View source for Cliché Storm

{{trope}}
{{quote|''"At this point the turbolift opens, revealing [[Cowboy Cop|a cop-on-the-edge who doesn't play by the rules]], [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|a greedy corporate big-wig looking to get rich]] [[Green Aesop|by poisoning the water supply,]] and [[Uncle Tomfoolery|a skinny black guy]] whose job it is [[Jive Turkey|to say 'Dayymn!' and refer to 'My black ass!']]"''
|'''[[SF Debris]]''', reviewing the ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' episode "Twisted"}}

You are watching something like ''[[Starship Troopers (film)|Starship Troopers]] 2: Hero of the Federation'' and it strikes you that you have heard every single line of this somewhere else. Every trope is presented without [[Subverted Trope|irony]] or [[Lampshade Hanging|acknowledgment]]. ''All'' the situations and setups are clipped out of another story and pasted in as-is.

You are in a '''Cliché Storm'''. Do not worry. The pain will soon pass. A bug will soon scrag the [[Ensign Newbie|inept Lieutenant]]. Security will soon come to the perimeter. [[You Shall Not Pass|The line will soon be held]]. It will be over, soon.

Remember, this is [[Tropes Are Not Bad|not always a bad thing]] - many a Cliché Storm is also a [[Guilty Pleasures|guilty pleasure]], or even, dare we say it, [[Troperiffic|exactly what the audience wants in the first place]]. You can see from some examples that people often ''intentionally'' create as big a Cliché storm as possible... and then start having fun with all of the Clichés. Oftentimes, they may not start around deconstructing or playing with the cliches as so much play it for laughs. It's very common in an [[Affectionate Parody]].

See also [[A Space Marine Is You]], a specific form of a Cliché Storm; see also [[Deconstructor Fleet]], for works that tear through dozens of tropes en route from Cliché Storm to originality. Compare [[Medieval European Fantasy]], a common setting in some Cliché Storms. Compare [[Strictly Formula]], [[Reconstruction]]. Compare and contrast [[Troperiffic]], which is a more fun version of this trope, although the lines between the two are blurry and kind of subjective.

An important thing to note is that, as we enter the 21st century, the sheer number of works created makes it nearly impossible to write something "original". Also, our ability to securely store books and films in libraries makes it easy to access old works. That can make the newer material ''appear'' to be cliché storms, simply because we could see the similarity to countless older stories. With all that, '''Cliché Storm''' is about to become one of the most heard of tropes in the near-future. This is why we warn you that [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life]].

{{examples}}
==  Anime and Manga ==
* This is the ''point'' of ''[[Kujibiki Unbalance]].'' In fact, many examples of [[Show Within a Show]] are full of clichés, possibly so that they seem "more fictional" than the show they're part of.
* See also ''[[Gekiganger 3]]'' from ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'' which is even more of an example. Practically every attack and character is lifted from some famous [[Super Robot]] series, mostly ''[[Mazinger Z]]'' (for robot design and attacks) and ''[[Getter Robo]]'' (the characters and just about everything else).
* ''[[Record of Lodoss War]]'', similar to the ''[[Inheritance Cycle]]'', but in a [[Troperrific|better way]]. According to some sources it's based on a D&D campaign the writers played.
* ''[[Strawberry Panic!|Strawberry Panic]]'' appears to be a study in how to cram in as many cliches in a show as possible and still come up with something oddly compelling.
* The dream [[RPG Episode]] at the start of ''[[The Tower of Druaga (anime)|The Tower of Druaga]]'' parodies just about every [[Heroic Fantasy]] trope in 20 deeply confusing minutes.
{{quote|''[[Retirony|"I was going to go back to my hometown and get married!!"]]''}}
* ''[[Strike Witches]]''. It's still quite enjoyable though, if you just don't think too hard about what happens.
* ''[[GaoGaiGar]]'' plays every single trope of the [[Super Robot]] genre as straight as an arrow. However, since this series was a deliberate Reconstruction of that genre in response to ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', it's purely intentional. [[Badass|And awesome]].
* Same thing for ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]''. [[Beyond the Impossible|It likes breaking the laws of physics]] [[Serial Escalation|in increasingly awesome ways.]]
* ''[[The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' has a cliche storm in the first episode (broadcast order). However it is justified by the fact that the episode is a film made by the main characters for a film festival.
* This is pretty much the whole point of ''[[Jinki Extend]]'', at least the anime.
* ''[[Dai no Daibouken]]'' is a shonen manga series done as though it were a ''[[Dragon Quest]]'' game. Thus it does not just use cliches, it beats them down, makes friends with them, and then watches in amazement as they come out of nowhere and tell it to go on without them. It's part of its charm.
* The ''[[Guardian Hearts]]'' OVA series manages to cram in each and every cliché of anime [[Fan Service]] and the [[Unwanted Harem]]. To the seasoned viewer, viewing it for the first time feels like seeing it the second time.
* Just about every character, visual element, and plot device in ''[[Elemental Gelade]]'' feels lifted from some <s> other</s> better series.
* ''[[Bakugan]]'', on a level rivaling even the ''[[Inheritance Cycle]]''. The first episode alone displays rather obvious parallels with ''[[Digimon]], [[Beyblade]]'' and ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'', among others things.
* ''[[Ghost Stories]]'' demonstrates quite a few cliches from horror works.
* ''[[Black Cat (manga)|Black Cat]]'', which is basically a mix of ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'', ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'', and ''[[Trigun]]''.
* ''[[Guilty Crown]]'' makes use of a staggering number of cliches.


==  [[Comic Books]] ==
* [[Rob Liefeld|Rob Liefeld's]] infamous ''Youngblood'' featured a team whose only [[Badass Normal|non-powered member]] was also its leader, several Wolverine [[Captain Ersatz|rip-offs]] including a [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]], characters layered in [[Too Many Belts|pouches]] and [[Shoulders of Doom|shoulderpads]], [[Dark Age of Supernames|names]] like "Darcangel" and "Badrock," gun-toting [[Nineties Anti-Hero|anti-heroes]] with religious-sounding names (the hot new character when the book debuted was Marvel's gun-toting antihero Bishop—Youngblood gives us Chapel, Cross, and Prophet), and buxom women in [[Stripperiffic|skimpy outfits]]. And they had "Home" and [[West Coast Team|"Away"]] teams.
* The ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' and ''[[Angel]]'' comics, which continue the story after both series end, reuse a good number of the best one-liners and comebacks from the TV episodes. They're meant to invoke familiarity, but the problem is that they end up doing them way too often. After the nth [[Meaningful Echo]], you start to wonder if the writers can come up with any new witty dialogue.
* Well Spoken Sonic Lightning Flash briefly notes that "they thought of everything! No cliche left unturned!" when he sees his team's new headquarters in ''Final Crisis Aftermath: DANCE''. The series itself doesn't exemplify the trope, however, nor does the team.


== Fan Works ==
* [[In-Universe]] in ''[[Calvin and Hobbes: The Series]]'': [[Morality Dial|Evil Jack]] has nary an original bone in his body. Given the [[Better Than a Bare Bulb]] nature of the fic, this is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] with no mercy by the heroes.
* Parodied in the [[Harry Potter]] fic ''When in Doubt, Obliviate'' when Snape took exception to several standard cliches during a teacher's meeting.
{{quote|'''Snape''': "I'm not going to start off irrationally hating Potter because of his parents even if he did make a pained face and cover his eyes the minute he saw me."
'''Dumbledore''': "That's certainly big of you, Severus. I feel inspired already."
'''Snape''': "After that doesn't happen, I'm not going to be forced to spend time with him in my classes and as the head of his house and start to see a new side of him. Particularly as I'm not going to find out that he was abused or neglected or had some other tragic problem growing up other than his mother's death..."
'''Dumbledore''': "...What won't happen then?"
'''Snape''': "I'm certainly not going to see a side of him that I hadn't before and see some of myself or any random relatives of his that aren't his father in him. I'm not going to be drawn to his modesty, intelligence, kindness, or any other virtue you can think of."
'''Dumbledore''': "Well, now I think you're just limiting yourself. Would it really be so bad if that did happen?"
'''Snape''': "It doesn't really matter if it would or would not be since it ''won't''. And finally, I will most certainly not become his favorite teacher and or his mentor. I simply will not do it and this will not become an inspirational story. It will not." }}
* ''[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/6878/A-Perfectly-Ordinary-Day-in-Ponyville A Perfectly Ordinary Day in Ponyville]'' is a ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]]'' fanfic that sees Twilight Sparkle [[Oh, No, Not Again|being largely unfazed]] by a number of [[Fandom-Specific Plot|cliched pony fanfiction plots]] hitting her at once: Twilight [[A God Am I|turning into an alicorn]], [[Longing for Fictionland|a human getting teleported to Equestria]], [[Hurt/Comfort Fic|Rainbow Dash getting severely injured]] and [[Ron the Death Eater|Celestia turning evil]].


