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Train Problem
- 288 statements
- 55 feature instances
- 13 referencing feature instances
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The official math problem of Fiction Land, meant to resemble grade school mathematics problems. "If Train A leaves Tropetown at 11:00 towards Idiomopolis that is 32 miles away, moving 50 miles an hour, while Train B leaves from Idiomopolis towards Tropetown at 60 miles an hour at 11:30..." The question is either: When/if the two trains will reach a certain location, The number of passengers at time/place Z (where at each station, the movement of people on and off the train is described with bits of math), Completely irrelevant to the setup details, Where/when the two trains will meet, in which case, it is almost certainly Denver. Whatever the intended answer, it's quite likely someone will start asking for entirely irrelevant details. One variant that pops up occasionally is "which train is closer to City A when they meet?" If the trains have met, they're in the same place, so neither is "closer" to City A. note Unless, of course, the train tracks are oriented in such a way that one train is "closer" by a few feet... ah, forget it. note Or what the question meant was 'Given that Train B is travelling faster than Train A, will the meeting point be closer to (a) Tropetown or (b) Idiomopolis?' Another variant is to have the question answered in a humorous or joking way, revealing the problem was not mathematical but merely the set-up to a humorous trick-question. Although not train-related, a common example is something like: "One man leaves Tropetown going 80 mph. Another leaves Idiompolis going 75 mph. Where do they meet? IN JAIL! Because the speed limit is 55!" Often times, vital pieces of information are left out, such as the distance between the cities, or that Train B makes a 20 minute stop in Clicheville. Some irrelevant details may also be added, such as wind speed and direction "to account for wind resistance."note What fifth grader would even know how to calculate this? To show a character is smart they'll come up with these vital missing facts as part of their answer. The most common answer is normally something along the lines of "Who is the idiot that designed this railroad?" This is (usually) not related to "the Trolley Problem", a philosophical question discussing The Needs of the Many. See also Writers Cannot Do Math, Everybody Hates Mathematics. |
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Dropped link to FilmNoir: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Train Problem / int_1240d308 | type |
Train Problem | |
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Shovelware's Brain Game: The Announcer can read off a question about two trains, which keeps piling on details and conditions that make it impossible to solve. Thankfully, the actual question is just simple math and has nothing to do with the setup. | |
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One Far Side strip, titled "Math Phobic's Nightmare", has a man at the gates of the Fluffy Cloud Heaven, with St. Peter asking him this question. | |
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Train Problem / int_160b4833 | type |
Train Problem | |
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In an episode of Clone High dealing with mandatory testing, a Magical Truckdriver gives Gandhi a Train Problem - actually a Trucker and Randy Housewife Problem, asking him to calculate where the two could meet for a "guaranteed" encounter. | |
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Train Problem / int_1fcdbe32 | type |
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The Dodecahedron presents a similar puzzle to Milo, Tock and the Humbug in The Phantom Tollbooth, but one that contains cars, roads, and insufficient information. Tock solves it anyway. | |
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Train Problem / int_2250e67e | type |
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Star Trek: Enterprise: In "Shuttlepod One," Trip starts rattling off a Train Problem while trying to determine what's wrong with the pod only to exclaim that he never could work those kind of questions out. | |
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Train Problem / int_2342a881 | type |
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Mission Hill has Kevin mix this type of question in with a bunch of others while in the middle of a mental breakdown in "Kevin Vs. The SAT". | |
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Train Problem / int_261c8d3f | type |
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The 2nd episode of The Simpsons, "Bart the Genius," had it as one of the questions on the intelligence test. Complete with Dream Sequence. | |
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Train Problem / int_2cfe43cb | type |
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Adventures in Odyssey: Connie reads some kids in Whit's End a riddle about an electric train that involves the speed and direction of the train and of the wind. The question is, in which direction is the train's smoke blowing? The answer, of course, is that electric trains don't have any smoke. Connie explodes when the kids don't get it. In another episode Eugene designs a personality test intended to determine what the best job for a person is and the first question starts off sounding like a train problem but then ends with "what color would you paint the train?" He later admits that the test may not have been very good. | |
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Train Problem / int_3095b3a0 | type |
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Parodied in one Cyanide and Happiness strip: | |
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Train Problem / int_30d735ec | type |
