History FunnyAneurysmMoment / LiveActionTv

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[[quoteright:270:[[Series/SanfordAndSon https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sanforrd_FAM_3185.jpg]]]]
[[quoteright:270:And it turned out to be so. (see ''Sanford and Son'' below)]]
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!!Other examples:
* ''Series/SiliconValley'': In an amusingly awkward scene, Gavin Belson compliments Peter Gregory on how healthy he looks. However, the actor who plays Peter Gregory died of lung cancer before the season finished shooting.
* ''Series/{{Skins}}'':
** Going back in time, we find that the series is actually quite fond of this trope: in every generation, one main character dies, and before said death, there is a "Funny Aneurysm" moment...
*** For the first generation: in series 2, Chris delivers this line to Cassie as a joke before she goes to meet with Sid (and in the following episode, [[spoiler: he dies in Cassie's arms]]):
---->'''Chris:''' Yeah, you'll move in with him and I could be, like, dying, yeah, and you wouldn't even know about it."
*** Literally so in Chris's case since he dies of a subarachnoid haemorrhage, which are often caused by a brain aneurysm bursting.
*** For the second generation: on Freddie's centric episode in series 3, Naomi answers a question in English class about Hamlet, comparing Hamlet to a teenage boy and very obviously drawing parallels between him and [[spoiler: Freddie.]] She finishes by saying (paraphrasing here) "... he ends up so boring somebody has to kill him." Until Effy's episode in Series 4, that was a harmless joke.
*** For the third generation: in series 6, [[spoiler: [[EnsembleDarkhorse Grace]]]] dies, which makes it painfully hard for fans to re-watch the following exchange in series 5:
---->'''Rich:''' "Where are you going?"
---->'''[[spoiler: Grace]]:''' "To a fucking castle in the clouds."
* ''Series/{{Skithouse}}'' featured a sketch called "Irwin Stevens: Suicidal D***head", parodying ''Series/CrocodileHunter'' host, Creator/SteveIrwin. 2-3 years after the sketch aired, Irwin was killed by a stingray while filming.
* ''Series/TheSootyShow'' features a constant running joke in one episode where Soo criticizes Matthew for his bad taste in music - with Matthew arguing that his music isn't in bad taste as he's a massive fan of Music/GaryGlitter. At one point he even turns to the audience, says: "I do like Gary Glitter, don't you"? and winks. After Gary Glitter's arrest over having child porn on his computer, the line takes on a disturbing new meaning.
* ''Series/TheSoup'' made hay with an AlternativeCharacterInterpretation of reality show ''Jon and Kate Plus 8'' which portrayed Jon as a henpecked husband to needlessly bossy Kate; one skit took an argument over coupons and ended it with him committing suicide. As it turns out, the marriage was indeed miserable, and while ''The Soup'' -- irreverent by nature -- kept up with the show and its stars even after they officially filed for divorce in June 2009 (the show continued for a while as ''Kate Plus 8''), one episode joked that it was "just kind of sad now".
* ''Series/{{Spaced}}'': Tim's portrayal as a CausticCritic[=/=]FanHater of the ''Franchise/StarWars'' Prequel Trilogy and Jar Jar Binks in particular became less amusing after Creator/JakeLloyd, who played Anakin Skywalker in ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'', admitted to being bullied for his performance in the years afterward, but even more so after 2018, where not only has toxicity in nerd culture become a hot topic in the wake of the online harassment of Creator/KellyMarieTran over her role as Rose in ''Film/TheLastJedi'', it was revealed that Jar Jar's actor, Ahmed Best, contemplated suicide over similar harassment. It got to the point that Creator/SimonPegg not only chewed out the people responsible for the harassment but even though he admits to only criticizing [[IAmNotSpock Jar Jar the character]], he also [[OldShame felt shame]] for [[MisaimedFandom possibly having a hand in influencing Best's harassment]].
* ''Spatz'', a British sitcom set in a fast-food restaurant, featured a character named Stanley, a [[TheDitz ditz]] who was nevertheless [[GeniusDitz surprisingly skilled with computers (and ballroom dancing)]]. In one episode he tells his colleagues about a girl he's been talking to over the internet and they encourage him to ask her on a date - this was in 1990 when the internet was still far from mainstream and internet dating was practically unheard-of. When Stanley eventually meets her at the end of the episode, she turns out to be about nine years old. This was meant as an innocent joke (silly Stanley never thought to ask her how old she is) but has a more sinister resonance now given the rise of online 'grooming' of children by sexual predators.
* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': Back in season 3, when Rodney was blasted by some weird Ancient technology and worrying about the effects it could have on him, Elizabeth jokingly asked Dr. Beckett, "What are the chances it could make him more pleasant?" Then, in season 5, Rodney contracts a brain parasite whose effects are to take away his memory, drastically reduce his intelligence, and ''make him much friendlier''.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'':
** The initial oohing and ahhing about their UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicle), to be followed by their casual use in pretty much every other episode of the series, takes on a whole new tone when you look at what the Real Life version of that technology [[AttackDrone lead to]].
** In the episode "2010" (which aired in 2000/2001 but takes place in 2010), it is stated that General Hammond died of a heart attack a couple of years previously. Creator/DonSDavis (General Hammond's actor) actually died of a heart attack in 2008. The series does TheCharacterDiedWithHim and had Hammond die off-screen of a heart attack, after which the latest BC-304 ship was named after him.
** The season 9 two-parter "The Fourth Horseman" involves a flu-like alien virus spreading across the globe, hospitalizing and killing many people, gaining mass media coverage, and causing widespread panic and disruption of every day life. Needless to say, watching this feels quite a bit different after the year 2020.
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
** The two-part episode "Past Tense" sends Sisko, Bashir and Dax back to UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco in the year [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture 2024]] by way of a [[TeleporterAccident transporter]] [[NegativeSpaceWedgie malfunction]]. They are separated when Sisko and Bashir get taken to a Sanctuary District, a walled-off part of the city where the city's homeless and destitute are left to live in squalor. The reason these places exist in the first place is because of widespread joblessness due to a wrecked economy, with hints of anarchy in Europe. The references to the economy are particularly [[AdultFear cringe-inducing]], given the current state of our own. Fortunately for our heroes, all of these conditions force tension in the Sanctuary Districts to come to a head. Riots break out, and through a series of events the normal timeline is restored, and so is the [[MarySuetopia Federation]].
** Not only that, but as the episode was filming, the Mayor of UsefulNotes/LosAngeles proposed moving the homeless population into walled-off districts, much like in the episode. The producers were understandably freaked out.
** Now about that [[http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/05/18/spain.protests/index.html anarchy in Europe...]][[OhCrap Yeah.]] They made a movie about it in 2006: ''Film/District13''.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E22HalfALife}} Half a Life]]" featured Creator/DavidOgdenStiers as a scientist who starts a relationship with Lwaxana Troi, but despairs that it's too late for them to truly be together as he turns sixty in a few days, which is when his species undergoes compulsory euthanasia. Stiers came out of the closet at age 66, expressing his regrets that keeping his homosexuality secret for so long had prevented him from having any kind of stable relationship and that he hoped to finally have one in his remaining years. He died nine years later.
*** That's nothing compared to the episode of ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' in which David Ogden Stiers guest-starred. He plays a research scientist called Leland Barton who was a close friend of Frasier's mother Hester, and Frasier's father Martin becomes worried that, due to Leland sharing the same hobbies, tastes, and mannerisms as Frasier and Niles, he might have had an affair with Hester and be their biological father. [[spoiler: Martin confronts Leland with this at the end, and Leland admits that he loved Hester - but only ''platonically'' because he's gay, and she was very supportive of him when they worked together in the 1950s and it wasn't possible to be open about homosexuality.]]
** In "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E21Symbiosis}} Symbiosis]]", Merritt Butrick (better known to ''Trek'' fans as David Marcus, Captain Kirk's son) played an alien suffering from a plague. Less than a year after the episode aired, Merritt Butrick died of AIDS.
** ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'' twisted the final moment of the ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration TNG]]'' episode ''Family'' from a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}} into [[FunnyAneurysmMoment this kind of moment.]] The final scene shows Picard's brother Robert and his wife Marie looking out their back window at their son Rene as he sits gazing at the stars. At the time, it implied Rene might follow in his uncle's footsteps. No, he won't, since ''Generations'' reveals that [[BusCrash he and his father both died in a fire offscreen.]] (And that final scene in "Family" even has a ''blazing fireplace'' in the background!) Poor Marie.
** Still on ''Franchise/StarTrek'', [[http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64C0L620100514 the protesters against the current regime in Thailand]] [[RedShirt could not have chosen a more prophetic name.]]
** While not exactly ''funny'', episodes involving Romulus have gained a little bit of a bittersweet overtone since their airing. "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E10TheDefector}} The Defector]]" had a disgraced and banished Romulan general who'd defected to stop an all-out Romulan/Federation war [[spoiler:(actually part of a ploy by Romulus to ''start'' said war, albeit the general didn't know that)]], leaving behind a suicide note to be delivered to his child; the ending played up the hopes that, one day, relations would eventually be good enough between the two sides that the Federation could deliver it personally. The two-parter "Unification" ends on a hopeful note that the young of Romulus will eventually replace their warmongering elders and embrace their relationship with Vulcan on far more friendly terms. [[spoiler:Neither will happen; the Romulus of this universe was canonically vaporized by a supernova in ''Film/StarTrek2009'', giving Nero the impetus to go back in time and screw around with the alternate universe of the Abrams films.]] This is [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] in ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'', where it's revealed in the far future that the remnants of the Romulan Empire [[EarnYourHappyEnding did indeed peacefully reunite]] with the Vulcans.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'':
** The Enterprise crew goes back in time for the episode "[[{{Recap/StarTrekS2E26AssignmentEarth}} Assignment: Earth]]". Spock mentions that an unnamed important person is supposed to be assassinated on that day. Since the episode was meant as [[PoorlyDisguisedPilot a "backdoor pilot" for another show]], this was not elaborated upon. However, six days after the episode aired, Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered.
*** This episode ended up being a lot more eerily prescient than just that. It's not that far ahead of Robert Kennedy's assassination either, and on top of that, Gary Seven was attempting to stop the launch of a nuclear weapons platform into orbit. On the same day as MLK's assassination, NASA also launched a Saturn V rocket (not, however, carrying nuclear weapons) which suffered a malfunction and ended up going way off course, leading to a fan theory that within the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' universe, this was the Saturn V launch, and the real-life cause of the crash was a cover story for the events of the episode. Spock's prediction of an uprising in Asia is also sometimes tied to a coup in Iraq, but that was over three months later.
** At the end of "[[{{Recap/StarTrekS2E3TheChangeling}} The Changeling]]", Kirk cracks a joke about the MonsterOfTheWeek they just beat: "[[spoiler:It's not easy to lose a bright and promising son]]. [...] Kind of gets you right there, doesn't it?" Oh... ow... [[Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock yes. Yes, it does.]]
** At the end of "[[{{Recap/StarTrekS1E22SpaceSeed}} Space Seed]]", Spock delivers the ending valedictory: "It would be interesting, Captain, to return to that world in 100 years and learn what crop had sprung from the seed you planted today." Try only about [[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan 20 years]] to find that Captain Kirk's irregular action of marooning the ''Botany Bay'' crew in this episode indirectly causes [[NiceJobBreakingItHero yours and many other's deaths at the hands of Khan, Spock.]]
* The "humorous" subplot of an episode of ''Series/StrongMedicine'' has Chief of Staff Dr. Jackson informing the staff that the hospital is preparing an emergency response team in the event of a terrorist or nuclear attack. Even though someone specifically asks, "You mean like another [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing World Trade Center bombing]]?", everyone basically scoffs at the idea, and he and Lana (the receptionist) are viewed as ridiculously overreacting to an unlikely scenario--particularly when she flips out when she thinks a repairman is trying to spread a biological or toxic agent. The storyline became completely unfunny when '''''one''''' month after the episode aired, the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks 9/11 attack]] took place, with the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks anthrax attacks]] beginning a week later.
** Dr. Jackson even uses the term "weapons of mass destruction" at one point, which rapidly became part of the country's vernacular following the attack, to the point of parody.
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'':
** While the internal MoodWhiplash of "Mystery Spot" made Dean's (fake) deaths slightly less funny, his being killed (at least until the 2008 fall season premiere) made them, and all of his other deaths and death wishes, unbelievably painful to watch during the summer of 2008.
** The Trickster's antics in "Tall Tales" (one of their {{breather episode}}s) become a hell of a lot less funny when you learn just how cruel the Trickster can be--specifically, that he could kill Dean over and over again to stop Sam from thinking that he could save him. Not to mention when you find out that the Trickster knows how it feels to have your family ripped apart, but still does it anyway to try and teach them a lesson.
** The angel-in-a-whorehouse sequence in season 5's "Free to Be You and Me" is funny. But the next episode, "The End," involves a burnt-out, alcoholic, heavily stoned version of that angel, who apparently holds orgies on a regular basis. A funny aneurysm ''within'' a funny aneurysm: when Dean gets back to his own time, he claps a hand on Castiel's shoulder and tells him, "Don't ever change." [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope Come]] [[FallenAngel Season]] [[AGodAmI 6]]...
** The hunter accusing Sam of bringing about the Apocalypse is a lot less funny when you realize that he ( [[SoUnfunnyItsFunny and Dean]], [[BottomoftheBarrelJoke it was a]] [[IncrediblyLamePun team effort]] ) actually does end up bringing about the Apocalypse, albeit accidentally.
** Dean's banter with Bela about her father becomes a lot less funny when we learn later that she was sexually abused as a child.
** A small one, but in "Lazarus Rising", Bobby greets Pamela with "Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes." This promptly becomes less funny when her eyes burn out in the next scene.
