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Phlebotinum Analogy (view source)

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'''Winston''' What do you mean, big?
'''Egon''': Well, let's say this twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning's sample, it would be a twinkie... thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.
'''Winston''': That's a big twinkie.|'''[[Ghostbusters]]'''}}
|'''[[Ghostbusters]]'''}}
 
With as much [[Applied Phlebotinum]] flying around, there's just as much [[Techno Babble]] around to explain it. However, when even [[Techno Babble]] piles on too much, it too needs to be explained away. Thus, we have the '''Phlebotinum Analogy'''. It consists of using a simple simile to explain away something that is seemingly complex to the audience. Really, the only reason that it would be confusing to us is because nine-tenths of the time, whatever the character is explaining has been completely made up, anyway.
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*** Well, to be fair, Omoc is doing the exact same analogy as the previous examples but with a twig. Sam might have understood, but Daniel's only an archaeologist.
** The analogy was also used by [[William Shatner]] on "How [[Star Trek]] Changed the World", but using pizza dough to illustrate the concept.
 
 
== [[Literature]] ==
* Parodied in the [[Discworld]] book ''[[Discworld/Night Watch (Discworld)|Night Watch]]'', where Lu Tze's explanation of why it's easier to get Vimes back to the present than it was to make sure the time loop that has been formed by Carcer killing his mentor before he met him was stabilized, (It's like climbing up, and then jumping off, a mountain) is satisfactory to Vimes. Then Qu starts to point out that that's [[Lies to Children|not how it works at all]] and Lu Tze tells him to shut up because it'll prevent too many further questions.
** There's also the scene in ''[[Discworld/Making Money|Making Money]]'' in which Adora Belle Dearheart calls the Cabinet of Curiosities "like a sliding puzzle, but with lots more directions to slide." Ponder Stibbons responds "That is a very graphic analogy which aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way."
** And in ''[[Discworld/Thief of Time|Thief of Time]]'', {{spoiler|Lobsang}} explains how he's putting time back by comparing it to a jigsaw (in which the peices are scattered across the universe, moving, and mixed up with other jigsaws), before adding "Everything I have just said is nonsense. It bears no resemblence to the truth of the matter in any way at all." Sir Pterry, who co-created the phrase "[[Lies to Children]]", is fond of this gag.
* In Michael Crichton's [[Sphere]], a physicist character explains gravity and black holes to some of the other characters using fruit on a table.
 
== [[Live -Action TV]] ==
* The quintessential example is, to no one's surprise, ''[[Star Trek]]''
** One of the few times it fit was in a ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Next Generation]]'' episode, where a [[Space Whale|larva space creature]] is feeding on the Enterprise, both because the ship's energy is compatible, and because it thinks the Enterprise is its mother. So they change the form of the energy to something incompatible, which they call, "sour the milk".
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Phlebotinum Analogy{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Applied Phlebotinum]]
▲[[Category:Phlebotinum Analogy]]
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