Tropedia

  • Before making a single edit, Tropedia EXPECTS our site policy and manual of style to be followed. Failure to do so may result in deletion of contributions and blocks of users who refuse to learn to do so. Our policies can be reviewed here.
  • All images MUST now have proper attribution, those who neglect to assign at least the "fair use" licensing to an image may have it deleted. All new pages should use the preloadable templates feature on the edit page to add the appropriate basic page markup. Pages that don't do this will be subject to deletion, with or without explanation.
  • All new trope pages will be made with the "Trope Workshop" found on the "Troper Tools" menu and worked on until they have at least three examples. The Trope workshop specific templates can then be removed and it will be regarded as a regular trope page after being moved to the Main namespace. THIS SHOULD BE WORKING NOW, REPORT ANY ISSUES TO Janna2000, SelfCloak or RRabbit42. DON'T MAKE PAGES MANUALLY UNLESS A TEMPLATE IS BROKEN, AND REPORT IT THAT IS THE CASE. PAGES WILL BE DELETED OTHERWISE IF THEY ARE MISSING BASIC MARKUP.

READ MORE

Tropedia
Don't have an account?
Register
Advertisement
Register
Tropedia
Tropedia
158,423
pages
in: Trope, This Trope Is X, Title Tropes,
and 5 more

The Joy of X

Sign in to edit
WikEd fancyquotesQuotes • Bug-silkHeadscratchers • Icons-mini-icon extensionPlaying With • Useful Notes • MagnifierAnalysis • Photo linkImage Links • Haiku-wide-iconHaiku • Laconic
...or 'Tis Pity She's an X.

Some works have titles that are just really easy to have fun with. All you have to do is replace a word or two, and there you go—instant funny title!

With other works... Well, substitute "well-known" for "easy to have fun with", and "memorable" for "funny". After all, what better way could there be to make people remember the title of your new work than making it a Shout-Out to a Shakespeare title?

In other words, this is about the phenomenon of the title of a work being used as a template for other titles. The key feature is that the structure of the title is distinctive enough that even when replacing one or more words, it's still obvious what the reference is.

More generally, popular phrases with a variable element used in this manner as templates are termed "snowclones". See The Other Wiki.

See also Stock Shout-Outs, Memetic Mutation. If your title is a Shout-Out to something other than another title, it's a Literary Allusion Title. If it's an episode title referring to another episode title of the same series, they're Cross Referenced Titles. For trope title examples see This Trope Is X or pretty much any Title Tropes of your choice.

Some of these are bound to be Parallel Porn Titles.

If you're looking for repeated patterns in the names of tropes or other pages here on the wiki, see Everything's Worse With Snowclones.

When adding new patterns, please list them by the medium of the work from which the pattern derives — for example, the Trope Namer is The Joy of Sex, which was a book — so "The Joy of X" and all its examples go under "Literature". If no one seems to know what the original was, we have a section called "Origin Work Unknown or Uncertain" at the bottom of the page where you can put it.

Please list lots of actual examples of title variations, rather than just the template—it's more fun that way!

Examples according to original work

Comic Books[]

Film[]

