  • In The Han Solo Trilogy, "Kibbick is an idiot."
• Ravenor's Carl Thonious - the things he knows...
• In a very meta case, Ciaphas Cain^note HERO OF THE IMPERIUM only ever refers to himself as a "Hero of the Imperium" (no bold) facetiously - the bombastic announcements of his status as a HERO OF THE IMPERIUM! is purely an invention of this wiki (though they do reflect the rest of the Imperium's opinion of him).
• In Pyramid Power, a science-fiction novel playing with Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology with loads of showing their work provided by the Badass Unintentional, it seems that the everybody but his men seems to at least think "Odysseus, you bastard!" at some point about him.
• In Magic's Promise, the second Heralds of Valdemar book about Vanyel, everyone he encounters tells him, "You look like hell." It's justified in that he does.
  • In Winds of Fury, the standard greeting Princess Elspeth gets while making her way home through Valdemar to the capital is "We heard you were dead!"
• In the Vorkosigan Saga, Miles' cousin Ivan Vorpatril is referred to by all well-knowing individuals as "Ivan-you-idiot" or "that idiot, Ivan", and variations thereof. To the point where it took the main character years to realize that "Ivan" wasn't his middle name. Achieves Brick Joke status when Tej calls Ivan an "idiot", and she's baffled at why he's suddenly grinning.
• Lampshaded in The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, when Kate Schecter deliberately tries to avoid uttering Dirk's professional Phrase Catcher. Too late. Dirk also has one unique to this book: after standing between a television and a surprisingly determined child, people keep asking him if he knows he's broken his nose. He does.
• In the Nightside series, Shotgun Suzie is known to be so much of a qualifier for "Oh Christ, it's her, run!" that it's effectively her other nickname.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Both Tyrion and Jaime Lannister think of Cersei as their "sweet sister".
• Joey Bettany / Maynard, the heroine of the Chalet School series, and Mary-Lou Trelawney, one of her successors, both get this a lot. In the former's case, it's "Joey always does things wholesale!" (especially referring to her army of children) and "that is so like Joey". For the latter, there's "it isn't cheek, it's just Mary-Lou."
• The Moviegoer: Binx Bolling is consistently told he should go into research.
• In Discworld, if you try to control any member of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, expect them to reply, "I couldn't do that, Mister Vimes would go spare!"
  • Ankh-Morpork restaurateur All Jolson got his name because he's so very fat from eating his own cooking, people kept marveling that his massive body was all Jolson.
  • There are five ancient noble families on the Counterweight Continent in Interesting Times: the Sungs, the Tangs, the Hongs, the Fangs, and the McSweeneys. The standard response to the disbelieving query, "McSweeneys?", is "very old-established family."
• In Young Wizards, the traditional wizardly greeting to the Lone Power is "Fairest and Fallen, greetings and defiance." At one point, the Lone Power notes that it gets boring after a few thousand years.
  • Likewise, wizards are expected upon their initial meeting with the Transcendant Pig to ask it "What is the meaning of life?" While there are valid reasons for both of these greeting rituals (there's the off chance the Pig might know and say something useful this time around, and in the long view showing the Lone Power - among the class of beings wizards technically serve - lack of respect does absolutely no good and some harm), both sometimes suspect the whole thing is an enormous joke by the Creator.
• In Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings series, the One Ring is frequently called "My Precious" or just "Precious" by the Ringbearer whenever its corruption manages to gain a foothold on their psyche. Gollum is the one most associated with this catchphrase, but others like Bilbo Baggins and even Isildur have called it "precious" when observing the ring. Incidentally, the One Ring's creator, Sauron, was originally named Mairon, which is derived from the Elvish word maira, meaning "beautiful, admirable, and precious".
• In John Sandford's Virgil Flowers novels, even people who've just met him or don't know anyone in common with him eventually end up referring to the main character as "That fucking Flowers."
• In one of the Stephanie Plum books, one of her skips won't leave his house because he's waiting for the cable repair people, who he refers to as "those fuckers". For the rest of the book, almost any time anyone refers to the cable company, the person they are talking to (even if they are not aware of the original conversation) will immediately say "Those fuckers". The cable company is evidently not well-liked in New Jersey.
• The Goblin Emperor's Maia is unusually friendly and grateful to his servants, for an Emperor, due to his mother's influence. He makes a point of learning and remembering all their names, and thanking them whenever they perform their normal duties. First his secretary, then the rest of his staff, tend to respond with a politely bemused "It is our job, Serenity."
• Many (but by no means all) people in The Galaxy Game by Phil Janes are too polite to actually say it, but whenever the hapless and unlikeable Richard Curtis explains he prefers to go by his full name, somebody thinks "He looks like a 'Dick' to me."
• The Chronicles of Narnia has Calormen's ruler, the Tisroc (may he live forever).
• Retired Outlaw Tom in Drowned Hopes. A psycho who terrifies most criminals because of his habit of betraying his accomplices to the authorities and sometimes killing them, most of Dortmunder's crew believe that he died in prison and every time he is introduced to one of them, he is greeted with some version of "I heard you were dead".
• Princesses of the Pizza Parlor: Pasta and Parties: Lunary-On-Clyps is referenced as a "(good place for a) seasonal retreat" at least twice.
• The Unteachables: When Elaine's name is mentioned, odds are someone will say "Rhymes with pain".
• The Ishmael Jones Mysteries: "Nice save, sweetie" is Penny's inevitable response, whenever Ishmael remarks that he trusts no one or suspects everyone, except her.

