Long List

A comedy trope where a person rattles off or displays an absurdly long list of things. For example, someone goes into a shop and asks for a sandwich. The person at the desk asks what type they desire. The customer asks what they have available. Cue the person behind the counter running off a huge list of variations on sandwiches. Might make the character start longing for Freedom From Choice.

If the list is actually spelled or read out to the viewer, it becomes an Overly Long Gag. For added comedy, the list will often contain one or more of:

Parodies of the second type of "Side Effects Include" are generally a kind of Long List.

A slight variant is to present the list as a visual gag rather than an Overly Long Gag: a character might present a document containing a "small list of suggestions" which soon unfolds itself all the way down to the floor.

See the List Song for a musical version, Rhyming List, which well, you know..., and see also Overly Long Name. Contrast Epic Catalog, which is equally long but quite serious; and Short List, which is not at all long.

Examples of Long List include:

Advertising

  • Most television commercials will include an incredibly long list of side-effects and danger signs. Ironically, the list of dangerous side-effects is often almost double the length of the commercial itself.
    • Especially if it's about a prescription drug.
    • In Austria, Europe, those commercials just have a disclaimer that asks us to "read the insert or ask the pharmacist about side-effects". Saves us a lot of time (which we can use for watching more commercials)!
    • Lampshaded in the Saturday Night Live skit "Happy Fun Ball".

Anime and Manga

Aogami: "Haaa, you're too naive, Kami-yan. I have a wide range of acceptance when it comes to women, not just including fallen female main characters, but also includes foster sisters, foster mother, foster daughter, twins, widows, senpais, kouhais, same-class classmates, teachers, childhood-friends, ojou-samas, blondes, brunettes, brown-haired, silver-haired, long-haired, medium-length haired, short-haired, girls wearing bobby pins, wavy hair, twin-tails, pony tails, one-sided pony tails, twin braids, ahoges, curly hair, girls in sailor clothes, blazers, judougis, kyuudougis, kindergarden nurses, maids, policewomen, witches, shrine maidens, nuns, military women, secretaries, lolis, shotas, tsunderes, cheerleaders, stewardesses, waitresses, Goth girls wearing black, Goth girls wearing white, girls in China dresses, frail girls, albino girls, fantasists, girls with split personalities, queens, princesses, thigh-high socks, garter belts, girls who crossdress as guys, meganekkos, girls who wear an eye-patch, girls who wear bandages, girls in school swimsuits, one-piece swimsuits, bikinis, V-shaped bikinis, bikinis that barely cover anything, youkais, ghosts, kemonomimi girls etc. Any female is within my area of acceptance".
Touma: "At least one of them isn't a female, right?"

Comic Books

  • In the Super Mario Bros. comic, Wooster once made a list of people who said the King is dumb. It contained most of the starring cast and went off into random name-surname combinations.
  • At the beginning of DR and Quinch Go Straight, the titular duo were found guilty of "arson, kidnapping, theft, grievous wounding, possession of unlawful atomic weapons, taking and driving away, conspiracy to overthrow the government, coveting thy neighbour's ox, graverobbing, torture, criminal libel, blackmail, polluting the environment, shoplifting, 714 separate driving offences, forging sacred relics, transmuting base metal into gold, genocide, spitting, and thirty-two offences so unusual and horrible they do not have names."
  • The Strontium Dog story "The Rammy" opened with Johnny and Middenface on trial, accused of "murder, conspiracy to murder, common assault, uncommon assault, fraudulent misrepresentation of a sporting contest, conspiracy to defraud, actual fraud, committing a nuisance in a public place, and disorderly conduct."
  • Scrooge McDuck frequently uses a long list of debts to get Donald Duck to do his bidding. Instead of pay, he usually promises to cut a meter of the list.
  • Scott Pilgrim uses this trope in the first volume when Ramona offers Scott some tea. Some readers may have been unaware up until that point, but there are many, many different kinds of tea.

"We have blueberry, raspberry, ginseng, sleepy time, green tea, green tea with lemon, green tea with lemon and honey, liver disaster, ginger with honey, ginger without honey, vanilla almond, white truffel, blueberry chamomile, vanilla walnut, constant comment and... earl grey."

Film

And that's it and that's the only thing I need, is this. I don't need this or this. Just this ashtray. And this paddle game, the ashtray and the paddle game and that's all I need. And this remote control. The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that's all I need. And these matches. The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control and the paddle ball. And this lamp. The ashtray, this paddle game and the remote control and the lamp and that's all I need. And that's all I need too. I don't need one other thing, not one - I need this. The paddle game, and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches, for sure. And this. And that's all I need. The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine and the chair.
—And my dog. All I need is...* dog runs off* Okay, I don't need my dog...
  • Forrest and Bubba's shrimp discussion in Forrest Gump.
  • In Roxanne, the prominent-nosed fire chief C.D. Bales gets into an altercation with a drunken lout who makes the mistake of calling him 'Big nose'. C.D. points out how absolutely pathetic and predictable it is to insult a big-nosed man by calling him 'big nose', and proceeds—much to the amusement of and with a small amount of assistance from the people around him—to demolish the lout by rattling off a lengthy list of twenty (twenty-five if you count them honestly) alternative nasal-themed insults the lout could have used to great effect had he possessed the wit and intelligence to actually think of them. And then proceeds to hit him.
    • This is based on a joke from Cyrano De Bergerac, since Roxanne is basically an updated version of Cyrano. And in the original one, all of the insults rhymed.
  • Near the end of We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story, Stubbs the Clown resigns from Prof. Screweyes' circus and hands in his props. All his props: "Here's my shoes, my nose, my horn, my buzzer, my fake arm, my bug-eye glasses, my backstage passes, my hat, my rabbit, his backstage passes, my fake fangs, a few birds, my pogo stick, my donkey ears, my extending tongue gag, my rubber chicken... ya can't even get these anymore... my lucky whale tooth, and a giant clam that opens to reveal the American flag held by a mermaid and her normal brother Richard!"
  • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Heavy Metal have three examples of Long List of Transgressions (including innocuous ones, of course).
  • Liar Liar does a variation after Jim Carrey's character drives recklessly and is stopped by a cop...and has to tell him the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth:

Cop: You know why I pulled you over?
Fletcher Reed: Depends on how long you were following me! * winces*
Cop: Why don't we take it from the top?
Fletcher: Here goes... I sped; I followed too closely; I ran a stop sign; I almost hit a Chevy; I sped some more; I failed to yield at a crosswalk; I changed lanes in an intersection; I changed lanes without signaling while running a red light and speeding!
Cop:- Is that all?
Fletcher: * growls* No. * gestures at his glove compartment* I have unpaid parking tickets.

We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into locked a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.

Hedley Lamarr: I want you to round up every vicious criminal and gunslinger in the West. Take this down. I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperadoes, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers, and Methodists!
Taggart: Could you repeat that, sir?

  • The famous firework stand scene from Joe Dirt.

