Thought They Knew Already

Knuckles: Why didn't you explain that [Eggman was deliberately controlling the Egg Moon to block out the sun] before you knocked down the towers?!
Sonic: I thought it was obvious. I can't help it if you're slow.

— Sonic X, "Eggman for President"

At its simplest, this trope is when a character accidentally tells another character something that they didn't know because the former was under the impression that the latter already knew.

This trope can occur in the following ways:

1. Alice accuses Bob of something (eg. "You were trying to steal a cookie from the cookie jar because mom got a spa coupon and you knew she would be out!") and have it backfire on her because it turns out Bob had no idea up until that point (eg. "Wait, mom's not home? Well, perfect time for me to go raid the jar!")

2. A similar version to the above is when Alice invokes this trope and accuses Bob of something...literally, as in she's being vague and making it seem like she knew the whole story already (eg. "I know what you did!"), so Bob assumes she does and asks, usually something like "How did you know I stole a cookie from the cookie jar?"

3. There's something that Bob doesn't know, or is not supposed to know, however Alice either doesn't realise it or thought that Bob had managed to find out and thus talks to Bob about it, with all the irony involved (eg. "You should get a pint of milk for that box of cookies Charlie gave you for your birthday." "Wait, Charlie's giving me a box of cookies?") This may lead to an Internal Reveal.

Subtrope of Saying Too Much. Sister trope to You Know What You Did, You Didn't Ask and You Just Told Me. Often results in Nice Job Breaking It, Hero or Nice Job Fixing It, Villain. Compare and contrast I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!. See also Accidental Public Confession, Everybody Knew Already and Poor Communication Kills.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Devil is a Part-Timer!: During Suzuno's introduction, Emi is left confused over her ignorance of modern technology and questions where she came from. Suzuno bluntly responds she's from Ente Isla, and is taken aback that Emi didn't already know.
  Emi: Okay... just to clarify, you're saying you're from Ente Isla?
  Suzuno: Yes, of course I am. Did you not know?
  (cue both girls screaming in surprise)
• Fruits Basket: This is the head maid's justification for not bothering to tell anyone that the box she gave Akito to comfort her over her father Akira's death was empty; she believed it was obvious and anyone could have figured it out on their own. Unfortunately, Ren, Akito's mentally unstable Abusive Mom, didn't figure it out, became convinced that it contained a treasure of Akira's, and went to incredible lengths to steal it from Akito on the grounds that anything Akira owned is rightfully hers. When the truth is revealed, the other maids immediately call the head maid out over not telling everyone, let alone giving Akito the box to begin with, but even then, the head maid defends her actions.
  Maid: Of course he didn't believe in it! You're a fool! I gave it to Akito for comfort and solace in the wake of his dear father's death! It's merely a charm or a talisman! Anyone would know it was empty! That's just common sense!
• In Inazuma Eleven: Ares, before Inakuni Raimon's match against Tonegawa Tousen, Anna tried to talk to Nishikage about Nosaka's brain tumour, assuming Nosaka already told his friend about his ilness. Nishikage became angry that he wasn't told.
• Sonic X: Sonic falls into this during the Egg Moon saga when he goes about destroying Eggman's Sunshine Balls, which provide the populace with artificial sunlight while the actual sun is blocked. The sun is blocked by an unnatural solar eclipse allegedly caused by the partly mechanical moon - which was repaired using Eggman's machinery after half the moon was destroyed by recent events - malfunctioning and getting stuck between the earth and sun. Destroying the main remaining source of outdoor light with no explanation makes Sonic a Hero with Bad Publicity. It isn't until Knuckles and GUN attack him that he explains his reason for doing so: Sonic figured out that a malfunction 'couldn't cause a perpetual eclipse, since the natural movements of the earth and moon would still cause the moon to stop blocking the sun even if the moon's path was accidentally disrupted; this meant Eggman has been deliberately controlling the moon to keep blocking the sun in order to sell the Sunshine Balls as part of a get-rich-quick scheme and to make himself a Villain with Good Publicity. When Knuckles demands to know why he didn't just tell them all this before he started knocking the towers down, Sonic's response is that he thought it was obvious; in fairness, it was pretty simple physics, but it's also implied Sonic was enjoying toying with the military.

