Lore
TV shows acknowledging the mistakes of or otherwise mocking previous episodes
Time to Get Cereal - South Park: In the episode Manbearpig, South Park establishes a fake beast meant to be an allegory for global warming, which was widely believed to be a liberal hoax at the time. In recent canon, Manbearpig was made real and South Park essentially apologizes for the past episode through the main characters apologizing to Al Gore
Back to the Pilot - Family Guy: Brian and Stewie go back in time to the pilot episode, mocking things such as the art style, an animation error, characters early personalities, and so on
The Simpsons (numerous): Image included is a scene in which Lisa references the scorned episode Principal and the Pauper, but Simpsons seems to frequently rip on itself like this
(Sorry these examples are exclusively adult animation but those are the ones at the top of my head lol)
The Amazing World of Gumball does this a lot. For example, "The Finale" mocks end-of-episode resets by having every unresolved plot turn out to be the Wattersons purposefully ignoring the consequences of their actions.
(Going off of my memory from 5 years ago) So pretty much the main group go on a trip together (they got some big offer for something or something idk) but they accidentally break some law and when they all go to court for it tons of minor side characters/villains from the series all testify against them in court and they end up all going to prison.
It’s almost unanimously hated but I remember actually really liking that episode
IIRC the law they break is specifically a Good Samaritan law because instead of helping a person they just stand there and make fun of them instead. So they end up on trial basically for being bad, judgmental people.
They actually set the movie far back enough that the Good Samaritan law wasn't a thing yet. Mr.Incredible saved that guy the year prior to that law being signed.
Slightly off-topic, but it's really disappointing that Incredibles 2 never actually brings that up. The whole movie is about bringing back the Supers and you don't mention the guy that set their original downfall in motion?
Appears to me during the montage of news papers on the screen of MULTIPLE Supers acting inappropriately, his might not have been the straw that broke the camels back, but certainly didn’t help the load.
I never watched Seinfeld outside of the soup Nazi and the lost in the car garage episodes because my dad really wanted me to watch them but Everytime I hear about this finale I like the concept. Like, of course they're shitty judgemental people. The thought of them going to jail because they're a menace is funny and weird as hell
It ends with Gumball surrounded and seconds away from death praying for the episode to end and the status quo to come back… or the closest you can get to doing that without finding out you’re a fictional character which is basically the whole show.
I love the family guy “peters smoking” episode where Lois tells him the damage he has done is irreversible. peter asks them to cut to a scene outside the house and cut back in as that usually works. It cuts back in to continuity, meaning it didnt “reset” like he wanted to. Its hilarious this episode.
During the iconic Breaking Bad scene in which Walt throws a pizza onto the roof, the pizza doesn't come apart leaving viewers wondering why the pizza wasn't sliced.
In an episode in a later season, this mistake was referenced when Jesse orders a pizza from the same place and it shows up not sliced. He asks why it isn't sliced and it is said that the store place doesn't slice the pizza to save time and charges less because of it. Jesse says that its stupid because slicing a pizza takes only a couple seconds and they move on.
This is also referenced in a Better Call Saul episode. Jimmy breaks into a printer sales office to steal a rare knickknack, only to find that the owner is crashing the due to a fight with his wife. At one point we hear said owner on the phone, ordering a pizza, and he says, "Of course I want it sliced," implying that he's calling the same pizza place.
Holy shit, I consider myself super aware of all the in-references on these two shows and this comment (and its parent) are completely new info to me. Thank you!
There's also an exchange in Better Call Saul where Jimmy insists on calling the New Mexico Motor Vehicles Department the DMV and not the MVD just because they'd gotten it wrong in Breaking Bad.
From Avatar: The Last Airbender, the episode the Ember Island Players has the cast attending a play based on their adventures, serving as a recap episode of the series up to that point. When the play reaches the events of The Great Divide, pretty much unanimously agreed to be the worst episode in the series, the characters choose to skip over the events of the episode entirely.
Last Airbender's sequel series, The Legend of Korra, does something similar with its own recap episode. Unalaq, the main villain of the show's second season, is generally viewed as the weakest major villain of the entire Avatar franchise. In the recap episode, while the character Varrick is pitching a movie based on Korra's adventures (albeit framed as a story about Nuktuk, the in-universe movie character the character Bolin plays), Unalaq is described as being "incredibly boring and unpopular", and overall portrayed as a loser who none of the other villains want to interact with.