Joe: So you're gonna tell me that you don't have no black cats, no Roman Candles, or screaming mimis?
Kicking Wing: No.
Joe: Oh come on, man. You got no lady fingers, fuzz buttles, snicker bombs, church burners, finger blasters, gut busters, zippity do das, or crap flappers?
Kicking Wing: No, i don't.
Joe: You're gonna stand there, ownin a fireworks stand, and tell me you don't have no whistlin' bungholes, no spleen splitters, whisker biscuits, honkey lighters, hoosker doos, hoosker don'ts, cherry bombs, nipsy daisers, with or without the scooter stick, or one single whistlin' kitty chaser?
Kicking Wing: No... because snakes and sparklers are the only ones I like.
Joe: Well that might be your problem, it's not what you like, it's the consumer.

  • Randall in Clerks confirms a list of ordered video titles as a mother approaches the counter with her young son. He reels off a very long list of porn titles as the customers wait in impatient consternation.
  • In the Four Rooms segment "The Wrong Man," Jennifer Beals has a lot of nicknames for her husband's penis.
  • National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation had Clark give an Overly Long List of qualities he feels describe his boss after getting stiffed out of a Christmas Bonus that year. "Hey. If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I'd like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people and I want him brought right here...with a big ribbon on his head! And I want to look him straight in the eye, and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy shit...where's the Tylenol?"
  • Scott Pilgrim vs. the World uses the same list as its comic book counterpart. Mary Elizabeth Winstead recited it from memory.

Scott: Did you make some of those up?

  • In Scream 4, Ghostface is asking Kirby trivia questions like the first film, and then he starts asking, "Name the remake of the ground-breaking horror movie in which the villain..." And then Kirby lists off all the horror movie remakes that have come out in recent years.

Literature

  • In Suzumiya Haruhi, in Endless Eight, Kyon asks Yuki for information on the 15498 cycles. She promptly starts reciting data, but Kyon stops her before she sorts the variations in descending order.

"In the last fifteen-thousand four hundred ninety-seven cycles, O-bon has been omitted twice. O-bon sans goldfish catching occurred a total of four hundred thirty-seven times. The city pool has been visited without fail as of this cycle. Part-time work has been conducted a total of nine-thousand twenty-five times with six variations in the nature of the work. Other than distributing balloons, there has also been stock loading, cash register, flyer distributions, call answering, as well as a model fashion show. There have been six-thousand eleven balloon distributions, with three hundred sixty overlaps in two or more variations. Repeated iterations sorted by order of combination are-"
"That's enough, you don't have to continue."

  • In the Novelization of the film The Shaggy D.A. the title character's son asks the ice cream man to list all the varieties he has available, then orders a vanilla ice cream sandwich. He does this every day. The ice cream man is annoyed but used to it and starts the list as soon as he sees the kid, ending at about the same time the kid arrives at the ice cream truck.
  • The Annals of Improbable Research article "The Effects of Peanut Butter on the Rotation of the Earth" has a long list of authors, many of which are dubiously disguised names of celebrities past and present. The actual text of the article? "So far as we can determine, peanut butter has no effect on the rotation of the earth." That's it.
  • "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." --Lazarus Long
  • Another old example would be the Arabian Nights. One story features two people arguing over an alleged Bag of Holding that according to each one of them contained an increasingly larger list of things. But the best Long List has probably got to be the list of food that one of the three ladies buys in the story of the Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad.
  • F Scott Fitzgerald was good at these, especially in The Great Gatsby.
  • One of the Pirates of the Caribbean prequel novels also contains a list of crimes, a few of which are downright hilarious.
  • John Hodgman's list of 700 hobo names in The Areas of My Expertise (which grows to 800 in the paperback release).
  • There's a (great) YA trilogy by Kevin Crossley-Holland based around the King Arthur stories, told from the point of view of a teenage page/squire/knight in the Middle Ages, who joins the Crusades in the third book. There's a lot about the process of getting ready to mount a huge international campaign like this, and at one point, for two solid back-to-back pages he lists all the things he sees being loaded onto ships. It's nuts, especially considering a lot of the words are obsolete.
  • The very description of this trope mentions it involving a list off from a guy behind the counter. Something exactly of this sort happened to Bill Bryson in The Lost Continent:

Mississippi waitress: "How about a piece o'Pah? We got blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, boysenberry, huckleberry, whortleberry, cherry berry, hair berry, Chuck Berry, Beri Beri and lemon."

  • A scene in the eleventh book of A Series of Unfortunate Events has a listing of a huge number of "ingredients" for an improvised glue-like substance.
    • As well as the "Snow Scouts Alphabet Pledge", which parodies the Boy Scout Law (see Real Life below), listing a quality for every letter of the alphabet, some of them contradictory and not all of them positive. One of the qualities listed is "xylophone" because the leader couldn't think of anything else starting with an X.
    • In Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, there are plenty of them. Most notable is the one in a transcript of a VFD meeting spoken by a nine-year-old member.
  • One Professor Macarona D.Thau (Bug), D.Maus (Chubb), Magistaludorum (QIS), Octavium (Hons), PHGK (Blit), DSMK, Mack, D.Thau (Bra), Visiting Professor in Chickens (Jahn the Conqueror University (Floor 2, Shrimp Packers Building, Genua)), Primo Octo (Deux), Visiting Professor of Blit/Slood Exchanges (Al Khali), K Cbf J, Reciprocating Professor of Blit Theory (Unki), D.Thau (Unki), Didimus Supremus (Unki), Emeritus Professor in Blit Substrate Determinations (Chubb), Chair of Blit and Music Studies (Quirm College for Young Ladies), there's only one Professor Macarona D.Thau (Bug), D.Maus (Chubb), Magistaludorum (QIS), Octavium (Hons), PHGK (Blit), DSMK...
    • The list is made even longer by the fact that it's repeated four times.
    • There's also Ponder's list of suggestions for improving the game of football after the wizards' first pitiful attempt at playing it, a list that goes on for nearly a page and a half.
    • Used a few times in combination with Trademark Favorite Food. In the second Science of Discworld, the Elf Queen's attempt to read Rincewind's mind is blocked by his mental litany of potato recipes. In Going Postal, Stanley's pea-brain gets stuck on the prospect of a stamp in honor of regional cabbage farming, and he can't stop rattling off cabbage recipes without intervention.
  • Don Quixote: This trope is played straight and parodied:
    • Played straight at the Preface of the Author, Part I, a friend of Cervantes advises him to get a book that quotes famous authors from A to Z and just insert the examples in his own book, so Cervantes can feign that he knows all those authors, because some readers are simple enough to believe that the author can use all those quotes in any book.
    • Parodied at Chapter XVIII, Part I. Since Homer, the description of the forces and the generals of an army was an important part of the heroic literature, and books of chivalry were pleased to develop it, (Amadis of Gaul has a similar scene). In that chapter, Don Quixote takes three pages to describe the forces of what he sees at two contending armies to Sancho, whom only can see... two droves of sheep. Lampshaded by the author:

Good God! what a number of countries and nations he named! giving to each its proper attributes with marvellous readiness; brimful and saturated with what he had read in his lying books! Sancho Panza hung upon his words without speaking, and from time to time turned to try if he could see the knights and giants his master was describing...

  • Illuminatus! has a list of bands that will be attending its climactic music festival, stretching over several pages. Despite the book being written in the '70s, one of the bands is Nirvana.
  • Lord Peter Wimsey runs through a list of things he's figured out about the case in The Nine Tailors. It consists of every pertinent bit of information except the identity of the murderer, and how he committed the murder.

"But that, as I say, is a trifle."

