History Main / CanonDiscontinuity

* [[CanonDiscontinuity/LiveActionFilms Film — Live-Action]]

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]

* Shortly after Caitlin Clark set the career scoring record in NCAA Division I women's basketball in February 2024, veteran sportswriter Sally Jenkins [[https://sports.yahoo.com/ncaa-erased-entire-generation-women-205233004.html pointed out]] that Clark wasn't (yet) the all-time scoring leader in major-college women's basketball. The ''actual'' record holder, Lynette Woodard, played for Kansas from 1977–1981, with her college career ending immediately before the NCAA began sponsoring women's sports. Before that time, women's college sports were governed by the Association for Women's Intercollegiate Athletics. After the NCAA ran the AIAW out of business, it first stuck AIAW-era records under asterisks at the back of its record book before completely scrubbing them. Jenkins asked the NCAA why AIAW-era records weren't recognized; a spokesperson responded they "were not completed while the schools/teams in question were NCAA members." Jenkins considered this treatment an erasure of women's basketball players, pointing out the following: Going into the 2024 season, Michigan is credited with the most wins in [[UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootball NCAA Division I football]], with 989 since its first season in 1879. Yet, the NCAA itself ''didn't exist'' until 1906.[[note]]The linked story said the NCAA was founded in 1910; that was actually the date it adopted the NCAA name.[[/note]] And in what Jenkins called "the ultimate fit of illogic", the NCAA record book includes women's ''coaching records'' from the AIAW era. (In a postscript, Clark passed Woodard's total less than a week after Jenkins' story ran.)

* Shortly after Caitlin Clark set the career scoring record in NCAA Division I women's basketball in February 2024, veteran sportswriter Sally Jenkins [[https://sports.yahoo.com/ncaa-erased-entire-generation-women-205233004.html pointed out]] that Clark wasn't (yet) the all-time scoring leader in major-college women's basketball. The ''actual'' record holder, Lynette Woodard, played for Kansas from 1977–1981, with her college career ending immediately before the NCAA began sponsoring women's sports. Before that time, women's college sports were governed by the Association for Women's Intercollegiate Athletics. After the NCAA ran the AIAW out of business, it first stuck AIAW-era records under asterisks at the back of its record book before completely scrubbing them. Jenkins asked the NCAA why AIAW-era records weren't recognized; a spokesperson responded they "were not completed while the schools/teams in question were NCAA members." Jenkins considered this treatment an erasure of women's basketball players, pointing out the following: Going into the 2024 season, Michigan is credited with the most wins in [[UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootball NCAA Division I football]], with 989 since its first season in 1879. Yet, the NCAA itself ''didn't exist'' until 1906.[[note]]The linked story said the NCAA was founded in 1910; that was actually the date it adopted the NCAA name.[[/note]] And in what Jenkins called "the ultimate fit of illogic", the NCAA record book includes women's ''coaching records'' from the AIAW era.

* Shortly after Caitlin Clark set the career scoring record in NCAA Division I women's basketball in February 2024, veteran sportswriter Sally Jenkins [[https://sports.yahoo.com/ncaa-erased-entire-generation-women-205233004.html pointed out]] that Clark wasn't (yet) the all-time scoring leader in major-college women's basketball. The ''actual'' record holder, Lynette Woodard, played for Kansas from 1977–1981, with her college career ending immediately before the NCAA began sponsoring women's sports. Before that time, women's college sports were governed by the Association for Women's Intercollegiate Athletics. After the NCAA ran the AIAW out of business, it first stuck AIAW-era records under asterisks at the back of its record book before completely scrubbing them. Jenkins asked the NCAA why AIAW-era records weren't recognized; a spokesperson responded they "were not completed while the schools/teams in question were NCAA members." Jenkins considered this treatment an erasure of women's basketball players, pointing out the following:
** Going into the 2024 season, Michigan is credited with the most wins in [[UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootball NCAA Division I football]], with 989 since its first season in 1879. Yet, the NCAA itself ''didn't exist'' until 1906.[[note]]The linked story said the NCAA was founded in 1910; that was actually the date it adopted the NCAA name.[[/note]]
** In what Jenkins called "the ultimate fit of illogic", the NCAA record book includes women's ''coaching records'' from the AIAW era.

[[caption-width-right:329: Despite the existence of posters, two of these movies were never made.]]