  • The X, The Y, His Z and Her A, spawned from The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, which went through tons of Memetic Mutation when it was first out.
    • Chapter 4 of The Curse of Monkey Island is "The Bartender, The Thieves, His Aunt, And Her Lover".
    • "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer" — three guesses.
    • Slightly more subtle was the series of missions in a Grand Theft Auto game called "The Crook," "The Thieves," "The Wife," and "The Lover."
    • A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop is probably one these- this is the international film for a movie titled A Simple Noodle Story in reference to the film it adapts.
    • Unbuilt Trope: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice predates The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover by two decades. Note the lack of the "The"s in the title.
  • Miracle On X (34th Street)
    • Miracle on Evergreen Terrace (The Simpsons)
    • The winter 1980 Olympics where the US Men's hockey team beat the Soviet squad in the semifinal round was dubbed the "Miracle on Ice."
    • Recess Christmas: Miracle on Third Street
  • The X That Ate Y (Not based on any particular film, but a common title for B-movies parodies)
    • A whole series of children's books, that are of the format The (Holiday Decoration) that ate my (Relative).
    • The novelty song "The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati" by Rose and the Arrangement about a fictional horror movie.
    • Likewise, "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago" by Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band.
    • And the song "The Pizza That Ate Chicago" by Tom Paxton. Chicago must be tasty.
    • The Cars That Ate Paris
    • A Happy Days Expanded Universe novel gave us "The Cow that Ate Salt Lake City" and its sequel "The Cow That Got So Thirsty Eating Salt Lake City, It Had to go Drink Lake Erie"
    • There's another series of children's books titled The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks.
    • "The Tower That Ate People", a song by Peter Gabriel.
    • The 2008 documentary The Cars That Ate China.
    • The short documentary The Hair That Ate Hollywood.
    • The 1906 silent short The Horse That Ate the Baby.
    • The Science Fiction short film The Zucchini That Ate New York vs. Tomatozilla.
    • Bill Cosby had a standup bit involving The Chicken Heart that Ate Up New York City.
    • The Blob That Ate Everyone (Goosebumps)
    • Food Critic Jeffrey Steingarten's book The Man Who Ate Everything
    • The Monster That Devoured Cleveland was always running at the Central City Bijou theater in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and was a perennial favorite of Dobie's sidekick, Maynard G. Krebs. In one episode he invites Dobie to join him at a double-feature of the film and its Sequel, Son of the Monster that Devoured Cleveland.
    • As a result of more than twenty years of continuous expansion and construction (which as of 2018 shows no sign of stopping), Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ has gained the nickname "The Hospital that Ate New Brunswick".
    • The Creature That Ate Sheboygan, a tabletop game by Greg Costikyan that has its own page on The Other Wiki.
  • X, Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Y.
    • Started by Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
    • The Simpsons episode title "$pringfield (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Legalised Gambling)"
    • The Bluetones song "Autophilia (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Car)"
    • According to IMDb, the working title for Soccer Dog: The Movie was Soccer Dog, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love the Pooch.
    • The Nostalgia Chick episode Blonde Girls Now and Then, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ke$ha.
    • The 1964 comedy film The Monster of Camp Sunshine or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nature.
    • The short film The Origin or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the J.O.I.N.T..
    • The 2009 short film Dr Lewis Or; How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Corpse.
    • The 2010 documentary Flush! or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Toilet.
    • The 2005 short documentary The Zeros Post Mortem or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Box Office and Love DVD.
    • Iraq: A Look Baq (Or, How We Learned to Stop Reporting and Love the War), a 2003 television special hosted by Jon Stewart.
    • Wil Wheaton's The Saga of Spongebob Vega$pant$ (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Star Trek)
    • David Willis's Roomies! collection Roomies! Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Beer.
    • The first episode of the Touhou Fanime The Memories of Phantasm had the english title "The Ordinary Magician or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Kotatsu".
  • I Was a Teenage X (Werewolf)
    • I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, film from the producers of I Was a Teenage Werewolf, released in the same year (1957)
    • I Was a Teen-Age Dwarf, novel by Max Shulman
    • I Was a Teenage T. Rex, book in the Dinoverse series
    • I Was a Teenage Worrier
    • I Was a Teenage Fairy, novel by Francesca Lia Block
    • I Was a Teenage Faust, 2002 TV Movie
    • I Was a Zombie for the FBI, 1984 Film
    • I Was a Teenage Zombie, 1986 film