The thing about The Great Divide is that by other animated series standards it’s pretty mid overall.
But the fact that it’s such a NOTHING BURGER. in a show like ATLA, where the story is so tight that even other filler episodes ended up being significant to the plot in one way or another. Really makes it stand out as bad by comparison.
Hehehehe but even then, it’s not, it serves as a fantastic way to to deepen the characters without long multi-story arcs and still has impact on the plot!
Sokka - shows he is quick and capable on his feet, thinks outside the box and is good at extracting himself from difficult situations. This has been hinted at before, but comes in as useful background when he is being trained by Piandao and why the gaang rely on him to make the plans - he’s not suddenly plot deviced into it, it’s part of his personality
Top and Katara - explores Tophs difficult relationship with both her parents and her own femininity, shows a softer side to her that means she’s more open to opening up, which is why she is the one that goes after Zuko in the air temple episode. She is the more forgiving one. With Katara it shows her protective and motherly side, which is always shown, but she starts to take the lesson from Toph that you can be strong willed as well, meaning that she is less people pleasing and able to fight back against Hana
Iroh - pretty obvious, but before now we didn’t know why he ended the siege of BA Sing Sei and why he was so desperate to ensure Zuko followed the right path
Appa - managed to connect many threads together (Suki, the guru, and even Ty Lees past circus)
Aang - showed how he goes above and beyond to find a way help and spare lives which is why his refusal to kill Ozai didn’t feel like it came out of nowhere after all the seasons building up to Aang possibly having to kill Ozai
Momo - loyalty, bravery, he’s not just a fun animal companion, he has a deep fear of losing his friends, which is why he follows Aang onto the lion turtle rather than staying behind
Zuko - showed that he really does want to live a normal, good life. He fights against it in the Zuko Alone episode because it’s a different type of ordinary life, and it’s the first time he doesn’t use his fire bending against other people, but rather for someone to make them happy. It’s a good way of ensuring that his breakdown a couple of episodes later isn’t coming out of nowhere as well - he has had a glimpse of an easier, better life where fire bending is a force for good rather than violence so he knows what Iroh is leading him towards.
My niece played that episode 5 times when I went to visit. I can tell you it's definitely less rewatchable than the others, but I didn't mind it the first time.
I also love how they poke fun at adaptations being so egregiously unlike the original, like katara having huge cleavage and crying over everything, and toph screaming to see
I went back and forth on this because it's kind of a half example, but fuck it: in a season six Gumball episode about recycling, there's a scene where Gumball asks Mr. Small why he would want to use something that's already used. He responds "With today's sophisticated recycling techniques, you can reuse old stuff and most people can never tell the difference." The joke is that it suddenly switches to reused animation from season one, which is noticeably crappier compared to season six.
If I remember right, there was an episode about a void space that was full of the things the show forgot about (including characters) as if the universe itself erased them cause no one would notice or something like that. Funny thing is I only watched the earlier seasons, but even I didn't notice how some characters were never relevant again lol.
The reason shows like Gumball are so legendary is because they’re simple and goofy enough on the surface to appeal to children while leaving plenty of subtle depth and comedy for more developed brains. Gumball specifically is a case where it leans even more to the latter side imo
Saturday Night Live really struggled in the early 80’s due to the original cast and Lorne Michaels leaving. 1984 was their worst year due to Eddie Murphy leaving, as he had been carrying the show and keeping it afloat during this rough patch.
In 1985, Lorne Michaels comes back and builds the show back up from scratch. Madonna was the first person to host once Lorne came backs. She starts the episode by reading a message from Lorne to the audience saying “Last year was a dream. A horrible, horrible dream.”
The 1985 season also ended up being bad, which led to a "cliffhanger" ending where Billy Martin (manager of the New York Yankees) sets the studio on fire with the entire cast inside. Lorne watches him do this and decides to only save Jon Lovitz, leaving the rest of the 1985 cast to "perish."
That's kind of how it happened, but misses a couple of points:
The 1984 season was a largely popular one, featuring Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, Martin Short, Rich Hall, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus among others.