See also ContinuityReboot, AlternativeContinuity, BroadStrokes, and DisownedAdaptation. Works that are victims to BuryYourArt usually get this treatment if they're part of a series. The opposite of RetCanon and its descendant tropes. See CuttingOffTheBranches for when all but one ending of a MultipleEndings game becomes canon discontinuity. CanonMarchesOn is when cheap and small spin-offs like tie-in books and comic adaptations are ignored when making the direct big-budget sequel. When fans do this, it is FanonDiscontinuity — including the ironic semi-inversion where the fans who actually like the discontinued story ignore the creator's pronouncements that it's not canonical anymore. If the writers {{lampshade|Hanging}} a discontinuity, either canonical or just something the fans want to be discontinued, then that's DiscontinuityNod. See also the OrwellianRetcon, which may overlap with this.

** The Franchise/DisneyPrincess roster varies significantly, tending to eliminate princesses from less popular movies. This shows up in merchandise and tie-in books. Most notably, [[WesternAnimation/TheBlackCauldron Princess Eilonwy]] and [[WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire Kida]] are never included. One book specifically mentions that Ariel is the only princess from an underwater kingdom. Sometimes, [[Franchise/StarWars Leia]] is thrown in as well. Of course, there is no real continuity involved -- it's just a marketing thing.

* [[Wrestling/ShawnMichaels The]] [[Wrestling/MartyJannetty Rockers]] won the WWF Tag Team Championship from the [[Wrestling/BretHart Hart]] [[Wrestling/JimNeidhart Foundation]] on the November 23, 1990 edition of ''The Main Event''. However, due to a ring rope malfunction during the match in the second fall, the title change was stricken. The Rockers never won the titles again.

!!Examples:

* The University of Nebraska-Lincoln football program holds the [=NCAA=] record for most consecutive home-game sellouts (the streak started in 1962, and is still running as of 2023[[note]]although with the Cornhuskers going into a ''severe'' decline in the 2020s, the streak is only active because local businesses and organizations bought up all unused tickets, presumably offering them at deep discounts or for free to people who wanted to attend[[/note]]). When the university celebrated the 300th consecutive sellout game in September 2009, they very carefully did ''not'' invite former athletic director Steve Pederson or former head coach Bill Callahan, the two men "credited" with almost ruining the football program and bringing the streak to an end.
* In another college football example, CAA Football, the legally separate football arm of the Colonial Athletic Association, was formally established in 2007, but claims the football history of two other leagues—the Atlantic 10 Conference, whose football league it took over in 2007, and the Yankee Conference, which was formed in 1947 as an all-sports conference, became a football-only league in 1976, and was absorbed by the A-10 in 1996. However, CAA Football ''doesn't'' consider the New England Conference, which existed from 1938 to 1947, as part of its history, even though four of the six charter Yankee members were the final members of the NEC.

** The Giants may have wanted to do this anyway, but they actually had nothing to do with Cabrera missing the playoffs and not getting a ring. MLB rules state that any player suspended for [=PEDs=] is ineligible for that season's playoffs and ineligible to receive any sort of awards for that season (including a World Series ring), regardless of if the suspension ended before the playoffs start.

* On [[Roleplay/ClassTrials r/DanganRoleplay]], participants play out their own Franchise/{{Danganronpa}} Class Trials in which a mix of characters from the games participate try to figure out who among them committed a murder. The Class Trials are typically treated as taking place in their own strange continuity where the events of the games happened and characters who should be dead are able to allude to their canonical deaths throughout the games. The sole exception is with the Final Chapter of VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony, which is treated as non-canon by the site's mods in order to allow the game's BigBad [[spoiler:Tsumugi Shirogane]] to be a regular participant without the baggage of having been EvilAllAlong.

* As far as Wrestling/{{WWE}} is concerned, Wrestling/{{Impact|Wrestling}} does not exist. This can get silly at times: for example, when Wrestling/KurtAngle returned to the company and Wrestling/{{Sting}} made his debut, WWE insisted that both men were making comebacks after years-long hiatuses; and when Wrestling/AJStyles was finally brought into the fold, they hyped up his achievements in Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling but never once mentioned the company he made his name in and was widely considered the face of.