Train Problem | |
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The problem is poked fun at with a non-train variant in Sky High (2005) as something of a Funny Background Event. Will is having a quiet, introspective moment while his friends are in the background doing homework. | |
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Train Problem / int_34d050c6 | type |
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One of the questions used in Darkwing Duck to overload the brain of a super-genius who used a special ray gun to increase his IQ when he had a clear head. DW and Launchpad bombarded him with questions while they fired the ray at him, causing his head to a-splode. | |
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One DC Nation Shazam short has Billy Batson getting this problem at school. Ultimately, he solves the problem by using Shazam!'s powers to set the trains in motion and see the result. He gets a check minus for not showing his work, however. | |
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Train Problem / int_400469e | type |
Train Problem | |
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Calvin and Hobbes: Calvin's method for answering a question of this sort at school is to turn it into a Film Noir detective mystery in his head. It doesn't quite work, as the answer he comes up with is "a billion". In his defense, Calvin is six, and shouldn't have to tackle that kind of problem anyway. He gets another variant of the problem later, this time with two cars driving down the highway at 5PM. After thinking about the problem for a few seconds, he simply says, "Given the traffic at that hour, who knows?" To be fair, he's not exactly wrong. |
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Train Problem / int_4f410616 | type |
Train Problem | |
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The test in The Mysterious Benedict Society features a problem asking how long it will take before two speeding trains collide. Reynie notes in the margin that since the trains are approaching each other on an empty stretch of track, the engineers will likely see each other coming and apply the brakes. | |
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Train Problem | |
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Used for a quick pun gag in Children of Eden when the snake first asks two weighty questions of Eve, "If God made all this, who made God?" and "What's beyond the garden?" and then follows it with "If two cranes leave Eden at the same time, and one of them travels at seven times the speed of the other, how long..." before being cut off by Eve. | |
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Train Problem / int_52eb7183 | type |
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Irregular Webcomic!: In strip #1611, one of the locks protecting the Vatican is a puzzle "so devious as to send men into a gibbering descent into insanity". Naturally, it starts "A train travels south from Venice at 25 mph." | |
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Train Problem | |
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In the Sonic Boom episode, "The Evil Dr. Orbot", the first question on the test Dr. Eggman takes asks is if a train full of innocent civilians is travelling west at 60 miles per hour and a missile of unspeakable destruction is zooming east at 116 miles per hour, what time the two vehicles will crash and burn. Because Eggman spends so much time trying to answer that one question correctly, he ends up failing the test. There's also no way to solve the problem, because there's not enough information: It's not stated how far apart the train and the missile started, or what time they started moving. | |
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Train Problem / int_576bff55 | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_576bff55 | comment |
Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015): In "Brainpower", with Grimlock temporarily paralyzed, Russel gets Grimlock to challenge the Decepticon Simacore to a battle of wits to stall until he can move again. Simacore gives Grimlock a math problem to determine when a Cybertronian unirail leaving from Kaon City will meet a unirail leaving from Nuon City. Fixit panics and is unable to figure out the answer to give Grimlock, but Grimlock recalls how Underbite ate Nuon City, meaning it has no unirail, and tells Simacore it's a trick question, an answer he accepts. | |
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Train Problem / int_5a3533fe | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_5a3533fe | comment |
On My Name Is Earl, in the Creative Writing episode, Joy tells Dodge and Earl Jr. a story to get them to behave themselves and stop whining about having to do homework and pick up their toys. In it, she makes Earl ("Old Daddy") fumble through one of these problems, while (unbeknownst to him) the Crab Shack turns into a desert with train tracks. He gets it wrong, and gets run over by a train, to the kids' horror. Joy explains that that's why she makes them do their homework. | |
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In Undertale, Mettaton throws one of these at you during his quiz show. Since you have only 30 seconds to read the whole thing and come up with an answer, it's somewhat absurd to expect the player to actually solve it — which might be your cue to notice that Alphys has been sneakily showing you the correct answers with her fingers. | |
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Train Problem / int_5b530443 | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_5b530443 | comment |