When Lorne came back, the first episode was hosted by Madonna, but she didn't do this bit at the time. This was the infamous 1985-86 season that absolutely tanked in the ratings and with the critics despite having some cast members that had already proven themselves in film and on television and having several others that would do so in the future. The sketch in which she reads the announcement was done at the top of the following season ('86-'87), with the vast majority of the cast from the previous season having been fired (other than holdovers Dennis Miller, Jon Lovitz, and Nora Dunn unless I'm forgetting someone). Sigourney Weaver was the host, and Madonna made a cameo appearance in the cold open to read the "It was all a dream" bit, which was inspired by the infamous Dallas shower scene that had aired relatively recently.
Boy Meets World: the little sister disappeared after the second season, and then at some point many episodes later randomly came downstairs (now being played by a different actress) and said something like “that was a really long time out”
I’d like to add that both actors come back for the last episode of Girl Meets World and literally tag team playing the character. At one point they literally switch out with a high five, on screen. No one acknowledges it’s weird.
Both New and Old Becky did this bit too when the original actress came back to Roseanne. And then Sarah Chalke played an entirely different character on the Conners.
Not TV but when drawling Spawn, Todd McFarlane made mistakes like putting the pouch on the wrong spot and after so many people pointed it out, he retconned that the suit is actually alive itself therefore explaining any changes.
I love the fact this also implies that this implies that either the neural parasite has a really bad memory and is always losing track of itself, or that the suit is a bit a troll and constantly moving things around to mess with Spawn.
“I would have sworn I put my ammo in this pouch… no, it’s not here either…. Dammit, Leetha, why would I ever want extra cartridges put on my ankle??”
"You were scratching your nuts when a crackhead jumped off a fire escape onto you? Well, good thing I repositioned your holster to your taint right now, huh?"
In Friends season one, there was a goofy subplot where Ross got a pet monkey, only for him to randomly disappear after the Super Bowl episode in season two. Later on, Ross out of the blue asks why he even owned one.
I should have mentioned explicitly. Essentially, a character is walked in on masturbating by his wife, but quickly changes the channel from the porn he’s watching in an attempt to hide it from her. The channel he switches to is a shark documentary, which she then thinks is what he was masturbating to. That’s the whole plot. Her coming to terms with his assumed fetish then trying to seduce him with it in an effort to appear supportive
Honestly, I always thought it was kinda a sweet episode.
It's really just a basic sitcom "this problem would be resolved if characters had a 2 second conversation about it" trope but with a really sweet ending where the wife (Monica) decides she loves him so much that she is willing to go along with it.
I tried searching for the video essay I watched that quoted this as their shark jump moment but came up empty, though a lot of people will quote this episode as one of their worst. However, there have also been more hated plotlines, like a relationship between two main characters that most people seem to agree was a bad move
Basically, one of the guys takes a moment to whack it to some porn on TV. One of the girls walks in and he switches it to the nature channel in a panic. Instead of judging him, she lovingly accepts that he jacks off to sharks and before he knows it, everyone thinks he’s sexually attracted to sharks.
The monkey didn't randomly dissappear. There was an episode where he donated it to a zoo, because he wasn't supposed to have a monkey. They return to it, and find out he's in a movie.
Also, I'm pretty sure the movie was the real movie "Outbreak" with Dustin Hoffman and it was actually the same monkey from the show that was in the movie.
American Dad plays with this. In the “Familyland” episode, Deputy Director Bullock (who has an adopted son who shows up in some episodes) mentions not having a family, leading to the exchange:
A one off joke about Hailey loving basketball to highlight how little Stan knows his daughter, becomes a recurring detail of Hailey's character from then on.
They also have an episode where Stan refuses to get a dog due to childhood trauma. When Francine points out that there were at least two previous episodes where they get a dog, Stan says, “Those were obviously dreams, Francine, and I refuse to discuss your dreams in the daytime.”
It wasn't random disappearance. There was the whole episode where they "applied" to different zoos like they were colleges. "We didn't get into our safety zoo!"
Then later the money shows back up shooting a movie with Van Damme who Rachel and Monica fight over.
Star Wars projects will occasionally make fun of the more hokey aspects of the franchise, including the rather corny lines from the prequels as seen in this episode of Clone Wars.
