Blah Blah Blah

Yami: Blah blah, card games blah!
Pegasus: Blah blah blah, attack mode blah.
Yami: (in horrified disbelief) Blah blah blah?!
Pegasus: (triumphantly) Blah!

—Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series, Episode 18

This trope occurs when someone is listening to someone talk and all they can hear is "blah, blah, blah". Usually used for comedic effect, it indicates that the auditor finds the conversation irrelevant, incomprehensible, or boring. Or all of the above.

Sometimes the trope is invoked literally: "Sorry doc, but all I heard of what you said was blah blah liver failure blah blah." Occasionally, this is represented visually from one character's point of view as a stream of words that all flow together.

The irate versions can verge on This Trope Is Bleep. The overanalysed may be Trope Name. In some cases, it's Techno Babble.

An older phrase of similar usage from British television is Rhubarb Rhubarb (or, rarely, Rabbit Rabbit). See also Audience Murmurs. May combine with Wall of Blather.

Examples of Blah Blah Blah include:

Advertising


Anime and Manga

Bidoof 1: Bidoof, bidoof bidoof bidoofbi bi bi doof!
Bidoof 2: Bidoof bidoof bidoof doof doof bi!!!
Bidoof 1: BIDOOF!!!
Bidoof 2: Bidoof?!

  • Azumanga Daioh: For a conversation in English, which we aren't supposed to understand. One of the funniest scenes.
  • In the Western (as in, with cowboys) manga Miriam, an arrogant sheriff's boasting eventually fades into blah blahs before Douglas, the protagonist, ditches him.
    • The same thing happens again later, though this time he's speechifying to the other two protagonists, Card and Joel, about how honest he is (despite the obvious corruption of the law in town). After he leaves, Card says "Now I understand why Douglas couldn't stand talking with him..."
  • Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei has an instance which is likely a parody of the Azumanga Daioh example. Kaere, who pretends to know English, is asked to talk to an English-speaking foreigner. She goes up to him and like Yukari, starts saying "Pera pera." He then gives her a puzzled look and says in heavily accented but perfect Japanese, "That girl's English is terrible." In this case, it seems like the pera pera was what the character was literally saying.
  • In the dub of Sgt Frog, in the New Year's episode, Giroro mocks Keroro's goal for the new year: "Gundam, blah blah blah, Gundam Gundam."
  • In Yandere Kanojo, some characters can use the phrase, "Yada yada blah blah," as information-conveying dialogue.


Comic Books

  • In Y: The Last Man, one of 355's flashbacks has two obnoxious-looking guys in the background whose conversation consists mostly of this..until the N-word is mentioned. She beats them up with a baseball bat offscreen. Don't mess with 355.
  • In Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comic, Sonic once fell asleep while listening to one of Sally's speeches—his falling asleep was represented by her speech slowly degenerating into "Blah blah blah blah..."
  • When Hercules is asked what his compatriot (and Teen Genius) Amadeus Cho would do when faced with a brain-teaser, Herc imagines Cho going "Blah blah numbers blah blah math blah blah blah science."
  • In Babymouse Burns Rubber, a Star Wars-esque narrative scroll relates the story thus far, eventually turning into "blah blah blah are you really still reading this?"
  • Occurs in Jhuger's parody of Jack Chick Tracts. "And the Lord Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Amen!"
  • A scene in Garth Ennis' Punisher: War Zone mini-series not only does this, but also provides a variant that achieves the same effect: Molly secretly listens to a group of Mooks talking and some of the word balloons literally say "Stuff wiseguys talk about" and "Stupid, cowardly, easily convinced wiseguys".


Fan Works

  • Haruhi in Kyon: Big Damn Hero, when Kyon and Asakura are talking about the time when she tried to kill him.

Haruhi: Blah blah blah, Skip the speeches - if I don't know the complete back story, it's all meaningless to me.

Andy: Dear Andy, thank you for purchasing my test, blah blah blah... That's what it says. "Thank you for purchasing my test, blah, blah, blah".


Films -- Animated

  • In Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, the mayor responds to Flint's explanation about why the food is getting bigger (and potentially dangerous) with, "Here's what I heard: blah blah blah, science science science BIGGER."
  • From The Incredibles:

Edna (to Helen): Yes, words are useless! Gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble. There's too much of it, darling, too much!