Live-Action TV

• Prior to his makeover, Tommy of 3rd Rock from the Sun was often told "cut your hair, you look like a girl!" In one episode, he passed himself off as a girl and was told "put some makeup on, you look like a boy."
• The Addams Family: "Thank you, Thing." Stated any time Thing did something helpful.
• 'Allo 'Allo!: Nearly every character on the show has a Catch Phrase. Sometimes they are directed at a specific person, the one and only.
  • René keeps getting "Oooooh, René!" from Yvette. Maria, Mimi or Madame Edith are little less hammy, and it's mostly "Oooh, René". Lt. Gruber often exclaims "Ooh, René" as well.
  • René from his wife: "What are you doing holding that serving girl in your arms?" Whenever he's caught in a compromising position with one of the waitresses.
  • Madame Edith, whenever she catches her husband René hugging his mistress, gets: "You stu-pid woman! Can you not see that <insert ridiculous explanation>?"
  • Herr Otto Flick from Gestapo always says to Helga: "You may kiss me." She kisses him very passionately. He seems to like it, yet he remains poker-faced.
• Arrested Development:
  • Ann Veal is so bland that whenever someone points her out to another Bluth as George Michael's girlfriend, they give a puzzled, "Her?"
  • Additionally, there's George, Sr.'s phrase catcher: "No touching!"
• Black Sails: "Fuck you, Jack!" Usually said by Anne Bonny or Charles Vane, but occasionally other characters as well.
• The Bob Newhart Show: "Hi Bob!" Was said to Bob Newhart so often it created a Drinking Game.
• One of the oldest examples is from The Buster Brown Show: "Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!"
• To summon El Chapulín Colorado, all people need to say is "Oh, ¿y ahora quién podrá defenderme/ayudarme?" ("Oh, and now who could help/defend me?"). To a lesser extent, whenever he does something clumsy, he gets asked if he got hurt, only for him to deny it and say that he did it on purpose for whatever ridiculous reason.
• Whenever the eponymous protagonist of El Chavo del ocho hits someone, that person will angrily shout him "¡¡Tenía que ser el CHAVO del Ocho!!" ("It had to be El CHAVO del Ocho!!")
• "NORM!" of Norm of Cheers.
• "Chuck, stay in the car!" That kinda stopped around season 3, but they could always have someone else catching the "Stay in the car".
• Community:
  • Britta is frequently the recipient of a blunt "You're the worst!"
  • Todd. "No offense".
  • "Shut up, Leonard." Often followed by some sort of discouraging comment.
• CSI: NY: By the fifth season, every other character has used Danny's "Boom!" at least once. When Jo arrives in season 7, it doesn't take her long to pick it up. Danny and Sheldon said it in unison to her once as well.
• Doctor Who:
  • At least once per series in the revival, someone will ask the Doctor, "Doctor who?" when he introduces himself. This is often played with.
    • In "Love & Monsters", when discussing the Doctor, one guy subverts the normal caught phrase and asks "Doctor what?" Rose Tyler asks the same in "Rose", the first episode of the revived series.
    • "The Wedding of River Song", the series 6 finale, closes with Dorium's head shouting this after Eleven. He says that "Doctor who?" is "The first question! The question that must never be answered! Hidden in plain sight! The question you've been running from all your life!"
    • The ending of "Asylum of the Daleks". Thousands of Daleks, tier upon tier and circle after circle, in the hall around the Doctor start chanting "Doctor who?" in unison, much to the Doctor's delight. Oswin has wiped anything related to him from their knowledge.
    • Come "The Bells of Saint John", the Doctor shows up on Clara's doorstep — in full monk dress — and she asks him the question. He gives his usual response of "Just the Doctor", but then quickly asks her to ask it twice more, since he just loves it when people ask him that.
    • It did happen on very rare occasions in the classic series. One notorious occurrence was in "The Five Doctors"; on the commentary track the story's author scoffed at the line, disclaiming having written it and blaming the Fan Wank-loving producers. The original instance was from the pilot episode, where Ian addressed the Doctor using the fake name his granddaughter had been using ("Doctor Foreman"), and the Doctor himself shoots back indignantly, "Doctor who?"
    • Lampshaded by the Doctor himself in the Big Finish Doctor Who story "Seasons of Fear", where he notes that:
      "'Doctor who'? My enemies never ask me that. Isn't that terrible, that they know me better than my friends?"
  • When someone enters the TARDIS, the standard reaction is to wonder at how it is Bigger on the Inside, usually with those exact words.
    • This was lampshaded/parodied in "The Three Doctors". When Benton enters, the Doctor prompts him with "Aren't you going to say 'It's bigger on the inside'?" and Benton replied, "Well, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?" Even more hilariously, when the Brigadier sees the interior of the TARDIS for the first time, he doesn't believe it is bigger on the inside. "So this is what you've been doing with UNIT funds and equipment all this time. How's it done? Some sort of optical illusion?" "Oh no, they come like this."
    • Donna's first encounter with the TARDIS is when she materializes inside it, so her moment of realization comes when they land and she steps out, seeing for the first time that it's... smaller on the outside.
    • "Smith and Jones": The Doctor mouths the words along when Martha Jones says the phrase. He then blithely replies, "Is it? Hadn't noticed!"
    • Played for drama in "The Waters of Mars". As the Doctor goes into A God Am I mode, he brings the astronauts to Earth in the TARDIS. One says, "What is that thing? It's bigger on the inside! Who the hell are you?" before running away in terror.
    • In "The End of Time", when Wilfred Mott sees the inside of the TARDIS he looks expectedly shocked and awed. Before giving him a chance (they're in a hurry) the Doctor says, "Yes, it's bigger on the inside," to which Wilf replies, "No, I just thought it'd be... cleaner". (A possible Call-Back to the days when the console room was minimalist white with silver/grey console.)
    • "The Eleventh Hour": The Eleventh Doctor asks Amy "Any passing remarks you'd like to say?" when she first goes in.
      Amy: I'm in my nightie.
    • "The Vampires of Venice": Subverted again with Eleven and Amy's boyfriend Rory:
      The Doctor: It's a lot to take in, isn't it? Tiny box, huge on the inside, what's that about? Let me explain...
      Rory: It's another dimension.
      The Doctor: Basically, it's another dimens... What?
      [Rory explains in length how he figured it out, and the Doctor cuts in, clearly annoyed]
      The Doctor: I like the bit when someone says "it's bigger on the inside". I always look forward to that...
    • In "The Doctor's Wife", upon being given the form of a human lady, the TARDIS is revealed to think this of humans and the Doctor in terms of a soul. Also, as the TARDIS takes repossession of the Police Box from House, the Doctor explains that House's problem is that he's "just so small on the inside!"
    • Subverted one more time in "The Snowmen", when Clara Oswin Oswald first enters the TARDIS. You can see the Doctor's anticipation for the catchphrase, and then she says (to his visible chagrin)...
      Clara: It's smaller on the outside.
      The Doctor: Okay, that is a first.
    • When the TARDIS exterior is forcibly shrunken to a size where it can be held by human hands in "Flatline", Rigsy comments on it being bigger on the inside after seeing the Doctor stuck in the TARDIS and the Doctor quips that statement has never been truer.
    • Subverted again in "The Husbands of River Song", when the Doctor — who is accompanying River, who doesn't recognise him and thinks she's stealing the TARDIS — is delighted to realise this is his opportunity to say it. Which he does with relish and at length.
    • Delayed in "The Pilot": Bill is used to the TARDIS sitting in the corner of the Doctor's study, so when she finds it leads to a much bigger space, she thinks he knocked through to the next room. When the Doctor moves the TARDIS to the Vault in the University basement, she thinks it's a lift.
      The Doctor: Is it my imagination, or is this taking longer than normal?
      Bill: [looking back inside the TARDIS] Hang on. The room's still inside the box. This isn't a knock-through.
      The Doctor: No.
      Bill: [spins round in astonished realisation] Doctor, it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!
      Nardole: Hey, we got there!
  • Another which gets less used and is more specific to the Tenth Doctor is "Help me", which wakes him out of a coma in "The Christmas Invasion" and to which he replies "Two words I never refuse," in "The Next Doctor", setting up a tragic irony in "The Waters of Mars".
  • After she became Prime Minister, Harriet Jones kept up her old habit of introducing herself by holding up her ID card and stating her name and title, prompting people to respond, "Yes, I know who you are." In "The Christmas Invasion", the invading Sycorax do it, as do the Daleks in "The Stolen Earth".
  • Whenever Captain Jack meets someone new, as particularly demonstrated in "Utopia":
    Jack: Captain Jack Harkness, and who are you?
    The Doctor: Stop it.
    Jack: Just saying hello!