Fan Works

• All Assorted Animorphs AUs: "What if Jake was stuck in morph?" sees the Animorphs negotiate a deal with the Taxxons and sympathetic Yeerks to let them use the morphing cube to trap themselves in morph and leave the war. While this produces a decent number of deserting hosts and Yeerks, it isn't until Visser Three announces that anyone caught leaving to become a nothlit will be executed that the majority of the invasion force learns about the deal's existence. After this, so many people start deserting that the invasion implodes within half a year.
  Visser Three issues an announcement that any yeerk found deserting the empire to become a nothlit will be executed.  Which is very considerate of him, because that’s how the 90% of yeerks who didn’t already know end up finding out that that’s an option.
• While very different fics, both Avenger of Steel and Infinity Crisis have a running theme in Thor (and other Asgardians) being under the mistaken impression Earth is aware of various cosmic/fantastic stuff (a long-ago war of dragons, the Infinity Stones, the existence of Atlantis and the Savage Land) and thus never feel the need to bring up what they assume is "common knowledge."
• Daily Equestria Life with Monster Girl: There are certain fundamental facts about the world of Menageria (that Celestia and Princess Luna are immortal, that SUN and MOON must be manually raised and lowered and that only the Diarchs can do so, etc) that are never explained to anyone other than babies because it's simply not possible to grow up without learning them. It takes a very long time for anyone to realize that Cerea (who comes from another world) wouldn't know any of these fundamentals.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami: Multiple times, done by and to Ami:
  • In "Deadline", the Avatar reveals him being attacked through his mantle this way:
    "What is it Mercury? Have you come to gloat about finding a way to attack me through the Mantle?"
    [...]
    "I'm sorry. Please believe me, this is the first I learned of your sickness. The mantle was stolen from me, and I was going to ask for your help to get it back! I didn't even know it could be used to harm you," she blurted out.
  • From "Diplomacy and Gifts":
    "Disappeared?" Ami sat up in surprise. "Could you clarify, please?"
    Durval tilted his head to the side in surprise. "The period during and after the battle in which you were hidden from scrying detection," he elaborated.
    Up until this point, Ami hadn't even considered the possibility that getting possessed would interfere with scrying methods. She still existed, after all. She blinked twice while her mind raced, considered the implications. "This is news to me," she admitted.
• In Maybe Sprout Wings Castiel mentions to Sam that Dean sold himself into slavery to save Sam, a fact which shocks Sam because he had never been told.
• Subverted in The Rigel Black Chronicles; when Professor Snape starts grilling Rigel about how he has noticed "discrepancies in a certain student's work," she initially assumes that he's caught her out doing Marcus Flint's homework assignments, and almost breaks down in confessions and apologies. Fortunately, she instead keeps her face blank long enough for him to keep talking about how even Madam Hooch has raised concerns, which tips her off that it's not about Flint's assignment at all, it's about her own wildly inconsistent classroom performance.
• In What Tomorrow Brings, Mertil and Gafinilan ask Ax what happened to them in the original timeline. Ax says that Gafinilan died of Soola's disease. This shocks Mertil, because Gafinilan had explained away his symptoms as "fatigue".
• Your Heart a Haven of Thorns (Naruto): Kikyō has a tendency to incorrectly assume that others are aware of key information. For instance, she assumes that as his teammate, Sakura has naturally already been informed of his status as a jinchuuriki. Similarly, she assumes that everyone knows Gaara is a jinchuuriki, leading to an awkward moment when she remarks upon how his opponent in the Chuunin Exams shouldn't underestimate his capabilities as such.

