History FunnyAneurysmMoment / LiveActionTv

* ''The Muppets at Walt Disney World'' 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.

** When Russell T. Davies left as showrunner, the cast wrote and performed a song about his tenure called "The Ballad of Russell and Julie."[[https://youtu.be/SFZn5HKpO18]] 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.

* One episode of the Jim Davidson 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.

** 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.]]

---->'''[[spoiler: Grace]]:''' "To a fucking castle in my clouds."

** 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.

* ''Series/RedDwarf''
** The show managed to pull this in a single episode, more specifically 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 gets dark since it is shown that Ace is not only dying from the wound, he's also a HardLightHologram, which in turn means that the real Ace (who was a semi-frequent guest character in earlier series) is dead, and probably has been for some time.

* ''Series/RedDwarf'': managed to pull this in a single episode, more specifically 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 gets dark since it is shown that Ace is not only dying from the wound, he's also a HardLightHologram, which in turn means that the real Ace (who was a semi-frequent guest character in earlier series) is dead, and probably has been for some time.
** In the season one episode "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonIBalanceOfPower "Balance of Power]]" there's a flashback to life aboard pre-radation leak ''Red Dwarf''in which we see Lister cracks 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]]...

* ''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.

* ''Series/{{Kaamelott}}'': In one episode, 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.]]

*** 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.

** 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 convicted of possessing child pornography.

** "[[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.

* ''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 Jake Lloyd, 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]].

* ''Series/Skithouse'' featured a sketch called "Irwin Stevens: Suicidal D***head", parodying ''Series/CrocodileHunter'' host, Steve Irwin. 2-3 years after the sketch aired, Irwin was killed by a stingray while filming.

** Absolutely anything that Richard Hammond 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.

*** Similarly, there is a clip of Jeremy Clarkson 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.

*** There was even a real-time Funny Aneurysm Moment when the crash footage was aired: The entire studio audience, plus co-presenters Clarkson and May, 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.

** Clarkson was given a CD in a challenge to drive across Europe, supposedly to keep him awake; it was full of nothing but Margaret Thatcher 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/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, Tracey Gold struggled with anorexia and the jokes caused her to relapse.

* ''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 find 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.]]

* 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 station mentioning vague details of the event but not exact details of the social media storm.

*** 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.

* ''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) withdrawl from the race on May 8, 1987; exactly one year to the day of Hart's guest spot on ''Cheers''.

* ''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!"

** "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/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 its 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.]]

*** 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 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 is 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.

** 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 then a dead baby". Not so funny when later in the episode the baby Mikey dies.

** 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]].

* ''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/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).

* ''Judgment Day: The John List Story'' is already dark, concerning Robert Blake plays John List, who was convicted of 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.

--> 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!

** 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 summer 2001.

** 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.)

** 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.

** 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 because 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.

** 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 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 Patrick Swayze.

* ''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.

* ''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.

* ''The Muppets at Walt Disney World'' 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 reestablish 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.

** 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 dumptser. 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.

** Then there is 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.

** 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!"

* 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/{{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/RedDwarf'': managed to pull this in a single episode, more specifically 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 gets dark, since it is shown that Ace is not only dying from the wound, he's also a HardLightHologram, which in turn means that the real Ace (who was a semi-frequent guest character in earlier series) is dead, and probably has been for some time.

** 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...

--->'''Chris:''' Yeah, you'll move in with him and I could be, like, dying, yeah, and you wouldn't even know about it."

--->'''Rich:''' "Where are you going?"
--->'''[[spoiler: Grace]]:''' "To a fucking castle in my clouds."

* ''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 Jake Lloyd, 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.

** 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 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]].

** "[[{{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.]]

*** 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.

* 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.

** 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 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.

* ''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 cringeworthy 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.

* ''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 came to light, causing parents watching the show to complain that the episode was in poor taste, leading to "Favourite Songs" becoming a BannedEpisode.

** One episode is centered on a free-trade agreement which 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.

** [[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 some time later rendered it this trope.

* 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 occured, 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.)

* ''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. ''He's President now.''

** 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 shown in the documentary ''Film/{{Senna}}'', when Usefulnotes/FormulaOne legend Ayrton Senna visited the kids show ''Xou da Xuxa'', hosted by his 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.