Films -- Live-Action

  • In The Movie version of Speed Racer, young Speed found his schoolwork turning into blah-blah-blah because it wasn't talking about car racing.
  • In Ernest Goes To School, Ernest becomes much smarter after undergoing a magical intelligence upgrade, but his newfound intellectualism makes his simple classes so boring to him that the lectures all come across as "blah blah blah blah blah."
  • In True Lies, when Harry is translating the Big Bad's villain speech for Helen, he starts giving it as, "We shall triumph over the evil Americans, blah blah blah," as if to imply he's heard it all before. Turns out that's pretty much a direct translation.
  • Mr. Deeds features a woman responding to Winona Ryder's heartfelt apology with "All I heard was blah blah blah, I'm a dirty tramp!"
  • In The Movie of Nine, Guido's wife, tired of listening to his lies, interrupts him with "Blah blah blah blah blah."
  • Blazing Saddles has a pack of the Governor's underlings saying nothing but "harrumph, harrumph." It's immediately lampshaded when the Governor points at one and says, "Hey, I didn't get a harrumph out of that guy!"

Hedly Lamarr: Give the Governor a harrumph!
Underling: Harrumph!
Gov. Le Petomane: You watch your ass!

  • In the Lenny Bruce biopic Bruce there is a sequence in which Lenny (Dustin Hoffman) talks about oral sex to an audience and even police officers. Due to the heavy censorship issues at the time, he told the audience that all profane words would be replaced by "blah-blah". He then continues:

"Excuse me sir, have you ever had your blah-blahed? Is that your girlfriend? Has she ever blahed your blah?"


Literature

  • Dave Barry, after writing a column complaining about Neil Diamond's songs, in particular a Painful Rhyme in "I Am, I Said," received a great deal of hate mail from irate Neil Diamond fans, which he condensed into this all-purpose letter incorporating most of what they were fuming about:

Dear Pukenose:
Just who the hell do you think you are to blah blah a great artist like Neil blah more than twenty gold records blah blah how many gold records do YOU have, you scumsucking wad of blah I personally have attended 1,794 of Neil's concerts blah blah What about "Love on the Rocks," huh? What about "Cracklin' Rosie"? blah blah If you had ONE TENTH of the talent blah blah so I listened to "Heart Light" forty times in a row and the next day the cyst was GONE and the doctor said he had never seen such a rapid blah blah What about "Play Me"? What about "Song Sung Blah"? Cancel my subscription, if I have one.

  • Robert Sheckley once wrote a story about a space explorer whose specialty is linguistics; he happens to land on a planet of beings whose language constantly changes, until they end up saying "Mun" in a variety of tones, conveyed by punctuation and interspersed with comments in whatever language you happen to read it in. (Sorry, I can't be bothered to search a couple cubic meter of books just to find the title in French.)
  • According to George and Harold's comic books in the Captain Underpants series, their principal, Mr. Krupp, is only capable of saying "Blah blah blah" and "Bwahahaha".
  • From The Dresden Files: After Harry uses this trope, he gets called on it by his friend Michael: "Don't Yadda Yadda the Lord, Harry."
  • In the Cryptonomicon, Waterhouse tries (and fails) to explain how his digital computer works to a much less technically savvy character:

"Dr. Turing, of Cambridge University, has pointed out that bobbadah bobbadah hoe daddy yanga langa furjeezama bing jingle oh yeah," Waterhouse says, or words to that effect.

  • Actually occurs in The Bible of all places: Isaiah 28:10 and 13 [dead link] . As translated by the NIV: "Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there." (Hebrew: "Sav lasav, sav lasav, Kav lakav, kav lakav, Ze'er sham, ze'er sham.") This represents people mocking the prophet's words as meaningless blabber.
  • From an example in How Not to Write A Novel: "He went into his office and began his routine of blah while he admired the same view of blah blah that was just the same as every other day on which blah and like clockwork blah blah until it began to seem as if life was an empty series of meaningless actions."


Live-Action TV

Buffy: Blah blah, biddy blah, I'm so stuffy, get me a scone.

    • "Fool For Love", researching what mistakes previous Slayers made leading to their deaths:

Buffy: Same as all the others. Slayer called. Blah, blah. Great protector. Blah, blah. Scary battles. Blah, blah. Oops! She's dead. Where are the details?

Dr. Kelso: Why, I remember back in '68, blah blah blah, nostalgic story. Now get the hell outta my office!