Films — Animation

• The Incredibles: After making a new suit for Bob, Edna makes suits for the whole Parr family and shows them to Helen, inadvertently revealing to her that Bob has been doing superhero work behind her back. Edna says, "I assumed you knew, dahling. Why would he keep secrets from you?"
  Helen: He wouldn't. Err...didn't. Doesn't!
• The Little Mermaid (1989): King Triton figures out that Ariel is in love, and calls Sebastian to discuss the matter. Sebastian thinks he knows that she is in love with a human, and is pressured by the King's suspicious questions so much that he cracks and blurts it out, causing Triton to suddenly become furious. And Sebastian realizes too late that Triton didn't know that part.
  Triton: Let's see, now... Oh, who could the lucky merman be? (notices Sebastian just outside the door) Uh, come in, Sebastian.
  Sebastian: (inhales deeply) I mustn't overreact. I must remain calm. (slowly walks over to Triton's throne; squeaky voice) Yes? (clears throat) Uh, yes, Your Majesty?
  Triton Sebastian, I'm concerned about Ariel. Have you noticed she's been acting peculiar lately?
  Sebastian: Peculiar?
  Triton: You know, moaning about, daydreaming, singing to herself... You haven't noticed, hmm?
  Sebastian: W-well, I-I-I—
  Triton: Sebastian...
  Sebastian: Hmm? (Triton gestures for Sebastian to come closer; the crab nervously obeys)
  Triton: I know you've been keeping something from me...
  Sebastian: (Big Gulp) Keeping... something?
  Triton: About Ariel?
  Sebastian: (trembling) Ariel?
  Triton: In love?
  Sebastian: I TRIED TO STOP HER, SIR! SHE WOULDN'T LISTEN! I told her to stay away from humans! They are bad! They are trouble! They are...
  Triton: Humans? WHAT ABOUT HUMANS?!
  Sebastian: Humans? (chuckles nervously) Who said anything about humans?

Films — Live-Action

• Passengers (2016): Jim, Aurora, and Arthur were chatting when Jim states that there are no secrets between him and Aurora. Arthur unfortunately mistook this to mean that Aurora knew Jim woke her from cryosleep and talks to her about it, which is how she (ironically) finds out.