==  Film  ==
* ''[[Avatar]]'' and ''[[Titanic]]'' are here to show us that [[Tropes Are Tools|this is not a bad thing]]. ''Avatar'' is even ''self-aware'' of its cliches (Calling the [[Mineral MacGuffin]] "[[Unobtanium]]") and even Cameron has said "It's just ''[[Dances with Wolves]]'' [[Recycled in Space|In Space]]". Despite playing all their tropes and cliches ''to the T'', they became very high-grossing films, [[Just Here for Godzilla|even despite how many people only saw it to see the pretty technical aspects]] and [[Scenery Porn]].
* The movie ''[[Rio]]'' is a compilation of pretty much every trope common to kids movies in the 2000s, especially [[Dreamworks Animation|Dreamworks]] movies. See page for a list.
* Self-aware in ''[[A Few Good Men]]'', where Tom Cruise's character has a throwaway conversation with the local newsstand vendor involving each of them trying to wryly out-cliche the other.
* Surely [[Video Game Movies Suck|part of the reason]] for the catastrophic bomb dive of ''[[Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within|Final Fantasy the Spirits Within]]'' was that, outside of the [[Uncanny Valley]] CG characters, the writers seem to have simply taken the [[The Lifestream|Gaia theory]] philosophy from ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' and mined the rest of the script straight from ''[[Aliens]]''.
{{quote|''"All right, Deep EYES, this is a [[Bug War|bug hunt]]! You heard the man and you know the drill... lock'n'load, move out, and [[Stay Frosty]]!"''}}
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', [[The Movie]]. It's easy to imagine little "DING!" noises and a counter display ratcheting up as each cliché goes by. The film makes for an impressive [http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0145.html drinking game].
* The complete filmography of Roland Emmerich, [[Michael Bay]], and Stephen Sommers, but [[Tropes Are Not Bad|that's not to say they aren't entertaining]].
** Sommers in particular [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] the hell out of this. In his commentary for ''[[The Mummy Trilogy|The Mummy Returns]]'', he notes that if you have a jungle full of ruins, you ''have'' to have shrunken heads.
** He also claims that movie rules require a pointed gun to make sufficient rattling noises - about the level created by a large garbage bag full of cans is a good starting point.
* ''[[Deathlands]]'': A cocktail of every sci-fi movie you've ever seen, thrown together on a budget equal to the price of a bus ticket.
* Ryuhei Kitamura isn't a terrifically subtle director, to say the least. He is, however, terrifically entertaining, which might explain why he was picked to direct ''[[Godzilla]]: Final Wars''.
* The three ''[[Starship Troopers (film)|Starship Troopers]]'' movies. These movies are all about irony, producers claim. [[Parody Retcon|Whether or not that works for you is your call.]]
** The first and third are intentional satire, the second is closer to this, with some heavy-handed satire.
* ''[[The Mummy Trilogy|The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor]]'' has Brendan Fraser delivering cliché one-liners every few seconds.
{{quote|"I really hate mummies!"
"Time to go!"
"Here we go again!" }}
* ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]''-featured fantasy film ''The Quest of the Delta Knights'' has the [[Big Bad]] saying things like: "I grow weary of your antics, beggar man!" Ironically, and with no explanation whatever, both the [[Big Bad]] and the old man were played by David Warner.
** The movie was a thinly-veiled attempt to do ''[[Star Wars]]'' in a fantasy setting long before ''[[Inheritance Cycle|Eragon]]'' made it cool, and that's how they linked the Darth Vader and Obi-Wan characters. It's not ''much'' of an explanation, but it does seem ''slightly'' less random when you realize that.
* Briefly parodied in ''[[Small Soldiers]]'', which features a scene where Major Chip Hazard gives a hilariously cliché-ridden speech to his "soldiers."
{{quote|"Soldiers, no poor sap ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by being all that he can be. Damn the torpedoes, or give me death! Eternal vigilance is the price of duty. And, to the victors go the spoils. So remember: you are the best of the best of the few and the proud. So ask not what your country can do for you, only regret that you have but one life to live!"}}
** Actually, everything Hazard says is made of this, from the "roll call" when he activates his troops to his combat banter.
* ''[[Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li|Street Fighter the Legend of Chun Li]]'' has a terribly huge number of action movie clichés, even (perhaps especially) ones which contradict the canon and tone of the ''[[Street Fighter]]'' series.
** So did [[Street Fighter (film)|the original movie]], but unlike ''Legend of Chun Li'', [[So Bad It's Good|it didn't suck as hard]].
* The 2007 hard sci-fi epic ''[[Sunshine (film)|Sunshine]]'' borrows heavily from both ''2001'' and ''2010'', along with a host of other influences in the serious science fiction family of movies. The movie works though, mostly because you don't see its type very often anymore.
* ''[[Sleepover]]''. Mind you, it ''is'' a preteen chick flick comedy, but this is ridiculous. It doesn't help that most of the actresses are fresh out of Barbizon and don't even realize how many [[Dead Horse Trope]]s they're playing straight.
* Parodied in ''[[Loaded Weapon 1]]'' with this exchange:
{{quote|Gen. Morters: Where's the microfilm, Mike?
Mike McCracken: I don't know, I gave it to York. I thought she was one of your men.
Gen. Morters: Act in haste, repent in leisure.
Mike McCracken: But he who hesitates is lost.
Gen. Morters: Never judge a book by its cover.
Mike McCracken: What you see is what you get.
Gen. Morters: Loose lips, sink ships...
Mike McCracken: [[The Beatles (band)|Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing or fighting, my friend.]]
''[Gen. Morters, cornered, looks to Mr. Jigsaw]''
''[Mr. Jigsaw consults Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, shakes his head]''
Gen. Morters: Sorry Mike, no good. }}
* Discussed in ''[[Serenity]]'' as the setup for an action punchline:
{{quote|'''The Operative''': "The Alliance isn't [[The Empire|some evil Empire]]; he is ''not'' [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|the plucky hero]]; this is ''not'' the grand arena--"
'''Inara''': "--and that's not incense."
''BOOM!'' }}
** Oddly enough, The Alliance ''is'' an evil empire, and Mal ''is'' the plucky hero and the rest of the movie goes pretty well as you would expect, albeit with enough emotional twists and turns to engage the audience.
** Actually, as Joss Whedon points out, the Operative is kind of right. While the Alliance is antagonistic to the main characters, said characters are thieves and smugglers. The Alliance is presented as actually being largely beneficial and benevolent. Granted, how much of this comes across in the film itself is debatable, since time for these subtleties is somewhat limited. As for Mal as 'the plucky hero' - even in the series Mal is far from the hero archetype, and for the film Whedon pushed him even further towards the darker, non-heroic side so he could undergo some sort of arc of development during the film.
* In a [[So Bad It's Good]] way, both ''Darktown Strutters'' and ''Order of the Black Eagle''. These movies aren't related at all, they just fit together when run matinee style due to using exactly half of all available tropes ever created prior to the 80s. The combination effect induces what can only be described as an effect similar to a caffeine rush without the coffee.
* Cheap [[Sylvester Stallone]] vehicle ''[[Xtreme Kool Letterz|D-TOX]]''. Stallone plays a cop who, after punching a [[Cymbal-Banging Monkey]], finds out his wife has been killed by his nemesis. He develops a drink problem and is sent to a remote, snowy rehab place. People get killed off one by one. And who's doing the killing? Why, the {{spoiler|[[Evil Brit]]}} of course! As you'd expect from a film populated by alcoholics, you get an [[Anvilicious]] message:
{{quote|"Booze may be a slow-burner, but it's still suicide."}}
* Subverted in almost every possible way throughout ''[[Inglourious Basterds]]'', a film in which almost everything you expect in a World War II action film turns out exactly the opposite of what you'd expect.
** Unlike ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]''... aside from the Normandy Beach scene, which broke some serious new ground in that genre.
* Limit of Love: ''[[Umizaru]]''. Up until the last 10 minutes, you can easily predict not only every single "unexpected twist" but every single line the characters are about to say. Of course even if we count that last moment where  {{spoiler|the ship sinks with the protagonist still on board}}, the ending is still pretty much the same. Just goes to prove it, you can only make so many movies about a sinking ship.
* The [[Amy Adams]] flick ''[[Leap Year]]'' is not so much a film as it the feeding every [[Rom Com]] and [[Oireland]] cliche imaginable into a blender and making the audience drink the result.
* Many [[Quentin Tarantino]] movies are like this, but ''[[Kill Bill]]'' is the poster child. [[Tropes Are Not Bad|And you will love]] [[Refuge in Audacity|every last second.]]
* This trope is parodied in [[Trailers Always Lie|the trailer]] for ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters]]''.
* ''[[When Time Ran Out]]''. Of course, it's notable that most of the Cliches used ''in'' that movie were the ones Irwin Allen himself have been credited with creating. (It's eerily similar to the 1972 film adaptation of ''[[The Poseidon Adventure]]'', complete with an elderly woman fleeing for an escape dying of a heart attack and the majority of the people who stayed behind [[Kill'Em All|dying]].)
* ''[[Daylight]]''; it's pretty much every disaster movie since 1972.
* The portions we hear of the speech the Federation President gives at Khitomer in ''[[Star Trek VI]]'' are basically a political/diplomatic speech cliché storm.
* ''[[The Expendables]]''. But that's precisely the point.
** In fact, it hits up more tropes than expected, particularly during the middle section, which unfortunately bores the [[Genre Savvy]] person who knows exactly what the main character's going to decide to do, and just want him to [[Get On With It Already]].
* ''[[Battle: Los Angeles]]'' is oversaturated with [[Alien Invasion]] and war movie tropes. Which doesn't mean it has nothing new or exciting to offer.
** And then the film ''[[Skyline]]'' ripped off its plot from ''Battle Los Angeles'', which led the makers of one Cliche Storm to sue the makers of the other.
*** This is made even more ironic when one realizes that both films were released ''months'' apart. Film/''[[Skyline]]'' was actually released first in November 2010 and then ''[[Battle: Los Angeles]]'' in March 2011.
* ''[[Resident Evil]]: Apocalypse'' contains so many cliches from every zombie, sci-fi and buddy action film in the past ten years before release that it is near impossible to find something original in the film.
* ''[[Alpha and Omega]]''. Entire movie in a nutshell: Male falls in love with female. Male realizes he can't be with female because their love is forbidden due to them being different. Male and female get captured, wake up in a new location, and have to find their way home. Then throw in a bunch of kiddie humor during their adventure. Male and female finally arrive home, but the female dies. Oh wait, she didn't actually die. Male and female, despite their differences, fall in love, and live happily ever after. The end.
* [[Roger Ebert]]'s review of ''[[Stargate (film)|Stargate]]'' was basically [https://web.archive.org/web/20130311122751/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F19941028%2FREVIEWS%2F410280308%2F1023 one long checklist of the cliches involved.]
* The trailer for the new Steven Soderbergh actioner ''[[Haywire]]'' (starring MMA hottie Gina Carano) promises a cliché storm the likes of which even God has never seen, despite a terrific supporting cast including Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas and Michael Douglas.
* ''National Lampoon's Senior Trip'' is the bad/lazy version of this as the entire [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|class]] is just one big checklist of student cliches from the [[High School Hustler]] leader to [[The Stoner]] sidekick(s) to the [[Schoolgirl Lesbians]] with special emphasis on [[Big Fun|Miosky,]] who's trying everything in his power to be the next John Belushi, plus [[Politically Incorrect Hero|"date a blonde Jap."]] The ''only'' saving graces to this film is Matt Frewer as their [[Badly-Battered Babysitter|teacher,]] [[Lilo and Stitch|Kevin]] [[The Kids in The Hall|McDonald]] playing an [[Ax Crazy]] Star Trek fan out to kill them and [[Tara Strong|Carla]] [[Catch Phrase|asking guys if they "want to screw."]]
* ''[[Christian Mingle]]''. E. Reid Ross of ''[[Cracked.com]]'' wrote in [http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/4-reasons-new-christian-mingle-movie-will-be-hilarious/ 4 Reasons the New Christian Mingle Movie Will Be Hilarious] that the trailer of this film "May Have Set the All-Time Record for Cliches".
* ''[[The Scarecrow (2000 film)|The Scarecrow]]'' by Richard Rich has been criticized for being too similar to a [[Disney]] movie, namely ''[[Beauty and the Beast (1991 film)|Beauty and the Beast]]''. [[Tropes Are Not Bad|It's far from being horrible, though]] - the animation is surprisingly good, and the main villain Grisham is just different enough from Gaston to stand out ([[Large Ham|though no less hammy]]).