    • "Shoe shopping" is used to similar effect in "My Big Bird." Anytime a girl says "shoe shopping," all men within earshot zone out and hear most likely nothing but "blah blah blah" until someone mentions bras or similar. Subverted later in the episode when Dr. Cox reveals to have gained immunity because of overexposure to his ex-wife, Jordan.
  • On one episode of How I Met Your Mother, Older Ted can't remember the name of the woman he was dating, so for the entire episode she is just referred to as Blah Blah. ("Please, just call me Blah.")

"I'm just some rebound date to you, aren't I? In a year's time, you probably won't remember my name."
"That's not true, Blah Blah!"

    • In another episode, what Barney heard on the previous night was

"Blah, blah, blah, I'm an architect. Blah, blah, blah, I don't wear suits. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Wow, an architect.How fascinating. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Rambling architecture anecdote. Blah, blah, something about a bridge. Blah, blah, blah..."

  • Played with on Arrested Development. A lawyer in a commercial says what sounds like, "You don't need doublespeak; you need Blah Blah Blah!" He's actually saying "Bob Loblaw," and he becomes a recurring character. He also runs a website, the Bob Loblaw Law Blog.
  • Mad About You was another show that used the "this is what the dog hears" version.

Blah blah blah blah Murray blah blah blah blah, Murray ?

  • Used twice in the Frasier episode "Death and the Dog". Frasier and Martin start arguing about whether Eddie (the dog) can understand them - we cut to Eddie's point of view where all he can understand is his own name. Later, Frasier and Niles start having a psychiatric debate about Martin - we cut to Martin's point of view, where the only thing he can understand is the word "Dad".
  • Monk, in the episode "Mr. Monk Gets Hypnotized":

Monk: Ugh, all Dr. Bell wants to do is talk. This is Dr. Bell: "Blah blah blah. Tell me about your mother. Yak yak yak. How does that make you feel? Words words words."

  • In a parody of The Sims, The Drew Carey Show has an opening where all the characters are talking in 'blah'. Their thoughts were expressed by pictures in thought bubbles.

Drew: Blah! Blahblah! Blahblabhblahblahblah, blahblabhalbahblah! (no thought bubble)
Oswald and Lewis: Blah? (thought bubbles are empty)
Drew: I was just kissing Kate and thinking about her at the same time! I'm going to ask her to marry me!
Oswald and Lewis: Ohhhh! Blah! Blahblahblah! (thought bubbles of partying and champagne)

  • Used in Dinosaurs, Earl is watching TV and the dinosaurs are talking to each other. All they are saying is Blah blah blah blah blah blah to one another.
  • In Friends:

Rachel: Well okay, how about four hours in a freezing museum auditorium listening to Professor Pitstains and he's "Hey everybody! Remember that thing that's been dead for a gazillion years. Well there's this little bone we didn't know it had!"
Ross: First of all it's Professor Pittain! And second of all, that little bone proved that that particular dinosaur had wings, but didn't fly.
Rachel: Okay, see now, what I just heard: blah-blah-blah, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, blah-blah-blah, blah, blah.

  • At one point in Firefly, Mal dismisses what someone is telling him by cutting them off and saying "Jabber-jabber-jabber."
  • In Charmed, Paige was on a date and the guy was so boring that all that she heard was 'blah blah blah'.
  • In Grace Under Fire Grace's boss does this in constantly, especially in pep talks, possibly undermined in that he's usually effective.
  • The Get Me Hennimore! sketches from That Mitchell and Webb Look. In each sketch, Hennimore's boss would give him two straightforward but mutually incompatible jobs, the central Macguffins of which were indistinguishable from each other. Hilarity Ensued. In the final episode, the audience was given an insight into Hennimore's head, where his boss's instructions consisted entirely of "blah blah blah" while he pictured the inevitable and imminent resulting disasters.
  • Happens during an episode of Big Wolf on Campus. Merton tries to explain the plagues of the Old Testament to Tommy (Since a mummy was using them against the high-school kids...long story) and ends up going "...blah, blah, blah." which prompts Tommy to respond "You can't blah, blah, blah the Bible." [1]
  • Web Soup showed a video where a little girl gets kicked in the face with a soccer ball. When the clip ends, Chris Hardwick goes, "Blah Blah Blah, balls-to-the-face joke."
  • On Rescue Me, this is Tommy's sort-of catch phrase.
  • In True Blood, Pam's explanation of a dire situation is: "Blah, blah, vampire emergency, blah."
  • Glee: Mercedes ends up being the third wheel to Kurt and Blaine. Combined with her going into tots-withdrawal, we get: "Gay Gay Gay." Amusingly, it turns out that they were talking about football during her zone-out.
  • On The IT Crowd, when Moss is trying to explain to Jen the basics of computers on her first day, all she hears from him is static.
  • That '70s Show has an entertaining variation: A conversation between Eric, Hyde, Kelso and Laurie takes place, involving Laurie shooting down Kelso's blatant attempts to hit on her. After she leaves, we see that Kelso only heard just enough of what Laurie said to him to string together a few sentences that make it seem like she wants him just as badly.
  • In The Big Bang Theory, this happens when Leonard asks Sheldon for advice about Penny:

Leonard: Are you even listening to me?
Sheldon: Of course I'm listening. Blah blah, hopeless Penny delusion, blah blah blah.

  • A subtle example occurs in a Coupling episode shown through the perspectives of various characters: When Patrick and Sally engage in small talk at an office party, she asks how he got there. In Patrick's version of events, he gives a ridiculously detailed account of the brand and specs of his car. In Sally's version of events, he just says "Car". When Susan shows up they also begin discussing all the food in the spread. In Sally's version each meat has its own type and description. In Patrick's, it is all just sausage.
  • In the 2005 Doctor Who Christmas Special episode, "The Christmas Invasion," Rose is wandering about with her on-again/off-again boyfriend Mickey, whose dialogue eventually literally turns into "yap yap yap yap yap."
    • Mickey is very sarcastic, so it was possible he was doing so on purpose, trying to draw attention to her ignoring him...maybe.
    • In context, he's imitating his grandmother: "She does my dinner on a Sunday, talks about you all afternoon, yap yap yap yap..." Still counts, though.
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus had a number of bizarre animated segments where characters would literally just start saying "blah" over again. Here is one such example (starts at 0:44)
  • There was a famous Seinfeld episode about this trope but called "Yadda-yadda". It involved Jerry believing his girlfriend was cheating on him and using "yadda-yadda" to cover it. For example, she mentioned that she met an ex-boyfriend, she stopped over at his place for a visit and "yadda-yadda", she was late for work the next morning.


Music

  • The Gershwin song "Blah, Blah, Blah." Half the refrain is made of cliched rhymes used in Silly Love Songs of the early 30s, and the other half is "blah blah blah" and "tra la la."
  • The Austin Lounge Lizards perform a song called "Old Blevins", in which the song's narrator meets the eponymous individual in a bar, who seems to have some deep and abiding wisdom he's desperate to share:

"And this is what Old Blevins said to me:
He said "Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
In Tijuana, blah blah blah, back in 1963..."

  • Rockapella also performed a song entitled "Blah Blah Blah":

When you talk, all I hear is "blah blah blah"
Baby, you got nothin' to say
You're makin' sound good and loud now, I can't make it out
Your lips are workin' fine, but when you talk, "blah blah"

We bankrupt all invaders, we sell them souvenirs
We ner ner ner ner by the ears
Er hner ner ner ner ner ner ner hner ner ner.
Ner-ner her, ner-ner ner,
hner ner ner ner neeer
Er , your gleaming swords, we mortgaged to the hilt...
We mortgaged to the hilt

  • In the song "Don't Worry 'Bout a Thing" by the country music group SHeDAISY, the bridge is actually composed of a string of "blah blah blah"s.
  • In Biz Markie's "Just a Friend", he refers to the girl as "Blah blah blah".
  • "Sayin' blah blah blah, just jackin' their jaws" from Montgomery Gentry's "What Do Ya Think About That."
  • "She said, 'bienvenidos, señor, blah blah blah blah'" from Blaine Larsen's "I Don't Know What She Said."
  • Gorillaz, "Rockit":

I'm walking to the something, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah (collapse)
I'm drinking too much blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah (fall out)
I'm feeling very blah blah, I want to blah blah blah (collapse)
And in the end, it means I blah blah blah blah blah blah blah (the end)

Babble babble bitch bitch
Rebel rebel party party
Sex sex sex and don't forget the "violence"
Blah blah blah got your lovey-dovey sad-and-lonely
Stick your STUPID SLOGAN in:
Everybody sing along.

Twinkle, twinkle
Blah blah blah
E! T! C!

  • One children's song, The Animal Sounds Song, gives a list of animals (including people) and the sounds they make.