Literature

• In American Gods, as well as its adaptation American Gods (2017), Shadow finds Audrey's behaviour at Laura's funeral weird. When asked about it, Audrey says, "Well, I thought that would be obvious. Wait... you didn't know? Your wife died with my husband's cock in her mouth." Doubles as Everybody Knew Already, as Shadow was in prison while the affair lasted and their common friends and acquaintances did know.
• The crew in The Bands of Mourning are after the titular Bands, legendary artifacts held by the deceased Lord Ruler, which are hidden in a temple. Allik Neverfar, who shares a religion with the people who built the temple, reveals that the Bands were created by a god from their lands who came to theirs after his death. Coupled with the fact that Allik can't use his Translator Microbes at the same time as his lifesaving heating device, they don't discuss the topic long enough for them to realize that his Sovereign isn't their Lord Ruler. Allik knows that they're separate people, but not the epithet the Sovereign held in their lands: Kelsier, the Survivor.
• In the Discworld novel Men at Arms, we first see the (then) Corporal Carrot Ironfoundersson uses version 2 to amazing effect. Despite being under direct orders to leave peacefully and without protest, should the Fools' Guildmaster (Dr. Whiteface) refuse to answer his questions, Carrot manages to convince Dr. Whiteface that, not only is it in the Guildmaster's interests to answer Carrot's questions, but that the watch already knows what the Fools' Guild is hiding.^note As Sergeant Colon muses: "He'd seen people bluff on a bad hand, but he'd never seen anyone bluff with no cards." This turns out to be one of Carrot's favorite interrogation methods. Granted, Carrot had very good deductive suspicions, but no actual knowledge of what was being hidden.
• Five Find-Outers: The fourth book The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters has the protagonists find their friend Gladys has gone, however their parents remained elusive as to the details. Fatty decides to visit Mr. Goon and via acting like he knew the whole thing already, got Goon to reveal that Gladys had received a letter about her Dark and Troubled Past.
• Holmes on the Range: Late in Hunters of the Dead, Big Red reveals his suspicions that Professor Durgin found the dinosaur skeleton during a previous dig where he was still working for someone else but hid his discovery until later, when he was an independent operator who could keep it for himself. Eskaminzim confirms this theory by commenting that his scouting of digs around the area made it obvious that Durgin had marked the area on his previous dig, but it was so obvious to him that he assumed everyone else knew.
• The Jigsaw Jones series featured a mystery where a character leaves behind vague messages that they "knew what they did" in Cut And Paste Notes. In the end it's revealed the perpetrator didn't know a thing and was conducting an experiment to find out if people would be nicer if they thought they were constantly being watched (the answer was yes).
• A minor example appears in The Malloreon: Garion has recently been made king and he's periodically given money for personal expenses which he keeps in a drawer in his bedroom. His wife finds out about this, considers it very important, and asks why she didn't tell him. His answer was that he'd thought she already knew. She begins happily counting the coins, to Garion's bemusement. (She is from the kingdom that worships the god of wealth, after all.)
• New Jedi Order: The Yuuzhan Vong are very taken aback when it turns out the Solo twins (and their mother and uncle) are in fact twins, because in their species twins are so astronomically rare the number of instances it's happened in their entire history can be counted on one hand. Their agent in the senate never even bothered telling them this fact because she didn't think they needed to be told. It wasn't as if anyone was hiding it.
• In The Thrawn Trilogy of the old Star Wars Legends continuity, this is Played for Drama. Mara Jade, a Force-using ex-Imperial with an imprinted command from the Emperor that "YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER", is working with a group of Noghri, assassin aliens who remain with the Empire due to their loyalty to Darth Vader, and who are now happy to be serving the "Son of Vader." She's also in an Enemy Mine with Luke at the moment, unaware of the truth about his father. Mara ends up talking with one of the Noghri and idly questions when they're expecting this Son of Vader guy to show up... only to get utterly floored when the alien, slightly confused, points out that Vader's son is already traveling with them; the Noghri thought that Mara was actually working for Luke. Not helping matters is that the revelation puts an entirely different spin on the Emperor's last command.
• In the Warrior Cats book Forest of Secrets, Fireheart knows that his nephew Cloudkit is going to face prejudice due to having been born as a house cat, and begins to give him a lecture about this, only to realize that Cloudkit's foster mother hadn't yet told him about where he was born. Needless to say, it's a bit of a shock to the young kit.