"I know everything that happens on this ship. I know that Bekks Yojagh and Moq are having sexual relations in secret. I know that three of the squad leaders in First and Second Company are no longer using the names they were born with. I know that Ensign Kallo would rather be a painter than an officer, but that she is dreadfully bad at painting. I know that Leader Ryjjan has borrowed storage in the cargo bay from two officers in order to store barrels of bloodwine. I know that Commander Kurak has a nephew who will enter Defense Force officer training in less than a year, at which point she will resign her commission. I know that Leader Hovoq is impotent. I know that Lieutenant Yaklan writes fiction under an assumed name. I know that Leader Wol accidentally killed her own son at San-Tarah. I know that Bekk J'nfod cheats when he plays grinnak. I know that most of the neckbones that Lieutenant Leskit wears were not taken in battle as he claims. I know that Leader Zurlkint has a fondness for a Terran fruit called sutawberIs and he had a box of them smuggled in when we left Ty'Gokor. I know that Leader Kylag has two different mates on two different planets in the empire. I know that you received those recordings of Battlecruiser Vengeance you're so fond of in exchange for a set of coins that, should your father ever find out you traded them, he would kill you".

  • The Navidson Record in House of Leaves features some extremely long lists of references. The various levels of fictional editors comment that the references are nonexistent or have nothing to do with what is being talked about, though some of them do contain codes and hidden messages.
  • A Void has a lot of long lists, usually just to show off what words can be included that don't have the letter "e".
  • In "Blood Pact", the most recent Gaunt's Ghosts novel, one of the blood pact members has taken a vow to say all the names of death. He's been saying them for years. He never gets to finish, because one of the last names on the list is the person who kills him.
  • In the Adventures of McBroom series by Sid Fleischman, rural patriarch Josh McBroom has eleven children, which he calls in rapidfire cadence thus: "WillJILLHesterCHESTERPeterPOLLYTimTOMMaryLARRYandlittleCLARINDA!"
  • One common palindrome joke is to augment the famous "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama" palindrome into a still-palindromic long list. The most famous example of this is probably:

A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, heros, rajahs, a coloratura, maps, snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana bag again (or a camel), a crepe, pins, Spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal: Panama!

McWhorter's Original Condiment was written large, ...
Water, blackstrap molasses, imported habanero peppers, salt, garlic, ginger, tomato puree, axle greese, real hickory smoke, snuff, butts of clove cigarettes, Guinness Stout fermentation dregs, uranium mill tailings, muffler cores, monosodium glutamate, nitrates, nitrites, nitrotes and nitrutes, nutrites, natrotes, powdered pork nose hairs, dynamite, activiated charcoal, match-heads, used pipe cleaners, tar, nicotine, single-malt whiskey, smoked beef lymph nodes, autumn leaves, red fuming nitric acid, bituminous coal, fallout, printer's ink, laundry starch, drain cleaner, blue chrysotile asbestos, carrageenan, BHA, BHT, and natural flavorings.

  • The sign on the door of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office listing the things that will stay these messengers about their duty in Men At Arms and Going Postal.
  • Francois Rabelais, 16th-century writer of the French renaissance, in chapter XXII of his satirical novel Gargantua lists more than 90 games the young Gargantua plays every day, while his 'education' is supervised by (incompetent, as you may infer) old-style clerical "sophisters".
  • Israeli satirist Epharim Kishon used this when he and his wife go to a supermarket the first time. They end up buying stuff for more than thousand pounds.
  • James Joyce makes extensive use of extensive lists in Finnegans Wake.

Live-Action TV

  • A common trope seen in both film and television involves a child meeting a department store Santa. When the guys asks the kid what he wants for Christmas, he unrolls a list that looks like it was written on toilet paper.
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus specialized in this: "The Cheese Shoppe", the "Spam" sketch, and one particular sketch where a screen containing all the synonyms of a certain word was lowered onto the stage and the audience was invited to recite from it. Most subsequent uses of the trope are often homages to Python.
    • Also the list of victims in the "Mass Murder Case" sketch.
    • And the name and lineage of Erik Njorl.
    • And the chief weapons of The Spanish Inquisition.
    • The "Spam" sketch was the origin of the term "spam" in the sense of junk email, due to the tendency to read it as "spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, oooh an interoffice memo!".
    • "Spam" is also notable in that it's a parody of "cheese shop"-style "catalog" sketches. (Cleese and Chapman wrote all of the originals, "Spam" was written by Jones and Palin as a spoof of the others' style.)
  • The Ice Cream Parlour sketch by The Two Ronnies.
  • Doctor Cox in Scrubs is fond of reeling off long, fast lists of—for example -- "things that he cares more about than the fact that it's JD's last day as an intern", normally involving at least one insult to Hugh Jackman. Subverted in the season 6 finale—he's barely started his rant when Dr. Kelso interrupts with "Funny, long list. We get it. You need a new thing, big guy."
  • In an early sketch on Sesame Street, Ernie asks an ice cream vendor for a chocolate/strawberry/peach/vanilla/banana/pistachio/peppermint/lemon/orange/butterscotch ice cream cone (with both characters repeating the list of flavors several times each), but the vendor makes the mistake of filling the order backward.
    • After Ernie complains, the vendor tells him to eat the stack-o-flavors "standing on his head".
  • "The Menu Song" from The Electric Company" (written by Tom Lehrer) consists entirely of this.
  • Adam Savage going through the steps of the MythBusters Christmas Rube Goldberg Machine.
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000 was very fond of these.

Crow: You kids, with your big pants, and your colored chalk, and your Neve Campbell, and your fanny packs, and your Nerf balls, and your listening to the No Doubts, and your Pong, and your Volkswagen Golf leases, and your notebooks, and the kids with the pierced I-don't-know-whats, and the roller skates, and the 23-skidoos, and the listening to the Becks, and...