And the people, they go 'blah blah blah, blah blah blah'


Newspaper Comics

  • The Far Side with a dog translating machine. The translations? Strings of "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!"
    • Robotman also did a similar one, with the dog's barking translated as "Fleas, fleas, tail, fleas..." and the cat's meows as "Ball, ball, chase ball, tuna..."
    • Another pair of The Far Side strips show how a dog named Ginger hears her owner ("blah blah Ginger blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Ginger blah blah blah blah blah...") and how a cat named Fluffy hears hers ("____________________________________").
  • Inverted in one FoxTrot comic, which has Paige complaining that the day has been boring, and it's just been one "blah" event after another. Cue Peter walking up to hear her actually say "blah blah blah" out of the legitimate context Paige had been using.
    • This strip was possibly Amend lampshading, as early strips involved Paige's phone conversations literally written as "Blah blah blah blah blah".
  • From a Stone Soup strip:

Evie: Everything ok at home, Val?
Val: We're fine. Weather's nice... the girls can't wait for summer... Phil and I are seeing more of each other... blah blah blah...
Evie: "Blah blah blah"?? I haven't heard that euphemism in quite a while.
Val: I haven't needed that euphemism in quite a while.

  • Dilbert once went on a date with a serial yakker. "Yak yak yak blah blah yak yak yak yak blah blah..."
  • In Prickly City, Winslow at a press conference—in a Wall of Blather as well.
  • Dog's Best Friend had Cuddles opining endlessly about the beauty of the winter scene before him. As he is doing this, Fergus writes "BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. . ." in the window condensation.
  • Shows up in a few Pearls Before Swine comics when Rat tunes people out.


Theatre

  • Ba da da Applause (All About Eve Screen to Stage Adaptation) ba da "Backstage Babble" is ba ba da.
  • One scene of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Allegro has the Greek Chorus continuously chanting, "Yatata, yatata, yatata, yatata" to represent what "the deep-thinking gentlemen and ladies who keep this metropolis alive" have to say to each other. Or, in other words:

Girl (To Another Girl, with great expression): Broccoli!
A Man (Answering in the same gushing manner): Hogwash!
Man (To Girl): Balderdash!
Another Man (To Another Girl): Phoney baloney!
Girl (Answering): Tripe and trash!

  • In Spring Awakening, the song "Totally Fucked" has the characters mocking their teachers by mimicking them this way, and ends with the characters leaping around the stage in a (well, choreographed, but seemingly) random explosion of movement shouting "BLAH BLAH BLAH..."
  • In Chicago, Roxie is sworn in thusly:

Clerk: Blahblahblahblahblahblahblah... truth... truth... truth. Selp-yuh God.


Videogames

  • In the Discworld video game, the password to the monks' meeting place is literally "Blah blah blah spoons blah blah blah swordfish blah blah blah Simon Says".
  • Duty Calls, a parody of Call of Duty, gives your objective by saying, "Here's your objective: Blah blah blah blah secret base. Blah blah blah blah plans. Blah blah blah nuclear missile bomb. Blah blah blah counting on you. Utmost importance, win, good luck."
  • Sam and Max Freelance Police, in both the LucasArts and Telltale adaptations, in the former case a female bigfoot who rattles off like this during conversations with her, and in the latter Myra Stump, a No Celebrities Were Harmed parody of Oprah, when she shares with the audience her political views.
  • In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, when a character goes on for too long, Mario falls asleep. As he does so, the words start getting replaced by ellipses.
    • This is actually a reference to the first game, in which this happens twice; Once by the local fortune teller, and once by the ghost of his ancestor.
  • In StarTropics 2, whenever Mike needs to catch someone up on the story up to the present, his conversation is condensed to "Blah blah Tetrads blah blah time travel blah blah pizza."
  • In Tales of Vesperia we had Rita's... "Blah blah blah. TIDAL WAVE!!"
  • In Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines, the hostess at the Red Dragon restaurant calls her friend on her cell phone after you take the elevator to the second floor. One of her conversations consists of nothing but "Blah blah blah" with inflection and emphasis in the right places to make it sound like it could be an actual conversation. It's hard to hear through the floor, but you can read it if you put on the subtitles.
  • From the first Sly Cooper game:

Mz. Ruby: Ha ha ha... Oh, Sly. I see your mouth a' movin', but all I hear is 'Blah, blah, blah'!