  • The Eleventh Doctor often gives a good "Oh, Rory!" as a reaction to Rory, whether it be him acting dumb, kind or just so... human.
• Due South: Eventually, everyone else takes over explaining that Fraser came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of his father and, for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, remained attached as liaison with the Canadian Consulate. Thank you kindly.
• Everybody Hates Chris: Damn Risky!
• In the Mexican comedy La familia P. Luche, Bibi is the only decent person in the entire World of Jerkass. As such, she's considered weird and a great embarassment to her family. Anytime she opens her mouth, anyone within earshot always exclaims "Oh Bibi, why aren't you a normal girl?!"
• Family Matters: "Go home, Steve!"
• In Fawlty Towers, we have: "It's okay, he's from Barcelona." The meaning is that it's OK that Manuel is incompetent, or a Cloudcuckoolander, or that we're pretending he is in order to maintain the "Fawlty Towers" Plot.
• The Flash (2014)
  • "Run, [name]. RUN!!" The most recurring recipient is the title character Barry Allen to help him up his A-game, but other speedsters have also beene encouraged with this.
  • In early episodes Barry's Healing Factor has a tendency to get taken for granted. "I hear he heals fast."
  • After her Heel–Face Turn, it was suggested in-universe that Killer Frost rename herself. "It's just Frost now."
• Frasier - When Roz turns up to a costume party in a black leather dress she has to explain who she is.
  Roz: I'm O, from The Story of O
  Anyone and everyone: Oooooohhhhh!
• Game of Thrones:
  • If someone is meeting Jon Snow for the first time, there's at least a 50/50 chance that they will respond with some variation of "You must be Ned Stark's bastard."
  • Thenns inspire other Wildlings to state, "I fuckin' hate Thenns!"
  • "You know nothing, Jon Snow", about Jon, courtesy of Ygritte.
  • "He's prettier than X's daughters"', when Jon Snow's good looks are discussed.
• The Golden Girls has "Shut up, Rose" when the aforementioned Cloudcuckoolander tries to launch into a St. Olaf anecdote, to the extent of (paraphrasing):
  Rose: Well, back in St. Olaf — shut up, Rose.
  Dorothy: ...Well?
  Rose: Well, that's as far as I ever get!
• The Good Place:
  • Chidi's strict adherence to moral codes can make him very frustrating to be around, leading many of his friends and acquaintances to point out, "This is why everyone hates moral philosophy professors."
  • The folks of the Bad Place, especially his boss, never miss an opportunity to say, "Shut up, Glenn."
• Home Improvement: It started with Al responding to Tim's puns on Tool Time, but at one point or another, every major character in the show (and a few minor or one-shot characters) has given him a sarcastic "I don't think so, Tim/Dad." Tim has used the line himself from time to time.
• In the season 1 episode of How I Met Your Mother "The Limo", Ted's date has a habit to hug upon meeting a new person. Everyone she hugs replies with the same phrase: "Oh, you're friendly".
  • Also on ''How I Met Your Mother", "NOBODY ASKED YOU, PATRICE!"
• iCarly: "Gibby!"
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
  • "God damn it, Charlie!"
  • "Dee, you bitch!"
  • A running gag in the first season had everyone who stepped into Charlie's apartment say, "This place is a shithole!"
• John Munch: "Shut up, John." Usually in response to a conspiracy theory.
• Kaiketsu Zubat has the Once an Episode exchange between Ken Hayakawa and the Villain of the Week.
  Ken: "You're really good. Maybe the second-best in Japan." brings hand in front of face, two fingers extended
  Villain: "What? Only second-best? Then who's the best?"
  Ken: whistles, clicks tongue while waving fingers side to side, slowly pushes up brim of his hat, and points at self with his thumb
  Villain: "Let's put that to the test!"
• Kamen Rider Decade:
  • "Curse you, Decade!" Or, if you absolutely have stick with the meme, ONORE, DIKEIDO!!
  • "Damn you...who are you?!", followed by "Just a Kamen Rider passing through. Remember that!"
  • Played for hype in Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider W & Decade: Movie War 2010 leading into the movie's third act, where Kamen Rider Double also gets this at the exact same time as Decade does followed by "two-in one", intermixed with Decade's own catchphrase followed by the two independant stories in the previous acts coming together.
    Decade: "Just a passing through..."
    Double: "...two in one..."
    Both: "Kamen Rider!"
  • "It's just as I heard... DEVIL!" said by the Riders who are informed about Decade's presence.
• From Leverage:
  • There's "Dammit, Hardison!".
  • Parker frequently gets "there's something wrong with you."
• Martin: "You ain't got no job, man!"
• Invoked by Masterchef Australia regular Marco Pierre White, who demands that the contestants respond to him with a "Yes, Marco!" whenever he comes to whip those people into shape.
• In Misfits, the words "What a prick!" literally seem to follow Nathan around like a smell.
• Parodied in Monty Python's Flying Circus when Mr Smoketoomuch's travel agent says "Well, you'd better cut down!", and then apologises because Mr Smoketoomuch must hear that all the time. But no, Mr Smoketoomuch has never so much as noticed that his name sounds like "smoke too much" and has certainly never heard that one before.
• My Name Is Earl: "Hey, Crabman!"... "Hey, Earl!"
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: "Push the button, Frank." It was taken from The Great Race: "Push the button, Max!"
• Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide:
  • "Do you have hall-passes?" by any teacher when they see students up to wacky hijinks in the halls.
  • The show has a character named Claire Sawyer, a student who strives to be a lawyer.
    [Someone has a problem]
    Claire: [pops out of nowhere, hands character in trouble her card] Claire Sawyer, Future Lawyer.
    Whoever Happens to Be Around: Claire. We've known you since pre-K.
• One Tree Hill: "Just say [Whatever Tim just said, but to the point & less Pretty Fly for a White Guy-like], Tim."
• The Orville: "Alara, you wanna open this jar of pickles for me?" Spoken by Captain Mercer whenever he needs Alara to use her Super-Strength.
• In every episode of Police Squad! and The Naked Gun movies: "Cigarette?" "Yes, I know," or "Yes, it is."
• From Power Rangers Jungle Fury: "Breathe, Fran."
• Lucy Hatcher in The Practice tended to draw annoyed yells of "LUCY!" from the others at the firm.
• Red Dwarf:
  • For Ace Rimmer, we have this one: "What a guy!" Always said with complete and absolutely sincere admiration.
  • Ace's regular counterpart Arnold Rimmer has "Smeghead!" This has gone so far that Chris Barrie, his actor, has stated that people in Real Life will use this phrase if they recognize him on the street. Another is "Smeeee heeeee". To which he responds "You got a problem?!"
• In The Saint, right before the opening credits, somebody would always refer to "... the _____ Simon Templar." (Fill in the blank with 'illustrious', 'infamous', or something like that.) Which would cause Simon to glance up and note the halo appearing over his head.
• Sanctuary's Henry Foss has "Well done, Henry," which he usually gets from Magnus whenever he accomplishes something particularly noteworthy or helpful. Other characters eventually pick up on this, sometimes even imitating Magnus's English accent in the process. The phrase always makes Henry smile or laugh, and sometimes he gives people expectant looks or encourages it with "Three words, please," or a similar phrase.
• Scrubs "Hooch is CRAZY!"
• "Hello...Newman" from Seinfeld, of a postal worker who was thought of by everyone to be obnoxious and disliked.
• Sister, Sister: "Go home, Roger!"
• Spaced had some lasting an episode, such as Daisy being told to "Get off your arse!" on three separate occasions, or when Mike is dressed in jogging gear and everyone he met told him "Nice outfit". Over the series, people asked Brian the tortured artist what his work was about, then reply to his answer with a suggestion that didn't fit:
  Brian: Anger. Pain. Fear. Aggression.
  Brian's Mum: Watercolours?
  • "Hello Brian".
• Both Spartacus and Gannicus of Spartacus: Blood and Sand are on the receiving end of "you mad fuck" several times.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: "Thank you, Mr. Data," or some variation thereof, whenever Data gets too verbose.
• St. Elsewhere particularly throughout season 2: "You're a pig, Ehrlich".
• "Who is that fat bastard?" of Alexi Sayle, in Alexi Sayle's Stuff.
• The opening of every episode of That Girl, in which someone calls attention somehow to Ann Marie, usually by saying something that ends in them speaking the show's title. (i.e. "I think the best one for this job is... that girl!")
• Top Gear, of course, has its "tame racing driver". Some say he can swim seven lengths underwater, and that he has webbed buttocks. All we know is, he's called The Stig.
• The West Wing: "I serve at the pleasure of the President."
• Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego: "DO IT, ROCKAPELLA!"
• Drug runners from The Wire on the streets of Baltimore when Omar Little is out in broad daylight: "Omar comin'!"
• A fast-talking character in an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati couldn't figure out why people kept telling him "Speed Kills!"
• The Young Ones: "Oh! Have we got a video?"

