http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigLippedAlligatorMoment

That third pic's out of left field accordion to the trope.

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A Non Sequitur is a bit or line of dialogue that is intentionally out of place, usually designed to elicit a comedic reaction. They have no actual bearing on the plot, although they are staples of characters who are part of their own little world like the Cloudcuckoolander or The Ditz.

Springboarding from there, we find the Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, or BLAM (an appropriate term in and of itself, as they tend to show up with all the subtlety of a shotgun blast). This is a very bizarre scene in an otherwise normal story that veers off into the surreal or strange. Upon exiting that scene, the plot continues on like it never happened.

There are three precise criteria for measuring a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:

Simply being random, strange, or inconsequential to the story is not enough. All three criteria have to be met. If a scene is considered "borderline", it is likely not an example. BLAMs are often Level Breakers as well. Usually, this is done just because.

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The Trope Namer is All Dogs Go to Heaven, and the Trope Codifier is The Nostalgia Chick and The Nostalgia Critic from their review of FernGully while commenting on another example. In the trope naming scene (in a movie that mostly deals with talking dogs, the afterlife, and mafia undertones, somewhat strange itself), a big-lipped, Cajun-accented, bone-through-the-nose alligator takes a liking to the main character Charlie and forces him to sing a duet "Let's Make Music Together". While the alligator goes on to have a role in the plot later on, Charlie is noticeably very confused over the whole song.

The Nostalgia Critic and The Nostalgia Chick have had to post supplementary videos on this topic, due to confusion on what does and does not count. One is that it is a moment, not a subplot or entire episode (For that we have Bizarro Episode). And they emphasized that it has to go against what is considered normal.

Context and the nature of the situation matters immensely in comparison to the sliding scale of realism used by the story in question. This trope can be objectively observed but because of the dissonance between the audience and the characters (the audience doesn't live in the exact same world, so what is strange to the audience might be commonplace for the characters) this often ends up as a debatable topic. Even the trope namer has been subject to debate.

Adding to the controversy is the fact that, in certain circumstances at least, belief in this trope could be considered an example of the Perfect Solution Fallacy; defined in this case as excessive pedantry about adherence to the Law of Conservation of Detail. Aside from anything else, there are works where irrelevant or obfuscating details are actually important; pare down the details too much in a murder mystery, for instance, and you risk making the plot obvious from the outset. Being excessively paranoid about avoiding this trope or conserving detail also potentially puts constraints on creativity in general terms, as well, as any given story might need to deviate to develop the characters, setting, background and other contextual elements that might not strictly move the narrative forward or be utilized as a Chekhov's Gun.

Compare these other tropes and consider whether an example would better fit there:

Also compare What Happened to the Mouse?, Aborted Arc, Makes Just as Much Sense in Context, and Flash Mob (a Real Life BLAM). If the BLAM is used to sell products, it may be a Product-Promotion Parade. If it's inappropriate in nature, it might be a Censor Decoy that failed to do its job. If an entire work runs on this, you have a Random Events Plot.

Often confused with an Arcadian Interlude. Also has nothing to with KaBlam! or Boom, Headshot!. For actual alligators, see Never Smile at a Crocodile.

Remember, Tropes Are Not Bad, as many of these types of scenes can be well-remembered and enjoyed, if not fully explained.

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Advertising

You would think that it's impossible for anything as short as a TV ad to have a BLAM, but this ad for Herman Cain (at the time a candidate for the 2012 Republican nomination for President) proves us all wrong. It features Cain's Chief of Staff Mark Block talking about what Cain hopes to achieve by running...and then, towards the very end, out of nowhere, a shot of him randomly taking a drag off his cigarette. Combined with the closing shot of Cain slowly turning to the camera and slooooooowly smiling, the ad quickly went viral.