* ''Series/{{Survivor}}'':
** A running gag from the Survivor Sucks message board involved posters pretending that [[Characters/SurvivorBorneo B.B. Andersen]] died as a trick to play on newbies. After October 29, 2013, the date where he actually died, that joke became a lot less funny.
** Another running gag on the same forum involved a picture of ''Africa'''s Silas Gaither shirtless at a charity event in a suggestive pose. A thread revolved around taking this picture and posting it alongside pictures of other people to simulate Silas "screwing" the person. This thread fell into FAM territory following Gaither's November 2019 arrest for rape.
* ''Series/That70sShow'':
** A good in-universe example of an almost immediate funny aneurysm moment:
--->'''Eric''': You know, it wouldn't kill you to be nice once in a while.
** The same episode does have a heartbreaking real-world example though during the otherwise hilarious funeral scene when each character observes Grandma Forman's open casket and we hear the thoughts that run through their head. Laurie reflects on how life is complicated because you "get all old and die... thank God I'm young and hot!" In light of the death of actress Lisa Robin Kelly at the age of 43, it's cringe-inducing.
** At one point Red fakes a heart attack to get Kitty to get off his ass about something. A few seasons later he actually has one. Additionally, the episode "Cat Fight Club" features Red imagining how he thought the year 1997 would turn out and bemoaning that he'll have a heart attack before getting a jetpack. At first a joke about there being no jetpacks in 2000 (the year the episode aired), little did Red know how right he was.
** During the episode where the gang, Red, and Bob went to see a wrestling match, Donna starts wrestling Eric, only for Eric not to wrestle back, and Hyde quip "why would he?" when Donna asks about it. Additionally, when Hyde takes the fall for Jackie buying pot, the gang makes so cracks about Hyde becoming someone's "girlfriend" while in jail. Danny Masterson, who played Hyde, was fired from ''Series/TheRanch'' after being accused of rape.
* ''Series/ThatWasTheWeekThatWas'' ended most episodes with presenter David Frost reading from the next day's papers, and on 29 December 1962, one of the excerpts he read was from the ''Sunday Express'' column "Cross-Bencher", the unreliable predictions of which had been mocked earlier in the episode. Cross-Bencher said that Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskell, who had been making regular hospital visits for some time but was reportedly on the mend, had nothing to worry about on the health front, prompting Frost to remark, "Sorry, Hugh!" Three weeks later, Gaitskell died suddenly from lupus erythematosus.
* ''Series/TheThickOfIt'':
** Chris Langham oozes sarcasm as Hugh Abbot. "What, Hugh Abbot as Home Secretary? But the man's a social spastic and probably a registered nonce." Not such a funny line in light of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Langham#Arrest_and_conviction later events]].
** In the first episode, Hugh Abbot hosts a press conference in a school. Considering the fact he was arrested for watching CP, it can make it not as funny.
** In another episode, Abbot complains that the photo attached to his press releases makes him "look like a disgraced geography teacher."
* ''Series/{{Titus}}'':
** On the episode in which Shannon (Titus's sister) reunites with her Swedish boyfriend, Stefan, Titus tells her not to do it because Stefan wanted her to have an abortion to get rid of the baby (which already died when she had a miscarriage), but Shannon goes with Stefan anyway because she wanted to stand up for herself and make a decision that she knew was right. In ''Neverlution'', it's revealed that Shannon committed suicide because her boyfriend kept breaking up with her and the constant rejection pretty much drove her crazy (and nothing about it was funny, not even in a dark way).
** "Houseboat":
*** One of the Neutral Space[[note]]That black and white room in which Titus speaks to the audience and shows flashbacks and "what-if" scenarios about his life[[/note]] moments has Titus holding a present and telling the audience that his dad finally understands that love and forgiveness is better than hatred and vengeance, then adds, "Next year, we'll teach him that heart attacks are not like women; you just can't keep having them." According to ''The Fifth Annual End of the World Tour'', Titus's dad really did die of a heart attack.
*** The flashback of Dave (as a child) reviving Ken after the paramedics pronounce him dead from a heart attack by opening a can of beer (with Ken spitting out the beer because it's warm, then hitting on the female paramedic operating the defibrillator). In fact, ''all'' of the references to Ken's heart attacks (especially the first season finale "Episode Eleven") are considerably less funny in hindsight.
* ''Series/{{Today}}'': On December 30, 2014, the show aired an original musical production involving both on-air personalities and off-air staffers. One scene involved Matt Lauer taking off his pants and ironing them in the hallway as the show's female anchors enter the hallway. Lauer, with his back to the camera, opens his suit jacket as if to expose himself to the women as they walk by in disgust, showing the shirt and tie he was wearing. This scene now looks cringe-worthy in light of his 2017 firing due to sexual harassment allegations and even worse with newer allegations rising to the level of being accused of rape.
** This also clouds some of Lauer's pre-Today career. On October 27, 1993; Lauer (then a local anchor who co-anchored the 5:00 "Live at Five" newscasts for [[Creator/{{NBC}} NBC flagship station WNBC-TV 4]] in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity) was on set while co-anchor Sue Simmons interviewed Radio/HowardStern on his book when Stern made several suggestive comments toward Simmons, while on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1iPYRop08k&t=1228s at least one instance]][[note]]around the 38:56 mark[[/note]] Lauer seems to be taking some enjoyment out of watching Stern talk about trying to kiss Simmons; while shortly afterwards (following Stern appearing to attempt to kiss a blonde named Katherine who he jokingly identified as the girlfriend of Simmons' longtime 11:00 co-anchor Chuck Scarborough) Sue (around the 40:10 mark) jokes that Matt wanted to get in on the act, followed by an additional joke by Howard about Lauer having worked for the Playboy channel.
* ''Series/TheTonightShow'':
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g3KD6CYfyY This appearance]] by Robert Blake on New Year's Eve 1976, includes a discussion about what happens when Blake fights with his (then) wife, Sondra Kerr: "The blood flows," he says. In 2002, Blake would be arrested and tried (though ultimately acquitted) for the murder of his ''second'' wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley.
** Blake's appearance as a satanic figure (or embodiment of wrath and violence...or whatever...freakin' David Lynch...) in the film ''Lost Highway'' is primarily concerned with a man who is arrested for murdering his wife.
* ''Series/TheTonightShow With Conan O'Brien'' featured Will Ferrell as a guest in the first episode. At the end of his segment, Ferrell sings a farewell song for Conan as a joke, who is bewildered as it is only his first night on the job. Ferrell explains that considering how fickle the networks are, they could pull the plug on his show any time. [[BookEnds Ferrell was also Conan's final guest on the show, sending him off with a proper goodbye song this time.]]
* ''Series/TopGear'':
** Absolutely anything that Creator/RichardHammond says in episodes relating to "flying through the Pearly Gates backwards in a fireball" (or similar) that was recorded before his miraculously non-fatal high-speed crash.
--->'''Richard''': I love that vision of just blasting through the gates, backwards, in a flaming Swedish supercar! "Yes! I'm here! Where are the women?"
*** Clearly doing it ''upside-down in a rocket car at 288 mph'' is the only way to top that.
*** Similarly, there is a clip of Creator/JeremyClarkson saying that "no series would be complete without an earnest attempt to kill Richard Hammond"; the BBC had to remove that from its website some time after the crash.
*** Reruns of the episode where Hammond managed to roll his van during the police chase challenge have omitted Clarkson's "Well, we've just killed Richard Hammond. If you'd like a job presenting ''Top Gear'', please write to the BBC..." gag. In a particular irony, that van show (S08-E08) was the last aired episode of ''Top Gear'' before Hammond's accident, which (had it not gone wrong) was intended to have been a feature in series 9. The footage was still shown in S09-E01, but it wasn't the footage they expected to have.
*** There was even a real-time Funny Aneurysm Moment when the crash footage was aired: The entire studio audience, plus co-presenters Clarkson and Creator/JamesMay, winced when the videotaped Hammond (in what was meant to be the lead-up to an uneventful segment) described the 10,000hp afterburner on the Vampire as "possibly the biggest accident you've ever seen in your life." Clarkson unfailingly [[LampshadeHanging pointed out]] that the fateful line was meant to be funny.
*** In a double whammy for this show and ''Series/AshesToAshes2008'', the crossover Richard did with the cast of ''Ashes to Ashes'' for Children in Need becomes this when you find out in the series finale [[spoiler: that ''Ashes to Ashes'' takes place in a purgatory for dead and dying police officers.]] Granted, Richard's not a police officer, but still. Creepy.
*** Of course, since the Hammster returned to filming, they have gone right back to making jokes. Including jokes related to how badly injured Hammond was.
** Clarkson was given a CD in a challenge to drive across Europe, supposedly to keep him awake; it was full of nothing but UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher speeches. He listened anyway, and him cheering about the British defense of Falkland Islands makes you wince after later events involving a trip to Patagonia. Towards the end of their journey, Clarkson's car's number plate was misinterpreted by Argentinians as a mocking jab at the battle, and the ensuing outcry had them and their crew literally run out of town by an angry mob.
* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'': There's a scene in ''Series/TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth'' where Jack and Ianto attempt to get some alone time and try to make the most of the time they have together, but it's prevented because Rhys is making beans. The scene goes from funny to sad when [[spoiler: Ianto dies in the next episode.]]
* ''Series/{{Tweenies}}'': In the episode "Favourite Songs", Max, one of the owners of the playgroup the titular characters attend, dresses up as Creator/JimmySavile to present a talent contest, complete with his mannerisms. What may have seemed like a homage to a well-loved TV personality in the early Noughties can be seen in a very different light now... The Creator/CBeebies channel even made the mistake of repeating it in January 2013, by which time the comedian's abuse had long come to light, causing parents watching the show to complain that the episode was in poor taste, leading to "Favourite Songs" becoming a BannedEpisode.
* ''Series/UnbreakableKimmySchmidt'': In the 2015 pilot, after the four so-called "mole women" have been freed from years of captivity, they are interviewed by Matt Lauer (playing himself). Upon hearing one of them relate how she was lured into being kidnapped, he remarks "I’m always amazed at what women will do because they’re afraid of being rude." In 2017 came revelations of decades of sexual harassment/misconduct on Lauer's part. One detail with a particularly disturbing parallel to the show: his desk had a button that could lock the doors of his office (although NBC claimed this wasn't unique to him).
* One episode of the Creator/JimDavidson starring sitcom ''Up the Elephant and Round the Castle'' sees his character being forced to pay a heavy tax bill or be made bankrupt. Davidson really made bankrupt in 2006, in part due to a tax bill.
* ''Series/TheWestWing'': "The Birnam Wood":
** After President Bartlet fires Leo [=McGarry=], Leo wanders off into the woods around Camp David and has a massive heart attack. Though he survives, it takes until the morning for security to find him. During the filming of the seventh season, John Spencer, Leo's actor, died quite suddenly of a heart attack, necessitating the killing off of his character (by the same method).
** When Leo returns to work after his heart attack, the rest of the senior staff pitches in to buy him a present: A defibrillator. Not quite so funny now...
** The clearest example, though, is in the first episode of season 7. Leo suggests that maybe he shouldn't be Santos's running mate, to which Santos replies, "I'm not gonna fire you. You wanna get out of this, you're gonna have to drum up another heart attack or something." Of course, Leo dies of another heart attack and does "get out of" being VP.
** Also in the episode that aired directly after John Spencer's death, which had been preceded by a message from Creator/MartinSheen relaying the news, Toby Zeigler has the line "Disappointed to reach me? Somebody dead?" when Josh complains about how hard it was to reach him by phone.
** This ''was'' a case of RealLifeWritesThePlot, as John Spencer was having heart problems before he died; they wrote all those scenes in as a way to reduce his screen time.
** The first season finale is a twofer -- the plot both concerns reentry problems with the [[UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} Space Shuttle Columbia]] and has the President half-seriously threaten to invade Baghdad.
** One episode is centered on a free-trade agreement that caused thousands of programming jobs to move to India, and one union representative laments that it may end up with him working at a video rental counter. While it sounded like being forced to work a dead-end job when it aired in 2004, the mass closure of video rental stores less than a decade later makes it sound even more hopeless.
* ''Series/WheelOfFortune'':
** On April Fool's Day 1991, Vanna had a cushion under her dress in the final segment, as a means of tricking Pat and viewers into thinking she was pregnant. This suddenly became much less funny when she had a miscarriage in September 1992.
** The 1992 puzzle VANNA'S PREGNANT also became this when said miscarriage happened before the episode could air in November that year. The puzzle was edited out.
* ''Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway'':
** In another episode, also for the skit "Weird Newscasters", Ryan was to do the weather as "Siegfried and Roy whose act is going dangerously wrong." In October of 2003, Roy was mauled by one of their male white tigers, Montecore, during a performance in Las Vegas.
** [[http://youtu.be/FKONhO-RCe8 During this game]] of "Scenes From a Hat", Wayne's suggestion of "The shortest books ever written" was "The Life and Times of Creator/GaryColeman". At the time it was merely a crack at Coleman's height, but his early death in 2010 rendered it this trope.
** A famous disallowed game of "Sitcom" featured "Bill Cosby and Hitler". It was disallowed because the producers didn't want to joke about Hitler. Now, after Cosby's been hit with numerous rape allegations, they probably wouldn't want to joke about him, either.
* ''Series/{{Wings}}'': There was an episode where Joe and Brian are hiring a temp and one of the applicants is a gorgeous woman. Although she's more than qualified, Brian insists they don't hire her because she is so beautiful he'll be tempted to sleep with her. Joe agrees because he thinks Helen will be jealous. Mildly amusing when the episode aired in the late [=90s=], but in 2012 a woman in Iowa was fired by her married employer because he found her looks too tempting and he was afraid he would try to sleep with her and ruin his marriage.