== Literature ==
* [[Defied Trope|Defied]] by ''[[Codex Alera]]''. Yes, it is a story about a [[Farm Boy]] who becomes a sword-wielding badass, learns the magic system, gets a hot girlfriend, saves the world from an [[Exclusively Evil]] nonhuman menace, and is {{spoiler|secretly the incredibly magically powerful heir to the throne}}. But it ''isn't.'' Perhaps this is due to the [[Cool vs. Awesome]]. Or the unique magic system. Or the fact that all the races have been replaced by completely different and awesome things. Or that the main character is the [[Defied Trope]] of the [[Marty Stu]]. Or maybe because it was written by [[Jim Butcher]].
* ''[[In The Hall Of The Dragon King]]'' by Stephen Lawhead fits this to a T. Peasant boy who becomes heir to the throne? Check. Old, wise mentor figure? Check. [[Supporting Leader]]? Check. Completely evil, slightly insane villain who wants to take over the world? Check. [[Evil Prince]]? Check. Liberal use of both the [[Idiot Ball]] and [[Villain Ball]]? Check. Despite all that, [[Tropes Are Not Bad|it's still a rather well written book]].
* The ''[[Inheritance Cycle]]'' often comes across as this. One of main reasons [[The Film of the Book|the movie]] was worse was that it took anything vaguely original from the book and replaced it with [[Narm]]ful clichés. For example, in the movie, Saphira goes from being a small dragon hatchling to a fully-grown dragon in a matter of moments. How? She flies up into some stormy clouds. The book actually has her physically growing, over the course of a few months, without the use of magic clouds.
** Christopher Paolini actually said at one point that he was attempting to pay homage to the vast store of high fantasy archetypes. Given that he said this about a book he wrote when he was in his early teens, and that that was the least painful book of the series, this troper is inclined to believe that he actually just writes really clichéd works.
* The ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' series. Everything from a common man of [[Luke, I Am Your Father|mysterious lineage]], to a [[The Obi-Wan|wise old wizard]] with robes and white hair, to a character that was turned into a small, fanatical creature when deprived of the artifact that was precious to him. The live-action TV adaptation (''[[Legend of the Seeker]]'') is, if possible, worse.
** Impossible! [[Sci Fi Ghetto|Terry Goodkind does not write fantasy, you moron!]]
* ''[[The Fionavar Tapestry]]'' reads like a deliberate attempt on the part of Guy Gavriel Kay to see how many high fantasy clichés can possibly be strung together in 1,000 pages of text.
** Considering his motive for writing it was because he'd just been helping Christopher Tolkien edit The Silmarillion and he needed to get Middle-Earth out of his system, this was probably ''very'' deliberate.
* ''[[The Belgariad]]'', intentionally, as it was an experiment in making something grand out of the most shopworn fantasy elements. Most [[David Eddings]] works have a certain familiarity about them.
** Unfortunately all of his works have a more than certain familiarity to each other...
* ''[[Maximum Ride]]''. So what if you've never read it? In some form, you already have.
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' is notorious for being mistaken as a Cliché Storm by everyone who watched the movies without knowing that it's the [[Trope Maker]] for almost every fantasy trope, and is furthermore credited with other tropes which do not appear in it at all.
* Nicely [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] and then subverted in the [[Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms]] series by [[Mercedes Lackey]]. Here, the "cliche storm" is almost literal: a metaphysical force called The Tradition which gathers around significant events and people, directing magical energy to flow in [[Archetype|archetypal]] directions and following certain tropes that have been set down through folklore and that consequently reinforce themselves by inspiring even ''more'' folklore! Characters throughout the series find themselves guided by, opposed by, and sometimes rebelling against The Tradition—a witty metaphor for the writing process itself!
* ''[[Jim Springman and the Realm of Glory]]'' has a [[Show Within a Show|book within a book]] that purports to be about 'A unique fantasy world of hope and fear, good and evil, beauty and barbarity', where 'A teenager armed only with a magic sword and a stout heart takes up this impossible quest'. The (fictional) book is filled with cliches.
* ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'': [[Mary Sue|Awkward, clumsy girl]] moves to new school and is instantly adored by all? ''Check''. New girl falling in love with the [[Relationship Sue|hottest (cough) guy in school]]? ''Check''. Hot boy falls in love with new girl? ''Check''. Girl is so in luv she will do anything for her twu wuv? ''Check''. And that's just the beginning...
* Grahame Coats of ''[[Anansi Boys]]'' is a walking Cliché Storm; to converse with him is to be buffeted by lines you've heard so often that they're not even language anymore, just meaningless noises. For his own part, Coats revels in cliches, finding them far more valuable and expressive than original thinking ever could be; this fits somewhat with the "corporate executive" to Coats' [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]], because in conversation as in business, he'd rather go with the tried-and-true than take a real risk.
* Played with in George R. R. Martin's story ''The Hedge Knight''. It begins with every possible cliched circumstance around a knight joining a tournament. Then every single element of the story is revealed to actually be something else.