Live-Action TV

• In the Bones episode "The Death of the Queen Bee", Hodgins is chatting to Wendell (who's seeing Angela) and happens to mention Angela's pregnancy scare ("The Proof in the Pudding")... only to look at Wendell's face and realize this is news to him. Hodgins runs off and manages to find her in time for a hurried apology/warning before Wendell catches up. Discussing the hypothetical baby and how things would have played out leads to Angela and Wendell becoming Amicable Exes.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In "The Yoko Factor," Xander, assuming Buffy had already told him as such, casually tells Riley everything about her relationship with Angel, including his Curse Escape Clause and how sleeping with Buffy turned him evil; it's only after he finishes the story that Xander realizes Riley didn't know beforehand. Riley is sent into Green-Eyed Monster mode, leading to a massive Cock Fight when Angel comes to town, and Buffy is understandably pissed at Xander for telling him everything in the first place.
  Xander: She... kind of left that part out, huh?
  Riley: Yeah, she did. That explains a lot of things that... I wish weren't explained.
• Burn Notice: As a former government spy, Michael is skilled at tricking people into revealing their secrets this way. One of his common tactics was to make vague statements about his target's businesses or illicit activities and then let their minds do the rest of the work, assuming that Michael must know more than he actually does. He can also do this in reverse, tricking two targets into betraying each other by telling them information he "Thought they already knew" (but is actually a complete lie) which makes Target A think they've been betrayed by Target B.
• Castle: After a lottery winner is killed, Castle recognizes that the winning numbers weren't his usual numbers... but they do match up with some significant dates from his recently-deceased neighbors. The victim regularly ran errands for his neighbor, so he was the one who purchased the ticket; when the neighbor died of natural causes before the drawing, the victim claimed the winning ticket as his own. Beckett tracks down the neighbor's only living relative and accuses him of killing the victim out of the belief that the lottery winnings were rightfully his... only he didn't keep in touch with his uncle and didn't know his uncle's usual numbers, so Beckett just told him that he might have a legal claim to a multi-million dollar jackpot.
• The Company You Keep: Charlie calls up Maguire's son, Connor to tell him how Daphne is making some secret deals and how it feels that his sister is cutting him out. When Connor replies "I don't have a sister," the family realizes even Maguire's own family don't know that Daphne is more than just an assistant.
• A Different World has Dwayne and Whitley's mothers visiting for Thanksgiving. The pair are accidentally caught up in a protest and arrested, calling to try and get their kids to bail them out. When Freddie drops by the jail to help her boyfriend out, she says that of course Dwayne and Whitley are having trouble getting bail money given Whitley recently lost her job, a burglar robbed their apartment and the pair are flat broke. Freddie heads off to help her friend, completely oblivious to how the two moms didn't know anything about their kids' problems.
• In the first episode of Everything's Gonna Be Okay, Matilda accidentally tells Genevieve's friends that Genevieve just had her first period, not realizing that Genevieve has been lying to her friends about having periods for the past two years.
• The Frasier Christmas Episode from Roz's pregnancy has the title character answer Roz's cell phone while she's in the toilet. It turns out to be Roz's mother and Frasier tells her a few things including that Roz is having some issues with her pregnancy. After Frasier hangs up, Roz returns and he tells her about the phone call. She then apologizes to him for the fact she's been on edge recently, since she's dreading the conversation where she has to tell her mother she got pregnant.
  • A similar situation happened in the Halloween Episode that Roz spent most of waiting to hear back from her doctor about whether she was pregnant or not, and was trying to keep the possibility she was pregnant a secret. She told Daphne she had had an "accident" and was waiting to get a call about what the "damage" was, and Daphne assumes she means a car accident. After Roz walks off, Daphne starts talking to Frasier and mentions that Roz's "accident" has gotten her pretty worked up. After some brief confusion, Frasier flat out says they won't know for sure until the pregnancy test comes back, much to Daphne's surprise.
• On the Friends episode "The One Where Ross Is Fine", Chandler and Monica are visiting a couple with an adopted child. Chandler mentions the adoption to the child, Owen, who didn't know he was adopted. Later, Chandler makes a joke to Phoebe about telling Frank Jr's triplets that Phoebe carried them... and notices the triplets are sitting within earshot. He then declares there's nothing left to do but go tell his one year-old niece that she was an accident.
• When Tahani brings up she has never heard Jason talk about his father in The Good Place, Jason responds that he thought he did mention Donkey Doug a few times, which he did, but considering he calls him "Donkey Doug" it wasn't clear to everyone he was talking about his father.
• In the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Fallacy", Stabler says to the suspect's boyfriend it's okay what his sexuality is and he doesn't get what he's telling him until he gets the Unsettling Gender-Reveal that his girlfriend is a transgender woman.
• Schitt's Creek: David invites Patrick's parents to a Surprise Party for Patrick's birthday, assuming they know that Patrick is gay and that they are boyfriends as well as business partners. Johnny naturally assumes this as well so when he welcomes Patrick's parents to the motel, he refers to David and Patrick's romantic relationship, leading to a Forced Out of the Closet moment for Patrick.