Mario Party 8: The minigame Loco Motives has two dueling characters watch respecively for three color-coded trains (red for one player, blue for the other) that are driving in an encased rail diorama. The objective for each player is to prevent their trains from bursting their colored ballons, for which a train approaching one has to be tapped with the Wiimote's pointer to reverse its direction. A train that bursts a balloon will stoo for a long time, but will be able to resume motion afterwards (and the popped ballons will return, though the strike marked for the burst holds up). The first team of trains to burst three balloons will make their player lose the duel, and render the other victorious. | |
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We get to see it in Frazz here, but then it turns into a country song. | |
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Frazz (Comic Strip) | hasFeature |
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Train Problem | |
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Parodied in the InCryptid short story "The Way Home": | |
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Train Problem | |
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Biter Comics: A boy fails to answer the problem in time and is faced with the consequences of his negligence. | |
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Biter Comics (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
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Train Problem / int_65705451 | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_65705451 | comment |
Very common in Zipi y Zape, where they get those as assignments half the time and one entire long story is set around solving one. They do this when they aren't asked simple multiplication. Which they have trouble with anyway. | |
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Train Problem / int_671d5c19 | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_671d5c19 | comment |
The Powerpuff Girls (1998): The girls once had to face one of these problems in order to figure out where a train collision might occur. As they struggle to find an answer, Blossom delivers a solution: "We're superheroes! Let's just find the two trains and stop them!" Him also gives Blossom this riddle in a scenario he's conjured for her, as her worst nightmare is failing an upcoming test. The question following the set-up is, "Which train will get to Cuba first?" |
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Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_766d6bbb | comment |
Densha de Go! is a is a train driving simulation that provides a real-time variation of this- given the exact time in seconds to arrive at and the exact distance to the station, how fast do you need to travel to reach the station, while also obeying speed limits? When you need to pass the next station, you might find yourself doing quick mental math when you're about 15 seconds away to figure out what speed to drive at. | |
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Train Problem | |
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On Saved by the Bell, one of these problems turned up on the SAT. | |
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Train Problem | |
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In the episode of NCIS where Abigail Breslin guest stars, a hostage is being held somewhere near railroad tracks and the team's hacked web cam tells them when a train passed her. When they start doing the math to figure out where the train was at that time, Tony admits he'll have to apologize to his high school math teacher, whom he told he would never have to use this problem in Real Life. | |
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Train Problem | |
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Parodied, like everything else, in Bobobo Bo Bo Bobo. | |
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Train Problem | |
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Larry Butz of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney mentions that he's terrible at these problems when he's trying to change the subject to avoid a question. | |
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Mock the Week: "A Virgin train is traveling at 120 miles per hour between London and Manchester, at what time will it be canceled?" "If a train is travelling at 60 miles an hour, how surprised would you be?" |
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The question got brought up in one episode of Due South. Ray admitted that the only answer he could ever come up with was "I don't care". | |
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Train Problem | |
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Mentioned during Roman Moronie's trial in the movie Johnny Dangerously. | |
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Train Problem | |
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In an episode of All in the Family, Stephanie is attempting to do a math problem in which a person called A is running at a certain speed, and B is running after them trying to catch up. She asks Archie to help her, only for him to announce that B will never catch A, because "B was chasing A when I was a kid, and if she hasn't caught him by now, she never will." | |
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Train Problem | |
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Done in one episode of Dog City with two protagonists tied up on the bridge that both trains would soon cross. | |
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Train Problem | |