    • Episode 405 (Being from Another Planet) finds Joel and the Bots rattling off a Long List of Mad Lib Thriller Titles from the "Robert Ludlum library": The Horshack Conspiracy, The Forbin Conundrum, The Slingshack Congealment, The Migraine Containment, The Crankshaft Mc Nogginbee, The Polping Popoopoo, The Klingla Klogluglu, The Shreenshrack Regeengyne, The Momaw Mamoomoo, The Greengeen Gagrinegagrinega, The Lala Kalingalingaling, The Kriskrack Krakrakra, The Zinga Zingaza, The Macheengo Conghelium, and The Mingmang Patingtang.
    • In Episode 414 (Tormented), Joel and the Bots list some musicians they'd like to see fall from a lighthouse to their death (as happens to one of the movie's characters): Kenny Rogers, the Manhattan Transfer, Kenny Loggins, Jim Messina, Dr. Hook, Jonathan Edwards, Dononvan, Lionel Richie, Michael Bolton, Ben Sidran, Michael Franks, New Kids on the Block, Starland Vocal Band, Peter Himmelman, Anne Murray, and (again) Kenny Rogers.
    • In Episode 503 (Swamp Diamonds), Joel and the Bots speculate on what other nicknames one of the film's actors, Mike "Touch" Connors, considered before settling on "Touch". They come up with Thrust, Jab, Fudge, Crunch, Blast, Smidge, Shout, Batch, Scrod, Flake, Wink, Sploot, Pinch, Probe, Wing, Snake, Grunt, Flink, Pat, Snack, and Slap, and Hal. (Servo: "Hal?!!")
    • In Episode 820 (Space Mutiny), Mike and the Bots give a long list of nicknames for Flight Commander David Ryder: Slab Bulkhead, Fridge Largemeat, Punt Speedchunk, Butch Deadlift, Bold Bigflank, Splint Chesthair, Flint Ironstag, Bolt Vanderhuge, Blast Hardcheese, Thick McRunfast, Buff Drinklots, Trunk Slamchest, Fist Rockbone, Stump Beefnob, Smash Lampjaw, Punch Rockgroin, Buck Plankchest, Stump Chunkman, Dirk Hardpeck, Rip Steakface, Slate Slabrock, Crud Bonemeal, Brick Hardmeat, Rip Slagcheek, Punch Sideiron, Gristle McThornBody, Slake Fistcrunch, Buff Hardback, Bob Johnson, Blast Thickneck, Crunch Buttsteak, Slab Squatthrust, Lump Beefbroth, Touch Rustrod, Reef Blastbody, Big McLargeHuge, Smoke Manmuscle, Beat Punchbeef, Pack Blowfist, and Roll Fizzlebeef.
  • On Taxi, Latka starts to tell the other characters how there's only one thing you need in life to make you happy, and that's friends...but then he remembers that you also need food and clothes...and a nice car...and a home...with a pool...and a beautiful woman "to make you foam at the mouth"...and finally concludes that if you have all that other stuff, "the friends would only get in the way."
  • On the one-off British drama The Missing Postman, happens to one of the down-to-earth policemen. "Want a sandwich, sir? We've got 476 varieties..." (He offers a brief glance at the huge list on a board) "I'll have cheese".
  • This example happened in the Monk episode "Mr. Monk Visits a Farm", when Monk is confronted by Jimmy Belmont and finds his fenced off field, Monk rambles off a long list of nicknames for marijuana:

Adrian Monk: Okay, what’s back there? Let me guess. Fields of reefer.
Jimmy Belmont: Fields of reefer? What kind of cop were you?
Adrian Monk: You know what I mean: Ditchweed. Boo. The old Ali Baba.
Jimmy Belmont: What makes you think that I’d actually-
Adrian Monk: Magic Dragon. Bambalachi. Yellow Submarine. Black Bart. Doctor Giggles. Kentucky Blue. You know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Railroad Weed! That’s right. The Devil’s Parsley. Skunk, Splim, Splam, Mooster. Side Salad.

Stephen Colbert: Now don't worry folks, it is not [pulls out Pringles cans as he mentions each flavor] Original flavor, or Sour Cream & Onion, or Barbecue, or Salt and Vinegar, or Ranch, or Bacon Ranch, or Multi-grain Ranch, or Multi-Grain Original, or Cheddar, or Multi-Cheddar Cheese, or Pizza, or Jalapeno, or Loaded Baked Potato, or Extreme Screamin' Dill Pickle, or Extreme Kickin' Cheddar, or Extreme Blasted Buffalo Wing. No, none of those. It's also not Reduced Fat Original, Reduced Fat Savory Cheddar, Reduced Fat Sweet Mesquite Barbecue, or Reduced Fat Tomato and Mozzarella. No, none of those, okay? It's also not Light Original, Light Sour Cream & Onion, or Light Barbecue, okay? No no, unfortunately, it's the two best flavors: Cheeseburger, which gives you all the enjoyment of a cheeseburger without the bother of cheese, or burger, okay? And: Taco Night.

    • Immediately followed by Colbert rattling off the ingredients of Taco Night:

Colbert: I know, I know. Taco Night, which doesn't just deliver the flavor of a taco - hell, even a taco could do that - these capture the whole taco night. It's right here in the ingredients. See, it has, um: whey, vegetable solids, sunflower oil, opening the refrigerator to find there's nothing else and deciding to make tacos, even though you made them two nights ago, cheddar cheese, multodextrin, salt, Alex, tell your sister to come downstairs, it's taco night, whaddaya mean, "She's at Brian's house"?, rice, flour, onion powder, no we can't eat in front of the TV, we're gonna dine as a family, dried tomato, malic acid, fine, if you don't wanna eat what's being served, everybody can fend for themselves and watch this family fall apart, but if anyone wants to join me, I'll be in the dining room enjoying tacos, disodium phosphates, paprika extract, take off that sombrero, Alex, I will not be mocked. Oh, and potatoes.

    • The Sept. 6, 2011 Cheating Death segment introduces Vaxamalgam, the one-pod-of-pills-fused-together-fits-all cure to insomnia, drowsiness, angina, eczema, dry mouth, damp mouth, constipation, diarrhea, night terrors, day terrors, brunch terrors, sore throat, deep throat, lockjaw, slackjaw, jabberjaw, nausea, rashes, heart arrhythmia, erectile dysfunction, blood in urine, urine in blood, shingles, cedar shake, aluminum siding, or whatever that yellow one does. Depending on what condition you have, Vaxamalgam will cure it... or cause it. Side effects include asperger helper, Jimmy-crack-corneas, and explosive diorama.

◦You also should not take it with milk...but that shouldn't be a problem as it's a suppository. (Mind you, it's about the length and width of a standard TV remote, sooo...)

    • Both the real Stephen Colbert and the character are the youngest of eleven children, and he likes to rattle them off in order. Notably abbreviated in one episode when he commented on the studies showing that men with more older brothers are more likely to be gay: "Now, I have a few problems with this. Namely, Jimmy, Eddie, Billy, Tommy, Jay, Paul, and Peter."
  • On The Daily Show, at a time when the Bush administration was embroiled in a particularly high number of scandals, they did a little snippet before a commercial break of Scott McClellan saying the White House wouldn't comment on a situation, and asked a trivia question: Was he talking about A) Dick Cheney's hunting accident, B) the response to Hurricane Katrina, C) the Jack Abramoff scandal, or D) the Valerie Plame affair? (Beat) Or E) NSA wiretapping? Or F) Abu Ghraib? Or G) Guantanamo Bay? Or H) the Tom Delay corruption scandal? (After the commercial break) Or Z) Oil industry subsidies? Or Alpha) NASA censorship? Or Beta) Politicization of PBS? Or Gamma) Halliburton no-bid contracts? Or Delta) Failure to find WMDs in Iraq?
  • Have I Got News for You did something similar with a list of "Tory sleaze" scandals.
    • And a list of actions performed by Jeffrey Archer that might hinder him in becoming mayor of London when he was a candidate in 1998. "But apart from all that... he is a complete arse."
  • On Top Gear when Jay Leno appeared, Clarkson did this with a list of Leno's cars.
  • The serious BBC documentary "A history of Scotland" includes two of these in quick succession when discussing the Jacobite rebellion of 1715:

"...The Earl of Mar was one of those who found himself without a job. So he went back home to Scotland -- and he arrived there an instant revolutionary. He spread malicious rumours that the English planned taxes on land, corn, cattle, meal, malt, horses, sheep, cocks and hens. And then he raised the standard of the Jacobites on September 6th. The reliably pro-Stuart Louis XIV had died five days before he did so. Perhaps Mar should have waited. Perhaps he should have changed his plans.
But the word 'plan' doesn't belong in any sentence describing what Mar did. All historians agree: when they write their accounts of the Jacobite rising of 1715, their vocabularies converge on words like 'farce', 'buffoon', 'idiocy', 'incompetent', 'worst possible time', 'disintegrate', [the presenter begins to walk away into the distance, his voiceover fading] 'pathetic', 'half-cocked', 'botch-up', 'monstrous', 'fumbled', 'damp squib', 'stupid', 'fatuous...' [fade out]

  • The panel show QI has a few examples of this when presenter Stephen Fry reels off a long list. Three that come to mind are things invented by the Scots, things invented by the Chinese, and various things that are made just from carbon, hyrdrogen and oxygen.
    • He did an impressive off-the-cuff rendition of a story about the Duke of Devonshire's estate being inspected during World War II to see if there was anyone working there who could be spared for the war effort.