==  Live Action TV ==
* The characters on ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', as the quote below from "urgo" indicates, would occasionally indulge in volleys of cliches. O'Neill in particular had a tendency to refer to the Goa'uld as having "very clichéd" behavior, and the last scene in the series is of the characters [[Hurricane of Aphorisms|reciting various proverbs and cliches]].
{{quote|''"The probe indicates a sustainable atmosphere. Temperature 78 degrees Fahrenheit. Barometric pressure is normal."
"No obvious signs of civilization."
"P4X-884 looks like an untouched paradise, sir."
"Appearances may be deceiving."
"One man's ceiling is another man's floor."
"A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell."
[[Crowning Moment of Funny|"Never run with... scissors?"]]'' }}
** Something similar happens in ''[[The X-Files]]'' episode "The Unnatural".
{{quote|'''Scully:''' Mulder, this is a needle in a haystack. These poor souls have been dead for 50 years. Let them rest in peace. Let sleeping dogs lie.
'''Mulder:''' Well, I won't sit idly by as you hurl cliches at me. Preparation is the father of inspiration.
'''Scully:''' Necessity is the mother of invention.
'''Mulder:''' The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
'''Scully:''' Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die.
'''Mulder:''' I scream, you scream, we all scream for non-fat tofutti rice dreamsicles. ''(grabs Scully's dreamsicle and eats it)'' }}
** In the very last episode of ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', at the end, the team use a large amount of cliches to describe what they've learned from their experiences. "Beggars can't be choosers. Better late than never. Look before you leap." "The best things in life are free."
{{quote|'''Vala:''' Let me guess, beauty is only skin deep?
'''Daniel:''' Silence is golden.
'''Cam:''' Jack of all trades, master of none.
'''Sam:''' Nothing ventured, nothing gained. }}
*** Then Vala says "Life is too short", a statement repeated throughout the episode (and Daniel and Vala's  {{spoiler|time-erased relationship}}) but supposedly forgotten when the [[Reset Button]] was hit. Suggesting, interestingly, that somehow Vala remembers what happened.
* [[McLeaned|Col. Blake]] of ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|M*A*S*H]]'' attempted to give a [[Rousing Speech]] in "Crisis" but ended up giving the speech version of this trope. [[Lampshaded]] by Trapper:
{{quote|'''Trapper:''' Welcome to the Henry Blake Cliche Festival.}}
* ''[[Prison Break]]''—Okay, maybe it's not quite a ''storm'', but just too many of the characters are overly familiar—the ominous, shade-wearing government guys, the oblivious warden, the brutish guard captain, the aged Mafia guy with an Italian name, the sweet-yet-daring female leads...[[Tropes Are Not Bad|doesn't have to mean it's a bad show, of course]].
* ''The Post-Modern Prometheus'' in ''[[The X-Files]]'' is one giant, spiral-sliced, and deliciously smoked ham.
* ''[[Legend of the Seeker]]'' is a fantasy cliche ''hurricane''.
* This is pretty much the entire premise of ''[[Glee]]''.
* The ending of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3TkyqsEy54 this commercial.]
* On ''[[The West Wing]]'', when Bartlet debated his [[Strawman Political]] opponent Robert Ritchie, we hear a snippet of one of Ritchie's responses that goes like this:
{{quote|...and the partisan bickering. Now, I want people to work together in this great country. And that's what I did in Florida, I brought people together, and that's what I'll do as your president: end the logjam, end the gridlock, and bring Republicans together with Democrats, 'cause Americans are tired of partisan politics. ''([[Viewers are Morons|Applause]])''}}
* The ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' episode "Monster Movie". Every classic horror movie cliche you can think of --  {{spoiler|because the bad guy, a shapeshifter, is deliberately [[Invoked Trope|invoking]] them.}}
** That's because the episode was an [[Affectionate Parody]] of the old Universal monster movies, right down to the way it's shot.
* Alton Brown's commentary in ''[[Iron Chef America]]'' have been this from the start. The Chairman's conversations with the challenger have turned into this.
* ''[[The A-Team]]'' is an example of an effectively ''fun'' Cliché Storm. You know the show's basic formula after an episode or two, but the characters make the plots entertaining.
* The ''[[Charmed]]'' episode "Chick Flick" parodies all the typical slasher movie cliches when a demon releases psycho killers from horror movies and sends them after the sisters. Since their powers don't work on the killers, the sisters have to follow the typical cliches. And there's a nice little shout out to ''Psycho''.
{{quote|'''Piper:''' "I'm being stalked by psycho killers and I hide in the shower?"}}
* ''[[Perfect Disaster]]''. A short [[Mockumentary]]-styled [[Documentary]] series that focuses on horrible natural disasters—ice storm, fire storm, but the most notable is the cliché storm. While the narrator and various experts explain the science behind the phenomenons (sometimes in cut-away scenes), each episode tells a fictional story about how the citizens and the local government of a given town/city would react to them. The set-up of these stories borrows everything from clichéd disaster movies—mediocre (but decent enough for a TV series) effects, overused character archetypes and interactions, even the ''camera angles'' can be guessed if you are savvy enough. While this may undermine the intended realism for some viewers, [[Tropes Are Not Bad|others enjoy the heck out of it]].
* In the season 3 finale of ''[[Leverage]]'', the team writes a speech for a politician that is intentionally made up of nothing but political speech cliches. The public eats it up.
** Granted, it was a small country with a one-party democracy, so the public wasn't yet disillusioned with political cliches, and the team took advantage.
* ''[[T. J. Hooker]]'' is very guilty of being this for cop shows. Every storyline, you've seen before. All of the character types and stereotypes are here. The villians tend to have no characterization, largely being [[Complete Monster|inhumane monsters]]. The show is such a Cliché Storm, that you might think you're watching a parody of cop shows rather than the real deal.
* ''[[Gilmore Girls]]'' has an episode when Rory is moving into her college dorm and another student has lost a bet between him and his girlfriend and must only speak in cliches. A cliche storm follows.