* Neither Benedict Arnold's name nor face appear on memorials to him at the site of the Battle of Saratoga or on the formal roll of past commandants of West Point at the U.S. Military Academy (only the date, 1780, appears where his name would be), since despite real military accomplishments that twice saved the Continental Army's bacon during the Revolutionary War, he's remembered today primarily for [[TheQuisling selling out to the British]] (and specifically, was going to hand over West Point to the enemy, until UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington found out about the plot).
* An amendment to the U.S. Constitution can become this in the legal system if and only if another amendment passes that repeals it. So far this has happened with the 18th Amendment (which banned alcohol), which was repealed by the 21st Amendment. Congress has attempted this to the Eleventh Amendment, on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment (Part V, giving Congress the power to enforce the amendment with appropriate legislation), but the US Supreme Court struck this down in Copyright Law.

** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification Denazification]]: Germany after World War II removing influences from the Nazi party.
** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Stalinization De-Stalinization]]: The Soviet Union removed most of Josef Stalin's legacy after his death.
** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decommunization Decommunization]]: Former Communist/Soviet states removing Communist policies, monuments, names, etc. after the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe.
** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Ba%27athification De-Ba'athification]]: Iraq removing influences from the Ba'ath Party after the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

* The Articles of Confederation are this to the American government as a whole. Early Americans' fear of centralized government were borne true in the Articles, and the interstate squabbling that entailed caused it to fail. The Constitution replaced it, with a stronger central government. By extension, this is why UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington is nigh-universally acknowledged as the first President of the United States, rather than any of the Presidents of Congress under the Articles.

* When former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was arrested [[note]]later convicted[[/note]] on charges of sexually molesting teenage boys, students at Penn State painted him out of a mural showing all the present and past coaches of the football team. His image was replaced with a blue ribbon, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awareness_ribbons awareness ribbon]] for child abuse. Even more so, the NCAA erased '''every''' Penn State football victory from 1998-2011 as part of the punishment for covering up the scandal for so long. The wins were eventually reinstated in January of 2015 as part of a settlement between the school and the NCAA. The NCAA has also erased wins for other colleges for other reasons. One such example was vacating all of the wins of the University of Louisville men's basketball team from 2010-2014, including a semi-finals appearance and a championship, for providing [[HookersAndBlow strippers and prostitutes]] as benefits to recruits and players.[[note]]Though as part of a court settlement of a suit brought by several Cardinals players who didn't take part in said adult entertainment, the Cards' Luke Hancock ''is'' recognized as the Most Outstanding Player of the 2013 Final Four.[[/note]]

* The members of the NWA refused to acknowledge Wrestling/TheFabulousMoolah's first reign as the World Woman's Champion. In defiance of this, the World Wrestling Federation decided Moolah's first title reign had not ended, not for twenty eight years anyway. The reigns of Penny Banner, whom Moolah beat for the belt and Betty Boucher, who then beat Moolah, are ignored by both the NWA and WWF/E. During these twelve years, June Byers was the only champion on the NWA record and she doesn't exist in the WWF's.
* After a Wrestling/BuddyRogers match with Killer Kowalski was in ended in Quebec due to Rogers breaking his ankle in the first fall, some states south of the border decided to promote Killer Kowalski as the new NWA World Champion, even though NWA didn't recognize Kowalski. Rogers would actually defeat Kowalski in New York, where Kowalski was recognized as champion, but he continued to claim to be champion even after this.
* Wrestling/BoboBrazil never beat Wrestling/BuddyRogers for the NWA World Heavyweight Title, so says the NWA.[[note]][[NiceGuy Brazil]] initially refused the title because Rogers claimed to have only lost due to a groin injury. Even though Bobo was happy to be champion after a Doctor later clarified Buddy was not injured, the NWA decided to disregard Bobo's reign anyway.[[/note]] Carib wrestlers Jack Veneno[[note]]decided to drop the belt rather than endure the champion's touring schedule, his reign ended up completely ignored[[/note]] and Carlos Colón[[note]]unification with another world title to proclaim a "champion of the universe" ignored[[/note]] never held the belt either! This would actually become a plot point in [[Wrestling/ImpactWrestling TNA]], back when it hosted NWA title defenses, with Wrestling/RonKillings correctly pointing out the NWA refused to acknowledge any black men as World Heavyweight Champion.
* Victor Jovica's victory over NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair in Trinidad was struck from the record books after review of the tape revealed Jovica had his feet on the ropes.