* As shown in the documentary ''Film/{{Senna}}'', when Usefulnotes/FormulaOne legend Ayrton Senna visited the [[SaturdayMorningKidsShow kids show]] ''Xou da Xuxa'', hosted by his then-girlfriend, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zi_lXB0ft4 she started kissing him]], giving a reason for every smack - "My discovery of '88. Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Happy '90! Happy '91! Happy '92! Happy '93!" The one year after Xuxa stopped was the one where Senna died in a race. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zi_lXB0ft4 Years later]], a request to play the clip on her show got Xuxa sad as she noted the tragic coincidence.
* ''Series/TheXFiles'':
** The recurring gag about Mulder's porn fetish is suddenly a lot less funny after Creator/DavidDuchovny admitted that he had a severe sex addiction and went in for rehab in 2008.
** Then there was the time a comic-relief stoner (played by Creator/SethGreen) sarcastically suggests that area 51 is a testing ground for "robot planes for Gulf War II".
* The Travel Channel show Xtreme Waterparks had a behind-the-scenes look at the construction of Verrückt, the tallest waterslide in the world at Kansas City Schlitterbahn. Jokes made by the crew early in the construction process about the rafts flying off the slide, hoping not to die when the first passenger test run occurred, and remarks about how they proved the engineers and mathematicians wrong by building the slide became hard to watch without wincing in the aftermath of the accident that killed 10-year-old Caleb Schwab (in which his raft became airborne and hit the netting, decapitating him.)
* The much-admired musician and TV personality Rolf Harris has entered this territory, since being convicted of multiple counts of sexual assault in 2014. This includes a comic speech by Creator/RowanAtkinson playing an Australian who has mistakenly been called to speak instead of Sir Creator/AlecGuinness, and asked to recite verse by his country's ''greatest bard''. He recites something from 'the collected works of Rolf Harris'. It has a wallaby in it. Post-scandal, Australia is now distancing itself from Rolf Harris.
* One of those "cops with cameras" TV shows, the sort which are on a never-ending repeat loop on British TV, was filmed in Salisbury, Wiltshire. A cop, threatened with a large and truculent person, actually said, on camera, "If you carry on offering me violence, somebody is going to get gassed in this town." The cop meant his pepper spray, CS Gas, or whatever. However, in the light of [[https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43315636 more recent events]] in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England...
* In an episode of ''Series/TwinPeaks''' second season, the character Richard Tremayne casually produces a cigarette and asks "Got a light?" For over twenty years, this was just a single throwaway line, and not especially memorable. Then ''Twin Peaks: The Return'' turned the line into a MindScrew NightmareFuel CatchPhrase.
----

* ''Series/{{Lost}}'':
** Pilot Frank Lapidus successfully lands a commercial plane on a small runway on the island when the plane undergoes instrument failure as a result of jumping through time. This episode aired a few weeks after (but was clearly written and filmed many months before) Sully Sullenberger became a national hero for successfully landing a commercial jet on the Hudson River with no loss of life. Since no one died, this is thankfully a less disturbing version of a FunnyAneurysmMoment.
** Unfortunately, the same can not be said for Air France Flight 447. When this passenger jet crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in June 2009, some pointed out the loose similarity with ''Lost''. However, as the days passed, more and more eerily ''Lost''-related coincidences began to appear, including the discovery of the plane's tail section (''Lost''s Flight 815 lost its tail section during the crash), the statement that the plane was found on the bottom of the ocean with bodies ([[spoiler:Charles Widmore]] hides a fake Flight 815 and bodies on the bottom of the ocean to throw off investigators), and, most disturbingly, a Spanish pilot's claim that he saw a "flash of bright light" where flight 447 disappeared (''Lost''s flight 316 disappeared in a flash of time travel-related light). Finally, conspiracy theorists began pointing out that the area where flight 447 vanished is known for heightened electromagnetism as one of the infamous "vile vortices;" flight 815 on ''Lost'' was brought down in an electromagnetic incident. Sure enough, the claim that unusual levels of electromagnetism were in the area on the day of the disappearance was backed up by imaging reports from independent researchers. The last sentence could be rephrased to say, "The crash took place in the vicinity of thunderstorms which were picked up by American and Canadian weather satellites".
* ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'':
** In one episode, Malcolm questions Lois's authority and asks if she intends to control his life when he's 30 years old and married. In a separate entire episode, he spends the entire episode pondering what he wants to do with his life, but at the end of the episode, decides he'll just continue being a kid while he still is one. As the last episode reveals, the question from the former episode was "Yes", and the point of the latter was moot to begin with because his whole family planned his future out for him from the very beginning. (Could be either this or HilariousInHindsight.)
** Less than a week after Daniel von Bargen's (the man who plays Commandant Edwin Spangler) attempted suicide, a UK television channel aired the episode "Dewey's Dog", in which Spangler shows up drunk and suicidal saying he has nothing to live for.
** In "Home Alone 4", Malcolm suffers a head injury that's severe enough to require stitches and at one point, he jokes to the audience that he might not remember what happened. Later, his actor Creator/FrankieMuniz suffered a mini-stroke in his late twenties that caused him to lose several memories, including that of his time on this show.
* ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'':
** One episode had Al trying to sell his car, and one of the interested buyers are two stereotypical Middle Eastern terrorists with a clock bomb, asking Al to give them the car and directions to the Sears Tower. This was cut in reruns in 1993 (during the first World Trade Center bombing), 1995 (during the Oklahoma City bombing), and 2001 (during the second one on September 11th), but is now reinstated.
** The "Peg is pregnant" story arc became this after Katey Sagal lost her baby. To retcon this, the writers had to make the whole thing Al's dream... which was, itself, Al's initial reaction upon hearing that Peg was pregnant.
** At least one episode had a joke about Kelly [[FakeBoobs stuffing her bra]], which is no longer funny after Christina Applegate's battle with breast cancer and double mastectomy.
** In the "Hi, I.Q." episode, at one point, when trying to console Kelly, Al mentions that Buck used to run around all happy and with a lot of energy, but stopped because "obviously, he didn't like [doing] that." This statement becomes pretty sad in the later seasons when you realize that the reason Buck didn't run around as much as he used to is that the Briard who played Buck, Michael, was stricken with arthritis and was physically unable to run around and climb the stairs anymore to the point being relegated to just sitting on the stairs and eventually had to retire.
** Being considered either this or HilariousInHindsight (depending on your sense of humor), the "I Want My Psycho Dad" episode had Bud mentioning a fictional show called ''Series/SavedByTheBell: The Prison Years''. About a decade later, Screech's actor, Dustin Diamond, was sent to jail for a few months for stabbing a man.
* ''Series/{{MASH}}'':
** Lots of the early episodes have scenes or bits with Henry Blake that have a new meaning now that we know the character's [[McLeaned ultimate fate]]. In "Cowboy," Henry survives repeated attempts on his life by a disgruntled chopper pilot; in "Showtime," his wife back home gives birth to a son whom Henry will never see in person; in "O.R." he mentions his reluctance to go home, as he's done the best work of his career in Korea; and so forth.
*** Hawkeye also reassures him at one point that he'll die an old man in his bed. [[McLeaned Ouch.]]
** In "For Want Of A Boot", a dentist character says that, "In the great mouth of life, Henry Blake is but a temporary filling." Temporary is right.
** In "Hot Lips and Empty Arms":
--->'''Margaret''': Do you know that you look just like my father before he died?[[note]]Her father would be [[SeriesContinuityError alive in a later episode]], played by Andrew Duggan.[[/note]]\\
'''Henry''': Oh, uh, a lot of people have said that.
** The superbly hilarious early episode, "Bananas, Crackers and Nuts", in which Hawkeye attempts to fake insanity to get some rest away from the camp. A few years later (in real time it was more like 11, but to Hawkeye that's probably more what it felt like), [[spoiler: Hawkeye is sent to an institution after plowing a jeep through the mess tent.]]
** Also, when he has yet another breakdown in "Hawk's Nightmare", Radar expresses surprise at his behavior because he was apparently coping with the war better than anyone. Even [[SanitySlippage before]] the finale, that really wasn't the case anymore.
** Margaret's excitement throughout Season Five over marrying Donald is pretty hard to swallow when you know how quickly the marriage went sour, ending in divorce. The inscription on Margaret's wedding ring, according to the episode "Patent 4077", is "Over hill, over dale, our love will never fail". Klinger loses the ring and gets a replacement, which Margaret ends up keeping, but one word in the ring is misspelled; "never" has been engraved as "ever". This is much less funny in light of the marriage's end in the next season.
** Another example unrelated to Hawkeye or Henry: the Season Nine episode "Blood Brothers" tells the story of a GI who can't give blood because [[spoiler: he has terminal cancer.]] The GI was played by...Creator/PatrickSwayze.
* ''Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook'': One 2007 sketch began with the last minute of a news story about then-beloved comedian Creator/JimmySavile (mentioned elsewhere on this page) being given three life sentences for [[NoodleIncident unspoken]] crimes.
* ''Series/MockTheWeek'': One 2016 episode featured Sarah Pascoe and John Robins, who had been dating for three and a half years, as guests. Many jokes were made about their relationship, including one other guest remarking, "Better hope that one lasts, or reruns on Dave are going to get really depressing!" A number of moments were shot specifically for the Christmas special, including some apparently good-hearted ribbing about couples fighting at Christmas. Pascoe and Robins broke up later that year...''at Christmas''.
* ''Series/ModernFamily'':
** The fourth-season episode "Arrested" has a brief, almost SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}} near the end when Haley, who has just been expelled from college six weeks into her freshman year, returns to her room and her younger sister Alex, with whom [[TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry she normally bickers and feuds]], tells her she's happy she's home again (it's quickly subverted when they go back to feuding). Within a week of that episode airing, it was disclosed that Ariel Winter, who plays Alex, had been removed from her mother's custody due to emotional and physical abuse and was now living with ... her own older sister.
** The very next episode, "Mistery Date," had a scene where Alex, after washing out of a Brain Bowl-type event unusually early, accuses her mother of trying to live through her. Again, a little hard to watch given what was really going on in the actress's life.
* ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'': "The Upper-Class Twit of the Year" involves the twits shooting themselves in the head in the end. However, Oliver's actor Creator/GrahamChapman was also the first to die, paralleling that of his character being also the first to die in the sketch.
* ''Series/MorkAndMindy'':
** "Clerical Error": Mork decides to become a priest and goes to a church in a black robe. There he meets a man who wants to commit suicide and tells him "Don't you realize that living is a precious thing? It's the Meat in the Sandwich of Life!" In the wake of Robin Williams' Suicide this line can become quite jarring (Of course when the man asks for Help Mork gives him hilarious ways to kill himself like "wear a Tutu and go into a leather bar" or "try and smoke a real camel" and that actually prevents his suicide).
** In "Mork in Wonderland, pt. 2" having just returned from an AlternateUniverse where that world's version of Mindy died, Mork tells the normal one that he wants to die before her so he won't have to deal with the pain of losing her. Sadly, he got his wish.
** In one episode, [[CloudCuckoolander Exidor]] creates a religion based on O.J. Simpson; obviously meant to be funny, given that Exidor is way eccentric, but after everything that's happened with Simpson, it's unlikely anyone would see him as a religious figure.
* ''The Morton Downey Jr. Show'': Morton Downey Jr. had a trademark habit of chainsmoking and blowing smoke into guests' faces. This is a bit darker looking back knowing that Morton died from lung cancer and that even later in his life he regretted making smoking look cool.
* ''Series/TheMuppetShow'':
** The episode hosted by Zero Mostel contains a skit where he recites a poem about his fears, ending with his greatest fear: something for which he himself is only a fear that can be erased by that realization, upon which he vanishes into thin air. Mostel died suddenly before the episode aired, which must have made the scene pretty eerie.
** And then there's the scene in Peter Sellers' episode where Kermit finds him dressed in a bizarre mix of costume pieces in his dressing room. ("I was trying to do Queen Victoria, but I've forgotten what she looked like.") When Kermit responds that it's okay for him to be himself on the show, Sellers replies, "That would be impossible. There is no me. I do not exist. There used to be a me, but I had it surgically removed." The scene has since been quoted many times as summing up Sellers' view of himself as doomed to be seen only as his various characters and not his true self. In fact, he contributed to the sketch in lieu of the show's usual scene of the guest star out of character backstage, due to his discomfort at being seen out of character.
** One of the show's best moments was Harry Belafonte singing "Turn the World Around" accompanied by African mask-inspired Muppets. The song is upbeat, but it's hard not to cry when you know Belafonte performed the same song at Jim Henson's memorial. The lead-in to the song--which talks about how life is very brief but we can change the world if we care about each other--only makes things worse.
** In one episode Dr. Bunsen Honeydew enlarges a virus to make it easier to study. (Beaker, of course, gets overwhelmed by it.) The virus is specifically mentioned to be a streptococcus virus. Creator/JimHenson would die of a streptococcus infection a decade later.
* ''Film/TheMuppetsAtWaltDisneyWorld'' was created to metaphorically celebrate the forthcoming sale of The Creator/JimHenson Company to The Walt Disney Company, which would allow Henson to focus on creating new Muppet (and other) works while Disney handled the business side of things. It culminates in MediumBlending when the live-action Muppets meet an animated Mickey Mouse and prove to have similar philosophies in the possibilities of dreams coming true. Unfortunately, Jim Henson died '''ten days''' after it originally aired, before he could sign off on the deal. This led to years of sales and resales that fractured the rights to the company's various properties, while new productions were often underpromoted, unheralded, and/or of poorer quality than before. In particular, the popularity of the classic Muppets (which was wavering by TheNineties) has never fully recovered from this -- a major plot point of the 2011 film ''Film/TheMuppets'' is that they have to re-establish themselves with today's audiences. As a result, this special and the later tribute ''The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson'' (which aired late in '90) come off less as marking the DawnOfAnEra of new adventures and creations, and more the heralds of the EndOfAnAge.