Music

• They Might Be Giants' "You Probably Get That A Lot":
  You probably get that a lot
  I'll bet that people say that a lot while you
  Are sarcastically lip-syncing along
  To words they felt were spoken spontaneously

Podcasts

• Dice Funk: Anne borrows Rinaldo's catchphrase during one particularly successful fight.
  Austin: No one can kill Anne!
• Well There's Your Problem: Co-host Liam Anderson once introduced himself with "Yay, Liam!" during the opening roll call and pronoun check due to being the last of the hosts to get introduced. It didn't take long before the show's comments and guests picked up on it, to the point that he's currently always greeted with a "Yay, Liam!" by either Alice or guest during the roll call, including the audience during the live shows.
• Welcome to Night Vale:
  • Any mention of John Peters is always followed by "you know, the farmer?"
  • Any time Hiram McDaniels gets mentioned, somebody is likely to explain that "He is literally a five-headed dragon."

Professional Wrestling

• A shout of "Hey", often off screen, for Claudio Castagnoli.
• "Adam Cole, Bay Bay!"
• Should Jimi Mayhem have been the first example on this page? "Sho'nuff!"
• In ECW, Taz's appearance would often cause the crowd to chant "TAZ IS GONNA KILL YOU!" This later became "JOE IS GONNA KILL YOU" for Samoa Joe. WWE NXT crowds adapted it to "Bayley's gonna hug you!" to fit Bayley's gimmick of being a hug-happy dork, and also reference her finisher (a belly to belly suplex that, as required by the move, begins with a hug).
• The Brawling Brutes, it's Fight Night!
• Send Hook!
• Oi! Let him speak!
• Average balls? No, tiny balls!

Puppet Shows

• Tales of the Tinkerdee: Princess Gwendolinda is repeatedly described as being someone for whom any knight in the kingdom would gladly risk his head.

Radio

• The Goon Show: "Shut up, Eccles!" (Even Eccles joins in with it.)
• On The Howard Stern Show, "F Jackie" was so commonly shouted that Jackie Martling had to make it the title of an album.
• Any time someone mentions The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, expect the response to be some variation of, "Oh, that thing."
• The Lone Ranger: "Who was that masked man?" "I don't know... but I wanted to thank him."
• Oh, how dare we forget the one that instigates another chapter in the life of the most fantastic crimefighter the world has ever known... BAWK BAWK BAWK BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWK... CHICKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! HE'S EVERYWHERE! HE'S EVERYWHERE!! BUM BA BA BUM BUM!

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer 40,000 fan's reactions to whatever Tzeentch does, "... which was probably what he planned anyway."
  • Alternately, they use a line from Death Note for anything Tzeentch does: "Just as planned"
  • Around these parts it's "I touched that!" since the general theory is that rather than actually having insanely convoluted plans, he just takes credit for everything anyone does ever and claims it's part of his plan.
  • It's hard to hear the Tyranids be mentioned without someone adding "Om-nom-nom-nom." at some point.
  • Mentioning the Imperial Guard will similarly bring any or all of up the topics of flashlights and laser sights, cardboard/t-shirt armour, Tank Goodness, and testicular fortitude.
  • ...and the Ultramarines will virtually always be decried as Games Workshop's pets.
  • In-universe, virtually every psyker describes the effect an approaching Tyranid fleet has on their psychic abilities as "a shadow in the Warp". This is usually the reader and/or narrator's cue to begin panicking.
  • Of course, it's near impossible to mention Ciaphas Cain^note HERO OF THE IMPERIUM online (especially This Very Wiki) without following it with "HERO OF THE IMPERIUM".
  • How is this folder here, I thought it was re-CREEEEEEED!!!!

Theater

• In Avenue Q, Gary Coleman complains about people quoting his Diff'rent Strokes catchphrase back to him:
  Try having people stopping you to ask you:
  "Whatchyou talkin' 'bout, Willis?"
  (Beat)
  It gets old.
• Cyrano de Bergerac: Christian. Everyone around him says: "He’s fair!". And Le Bret: Only Cyrano says to him: "Never scold".
• If 1776 is to be believed, no one could refer to John Adams as anything other than "obnoxious and disliked". As a historical note, the phrase comes from Adams himself - it was his own description of how he was perceived by his Congressional colleagues in his later career. Likewise the opening number and throughout has Adams the constant recipient of, "Sit down, John! For God's sake sit down!", something that even carried over to his "appearance" in Hamilton. ^note The exact line in Hamilton, by the way, is "Sit down, John, you fat motherfuckstick!"
  • Speaking of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda could not resist putting in every permutation of "Aaron Burr, Sir." (That's even the title of the second song in the musical, when the first was the opening number)

Video Games

• BlazBlue: Each of the Murakumo Units has a repeated insistence that "I want to be with Ragna", both when they encounter and in some conversations with others. Downplayed in that only they have this tendency, but it carries meaning due to the complicated metaphysics of the BlazBlue plot.
• Bravely Default has a country in its background named Wa, which is never visited because it disappeared a long time before the events of the game. The game helpfully reminds the players of this, with nearly every single mention of Wa will also mentioning that it was "a mysterious island nation that vanished centuries ago."

• Yukimaru from Disgaea 2, zam. And her unique way of building chakra, zam.
  • It started off as her catchphrase though, zam. Then everybody started doing it, zam.
  • As it turns out, even years after the first game and around people who have never met him, Vyers has never been able to shed his Mid-Boss moniker.
  Vyers: As your personal life coach, moi am here to teach you what true strength is all about!
  Mao: True strength? You look more like you've got "Mid-Boss" level strength.
  Vyers: H-How did you know that infernal nickname!?
  • Another meta example from this series that is used on this very wiki is to always refer to Captain Gordon, Defender of Earth! using his full title, bolded and with the exclamation mark. It went so far as to naming a trope all on its own.
• Dynasty Warriors: "Do not pursue Lu Bu!"

• Fable: "The Chicken Chaser? Do you chase chickens?" Note that you only get this reaction if you keep your default title. If you get a different one, townsfolk will instantly develop a new stock reaction to address you with.
• Fatal Fury: "Geese..."
• In Five Nights at Fuckboy's, every main character of every game greets Balloon Boy with the saying "inhale my dong enragement child". Even Springtrap gets into the act, and he is Balloon Boy's second-in-command.

• Ghost Trick:
  • Memry is an undercover cop whose eccentric behavior earns the following series of remarks a few times:
    "Odd girl."
    "I agree."
    "Me, too."
  • People are constantly remarking to Commander Sith and his manservant "Your country's use of technology is just plain 'off'!" The latter even remarks "We get that a lot" when Detective Jowd says it to him.

• In Harvester, the protagonist, Steve, has amnesia. Most of the characters don't believe him and assume it's some kind of prank because, "You always were a kidder, Steve."

• Left 4 Dead: Namecalling abound whenever a Special Infected spawns: "Boomer!"
• In Life: the Game, whenever Alan is mentioned, so is the phrase "Goddammit, Alan!".

• Mass Effect 2: Variations on "You're dead." follow Shepard a lot. Of course, s/he was.
  • Also variations of "We're with you no matter what." Appropriate given his/her incredible Magnetic Hero status.
  • As well as variants of "You might not agree with my methods, Shepard, but our goals are the same." Much to the annoyance of Paragon players, since this tends to be said by a villain trying to justify the crap you just called them out on.
    • Though, it worked pretty damn well with Tela, even on Paragon Shepards as she countered the Shut Up, Hannibal! right back with an excellent Shut Up, Kirk!. Though she stated their methods were the same, not the goal.
• Mega Man Zero: "You are Zero, the legendary Reploid." He does need the reminders, though.