* The WWF Light Heavyweight Title was created in 1981 when Perro Aguayo defeated Gran Hamada and defended almost exclusively in Japan (primarily Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling) and in Mexico (primarily Lucha Libre Internacional). In 1997, the WWF took the belt back and decided to ignore sixteen years of history[[note]]Including Wrestling/UltimoDragon appearing on ''WCW Monday Nitro'' with the belt (as part of the 8 title "Super J Crown", which he won in an 8 champion winner-take-all tournament in Japan. He briefly held the Super J Crown concurrently with the WCW Cruiserweight Title, and yes, he would come to the ring with ''nine'' title belts), with neither he nor the WWF (nor WCW) realizing he had a WWF title on a WCW show. He even defended it on PPV[[/note]], proclaiming Wrestling/TAKAMichinoku to be the first champion.

* Naturally, all victories Wrestling/TommyDreamer may have scored over Wrestling/{{Raven}} had to be ignored for their feud in Wrestling/{{ECW}} to work. Dreamer was finally able to get an acknowledged win over Raven when Raven went back to WCW though.

* NWA Midwest disputed the result of the three way dance Wrestling/MsChif and Wrestling/DaizeeHaze lost to Mickie Knuckles at an IWA Mid-South event and declared [=MsChif=] was women's champion up until she and Diabolic Khaos partner [[Wrestling/HunterJohnston Delirious]] lost a winner takes all match to Daizee Haze and Wrestling/MattSydal. After [=MsChif=] beat Josie to regain the belt, NWA Midwest renamed it the [=Zero1=]-Midwest Women's Title, declaring [=MsChif=] had been the ''only'' person to hold it up till that point.

* [[Wrestling/MadisonRayne Lexi Lane]] first wrestled Jessicka Havok in Newark Ohio during June of 2006, won, and afterwards was hounded by Havok to the end of the year and into the next [[SoreLoser because of it]]. Despite this, Battle Angels hyped its ''[=CyberStorm=] 2007'' i pay per view with a "first time ever" match between the two.

* Wrestling/StacyKeibler regards her time in the wrestling business as this. When she left WWE to go to Hollywood in 2006, she erased all references to her time in WWE and WCW from her bio on her website, and reportedly will not sign any pictures of her from that time period.

* The ''Unforgiven'' 2008 pay-per-view featured a match called "Scrambled Championship Match", created by Vince [=McMahon=] himself. In those time limit matches, the superstar became a champion if he pinned the current champion, but the win didn't become official until the time limit expired. The match was between Triple H (current champion), Wrestling/JeffHardy, [[Wrestling/LondonAndKendrick The Brian Kendrick]], Wrestling/{{M|ontelVontaviousPorter}}VP and Shelton Benjamin. At one point of that match, Brian Kendrick pinned Triple H and became WWE Champion, but due to the rules, he is not recognized as Champion. At the end Triple H won and remained Champion. But that brief championship reign of Brian Kendrick? Never happened.

* Wrestling/RicFlair has stated that his stint at [[Wrestling/ImpactWrestling TNA]] never happened. Notably, his page on WWE.com considers his retirement match against Wrestling/ShawnMichaels at [=WrestleMania=] XXIV to be his final match; he had wrestled a few matches at TNA before he went back to WWE to join their ambassador program.
* Mixed martial arts companies will mention that Wrestling/AllysinKay is a professional wrestler, but collectively ignore the two '[[CatFight fights]]' she had in [[PantyFighter LFC]]. Kay herself never mentions LFC when talking about her MMA fights in professinal wrestling promos. LFC in turn ignores ''anything'' Kay has done anywhere else, including the fights she won and received injuries in at other MMA events.

* When former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was arrested [[note]]later convicted[[/note]] on charges of sexually molesting teenage boys, students at Penn State painted him out of a mural showing all the present and past coaches of the football team. His image was replaced with a blue ribbon, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awareness_ribbons awareness ribbon]] for child abuse. Even more so, the NCAA erased '''every''' Penn State football victory from 1998-2011 as part of the punishment for covering up the scandal for so long. The wins were eventually reinstated in January of 2015 as part of a settlement between the school and the NCAA. The NCAA has also erased wins for other colleges for other reasons. One such example was vacating all of the wins of the University of Louisville's basketball team from 2010-2014, including a semi-finals appearance and a championship, for providing strippers as benefits to student athletes.
* From 1912 to 1948 the UsefulNotes/OlympicGames used to feature art competitions which was considered official and with their own medals. Now the IOC considered those events unofficial and the medals won aren't included in the IOC official database.
* After Melky Cabrera was suspended for Performance-Enhancing Drugs, the San Francisco Giants acted like he didn't exist, excluding him from the postseason roster and even not giving him a World Series ring.