* ''Film/AMuppetsChristmasLettersToSanta'' features Nathan Lane as a sadistic TSA officer. He decides he doesn't like the way the Muppets look and pulls them into an interrogation room, planning to perform cruel and humiliating security searches on them. In 2008, it was funny. In 2010, it's a controversial reality.
* ''Murder in Small Town X'' was a reality show that was ultimately won by Angel Juarbe, a New York firefighter. The ''[=MiSTX=]'' finale airdate? September 4, 2001. Angel died in the attacks one week later.
* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'':
** Notable examples include the host segments of ''Film/TheIncredibleMeltingMan'' where Crow's pet script is [[ExecutiveMeddling butchered beyond recognition and has awkward casting decisions forced upon by the Mads]] was originally a reference to their experiences with TheMovie. However, the following year, Crow's voice actor was replaced by Bill Corbett who also had a pet script of his own which would eventually be made into a major motion picture... and to which the exact same thing happened, with the end result (''Film/MeetDave'') ending up reviled by audiences and critics.
* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'':
** In the first season episode "One Shot, One Kill", which aired in 2004, a Marine recruiter is talking to two young men about joining the Marine Corps. About the possibility of being deployed to Iraq he says:
--->"What with boot camp, S-O-I, follow on schools... we're talking over a year and a half of training. Iraq will pretty much be over by the time you boys graduate."
** In the second season episode "An Eye for an Eye", Tony tells Kate to "Work smarter not harder - you'll live longer." Six episodes later, Kate is killed on the job.
** In the third season episode "Head Case", Ziva retells a story where her friend's head was sent to his family in a box, commenting that that was the time that she decided she "would never be captured alive". In season six episode "Aliyah", Ziva was captured by Somali pirates and held hostage for a number of months.
** In the same episode, one of her captors is seen ripping the Star of David necklace from around her neck. In a later flashback, set around a month before this incident, Ziva is seen saying to someone "I would sooner die than take this necklace off."
** A short-term one "Alleged": Tony and Bishop confront a suspect at a bar and he makes a run for it, dashing out the back door, and straight into a conveniently-placed dumpster. It becomes a lot less funny when it turns out that the VictimOfTheWeek was [[AccidentalMurder thrown into the same dumpster earlier]], accidentally resulting in the injury that eventually killed him.
* ''Series/NewsRadio'':
** One of the more severe examples comes from the Titanic episode. At the end of the episode, Creator/PhilHartman addresses the audience as Phil Hartman (rather than his character Bill [=McNeal=]), and explains that no one in the cast really died, at which point the rest of the cast show up and explain that Dave (Foley) drowned while filming the last scene. Hartman then explains that "Okay, so only one person died..." This was Hartman's last scene '''ever''': he was killed soon after this episode aired. This scene was removed in syndication, probably for this reason, but kept in the DVD release.
** The last in-character scene of that Titanic episode ended with the implication of, as Phil Hartman put it, "Matthew and I eating each other". Matthew was played by Andy Dick, whom Jon Lovitz claims indirectly caused Hartman's death by re-introducing Hartman's wife to the cocaine that contributed to her murder-suicide.
** Another cringe-inducing moment comes in an earlier episode where [=McNeal=] is arrested, and Dave concludes that the only way the police could have dealt with him would have been to shoot him.
** The Halloween one, where the whole B plot revolves around Bill being depressed that a psychic tells him he's going to die 'so soon' (for him, although it was still far in the future) but ends when the psychic gets tired of him and tells him he'll live a ridiculously long time. Funny then, but in retrospect...
** Then there are references to Bill's crazy ex-girlfriend Linda and Bill is oblivious to her behavior as being abnormal. (Ep. 218 "Led Zeppelin"). In Ep. 410 "Look Who's Talking", the woman he was seeing tried to set fire to his hair while he was sleeping.
** Lest anyone think Phil Hartman's death is the only FAM material on ''{{Series/NewsRadio}}'', the AbortedArc with a character played by Lauren Graham being brought in as Mr. James' "Plan B" for the station became a little cringe-worthy in 2009 when Lauren Graham replaced ''Series/NewsRadio'' alumnus Maura Tierney on ''Series/{{Parenthood}}'' after Tierney left to undergo treatment for breast cancer.
* ''Series/NightCourt'':
** Well over a decade before 9/11, Mac's [=TRS80=]-esque computer starts picking up air traffic control data. Right after he announces that he fixed it by wiping the information, everyone hears the roar of a jet engine. Dan looks out the window to deliver the punchline "You should see the looks on their faces!"
** In the Season 8 episode "Death Takes a Halloween", Harry jails a defendant who claims to be the Angel of Death. As a result, no one is able to die. The episode has a scene where Harry, while speaking on the telephone, makes some offhand or throwaway joke about people jumping off the World Trade Center and miraculously surviving.
* ''Series/NightGallery'' In the pilot movie for Night Gallery, one of the stories is called "Eyes." It stars Creator/JoanCrawford in one of her last roles as a selfish, spoiled, mean-spirited woman who only cares about herself. Given her relationships with her children and the plot of ''Film/MommieDearest'', it seems that she was well suited for the role.
* A sketch on a 1980 episode of ''Series/NotTheNineOClockNews'' featured men running around abducting children, dragging them away against their will, and loading them into the back of a truck. The joke at the end was that the van was taking them off to a recording of ''Rolf on Saturday OK'', with the implication that this was the only way to drum up an audience for the typically awful weekend programmes of the time. This sketch became decidedly less funny when said show's host, Rolf Harris, was convicted of several charges of indecent assault against children in 2014. It didn't help that throughout the rest of the decade and into the present, this was the most common way children like Adam Walsh and Michaela Garecht were being abducted and killed.
* ''Series/OnlyFoolsAndHorses'':
** The ending of "The Sky's the Limit", where an aircraft is heading for Trotter Towers.
** In the 1983 Christmas special "Thicker Than Water", Reg Trotter returns, and comes close to convincing his sons that he isn't really Del's father. Much later, the 1987 and 2003 Christmas specials "The Frog's Legacy" and "Sleepless in Peckham" would suggest that ''Rodney'' wasn't Reg's son (although "Thicker Than Water" already had a pretty strong implication of that itself - or at least that Del had reason to have always thought it was a possibility, yet he didn't know the truth until a drunk Albert told him).
* ''Series/TheOnlyWayIsEssex'': Any of Lauren Goodger's appearances qualify as this now given her break-up with Mark, and the fact that she has become something of a media sensation now. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] on a few British football forums. Watching any episode of ''Series/TheOnlyWayIsEssex'' or reading about her in the media shows how this trope comes into play.4
* ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'': One second season episode revolves around a Venezuelan delegation visiting Pawnee. They spend the entire visit [[NouveauRiche bragging about their oil wealth]], [[ConspicuousConsumption throwing wads of money around]], mocking Pawnee for being so unimpressive, and generally acting like [[RichJerk rich jerks]]. Five years later, between the drop in oil prices and general financial mismanagement, [[http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/venezuela-army-controls-huge-queues-people-waiting-buy-food-basic-necessities-1570783 Venezuela is in dire economic straits that are far from funny]].
** In the final season of the show, set in the then-future of 2017, a character is bragging and listing all his accomplishments, and says "James Woods follows my niece on Twitter." In September 2017, actress Amber Tamblyn publicly called out James Woods for hitting on her and a friend when the girls were only 16.
* Creator/PattyDuke [[WordOfGod would remark]] in her 1987 autobiography ''Call Me Anna'' of the odd coincidence that she would get to play [[UncannyFamilyResemblance identical cousins with differing personalities]] on ''Series/ThePattyDukeShow'' after meeting with producer/series creator Sherwood Schwartz and having the producer note the multiple sides of her personality, suggesting half-jokingly that he may have in a way detected her bipolar disorder long before it was medically diagnosed in the early [[TheEighties 1980s]].
* ''{{Pitchmen}}'': In one early episode, Anthony Sullivan is looking over recorded footage of Billy Mays driving for a commercial spot. When remarking on Billy's acting (as it's obvious he's not really driving), Anthony exclaims "It looks like he's about to have a heart attack!" Two months after airing, Billy Mays died of a previously unknown heart condition.
* ''Series/{{QI}}'': Earlier series sometimes featured jokes where Alan Davies would be handled a doll as part of a gag, experiment, or demonstration and Stephen Fry would make a "show us on the doll where the man touched you" crack. In 2020, Davies published a book revealing that his father sexually abused him for a large portion of his childhood into his early adolescence.
* ''Series/QueerAsFolk'': In Season 2, when Ted temporarily becomes "addicted" to porn, his best friend Emmett admonishes him that, "You're not sucking me into your black hole of depravity." When Emmett tells the others that they need to stage an intervention, Brian sarcastically guesses that Ted is addicted to crystal meth. In a later season, Ted really does become addicted to crystal meth, and tragically self-destructs while coming very close to dragging Emmett down with him. What is especially funny-turned-cringeworthy is Brian's comment that Ted is a schmuck who couldn't even get a decent addiction.
* On ''Real Husbands of Hollywood'', the jokes Kevin Hart made at Robin Thicke's expense (such as telling him his 15 minutes of fame are over as well as jokes about his then-wife Paula Patton) are now seen in a different light now after the backlash towards his song "Blurred Lines", his divorce, and the reveal that he was unfaithful to his wife.
* ''Series/RedDwarf'':
** The show managed to pull this in a single episode in series VII, episode "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIIStokeMeAClipper Stoke Me a Clipper]]". The opening shows dimension-hopping hero [[TheAce Ace Rimmer]] rescuing a princess from parallel-dimension Nazis, a process which involves jumping out of an aeroplane, skyboarding on a ''live crocodile'' gunning down a platoon's worth of Nazis in midair, and performing several stunts on a motorcycle. Ace gets shot in the process, but only quips "This is my best top, dammit!" (as befits his macho character) and goes back to work. However the rest of the episode takes a dark turn since it is shown that Ace is not only dying from the wound, he's also a HardLightHologram disguised to look like the original Ace Rimmer, which in turn means that the real Ace (who was popular guest character in earlier series) is dead, and has been for a very long time. Ultimately we see a graveyard of countless millions of Ace Rimmers, of which ''the'' Ace Rimmer from "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonIVDimensionJump Dimension Jump]]" was only the first.
** In the season one episode "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonIBalanceOfPower "Balance of Power]]" there's a flashback to life aboard the ship before the crew were wiped out, in which we see Lister crack a joke to his drinking buddies that his uncle's brain is in a jar and it's really sad... because it's not dead yet. Given [[Main/BrainInAJar what happens to Lister]] in a (possible) future we glimpse at [[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIOutOfTime the end of season six]]...
* On ''Series/TheRedSkeltonShow'', Red often told stories in his monologue about his family- his wife Georgia, and his children, Richard and Valentina. The cute jokes are very hard to watch if you know that his son Richard died of leukemia just short of his 10th birthday, and Red took it very hard. Later, he was divorced from Georgia, and Georgia committed suicide on the 18th anniversary of Richard's death.
* ''Series/{{Revolution}}'': The original trailer showed Wrigley Field with 2012 World Champion Chicago Cubs on it. The Cubs had one of their worst seasons ever in 2012 losing over 100 games. This was changed by the time the [[Recap/RevolutionS1E1Pilot pilot episode]] aired. As it turns out, if they had set their story four years later, they would've gotten LifeImitatesArt instead (the Cubs ''won'' over 100 games, topping the league, and ''FINALLY'' broke their legendary drought in 2016).
* ''Series/RobotWars'': Creator/CraigCharles' quite prophetic introduction to the European Championship. This was recorded in about 2002, many years ''before'' the financial crisis and subsequent political turmoil:
--> '''Craig:''' I have in my hand a piece of paper, but it does not promise peace in our time, 'cause we have a continent in crisis! ... Yes, the borders have gone back up! We've said, "See you!" to the EU, and European harmony ''most definitely stops here!''
* ''Series/Room101'': In one episode, Nick Hancock lists Jimmy Savile as one of the worst things in the world. It feels less like a joke now that Savile has been outed as a child molester.
* ''Series/{{Roseanne}}'':
** An early episode has Roseanne and Dan planning out what will happen after they die, climaxing in Dan reassuring as distraught DJ that he's going to live for a long time/looks forward to seeing him getting married one day/everything fictional parents usually say when they're reassuring their kids that they won't die. Sweet at the time, but becomes painful when you remember that Dan ends up dying while DJ is still just a teenager.
** In another early episode, Roseanne gets a call from the school that D.J. has been neglecting his school work, his excuse being that Dan died, and he has so many responsibilities at home now.
** In another one, Roseanne gets a call from the school that D.J. had obscene materials, and Dan goes there, and since they haven't seen Mr. Conner before, he jokes that he's her oldest son and Mrs. Conner's a widow. Also, given that he died of a heart attack, any joke about Dan's weight qualifies.
*** All these, however, were negated after Dan’s death was {{Retconned}} in the 2018 revival.
*** And then kind of brought back when Roseanne herself died unexpectedly between seasons.
* ''Series/SamanthaWho'': In the second episode, Samantha goes to a prescheduled doctor's appointment, assuming he's a neurologist, only to find out halfway through that he's a plastic surgeon; pre-amnesia, Sam had planned to go to him for breast implants. The year after this episode aired, Christina Applegate, who plays Samantha, was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy.
* ''Series/SanfordAndSon'': The famous running gag of Fred Sanford faking a heart attack is painful to watch now since Redd Foxx died of a heart attack years later while relaxing between takes of ''The Royal Family.'' He might have survived had everyone around him not [[AllPartOfTheShow thought he was just doing his old schtick]].