And they said, "Well, Your Grace, we can understand that you need forty-seven gardeners and thirteen under-gardeners, and you need grooms, and you need chauffeurs, and you need upstairs maids and downstairs maids and in-between maids and laundry room maids and stillroom maids and kitchen maids and nursemaids and housemaids and parlor maids, and we can understand that you need the boy to scrape the knives and boots, and you need the butler and the four footmen and the under-butler... but we wonder if a man economy might be made. Does Your Grace necessarily need two pastry cooks?" To which he apparently replied, "Oh, damn it, can't a man have a biscuit?"

Barney: Lawyers, teachers, poets, doctors, professional equestrians, amateur equestrians... [Time passes, and the gang are halfway through dinner.] A butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker. Yes -- we're to the rhyming section, now. A math professor, a tax assessor, a weight guesser... [More time passes. Their dishes have been cleared.] A puppeteer, a blackjack dealer, a stay at home mom. That's a job too, guys. A circuit court j--
Robin: GET TO THE POINT.

    • In another episode, a building inspector is checking out the house Ted's just bought, and lists off all the problems he's found with it so far:

Inspector: The black mold, the damaged retaining wall, the frayed electrical wires, the lead paint, the water damage, the fire damage, the sun damage, the broken furnace, the rotted floorboards - hey, look at that, no termites - the cracked chimney, the bats, the rats, the spiders, the raccoons, the hobo, the detached gutter, the outdated fusebox, and the paint job in the kitchen, which is fine, but the trim really clashes with the countertops.
(several minutes later, after the inspector has left): Marshall: Did he say a hobo!?

      • The Inspector then finds termites (after falling through the ceiling)
  • Saturday Night Live
    • Steve Martin's "Christmas wish list", from a late-'80s episode.
    • A 1st season show when Jill Clayburgh was host had a list of "People that dolphins are definitely smarter than".
    • The monologue in Buck Henry's first episode featured a list of people who turned down hosting, such as The Two Stooges, Chastity Bono, and Gentle Ben. At the end, they show a list of people they're trying to host an episode, including members of the King family, The Chicago Seven, and Bert Parks.
  • From Not The Nine O'Clock News, a man asks for a lager, and the barman asks "Any particular one, sir?". When he responds "What have you got?", the barman satirises the then-prevalent fashion for multiple foreign lagers by reciting a massive list, including Heinrichhimmlerken, Krooning Bug, and Everest, which is apparently "brewed by Jormans in the Hummerleers". Settling on the latter, he's asked "Tall glass, thin glass, schooner, vase, bowl, goblet or pipette?". Choosing just a pint, he's asked "Draught, sachet, can, bottle or aerosol?". When he asks for a packet of... the barman eagerly says "Crisps?", anticipating another possible massive list, but our hero wants pork scratchings. Not deterred, the barman offers "Pork scratchings, chicken itchings, doggie scabs, hedgehog stuffings..." until the time bell goes and he announces the bar is closed.
  • This is one of Peter Serafinowicz's favourite kinds of humour. The long list of foods in the Butterfield Diet is the most well known, but there are loads of examples in his sketches.
  • A Recurring Sketch in the Dutch comedian Andre van Duin's 90's show, where he played a shopkeep and a patron and every week the patron would ask for something else, and the shopkeep'd run off a long list of types of the item which he asked for. .. All of which he wouldn't have. Except for that one time when he had the first item and gave it to the guy and then pushed him out of his store.
  • On The Young Ones, Neil once recited a Long List of all the pens, erasers, good-luck charms and other junk he put on his desk while sitting for an exam. By the time he'd unloaded all the items he'd brought to take the test with, the time to actually complete it had expired.
  • In a Mad TV sketch, one character enters a fast-food joint and orders "Two hamburgers with just pickles, two cheeseburgers with another cheeseburger, everything on 'em, four more hamburgers with everything, and a cheeseburger with no pickles and a cheeseburger with nothing BUT pickles. Two more hamburgers with everything but onions on one and everything but pickles, mustard, and tomatoes on the other. Three large fries, six medium fries, one large fry, a junior fry, and two junior fries. Three more cheeseburgers with extra cheese and bacon, two more junior fries and a hamburger with everything. Two more hamburgers with everything and two more hamburgers with everything. Four large cokes and a large sprite. Two large cokes and a small sprite. Five large cokes and one large coke and a small coke. Three small cokes and a small coke and a small coke." He and the employee then go back and forth repeating the same order.
    • Also, the things Spishak Spishwax doesn't protect your car from:

Paint, tar, feathers, guano, shampoo, conditioner, wood stain, mahogany wood stain, eggs, scrambled eggs, Easter eggs, Easter rocks, baseball bats, bowling balls, chum, potted plants, Jewish wedding, cat litter, neighborhood kids, chicken and dumplings, Christmas decorations, cinder blocks, sledgehammers, sandwiches, did we mention baseball bats?, boat anchors and wrecking balls.

Music

  • See List Song for examples of songs that consist entirely of a single Long List.
  • John Hodgeman promoted his book with a list of 500 plausible hobo names, recited for 54 minutes in total. Notable names included "Boxcar Aldous Huxley", and "Dora the Explorer". Best yet, this list was recited * live* at a college, with Jonathan Coulton (who also appears as a hobo name) strumming a guitar in accompaniment of the entirety of the list.
  • La Ferme, by French band Les Fatals Picards, is a long, long list of animals. Like many of the Fatals Picards' songs, it's a Hurricane of Puns whose title can either mean "The Farm" or "Shut up".
  • The final verse of Hurt Me Soul by Lupe Fiasco contains an extremely long list of things...however, this isn't used for comedy, because at the end he states, "All the world's ills...sitting on chrome 24-inch wheels."
    • The song itself is not a List Song because the first two verses are about his experiences with Hip-Hop.
    • Although the three choruses of the song are lists of a lot of bad things as well ("They took my daughter/Ain't got no water/I can't get hired/They cross on fire/We all got suspended/I just got sentenced...so I've got nooo place to gooo")
    • You know what, just agree that it's %50 Long List, %50 List Song, and a %100 Tear Jerker. Even the most active of Hip-Hop haters will feel some sadness.
  • The bridge from "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Hardware Store":

They've got allen wrenches, gerbil feeders, toilet seats, electric heaters, Trash compactors, juice extractors, shower rods and water meters, Walkie-talkies, copper wires safety goggles, radial tires, BB pellets, rubber mallets, fans and dehumidifiers, Picture hangers, paper cutters, waffle irons, window shutters, Paint removers, window louvres, masking tape and plastic gutters, Kitchen faucets, folding tables, weather stripping, jumper cables, Hooks and tackle, grout and spackle, power foggers, spoons and ladles, Pesticides for fumigation, high-performance lubrication, Metal roofing, water proofing, multi-purpose insulation, Air compressors, brass connectors, wrecking chisels, smoke detectors, Tire guages, hamster cages, thermostats and bug deflectors, Trailer hitch demagnetizers, automatic circumcisers, Tennis rackets, angle brackets, Duracells and Energizers, Soffit panels, circuit breakers, vacuum cleaners, coffee makers, Calculators, generators, matching salt and pepper shakers.