  • In Luminous Arc 2, Pop use this to get saying the vows required to Unite with Master Roland over with.
  • The explanation of how the Transfer Machine in Pokémon Black and White works is this trope mixed with random technological phrases. It's unknown whether this is the player character ignoring/not understanding what the scientist is saying or the scientist not bothering with a real explanation.
  • The "Ring Side" minigame from Rhythm Heaven Fever features a wrestler answering questions from a sports reporter. The wrestler is apparently not paying attention, as the only thing she seems to say is "Wubbadubbadub, is that true?" and "Whoa, you go, big guy!"
  • Amnesia the Dark Descent has an instance that is definitely not funny. During the flashback in which he cuts a man's flesh in order to keep the Shadow at bay, Daniel starts mimicking the man's cries of agony. "Please ! I didn't do anything ! Blah blah blah."


Webcomics

Ben's rough draft for panel three was "blah blah blah balance." I "jazzed it up" a bit.

Kat: But what did you use to jargon jargon babble babble strange words?
Anja: Haha, it took a while to perfect, but chatter chatter jargon computers technical wizardry babble jargon.

  • In Yahtzee Takes On The World, by yes, that Yahtzee, Newspapers have only the title (I.E. the important part) in actual words, with the rest being just the word "blah" repeated over and over, but one random word will also be added, so the paper reads something like this:

Newspaper: blah blah blah blah blah radish blah blah blah.

Terumi: Well, since you're all here, I may as well tell you the same story I've told everyone else today. Blah blah blah, CAULDRON, blah blah blah, BLACK BEAST, blah blah blah, AZURE, blah blah blah, NEW WIFE, blah blah, HURRAY! The end!

  • Parodied in Fedora Spade Episode 4, when it's a good time to mash "C".
  • An Awkward Zombie strip has this exchange:

Link: "Sheik! Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah"
Sheik: "Song."

  • Five Color Control's Laskytron speaks only in Old Tolarian, which the other characters hear only as "Pizza."
  • Darken has Gort and Dragon customs.
  • Never Mind the Gap: on this page, Miwa isn't listening what a teen robot is saying to her. He apparently notices.
  • In the original online version of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, one entry details Greg sleeping in class and his teacher making him sit up front as punishment. The accompanying drawing is of Greg asleep and snoring on the chair while his teacher's lecture is rendered as "Blaaah blaaah blaaah blaaah".


Web Originals

What Kyon Hears: "Blah, Blah, Blah. I'm a selfish jerk. Blah, Blah, Blah. Pay attention to me. Blah Blah Blah. I have delusions of godhood."
What Haruhi Hears: "Blah, Blah, Blah. I refuse to listen to what you say. Blah, Blah, Blah. I'm here to ruin your fun. Blah, Blah, Blah. I love plot."

  • Half-Life in 60 Seconds has G-Man end the Half-Life 2 portion with "Blah Blah Blah, Mr. Freeman."
  • In the Advance war's parody Bob squad Olaf is literally doing this:

Olaf: Blah dribble dribble
Colin: (What's worse is he's actually saying "Dribble".)
Olaf: COLIN!
Colin: Ahh!
Olaf: Listen to my nonsense dribble.
Colin: Yes sir!

  • The Homestar Runner sbemail "long pants" had Strong Bad annoyedly shorten down a rambling portion of the email to, "Anyway, blabbity blah, blah blebbity bloo, I don't care, just get him some pants!"
  • In the Warhammer 40,000 parody Toymallet 40c, this is the example of a mission briefing:

The planet Tabletopistan is the blah blah ancient derelict of the blah blah blah claimed by the Necrogumby blah which seeks to blah blah and also by the Hello Kittau empire blah bringing dire blah to the civilized blah of the galaxy. You must blah blah by reaching the derelict and holding it from all enemies at the end of the last turn. Fnord.

  • Parodying the YGOTAS example above, there's part of this Randomdce video.
  • RWBY: Professor Port's first lecture early in the series fades into literal "blah blah blah" as the camera focuses on Weiss's growing irritation with Ruby's behavior.