* ''Series/SavedByTheBell'': There was a particularly brutal one in one episode. Kelly, who is running for homecoming queen, says that she's always wanted to be a princess. Lisa's response: "Well, if anything ever happens to Princess Di..."
* ''Series/ScreamQueens2015'': The scene where the Red Devil's mentor, dressed in a robe and mask to make them resemble Justice Antonin Scalia, is beaten up by Dean Munsch while the latter screams rebuttals against Scalia's real-world political views in their face. Regardless of your politics, re-watching the scene hits new highs of discomfort knowing that Scalia died suddenly less than three months after the episode aired.
* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'':
** In one of Creator/JohnRitter's appearances as JD's father, he utters the line "Heart murmurs? I ''love'' those things!" Ritter died of an aortic dissection, an undetectable heart condition. [[RealLifeWritesThePlot The character died, as well, of a massive heart attack.]]
** In the fourth season episode "My First Kill", Dr. Cox tells J.D that every doctor eventually kills a patient. When J.D. asks if ''he's'' ever killed a patient, Cox replies, "No, but I'm the exception that proves the rule". The following season, he ends up killing ''three'' patients and becomes almost catatonic with guilt.
* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'':
** In one episode that originally aired in 1993, Elaine is anxious for her boyfriend Joel Rifkin to change his name, in order to avoid being confused with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Rifkin the famous serial killer]], and picks out the name "O.J." for him from a football magazine. Seven months later, UsefulNotes/OJSimpson was accused and tried for the murder of his wife, making him one of the most notorious murder suspects of the 20th century.
** The episodes where Kramer gets MistakenForRacist (e.g. "The Puerto Rican Day") are a lot less funny since Kramer's actor, Michael Richards, wound up in hot water for using the N-word against some hecklers while performing standup comedy in 2006.
* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'': in "[[Recap/SherlockS01E03TheGreatGame The Great Game]]", Moriarty is found to be using the first name "Jim" for his consulting criminal business as a reference to the children's program ''Jim'll Fix It''.[[note]]It also helps that "Jim" is a shortening of "James", which was Moriarty's actual first name in the original ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' stories.[[/note]] In "[[Recap/SherlockS02E03TheReichenbachFall The Reichenbach Fall]]", Moriarty returns as a DepravedKidsShowHost. Later that year, it was discovered that Creator/JimmySavile, the presenter of ''Jim'll Fix It'', was a pedophile.
* ''Series/SesameStreet'':
** Kermit's song "I Wonder 'Bout the World Above" becomes harder to take when you realize it's one of the last segments Jim Henson ever filmed for the show. He didn't have to wonder for much longer...
** [[https://boingboing.net/2009/01/06/cookie-monster-eats.html A magazine cover]] from TheSeventies showcases a giant Cookie Monster attacking the World Trade Center (parodying ''Film/KingKong''). 25 years later, it isn't really funny at all unless [[DudeNotFunny you have a dark sense of humor]].
* ''Series/ShippingWars'': After a harrowing run that turned out to be part of a practice paramilitary exercise, a client jokes with Roy that he hoped he didn't give him a heart attack. Just a few days after the episode originally aired, Roy in fact passed away from a heart attack.

!!Series with their own pages:

* The season 3 finale of ''Series/DowntonAbbey'' involves [[spoiler: Mary's husband Matthew's death]] and most of season 4 is her grieving for him and then trying to find a new love for the rest of the series. Already bad enough, but then it became horrifyingly prophetic after [[http://www.people.com/article/michelle-dockery-fiance-dead-at-34 Mary's actress Michelle Dockery's fiancé died at age 34 of a rare cancer]], shortly after the series final season wrapped production. Yikes...
* ''Series/DoubleDare1986'' was centered around making huge messes, with tons of wet, gooey multicolored slime getting everywhere. So it's a bit unsettling to watch after the show's host Marc Summers revealed he had pretty severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, especially considering how often he got covered in muck during the show's run. Seriously; go back and watch an episode where the team completes the obstacle course and embrace him, while covered in muck, ''then'' go [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmxlC-o1q24 watch him line up the fringe on a throw rug.]] Very unnerving. On the other hand, you could go WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic route and use this as proof of how badass Marc Summers is.
* ''Series/DrakeAndJosh'': Drake Parker's status as a ChickMagnet was PlayedForLaughs. Far less funny in 2021, after Creator/DrakeBell pled guilty to child endangerment.
* ''Series/{{Ellen}}'': Ellen Degeneres' eponymous show featured an early episode in which Ellen falls all over herself trying to get the romantic attention of a hunky firefighter. Originally an amusing episode in classic Lucille Ball sitcom fashion, the show took on a tragic air when the character Ellen came out as a lesbian (a fairly short time after the comedienne herself did the same) -- suddenly, the episode was a tale of a woman desperately lying to herself about her true sexuality by pursuing an unobtainable male.
* ''Series/{{ER}}'': One season 12 (2005) episode shows Maura Tierney's character Abby Lockhart struggling with the idea of getting a mammogram, finally seen going for one at the end of the episode after admitting she's never had one and is at high risk for breast cancer. These scenes are particularly difficult to watch now as in 2009 Tierney was diagnosed with breast cancer (treatment of which forced her to drop out of the TV series ''Series/{{Parenthood}}'').
* ''Series/EverybodyHatesChris''[='=]s series finale, Chris' mother mocks Chris for trying to justify going for a GED by pointing out Bill Cosby got a GED because Bill Cosby was a comedian. In light of the sexual assault allegations against Cosby, it's a pretty good thing she didn't want Chris to be like him.
* ''Series/FamilyFeud'': On an episode, the question was something along the lines of "Name something people think of when they're depressed/have a problem." One of the unrevealed answers wound up being "suicide"; the episode was hosted by Ray Combs, who later committed suicide after being unceremoniously fired from the show, a string of show-business failures, and an automobile accident which left him partially paralyzed. During the show, he even remarked, "No one should think of suicide." Bad survey group! Bad!"
* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'': D'Argo jokes that he hopes his half-Sebacean son has grown to have "his mother's nose." His son is later revealed to have mutilated his own nose to look less like his father's out of shame at being a hybrid.
* ''Series/FatherTed'': In "Tentacles of Doom", one of the visiting bishops tells how he nearly died of a heart attack. Ted replies: "Heart attacks, those are rare enough these days." Dermot Morgan, the actor who played Ted, died from a heart attack.
* ''Series/FawltyTowers'': One of the best scenes in the whole series is in "The Germans", where Manuel sets fire to the kitchen during a fire drill. The real building (for exteriors, anyway) burned down in 1991.
* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'':
** In "[[Recap/FireflyE01Serenity Serenity]]", when the federal agent falls apart early on in Jayne's interrogation of him, Jayne laments "I was going to get me an ear, too," while playing with his knife. Later on in the series, [[spoiler: Niska's interrogator cuts off Mal's ear with a knife as "compensation" for Zoe]].
** The scene in "[[Recap/FireflyE04Shindig Shindig]]" where Wash jokes about reading a poem at Zoe's funeral. It's a genuinely sweet and funny scene, [[spoiler: until Wash ends up dying in the ''Serenity''.]]
--->"I'm thinking we'll rise again." ("[[Recap/FireflyE02TheTrainJob The Train Job]])
** "[[Recap/FireflyE12TheMessage The Message]]" has this exchange that isn't so amusing after TheMovie:
-->'''Jayne''': You'll read over me when it's my time to shuffle off, won't you, preacher?\\
'''Book''': Oh, I'm sure you'll outlive us all.
* ''Series/FlashForward2009'' had a subplot, in which Lee Thompson Young's Al Gough committed suicide to prevent his disastrous flash forward from coming true. On August 19th, 2013, some three years later, Lee Thompson Young was found dead at his home [[http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-lee-thompson-young-dead,0,389133.story from a self-inflicted gunshot wound]].
* In the penultimate episode of ''Series/{{Flashpoint}}'', some might find it funny that right after a little boy, Ethan, gets his blankie back from another child who took it from him, he ''immediately'' drops it on the ground and doesn't even notice. The funny goes away completely when Ethan doubles back to go get the blankie and becomes one of many victims of a bomb that goes off seconds after he picks it up. The blankie is used by Jules to cover his body after confirming he's deceased.
* September 11th 1997 was declared ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' Crane Day. ''Frasier'''s executive producer, David Angell was killed in the World Trade Center attacks in 2001.
* ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'':
** In a season 2 episode, Jazz shows up with a life-size cardboard cutout of Creator/BillCosby, prompting Will to ask what happened to his Music/WhitneyHouston cutout. Jazz's response is that she fell apart in the shower. Twenty years later, "falling apart in the shower" ''would'' actually be how Whitney Houston's life would end.
** "Home Is Where the Heart Attack Is", in which Uncle Phil ends up in the hospital with a heart attack brought on by his overeating, can be quite painful to watch after James Avery's death, due to complications from open-heart surgery, in 2013. Worse, there were countless fat jokes directed toward Avery's character Uncle Phil every season. All of them sting now that the actor in real life has passed away because of the heart disease brought on by his weight problems.
* ''Series/{{Friends}}'':
** ''Four'' moments become less funny due to one event later in the series:
*** In earlier seasons, Chandler makes multiple jokes about not being able to have children.
*** In season 3, Monica considers getting pregnant from a sperm donor. It's played for laughs and the rest of the cast thinks it's a dumb idea, largely because she's single.
*** At Monica and Chandler's wedding, Judy Geller mistakenly thinks Monica is pregnant and gives Monica the cold shoulder when she discovers the truth.
*** After watching Pete (Monica's ex-boyfriend) getting beaten up Ross quips: "Well, this is ironic. Of your last two boyfriends, Richard didn't want to have kids, and from the looks of it, now Pete can’t." Her next boyfriend is Chandler and...
*** At the end of season 9, when Chandler and Monica are together, they turn out to be incompatible. Chandler has lazy sperm, and Monica's uterus is inhospitable, so the chances of her getting pregnant are already low. As such, they have to consider surrogacy or a sperm donor.
** A season 2 episode showed Monica getting Chandler to get in shape reflecting Matthew Perry's later weight problem.
** In season 8, Creator/BradPitt appeared as one of Ross's old high school friends, who ''hated'' Rachel to the point that he was president of an Anti-Rachel club in high school. At the time, it was a funny CastingGag due to the fact that Brad Pitt was married to Creator/JenniferAniston in real life. The joke became a lot less funny after Aniston and Pitt's very, very public divorce.
** In "TOW No One's Ready", Phoebe wears a Christmas ornament in order to hide a stain on her dress, stating that she'll explain it away as a political symbol. When Chandler asks her what she is supporting, she responds "Duh, Christmas." It's hard to believe that something treated as an absurd joke reflecting Phoebe's [[CloudCuckoolander personality]] would become an [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Christmas actual politically charged issue a decade later]].
* ''Series/FullHouse'': Lori Loughlin's arrest for her part in a national college admissions scandal, which she got her daughters into USC with a $500,000 bribe, does this to a number of episodes.
** In "Be True To Your Pre-School", Becky admonishes Jesse for lying about their twins' accomplishments in their pre-school application, which she and Jesse later confess to.
** In "The Test", D.J. has a stress-fueled nightmare about taking the [=SATs=] that includes a scene where Jesse tries to help her cheat with an answer sheet he stole.
** In "Taking the Plunge", Kimmy tries to cheer up D.J. when she receives a rejection letter from Stanford by saying she should have done what she did: "Include a crisp $20 bill with the application." Stanford would be one of the colleges named in the scandal.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Hodor is a mentally challenged stableboy for House Stark capable of only saying his own name. This quirk made him very endearing to fans and [[EnsembleDarkhorse easily popular]]. Come Season 6, and it's revealed his handicap was caused by [[spoiler: Bran accidentally [[MindRape mind-raping]] him when he was just a young teen and ordered him to "hold the door" so he and his friends could escape from an undead horde. The process destroyed his mind and all he could say was Hodor. Therefore, the whole point of his existence was to serve as meatshield and sacrifice himself for others.]]
* ''Series/GimmeABreak'': In the episode "Nell's Friend", Addy talks about the progress of Black Women in modern American society. She says "I'm so glad we're all past that image of the black woman as an Aunt Jemima." Right at that moment, Nell walks in wearing a bandana tied Aunt Jemima-style on her head, wearing a raggedy dress, and carrying a big basket of laundry; at which point the audience roared with laughter. Not quite as funny come 2020 when Quaker Oats excised the Aunt Jemima brand over concerns of racial stereotyping.
* ''Series/{{Glee}}'':
** April gives Kurt alcohol. When Emma questions him about his breath, he stares at her and says: [[NonSequiturThud "Oh, Bambi... I cried so hard when those hunters shot your mommy!"]] before throwing up on her shoes. If you ignore the fact that Kurt is a teenager who really shouldn't be drinking, that line is quite funny...until you realize that Kurt would've been the age to watch movies like ''WesternAnimation/{{Bambi}}'' right around the time when his mother died.
** Dave Karofsky's fake apology to the Glee club in season 2 mentions 'kids that got bullied so bad they hung themselves'. He nearly becomes one of these kids in ''On My Way''.
** A really horrific RealLife one; in Season 3, it is revealed that Finn's father did not die in the military, but from a fatal drug overdose. Two years later, Finn's actor, Cory Monteith, died the same way.
*** Similarly in Season 2 (Furt), when Finn asks, "Is this one of those interventions?"
*** Will blackmailing Finn into joining the Glee club by planting drugs in his locker already was a bit much for some considering Cory Monteith's history, but after his death, it becomes very hard to watch.
** In "Special Education," Rachel asks Kurt if he's ever tried to imagine his own funeral. Rachel has, including Finn throwing himself on her coffin and all the Glee Club members mourning her. This is a chilling foreshadowing of "The Quarterback."