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A variation of this problem, using riverboats instead of trains, is faced by Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse when he joins the navy in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. He answers with a multi-page dissertation on the problem, attempting to take into account such variables as the speed of the current at different points of the river and the effect it has on the absolute velocity of the vessels. This isn't Obfuscating Stupidity of any kind; a basic train problem is so beneath his genius that it doesn't occur to him that it could challenge anyone, so he honestly assumed that he was supposed to consider the effects of the current on the vessel and the windspeed on its cross-section. He sends a copy of his answer to a mathematics quarterly and gets it published. Meanwhile, the navy has put him in the ship's band because their standardized test has shown he's too dumb to do anything else. | |
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Train Problem | |
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FoxTrot did one where Jason listed all the "assumptions" he had to make to give them the answer they wanted (such as the train remaining on the track, not going "as the mole digs", all clocks being accurate, ignoring relativistic effects, etc.) | |
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Train Problem | |
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When Oscar Proud decided to help his daughter with her math homework in The Proud Family, this question comes up. He concludes that both trains will meet at the crash site. Should be noted that his answer does stem from the wording of the question. The question states that the trains are traveling in opposite directions on the **SAME** track, rather than traveling on parallel tracks at in the opposite direction. Oscar explicitly cites this wording while giving his answer. |
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Train Problem | |
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In the Tiny Toon Adventures episode, "Grandma's Dead", Mrs. Hinkle asks Elmyra one of these, but instead of asking her what time the train would reach the station, she asks how many sandwiches one of the passengers ate. | |
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One of the Shadowrun short stories in Wolf & Raven starts out with Wolf about to be run down by a car, and feeling like he's trapped in "one of those math problems". | |
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Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_ca08598f | comment |
After quitting the police and becoming a teacher, Pryzbylewski on the The Wire tries to use one of these questions (substituting cars) for his 8th grade math class, but cannot finish the question because the students demand to know what types of cars they are and what neighborhoods they left from. In an earlier season, a juvenile drug runner can't solve a Train Problem, but when it's recast in terms of drug purchases and resupplies, he answers it perfectly. When asked to explain this, he replies, "Count be wrong, they fuck you up." |
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Train Problem / int_ca08598f | featureApplicability |
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Train Problem / int_ca08598f | featureConfidence |
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The Wire | hasFeature |
Train Problem / int_ca08598f | |
Train Problem / int_ce0d262 | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_ce0d262 | comment |
Hamster & Gretel: In "Math Punch", Gretel gets a train question in her math homework; she considers it irrelevant because, as a superhero, she doesn't need to take the train. But later, when her brother is caught in a runaway train headed for a cliff, she has to figure out how fast she needs to fly to stop the train in time. | |
Train Problem / int_ce0d262 | featureApplicability |
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Train Problem / int_ce0d262 | featureConfidence |
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Hamster & Gretel | hasFeature |
Train Problem / int_ce0d262 | |
Train Problem / int_de73bec9 | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_de73bec9 | comment |
In Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh episode "Big Brain Boov", this sort of question is an extra credit on Tip's math homework. Unfortunately, a typo ("why is the train?" instead of "where") causes a Logic Bomb in the literal-minded Boov and nearly causes the collapse of their society. | |
Train Problem / int_de73bec9 | featureApplicability |
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Train Problem / int_de73bec9 | featureConfidence |
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Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh | hasFeature |
Train Problem / int_de73bec9 | |
Train Problem / int_dfb24eb9 | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_dfb24eb9 | comment |
In the Strawberry Shortcake episode "Queen For a Day", Sour Grapes and Strawberry are competing to be the Queen of the Berry Blossom Festival. As part of the competition, they are asked numerous questions by Purple Pieman, who is rigging the quiz. Pieman asks Strawberry a very difficult train question, which is so complicated that he eventually just skips it altogether. | |
Train Problem / int_dfb24eb9 | featureApplicability |
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Train Problem / int_dfb24eb9 | featureConfidence |
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Strawberry Shortcake | hasFeature |
Train Problem / int_dfb24eb9 | |
Train Problem / int_e25322af | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_e25322af | comment |
One Homestar Runner sick filler had Homestar subbing in for Strong Bad's "word problem" and using one of these, involving two trains entering a tunnel at four miles per hour. | |
Train Problem / int_e25322af | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Train Problem / int_e25322af | featureConfidence |