  • The Bouncing Souls have a song titled "Badass", which is a recitation of badass things.

Professional Wrestling

Radio

I got Doris Day, Gladys Knight, Dawn Upshaw, Madonna, Monica Lewinsky, Robert Pinsky, The Minsk Ballet, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Jon Bon-Jovi, Jane Fonda, Rhonda Fleming, Flem Snopes, Snoopy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Dopey, Huey Dewey and Louis, David Bowie, Johnny Yuma, Uma Thurman, 2 Live Crew, Rod Carew, Wally Ballou, The Tennessee Two, The Three Tenors, The Four Tops, the Dave Clark Five, the Six Fat Dutchmen, Dutch Schultz, Sholem Aleichem, Shemp, Moe and Larry, Harry Shearer, Weird Al Yankovic, Al Franken, Frankenstein, Andy Stein, Tyne Daly, Ponce de Leon, Leon Russell, Tim Russell, they're all here...

Zest: So, you've finally decided on a name?
Lutecia: Yes... name no. 37, Agito.

Religion and Mythology

  • There are various long lists in The Bible, detailing genealogy, censuses, etc.
  • Older Than Dirt: The Ancient Egyptian Litany of Re lists 75 different names and manifestations of the sun god Re.

Stand Up Comedy

  • Jeff Foxworthy uses this gag to great effect while reading the side effects for 'Fluorofluor':

"'Side effects may include: nausea, vomiting, water weight gain, lower back pain, receding hairline, eczema, seborrhea, psoriasis, itching and chafing clothing, liver spots, blood clots, ringworm, excessive body odor, uneven tire wear, pyorrhea, gonorrhea, diarrhea, halitosis, scoliosis, loss of bladder control, hammertoe, the shanks, low sperm count, warped floors, cluttered drawers, hunchback, heart attack, low resale value on your home... feline leukemia, athlete's foot, head lice, clubfoot, MS, MD, VD, fleas, anxiety, sleeplessness, drowsiness, poor gas mileage, tooth decay, parvo, warts, unibrow, lazy eye, fruit flies, chest pains, clogged drains, hemorrhoids, dry heaving and sexual dysfunction.' At that point you're thinking, hell, I'll just stick with the itchy, watery eyes."

  • There are recordings of old Chinese stand-up where the guy reels off insanely long lists with barely a pause for breath. Like a list of (nearly) every martial arts style in China, military gear ( omitting pants), or courses at a banquet.
  • Genre comedian/singer Luke Ski opens his "You might be a Trekkie" routine by rattling off a list of scifi shows, films, collectibles, and hobbies that a person needs to be obsessed with, to decisively qualify as a Trekkie.
  • George Carlin's last recorded performance of "Seven Dirty Words" featured a list of more than two-hundred profane words.
  • Comedian Bill Saluga is better known for/as his character "Raymond J. Johnson, Jr.", who was very fond of telling people all the things they could call him other than "Johnson".

Theater

  • The Gilbert and Sullivan Patter Song "As some day it may happen" from The Mikado which is a list of all the people who won't be missed if they are executed.
    • The Mikado himself one ups this by listing crimes along with their "fitting" punishments.
    • In The Sorcerer Alexis greets John Wellington Wells with "Good day. I believe you are a sorcerer." Wells immediately rattles off a Long List of his company's magical products - and then sings a song about them.
  • In Shakespeare's King Lear, the courtier Oswald arrives at an inn to find the ostler (who runs the stables) strangely rude and uncooperative. (The ostler is his enemy, the Earl of Kent, in disguise.) Oswald makes the mistake of getting drawn in, and is subjected to a hailstorm of Shakespearean cruelty:

Oswald: Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.
Kent: Fellow, I know thee.
Oswald: What dost thou know me for?

Kent: A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver'd, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch.
—As a bonus, the nearly-fifty-year-old Kent proceeds to beat the crap out of the much younger Oswald, without ever telling the poor sap who he really is or why he's beating him up.

Le Bret: You make too many enemies by far!
Cyrano (eating his grapes): How many think you I have made to-night?
Le Bret: Forty, no less, not counting ladies.
Cyrano: Count!
Le Bret: Montfleury first, the bourgeois, then De Guiche,
The Viscount, Baro, the Academy…
Cyrano: Enough! I am o'erjoyed!

Video Games

  • In the intro to the Particle Accelerator level of MegaRace, Lance Boyle rattles off an alphabetically acrostical list of things that have been turned into psycho-mutants and "unleashed upon an unsuspecting world".
  • One of GLaDOS' spheres in Portal will recite a Long List consisting of a recipe for cake, which calls for some rather alarming ingredients:

One 18.25 ounce package chocolate cake mix, one can prepared coconut pecan frosting, 3/4 cup vegetable oil, four large eggs, one cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, 3/4 cup butter or margarine, 1 and 2/3 cups granulated sugar, two cups all purpose flour.
Don't forget garnishes such as: fish-shaped crackers, fish-shaped candies, fish-shaped solid waste, fish-shaped dirt, fish-shaped ethyl benzene, pull-and-peel licorice, fish-shaped volatile organic compounds and sediment shaped sediment, candy coated peanut butter pieces shaped like fish, one cup lemon juice, alpha resins, unsaturated polyester resin, fiberglass surface resins, and volatile malted milk impoundments, nine large egg yolks, twelve medium geosynthetic membranes, one cup granulated sugar, an entry called 'How to Kill Someone with Your Bare Hands', two cups rhubarb sliced, 2/3 cup granulated rhubarb, one tablespoon all-purpose rhubarb, one teaspoon grated orange rhubarb, three tablespoons rhubarb on fire, one large rhubarb, one cross borehole electro-magnetic imaging rhubarb, two tablespoons rhubarb juice, adjustable aluminum head positioner, slaughter electric needle injector, cordless electric needle injector, injector needle driver, injector needle gun, cranial caps. And it contains proven preservatives, deep penetration agents, and gas and odor control chemicals that will deodorize and preserve putrid tissue.

  • In the flash game African Detroit Cop, the list of crimes committed by Eddie:

Arnie: "You've crashed two police cruisers, set someone's house on fire, stole a woman's baby, verbally abused the mayor, defecated on my lawn, severely beaten a group of senior citizens, shot a cat out of a tree, robbed a liquor store and exposed yourself to a priest and that's just today."