    • "I Was a Teenage Taylor", episode of Home Improvement
    • "I Was a Teenage Gary", episode of SpongeBob SquarePants
    • "I Was a Teenage Stimpy", episode of The Ren and Stimpy Show
    • "I Was a Teenage Spy", episode of Boy Meets World
    • "I Was a Teenage Anarchist", song by Against Me!
    • "I Was a Teenage Communist", a Radio 4 documentary on the history of Communist Party of Great Britain presented by Alexei Sayle (who was a teenage Communist).
    • "I Was a Teenage Brain Surgeon", referenced in a Spike Jones routine.
    • "I Was a Teenage Thumb", 1963 Looney Tunes short.
  • X House on the Y, specific to 1970s exploitation horror and based on The Last House on the Left
    • The Last House on Dead End Street
    • L'Ultimo Treno Della Notte (literally, "Last Train of the Night", English title Late Night Trains or Night Train Murders)
    • House on the Edge of the Park
    • The Last House in the Woods
    • Little House on the Prairie is a more lighthearted example that actually features the same naming structure and debuted earlier — decades earlier, along with Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Little Town on the Prairie echoed the pattern.
  • All this, and X Y (in which Y rhymes with "too"), from All This And Heaven Too, the famous movie with Bette Davis
    • All this and World War II, a 1976 musical documentary that juxtaposes Beatles songs, performed by a number of musicians, with World War II newsreel footage and 20th Century Fox films from the 1940s.
    • All This and Rabbit Stew, one of the infamous Censored Eleven cartoons, about a black hunter and Bugs Bunny.
    • All This and Puppet Stew, an album by Los Angeles punk rock band The Dickies.
    • All This and Everest Too, an actual newspaper headline printed on the morning of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, referring to the British expedition becoming the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest a few days earlier.
    • "All This, And Robot Stew", the title of chapter two of the fanfic Drunkard's Walk II
  • X, Lies and Videotape, or Sex, Lies and X, or Sex, X and Videotape, from Sex, Lies, and Videotape:
    • Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics
    • Less Than Perfect has a final episode titled "Sex, Lies and Office Supplies"
    • X-Men has an episode titled "Weapon X, Lies & Videotape."
    • Boy Meets World has an episode titled "Wake Up, Little Cory" in the episode the name of Cory and Topanga's project is Sex, Lies and Videotape.
    • Goof Troop has an episode titled "Wrecks, Lies & Videotape'."
    • Dexter has an episode titled "Dex, Lies and Videotape."
    • Roswell has an episode titled "Tess, Lies, and Videotape."
    • Family Matters has an episode named "Food, Lies and Videotape."
    • Will and Grace has an episode titled "Sex, Losers, and Videotape."
    • The Simpsons has an episode titled "Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes."
    • Martin has an episode titled "Checks, Lies, and Videotape."
    • Northern Exposure has an episode titled "Sex, Lies and Ed's Tape."
    • South of Nowhere has an episode titled "Love, Child, and Videotape."
    • Murray Torkildsen released an album called Sex, Lies and Videogames.
      • This was also the name of a Game Informer article analyzing BMX XXX and Deed or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball way, way back.
    • Perhaps closest to the original is the new BBC programme Sex, Lice and Videotape.
    • The Ultimates 3 "Sex, Lies, & DVD"
    • Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman has an episode titled "Sex, Lies and Videotape."
    • Dawsons Creek has an episode titled "Text, Lies and Videotape."
    • CSI has an episode titled "Sex, Lies, and Silicone"
    • CSI: NY has an episode titled "Sex, Lies, and Silicone"
    • Tripping the Rift has an episode titled "Six, Lies and Videotape"
    • Sex, Lies and Bacon
  • Bring Me the Head of X, from Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, the 1974 crime drama film.
    • Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis, the 1988 Reunion Show for The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
    • Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown, a 1986 Short Film by Jim Reardon which parodies both Peanuts and the work of Sam Peckinpah.
    • "Bring Me the Head of Jerry Garcia", a single released in 1991 by the band Iron Prostate.
    • Bring Me the Head of Light Entertainment, a 1999-2003 British comedy panel game show.
    • "Bring Me the Head of Sam Peckinpah", a retrospective of the director's works held by Lincoln Center in April 2016.
    • Bring Me the Head of Freq Nasty, a 2003 CD by Freq Nasty.
    • "Bring Me The Head of... Oh Wait", a World of Warcraft achievement related to the "Hallow's End" seasonal world event.
    • "Bring Me the Head of The Preacher Man", a song by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
    • "Bring Me The Head Of The Fortune Teller", a song by Swervedriver.
    • "Bring Me the Head of God", a song by Nunslaughter.
    • "Bring Me The Head Of Christ", a song by Paths Of Possession.
    • Bring Me the Head of Mavis Davis, a 2000 film starring Rik Mayall.
    • Bring Me the Head of Alan Shepard: A Halloween Story, a blog post at the website of the National Air and Space Museum about a photo of two men holding a wax replica the astronaut's head.
    • Bring Me the Head of Sergio Garcia, a book Tom Cox about his year trying to compete on the pro golf circuit.