Video Games

• Alpha Protocol: Steven Heck somewhat offhandedly mentions he knew Scarlet was the assassin at Taipei after he blows her in half with a shotgun blast during the final mission; when Mike asks for clarification, Heck just mentions he thought Mike knew it all along and was just letting it slide for a chance to bed her.
  Heck: "Pretty classy", I thought.
• The protagonist of Crosscode, Lea, is unable to speak apart from a few preset words due to a "speech synchronization issue" with her connection to the game that she is playing. While several other players intuit it rather quickly, due to it having been a known issue for others in the past, the first person with whom she teams up never figures it out, just assuming for several in-game days that Lea is not very talkative. Once she is finally told by a fellow guild member, said member states that everyone assumed that she already knew.
• This is how Tidus finds out the Awful Truth that Yuna will die at the end of her pilgrimage in Final Fantasy X. He never even had the chance to find out from the others (who all knew) casually talking about it because it was such a hard topic to discuss.
• Halo: Combat Evolved: 343 Guilty Spark tells Master Chief that activating Halo will destroy the Flood that are overwhelming the structure. Cortana stops Chief just before he does this because she has found out that "stopping the Flood" more specifically means "wiping out all lifeforms in the galaxy that could be used as Flood hosts". Guilty Spark, when confronted about this, admits that he thought Master Chief and the other "Reclaimers" already knew this would happen and wouldn't have any reason to hesitate.
• Octodad: In the last level of Dadliest Catch, Stacy is the only person other than the villain to be aware that her father, the titular Octodad, is an octopus. She had no idea that the rest of her family wasn't in on it though, and so inadvertently reveals her father's secret to her mother Scarlet and brother Tommy when he shows up during the climax without his trademark blue suit.
  Scarlet: It's an octopus!
  Tommy: (overlapping) It's an alien!
  Stacy: It's dad! (Tommy and Scarlet stare at her) No one else knew?
• Paleo Pines: In one sidequest, Pippin holds a feast in Pebble Plaza which includes poppins. Pippin is distraught that nobody wants to eat them, and after Bongo the Gallimimus steals some, the other villagers explain that poppins taste terrible and they feed them to their dinosaurs. They never told Pippin this because they assumed they knew already.

Web Animation

• RWBY: In Volume 8, Tyrian is surprised to discover that Emerald and Mercury genuinely had no idea what Salem's true endgame was, remarking that it should have been obvious from the second they met her. To wit, Emerald, Mercury, and Hazel all believed Salem merely planned to conquer Remnant, only for Ozpin to clarify, and Tyrian to confirm, that she actually plans to destroy it outright. This leads to Emerald switching sides to help the heroes against Salem.
  Tyrian: If you couldn't see that from the start, you must be out of your mind.

Webcomics

• In El Goonish Shive, Justin asks if the reason why he is excluded from the group going to save Elliot is because he is gay, not knowing Sarah and Tedd didn't know he is gay and therefore accidentally outing himself to them.
• Khaos Komix: Unknown to her, Charlie is outed as Transgender to her boyfriend Jamie when her mother talks to him about her past Trans Tribulations. Played for Drama as he acts as Secret Secret-Keeper for most of a chapter while Charlie struggles with how to come out to him.
• In Poppy O'Possum, Magi Lila Moon accidentally let slip to Friedrich that there were still gods active on Flora because she forgot his clearance level. Forcing her to erase his memory of the last minute.

