What are some obvious things that took you way too long to realize?

I've played every Pokemon game since its inception, watched the first few seasons of the anime religiously (not enough, clearly), dragged my mum to the cinema to see the first movie, own a complete collection of the anniversary cards, several figurines, and have an interactive pokedex toy, but today -- December 17th 2019-- is when my dumb brain decided it would notice that 'Pikachu' is a pun on 'Peekaboo'. What the actual hell?

So, come on, what are some obvious things you realized way later? Help me feel smart again.

It's Cubism art not Cubanism art

That I suffered from short term memory problems....um, what was I doing or thinking just a second ago?

Several means many not seven, I was 18 before I knew this

Phoenix. Down. Biggest revelation of my life.

Seriously though... the song "Breakfast at Tiffany's"? For a large portion of my 33 years on this planet, I thought it was about a couple getting back together because they had a really good breakfast at a diner once. Never once did I think it was odd that a relationship would be saved by and forever hinge on a mutual appreciation for eggs and bacon, nor did I consider that it was about the movie. (I could never understand the "She said I think I remember the film" line, which would have averted this confusion at once)

All these years, I thought the Hammer Bros in Super Mario Bros. had a weird green head and a stupid grin, then at some point the design changed to a koopa with a helmet. It wasn't until I was playing Super Mario Maker 2 that I realized the "grin" was the chin strap for a helmet and the design didn't really change at all.

this one really did get me though.

The 'Phoenix Down' one is a very common mistake, probably because you only use it when a party member is 'down.'

@stephen_von_cloud: Oh dude, same here. I felt like Jeff did when he made the connection, haha.

Shit like that is why I love language so much.

The one that comes to mind right now is, in Killer is Dead, I didn't realize 'til I was most of the way through the game that I could use my energy to recover health...

Had a debate during middle school where our assigned arguments were controversial topics. I interpreted my assignment as "Youth in Asia"(assignments were told to us versus written) so when I finished my argument about expanding the scope to children every where instead of the laser focus on just one group of children. The teacher and the opposing team simply stared at me for several seconds before telling me the argument was about assisted suicide aka "Euthanasia". Suffice to say I didn't get a good score for this assignment.

This is my favorite so far. Very funny.

For some reason the only one that came to mind for me was that you could stack fruit in Animal Crossing New Leaf. I reacted VERY similarly to Jeff when that was revealed on the podcast. I'm sure there are more though, I'm not very bright.

I'm in a similar boat. Been playing Pokemon basically since it launched (some time between American launch of Red/Blue and American launch of Yellow is when I started). Watched a lot of the Kanto anime, saw the first movie in theaters, but I had not noticed this until you pointed it out. My mind is blown. So, I probably would have gone my WHOLE LIFE without noticing if I did not see this.

I will say that I did notice "Pumpkaboo" as a play on Peekaboo, especially since it is a ghost, but never Pikachu.

To be fair, a couple getting back together over a great breakfast seems much more likely than that they both sort of like a film.

IMO, this is not your fault. In middle school, I had not idea what "Euthanasia" was and I also would have thought it was about Youth in Asia. That's pretty lame though that you were only given it orally. I would think a debate teacher would understand that the English language is terrible and hand out topics instead of just saying them.

@ginormous76: I think that's kind of the point of the song. They're breaking up and he's grasping at straws. She says they've got nothing in common and his response is to bring up a movie they both "kind of" liked and that she thinks she remembers.

Not the strongest foundation for a relationship.

@ginormous76: It is officially the name of a creature called a Pika mixed with a noise a mouse makes, 'chu', but there is clearly a link with peekaboo. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm convinced, especially when I saw Ash playing peekaboo game with Pikachu. It's too perfect!

I JUST realized my Switch dock has two USB ports on the side. I’ve been opening up the back and plugging my controller charger into the one back there...

.... I’ve had a Switch since launch.... 😞

@ginormous76: it wasn't a huge deal. We were encouraged to create our own topics to debate. Other kids in the class did like laws regard motorcycles which was a good debate regarding lane splitting and other things that interested them. I just went with what ever the teacher had. Also my tone might have been dour but the whole thing was hilarious to me. The other team's captain was rightfully calling me out since it was a guy I make fun of a lot. I thought the subject was really vague so I argued my point flippantly and without much thought and the fact that the other guy on my team was just as big an idiot as I was.

For sometime in my life, I thought the Beach Boys, The Bee Gees and the Beastie Boys were the same artist.

In my defense, I will say I probably figured out this wasnt the case when I was 12 or 13 and I did not care much about music until I was 14, 15. I just thought it was a group that was just able to evolve with the times and what's popular and never connected the differences in names.

Just learned another one. Home Alone is just a kid-friendly version of Die Hard.

@nightriff: I had something similar where as a kid I thought Michael Jackson, Prince and Rockwell were the same person.

Edit: I will add that Rockwell's "Sometimes it feels like Somebodies Watching Me" was sang partly by Michael Jackson so the vocals probably helped to confuse me.

Pickles are cucumbers. Who knew?

@itsacorey: I was the same when I discovered raisins were dried grapes. Throw us a goddamn bone, etymology!