Literature[]

  • The Joy of X, the Trope Namer, is an interesting Zig-Zagging Trope: most titles of this form reference The Joy of Sex, which was itself titled in reference to The Joy of Cooking. Conveniently, it also makes this a Just for Pun trope.
    • In the Discworld book Maskerade, Nanny Ogg writes The Joye of Snackes—as a cookbook where every recipe is either an aphrodisiac, a double entendre, or both, it manages to reference both of this template's originals.
    • "The Joy of Sect" is an episode of The Simpsons.
    • There's a book entitled The Joy of Sox, talking about socks. It's incredibly amusing.
    • The Joy of Sox is also the title of a baseball blog.
    • The Joy of Lexx: Defunct Lexx fan site
    • The Joy of Pokémon (the 92nd Pokémon episode, naturally)
    • "The Joy of Sects" is a title of a class about religions in the novel Love Among the Walnuts (itself a Joy of X title—see below).
    • There is a webcomic entitled "The Joy of Tech".
    • The Joy Of TeX (yes, that formula markup language)
    • The Joy of Painting (Bob Ross art instruction series)
    • Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge has The Joy of Hex as well as several others courtesy of the Phatt Island library catalog:
      • Memoirs of a Woman of Dubious Pleasure
      • A Fistful of Barnacles
      • Breakfast at Meathook's
      • Great Expectorations (By Captain Loogie)
      • My Mother the Cart
      • So You're Going to be Executed...
      • The Little Organ that Could
      • Crochet Eyepatches for Fun and Profit
      • Louse Ranching for Fun and Profit
    • Charles Papazian's The Complete Joy of Homebrewing
    • The Joy of Work, a Dilbert book
    • Leo Rosten's The Joys of Yiddish and its sequel The Joys of Yinglish
    • The Joy of Origami, a book of origami models and instructions for folding them.
    • Sara Lee has a slogan entitled "The Joy of Eating", which is also found on the packaging of their Soft and Smooth breads.
    • "The Joy of Sax", album by the Capitol Steps
    • A BBC documentary about statistics, and how it doesn't have to be boring, is called "The Joy of Stats".
  • There was a spate of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About X (But Were Afraid to Ask) after the success of the sex manual Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex..., beginning with the Woody Allen film of the same name.
    • Charmed featured "Everything You Wanted To Know About Magic Portals (but were afraid to ask)".
    • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy considers the Guide to be more controversial than a book titled Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Sex but Have Been Forced to Find Out.
      • There is also Everything You Wanted to Know About Guilt but were too ashamed to ask
    • The book Fight by Eugene Robinson has the subtitle Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ass-Kicking but Were Afraid You'd Get Your Ass Kicked for Asking.
    • There was a TV special called Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Jack Benny But Were Afraid to Ask.
    • There is a documentary called Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Computers... But Were Afraid to Ask.
    • There is a Czechoslovakian film called Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Experience.
    • There is a short documentary called Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Swing But Were Afraid to Ask.
    • In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic of all things, Twilight breaks out Slumber 101: All You've Ever Wanted to Know About Slumber Parties (But Were Afraid to Ask).
    • The Sea Lions' nearly eponymous album Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Sea Lions But Were Afraid to Ask
    • James McCawley wrote Everything that Linguists Have Always Wanted to Know About Logic (but were Ashamed to Ask)
  • X for Dummies (Note that the publisher has actually trademarked the phrase "for Dummies", so actual published works with this formula do not exist outside of the official series.)
  • How To Verb X and Other Verb Y (based on the book How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie)
  • All I Really Need to Know I Learned From X.
    • Erma Bombeck, All I Know About Animal Behavior I Learned in Loemann's Dressing Room.
    • Dave Marinaccio's All I Really Need To Know I Learned From Watching Star Trek
    • The horror short Everything I Needed to Know About Zombies I Learned from the Movies.
    • All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum is probably the original.
    • Where There's a Will There's a Way Or, All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Shakespeare by Laurie E. Maguire.
    • El Paradigma: All I Really Need to Know in Business I Learned at Microsoft by Julie Blick.
  • A Are From B, C Are From D. Started by Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.
  • I, X. Like The Joy of X, the generally-parodied template (I, Robot) isn't the original (I, Claudius or maybe something even older). See I, Noun for examples.