Western Animation

• Bob's Burgers: "Turkey in a Can" involves the Belchers trying to solve a mystery of who keeps shoving the turkey into the toilet. Louise accuses Gene and Tina of doing it to frame her in revenge for her siphoning from their allowance for the past 5 years, only for Gene and Tina to state that they had no idea she was stealing.
• DuckTales (2017):
  • Djinn, the rightful owner of a lamp Scrooge found on an adventure years ago, comes looking for it. Scrooge had considered the lamp worthless and lost track of it, but because Djinn desperately wants it back (to the point of implicitly threatening violence), Scrooge and Webby keep him busy while the triplets find the lamp. When they track it to Ma Beagle's junkyard, Scrooge plans on sneaking in to retrieve it. Djinn is out of patience and storms the junkyard, demanding Ma Beagle return what she has stolen, the Lamp of the First Genie. Ma Beagle didn't know there was a genie lamp there, didn't steal anything this time, and is the legal owner of the property, meaning anything that winds up there with the trash is hers.
  • Ludwig von Drake's reaction to everyone's shock at the bombshell that Webby is Scrooge's Opposite-Sex Clone.
    Ludwig: You fellas all knew that, right? You did? [beat] Ohhhhh, you didn't. I'm gonna give you a moment to adjust everything. [somehow pulls out a harmonica and starts playing it despite being tied up]
• The Fairly OddParents!: Cosmo and Wanda have a baby in "Fairly OddBaby". Fairy babies are supremely powerful to the point where having new babies was banned (or at least it should — Jorgen forgot to officially add it to the rulebook), so the fairies are understandably concerned when the currently pregnant Cosmo goes missing. They barge into both the Anti-Fairy World and Pixie World accusing them of kidnapping Cosmo for the baby, however, it turned out neither of their suspects even knew that the fairies had a new baby.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In the episode "Fall Weather Friends", Applejack and Rainbow Dash get into heated gauntlet of contests. They start off even handed, though Rainbow Dash starts using her wings to get a somewhat unfair advantage. When Applejack protests, Rainbow Dash argues back that she never said anything against it beforehand.
  Applejack: I didn't think I'd need to tell you to play fair!
• King of the Hill: It's an extremely obvious Open Secret that Nancy Gribble has been cheating on her husband Dale with John Redcorn for years, and that the latter is Joseph's biological father. Peggy genuinely didn't figure this out for over a decade after Joseph's birth; she only learned the truth after Hank all but flat-out told her when he realized she really didn't know about it. When Peggy demands to know why Hank never said anything about it before, he admits that he thought she knew already, since everyone who knows the Gribble family is aware of it (except, ironically, for Dale and Joseph themselves).
  Peggy: How could you not tell me what was going on in my own side yard?!
  Hank: I thought you knew! How could you not know? I mean, look at Joseph, where do you think he came from?
  Peggy: Nancy told me Dale had a Jamaican grandmother.
• OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: KO has no idea who his father is until the beginning of the episode "Big Reveal", when he asks his mother about it over breakfast. She casually answers and is confused by his shocked reaction; she thought she had already told him, but was mis-remembering.
  KO: So... who's my dad?
  Carol: Laserblast.
  KO: (spits out cereal) WHAT?!
  Carol: I've told you this already!
  KO: No, you did not!
  Carol: I could've sworn I did...
• Rocko's Modern Life: In "Who's for Dinner?", Heffer invites Rocko to have dinner with his family, who turn out to be wolves. While at the table, he mentions that Heffer never told him he was adopted, to which Heffer reacts with shock, as he didn't know either.
• In Sonic Underground, the Oracle tells the Queen the prophecy of Robotnik's rise and eventual fall thanks to her and her children. He then proceeds to use this knowledge as Unsportsmanlike Gloating against Robotnik, thus alerting him of the threat's existence in the first place and motivating him to actively seek them out.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In the episode "Enemy In-Law", Plankton falls in love with Mr. Krabs's mother and plans to marry her. Mr. Krabs assumes it's a scam to get the Krabby Patty formula out of his mother, who also knows it. Turns out Plankton was genuinely interested in her and didn't know that Mrs. Krabs knew the secret formula... until Mr. Krabs told him. Then Plankton realized that now he could use his upcoming marriage to her to get her to give him the formula. However, she breaks off the engagement before it can happen.
• A minor Running Gag in Star Wars: The Bad Batch is Tech being under the mistaken impression his fellow clones are as up to speed as he is on everything from Omega being a young clone to the behavioral chips affecting other Clone troopers. He soon realizes he has to clarify things better (which occasionally does turn into explaining things the team did, in fact, already know).
• Played for Laughs in What's New, Scooby-Doo? when the gang is visiting Fort Knox. The army personnel are being harassed by a local man who believes he's the rightful owner of the property, simply because his last name is Knox and he thinks that means it belongs to his family. When Scooby and Shaggy go to investigate him as the Monster of the Week, Shaggy takes his claim seriously and asks if the gold in Fort Knox belongs to him too. He is (somehow) shocked to learn that there's gold in Fort Knox.
• At the end of Season 4 of Young Justice (2010), Marvin is invited to the wedding of M'gann and Conner, where he learns that a large number of his friends were all superheroes. Turns out no one told him because they thought he already knew.

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