@brunothethird: I thought it was a pun specifically on "peek at you".

Robin Hood is literally just a man in a hood that robs people.

I didn't learn how to tie my shoes until I was like... 10 or 11, because somehow I wouldn't see the small hole near your thumb after you make one loop and throw the string over it. Trying it several times, watching everyone else, never learned, never picked up on it. Basically had to do it step-by-step a few dozen times before I noticed "oh hey, there's a hole here that I can push the string through and - oh hey it's tied".

I learned how to tie a necktie as an adult in under 10 minutes. I had to take apart a washing machine last week in order to clean the drain pump and learned how via a 3 minute Youtube tutorial.. I think I was a dumb kid?

Probably not very relatable for you guys but here goes. Where I live, we have a thing called pain perdu. It's where you take old white bread, dump it in scrambled eggs and then bake it in a pan. Now pain perdu basically means lost bread. Which kind of makes sense! Not to me though, as it took me about 30 years to start calling it pain perdu, and not what I called it, pampedoo (which means absolutely nothing).

They're called donut holes because its the part of the donut that would've been the center.

Edit: i realized this earlier this year... Im 27

Samuel Hayden from DOOM 2016 didn't click for me until like this year.

As a parent I only just realised that the popular kids party game 'pass the parcel' is rigged by the adults.

@sarcasticmudcrab: As a parent, is this a British thing?

I’ve never heard if pass the parcel before. A quick search shows that it’s basically hot potato (is hot potato an American thing?)...

@nutter: It's similar but not the same, there are no eliminations like in hot potato. The parcel is some toy or prize wrapped in multiple layers of wrapping paper. You pass it around in a circle and when the music stops whoever is holding it gets to unwrap 1 layer. At some point the last layer is unwrapped and the kid 'wins' the prize inside.

When I first played Oblivion, I had no idea I had to go into a menu to level up, so I went through the entire game at Level 1.

I didn't really notice as everything sorta scales with your level. I was wondering why those scamps were everywhere...

@jamesyfx: Haha, I remember that semi-fondly. I was like 11 hours in before I slept in a bed, leveled for the first time, and was visited by Lucien Lachance all in the same minute. There's a reason they changed it...

... SON OF A

It was not until I was already an adult when I realized that the alphabet song has the same tune as "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".

This isn't really on topic, but wait until you hear the new alphabet song designed to keep kids from skimming through "L-M-N-O-P"

It is such a good but insane change it felt totally wrong in my brain.

Having played all the major From games, it wasnt until I'd been stuck on the Cathedral boss in Bloodborn for two weeks that I figured out about invincibility frames on rolls.

The whole time I'd played Dark Souls I always just used rolls to actively get away from enemy attack animations. I was a little disappointed to figure out the truth, as it seemed to make battles less cinematic and choreographed when you play them correctly.

Nobody really knows what the fuck they're doing in life and if they claim they do they are either ignorant or lying. So don't feel too bad about fucking up. As long as you try to improve/learn.

Yes, I figured this basic concept out extremely late in life.

I think it wasn’t until 2018 or early 2019 that I figured out that Skullgirls is a play on “schoolgirls”, I guess?

I knew the roster was all ladies, but the title thing just didn’t seem apparent to me because A) that game is only sorta anime in my mind with some of its weird Betty Boop American animation, compared to some 100% anime fighters, and B) none of the ladies are dressed like anime schoolgirls due to the weird fake 1940s setting.

I don't know if I would have realized without Business Dave. But as he pointed out on UPF, all of April this year is 420.

That Rap Man and Dr. Tracksuit may be related somehow.

It wasn't until a few years ago that I found out "420" was a euphemism for weed (which is also a euphemism, I know.)

Realized midway through playing Pokemon Sword last month that Sudowoodo's name is a play on "pseudo wood" and that's why it's a rock-type Pokemon despite looking like a tree. That had bugged me my whole life.

Realized on my third playthrough of New Vegas after playing hundreds of hours of all the Bethesda-era Fallout games that you can continuously drink water by holding down the activate button and don't have to do dozens of individual sips to heal up.

Realized after 50 hours of Assassin's Creed Odyssey that you can do a full dodge roll by holding down the sidestep button. I also played 120 hours of Origins and all the DLC and if the system works the same way there I definitely platinumed that game without ever once doing a dodge roll.

Finally (very particular to me), it wasn't until last year that I realized you pronounce the symbol * as "aster-isk," not "aster-ix" like the French comic book character.

The last time I was genuinely surprised at my own ignorance, was being told that a Banana is actually a berry.

This was a couple of years ago.

Non-gaming: I learned how to snap my fingers from watching Avengers Infinity War and googling Cable/Thanos thinking "that is the stupidest shit I have ever seen". Had tried to learn many times before but never really picked up on the actual thumb/index fingers not mattering and it being more about almost clapping the index finger into the meaty part of your palm.

Gaming: I am another person who got through way too many games before understanding i-frames. Been playing spectacle fighters since Devil May Cry and I somehow never understood that until Metal Gear Rising. Which made going back to Demon and Dark Souls a LOT easier. I had been dodging but I always dodged away to avoid the attacks rather than into it to absorb it with my i-frames.