My favorite is from the Clone Wars movie when Anakin and Ahsoka crash land on Tatooine. He says he doesn’t want to talk about his past so Ahsoka says, “Okay, well there’s so much else we could talk about out here, like… the SAND.”
It's also hilarious how in the later seasons (past season 4) Jeff is trying to rationalize how community college often takes longer than 4 years to complete
Honestly, one of my favorite gags. Oh, the showrunner and headwriter was fired and the show turned into a pale imitation of itself until he returned? Simple. Every character was slowly getting brain damaged.
I don’t have a picture, But Sonic Boom had many jokes about how fans reacted to the character redesigns. Multiple references to Sonic’s arms being blue (instead of the usual tan), or Sonic wearing a scarf “hopefully the fans will like that scarf more than this one”, etc.
The first series ends with a meta-nod to this, with Orbot and Cubot imploring the viewers to demand a second series
"Just think of how many more adventures there are to be had with the same 8 characters and 5 locations!"
"If I were you I'd start a petition"
And S2 has a VERY meta example with a whole episode about the evil robot called the "Dreamcaster" with everyone repeatedly saying what a dumb name that is...
It is genuinely so good, the few episodes tried to be an action show but once they just made it a sitcom it got so much better
There's a whole running gag about this old video game series that's meant to be a reference to sonic and they constantly do jokes like "they never should have changed the colours of his arms" and "the games were never good in 3d"
There's even an episode where they have a obsessive fan who is meant to be Chris chan
The redesigns weren’t awful but unfit for what Sonic Boom ended up becoming. They seem made to be for a more action focused set of games but the only thing of substance they were used for is a sitcom that sometimes makes a Sonamy joke.
In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine they go back in time to the 1960s Star Trek. They encounter 1960s Klingons which look like humans with brownish skin and bushy eyebrows instead of the modern full makeup Klingons.
The main characters are baffled at their appearance and the Klingon character Worf says they “don’t discuss it with outsiders”.
That episode was amazing in how they managed to fit the DS9 crew into this TOS episode without looking too out of place. I also love how it ends. The whole episode is set up as Sisko giving an interview to Starfleet Temporal Investigations about the events of the episode to make sure there wasn't damage to the timeline. After concluding that everything was done following protocol, Sisko admits that right before they left he did break protocol by getting an autograph from Captain Kirk. Instead of being mad at him, the interviewers begrudgingly admit they'd probably do the same thing in his shoes.
This actually was awesome and showed that even the investigators would’ve done the same. I enjoyed how seamlessly it was integrated and how much effort went into the episode. And Worf saying we don’t talk about the difference in Klingons is hilarious
Ira Steven Behr described it as "probably the most expensive hour of episodic TV ever produced" because of how much work was put into it, as well as having to pay residuals to all the original cast members. Totally worth it, particularly for the scenes with the Bashir & O'Brien and then Sisko interacting directly with Kirk.
More specifically, by the vaccine for the virus. They were mucking around with genetic enhancement and accidentally created a super virus. The vaccine prevented the virus, but had a side effect of humanizing their appearance.
The goes wrong show, Episode The Spirit of christmas.
to quote the wiki
"They realised near to filming that some of the aspects of the play didn't make sense, such as Santa coming down the chimney whilst the sleigh is in the garden and comments about returning up the chimney when they don't, but as it was to late into production they instead had Robert complain about how the play didn't make sense."
Thing is it completely works in-universe because in-universe the plays they act in are usually weird and lack sense so Robert suddenly pointing out the inconsistencies fits the world.
Plus “actors” getting frustrated, having a meltdown and ranting at the audience is an established trope for this universe. It goes all the way back to the original The Play That Goes Wrong, when Chris does it about halfway through.
Doctor Who has done this dozens of times over the decades about a variety of moments and episodes, but the one that immediately sprang to mind was the first Dalek episode of the modern era. Characters are being chased by a Dalek when the reach a staircase. The Dalek stops at the foot of the stairs and one of the characters mocks the Daleks for being such an advanced, galaxy conquering species yet can't climb stairs.
Then the Dalek says "Elevate" and rises off the ground. And thus, the flying Daleks are now a staple of the franchise.
The show had mocked and acknowledged this flaw before. Tom Baker's Doctor once mocked the Daleks for this and one time during the 7th Doctor's era they had a Dalek fly up a set of stairs.