• In Overwatch, Ana's ultimate ability, "Nano-Boost", drastically empowers an ally of choice, leading them to belt out a Pre-Asskicking One-Liner. Most of them are character-specific, but as a rule, everyone (sans the heroes who can't speak) has a version on the phrase "I'm unstoppable!"

• At some point in all of the Sam & Max games, somebody will say to Max "You don't even like girls" anytime he brings up women in some capacity.
• In Saints Row 2, almost every character returning from the first game asks the protagonist "Did you do something with your hair?" when reuniting with them, as it's possible to make him look entirely different from what he looked like in the first game - up to and including switching genders. S/he lampshades this twice, responding to Aisha with "I've been getting that a lot", and interrupting Julius with "I didn't do shit to my hair!"
• Segagaga: Every time someone mentions the term RPG, there's a disclaimer that pops out to tell us that "RPGs are a trademark of Bandai" ^note Allegedly a jab to Bandai's unsuccessful attempt to trademark the acronym.
• In Shadowrun Returns Hong Kong campaign every time Gutshot is mentioned someone will say he was an asshole.
• Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory: It doesn't matter whether Sam is infiltrating a Panamanian bank, an apartment in NYC guarded by mercenaries, a North Korean anti-ship missile battery, or the headquarters of the Japanese I-SDF in Tokyo - everyone who catches a glimpse of him and finds nothing when they go to investigate can and will tell themselves that there's "nothing here but ghosts and shadows".
• In Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People - Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective, there's a Running Gag of people telling Dangeresque "But you're not gonna like it."

Visual Novels

• Fate/stay night: Everyone calls Kotomine Kirei a "fake priest." For Tohsaka, it's because he's sort of like a double agent between the Church and the Mage's association. For Shirou, it's because he hates him.
• Whenever it's suggested that Kinzo from Umineko: When They Cry did something crazy, everyone responds with "I wouldn't put it past Father."
• "When something smells, it's usually the Butz." Larry Butz from the Ace Attorney games, that is.
• Memry, a waitress at the Chicken Kitchen in Ghost Trick, is referred to by several characters as an "odd girl".
  Sissel: I agree.
  Lynne: Me too.

Webcomics

• The Last Days of FOXHOUND: "A talking dog? No freakin' way!" Inverted at one point.
  Berthold: A telepath? No freaking way. (beat) Yes, I get the irony, Liquid. Thank you.
• El Goonish Shive: Tedd is either a narcissist or just that girly.
• Freefall: Robots and small children have a habit of greeting Florence, an uplifted red wolf, with "DOGGY!"
• Chugworth Academy: "Too slow!"
• The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: "Bob, what da %#$?! is goin' on?!" / "Wow, I get asked that question a lot."
• Like the above Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM, this wiki always refers to a character from Girl Genius as Othar Trygvassen, Gentleman Adventurer! Unlike Cain, he actually calls himself that in a hammier way than we do, and means it. On the occasional times where he doesn't say it, someone else will feel compelled to add it.
• Taken to absurd extremes in the rather surreal Something Happens "We thought it'd be interesting if everyone in the world constantly repeated the same sentence whenever he's around."
• Xawu: "Not much of a talker huh?" will turn into this, according to the creator.
• Any time the titular amorph of Schlock Mercenary tackles someone is invariably followed by, "You're faster than you look."
  • While Kowalski was around, pretty much everyone at some point or another ended up calling him a monster, which he never really disagrees with.
  "I never get tired of hearing that..."
• A rather more serious example: in Sluggy Freelance, anyone who encounters "Chaz" doing its job as an immortal-killing blade that so far has been able to harm or kill everything in the comic without exception, gods and demons alike, will without fail ask, "What is that blade?"
• Homestuck:
  • "He is already here" and variations thereof, connected to both Jack Noir and Lord English.
  • Damara Megido gets "1F YOU GO 4NYWH3R3 N34R H1M, 1 W1LL FUCK1NG K1LL YOU!" from two different Pyropes.
  • In the earlier acts, the phrase "insufferable prick" follows Dave Strider around for some reason.
  • And from the Alpha Kid's sprites we have Dear, Sweet, Precious Fefeta.
  • "Fuck that guy," in reference to Gamzee Makara.
  • Both Roxy Lalonde and Jane Crocker get referred to as "[character]'s hot mom" more or less incessantly once they meet their alternate universe kids.
  • Any image of Bing Crosby inevitably gets "Who's this douchebag?"
• Dolan: fak u dolan
• Bittersweet Candy Bowl has "Shut it, McCain!" after the aforementioned character butts in with his personal commentary on a situation.
• Precocious:
  • [accusingly] "Roddy! What are you doing here?"
  • "You have no soul, Dionne."
• Chicken Wings: "Chuck, is that you?" (It is. Every time.)
• Dominic Deegan: "Curse you, Runcible Spoon!"
• Insecticomics: Some variation of "OUT" to the Insecticons, courtesy of the various other Transformers tiring of their mischief.

Web Original

• Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III from Critical Role always introduces himself fully - with the expectation that another one of the party members will be present to say "but you can call him Percy."
• "Shut up, Mokuba" in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series. Also was originally Seto Kaiba's catchphrase, but it spread. To the point where nobody says anything else at all to him in The Movie.
  • Even when they're asking Mokuba a question. Mokuba finally gets fed up with it in episode 30.
  Grandpa: Shut up Mokub-
  Mokuba: No, YOU shut up!
  