* The University of Nebraska-Lincoln football program holds the [=NCAA=] record for most consecutive home-game sellouts (the streak started in 1962, and is still running as of 2019). When the university celebrated the 300th consecutive sellout game in September 2009, they very carefully did ''not'' invite former athletic director Steve Pederson or former head coach Bill Callahan, the two men "credited" with almost ruining the football program and bringing the streak to an end.

* In 1906, a special Olympic Games were held in Athens. After the haphazard nature of the 1900 and 1904 Games - and being overshadowed by expositions, of which the Games were considered part - it was considered that the failure of these as well would have brought about the end of the games. They were originally considered an official Games (although the president of the IOC disagreed with the idea) and were meant to be held roughly halfway between Games - the second one was meant to be held in 1910, but the Greeks were unable to keep to the schedule and, as a result, there was even less support for an edition in 1914 before the First World War effectively put paid to any further editions by the time 1922 came around. The games were later downgraded to a tenth anniversary celebration and the IOC no longer considers it an official games at all (there is no mention of either these games or of any medalists on the IOC's website).

* The ''Unforgiven'' 2008 pay-per-view featured a match called "Scrambled Championship Match", created by Vince [=McMahon=] himself. In those time limit matches, the superstar became a champion if he pinned the current champion, but the win didn't become official until the time limit expired. The match was between Triple H (current champion), Wrestling/JeffHardy, [[Wrestling/LondonAndKendrick The Brian Kendrick]], Wrestling/{{M|ontelVontaviousPorter}}VP and Shelton Benjamin. At one point of that match, Brian Kendrick pined Triple H and became WWE Champion, but due to the rules, he is not recognized as Champion. At the end Triple H won and remained Champion. But that brief championship reign of Brian Kendrick? Never happened.

* After Melky Cabrera was supposed for Performance-Enhancing Drugs, the San Francisco Giants acted like he didn't exist, excluding him from the postseason roster and even not giving him a World Series ring.

** The conclusion to Ellpagg's story, as revealed in the [[WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue text overlay]] in the final episode of ''WebVideo/TheKnightShift'',[[note]]Ellpagg allows himself to be arrested by the Arkn, is sentenced to death for treason, joins a suicide squad of Arkn exploring [[SuicideMission exploring]] a "rift of existence" called [[EldritchLocation The Necrodiumadris]], and eventually makes a deal with a [[EldritchAbomination Deedrn]] called Indroi Facilis (who heals Ellpagg and grants him more power in exchange for being allowed to escape in his [[LivingBodySuit vessel]]). After he gets out of the rift, Raphael convinces him to give up on rallying the Arknza; he going into hiding, and is never seen again.[[/note]] is now entirely non-canonical, due to the [[MythArc Arknthology]] being retooled and the TKS follow-ups (including the vlog series ''The Guarded Ones'' and ''The Knight Shift: End Times'') being scrapped.

* The fic ''Fanfic/{{Spider-Ninja}}'' mostly uses the settings and characters of the [[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003 2003 series]]. However, there are several changes: Master Splinter is the mutated Hamato Yoshi, the turtles have lived in their 2003 home their entire lives, Casey Jones isn't present in the story (outside of a MythologyGag), April works as a reporter, and SHIELD is present in their universe. All of this is justified due to the fact that this incarnation on the TMNT is part of the [[Franchise/{{Spider-Man}} Spiderverse]].

* In 1934, Martha Orr created a comic strip called ''Apple Mary'', about an apple-seller named Mary Worth. After Orr's retirement in 1938, Allen Saunders and Dale Conner (formerly Orr's assistant) took over the strip, now subtitled ''Mary Worth's Family''. At some point, the strip title became ''NewspaperComic/MaryWorth'', and the family were gradually phased out, as was the apple-cart. It's now the official policy of King's Features that these are unrelated strips whose main characters happened to share a name, and the "current" Mary was never an apple-seller.