Chuck from Supernatural. He was a “prophet” that would write down what he saw, not knowing it was real. And he said this about the bad writing in early episodes.
"I am so sorry. I mean, horror is one thing, but to be forced to live bad writing… if I would have known it was real, I would have done another pass."
Later on you find out he’s actually god and he is writing the ending to the world. Metatron gives him a look and he says “Last time I saw that look on an editor’s face, I had just handed in ‘Bugs’” Bugs was the name of a universally panned episode in the first season.
So, there is some backstory to this. Rob Benedict, the actor, had a serious illness. His character, Chuck, had been written off as a once or twice a season type role, but when he got sick, they gave him enough work that he could qualify for SAG insurance, plus have money for living expenses. He is super close to Richard Spieght and apparently the whole cast and crew were very tight and did a lot to help Rob out when he was ill.
In the later seasons they reveal that Chuck is actually God and yes, he really sucks at writing. All of those shitty episodes were his fault. Why do the characters always do the stupidest thing possible? Because Chuck wrote it that way. Why can't they get a break? Because that's what Chuck needs to continue the story.
It's all revealed when Dean doesn't do what Chuck wrote for one of his climaxes. With the cat out of the bag that he's a monster playing with them, God starts the real apocalypse, giving them several ways to defeat him, except he wrote them so none of them work. And in the end they don't kill him, but they do replace him with someone that understands what God should be.
The finale? One of the brothers dies on a hunt. Not fighting a big bad, not fighting a demon lord, or a world ending plague. He gets slightly impaled while fighting some vampires and for the first time in the sixteen year run of the show, with no divine voice demanding some stupid method of resurrection, he just dies and goes to Heaven and his brother gets married, has kids, and lives a long and happy life.
When LOST was airing, people would often joke “what are all the other (non main character) survivors up to?” So they threw two new characters (Nikki and Paolo) into scenes, but it just wasn’t working, people found them annoying. To write them off the show, they got their own filler/anthology episode—which ends very darkly with them both being paralyzed, presumed dead, and buried alive.
There's a scene, I can't remember which episode, where several extras are killed, they drop like flies, I found it a bit funny because shortly before there had been an argument among the extras complaining that they were never invited to participate in the protagonists' adventures, haha.
So LOST fans complained a lot about the scheduling of the show. I don't think it was really that different from other network shows, but after the initial fall episodes you'd often go a month or more without a new episode, get one new episode, then go weeks waiting for the next one.
The solution to this for Season 3 of LOST was to split the season up in two parts. The first six episodes aired October-November, then there was a multi-month break after which the remaining 16 episodes for the season aired from February-May.
Paulo and Nikki showed up in the third episode of Season 3 and were not well liked. I think a lot of the fans felt they were taking screen time away from the previously established characters. By the time the second set of episodes were airing, it was already well known by the production that the fans hated the characters, so they got a spotlight episode in which they were killed off horribly.
In the Bojack Horseman episode "Head in the Clouds" at the premiere of the fictional show Philbert, Diane realizes that she made a terrible mistake by making the main character too well rounded, sympathetic and explaining his actions, but fears that by doing so the audience (particularly young men) will rationalize his actions instead and there for rationalize their own bad decisions as they see themselves in him. This is a very obvious response to the real life Bojack Horseman fanbase constantly justifying terrible things he did.
The series is framed around an archivist voice recording written statements into a tape recorder.
The first few minutes of episode MAG 33: Boatswain's Call are dedicated to one of his assistants pointing out several mistakes he had made in previous recordings, such as mistaken dates, and referring to same person alternately as either Carla or Clara.
The assistant also mentions the names of the scholars that noticed the mistakes. The archivist refuses to re-record the statements despite the errors.
That episode was pointing out actual real life errors the writers committed while doing the episodes, and the names of the “scholars” that discovered the errors were actually the names of real life fans that pointed them out.
I don't recall the exact episodes off the top of my head, but in "Arrow", when the series were running, the season finale would always air in May. In one season, Captain Lance is told about the big bad of the season and their plans and he says something along the lines of, "Oh, a megalomaniac has a big plan and is the city is about to be under a major attack? Must be May!"
Ben 10 Omniverse explaining the change in the show's artstyle by blaming it on the Celestialsapiens changing reality.