  Mokuba: Oh God, I'm so sorry.
  • "Get bent, ya freaky fish guy!"
  Mako: I am NOT a freaky fish guy!
  Anyone Else Nearby: Mako's a freaky fish guy!"
• Equestria Daily's webmaster Sethisto really enjoys posting things about Trixie. Or random things at 3:00 AM. Or random things about Trixie at 3:00 AM. Any time any of those three appears on the site, or anytime a Trixie thread appears on any image board, expect the phrase "Go to bed, Seth," to be used very liberally in the replies.
• In the Yu Yu Hakusho Abridged movie, every character says "Dammit, Hinageshi!" at least once. The Fanart special had a contributor use the phrase as part of a catchy Voice Clip Song. "D-D-Damn it, Hinageshi!"
• Red vs. Blue has several:
  • If a character is about to die, expect to hear "HURK! Bleeeehhhh..."
  • "Son of a bitch!" after an explosion, attack, or death.
  • "Shotgun!" as soon as the Reds get their hands on a vehicle.
  • If someone is being possessed by a ghost really an AI expect to hear "Heauegerkergerk!"
  • And of course, the response to any of Sister's statements is often a confused "Yeah... Wait, what?"
  "Yeah... or we could raid the medical supplies for morphine."
  (on the subject of death by aspirin overdose) "I know! I didn't think it was possible. And trust me, I've tried."
  "Yeah? Well they say girls can't ejaculate either, but guess what!"
  "Yeah, sorry, doesn't sound like I have any of the skills you need. Unless you wanna see my ping pong ball trick?"
  "But I thought, you know, who wants to be known as the girl who's had seven abortions?"
  • In Season 9, any mention of Agent Maine doing battle with someone gets "I almost feel sorry for them" as a response.
• Several examples in AH Dot Com The Series, the most common being "Blame Thande!" when Thande's in the room.
• In Bowser's Kingdom, whenever Steve appears and says his catchphrase (which is "Hi Guys!"), Hal usually responds back and says "Hi, Steve..."
• Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
  "Krillin!" "What?" "Too soon!"
  "God dammit, Nappa"
  • Whenever someone says something creepy or perverted to Gohan:
    Gohan: "I need an adult?"
    Not Gohan: "I am an adult."
    • Though he wouldn't let Goku do that in Episode 49, for obvious reasons.
      Gohan: I need an adult.
      Goku: I am an adu—
      Gohan: No. No, you are not.
  • Gohan's Little Professor Dialog being interrupted with "NEERRRRD!" Usually by Piccolo, but Nappa and Cell also say it once each.
  • Also, any time Goku uses or mentions the Kaio-ken, someone (usually Goku's opponent) inevitably responds with some variation of "Kaio-what?"
  • Anytime Tien does something that people wouldn't expect, someone will usually comment "I can never read that guy" as he leaves.
• In articles on Cracked, anything remotely badass mentioned in an article will have mentions of testicular hardness follow.
• The Classic Doctor Who Twitter Blog likes to announce explosions with "And then there was a s'plosion!" and variations thereof.
• The The Funday Pawpet Show gives us Blitz, a young German Shepherd who is often on the receiving end of the mocking line "I don't even know what that iiiiiiiis!"
• Mentions of The Room (2003) on Channel Awesome lead to "Ohai [contributor's name here]".
  • Atop the Fourth Wall: "BEEEEAAAAR!"
• In the Mortal Kombat parody sprite cartoon, someone will always call Baraka "the ugliest mofo they've ever seen." Also, "Shut yo spittin' ass up!" after Kabal goes on his rants.
• In Ultra Fast Pony, Fluttershy's catch phrase "I'm just so shy!" catches on with the other characters. In later episodes, if she doesn't comment on her shyness, someone else (like the narrator) will do it for her.
• On Steam Train, it's common for Ross to be the scapegoat when something goes wrong. They even received a special demo version of The Stanley Parable in which the game's narrator says it.
  Danny: Goddamnit, Ross!
• Homestar Runner has a few minor character examples:
  • Whenever the minor character Nebulon appears, whoever is near him will usually say "Get out of here, Nebulon. No one likes your style," which Nebulon responds to by floating away, dejected.
  • The "Shut Up!" Lady is a minor Running Gag involving the disembodied voice of a soft-spoken middle-aged woman chiming in on someone's Imagine Spot, only to be told "Shut up, lady!"
• From Welcome to Night Vale, we have "John Peters—you know, the farmer..." which is said every single time his full name is mentioned.
  • Subverted once, when its revealed that he's been replaced; "John Peters—you know, the imposter?"
  • There's also Hiram McDaniels, "who is literally a five-headed dragon."
  • The cries of "ALL HAIL" that initially greet any utterance of the Glow Cloud's name are gradually replaced with quick, obligatory interjections.
    Phone tree: To give praise to the Glow Cloud—
    Cecil: All hail—
    Phone tree: —press five.
• RWBY:
  • Everyone calls Weiss "Ice Queen". Even the villain. Subverted by Qrow, however. When he first arrives and calls out "Ice Queen", Weiss's indignation is deflated by the discovery that he's not talking to her, he's talking to her sister, Winter.
    Weiss: Why does everyone keep calling me that?
  • Anyone who comes within range of an Apathy Grimm's will-sucking aura, will find themselves saying some variation of "I'm tired"... or even writing the phrase into their journals.
• In early installments of Noob, Sparadrap would be frequently be called a Noob by other random players. However, since this also happens to be the name of his guild, he would just think many people have heard of it.
• hololive has Roberu Yukoku, who is often asked by chat "Are you winning, son?", to which Roberu often responds with a loud and enthusiastic "YEAH!". The tradition started with an English fan asking the question and Roberu, not knowing that the phrase comes from a meme, answering sincerely.
• Old Man Henderson gets a variation, whenever someone brings up his name for the first time (both in-game and outside):
  "Is Henderson his first or last name?"
  "I don't even fucking know"
• Rooster Teeth's Barbara Dunkelman, the group's Pungeon Master, has "Goddammit Barb!" RT even made a shirt out of it.
• In the Grounded Videos, the grounding victims will be told that they are "grounded grounded grounded" and sometimes they will be told to "Get over here right now" (sometimes in a demonic voice).
  • Caillou will also be constantly called a "bald piece of crap" mostly by his father Boris.
• The Medieval II: Total War Let's Play I Am Skantarios has a war on numerous fronts all across Europe, Africa and Asia. Despite the distance involved, no fewer than three, unrelated characters describe the mercenary Monster Bombard, a siege weapon used to crack castle walls, as "the largest cannon I have ever seen (or heard about)."
• In Vester And Friends, everyone has this to say about Dr Eggman.

  Shurieto: You have been scrambled , Eggman.

  Link: Get scrambled Eggman!

  Sonic: Looks like Eggface’s scrambled!

  Mario: Awwww! Is Meltdown Willy getting scrambled?

• SMPLive: Connor is the Phrase Catcher to "Eat pant Conar" and its many variations, much to his dismay.