for Herman Cain (at the time a candidate for the 2012 Republican nomination for President) proves us all wrong. It features Cain's Chief of Staff Mark Block talking about what Cain hopes to achieve by running...and then, towards the very end, out of nowhere, a shot of him randomly taking a drag off his cigarette. Combined with the closing shot of Cain slowly turning to the camera and slooooooowly smiling, the ad quickly went viral. Nintendo occasionally has these during their quirky Nintendo Directs: Their E3 2012 had a random shot of Satoru Iwata staring contemplatively at a banana bunch he was holding before setting it down and introducing a reel of upcoming games. During their November 13, 2013 Nintendo Direct, the first shot of Reggie Fils-Aime's office is of his giant stuffed Mii head resting in a chair. The camera then pans over to the real Reggie off to the side as he begins his preview of upcoming games. The Mii head has no connection to the games being shown and is never seen again in the Nintendo Direct.

GEICO commercials seem to be using this as a running gag as of "Did you know that...?"

A Progressive commercial has Flo delivering her usual spiel — which gets interrupted by a "halftime show", which is Smash Mouth performing a few seconds of "All Star". The people that Flo is talking to have no idea what the hell just happened.

Asian Animation

In the Simple Samosa episode "Mayor Gaayab", the Garam Garam News reporter announces that the job of Chatpata Nagar's mayor is open again before going into Royal Falooda's house to snatch the title for herself. The scene then cuts to a town citizen who is selling "real mayor chairs" before cutting back to the Mayor's house again, where a whole bunch of people are fighting over who should assume the role of political leader. The "real mayor chairs" scene only lasts for a few seconds, it only has a flimsy connection to the episode's plot without actually doing anything to advance it, and the chair store never appears again after that, nor is it mentioned or referenced in any capacity.

Podcasts

The introduction of the first episode of the Cool Kids Table Harry Potter-themed game Hogwarts: The New Class gets waylaid by the players trying to pick characters to play in GoldenEye (1997), and which cheat codes are active, all thanks to a stray comment from Jake describing a four-way split-screen as reminiscent of the game. An in-universe one occurs in The Fallen Gods thanks to the Wild Magic Table. No one really expected to Tuatha to try and cast fireball and instead summon a full-sized unicorn .



Religion and Mythology

In the Norse Mythology tale of "The Death of Baldur", there is a part where the Æsir are gathered at the funeral pyre of the recently-killed Baldur, when a dwarf shows up. The dwarf, named Litr, casually strolls in when Thor notices him and punts him into the funeral pyre. The tale then resumes as normal and the dwarf is never mentioned again.

In The Kalevala, Väinämöinen and the others are burrowing into a mountain to find The Sampo, when they come across a bunch of snakes drinking beer. Väinämöinen is infuriated for some reason and curses all snakes so that they can never drink beer again. This is never mentioned again.

The book of Matthew has a few verses that mention a miracle where a mass of people come Back from the Dead and were seen by many in Jerusalem. Not only are there only 3 verses mentioning this event, none of the other Gospels (all of which tell more or less the same story) even bring it up.

Roleplay

Dino Attack RPG has the scene where Trigger dies and ends up in a strange hotel run by a strange character known simply as "the owner" who may or may not be a pervert with blue hair and no pants. He then leads Trigger through a variety of places in the hotel, all occupied by characters who have died in the RPG and construction workers allegedly responsible for the Big Bang, before he realizes that for he temporarily has to share a room with his arch-rival Silencia Venemosa There was also the part where some people became Toa from Bionicle, and others started using exo-suits. It became known as the "Bionicle meets Exo-Force RPG" and was never spoken of again, except in hushed whispers in dark street corners.



TV Tropes

Web Video

In The Hero of Time, there's Link's journey out of the Lost Woods. He gets briefly lost and takes a nap, only for a random guard to steal his sword while Link sleeps. Link wakes up before this can happen and ties the guard up, implying in their conversation that the guard is one of a few who swore to protect the forest and forces the guard to tell him how to get out of the woods. This scene, including the fact that Link left someone tied up in a dangerous forest, is completely forgotten after Link leaves. What makes it even odder is besides being a reference to the Lost Woods of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, none of it is a reference to any Zelda canon, so it isn't even there for the sake of a Shout-Out.

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