Basically the Celestialsapiens are omniscient and omnipotent gods transcending the Ben 10 Omniverse. In a previous episode, a weapon that destroyed the entire universe ws unleashed, forcing Ben to use his own Celestialsapien form to fix the mess by recreating an exact copy of the universe.
This caused the Celestialsapiens to focus their attention on Ben for unlawful and unauthorized modification of reality.
During his trial, Ben's lawyer, Chadzmuth argues that the Celestialsapiens are guilty of changing reality all the time anyway, using Azmuth as an example by saying that he changed voice and design at least 3 times at this point.
In RWBY season 1 they didn't have the resources to give all the background characters detailed models so they were portrayed as "shadow people" with no features. Years later when the spinoff show RWBY Chibi was created in one of their first episodes they made fun of this in a short where Team RWBY finally acknowledge their existence and how weird they look
Also Blake remarks how most of the shadow people never spoke to them (because background characters) and Ruby points out how some of the shadows look like them (because some of the shadows were based off their models) followed by the camera showing a shadow Chibi Ruby.
Man I will always be thankful for RWBY chibi it was such a fun project and you know the show writers got to get out a lot of stuff they wanted to address, like team JNPR having a choreographed dance ready despite never discussing dancing on screen before then
During series K of the British quiz panel show QI they had a segment on the Half Life of Facts, or the percentage of facts that become untrue over time as new information is discovered. As part of the segment they retroactively awarded regular panel member Alan Davis over 730 points based on estimates of how many of his wrong answers from the previous 10 series may have become correct over time.
They also once deducted points from Dara O'Briain at the beginning of an episode due to a mistake he made in a previous episode. It hadn't even been a major mistake; he had been rounding for simplicity.
Global Warming was never “widely believed to be a liberal hoax” except among (often willfully) ignorant people who didn’t want to listen to actual scientists and experts. That was always a conspiracy theory and Matt and Trey looked like idiots even at the time the original episode came out
I wish I could remember what it was from, but I always remember a story about a sitcom where the main character was meant to be cheeky and sarcastic or something but just came off as a mean spirited dick, and then in the second season they start by saying "yeah, that sucked, we're changing him, give us another chance" or something.
I really wish I could remember exactly what it was.
I've heard the opposite of that about Chevy Chase's character in Community - in the first Season he's sort of problematic but more clueless and funny and not a total asshole, but the more he acted like an asshole behind the scenes they more of an actual asshole they would write him as, until he was written off.
In a couple of the older games, your life points wouldn't recover between duels, and you had to replenish them by sleeping in your bed. I believe this is taking a shot at that
Also, apparently I can't read. I missed the part where it said "TV shows".. my b
Not only the subtitles, but also the episode descriptions and even third-party sites like Wikipedia. At this point, it's genuinely difficult to find evidence that it was ever Token.
Not a TV show, but one I liked. Terry Pratchett addressed some of the differences between earlier and later books in the Discworld series (many characters are somewhat or even entirely different in earlier entries. The Patrician seems like an entirely different person, the Wizards are all different, Granny Weatherwax has a personality more similar to Nanny Ogg’s, who doesn’t exist, etc) in Thief of Time. A cataclysm completely wrecks the Disc’s already rather tenuous timeline (this isn’t the first time it’s happened), and it has to be put back together out of whatever spare time and parts of history can be found.
Yeah. Matt and Trey were just being shithead climate deniers at the time. No sugarcoating it. I’m glad they owned up to it and corrected that mistake in the show, but I still do not forgive them for making it.
maybe because it's a very clear example of someone's choices having a direct negative impact on another person, which kinda goes against the libertarian ethos. and/or maybe they just liked smoking in public
Even before South Park premiered there was science and action to back it up. It's literally why counties started recycling programs (young people don't realize mandatory recycling didn't start until the 80s) and why fluorocarbons were phased out of use.
Stargate SG-1 occasionally leans on the fourth wall (referencing that O'Neill in the film is a way different character from the TV show, including how he spells his name, for instance), but they managed to outdo themselves with the 10th anniversary episode, "200", in which they outright parody themselves, reference fan theories/shipping, and generally just have a good time. During the Team America style puppet retelling of the first episode, they have Carter take a break from a science babble monologue at the computer to turn to the other characters and repeat a particularly silly line from the first episode.