Western Animation

• In Codename: Kids Next Door, if Mr. Boss and Toiletnator are in the same episode, Boss will inevitably groan "Ah jeez, it's the Toiletnator!"
• The Magic School Bus has Carlos earning a Collective Groan of his name when he tells a bad joke.
• The Flumps: Pootle, the youngest of the Flumps, is prone to getting mixed up and is always taking idioms literally, invariably leading one of the others to say, "Oh, Pootle!"
• In Futurama, nobody likes "Wernstrom!" either.
  • "Who are you?"/"Who's that?"
  Scruffy: "I'm Scruffy, the janitor."
• Scooby-Doo:
  • Scooby himself routinely gets "Scooby-Doo, where are you?" and "Would you do it for a Scooby Snack?" In Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Velma would also routinely say, "What a ham!" to his antics.
  • The villains Mystery Inc. unmasks will almost always utter some variant of: "I would've gotten away with it if it weren't for You Meddling Kids!"
  • A Pup Named Scooby-Doo:
    • Whenever Velma says, "Jinkies!", it's always followed up by someone else saying, "Velma said 'Jinkies!' It must be important/a clue!"
    • Fred would also routinely blame the mystery of the week as: "It could only be... Red Herring!"
• From The Legend of Korra, Varrick's usual comment to get his hypercompetent assistant to do a task is, "Zhu Li, do the thing!" This phrase will then prompt Zhu Li to successfully perform a feat, usually difficult and/or unpredictable.
• Corn & Peg: Mayor Montagu of Galloping Grove is always greeted by the titular duo with the phrase, "How do, Mayor Montagu?"
• Courage the Cowardly Dog: Eustace, among other characters, constantly refer to the main character as "Stupid Dog!"
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Eds are often called "Dorks" by Kevin.
• F is for Family: When Ginny Throater calls out a character's name wanting to talk to them about her personal issues, the character in question, usually Sue, always groans in annoyance and says "Oh, fuck me." However, in a one-time inversion, when a depressed Sue needs to talk, Ginny groans and says, "Oh, fuck me."
• The Incredibles implies that this is the case for Frozone.
  Mr. Incredible: Frozone! Ice to see you drop by!
  Frozone: Ha! (deadpan) Never Heard That One Before.
• King of the Hill: "Thatherton!" This started out as Hank's catchphrase, but everyone got so used to it that someone would fill in when he wasn't there.
• The Fairly OddParents!
  • "Dinkleberg!"
  • "COSMO, YOU IDIOT!"
• Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil: Kick is often called "Dillweed" by his brother Brad.
• In the American Darkstalkers cartoon series, every single character, at some point or another, remarks that Rikuo is "strangely attractive for a fishman". In the last episode, he wearily replies, "So I've been told..."
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • Whenever Candace tries to "bust" Phineas and Ferb, she always exclaims, "MOM! Phineas and Ferb are [doing something they aren't supposed to]!"
  • By the time Linda comes home and doesn't see anything, she says to Candace, "What is it you wanted to show me?" or "What am I looking at?"
  • Everyone seems compelled to ask Phineas "Aren't you a little young to be [doing something he's definitely too young for]?" But it's also a catchphrase because he always responds with "Yes. Yes, we are." (On other occasions, this or variations of this will be done by other characters — for example, someone asking if Candace is a little old for something.) It's played with when a contractor, delivering construction supplies, says it, and another replies "Yes, yes he is. Sorry, Phineas, he's new."
  • "Hey, where's Perry?" whenever Perry isn't around, which usually kicks off the Perry and Doofenshmirtz B-Plot, and then "Oh, there you are, Perry," when he returns home from his mission. Usually said by Phineas, but increasingly spread around the entire cast, which is naturally lampshaded like crazy.
    Stacy: Hey, where's Perry? ...What? I'm, like, the only one who hasn't said it.
  • Dr. Doofenshmirtz has a specific series of catchphrases associated with Perry:
    "A platypus?" (Perry puts on his fedora) "PERRY THE PLATYPUS?!"
    "CURSE YOU, PERRY THE PLATYPUS!"
    "Ah, Perry the Platypus. Your timing is [adjective with negative prefix]. And by that, I mean COMPLETELY [ADJECTIVE WITHOUT PREFIX]!"
  • Less common, but enough to be a Running Gag is the comment that "He's a platypus. They don't do much."
• Milo Murphy's Law, from the creators of Phineas and Ferb, has a running gag of Milo's dog Diogee showing up, and Milo telling him to go home, followed by Milo explaining "He's not supposed to be at/in (wherever Milo and his friends are)".
• The Emperor's New Groove: "Pull the lever, Kronk!" "WRONG LEVER!" "Why do we even have that lever?"
• Metalocalypse: By now, the Metal Masked Assassin should know that "That's my bread and butter you're fucking with."
• Kim Possible's Arch-Enemy usually tells her "You think you're all that, Kim Possible! But you're not!" Sometimes she'll do something remarkable or say she's planning to do so, and someone will say "It's impossible!". Ron's responds "Check the name." (About the only time the punny names are noticed In-Universe.) Wade often catches "You rock, Wade" from Kim and Ron.
• Animaniacs:
  • There will always be an Only Sane Man to call out Chicken Boo on his Paper-Thin Disguise: "He's a chicken, I tell you! A giant chicken!" More often than not, after the ruse is discovered, the guy would return to quip: "I told you that guy was a chicken!"
  • "Helloooo, Nurse!" for Hello Nurse, of course.
• "Thwip Thwip!" often said to Spider-Man (and Peter Parker too, strangely enough) in Ultimate Spider-Man (2012).
• Chowder: "I'm not your boyfriend!"
• Fantastic Mr. Fox : Ash is often referred to as *waves hands* "different".
• From The Simpsons:
  • "SKINNER!"
  • "AAAAAH! Sideshow Bob!"
  • In the episode about The Stonecutters, Lenny repeatedly lets slip a secret to Homer, and Carl tells him "Shut up!" The third time this happens, Carl is drinking, so Homer says it for him.
  • "Hi, everybody!" "Hi, Dr. Nick!"
• The Penguins of Madagascar: "Kowalski, options" or "Kowalski, analysis," always spoken by Skipper.
• ReBoot: MIKE!
• Freakazoid!: In the episode that introduces Professor Jones (voiced by Jonathan Harris), people keep asking him "Weren't you in a show with a robot?"
• George of the Jungle: "Watch Out for That Tree!!"
• Western Animation: "It's SED-rick!", Cedric's response whenever Sofia calls him "Ceedric". This was dropped after Season 1.
• South Park:
  • While it's usually Stan and Kyle shouting the "Oh my god, They Killed Kenny!" exchange, there have been occasions where Kenny dies and other characters say similar things in the exact same tone of voice:
    • From "Prehistoric Ice Man", after Cartman causes Kyle to fall in a hole.
      Stan: Great job, Cartman! You killed Kyle!
      Kenny: You bastard!
    • From the Manson Christmas Episode:
      Charles Manson: Oh my god, they killed the little orange-coat kid!
    • From "Chef's Salty Chocolate Balls":
      Moviegoer 1: Oh my god, I found a penny!
      Moviegoer 2: You bastard!
    • From "WTF":
      "Ay, Dios Mio! Mataron El Pollo Loco!"
      "Bastardos!"
  • Every episode with "Towelie" has someone shut him down with "You're a towel." (which always gets "You're a towel!" in response)
  • Chef would often greet the kids with "Hello there, children" which the kids would respond in unison with "Hey Chef." Often the dialogue would continue with Chef asking how the kids are doing or how their day is, one of the kids will respond with "Bad." and Chef will ask "Why Bad?"
  • "Shut Up, Mimsy!"
• Wakfu: Any time Sadlygrove does something stupid, expect Evangeline to call him "Iop brain!"
• "Shut up, Meg" in Family Guy.
• Fanboy and Chum Chum: Chum Chum would usually say "Poop!" whenever Janitor Poopatine's full name was spoken. In one episode, he even said it offscreen down the hall.
• In the short-lived Sam & Max: Freelance Police animated series, the Cold Open would generally end with someone asking "Who are these guys?"
• Beast Wars: "Shut up, Rattrap!"
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Being the only member of the mane cast with actual hands, Spike gets a lot of "Spike, take a letter..." Even from Twilight Sparkle, who can easily write using her telekinesis.
• Many folks' reaction to meeting The Great Grape Ape for the first time is to shout "Yeow! A gorill-il-il-il-illa!" and run away. Subverted in an episode where Beegle Beagle and Grape Ape are mounties coming to help a radio serial-era lady in distress who sees Grape Ape and merely waves "hi" to him. When Beegle asks why she didn't go "Yeow!!! A gorill-il-il-il-illa!" like everybody else does, she says "When you've seen one forty-foot purple ape, you've seen them all."
• Archer:
  • "God-damnit, Archer!" Initially a catchphrase of Brett, but is borrowed so often it's more of this.
  • Any mention of Veronica Dean and/or the In-Universe film Shanghai Moonin Season 7 will be followed with "Oh my god, that dress?"
• The Literal-Minded Zachbots on Wild Kratts are always mistaking Zach's similes for instructions, prompting him to scold them with "I didn't mean literally!"
• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog gives us one that goes across multiple canons; Dr. Robotnik's "I hate that Hedgehog!", usually bellowed in response to an evil scheme foiled, has been used by versions of him in other shows:
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), Robotnik's Villainous Breakdown in the final episode has him screaming the line before it deteriorates to just the word "hate" as his plan falls apart completely.
  • In the Sonic Boom episode "Eggman the Auteur", Eggman grumbles the line after Sonic walks out from his movie project.
• Alvin and the Chipmunks: Alvin's "OKAY!!!", in response to Dave's famous Say My Name.
• In Samurai Jack, Jack shouts "Aku!" to Aku once he encounters him. Aku in turn calls Jack a "foolish Samurai."
• Bob's Burgers
  • Whenever Gene does something particularly weird or outrageous, Bob will address him with an exasperated "Gene..."
  • Any episode featuring the transgender prostitute Marshmallow will no doubt have have Bob say to her casually, "Oh, hi, Marshmallow."
• Dora the Explorer:
  • Map's segment is always preceded by Dora asking, "Who do we ask for help when we don't know which way to go?"
  • Swiper's appearance is usually indicated by Boots saying, "That sneaky fox is always trying to swipe our stuff!" Typically, if he doesn’t say it, that’s your clue that Swiper will succeed in swiping this time.
• In DuckTales:
  • Whenever The Unintelligible Donald Duck appeared on the original show and had to talk to somebody other than Scrooge or the nephews, this would result in somebody asking some variant of "what did he say?" Launchpad is particularly prone to saying this. In the 2017 reboot, this also happens, albeit much less frequently.
  • On the subject of the reboot, the phrase "You're Scrooge McDuck" gets thrown around whenever someone is bringing up his status as The Ace.
• Rick and Morty: "You son of a bitch! I'm in!"
• Bojack Horseman:"Hey! Aren't you the horse from Horsin Around?"
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): Anytime Mikey pulled a Smoke Out from the fourth season onward, one of the villains would remark "I hate when they do that".
• Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: "I'm sorry, who are you?" Usually spoken whenever Warren Stone shows up.
• Exo Squad: Boisterous Bruiser Wolf Bronski typically gets a reaction of "Can it, Bronski!" from Sgt. Torres. On one occasion he says this to himself.
• The Wind in the Willows (1983): Mole, Rat, and Badger have an exasperated, collective "Oh, Toad!" for whenever Toad gets a new hobby to pursue.