Western Animation

  • The Fairly OddParents has this with "untranslated" girl talk: "Blah blah blah shoes! Blah blah blah clothes! Blah blah blah boyfriends! Blah blah blah. We'll never notice you."
  • Taz's dad (a Bing Crosby Soundalike) from Taz-Mania often went "Blah, blah, blah, yakkety schmakkety."
  • Ed, Edd n Eddy:
    • In the Rashomon episode "Once Upon an Ed", all Edd can say during Ed's flashback is things like "Yap yap, blah blah, drivel drivel drivel".
    • In "Boys Will Be Eds", as the boys suddenly find themselves infatuated with Nazz, her angry tangent about them making fun of Jimmy's Amusing Injuries trails off into "blah blah blah".
  • The adults on Peanuts and their muted trombone-larynges would probably count as another perceptual equivalent to blah.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:

Toph: "You know what I just heard? Blah blah spiritual mumbo jumbo blah blah something about space."

    • What about:

Aang: "Firebenders...Fire Lord...blah, blah, blah, blah."

  • When Bart tries to train Santa's Little Helper in The Simpsons, that's all the dog hears.
    • The same happens to Bart and Homer themselves, when speaking to a teacher and a psychiatrist about Bart's bad performance in school.
    • Similar to The Simpsons, Rugrats once had an episode with dog's-eye-view scenes, where all the humans speak gibberish except for the dog's name, Spike.
    • In a flashback, Young!Krusty also invoked this trope when poking fun at his father's profession as a Rabbi ("Blah, blah, blah, Moses!").
  • In an episode of Duckman, during a visit to a Banana Republic, the titular character embarks on one of his trademark rants, and gains a number of listeners. When the perspective shifts to one man in the crowd, he hears it as "blah-blah-blah" and thinks "I wish we understood English."
  • One episode of Family Guy showed a "clip" from Murphy Brown in which the dialogue consisted of this and the name of some 1990s political figure. ("Blah-blah-blah John Sununu." "Blah-blah-blah Dan Quayle." "Murphy! You can't Blah-blah-blah the Ayatollah!" and so forth.)
    • The trope did happen in an episode of Murphy Brown as well: Murphy speaks to Frank, and all he hears is a loud noise that sounds like a foghorn.
    • More Family Guy - there's a bit about how to craft "perfect Star Wars dialogue," which consists of saying "something, something, something, Dark Side, something, something, something complete".
  • An episode of the animated Beetlejuice series had a scene where Lydia is sitting in class, listening to her teacher literally say "Blah blah, drone drone..."
  • Farmer John often starts talking like this in Sheep in The Big City. At one point he goes on like this for an entire night, then says: "I guess I should stop saying "blah" over and over again and get going".
  • Chowder once had the title character listening to Mung Daal's lecture about midnight-snacking:

Mung: Listen, Chowder. Late night snacking is not healthy. It can cause a change in your eating and, blah. Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah, blah blah blah. Blah blah. Your not listening to me are you?
Chowder: Yes I am!
Mung: What'd I just say?
Chowder: Blah, blah blah. Blabbty, blah blah. Blah blah. and I couldn't hear the last part because I was looking at the food.
Mung: ...Lucky guess

    • Another episode shows Endive reading a fake love letter saying how beautiful she is, but when you see it all it says it "Dear Ms. Endive" then repeats blah for the entire page.
      • Which implies that Mung actually wrote blah blah blah for almost an entire letter. Then again, she does have an obsession with him in that episode, so apparently she was crazy enough to fill in the blanks for herself and pretend he actually wrote them.
    • In "Chowder's Catering Company", when Chowder arrives in the kitchen with a dirty fuzzball, we see Mung talking to Shnitzel, although we can only hear him say "blah blah blah".
  • Parodied in SpongeBob SquarePants. Spongebob lets Gary sleep over at Patrick's rockhouse, and while he's thinking, Patrick can only be heard saying "Blah blah blah." Then, when Spongebob leaves, we get to hear the rest of Patrick and Gary's conversation: He's actually saying "Blah blah blah" instead of plain English.
    • The same thing happens in "Band Geeks". The ambient noise of everyone talking before practice is revealed to everyone just saying blah blah blah.
    • A similar thing happens in a different episode when Spongebob calls Squidward on the phone. We hear Squidward's half of the conversation, with Spongebob talking in muffled gibberish in the background. When Squidward hangs up, the scene switches to Spongebob and Patrick, still talking in gibberish to each other.
    • Same thing whenever Mrs. Puff is teaching and Spongebob is distracted. Even when focus switches back to Mrs. Puff she is still saying 'blah blah blah'.
    • Also in one episode where Sandy calls Spongebob's decision to forever stay in his house 'crazy talk', Patrick interrupts and says that this is the "real" crazy talk:

Patrick: Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah! Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah! Awloooooooo-----
(Sandy bonks him on the head)
Patrick: Sorry.