*** In "The Quarterback", Santana sings "If I Die Young" by The Band Perry as a tribute to Finn. Her actor, Naya Rivera, would later die from drowning in 2020, at the age of 33. To make it worse, her body was found on July 13, 2020, which was the 7th anniversary of Montieth's passing.
** In the season 4 episode "Sadie Hawkins", Kitty asks Puck to the dance. When he asks her how old she is she says "16 but I have a fake ID" and he says "good enough for me". In 2015, Puck's actor Mark Salling was arrested for possession of child pornography.
*** A season earlier, in "The Spanish Teacher", Will asks the club where they think they'll be in 2030. Puck replies "In jail. Or dead. Or both." Mark Salling died by suicide in 2018 while awaiting sentencing after entering a guilty plea on his child pornography charges.
* In an episode of ''Series/TheGoldenGirls'' that first aired on December 21, 1985, Sophia tempers Rose's excitement over borrowing Blanche's flashy car, noting that it isn't "a seat on the Space Shuttle." About five weeks later, on January 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on launch, killing all seven aboard, and the Space Shuttle program was grounded for two years.
* ''Series/GomerPyleUSMC'': In the 1967 episode "One of our Shells is Missing", Gomer misplaces a mortar shell during a drill, and the rest of the episode involves several characters searching all over for it before someone gets hurt. At one point, a soldier suggests that a couple of teenagers they saw hanging around the mortar range might have stolen it. Sergeant Carter initially blows off the suggestion with "What would a teenager want with a mortar shell?! What's he gonna do, ''blow up his High School?!''". In the wake of many, many school shootings after Columbine, the joke feels a lot less comfortable now that the soldier could simply reply "Yes."
* ''Series/TheGrahamNortonShow'': Comedians Series/{{Harry Enfield|AndChums}} [[Series/HarryAndPaul and Paul Whitehouse]] reprised their roles as parody disc jockeys Smashie and Nicey. At last free to expand on all the little hints that went under the radar in earlier versions (it was hinted, but could only be hinted, that "Smashie" had a thing for young boys), they pulled no punches. Enfield, as "Nicey", made a pompous speech that was full of the character's egotistical sense of self-importance, which Whitehouse, as "Smashie", promptly deflated:
-->'''Smashie:''' Hi gherkins, I'm quite literally Mike Smash, quite literally Britain's most poptastic DJ.\\
'''Nicey:''' And I'm the former DJ, formerly known as the rocktastic Sir Dave Nice.\\
'''Smashie:''' 'Til they took away your title and re-named you Prisoner 13607!
* ''Series/GreysAnatomy'':
** The episode where Meredith describes the attempted suicide of her mother to her shocked therapist is dramatic, but also slightly cringe-inducing because the actress playing Meredith, Ellen Pompeo, states her earliest memory to be when she was 4 and her elder siblings were trying to wake her mother, who had accidentally overdosed on pain meds, and killed herself. Wonder if the writers knew that when they wrote it.
** When Izzy was convincing Alex to take a chance on her after his traumatizing experience with Ava, she promised him passionately that she "wasn't going to go crazy." Later that same season, she began hallucinating her dead fiance due to a brain tumor. So much for ''that'' promise...
** In the final two episodes of Season 5; when the gang finds out George enrolled in the army, they start joking about how he'd die. They talk about him over a John Doe that got hit by a bus...and then the bombshell that [[spoiler: John Doe is George, who'd left early to start his basic and saved a girl from being hit by that bus, taking the blow himself and dying]].
** In the second season episode "17 Seconds", after a shooting at a local business, Derek remarks "Can you imagine, you're at work, just doing your job and somebody come in and shoots you.". Fast-forward to season 6 finale where [[spoiler: Derek is at work, and someone comes in and shoots him]].
** In early season seven, Meredith is lamenting her fertility problems and jokes that April probably has a great uterus. [[spoiler: It becomes less funny several seasons later when April finds out her unborn son has a congenital defect and dies shortly after being born]]
* ''Series/GrowingPains'': Mike would occasionally make fat jokes about his sister, Carol. At first, it seems like harmless sibling rivalry until you realize that prior to the show, Creator/TraceyGold struggled with anorexia and the jokes caused her to relapse.
* ''Series/HellsKitchen'': In a confessional, Rachel from Season 2 jokingly pantomimed shooting herself in the head. She died of a gunshot to the head about a year later.
* ''Series/HolbyCity'': One involves Jonny's wedding with Bonnie. After Jonny arriving late, Bonnie quips that she'll have to put up with this for 40 years. This is three seconds before she is hit by a lorry and killed on impact.
* ''Series/{{House}}'':
** Cuddy mocks House in the pilot for thinking he can scare her (either by yelling or hurting her) because she's sure she can outrun him. He ''does'' scare her in the season 7 finale, smashing his car into her house, and she ends her appearances on the show hating him.
** Subtly played with Amber's death in season 4. In episode 12, "Don't Ever Change," House confronts Wilson about why he is dating Amber (since he usually only dates extremely needy women, and Amber is anything but) and asks, jokingly, if she's dying. Wilson's response is a sigh and a "Yes".
** And Amber's first words to Wilson were "I was never here." Cute at the time because she was acting like a sneaky little CTB, but after she died? Not so much. (Events near the end of season 5 don't help either.)
** In a Season 3 episode, Wilson is asked by Cuddy why he's late, and he loudly snaps, "The buses suck!" (He was forced to take the bus to work as Detective Tritter impounded his car.) Considering bus-related incidents in the next season, the line isn't quite so funny...
** They got two Funny Aneurysms for the price of one in "Mirror, Mirror": [[spoiler: Kutner and Amber are arguing over which one of them their patient will imitate when they notice that the patient's blood has gone solid. Kutner quips, "I'd say he's mimicking whichever one of us happens to be dying."]] That doesn't narrow it down.
** They did it again in season 5. The reason for [[spoiler:Kutner peeing on House's chair? To quote the man himself: "Blood on my face." Technically it was cranberry juice, but he, uh, [[DrivenToSuicide fixed that inconsistency]] two episodes later.]] Even more poignant in the same episode, when the cat that is said to foretell someone's death strolls around [[spoiler:Kutner]]'s legs, House remarks sarcastically:
---> "Oh my god! The death cat is attacking your legs! You're gonna die!"
** In the episode "Painless", the patient of the week attempts suicide, and the fellows argue over his mental status. [[spoiler: When Taub attributes Kutner's position on "right to die" to Kutner's tragic childhood, Kutner argues that his past makes him less likely to commit suicide.]] Figures don't lie -- but liars figure.
** Unintended example: A case is caused by a father accidentally passing his supplemental testosterone on to his children (He made contact with them when it was dissipating from his body). The FDA has issued a warning about exactly this, with exactly the same effects.
** "The Itch," an episode that aired in the first half of season 5, had as one of its plots House trying to convince Wilson that he really is getting bitten by a mosquito and not imagining it. He is right in the end - he kills the mosquito. Then, in the season finale, it turns out that House hallucinated the sex with Cuddy he had in the previous episode - and was also hallucinating that he had the evidence of that encounter, a lipstick that was really a Vicodin bottle. This at best makes the resolution of that plot "The Itch" a FunnyAneurysmMoment, and at worst destabilizes it altogether.
** Season 5 episode 8, "Emancipation": House tells [[spoiler: Wilson]] 'holding things in can give you cancer.'
** Season 8 episode 16, "Gut Check": Wilson [[spoiler: thinks he has a son who wants to live with him (it's actually a trick House is playing)]]. House tells him [[spoiler:It's only six or seven years, unless he can't get into college, in which case it's more a matter of your life expectancy'.]] Given what's revealed only two episodes later...
** Some dialog from Season 3, episode 23, regarding treating the patient of the week with magic mushrooms:
--->'''Cuddy:''' I assume you've considered he could have a psychogenic experience. Possibly suffer a fit of severe paranoia.\\
'''House:''' Well, I have now. Yeah, it's definitely better that the Dean of Medicine prescribes it instead of an unhinged doctor with a history of drug use. Takes the stink off if the patient decides to put on a cape and fly off the roof.
** The above lines become quite the FunnyAneurysmMoment when watching this episode after seeing the premiere of Season 6, in which one of House's fellow patients at Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital ''does'' jump off a parking structure, believing he is a superhero and can fly.
*** And it doesn't help that House made it possible for that fellow mental patient to get into that position.
** Chase-related example: season 1, "Damned If You Do," Chase admits to having lost his faith, and the nun the team just cured tells him he'll find his way back to the church someday. Season 6 -- Chase finally does, out of desperation, try to return to the church -- [[HeelFaceDoorSlam about one month too late.]]
** In a season two episode of House "Forever". When House is asking why Chase is working in the NICU and Chase say's he can't deal with all the patients lying House says, "Nothing more honest than a dead baby". Not so funny when later in the episode the baby Mikey dies.
* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'':
** A season 1 episode has Barney courting a bridesmaid, his excuse for never seeing her again being that in the morning he's shipping out with the Peace Corps for two years. We find out mere episodes later that his StartOfDarkness was getting stood up by his girlfriend the day they were supposed to ship out with the Peace Corps together for two years.
** In "Double Date" Marshall explains how a [[SingleTargetSexuality husband like him]] fantasizes about other women than Lily: First he has to kill Lily off via SoapOperaDisease, then lets "an appropriate amount of years" slip until said other woman reappears in his life and they can get it on. Of course everybody around Marshall agrees that this is ridiculous, disturbing, sad, etc.. [[spoiler: And it bears an uncanny resemblance to what the writers do to Tracy/The Mother during the final episode in order to have Ted end up with Robin]].
** Ted's kids rolling their eyes at the beginning of the story looks pretty darn callous knowing that [[spoiler:their mother has actually been DeadAllAlong.]]
* ''Series/IDreamOfJeannie'': One of the final episodes was "Mrs. Djinn Djinn", an episode where the other characters mistakenly believe that Jeannie is pregnant and shower her with baffling gifts and praise, all while trying to coax out her (non-existent) secret. In real life, Creator/BarbaraEden was struggling with infertility: her second child (conceived shortly after the cancellation of ''I Dream Of Jeannie'') died in utero and she was forced to carry it to term despite knowing the child was already gone. She kept the tragedy a secret and endured two months of strangers congratulating her and asking when "the little genie" would be born without saying a word... the trauma eventually broke up her marriage.
* ''Series/{{iCarly}}'': The episode "[=iFix=] a Pop Star", in which Carly and company try to stage a comeback for a washed-up performer, is a parody of all the Music/BritneySpears' controversies that permeated the tabloids, including her 2007 breakdown and attempted comeback. In 2021, with a renewed interest in Spears' conservatorship leading to a reevaluation over how Spears was treated by the public and media, this episode is pretty hard to come back to.
* ''Series/TheITCrowd'' has an episode where Douglas unknowingly dates a trans woman, culminating in the two getting into a violent fight. The episode already wasn't the most sensitive depiction of trans people but has since become ''deeply'' uncomfortable to watch due to creator Graham Linehan becoming openly, actively, and intensely transphobic over following years (made even worse seeing as, according to some sources, it was the offense taken by the trans community at this episode that really kicked off his subsequent views and behaviour).
* ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'': Stephen Collins appears in several episodes as an extremely conscientious man who spends all his time working with children's charities, which contrasts humorously with the self-centered gang. Several years later, Collins was recorded admitting to sexually assaulting a minor.
* At the end of the ''Series/{{JAG}}'' episode in which Bud meets Harriett, Harm makes a face after they kiss. Mac says "picturing their children?" A long time later, the couple would have a stillborn child.
* ''Jappening con Ja'' had a sketch named "El Enfermo" ("The Sick Man") where actor Jorge Pedreros would play the role of [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a permanently hospitalized guy]] who'd become TheChewToy whenever his friends dropped by to visit him. Pedreros would suffer ''huge'' health problems years later, [[http://www.emol.com/noticias/magazine/2013/09/14/619757/fallecio-jorge-pedreros.html which caused his death as of September 2013]]. (Link's in Spanish)
* ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'':
** One of the answers on the May 19, 2020 show was "Bruce Wayne is missing and Creator/RubyRose dons the cowl as this title CW show who's no mere girl." The show is ''Series/Batwoman2019.'' This episode, taped in advance, aired the ''same day'' that Ruby Rose announced she was not returning for ''Batwoman'' season two.
** On the very last episode filmed before Alex Trebek's death, he made an offhand comment in response to something a contestant said about how he had a large number of books that he didn't think he'd get a chance to read.
* ''Judgment Day: The John List Story'' is already dark, concerning Robert Blake plays John List, who was convicted of [[PaterFamilicide murdering his family]]. It was hard to watch in 1993, but it gets harder to watch when he kills his wife, considering Blake's trial.
* ''Series/{{Kaamelott}}'': In one episode, Myth/KingArthur finds the two inept knights Perceval and Karadoc trying to [[BrickBreak break a rock barehanded]], and before they inevitably end up breaking their own hand he tells them something which amounts to "You know, for someone like me who often suffers from depression, [[HilarityEnsues what you are doing right now]] is really welcome". A few seasons later, Arthur [[spoiler:actually suffers from depression, and tries to kill himself.]]
* ''Series/KidsIncorporated'':
** "[[Recap/KidsIncorporatedS1E23NASASpaceWeek NASA Space Week]]". During "Space Week" at the P*lace, the kids are all writing to NASA, petitioning them to put a kid into space. Mickey mentions that NASA is "going to start taking regular people into space." This episode was filmed in 1984, and what Mickey's referring to is the then-recent announcement of the Teacher In Space project. The fruition of that project was the 1986 shuttle mission STS-51-L, which ended 73 seconds after launch with the explosion of the space shuttle ''Challenger''.
** Also, the number of times over the years these prepubescent kids mention how much they want to be like Michael Jackson.