  • Zen and the Art of X
    • Started by Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which itself refers back to Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel. The title of the latter is often quoted with an "and" instead of "in".
    • The BBC miniseries of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy presented an excerpt from "Zen and the Art of Going to the Lavatory".
    • Zen and the Art of Faking It by Jordan Sonnenblik.
    • In the Animated Adaptation of Wyrd Sisters, one of the books on Magrat's shelf is Zen And The Art of Broomstick Maintenance.
    • Gears of War has an achievement called "Zen and the Art of Reloading."
    • And now, "Xen and the art of" various things has over 40K results on Google and counting. Surprisingly, "Xen and the Art of Half-Life" is not one of them. Nor is "Xen and the Art of Bad Level Design".
  • The Art of X (War)
    • The Art of Raising Dogs
    • The Art of Small Talk
    • The Art of Manliness
    • The Art of Love
    • The Art of Sex
    • The Art of Shaving
    • The Art of Trolling
    • The Art of Quartet Playing
    • The Bart of War (The Simpsons)
    • Books of production art from a popular movie usually follow the formula "The Art of {movie title}"
    • Interestingly enough there's no "The Art of Art" (there's The Art of Art History though)
  • The Tao of X
    • The Tao of Pooh, the book that popularized Taoism in western society by relating it to Winnie the Pooh
      • Unfortunately, few works homage the title of the book's sequel, The Te of Piglet
    • The Tao of Archery, the second issue of the Great Ten miniseries (also a pun; Celestial Archer's real name is Xu Tao).
    • The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh of Homer
    • The Tao of Programming
    • The Tao of Steve
  • X Sutra
  • Are You There, God? It's Me, X Of course based on the title of the classic Judy Blume young adult novel, Are You There God Its Me Margaret.
    • The Venture Brothers, "Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean"
    • South Park, "Are You There, God? It's Me, Jesus"
    • "Are You There, God? It's Me, Childhood", an article at Salon.com
    • "Are You There, God? It's Me, Madison Avenue", an article on advertising that seems to have multiple homes on the Web.
    • Supernatural, "Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester"
    • Are You There, God? It's Me, Kevin, an autobiographical book by Kevin Keck
    • "Are You There, God? It's Me, Detroit", an article in the Detroit Free Press
    • Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea, by Chelsea Handler
    • "Are You There, Cthulhu? It's Me, Margaret"
    • "Are You There, Margaret? It's Me, God" was probably inevitable, but its best-known use is a song title.
  • The Compleat X
    • Started by "The Compleat Angler," by Izaak Walton.
    • The Compleat Al
    • The Compleat Conductor, a book on conducting by Gunther Schuller
    • The Compleat Dying Earth" by Jack Vance
    • The Compleat Beatles, a book of lyrics
    • The Incompleat Folksinger by Pete Seeger
    • In-universe example: The Compleat Atlas in Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series.
    • The Compleat Enchanter, an omnibus edition of L. Sprague de Camp's Harold Shea short stories.
  • Love In The Age of X, referencing Gabriel Garcia's Love In The Age of Cholera.
    • Love In The Age of iPods, a book by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.
    • Love in the Age of Fishsticks, a film made in 2008.
    • Love In The Age of Drought, a novel by Fiona Higgins
    • Love in The Age of Silicone, an article about Real Dolls
    • In one episode of The Simpsons, Marge can be seen reading a pirate-themed romance novel called Love in the Time of Scurvy.
    • Love in the Time of LOLcats by Achewood's Ray Smuckles.
    • Love in the Time of Science, an album by Emilíana Torrini.
    • "Love in the Time of Dragons", an episode of Merlin
    • Love In The Time of Goblins, Book One of the Hot Goblin Brotherhood Saga in Skin Horse
  • Doing X With Gun And Camera — The prototypical title for a Great White Hunter-style travelogue. The original, or one of them, appears to be Captain Ralph Bonehill's book Out With Gun and Camera—that, or Hunting Big Game in Africa with Gun and Camera, a film from 1922.
    • By 1930, this title was already being parodied, in the form of George Chappell's Through the Alimentary Canal with Gun and Camera.
    • Through the Uncanny Valley With Gun and Camera—a 2009 blog about James Cameron's Avatar.
    • Whale Hunting with Gun and Camera by Roy Chapman Andrews
    • Another Discworld parody: Ridcully is the author of Along the Ankh with Bow, Rod and Staff with a Knob on the End.
    • Into the Outdoors with Gun and Camera, an adventure included with the second edition of the Paranoia role-playing game.
  • What Every Young X Ought to Know
    • In Of Thee I Sing, Wintergreen says he's writing the book "What Every Young President Ought to Know."