Web Comics

  • Strip #136 of Order of the Stick paid Homage to the Cheese Shop sketch, with Roy going into a polearm store to buy a new weapon. The strip is entitled, of course, "It's Not a Gaming Session Until Someone Quotes Monty Python". It's also a joke based on the fact that Gary Gygax included a large number of obscure and often redundant polearms into the rules of Dungeons & Dragons, most of which were retained in later editions.
    • Obscure quote alert. It's just an indirect Monty Python reference and really comes from a parody weapons table in the magazine Space Gamer #74, which was also reprinted in one of the Murphy's Rules collections. This table specifically includes the "glaive-glaive-glaive-guisarme-glaive".
      • Which makes it references to not one, but two Python sketches, each of which is a Long List gag - the Cheese Shop and "Spam, spam, spam, eggs, bacon and spam" for those who didn't get it - for a double subversion, but not a Double Subversion. (Actually it references three since the cat drags in a dead parrot as well as a general nod to the references, in the form of a snake - presumably a python.)
      • That this occurs is even commented upon: "I think you're drifting into another sketch, sir."
    • Irregular Webcomic also has a table with a ridiculous list of polearms, including the "Glaive-Glaive-Glaive-Guisarme-Glaive".
    • The backcover of the printed prequel Start of Darkness shows a list of "26 Unpleasant Things That Happen (or Almost Happen) in this book" including Murder, Arson, Tampering with the Fabric of Reality and Taco Night
  • Mountain Time has a long list of immature names entered into The Oregon Trail for the sake of funny tombstones. Most of them, like Hooteropolis: Where the Hooters Hoot never would have fit.
  • When the Ansem Retort house got attacked a second time, a FOX employee listed a number of suspects, including, amusingly enough, Axel twice.

Yes, our main suspects are: Axel, Larxene, you [Ansem], Cloud, Zexion, the former FOX president, the guy Zexion turned into a cookie, Darth Maul, God, Derek Jeter, a guy in red bandages, fat people, Axel again, a demon in Sora's head, and the Trix Rabbit.

Web Original

"This never would've happened when I was a boy! You kids these days and your Millenium Items, and your card games, and your loud music, and your hula hoops, and your hopscotch, and your dungarees, and your lollipops, and your Sony Playstations, and your voice-activated light switches, and your leather pants, and your artificial insemination, and-"
"...your Blu-Ray Discs, and your pierced scrotums, and your bull frogs, and your telekinesis, and your Marvel Comics, and your YouTube Dot Com, and your nuclear physics, and your ingrowing toenails, and your Gears of War, and your Quentin Tarantino, and your power steering, and your elevators, and your illegitimate offspring, and your - hey, why did it fade to black?"

Fratricide (killing a brother), patricide (father), sororicide (sister), regicide (monarch), matricide (mother), avunculicide (uncle), mass murder, murder-suicide, massacre

"Aradog, Gnarls Bark-ley, Canine Wanwan, Tinkles, Biter, Tanzania, Bouncer, Wolverine, Owner ('cuz I think it'd be funny if someone said "Hey, this is my owner"), Treebeard, Bubbles the Nerdfighting Puppy, Leghumper, Boxxy, Catbain, Eater, Pupcorn, Littlefoot, Pup the Magic Dragon, Doggie Houndser, Puppy Longstocking, Bilby, Secret Werewolf, The Puppymaster, Ruffles, Chocobo, Jasper, Cat, Ruffrider, The Brooklyn Doggers, Superscooper, Mightyena, Gooser, Spank, Yips Ahoy, Bungie, Scooter, RoboCop, Phoenix Bite, Annie's Boobs, MacArthur Bark, Raise the Woof, Sirius, Collieflower, Barkimaeus, Red XIII, Kibbletz, DogBrothers, Bowser, Drools Verne, Fetcher Reede, Dunepuppy, Howl Manager, Anal Pug, Arfie Bunker, Horse Whiskerer, Tick Magnet, Admiral Puppystein, Peter Barker, Monkey D. Ruffy, Furderboat, Minute, Beowoof, Falcor, Joe Rogan, Tinkler, Pepsi and Bahamutt."

Western Animation

  • In the first scene of the first episode after Family Guy was Uncanceled, Peter recites a long list (about 30) of Fox shows that failed during the time Family Guy was off the air, ending with "Well, I guess if all those shows go down the tubes, we might have a shot (at being brought back)."
    • Called back in Season 7's "Family Gay", when the long list of entrants in a horse race are all named for canceled Fox shows.
      • Then there was the list of Peter's least favorite celebrities on "Episode 420," which included such names as: Carlos Mencia, Amy Winehouse, Andy Samberg, Geoffery Chaucer, every rapper, Justin Timberlake, Eve Plumb, Kate Bosworth, the forehead guy (Rainn Wilson) from The Office, Chris Martin, Chris Martin's parents, and Chris Martin's ancestors.
  • The Simpsons examples:
    • In episode "Papa's Got a Brand New Badge", Homer lists off all the jobs he's had over the years. Marge manages to go the bathroom and put her hair in rollers while he's reciting his list. Apparently, Dan Castellaneta managed that entire list, from memory, in one single take.

"I've had a lot of jobs in my life: boxer, mascot, astronaut, baby proofer, imitation Krusty, truck driver, hippie, plow driver, food critic, conceptual artist, grease salesman, carny, mayor, grifter, body guard for the mayor, country western manager, garbage commissioner, mountain climber, farmer, inventor, Smithers, Poochie, celebrity assistant, power plant worker, fortune cookie writer, beer baron, Kwik-E-Mart clerk, homophobe, and missionary, but protecting people, that gives me the best feeling of all."

    • Moe evidently has an 'enemies list'. Since he's a Jerkass with a Hair-Trigger Temper, it's rather voluminous. Turns out it's actually Richard Nixon's list—he just crossed out Nixon's name and put in his own.
    • Homer also has an Enemies List, according to the season six episode "Homer the Great" (that's the famous "Stonecutters" episode), which lists the following people and things Homer doesn't like: Bill of Rights, his own father (Grandpa Simpson), fat-free lard, gravity, the Emmys, Darwin, H2Whoa! (the water slide ride Homer got stuck in on the season two episode "Brush With Greatness"), Billy Crystal, God (even though Homer was friends with Him on the season four episode "Homer the Heretic"), Soloflex, Bart (listed as "the boy"), Stern Lecture Plumbing (the plumbing company from earlier in the episode), and Econo-Save (the company that makes the stool that just broke under Homer's weight).
    • Kent Brockman, when preparing for the end of Springfield by an impending asteroid, presented a very fast scrolling list of People Who Are Gay. Homer hurriedly tries to copy down the list as it scrolls. It was the show's production crew.
    • Godfrey Jones also announced that his newscast was apologizing for a list of recent errors. The errors scrolled quickly on the screen. When slowed down on videotape, they included "If you are reading this, you need a life."
    • Principal Skinner (on deciding which laundry detergent to use): "Let's see: Tide...Cheer...Bold...Biz...Fab...All...Gain...Wisk. I believe today I will try...Bold."
    • In "Marge Gets a Job", Grandpa comes to believe Maggie is sick while babysitting her. He consults an antiquated medical reference book: "Let's see, what's old Doc Washburn prescribe? Do you have dropsy? The grippe? Scrofula? The vapors? Jungle rot? Dandy fever? Poor man's gout? Housemaid's knee? Climactic boo bow? The staggers? Dum dum fever?"
    • In "The Seven-Beer Snitch" we get to hear exactly what was found in Otto's urine sample:

"Crack, smack, uppers, downers, outers, inners, horse tranquilizers, cow paralyzers, blue bombers, green goofers, yellow submarines, LSD Mach 3, and trace amounts of... *disgusted* human urine."