This Very Wiki

• Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!
• BRIAN BLESSED.
• Othar Trygvassen, Gentleman Adventurer!

Real Life

• Celebrities with catchphrases hear them from every fan they meet, and plenty get tired of hear them.
  • In the same vein, if you go into voicework, you had better be prepared for many requests to speak in-character.
  • Parodied in the Avenue Q song "It Sucks To Be Me"
    Gary Coleman: Try having people people stopping you to ask you, "Whatchoo talkin' bout, Willis?" It gets old.
  • Discussed by Dave Chappelle, who got utterly infuriated by fans chanting, "I'm Rick James, bitch" everywhere he went - including one instance where he was with his wife and children.
  • Similarly, Nathan Fillion complained on Twitter about people yelling "The hammer is my penis" at him.
  • Mandy Patinkin is best known for The Princess Bride's Inigo Montoya.
  • Since Black Panther (2018) came out, Chadwick Boseman heard a lot of "Wakanda Forever!" until his untimely death.
• Any tall person will quickly get tired of:
  • 'How's the weather up there?'
    Tall Person: Fair to partly stupid. / (Spits) Rainy.
  • "You're really tall", "How did you get so tall?".
  • "Wow. Do you play basketball?" "No, do you play miniature golf?"
• Anyone who's ever had a haircut will be familiar with the trope, as they'll probably have to come up with a few stock phrases to last them a couple of weeks. "You've had a haircut!" isn't particularly inane, ("You have a remarkable eye for detail"), but "Did you have a haircut?".
  Reply: Er, yes. Yes I did. / No, I got them all cut. / I had one yesterday! / I'm taking Chemotherapy for shits and giggles.
• Every cashier at any cash register with a barcode scanner at any store ever, upon having difficulty scanning an item, will hear from the customer some variation of, "No price? I guess that means it's free!". This is usually followed by a polite chuckle from the cashier. Note that such polite chuckles are usually forced, and less restrained (or less cowed) clerks tend to shoot deathglares at the 100th smartass this week thinking he's original. Either that, or snark mercilessly. Mostly in a "If I had a penny for every time" vein.
• Cashiers having to check large bills (usually 50s and higher) for signs of counterfeit will often hear a variation of "Don't worry, I just finished printing that." Which is accompanied by a similarly forced polite chuckle by the cashier.
• Window cleaners just love being told: "You've missed a bit!".
• Left-wing protesters are frequently heckled by people telling them to "Get a job."
• Kikuko Inoue's Running Gag and catchphrase is claiming herself to be '17 years old'. This caught on to her characters saying so, and when that happens, you can bet that there'll be someone who'll respond with "Oi oi..."
• Little kids hear 'You grow up so fast' all the time and may get annoyed because they usually don't feel they grow up that fast.
• Pregnant women tire very quickly of being told "You're so big" or "You sure it's not twins?" or asked "When are you due?" or "Is it a boy or girl?" Think twice before you go to say any of this to a pregnant woman. You're probably the fifth one that day and she's likely to snap. And woe betide someone who say these phrases before they've ascertained whether said woman is actually pregnant...
• People who look far younger than their actual age also get this all the time, especially when they're in their 20s. "You've graduated from university?! How old are you?" "I'm twenty-two", followed by the inevitable "Wow, I thought you were only 17!". The older they get, though, the less they complain about that happening.
• People who costume as Star Wars characters will get "These aren't the droids you're looking for" thrown at them several times a day, irrespective of if they're dressed as Storm Troopers or Rebel pilots. Also expect a Storm Trooper to be asked if they aren't a little short for the job, even if they're six feet tall. As a side example of this, people cosplaying Firefly's Jayne, or at least wearing his hat, will be subjected to variations on "that is a cunning hat" pretty much continuously.
• The nurses and medical assistants who room patients have heard about fifty billion comments and jokes about how evil the scale is. No patient can resist.
• ENT consultants just love to hear: Eustachian tube? That's next to King's Cross/On the Northern Line/In Zone One isn't it?
• High school seniors get some variation on "So, where are you going to college?" from everyone they meet. Followed in college by "So, what're you studying?" or "What's your major?" from almost everyone once they learn (or reasonably guess) that they're a student, especially fellow students. At the other end of the classroom, their instructors from middle school on up will invariably be tired of hearing "Is this going to be on the test?". Although, after 12 or so years, a lot of students also get tired of hearing "Will this be on the test?", "Why do we have to learn this?" (in some cases), etc.
• Youngsters who live in a country that has conscription: ‘Do you know what you’re going to do in the army?’.
• Anyone who gets a new job should expect to have to hear "What do you do now?" and/or "So how do you like the new job?" from every single person they know for the next month or so.
• Miranda (2009)'s Patricia Hodge cheerily admits in this interview she doesn't mind people saying Penny's catchphrase "Such fun" to her, apart from when they get it wrong and say "What fun" instead.
• When a writer tells a stranger than they are a writer, inevitably the stranger will say, "You know, I had an idea for a novel once, but I didn't have the time." Because everyone knows writers are just guys with nothing better to do that sit around and write.
• Lil' Bub, a female cat with a perma-kitten appearance, is usually told by her owner "Good job, Bub".
• Lefties can expect at almost any time to get asked "Are you left-handed?" if they are seen writing. That, and hearing someone say "I didn't know you were left-handed!" to them.
• The Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him.
• A case where the phrase is sung is "Timo Werner ist ein Hurensohn" ('Timo Werner is a son of a bitch'), To the Tune of... "Heaven Is A Place On Earth", that many Germans adopted against said football striker (it started when he dived to get a penalty, which he earned, converted and celebrated profusely). Werner himself said he has sung it with friends on occasion just to laugh at himself.
• Mentioning the words "Gentlemen!" in a car race, (particularly in America-based series like NASCAR) will almost always be followed with the phrase "START! YOUR! ENGINES!!!" Though that cannot be said for Formula One fans, especially since 2015, as for them it tends to be followed up by the phrase "a short view back to the past...", coupled with a very long query on buttons and steering wheels in modern F1 racing.^NOTEDuring the pre-race press conference for the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, reporter Walter Koster asked a ridiculously long and detailed question, which became memorable in part due to his heavy Saarland accent.

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