==  Music ==
* The careers of many pop-punk bands—most notably [[Screeching Weasel]], The Riverdales, that sort of thing—could be called this, due to their fanboyish emulation of The Ramones. [[Tropes Are Not Bad|This doesn't mean it's not still awesome]]. In some cases, pop punk bands do get really generic and cliched in a ''bad'' way.
* [[The Beatles (band)|The Beatles]]' song "I Will". Still a pretty song, though.
* The charity single "Just Stand Up!" Justified in that the song was written so that sales could go to the cause (''Just Stand Up For Cancer'') and for inspirational purposes, and therefore wasn't intended to be original.
* Every line of Cascada's "Every Time We Touch." You know, we could just place the last nail in the coffin and admit that the weather forecast for every pop music station is 100% chance of Cliche Storm. Forever.
* The story of the Mannheim Steamroller album and TV special ''The Christmas Angel: A Family Story'' seems built from a list of Christmas fantasy cliches: [[The Nutcracker (theatre)|living toys]] (including a teddy bear, a [[Frosty the Snowman|snowman]], and a [[Babes in Toyland|toy soldier]]); a [[How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (novel)|monster who hates the holiday]], wrecks the town square and steals the eponymous angel from the top of its Christmas tree to ruin everything (because it represents the spirit of the holiday); a trip by the heroine and toys to the icy north to confront him; and a happy ending wherein the villain is reformed by the power of goodness.
* [[Celine Dion]]'s albums are a veritable clichefest. Her first seven albums (not counting her Christmas Album) feature no fewer than 27 songs with the word love in the title. That's about 1/5th of the songs she recorded. She outdid herself on "The Colour of My Love" where half of the songs (and the title of the album) feature the word love.
** Toto are pretty similar; about half their songs follow the formula of 'I love you very much <insert female name as title of song>.' It got so bad, they named one song (admittedly a good one) ''99''. On their second album.
* Nearly anything written by Diane Warren, including Céline Dion's "Because You Loved Me". Count how many times she used the phrase "in this moment" in [[Aerosmith]]'s "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing".
* Almost eveything ever released by Ronnie James Dio... although, to be honest, rocking like [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RR1mGsUvYI this] when you're around 70 is still pretty damned awesome.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7baAX6a6pM "He has songs of/ Wildebeests and angels/ He has soared/ on the wings of a deeee-mon!!!..."]
* The entire discography of [[Kiss]]... who are still kind awesome in a guilty-pleasure sort of way.
* The lyrics Cosmos' ([[Dark Reprise|and Chaos']]) themes in ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'' might as well have been a long list of cliched fantasy phrases run through a computer algorithm and edited by a non-native English Speaker. [[Tropes Are Not Bad|The songs are still catchy]], though they owe far more to the [[Crowning Music of Awesome|kickass score]] and excellent performance than the written content.
* [[Michael Jackson]] could fall into this.
** His last large-scale video, "You Rock My World", is a rehash of elements from his ''Bad''/''Dangerous''-era videos: 1930s/'40s gangster motif ("Smooth Criminal"), Jackson having to prove he's tough ("Bad"—the phrase "You ain't nothin'" appears in both), celebrity appearances ("Liberian Girl", "Remember the Time", etc.), and Jackson pursuing a sexy girl ("The Way You Make Me Feel").
** While many regard it as a tearjerker, "Gone Too Soon" is really just a list of tired similes ("Like a perfect flower/That is just beyond your reach/Gone too soon").
* Most of [[Tenacious D]]'s songs are made of Cliche Storms. [[Tropes Are Not Bad|Not that that makes them any less awesome...]]
* [[Rhapsody of Fire]] lyrics, with fantasy clichés.
* [[Brad Paisley]]'s "[http://www.elyrics.net/read/b/brad-paisley-lyrics/then-lyrics.html Then]". Could there be a more cliché chorus line than "And now you're my whole life / Now you're my whole world / And I just can't believe the way I feel about you, girl"?


==  Tabletop Games ==
* Official ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' publications intentionally play to every fantasy cliche imaginable with the understanding that if a DM doesn't like the standard way of doing things, s/he can always change it for his/her campaign.
* Hey, look! It's another [[Euro Game]] about farming, trading, or something set in medieval times.
* Hey, look! It's another American game about fantasy, combat, or something set in ''fantasy'' medieval times.
* Hey, look! It's another WWII tabletop wargame!
* [[Magic: The Gathering]] set ''Innistrad'' is this for Gothic horror. [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=230786 Zombies], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=222189 werewolves], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=221211 vampires], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=221214 ghosts], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=227075 curses], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=230788 mad] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=226749 scientists] and their [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=222913 stitched-together,] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=230780 Frankenstein's-Monster-esque creations], all present and accounted for. Even [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=221209 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde] put in an appearance! (It should be clarified that [[Invoked Trope|this is the point]]; ''Innistrad'' was developed top-down as a flavorful horror-themed block.)