    • In the season 6 episode 'The Card'; Spongebob is trying to explain to Patrick how valuable his trading card is, but all Patrick could hear is 'bla bla bla'.
  • "Heh-heh, Rob Schneider, derp de derp! Derp de derpity derpee derp." From an episode of South Park, it's a Real Trailer, Fake Movie for "Da Derp Dee Derp Da Teetley Derpee Derpee Dumb" (rated PG-13).
    • "Derp" is a nonsense word that Matt Stone and Trey Parker invented while they were working on Cannibal! The Musical which they use in regards to things they think are really stupid. There was even a guy on South Park whose name was Mr. Derp. Now a part of the internet's vocabulary.
      • Let's not forget "RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE", which is yelled by pretty much every angry mob on the show.
      • The "RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE" gets lampshaded ocasionally.
  • In the Daria episode "Depth Takes a Holiday", Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day are eavesdropping on Helen and Jake chewing out Daria. Valentine's describes their conversation as "being all blah blah blah".
  • In an episode of Pinky and The Brain, we see how Pinky hears Brain, and it basically comes out to "And now we're going to blah blah big word blah blah really big word blah blah blah..."
  • In a holiday edition The Boondocks, Granddad completely waves away Huey's detailed explanation about Christmas actually being a pagan holiday with the hilariously out-of-context line, "Blah blah gay sex, blah blah Congress."
  • In the Batman the Brave And The Bold episode "Journey to the Center of the Bat!", the death of his faithful steed (and prolonged exposure to Aquaman) causes the normally reserved Atom to completely flip out:

Aquaman: Uh, what about the plan?
The Atom: Blah blah blah! Let's punch 'em!

  • Played in every single Humf episode when it's an adult talking to another adult or over the phone.
  • Master Shake's singing of a Christian song: "Blah blah, wine, blood"
  • In Care Bears: Share Bear Shines, Share is trying to convince Princess Starglo not to abandon her post by telling her the storybook version of her history. "You were the first twinklet, the mother of all the stars!" Starglo is not impressed, as she continues the story, "The keeper of starlight and wishes, burning brightly in the sky, blah blah blah blah. Yeah, I've heard the story, too." Though she does admit that the story is true, "Except for the 'blah blah blah' part. I made that up."
  • Phong's password on ReBoot was "yadda yadda yadda".
  • Played straight in Jackie Chan Adventures. "Do my words sound to you like Blah blah blah blah?"
  • An episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes has Jimmy trying to listen in on a conversation between Beezy and Heloise. Even when he's right next to him, all Beezy says is "blah blah blah".
  • Pepper Ann frequently heard teachers this way.
  • In an episode of Histeria! about Samuel Webster and his dictionary, the publisher is dictating a letter to his secretary and ends with "blah blah blah blah blah". When asked to read back the letter, she reads the blah blah blah blah blah" back as well.
  • The Critic had an episode where Jay Sherman was playing an arcade game called Escape From the Big Apple in which his player character encountered a rather difficult enemy:

Jay Sherman: Oh no! The Reverend Al Sharpton!
Al Sharpton: Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah-
(Character withers away to a skeleton, then dust)
GAME OVER

  • On Courage the Cowardly Dog Eustace sometimes says this when something doesn't interest him.
  • The "from a character's perspective" version in parodied/subverted by Phineas and Ferb. Candace is ranting at the two main characters, when they start to phase out. When Candace asks if they were even listening, it turns out that her voice literally became echo-y, for some reason.
  • Invader Zim: "Yes, yes, you blame me for your horrible life, blah, blah, BIG DEAL!"
  • In "A Grim Day" of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Grim tempts Skarr to use his scythe. At one point, all Skarr can hear is, "Blah blah blah blah blah blah SCYTHE, blah blah blah blah blah blah SCYTHE, blah blah blah blah SCYTHE, blah blah blah ULTIMATE POWER!"


Real Life

  • This parody of technical presentations.
  • The ancient Greek version of "Blah blah blah" was "Barbari," and this was typically how foreigners were represented as speaking: One long string of unintelligible "bar-bari-bar-bari." Hence the term "Barbarian."[2]
  1. ↑ Something like "blah blah blah" actually appears in the Bible; see the literature section above.
  2. ↑ Conan the Blahblahian doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?
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