Live Action Television[]

  • The, well, X Files.

Music[]

  • X on a G-String (Air) — perhaps not so common in the English-speaking world, but oddly popular in Japan (where it takes the form G-Senjou no X).
    • G-Senjou no Neko / Il Gatto Sul G ("Cat on a G-string", a manga)
    • G-Senjou no Maou ("Demon Lord on a G-string", a Hentai game)
    • "Shisenjou no Aria" (an untranslateable pun Image Song from Yu Yu Hakusho)
    • A website for the guitarist Ollie Halsall has a page about his collaborations with Kevin Ayers under the title "Ayers on a G-String".
    • A number of newspaper and magazine articles have used the "X On A G-String" form. Very few of them are talking about music.
  • The X formerly known as Y, which of course comes from Prince and has its own page.

Poetry[]

  • Love Among X
    • The model is probably Robert Browning's 1855 poem "Love Among The Ruins".
    • There is also a 1975 George Cukor film called Love Among The Ruins.
    • P.G. Wodehouse's Love Among The Chickens
    • Jean Ferris' novel Love Among The Walnuts
    • Eric Alter's collection of eight one-act plays, Love Among The Squirrels
    • The film Love Among Thieves
    • Starship, the 1980s-vintage successor to Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship, recorded a song entitled "Love Among The Cannibals"...
      • ...which itself is a reference to Wright Morris's 1957 novel Love Among the Cannibals.
    • Ogden Nash's short poem Love Under the Republicans(Or Democrats).

Theater[]

  • Writers seem to have great fun making titles in the form 'Tis Pity She's a(n) X, after the 17th-century play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. Just replace the last word:
    • Terry Pratchett has 'Tis Pity She's a Tree and 'Tis Pity She's an Instructor in Unarmed Combat, both from Discworld novels.
    • Googling the phrase turns up the following variations:
      • 'Tis Pity She's a Neighbor
      • 'Tis Pity She's a Void
      • 'Tis Pity She's a Ho
      • 'Tis Pity She's a Bore
      • 'Tis Pity She's a Carl
      • 'Tis Pity She's a Dog
      • 'Tis Pity She's a Hawes
      • 'Tis Pity She's a Horticulturalist
      • ... and so on.
    • A character in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell suggests a play about the Back from the Dead Lady Pole called 'Tis Pity She's a Corpse.
  • The X And I (King)
    • The Thing and I (The Simpsons)
    • The King And Eye, The Residents collection of Elvis covers.
    • The Egg And I, a 1945 book by Betty MacDonald, and the classic screwball comedy movie based on it which introduced Ma and Pa Kettle. The book actually predates The King And I by six years, but it's unlikely that it influenced the titling of the musical.
    • "The Wizard and I", a song from the musical Wicked.
  • A Streetcar Named X (Desire)
    • A Streetcar Named Marge (The Simpsons)
    • There is a short animated film about menopause called Streetcar Named Perspire.
    • There is an animated short featuring Tweety called A Street Cat Named Sylvester.
  • Waiting for X (Godot)
    • The model is absurdist play Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett (no, not that one).
    • Waiting For Lefty by Clifford Odets predates Beckett's work by a dozen years or so and has some similar themes.
    • Waiting for Guffman, a Christopher Guest movie.
    • "Waiting for God" is a Red Dwarf episode.
    • Waiting for God is also the title of a UK sitcom set in a retirement home.
    • "Waiting to Go" is an episode of Arthur, containing several other references to the Beckett play.
    • "Waiting For Cousteau" is an album by French musician Jean-Michel Jarre which is inspired by the underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau.

Web Original/Computing Culture[]

  • X Considered Harmful is a popular naming convention in Computer Science circles. Originating from Edsger Dijkstra's letter Go To Statement Considered Harmful, nowadays it's possible to find Considered Harmful articles concerning almost anything computer-related.

