Lampshade Hanging/Real Life

Lampshades hung in the real world.


 * The radio frequency of 94.5 in the Kanawha Valley area of West Virginia used to be a rock station, aptly named "Z-Rock 94.5". The billboards promoting the station had the tagline "It's time to ROCK!" In December 2009, it was changed to a talk radio station. The tagline on the billboards was changed to "It's time to... talk."
 * When the Allies invaded Normandy, Adolf Hitler had taken a sleeping pill and was not to be awakened, full stop, new paragraph. A German general mused on how improbable the situation was.
 * In the English court case of R v Collins, Edmund Davies LJ commented that "This is about as extraordinary a case as my brethren and I have ever heard.... Were [the facts] put into a novel or portrayed on the stage, they would be regarded as being so improbable as to be unworthy of serious consideration and verging at times on farce."
 * The Heart Attack Grill of Chandler, AZ. In addition to offering nothing but super-fatty burgers and fries, the owner dresses as a doctor and the waitresses dress as nurses to put the unhealthy nature of his food bluntly.
 * One of the major spokesmen, Blair River, actually died in 2011, not necessarily of a heart attack.
 * Adult Swim runs Bleach reruns for about a year before announcing new episodes for the next Saturday block. The following week, this commerical was run: "Yes, its starts back with a filler arc, but at least its not the Bounts."
 * The Lamborghini Sesto Elemento concept car was revealed in the 2010 Paris Motor Show. "Sesto Elemento" literally means "sixth element" in Italian. Guess what's the car's primary construction material?
 * China has the notorious "one-child" policy, which states that parents can only bear one child per family or face a loss of social benefits. This has shifted the birthrate towards the male side in China. This was lampshaded in a Chinese textbook published by the state with a discussion question saying "Imagine that in the future, you could only have one child. Would you like a boy or a girl?"
 * Our own site logo hangs a lampshade on lampshade hanging... literally. And you didn't even notice until now, did you?
 * Murphy's laws.
 * Real Radio XS and Jack FM lampshade many, many radio cliches, with the voiceover artist attempting to be Man of a Thousand Voices.
 * This site lampshades Lampshade Hanging, causing recursive Lampshade Hanging to happen.
 * The Virgin American inflight safety video is filled with lampshades and borders on parody.
 * "If you're the 0.00000000001 of you who have never used a seatbelt before..."
 * Southwest Airlines also gets cheeky with its inflight briefings
 * Before awarding Roy P. Benavidez the Medal of Honor, President Ronald Reagan reportedly told the press "If the story of his heroism were a movie script, you would not believe it."
 * Radio commercials for Gold's Horseradish over the decades have used several different slogans punctuated by the ringing of a bell. For the last few years, the very Jewish-sounding announcer has been ending the commercials by demanding to know who is ringing the bell and why.
 * Recent Newcastle Brown Ale commercials give us a few black and white clips of miners from Newcastle, England, followed by the line "Because nothing sells beer like old footage of people who had it way worse than you do."