==  Video Games ==
* ''[[StarCraft II]]'', particularly its trailer. You've heard every line before, and that's a guarantee.
** The ''Wings of Liberty'' campaign itself isn't much better. The characters are, at best, paper-thin stereotypes—even Raynor himself doesn't have much depth—and the plot has all the moral complexity of a fairy tale.
** This is exacerbated by the fact that not only is it a cliche storm on its own, its plot is the exact same cliche storm you saw in the previous Blizzard RTS. [[Play the Game, Skip the Story|Not that people noticed]].
* ''[[Skies of Arcadia]]''. This may have been part of its charm; damn near everyone that played the game loved it. The cliché storm came at a time where every other RPG in a five year radius -- [[Follow the Leader|following the lead]] of ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]''—had gone to such great lengths to avoid clichés (largely by becoming [[Darker and Edgier]] and [[Faux Symbolism|stiflingly pretentious]]) that a [[Reconstruction|return to overused tropes]] had [[Inverted Trope|somehow become a breath of fresh air]]. One thing that makes ''[[Skies of Arcadia]]'' work in spite of this trope is that it combines the various clichés in genuinely new and previously un-attempted ways.
** ''[[Grandia (video game)|Grandia]]'', a much earlier RPG, may well have beaten ''[[Skies of Arcadia]]'' to the decision to stop trailing after ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]''... though really, in ''Grandia'''s case it feels more like the writer just wanted to have fun rather than having a specific intention of being different. The hero's a mischievous young lad, who runs away from home chasing the legacy of his dead father to become an adventurer, carrying his [[Orphan's Plot Trinket]] (the Spirit Stone), fights the evil empire... and it is awesome in very much the same way as [[Skies of Arcadia]]'s lack of fear for the use of cliché lead it to be.
** Also the whole point of the aptly-named ''[[Nostalgia]]''.
* ''[[Eternal Sonata]]'' seems to teeter between this and [[Troperiffic]], with varying opinions as to which side it leans more heavily towards. It has many elements of the traditional JRPG, but it could be argued that this was intentional.
* A fair few people argue that the first ''[[Atelier Iris]]'' game, and maybe the second one, work on this level as well—yeah, it plays a lot of common RPG adventure tropes completely straight, but they're used so ''well'' and the tone of the games is fundamentally so bright and optimistic [[Troperiffic|that the audience ends up loving the product anyway]].
* ''[[BlazBlue]]''. It invokes so many anime and fighting game clichés (and subverts, inverts or averts just as many), every character is a walking case of [[Troperiffic]][[Buffy-Speak|ness]].
* Likewise, ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]''. A somewhat unusual development by the team that brought you the [[Deconstructor Fleet]]s ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' and ''[[Star Wars]]: [[Knights of the Old Republic]] II'', it seems almost like an experiment in how many cliches (from [[Doomed Hometown]] to [[Gotta Catch Them All]] to {{spoiler|[[Kill'Em All]]}}) could be crammed into a fantasy [[RPG]] given enough attention to detail, characterization, and dialogue.
** Mask of the Betrayer makes more sense if you think of it as the deconstructor to ''Neverwinter Nights 2'''s cliche-storm.
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' is this in game form, although that's the point—it's like ''playing'' a [[Space Opera]] to the hilt.
** That and the writers show an awareness to all the cliches and play with them constantly. The writing is also so strong, that it never feels cliche or unoriginal. The game always feels nice and fresh.
** ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' on the other hand, is much [[Darker and Edgier|darker]], [[Deconstructor Fleet|deconstructive]], and subversive than the first game.
** There's also a summary (on this very wiki no doubt) of this series that points out that each of the ''Mass Effect'' games correspond to one time period in sci-fi writing- ''1'' is the 1980s, ''2'' is the late 1980s, and ''3'' is the 1990s. This can't be anything but intentional.
* ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' does this for ''[[Star Wars]]''. Obsidian did their utmost to subvert this in the sequel, though.
* ''[[Resident Evil 4]]''
* Likewise, ''[[True Crime]]: Streets of L.A.'' intentionally reproduced the 1980s action flick in video game form.
* And likewise, ''[[Total Overdose]]: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico'' did this for the Mexican action movies.
* ''[[Dragoneers Aria|Dragoneer's Aria]]''. It's an RPG that consists of [[Final Fantasy VII|chasing a psychopath around the world]] as he [[Final Fantasy V|destroys the world's elemental MacGuffins]]. The battle system is also very stale.
* ''[[Beyond the Beyond]]'', one of Camelot Software's first non-''[[Shining Force]]'' RPGs.
* ''[[Star Ocean: Till the End of Time]]'' should have had a counter that clicked every time they recycled a cliché from ''[[Star Trek]], [[Final Fantasy]],'' and every other console RPG. Maria even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] it during one in-town dialogue.
** Bonus points go to the twist that  {{spoiler|the world of ''Star Ocean'' is a Video game -- even the 4D beings who play it probably thought "This game really ''is'' pretty cliche isn't it?"}}
* ''[[Grandia II]]'', ''[[Luminous Arc]]'', and ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' are, like, ''the'' threesome of cliché storms, being built around identical framing devices and having largely the same plot twists.
* ''[[Legend of Dragoon]]''. When it first came out, many fans couldn't stop comparing it to ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]''. [[Follow the Leader|There is a good reason for this]]. It didn't help that the few "original" elements were downplayed. One of the "big revelations" ({{spoiler|one of the members of your group has been mass murdering anybody that comes in contact with The [[Reincarnation|Reincarnated]] [[The Chosen One|Chosen One]] for hundreds of years}}) was just flat out ignored immediately afterwards without even so much as a chiding.
* Done intentionally in ''[[Fable (video game)|Fable I]]'', which essentially was a [[Hero's Journey]] simulator.
* ''[[Live a Live]]'' is like this for most of the game, with chapters made up of incredibly cliched characters and plots. Then you unlock another chapter that starts like this but turns into an exceptionally brutal [[Deconstruction]].
* ''[[Just Cause (video game)|Just Cause 2]]'' falls into the category, most likely as a stylistic choice. Having the good guys really wrestle between helping the average Panauan and serving the Agency? Resolving the [[Excuse Plot|"plot"]] with something more sensible than the vile oppressive evil ''slimy toad'' of a dictator pulling a nuclear threat along an international struggle over a huge oil field that was totally there all along? Come on now, it'd just distract you from the ridiculous car chases and the [[Impressive Pyrotechnics|80's style]] [[Made of Explodium|gasoline explosions.]]
* ''[[The House of the Dead (series)|House of the Dead]]: Overkill'' by far, and completely intentionally.
* ''[[Halo]]'': pretty much half the speeches by either the Master Chief or the Sergeant fall into this catagory. That being said, many of the Sergeant's little speeches are also played up to have humorous lines.
* Every single thing about ''[[Rogue Galaxy]]'', down to every line of dialogue.
* ''[[Enchanted Arms]]'' plays every trope, every cliche, and every stock phrase so straight, you could lock it in a temperature-regulated room in France as the International Standard for Straightness. Okay, it does have the Pizza Golem. With pepperoni, bacon and sausage. That's fairly original.
* ''[[Dead Space (series)|Dead Space]]'', which played everything so very straight that it ''actually included'' the line "[[As You Know]]" without irony or [[Lampshade Hanging]]. Hell, the designers admitted that Isaac's suit was inspired by the [[Alien|Power Loader]], to which one imagines the world replied "Yeah, we know."
* ''[[Black Sigil]]'' is pretty much every late-80s/early-90s JRPG cliche rolled into one really slow DS game. It also suffers from the "One [[Random Encounters|random fight]] every three steps" syndrome that plagued a lot RPGs of the era.
* ''[[Red Steel]]'' is one of the most shameless examples of a Cliché Storm ever seen.
* ''[[Wet]]''
* The first 10 hours or so of nearly every single ''[[Tales (series)|Tales]]'' game. Then it hits you that the game [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle|is supposed to end now but]] [[Disc One Final Dungeon|you're still on Disc 1]]. Cue [[Wham! Episode]]. And therein lies ''why'' they have a fanbase. The ''[[Tales (series)]]'' series are great at [[Deconstructed Trope|deconstruction]] and [[Subverted Trope|subversion]], so, for fans of the series, part of the fun is waiting to see just how many cliches they are going to utterly demolish by turning them on their heads, or exposing the downright nasty sides of them. (Sadly, most people only seem to play the first two hours and then say "The plot is a Cliché Storm." The entire ''series'' is built on a big Cliché Storm.)
* ''[[Last Scenario]]'' works sort of like the ''[[Tales (series)]]'' in this respect. A [[Mysterious Informant]] shows up to tell the [[Farm Boy]] that he is [[Heroic Lineage|the descendant of a legendary hero]] and must help [[Good Republic, Evil Empire|fight the Empire]] to gain strength for the inevitable [[Sealed Evil in a Can|awakening of the demons]]. He goes off to fulfill his destiny, overjoyed to be saving the world. By the end of the game, he's found out that {{spoiler|a) he isn't related to Alexander, b) the demons [[Written by the Winners|aren't]], and c) Zawu was an agent for the Kingdom, whose up-and-coming [[Magnificent Bastard|General Castor]] was [[Playing Both Sides]]}}. Even {{spoiler|''the intro text scroll''}} was a lie.
* The [[PlayStation 2]] game ''[[Shining Tears]]''.
* ''[[Sands of Destruction (video game)|Sands of Destruction]]''. The first 50 minutes of the game are pretty unique—the female lead doesn't want to save the world as most RPG heroes want, but rather destroy it. By the next town she's already saving people and leaning towards the cliche-ism. More clichéd characters appear and more clichéd events happened, culminating in a finale that has more or less every finale cliché in the book, including [[Luke, I Am Your Father]], [[Power of Friendship]], [[Power of Love]], [[Evil Cannot Comprehend Good]] so on so forth.
* ''[[Forty Winks]]'' for the [[PlayStation]].
* ''[[Dragon Age]]''. Granted, the game ''does'' have quite a few original things, but when one looks at the setting...with few exceptions...it's practically every Tolkienian-inspired [[Medieval Fantasy]] plus a few things, minus a few things. Forest-dwelling elves who are big on Archery and hunting? Check. Subterranean Mountain-dwelling dwarves with a fondness for alcohol and crafting? Check. Mage towers? Check. Humans who speak with British accents? Check. Obvious influence from the British Isles or Western Europe? Check. Mages wound up destroying the world and creating Darkspawn? Check. Dwarven warriors? Check. [[Fantastic Racism]]? ...eh, mark it but not fully played out. [[Real Is Brown|Green and brown-stained landscapes?]] Check. Evil dragons that are just giant animals in terms of intelligence? Check. Last in the line of kings? Check.
** The game's even ''self-aware''! The human origin story is ''loaded'' with Cliches...yet during the story, when you kill giant rats, your character can say "Giant rats? That's like the start of every bad bard-song I've ever heard!"
* Dr Nefarious from ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' is practically built out of this trope. [[Played for Laughs]] of course.
* Try this ''[[Quake 4|Quake IV]]'' drinking game. Take a shot for any [[Space Marines]] cliche lifted from ''Aliens'', ''Warhammer 40,000'', Vietnam War movies like ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'', and previous Id Software shooters. Only those [[Made of Iron]] will still be conscious by the beginning of the third level. Seriously, the trope page for [[A Space Marine Is You]] reads like the design document for the game.
* ''[[The Saboteur]]'' seems to have been made intentionally with every [[World War 2]] cliche in mind.
* ''[[Disaster: Day of Crisis]]'' plays every single [[Disaster Movie]]-Cliche known to mankind painfully straight. And somehow, it [[Narm Charm|still works.]]
* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' is particularly guilty of this, [[Play the Game, Skip the Story|though it doesn't get much attention.]]The storyline in all four campaigns is pretty cliched itself, but if you listen to the dialog you'd think you were listening to a dictionary of cliche things to say. From the motivational speeches you quite often get ("We are the light that will shatter the coming darkness"), to the supposedly dramatic twists in the storyline ("But something tells me if they see for themselves what the White Mantle really do with the Chosen, they'll have a change of heart about their masters"), it's about as bad as I've seen it get.
** Although there are some subversions. (Varesh Ossa is actually [[The Dragon]] rather than a pawn of Abaddon, despite being Chosen, it's heavily implied literally ''any'' of the Chosen could have done what the player character does, the player character [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|unintentionally screw over Elona in time for Guild Wars 2]]) Nightfall in particular has the most Cliché Storm story out of all of them...despite the subversions.
* [[The Feeble Files]] is kinda cross between genuine cliché storm and parody of it.
* [http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/495903 Super PSTW Action RPG] is this for video game RPGs.
* ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]'' is full of this. This is most likely because EVERYTHING that happens in the game is a tribute to old [[Spaghetti Western]] movies.
** ''[[Red Dead Revolver]]'' is even more like this, to the point where it forgets to have a coherent plot in order to recycle as many [[Spaghetti Western]] tropes as possible. All the set-pieces are there; [[The Good, the Bad and the Ugly|blowing up a bridge in a warzone]], [[For a Few Dollars More|infiltrating the enemy banditos' camp to take their bounties]], but it happens solely for the sake of happening.
* The plot of Champion Mode in ''Fight Night Champion'' is essentially an amalgamation of every single boxing movie cliché in existence: brutish undefeated rival? Check. Crooked Don King-esque promoter? Check. Friendly rival brother that turns bitter only for the two to eventually reconcile? Check. [[Shallow Love Interest]]? Check...
* ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' (especially ''[[Super Robot Wars Original Generation]]'') is built on this it's not even funny, starting with a [[Ascended Fanboy|mecha otaku turned giant robot pilot]], a ''German [[Samurai]]'' with his [[Char Clone]] [[Heterosexual Life Partner]] as [[Memetic Mutation|real men who ride each other]], [[The Stoic]] gambler and his [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl]] partner, guy with ridiculous [[No Sense of Direction]] with one of the [[Elemental Powers]] on his tows AND two talking cats, a ridiculously busty [[Artificial Human|android girl]]... and so on. Really, and it's still ''awesome''.
* ''[[Darksiders]]'' has been noted for mainlining on [[Grimdark]] tropes: set [[After the End]], featuring a stoic [[Badass]] on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]], fighting against the [[Legions of Hell]], and so on and so forth. General consensus is that it ''works''.
* ''[[Baten Kaitos]]: Eternat Wings and the Lost Ocean''. You have Kalas, a teenage orphaned [[Anti-Hero]] out to avenge his family who was killed by [[The Empire]]. He meets up with Xelha, a [[Mysterious Waif]] who is trying to stop said empire from acquiring the five [[Artifact of Doom|End Magnus]]. About a third the game is like that, then it turns out that ''[[Playing the Player|nothing is as it seems]]''.
* The ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' series is split between Cliché Storm games and games which avert it: games one, two, three, six, eight, eleven and twelve fall under this (one and six being pretty much identical in how they do it!), whereas four, five, seven, nine and ten don't. (Worth noting that eleven and twelve are remakes)
** To be fair, ''[[Fire Emblem Akaneia]]'' wasn't [[Seinfeld Is Unfunny|as cliche in their day as they seem now]] - consider Akaneia helped establish the genre it's a part of; compare ''[[Fire Emblem]] 6'' and ''8'', which were about a decade and a half after Akaenia.
** Fire Emblem 9 was, backstory and setting aside, pretty much this to Fire Emblem games. However, it's interesting to note that about half way through the game, they start playing with the Fire Emblem tropes, such as having the princess instead of being a plot figure don armour and become full out playable. Fire Emblem 10 meanwhile goes into full-on [[Deconstructor Fleet]].
** ''[[Fire Emblem: Awakening]]'' was actually ''mistaken'' as one, on basis of having the main character being a blue-haired sword-wielding prince. However, it quickly begins to subvert this/
* ''[[Diablo]]'' intentionally does this as part of the charm. Then again though, at this point (By Diablo 3), Blizzard probably knows that [[Play the Game, Skip the Story|they could somehow bring Chaucer back from the dead and have him write the plot, and 95% of their players still won't pay attention to it.]]