* ''Series/LateNightWithConanOBrien'':
** On the last week, Nathan Lane sang a version of ''Your Way'' to Conan. The final verse had such lyrics as:
---> Go West! you'll find a place,
---> and if you're not the ratings victor,
---> you'll live inside a car with Andy Richter...
---> Don't ever stop, and if you flop, you'll do it your way!
** Not quite how it went down, but eerily predictive. Conan sure did leave ''The Tonight Show'' his way.
** One of Conan's "Actual Items" segments featured an ad for a cruise line. Buried in the fine print was a disclaimer that once aboard, guests would be taken captive on behalf of Osama Bin Laden. This installment of "Actual Items" aired in the summer of 2001.
** On the February 19th, 2004 show, in the recurring sketch "New Stamp Designs", one of the series featured was UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump's Daydreams, with the first part of the series being "President Trump", which came true nearly thirteen years later. See the full sketch [[https://youtu.be/oLOa7Kv5OwU?t=289 here]].
* ''Series/TheLateShowWithDavidLetterman'': When Creator/DavidLetterman had [[Film/GrizzlyMan Timothy Treadwell]] as a guest, he asked him the obvious question:
-->'''Letterman''': Is it going to happen that one day we read a news article about you being eaten by one of these bears?
* Invoked in a segment on ''Series/LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver'' called "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f36vIp_d2C0 And Now Some Clips That Have, To Put It Mildly, Not Aged Well,]]" featuring older news clips praising the likes of Creator/BillCosby, Creator/MattLauer, Jared Fogle, Creator/KevinSpacey, and Harvey Weinstein- who have all been accused of sexual misconduct since those clips were recorded.
** The show has a case that's either this or HilariousInHindsight (the comments on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3O01EfM5fU&t=99 the segment lean towards the latter]]) regarding their segment on the 2016 third party candidates, highlighting the weirdo "Joe Exotic", who John then showed mocking support. As ''Series/TigerKing'' showed, a quote in Exotic's campaign video ("I am broke as shit, I have a judgement against me from some bitch down here in Florida") is basically {{Foreshadowing}} what would get him imprisoned - he tried to hire a hitman to kill the owner of a big cat shelter who Exotic would have to pay $1 million in damages following a lawsuit - and John's assessment itself is featured, implied to have helped make Joe's delusional mind even worse. As a bonus, John joking about Joe being the kind of guy you'd get drunk enough to try meth with is eerily close to what was going on at his zoo, where Joe convinced straight men into sexual relationships with him by keeping them high on meth 24/7. And when asked about Joe following ''Tiger King'', John [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf7J-Eh0xow noted]] that an attempt to contact him saw Joe ranting about a woman named Carole (the would-be victim), "And it would've been great if none of us ever knew why."
** The episode on May 2, 2021 features a gag about Bill Gates' wife Melinda making a bizarre quasi-SuspiciouslySpecificDenial about the conspiracy theory that he's using the COVID vaccines to plant microchips in people. The very next day, they announced they were divorcing, [[https://twitter.com/LastWeekTonight/status/1389345302214234113 to which the show's Twitter account even wondered if they were responsible.]]

* ''Series/CoronationStreet'': In a 1981 episode, Brian Tilsley's best friend Andy Rowland is named Nick Tilsley's godfather. Brian tells him that he's expected to make a toast after Nick's christening like he did when he was best man at his wedding the previous year. He responds, "Flamin' hell. The wedding, the christening, all that's left's your funeral!" Brian Tilsley is murdered a few years later.
* ''Series/TheCosbyShow'':
** In the first episode, Heathcliff and Theo have an argument over Theo's grades, ending with Heathcliff accusing Theo of being lazy and not trying. This is supposed to show that Heathcliff is a tough but fair father. However, Theo is based on Bill Cosby's own son, who was later discovered to have a learning disability. This was eventually added to Theo's character.
** In light of the sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby, Dr. Huxtable being an ''[=OB/GYN=]'' seems a bit...sketchy.
** Some of the original marketing for the show is also cringe-inducing, such as a promo that prominently featured the phrase "COS YOU TOOK ADVANTAGE OF ME."
** One episode featured all of the women getting angry at their partners until Heathcliff secretly slips them some of his special barbecue sauce, which makes them horny. Later allegations of Cosby slipping women the date rape drug ring too closely to this episode.
* ''Series/CrazyExGirlfriend'' changed their theme song in the second season to one called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMHz6FiRzS8 "I'm Just a Girl in Love."]] It has funny lyrics like "I'm just a girl in love/I can't be held responsible for my actions." And "I have no underlying issues to address./I'm certifiably cute and adorably obsessed." The lyrics become much, much ''less'' funny during the second season finale when there is a flashback showing [[spoiler:Rebecca committed arson after being dumped by her ex-boyfriend and her mother was talking to the ''judge'' when she says, "She's just a girl in love, she can't be held responsible for her actions." After the judge recommends she go to a mental health facility, Rebecca then says, "But I have no underlying issues to address." Which is painfully and obviously untrue.]]
* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': During the show's fifth season, Danny, a white cop, is chasing a Chinese-American murder suspect, who tries to hide from him in a storage locker, only for him to casually tip it over door-side-down and sit on it while casually making a phone call to Flack, who's chasing the other suspect. Danny's suspect bangs on the locker and demands that he let her out, but what really kills the funny is that her demands include the phrase "I can't breathe". Since the death of George Floyd in 2020, the image of a white cop putting a non-white civilian in a position where they can't breathe is no longer funny. [[note]] It is obvious from the sound of her voice that she could breathe just fine; she was just trying to get him to let her go. It's her *line* that's the issue, not the situation. [[/note]]
* ''Series/TheDailyShow'': During the summer of 2013, political pundits were already speculating about the 2016 presidential election, leading guest host Creator/JohnOliver to do a segment called "Can't You At Least Wait Until Creator/JonStewart Gets Back?". However, in August 2015, Jon Stewart stepped down as host of the Daily Show, so he didn't get to skewer the 2016 election. He ends that same segment by begging Donald Trump to run because it would be hilarious. ''Then Trump was elected President in 2016.''
* ''Series/DeadliestCatch'':
** At the end of the king crab fishing in season 3, the crew of the Cornelia Marie are harassing Captain Phil's son, Jake, as Phil looks on and laughs. Jake gets after his father, saying things like "One day, I'm gonna be taking care of you, you'll be in a retirement home, we'll have you chained up in the basement." Captain Phil never made it to retirement.
** Then in the 2012 season, Wizard greenhorn deckhand Chris Scrambler (who had never even ''seen'' the ocean before he took the job) tried to quit in the middle of his first shift, informing Captain Keith that he was too "terrified" to continue working. Keith gave Chris a piece of his mind and told him to get back on deck, grumbling, "If this guy got a bruise he'd probably want to get medevaced out". The ''very next episode'', Chris went into convulsions and had to be airlifted off the boat.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** All four versions of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E6Shada Shada]]" (the unfinished Fourth Doctor TV story, the Eighth Doctor animated webcast, the novelisation, and the original story with animated scenes and the original cast voice acting to complete the story) end with the Doctor musing on how Salyavin turned out to be much less evil than official Time Lord history claimed and speculating on how he himself might be remembered by future Time Lords as a monstrous criminal. This became much more serious after the apparent destruction of Gallifrey, especially since until "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor The Day of the Doctor]]" most fans assumed that the Eighth Doctor had been responsible for it. (And the Eighth Doctor had also been responsible for destroying Gallifrey in the prose Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures.)
** "[[Recap/DoctorWho1985JFIGSAFixWithSontarans A Fix With Sontarans]]" has the Sixth Doctor and Tegan react in a FauxHorrific way when Creator/JimmySavile shows up and gives the special guest, 8-year old Gareth Jenkins, a [[DeathRay meson gun]] to defend himself from Savile with after he kisses Tegan's hand. In 2012, Savile (one year after his death) was revealed to be one of the most horrific child molesters ''ever'', and suddenly Tegan and Six's FauxHorrific reactions are a lot ''[[AdultFear worse]]'' to see now. After the allegations became more fully known, Sixth Doctor actor Creator/ColinBaker later [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2230497/Colin-Bakers-verdict-Jimmy-Savile-His-eyes-cold-behaved-like-child-indulged.html#ixzz2BvNqgs96 wrote about the unsettling experience of working with Savile on the sketch.]]
** The first revival episode, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E1Rose Rose]]" starts off with the titular character's workplace in London exploding and being on the news the next day. The episode aired on March 26, 2005, less than four months before [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings The 7th July London bombings]]
** The Tenth and Eleventh Doctors' post-regeneration complaints about not being ginger. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E7AmysChoice Amy's Choice]]", the MonsterOfTheWeek is an EvilRedhead (played by Creator/TobyJones) who [[spoiler:turns out to be a twisted manifestation of the Doctor's self-loathing. BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor, Doc...]]
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones Smith and Jones]]", the Tenth Doctor absorbs high levels of radiation. When companion Martha Jones asks if that's likely to kill him, he light-heartedly replies "Nah, it's only Roentgen radiation. We used to play with Roentgen bricks in the nursery". Ironic and sad seeing that [[spoiler: he ended up regenerating (dying) by absorbing radiation a few series later]].
** "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thPrequelTheNightOfTheDoctor The Night of the Doctor]]" turns a lot of the Eighth Doctor's adventures into this. In [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWhoNEDAS2E2MaxWarp "Max Warp"]] he and Lucie are on a crashing spaceship [[spoiler: that turns out to be a computer simulation.]] In [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWhoNEDAS2E8VengeanceOfMorbius Vengeance of Morbius]] it looks like the Eighth Doctor dies on Karn from a fall. He ends up dying in a spaceship crash on Karn. Max Warp doubles as in [[spoiler: [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWhoNEDAS4E10ToTheDeath "To the Death"]] Lucie dies from [[HeroicSacrifice crashing a spaceship]] [[DyingMomentOfAwesome into Dalek mines]].]]
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd Journey's End]]", the Tenth Doctor channeling his regeneration energy into his hand and a half-human Doctor growing from it is treated as something really happy as Rose can have her own Doctor. In "[[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor The Time of the Doctor]]" we find out that meant the Tenth Doctor's actual regeneration was his last.
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E4TheTimeOfAngels The Time of Angels]]", River says she had TARDIS-flying lessons "from the very best" and that it's a shame the Doctor was busy that day. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler Let's Kill Hitler]]", it turns out that the Doctor was busy [[spoiler: dying because River poisoned him.]]
** The hopeful ending of the 50th anniversary special [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor "The Day of the Doctor"]], particularly the Eleventh Doctor's closing monologue about [[spoiler: returning to Gallifrey]] "the long way 'round", is ''much'' more bittersweet if not outright bitter two seasons later. First, the Eleventh Doctor doesn't get to be the one to pull off the feat; his very next story sees him spend a millennium on Trenzalore instead and he finally regenerates. Then, the three-part finale of Series 9 sees the ''Twelfth'' Doctor pull it off...but not in the way Eleven would have hoped. It's because [[spoiler: the Time Lords betray him, arranging for his capture and torture -- and inadvertently paving the way for the death of Clara Oswald, the woman who inspired the Doctors to save Gallifrey. Twelve goes mad with grief and rage and fights his way back to his homeworld over four-and-a-half billion years. On Gallifrey, he is a wanted yet admired man who overthrows the powers that be, only to become a renegade once more as a result of his mad quest to save Clara from the grave]]. '''Ouch.'''
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E1TheEleventhHour There's something you better understand about me, 'cause it's important and one day your life may depend on it. I am definitely a madman with a box.]]" [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E11TheGodComplex One day her life does depend on accepting that the Doctor is just a mad man with a box]].
** Series 12 is a slap in the face to the Thirteenth Doctor after spending so much time to save Gallifrey, only for [[spoiler: the Master to resurface, raze the planet into flaming ruins, and then turn some unlucky denizens into Cyber-Masters that regenerate without end and are invincible warriors due to such, so the Doctor is forced to resort to an option that cleanses the planet of all organic life.]] Perhaps some Gallifreyans and Time Lords escaped. Hopefully.
** When Russell T. Davies left as showrunner, the cast wrote and performed a song about his tenure called [[https://youtu.be/SFZn5HKpO18 "The Ballad of Russell and Julie"]], which was loosely based around the issues they faced keeping the show on the air. Notably, the song contains the line "I can't block out— Please lock out— Images of Johnny B. getting his cock out!" Years later, Barrowman would admit to repeatedly exposing himself without consent to his coworkers on the set of Doctor Who.

[[index]]
* ''FunnyAneurysmMoment/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''
* ''FunnyAneurysmMoment/SaturdayNightLive''
[[/index]]

* ''Series/ThirtyRock'':
** In the episode "Jack Meets Dennis", Pete wonders if they'll be preempted by a national news event and says "how's UsefulNotes/GeraldFord's health?" Gerald Ford died less than a month after the episode aired, and the line was edited out of the DVD release.
** In "Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land", Liz's British date Wesley says how he doesn't want to go back to England saying that he doesn't want to suffer through the London Olympics. He says "You saw the Beijing opening ceremonies, we don't have that kind of control over our people." This line has become a lot more tragic in the wake of the London riots and later civil liberties violations in the UK.
** In Season 3, Jack gets someone to pretend like he was Creator/BillCosby in order to get Tracy to come back to the show after he (temporarily) quit. Tracy goes on a tirade about how Cosby had done something unspeakable with his aunt in 1971. In 2014, comedian Hannibal Buress went viral with a bit that mentioned Cosby had 13 rape accusations. This, over time, led to ''more than fifty women'' coming out and accusing Cosby of sexual assault in the few years since Hannibal's bit. Cosby was convicted on sexual assault charges in 2018.
