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Department of Redundancy Department

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In case you're not sure if it's a cat toy for iguanas or something.

"I do not talk like that! The way I communicate is much different. I do not reiterate, repeat, reinstate the same thing over and over again. I am clear, concise, to the point!"

Describe Department of Redundancy Department Here by writing a description of Department of Redundancy Department.

When listing things, a character will repeat an item. Might end with "Did I mention X already?" when making a list. Common ways for it to show up are a list going "A, B, C, B, D, B, E... and did I mention B?" and "You said X twice." "I like X." These occur frequently, especially when listing things, and are often said by characters with short attention spans that are short — especially energetic characters such as the Genki Girl.

Listing things in this manner also tends to be used as a tongue-in-cheek way of implying that the repeatedly listed item is the most prominent characteristic of something, with little in the way of variety.

Alice: Oy, what was it like sailing across the ocean?
Bob: It was nice! There were sea birds, water, fish, water, more water, boats, whales, even more water... y'know, the usual.

The dictionary definition for this trope is a tautology.

This also shows up frequently with the misuse of acronyms, specifically when part of the acronym is used next to the acronym itself. The Other Wiki knows this as RAS Syndrome (i.e. Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome).

With some websites and occasionally in Real Life, the Redundant Department of Redundancy is referred to as an actual organization run by Captain Obvious with a side branch called the Branch of Awkward Wording (or, for bonus points, the Branch Of Awkward Wording Branch).

The Firesign Theatre gets credit for naming this trope on their classic 1970 album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers", the album where the trope name comes from.

Compare Shaped Like Itself; Broken Record; Repetitive Name; Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs; Captain Obvious; Hurricane of Euphemisms. Cluster F-Bomb is generally this trope applied to swearing, where people swear over a swearing word.

Disclaimer: The D.R.D. Department does not share the opinion of anything written on this page, including overly long gags, overuse of Homestar Runner quotes, pot holes, overly long gags, and use of redlinks.


Examples and various cases that exemplify the trope


    open/close all folders 

     Audio Dramas That Are Dramatised Audibly 
  • In the Big Finish Doctor Who audio drama Omega, the Doctor (actually a copy of the Doctor's mind) gives one of his "small beautiful things" speeches where he says Sentia can still find happiness in our universe: "It's not such a bad old cosmos. Flowers, cups of tea, trees, mugs of tea, sunsets ... pots of tea. As you can see, I don't expect too much from this universe."

     Labels Showing What You Get On A Label 
  • If you are to google "butter flavored syrup contains no butter", you will get interesting results, including a Reddit post, featuring a bottle of syrup saying: "Butter Rich Syrup: Natural Butter With Other Natural Flavors, Contains No Butter", which could count as a double redundancy, due to "Natural butter with other natural flavors" and the over-excessive amounts of mentioning butter.

    Troping Tropes of TV Tropes 
  • This page is a self-explanatory page of redundancy. So if you're looking for an example of redundancy, this page is one!
  • Every now and again, some unsuspecting editor will add an example to a trope page without checking to see if that page contains an example from that series already. If it does (especially if the example itself is repeated), that page becomes an example of this trope, albeit usually only temporarily.

    Not just in posts, either: 1: go to the top of this page. 2: Click "go to watchlist" (need to be a known troper) 3: Look at the top. You should see a button that says "recently new."

    And then when people find out, instead of removing it, they tend to Natter on about it. Or they explain everything that was already stated a second time because they think the first guy got something wrong.

    I just move the two examples next to each other. Especially when the later one asks why this example hasn't been mentioned yet.

    The inverse also happens. On a page for a show, a trope with multiple names may be listed twice. For example, ever since they started calling it Hilarious in Hindsight, it's often seen on a page that also has Reverse Funny Aneurysm. Even worse when someone notices the Reverse Funny Aneurysm example and renames it without realizing there's already a Hilarious in Hindsight example.
  • Some examples from Overly-Long Gag also definitely qualify. And anything on Broken Record invokes this by default.
  • Sometimes people Pot Hole a link to the page the link is on, thus. Presumably, they Cut N' Pasted the text from another page, and forgot to edit out the link.
  • TV Tropes: Repeatedly Used On This Very Wiki.
  • For some reason, several pages on this very wiki have links to themselves. Occasionally the very first words on a work's page.
    • There's also an annoying tendency to have a phrase like "Of course, Your Mileage May Vary" added to the end of examples on pages devoted to YMMV examples.
  • Since TV Tropes introduced namespaces, some page names are this. Films with "film"/"movie" in the title, comic books and strips containing "comic", wikis, blogs...
  • Nowadays, most pages are sorted by media. But in some cases, you have an example in e.g. the film folder, obviously linking to a page in the film namespace, which still mentions that work X is indeed a film. Justified when it's The Artifact from a time when the page wasn't sorted and the page not yet namespaced.
  • TV Tropes has a page on itself.
  • To avoid having Zero-Context Example entries, all tropes on a list have to have an explanation of why they are there, no matter how blatant they are. As such, if multiple tropes are present because of the same event, that event ends up getting described repeatedly.
  • There's a redirect to this page titled Redundancy Department of Redundancy.

    Warning Labels That Provide Warnings on Their Labels 
  • Any time there's a peanut butter jar or a labelled peanut container that says "Warning: May contain peanuts." If it said 'contains peanuts', that would be one thing. The real headscratcher is that it seems to suggest that it might not.
    • Amusingly, peanuts aren't actually nuts, which puts an interesting spin on the traditional 'may contain nuts' warning. In particular "This product was made in a place that processes nuts and peanuts".
  • Because of regulations or lawsuit-related ass covering, in the US a lot of food products that obviously have a product in them (Peanut M&Ms have peanuts!) have this trope in action on their packaging. Like milk or cheese labeled "Contains Dairy product."
    • Although it is somewhat valuable to people with serious food allergies, in that some products don't actually contain what you think they obviously should. For example 'honey nut' Cheerios don't contain nuts and in various times in their production history did not contain honey.
  • In parts of the world where listing ingredients is mandatory regardless of the product, such as the UK, this trope is sure to occur.
    "100% Pure Maple Syrup"
    "Ingredients: Pure Maple Syrup (100%)"


Redundant statement is redundant.

"I just want to tell you both, good luck, we're all counting on you."


Alternative Title(s): Redundancy Department Of Redundancy, Redundant Department Of Redundancy, Redundancy

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Armando

Honey names the Coyote Armando and proceeds to say his name over and over again.

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