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Homestar Runner (Web Animation) | hasFeature |
Train Problem / int_e25322af | |
Train Problem / int_e2fa7287 | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_e2fa7287 | comment |
Cirno's Perfect Math Class (and the accompanying Fan Vids) does the "getting on/getting off" version with a bus in Gensokyo. The answer is zero, because there aren't any buses in Gensokyo. Then a train runs over her. | |
Train Problem / int_e2fa7287 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Train Problem / int_e2fa7287 | featureConfidence |
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Touhou | hasFeature |
Train Problem / int_e2fa7287 | |
Train Problem / int_e42697e1 | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_e42697e1 | comment |
One "Bradley the Big Ol' Baby" sketch from All That provides the most exaggerated use of this trope; | |
Train Problem / int_e42697e1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Train Problem / int_e42697e1 | featureConfidence |
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All That | hasFeature |
Train Problem / int_e42697e1 | |
Train Problem / int_e96a02dc | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_e96a02dc | comment |
This type of question is in the SAT in The Perfect Score. It's actually plot relevant as reading this question makes Erika become obsessed with who the girl on the train is and where she is going which causes her to not finish the exam. | |
Train Problem / int_e96a02dc | featureApplicability |
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Train Problem / int_e96a02dc | featureConfidence |
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The Perfect Score | hasFeature |
Train Problem / int_e96a02dc | |
Train Problem / int_ea4f62db | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_ea4f62db | comment |
A question like this came up in a cutaway in the Family Guy Episode, "Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington": | |
Train Problem / int_ea4f62db | featureApplicability |
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Train Problem / int_ea4f62db | featureConfidence |
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Family Guy | hasFeature |
Train Problem / int_ea4f62db | |
Train Problem / int_ec25a849 | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_ec25a849 | comment |
This was the question that caused Doug to fail a math test. | |
Train Problem / int_ec25a849 | featureApplicability |
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Train Problem / int_ec25a849 | featureConfidence |
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Doug | hasFeature |
Train Problem / int_ec25a849 | |
Train Problem / int_ec5cf89a | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_ec5cf89a | comment |
In one episode of Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, Rusty ends up fighting an enemy in cyberspace- the Quark building's mainframe, to be precise. In order to buy him some time until Big Guy can be uploaded and help out, Dr. Slate freezes the computers (And the action) by inputting one of these problems into the system. She reveals that that she got kicked out of a computer club for doing that. | |
Train Problem / int_ec5cf89a | featureApplicability |
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Train Problem / int_ec5cf89a | featureConfidence |
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Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot | hasFeature |
Train Problem / int_ec5cf89a | |
Train Problem / int_f6f3a050 | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_f6f3a050 | comment |
Often pondered by the navigation officer, Sub-Lieutenant Phillips, on The Navy Lark (among many other things, including references to Noddy's Big Book of Boats). The answer is usually, "Left hand down a bit." | |
Train Problem / int_f6f3a050 | featureApplicability |
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Train Problem / int_f6f3a050 | featureConfidence |
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The Navy Lark (Radio) | hasFeature |
Train Problem / int_f6f3a050 | |
Train Problem / int_f6fe1bfc | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_f6fe1bfc | comment |
Sabrina the Teenage Witch also used it, with the added twist that she had to then prevent them from colliding... with her house. (She fails) | |
Train Problem / int_f6fe1bfc | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Train Problem / int_f6fe1bfc | featureConfidence |
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Sabrina the Teenage Witch | hasFeature |
Train Problem / int_f6fe1bfc | |
Train Problem / int_ff4e1b34 | type |
Train Problem | |
Train Problem / int_ff4e1b34 | comment |
This happened at one point on Dharma & Greg. | |
Train Problem / int_ff4e1b34 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Train Problem / int_ff4e1b34 | featureConfidence |
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Dharma & Greg | hasFeature |
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.
Train Problem | processingCategory2 |
Math Tropes | |
Train Problem | processingCategory2 |
Railroad Index | |
Train Problem | processingCategory2 |
School Tropes | |
Train Problem | processingCategory2 |
Stock Puzzle | |
Zipi y Zape (Comic Book) / int_918db1dc | type |
Train Problem | |
Johnny Dangerously / int_918db1dc | type |
Train Problem | |
InCryptid / int_918db1dc | type |
Train Problem | |
Moscow - Petushki / int_918db1dc | type |
Train Problem | |
All in the Family / int_918db1dc | type |
Train Problem | |
Mario Party 8 (Video Game) / int_918db1dc | type |
Train Problem | |
Shovelware's Brain Game (Video Game) / int_918db1dc | type |
Train Problem | |
Hamster & Gretel / int_918db1dc | type |
Train Problem | |
Strawberry Shortcake / int_918db1dc | type |
Train Problem |
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