*** Considering Burress was a writer on the show, this may be less a Funny Aneurysm Moment and more a deliberate reference to an open secret in show business (much like the show's jokes about Harvey Weinstein).
* During the 1993 Academy Awards show, Billy Crystal joked that cult leader David Koresh, holed up with his followers at the Branch Davidian Compound in Texas at the time, would be performing "Friend Like Me" from ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'' via satellite ("You ain't never had a friend like me!"). Given the gruesome outcome of that standoff, the joke isn't as funny now.
* ''The Amanda Show'' is a lot more painful to watch now considering [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Bynes#Personal_life the circumstances]]... The [[AxCrazy unhinged]] personality of her ''Series/AllThat'' "Ask Ashley" character might strike one as uncomfortable, too, given Amanda's struggles with mental illness.
* ''Series/{{Angel}}'':
** In "[[{{Recap/AngelS04E02GroundState}} Ground State]]", as Fred goes on an uncharacteristic rant about her increased responsibilities, Gunn jokes he doesn't know what kind of "alien female thing" has replaced her. [[spoiler:In season five, she is replaced by an alien female thing, and it is heartbreaking.]]
** Similarly, Gunn's argument with Angel in "[[{{Recap/AngelS03E19ThePrice}} The Price]]" is almost word for word what Gunn himself did that contributed to Fred's death.
--->'''Gunn''': This is because of you, what you did. Messing with scary ass mojo no sane person should be messing with.\\
'''Angel''': I did what I had to do.\\
'''Gunn''': You did what you want to get what you want, to hell with the consequences.\\
'''Angel''': My son--\\
'''Gunn''': Is dead. Fred's not.
* ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'': In the fourth season, Creator/TerryCrews plays a character who has multiple accusations of sexual assault against him, which is frequently PlayedForLaughs. This became extremely difficult to watch since he came forward about being a victim of sexual harassment himself.
* ''Series/BabylonFive'': In "[[{{Recap/BabylonFiveS03E04PassingThroughGethsemane}} Passing Through Gethsemane]]" Ivanova challenges "Brother Edward" to bet on the outcome of a chess match. Edward makes a joke that "gambling is one of the lesser sins. I've always felt that if you're gonna sin ''you should go for one of the really big ones''." [[spoiler:Turns out "Brother Edward" is actually a mind-wiped serial killer named Charles Dexter, who murdered nine women on an Earth colony. "One of the really big ones" indeed.]]
* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'':In season four, Kara jokes to her husband that if he turned out to be a Cylon, she'd shoot him in the head. Later on in the season, she finds out that [[spoiler:he '''is''' a Cylon, but doesn't do anything. Then someone else comes along and literally shoots him in the head, leaving her in grief for the rest of the season.]]
* ''Series/BeverlyHills90210'': Way back in season 2 (1991), Kelly's mom made a joke that she'd end up "dying from skin cancer". She later died of breast cancer in the 90210 reboot.
* The [[Recap/BlackMirrorTheNationalAnthem episode]] of ''Series/BlackMirror'' where the Prime Minister is forced to have sex with a pig became a lot more odd to watch after [[BestialityIsDepraved certain allegations ]] were made about David Cameron. The real-life media's reaction to the event was much like in the episode, with news stations mentioning vague details of the event but not exact details of the social media storm.
* ''Series/Bluestone42'': Nick Medhurst repeatedly jokes about having limbs blown off, notably commenting in series 2 episode 4 (to the visiting [[https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers/minister-of-state-minister-for-the-armed-forces Minister for the Armed Forces]]), "It turns out that having your legs blown off isn't ''quite'' as much fun as you might think". This becomes much less funny in series 3 episode 2, when [[spoiler: Nick ''does'' have his leg blown off, and leaves the team (and show) in consequence]].
* ''Series/BostonLegal'': in the series 4 episode ''Attack of the Xenophobes'', Denny Crane says "I have nothing against the Chinese". Later in the series 5 finale, [[spoiler:his law firm of Crane Poole & Schmidt is bought out by a Chinese organisation, against his wishes; they ultimately fire Denny and remove his name from the firm]].
* ''Series/BreakingBad''
** In one episode of season 2, Jesse tries to surprise Jane by cooking breakfast while she sleeps in. She gets up before he finishes, however, which causes Jesse to say "You weren't supposed to get up." Jane jokingly asks "What, ever?" A few episodes later Jane dies in her sleep. To make it even worse, she also says "I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit..."
** One of Jesse's insults to Walt is "Heil Hitler, bitch." It comes back to bite him when he gets enslaved by Uncle Jack Welker and his crew of Neo-Nazis.
** Skyler warning Jesse to stay away from Walt in the second episode was a comedic scene, though rewatching the series, her telling him to stay away or else he'll be "one sorry individual" is a lot less funny considering most of Jesse's pains are a direct result of Walt's actions.
** Several events in this show become this after watching ''Series/BetterCallSaul'':
*** In one episode, Skyler skeptically looks over Saul's degree from the University of American Samoa, which is done for laughs as a way of emphasizing what a tacky and fraudulent lawyer Saul is. It's less funny when you know the struggle, the heartache, and the eventual betrayal from his brother that Saul had relation to that degree.
*** Similarly, we have Saul's freak-out during Jesse and Walt's plan to scare him in his introductory episode, once you take the ordeal he went through involving the skateboarding twins and Tuco in the ''Better Call Saul'' episode "Mijo" into account, and possible dealings Saul had with Tuco associate Nacho Varga. What seemed first like Saul simply fearing for his life is actually Saul thinking Tuco's men have decided to finally kill him, especially after he says that whatever they think he did, Ignacio (Nacho Varga) was the real one to blame.
---->'''Saul:''' Oh, thank God! Oh, Christ! Oh, I thought... (hyperventilating) What can I do for you, gentlemen?
* In Season One of ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'', Terry is assigned to desk duty as he has become so nervous in the field after the birth of his daughters that he empties his gun in screaming terror at anything that moves. That's pretty uncomfortable to watch in 2021, as it's become clear that many police officers do use deadly force at the slightest provocation and cite fear for their safety as an excuse.
* ''Series/CanadasWorstDriver'': In Season 5, one episode starts with perpetually distracted driver Crystal announcing "I think I'm going home soon!" [[spoiler: A few episodes later, she would be sent home, not by graduating, but after learning that her brother-in-law was killed by a distracted driver.]]
* ''Series/ChappellesShow'':
** While introducing his infamous Blind Black White Supremacist sketch, Dave said "I haven't been canceled yet. But I'm working on it." Not as funny when you know about all the drama surrounding the end of his show.
** There's an even worse one during the "Niggar Family" skit, a skit about a white family whose last name happens to be Niggar, allowing the character to make a whole host of n-word puns. Chappelle's character follows up a collection of n-word puns by saying in a humorous tone, "This racism is killing me inside." Guess why he left the show.
** The final episode of season 2 opens with Dave telling Creator/ComedyCentral executives that he's burned out and can't do the show anymore. The executives inform him that since the sketches have already been filmed, he's replaceable. Real life played out remarkably similar to this.
* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'': In episode 13 of Season 2, Prue and Piper transport a hostile venomous snake and hostile rabbit respectively. When Prue asks "Why do I get the snake?", Piper's joking response is [[spoiler: "You're the oldest; you've lived a full life". Prue dies a season and a half later at the age of 30.]]
* ''Series/{{Cheers}}'': During Season 4's 3-part season finale "Strange Bedfellows" (concerning a local election) worked in a brief guest appearance by Colorado Democratic Senator Gary Hart; and upon seeing him a starstruck Diane remarks that Hart "could have been President" (referring to Hart narrowly losing the Democratic nomination in 1984 to former Vice-President Walter Mondale; who was [[CurbStompBattle subsequently]] [[LandslideElection annihilated]] by incumbent Republican President UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan) and later adding that Hart "could ''still'' be President". At the time, Hart was considered the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 1988; with many pundits thinking Hart had a good chance to win the general election as well. Then came the Donna Rice sex scandal which knocked Hart out of the race[[note]]Hart would re-enter the race under the rallying cry of "Let's let the people decide", briefly regaining his front-runner status before a combination of a different controversy, this time over outstanding campaign debt from 1984 and poor showings in the early primary contests finished Hart's presidential aspirations off for good[[/note]]. Causing this to fit the trope even further: Hart announced his (initial) withdrawal from the race on May 8, 1987; exactly one year to the day of Hart's guest spot on ''Cheers''.
* ''Series/{{Chuck}}'': The episode where the Buy More employees were being prepared for the chaotic stampede that would ensue on Black Friday, complete with plans for an emergency evacuation if necessary, was a lot funnier ''before'' [[http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/28/black.friday.violence/ a Wal-Mart store employee was trampled to death]] in just such a situation on Black Friday.
* In one episode of ''Series/ClarissaExplainsItAll'', Clarissa makes a joke comparing being the understudy in a school play to being Princess Diana, "A job with tons of fringe benefits and no downside." I'm sure she would have seen a downside in 1997.
* ''Series/TheColbertReport'':
** An incident, shared with its sister series ''Series/TheDailyShow'', followed reports that journalist Robert Novak hit a man with his car in slow-moving traffic, dislocating the man's shoulder, and was completely unaware of it until witnesses approached him after. Both shows used the opportunities to mock Novak's age (77 at the time) as the reason behind his driving and memory loss. The following Monday, it was reported that Novak had been diagnosed over the weekend with a brain tumor, the actual cause of the incident. Jon Stewart responded on-air by apologizing and wishing Novak luck; [[http://www.nofactzone.net/2008/07/29/episode-4095-07282008/#more-4663 Stephen explained during that night's show]] that the news reached him just in time to scrap a planned segment on Novak, and after wishing Novak well, proceeded to fill the remaining time with an [[http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/177807/july-28-2008/heroic-refusal-to-discuss-robert-novak "improvised" segment,]] where he took calls from people thanking him for his courage to not talk about Novak (it was less offensive than it sounds). Novak died a year later.
** In [[http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/431512/december-16-2013/stephen-s-grammy-nomination---billy-crystal this segment]], Stephen and Creator/BillyCrystal had this exchange about Pete Seeger and his nomination in the 2014 Grammy Awards in the same category for which they were nominated.
--->'''Colbert''': But what I really meant was that I just hope that Pete Seeger doesn't win.\\
'''Billy Crystal''' What an asshole.\\
'''Colbert''': Yeah, he is. And besides, he already won the Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1993.\\
'''Billy Crystal''' Yes, and he keeps on living! It's so selfish!\\
Pete Seeger died on January 27, 2014, ''one day'' after the 2014 Grammy Awards.
* ''Series/ColdCase'': The episode "Late Returns" is [[BasedOnATrueStory based upon the 2001 Chandra Levy case]]. In it, the Gary Condit {{Expy}} turns out to be the doer (albeit accidentally), reflecting public opinion of the time about the case. With the revelation that Condit had nothing to do with the murder several years later, this episode becomes as biting as the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' example with Condit.
* Creator/JerrySeinfeld's ''Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee:'' In January 2016, comedian Garry Shandling appeared in an episode titled "It's Great That Garry Shandling Is Still Alive." Two months later, Shandling was rushed to the hospital with heart problems and died.
* ''Series/CommanderInChief'':
** One episode's B-plot featured Horace Calloway (played by Matt Lanter) hosting a party at the White House for his friends. At one point, he makes out with a girl played by Hayden Panettiere. A completely forgettable scene... except that three years later, Lanter and Panettiere were reunited on-screen in ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', where they once again made out... only for Matt Lanter's Brock to [[AttemptedRape try to rape]] Panettiere's Claire Bennet.
* ''Series/{{Community}}'':
** In "Interpretive Dance," the study group thinks Pierce is dead only to have Pierce come into the room and say "You don't have to keep crossing your fingers. I'm not Mickey Rooney." Not only did Mickey Rooney die four years later, but so did Pierce.
** In "Curriculum Unavailable" Troy says of Abed that "he's usually adorable weird, like Mork from Ork, but lately he's been creepy weird, like present-day Robin Williams." We now know that said "creepy weirdness" was actually serious depression that ultimately drove him to suicide.
* ''Series/{{Concentration}}'': Throughout its long run over three series and 33 years, there likely have been many puzzles feturing then-current celebrities who earn negative noteriety shortly before or after the show airs, references to then-new TV series that are cancelled by the time the show airs, etc. A couple of examples:
** "The Jimmy Stewart Show," a rebus – seen in some publicity photos that have been featured on the Web – referring to a then-new series starring the legendary actor. The show was cancelled by the time the episode aired. [[note]](By 1972, when that episode aired, the show was taped several weeks in advance, as opposed to airing live as it did early in the run.)[[/note]]
** "Freddie Prinze Plays [[Series/ChicoAndTheMan Chico]]," a Double Play rebus in an episode aired in the spring of 1977, shortly after Prinze had committed suicide. The episode itself in which the rebus was featured was taped in December 1976, about a month before Prinze's death.

* ''Series/{{Spaced}}'': Tim's portrayal as a CausticCritic[=/=]FanHater of the ''Franchise/StarWars'' Prequel Trilogy and Jar-Jar Binks in particular became less amusing after Creator/JakeLloyd, who played Anakin Skywalker in ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'', admitted to being bullied for his performance in the years afterward, but even more so after 2018, where not only has toxicity in nerd culture become a hot topic in the wake of the online harassment of Creator/KellyMarieTran over her role as Rose in ''Film/TheLastJedi'', it was revealed that Jar-Jar's actor, Ahmed Best, contemplated suicide over similar harassment. It got to the point that Creator/SimonPegg not only chewed out the people responsible for the harassment but even though he admits to only criticizing [[IAmNotSpock Jar-Jar the character]], he also [[OldShame felt shame]] for [[MisaimedFandom possibly having a hand in influencing Best's harassment]].