    • A Running Gag is that whenever we see Reverend Lovejoy giving a sermon, he tends to cite a long list found in The Bible.
  • Wade Duck of U.S. Acres has a list of his fears. Predictably, it's rather long...
  • In the first season finale of Drawn Together, Foxxy Love lists off various reality show contestants who got deceived by the producers in the end before the housemates take matters into their own hands.
  • The Animaniacs had several songs that were long lists. One listed all of the countries in the world and the other was a list of all the US states and their capitals.
    • Then there was Yakko singing "all the words in the English language".
    • And "Video Revue", a pastiche of "midnight in the bookstore" cartoons like the Daffy Duck short "Book Revue", where the Warners leapt off an Animaniacs video tap ebox and ran around the store, singing about the movies they encountered while interacting with the cover art of the VHS boxes.
    • Another Animaniacs short involves a rodent from the country trying to become a big name Hollywood actor. Anyone he didn't like was added to his "list of people I'd snub when I become rich and famous." By the end, it was quite a list.
  • In the Looney Tunes short Bedeviled Rabbit, Bugs Bunny - after witnessing a mass exodus of panicky forest animals and being told that "the Tasmanian Devil's on the loose" - is handed a pamphlet that offers information about the creature, including a Long List of the other animals that it eats:

Bugs: Beware of the Tasmanian Devil, a vicious, ravenous brute with powerful jaws like a steel trap. Eats aardvarks, ants, bears, boars, cats, bats, dogs, hogs, elephants, antelopes, pheasants, ferrets, giraffes, gazelles -- (shrugs) Heh, a likely story. Bet there ain't no such animal. -- stoats, goats, shoats, ostriches...
(Scene fades to the Tasmanian Devil making his Dynamic Entry. He spots Bugs still reading the pamphlet.)
Bugs: ...octopuses, penguins, people, warthogs, yaks, newts, walrus, gnus, wildebeests... what, no rabbits?
Tasmanian Devil: (turns the last page) Especially rabbits! (snarls and eats the pamphlet)
Bugs: Eh, what's up doc?

    • Additional animals can be read via Freeze Frame Bonuses. The first time we see the page, it is largely the same as the list Bugs lists off with the following additions: "...Lions, Jackals, Muscrats, Minks, Dingoes, Zebras, Foxes, Boxes..." When we cut back to the page after Taz's introduction, it is now a largely different list, this time featuring: "Moose, Mice, Moles, Snipes, Elk, Wapati, Tortoise, Road Runner, Elands, Foxes, Wolves, Guinea Hen, Vultures, Eagles, Humming Birds, Squids, Salamanders, Water Buffalo, Bison, Kangaroos, Pigeons, Daws, Unicorns, Vixens..." The end of the page is almost the same as what Bugs reads off after Taz appears, but people is missing, and bookending penguins are two new ones, "Ox" and "Widgeons".
  • In the Batman the Brave And The Bold episode "Legends of the Dark Mite!", Bat-Mite is a speaker at the Fifth Dimensional 267th Annual Comic Book, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Animation, Anime, Gaming, Action Figure, Role-playing, Vintage Toy, Collectible Card Game, Pop-Culture, & Tiddlywinks Convention.
  • Disney's Silly Symphony "Santa's Workshop" has Santa reading a long letter folded like an accordion.
  • In Strawberry Shortcake The Berryfest Princess Movie, the Berrykins give Strawberry a list of her duties as the Berryfest Princess. It looks like it all fits on an index card, but as soon as Strawberry takes it, it suddenly unfolds until it reaches down to the ground.
  • Applejack introducing her relatives in the pilot episode of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. The list is so long, she has to stop and take a breath.
  • Chuckie gives one on Rugrats after he protests against their latest adventure at the community center swimming pool.

Tommy: Come on, Chuckie, when was the last time I ever got you lost?
Chuckie: What about the time we went down into your basement, and I got stuck in the mattress? And the time you got us locked in that toy store? And time we went through that mirror into Mirrorland, and the time we chased after that wedding cake, and the time you got us lost in the museum, the time we snuck into your aunt's room... and the time I got stuck in the tomato bush, and that dog thought I was a tree...

  • The Phineas and Ferb episode "Mom's Birthday" has an increasingly frantic Candace attempting to compose a song for Mom on a number of instruments starting with the letter "b"... as each of them is shrunk to the point of disappearing by Dr. Doofenshmirtz's latest invention.

Candace: Wait a minute! I can still give Mom the one thing the boys can't! The gift of music! Played on my good friend: the bass. (begins to play bass, but disappears because of Shrinkspheria) Huh. Oh well, it's a good thing I play the banjo! (banjo shrinks) It's a good thing I play the bassoon! (bassoon shrinks) It's a good thing I play the bugle! (bugle shrinks) It's a good thing I play the bongos! (bongos shrink)
Announcer: Five minutes later...
Candace: (frantic) It's a good thing I play the balalaika! (balalaika shrinks) It's a good thing I play the bagpipes! (bagpipes shrink) I should have manned the omelette station!

Real Life

  • The United States Declaration of Independence, part III, is essentially a long list of offences supposedly personally committed by his Majesty the King of England, Scotland and Ireland. The idea was to send a message to his Majesty the King of France that the rebellion's leadership really meant all this uprising business because hey, they just committed treason. It didn't work, initially.
  • "A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent." - The Boy Scout Law.
    • The American Girl Scout Law has them beat: "I will do my best to be honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring, courageous and strong, responsible for what I say and do, and to respect myself and others, respect authority, use resources wisely, make the world a better place, and be a sister to every Girl Scout."
      • Luckily the pledge is short: "I am a Girl Scout, I pledge to serve God and my country, to help people at all times, and to live by the Girl Scout Law." Unfortunately, you end up right where you started.
  • This is a favorite tactic for congressional filibusters, as the only requirement to hold the floor is to be at least nominally speaking about the subject of debate. One representative was known to open with some variation on "This issue is very important to the people of my district, people like:" and then begin reading from a phone book.
  • Take a look at the ingredients list on a processed food product. Chances are it will be a couple inches long, in point 4 font, and consist mostly of numerous types of sugar, fat, and unpronounceable industrial chemical names.
  • Part I of Justice Harry Blackmun's majority opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court decision Flood v. Kuhn, which while it did not (contrary to what some people think today) allow free agency did raise public awareness of the issue that led to the players ultimately getting it several years later in an arbitrator's ruling, is infamous for its list of great baseball players that takes up one and a half pages of the United States Reports (in the standard legal citation format, it's ... 407 U.S. 258, 262–263 (1972) Blackmun, J.) and concludes "the list seems endless"[2] Two of Blackmun's colleagues, including Chief Justice Burger, pointedly said they did not concur with that section, and both dissents alluded indirectly to it.
  1. ↑ a very obscure Shout-Out to the original 1971 TV version of The Cat in the Hat - the Cat refused to leave the house until he found it after having supposedly lost it
  2. ↑ Nonetheless, Blackmun felt compelled to add a footnote saying "These are names only from earlier years. By mentioning some, one risks unintended omission of others equally celebrated."
This article is issued from Allthetropes. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.