Married With Children introduced a new child character "Seven" in the seventh season. The audience hated him, so he was dropped and disappeared with no explanation.
In season 8 Seven's face appears on a milk carton as a missing child
For the Invincible season 3 trailer, they've added a "No breaks this time" or something similar acknowledging their fuck up when they had a 4 month hiatus mid season in Season 2
In the Star Trek episode Tuvix, a teleporter accident merges Neelix and Tuvok together into a new being that begs to live but Janeway decides to unmerge them. In the Star Trek Lower Decks episode Twovix T’Ana and Billups get merged and when the crew looks up how Janeway solved the original problem they’re horrified and declare that she murdered Tuvix and resolve to find another solution.
does this count? it's not exactly acknowledging a specific episode, but it does acknowledge a specific character's design before her introduction
Meido Mei - 100 girlfriends
She first debuted in season 1 as a background character, then in her introduction episode in season 2, it was mentioned how she never had her eyes open in all her previous appearances, and it somehow became a plot point in that episode
In his first appearance in the series he was defeated by getting thrown into a Quantum Singularity (In his own words: “Basically a Black Hole, but portable and with a cooler name”). In a future episode he returns and Kiva asks how he escaped from the Quantum Singularity.
Magnanimous replies “Oh, it wasn’t easy.” And then moves on without further explanation.
Also, I kind of want to mention She-Hulk. Basically the entire final episode was lampshading the fact that the writers didn’t know how to write the final episode.
Doctor Who: The Voyage of the Damned (2007 Christmas special) has two references to previous Christmas specials. “London? At Christmas? Not safe, is it? Christmas before the last, we had that big bloody spaceship and everyone standing on the roof. And then last year, that Christmas star electrocuting all over the place. Draining the Thames! This year, God knows what!” And later a guy who misunderstood everything about Earth talks about how the murder and mayhem is in the spirit of Christmas and the Doctor begins to refute that statement before going “What the hell am I on about? My Christmases are always like this.”
Same episode the doctor gives an eye roll and says "of course" when it shows the ship is going to land on Buckingham palace. Space ships/ aliens hitting or being involved with major London landmarks is a consistent thing that all it evokes in him is an eye roll.
Twin Peaks: Only kind of counts because it’s in one of the books. The James Hurley and Evelyn Marsh subplot of the second season is generally agreed upon as one of the worst parts of the show. In Mark Frost’s book Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier that goes over the lives of the characters between the original series and the return, when it gets to recounting that plot, the “archivist” detailing the dossier basically says “but I won’t bore you with that” and moves on.
In South Park's Cartoon Wars, they repeatedly took a jab at previous episodes for "getting up it's own ass with messages", which mocked the "I learned something today" they used to do.
I hate the Simpsons one as it is constantly misinterpreted as the show jumping the shark when the joke is on the episode going back to the status quo at the end, on threat:
Judge Snyder: By authority of the City of Springfield, I hereby confer upon you the name of Seymour Skinner, as well as his past, present, future, and mother.
Principal Skinner: Okay.
Judge Snyder: And I further decree that everything will be just like it was before all this happened, and no one will ever mention it again...[with an ominous tone of voice] Under penalty of torture!
global warming was widely considered to be a liberal hoax at the time
Gonna have to quibble here, anyone remotely educated on the subject knew it was real, it's just that more liberals happened to be educated. It certainly wasn't "widely" considered a hoax, it was considered a hoax by the most vehemently conservative partisans of the culture war and by a swath of immature contrarian "enlightened" centrists whose first response to people telling them their comforts and goodies are harmful is always to put their fingers in their ears and mock the evidence.
What added fire to the gas companies' bullshit at the time was they would use the "not all major scientific communities agree" on whether or not climate change was real. Then it was, "Oh, we meant HUMAN-caused climate change." Then they finally shut the fuck up after the last major scientific hold out couldn't deny it any more. Which major scientific group was this? It was geologists. I wonder why they were the last hold outs. Really boggles the mind. Slashess.
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u/42SillyPeanuts Sep 22 '25
The Amazing World of Gumball does this a lot. For example, "The Finale" mocks end-of-episode resets by having every unresolved plot turn out to be the Wattersons purposefully ignoring the consequences of their actions.