Origin Work Unknown or Uncertain[]

  • Memoirs of a(n) X
    • Memoirs of a Geisha
    • Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
    • Memoirs of an Exorcist
    • The Science Fiction film Memoirs of a Survivor.
    • The 1979 film Memoirs of a French Whore.
    • The German film Memoirs of a Frustrated Hedonist.
    • The 2010 romance film Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac.
    • Memoirs of a Cigarette, a documentary film about the history of smoking.
    • The Brazilian film Memoirs of a Gigolo.
    • The 2009 documentary Memoirs of a Black Latina.
    • The short comedy film Memoirs of a Blogger.
    • The short animated film Memoirs of a Scanner.
    • Memoirs of an Invisible Man
  • X "They" Don't Want You To Know About Oddly enough, "They" are rarely easily defined. Amazon gives you the following:
    • Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About by Kevin Trudeau
      • Challenged by Natural scams "he" doesn't want you to know about, an article by Michael Shermer in Scientific American.
    • Debt Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About by Kevin Trudeau
    • The Weight Loss Cure They Don't Want You to Know About by Kevin Trudeau
    • Doctors of Deception: What They Don't Want You to Know About Shock Treatment by Linda Andre
    • The Great Bird Flu Hoax: The Truth They Don't Want You to Know About the "Next Big Pandemic" by Dr. Joseph Mercola
    • The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About — Because They Helped Cause Them by Iain Murray
    • The 6 Dirty Little Secrets They Don't Want You To Know About Network Marketing by Gavin M-R
    • An Enlightened Vision Of Cyberspace and The Grand Illusion Which Threatens It... (The Secret Business Revolution They Don't Want You To Know About!) by The Core Executive Team—Zephyr Media
    • Natural Secrets Drug Companies Don't Want You to Know About by Mark A. Stevens with Christine Jones
    • What They Don't Want You to Know About Television and Videos by Lawrence Kelemen
    • Prehumous (As opposed to Posthumous): UNPOETIC POEMS about SEX, Violence and Secrets they don't want you to know by Steven Selman
    • The Natural Bird Flu Cure "They" Don't Want You to Know About by David J. Kennedy
    • The Tricks of the Rich: What They Don't Want You to Know About Making Money and Accumulating Wealth by Paul A. Overy and Ken Lee
    • This also shows up as "What they won't tell you about X" or "X they won't tell you about Y"... too lazy to get examples now.
  • The X's Daughter
    • The Abortionist's Daughter, by Elisabeth Hyde.
    • The Alchemist's Daughter, by Katharine Mc Mahon.
    • The Apothecary's Daughter, by Julie Klassen.
    • The Blower's Daughter, by Damien Rice.
    • The Bonesetter's Daughter, by Amy Tan.
    • The Calligrapher's Daughter, by Eugenia Kim.
    • Coal Miner's Daughter, by Loretta Lynn.
    • The Devil's Daughter (1991).
    • The Doctor's Daughter
    • Farmer's Daughter, by Rodney Adkins.
    • The Farmer's Daughter (series).
    • The General's Daughter: trope and work
    • The Gravedigger's Daughter, by Joyce Carol Oates.
    • The Hangman's Daughter, by Oliver Pötzsch.
    • The Heretic's Daughter, by Kathleen Kent.
    • The Hummingbird's Daughter, by Luis Alberto Urrea.
    • The Imposter's Daughter, by Laurie Sandell.
    • The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards.
    • The Mistress' Daughter, by A.M. Homes.
    • The Optimist's Daughter, by Eudora Welty.
    • The Partisan's Daughter, by Louis de Bernières.
    • The President's Daughter
    • The Ringmaster's Daughter, by Jostein Gaarder.
    • Sculptor's Daughter (literal translation of Bildhuggarens Dotter) is an autobiographical novel by Tove Jansson.
    • The Shepherd's Daughter.
    • The Smuggler's Daughter.
    • The Squatter's Daughter.
  • After you win or retire in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, the game chooses a book title to represent your reign. Most are a parody of a famous book title, and include:
    • "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Organic Superlubricant (But Were Afraid to Ask)".
    • "Zen and the Art of Missile Rover Maintenance"
    • "Are You There, Planet? It's Me, FACTIONLEADER."
    • "All I Ever Wanted To Know I Learned In The Cloning Vats"
    • "Men Are From Chiron, Women Are From Nessus"
    • "The 27 Habits of Highly Effective Talents"
    • "Transcendence For Dummies"
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.
Advertisement

Fan Feed

More Tropedia