==  Web Comics ==
* A ton of web comics that adopt the attitude of [[Follow the Leader]], usually of ''[[Penny Arcade]]'', ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', or ''[[Bob and George]]''. Those three web comics alone inspired about half of the web comics out there, with [[Sturgeon's Law]] seeming to be an understatement about their quality and originality.
* Everything in ''[[Sonichu]]'' that doesn't [[All There in the Manual|fail to make any sense unless the author explains it]] has been seen before in so many other, better works.
* Parodied on ''Hiro'' with [http://drunkduck.com/hiro/index.php?p=414050 Lo, the Cliche King]{{Dead link}}.
* Done deliberately and for laughs in Jango's [[Evil Gloating]] [http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0276.html here] in ''[[Darths and Droids]]''.
* The GM's story in ''[[DM of the Rings]]''.
* ''[[Mitadake Saga]]'', like the original game, glorifies itself on Anime tropes quite often.
* ''[[The Black Blood Alliance]]''
* Done in-story in ''[[The Noob]]'' with the MMORPG ''ClicheQuest''
* [http://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/2003/10/02/ In universe] for ''[[Pibgorn]]''.
* An in-universe example was done by [[Real Life Comics]] during a dimension-hopping adventure where they wound up in a world where "everything is a ''[[Sliders]]'' cliche!". Naturally, this involved their dimension-traveling device fizzling out, a doomsday scenario, joining and fighting a rag-tag resistance group led by a double of someone they knew, getting involved with and solving the world's problems and a last second escape. Well, '''almost''' all their problems.
{{quote|'''Alt Dave''': That's great, but what about the '''''huge freaking asteroid''''' about to hit the planet?!
'''Tony''': Sorry, pal! You're on your own! }}
* Catch a Mad in ''[[Narbonic]]'' not spouting off every ''[[Mad Scientist]]'' cliche ever and you will find a Mad letting the side down. If you can't rant for at least an hour about [[They Called Me Mad|''"those fools that called mad!"'']], then you are sane and don't belong.

== Web Original ==
* Judging by what can be gathered about ''[[Satina (Wants a Glass of Water)]]'' after watching its first official episode (''Bring Your Demon to Work Day''), said show is absolutely ''made'' out of [[Sitcom|sitcom]] cliches. 
** However, said show uses its utter cliched-ness as a humorous contrast to the fact that it is about [[Improbable Species Compatibility|a human and a demon taking care of their human/demon hybrid baby]], so it more-or-less works.
==  Western Animation ==
* The animated ''[[The King and I]]'' was one big fat cliché from start to finish.
* The ''[[Mega Man (animation)|Mega Man]]'' animated series specialized in giving its viewers a sense of familiarity, from plots such as [[Pinocchio Syndrome|"I wanna be a real boy"]] and [[Incredible Shrinking Man|"shrunken protagonist"]] to "hypnotic hard rock."
* ''[[Delgo]]''. In an incredibly bad way. Considering how it has gone down in history with the worst opening weekend for a wide-release movie in history...
** One comment on a Mogulus stream channel chat summed it up thusly: "[[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|It's like they got their script from TV Tropes]]!"
** For those unfamiliar with the film, a [[Everything's Better with Princesses|beautiful princess]] [[Star-Crossed Lovers|falls in love with]] [[The Hero]], who has to unite their [[Feuding Families]] and fight the [[Evil Chancellor]]. All that, just gleaned from the trailer.
*** It's even worse when you add in the annoying sidekick, who is just [[The Load|so useless]] until the end when he "saves" the hero, except he gets attacked by some flying frog things as a result...
* ''[[Storm Hawks]]'' can be seen as this from a mile away.
* ''[[Barbie]]'' movies often fall prey to this especially when they're ferociously trying to subvert it in the name of [[Girls Need Role Models]].
** ''Barbies and the Three Musketeers'' manages to fall prey to this ''and'' attempt to make them role models for girls. Unfortunately, it flops (even more, mind you) when they replace the swords (and ''muskets'') with batons and fluffy, uniformed kittens.
* Just about every Disney sequel that ever went straight to DVD.
** Although, some ''have'' thought that ''Cinderella III'' was somewhat deconstructive, and it also lampshaded several tropes played in the original fairy tale (e.g., the king asking why the prince is so in love with someone over their choice in footwear, characters seemingly being very suspicious about choice of love).
* ''[[Three Delivery]]'', the Nicktoon. Think of ''[[Xiaolin Showdown]]'', but with food puns and even ''more'' cliches.
* ''[[Skeleton Warriors]]'' hits most every fantasy cliche it can reach.
* Whether intentional or not, ''[[The Fairly OddParents]]'' feels like an example of this right from the start. There are scenes after scenes and jokes after jokes that one can almost guess the outcome, or ask oneself, "why have I heard of this before?" At the worst one will emit an inner groan at the overused joke, but also at times one can find it charming.
* Pretty much the entire point of ''[[Total Drama Island]]'' is to be a Category-5 Cliche Hurricane, especially for [[Reality TV]] tropes. [[Played for Laughs]].
* The character of [[Evil Sorcerer|the Archmage]] on ''[[Gargoyles]]'' was a deliberate Cliché Storm—indeed, his primary weakness is [[Bond Villain Stupidity|his love affair with villain cliches]], which prevents him from utilizing his godlike magical power to the fullest possible extent.
* The [[LEGO]] [[Hero Factory]] mini-series, also called "''Rise of the Rookies''". A great cast with some big names and CGI models with over-detailed textures a good story do not make. It relied so much on recycled formulas and rolled so well on clichés, that it neglected to explain the very driving force behind its plot: {{spoiler|Just ''what'' did Von Nebula want revenge for? Nobody has done ''anything'' to him.}} Heck, the first episode included a scene during which the characters tell us just how awesome the main hero is, and that he ''will'' end up saving the day. Just in case you feared that the series would have something interesting and unexpected in stall for him (and surprise, surprise, his whole character development was also wrapped up in the same episode).
** Arguably, its p-redecessor ''[[Bionicle]]'' started out this way, playing all the tropes very, very straight in the first few years, [[Tropes Are Not Bad|although still managing to be enjoyable]]. It's only in the later years that it became more subversive and ascended to [[Troperiffic]]. There's still a chance for HF to do the same.
* ''[[Atomic Betty]]''. [[Action Girl|Betty]], a secret space cadet, balances [[Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World|protecting the galaxy from evil with being a teenager]]. Together with her [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|goofy sidekicks]] (a [[The Ditz|ditzy alien]] and [[Deadpan Snarker]] [[Ridiculously Human Robot|robot]]), Betty fights to stop the evil "[[Harmless Villain|genius]]", [[Evil Overlord|Maximus I.Q.]] ([[Cats Are Mean|a catlike alien]]) and his ([[Visual Pun|literally]]) [[The Starscream|two-faced]] [[The Dragon|sidekick]] [[Servile Snarker|Minimus P.U.]] There is absolutely NOTHING original about this show. [[Crowning Music of Awesome|Aside from her kickass theme song, of course]].
* ''[[Cars]]'' is this for [[Pixar]] movies. It's easy to imagine a little counter in the corner dinging whenever you see a Pixar cliche. Stranger in a community or group? Check. Brooding moment from a side character? Check. Wacky sidekick who forms a comedic duo with the main character? Check. Said group full of wacky members with their own quirks? Check. All of the development threatens to go downhill when something happens to separate or alienate the stranger? Check.
** ''[[Brave]]'' also seems to be heading down this road considering it stars [[Everything's Better with Princesses|a rebellious princess]] and has glaring similarities to previous films such as ''[[Tangled]]'' and ''[[How to Train Your Dragon (animation)|How to Train Your Dragon]]''. This is probably intentional due to the fact that John Lassater has said that since all of the heads of Pixar are male, they have an easier time writing male characters and they just went with a familiar formula when they started writing a story with a female lead, but this ''is'' Pixar so this might be a case of [[Tropes Are Not Bad]], or just plain [[Troperrific]].
* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' is a cliche storm for the superhero genre. [[Ordinary High School Student]] in a [[Freak Lab Accident]] becomes a [[Half-Human Hybrid]] and must now [[Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World]] and maintain his [[Secret Identity]] while dealing with [[Hero with Bad Publicity|bad publicity]]. To help him are his [[Two Guys and a Girl|best friends]] as he fights a variety of villains with [[Pun]]s, most notably a [[Magnificent Bastard]] [[Villain with Good Publicity|With Good Publicity]] who eventually makes [[Cloning Blues|clones]] [[Opposite Gender Clone|with varying]] [[Clone Degeneration|levels of success]]. And, oh yeah, he [[Dating Catwoman|dates a ghost hunter]] for a while. This show is ''full'' of cliches, but usually makes it all work somehow.
** Probably because the show had a heavy emphasis on comedy; the writing made it clear that they knew it was all cliched, so at times it could come off as an [[Affectionate Parody]] of the superhero genre.
* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''; the basic plot is one you've heard before. The world is in danger, there is a single [[Chosen One]] who has to defeat the legion of evil despite his young age, and he only has a year to do it! But like other cliche storms, like ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'', by giving characters good back-stories and depth and creating a fleshed out world, [[Tropes Are Not Bad|it still works]].
* ''[[Detention]]'' - however, the characters (What little we saw of them) were memorable enough it's listed as [[Too Good to Last]].
* ''[[Fish Hooks]]''
* The 2010 reboot of ''[[Pound Puppies]]''. Even its fans admit it's one.
** Though it's not as bad as some examples. The 1980s version, however gave us ''The Legend of Big Paw''.
* ''[[My Life Me]]'' is this to [[Anime]] tropes '''and''' [[Slice of Life]] tropes.
* ''[[Johnny Test]]''
* [[ThunderCats (2011 series)|The 2011 ''ThunderCats'']] trots out well-worn clichés by the dozen, but uses the pretext of its planet-wide [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink]] and [[Schizo-Tech]] to play [[Genre Roulette]] with those it employs. Stock plots from [[High Fantasy]], [[Wooden Ships and Iron Men]], [[Space Opera]] and [[Western]] all get their turns at bat, often while mashed up with two to three other genres.
* The first season of ''[[Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi]]''. This was removed in the second season.
* Do ''not'' be fooled by the insect-populated [[Scavenger World]] that ''[[The Buzz on Maggie]]'' takes place in; it is about as cliched and stereotypical as animated sitcoms get.
* While ''[[Courage the Cowardly Dog]]'' might not be an actual [[Cliche Storm]], it certainly is one ''hell'' of a [[Troperiffic|Trope Storm]].

==  Other  ==
* Subverted so much in online text-based RP games that it's almost starting to come full-circle. Everyone seems so terrified of making their character a [[Mary Sue]] that they're going to ridiculous heights to make their characters/plots blandly average... even in genres and settings where everyone having some measure of the fantastic is not only forgivable, but ''preferred''. These often end up producing [[Anti-Sue|Anti Sues]] that still [[Suetiful All Along|dominate the spotlight unfairly]] in spite of the total ''lack'' of anything noteworthy of them.
** This is ''especially'' prevalent mostly due to the misuse of the [[Mary Sue]] accusation—it has evolved from something that was reserved for genuinely annoying characters to simply [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Like|complaining about characters you don't like]], with several "Mary Sue tests" including stuff that ''really'' isn't Sueish...just stuff the author of the test dislikes and wants to get rid of by calling it one of the [[Common Mary Sue Traits]].
* The fourth installment of ''[[Bunny Kill]]'' is chock full of various anime cliches, including over the top violence, super modes, ninja jutsu, and {{spoiler|the [[Disposable Woman]]}}. [[Word of God]] states this was intentional.
* All the reviews for ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]'' seem to be loaded with glowing, poster-ready cliches:
** [http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-princess25-2009nov25,0,6472123.story LA Times]
** [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20322455,00.html Entertainment Weekly]
* [[Cirque Du Soleil]]'s ''[[KA]]'', their only show to put its [[Excuse Plot]] front and center, is a conventional heroic journey: royal twins are separated when their kingdom is attacked and their parents killed by evil forces; they and their sidekicks (some wacky, some serious) go through a variety of adventures to be reunited and help defeat the army. Each finds romance along the way, the Twin Brother with a villain's daughter and the Twin Sister with a Tarzan-like forest hero. The pleasure of the show is watching it unfold without intelligible dialogue and with oodles of [[Scenery Porn]] and acrobatics; the familiarity of its story is kinda to its benefit.
* [http://youtu.be/WAG9Xn5bJwQ This] hilarious [[Real Trailer, Fake Movie]].
* [[World War II|Bernard Montgomery's]] [http://www.remuseum.org.uk/corpshistory/part16/el-alamein-personalmessage.jpg address to the British Eighth Army]{{Dead link}} shortly before the battle of El Alamein was filled with cliches, and he was known for being fond of using them in general.
* [http://nylawblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834516c2469e20153901a011d970b-pi This] [http://nylawblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834516c2469e20153901a0218970b-pi brief].
* ''[http://the-toast.net/series/how-to-tell-if-youre-in-a-novel/ How To Tell If You’re In a Novel]'' series on The Toast classifies it by genres.


{{reflist}}
[[Category:Dialogue]]
[[Category:YMMV Trope]]
[[Category:Cliche Storm]]
[[Category:Cliché Storm]]
[[Category:Example as a Thesis]]
[[Category:Sturgeon's Tropes]]
[[Category:Stock Conversations]]